Shaking his head in denial, Rhulad had said nothing, his pain-racked eyes fixed on the tiles of the dais beyond his slippered feet.
So lost, this terrible Emperor.
As she turned onto the corridor leading to her private chambers, she saw a tall figure standing near her door. A Tiste Edur, one of the few who were resident in the palace. She vaguely recalled the warrior’s having something to do with security.
He tilted his head in greeting as she approached. ‘First Concubine Nisall.’
‘Has the Emperor sent you?’ she asked, stepping past and waving him behind her into the chambers. Few men could intimidate her – she knew too well their minds. She was less at ease in the company of women, and the virtually neutered men such as Triban Gnol.
‘Alas,’ the warrior said, ‘I am not permitted to speak to my Emperor.’
She paused and glanced back at him. ‘Are you out of favour?’
‘I have no idea.’
Intrigued now, Nisall regarded the Edur for a moment, then asked, ‘Would you like some wine?’
‘No, thank you. Were you aware that a directive has been issued by Invigilator Karos Invictad to compile evidence leading to your arrest for sedition?’
She grew very still. Sudden heat flashed through her, then she felt cold, beads of sweat like ice against her skin. ‘Are you here,’ she whispered, ‘to arrest me?’
His brows rose. ‘No, nothing of the sort. The very opposite, in fact.’
‘You wish, then, to join in my treason?’
‘First Concubine, I do not believe you are engaged in any seditious acts. And if you are, I doubt they are directed against Emperor Rhulad.’
She frowned. ‘If not the Emperor, then whom? And how could it be considered treasonous if they are not aimed at Rhulad? Do you think I resent the Tiste Edur hegemony? Precisely whom am I conspiring against?’
‘If I was forced to hazard a guess…Chancellor Triban Gnol.’
She said nothing for a moment, then, ‘What do you want?’
‘Forgive me. My name is Bruthen Trana. I was appointed to oversee the operations of the Patriotists, although it is likely that the Emperor has since forgotten that detail.’
‘I am not surprised. You’ve yet to report to him.’
He grimaced. ‘True. The Chancellor has made certain of that.’
‘He insists you report to him instead, yes? I’m beginning to understand, Bruthen Trana.’
‘Presumably, Triban Gnol’s assurances that he has conveyed said reports to Rhulad are false.’
‘The only reports the Emperor receives regarding the Patriotists are those from the Invigilator, as vetted through the Chancellor.’
He sighed. ‘As I suspected. First Concubine, it is said your relationship with the Emperor has gone somewhat beyond that of ruler and chosen whore – forgive me for the use of that term. Rhulad is being isolated – from his own people. Daily he receives petitions, but they are all from Letherii, and those are carefully selected by Triban Gnol and his staff. This situation had worsened since the fleets sailed, for with them went Tomad Sengar and Uruth, and many other Hiroth, including Rhulad’s brother, Binadas. All who might have effectively opposed the Chancellor’s machinations were removed from the scene. Even Hanradi Khalag…’ His words fell away and he stared at her, then shrugged. ‘I must speak to the Emperor, Nisall. Privately.’
‘I may not be able to help you, if I am to be arrested,’ she said.
‘Only Rhulad himself can prevent that from occurring,’ Bruthen Trana said. ‘In the meantime, I can afford you some protection.’
She cocked her head. ‘How?’
‘I will assign you two Edur bodyguards.’
‘Ah, so you are not entirely alone, Bruthen.’
‘The only Edur truly alone here is the Emperor. And, perhaps, Hannan Mosag, although he still has his K’risnan – but it is anything but certain that the once-Warlock King is loyal to Rhulad.’
Nisall smiled without much humour. ‘And so it turns out,’ she said, ‘that the Tiste Edur are no different from the Letherii after all. Do you know, Rhulad would have it…otherwise.’
‘Perhaps, then, First Concubine, we can work together to help him realize his vision.’
‘Your bodyguards had best be subtle, Bruthen. The Chancellor’s spies watch me constantly.’
