The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  ‘Nothing of what follows will impugn your honour, Captain,’ the Adjunct replied, her gaze unwavering on Pearl. She added nothing more.

  The Claw half smiled then. ‘Ah, now you’ve made me curious. I delight in being curious, did you know that? You fear that I will bargain my way back into Laseen’s favour, for the mission you would propose to the captain and me is, to be precise, not on behalf of the Empress, nor, indeed, of the empire. An extraordinary departure from the role of Imperial Adjunct. Unprecedented, in fact.’

  Gamet took a step forward, ‘Adjunct—’

  She raised a hand to cut him off. ‘Pearl, the task I would set to you and the captain may well contribute, ultimately, to the well-being of the empire—’

  ‘Oh well,’ the Claw smiled, ‘that is what a good imagination is for, isn’t it? One can scrape patterns in the blood no matter how dried it’s become. I admit to no small skill in attributing sound justification for whatever I’ve just done. By all means, proceed—’

  ‘Not yet!’ Lostara Yil snapped, her exasperation plain. ‘In serving the Adjunct I expect to serve the empire. She is the will of the Empress. No other considerations are permitted her—’

  ‘You speak true,’ Tavore said. She faced Pearl again. ‘Claw, how fares the Talon?’

  Pearl’s eyes went wide and he almost rocked back a step. ‘They no longer exist,’ he whispered.

  The Adjunct frowned. ‘Disappointing. We are all, at the moment, in a precarious position. If you are to expect honesty from me, then can I not do so in return?’

  ‘They remain,’ Pearl muttered, distaste twisting his features. ‘Like bot-fly larvae beneath the imperial hide. When we probe, they simply dig deeper.’

  ‘They none the less serve a certain…function,’ Tavore said. ‘Unfortunately, not as competently as I would have hoped.’

  ‘The Talons have found support among the nobility?’ Pearl asked, a sheen of sweat now visible on his high brow.

  The Adjunct’s shrug was almost indifferent. ‘Does that surprise you?’

  Gamet could almost see the Claw’s thoughts racing. Racing on, and on, his expression growing ever more astonished and…dismayed. ‘Name him,’ he said.

  ‘Baudin.’

  ‘He was assassinated in Quon—’

  ‘The father was. Not the son.’

  Pearl suddenly began pacing in the small chamber. ‘And this son, how much like the bastard who spawned him? Baudin Elder left Claw corpses scattered in alleys throughout the city. The hunt lasted four entire nights…’

  ‘I had reason to believe,’ Tavore said, ‘that he was worthy of his father’s name.’

  Pearl’s head turned. ‘But no longer?’

  ‘I cannot say. I believe, however, that his mission has gone terribly wrong.’

  The name slipped from Gamet’s lips unbidden but with a certainty heavy as an anchor-stone: ‘Felisin.’

  He saw the wince in Tavore’s face, before she turned away from all three of them to study one of the tapestries.

  Pearl seemed far ahead in his thoughts. ‘When was contact lost, Adjunct? And where?’

  ‘The night of the Uprising,’ she replied, her back to them still. ‘The mining camp called Skullcup. But there had been a…a loss of control for some weeks before then.’ She gestured at the scroll on the table. ‘Details, potential contacts. Burn the scroll once you have completed reading it, and scatter the ashes in the bay.’ She faced them suddenly. ‘Pearl. Captain Lostara Yil. Find Felisin. Find my sister.’

  The roar of the mob rose and fell in the city beyond the estate’s walls. It was the Season of Rot in Unta, and, in the minds of thousands of denizens, that rot was being excised. The dreaded Cull had begun.

  Captain Gamet stood by the gatehouse, flanked by three nervous guards. The estate’s torches had been doused, the house behind them dark, its windows shuttered. And within that massive structure huddled the last child of Paran, her parents gone since the arrests earlier that day, her brother lost and presumably dead on a distant continent, her sister—her sister…madness had come once again to the empire, with the fury of a tropical storm…

  Gamet had but twelve guards, and three of those had been hired in the last few days, when the stillness of the air in the streets had whispered to the captain that the horror was imminent. No proclamations had been issued, no imperial edict to fire-lick the commoners’ greed and savagery into life. There were but rumours, racing through the city’s streets, alleys and market rounds like dust-devils. ‘The Empress is displeased.’ ‘Behind the rot of the imperial army’s incompetent command, you will find the face of the nobility.’ ‘The purchase of commissions is a plague threatening the entire empire. Is it any wonder the Empress is displeased?’

