The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  Paran ran his hand along the chain, leaving the Hound’s side. He paused, noticing the other beast watching his every move, then continued on. From the animal to the wagon, over seventy armspans of length, he ran his hands from link to link, seeking a change in the feel of the iron, seeking heat, gouges. Nothing. He arrived alongside the wagon. The wheel he walked behind was solid wood, a span in width, nicked and gouged but otherwise featureless. The wall of the bed was twenty or more feet high. The slatted sideboards of withered, bone-gray wood showed spaces a finger’s width between. Paran flinched back on seeing skeletal fingers crowding the cracks, wriggling helplessly.

  The wagon’s frame beneath the sideboards drew his attention. Here the wood was black, glistening with pitch. Chain-ends entered it, countless in number, sinking seamlessly into the wood. Under his touch the frame seemed solid, yet it was as if the chain links passed through it—whatever held them, then, was beyond the wagon’s frame. Paran drew a deep breath of the cool, stale air, then ducked under the bed.

  The frame’s beam was a dozen spans thick, condensation dripping down from its pitched underside in endless rain. At the inside edge Paran found once again the chains, continuing on farther under the wagon. Grasping one, he followed it inward. The links grew colder as did the air around him. Before long he was forced to release the chain, his hands burned by the cold. The rain from the underside of the wagon came down as slivers of ice. Two paces ahead, the chains converged, swallowed by a suspended pool of absolute darkness. Cold poured from it in pulsing waves. Paran could get no closer.

  He hissed in frustration as he scrambled along opposite the dark hole, wondering what to do next. Even if he managed to break a chain, he had no idea which ones belonged to the Hounds. As for the others . . . Anomander Rake seemed a creature of clear—if cold—justice. To break a chain could unleash ancient horrors upon the realms of the living. Even the stranger he’d spoken with could once have been a Tyrant, a horrible dominator.

  Paran unsheathed Chance. As the blade leaped free of the scabbard it bucked wildly in his hands. The captain grinned even as tremors of terror reached through his hands from the sword. “Oponn! Dear Twins, I call on you! Now!”

  The air groaned. Paran stumbled over someone, who loosed a stream of curses. Sheathing his sword, he reached down, hand closing on brocaded cloth. He pulled the god to his feet. “Why you?” Paran demanded. “I wanted your sister.”

  “Madness, mortal!” the male Twin snapped. “To call me here! So close to the Queen of Darkness—here, within a god-slaying sword!”

  Paran shook him. Filled with a mindless, bestial rage, the captain shook the god. He heard the Hounds howl, and fought back a sudden desire to join his voice to their cries.

  The Twin, terror in his bright eyes, clawed at Paran. “What—what are you doing?”

  Paran stopped, his attention drawn to two chains that had gone slack. “They’re coming.”

  The wagon seemed to leap upward, rocked as it had never been before. The thunder of the impact filled the air, wood and ice cascading down.

  “They have your scent, Twin.”

  The god shrieked, battered his fists into Paran’s face, scratching, kicking, but the captain held on. “Not the luck that pulls.” He spat blood. “The luck . . . that pushes—”

  The wagon was hammered again, its wheels bucking into the air to come down with a splintering, echoing concussion. Paran had no time to wonder at the savage strength that coursed through him, a strength sufficient to hold down a god gripped in panic. He simply held on.

  “Please!” the Twin begged. “Anything! Just ask it! Anything within my powers.”

  “The Hounds’ chains,” Paran said. “Break them.”

  “I—I cannot!”

  The wagon shuddered sickeningly, distant wood splintering. Paran dragged the Twin a pace as it rolled forward again. “Think of a way,” he said. “Or the Hounds will have you.”

  “I—I cannot be sure, Paran.”

  “What? You can’t be sure of what?”

  The Twin gestured toward the blackness. “In there. The chains are held in place within it—within the Warren of Darkness, within Kurald Galain. Should they enter . . . I do not know—I cannot be certain, but the chains may disappear.”

  “How can they enter?”

  “They could be leaving one nightmare only to enter another.”

  “It cannot be worse, Twin. I asked you, how?”

  “Bait.”

  “What?”

