The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  Rake frowned. “Indeed.”

  “Yet,” Baruk continued, “when the battle was begun in earnest, your first thought was not for the alliance you made with the city but for the well-being of your Moon.”

  “Who told you this?” Rake demanded.

  Baruk looked up and raised both hands. “Some of those wizards managed to escape.”

  “They’re in the city?” Rake’s eyes had gone black.

  Seeing them, Baruk felt sweat break out beneath his clothes. “Why?” he asked.

  “I want their heads,” Rake replied casually. He refilled his goblet and took a sip.

  An icy hand had slipped around Baruk’s heart and was now tightening. His headache had increased tenfold in the last few seconds. “Why?” he asked again, the word coming out almost as a gasp.

  If the Tiste Andii knew of the alchemist’s sudden discomfort he made no sign of it. “Why?” He seemed to roll the word in his mouth like wine, a light smile touching his lips. “When the Moranth army came down from the mountains, and Tayschrenn rode at the head of his wizard cadre, and when word spread that an Empire Claw had infiltrated the city,” Rake’s smile twisted into a snarl, “the wizards of Pale fled.” He paused, as if reliving memories. “I dispatched the Claw when they were but a dozen steps inside the walls.” He paused again, his face betraying a flash of regret. “Had the city’s wizards remained, the assault would have been repelled. Tayschrenn, it seemed, was preoccupied with . . . other imperatives. He’d saturated his position—a hilltop—with defensive wards. Then he unleashed demons not against me but against some of his companions. That baffled me, but rather than allow such conjurings to wander at will, I expended vital power destroying them.” He sighed and said, “I pulled the Moon back mere minutes from its destruction. I left it to drift south and went after those wizards.”

  “After them?”

  “I tracked down all but two.” Rake gazed at Baruk. “I want those two, preferably alive, but their heads will suffice.”

  “You killed those you found? How?”

  “With my sword, of course.”

  Baruk recoiled as if struck. “Oh,” he whispered. “Oh.”

  “The alliance,” Rake said, before draining his goblet.

  “I’ll speak to the Cabal on this matter,” Baruk answered, rising shakily to his feet. “Word of the decision will be sent to you soon.” He stared at the sword strapped to the Tiste Andii’s back. “Tell me, if you get those wizards alive, will you use that on them?”

  Rake frowned. “Of course.”

  Turning away, Baruk closed his eyes. “You’ll have their heads, then.”

  Behind him Rake laughed harshly. “There’s too much mercy in your heart, Alchemist.”

  The pale light beyond the window signified the dawn. Within the Phoenix Inn only one table remained occupied. Around it sat four men, one asleep in his chair with his head lying in a pool of stale beer. He snored loudly. The others were playing cards, two red-eyed with exhaustion while the last one studied his hand and talked. And talked.

  “And then there was the time I saved Rallick Nom’s life, at the back of All Eve’s Street. Four, no, five nefarious hoodlums had backed the boy to a wall. He was barely standing, was Rallick, gushing blood from a hundred knife wounds. Clear to me was the grim fact that it couldn’t last much longer, that tussle. I come up on them six assassins from behind, old Kruppe with fire dancing on his fingertips—a magical spell of frightful violence. I uttered the cantrip in a single breath and lo! Six piles of ash at Rallick’s feet. Six piles of ash aglitter with the coin from their wallets—hah! A worthy reward!”

  Murillio leaned his long, elegant frame close to Crokus Younghand. “Is this possible?” he whispered. “For a turn to last as long as Kruppe’s?”

  Crokus grinned wearily at his friend. “I don’t mind, really. It’s safe in here, and that’s what counts for me.”

  “Assassin’s war, bosh!” Kruppe said, leaning back to mop his brow with a wilted silk handkerchief. “Kruppe remains entirely unconvinced. Tell me, did you not see Rallick Nom in here earlier? Spoke long with Murillio here, the lad did. As calm as ever, was he not?”

  Murillio grimaced. “Nom gets like that every time he’s just killed somebody. Lay down a card, dammit! I’ve early appointments to attend to.”

  Crokus asked, “So what was Rallick talking to you about?”

  Murillio’s answer was a mere shrug. He continued glaring at Kruppe.

  The small man’s pencil-thin eyebrows rose. “Is it Kruppe’s turn?”

