‘Lithel Harldeth?’
The shape, which had been rocking gently from side to side and crooning to itself, stilled. The head rose, questing. ‘Who is there?’
‘Assessor Bakune. I am investigating the recent death of Sister Prudence. I’m told you knew her well.’
‘So, she is dead. We’ve been waiting many years.’ A gnarled hand went shakily to the altar, pointed to one crude statue. ‘Look here. The Great Mother Goddess. She has had countless names, though Lady is not one.’ The hand moved to another. ‘The Great Sky-Father this one is called, though Light is his aspect. Here, the Great Deceiver would push forward – not realizing that to succeed would spell his dissolution. Here, the Beast of War stirs again – what shall be the final shape of its rising? Here, the Dark Hoarder of Souls. He has my friend now – may both of them come to know peace. And here, the newcomer, the Broken God, watching and scheming from afar.’
Bakune recognized these ancient names and titles from his research into the indigenous peoples of the archipelago – all their old animistic spirits of earth, air, and night. All vaguely similar in character to the foreign Malazan faiths, of which, presumably, they were distant relatives. All the old pagan beliefs that had multiplied indiscriminately before the arrival of the Blessed Lady and the one true faith.
‘What would you call evil, Assessor?’ the old woman suddenly asked.
Bakune was rather startled by the question. Breathing in the heady, dizzying smoke he eased himself down to his knees. Vaguely, he wondered what drugs might be mixed in with the exotic woods and herbs being burned here. He’d already realized that he would get no straight answers from the crone, and could hardly press her. ‘I don’t know. The simple-minded would answer whatever is opposed to them. Whatever current enemy or rival they might face at the time. For my part I believe true evil lies in actions. In deliberate harmful acts.’
‘Spoken as a magistrate. And it must be said that there is some wisdom in your approach. However, can an act not be harmful in the immediate, yet beneficial in the long term? Could such an act be said to be evil?’
Bakune waved the choking coils of smoke from his face. The last thing he expected was to be challenged to a philosophical debate. ‘Again, I do not know. I suppose the harm would have to be weighed against the ultimate benefit accrued.’
The old woman turned her head to regard him directly. Her dirty hair hung like a veil before her face. ‘Exactly. It would have to be … assessed.’
Bakune suddenly felt stricken. ‘What are you getting at, Lithel?’
The woman turned away, rocking. ‘I have meditated long and hard on this vexing question, Assessor. There is really only a small set of final responses. My distillation is a refinement of one of them. True pure evil, Assessor, is waste. It is the blunting of potential, the cutting off of a person’s or a people’s promise, or options, for development. It is, emblematically, the death of a child.’ The old woman’s head sank. ‘Look then, Assessor, to the children.’
‘Lithel? Lithel?’
The old woman once more crooned to herself, and now Bakune could hear the ancient burnished pain in her moaning.
Outside, Bakune straightened, coughing. One of his guards offered a water skin and he took it with gratitude and washed out his mouth.
‘What did you hear?’ the old man asked.
‘Exactly what I did not want to hear.’
The old man’s smile climbed free of any reserve. ‘Good. We are done then. And Assessor …’
‘Yes?’
‘Do not return. Do not try to find this dwelling again. Because you never will.’
Bakune narrowed his gaze on the man. ‘You would threaten a magistrate?’
‘No threat. A fact.’
The guards snorted their disbelief. Bakune shrugged. His gaze caught the stone at the man’s neck. Engraved on it was a circle with a line across its middle like the line of a horizon. The very sigil scratched on the statue Lithel had named the Great Mother Goddess. Bakune motioned to the necklace. ‘The symbol of the old pagan Earth Mother.’
The old man’s hand went to the stone. ‘Yes. The old faith. I am of the Drenn.’
Bakune could not shake a feeling of familiarity. ‘I feel that we have met before.’
‘Perhaps briefly. Now, this way.’
The old man, who once gave his name to the Assessor as Gheven, stopped within the boundary of the shanty town and watched while the magistrate and his minders climbed to the west road. He was surprised, pleased and saddened all at once at having met him again. Surprised by the man’s resilience in keeping to his principles in the face of all that had confronted him for the length of his career; pleased to see him cleaving still to the path to justice – as he interpreted it at any rate – and saddened because he knew what all this would cost the man should he continue along the path as he, Gheven, hoped he would.