  The Twin smiled shakily. “As you said, they’re coming. But, Paran, you must release me. By all means, hold me before the portal, but please, at the last moment . . .”

  “I release my hold on you.”

  The god nodded.

  “Very well.”

  The Hounds struck the wagon again, and this time they broke through. Clutching the Twin, Paran spun round to see the beasts charging out of the gloom. His captive shrieked.

  The Hounds leaped.

  Paran released the god, dropping flat to the ground as the Hounds passed through the air above. The Twin vanished. The Hounds flashed past, disappeared into the portal in silence, and were gone.

  Paran rolled to his feet, even as darkness reached out for him, not with the cold of oblivion but with a breath like warm, sighing wind.

  He opened his eyes to find himself on his hands and knees on the plain’s yellowed grass, beside a flattened, blood-smeared patch where the body of a Hound had once lain. Insects buzzed close by. His head aching, Paran climbed to his feet. The other Hound’s body was gone as well. What had he done? And why? Of all the things that the Twin could have offered him . . . Tattersail . . . Toc the Younger . . . Then again, to pluck a soul back through Hood’s Gate was not likely within Oponn’s power to achieve. Had he freed the Hounds? He realized he would probably never know.

  He staggered over to the horses. At least, for a short time there, he had been unchained. He had been free, and what he had done he had done by his own choice. My own choice.

  He looked to the south. Darujhistan and the Adjunct await me. Finish what you started, Paran. Finish it once and for all.

  “Damn inconvenient,” Coll growled as Crokus completed tying the bandage. “She was good,” he added. “She knew exactly what to do. I’d say she’d been trained. Sort of fits, since she was dressed like a mercenary.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Crokus said, sitting back on his haunches. He glanced at Murillio and Kruppe. Both remained unconscious. “Why did she attack us? And why didn’t she kill me?”

  Coll did not reply. He sat glaring at his horse, which stood a dozen feet away, quietly cropping grass. He’d already voiced a dozen foul curses at the beast, and Crokus suspected that their relationship had been, as Kruppe would put it, irretrievably compromised.

  “What’s this?” Coll grunted.

  Crokus realized that the man was looking past the horse, a frown deepening the lines of his forehead.

  The boy turned, then let out a wild shout, springing backward and snatching at his daggers. His boot caught a stone and he sprawled. He jumped to his feet, one blade freed and in his hand. “It’s her!” he yelled. “The woman from the bar! She’s a killer, Coll.”

  “Easy, lad,” Coll said. “She looks anything but dangerous, despite that sword on her hip. Hell,” he added, pushing himself straighter, “if anything, she looks completely lost.”

  Crokus stared at the woman, who stood at the summit’s edge. “Hood’s Breath,” he muttered. Coll was right. He’d never seen anyone look so bewildered, so utterly at a loss. She was looking at them, tensed as if ready to flee. All the poise, the deadly confidence she’d possessed in the Phoenix Inn, was gone, as if it had never been. Crokus sheathed his dagger.

  “So,” he asked, “what do we do now, Coll?”

  The wounded man shrugged. “Ease the girl’s mind, I guess. From the looks of it, she needs some help.”

  “But she killed Chert,” Crokus stated. “I saw the blood o
n her knife.”

  Coll squinted at the girl. “I don’t doubt you, boy, but this girl doesn’t look capable of killing anyone.”

  “You think I can’t see that?” Crokus said. “I’m just telling you what I saw. I know it doesn’t make any sense!”

  Coll sighed. “Anyway, she still needs our help. So go and get her, Crokus.”

  The boy threw up his hands. “How do I do that?”

  “Damned if I know,” Coll replied, grinning. “Try flirting.”

  Crokus threw the man a disgusted look, then he walked cautiously toward the girl. She tensed and backed a step. “Careful!” Crokus cried, pointing at the summit’s crest behind her.

  The girl saw that she stood at the very edge of a steep slope. Oddly enough, this seemed to relax her. She moved a few steps closer to Crokus, her wide eyes searching his.

  “That’s right,” Crokus murmured. “Everything’s fine. Do you understand?” He pointed at his mouth and made talking motions.

  Coll groaned.