  Closing his eyes, Crokus slumped in his chair. He groaned. “I saw three assassins on the rooftops, Kruppe. And the two that killed the third went after me, even though it’s obvious I’m no assassin.”

  “Well,” said Murillio, eyeing the young thief’s tattered clothing and the cuts and scrapes on his face and hands, “I’m inclined to believe you.”

  “Fools! Kruppe sits at a table of fools.” Kruppe glanced down at the snoring man. “And Coll here is the biggest of them all. But sadly gifted with self-knowledge. Hence his present state, from which many profane truths might be drawn. Appointments, Murillio? Kruppe didn’t think the city’s multitude of mistresses awoke so early in the day. After all, what might they see in their mirrors? Kruppe shivers at the thought.”

  Crokus massaged the bruise hidden beneath his long, brown hair. He winced, then leaned forward. “Come on, Kruppe,” he muttered. “Play a card.”

  “My turn?”

  “Seems self-knowledge doesn’t extend to whose turn it is,” Murillio commented dryly.

  Boots sounded on the stairs. The three turned to see Rallick Nom descending from the first floor. The tall, dark-skinned man looked rested. He wore his day cloak, a deep royal purple, clasped at the neck by a silver clamshell brooch. His black hair was freshly braided, framing his narrow, clean-shaven face. Rallick walked up to the table and reached down to grasp Coll’s thinning hair. He raised the man’s head from the pool of beer and bent forward to study Coll’s blotched face. Then he gently set down the man’s head, and pulled up a chair.

  “Is this the same game as last night?”

  “Of course,” Kruppe replied. “Kruppe has these two men backed to the very wall, in danger of losing their very shirts! It’s good to see you again, friend Rallick. The lad here,” Kruppe indicated Crokus with a limp hand, fingers fluttering, “speaks endlessly of murder above our heads. A veritable downpour of blood! Have you ever heard such nonsense, Rallick Kruppe’s friend?”

  Rallick shrugged. “Another rumor. This city was built on rumors.”

  Crokus scowled to himself. It seemed that no one was willing to answer questions this morning. He wondered yet again what the assassin and Murillio had been talking about earlier; hunched as they’d been over a dimly lit table in one corner of the room, Crokus had suspected some sort of conspiracy. Not that such a thing was unusual for them, though most times Kruppe was at its center.

  Murillio swung his gaze to the bar. “Sulty!” he called out. “You awake?”

  There was a mumbled response from behind the wooden counter, then Sulty, her blonde hair disheveled and plump face looking plumper, stood up. “Yah,” she mumbled. “What?”

  “Breakfast for my friends here, if you please.” Murillio climbed to his feet and cast a critical, obviously disapproving eye over his clothing. The soft billowing shirt, dyed a bright green, now hung on his lanky frame, wilted and beer-stained. His fine tanned leather pantaloons were creased and patchy. Sighing, Murillio stepped away from the table. “I must bathe and change. As for the game, I surrender consumed by hopelessness. Kruppe, I now believe, will never play his card, thus leaving us trapped in the unlikely world of his recollections and reminiscences, potentially forever. Good night, one and all.” He and Rallick locked gazes, then Murillio gave a faint nod.

  Crokus witnessed the exchange and his scowl deepened. He watched Murillio leave, then glanced at Rallick. The assassin sat staring down at Coll, his exp
ression as unreadable as ever.

  Sulty wandered into the kitchen, and a moment later the clanking of pots echoed into the room.

  Crokus tossed his cards into the table’s center and leaned back, closing his eyes.

  “Does the lad surrender as well?” Kruppe asked.

  Crokus nodded.

  “Hah, Kruppe remains undefeated.” He set down his cards and tucked in a napkin at his thick, jiggling neck.

  In the thief’s mind suspicions of intrigue ran wild. First the assassin’s war, now Rallick and Murillio had something cooking. He sighed mentally and opened his eyes. His whole body ached from the night’s adventures, but he knew he’d been lucky. He stared down at Coll without seeing him. The vision of those tall, black assassins returned to him and he shivered. Yet, for all the dangers hounding his back up on the rooftops this past night, he had to admit how exciting it’d all been. After slamming that door behind him and quaffing the beer Sulty had thrust into his hand, his whole body had trembled for an hour afterward.

