The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  Bootsteps neared, then, as Karsa watched through slitted eyes, Sergeant Cord clambered up into view and glared for a long moment at Torvald Nom. ‘You sure don’t look like a Claw…’ he finally said. ‘But maybe that’s the whole point.’

  ‘Perhaps it is.’

  Cord’s head began turning towards Karsa and the Teblor closed his eyes completely. ‘He come around yet?’

  ‘Twice. Doing nothing but drooling and making animal sounds. I think you went and damaged his brain, assuming he has one.’

  Cord grunted. ‘Might prove a good thing, so long as he doesn’t die on us. Now, where was I?’

  ‘Torvald Nom, the Claw.’

  ‘Right. OK. Even so, we’re still treating you as a bandit—until you prove to us you’re something otherwise—and so you’re off to the otataral mines with everyone else. Meaning, if you are a Claw, you’d better announce it before we leave Genabaris.’

  ‘Assuming, of course,’ Torvald smiled, ‘my assignment does not require me to assume the disguise of a prisoner in the otataral mines.’

  Cord frowned, then, hissing a curse, he dropped down from the side of the wagon.

  They heard him shout, ‘Get this damned wagon on that ferry! Now!’

  The wheels creaked into sudden motion, the oxen lowing.

  Torvald Nom sighed, leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes.

  ‘You play a deadly game,’ Karsa muttered.

  The Daru propped one eye open. ‘A game, Teblor? Indeed, but maybe not the game you think.’

  Karsa grunted his disgust.

  ‘Be not so quick to dismiss—’

  ‘I am,’ the warrior replied, as the oxen dragged the wagon onto a ramp of wooden boards. ‘My causes shall be “attempted murder, betrayal, mockery, and being one of these Claws”.’

  ‘And talking too much?’

  ‘It seems I shall have to suffer that curse.’

  Torvald slowly cocked his head, then he grinned. ‘Agreed.’

  In a strange way, the discipline of maintaining the illusion of mindlessness proved Karsa’s greatest ally in remaining sane. Days, then weeks lying supine, spread-eagled and chained down to the bed of a wagon was a torture unlike anything the Teblor could have imagined possible. Vermin crawled all over his body, covering him in bites that itched incessantly. He knew of large animals of the deep forest being driven mad by blackflies and midges, and now he understood how such an event could occur.

  He was washed down with buckets of icy water at the end of each day, and was fed by the drover guiding the wagon, an ancient foul-smelling Nathii who would crouch down beside his head with a smoke-blackened iron pot filled with some kind of thick, seed-filled stew. He used a large wooden spoon to pour the scalding, malty cereal and stringy meat into Karsa’s mouth—the Teblor’s lips, tongue and the insides of his cheeks were terribly blistered, the feedings coming too often to allow for healing.

  Meals became an ordeal, which was alleviated only when Torvald Nom talked the drover into permitting the Daru to take over the task, ensuring that the stew had cooled sufficiently before it was poured into Karsa’s mouth. The blisters were gone within a few days.

  The Teblor endeavoured to keep his muscles fit through sessions, late at night, of flexing and unflexing, but all his joints ached from immobility, and for this he could do nothing.

  At times, his discipline wavered, his thoughts travelling back to the demon he and his comrades had freed. That woman, the Forkassal, had spent an unimaginable length of time pinned beneath that massive stone. She had managed to achieve some movement, had no doubt clung to some protracted sense of progress as she clawed and scratched against the stone. Even so, Karsa could not comprehend her ability to withstand madness and the eventual death that was its conclusion.

  Thoughts of her left him humbled, his spirit weakened by his own growing frailty in these chains, in the wagon bed’s rough-hewn planks that had rubbed his skin raw, in the shame of his soiled clothes, and the simple, unbearable torment of the lice and fleas.

  Torvald took to talking to him as he would a child, or a pet. Calming words, soothing tones, and the curse of talking too much was transformed into something Karsa could hold on to, his desperate grip ever tightening.

