The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  ‘There are things,’ Banaschar said, ‘that cannot be left behind. Tayschrenn knows this, as much as I—’

  ‘Actually, the Imperial High Mage knows nothing.’ A pause, accompanying a gesture that Banaschar interpreted as the man studying his fingernails, and something in his tone changed. ‘Not yet, that is. Perhaps not at all. You see, Banaschar, the decision is mine.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You are not ready yet to know that.’

  ‘Why are you intercepting my missives to Tayschrenn?’

  ‘Well, to be precise, I have said no such thing.’

  Banaschar frowned. ‘You just said the decision was yours.’

  ‘Yes I did. That decision centres on whether I remain inactive in this matter, as I have been thus far, or – given sufficient cause – I elect to, um, intervene.’

  ‘Then who is blocking my efforts?’

  ‘You must understand, Banaschar, Tayschrenn is the Imperial High Mage first and foremost. Whatever else he once was is now irrelevant—’

  ‘No, it isn’t. Not given what I have discovered—’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Better yet, Banaschar, convince me.’

  ‘I cannot,’ he replied, hands clutching the grimy bedding to either side.

  ‘An imperial matter?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, that is a start. As you said, then, the subject pertains to once-followers of D’rek. A subject, one presumes, related to the succession of mysterious deaths within the cult of the Worm. Succession? More like slaughter, yes? Tell me, is there anyone left? Anyone at all?’

  Banaschar said nothing.

  ‘Except, of course,’ the stranger added, ‘those few who have, at some time in the past and for whatever reasons, fallen away from the cult. From worship.’

  ‘You know too much of this,’ Banaschar said. He should never have stayed in this room. He should have been finding different hovels every night. He hadn’t thought there’d be anyone, anyone left, who’d remember him. After all, those who might have were now all dead. And I know why. Gods below, how I wish I didn’t.

  ‘Tayschrenn,’ said the man after a moment, ‘is being isolated. Thoroughly and most efficiently. In my professional standing, I admit to considerable admiration, in fact. Alas, in that same capacity, I am also experiencing considerable alarm.’

  ‘You are a Claw.’

  ‘Very good – at least some intelligence is sifting through that drunken haze, Banaschar. Yes, my name is Pearl.’

  ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘Does that make a difference?’

  ‘It does. To me, it does, Pearl.’

  Another sigh and a wave of one hand. ‘Oh, I was bored. I followed someone, who, it turned out, was keeping track of you – with whom you spoke, where you went, you know, the usual things required.’

  ‘Required? For what?’

  ‘Why, preparatory, I imagine, to assassination, when that killer’s master deems it expedient.’

  Banaschar was suddenly shivering, the sweat cold and clammy beneath his clothes. ‘There is nothing political,’ he whispered, ‘nothing that has anything to do with the empire. There is no reason—’

  ‘Oh, but you have made it so, Banaschar. Do you forget? Tayschrenn is being isolated. You are seeking to break that, to awaken the Imperial High Mage—’

  ‘Why is he permitting it?’ Banaschar demanded. ‘He’s no fool—’

  A soft laugh. ‘Oh no, Tayschrenn is no fool. And in that, you may well have your answer.’

  Banaschar blinked in the gloom. ‘I must meet with him, Pearl.’

  ‘You have not yet convinced me.’

  A long silence, in which Banaschar closed his eyes, then placed his hands over them, as if that would achieve some kind of absolution. But only words could do that. Words, uttered now, to this man. Oh, how he wanted to believe it would…suffice. A Claw, who would be my ally. Why? Because the Claw has…rivals. A new organization that has deemed it expedient to raise impenetrable walls around the Imperial High Mage. What does that reveal of that new organization? They see Tayschrenn as an enemy, or they would so exclude him as to make his inaction desirable, even to himself. They know he knows, and wait to see if he finally objects. But he has not yet done so, leading them to believe that he might not – during whatever is coming. Abyss take me, what are we dealing with here?

  Banaschar spoke from behind his hands. ‘I would ask you something, Pearl.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Consider the most grand of schemes,’ he said. ‘Consider time measured in millennia. Consider the ageing faces of gods, goddesses, beliefs and civilizations…’

  ‘Go on. What is it you would ask?’

