Icarium was frowning. 'I would be bane to no-one, were the choice mine,' he said. 'We were attacked without warning,' he added, the words sounding strangely uncertain.
'Meaning you had no chance to warn the hapless creature. Pity the pieces of his soul. I, however, am anything but precipitous. Cursed only with a curious nose. What scent is joined with the Trell's, I wondered, so close to Jaghut blood, yet different? Now that my eyes have given me answer I can resume the Path.'
'Do you know where it takes you?' Mappo asked.
Messremb stiffened. 'You have seen the gates?'
'No. What do you expect to find there?'
'Answers, old friend. Now I shall spare you the taste of my veering by putting some distance between us. Do you wish me well, Mappo?'
'I do, Messremb. And add a warning: we crossed paths with Ryllandaras four nights ago. Be careful.'
Something of the savage bear glittered in the Soletaken's eyes. 'I shall look out for him.'
Mappo and Icarium watched the man walk away, disappearing behind an outcrop of rock. 'Madness lurked within him,' Icarium said.
The Trell flinched at those words. 'Within them all,' he sighed. 'I've yet to find an ascent, by the way. The cave reveals nothing.'
The sound of shod hooves reached them, slow and plodding. From a trail paralleling the cliff face, a man on a black mule appeared. He sat cross-legged on a high wood saddle, shrouded in a ragged, dirt-stained telaba. His hands, which rested on the ornate saddlehorn, were the colour of rust. A hood hid his features. The mule was a strange-looking beast, its muzzle black, the skin of its ears black, as were its eyes. No lightening of its ebon hue was anywhere visible with the exception of dust and spatters of what might have been dried blood.
The man swayed on the saddle as they approached. 'No way in,' he hissed, 'but the way out. It's not yet the hour. A life given for a life taken, remember those words, remember them. You are wounded. You are bright with infection. My servant will tend to you. A caring man with salty hands, one wrinkled, one pink—do you grasp the significance of that? Not yet. Not yet. So few… guests. But I have been expecting you.'
The mule stopped opposite the cleft, swinging a mournful gaze on the two travellers as its rider struggled to pull his legs from their crossed position. Whimpers of pain accompanied the effort, until his frantic attempts overwhelmed his balance and, with a squeal of dismay, the man toppled, thumping into the dust.
Seeing crimson red bloom through the telaba's weave, Mappo stepped forward. 'You bear your own wounds, sir!'
The man writhed on the ground like an upended tortoise, his legs still trapped in their crossed position. His hood fell back, revealing a large hawk nose, tufts of wiry grey beard, a tattooed bald pate and skin like dark honey. A row of perfect white teeth showed in his grimace.
Mappo knelt beside him, squinting to see signs of the wound that had spilled so much blood. A smell of iron was pungent in the Trell's nose. After a moment he reached under the man's cloak and withdrew an unstoppered bladder. Grunting, he glanced over at Icarium. 'Not blood. Paint. Red ochre paint.'
'Help me, you oaf!' the man snapped. 'My legs!'
Bemused, Mappo helped the man unlock his legs, every move eliciting moans. As soon as they were free the man sat up and started beating his own thighs. 'Servant! Wine! Wine, damn your wood-rotted brain!'
'I am not your servant,' Mappo said coolly, stepping back. 'Nor do I carry wine when crossing a desert.'
'Not you, barbarian!' The man glared about. 'Where is he?'
'Who?'
'Servant, of course. He thinks carrying me about is his only task—ah, there!'
Following the man's gaze, the Trell frowned. 'That is a mule, sir. I doubt he could manage a wineskin well enough to fill a cup.' Mappo grinned at Icarium, but the Jhag was paying no attention to the proceedings: he had unstrung his bow and now sat on a boulder, cleaning his sword.
Still sitting on the ground, the man collected a handful of sand and flung it at the mule. Startled, the beast brayed and bolted towards the cleft, disappearing into the cave. With a grunt the man clambered to his feet and stood wobbling, hands held before him plucking at each other in some kind of nervous tic. 'Mostly rude greeting of guests,' he said, attempting a smile. 'Most. Most rude greeting, was meant. Meaningless apologies and kindly gestures very important. I am so sorry for temporary collapse of hospitality. Oh yes, I am. I would have more practice if I wasn't the master of this temple. An acolyte is obliged to fawn and scrape. Later to mutter and gripe with his comrades in misery. Ah, here comes Servant.'