  The words fed him, kept his spirit from starving. They measured the cycle of days and nights that passed, they taught him the language of the Malazans, they gave him an account of the places they travelled through. After Culvern Crossing, there had been a larger town, Ninsano Moat, where crowds of children had clambered onto the wagon, poking and prodding him until Shard arrived to drive them away. Another river had been crossed there. Onward to Malybridge, a town of similar proportions to Ninsano Moat, then, seventeen days later, Karsa stared up at the arched stone gateway of a city—Tanys—passing over him, and on either side, as the wagon made its rocking way down a cobbled street, huge buildings of three, even four levels. And all around, the sounds of people, more lowlanders than Karsa had thought possible.

  Tanys was a port, resting on tiered ridges rising from the east shore of the Malyn Sea, where the water was brackish with salt—such as was found in a number of springs near the Rathyd borderlands. Yet the Malyn Sea was no turgid, tiny pool; it was vast, for the journey across it to the city called Malyntaeas consumed four days and three nights.

  It was the transferring onto the ship that resulted in Karsa’s being lifted upright—unwheeled wagon bed included—for the first time, creating a new kind of torture as the chains took his full weight. His joints screamed within him and gave voice as Karsa’s shrieks filled the air, continuing without surcease until someone poured a fiery, burning liquid down his throat, enough to fill his stomach, after which his mind sank away.

  When he awoke he found that the platform that held him remained upright, strapped to what Torvald called the main mast. The Daru had been chained nearby, having assumed the responsibility for Karsa’s care.

  The ship’s healer had rubbed salves into Karsa’s swollen joints, deadening the pain. But a new agony had arrived, raging behind his eyes.

  ‘Hurting?’ Torvald Nom murmured. ‘That’s called a hangover, friend. A whole bladder of rum was poured into you, lucky bastard that you are. You heaved half of it back up, of course, but it had sufficiently worsened in the interval to enable me to refrain from licking the deck, leaving my dignity intact. Now, we both need some shade or we’ll end up fevered and raving—and believe me, you’ve done enough raving for both of us already. Fortunately in your Teblor tongue, which few if any aboard understand. Aye, we’ve parted ways with Captain Kindly and his soldiers, for the moment. They’re crossing on another ship. By the way, who is Dayliss? No, don’t tell me. You’ve made quite a list of rather horrible things you’ve got planned for this Dayliss, whoever he or she is. Anyway, you should have your sea-legs by the time we dock in Malyntaeas, which should prepare you somewhat for the horrors of Meningalle Ocean. I hope.

  ‘Hungry?’

  The crew, mostly Malazans, gave Karsa’s position wide berth. The other prisoners had been locked below, but the wagon bed had proved too large for the cargo hatch, and Captain Kindly had been firm on his instructions not to release Karsa, in any circumstances, despite his apparent feeble-mindedness. Not a sign of scepticism, Torvald had explained in a whisper, just the captain’s legendary sense of caution, which was reputedly extreme even for a soldier. The illusion seemed to have, in fact, succeeded—Karsa had been bludgeoned into a harmless ox, devoid of any glimmer of intelligence in his dull eyes, his endless, ghastly smile evincing permanent incomprehension. A giant, once warrior, now less than a child, comforted only by the shackled bandit, Torvald Nom, and his incessant chatter.

  ‘Eventually, they’ll have to unchain you from that wagon bed,’ the Daru once muttered in the darkness as the ship rolled on towards Malyntaeas. ‘But maybe not until we arrive at the mines. You’ll just have to hold on, Karsa Orlong—assuming you’re still pretending you’ve lost your mind, and these days I
admit you’ve got even me convinced. You are still sane, aren’t you?’

  Karsa voiced a soft grunt, though at times he himself was unsure. Some days had been lost entirely, simply blank patches in his memory—more frightening than anything else he’d yet to experience. Hold on? He did not know if he could.

  The city of Malyntaeas had the appearance of having been three separate cities at one time. It was midday when the ship drew into the harbour, and from his position against the main mast Karsa’s view was mostly unobstructed. Three enormous stone fortifications commanded three distinct rises in the land, the centre one set back further from the shoreline than the other two. Each possessed its own peculiar style of architecture. The keep to the left was squat, robust and unimaginative, built of a golden, almost orange limestone that looked marred and stained in the sunlight. The centre fortification, hazy through the woodsmoke rising from the maze of streets and houses filling the lower tiers between the hills, appeared older, more decrepit, and had been painted—walls, domes and towers—in a faded red wash. The fortification on the right was built on the very edge of the coastal cliff, the sea below roiling amidst tumbled rocks and boulders, the cliff itself rotted, pock-marked and battle-scarred. Ship-launched projectiles had battered the keep’s sloped walls at some time in the past; deep cracks radiated from the wounds, and one of the square towers had slumped and shifted and now leaned precariously outward. Yet a row of pennants fluttered beyond the wall.

