‘How do you know that?’
‘Well, you can see it – they get smaller as they go back.’
‘Yes, but how precise?’
‘That’s for you to decide. You demand objects with which to make holes. Here you have…what…twelve. How can you not be pleased by that?’
‘Who said I wasn’t pleased? Put them on the counter. Take the beaker. And get that damned fat root out of here.’
From there it was across to the small animals shop and Beastmonger Shill, an oversized woman endlessly bustling up and down the rows of tiny stacked cages, on her flattened heels a piping, scurrying swarm of little creatures. She squealed her usual delight at the gifts of beaker and fat root, the latter of which, it turned out, was most commonly used by malicious wives to effect the shrinkage of their husbands’ testicles; whilst Shill had, with some delicate modifications, applied the root’s diminutive properties to her broods, feeding the yellow-smelling tea out in precise increments using the holed beaker.
The meeting soured when Tehol slapped at a mosquito on his neck, only to be informed he had just killed a pygmy blood-sucking bat. His reply that the distinction was lost on him was not well received. But Shill opened the trapdoor on the floor at the back of the shop nevertheless, and Tehol descended the twenty-six narrow, steep stone steps to the crooked corridor – twenty-one paces long – that led to the ancient, empty beehive tomb, the walls of which had been dismantled in three places to fashion rough doorways into snaking, low-ceilinged tunnels, two of which ended in fatal traps. The third passageway eventually opened out into a long chamber occupied by a dozen or so dishevelled refugees, most of whom seemed to be asleep.
Fortunately, Chief Investigator Rucket was not among the somnolent. Her brows rose when she saw him, her admirable face filling with an expression of unfeigned relief as she gestured him to her table. The surface was covered in parchment sheets depicting various floor plans and structural diagrams.
‘Sit, Tehol Beddict! Here, some wine! Drink. By the Errant, a new face! You have no idea how sick I am of my interminable companions in this hovel.’
‘Clearly,’ he replied, sitting, ‘you need to get out more.’
‘Alas, most of my investigations these days are archival in nature.’
‘Ah, the Grand Mystery you’ve uncovered. Any closer to a solution?’
‘Grand Mystery? More like Damned Mystery, and no, I remain baffled, even as my map grows with every day that passes. But let’s not talk any more about that. My agents report that the cracks in the foundation are inexorably spreading – well done, Tehol. I always figured you were smarter than you looked.’
‘Why thank you, Rucket. Have you got those lacquered tiles I asked for?’
‘Onyx finished the last one this morning. Sixteen in all, correct?’
‘Perfect. Bevelled edges?’
‘Of course. All of your instructions were adhered to with diligence.’
‘Great. Now, about that inexorable spreading—’
‘You wish us to retire to my private room?’
‘Uh, not now, Rucket. I need some coin. An infusion to bolster a capital investment.’
‘How much?’
‘Fifty thousand.’
‘Will we ever see a return?’
‘No, you’ll lose it all.’
‘Tehol, you certainly do take vengeance a long way. What is the benefit to us, then?’
‘Why, none other than the return to pre-eminence of the Rat Catchers’ Guild.’
Her rather dreamy eyes widened. ‘The end of the Patriotists? Fifty thousand? Will seventy-five be better? A hundred?’
‘No, fifty is what I need.’
‘I do not anticipate any objections from my fellow Guild Masters.’
‘Wonderful.’ He slapped his hands together, then rose.
She frowned up at him. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Why, to your private room, of course.’
‘Oh, how nice.’
His gaze narrowed on her. ‘Aren’t you joining me, Rucket?’
‘What would be the point? The name “fat root” is a woman’s joke, you know.’
‘I haven’t drunk any yellow-smelling tea!’
‘In the future, I advise you to use gloves.’
‘Where’s your room, Rucket?’
One brow lifted. ‘Got something to prove?’
‘No, I just need to check on…things.’
‘What’s the point?’ she asked again. ‘Now that your imagination is awake, you’ll convince yourself you’ve got smaller, Tehol Beddict. Human nature. Worse that you happen to be a man, too.’ She rose. ‘I, however, can be objective, albeit devastatingly so, on occasion. So, do you dare my scrutiny?’