  A company of Red Blades had arrived from Seven Cities. Cruel killers, incorruptible and far removed from the poison of noble coin. It was not difficult to imagine the reason behind their appearance.

  The first wave of arrests had been precise, almost understated. Squads in the dead of night. There had been no skirmishes with house guards, no estates forewarned to purchase time to raise barricades, or even flee the city.

  And Gamet thought he knew how such a thing came to pass.

  Tavore was now the Adjunct to the Empress. Tavore knew…her kind.

  The captain sighed, then strode forward to the small inset door at the gate. He drew the heavy bolt, let the iron bar drop with a clank. He faced the three guards. ‘Your services are no longer required. In the murder hole you’ll find your pay.’

  Two of the three armoured men exchanged a glance, then, one of them shrugging, they walked to the door. The third man had not moved. Gamet recalled that he’d given his name as Kollen—a Quon name and a Quon accent. He had been hired more for his imposing presence than anything else, though Gamet’s practised eye had detected a certain…confidence, in the way the man wore his armour, seemingly indifferent to its weight, hinting at a martial grace that belonged only to a professional soldier. He knew next to nothing of Kollen’s past, but these were desperate times, and in any case none of the three new hirelings had been permitted into the house itself.

  In the gloom beneath the gatehouse lintel, Gamet now studied the motionless guard. Through the tidal roar of the rampaging mob that drew ever closer came shrill screams, lifting into the night a despairing chorus. ‘Make this easy, Kollen,’ he said quietly. ‘There are four of my men twenty paces behind you, crossbows cocked and fixed on your back.’

  The huge man tilted his head. ‘Nine of you. In less than a quarter-bell several hundred looters and murderers will come calling.’ He slowly looked around, as if gauging the estate’s walls, the modest defences, then returned his steady gaze to Gamet.

  The captain scowled. ‘No doubt you would have made it even easier for them. As it is, we might bloody their noses enough to encourage them to seek somewhere else.’

  ‘No, you won’t, Captain. Things will simply get…messier.’

  ‘Is this how the Empress simplifies matters, Kollen? An unlocked gate. Loyal guards cut down from behind. Have you honed your knife for my back?’

  ‘I am not here at the behest of the Empress, Captain.’

  Gamet’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘No harm is to come to her,’ the man went on after a moment. ‘Provided I have your full co-operation. But we are running out of time.’

  ‘This is Tavore’s answer? What of her parents? There was nothing to suggest that their fate would be any different from that of the others who’d been rounded up.’

  ‘Alas, the Adjunct’s options are limited. She is under some…scrutiny.’

  ‘What is planned for Felisin, Kollen—or whoever you are?’

  ‘A brief stint in the otataral mines—’

  ‘What!?’

  ‘She will not be entirely alone. A guardian will accompany her. Understand, Captain, it is this, or the mob outside.’

  Nine loyal guards cut down, blood on the floors and walls, a handful of servants o
verwhelmed at flimsy barricades outside the child’s bedroom door. Then, for the child…no-one. ‘Who is this “guardian”, then, Kollen?’

  The man smiled. ‘Me, Captain. And no, my true name is not Kollen.’

  Gamet stepped up to him, until their faces were but a hand’s width apart. ‘If any harm comes to her, I will find you. And I don’t care if you’re a Claw—’

  ‘I am not a Claw, Captain. As for harm coming to Felisin, I regret to say that there will be some. It cannot be helped. We must hope she is resilient—it is a Paran trait, yes?’

  After a long moment, Gamet stepped back, suddenly resigned. ‘Do you kill us now or later?’

  The man’s brows rose. ‘I doubt I could manage that, given those crossbows levelled behind me. No, but I am to ask that you now escort me to a safe house. At all costs, we must not permit the child to fall into the mob’s hands. Can I rely upon your help in this, Captain?’

  ‘Where is this safe house?’

  ‘On the Avenue of Souls…’

  Gamet grimaced. Judgement’s Round. To the chains. Oh, Beru guard you, lass. He strode past Kollen. ‘I will awaken her.’

