The Crippled God

by Steven Erikson

  ‘Noto Boil, as High Fist I answer only to the Empress.’

  The mage snorted. ‘Only she’s dead.’

  ‘Which means I answer to no one, not even you.’

  ‘And that’s the problem, nailed straight to the tree, sir. Nailed to the tree.’ Seemingly satisfied with that statement, he pointed with a nod and jab of the fish spine in his mouth. ‘Lots of scurrying about over there. Another attack coming?’

  Paran shrugged. ‘They’re still … upset.’

  ‘You know, if they ever decide to call our bluff—’

  ‘Who says I’m bluffing, Boil?’

  The man bit something that made him wince. ‘What I mean is, sir, no one’s denying you got talents and such, but those two commanders over there, well, if they get tired of throwing Watered and Shriven against us – if they just up and march themselves over here, in person, well … that’s what I meant, sir.’

  ‘I believe I gave you a command a short while ago.’

  Noto scowled. ‘Fist Bude, aye. The caves.’ He turned to leave and then paused and looked back. ‘They see you, you know. Standing here day after day. Taunting them.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Paran mused as he returned his attention to the enemy camp.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘The Siege of Pale. Moon’s Spawn just sat over the city. Months, years. Its lord never showed himself, until the day Tayschrenn decided he was ready to try him. But here’s the thing, what if he had? What if, every damned day, he’d stepped out on to that ledge? So Onearm and all the rest could pause, look up, and see him standing there? Silver hair blowing, Dragnipur a black god-shitting stain spreading out behind him.’

  Noto Boil worked his pick for a moment, and then said, ‘What if he had, sir?’

  ‘Fear, High Mage, takes time. Real fear, the kind that eats your courage, weakens your legs.’ He shook his head and glanced at Noto Boil. ‘Anyway, that was never his style, was it? I miss him, you know.’ He grunted. ‘Imagine that.’

  ‘Who, Tayschrenn?’

  ‘Noto, do you understand anything I say? Ever?’

  ‘I try not to, sir. No offence. It’s that fear thing you talked about.’

  ‘Don’t trample any children on your way down.’

  ‘That’s up to them, High Fist. Besides, the numbers could do with some thinning.’

  ‘Noto.’

  ‘We’re an army, not a crèche, that’s all I’m saying. An army under siege. Outnumbered, overcrowded, confused, bored – except when we’re terrified.’ He plucked out his fish spine again, whistled in a breath between his teeth. ‘Caves filled with children – what were they doing with them all? Where are their parents?’

  ‘Noto.’

  ‘We should just hand them back, that’s all I’m saying, sir.’

  ‘Haven’t you noticed, today’s the first day they’re finally behaving like normal children. What does that tell you?’

  ‘Doesn’t tell me nothing, sir.’

  ‘Fist Rythe Bude. Now.’

  ‘Aye sir, on my way.’

  Ganoes Paran settled his attention on the besieging army, the precise rows of tents like bone tesserae on a buckled floor, the figures scrambling tiny as fleas over the trebuchets and Great Wagons. The foul air of battle never seemed to leave this valley. They look ready to try us again. Worth another sortie? Mathok keeps skewering me with that hungry look. He wants at them. He rubbed at his face. The shock of feeling his beard caught him yet again, and he grimaced. No one likes change much, do they? But that’s precisely my point.

  The silk dragon cut across his vision, diving down out of the reams of smoke. He glanced over to the boy on the tower, saw him struggling to keep his footing. A scrawny thing, one of the ones from up south. A Shriven. When it gets too much, lad, be sure to let go.

  Seething motion now in the distant camp. The glint of pikes, the chained slaves marching out to the yokes of the Great Wagons, High Watered emerging surrounded by runners. Dust slowly lifting in the sky above the trebuchets as they were wheeled forward.

  Aye, they’re still upset all right.

  ‘I knew a warrior once. Awakening from a wound to the head believing he was a dog, and what are dogs if not loyalty lacking wits? So here I stand, woman, and my eyes are filled with tears. For that warrior, who was my friend, who died thinking he was a dog. Too loyal to be sent home, too filled with faith to leave. These are the world’s fallen. When I dream, I see them in their thousands, chewing at their own wounds. So, do not speak to me of freedom. He was right all along. We live in chains. Beliefs to shackle, vows to choke our throats, the cage of a mortal life, this is our fate. Who do I blame? I blame the gods. And curse them with fire in my heart.

