The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  ‘If they weren’t interested in the attention of their gods, Ganath, they would have avoided the spilling of blood on consecrated ground.’

  ‘Someone among them sought that attention, and the power that might come from it. A High Priest or shaman, I suspect.’

  ‘Well then, if the Hounds don’t kill that High Priest, his followers will.’

  ‘A harsh lesson, Ganoes Paran.’

  ‘Tell that to these two dead women.’

  The Jaghut made no reply.

  They walked from the temple, the light fading behind them.

  Paran noted Karpolan Demesand’s fixed regard, the dread plain, undeniable, and he slowly nodded. The Trygalle master turned away and, exhausted as he had been earlier, his weariness seemed to increase tenfold.

  Hedge came close. ‘Could’ve been shareholders,’ he suggested.

  ‘No,’ said Ganath. ‘Two women, both expensively attired. One must presume that the shareholders met their fate elsewhere.’

  Paran said to Hedge, ‘Now comes your final task, sapper. Summoning the Deragoth – but consider this first – they’re close, and we need time to—’

  ‘Run like Hood’s bowels, aye.’ Hedge lifted a satchel into view. ‘Now, before you ask me where I been hiding this, don’t bother. Here in this place, details like that don’t matter.’ He grinned. ‘Some people would like to take gold with ’em when they go. Me, I’ll take Moranth munitions over gold any day. After all, you don’t know what you’re going to meet on the other side, right? So, it’s always better holding onto the option of blowing things up.’

  ‘Wise counsel, Hedge. And those munitions will work here?’

  ‘Absolutely, Captain. Death once called this home, remember?’

  Paran studied the nearest statue. ‘You intend to shatter them.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Timed charge.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Only, you have five to set, and the farthest one looks two, three hundred paces away.’

  ‘Aye. That’s going to be a problem – well, let’s call it a challenge. Granted, Fid’s better at this finesse stuff than me. But tell me something, Captain – you’re sure these Deragoth ain’t just going to hang round here?’

  ‘I’m sure. They’ll return to their home realm – that’s what the first two did, didn’t they?’

  ‘Aye, but they had their shadows. Might be these ones will go hunting their own first.’

  Paran frowned. He’d not considered that. ‘Oh, I see. Into the Realm of Shadow, then.’

  ‘If that’s where the Hounds of Shadow are at the moment, aye.’

  Damn. ‘All right, set your charges, Hedge, but don’t start the sand grains running just yet.’

  ‘Right.’

  Paran watched the sapper head off. Then he drew out his Deck of Dragons. Paused, glancing over at Ganath, then Karpolan Demesand. Both saw what he held in his hands. The Trygalle master visibly blanched, then hurried back to his carriage. After a moment – and a long, unreadable look – the Jaghut followed suit.

  Paran allowed himself a small smile. Yes, why announce yourselves to whomever I’m about to call upon? He squatted, setting the deck face-down on the mudstained walkway of branches. Then lifted the top card and set it down to the right. High House Shadow – who’s in charge here, damned Deck, you or me? ‘Shadowthrone,’ he murmured, ‘I require your attention.’

  The murky image of the Shadow House remained singularly lifeless on the lacquered card.

  ‘All right,’ Paran said, ‘I’ll revise my wording. Shadowthrone, talk to me here and now or everything you’ve done and everything you’re planning to do will get, quite literally, torn to pieces.’

  A shimmer, further obscuring the House, then something like a vague figure, seated on a black throne. A voice hissed out at him, ‘This had better be important. I’m busy and besides, even the idea of a Master of the Deck nauseates me, so get on with it.’

  ‘The Deragoth are about to be released, Shadowthrone.’

  Obvious agitation. ‘What gnat-brained idiot would do that?’

  ‘Can’t be helped, I’m afraid—’

  ‘You!’

  ‘Look, I have my reasons, and they will be found in Seven Cities.’

  ‘Oh,’ the figure settled back down, ‘those reasons. Well, yes. Clever, even. But still profoundly stupid.’