  Still he hesitated. Then he slowly lowered his hands, and looked across, to that grey, ghostly face opposite him. ‘Which is the greater crime, Pearl, a god betraying its followers, or its followers betraying their god? Followers who then choose to commit atrocities in that god’s name. Which, Pearl? Tell me, please.’

  The Claw was silent for a dozen heartbeats, then he shrugged. ‘You ask a man without faith, Banaschar.’

  ‘Who better to judge?’

  ‘Gods betray their followers all the time, as far as I can tell. Every unanswered prayer, every unmet plea for salvation. The very things that define faith, I might add.’

  ‘Failure, silence and indifference? These are the definitions of faith, Pearl?’

  ‘As I said, I am not the man for this discussion.’

  ‘But are those things true betrayal?’

  ‘That depends, I suppose. On whether the god worshipped is, by virtue of being worshipped, in turn beholden to the worshipper. If that god isn’t – if there is no moral compact – then your answer is “no”, it’s not betrayal.’

  ‘To whom – for whom – does a god act?’ Banaschar asked.

  ‘If we proceed on the aforementioned assertion, the god acts and answers only to him or herself.’

  ‘After all,’ Banaschar said, his voice rasping as he leaned forward, ‘who are we to judge?’

  ‘As you say.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If,’ Pearl said, ‘on the other hand, a moral compact does exist between god and worshipper, then each and every denial represents a betrayal—’

  ‘Assuming that which is asked of that god is in itself bound to a certain morality.’

  ‘True. A husband praying his wife dies in some terrible accident so that he can marry his mistress, for example, is hardly something any self-respecting god would acquiesce to, or assist in.’

  Banaschar heard the mockery in the man’s voice, but chose to ignore it. ‘And if the wife is a tyrant who beats their children?’

  ‘Then a truly just god would act without the necessity for prayer.’

  ‘Meaning the prayer itself, voiced by that husband, is also implicitly evil, regardless of his motive?’

  ‘Well, Banaschar, in my scenario, his motive is made suspect by the presence of the mistress.’

  ‘And if that mistress would be a most loving and adoring stepmother?’

  Pearl snarled, chopping with one hand. ‘Enough of this, damn you – you can wallow in this moral quandary all you want. I don’t see the relevance…’ His voice fell away.

  His heart smothered in a bed of ashes, Banaschar waited, willing himself not to sob aloud, not to cry out.

  ‘They prayed but did not ask, nor beseech, nor plead,’ Pearl said. ‘Their prayers were a demand. The betrayal…was theirs, wasn’t it?’ The Claw sat forward. ‘Banaschar. Are you telling me that D’rek killed them all? Her entire priesthood? They betrayed her! In what way? What did they demand?’

  ‘There is war,’ he said in a dull voice.

  ‘Yes. War among the gods, yes – gods below – those worshippers chose the wrong side!’

  ‘She heard them,’ Banaschar said, forcing the words out. ‘She heard them choose. The Crippled God. And the power they demanded was
the power of blood. Well, she decided, if they so lusted for blood…she would give them all they wanted.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘All they wanted.’

  ‘Banaschar…hold on a moment…why would D’rek’s followers choose blood, the power of blood? That is an Elder way. What you are saying makes no sense.’

  ‘The Cult of the Worm is ancient, Pearl. Even we cannot determine just how old. There is mention of a goddess, the Matron of Decay, the Mistress of Worms – a half-dozen titles – in Gothos’s Folly – in the fragments possessed by the temple. Or at least, once in the temple’s possession – those scrolls disappeared—’

  ‘When?’

  Banaschar managed a bitter smile. ‘On the night of Tayschrenn’s flight from the Grand Temple in Kartool. He has them. He must have them. Don’t you see? Something is wrong! With all of this! The knowledge that I hold, and the knowledge that Tayschrenn must possess – with his access to Gothos’s Folly – we must speak, we must make sense of what has happened, and what it means. This goes beyond the Imperium – yet this war among the gods – tell me, whose blood do you think will be spilled? What happened in the cult of D’rek, that is but the beginning!’