He scowled. ‘Fine, let’s go. Next time, however, let us dispense entirely with the invitation to your room, all right?’
‘Misery lies in the details, Tehol Beddict. As we’re about to discover.’
Venitt Sathad unrolled the parchment and anchored its corners with flatstones. ‘As you can see, Master, there are six separate buildings to the holdings.’ He began pointing to the illustrations of each. ‘Stables and livery. Icehouse. Drystore, with cellar. Servants’ quarters. And, of course, the inn proper—’
‘What of that square building there?’ Rautos Hivanar asked.
Venitt frowned. ‘As I understand it, the interior is virtually filled with an iconic object of some sort. The building predates the inn itself. Attempts to dislodge it failed. Now, what space remains is used for sundry storage.’
Rautos Hivanar leaned back in his chair. ‘How solvent is this acquisition?’
‘No more nor less than any other hostel, Master. It may be worth discussing investment on restoration with the other shareholders, including Karos Invictad.’
‘Hmm, I will consider that.’ He rose. ‘In the meantime, assemble the new artifacts on the cleaning table on the terrace.’
‘At once, Master.’
Fourteen leagues west of the Draconean Isles, doldrums had settled on this stretch of ocean, levelling the seas to a glassy, greasy patina beneath humid, motionless air. Through the eyeglass, the lone ship, black hull low in the water, looked lifeless. The mainmast was splintered, all rigging swept away. Someone had worked up a foresail, but the storm-rigged canvas hung limp. The steering oar was tied in place. No movement anywhere to be seen.
Skorgen Kaban, known as the Pretty, slowly lowered the eyeglass, yet continued squinting with his one good eye at the distant ship. He reached up to scratch one of the air holes – all that remained of what had once been a large, hawkish nose – then winced as a nail dug into sensitive scar tissue. The itch was non-existent, but the gaping nostrils had a tendency to weep, and the feigned scratch served to warn him of telltale wetness. This was one of his many gestures he probably imagined were subtle.
Alas, his captain was too sharp for that. She drew away her sidelong study of Skorgen, then glanced back at her waiting crew. A miserable but cocky bunch. Doldrums weighed everyone down, understandably, but the hold of the raider was packed with loot, and this run of the Errant’s luck seemed without end.
Now that they’d found another victim.
Skorgen drew in a whistling breath, then said, ‘It’s Edur, all right. My guess is, a stray that got tossed around a bit in that storm we spied out west yesterday. Chances are, the crew’s either sick or dead, or they abandoned ship in one of their Knarri lifeboats. If they did that, they’ll have taken the good stuff with them. If not,’ he grinned across at her, revealing blackened teeth, ‘then we can finish what the storm started.’
‘At the very least,’ the captain said, ‘we’ll take a look.’ She sniffed. ‘At least maybe something will come of getting blown into the flats. Have ’em send out the sweeps, Skorgen, but keep that lookout’s head spinning in every direction.’
Skorgen looked across at her. ‘You think there might be more of ’em out here?’
She made a face. ‘How many ships did the
Emperor send out?’
His good eye widened, then he studied the lone derelict once more through the eyeglass. ‘You think it’s one of those? Errant’s butt hole, Captain, if you’re right…’
‘You have your orders, and it seems I must remind you yet again, First Mate. No profanity on my ship.’
‘Apologies, Captain.’
He hurried off, began relaying orders to the waiting crew.
Doldrums made for a quiet lot, a kind of superstitious furtiveness gripping the sailors, as if any sound reaching too far might crack the mirror of the sea.
She listened as the twenty-four sweeps slid out, blades settling in the water. A moment later came the muted call-out of the cox, and the Undying Gratitude groaned as it lurched forward. Clouds of sleeper flies rose around the ship as the nearby sea’s pellucid surface was disturbed. The damned things had a tendency to seek out dark cover once driven to flight. Sailors coughed and spat – all very well for them, the captain observed, as a whining cloud spun round her head and countless insects crawled up her nose, into her ears, and across her eyes. Sun and sea were bad enough, combining to assail her dignity and whatever vanity a woman who was dead could muster, but for Shurq Elalle, these flies made for profoundly acute misery.
