The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  ‘A god devoid of wisdom deserves what it gets.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  Karsa stooped momentarily to retrieve the dead rat, then he headed for the hatch.

  She followed.

  When she reached the main deck, the Toblakai was walking towards the captain. She watched as he placed the sodden rat in the Letherii’s hands, then turned away, saying, ‘Get the hoists – I want my horse on deck and off this damned hulk.’ Behind him, the captain stared down at the creature in his hands, then, with a snarl, he flung it over the rail.

  Samar Dev contemplated a few quick words with the captain, to stave off the coming storm – a storm that Karsa had nonchalantly triggered innumerable times before on this voyage – then decided it was not worth the effort. It seemed that the captain concluded much the same, as a sailor hurried up with a bucket of seawater, into which the Letherii thrust his hands.

  The main hatch to the cargo hold was being removed, while other hands set to assembling the winches.

  Karsa strode to the gangway. He halted, then said in a loud voice, ‘This city reeks. When I am done with its Emperor, I may well burn it to the ground.’

  The planks sagged and bounced as the Toblakai descended to the landing.

  Samar Dev hurried after him.

  One of two fully armoured guards had already begun addressing Karsa in contemptuous tones. ‘—to be unarmed whenever you are permitted to leave the compound, said permission to be granted only by the ranking officer of the Watch. Our immediate task is to escort you to your quarters, where the filth will be scrubbed from your body and hair—’

  He got no further, as Karsa reached out, closed his hand on the guard’s leather weapons harness, and with a single heave flung the Letherii into the air. Six or more paces to the left he sailed, colliding with three stevedores who had been watching the proceedings. All four went down.

  Voicing an oath, the second guard tugged at his shortsword.

  Karsa’s punch rocked his head back and the man collapsed.

  Hoarse shouts of alarm, more Letherii soldiers converging.

  Samar Dev rushed forward. ‘Hood take you, Toblakai – do you intend to war with the whole empire?’

  Glaring at the half-circle of guards closing round him, Karsa grunted then crossed his arms. ‘If you are to be my escort,’ he said to them, ‘then be civil, or I will break you all into pieces.’ Then he swung about, pushing past Samar. ‘Where is my horse?’ he bellowed to the crew still on deck. ‘Where is Havok! I grow tired of waiting!’

  Samar Dev considered returning to the ship, demanding that they sail out, back down the river, back into the Draconean Sea, then beyond. Leaving this unpredictable Toblakai to Letheras and all its hapless denizens.

  Alas, even gods don’t deserve that.

  Bugg stood thirty paces from the grand entrance to the Hivanar Estate, one hand out as he leaned against a wall to steady himself. In some alley garden a short distance away, chickens screeched in wild clamour and flung themselves into the grille hatches in frenzied panic. Overhead, starlings still raced back and forth en masse.

  He wiped beads of sweat from his brow, struggled to draw a deep breath.

  A worthy reminder, he told himself. Everything was only a matter of time. What stretched would then contract. Events tumbled, forces closed to collision, and for all that, the measured pace seemed to remain unchanged, a current beneath all else. Yet, he knew, even that slowed, incrementally, from one age to the next. Death is written in birth – the words of a great sage. What was her name? When did she live? Ah, so much has whispered away from my mind, these memories, like sand between the fingers. Yet she could see what most cannot – not even the gods. Death and birth. Even in opposition the two forces are bound, and to define one is to define the other.

  And now he had come. With his first step, delivering the weight of history. This land’s. His own. Two forces in opposition, yet inextricably bound. Do you now feel as if you have come home, Icarium? I remember you, striding from the sea, a refugee from a realm you had laid to waste. Yet your father did not await you – he had gone, he had walked down the throat of an Azath. Icarium, he was Jaghut, and among the Jaghut no father reaches across to take his child’s hand.

  ‘Are you sick, old man?’

  Blinking, Bugg looked across to see a servant from one of the nearby estates, returning from market with a basket of foodstuffs balanced on his head. Only with grief, dear mortal. He shook his head.

