The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  “Did you choose your company here, Heboric?” Kulp asked, eyes on Baudin and Felisin.

  “Aye, I did. More or less. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  “Walk up the beach with me,” the mage said, heading off. The tattooed man followed. “Tell me about them,” Kulp said after they’d gone a distance.

  Heboric shrugged. “You have to compromise to stay alive in the mines,” he said. “And that which one person thinks of value, another is the first to sell. Cheap. Well, that’s what they are now. What they were before…” He shrugged again.

  “Do you trust them?”

  Heboric’s wide face split in a grin. “Do you trust me, Kulp? I know, it’s too soon to answer that. Yours is not an easy question. I trust Baudin to work with us so long as it’s in his interest to do so.”

  “And the girl?”

  The old man was a long time in answering. “No.”

  Not what I’d expected. This should have been the easy part. “All right,” he said.

  “And what of your companions? Those foolish men and their foolish cult?”

  “Harsh words for a priest of Fener—”

  “An excommunicated priest. The girl spoke the truth. My soul is my own, not Fener’s. I took it back.”

  “Didn’t know that was possible.”

  “Maybe it isn’t. Please, I can walk no farther, Mage. Our journey has been…difficult.”

  You’re not the only one, old man.

  They shared no more words on the way back to the others. For all the chaos of the crossing, Kulp had expected this part of the plan to be relatively straightforward. They would come to the coast. They would find Duiker’s friend waiting…or not. He’d fought down his misgivings when the historian first came to him, asking for help. Idiot. Well, he would take them off this damned island, deposit them on the mainland, and that would be that. It was all he’d been asked to do.

  The sun was rising, the sorcerous storm over the sea withdrawing from shore to boil black and bruised over the middle of the straits.

  Food had been brought from Ripath. Heboric joined his two companions in a silent, tense meal. Kulp strode to where Gesler sat watch over his two sleeping soldiers, the three of them beneath a square of sailcloth rigged on four poles.

  The corporal’s scarred face twisted into an ironic grin. “Fener’s joke, this one,” he said.

  Kulp squatted down beside the corporal. “Glad you’re enjoying it.”

  “The boar god’s humor ain’t the laughing kind, Mage. Strange, though, I could’ve sworn the Lord of Summer was…here. Like a crow on that priest’s shoulder.”

  “You’ve felt Fener’s touch before, Gesler?”

  The man shook his head. “Gifts don’t come my way. Never did. It was just a feeling, that’s all.”

  “Still have it?”

  “I don’t think so. Don’t know. Doesn’t matter.”

  “How’s Truth?”

  “Took it hard, finding a priest of Fener who then turns around and denies us all. He’ll be all right—me and Stormy, we look out for him. Now it’s your turn to answer some questions. How’re we getting back to the mainland? That damned wizard’s still out there, ain’t he?”

  “The priest will see us through.”

  “How’s that?”

  “That’d be a long explanation, Corporal, and all I can think of right now is sleep. I’ll take next watch.” He rose and went off to find some shade of his own.

  Wide awake, arms wrapped around herself, Felisin watched the mage rig a sunshade, then slip beneath it to sleep. She glanced over at the marines, feeling a wave of gleeful disdain. Followers of Fener, that’s a laugh. The boar god with nothing between his ears. Hey, you fools, Fener’s here, somewhere, cowering in the mortal realm. Ripe for any hunter with a sharp spear. We saw his hoof. You can thank that old man for that. Thank him any way you care to.

  Baudin had gone down to the water to wash himself. He now returned, his beard dripping.

  “Scared yet, Baudin?” Felisin asked. “Look at that soldier over there, the one that’s awake. Too tough for you by far. And that one with the crossbow—didn’t take him long to figure you out, did it? Hard men—harder than you—”

  Baudin drawled, “What, you bedded them already?”

  “You used me—”

  “What of it, girl? You’ve made being used a way of life.”

  “Hood take you, bastard!”

  Standing over her, he grunted a laugh. “You won’t pull me down—we’re getting off this island. We’ve survived it. Nothing you can say’s going to change my mood, girl. Nothing.”

  “What’s the talon signify, Baudin?”

  His face became an expressionless mask.

  “You know, the one you’ve got hidden away, along with all your thieving tools.”

