The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  “Who carries Sha’ik’s belongings?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  “I will take them.”

  He was silent as he set down his pack, untied the flap and began removing items. Clothing, a scatter of a poor woman’s rings, bracelets and earrings, a thin-bladed long-knife, its iron stained black except for the honed edge.

  “Her sword awaits us at the encampment,” Leoman said when he’d done. “She wore the bracelets on her left wrist only, the rings on her left hand.” He gestured down at some leather straps. “She wound these around her right wrist and forearm.” He paused, looked up at her with hard eyes. “It were best you matched the attire. Precisely.”

  She smiled. “To aid in the deceit, Leoman?”

  He dropped his gaze. “There may well be some…resistance. The High Mages—”

  “Would bend the cause to their wills, create factions within the camp, then clash in a struggle to decide who will rule all. They have not yet done so, for they cannot determine if Sha’ik still lives. Yet they have prepared the ground.”

  “Seer—”

  “Ah, you accept that much at least.”

  He bowed. “None could deny the power that has come to you, yet…”

  “Yet I did not myself open the Holy Book.”

  He met her eyes. “You did not.”

  Felisin looked up. The Toblakai and Heboric stood a short distance away, watching, listening. “What I shall open is not between those covers, but is within me. Now is not the time.” She faced Leoman again. “You must trust in me.”

  The skin tightened around the desert warrior’s eyes.

  “You never could easily yield that, could you, Leoman?”

  “Who speaks?”

  “We do.”

  He was silent.

  “Toblakai.”

  “Yes, Sha’ik Reborn?”

  “To a man who doubts you, you would use what?”

  “My sword,” he replied.

  Heboric snorted.

  Felisin swung to him. “And you? What would you use?”

  “Nothing. I would be as I am, and if I prove worthy of trust, that man will come to it.”

  “Unless…?”

  He scowled. “Unless that man cannot trust himself, Felisin.”

  She turned back to Leoman and waited.

  Heboric cleared his throat. “You cannot command someone to have faith, lass. Obedience, yes, but not belief itself.”

  She said to Leoman, “You’ve told me there is a man to the south. A man leading a battered remnant of an army and refugees numbering tens of thousands. They do as he bids, their trust is absolute—how has that man managed that?”

  Leoman shook his head.

  “Have you ever followed such a leader, Leoman?”

  “No.”

  “So you truly do not know.”

  “I do not know, Seer.”

  Dismissive of the eyes of three men, Felisin stripped down and attired herself in Sha’ik’s clothing. She donned the stained silver jewelry with an odd sense of long familiarity, then tossed aside the rags she had been wearing earlier. She studied the desert basin for a long moment, then said, “Come, the High Mages have begun to lose their patience.”

  “We’re only a few days from Falar, according to the First Mate,” Kalam said. “Everyone’s talking about these tradewinds.”

  “I bet they are,” the captain growled, looking as if he’d swallowed something sour.

  The assassin refilled their tankards and leaned back. Whatever still afflicted the captain, keeping him to his cot for days now, went beyond the injuries he’d sustained at the hands of the bodyguard. Mind you, head wounds can get complicated. Even so…The captain trembled when he spoke, though his speech was in no way slurred or otherwise impaired. The struggle seemed to be in pushing the words out, in linking them into anything resembling a sentence. Yet in his eyes Kalam saw a mind no less sharp than it had been.

  The assassin was baffled, yet he felt, on some instinctive level, that his presence gave strength to the captain’s efforts. “Lookout sighted a ship in our wake just before sunset yesterday—a Malazan fast trader, he thinks. If it was, it must have passed us without lights or hail in the night. No sign of it this morning.”

  The captain grunted. “Never made better time. Bet their eyes are wide, too, dropping headless cocks over the starboard side and into Beru’s smiling maw at every blessed bell.”

  Kalam took a mouthful of watered wine, studying the captain over the tankard’s dented rim. “We lost the last two marines last night. Left me wondering about that ship’s healer of yours.”

  “Been having a run of the Lord’s push, he has. Not like him.”

  “Well, he’s passed out on pirates’ ale right now.”

  “Doesn’t drink.”

  “He does now.”

  The look the captain gave him was like a bright, distant flare, a beacon warning of shoals ahead.

  “All’s not well, I take it,” the assassin quietly rumbled.

  “Captain’s head’s askew, that’s a fact. Tongue full of thorns, close by ears like acorns under the mulch, ready to hatch unseen. Hatch.”

  “You’d tell me if you could.”

  “Tell you what?” He reached a shaking hand toward the tankard. “Can’t hold what’s not there, I always say. Can’t hold in a blow, neither, lo, the acorn’s rolled away, plumb away.”

  “Your hands look well enough mended.”

  “Aye, well enough.” The captain looked away, as if the effort of conversation had finally become too much.

