From the tent behind him, the Crippled God’s laughter hacked the air. ‘Cherish this moment, dear Munug! By your hand, the new game is begun. By your hand, the world shall tremble!’
Munug closed his eyes. ‘My rewards…’
* * *
Blend continued staring up the trail long after the trader had disappeared from view. ‘He was not,’ she muttered, ‘as he seemed.’
‘None of them are,’ Picker agreed, tugging at the torcs on her arm. ‘These things are damned tight’
‘Your arm will probably rot and fall off, Corporal.’
She looked up with wide eyes. ‘You think they’re cursed?’
Blend shrugged. ‘If it was me I’d have Quick Ben take a good long peer at them, and sooner not later.’
‘Togg’s balls, if you’d a suspicion—’
‘Didn’t say I did, Corporal – it was you complaining they were tight. Can you get them off?’
She scowled. ‘No, damn you.’
‘Oh.’ Blend looked away.
Picker contemplated giving the woman a good, hard cuff, but it was a thought she entertained at least ten times a day since they’d paired up for this posting, and once again she resisted it. ‘Three hundred councils to buy my arm falling off. Wonderful.’
‘Think positive, Corporal. It’ll give you something to talk about with Dujek.’
‘I really do hate you, Blend.’
She offered Picker a bland smile. ‘So, did you drop a pebble in that old man’s pack, then?’
‘Aye, he was fidgety enough to warrant it. He damn near fainted when I called him back, didn’t he?’
Blend nodded.
‘So,’ Picker said, unrolling her sleeve, ‘Quick Ben tracks him—’
‘Unless he cleans out his pack—’
The corporal grunted. ‘He cared less about what was in it than I did. No, whatever serious booty he carried was under his shirt, no doubt about it Anyway, he’ll be sure to put out the word when he gets to Pale – the traffic of smugglers through these hills will drop right off, mark my words and I’ll lay coin on that wager – and I threw him the line about better chances at the Divide when you was off collecting the councils.’
Blend’s smile broadened. ‘“Chaos at the crossroads”, eh? The only chaos Paran’s crew has over there is what to do with all the takings.’
‘Let’s fix some food – the Moranth will likely be as punctual as usual.’
The two Bridgeburners made their way back up the trail.
* * *
An hour after sunset the flight of Black Moranth arrived, descending on their quorls in a slithering flutter of wings to the circle of lanterns Picker and Blend had set out. One of them carried a passenger who clambered off as soon as his quorl’s six legs alighted on the stony ground.
Picker grinned at the cursing man. ‘Over here, Quick—’
He spun to face her. ‘What in Hood’s name have you been up to, Corporal?’
Her grin fell away. ‘Not much, Wizard. Why?’
The thin, dusk-skinned man glanced over a shoulder at the Black Moranth, then hastened to the position where Picker and Blend waited. He lowered his voice. ‘We need to keep things simple, damn it. Coming over the hills I almost fell out of that knobby saddle – there’s warrens swirling around down here, power bleeding from everywhere—’ He stopped, stepped closer, eyes glittering. ‘From you, too, Picker…’
‘Cursed after all,’ Blend muttered.
Picker glared at her companion and threw as much sarcasm into her tone as she could muster, ‘Just like you suspected all along, right, Blend? You lying—’
‘You’ve acquired the blessing of an ascendant!’ Quick Ben accused in a hiss. ‘You idiot! Which one, Picker?’
She struggled to swallow with a suddenly dry throat. ‘Uh, Treach?’
‘Oh, that’s just great.’
The corporal scowled. ‘What’s wrong with Treach? Perfect for a soldier – the Tiger of Summer, the Lord of Battle—’
‘Five centuries ago, maybe! Treach veered into his Soletaken form hundreds of years ago – the beast hasn’t had a human thought since! It’s not just mindless – it’s insane, Picker!’
Blend snickered.
The wizard whirled on her. ‘What are you laughing at?’
‘Nothing. Sorry.’
Picker rolled up her sleeve to reveal the torcs. ‘It’s these, Quick Ben,’ she explained hastily. ‘Can you get them off me?’