  Pearl stood at the round table, leaning on both hands, his head lowered as he studied the scroll. The Adjunct had departed half a bell past, her Fist on her heels like a misshapen shadow. Lostara waited, arms crossed, with her back against the door through which Tavore and Gamet had left. She had held silent during the length of Pearl’s perusal of the scroll, her anger and frustration growing with each passing moment.

  Finally, she’d had enough. ‘I will have no part of this. Return me to Tene Baralta’s command.’

  Pearl did not look up. ‘As you wish, my dear,’ he murmured, then added: ‘Of course I will have to kill you at some point—certainly before you report to your commander. It’s the hard rules of clandestine endeavours, I regret to say.’

  ‘Since when are you at the Adjunct’s beck and call, Pearl?’

  ‘Why,’ he glanced up and met her gaze, ‘ever since she unequivocally reasserted her loyalty to the Empress, of course.’ He returned his attention to the scroll.

  Lostara scowled. ‘I’m sorry, I think I missed that part of the conversation.’

  ‘Not surprising,’ Pearl replied, ‘since it resided in between the words actually spoken.’ He smiled at her. ‘Precisely where it belonged.’

  With a hiss, Lostara began pacing, struggled against an irrational desire to take a knife blade to these damned tapestries and their endless scenes of past glories. ‘You will have to explain, Pearl,’ she growled.

  ‘And will that relieve your conscience sufficiently to return you to my side? Very well. The resurgence of the noble class in the chambers of imperial power has been uncommonly swift. Indeed, one might say unnaturally so. Almost as if they were receiving help—but who? we wondered. Oh, absurd rumours of the return of the Talons persisted. And every now and then some poor fool who’d been arrested for something completely unrelated went and confessed to being a Talon, but they were young, caught up in romantic notions and the lure of cults and whatnot. They might well call themselves Talons, but they did not even come close to the real organization, to Dancer’s own—of which many of us Claw possessed firsthand experience.

  ‘In any case, back to the matter at hand. Tavore is of noble blood, and it’s now clear that a truly covert element of Talons has returned to plague us, and has been making use of the nobility. Placing sympathetic agents in the military and administration—a mutually profitable infiltration. But Tavore is now the Adjunct, and as such, her old ties, her old loyalties, must needs be severed.’ Pearl paused to tap a finger on the laid-out scroll before him. ‘She has given us the Talons, Captain. We will find this Baudin Younger, and from him we will unravel the entire organization.’

  Lostara said nothing for a long moment. ‘In a sense, then,’ she said, ‘our mission is not extraneous to the interests of the empire after all.’

  Pearl flashed a smile.

  ‘But if so,’ Lostara continued, ‘why didn’t the Adjunct just say so?’

  ‘Oh, I think we can leave that question unanswered for the time being—’

  ‘No, I would have it answered now!’

  Pearl sighed. ‘Because, my dear, for Tavore, the surrendering of the Talons is secondary to our finding Felisin. And that is extraneous, and not only extraneous, but also damning. Do you think the Empress would smile upon this clever little scheme, the lie behind this all-too-public demonstration of the new Adjunct’s loyalty? Sending her sister to the otataral mines! Hood take us all, that’s a hard woman! The Empress has chosen well, has she not?’

  Lostara grimaced. Chosen well…based on what, though? ‘Indeed she has.’

  ‘Aye, I agree. It’s a fair exchange in any case—we save Felisin and are rewarded with a principal agent of the Talons. The Empress will no doubt wonder what we were doing out on the Otataral Isle in the first place—’

  ‘You will have to lie to her, won’t you?’

  Pearl’s smile broadened. ‘We both will, lass. As would the Adjunct, and Fist Gamet if it came to that. Unless, of course, I take what the Adjunct has offered me. Offered me personally, that is.’

  Lostara slowly nodded. ‘You are at a loose end. Yes. Out of favour with the Clawmaster and the Empress. Eager to make reparations. An independent mission—you somehow latched onto the rumour of a true Talon, and set off on his trail. Thus, the credit for unravelling the Talons is to be yours, and yours alone.’

  ‘Or ours,’ Pearl corrected. ‘If you so desire.’

  She shrugged. ‘We can decide that later. Very well, Pearl. Now,’ she moved to his side, ‘what are these details with which the Adjunct has so kindly provided us?’

