The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  There should have been signs, rumours, a reverberation among the Awl at the very least. We should have heard about it.

  But they hadn’t. The foreign invaders had simply…disappeared.

  Not possible. How can it be? She scanned the rows once again, as if hoping that some fundamental detail would reveal itself, would ease the hammering of her heart and the leaden chill of her limbs.

  ‘Preda…’

  Yes. One hundred per craft. And here before us…stacked four, five deep – what? Four, maybe five thousand?

  The north shoreline was a mass of grey-wooded war canoes, for almost as far as she could see to the west and to the east. Drawn up. Abandoned. Filling the shore like a toppled forest.

  ‘Upwards of a half-million,’ the merchant said. ‘That is my estimate. Preda, where in the Errant’s name did they all go?’

  She scowled. ‘Kick that mage nest of yours, Letur Anict. Make them earn their exorbitant fees. The king needs to know. Every detail. Everything.’

  ‘At once,’ the man said.

  While she would do the same with the Ceda’s squad of acolytes. The redundancy was necessary. Without the presence of Kuru Qan’s chosen students, she would never learn all that Letur Anict held back on his final report, would never be able to distil the truths from the half-truths, the outright lies. A perennial problem with hiring private contractors – they had their own interests, after all, and loyalty to the crown was, for creatures like Letur Anict, the new Factor of Drene, always secondary.

  She began looking for a way down onto the beach. Bivatt wanted a closer look at these canoes, especially since it seemed that sections of their prows had been dismantled. Which is an odd thing to do. Yet, a manageable mystery, one I can deal with and so not think about all the rest.

  ‘Upwards of a half-million.’

  Errant’s blessing, who is now among us?

  The Awl’dan, following the Edur conquest

  The wolves had come, then gone, and where corpses had been dragged out from the solid press atop the hilltop – where the unknown soldiers had made their last stand – the signs of their feeding were evident, and this detail remained with the lone rider as he walked his horse amidst the motionless, sprawled bodies. Such pillaging of the dead was…unusual. The dun-furred wolves of this plain were as opportunistic as any other predator on the Awl’dan, of course. Even so, long experience with humans should have sent the beasts fleeing at the first sour scent, even if it was commingled with that of spilled blood. What, then, had drawn them to this silent battlefield?

  The lone rider, face hidden behind a crimson scaled mask, drew rein near the base of the low hill. His horse was dying, racked with shivers; before the day’s end the man would be walking. As he was breaking camp this dawn, a horn-nosed snake had nipped the horse as it fed on a tuft of sliver-stem grasses at the edge of a gully. The poison was slow but inevitable, and could not be neutralized by any of the herbs and medicines the man carried. The loss was regrettable but not disastrous, since he had not been travelling in haste.

  Ravens circled overhead, yet none descended – nor had his arrival stirred them from this feast; indeed, it had been the sight of them, wheeling above this hill, that had guided him to this place. Their cries were infrequent, strangely muted, almost plaintive.

  The Drene legions had taken away their dead, leaving naught but their victims to feed the grasses of the plain. The morning’s frost still mapped glistening patterns on death-dark skin, but the melt had already begun, and it seemed to him that these dead soldiers now wept, from stilled faces, from open eyes, from mortal wounds.

  Rising on his stirrups, he scanned the horizon – as much of it as he could see – seeking sight of his two companions, but the dread creatures had yet to return from their hunt, and he wondered if they had found a new, more inviting trail somewhere to the west – the Letherii soldiers of Drene, marching triumphant and glutted back to their city. If so, then there would be slaughter on this day. The notion of vengeance, however, was incidental. His companions were indifferent to such sentiments. They killed for pleasure, as far as he could tell. Thus, the annihilation of the Drene, and any vengeance that could be ascribed to the deed existed only in his own mind. The distinction was important.

  Even so, a satisfying conceit.

  Yet, these victims here were strangers, these soldiers in their grey and black uniforms. Stripped now of weapons and armour, standards taken as trophies, their presence here in the Awl’dan – in the heart of the rider’s homeland – was perturbing.