Pirate, divine undead, strumpet of insatiability, witch of the deep waters – the times had been good ever since she first sailed out of the Letheras harbour, down the long, broad river to the western seas. Lean and sleek, that first galley had been her passage to fame, and Shurq still regretted its fiery loss to that Mare escort in Laughter’s End. But she was well pleased with the Undying Gratitude. Slightly too big for her crew, granted, but with their return to Letheras that problem could be solved easily enough. Her greatest sense of loss was with the departure of the Crimson Guard. Iron Bars had made it plain from the very start that they were working for passage. Even so, they’d been formidable additions on that wild crossing of the ocean, keeping the blood wake wide and unbroken as one merchant trader after another was taken, stripped of all valuables, then, more often than not, sent down into the dark. It hadn’t been just their swords, deadly as those were, but the magery of Corlos – a magery far more refined, far more clever, than anything Shurq had witnessed before.
Such details opened her eyes, her mind as well. The world out there was huge. And in many fundamental ways, the empire of Lether, child of the First Empire, had been left in a kind of backwater, in its thinking, in its ways of working. A humbling revelation indeed.
The leavetaking with Iron Bars and his squad had not been quite as emotional or heartfelt for Shurq Elalle as it had probably seemed to everyone else, for the truth was, she had been growing ever more uneasy in their company. Iron Bars was not one to find subordination palatable for very long – oh, no doubt it was different when it came to his fellow Avowed among the Crimson Guard, or to their legendary commander, Prince K’azz. But she was not an Avowed, nor even one of that company’s soldiers. So long as their goals ran in parallel, things were fine enough, and Shurq had made certain to never deviate, so as to avoid any confrontation.
They had deposited the mercenaries on a stony beach of the eastern shore of a land called Jacuruku, the sky squalling with sleeting rain. The landing had not been without witnesses, alas, and the last she’d seen of Iron Bars and his soldiers, they were turning inland to face a dozen massively armoured figures descending the broken slope, great-helmed with visors lowered. Brutal-looking bunch, and Shurq hoped all that belligerence was mostly for show. The grey sheets of rain had soon obscured all details from the strand as they pulled away on the oars back to the Gratitude.
Skorgen had sworn he’d caught the sound of blades clashing – a faint echo – with his one good ear, but Shurq herself had heard nothing.
In any case, they’d scurried from those waters, as pirates were wont to do when there was the risk of organized resistance lurking nearby, and Shurq consoled her agitated conscience by reminding herself that Iron Bars had spoken of Jacuruku with some familiarity – at least in so far as knowing its name. And as for Corlos’s wide-eyed prayers to a few dozen divinities, well, he was prone to melodrama. A dozen knights wouldn’t have been enough to halt Iron Bars and his Crimson Guard, determined as they were to do whatever it was they had to do, which, in this instance, was cross Jacuruku from one coast to the other, then find themselves another ship.
A huge world indeed.
The sweeps lifted clear of the water and were quietly shipped as the Undying Gratitude sidled up alongside the Edur wreck. Shurq Elalle moved to the rail and studied the visible deck of the Blackwood ship.
‘Riding low,’ Skorgen muttered.
No bodies amidst the clutter. But there was clutter. ‘No orderly evacuation,’ Shurq Elalle said, as grappling hooks sailed out, the tines biting as the lines were drawn taut. ‘Six with us, weapons out,’ she commanded, unsheathing her own rapier, then stepping up onto the rail.
She leapt across, landed lightly on the mid deck two strides from the splintered stump of the mainmast. Moments later Skorgen joined her, arriving with a grunt then a curse as he jarred his bad leg.
‘This was a scrap,’ he said, looking about. He limped back to the rail and tugged loose a splintered arrow shaft, then scowled as he studied it. ‘Damned short and stubby – look at that head, that could punch through a bronze-sheeted shield. And this fletching – it’s leather, like fins.’
So where were the bodies? Frowning, Shurq Elalle made her way to the cabin’s hatchway. She paused at the hold, seeing that the hatch had been staved in. Nudging it aside with her boot, she crouched and looked down into the gloom of the hold.
The glimmer of water, and things floating. ‘Skorgen, there’s booty here. Come over and reach down for one of those amphorae.’
The second mate, Misery, called over from their ship, ‘Captain! That hulk’s lower in the water than it was when we arrived.’