  ‘When she comes to me, when she says that it’s time, I shall take my sword in hand. You say that I am a man of too few words, but against the sea of needs, words are weak as sand. Now, woman, tell me again of your boredom, this stretch of days and nights outside a city obsessed with mourning. I stand before you, eyes leaking with the grief of a dead friend, and all I get from you is a siege of silence.’

  She said, ‘You have a damned miserable way of talking your way into my bed, Karsa Orlong. Fine then, get in. Just don’t break me.’

  ‘I only break what I do not want.’

  ‘And if the days of this relationship are numbered?’

  ‘They are,’ he replied, and then he grinned. ‘But not the nights.’

  Faintly, the distant city’s bells tolled their grief at the fall of darkness, and in the blue-lit streets and alleys, dogs howled.

  In the innermost chamber of the palace of the city’s lord, she stood in shadows, watching as he moved away from the hearth, brushing charcoal from his hands. There was no mistaking his legacy of blood, and it seemed the weight his father had borne was settling like an old cloak on his son’s surprisingly broad shoulders. She could never understand such creatures. Their willingness to martyrdom. The burdens by which they measured self-worth. This embrace of duty.

  He settled into the high-backed chair, stretched out his legs, the awakening fire’s flickering light licking the studs ringing his knee-high leather boots. Resting his head back, eyes closed, he spoke. ‘Hood knows how you managed to get in here, and I imagine Silanah’s hackles are lifting at this very moment, but if you are not here to kill me, there is wine on the table to your left. Help yourself.’

  Scowling, she edged out from the shadows. All at once the chamber seemed too small, its walls threatening to snap tight around her. To so willingly abandon the sky in favour of heavy stone and blackened timbers, no, she did not understand this at all. ‘Nothing but wine?’ Her voice cracked slightly, reminding her that it had been some time since she’d last used it.

  His elongated eyes opened and he observed her with unfeigned curiosity. ‘You prefer?’

  ‘Ale.’

  ‘Sorry. You will need to go to the kitchens below for that.’

  ‘Mare’s milk, then.’

  His brows lifted. ‘Down to the palace gate, turn left, walk half a thousand leagues. And that is just a guess, mind you.’

  Shrugging, she edged closer to the hearth. ‘The gift struggles.’

  ‘Gift? I do not understand.’

  She gestured at the flames.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, nodding. ‘Well, you stand in the breath of Mother Dark—’ and then he started. ‘Does she know you’re here? But then,’ he settled back again, ‘how could she not?’

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ she asked.

  ‘An Imass.’

  ‘I am Apsal’ara. His night within the Sword, his one night, he freed me. He had the time for that. For me.’ She found she was trembling.

  He was still studying her. ‘And so you have come here.’

  She nodded.

  ‘You didn’t expect that from him, did you?’

  ‘No. Your father – he had no reason for regret.’

  He rose then, walked over to the table and poured himself a goblet of wine. He stood with the cu
p in hand, staring down at it. ‘You know,’ he muttered, ‘I don’t even want this. The need … to do something.’ He snorted. ‘“No reason for regret”, well …’

  ‘They look for him – in you. Don’t they?’

  He grunted. ‘Even in my name you will find him. Nimander. No, I’m not his only son. Not even his favoured one – I don’t think he had any of those, come to think of it. Yet,’ and he gestured with the goblet, ‘there I sit, in his chair, before his fire. This palace feels like … feels like—’

  ‘His bones?’

  Nimander flinched, looked away. ‘Too many empty rooms, that’s all.’

  ‘I need some clothes,’ she said.

  He nodded distractedly. ‘I noticed.’

  ‘Furs. Skins.’

  ‘You intend to stay, Apsal’ara?’

  ‘At your side, yes.’

  He turned at that, eyes searching her face.

  ‘But,’ she added, ‘I will not be his burden.’

  A wry smile. ‘Mine, then?’

  ‘Name your closest advisers, Lord.’