The Edur smiled. ‘Nisall, we are children of Shadow…’
Once, long ago, she had walked for a time through Hood’s Realm. In the language of the Eleint, the warren that was neither new nor Elder was known as Festal’rythan, the Layers of the Dead. She had found proof of that when traversing the winding cut of a gorge, the raw walls of which revealed innumerable strata evincing the truth of extinction. Every species that ever existed was trapped in the sediments of Festal’rythan, not in the same manner of similar formations of geology as could be found in any world; no, in Hood’s Realm, the soul sparks persisted, and what she was witness to was their ‘lives’, abandoned here, crushed into immobility. The stone itself was, in the peculiar oxymoron that plagued the language of death, alive.
In the broken grounds surrounding the lifeless Azath of Letheras, many of those long-extinct creatures had crawled back through the gate, as insidious as any vermin. True, it was not a gate as such, just…rents, fissures, as if some terrible demon had slashed from both sides, talons the size of two-handed swords tearing through the fabric between the warrens. There had been battles here, the spilling of ascendant blood, the uttering of vows that could not be kept. She could still smell the death of the Tarthenal gods, could almost hear their outrage and disbelief, as one fell, then another, and another…until all were gone, delivered unto Festal’rythan. She did not pity them. It was too easy to be arrogant upon arriving in this world, to think that none could challenge the unleashing of ancient power.
She had long since discovered a host of truths in time’s irresistible progression. Raw became refined, and with refinement, power grew ever deadlier. All that was simple would, in time and under sufficient pressure – and if random chance proved benign rather than malignant – acquire greater complexity. And yet, at some point, a threshold was crossed, and complexity crumbled into dissolution. There was nothing fixed in this; some forms rose and fell with astonishing rapidity, while others could persist for extraordinarily long periods in seeming stasis.
Thus, she believed she comprehended more than most, yet found that she could do little with that knowledge. Standing in the overgrown, battered yard, her cold unhuman eyes fixed on the malformed shape squatting at the edge of the largest sundered barrow, she could see through to the chaos inside him, could see how it urged dissolution within that complex matrix of flesh, blood and bone. Pain radiated from his hunched, twisted back as she continued studying him.
He had grown aware of her presence, and fear whispered through him, the sorcery of the Crippled God building. Yet he was uncertain if she presented a threat. In the meantime, ambition rose and fell like crashing waves around the island of his soul.
She could, she decided, make use of this one.
‘I am Hannan Mosag,’ the figure said without turning. ‘You…you are Soletaken. The cruellest of the Sisters, accursed among the Edur pantheon. Your heart is betrayal. I greet you, Sukul Ankhadu.’
She approached. ‘Betrayal belongs to the one buried beneath, Hannan Mosag, to the Sister you once worshipped. How much, Edur, did that shape your destiny, I wonder? Any betrayals plaguing your people of late? Ah, I saw that flinch. Well, then, neither of us should be surprised.’
‘You work to free her.’
‘I always worked better with Sheltatha Lore than I did with Menandore…although that may not be the case now. The buried one has her…obsessions.’
The Tiste Edur grunted. ‘Don’t we all.’
‘How long have you known your most cherished protectress was entombed here?’
‘Suspicions. For years. I had thought – hoped – that I would discover what remained of Scaband
ari Bloodeye here as well.’
‘Wrong ascendant,’ Sukul Ankhadu said, her tone droll. ‘Had you got it right as to who betrayed whom back then, you would have known that.’
‘I hear the contempt in your voice.’
‘Why are you here? So impatient as to add your power to the rituals I unleashed below?’
‘It may be,’ Hannan Mosag said, ‘that we could work together…for a time.’
‘What would be the value in that?’
The Tiste Edur shifted to look up at her. ‘It seems obvious. Even now, Silchas Ruin hunts for the one I’d thought here. I doubt that either you or Sheltatha Lore would be pleased should he succeed. I can guide you onto his trail. I can also lend you…support, at the moment of confrontation.’
‘And in return?’
‘For one, we can see an end to your killing and eating citizens in the city. For another, we can destroy Silchas Ruin.’
