‘Yes, even more difficult. Ulshun Pral’s Bonecaster is gone. Til’aras Benok and Gr’istanas Ish’ilm, who stand to either side of Hostille Rator, are Bonecasters.’
Trull Sengar drew a deep breath. ‘They contemplate usurpation, then.’
Onrack the Broken nodded.
‘Then what had stopped them?’ Quick Ben asked.
‘Rud Elalle, wizard. The son of Menandore terrifies them.’
The rain thundered down, every moment another hundred thousand iron-tipped lances crashing down out of the dark onto slate rooftops, exploding on the cobbled streets where streams now rushed down, racing for the harbour.
The ice north of the island had not died quietly. Sundered by the magic of a wilful child, the white and blue mountains had lifted skyward in pillars of steam that roiled into massive stormclouds, which had then marched south freed from the strictures of refusal, and those clouds now erupted over the beleaguered city with rage and vengeance. Late afternoon had become midnight and now, as the half-drowned chimes of midnight’s bells sounded, it seemed as if this night would never end.
On the morrow – if it ever came – the Adjunct would set sail with her motley fleet. Thrones of War, a score of well-armed fast escorts, the last of the transports holding the rest of the Fourteenth Army, and one sleek black dromon propelled by the tireless oars manned by headless Tiste Andii. Oh, and of course, in the lead would be a local pirate’s ship, captained by a dead woman – but never mind her. Return, yes, to that black-hulled nightmare.
Their hosts had worked hard to keep the dread truth of that Quon dromon from Nimander Golit and his kin. The severed heads on the deck, mounded around the mainmast, well, they had kept them covered. No point in encouraging hysteria, should their living Tiste Andii guests see the faces of their kin, their true kin, for were they not of Drift Avalii? Oh yes, they were indeed. Uncles, fathers, mothers, oh, a play on words now would well serve the notion – they were, yes, heads of families, cut away before their time, before their children had grown old enough, wise enough, hard enough to survive in this world. Cut away, ha ha. Now, death would have been one thing. Dying was one thing. Just one and there were other things, always, and you didn’t need any special wisdom to know that. But those heads had not died, not stiffened then softened with rot. The faces had not fallen away to leave just bone, just the recognition that came with a sharing of what-is, what-was and what-would-be. No, the eyes stared on, the eyes blinked because some memory told them that blinking was necessary. The mouths moved, resuming interrupted conversations, the sharing of jests, the gossip of parents, yet not a single word could claw free.
But hysteria was a complicated place in which a young mind might find itself. It could be deafening with screams, shrieks, the endless bursts of horror again and again and again – a tide surging without end. Or it could be quiet – silent in that awful way of some silences – like that of gaping mouths, desperate but unable to draw breath, the eyes above bulging, the veins standing prominent in their need, but no breath would come, nothing to slide life into the lungs. This was the hysteria of drowning. Drowning inside oneself, inside horror. The hysteria of a child, blank-eyed, drool smearing the chin.
Some secrets were impossible to keep. The truth of that ship, for one. The Silanda’s lines were known, were profoundly familiar. The ship that had taken their parents on a pathetic journey in search of the one whom every Tiste Andii of Drift Avalii called Father. Anomander Rake. Anomander of the silver hair, the dragon’s eyes. Didn’t find him, alas. Never the chance to plead for help, to ask all the questions that needed asking, to stab fingers in accusation, condemnation, damnation. All that, yes yes.
Take to your oars, brave parents, there is more sea to cross. Can you see the shore? Of course not. You see the sunlight when there is sunlight through canvas weave, and in your heads you feel the ache of your bodies, the strain in your shoulders, the bunch and loose, bunch and loose of every draw on the sweeps. You feel the blood welling up to pool in the neck as if it was a gilded cup, only to sink back down again. Row, damn you! Row for the shore!
Aye, the shore. Other side of this ocean, and this ocean, dear parents, is endless.
So row! Row!
He might have giggled, but that would be a dangerous thing, to break the silence of his hysteria, which he had held on to for so long now it had become warm as a mother’s embrace.
Best to carry on, working to push away, shut away, all thought of the Silanda. Easier on land, in this inn, in this room.
