The ancient path showed signs of having once been a road, running the length of a ridge that twisted like a crooked spine toward a distant mesa. Cobbles showed like bone where the wind had scoured away the sandy soil. The path was littered with red-glazed potsherds that crunched underfoot.
The Toblakai scouted five hundred paces ahead, unseen in the ochre haze, while Leoman led Felisin and Heboric at a measured pace, rarely speaking. The man was frighteningly gaunt and moved so silently over the ground that Felisin had begun to imagine him no more than a specter. Nor did Heboric stumble in his blindness as he walked behind her.
Glancing back, she saw him smiling. “Something amusing you?”
“This road is crowded, lass.”
“The same ghosts as in the buried city?”
He shook his head. “Not as old. These are memories of an age that followed the First Empire.”
Leoman stopped and turned at that.
Heboric’s broad mouth extended into a grin. “Oh aye, Raraku is showing me her secrets.”
“Why?”
The ex-priest shrugged.
Felisin eyed the desert warrior. “Does that make you nervous, Leoman?” Because it should.
He glanced at her, his eyes dark and appraising. “What is this man to you?”
I don’t know. “My companion. My historian. Of great value since I am to make Raraku my home.”
“The Holy Desert’s secrets are not his to possess. He plunders them as would any foreign raider. If you desire Raraku’s truths, look within yourself.”
She almost gave a laugh at that, but knew its bitterness would frighten even her.
They continued on, the morning’s heat rising, the sky turning into gold fire. The ridge narrowed, revealing the ancient road’s foundation stones, ten or more feet down on either side, the slope beyond falling away a further fifty or sixty feet. The Toblakai awaited them at a place where the road bed had collapsed to create large, dark holes in the ground. From one of them issued the soft trickle of water.
“An aqueduct beneath the road,” Heboric said. “It used to flow in a torrent.”
Felisin saw the Toblakai scowl.
Leoman gathered the waterskins and proceeded to crawl down into the hole.
Heboric sat down to rest. After a moment, he cocked his head. “Sorry you had to wait for us, Toblakai-with-the-secret-name, though I imagine you’d have trouble getting your head through that cave mouth in any case.”
The giant savage sneered, revealing filed teeth. “I collect tokens of the people I kill. Tied here on my belt. One day I will have yours.”
“He means your ears, Heboric,” Felisin said.
“Oh, I know, lass,” the ex-priest said. “Tortured spirits writhe in this bastard’s shadow—every man, woman and child that he’s killed. Tell me, Toblakai, did those children beg to live? Did they weep, cry out for their mothers?”
“No more than grown men did,” the giant said, yet Felisin saw that he had paled, through she sensed that it was not his killing of children that bothered him. No, there was something else in what Heboric had said.
Tortured spirits. He’s haunted by the ghosts of those he’s slain. Forgive me, Toblakai, if I spare you no pity.
“This land is not home to Toblakai,” Heboric said. “Has the Rebellion’s lure of slaughter called you here? From where did you crawl, bastard?”
“I have said to you all that I shall say. When I speak to you next it will be when I kill you.”
Leoman emerged from the hole, cobwebs snagged in his bound hair, the waterskins bulging at his back. “You will kill no one until I say so,” he growled to the Toblakai, then swung a glare on Heboric. “And I’ve not yet said so.”
There was something in the giant’s expression that spoke of immense patience coupled with unwavering certainty. He rose to his full height, accepted a waterskin from Leoman, then set off down the trail.
Heboric stared sightlessly after him. “The wood of that weapon is soaked in pain. I cannot imagine he sleeps well at night.”
“He barely sleeps at all,” Leoman muttered. “You shall cease baiting him.”
The ex-priest grimaced. “You’ve not seen the ghosts of children tied to his heels, Leoman. But I shall make the effort to keep my mouth shut.”
“His tribe made few distinctions,” Leoman said. “There was kin, and those who were not kin were the enemy. Now, enough talk.”
A hundred paces on, the road suddenly widened, opening out onto the flat of the mesa. To either side ran row upon row of oblong humps of fired, reddish clay, each hump seven feet long and three wide. Despite the foreshortened horizons created by the suspended dust, Felisin could see that the rows, scores deep, encircled the entire plateau—entirely surrounding the ruined city that lay before them.