  The man’s flat gaze flicked past her. She turned to find Heboric standing a few paces away. The ex-priest’s eyes were fixed on Baudin as he said, “Did I hear that right?”

  The one-eared man said nothing.

  She watched what had to be comprehension sweep across Heboric’s face, watched as he glanced down at her, then back to Baudin. After a moment, he smiled. “Well done,” he said. “So far.”

  “You really think so?” Baudin asked, then turned away.

  “What’s going on, Heboric?” Felisin demanded.

  “You should have paid better attention to your history tutors, lass.”

  “Explain.”

  “Like Hood I will.” He shambled off.

  Felisin wrapped herself tighter in her own arms, pivoting to face the straits. We’re alive. I can be patient again. I can bide my time. The mainland burned with rebellion against the Malazan Empire. A pleasing thought. Maybe it would pull it all down—the Empire, the Empress…the Adjunct. And without the Malazan Empire, peace would once again come. An end to repression, an end to the threat of restraint as I set about exacting revenge. The day you lose your bodyguards, sister Tavore, I will appear. I swear it, by every god and every demon lord that ever existed. In the meantime, she would have to make use of these people around her, she would have to get them on her side. Not Baudin or Heboric—it was too late for them. But the others. The mage, the soldiers…

  Felisin rose.

  The corporal watched her approach with sleepy eyes.

  “When did you last lie with a woman?” Felisin asked him.

  It was not Gesler who answered, however. The crossbowman’s—Stormy’s—voice drifted out from the shadow beneath the sailcloth: “That would be a year and a day, the night I dressed up as a Kanese harlot—had Gesler fooled for hours. Mind you, he was pretty drunk. Mind you, so was I.”

  The corporal grunted. “That’s a soldier’s life for you. Too thick to know the difference…”

  “Too drunk to care,” the crossbowman finished.

  “You got it, Stormy.” Gesler’s heavy eyes slid up to Felisin. “Play your games elsewhere, lass. No offense, but we’ve done enough rutting to know when an offer’s got hidden chains. You can’t buy what ain’t for sale, anyhow.”

  “I told you about Heboric,” she said. “I didn’t have to.”

  “Hear that, Stormy? The girl took pity on us.”

  “He’ll betray you. He despises you already.”

  The boy named Truth sat up at that.

  “Go away,” Gesler told her. “My men are trying to get some sleep.”

  Felisin met Truth’s startling blue eyes, saw nothing but innocence in them. She threw him a pouty kiss, smiled as color flooded his face. “Careful or those ears will catch fire,” she said.

  “Hood’s breath,” Stormy muttered. “Go on, lad. She wants it that bad. Give her a taste.”

  “Not a chance,” she said, turning away. “I only sleep with men.”

  “Fools, you mean,” Gesler corrected, an edge to his tone.

  Felisin strode down to the beach, walked out until the waves lapped her knees. She studied the Ripath. Flashburns painted the hull black in thi
ck, random streaks. The front railing of the forecastle glittered as if the wood had been studded with a hail of quartz. The lines were frayed, unravelled where knives had cut.

  The sun’s reflection off the water was blinding. She closed her eyes, let her mind fall away until there was nothing but the feel of the warm water slipping around her legs. She felt an exhaustion that was beyond physical. She could not stop herself lashing out, and every face she made turn her way became a mirror. There has to be a way to reflect something other than hate and contempt.

  No, not a way.

  A reason.

  “My hope is that the Otataral entwined in you is enough to drive away that insane mage,” Kulp said. “Otherwise, we’re in for a rough voyage.” Truth had lit a lantern and now crouched in the triangular forecastle, waiting for them to set out for the reef. The yellow light caught reflective glimmers in Heboric’s tattoos as he grimaced in response to Kulp’s words.

  Gesler sat leaning over the steering oar. Like everyone else, he was waiting for the ex-priest. Waiting for a small measure of hope.

  The sorcerous storm raged beyond the reef, its manic flashes lighting up the night, revealing tumbling black clouds over a frothing sea.

  “If you say so,” Heboric eventually said.

  “Not good enough—”

  “Best I can do,” the old man snapped. He raised one stump, jabbed it in front of Kulp. “You see what I can’t even feel, Mage!”

