House of Chains

by Steven Erikson

  Corabb lifted the ruined weapon clear and flung it away.

  He rode hard down the trail.

  ‘A tiger’s barbs,’ she murmured, her eyes veiled behind rust-leaf smoke, ‘painted onto a toad. Somehow, it makes you look even more dangerous.’

  ‘Aye, lass, I’m pure poison,’ Heboric muttered as he studied her in the gloom. There was life in her gaze once more, a sharpness that went beyond the occasional cutting remark, hinting at a mind finally cleared of durhang’s dulling fog. She still coughed as if her lungs were filled with fluid, although the sage mixed in with the rust-leaf had eased that somewhat.

  She was returning his regard with an inquisitive—if slightly hard—expression, drawing steadily on the hookah’s mouthpiece, smoke tumbling down from her nostrils.

  ‘If I could see you,’ Heboric muttered, ‘I’d conclude you’ve improved some.’

  ‘I have, Destriant of Treach, though I would have thought those feline eyes of yours could pierce every veil.’

  He grunted. ‘It’s more that you no longer slur your words, Scillara.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ she asked after a moment.

  ‘Dusk will soon arrive. I would go out to find L’oric, and I would that you accompany me.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then, I would lead you to Felisin Younger.’

  ‘Sha’ik’s adopted daughter.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Scillara glanced away, meditative as she drew deep on the rust-leaf.

  ‘How old are you, lass?’

  She shrugged, ‘As old as I have to be. If I am to take Felisin Younger’s orders, so be it. Resentment is pointless.’

  An awkward conversation, progressing in leaps that left Heboric scrambling. Sha’ik was much the same. Perhaps, he reflected with a grimace, this talent for intuitive thinking was a woman’s alone—he admittedly had little experience upon which he could draw, despite his advanced years. Fener’s temple was predominantly male, when it came to the holy order itself, and Heboric’s life as a thief had, of necessity, included only a handful of close associations. He was, once more, out of his depth. ‘Felisin Younger has, I believe, little interest in commanding anyone. This is not an exchange of one cult for another, Scillara—not in the way you seem to think it is, at any rate. No-one will seek to manipulate you here.’

  ‘As you have explained, Destriant.’ She sighed heavily and sat straighter, setting down the hookah’s mouthpiece. ‘Very well, lead me into the darkness.’

  His eyes narrowed on her. ‘I shall . . . as soon as it arrives . . .’

  The shadows were drawing long, sufficient to swallow the entire basin below their position. Sha’ik stood at the crest of the northernmost ramp, studying the distant masses of Malazan soldiery on the far rises as they continued digging in. Ever methodical, was her sister.

  She glanced to her left and scanned Korbolo Dom’s positions. All was in readiness for the morrow’s battle, and she could see the Napan commander, surrounded by aides and guards, standing at the edge of the centre ramp, doing as she herself was doing: watching Tavore’s army.

  We are all in place. Suddenly, the whole thing seemed so pointless. This game of murderous tyrants, pushing their armies forward into an inevitable clash. Coldly disregarding of the lives that would be lost in the appeasement of their brutal desires. What value this mindless hunger to rule? What do you want with us, Empress Laseen? Seven Cities will never rest easy beneath your yoke. You shall have to enslave, and what is gained by that? And what of her own goddess? Was she any different from Laseen? Every claw was outstretched, eager to grasp, to rend, to soak the sand red with gore.

  But Raraku does not belong to you, dear Dryjhna, no matter how ferocious your claims. I see that now. This desert is holy unto itself. And now it rails—feel it, goddess! It rails! Against one and all.

  Standing beside her, Mathok had been studying the Malazan positions in silence. But now he spoke. ‘The Adjunct has made an appearance, Chosen One.’

  Sha’ik dragged her gaze from Korbolo Dom and looked to where the desert warchief pointed.

  Astride a horse from the Paran stables. Of course. Two Wickans on foot nearby. Her sister was in full armour, her helm glinting crimson in the dying light.

  Sha’ik’s eyes snapped back to Korbolo’s position. ‘Kamist Reloe has arrived . . . he’s opened his warren and now quests towards the enemy. But Tavore’s otataral sword defies him . . . so he reaches around, into the army itself. Seeking High Mages . . . unsuspected allies . . .’ After a moment she sighed. ‘And finds none but a few shamans and squad mages.’