The cobbles were fully exposed now, revealing a broad causeway that ran in a straight line toward what had once been a grand gate, worn down by centuries of wind to knee-high stumps of bleached stone—as was the entire city beyond.
“A slow death,” Heboric whispered.
The Toblakai was already striding through the distant gates.
“We must cross through to the other side, down to the harbor,” Leoman said. “Where we shall find a hidden camp. And a cache…unless it has been pillaged.”
The city’s main street was a dusty mosaic of shattered pottery: red-glazed body sherds, gray, black and brown rims. “I will think of this,” Felisin said, “when I next carelessly break a pot.”
Heboric grunted. “I know of scholars who claim they can map entire extinct cultures through the study of such detritus.”
“Now there’s a lifetime of excitement,” Felisin drawled.
“Would that I could trade places with one of them!”
“You are not serious, Heboric.”
“I am not? Fener’s tusk, lass, I am not the adventurous type—”
“Perhaps not at first, but then you were broken. Shattered. Like these pots here.”
“I appreciate the observation, Felisin.”
“You cannot be remade unless you are first broken.”
“You have become very philosophic in your advanced years, I see.”
More than you realize. “Tell me you’ve learned no truths, Heboric.”
He snorted. “Aye, I’ve learned one. There are no truths. You’ll understand that yourself, years from now, when Hood’s shadow stretches your way.”
“There are truths,” Leoman said ahead of them, not turning as he continued. “Raraku. Dryjhna. The Whirlwind and the Apocalypse. The weapon in the hand, the flow of blood.”
“You’ve not made our journey, Leoman,” Heboric growled.
“Your journey was rebirth—as she has said—and so there was pain. Only fools would expect otherwise.”
The old man made no reply to that.
They walked on in the city’s sepulchral silence. The foundation stones and the low ridges of inner walls mapped the floor plans of the buildings to either side. A precise geometric plan was evident in the layout of streets and alleys, a half-circle of concentric rings, with the flat side the harbor itself. The remains of a large, palatial structure were visible ahead; the massive stones at the center had been more successful in withstanding the centuries of erosion.
Felisin glanced back at Heboric. “Still plagued by ghosts?”
“Not plagued, lass. There was no great unleashing of brutality here. Only sadness, and even that was naught but a subcurrent. Cities die. Cities mimic the cycle of every living thing: birth, vigorous youth, maturity, old age, then finally…dust and potsherds. In the last century of this place, the sea was already receding, even as a new influence arrived, something foreign. There was a brief renaissance—we’ll see evidence of that ahead, at the harbor—but it was short-lived.” He was silent for a dozen or so paces. “You know, Felisin, I begin to understand something of the lives of the Ascendants. To live for hundreds, then thousands of years. To witness this flowering in all its futile glo
ry, ah, is it any wonder that their hearts grow hard and cold?”
“This journey has brought you closer to your god, Heboric.”
The comment stung him to silence.
She saw what Heboric had hinted at when they reached the city’s harbor. What had once been the bay had silted in, yet four cyclopean channels had been constructed, reaching out to vanish in the haze. Each was as wide as three city streets and almost as deep.
“The last ships sailed out from these canals,” Heboric said at her side. “The heaviest transports scraped bottom at the far mouths, and could only make way with the tide at peak. A few thousand denizens remained, until the aqueducts dried up. This is one story of Raraku, but alas, not the only one, and the others were far more violent, far more bloody. Yet I wonder, which was the more tragic?”
“You waste your thoughts on the past—” Leoman began, but was interrupted by a shout from the Toblakai. The giant had appeared near one of the canal heads. Falling silent, the desert warrior set off toward his companion.
As Felisin moved to follow, Heboric grasped her arm, the unseen hand a cool, tingling contact. He waited until Leoman was beyond earshot, then said, “I have fears, lass—”
“I’m not surprised,” she cut in. “That Toblakai means to kill you.”
“Not that fool. I mean Leoman.”