  The mage swung to Gesler. “Well, Corporal?”

  The soldier shrugged. “We got a choice?”

  “It’s not that simple,” Kulp said, fighting to stay calm. “With Heboric abroad I don’t even know if I can open my warren—he’s got taints to him I wouldn’t want spreading. Without my warren I can’t deflect that sorcery. Meaning—”

  “We get roasted crisp,” Gesler said, nodding. “Look alive up there, Truth. We’re heading out!”

  “Yours is a misplaced faith, Corporal,” Heboric said.

  “Knew you’d say that. Now everyone stay low—me and Stormy and the lad got work to do.”

  Although he sat within arm’s reach of the tattooed old man, Kulp could sense his own warren. It felt ready—almost eager—for release. The mage was frightened. Meanas was a remote warren, and every fellow practitioner Kulp had met characterized it the same way: cool, detached, amused intelligence. The game of illusions was played with light, dark, texture and shadows, crowing victory when it succeeded in deceiving an eye, but even that triumph felt emotionless, the satisfaction clinical. Accessing the warren always had the feel of interrupting a power busy with other things. As if shaping a small fraction of that power was a distraction barely worth acknowledging.

  Kulp did not trust his warren’s uncharacteristic attentiveness. It wanted to join the game. He knew he was falling into the trap of thinking of Meanas as an entity, a faceless god, where access was worship, success a reward of faith. Warrens were not like that. A mage was not a priest and magic was not divine intervention. Sorcery could be the ladder to Ascendancy—a means to an end, but there was no point to worshipping the means.

  Stormy had rigged a small, square sail, enough to give control but not so large that it would risk the weakened mast. The Ripath slipped forward in front of a mild shore breeze. Truth lay on the bowsprit, scanning the breakers ahead. The cut they’d come in through was proving hard to find. Gesler barked out commands and swung the craft to run parallel to the reef.

  Kulp glanced at Heboric. The ex-priest sat with his left shoulder against the mast, squinting out into the darkness. The mage was desperate to open his warren—to look upon the old man’s ghost-hands, to gauge the serpent of Otataral—but he held back, suspicious of his own curiosity.

  “There!” Truth shouted, pointing.

  “I see it!” Gesler bellowed. “Move it, Stormy!”

  The Ripath swung around, bow wheeling to face the breakers…and a gap that Kulp could barely make out. The wind picked up, the sail stretching taut.

  Beyond it, the billowing clouds twisted, creating an inverted funnel. Lightning leaped up from the waves to frame it. The Ripath slipped through the reef and plunged directly into the spinning vortex.

  Kulp did not even have time to scream. His warren opened, locking in instant battle with a power demonic in its fury. Spears of water slanted down from overhead, shredding the sail in moments. The struck the deck like quarrels, punching through the planks. Kulp saw one shaft pierce Stormy’s thigh, pinning him shrieking to the deck. Others shattered against Heboric’s hunched back—he had thrown himself over the girl, Felisin, shielding her as the spears rained down. His tattoos raged with fire the color of mud-smeared gold.

  Baudin had hurled himself onto the forecastle, one arm reaching down and out of sight. Truth was nowhere to be seen.

  The spears vanished. Pitching as if on a single surging wave, the Ripath lurched forward, stern lifting. Overhead the sky raged, bruised and flushing with blooms of power. Kulp’s eyes widened as he stared up—a tiny figure rode the storm above, limbs flailing, the fragments of a cloak whipping about like a tattered wing. Sorcery flung the figure around as if it was no more than a straw-stuffed doll. Blood exploded outward as a coruscating wave engulfed the hapless creature. When the wave swept past, the figure rolled and tumbled after it, webs of blood spreading out like a fisherman’s net behind it.

  Then it was falling.

  Gesler pushed past Kulp. “Take the oar!” he yelled above the roaring wind.

  The mage scrambled aft. Steer? Steer through what? He was certain it was not water carrying them. They’d plunged into a madman’s warren. Closing his hands around the oar’s handle, he felt his own warren flow down into the wood and take hold. The pitching steadied. Kulp grunted. There was no time to wonder—being appalled demanded all his attention.