  Mathok rumbled, ‘Those two Wickans with the Adjunct. They are the ones known as Nil and Nether.’

  ‘Yes. Said to be broken of spirit—they have none of the power that their clans once gave them, for those clans have been annihilated.’

  ‘Even so, Chosen One,’ Mathok muttered, ‘that she holds them within the fog of otataral suggests they are not as weak as we would believe.’

  ‘Or that Tavore does not want their weakness revealed.’

  ‘Why bother if such failure is already known to us?’

  ‘To deepen our doubt, Mathok,’ she replied.

  He curtly gestured, adding a frustrated growl. ‘This mire has no surface, Chosen One—’

  ‘Wait!’ Sha’ik stared once again at Tavore. ‘She has sent her weapon away—Kamist Reloe has withdrawn his questing—and now . . . ah!’ The last word was a startled cry, as she felt the muted unveiling of power from both Nil and Nether—a power far greater than it had any right to be.

  Sha’ik then gasped, as the goddess within her flinched back—as if stung—and loosed a shriek that filled her skull.

  For Raraku was answering the summons, a multitude of voices, rising in song, rising with raw, implacable desire—the sound, Sha’ik realized, of countless souls straining against the chains that bound them.

  Chains of shadow. Chains like roots. From this torn, alien fragment of warren. This piece of shadow, that has risen to bind their souls and so feeds upon the life-force. ‘Mathok, where is Leoman?’ We need Leoman.

  ‘I do not know, Chosen One.’

  She turned once more and stared at Korbolo Dom. He stood foremost on the ramp, his stance squared, thumbs hitched into his sword-belt, studying the enemy with an air of supreme confidence that made Sha’ik want to scream.

  Nothing—nothing was as it seemed.

  To the west, the sun had turned the horizon into a crimson conflagration. The day was drowning in a sea of flame, and she watched shadows flowing across the land, her heart growing cold.

  The alley outside Heboric’s tent was empty in both directions. The sun’s sudden descent seemed to bring a strange silence along with the gloom. Dust hung motionless in the air.

  The Destriant of Treach paused in the aisle.

  Behind him Scillara said, ‘Where is everyone?’

  He had been wondering the same thing. Then, slowly, the hairs rose on the back of his neck. ‘Can you hear that, lass?’

  Only the wind But there was no wind.

  ‘No, not wind,’ Scillara murmured. ‘A song. From far away—the Malazan army, do you think?’

  He shook his head, but said nothing.

  After a moment Heboric gestured Scillara to follow and he set out down the alley. The song seemed suspended in the very air, raising a haze of dust that seemed to shiver before his eyes. Sweat ran down his limbs. Fear. Fear has driven this entire city from the streets. Those voices are the sound of war.

  ‘There should be children,’ Scillara said. ‘Girls . . .’

  ‘Why girls more than anyone else, lass?’

  ‘Bidithal’s spies. His chosen servants.’

  He glanced back at her. ‘Those he . . . scars?’

  ‘Yes. They should be . . . everywhere. Without them—’

  ‘Bidithal is blind. It may well be he has sent them elsewhere, or even withdrawn them entirely. There will be . . . events this night, Scillara. Blood
will be spilled. The players are, no doubt, even now drawing into position.’

  ‘He spoke of this night,’ she said. ‘The hours of darkness before the battle. He said the world will change this night.’

  Heboric bared his teeth. ‘The fool has sunk to the bottom of the Abyss, and now stirs the black mud.’

  ‘He dreams of true Darkness unfolding, Destriant. Shadow is but an upstart, a realm born of compromise and filled with impostors. The fragments must be returned to the First Mother.’

  ‘Not just a fool, then, but mad. To speak of the most ancient of battles, as if he himself is a force worthy of it—Bidithal has lost his mind.’

  ‘He says something is coming,’ Scillara said, shrugging. ‘Suspected by no-one, and only Bidithal himself has any hope of controlling it, for he alone remembers the Dark.’

