The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  But he remembered the expression on the young face of Onos T’oolan, when he had first looked upon the painting of his sister. Wonder and awe, and a resurgence of an abiding love—Onrack was certain that he had seen such in the First Sword’s face, was certain that others had, as well, though of course none spoke of it. The law had been broken, and would be answered with severity.

  He never knew if Kilava had herself gone to see the painting; had never known if she had been angered, or had seen sufficient to understand the blood of his own heart that had gone into that image.

  But that is the last memory I now come to.

  ‘Your silences,’ Trull Sengar muttered, ‘always send shivers through me, T’lan Imass.’

  ‘The night before the Ritual,’ Onrack replied. ‘Not far from this place where we now stand. I was to have been banished from my tribe. I had committed a crime to which there was no other answer. Instead, events eclipsed the clans. Four Jaghut tyrants had risen and had formed a compact. They sought to destroy this land—as indeed they have.’

  The Tiste Edur said nothing, perhaps wondering what, precisely, had been destroyed. Along the river there were irrigation ditches, and strips of rich green crops awaiting the season’s turn. Roads and farmsteads, the occasional temple, and only to the southwest, along that horizon, did the broken ridge of treeless bluffs mar the scene.

  ‘I was in the cavern—in the place of my crime,’ Onrack continued after a moment. ‘In darkness, of course. My last night, I’d thought, among my own kind. Though in truth I was already alone, driven from the camp to this final place of solitude. And then someone came. A touch. A body, warm. Soft beyond belief—no, not my wife, she had been among the first to shun me, for what I had done, for the betrayal it had meant. No, a woman unknown to me in the darkness…’

  Was it her? I will never know. She was gone in the morning, gone from all of us, even as the Ritual was proclaimed and the clans gathered. She defied the call—no, more horrible yet, she had killed her own kin, all but Onos himself. He had managed to drive her off—the truest measure of his extraordinary martial prowess.

  Was it her? Was there blood unseen on her hands? That dried, crumbled powder I found on my own skin—which I’d thought had come from the overturned bowl of paint. Fled from Onos…to me, in my shameful cave.

  And who did I hear in the passage beyond? In the midst of our lovemaking, did someone come upon us and see what I myself could not?

  ‘You need say no more, Onrack,’ Trull said softly.

  True. And were I mortal flesh, you would see me weep, and thus say what you have just said. Thus, my grief is not lost to your eyes, Trull Sengar. And yet still you ask why I proclaimed my vow…

  ‘The trail of the renegades is…fresh,’ Onrack said after a moment.

  Trull half smiled. ‘And you enjoy killing.’

  ‘Artistry finds new forms, Edur. It defies being silenced.’ The T’lan Imass slowly turned to face him. ‘Of course, changes have come to us. I am no longer free to pursue this hunt…unless you wish the same.’

  Trull grimaced, scanned the lands to the southwest. ‘Well, it’s not as inviting a prospect as it once was, I’ll grant you. But, Onrack, these renegades are agents in the betrayal of my people, and I mean to discover as much as I can of their role. Thus, we must find them.’

  ‘And speak with them.’

  ‘Speak with them first, aye, and then you can kill them.’

  ‘I no longer believe I am capable of that, Trull Sengar. I am too badly damaged. Even so, Monok Ochem and Ibra Gholan are pursuing us. They will suffice.’

  The Tiste Edur’s head had turned at this. ‘Just the two of them? You are certain?’

  ‘My powers are diminished, but yes, I believe so.’

  ‘How close?’

  ‘It does not matter. They withhold their desire for vengeance against me…so that I might lead them to those they have hunted from the very beginning.’

  ‘They suspect you will join the renegades, don’t they?’

  ‘Broken kin. Aye, they do.’

  ‘And will you?’

  Onrack studied the Tiste Edur for a moment. ‘Only if you do, Trull Sengar.’

  They were at the very edge of cultivated land, and so it was relatively easy to avoid contact with any of the local residents. The lone road they crossed was empty of life in both directions for as far as they could see. Beyond the irrigated fields, the rugged natural landscape reasserted itself. Tufts of grasses, sprawls of water-smoothed gravel tracking down dry gulches and ravines, the occasional guldindha tree.