  The assassin hesitated, then said, “I’ve heard of a warren…”

  “Rabbits,” the captain muttered. “Rats.”

  “All right,” Kalam sighed, rising. “We’ll find you a proper healer, a Denul healer, when we get to Falar.”

  “Getting there fast.”

  “Aye, we are.”

  “On the tradewinds.”

  “Aye.”

  “But there aren’t any tradewinds, this close to Falar.”

  Kalam emerged onto the deck, held his face to the sky for a moment, then made his way to the forecastle.

  “How does he fare?” Salk Elan asked.

  “Poorly.”

  “Head injuries are like that. Get knocked wrong and you end up muttering marriage vows to your lapdog.”

  “We’ll see in Falar.”

  “We’d be lucky to find a good healer in Bantra.”

  “Bantra? Hood’s breath, why Bantra when the main islands are but a few leagues farther along?”

  Elan shrugged. “Ragstopper’s home berth, it seems. In case you haven’t noticed, our acting First Mate lives in a tangle of superstition. He’s a legion of neurotic sailors all rolled up in one, Kalam, and on this one you won’t sway him—Hood knows I’ve tried.”

  A shout from the lookout interrupted their conversation. “Sails! Two pegs off the port bow! Six…seven…ten—Beru’s blessing, a fleet!”

  Kalam and Elan stepped over to the forecastle’s portside rail. As yet, they could see nothing but waves.

  The First Mate called up from the main deck. “What’s their bearing, Vole?”

  “North, sir! And westerly. They’ll cut across our wake, sir!”

  “In about twelve hours,” Elan muttered, “hard-tacking all the way.”

  “A fleet,” Kalam said.

  “Imperial. The Adjunct Tavore, friend.” The man turned and offered the assassin a tight smile. “If you thought the blood had run thick enough over your homeland…well, thank the gods we’re heading the other way.”

  They could see the first of the sails now. Tavore’s fleet. Horse and troop transports, the usual league-long wake of garbage, sewage and corpses human and animal, the sharks and dhenrabi thrashing the waves. Any long journey by sea delivers an army foul of temper and eager to get to business. No doubt enough tales of atrocities have reached them to scorch mercy from their souls.

  “The serpent’s head,” Elan said q
uietly, “on that long, stretching Imperial neck. Tell me, Kalam, is there a part of you—an old soldier’s—longing to be standing on a deck over there, noting with scant interest a lone, Falar-bound trader ship, while deep within you builds that quiet, deadly determination? On your way to deliver Laseen’s punishment, what she’s always delivered, as an Empress must; a vengeance tenfold. Are you tugged between two tides right now, Kalam?”

  “My thoughts are not yours to pillage, Elan, no matter how rampant your imagination. You do not know me, nor shall you ever know me.”

  The man sighed. “We’ve fought side by side, Kalam. We proved ourselves a deadly team. Our mutual friend in Ehrlitan had suspicions of what you intend—think of how much greater your chances with me at your side…”

  Kalam slowly turned to face Elan. “Chances of what?” he asked, his voice barely carrying.

  Salk Elan’s shrug was easy, careless. “Whatever. You’re not averse to partnerships, are you? There was Quick Ben and, before that, Porthal K’nastra—from your early pre-Imperial days in Karaschimesh. Hood knows, anyone looking at your history, Kalam, might well assert that you thrive on partnerships. Well, man, what do you say?”

  The assassin responded with a slow blink of his lids. “And what makes you think I am alone right now, Salk Elan?”

  For the briefest yet most satisfying of moments, Kalam saw a flicker of uncertainty rattle Elan’s face, before a smooth smile appeared. “And where does he hide, up in the crow’s nest with that dubiously named lookout?”

  Kalam turned away. “Where else?”

  The assassin felt Salk Elan’s eyes on his back as he strode away. You’ve the arrogance common to every mage, friend. You’ll have to excuse my pleasure in spreading cracks through it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I stood in a place

  where all shadows converged

  the end of the Path of Hands

  Soletaken and D’ivers

  through the gates of truth

  where from the darkness

  all mysteries emerged.

  THE PATH

  TROUT SEN’AL’BHOK’ARALA

  They came upon the four bodies at the edge of an upthrust of roots that seemed to mark the entrance to a vast maze. The figures were contorted, limbs shattered, their dark robes twisted and stiff with dried blood.

  Recognition arrived dull and heavy in Mappo’s mind, an answering of suspicions that came with little surprise. Nameless Ones…Priests of the Azath, if such entities can have priests. How many cold hands have guided us here? Myself…Icarium…these two twisted roots…journeying to Tremorlor—

  With a grunt, Icarium stepped forward, his eyes on a broken staff lying beside one of the corpses. “I have seen those before,” he said.