A wide-shouldered, bow-legged man in black robes had emerged from the cave, carrying a tray bearing a jug and clay cups. He wore a servant's veil over his features, with only a thin slit for his eyes, which were deep brown.
'Lazy fool! Did you see any cobwebs?'
Servant's accent caught Mappo by surprise. It was Malazan. 'None, Iskaral.'
'Call me by my title!'
'High Priest—'
'Wrong!'
'High Priest Iskaral Pust of the Tesem Temple of Shadow—'
'Idiot! You are Servant! Which makes me…"
'Master.'
'Indeed.' Iskaral turned to Mappo. 'We rarely talk,' he explained.
Icarium joined them. 'This is Tesem, then. I was led to believe it was a monastery, sanctified to the Queen of Dreams—'
'They left,' Iskaral snapped. Took their lanterns with them, leaving only…'
'Shadows.'
'Clever Jhag, but I was warned of that, oh yes. You two are sick as undercooked pigs. Servant has prepared your chambers. And broths of healing herbs, roots, potions and elixirs. White Paralt, emulor, tralb—
'Those are poisons,' Mappo pointed out.
'Are they? No wonder the pig died. It's almost time, shall we prepare to ascend?'
'Lead the way,' Icarium invited.
'A life given for a life taken. Follow me. None can outwit Iskaral Pust.' The High Priest faced the cleft with a fierce squint.
They waited, for what Mappo had no idea. After a few minutes the Trell cleared his throat. 'Will your acolytes send down a ladder?'
'Acolytes? I have no acolytes. No opportunity for tyranny. Very sad, no muttering and grumbling behind my back, few satisfying rewards for this High Priest. If not for my god's whispering, I wouldn't bother, be assured of that, and I trust you will take that into account with all I have done and am about to do.'
'I see movement in the fissure,' Icarium said.
Iskaral grunted. 'Bhok'arala, they nest on this cliffside. Foul mewling beasts, always interfering, sniffing at this and that, pissing on the altar, defecating on my pillow. They are my plague, they have singled me out, and why? I've not skinned a single one, nor cooked their brains to scoop out of their skulls in civilized repast. No snares, no traps, no poison, yet still they pursue me. There is no answer to this. I despair.'
As the sun sank further the bhok'arala grew bolder, flapping from perch to perch high on the cliff wall, scampering with their hands and feet along cracks in the stone, seeking the rhizan as the small flying lizards emerged for their night-feeding. Small and simian, the bhok'arala were winged like bats, tailless with hides mottled tan and brown. Apart from long canines, their faces were remarkably human.
From the tower's lone window a knotted rope tumbled down. A tiny round head poked out to peer down at them.
'Of course,' Iskaral added, 'a few of them have proved useful.'
Mappo sighed. He'd been hoping for some sorcerous means of ascent to appear, something worthy of a High Priest of Shadow. 'So now we climb.'
'Most certainly not,' Iskaral replied with indignation. 'Servant climbs, then pulls us up.'
'He would be a man of formidable strength to manage me,' the Trell said. 'And Icarium, too.'
Servant set down the tray he had been holding, spat on his hands and walked over to the rope. He launched himself upward with surprising agility. Iskaral crouched by the tray and poured wine into th
e three cups.
'Servant's half bhokar'al. Long arms. Muscles like iron. Makes friends with them, probable source of all my ills.' Iskaral collected a cup for himself and gestured down at the tray as he straightened. 'Fortunate for Servant I am such a gentle and patient master.' He swung to check on the man's climb. 'Hurry, you snub-tailed dog!'
Servant had already reached the window and was now clambering through it and out of sight.
'Ammanas's gift, is Servant. A life given for a life taken. One hand old, one hand new. This is true remorse. You'll see.'
The rope twitched. The High Priest quaffed down the last of his wine, flung the cup away and scrambled towards the rope. 'Too long exposed! Vulnerable. Quickly now!' He wrapped his hands around a knot, set his feet atop another. 'Pull! Are you deaf? Pull!'
Iskaral shot upward.