“He was Sha’ik’s bodyguard. If I am to become her I’ll not need to mistrust his loyalty, Heboric. My only concern is that he and the Toblakai did such a poor job of protecting Sha’ik the first time around.”
“Leoman is no fanatic,” the ex-priest said. “Oh, he might well make appropriate noises to lead you to believe otherwise, but there is an ambivalence in him. I don’t for a moment believe he thinks you are truly Sha’ik reborn. The simple fact is the rebellion needs a figurehead—a young, strong one, not the worn-down old woman that the original Sha’ik must have been. Hood’s breath, she was a force in this desert twenty-five years ago. You might want to consider the possibility that these two bodyguards didn’t break a sweat in their efforts to defend her.”
She looked at him. The tattoos made an almost solid whirling pattern on his weathered, toadlike face. His eyes were red and rimmed in dried mucus and a thin, gray patina dulled his pupils. “Then I can also assume they will have greater cause this time around.”
“Provided you play their game. Leoman’s game, to be more precise. He will be the one to speak for you to the army at the encampment—if he has cause he will hint at doubts, and they will tear you apart—”
“I have no fear of Leoman,” Felisin said. “I understand men like him, Heboric.”
His lips closed to a thin line.
She drew her arm away from that unnatural grip and began walking.
“Beneth was less than a child to this Leoman,” the ex-priest hissed behind her. “He was a thug, a bully, a tyrant to a handful of the downtrodden. Any man can preen with great ambitions, no matter how pathetic his station, Felisin. You are doing worse than clinging to the memory of Beneth—you are clinging to the airs he projected, and they were naught but delusions—”
She whirled. “You know nothing!” she hissed, trembling with fury. “You think I fear what a man can do? Any man? You think you know me? That you can know my thoughts, know what I feel? You presumptuous bastard, Heboric—”
His laughter struck her like a blow, shocking her into silence. “Dear lass,” he said. “You would keep me at your side. As what? An ornament? A macabre curiosity? Would you burn out my tongue to balance my blindness? I am here to keep you amused, then, even as you accuse me of presumption. Oh, that is sweet indeed—”
“Stop talking, Heboric,” Felisin said quietly, suddenly weary. “If one day we do come to understand each other, it will be without words. Who needs swords when we have our tongues, you and I? Let us sheathe them and have done with it.”
He cocked his head. “One last question, then. Why would you have me stay, Felisin?”
She hesitated before answering him, wondering at how he would take this particular truth. Well, that is something. Not long ago I would not have cared. “Because it means survival, Heboric. I offer…for Baudin.”
Head still cocked, the ex-priest slowly wiped one forearm across his dusty brow. “Perhaps,” he said, “we’ll yet come to understand each other.”
The canal mouth was marked by a broad series of stone steps, over a hundred in all. At the base, on what had once been the seabed, a more recent stone wall had been constructed, providing attachment points for a canvas shelter. A ring of stones surrounded an ash-stained firepit nearby, and the old cobbles that had once covered the cache were now tumbled about, a gutted cairn.
The subject of the Toblakai’s outcry were the seven half-eaten corpses scattered about the camp, each a mass of flies. The blood in the fine, white sand was only a few hours old, still gummy to the touch. The stench of loosened bowels soured the hazy air.
Leoman crouched by the stairs, studying the bestial prints that marked a bloodstained ascent back up into the city. After a long moment, he glanced over at the Toblakai. “If you want this one, you’ll go on your own,” he said.
The giant bared his teeth. “I will have no one else crowding me,” he replied, unslinging his waterskin and bedroll and letting them drop to the ground. He unsheathed his wooden sword, holding it as if it was no more than a twig.
Heboric snorted from where he leaned against the stone wall. “You plan to hunt down this Soletaken? I take it that in your tribe you are nearing the end of the average expected lifespan, assuming your kin are as stupid as you. Well, I for one will not grieve your death.”
The Toblakai maintained his vow, refusing to address Heboric, though his grin broadened. He swung to Leoman. “I am Raraku’s vengeance against such intruders.”
“If you are, then avenge my kin,” the desert warrior replied.