It was sad but necessary. Pain would be inflicted but was it not all to the greater good? A thorny question, that. One he did not feel qualified to settle.
Back in his office, Bakune settled into his chair and rested his head in his hands. His guards had drifted away once they’d reached the city centre and the blocks holding the mayoral palace and the courts. He didn’t know whether to be grateful for their dedication or to curse them for it. The old man’s insinuations had slid deep along the paths of his own suspicions. His secretaries appeared at his doorway, thick folders in their hands, but Bakune waved them off.
Rising, he crossed the office and locked the door. He went to a cabinet next to the desk and unlocked it. From the top shelf he pulled out a roll that he laid on his desk. He pulled the ribbon holding the cloth tight and unrolled it. It was a map of Banith that Bakune had ordered drafted years ago. On it, over the years, the Assessor had painstakingly painted in red dots the exact location of every murdered girl and boy he had personally visited, or that he could reliably place. The red dots lay in a thin spread throughout the city; no district was entirely free of their stain. The bright crimson, however, was thickest along the shore, where many bodies were dumped. But not evenly, not randomly. Over the years the marks clumped, observably so, into three main clusters. One to the west, one to the east, and one due south near the centre of the town’s waterfront. Leading more or less straight up from each cluster ran a main road into town. And if one traced each road one’s finger would end up right at the centre of town where lay the holy Cloister of Our Blessed Lady – near which, revealingly enough, not one bloody dot was to be found.
Bakune sat and stared long and hard at the map, his chin nearly touching his chest. Damn you for doing this to me. You’re killing me. Dot by dot, you are surely killing me. Please, won’t you please just stop. Just go away.
He pressed his fingertips to his throbbing temples and sat motionless, staring. By the Blessed Lady, what could he possibly be expected to do?
* * *
Around noon the ship’s captain came to talk to Kyle. He was dozing under the shade of an awning, his leg raised and bandaged, when he became vaguely aware that he wasn’t alone any more. Cracking open one eye he saw a wiry fellow gazing down at him, old, grey hair all unkempt, the light dusting of a moustache at the mouth, and a pipe clamped tight between the lips. Multiple gold earrings shone at the lobes and gold bracelets cluttered – her? – wrists. ‘Yes?’ Kyle asked, wary.
‘All comfy, are we?’
‘Yes, thank you. Your bone-mender knows her business.’
A smile of appreciation stretched the thin lips. ‘Speaking of business …’
‘Ah. You are the captain?’
‘Yes. June. Cursed June, they call me.’
‘Kyle. Cursed? May I ask why?’
A rise of the bony shoulders. ‘Had seven husbands is why.’ The woman tilted her head to examine him up and down. ‘Can’t place you, I have to say. There’s something of the Wickan about you with the moustache an’ your dark hue an’ all. But not quite.’
‘Perhaps we’re dista
ntly related.’
‘P’rhaps.’
Kyle took a pouch from his belt and held it out. ‘All I have for transport to your next port of call.’
She hefted it, frowning. ‘Not much …’
‘My companion may have some coin as well.’ A noncommittal grunt. ‘Where are we headed, may I ask?’
‘East to Belid. Five days’ sail.’
‘We’re grateful.’
The woman grunted again, letting loose a stream of smoke. She clearly itched to ask their background and what lay behind their flight, but was also clearly old and canny enough to know she’d get no satisfaction. She nodded instead in a guarded, vaguely welcoming way, and continued on.
The bone-mender, Elia, thumped herself down next to him on the burlap-wrapped cargo tied down on the deck. ‘What think you of our captain, then?’
‘Rare to see a woman captain.’
‘Not at all here in Falar. Curaca ships are all owned and run by the city an’ the city demands profits an’ tight management. Men captains just get drunk or gamble away the margins. Not like the womenfolk. What say you to that?’ The old woman cuffed his shoulder.
‘I’d say that anyone who’d voluntarily go to sea must be addled.’
The woman whooped, laughing. ‘Spoken like a true son of the plains, Kyle.’