  Heboric halted. ‘Hood take his soul. I must go to him. Now.’

  ‘We will find him—’

  ‘In his damned temple, aye. Come on.’

  They swung about.

  Even as two figures emerged from the gloom of an alley mouth, blades flickering out.

  With a snarl, Heboric closed on them. One taloned hand shot out, tore under and into an assassin’s neck, then snapped upward, lifting the man’s head clean from his shoulders.

  The other killer lunged, knife-point darting for Heboric’s left eye. The Destriant caught the man’s wrist and crushed both bones. A slash from his other hand spilled the assassin’s entrails onto the dusty street.

  Flinging the body away, Heboric glared about. Scillara stood a few paces back, her eyes wide. Ignoring her, the Destriant crouched down over the nearest corpse. ‘Korbolo Dom’s. Too impatient by far—’

  Three quarrels struck him simultaneously. One deep into his right hip, shattering bone. Another plunging beneath his right shoulder blade to draw short a finger’s breadth from his spine. The third, arriving from the opposite direction, took him high on his left shoulder with enough force to spin him round, so that he tumbled backward over the corpse.

  Scillara scrabbled down beside him. ‘Old man? Do you live?’

  ‘Bastards,’ he growled. ‘That hurts.’

  ‘They’re coming—’

  ‘To finish me off, aye. Flee, lass. To the stone forest. Go!’

  He felt her leave his side, heard her light steps patter away.

  Heboric sought to rise, but agony ripped up from his broken hip, left him gasping and blinded.

  Approaching footsteps, three sets, moccasined, two from the right and one from the left. Knives whispered from sheaths. Closing . . . then silence.

  Someone was standing over Heboric. Through his blurred vision, he could make out dust-smeared boots, and from them a stench, as of musty, dry death. Another set of boots scuffed the ground beyond the Destriant’s feet.

  ‘Begone, wraiths,’ a voice hissed from a half-dozen paces away.

  ‘Too late for that, assassin,’ murmured the figure above Heboric. ‘Besides, we’ve only just arrived.’

  ‘In the name of Hood, Hoarder of Souls, I banish you from this realm.’

  A soft laugh answered the killer’s command. ‘Kneel before Hood, do you? Oh yes, I felt the power in your words. Alas, Hood’s out of his depth on this one. Ain’t that right, lass?’

  A deep, grunting assent from the one standing near Heboric’s feet.

  ‘Last warning,’ the assassin growled. ‘Our blades are sanctioned—they will bleed your souls—’

  ‘No doubt. Assuming they ever reach us.’

  ‘There are but two of you . . . and three of us.’

  ‘Two?’

  Scuffing sounds, then, sharp and close, the spray of blood onto the ground. Bodies thumped, long breaths exhaled wetly.

  ‘Should’ve left one alive,’ said another woman’s voice.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So we could send him back to that fly-blown Napan bastard with a promise for the morrow.’

  ‘Better this way, lass. No-one appreciates surprise any more—that’s what’s gone wrong with the world, if you ask me—’

  ‘Well, we wasn’t asking you. This old man going to make it, you think?’

  A grunt. ‘I doubt Treach will give up on his new Destriant with nary a meow. Besides, that sweet-lunged beauty is on her way back.’

  ‘Time for us to leave, then.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And from now on we don’t surprise no-one, ’til come the dawn. Understood?’

  ‘Temptation got the better of us. Won’t happen again.’

  Silence, then footsteps once more. A small hand settled on his brow.

  ‘Scillara?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me. There were soldiers here, I think. They didn’t look too good—’

  ‘Never mind that. Pull the quarrels from me. Flesh wants to heal, bone to knit. Pull ’em out, lass.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Drag me back to my temple . . . if you can.’

  ‘All right.’

  He felt a hand close on the quarrel buried in his left shoulder. A flash of pain, then nothing.

  Elder Sha’ik’s armour was laid out on the table. One of Mathok’s warriors had replaced the worn straps and fittings, then polished the bronze plates and the full, visored helm. The longsword was oiled, its edges finely honed. The iron-rimmed hide-covered shield leaned against one table leg.