  ‘It was the floods,’ the servant went on. ‘Shifting the clay.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Scale House fell down – did you hear? Right into the street. Good thing it was empty, hey? Though I heard there was a fatality – in the street.’ The man suddenly grinned. ‘A cat!’ Laughing, he resumed his journey.

  Bugg stared after him; then, with a grunt, he set off for the gate.

  He waited on the terrace, frowning down at the surprisingly deep trench the crew had managed to excavate into the bank, then outward, through the bedded silts of the river itself. The shoring was robust, and Bugg could see few leaks from between the sealed slats. Even so, two workers were on the pump, their bared backs slick with sweat.

  Rautos Hivanar came to his side. ‘Bugg, welcome. I imagine you wish to retrieve your crew.’

  ‘No rush, sir,’ Bugg replied. ‘It is clear to me now that this project of yours is…ambitious. How much water is coming up from the floor of that pit?’

  ‘Without constant pumping, the trench would overflow in a little under two bells.’

  ‘I bring you a message from your servant, Venitt Sathad, who visited on his way out of the city. He came to observe our progress on the refurbishment of the inn you recently acquired, and was struck with something of a revelation upon seeing the mysterious mechanism we found inside an outbuilding. He further suggested it was imperative that you see it for yourself. Also, he mentioned a collection of artifacts…recovered from this trench, yes?’

  The large man was silent for a moment, then he seemed to reach a decision, for he gestured Bugg to follow.

  They entered the estate, passing through an elongated, shuttered room in which hung drying herbs, down a corridor and into a workroom dominated by a large table and prism lanterns attached to hinged arms so that, if desired, they could be drawn close or lifted clear when someone was working at the table. Resting on the polished wood surface were a dozen or so objects, both metal and fired clay, not one of which revealed any obvious function.

  Rautos Hivanar still silent and standing now at his side, Bugg scanned the objects for a long moment, then reached out and picked up one in particular. Heavy, unmarked by pitting or rust, seamlessly bent almost to right angles.

  ‘Your engineers,’ Rautos Hivanar said, ‘could determine no purpose to these mechanisms.’

  Bugg’s brows rose at the man’s use of the word ‘mechanism’. He hefted the object in his hands.

  ‘I have attempted to assemble these,’ the merchant continued, ‘to no avail. There are no obvious attachment points, yet, somehow, they seem to me to be of a piece. Perhaps some essential item is still buried beneath the river, but we have found nothing for three days now, barring a wheelbarrow’s worth of stone chips and shards – and these were recovered in a level of sediment far below these artifacts, leading me to believe that they pre-date them by centuries, if not millennia.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bugg muttered. ‘Eres’al, a mated pair, preparing flint for tools, here on the bank of the vast marsh. He worked the cores, she did the more detailed knapping. They came here for three seasons, then she died in childbirth, and he wandered with a starving babe in his arms until it too died. He found no others of his kind, for they had been scattered after the conflagration of the great forests, the wildfires sweeping out over the plains. The air was thick with ash. He wandered, until he died, and so was the last of his line.’ He stared unseeing at the artifact, even as its weight seemed to burgeon, threatening to tug at his arms, to
drag him down to his knees. ‘But Icarium said there would be no end, that the cut thread was but an illusion – in his voice, then, I could hear his father.’

  A hand closed on his shoulder and swung him round. Startled, he met Rautos Hivanar’s sharp, glittering eyes. Bugg frowned. ‘Sir?’

  ‘You – you are inclined to invent stories. Or, perhaps, you are a sage, gifted with unnatural sight. Is this what I am hearing, old man? Tell me, who was this Icarium? Was that the name of the Eres’al? The one who died?’

  ‘I am sorry, sir.’ He raised the object higher. ‘This artifact – you will find it is identical to the massive object at the inn, barring scale. I believe this is what your servant wanted you to realize – as he himself did when he first looked upon the edifice once we had brought down the walls enclosing it.’

  ‘Are you certain of all this?’

  ‘Yes.’ Bugg gestured at the array of items on the table. ‘A central piece is missing, as you suspected, sir. Alas, you will not find it, for it is not physical. The framework that will hold it together is one of energy, not matter. And,’ he added, still in a distracted tone, ‘it has yet to arrive.’