  The hills ahead were saw-toothed, the facing side clawed into near cliffs.

  Those hills were where the T’lan Imass had broken the ice sheets, the first place of defiance. To protect the holy sites, the hidden caves, the flint quarries. Where, now, the weapons of the fallen were placed.

  Weapons these renegades would reclaim. There was no provenance to the sorcery investing those stone blades, at least with respect to Tellann. They would feed the ones who held them, provided they were kin to the makers—or indeed made by those very hands long ago. Imass, then, since the art among the mortal peoples was long lost. Also, finding those weapons would give the renegades their final freedom, severing the power of Tellann from their bodies.

  ‘You spoke of betraying your clan,’ Trull Sengar said as they approached the hills. ‘These seem to be old memories, Onrack.’

  ‘Perhaps we are destined to repeat our crimes, Trull Sengar. Memories have returned to me—all that I had thought lost. I do not know why.’

  ‘The severing of the Ritual?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘What was your crime?’

  ‘I trapped a woman in time. Or so it seemed. I painted her likeness in a sacred cave. It is now my belief that, in so doing, I was responsible for the terrible murders that followed, for her leaving the clan. She could not join in the Ritual that made us immortal, for by my hand she had already become so. Did she know this? Was this the reason for her defying Logros and the First Sword? There are no answers to that. What madness stole her mind, so that she would kill her closest kin, so that, indeed, she would seek to kill the First Sword himself, her own brother?’

  ‘A woman not your mate, then.’

  ‘No. She was a bonecaster. A Soletaken.’

  ‘Yet you loved her.’

  A lopsided shrug. ‘Obsession is its own poison, Trull Sengar.’

  A narrow goat trail led up into the range, steep and winding in its ascent. They began climbing.

  ‘I would object,’ the Tiste Edur said, ‘to this notion of being doomed to repeat our mistakes, Onrack. Are no lessons learned? Does not experience lead to wisdom?’

  ‘Trull Sengar. I have just betrayed Monok Ochem and Ibra Gholan. I have betrayed the T’lan Imass, for I chose not to accept my fate. Thus, the same crime as the one I committed long ago. I have always hungered for solitude from my kind. In the realm of the Nascent, I was content. As I was in the sacred caves that lie ahead.’

  ‘Content? And now, at this moment?’

  Onrack was silent for a time. ‘When memories have returned, Trull Sengar, solitude is an illusion, for every silence is filled by a clamorous search for meaning.’

  ‘You’re sounding more…mortal with every day that passes, friend.’

  ‘Flawed, you mean.’

  The Tiste Edur grunted. ‘Even so. Yet look at what you are doing right now, Onrack.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Trull Sengar paused on the trail and looked at the T’lan Imass. His smile was sad. ‘You’re returning home.’

  A short distance away were camped the Tiste Liosan. Battered, but alive. Which was, Malachar reflected, at least something.

  Strange stars gleamed overhead, their light wavering, as if brimming with tears. The landscape stretching out beneath them seemed a lifeless wasteland of weathered rock and sand.

  The fire they had built in the lee of a humped mesa had drawn strange mo
ths the size of small birds, as well as a host of other flying creatures, including winged lizards. A swarm of flies had descended on them earlier, biting viciously before vanishing as quickly as they had come. And now, those bites seemed to crawl, as if the insects had left something behind.

  There was, to Malachar’s mind, an air of…unwelcome to this realm. He scratched at one of the lumps on his arm, hissed as he felt something squirm beneath the hot skin. Turning back to the fire, he studied his seneschal.

  Jorrude knelt beside the hearth, head lowered—a position that had not changed in some time—and Malachar’s disquiet deepened. Enias squatted close by the seneschal, ready to move if yet another fit of anguish overwhelmed his master, but those disturbing sessions were arriving ever less frequently. Orenas remained guarding the horses, and Malachar knew he stood with sword drawn in the darkness beyond the fire’s light.

  There would be an accounting one day, he knew, with the T’lan Imass. The Tiste Liosan had proceeded with the ritual in good faith. They had been too open. Never trust a corpse. Malachar did not know if such a warning was found in the sacred text of Osric’s Visions. If not, he would see that it was added to the collected wisdom of the Tiste Liosan. When we return. If we return.