The Toblakai set off, taking the steps three at a time and not slowing until he reached the top, where he paused to study tracks. A moment later he slipped beyond their line of sight.
“The Soletaken will kill him,” Heboric said.
Leoman shrugged. “Perhaps. Sha’ik saw far into his future, however…”
“And what did she see?” Felisin asked.
“She would not say. Yet it…appalled her.”
“The Seer of the Apocalypse was appalled?” Felisin looked at Heboric. The ex-priest’s expression was drawn taut, as if he’d just heard confirmation of some glimmer of the future he had himself sensed. “Tell me, Leoman,” she said, “of her other visions.”
The man had begun dragging the bodies of his kin to one side. He paused at her question, glanced over. “When you open the Holy Book, they shall be visited upon you. This is Dryjhna’s gift…among others.”
“You expect me to go through with this ritual before we reach the encampment.”
“You must. The ritual is the proof that you are truly Sha’ik reborn.”
Heboric grunted. “And what does that mean, precisely?”
“If she is false, the ritual shall destroy her.”
The ancient island rose in a flat-topped hump above the cracked clay plain. Gray, weathered stumps marked mooring poles and more substantial piers just beyond what had once been the shoreline, along with remnants of the usual garbage that had once been dumped over the sides of ships. Sinkholes in what had been the bay’s muddy bottom glittered with compacted layers of glittering fish-scale.
Crouching beside Fiddler, Mappo watched as Icarium made his way up the crumbled remains of a sea wall. Crokus stood just behind the Trell, near the hobbled horses. The lad had fallen strangely silent since their last meal stop, a certain economy coming to his movements, as if he had chained himself to his own vow of patience. And seemingly unconsciously, the Daru had begun to emulate Icarium in his speech and mannerisms. Mappo was neither amused nor displeased when he noticed. The Jhag had always been an overwhelming presence, all the more so because he made no affectation or pretense.
Still, better for Crokus had he looked to Fiddler. This soldier’s a wonder in his own right.
“Icarium climbs like he knows where he’s going,” the sapper observed.
Mappo winced. “I had come to the same observation,” he ruefully admitted.
“Have you two been here before?”
“I have not, Fiddler. But Icarium…well, he’s wandered this land before.”
“But in returning to a place he’d been to before, how would he know?”
The Trell shook his head. He shouldn’t. He never has before. Are those blessed barriers breaking down? Queen of Dreams, return Icarium to the bliss of not knowing. I beg you…
“Let us join him,” Fiddler said, slowly straightening.
“I’d rather—”
“As you wish,” the soldier replied, setting off after the Jhag, who had vanished into the thorn-choked city ruins beyond the sea wall. After a moment, Crokus strode past Mappo as well.
The Trell grimaced. I must be getting old, to let being distraught cow me so. He sighed, rising from his crouch and lumbering after the others.
The slope of detritus at the base of the sea wall was a treacherous scree of splintered wood, slabs of plaster, brick and potsherds. Halfway up, Fiddler grunted and paused, reaching down to pull free a shaft of gray wood. “I’ve some rethinking to do,” he said, glancing back down. “All this wood’s turned to stone.”
“Petrified,” Crokus said. “My uncle described the process to me once. The wood soaks up minerals. But that’s supposed to take tens of thousands of years.”
“Well, a High Mage of the D’riss Warren could manage the same in the blink of an eye, lad.”
Mappo pulled free a fragment of pottery. Not much thicker than an eggshell, the shard was sky blue in color and very hard. It revealed the torso of a figure painted on the surface, black with a green outline. The image was stiff, stylized, but without doubt human. He let the sherd drop.
“This city was dead long before the sea dried up,” Fiddler said, resuming his climb.
Crokus called up after him, “How do you know?”
“Because everything’s water-worn, lad. Waves crumbled this sea wall. Century after century of waves. I grew up in a port city, remember. I’ve seen what water can do. The Emperor had Malaz Bay dredged before the Imperial piers were built—revealed old sea walls and the like.” Reaching the top, he paused to catch his breath. “Showed everyone that Malaz City’s older than anybody’d realized.”
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 127