  He knew the invading Letherii, after all. The numerous legions with their peculiar names and fierce rivalries; he knew as well the fearless cavalry of the Bluerose. And the still-free kingdoms and territories bordering the Awl’dan, the rival D’rhasilhani, the Keryn, the Bolkando Kingdom and the Saphinand State – he had treated with or crossed blades with them all, years ago, and none were as these soldiers here.

  Pale-skinned, hair the colour of straw or red as rust. Eyes of blue or grey. And…so many women.

  His gaze settled upon one such soldier, a woman near the hill’s summit. Mangled by sorcery, her armour melded with the twisted flesh – there were sigils visible on that armour…

  Dismounting, he ascended the slope, picking his way round bodies, moccasins skidding on blood-soaked mud, until he crouched down at her side.

  Paint on the blackened bronze hauberk. Wolf heads, a pair. One was white-furred and one-eyed, the other furred silver and black. A sigil he had not seen before.

  Strangers indeed.

  Foreigners. Here, in the land of his heart.

  Behind the mask, he scowled. Gone. Too long. Am I now the stranger?

  Heavy drumbeats reverberated through the ground beneath his feet. He straightened. His companions were returning.

  So, no vengeance after all.

  Well, there was time yet.

  The mournful howl of wolves had awakened him this morning, their calls the first to draw him here, to this place, as if they sought a witness, as if indeed they had summoned him. While their cries had urged him on, he had not caught sight of the beasts, not once.

  The wolves had fed, however, some time this morning. Dragging bodies from the press.

  His steps slowed as he made his way down the slope, slowed until he stood, his breath drawn in and held as he looked more closely at the dead soldiers on all sides.

  The wolves have fed. But not as wolves do…not like…like this.

  Chests torn open, ribs jutting…they had devoured hearts. Nothing else. Just the hearts.

  The drumbeats were louder now, closer, the rake of talons hissing through grass. Overhead, the ravens, screaming, fled in all directions.

  Book One

  The Emperor in Gold

  The lie stands alone, the solitary deceit with its back turned no matter the direction of your reluctant approach, and with each step your goal is driven on, your stride carried astray, the path enfolding upon itself, round and round you walk and what stood alone before you, errant as mischance, an accidental utterance, now reveals its legion of children, this mass seething in threads and knots and surrounded, you cannot draw breath, cannot move.

  The world is of your making and one day, my friend, you will stand alone amidst a sea of dead, the purchasing of your words all about you and the wind will laugh you a new path into unending torment – the solitary deceit is its solitude, the lie is the lie standing alone, the threads and knots of the multitude tighten in righteous judgement with which you once so freely strangled every truthsayer, every voice of dissent.

  So now ease your thirst on my sympathy and die parched in the wasteland.

  Fragment found on the day

  the poetess Tesora Veddict

  was arrested by the Patriotists

  (six days before her Drowning)

  Chapter One

  Two forces, once in vicious opposition, now found themselves virtual bedmates, although neither could decide which of them had their legs p
ried open first. The simple facts are these: the original hierarchical structure of the Tiste Edur tribes proved well-suited to the Letherii system of power through wealth. The Edur became the crown, settling easy upon the bloated gluttony of Lether, but does a crown possess will? Does the wearer buckle beneath its burden? Another truth is now, in hindsight, self-evident. As seamless as this merging seemed to be, a more subtle, far deadlier conjoining occurred below the surface: that of the specific flaws within each system, and this blending was to prove a most volatile brew.

  The Hiroth Dynasty (Volume XVII)

  The Colony, a History of Lether

  Dinith Arnara

  ‘Where is this one from?’

  Tanal Yathvanar watched the Invigilator slowly rotating the strange object in his pudgy hands, the onyx stones in the many rings on the short fingers glimmering in the shafts of sunlight that reached in through the opened window. The object Karos Invictad manipulated was a misshapen collection of bronze pins, the ends bent into loops that were twisted about one another to form a stiff cage. ‘Bluerose, I believe, sir,’ Tanal replied. ‘One of Senorbo’s. The average duration for solving it is three days, although the record is just under two—’

  ‘Who?’ Karos demanded, glancing up from where he sat behind his desk.