  She stood, alone in the chamber, staring down at the accoutrements left by her predecessor. The old woman reputedly had skill with the blade. The helm seemed strangely oversized, its vented cheek guards flared and full length, hinged to the heavy brow-band. Fine blackened chain hung web-like across the eye-slits. A long, wide lobster-tail neck guard sprawled out from the back rim.

  She walked over to the quilted under-padding. It was heavy, sweat-stained, the laces beneath the arms and running the length of the sides. Boiled leather plates covered her upper thighs, shoulders, arms and wrists. Working methodically, she tightened every lace and strap, shifting about to settle the weight evenly before turning to the armour itself.

  Most of the night remained, stretching before her like infinity’s dark road, but she wanted to feel the armour encasing her; she wanted its massive weight, and so she affixed the leg greaves, footplates and wrist vambraces, then shrugged her way into the breastplate. Sorcery had lightened the bronze, and its sound as it rustled was like thin tin. The design allowed her to cinch the straps herself, and moments later she picked up the sword and slid it into its scabbard, then drew the heavy belt about her waist, setting the hooks that held it to the cuirass so that its weight did not drag at her hips.

  All that remained was the pair of gauntlets, and the under-helm and helm itself. She hesitated. Have I any choice in all this? The goddess remained a towering presence in her mind, rooted through every muscle and fibre, her voice whispering in the flow of blood in her veins and arteries. Ascendant power was in Sha’ik’s grasp, and she knew she would use it when the time came. Or, rather, it would use her.

  To kill my sister.

  She sensed the approach of someone and turned to face the entrance. ‘You may enter, L’oric.’

  The High Mage stepped into view.

  Sha’ik blinked. He was wearing armour. White, enamelled, scarred and stained with use. A long, narrow-bladed sword hung at his hip. After a moment, she sighed. ‘And so we all make preparations . . .’

  ‘As you have observed before, Mathok has over three hundred warriors guarding this palace, Chosen One. Guarding . . . you.’

  ‘He exaggerates the risk. The Malazans are far too busy—’

  ‘The danger he anticipates, Chosen One, lies not with the Malazans.’

  She studied him. ‘You look exhausted, L’oric. I suggest you return to your tent and get some rest. I shall have need for you on the morrow.’

  ‘You will not heed my warning?’

  ‘The goddess protects me. I have nothing to fear. Besides,’ she smiled, ‘Mathok has three hundred of his chosen warriors guarding
this palace.’

  ‘Sha’ik, there will be a convergence this night. You have readers of the Deck among your advisers. Command they field their cards, and all that I say will be confirmed. Ascendant powers are gathering. The stench of treachery is in the air.’

  She waved a hand. ‘None of it matters, L’oric. I cannot be touched. Nor will the goddess be denied.’

  He stepped closer, his eyes wide. ‘Chosen One! Raraku is awakening!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Can you not hear it?’

  ‘The rage of the goddess consumes all, L’oric. If you can hear the voice of the Holy Desert, then it is Raraku’s death-cry. The Whirlwind shall devour this night. And any ascendant power foolish enough to approach will be annihilated. The goddess, L’oric, will not be denied.’

  He stared at her a moment longer, then seemed to sag beneath his armour. He drew a hand across his eyes, as if seeking to claw some nightmarish vision from his sight. Then, with a nod, he swung about and strode towards the doorway.

  ‘Wait!’ Sha’ik moved past him then halted.

  Voices sounded from beyond the canvas walls.

  ‘Let him pass!’ she cried.

  Two guards stumbled in, dragging a man between them. Smeared in dust and sweat, he was unable to even stand, so exhausted and battered was he. One of the guards barked, ‘It is Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas. One of Leoman’s officers.’

  ‘Chosen One!’ the man gasped. ‘I am the third rider Leoman has sent to you! I found the bodies of the others—assassins pursued me almost to your very palace!’

  Sha’ik’s face darkened with fury. ‘Get Mathok,’ she snapped to one of the guards. ‘L’oric, gift this man some healing, to aid in his recovery.’

  The High Mage stepped forward, settled a hand on Corabb’s shoulder.

  The desert warrior’s breathing slowed, and he slowly straightened. ‘Leoman sends his greetings, Chosen One. He wishes to know of Mathok’s deployment—’