  ‘Shadowthrone,’ Paran said, ‘the two Hounds of Shadow that Rake killed. The two taken by Dragnipur.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘I’m not sure how much you know, but I freed them from the sword.’ He waited for another bout of histrionics, but…nothing. ‘Ah, so you know that. Good. Well, I have discovered where they went…here, where they conjoined with their counterparts, and were then freed – no, not me. Now, I understand that they have since been killed. For good, this time.’

  Shadowthrone raised a long-fingered hand that filled most of the card. Closed it into a fist. ‘Let me see,’ the god’s voice purred, ‘if I understand you.’ One finger snapped upward. ‘The Nameless Idiots go and release Dejim Nebrahl. Why? Because they’re idiots. Their own lies caught up with them, so they needed to get rid of a servant who was doing what they wanted him to do in the first place, only doing it too well!’ Shadowthrone’s voice was steadily climbing in pitch and volume. A second finger shot into view. ‘Then, you, the Master Idiot of the Deck of Dragons, decide to release the Deragoth, to get rid of Dejim Nebrahl. But wait, even better!’ A third finger. ‘Some other serious nasty wandering Seven Cities just killed two Deragoth, and maybe that nasty is still close by, and would like a few more trophies to drag behind his damned horse!’ His voice was now a shriek. ‘And now! Now!’ The hand closed back into a fist, shaking about. ‘You want me to send the Hounds of Shadow to Seven Cities! Because it’s finally occurred to that worm-ridden walnut you call a brain that the Deragoth won’t bother with Dejim Nebrahl until they find my Hounds! And if they come looking here in my realm, there’ll be no stopping them!’ He halted suddenly, the fist motionless. Then various fingers sprang into view in an increasingly chaotic pattern. Shadowthrone snarled and the frenzied hand vanished. A whisper: ‘Pure genius. Why didn’t I think of that?’ The tone began rising once more. ‘Why? Because I’m not an idiot!!’

  With that the god’s presence winked out.

  Paran grunted, then said, ‘You never told me if you were going to send the Hounds of Shadow to Seven Cities.’

  He thought then that he heard a faint scream of frustration, but perhaps it was only imagined. Paran returned the card to the deck, put it back into an inside pocket, and slowly straightened. ‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘that wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it’d be.’

  By the time Hedge returned, both Ganath and Karpolan had reappeared, their glances towards Paran decidedly uneasy.

  The ghost gestured Paran closer and said quietly, ‘It ain’t going to work the way we wanted it, Captain. Too much distance between them – by the time I get to the closest one, the farthest one will have gone up, and if those Hounds are close, well, like I said, it ain’t going to work.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘You ain’t going to like it. I sure don’t, but it’s the only way.’

  ‘Out with it, sapper.’

  ‘Leave me behind. Get going. Now.’

  ‘Hedge—’

  ‘No, listen, it makes sense. I’m already dead – I can find my own way out.’

  ‘Maybe you can find your own way out, Hedge. More likely what’s left of you will get torn to pieces, if not by the Deragoth, then any of a host of other local nightmares.’

  ‘Captain, I don’t need this body – it’s just for show, so’s you got a face to look at. Trust me, it’s the only way you and the others are going to get out of this alive.’

  ‘Let’s try a compromise,’ Paran said. ‘We wait as long as we can.’

  Hedge shrugged. ‘As you like, just don’t wait too long, Captain.’

  ‘Get o
n your way, then, Hedge. And…thank you.’

  ‘Always an even trade, Captain.’

  The ghost headed off. Paran turned to Karpolan Demesand. ‘How confident are you,’ he asked, ‘about getting us out of here fast?’

  ‘This part should be relatively simple,’ the Trygalle sorceror replied. ‘Once a path is found into a warren, its relationship to others becomes known. The Trygalle Trade Guild’s success is dependent entirely upon its Surveyants – its maps, Ganoes Paran. With each mission, those maps become more complete.’

  ‘Those are valuable documents,’ Paran observed. ‘I trust you keep them well protected.’

  Karpolan Demesand smiled, and said nothing.

  ‘Prepare the way, then,’ Paran said.

  Hedge was already out of sight, lost somewhere in the gloom beyond the nearest statues. Mists had settled in the depressions, but the mercurial sky overhead seemed as remote as ever. For all that, Paran noticed, the light was failing. Had their sojourn here encompassed but a single day? That seemed…unlikely.