  ‘A Tarthenal half-blood, if you can believe that, sir. Here in Letheras. The man is reputedly a simpleton, yet possesses a natural talent for solving puzzles.’

  ‘And the challenge is to slide the pins into a configuration to create a sudden collapse.’

  ‘Yes sir. It flattens out. From what I have heard the precise number of manipulations is—’

  ‘No, Tanal, do not tell me. You should know better.’ The Invigilator, commander of the Patriotists, set the object down. ‘Thank you for the gift. Now,’ a brief smile, ‘have we inconvenienced Bruthen Trana long enough, do you think?’ Karos rose, paused to adjust his crimson silks – the only colour and the only material he ever wore – then collected the short sceptre he had made his official symbol of office, black bloodwood from the Edur homeland with silver caps studded in polished onyx stones, and gestured with it in the direction of the door.

  Tanal bowed then led the way out into the corridor, to the broad stairs where they descended to the main floor, then strode through the double doors and out into the compound.

  The row of prisoners had been positioned in full sunlight, near the west wall of the enclosure. They had been taken from their cells a bell before dawn and it was now shortly past midday. Lack of water and food, and this morning’s searing heat, combined with brutal sessions of questioning over the past week, had resulted in more than half of the eighteen detainees losing consciousness.

  Tanal saw the Invigilator’s frown upon seeing the motionless bodies collapsed in their chains.

  The Tiste Edur liaison, Bruthen Trana of the Den-Ratha tribe, was standing in the shade, more or less across from the prisoners, and the tall, silent figure slowly turned as Tanal and Karos approached.

  ‘Bruthen Trana, most welcome,’ said Karos Invictad. ‘You are well?’

  ‘Let us proceed, Invigilator,’ the grey-skinned warrior said.

  ‘At once. If you will accompany me, we can survey each prisoner assembled here. The specific cases—’

  ‘I have no interest in approaching them any closer than I am now,’ Bruthen said. ‘They are fouled in their own wastes and there is scant breeze in this enclosure.’

  Karos smiled. ‘I understand, Bruthen.’ He leaned his sceptre against a shoulder then faced the row of detainees. ‘We need not approach, as you say. I will begin with the one to the far left, then—’

  ‘Unconscious or dead?’

  ‘Well, at this distance, who can say?’

  Noting the Edur’s scowl, Tanal bowed to Bruthen and Karos and walked the fifteen paces to the line. He crouched to examine the prone figure, then straightened. ‘He lives.’

  ‘Then awaken him!’ Karos commanded. His voice, when raised, became shrill, enough to make a foolish listener wince – foolish, that is, if the Invigilator was witness to that instinctive reaction. Such careless errors happened but once.

  Tanal kicked at the prisoner until the man managed a dry, rasping sob. ‘On your feet, traitor,’ Tanal said in a quiet tone. ‘The Invigilator demands it. Stand, or I will begin breaking bones in that pathetic sack you call a body.’

  He watched as the prisoner struggled upright.

  ‘Water, please—’

  ‘Not another word from you. Straighten up, face your crimes. You are Letherii, aren’t you? Show our Edur guest the meaning of that.’

  Tanal then made his way back to Karos and Bruthen. The Invigilator had begun speaking. ‘…known associations with dissenting elements in the Physicians’ College – he has admitted as much. Although no specific crimes can be laid at this man’s feet, it is clear that—’

  ‘The next one,’ Bruthen Trana cut in.

  Karos closed his mouth, then smiled without showing his teeth. ‘Of course. The next is a poet, who wrote and distributed a call for revolution. He denies nothing and indeed, you can see his stoic defiance even from here.’

  ‘And the one beside him?’

  ‘The proprietor of an inn, the tavern of which was frequented by undesirable elements – disenchanted soldiers, in fact – and two of them are among these detainees. We were informed of the sedition by an honourable whore—’

  ‘Honourable whore, Invigilator?’ The Edur half smiled.