'Pulleys,' Icarium said. 'Too fast to be otherwise.'
The pain returning to his shoulders, Mappo winced, then said, 'Not what you were expecting, I take it.'
'Tesem,' Icarium said, watching the priest vanish through the window. 'A place of healing. Solitary reflection, repository of scrolls and tomes, and insatiable nuns…'
'Insatiable?'
The Jhag glanced at his friend, an eyebrow rising. 'Indeed.'
'Oh, sad demise.'
'Very.'
'In this instance,' Mappo said as the rope tumbled back down, 'I think solitary reflection has addled a brain. Battling wits with bhok'arala and the whisperings of a god most hold as himself insane…"
'Yet there is power here, Mappo,' Icarium said in a low voice.
'Aye,' the Trell agreed as he approached the rope. 'A warren opened in the cave when the mule entered.'
'Then why does the High Priest not use it?'
'I doubt we'll find easy answers to Iskaral Pust, friend.'
'Best hold tight, Mappo.'
'Aye.'
Icarium reached out suddenly, rested a hand on Mappo's shoulder. 'Friend.'
'Aye?'
The Jhag was frowning. 'I am missing an arrow, Mappo. More, there is blood on my sword, and I see upon you dreadful wounds. Tell me, did we fight? I recall… nothing.'
The Trell was silent a long moment, then he said, 'I was beset by a leopard while you slept, Icarium. Made some use of your weapons. I did not think it worthy of mention.'
Icarium's frown deepened. 'Once again,' he slowly whispered, 'I have lost time.'
'Nothing of worth, friend.'
'You would tell me otherwise?' There was a look of desperate pleading in the Jhag's grey eyes.
'Why would I not, Icarium?'
Chapter Three
The Red Blades were, at this time, pre-eminent among those pro-Malazan organizations that arose in occupied territories. Viewing themselves as progressive in their embrace of the values of imperial unification, this quasi-military cult became infamous with their brutal pragmatism when dealing with dissenting kin…
Lives of the Conquered
Hem Trauth
Felisin lay unmoving beneath Beneth until, with a final shudder, he was done. He pushed himself off and grabbed a handful of her hair. His face was flushed under the grime and his eyes gleamed in the lamp glow. 'You'll learn to like it, girl,' he said.
The edge of something savage always rose closer to the surface immediately after he'd lain with her. She knew it would pass. 'I will,' she said. 'Does he get a day of rest?'
Beneth's grip tightened momentarily, then relaxed. 'Aye, he does.' He moved away, began tying up his breeches. 'Though I don't much see the point. The old man won't last another month.' He paused, his breath harsh as he studied her. 'Hood's breath, girl, but you're beautiful. Show me some life next time. I'll treat you right. Get you soap, a new comb, lousebane. You'll work here in Twistings, that's a promise. Show pleasure, girl, that's all I ask.'
'Soon,' she said. 'Once it stops hurting.'
The day's eleventh bell had sounded. They were in the third reach off Twistings Far shaft. The reach had been gouged out by the Rotlegs and was barely high enough to crawl for most of its quarter-mile length. The air was close and stank of Otataral dust and sweating rock.
Virtually everyone else would have reached Nearlight by now, but Beneth moved in Captain Sawark's shadow and could do as he pleased. He had claimed the abandoned reach as his own. It was Felisin's third visit. The first time had been the hardest. Beneth had picked her within hours of her arrival at Skullcup, the mining camp in the Dosin Pit. He was a big man, bigger than Baudin and though a slave himself he was master of every other slave, the guards' inside man, cruel and dangerous. He was also astonishingly handsome.
Felisin had learned fast on the slave ship. She had nothing but her body to sell, but it had proved a valuable currency. Giving herself to the ship guards had been repaid with more food for herself, Heboric and Baudin. By opening her legs to the right men she had managed to get herself and her two companions chained on the keel ramp rather than in the sewage-filled water that sloshed shin-deep beneath the hold's walkway. Others had rotted in that water. Some had drowned when starvation and sickness so weakened them that they could not stay above it.
Heboric's grief and anger at the price she paid had at first been difficult to ignore, filling her with shame. But it had paid for their lives, and that was a truth that could not be questioned. Baudin's only reaction had been—and continued to be—a regard without expression. He watched her as would a stranger unable to decide who or what she was. Yet he had held to her side, and now stood close to Beneth as well. Some kind of arrangement had been made between them. When Beneth was not there to protect her, Baudin was.