  The bark of a munition reached him – a sharper. ‘That’s the signal,’ Paran said, striding over to his horse. ‘The farthest statue will go first.’ He swung himself into the saddle, guided his horse closer to the carriage, into which Karpolan and Ganath had already disappeared. The shutter on the window slid to one side as he arrived.

  ‘Captain—’

  A thunderous detonation interrupted him, and Paran turned to see a column of smoke and dust rising.

  ‘Captain, it seems – much to my surprise—’

  A second explosion, closer this time, and another statue seemed to simply vanish.

  ‘As I was saying, it appears my options are far more limited than I first—’

  From the distance came a deep, bestial roar.

  The first Deragoth—

  ‘Ganoes Paran! As I was saying—’

  The third statue detonated, its base disappearing within an expanding, billowing wave of smoke, stone and dust. Front legs shorn through, the huge edifice pitched forward, jagged cracks sweeping through the rock, and began its descent. Then struck.

  The carriage jumped, then bounced back down on its ribbed stanchions. Glass broke somewhere inside.

  The reverberations of the concussion rippled through the ground.

  Horses screamed and fought their bits, eyes rolling.

  A second howl shook the air.

  Paran squinted through the dust and smoke, seeking Hedge somewhere between the last statue to fall and the ones yet to be destroyed. But in the gathering darkness he saw no movement. All at once, the fourth statue erupted. Some vagary of sequence tilted the monument to one side, and as it toppled, it struck the fifth.

  ‘We must leave!’

  The shriek was Karpolan Demesand’s.

  ‘Hold on—’

  ‘Ganoes Paran, I am no longer confident—’

  ‘Just hold it—’

  A third howl, echoed by the Deragoth that had already arrived – and those last two roars were…close.

  ‘Shit.’ He could not see Hedge – the last statue, already riven with impact fissures, suddenly pitched downward as the munitions at its base exploded.

  ‘Paran!’

  ‘All right – open the damned gate!’

  The train of horses reared, then surged forward, slewing the carriage round as they began a wild descent on the slope. Swearing, Paran kicked his horse into motion, risking a final glance back—

  —to see a huge, hump-shouldered beast emerge from the clouds of dust, its eyes lambent as they fixed on Paran and the retreating carriage. The Deragoth’s massive, broad head lowered, and it began a savagely fast sprint.

  ‘Karpolan!’

  The portal opened like a popped blister – watery blood or some other fluid spraying from its edges – directly in front of them. A charnel wind battered them. ‘Karpolan? Where—’

  The train of horses, screaming one and all, plunged into the gate, and a heartbeat later Paran followed. He heard it sear shut behind him, and then, from all sides – madness.

  Rotted faces, gnawed hands reaching up, long-dead eyes imploring as decayed mouths opened – ‘Take us! Take us with you!’

  ‘Don’t leave!’

  ‘He’s forgotten us – please, I beg you—’

  ‘Hood cares nothing—’

  Bony fingers closed on Paran, pulled, tugged, then began clawing at him. Others had managed to grab hold of projections on the carriage and were being dragged along.

  The pleas shifted into anger – ‘Take us – or we will tear you to pieces!’

  ‘Cut them – bite them – tear them apart!’

  Paran struggled to free his right arm, managed to close his hand on the grip of his sword, then drag it free. He began flailing the blade on each side.

  The shrieks from the horses were insanity’s own voice, and now shareholders were screaming as well, as they hacked down at reaching hands and arms.

  Twisting about in his saddle as he chopped at the clawing limbs, Paran glimpsed a sweeping vista – a plain of writhing figures, the undead, every face turned now towards them – undead, in their tens of thousands – undead, so crowding the land that they could but stand, out to every horizon, raising now a chorus of despair—

  ‘Ganath!’ Paran roared. ‘Get us out of here!’

  A sharp retort, as of cracking ice. Bitter wind swirled round them, and the ground pitched down on one side.

  Snow, ice, the undead gone.

  Wheeling blue sky. Mountain crags—

  Horses skidding, legs splaying, their screams rising in pitch. A few animated corpses, flailing about. The carriage, looming in front of Paran, its back end sliding round.