He eyed her, wondering whether that was a probe. ‘She said they call her cursed – is that true?’
‘Yes, it’s true. But here’s the kicker … is it true because she’s had seven husbands, or because she’s had seven husbands?’
Kyle could only stare, his brow tight. What in the name of the Hooded Harrower He shook his head. ‘How is … my companion, Orjin?’
‘Oho! Orjin, is it? Sleeping like a whale below. Four of the crew couldn’t move him.’
‘Any wounds?’
‘Nothing serious. And he’s seen his share of Denul rituals.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean that the man’s far older than he looks, and heals far faster than most.’
‘I suppose that’s where his money went,’ Kyle suggested, looking away.
‘I suppose so.’
Three days later, just after dawn, a crewman woke Kyle where he lay in a hammock below. Groggy, rubbing his face, he climbed the short steep stair to the deck. Above, a low cloudbank reflected the gold and pink of sunrise. The waters of the Storm Sea were high, but not choppy. It occurred to him that every region seemed to have its body of rough water or gales, its ‘storm sea’. Forward stood Captain June, the mate, Masul, Elia, and Greymane. He joined them; Greymane gave him a tight, concerned glance.
Captain June pointed to the south-east, just off the bow. ‘Friends of yours?’
Kyle squinted into the light: three dark shapes emerging from the glare of the sunrise. Large vessels, many sails. ‘Who are they?’
‘Malazan men-of-war,’ said June. ‘They seem to be coming on an intercept and we can’t outrun them. We’re no sleek raider.’
‘Wouldn’t suggest you try, Captain.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ affirmed Greymane.
June’s expressive brows rose. She drew heavily on her pipe. ‘Ain’t going to be any hostilities, are there? ’Cause my people won’t participate in anything like that.’
Greymane pushed a hand through his tangled silvery grey hair. ‘No, Captain. No hostilities.’
‘Hunh! All right then.’ She turned to the stern. ‘Steady on!’
‘Steady on, aye!’
Kyle moved until he stood next to Greymane. His eyes on the distant ships, he asked, ‘What’s it going to be?’
The man let go a long growled breath. ‘Don’t want these fellows to suffer. Can’t swim. So, we’ll let them come abreast then board the first and take them one by one.’
‘Not two at a time?’
He glanced sideways at Kyle. A straight smile pulled at his mouth. ‘Let’s not get carried away.’
It was a fleet of Malazan men-of-war, tall and moderately broad for greater stability, commissioned for war at sea. From the soldiers lining the high railings, the stern- and forecastles, Kyle estimated that each of the twenty vessels carried some four hundred marines. Much larger troop transports could be seen in the east, convoyed, lumbering south in long straight columns. Even from this distance something struck him as odd about the vessels: they appeared just too damn huge, and of an odd hue, almost that of the waters they rode.
To Kyle it looked like an invasion assembled to take a continent. ‘Have you ever seen the like?’ he murmured to Greymane, awed.
After a time the man answered, a strange, almost resigned note in his voice. ‘Yes, Kyle. I have.’
No fool, Captain June ordered sails furled. A launch appeared, lowered from the nearest warship. Greymane and Kyle watched while it crossed the distance between the vessels, oared by some eighteen marines.
June ordered a rope ladder thrown over the side. Three officers crowded the launch, including one obvious Moranth Blue. The first pulled himself aboard easily to stand comfortably on deck, hands clasped at his back. An obvious veteran, short and stocky with a bald sun-darkened pate, and a high officer by the hatching on the silver torc on his arm. His mouth was thin and tight and had the look of rarely being opened. ‘Permission to come aboard,’ he asked of no one in particular.
June let out a gust of smoke. ‘Could hardly refuse, now, could I?’
The man’s mouth did not move.
The second officer was a Dal Honese woman in dark silks, a small silver claw sigil at her breast. The sight chilled Kyle even though the woman’s pasty-greyish face and hand clutching the gunwale took somewhat from the power of her presence. The Moranth Blue climbed aboard easily despite the weight of the chitinous plated armour, to stand silent and self-contained. He – or she – nodded a greeting to Captain June.
Greymane broke the protracted silence. ‘I gather I am under arrest.’