  His gaze focused on Coll. Coll, Kruppe, Murillio, and Rallick. What a strange group—a drunkard, an obese mage of dubious abilities, a dandified fop, and a killer.

  Still, they were his best friends. His parents had succumbed to the Winged Plague when he’d been four years old. Since then his uncle Mammot had raised him. The old scholar had done the best he could, but it hadn’t been enough. Crokus found the street’s shadows and moonless nights on rooftops far more exciting than his uncle’s moldy books.

  Now, however, he felt very much alone. Kruppe’s mask of blissful idiocy never dropped, not even for an instant—all through the years when Crokus had been apprenticed to the fat man in the art of thievery, he’d never seen Kruppe act otherwise. Coll’s life seemed to involve the relentless avoidance of sobriety, for reasons unknown to Crokus—though he suspected that, once, Coll had been something more. And now Rallick and Murillio had counted him out of some new intrigue.

  Into his thoughts came an image—the moonlit limbs of a sleeping maiden—and he angrily shook his head.

  Sulty arrived with breakfast, husks of bread fried in butter, a chunk of goat cheese, a stem of local grapes, and a pot of Callows bitter coffee. She served Crokus first and he muttered his thanks.

  Kruppe’s impatience grew while Sulty served Rallick. “Such impertinence,” the man said, adjusting his coat’s wide, stained sleeves. “Kruppe is of a mind to cast a thousand horrible spells on rude Sulty.”

  “Kruppe had better not,” Rallick said.

  “Oh, no, of course not,” Kruppe amended, wiping his brow with his handkerchief. “A wizard of my skills would never belittle himself on a mere scullion, after all.”

  Sulty turned to him. “Scullion?” She snatched a bread husk from the plate and slapped it down on Kruppe’s head. “Don’t worry,” she said, as she walked back to the bar. “With hair like yours nobody’d notice.”

  Kruppe pulled the husk from his head. He was about to toss it down on the floor, then changed his mind. He licked his lips. “Kruppe is magnanimous this morning,” he said, breaking into a wide smile and setting the bread down on his plate. He leaned forward and laced together his pudgy fingers. “Kruppe wishes to begin his meal with some grapes, please.”

  Chapter Seven

  I see a man

  crouched in a fire

  who leaves me cold

  and wondering what

  he is doing here so boldly

  crouched in my pyre . . .

  GADROBI EPITAPH

  ANONYMOUS

  This time, Kruppe’s dream took him out through Marsh Gate, along South Road, then left onto Cutter Lake Road. Overhead the sky swirled a most unpleasant pattern of silver and pale green. “All is in flux,” Kruppe gasped, his feet hurrying him along the dusty, barren road. “The Coin has entered a child’s possession, though he knows it not. Is it for Kruppe to walk this Monkey Road? Fortunate that Kruppe’s perfectly round body is an example of perfect symmetry. One is not only born skilled at said balance, one must learn it through arduous practice. Of course, Kruppe is unique in never requiring practice—at anything.”

  Off in the fields to his left, within a circle of young trees, a small fire cast a hazy red glow up among the budding branches. Kruppe’s sharp eyes could make out a single figure seated there, seemingly holding its hands in the flames. “Too many stones to turn underfoot,” he gasped, “on this rocky, rutted road. Kruppe would try the ribbed earth, which is yet to green with the season’s growth. Indeed, yon fire beckons.” He left the road and approached the circle of trees.

  As he strode between two slim boles and stepped into the pool of light, the hooded figure turned slowly to study him, its face hidden in shadows despite the fire before it. Though it held its hands in the flame, they withstood the heat, the long, sinuous fingers spread wide.

  “I would partake of this warmth,” Kruppe said, with a slight bow. “So rare within Kruppe’s dreams of late.”

  “Strangers wander through them,” the figure said, in a thin, oddly accented voice. “Such as I. Have you summoned me, then? It has been a long time since I walked on soil.”

  Kruppe’s brows rose. “Summoned? Nay, not Kruppe who is also a victim of his dreams. Imagine, after all, that Kruppe sleeps even now beneath warm blankets secure in his humble room. Yet see me, stranger, for I am cold, nay, chilled.”

  The other laughed softly and beckoned Kruppe to the fire. “I seek sensation once again,” it said, “but my hands feel nothing. To be worshiped is to share the supplicant’s pain. I fear my followers are no more.”