On the ship she had learned well the tastes of men, as well as those of the few women guards who'd taken her to their bunks. She'd thought she'd be prepared for Beneth, and in most ways she was. Everything but his size.
Wincing, Felisin pulled on her slave tunic.
Beneth watched her, his high cheekbones harsh ridges beneath his eyes, his long, curly black hair glistening with whale oil. 'I'll give the old man Deepsoil if you like,' he said.
'You'd do that?'
He nodded. 'For you I'll change things. I won't take any other woman. I'm king of Skullcup, you'll be my queen. Baudin will be your personal guard—I trust him.'
'And Heboric?'
Beneth shrugged. 'Him I don't trust. And he's not much use. Pulling the carts is about all he can do. The carts, or a plough at Deepsoil.' His gaze flickered at her. 'But he's your friend, so I'll find something for him.'
Felisin dragged her fingers through her hair. 'It's the carts that are killing him. If you've sent him to Deepsoil just to pull a plough, it's not much of a favour—'
Beneth's scowl made her wonder if she'd pushed too far. 'You've never pulled a cart full of stone, girl. Pulled one of those up through half a league of tunnels, then going back down and pulling another one, three, four times a day. Compare that to dragging a plough through soft, broken soil? Dammit, girl, if I'm to move the man off the carts, I've got to justify it. Everyone works in Skullcup.'
'That's not the whole story, is it?'
He turned his back on her in answer, and began crawling up the reach. 'I've Kanese wine awaiting us, and fresh bread and cheese. Bula's made a stew for the guards and we've got a bowl each.'
Felisin followed. The thought of food made her mouth water. If there was enough cheese and bread she could save some for Heboric, though he insisted that it was fruit and meat that was needed. But both were worth their weight in gold, and just as rare in Skullcup. He'd be grateful enough for what she brought him, she knew.
It was clear that Sawark had received orders to see the historian dead. Nothing so overt as murder—the political risks were too great for that—rather, the slow, wasting death of poor diet and overwork. That he had no hands gave the Pit Captain sufficient reason to assign Heboric to the carts. Daily he struggled at his harness, hauling hundreds of pounds of broken rock up the Deep Mine to the shaft's Nearlight. In every other ha
rness was an ox. The beasts each hauled three carts, while Heboric pulled but one: the only acknowledgement the guards made to his humanity.
Beneth was aware of Sawark's instructions, Felisin was certain of that. The 'king' of Skullcup had limits to his power, for all his claims otherwise.
Once they reached the main shaft, it was four hundred paces to Twistings' Nearlight. Unlike Deep Mine, with its thick, rich and straight vein of Otataral running far under the hills, Twistings followed a folded vein, rising and diving, buckling and turning through the limestone.
Unlike the iron mines on the mainland, Otataral never ran down into true bedrock. Found only in limestone, the veins ran shallow and long, like rivers of rust between compacted beds filled with fossil plants and shellfish.
Limestone is just the bones of things once living, Heboric had said their second night in the hovel they'd claimed off Spit Row—before Beneth had moved them to the more privileged neighbourhood behind Bula's Inn. I'd read that theory before and am now myself convinced. So now I'm led to believe that Otataral is not a natural ore.
That's important.? Baudin had asked.
If not natural, then what? Heboric grinned. Otataral, the bane of magic, was born of magic. If I was less scrupulous a scholar, I'd write a treatise on that.
What do you mean? Felisin asked.
He means, Baudin said, he'd be inviting alchemists and mages to experiment in making their own Otataral.
Is that a problem?
Those veins we dig, Heboric explained, they're like a layer of once melted fat, a deep river of it sandwiched between layers of limestone. This whole island had to melt to make those veins. Whatever sorcery created Otataral proved beyond controlling. I would not want to be responsible for unleashing such an event all over again.
A single Malazan guard waited at Nearlight's gate. Beyond him stretched the raised road that led into the pit town. At the far end, the sun was just setting beyond the pit's ridge line, leaving Skullcup in its early shadow, a pocket of gloom that brought blessed relief from the day's heat.
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