The Malazan officer’s hairless brows rose. ‘Under arrest? Not at all, Commander.’
Commander? Kyle wondered.
Greymane shared Kyle’s confusion. He gaze flicked from face to face. ‘Not under arrest?’
‘No.’ The man saluted. ‘Fist Khemet Shul at your service, sir. Leading the convoy.’ He indicated the Claw. ‘Reshal. And this is Halat, liaison for the Moranth Blue Bhuvar – that is Admiral – Swirl.’
The Moranth Blue bowed to Greymane. ‘An honour.’
Greymane’s glacial eyes had narrowed to slits. ‘Why did you call me Commander?’
In answer, Reshal drew a scroll from her shirt and held it out, her left hand supporting her right, and bowed. ‘A missive from Emperor Mallick Rel the Glorious to be delivered personally to your hand.’
Greymane regarded the proffered scroll as one might a bared dagger. Yet, reluctantly, he took it. Kyle waited while the man read. Reshal swallowed hard and straightened, jaws clenched tight and hands pressed to her sides. Kyle thought he’d seen her eyeing him earlier and grinned at her condition. Her answering smile seemed to promise a knife-thrust – later.
Greymane lowered the scroll. He glanced at Kyle, attempting to reassure him with his gaze, which Kyle thought alarmed. ‘Insane, Captain. Utterly insane. Twice it’s been tried and twice the Riders and the Mare galleys destroyed the fleets. This one will manage no better.’
Shul bowed, accepting the point. ‘As you say, Commander. However, this time the Emperor has offered a contract to the Moranth. And they have delivered.’ He looked to Halat. ‘Liaison?’
The Moranth Blue bowed. Aqua hues churned over the polished plates of his armour as he moved. ‘We will break the Mare blockade, Greymane,’ he said, his voice hollow within his masking helm. ‘That is our promise.’
‘You are certain?’
‘Or we will die trying. Such is our word.’
‘Then – I accept the commission.’
Shul saluted crisply. ‘Very good, Fist. Your invasion fleet is assembling off the coa
st of Kartool.’
‘Are you the insane one?’ Kyle demanded the moment they had time alone in the empty crew quarters. ‘How could you accept – after the way they treated you?’
Squeezed on to a bench, the big man raised an accepting hand. ‘Yes, Kyle. I understand.’ He examined an empty carved wood cup, almost invisible in his wide shovel-like hand. ‘Believe me, I used to feel the same way.’ He took a great breath, turned the cup in small circles on the table before him. ‘But I’m older now. That attack from the Chosen, and the Malazans finding me now … I’ll never be able to hide. And perhaps I shouldn’t have run in the first place. I had people in Korel. People who depended on me. One fellow, Ruthan he was called, he was ready to fight, but I hope he followed my warning. When I was forced to leave … well, it’s always gnawed at me. Like a betrayal. I’ve sometimes found myself wondering – are they still alive?’
Kyle filled Greymane’s cup and one for himself from a jug of watered wine, and, ducking under hammocks, sat. He studied his friend across the table. The man’s long dirty hair, now the hue of iron in this dim light, hung almost to the table. He was unshaven, his wide jowls grey with bristles. Old. The man looks old, and tired. Was this some sort of misguided effort to fix past failures? But from what he understood the failures were not of his making … Still, it was obvious he felt responsibility.
Responsibilities. Duties. Why was it that those who took on such burdens did so of their own accord? Kyle supposed that, in the end, those were the only kind that truly mattered. Like his sitting here now across from his friend. No one had asked. He need not accompany the man. His hand slid to the sword at his side. Burdens willingly taken on, he decided, come to define the bearer.
‘So you are in charge then?’ Kyle finally said into the relative silence of the creaking hull planks and the waves surging past.
‘Of all land operations, yes. Once we arrive – Hood! Should we arrive.’
‘But not the fleet?’
‘No.’
‘Who is?’
Greymane offered a half-smile, his pale sapphire eyes holding a tempered humour. ‘You will have a chance to meet a living legend, Kyle. The name will mean nothing to you seeing as you’re a damned foreigner, but the naval assault will be commanded by Admiral Nok.’
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