He recoiled upon seeing the ivory bands, then shook his head. ‘If it was a sane, reasonable ascendant, maybe some … negotiation might be possible. In any case, never mind—’
‘Never mind?’ Picker reached out and gripped handfuls of rain-cape. She shook the wizard. ‘Never mind? You snivelling worm—’ She stopped suddenly, eyes widening.
Quick Ben regarded her with a raised eyebrow. ‘What are you doing, Corporal?’ he asked softly.
‘Uh, sorry, Wizard.’ She released him.
Sighing, Quick Ben adjusted his cape. ‘Blend, lead the Moranth to the cache.’
‘Sure,’ she said, ambling towards the waiting warriors.
‘Who made the delivery, Corporal?’
‘The torcs?’
‘Forget the torcs – you’re stuck with them. The councils from Darujhistan. Who delivered them?’
‘Odd thing, that,’ Picker said, shrugging. ‘A huge carriage showed up, as if from nowhere. One moment the trail’s empty, the next there’s six stamping horses and a carriage – Wizard, this trail up here can’t manage a two-wheeled cart, much less a carriage. The guards were armed to the teeth, too, and jumpy – I suppose that makes sense, since they were carrying ten thousand councils.’
‘Trygalle,’ Quick Ben muttered. ‘Those people make me nervous…’ After a moment he shook his head. ‘Now, my last question. The last tracker you sent off – where is it?’
Picker frowned. ‘Don’t you know? They’re your pebbles, Wizard!’
‘Who did you give it to?’
‘A carver of trinkets—’
‘Trinkets like the one you’re wearing on your arm, Corporal?’
‘Well, yes, but that was his lone prize – I looked at all the rest and it was good but nothing special.’
Quick Ben glanced over to where the black-armoured Moranth were loading wrapped columns of coin onto their quorls under Blend’s smirking gaze. ‘Well, I don’t think it’s gone far. I guess I’ll just have to go and find it. Shouldn’t take long…’
She watched him walk off a short distance, then sit cross-legged on the ground.
The night air was growing cold, a west wind arriving from the Tahlyn Mountains. The span of stars overhead had become sharp and crisp. Picker turned and watched the loading. ‘Blend,’ she called, ‘make sure there’s two spare saddles besides the wizard’s.’
‘Of course,’ she replied.
The city of Pale wasn’t much, but at least the nights were warm. Picker was getting too old to be camping out night after night, sleeping on cold, hard ground. The past week waiting for the delivery had settled a dull ache into her bones. At least, with Darujhistan’s generous contribution, Dujek would be able to complete the army’s resupply.
With Oponn’s luck, they’d be on the march within a week. Off to another Hood-kissed war, as if we ain’t weary enough. Fener’s hoof, who or what is the Pannion Domin, anyway?
* * *
Since leaving Darujhistan eight weeks past, Quick Ben had been attached to Second-in-Command Whiskeyjack’s staff, with the task of assisting in the consolidation of Dujek’s rebel army. Bureaucracy and minor sorceries seemed strangely well suited to one another. The wizard had been busy weaving a network of communications through Pale and its outlying approaches. Tithes and tariffs, in answer to the army’s financial needs, and the imposition of control, easing the transition from occupation to possession. At least for the moment. Onearm’s Host and the Malazan Empire had parted ways, after all, yet the wizard had wondered, more than once
, at the curiously imperial responsibilities he had been tasked to complete.
Outlaws, are we? Indeed, and Hood dreams of sheep gambolling in green pastures, too.
Dujek was … waiting. Caladan Brood’s army had taken its time coming south, and had only the day before reached the plain north of Pale – Tiste Andii at its heart with mercenaries and Ilgres Barghast on one flank and the Rhivi and their massive bhederin herds on the other.
But there would be no war. Not this time.
No, by the Abyss, we’ve all decided to fight a new enemy, assuming the parley goes smoothly – and given that Darujhistan’s rulers are already negotiating with us, that seems likely. A new enemy. Some theocratic empire devouring city after city in a seemingly unstoppable wave of fanatic ferocity. The Pannion Domin – why do I have a bad feeling about this? Never mind, it’s time to find my wayward tracker …
Eyes closing, Quick Ben loosed his soul’s chains and slipped away from his body. For the moment, he could sense nothing of the innocuous waterworn pebble he’d dipped into his particular host of sorceries, so he had little choice but to fashion his search into an outward spiral, trusting in proximity to brush his senses sooner or later.