But, on the morrow, they would sail. Again. Onto the ships, oh the spray and wind enlivens so!
And this was why, on this horrid night of vengeful rain, Nimander was awake. For he knew Phaed. He knew Phaed’s own stain of hysteria, and what it might lead her to do. Tonight, in the sodden ashes of midnight’s bell.
She could make her footfalls very quiet, as she crept out of her bed and padded barefoot to the door. Blessed sister blessed daughter blessed mother blessed aunt, niece, grandmother – blessed kin, blood of my blood, spit of my spit, gall of my gall. I hear you.
For I know your mind, Phaed. The ever-surging bursts in your soul – yes, I see your bared teeth, the smear of intent. You imagine yourself unseen, yes, unwitnessed, and so you reveal your raw self. There in that blessed slash of grey-white, so poetically echoed by the gleam of the knife in your hand.
To the door, darling Phaed. Lift the latch, and out you go, to slide down the corridor all slithering limbs as the rain lashes the roof above and water trickles down the walls in dirty tears. Cold enough to see your breath, Phaed, reminding you not just that you are alive, but that you are sexually awakened; that this journey is the sweetest indulgence of under-the-cover secrets, fingers ever playful on the knife, and on the rocking ship in the harbour eyes stare at blackness beneath drenched canvas, water trickling down…
She worries, yes, about Withal. Who might awaken. Before or after. Who might smell the blood, the iron stench, the death riding out on Sandalath Drukorlat’s last breath. Who might witness when all that Phaed was, truly was, could never be witnessed – because such things were not allowed, never allowed, and so she might have to kill him, too.
Vipers strike more than once.
Now at the door, the last barrier – row you fools – the shore lies just beyond! – and of course there is no lock binding the latch. No reason for it. Save one murderous child whose mother’s head stares at canvas on a pitching deck. The one child who went to see that for herself. And we are drawn to pilgrimage. Because to live is to hunt for echoes. Echoes of what? No-one knows. But the pilgrimage is taken, yes, ever taken, and every now and then those echoes are caught – just a whisper – creaking oars, the slap and chop of waves like fists against the hull, clamouring to get in, and the burbling blood, the spitting suck as it sinks back down. And we hear, in those echoes, some master’s voice: Row! Row for the shore! Row for your lives!
He remembered a story, the story he always remembered, would ever remember. An old man alone in a small fisher boat. Rowing into the face of a mountain of ice. Oh, he did love that story. The pointless glory of it, the mindless magic – he would grow chilled at the thought, at the vision he conjured of that wondrous, profound and profoundly useless scene. Old man, what do you think you are doing? Old man – the ice!
Inside, a shadow among shadows, gloom in the gloom, teeth hidden now, but the knife is a lurid gleam, catching reflections of rain from the window’s pitted rainbow glass. And a shudder takes her then, pulling her down into a crouch as sensations flood up through her belly, lancing upward into her brain and her breath catches – oh, Phaed, don’t scream now. Don’t even moan.
They have drawn their cots together – on this night, then, the man and the bitch have shared the spit of their loins, isn’t that sweet. She edges closer, eyes searching. Finding Sandalath’s form on the left, closest to her. Convenient.
Phaed raises the knife.
In her mind, flashes, scene after scene, the s
ordid list of this old woman’s constant slights, each one belittling Phaed, each one revealing to all nearby too many of Phaed’s secret terrors – no-one has the right to do that, no-one has the right to then laugh – laugh in the eyes if not out loud. All those insults, well, the time has come to pay them back. Here, with one hard thrust of the knife.
She lifts the knife still higher, draws in her breath and holds it.
And stabs down.
Nimander’s hand snaps out, catches her wrist, hard, tightening as she twists round, lips peeled back, eyes blazing with rage and fear. Her wrist is a tiny thing, like a bony snake, caught, frenzied, seeking to turn the knife, to set the edge against Nimander’s hand. He twists again and bones break, an awful crunching, grinding sound.
The knife clunks on the wooden floor.
Nimander bears down on her, using his weight to crumple Phaed onto the floor beside the bed. She tries to scratch at his eyes and he releases the broken limb to grasp the other one. He breaks that one too.