  The girl surprised them both by replying in Daru, “I understand you,” she said haltingly. “More now. You’re not Malazan, you’re not speaking Malazan. But I understand you.” She frowned. “How?”

  “Malazan, huh?” Coll said. “Where are you from, girl?”

  She thought for a moment. “Itko Kan,” she said.

  “What?” Coll laughed. “What storm blew you here?”

  Realization flooded her eyes. “Where’s my father? What happened to the nets? I bought the twine, and there was that Seer—Riggalai the Seer, the wax-witch. I remember her—she died!” The girl fell to her knees. “She died. And then—”

  Coll’s expression was severe, thoughtful. “And then?”

  “I don’t remember,” the girl whispered, looking down at her hands. “I don’t remember anything more.” She began to cry.

  “Gedderone’s thousand teats,” Coll cursed quietly, waving Crokus to his side. “Listen carefully, lad. Don’t wait for us. Take this girl to your uncle. Take her to Mammot, and quickly.”

  Crokus scowled. “Why? I can’t just leave you here, Coll. Who knows when Murillio and Kruppe will come around? What if that mercenary comes back?”

  “What if she does?” Coll asked pointedly.

  Crokus flushed and looked away.

  “Murillio’s a tough bastard, despite the perfume,” Coll said. “He’ll be up and dancing in no time. Take the girl to your uncle, lad. Do as I say.”

  “You still haven’t told me why,” Crokus said.

  “It’s a hunch, no more.” Coll reached up and gripped the boy’s shoulder. “This girl’s been possessed. I think. Someone, something, brought her here, to Darujhistan, and on to our trail. The truth is somewhere in her head, Crokus, and it could be vital. Your uncle knows the right people, they can help her, lad. Now, saddle up my horse. I’ll wait here for our friends to wake. Hood knows, I can’t walk anyway. I shouldn’t move for at least a couple of days. Kruppe and Murillio will handle things here. Go!”

  Crokus eyed the weeping girl. Then he said. “All right, Coll. We’ll go back, me and her.”

  “Good,” Coll grunted. “Now, lay me out a bedroll and some food. Then ride on out of here, and if that damn horse of mine has a heart attack outside the city gates, even better. Hop to it, lad.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dessembrae knows the sorrows

  in our souls.

  He walks at the side of each mortal

  a vessel of regret on the fires

  of vengeance.

  Dessembrae knows the sorrows

  and would now share them with us all.

  THE LORD OF TRAGEDY

  HOLY BOOK PRAYER

  (CANON OF KASSAL)

  The puncture wound in Lorn’s left shoulder was not deep. Without magical aid, however, the risk of infection was a cause for concern. She returned to the camp to find Tool still positioned where he had been since dawn.

  Ignoring the Imass, the Adjunct found her collection of herbs in her saddle bag. She sat down and leaned back against the saddle, then set to treating the wound.

  It had been a foolish, unnecessary attack. Too many things had happened recently, too many ideas, too much of the woman Lorn interfering with her functions and duties as Adjunct to the Empress. She was making mistakes that she would not have made a year ago.

  Tool had given her more to think about than she could handle. The words the Imass had thrown at her feet, as if in afterthought, had reached into and grasped something deep within her and now would not let go. Emotions seeped into the Adjunct, clouding the world around her. She’d abandoned sorrow long ago, along with regret. Compassion was anathema to the Adjunct. Yet now all these feelings swept through her in tides pulling her every which way. She found herself clinging to the title of Adjunct, and what it meant, as if it was a lifeline to sanity, to stability and control.

  She completed cleaning the wound as best she could, then prepared a poultice. Control. The word rebounded in her thoughts, clipped, hard and sure. What was the heart of Empire, if not control? What shaped Empress Laseen’s every act, her every thought? And what had been at the heart of the very first Empire—the great wars that shaped the T’lan Imass to this day?

  She sighed and looked down at the dirt beneath her. But that was no more than we all sought, she told herself. From a young girl bringing twine home to her father, to the immortal power that had seized her for its own use. Through the gamut of life we struggled for control, for a means to fashion the world around us, an eternal, hopeless hunt for the privilege of being able to predict the shape of our lives.