It meant proceeding blind, and if there was one thing the wizard hated—
Ah, found you!
Surprisingly close, as if he’d crossed some kind of hidden barrier. His vision showed him nothing but darkness – not a single star visible overhead – but beneath him the ground had levelled out. I’m into a warren, all right. What’s alarming is, I don’t quite recognize it. Familiar, but wrong.
He discerned a faint reddish glow ahead, rising from the ground. It coincided with the location of his tracker. The smell of sweet smoke was in the tepid air. Quick Ben’s unease deepened, but he approached the glow none the less.
The red light bled from a ragged tent, he now saw. A hide flap covered the entrance, but it hung untied. The wizard sensed nothing of what lay within.
He reached the tent, crouched down, then hesitated. Curiosity is my greatest curse, but simple acknowledgement of a flaw does not correct it. Alas. He drew the flap aside and looked inside.
A blanket-wrapped figure sat huddled against the tent’s far wall, less than three paces away, leaning over a brazier from which smoke rose in sinuous coils. Its breathing was loud, laboured. A hand that appeared to have had every one of its bones broken lifted into view and gestured. A voice rasped from beneath the hooded blanket. ‘Enter, mage. I believe I have something of yours…’
Quick Ben accessed his warrens – he could only manage seven at any one time though he possessed more. Power rippled through him in waves. He did so with reluctance – to unveil simultaneously nearly all he possessed filled him with a delicious whisper of omnipotence. Yet he knew that sensation for the dangerous, potentially fatal illusion it was.
‘You realize now,’ the figure continued between wheezing gasps, ‘that you must retrieve it. For one such as myself to hold such a link to your admirable powers, mortal—’
‘Who are you?’ the wizard asked.
‘Broken. Shattered. Chained to this fevered corpse beneath us. I did not ask for such a fate. I was not always a thing of pain…’
Quick Ben pressed a hand to the earth outside the tent, quested with his powers. After a long moment, his eyes widened, then slowly closed. ‘You have infected her.’
‘In this realm,’ the figure said, ‘I am as a cancer. And, with each passing of light, I grow yet more virulent. She cannot awaken, whilst I burgeon in her flesh.’ He shifted slightly, and from beneath the folds of filthy blanket came the rustle of heavy chain. ‘Your gods have bound me, mortal, and think the task complete.’
‘You wish a service in exchange for my tracker,’ Quick Ben said.
‘Indeed. If I must suffer, then so too must the gods and their world—’
The wizard unleashed his host of warrens. Power ripped through the tent. The figure shrieked, jerking backward. The blanket burst into flame, as did the creature’s long, tangled hair. Quick Ben darted into the tent behind the last wave of his sorcery. One hand flashed out, angled down at the wrist, palm up. His fingertips jabbed into the figure’s eye-sockets, his palm slamming into its forehead, snapping the head back. Quick Ben’s other hand reached out and unerringly scooped up the pebble as it rolled amidst the rushes.
The power of the warrens winked out. Even as the wizard pulled back, pivoted and dived for the entrance, the chained creature bellowed with rage. Quick Ben scrambled to his feet and ran.
The wave struck him from behind, sent him sprawling onto the hot, steaming ground. Screaming, the wizard writhed beneath the sorcerous onslaught. He tried to pull himself further away, but the power was too great. It began dragging him back. He clawed at the ground, stared at the furrows his fingers gouged in the earth, saw the dark blood welling from them.
Oh, Burn, forgive me.
The invisible, implacable grip pulled him closer to the tent entrance. Hunger and rage radiated from the figure within, as well as a certainty that such desires were moments from deliverance.
Quick Ben was helpless.
‘You will know such pain!’ the god roared.
Something reached up through the earth, then. A massive hand closed about the wizard, like a giant child snatching at a doll. Quick Ben screamed again as it pulled him down into the churning, steaming soil. His mouth filled with bitter earth.