She grunted. ‘I have heard that determination voiced before, Hannan Mosag. Is the Crippled God truly prepared to challenge him?’
‘With allies…yes.’
She considered his proposal. There would be treachery, but it would probably not occur until after Ruin was disposed of – the game would turn over the disposition of the Finnest. She well knew that Scabandari Bloodeye’s power was not as it once was, and what remained would be profoundly vulnerable. ‘Tell me, does Silchas Ruin travel alone?’
‘No. He has a handful of followers, but of them, only one is cause for concern. A Tiste Edur, the eldest brother of the Sengar, once commander of the Edur Warriors.’
‘A surprising alliance.’
‘Shaky is a better way of describing it. He too seeks the Finnest, and will, I believe, do all he can to prevent its falling into Ruin’s hands.’
‘Ah, expedience plagues us all.’ Sukul Ankhadu smiled. ‘Very well, Hannan Mosag. We are agreed, but tell your Crippled God this: fleeing at the moment of attack, abandoning Sheltatha Lore and myself to Silchas Ruin and, say, making off with the Finnest during the fight, will prove a fatal error. With our dying breaths, we will tell Silchas Ruin all he needs to know, and he will come after the Crippled God, and he will not relent.’
‘You will not be abandoned, Sukul Ankhadu. As for the Finnest itself, do you wish to claim it for yourselves?’
She laughed. ‘To fight over it between us? No, we’d rather see it destroyed.’
‘I see. Would you object, then, to the Crippled God’s making use of its power?’
‘Will such use achieve eventual destruction?’
‘Oh yes, Sukul Ankhadu.’
She shrugged. ‘As you like.’ You must truly think me a fool, Hannan Mosag. ‘Your god marches to war – he will need all the help he can get.’
Hannan Mosag managed his own smile, a twisted, feral thing. ‘He is incapable of marching. He does not even crawl. The war comes to him, Sister.’
If there was hidden significance to that distinction, Sukul Ankhadu was unable to discern it. Her gaze lifted, fixed on the river to the south. Wheeling gulls, strange islands of sticks and grasses spinning on the currents. And, she could sense, beneath the swirling surface, enormous, belligerent leviathans, using the islands as bait. Whatever came close enough…
She was drawn to a rumble of power from the broken barrow and looked down once more. ‘She’s coming, Hannan Mosag.’
‘Shall I leave? Or will she be amenable to our arrangement?’
‘On that, Edur, I cannot speak for her. Best you depart – she will, after all, be very hungry. Besides, she and I have much to discuss…old wounds to mend between us.’
She watched as the malformed warlock dragged himself away. After all, you are much more her child than you are mine, and I’d rather she was, for the moment, without allies.
It was all Menandore’s doing, anyway.
Chapter Six
The argument was this: a civilization shackled to the strictures of excessive control on its populace, from choice of religion through to the production of goods, will sap the will and the ingenuity of its people – for whom such qualities are no longer given sufficient incentive or reward. At face value, this is accurate enough. Trouble arrives when the opponents to such a system institute its extreme opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal (including community) is possible. In such a system rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore, a kind of intransigence as fierce and nonsensical as its maternalistic counterpart.
And so, in the clash of these two extreme systems, one is witness to brute stupidity and blood-splashed insensitivity; two belligerent faces glowering at each other across the unfathomed distance, and yet, in deed and in fanatic regard, they are but mirror reflections.
This would be amusing if it weren’t so pathetically idiotic…
In Defence of Compassion
Denabaris of Letheras, 4th century
Dead pirates were better, Shurq Elalle mused. There was a twisted sort of justice in the dead preying upon the living, especially when it came to stealing all their treasured possessions. Her pleasure in prying those ultimately worthless objects from their hands was the sole reason for her criminal activities, more than sufficient incentive to maintain her new-found profession. Besides, she was good at it.
The hold of the Undying Gratitude was filled with the cargo from the abandoned Edur ship, the winds were fresh and steady, pushing them hard north out of the Draconean Sea, and it looked as if the huge fleet in her wake was not getting any closer.