  He swallowed half the wine, and then set the goblet down on the table. ‘The High Priestess. Chaste now, and I fear that does not serve her well. Skintick, a brother. Desra, a sister. Korlat, Spinnock, my father’s most trusted servants.’

  ‘Tiste Andii.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And the one below?’

  ‘The one?’

  ‘Did he once advise you, Lord? Do you stand at the bars in the door’s window, to watch him mutter and pace? Do you torment him? I wish to know the man I will serve.’

  She saw clear anger in his face. ‘Are you to be my jester now? I have heard of such roles in human courts. Will you cut the sinews of my legs and laugh as I stumble and fall?’ He bared his teeth. ‘If yours is to be my face of conscience, Apsal’ara, should you not be prettier?’

  She cocked her head, made no reply.

  Abruptly his fury collapsed, and his eyes fell away. ‘It is the exile he has chosen. Did you test the lock on that door? It is barred from within. But then, we have no problem forgiving him. Advise me, then. I am a lord and it is in my power to do such things. To pardon the condemned. Yet you have seen the crypts below us. How many prisoners cringe beneath my iron hand?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘And I cannot free him. Surely that is worth a joke or two.’

  ‘Is he mad?’

  ‘Clip? Possibly.’

  ‘Then no, not even you can free him. Your father took scores for the chains of Dragnipur, scores just like this Clip.’

  ‘I dare say he did not call it freedom.’

  ‘Nor mercy,’ she replied. ‘They are beyond a lord’s reach, even that of a god.’

  ‘Then we fail them all. Both lords and gods – we fail them, our broken children.’

  This, she realized, would not be an easy man to serve. ‘He drew others to him – your father. Others who were not Tiste Andii. I remember, in his court, in Moon’s Spawn.’

  Nimander’s eyes narrowed.

  She hesitated, unsure, and then resumed. ‘Your kind are blind to many things. You need others close to you, Lord. Servants who are not Tiste Andii. I am not one of these … jesters you speak of. Nor, it seems, can I be your conscience, ugly as I am to your eyes—’

  He held up a hand. ‘Forgive me for that, I beg you. I sought to wound and so spoke an untruth, just to see it sting.’

  ‘I believe I stung you first, my lord.’

  He reached again for the wine, and then stood looking into the hearth’s flames. ‘Apsal’ara, Mistress of Thieves. Will you now abandon that life, to become an adviser to a Tiste Andii lord? All because my father, at the very end, showed you mercy?’

  ‘I never blamed him for what he did. I gave him no choice. He did not free me out of mercy, Nimander.’

  ‘Then why?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. But I mean to find out.’

  ‘And this pursuit – for an answer – has brought you here, to Black Coral. To … me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And how long will you stand at my side, Apsal’ara, whilst I govern a city, sign writs, debate policies? Whilst I slowly rot in the shadow of a father I barely knew and a legacy I cannot hope to fill?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Lord, that is not your fate.’

  He wheeled to her. ‘Really? Why not? Please, advise me.’

  She cocked her head a second time, studied the tall warrior with the bitter, helpless eyes. ‘For so long you Tiste Andii prayed for Mother Dark’s loving regard. For so long you yearned to be reborn to purpose, to life itself. He gave it all back to you. All of it. He did what he knew had to be done, for your sake. You, Nimander, and all the rest. And now you sit here, in his chair, in his city, among his children. And her holy breath, it embraces you all. Shall I give you what I possess of wisdom? Very well. Lord, even Mother Dark cannot hold her breath for ever.’

  ‘She does not—’

  ‘When a child is born it must cry.’

  ‘You—’

  ‘With its voice, it enters the world, and it must enter the world. Now,’ she crossed her arms, ‘will you continue hiding here in this city? I am the Mistress of Thieves, Lord. I know every path. I have walked them all. And I have seen what there is to be seen. If you and your people hide here, Lord, you will all die. And so will Mother Dark. Be her breath. Be cast out.’

  ‘But we are in this world, Apsal’ara!’

  ‘One world is not enough.’

  ‘Then what must we do?’

  ‘What your father wanted.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  She smiled. ‘Shall we find out?’

  ‘You have some nerve, Dragon Master.’

  A child shrieked from somewhere down the walkway.