  Kruppe was silent. He did not like the somber mood of this dream. He held his hands before the fire yet felt little heat. A chill ache had settled into his knees. Finally he looked over the flames to the hooded figure opposite him. “Kruppe thinks you are an Elder God. Have you a name?”

  “I am known as K’rul.”

  Kruppe stiffened. His guess had been correct. The thought of an Elder God awakened and wandering through his dreams sent his thoughts scampering like frightened rabbits. “How have you come to be here, K’rul?” he asked, a tremor in his voice. All at once this place seemed too hot. He pulled his handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped sweat from his brow.

  K’rul considered before answering, and Kruppe heard doubt in his voice. “Blood has been spilled behind the walls of this glowing city, Kruppe, upon stone once holy in my name. This—this is new to me. Once I reigned in the minds of many mortals, and they fed me well with blood and split bones. Long before the first towers of stone rose to mortal whims, I walked among hunters.” The hood tilted upward and Kruppe felt immortal eyes fixing upon him. “Blood has been spilled again, but that alone is not enough. I believe I am here to await one who will be awakened. One I have known before, long ago.”

  Kruppe digested this like sour bile. “And what do you bring Kruppe?”

  The Elder God rose abruptly. “An ancient fire that will give you warmth in times of need,” he said. “But I hold you to nothing. Seek the T’lan Imass who will lead the woman. They are the Awakeners. I must prepare for battle, I think. One I will lose.”

  Kruppe’s eyes widened with sudden comprehension. “You are being used,” he breathed.

  “Perhaps. If so, then the Child Gods have made a grave error. After all,” a ghastly smile seemed to come into his tone, “I will lose a battle. But I will not die.” K’rul turned away from the fire then. His voice drifted back to Kruppe. “Play on, mortal. Every god falls at a mortal’s hands. Such is the only end to immortality.”

  The Elder God’s wistfulness was not lost on Kruppe. He suspected that a great truth had been revealed to him with those final words, a truth he was now given leave to use. “And use it Kruppe shall,” he whispered.

  The Elder God had left the pool of light, heading northeast across the fields. Kruppe stared at the fire. It licked the wood hungrily, but no ash was born, and though unfed since he’d arrived it did not dim. He shivered.

  �
�In the hands of a child,” he muttered. “This night, Kruppe is truly alone in the world. Alone.”

  An hour before dawn Circle Breaker was relieved of his vigil at Despot’s Barbican. This night none had come to rendezvous beneath the gate. Lightning played among the jagged peaks of the Tahlyn Mountains to the north as the man walked in solitude down the winding Charms of Anise Street in the Spice Quarter. Ahead and below glittered the Lakefront, the merchant trader ships from distant Callows, Elingarth, and Kepler’s Spite hunched dark and gloaming between gaslit stone piers.

  A cool lake breeze carried to the man the smell of rain, though overhead the stars glistened with startling clarity. He had removed his tabard, folding it into a small leather satchel now slung on one shoulder. Only the plain shortsword strapped at his hip marked him as a soldier, yet a soldier without provenance.

  He had divested himself of his official duties, and as he walked down toward the water, the years of service seemed to slough from his spirit. Bright were the memories of his childhood at these docks, to which he had been ever drawn by the allure of the strange traders as they swung into their berths like weary and weathered heroes returned from some elemental war. In those days it was not uncommon to see the galleys of the Freemen Privateers ease into the bay, sleek and riding low with booty. They hailed from such mysterious ports as Filman Orras, Fort By a Half, Dead Man’s Story, and Exile; names that rang of adventure in the ears of a lad who had never seen his home city from outside its walls.

  The man slowed as he reached the foot of the stone pier. The years between him and that lad marched through his mind, a possession of martial images growing ever grimmer. If he searched out the many crossroads he had come to in the past, he saw their skies storm-warped, the lands ragged and wind-torn. The forces of age and experience worked on them now, and whatever choices he had made then seemed fated and almost desperate.

  Is it only the young who know desperation? he wondered, as he moved to sit on the pier’s stone sea-wall. Before him rippled the bay’s sooty waters. Twenty feet below, the rock-studded shore lay sheathed in darkness, the glitter of broken glass and crockery here and there winking like stars.