She has not screamed. Amazing, that. Not a sound but her panting breath.
Nimander pins her down and takes her neck in his hands. He begins to squeeze.
No more, Phaed. I now do as would Anomander Rake. As would Silchas Ruin. As would Sandalath herself were she awake. I do this, because I know you – yes, even now, there, in your bulging eyes where all your awareness now gathers in a flood, I can see the truth of you.
The emptiness inside.
Your mother stares in horror. At what she has spawned. She stares, disbelieving, clinging desperately to the possibility that she has got it wrong, that we all have, that you are not as you are. But that is no help. Not to her. Not to you.
Yes, stare up into my eyes, Phaed, and know that I see you.
I see you—
He was being dragged away. Off Phaed. His hands were being pried loose, twisted painfully to break his grip – and he falls back, muscled arms wrapped about him now, and is dragged from Phaed, from her bloated face and the dreadful gasping – poor Phaed’s throat hurts, maybe is torn, even. To breathe is to know agony.
But she lives. He has lost his chance, and now they will kill him.
Sandalath screams at him – she has been screaming at him for some time, he realizes. She first screamed when he broke Phaed’s second wrist – awakened by Phaed’s own screams – oh, of course she had not stayed quiet. Snapping bones would never permit that, not even from a soulless creature as was Phaed. She had screamed, and he’d heard nothing, not even echoes – hands on the oar and squeeze!
Now what would happen? Now what would they do?
‘Nimander!’
He started, stared across at Sandalath, studied her face as if it were a stranger’s.
Withal held him, arms trapped against his sides, but Nimander was not interested in struggling. It was too late for that.
Phaed had thrown up and the stink of her vomit was thick in the air.
Someone was pounding on the door – which in his wisdom Nimander had locked behind him after following Phaed into the room.
Sandalath yelled that it was all right, everything was fine – an accident, but everything is fine now.
But poor Phaed’s wrists are broken. That will need seeing to.
Not now, Withal.
He stands limp in my arms, wife. Can I release him now?
Yes, but be wary—
I shall, no doubt of that.
And now Sandalath, positioned between Nimander and the still-coughing, gagging Phaed, took Nimander’s face in her hands and leaned closer to study his eyes.
What do you see, Sandalath Drukorlat? Gems bright with truths and wonders? Pits whispering at you that no bottom will ever be found, that the plunge into a soul never ends? Row, you fools! We’re sinking! Oh, don’t giggle, Nimander, don’t do that. Remain as you are, outwardly numb. Blank. What do you see? Why, nothing, of course.
‘Nimander.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You can kill me now.’
A strange look on her face. Something like horror. ‘Nimander, no. Listen to me. I need to know. What has happened here? Why were you in our room?’
‘Phaed.’
‘Why were you both in our room, Nimander?’
Why, I followed her. I stayed awake – I’ve been doing that a lot. I’ve been watching her for days and days, nights and nights. Watching her sleep, waiting for her to wake up, to take out her knife and smile a greeting to the dark. The dark that is our heritage, the dark of betrayal.
I don’t remember when last I slept, Sandalath Drukorlat. I needed to stay awake, always awake. Because of Phaed.
Did he answer her then? Out loud, all those tumbling statements, those reasonable explanations. He wasn’t sure. ‘Kill me now, so I can sleep, I so want to sleep.’
‘No-one is going to kill you,’ Sandalath said. Her hands, pressed to the sides of his face, were slick with sweat. Or rain, perhaps. Not tears – leave that to the sky, to the night.
‘I am sorry,’ Nimander said.
‘I think that apology should be saved for Phaed, don’t you?’
‘I am sorry,’ he repeated to her, then added, ‘that she’s not dead.’
Her hands pulled away, leaving his cheeks suddenly cold.
‘Hold a moment,’ Withal said, stepping to the foot of the bed and bending down to pick up something. Gleaming, edged. Her knife. ‘Now,’ he said in a murmur, ‘which one does this toy belong to, I wonder?’
‘Nimander’s still wearing his,’ Sandalath said, and then she turned to stare down at Phaed.