Edur and Letherii ships, a hundred, maybe more. They’d come out of the southwest, driving at a converging angle towards the sea lane that led to the mouth of the Lether River. The same lane that Shurq Elalle’s ship now tracked, as well as two merchant scows the Undying Gratitude was fast overhauling. And that last detail was too bad, since those Pilott scows were ripe targets, and without a mass of Imperial ships crawling up her behind, she’d have pounced.
Cursing, Skorgen Kaban limped up to where she stood at the aft rail. ‘It’s that infernal search, ain’t it? The two main fleets, or what’s left of ’em.’ The first mate leaned over the rail and spat down into the churning foam skirling out from the keel. ‘They’re gonna be nipping our tails all the way into Letheras harbour.’
‘That’s right, Pretty, which means we have to stay nice.’
‘Aye. Nothing more tragic than staying nice.’
‘We’ll get over it,’ Shurq Elalle said. ‘Once we’re in the harbour, we can sell what we got, hopefully before the fleet arrives to do the same – because then the price will drop, mark my words. Then we head back out. There’ll be more Pilott scows, Skorgen.’
‘You don’t think that fleet came up on the floating wreck, do you? They’ve got every stretch of canvas out, like maybe they was chasing us. We get to the mouth and we’re trapped, Captain.’
‘Well, you have a point there. If they were truly scattered by that storm, a few of them could have come up on the wreck before it went under.’ She thought for a time, then said, ‘Tell you what. We’ll sail past the mouth. And if they ignore us and head upriver, we can come round and follow them in. But that means they’ll offload before we will, which means we won’t make as much—’
‘Unless their haul ain’t going to market,’ the first mate cut in. ‘Could be it’s all to replenish the royal vaults, Captain, or maybe it goes to the Edur and nobody else. Blood and Kagenza, after all. We could always find a coastal port and do our selling there.’
‘You get wiser with every body part you lose, Pretty.’
He grunted. ‘Gotta be some kind of upside.’
‘That’s the attitude,’ she replied. ‘All right, that’s what we’ll do, but never mind the coastal port – they’re all dirt poor this far north, surrounded by nothing but wilderness and bad roads where the bandits line up to charge tolls. And if a few Edur galleys take after us, we can always scoot straig
ht up to that hold-out prison isle this side of Fent Reach – that’s a tight harbour mouth, or so I’ve been told, and they got a chain to keep the baddies out.’
‘Pirates ain’t baddies?’
‘Not as far as they’re concerned. The prisoners are running things now.’
‘I doubt it’ll be that easy,’ Skorgen muttered. ‘We’d just be bringing trouble down on them – it’s not like the Edur couldn’t have conquered them long ago. They just can’t be bothered.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. The point is, we’ll run out of food and water if we can’t resupply somewhere. Edur galleys are fast, fast enough to stay with us. Anywhere we dock they’ll be on us before the last line is drawn to the bollard. With the exception of the prison isle.’ She scowled. ‘It’s a damned shame. I wanted to go home for a bit.’
‘Then we’d best hope the whole damned fleet back there heads upriver,’ Skorgen the Pretty said, scratching round an eye socket.
‘Hope and pray – you pray to any gods, Skorgen?’
‘Sea spirits, mostly. The Face Under the Waves, the Guardian of the Drowned, the Swallower of Ships, the Stealer of Winds, the Tower of Water, the Reef Hiders, the—’
‘All right, Pretty, that’ll do. You can keep your host of disasters to yourself…just make sure you do all the propitiations.’
‘Thought you didn’t believe in all that, Captain.’
‘I don’t. But it never hurts to make sure.’
‘One day their names will rise from the water, Captain,’ Skorgen Kaban said, making a complicated warding gesture with his one remaining hand. ‘And with them the seas will lift high, to claim the sky itself. And the world will vanish beneath the waves.’
‘You and your damned prophecies.’
‘Not mine. Fent. Ever see their early maps? They show a coast leagues out from what it is now. All their founding villages are under hundreds of spans of water.’
‘So they believe their prophecy is coming true. Only it’s going to take ten thousand years.’
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 592