  Around each keep, down the slopes and in the flat, lowest stretches, buildings crowded every available space, mimicking its particular style. Borders were marked by wide streets, winding inland, where one style faced the other down their crooked lengths.

  Three tribes had settled here, Karsa concluded as the ship eased its way through the crowds of fisherboats and traders in the bay.

  Torvald Nom rose to his feet in a rustle of chains, scratching vigorously at his snarled beard. His eyes glittered as he gazed at the city. ‘Malyntaeas,’ he sighed. ‘Nathii, Genabarii and Korhivi, side by side by side. And what keeps them from each other’s throats? Naught but the Malazan overlord and three companies from the Ashok Regiment. See that half-ruined keep over there, Karsa? That’s from the war between the Nathii and the Korhivi. The whole Nathii fleet filled this bay, flinging stones at the walls, and they were so busy with trying to kill each other that they didn’t even notice when the Malazan forces arrived. Dujek Onearm, three legions from the 2nd, the Bridgeburners, and two High Mages. That’s all Dujek had, and by day’s end the Nathii fleet was on the bay’s muddy bottom, the Genabarii royal line holed up in their blood-red castle were all dead, and the Korhivi keep had capitulated.’

  The ship was approaching a berth alongside a broad, stone pier, sailors scampering about on all sides.

  Torvald was smiling. ‘All well and good, you might be thinking. The forceful imposition of peace and all that. Only, the city’s Fist is about to lose two of his three companies. Granted, replacements are supposedly on the way. But when? From where? How many? See what happens, my dear Teblor, when your tribe gets too big? Suddenly, the simplest things become ungainly, unmanageable. Confusion seeps in like fog, and everyone gropes blind and dumb.’

  A voice cackled from slightly behind and to Karsa’s left. A bandy-legged, bald officer stepped into view, his eyes on the berth closing ahead, a sour grin twisting his mouth. In Nathii, he said, ‘The bandit chief pontificates on politics, speaking from experience no doubt, what with having to manage a dozen unruly highwaymen. And why are you telling this brainless fool, anyway? Ah, of course, a captive and uncomplaining audience.’

  ‘Well, there is that,’ Torvald conceded. ‘You are the First Mate? I was wondering, sir, about how long we’d be staying here in Malyntaeas—’

  ‘You were wondering, were you? Fine, allow me to explain the course of events for the next day or two. One. No prisoners leave this ship. Two. We pick up six squads of the 2nd Company. Three, we sail on to Genabaris. You’re then shipped off and I’m done with you.’

  ‘I sense a certain unease in you, sir,’ Torvald said. ‘Have you security concerns regarding fair Malyntaeas?’

  The man’s head slowly turned. He regarded the Daru for a moment, then grunted. ‘You’re the one might be a Claw. Well, if you are, add this to your damned report. There’s Crimson Guard in Malyntaeas, stirring up the Korhivi. The shadows ain’t safe, and it’s getting so bad that the patrols don’t go anywhere unless there’s two squads at the minimum. And now two-thirds of them are being sent home. The situation in Malyntaeas is about to get very unsettled.’

  ‘The Empress would certainly be remiss to discount the opinions of her officers,’ Torvald replied.

  The First Mate’s eyes narrowed. ‘She would at that.’

  He then strode ahead, bellowing at a small group of sailors who’d run out of things to do.

  Torvald tugged at his beard, glanced over at Karsa and winked. ‘Crimson Guard. That’s troubling indeed. For the Malazans, that is.’

  Days vanished. Karsa became aware once again as the wagon bed pitched wildly under him. His joints were afire, as his weight was shifted, chains snapping taut to jolt his limbs. He was being wheeled through the air, suspended from a pulley beneath a creaking framework of beams. Ropes whipped about, voices shouting from below. Overhead, seagulls glided above masts and rigging. Figures clung to that rigging, staring down at the Teblor.