  ‘The gods will betray us?’ Pearl asked, leaning back. ‘Us …mortals. Whether we worship or not, it is mortal blood that will soak the earth.’ He paused, then said, ‘Perhaps, given the opportunity, you will be able to persuade Tayschrenn. But what of the other priesthoods – do you truly believe you can convince them – and what will you say to them? Will you plead for some kind of reformation, Banaschar? Some revolution among believers? They will laugh in your face.’

  Banaschar looked away. ‘In my face, perhaps. But…Tayschrenn…’

  The man opposite him said nothing for a time. A graininess filled the gloom – dawn was coming, and with it a dull chill. Finally, Pearl rose, the motion fluid and silent. ‘This is a matter for the Empress—’

  ‘Her? Don’t be a fool—’

  ‘Careful,’ the Claw warned in a soft voice.

  Banaschar thought quickly, in desperation. ‘She only comes into play with regard to releasing Tayschrenn from his position as High Mage, in freeing him to act. And besides, if the rumours are true about the Grey Mistress stalking Seven Cities, then it is clear that the pantheonic war has already begun in its myriad manipulations of the mortal realm. She would be wise to heed that threat.’

  ‘Banaschar,’ Pearl said, ‘the rumours do not even come close to the truth. Hundreds of thousands have died. Perhaps millions.’

  Millions?

  ‘I shall speak with the Empress,’ Pearl repeated.

  ‘When do you leave?’ Banaschar asked. And what of those who are isolating Tayschrenn? What of those who contemplate killing me?

  ‘There will be no need for that,’ the Claw said, walking to the door. ‘She is coming here.’

  ‘Here? When?’

  ‘Soon.’

  Why? But he did not voice that question, for the man had gone.

  Saying it needed the exercise, Iskaral Pust was sitting atop his mule, struggling to guide it in circles on the mid deck. From the looks of it, he was working far harder than the strange beast as it was cajoled into a step every fifty heartbeats or so.

  Red-eyed and sickly, Mappo sat with his back to the cabin wall. Each night, in his dreams, he wept, and would awaken to find that what had plagued his dreams had pushed through the barrier of sleep, and he would lie beneath the furs, shivering with something like a fever. A sickness in truth, born of dread, guilt and shame. Too many failures, too many bad judgements; he had been stumbling, blind, for so long.

  Out of friendship he had betrayed his only friend.

  I will make amends for all of this. So I vow, before all the Trell spirits.

  Standing at the prow, the woman named Spite was barely visible within the gritty, mud-brown haze that engulfed her. Not one of the bhok’arala, scrambling about in the rigging or back and forth on the decks, would come near her.

  She was in conversation. So Iskaral Pust had claimed. With a spirit that didn’t belong. Not here in the sea, and that wavering haze, like dust skirling through yellow grasses – even to Mappo’s dull eyes, blatantly out of place.

  An intruder, but one of power, and that power seemed to be growing.

  ‘Mael,’ Iskaral Pust had said with a manic laugh, ‘he’s resisting, and getting his nose bloodied. Do you sense his fury, Trell? His spitting outrage? Hee. Hee hee. But she’s not afraid of him, oh no, she’s not afraid of anyone!’

  Mappo had no idea who that ‘she’ was, and had not the energy to ask. At first, he had thought the High Priest had been referring to Spite, but no, it became increasingly apparent that the power manifesting itself over the bow of the ship was nothing like Spite’s. No draconean stink, no cold brutality. No, the sighs of wind reaching the Trell were warm, dry, smelling of grasslands.

  The conversation had begun at dawn, and now the sun was directly overhead. It seemed there was much to discuss…about something.

  Mappo saw two spiders scuttle past his moccasined feet. You damned witch, I don’t think you’re fooling anyone.

  Was there a connection? Here, on this nameless ship, two shamans from Dal Hon, a land of yellow grasses, acacias, huge herds and big cats – savannah – and now, this…visitor, striding across foreign seas.

  ‘Outraged, yes,’ Iskaral Pust had said. ‘Yet, do you sense his reluctance? Oh, he struggles, but he knows too that she, who chooses to be in one place and not many, she is more than his match. Dare he focus? He doesn’t even want this stupid war, hah! But oh, it is that very ambivalence that so frees his followers to do as they please!’