  Admiral Nok had been facing the hearth, his gaze on its cold ashes. At the sound of the door opening, he slowly turned, his expression as impassive as ever.

  ‘Thank you,’ the Adjunct said, ‘for your patience.’

  The admiral said nothing, his level gaze shifting to Gamet for a moment.

  The midnight bell’s muted echoes were only now fading. The Fist was exhausted, feeling fragile and scattered, unable to meet Nok’s eyes for very long. This night, he’d been little more than the Adjunct’s pet, or worse, a familiar. Tacitly conjoined with her plans within plans, bereft of even so much as the illusion of a choice. When Tavore had first drawn him into her entourage—shortly after Felisin’s arrest—Gamet had briefly considered slipping away, vanishing in the time-honoured tradition of Malazan soldiers who found themselves in unwelcome circumstances. But he hadn’t, and his reasons for joining the Adjunct’s core of advisers—not that they were ever invited to advise—had, upon ruthless self-reflection, proved less than laudable. He had been driven by macabre curiosity. Tavore had ordered the arrests of her parents, had sent her younger sister into the horrors of the otataral mines. For her career’s sake. Her brother, Paran, had in some way been disgraced on Genabackis. He had subsequently deserted. An embarrassment, granted, but surely not sufficient to warrant Tavore’s reaction. Unless…There were rumours that the lad had been an agent of Adjunct Lorn’s, and that his desertion had led, ultimately, to the woman’s death in Darujhistan. Yet, if that were true, then why did the Empress turn her royal gaze upon another child of the House of Paran? Why make Tavore the new Adjunct?

  ‘Fist Gamet.’

  He blinked. ‘Adjunct?’

  ‘Seat yourself, please. I would have some final words with you, but they can wait for the time being.’

  Nodding, Gamet glanced around until he spied the lone high-backed chair set against one of the small room’s walls. It looked anything but comfortable, which was probably an advantage, given his weariness. Ominous creaks sounded when he settled into the chair and he grimaced. ‘No wonder Pormqual didn’t send this one off with all the rest,’ he muttered.

  ‘It is my understanding,’ Nok said, ‘that the transport ship in question sank in the harbour of Malaz City, taking the late High Fist’s lo
ot with it.’

  Gamet’s wiry brows rose. ‘All that way…just to sink in the harbour? What happened?’

  The admiral shrugged. ‘None of the crew reached the shore to tell the tale.’

  None?

  Nok seemed to note his scepticism, for he elaborated, ‘Malaz Harbour is well known for its sharks. A number of dories were found, all awash but otherwise empty.’

  The Adjunct had, uncharacteristically, been permitting the exchange to continue, leading Gamet to wonder if Tavore had sensed a hidden significance to the mysterious loss of the transport ship. Now she spoke. ‘It remains, then, a peculiar curse—unexplained founderings, empty dories, lost crews. Malaz Harbour is indeed notorious for its sharks, particularly since they seem uniquely capable of eating victims whole, leaving no remnants whatsoever.’

  ‘There are sharks that can do just that,’ Nok replied. ‘I know of at least twelve ships on the muddy bottom of the harbour in question—’

  ‘Including the Twisted,’ the Adjunct drawled, ‘the old emperor’s flagship, which mysteriously slipped its moorings the night after the assassinations, then promptly plummeted into the deeps, taking its resident demon with it.’

  ‘Perhaps it likes company,’ Nok observed. ‘The island’s fishermen all swear the harbour’s haunted, after all. The frequency with which nets are lost—’

  ‘Admiral,’ Tavore cut in, her eyes resting on the dead hearth, ‘there is you, and three others. All who are left.’

  Gamet slowly straightened in his chair. Three others. High Mage Tayschrenn, Dujek Onearm, and Whiskeyjack. Four…gods, is that all now? Tattersail, Bellurdan, Nightchill, Duiker…so many fallen—

  Admiral Nok was simply studying the Adjunct. He had stood against the wrath of the Empress, first with Cartheron Crust’s disappearance, then Urko’s and Ameron’s. Whatever answers he had given, he had done so long ago.

  ‘I do not speak for the Empress,’ Tavore said after a moment. ‘Nor am I interested in…details. What interests me is…a matter of personal…curiosity. I would seek to understand, Admiral, why they abandoned her.’