  Jorrude slowly straightened. His face was ravaged with grief. ‘The Guardian is dead,’ he announced. ‘Our realm is assailed, but our brothers and sisters have been warned and even now ride out to the gates. The Tiste Liosan will hold. Until Osric’s return, we shall hold.’ He slowly swung to face each of them in turn, including Orenas who silently appeared out of the gloom. ‘For us, another task. The one we were assigned to complete. On this realm, somewhere, we will find the trespassers. The thieves of the Fire. I have quested, and they have never been closer to my senses. They are in this world, and we shall find them.’

  Malachar waited, for he knew there was more.

  Jorrude then smiled. ‘My brothers. We know nothing of this place. But that is a disadvantage that will prove temporary, for I have also sensed the presence of an old friend to the Tiste Liosan. Not far away. We shall seek him out—our first task—and ask him to acquaint us with the rigours of this land.’

  ‘Who is this old friend, Seneschal?’ Enias asked.

  ‘The Maker of Time, Brother Enias.’

  Malachar slowly nodded. A friend of the Tiste Liosan indeed. Slayer of the Ten Thousand. Icarium.

  ‘Orenas,’ Jorrude said, ‘prepare our horses.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Seven faces in the rock

  Six faces turned to the Teblor

  One remains Unfound

  Mother to the tribe of ghosts—

  the Teblor children

  we were told

  to turn away

  MOTHER’S PRAYER OF GIVING

  AMONG THE TEBLOR

  Karsa Orlong was no stranger to stone. Raw copper gouged from outcroppings, tin and their mating that was bronze, such materials had their place. But wood and stone were the words of the hands, the sacred shaping of will.

  Parallel flakes, long and thin, translucent slivers punched away from the blade, leaving ripples reaching across, from edge to wavy spine. Smaller flakes removed from the twin edges, first one side, then flipping the blade over between blows, back and forth, all the way up the length.

  To fight with such a weapon would demand changes to the style with which Karsa was most familiar. Wood flexed, slid with ease over shield rims, skipped effortlessly along out-thrust sword-blades. This flint sword’s serrated edges would behave differently, and he would have to adjust, especially given its massive weight and length.

  The handle proved the most challenging. Flint did not welcome roundness, and the less angular the handle became, the less stable the striking platforms. For the pommel he worked the stone into a step-fractured, oversized diamond shape—the nearly right-angled step-fractures would normally be viewed as dangerous flaws, inviting a focus for shattering energies, but the gods had promised to make the weapon unbreakable, so Karsa dismissed his instinctive worry. He would wait until he found suitable materials for a cross-hilt.

  He had no idea how much time passed during his making of the sword. All other considerations vanished for him—he felt no hunger, no thirst, and did not notice as the walls of the cavern grew slick with condensation, as the temperature ever rose, until both he and the stone were sheathed in sweat. He was also unmindful of the fire in the boulder-lined hearth that burned ceaselessly, unfuelled, the flames flickering with strange colours.

  The sword commanded all. The feel of his companion ghosts resonated from the blade into his fingertips, then along every bone and muscle in his body. Bairoth Gild, whose cutting irony seemed to have somehow infused the weapon, as had Delum Thord’s fierce loyalty—these were unexpected gifts, a mysterious contortion of themes, of aspects, that imbued a personality to the sword.

  Among the legends there were songs celebrating cherished weapons and the Teblor heroes who wielded them. Karsa had always held that the notion of weapons possessing wills of their own was little more than a poet’s conceit. And those heroes who had betrayed their blades and so suffered tragic ends, well, in each tale, Karsa had no difficulty in citing other, more obvious flaws in their actions, sufficient to explain the hero’s demise.

  The Teblor never passed down weapons to heirs—all possessions accompanied the one who had died, for what worth a ghost bereft of all it had acquired in its mortal life?

  The flint sword that found shape in Karsa’s hands was therefore unlike anything he had known—or heard of—before. It rested on the ground before him, strangely naked despite the leather he had wrapped around the grip. No hilt, no scabbard. Massive and brutal, yet beautiful in its symmetry, despite the streaks of blood left by his lacerated hands.