A moment later, Withal grunted. ‘She’s been a hateful little snake around you, Sand. But this?’ He faced Nimander. ‘You just saved my wife’s life? I think you did.’ And then he moved closer, but there was nothing of the horror of Sandalath’s face in his own. No, this was a hard expression, that slowly softened. ‘Gods below, Nimander, you knew this was coming, didn’t you? How long? When did you last sleep?’ He stared a moment longer, then spun. ‘Move aside, Sand, I think I need to finish what Nimander started—’
‘No!’ his wife snapped.
‘She’ll try again.’
‘I understand that, you stupid oaf! Do you think I’ve not seen into that fanged maw that is Phaed’s soul? Listen, there is a solution—’
‘Aye, wringing her scrawny neck—’
‘We leave them here. On the island – we sail tomorrow without them. Withal – husband—’
‘And when she recovers – creatures like this one always do – she’ll take this damned knife and do to Nimander what she’s tried to do to you. He saved your life, and I will not abandon him—’
‘She won’t kill him,’ Sandalath said. ‘You don’t understand. She cannot – without him, she would be truly alone, and that she cannot abide – it would drive her mad—’
‘Mad, aye, mad enough to take a knife to Nimander, the one who betrayed her!’
‘No.’
‘Wife, are you so certain? Is your faith in understanding the mind of a sociopath so strong? That you would leave Nimander with her?’
‘Husband, her arms are broken.’
‘And broken bones can be healed. A knife in the eye cannot.’
‘She will not touch him.’
‘Sand—’
Nimander spoke. ‘She will not touch me.’
Withal’s eyes searched his. ‘You as well?’
‘You must leave us here,’ Nimander said, then winced at the sound of his own voice. So weak, so useless. He was no Anomander Rake. No Silchas Ruin. Andarist’s faith in choosing him to lead the others had been a mistake. ‘We cannot go with you. With Silanda. We cannot bear to see that ship any longer. Take it away, please, take them away!’
Oh, too many screams this night, in this room. More demands from outside, in growing alarm.
Sandalath turned and, drawing a robe about her – she had been, Nimander suddenly realized, naked – a woman of matronly gifts, the body of a woman who had birthed childr
en, a body such as young men dream of. And might there be wives who might be mothers who might be lovers…for one such as me? Stop, she is dead – robe drawn, Sandalath walked to the door, quickly unlocked it and slipped outside, closing the door behind her. More voices in the corridor.
Withal was staring down at Phaed, who had ceased her coughing, her whimpers of pain, her fitful weeping. ‘This is not your crime, Nimander.’
What?
Withal reached down and grabbed Phaed by her upper arms. She shrieked.
‘Don’t,’ Nimander said.
‘Not your crime.’
‘She will leave you, Withal. If you do that. She will leave you.’
He stared across at Nimander, then pushed Phaed back down onto the floor. ‘You don’t know me, Nimander. Maybe she doesn’t, either – not when it comes to what I will do for her sake – and, I suppose,’ he added with a snarl, ‘for yours.’
Nimander had thought his words had drawn Withal back, had kept him from doing what he had intended to do, and so he was unprepared, and so he stood, watching, as Withal snatched Phaed up, surged across the room – carrying her as if she was no more than a sack of tubers – and threw her through the window.
A punching shatter of the thick, bubbled glass, and body, flopping arms and bared lower limbs – with dainty feet at the end – were gone, out into the night that howled, spraying the room with icy rain.
Withal stumbled back in the face of that wind, then he spun to face Nimander. ‘I am going to lie,’ he said in a growl. ‘The mad creature ran, flung herself through – do you hear me?’
The door opened and Sandalath charged into the room, behind her the Adjunct’s aide, Lostara Yil, and the priest, Banaschar – and, pushing close behind them, the other Tiste Andii – eyes wide with fear, confusion – and Nimander lurched towards them, one step, then another—
And was pulled round to face Sandalath.
Withal was speaking. A voice filled with disbelief. Expostulations.
But she was staring into his eyes. ‘Did she? Nimander! Did she?’
Did she what? Oh, yes, go through the window.
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 663