  He set the artifact back down and walked from the chamber, back up the corridor, through the dry-rack room, out onto the terrace. Unmindful of the two workers pausing to stare across at him as Rautos Hivanar appeared as if in pursuit – the merchant’s hands were spread, palms up, as if beseeching, although the huge man said not a word, his mouth working in silence, as though he had been struck mute. Bugg’s glance at the large man was momentary. He continued on, along the passage between estate wall and compound wall, to the side postern near the front gate.

  He found himself once more on the street, only remotely noticing the passers-by in the cooler shade of afternoon.

  It has yet to arrive.

  And yet, it comes.

  ‘Watch where you’re walking, old man!’

  ‘Leave off him – see how he weeps? It’s an old man’s right to grieve, so leave him be.’

  ‘Must be blind, the clumsy fool…’

  And here, long before this city was born, there stood a temple, into which Icarium walked – as lost as any son, the child severed from the thread. But the Elder God within could give him nothing. Nothing beyond what he himself was preparing to do.

  Could you have imagined, K’rul, how Icarium would take what you did? Take it into himself as would any child seeking a guiding hand? Where are you, K’rul? Do you sense his return? Do you know what he seeks?

  ‘Clumsy or not, it’s a question of manners and proper respect.’

  Bugg’s threadbare tunic was grasped and he was dragged to one side, then flung up against a wall. He stared at a battered face beneath the rim of a helm. To one side, scowling, another guard.

  ‘Do you know who we are?’ the man holding him demanded, baring stained teeth.

  ‘Karos Invictad’s thugs, aye. His private police, the ones who kick in doors at the middle of night. The ones who take mothers from babes, fathers from sons. The ones who, in the righteous glory that comes with unchallenged power, then loot the homes of the arrested, not to mention raping the daughters—’

  Bugg was thrown a second time against the wall, the back of his head crunching hard on the pitted brick.

  ‘For that, bastard,’ the man snarled, ‘you’ll Drown.’

  Bugg blinked sweat from his eyes, then, as the thug’s words penetrated, he laughed. ‘Drown? Oh, that’s priceless. Now, take your hands off me or I will lose my temper.’

  Instead, the man tightened his hold on the front of Bugg’s tunic, while the other said, ‘You were right, Kanorsos, he needs beating.’

  ‘The bully’s greatest terror,’ Bugg said, ‘comes when he meets someone bigger and meaner—’

  ‘And is that you?’

  Both men laughed.

  Bugg twisted his head, looked round. People were hurrying past – it was never wise to witness such events, not when the murderers of the Patriotists were involved. ‘So be it,’ he said under his breath. ‘Gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you someone bigger and meaner, or, to be more accurate, something.’

  A moment later Bugg was alone. He adjusted his tunic, glanced about, then set off once more for his master’s abode.

  It was inevitable, he knew, that someone had witnessed the sudden vanishing of two armed and amoured men. But no-one cried out in his wake, for which he was relieved, since he was not inclined to discuss much with anyone right at that moment.

  Did I just lose my temper? It’s possible, but then, you were distracted. Perturbed, even. These things happen.

  Feather Witch wasted little time. Off the cursed ships and their countless, endlessly miserable crowds, the eyes always upon her, the expressions of suspicion or contempt and the stench of suffering that came of hundreds of prisoners – the fallen Edur of Sepik, mixed-blood one and all, worse in the eyes of the tribes than Letherii slaves; the scores of foreigners who possessed knowledge deemed useful – at least for now; the Nemil fisher folk; the four copper-skinned Shal-Morzinn warriors dragged from a floundering carrack; denizens of Seven Cities, hailing from Ehrlitan, the Karang Isles, Pur Atrii and other places; Quon sailors who claimed to be citizens of an empire called Malaz; dwellers of Lamatath and Callows…

  Among them there were warriors considered worthy enough to be treated as challengers. An axeman from the ruined Meckros City the fleet had descended upon, a Cabalhii monk and a silent woman wearing a porcelain mask the brow of which was marked with eleven arcane glyphs – she had been found near dead in a storm-battered scow south of Callows.