  Without turning, Ganoes Paran sighed and said, ‘You’re frightening the young ones again.’

  ‘Not nearly enough.’ The iron-shod heel of a cane cracked hard on the stone. ‘Isn’t that always the way, hee hee!’

  ‘I don’t think I appreciate the new title you’re giving me, Shadowthrone.’

  A vague dark smear, the god moved up alongside Paran. The cane’s gleaming head swung its silver snarl out over the valley. ‘Master of the Deck of Dragons. Too much of a mouthful. It’s your … abuses. I so dislike unpredictable people.’ He giggled again. ‘People. Ascendants. Gods. Thick-skulled dogs. Children.’

  ‘Where is Cotillion, Shadowthrone?’

  ‘You should be tired of that question by now.’

  ‘I am tired of waiting for an answer.’

  ‘Then stop asking it!’ The god’s manic shriek echoed through the fortress, rattled wild along corridors and through hallways before echoing back to where they stood atop the wall.

  ‘That has certainly caught their attention,’ Paran observed, nodding to a distant barrow where two tall, almost skeletal figures now stood.

  Shadowthrone sniffed. ‘They see nothing.’ He hissed a laugh. ‘Blinded by justice.’

  Ganoes Paran scratched at his beard. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Whence comes your faith?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  The cane rapped and skittered on the stone. ‘You sit with the Host in Aren, defying every imperial summons. And then you assault the Warrens with this.’ He suddenly cackled. ‘You should have seen the Emperor’s face! And the names he called you, my, even the court scribers cringed!’ He paused. ‘Where was I? Yes, I was berating you, Dragon Master. Are you a genius? I doubt it. Leaving me no choice but to conclude that you’re an idiot.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Is she out there?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Do you?’

  Paran slowly nodded. ‘Now I understand. It’s all about faith. A notion unfamiliar to you, I take it.’

  ‘This siege is meaningless!’

  ‘Is it?’

  Shadowthrone hissed, one ethereal hand reaching out, as if to claw at P
aran’s face. Instead, it hovered, twisted and then shrank into something vaguely fist-shaped. ‘You don’t understand anything!’

  ‘I understand this,’ Paran replied. ‘Dragons are creatures of chaos. There can be no Dragon Master, making the title meaningless.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Shadowthrone reached out to gather up a tangled snarl of spider’s web from beneath the wall’s casing. He held it up, apparently studying the cocooned remnant of a desiccated insect.

  Miserable turd. ‘Here is what I know, Shadowthrone. The end begins here. Do you deny it? No, you can’t, else you wouldn’t be haunting me—’

  ‘Not even you can breach the power surrounding this keep,’ the god said. ‘You have blinded yourself. Open your gate again, Ganoes Paran, find somewhere else to lodge your army. This is pointless.’ He flung the web away and gestured with the head of his cane. ‘You cannot defeat those two, we both know that.’

  ‘But they don’t, do they?’

  ‘They will test you. Sooner or later.’

  ‘I’m still waiting.’

  ‘Perhaps even today.’

  ‘Will you wager on that, Shadowthrone?’

  The god snorted. ‘You have nothing I want.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Then I have nothing you want.’

  ‘Actually, as it happens …’

  ‘Do you see me holding a leash? He’s not here. He’s off doing other things. We’re allies, do you understand? An alliance. Not a damned marriage!’

  Paran grinned. ‘Oddly enough, I wasn’t even thinking of Cotillion.’

  ‘A pointless wager in any case. If you lose you die. Or abandon your army to die, which I can’t see you doing. Besides, you’re nowhere near as devious as I am. You want this wager? Truly? Even when I lose, I win. Even when I lose … I win!’

  Paran nodded. ‘And that has ever been your game, Shadowthrone. You see, I know you better than you think. Yes, I would wager with you. They shall not try me this day. We shall repulse their assault … again. And more Shriven and Watered will die. We shall remain the itch they cannot scratch.’

  ‘All because you have faith? Fool!’

  ‘Those are the conditions of this wager. Agreed?’

  The god’s form seemed to shift about, almost vanishing entirely at one moment before reappearing, and the cane head struck chips from the merlon’s worn edge. ‘Agreed!’