A bellow of fury echoed dimly from above.
Jagged rocks ripped along the wizard’s body as he was pulled further down through the flesh of the Sleeping Goddess. Starved of air, darkness slowly closed around his mind.
Then he was coughing, spitting up mouthfuls of gritty mud. Warm, sweet air filled his lungs. He clawed dirt from his eyes, rolled onto his side. Echoing groans buffeted him, the flat, hard ground beneath him slowly buckling and shifting. Quick Ben rose to his hands and knees. Blood dripped from his soul’s torn flesh – his clothes were naught but strips – but he was alive. He looked up.
And almost cried out.
A vaguely human-shaped figure towered over him, easily fifteen times the wizard’s own height, its bulk nearly reaching the cavern’s domed ceiling. Dark flesh of clay studded with rough diamonds gleamed and glittered as the apparition shifted slightly. It seemed to be ignoring Quick Ben – though the wizard knew that it had been this beast that had saved him from the Crippled God. Its arms were raised to the ceiling directly above it, hands disappearing into the murky, red-stained roof. Vast arcs of dull white gleamed in that ceiling, evenly spaced like an endless succession of ribs. The hands appeared to be gripping or possibly were fused to two such ribs.
Just visible beyond the creature, perhaps a thousand paces down the cavern’s length, squatted another such apparition, its arms upraised as well.
Twisting, Quick Ben’s gaze travelled the opposite length of the cavern. More servants – the wizard saw four, possibly five of them – each one reaching up to the ceiling. The cavern was in fact a vast tunnel, curving in the distance.
I am indeed within Burn, the Sleeping Goddess. A living warren. Flesh, and bone. And these … servants …
‘You have my gratitude!’ he called up to the creature looming above him.
A flattened, misshapen head tilted down. Diamond eyes stared like descending stars. ‘Help us.’
The voice was childlike, filled with despair.
Quick Ben gaped. Help?
‘She weakens,’ the creature moaned. ‘Mother weakens. We die. Help us.’
‘How?’
‘Help us, please.’
‘I-I don’t know how.’
‘Help.’
Quick Ben staggered upright. The clay flesh, he now saw, was melting, running in wet streams down the giant’s thick arms. Chunks of diamond fell away. The Crippled God’s killing them, poisoning Burn’s flesh. The wizard’s thoughts raced. ‘Servant, child of Burn! How much time? Until it is too late?’
‘Not long,’ the creature
replied. ‘It nears. The moment nears.’
Panic gripped Quick Ben. ‘How close? Can you be more specific? I need to know what I can work with, friend. Please try!’
‘Very soon. Tens. Tens of years, no more. The moment nears. Help us.’
The wizard sighed. For such powers, it seemed, centuries were as but days. Even so, the enormity of the servant’s plea threatened to overwhelm him. As did the threat. What would happen if Burn dies? Beru fend, I don’t think I want to find out. All right, then, it’s my war, now. He glanced down at the mud-strewn ground around him, questing with his senses. He quickly found the tracker. ‘Servant! I will leave something here, so that I may find you again. I will find help – I promise – and I will come back to you—’
‘Not me,’ the giant said. ‘I die. Another will come. Perhaps.’ The creature’s arms had thinned, were now almost devoid of their diamond armour. ‘I die now.’ It began to sag. The red stain in the ceiling had spread to the ribs it held, and cracks had begun to show.
‘I will find an answer,’ Quick Ben whispered. ‘I swear it.’ He gestured and a warren opened. Without a last glance – lest the vision break his heart – he stepped within, and was gone.
* * *
A hand shook his shoulder incessantly. Quick Ben opened his eyes.
‘Damn you, mage,’ Picker hissed. ‘It’s almost dawn – we have to fly.’
Groaning, the wizard unfolded his legs, wincing with every move, then let the corporal help him upright.
‘Did you get it back?’ she demanded as she half carried him to the waiting quorl.
‘Get what back?’
‘That pebble.’
‘No. We’re in trouble, Picker—’
‘We’re always in trouble—’
‘No, I mean all of us.’ He dug in his heels, stared at her. ‘All of us.’
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 162