She could now hear the soft groans of the hull.
Skorgen used his good arm to reach down and hook his hand through an ear of the amphora. Hissing with the weight, he lifted the hip-high object into view, rolling it onto the deck between himself and the captain.
The amphora itself was a gorgeous piece of work, Shurq observed. Foreign, the glaze cream in colour down to the inverted beehive base, where the coils were delineated in black geometric patterns on gleaming white. But it was the image painted on the shoulder and belly that captured her interest. Down low on one side there was a figure, nailed to an X-shaped cross. Whirling out from the figure’s upturned head, there were crows. Hundreds, each one profoundly intricate, every detail etched – crows, flooding outward – or perhaps inward – to mass on the amphora’s broad shoulders, encircling the entire object. Converging to feed on the hapless man? Fleeing him like his last, dying thoughts?
Skorgen had drawn a knife and was cutting away at the seal, stripping away the thick wax binding the stopper. After a moment he succeeded in working it loose. He tugged the stopper free, then leapt back as thick blood poured forth, spreading on the deck.
It looked fresh, and from it rose a scent of flowers, pungent and oversweet.
‘Kagenza pollen,’ Skorgen said. ‘Keeps blood from thickening – the Edur use it when they paint temples in the forest – you know, on trees. The blood sanctifies. It’s not a real temple, of course. No walls, or ceiling, just a grove—’
‘I don’t like first mates who babble,’ Shurq Elalle said, straightening once more. ‘Get the others out. The vessels alone will make us rich for a month or two.’ She resumed her walk to the cabin.
The corridor was empty, the cabin door broken open and hanging from one leather hinge. As she made her way towards it, she glanced into the side alcoves and saw the layered bunks of the crew – but all were unoccupied, although dishevelled as if subject to searching.
In the cabin itself, more signs of looting, while on the floor was spreadeagled an Edur corpse. Hands and feet had been spiked into the floorboards, and some
one had used a knife on him, methodically. The room stank of spilled wastes, and the expression frozen on the face was a twisted, agony-racked mask, the eyes staring out as if witness to a shattered faith, a terrible revelation at the moment of death.
She heard Skorgen come up behind her, heard his low curse upon seeing the body. ‘Tortured ’im,’ he said. ‘Tortured the captain. This one was Merude, damn near an Elder. Errant save us, Captain, we’re gonna get blamed if anyone else comes on this afore it all sinks. Torture. I don’t get that—’
‘It’s simple,’ she said. ‘They wanted information.’
‘About what?’
Shurq Elalle looked round. ‘They took the log, the charts. Now, maybe pirates might do that, if they were strangers to Lether, but then they’d have no need to torture this poor bastard. Besides, they’d have taken the loot. No, whoever did this wanted more information – not what you could get from charts. And they didn’t give a damn about booty.’
‘Nasty bastards, whoever they were.’
She thought back to that amphora and its grisly contents. Then turned away. ‘Maybe they had a good reason. Hole the hull, Skorgen. We’ll wait around, though. Blackwood doesn’t like sinking. We may have to fire it.’
‘A pyre to bring ’em all in, Captain.’
‘I am aware of the risks. Get on with it.’
Back on the deck, Shurq Elalle made her way to the forecastle, where she stood scanning the horizon while Skorgen and the crew began their demolition.
Strangers on the sea.
Who are no friends of the Tiste Edur. Even so, I think I’d rather not meet them. She turned to face the mid deck. ‘Skorgen! When we’re done here, we take to the sweeps. Back to the coast.’
His scarred brows rose. ‘Letheras?’
‘Why not? We can sell off and load up on crew.’
The battered man grinned.
Back to Letheras, aye. And fast.
Chapter Four
The mutiny came that fell dawn, when through the heavy mists that had plagued us for ten days we looked to the east, and there saw, rising vast and innumerable on the cloud-bound horizon, dragons. Too large to comprehend, their heads above the sun, their folded wings reaching down to cast a shadow that could swallow all of Drene. This was too much, too frightening even for the more seasoned soldiers in our troop, for their dark eyes were upon us, an alien regard that drained the blood from our hearts, the very iron from our swords and spears.
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 585