  The pulley squealed, and Karsa watched the sailors get smaller. Hands gripped the bed’s edges on all sides, steadying it. The end nearest his feet dropped further, drawing him slowly upright.

  He saw before him the mid-and foredecks of a huge ship, over which swarmed haulers and stevedores, sailors and soldiers. Supplies were piled everywhere, the bundles being shifted below decks through gaping hatches.

  The bed’s bottom end scraped the deck. Shouts, a flurry of activity, and the Teblor felt the bed lifted slightly, swinging free once more, then it was lowered again, and this time Karsa could both hear and feel the top edge thump against the main mast. Ropes were drawn through chains to bind the platform in place. Workers stepped away, then, staring up at Karsa.

  Who smiled.

  Torvald’s voice came from one side, ‘Aye, it’s a ghastly smile, but he’s harmless, I assure you all. No need for concern, unless of course you happen to be a superstitious lot—’

  There was a solid crack and Torvald Nom’s body sprawled down in front of Karsa. Blood poured from his shattered nose. The Daru blinked stupidly, but made no move to rise. A large figure strode to stand over Torvald. Not tall, but wide, and his skin was dusky blue. He glared down at the bandit chief, then studied the ring of silent sailors facing him.

  ‘It’s called sticking the knife in and twisting,’ he growled in Malazan. ‘And he got every damned one of you.’ He turned and studied Torvald Nom once more. ‘Another stab like that one, prisoner, and I’ll see your tongue cut out and nailed to the mast. And if there’s any other kind of trouble from you or this giant here, I’ll chain you up there beside him then toss the whole damned thing overboard. Nod if you understand me.’

  Wiping the blood from his face, Torvald Nom jerked his head in assent.

  The blue-skinned man swung his hard gaze up to Karsa. ‘Wipe that smile off your face or a knife will kiss it,’ he said. ‘You don’t need lips to eat and the other miners won’t care either way.’

  Karsa’s empty smile remained fixed.

  The man’s face darkened. ‘You heard me…’

  Torvald raised a hesitant hand, ‘Captain, sir, if you will. He does not understand you—his brain is addled.’

  ‘Bosun!’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Gag the bastard.’

  ‘Aye, Captain.’

  A salt-crusted rag was quickly wrapped about Karsa’s lower face, making it difficult to breathe.

  ‘Don’t suffocate him, you idiots.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  The knots were loosened, the cloth pulled down to b
eneath his nose.

  The captain wheeled. ‘Now, what in Mael’s name are you all standing around for?’

  As the workers all scattered, the captain thumping away, Torvald slowly climbed to his feet. ‘Sorry, Karsa,’ he mumbled through split lips. ‘I’ll get that off you, I promise. It may take a little time, alas. And when I do, friend, please, don’t be smiling…’

  Why have you come to me, Karsa Orlong, son of Synyg, grandson of Pahlk?

  One presence, and six. Faces that might have been carved from rock, barely visible through a swirling haze. One, and six.

  ‘I am before you, Urugal,’ Karsa said, a truth that left him confused.

  You are not. Only your mind, Karsa Orlong. It has fled your mortal prison.

  ‘Then, I have failed you, Urugal.’

  Failed. Yes. You have abandoned us and so in turn we must abandon you. We must seek another, one of greater strength. One who does not accept surrender. One who does not flee. In you, Karsa Orlong, our faith was misplaced.

  The haze thickened, dull colours flashing through it. He found himself standing atop a hill that shifted and crunched beneath him. Chains stretched out from his wrists, down the slopes on all sides. Hundreds of chains, reaching out into the rainbow mists, and at the unseen ends of each one, there was movement. Looking down, Karsa saw bones beneath his feet. Teblor. Lowlander. The entire hill was naught but bones.

  The chains slackened suddenly.

  Movement in the mists, drawing closer from every direction.

  Terror surged through Karsa.

  Corpses, many of them headless, staggered into view. The chains that held the horrifying creatures to Karsa penetrated their chests through gaping holes. Withered, long-nailed hands reached towards him. Stumbling on the slopes, the apparitions began climbing.

  Karsa struggled, seeking to flee, but he was surrounded. The very bones at his feet held him fast, clattering and shifting tighter about his ankles.