  They were on a glacier. Skidding, sliding downward at ever increasing speed.

  Distinctly, Paran heard one of the Pardu shareholders: ‘Oh, this is much better.’

  Then, eyes blurring, horse slewing wildly beneath him, there was only time for the plunging descent – down, it turned out, an entire mountainside.

  Ice, then snow, then slush, the latter rising like a bow wave before horses and sideways-descending carriage, rising and building, slowing them down. All at once, the slush gave way to mud, then stone—

  Flipping the carriage, the train of horses dragged with it.

  Paran’s own mount fared better, managing to angle itself until it faced downhill, forelegs punching snow and slush, seeking purchase. At the point it reached the mud, and having seen what awaited it, the horse simply launched into a charge. A momentary stumble, then, as the ground levelled out, it slowed, flanks heaving – and Paran turned in the saddle, in time to see the huge carriage tumble to a shattered halt. The bodies of shareholders were sprawled about, upslope, in the mud, limp and motionless on the scree of stones, almost indistinguishable from the corpses.

  The train of horses had broken loose, yet all but one were down, legs kicking amidst a tangle of traces, straps and buckles.

  Heart still hammering the anvil of his chest, Paran eased his horse to a stop, turning it to face upslope, then walking the exhausted, shaky beast back towards the wreckage.

  A few shareholders were picking themselves up here and there, looking dazed. One began swearing, sagging back down above a broken leg.

  ‘Thank you,’ croaked a corpse, flopping about in the mud. ‘How much do I owe you?’

  The carriage was on its side. The three wheels that had clipped the mud and stone had shattered, and two opposite had not survived the tumbling. Leaving but a single survivor, spinning like a mill-stone. Back storage hatches had sprung open, spilling their contents of supplies. On the roof, still strapped in place, was the crushed body of a shareholder, blood running like meltwater down the copper tiles, his arms and legs hanging limp, the exposed flesh pummelled and grey in the bright sunlight.

  One of the Pardu women picked herself up from the mud and limped over to come alongside Paran as he reined in near the carriage.

  ‘Captain,’ she sa
id, ‘I think we should make camp.’

  He stared down at her. ‘Are you all right?’

  She studied him for a moment, then turned her head and spat out a red stream. Wiped her mouth, then shrugged. ‘Hood knows, we’ve had worse trips…’

  The savage wound of the portal, now closed, still marred the dust-laden air. Hedge stepped out from where he’d been hiding near one of the pedestals. The Deragoth were gone – anything but eager to remain overlong in this deathly, unpleasant place.

  So he’d stretched things a little. No matter, he’d been convincing enough, yielding the desired result.

  Here I am. On my own, in Hood’s own Hood-forsaken pit. You should’ve thought it through, Captain. There was nothing sweet in the deal for us, and only fools agree to that. Well, being fools is what killed us, and we done learned that lesson.

  He looked round, trying to get his bearings. In this place, one direction was good as another. Barring the damned sea, of course. So, it’s done. Time to explore…

  The ghost left the wreckage of the destroyed statues behind, a lone, mostly insubstantial figure walking the denuded, muddy land. As bowlegged as he had been in life.

  Dying left no details behind, after all. And most certainly, nothing like absolution awaited the fallen.

  Absolution comes from the living, not the dead, and, as Hedge well knew, it has to be earned.

  She was remembering things. Finally, after all this time. Her mother, camp follower, spreading her legs for the Ashok Regiment before it was sent to Genabackis. After it had left, she just went and died, as if without those soldiers she could only breathe out, never again in – and it was what you drew in that gave you life. So, just like that. Dead. Her offspring was left to fare for itself, alone, uncared for, unloved.

  Mad priests and sick cults and, for the girl born of the mother, a new camp to follow. Every path of independence was but a dead-end side-track off that more deeply rutted road, the one that ran from parent to child – this much was clear to her now.

  Then Heboric, Destriant of Treach, had dragged her away – before she found herself breathing ever out – but no, before him, there had been Bidithal and his numbing gifts, his whispered assurances of mortal suffering being naught more than a layered chrysalis, and upon death the glory would break loose, unfolding its iridescent wings. Paradise.