  A snarling cry as the High Priest of Shadow fell from the back of the mule. The animal brayed, dancing away and wheeling round to stare down at the thrashing old man. It brayed again, and in that sound Mappo imagined he could hear laughter.

  Iskaral Pust ceased moving, then lifted his head. ‘She’s gone.’

  The wind that had been driving them steady and hard, ever on course, grew fitful.

  Mappo saw Spite making her way down the forecastle steps, looking weary and somewhat dismayed.

  ‘Well?’ Iskaral demanded.

  Spite’s gaze dropped to regard the High Priest where he lay on the deck. ‘She must leave us for a time. I sought to dissuade her, and, alas, I failed. This places us…at risk.’

  ‘From what?’ Mappo asked.

  She glanced over at him. ‘Why, the vagaries of the natural world, Trell. Which can, at times, prove alarming and most random.’ Her attention returned to Iskaral Pust. ‘High Priest, please, assert some control over your bhok’arala. They keep undoing knots that should remain fast, not to mention leaving those unsightly offerings to you everywhere underfoot.’

  ‘Assert some control?’ Iskaral asked, sitting up with a bewildered look on his face. ‘But they’re crewing this ship!’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Spite said. ‘This ship is being crewed by ghosts. Tiste Andii ghosts, specifically. True, it was amusing to think otherwise, but now your little small-brained worshippers are becoming troublesome.’

  ‘Troublesome? You have no idea, Spite! Hah!’ He cocked his head. ‘Yes, let her think on that for a while. That tiny frown wrinkling her brow is so endearing. More than that, admit it, it inspires lust – oh yes, I’m not as shrivelled up as they no doubt think and in so thinking perforce nearly convince me! Besides, she wants me. I can tell. After all, I had a wife, didn’t I? Not like Mappo there, with his bestial no doubt burgeoning traits, no, he has no-one! Indeed, am I not experienced? Am I not capable of delicious, enticing subtlety? Am I not favoured by my idiotic, endlessly miscalculating god?’

  Shaking her head, Spite walked past him, and halted before Mappo. ‘Would that I could convince you, Trell, of the necessity for patience, and faith. We have stumbled upon a most extraordinary ally.’

  Allies. They ever fail you in the end. Motives clash, divisive violence follows, and friend betrays frien
d.

  ‘Will you devour your own soul, Mappo Runt?’

  ‘I do not understand you,’ he said. ‘Why do you involve yourself with my purpose, my quest?’

  ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I know where it shall lead.’

  ‘The future unfolds before you, does it?’

  ‘Never clearly, never completely. But I can well sense the convergence ahead – it shall be vast, Mappo, more terrible than this or any other realm has ever seen before. The Fall of the Crippled God, the Rage of Kallor, the Wounding at Morn, the Chainings – they all shall be dwarfed by what is coming. And you shall be there, for you are part of that convergence. As is Icarium. Just as I will come face to face with my evil sister at the very end, a meeting from which but one of us will walk away when all is done between us.’

  Mappo stared at her. ‘Will I,’ he whispered, ‘will I stop him? In the end? Or, is he the end – of everything?’

  ‘I do not know. Perhaps the possibilities, Mappo Runt, depend entirely on how prepared you are at that moment, at your readiness, your faith, if you will.’

  He slowly sighed, closed his eyes, then nodded. ‘I understand.’

  And, not seeing, he did not witness her flinch, and was himself unaware of the pathos filling the tone of that admission.

  When he looked upon her once more, he saw naught but a calm, patient expression. Cool, gauging. Mappo nodded. ‘As you say. I shall…try.’

  ‘I would expect no less, Trell.’

  ‘Quiet!’ Iskaral Pust hissed, still lying on the deck, but now on his belly. He was sniffing the air. ‘Smell her? I do. I smell her! On this ship! That udder-knotted cow! Where is she!?’

  The mule brayed once more.

  Taralack Veed crouched before Icarium. The Jhag was paler than he had ever seen him before, the consequence of day after day in this hold, giving his skin a ghoulish green cast. The soft hiss of iron blade against whetstone was the only sound between them for a moment, then the Gral cleared his throat and said, ‘A week away at the least – these Edur take their time. Like you, Icarium, they have already begun their preparations.’

  ‘Why do they force an enemy upon me, Taralack Veed?’