  The Imass, and his three-hundred-thousand-year-old words, had given to Lorn a sense of futility. And it worked on her, it threatened to overwhelm her.

  She’d given the boy his life, surprising both him and herself. Lorn smiled ruefully. Prediction had become a privilege now lost to her. Never mind the outside world, she could not even guess her own actions, or the course of her thoughts.

  Was this the true nature of emotion? she wondered. The great defier of logic, of control—the whims of being human. What lay ahead?

  “Adjunct.”

  Startled, Lorn looked up to see Tool standing over her. Frost covered the warrior, steaming in the heat.

  “You have been wounded.”

  “A skirmish,” she said gruffly, almost embarrassed. “It’s over now.” She pressed the poultice against the wound then wrapped cloth around her shoulder. It was an awkward effort, since she could use only one hand.

  Tool knelt beside her. “I will assist you, Adjunct.”

  Surprised, Lorn studied the warrior’s death’s face. But his next words wiped out any thought of the Imass revealing compassion.

  “We have little time, Adjunct. The opening awaits us.”

  An expressionless mask settled over her face. She jerked a nod as Tool finished, his withered, shredded hands—the nails blunt, polished brown and curved—deftly tying a knot with the strips of cloth. “Help me to my feet,” she commanded.

  The marker had been shattered, she saw, as the Imass guided her forward. Apart from this, however, all looked unchanged. “Where is this opening?” she asked.

  Tool halted before the broken stones. “I will lead, Adjunct. Follow closely behind me. When we are within the tomb, unsheath your sword. The deadening effect will be minimal, yet it will slow the Jaghut’s return to consciousness. Enough for us to complete our efforts.”

  Lorn drew a deep breath. She shrugged off her doubts. There was no turning back now. Had there ever been such a chance? The question, she realized, was a moot one: the course had been chosen for her. “Very well,” she said. “Lead on, Tool.”

  The Imass spread out his arms to the sides. The hillside before them blurred, as if a curtain of wind-blown sand rose before it. A churning wind roiled through this strange mist. Tool stepped forward.

  Following, Lorn at first recoiled at the stench that wafted into her, a stench of air poisoned by centur
ies of pulsing sorcery, countless wards dispersed by Tool’s Tellann powers. She pushed ahead, her eyes fixing on the Imass’s broad, tattered back.

  They entered the hillside. A rough corridor, leading into darkness, appeared before them. Frost limned the stacked boulders forming the walls and ceiling. As they went farther, the air grew bitter cold, stripped of scents, and thick green and white ropes of ice tracked the walls. The floor, which had been frozen, packed earth, became slabs of stone, slick with ice.

  Numbness seeped into Lorn’s extremities and her face. She saw her breath curl in a white stream, drawn inward to the darkness beyond. The corridor narrowed and she saw strange symbols painted on and within the ice streaking the walls, dull red ocher in color. These markings brushed something deep inside her—she almost recognized them, but as soon as she concentrated on doing so, the sensation of familiarity vanished.

  Tool spoke. “My people have visited here before,” he said, pausing to look at the Adjunct over one shoulder. “They added their own wards to those of the Jaghut who imprisoned this Tyrant.”

  Lorn was irritated. “What of it?”

  The Imass stared at her in silence, then replied, dully, “Adjunct, I believe I know the name of this Jaghut Tyrant. I am now beset by doubts. It should not be freed. Yet, like you, I am compelled.”

  Lorn’s breath caught.

  “Adjunct,” Tool continued, “I acknowledge the ambivalence you have been feeling. I share it. When this is done, I shall leave.”

  She was confused. “Leave?”

  Tool nodded. “Within this tomb, and with what we will do, my vows are ended. They will bind me no longer. Such is the residual power of this sleeping Jaghut. And for that, I am thankful.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Adjunct, you are welcome to accompany me.”

  Lorn opened her mouth, but could think of no immediate reply so shut it again.

  “I ask that you consider my offer, Adjunct. I shall journey in search of an answer, and I shall find it.”

  Answer? To what? she wanted to ask. Yet something stopped her, a surge of fear that said to her: You don’t want to know. Remain ignorant in this. “Let’s get on with it,” she grated.