  He became aware of the searing heat in the cavern, and slowly looked up.

  The seven gods stood facing him in a flattened crescent, the hearth’s flames flickering across their battered, broken bodies. They held weapons to match the one now lying before him, though scaled down to suit their squat forms.

  ‘You have come in truth,’ Karsa observed.

  The one he knew as Urugal replied, ‘We have. We are now free of the Ritual’s bindings. The chains, Karsa Orlong, are broken.’

  Another spoke in a low, rasping voice. ‘The Warren of Tellann has found your sword, Karsa Orlong.’ The god’s neck was mangled, broken, the head fallen onto a shoulder and barely held in place by muscle and tendons. ‘It shall never shatter.’

  Karsa grunted. ‘There are broken weapons in the caverns beyond.’

  ‘Elder sorcery,’ Urugal answered. ‘Inimical warrens. Our people have fought many wars.’

  ‘You T’lan Imass have indeed,’ the Teblor warrior said. ‘I walked upon stairs made of your kin. I have seen your kind, fallen in such numbers as to defy comprehension.’ He scanned the seven creatures standing before him. ‘What battle took you?’

  Urugal shrugged. ‘It is of no significance, Karsa Orlong. A struggle of long ago, an enemy now dust, a failure best forgotten. We have known wars beyond counting, and what have they achieved? The Jaghut were doomed to extinction—we but hastened the inevitable. Other enemies announced themselves and stood in our path. We were indifferent to their causes, none of which was sufficient to turn us aside. And so we slaughtered them. Again and again. Wars without meaning, wars that changed virtually nothing. To live is to suffer. To exist—even as we do—is to resist.’

  ‘This is all that was learned, Karsa Orlong,’ said the T’lan Imass woman known as ’Siballe. ‘In its totality. Stone, sea, forest, city—and every creature that ever lived—all share the same struggle. Being resists unbeing. Order wars against the chaos of dissolution, of disorder. Karsa Orlong, this is the only worthy truth, the greatest of all truths. What do the gods themselves worship, but perfection? The unattainable victory over nature, over nature’s uncertainty. There are many words for this struggle. Order against chaos, structure against dis
solution, light against dark, life against death. But they all mean the same thing.’

  The broken-necked T’lan Imass spoke in a whisper, his words a droning chant. ‘The ranag has fallen lame. Is distanced from the herd. Yet walks on in its wake. Seeking the herd’s protection. Time will heal. Or weaken. Two possibilities. But the lame ranag knows naught but stubborn hope. For that is its nature. The ay have seen it and now close. The prey is still strong. But alone. The ay know weakness. Like a scent on the cold wind. They run with the stumbling ranag. And drive it away from the herd. Still, it is stubborn hope. It makes its stand. Head lowered, horns ready to crush ribs, send the enemy flying. But the ay are clever. Circle and attack, then spring away. Again and again. Hunger wars with stubborn hope. Until the ranag is exhausted. Bleeding. Staggering. Then the ay all attack at once. Nape of neck. Legs. Throat. Until the ranag is dragged down. And stubborn hope gives way, Karsa Orlong. It gives way, as it always must, to mute inevitability.’

  The Teblor bared his teeth. ‘Yet your new master would harbour that lame beast. Would offer it a haven.’

  ‘You cross the bridge before we have built it, Karsa Orlong,’ Urugal said. ‘It seems Bairoth Gild taught you how to think, before he himself failed and so died. You are indeed worthy of the name Warleader.’

  ‘Perfection is an illusion,’ ’Siballe said. ‘Thus, mortal and immortal alike are striving for what cannot be achieved. Our new master seeks to alter the paradigm, Karsa Orlong. A third force, to change for ever the eternal war between order and dissolution.’

  ‘A master demanding the worship of imperfection,’ the Teblor growled.

  ’Siballe’s head creaked in a nod. ‘Yes.’

  Karsa realized he was thirsty and walked over to his pack, retrieving a waterskin. He drank deep, then returned to his sword. He closed both hands about the grip and lifted it before him, studying its rippled length.