  Gesler clambered forward, grasping Baudin’s ankles just as the big man started to slip over the bow. Pulling him back revealed that Baudin held, with one hand, onto Truth, his fingers wrapped in the lad’s belt. Blood streamed from that hand, and Baudin’s face was white with pain.

  The unseen wave beneath them slumped. The Ripath charged forward into dead calm. Silence.

  Heboric scrambled to Stormy. The marine lay motionless on the deck, blood gushing in horrifying amounts from his punctured thigh. The flow lost its fierceness even as Kulp watched.

  Heboric did the only thing he could, or so Kulp would remember it in retrospect. At that instant, however, the mage screamed a warning—but too late—as Heboric plunged a ghostly, loam-smeared hand directly into the wound.

  Stormy spasmed, giving a bark of pain. The tattoos flowed out from Heboric’s wrist to spread a glowing pattern on the soldier’s thigh.

  When the old man pulled his arm away, the wound closed, the tattoos knitting together like sutures. Heboric scrambled back, eyes wide with shock.

  A hissing sigh escaped Stormy’s grimacing lips. Trembling and bone white, he sat up. Kulp blinked. He’d seen something more than just healing pass from Heboric’s arm into Stormy. Whatever it had been, it was virulent and tinged with madness. Worry about it later—the man’s alive, isn’t he? The mage’s attention swung to where Gesler and Baudin knelt on either side of a prone, motionless Truth. The corporal had turned the lad onto his stomach and was rhythmically pushing down with both hands to expel the water that filled Truth’s lungs. After a moment the boy coughed.

  The Ripath sat heavily, listing to one side. The uniform gray sky hung close and faintly luminous over them. They were becalmed, the only sound coming from water pouring into the hold somewhere below.

  Gesler helped Truth sit up. Baudin, still on his knees, clutched his right hand in his lap. Kulp saw that all the fingers had been pulled from their joints, skin split and streaming blood.

  “Heboric,” the mage whispered.

  The old man’s head jerked around. He was drawing breath in rapid gasps.

  “Tend to Baudin with that healing touch,” Kulp said quietly. We won’
t think about what comes with it. “If you can…”

  “No,” Baudin growled, studying Heboric intently. “Don’t want your god’s touch on me, old man.”

  “Those joints need resetting,” Kulp said.

  “Gesler can do it. The hard way.”

  The corporal looked up, then nodded and moved over.

  Felisin spoke. “Where are we?”

  Kulp shrugged. “Not sure. But we’re sinking.”

  “She’s stove through,” Stormy said. “Four, five places.” The soldier stared down at the tattoos covering his thigh and frowned.

  The young woman struggled to her feet, one hand reaching out to grip the charred mast. The slant of the deck had sharpened.

  “She might capsize,” Stormy said, still studying the tattoos. “Any time now.”

  Kulp’s warren subsided. He slumped in sudden exhaustion. He wouldn’t last long in the water, he knew.

  Baudin grunted as Gesler set the first finger of his right hand. The corporal spoke as he moved on to the next one. “Rig up some casks, Stormy. If you can walk, that is. Divide up the fresh water among them. Felisin, get the emergency food stores—that’s the chest on this side of the forecastle. Take the whole thing.” Baudin moaned as he set the next finger. “Truth, you up to getting some bandages?”

  His dry heaves having stopped a few moments earlier, the boy slowly pushed himself to his hands and knees and starting crawling aft.

  Kulp glanced at Felisin. She had not moved in response to Gesler’s orders and seemed to be debating a few choice words. “Come on, lass,” Kulp said, rising, “I’ll give you a hand.”

  Stormy’s fears of capsizing were not realized: as the Ripath settled, the cant slowly diminished. Water had filled the hold and now lapped the hatch, thick as soup and pale blue in color.

  “Hood’s breath,” Stormy said, “we’re sinking in goat’s milk.”

  “With a seasoning of brine,” Gesler added. He finished working on Baudin’s hand. Truth joined them with a medic’s kit.

  “We won’t have to go far,” Felisin said, her gaze off to starboard. Joining her, Kulp saw what she was looking at. A large ship sat motionless in the thick water less then fifty arm-spans away. It had twin banks of oars, hanging down listlessly. A single rudder was visible. There were three masts, the main and fore both rigged with tattered square sails, the mizzen mast with the shredded remnants of a lateen. There was no sign of life.