  There were others, chained in the holds of other ships in other fleets, but where they came from and what they were was mostly irrelevant. The only detail that had come to fascinate Feather Witch – among all these pathetic creatures – was the bewildering array of gods, goddesses, spirits and ascendants they worshipped. Prayers in a dozen languages, voices reaching out into vast silences – all these forlorn fools and all the unanswered calls for salvation.

  No end, in that huge, chaotic world, to the delusions of those who believed they were chosen. Unique among their kind, basking beneath the gaze of gods that gave a damn – as if they would, when the truth was, each immortal visage, for all its peculiar traits, was but a facet of one, and that one had long since turned away, only to fight an eternal battle against itself. From the heavens, only indifference rained down, like ash, stinging the eyes, scratching raw the throat. There was no sustenance in that blinding deluge.

  Chosen – now there was a conceit of appalling proportions. Either we all are, or none of us are. And if the former, then we will all face the same judge, the same hand of justice – the wealthy, the Indebted, the master, the slave, the murderer and the victim, the raper and the raped, all of us, so pray hard, everyone – if that helps – and look well to your own shadow. More likely, in her mind, no-one was chosen, and there was no day of judgement awaiting every soul. Each and every mortal faced a singular end, and that was oblivion.

  Oh, indeed, the gods existed, but not one cared a whit for the fate of a mortal’s soul, unless they could bend that soul to their will, to serve as but one more soldier in their pointless, self-destructive wars.

  For herself, she was past such thinking. She had found her own freedom, basking beneath that blessed rain of indifference. She would do as she willed, and not even the gods could stop her. It would be the gods themselves, she vowed, who would come to her. Beseeching, on their knees, snared in their own game.

  She moved silently, now, deep in the crypts beneath the Old Palace. I was a slave, once – many believe I still am, yet look at me – I rule this buried realm. I alone know where the hidden chambers reside, I know what awaits me within them. I walk this most fated path, and, when the time is right, I will take the throne.

  The Throne of Oblivion.

  Uruth might well be looking for her right now, the old hag with all her airs, the smugness of a thousand imagined secrets
, but Feather Witch knew all those secrets. There was nothing to fear from Uruth Sengar – she had been usurped by events. By her youngest son, by the other sons who then betrayed Rhulad. By the conquest itself. The society of Edur women was now scattered, torn apart; they went where their husbands were despatched; they had surrounded themselves in Letherii slaves, fawners and Indebted. They had ceased to care. In any case, Feather Witch had had enough of all that. She was in Letheras once more and like that fool, Udinaas, she was fleeing her bondage; and here, in the catacombs of the Old Palace, none would find her.

  Old storage rooms were already well supplied, equipped a morsel at a time in the days before the long journey across the oceans. She had fresh water, wine and beer, dried fish and beef, fired clay jugs with preserved fruits. Bedding, spare clothes, and over a hundred scrolls stolen from the Imperial Library. Histories of the Nerek, the Tarthenal, the Fent and a host of even more obscure peoples the Letherii had devoured in the last seven or eight centuries – the Bratha, the Katter, the Dresh and the Shake.

  And here, beneath the Old Palace, Feather Witch had discovered chambers lined with shelves on which sat thousands of mouldering scrolls, crumbling clay tablets and worm-gnawed bound books. Of those she had examined, the faded script in most of them was written in an arcane style of Letherii that proved difficult to decipher, but she was learning, albeit slowly. A handful of old tomes, however, were penned in a language she had never seen before.

  The First Empire, whence this colony originally came all those centuries ago, seemed to be a complicated place, home to countless peoples each with their own languages and gods. For all the imperial claims to being the birth of human civilization, it was clear to Feather Witch that no such claim could be taken seriously. Perhaps the First Empire marked the initial nation consisting of more than a single city, probably born out of conquest, one city-state after another swallowed up by the rampaging founders. Yet even then, the fabled Seven Cities was an empire bordered by independent tribes and peoples, and there had been wars and then treaties. Some were broken, most were not. Imperial ambitions had been stymied, and it was this fact that triggered the age of colonization to distant lands.