  Karos blinked. ‘Why, yes, Bruthen Trana.’

  ‘Because she informed on an innkeeper.’

  ‘An innkeeper engaged in treason—’

  ‘Demanding too high a cut of her earnings, more likely. Go on, and please, keep your descriptions of the crimes brief.’

  ‘Of course,’ Karos Invictad said, the sceptre gently tapping on his soft shoulder, like a baton measuring a slow march.

  Tanal, standing at his commander’s side, remained at attention whilst the Invigilator resumed his report of the specific transgressions of these Letherii. The eighteen prisoners were fair representations of the more than three hundred chained in cells below ground. A decent number of arrests for this week, Tanal reflected. And for the most egregious traitors among them waited the Drownings. Of the three hundred and twenty or so, a third were destined to walk the canal bottom, burdened beneath crushing weights. Bookmakers were complaining these days, since no-one ever survived the ordeal any more. Of course, they did not complain too loudly, since the true agitators among them risked their own Drowning – it had taken but a few of those early on to mute the protestations among the rest.

  This was a detail Tanal had come to appreciate, one of Karos Invictad’s perfect laws of compulsion and control, emphasized again and again in the vast treatise the Invigilator was penning on the subject most dear to his heart. Take any segment of population, impose strict yet clear definitions on their particular characteristics, then target them for compliance. Bribe the weak to expose the strong. Kill the strong, and the rest are yours. Move on to the next segment.

  Bookmakers had been easy targets, since few people liked them – especially inveterate gamblers, and of those there were more and more with every day that passed.

  Karos Invictad concluded his litany. Bruthen Trana nodded, then turned and left the compound.

  As soon as he was gone from sight, the Invigilator faced Tanal. ‘An embarrassment,’ he said. ‘Those unconscious ones.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘A change of heads on the outer wall.’

  ‘At once, sir.’

  ‘Now, Tanal Yathvanar, before anything else, you must come with me. It will take but a moment, then you can return to the tasks at hand.’

  They walked back into the building, the Invigilator’s short steps forcing Tanal to slow up again and again as they made their way to Karos’s office.

  The most powerful man next to the Emperor himself took his place once more behind the desk. He picked up the
cage of bronze pins, shifted a dozen or so in a flurry of precise moves, and the puzzle collapsed flat. Karos Invictad smiled across at Tanal, then flung the object onto the desk. ‘Despatch a missive to Senorbo in Bluerose. Inform him of the time required for me to find a solution, then add, from me to him, that I fear he is losing his touch.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Karos Invictad reached out for a scroll. ‘Now, what was our agreed percentage on my interest in the Inn of the Belly-up Snake?’

  ‘I believe Rautos indicated forty-five, sir.’

  ‘Good. Even so, I believe a meeting is in order with the Master of the Liberty Consign. Later this week will do. For all our takings of late, we still possess a strange paucity in actual coin, and I want to know why.’

  ‘Sir, you know Rautos Hivanar’s suspicions on that matter.’

  ‘Vaguely. He will be pleased to learn I am now prepared to listen more closely to said suspicions. Thus, two issues on the agenda. Schedule the meeting for a bell’s duration. Oh, and one last thing, Tanal.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Bruthen Trana. These weekly visits. I want to know, is he compelled? Is this some Edur form of royal disaffection or punishment? Or are the bastards truly interested in what we’re up to? Bruthen makes no comment, ever. He does not even ask what punishments follow our judgements. Furthermore, his rude impatience tires me. It may be worth our while to investigate him.’

  Tanal’s brows rose. ‘Investigate a Tiste Edur?’

  ‘Quietly, of course. Granted, they ever give us the appearance of unquestioning loyalty, but I cannot help but wonder if they truly are immune to sedition among their own kind.’

  ‘Even if they aren’t, sir, respectfully, are the Patriotists the right organization—’

  ‘The Patriotists, Tanal Yathvanar,’ said Karos sharply, ‘possess the imperial charter to police the empire. In that charter no distinction is made between Edur and Letherii, only between the loyal and the disloyal.’