  The Trell frowned at his friend. “How? Where?”

  “In a dream.”

  “Dream?”

  The Jhag gave him a half-smile. “Oh yes, Mappo, I have dreams.” He faced the bodies again. “It began as all such dreams begin. I am stumbling. In pain. Yet I bear no wounds, and my weapons are clean. No, the pain is within me, as of a knowledge once gained, then lost yet again.”

  Mappo stared at his friend’s back, struggling to comprehend his words.

  “I arrive,” the Jhag continued in dry tones, “at the outskirts of a town. A Trellish town on the plain. It has been destroyed. Scars of sorcery stain the ground…the air. Bodies rot in the streets, and Great Ravens have come to feed—their laughter is the voice of the stench.”

  “Icarium—”

  “And then a woman appears, dressed as are these here before us. A priestess. She holds a staff, from which fell power still bleeds.

  “ ‘What have you done?’ I ask her.

  “ ‘Only what is necessary,’ is her soft reply. I see in her face a great fear as she looks upon me, and I am saddened by it. ‘Jhag, you must not wander alone.’

  “Her words seem to call up terrible memories. And images, faces—companions, countless in number. As if I have rarely been alone. Men and women have walked at my side, sometimes singly, sometimes in legion. These memories fill me with grief, as if in some way I have betrayed every one of those companions.” He paused, and Mappo saw his head slowly nod. “Indeed, I understand this now. They were all guardians, like you, Mappo. And they all failed. Were, perhaps, killed by my own hand.”

  He shook himself. “The priestess sees what lies writ upon my face, for hers becomes its mirror. Then she nods. Her staff blossoms with sorcery…and I wander a lifeless plain, alone. The pain is gone—where it had lodged within me, there is now nothing. And, as I feel my memories drift apart…away…I sense I have but dreamed. And so awaken.” He turned then, offered Mappo a dreadful smile.

  Impossible. A twisting of the truth. I saw the slaughter with my own eyes. I spoke with the priestess. You have been visited in your dreams, Icarium, with fickle malice.

  Fiddler cleared his throat. “Looks like they were guarding this entrance. Whatever found them proved too much.”

  “They are known on the Jhag Odhan,” Mappo said, “as the Nameless Ones.”

  Icarium’s eyes hardened on the Trell.

  “That cult,” Apsalar muttered, “is supposed to be extinct.”

  The others looked at her. She shrugged. “Dancer’s knowledge.”

  Iskaral sputtered. “Hood take their rotting souls! Presumptuous bastards one and all—how dare they make such claims?”

  “What claims?” Fiddler growled.

  The High Priest hugged himself. “Nothing. Speak nothing of it, yes. Servants of the Azath—pah! Are we naught but pieces on a gameboard? My master scoured them from the Empire, yes. A task for the Talons, as Dancer will tell you. A necessary cleansing, a plucking of a thorn from the Emperor’s side. Slaughter and desecration. Merciless. Too many vulnerable secrets—corridors of power—oh, how they resented my master’s entry into Deadhouse—”

  “Iskaral!” Apsalar snapped.

  The priest ducked as if cuffed.

  Icarium faced the young woman. “Who voiced that warning? Through your mouth—who spoke?”

  She fixed cool eyes on him. “Possessing these memories enforces a responsibility, Icarium, just as possessing none exculpates.”

  The Jhag flinched.

  Crokus had edged forward. “Apsalar?”

  She smiled. “Or Cotillion? No, it is just me, Crokus. I am afraid I have grown weary of all these suspicions. As if I have no self unstained by the god who once possessed me. I was but a girl when I was taken. A fisherman’s daughter. But I am no mere girl any more.”

  Her father’s sigh was loud. “Daughter,” he rumbled, “we ain’t none of us what we once were, and there ain’t nothing simple in what we’ve gone through to get here.” He scowled, as if struggling for words. “But you ordered the High Priest to shut up, to protect secrets that Dancer—Cotillion—would want kept that way. So Icarium’s suspicions were natural enough.”

  “Yes,” she countered, “I am not a slave to what I was. I decide what to do with the knowledge I possess. I choose my own causes, Father.”

  Icarium spoke. “I stand chastised, Apsalar.” He faced Mappo again. “What more do you know of these Nameless Ones, friend?”

  Mappo hesitated, then said, “Our tribe welcomed them as guests, but their visits were rare. I believe, however, that indeed they view themselves as servants of the Azath. If Trell legends hold any truth, then the cult may well date from the time of the First Empire—”

  “They have been eradicated!” Iskaral shrieked.

  “Within the borders of the Malazan Empire, perhaps,” Mappo conceded.

  “My friend,” Icarium said, “you are withholding truths. I would hear them.”

  The Trell sighed. “They have taken it upon themselves to recruit your guardians, Icarium, and have done so since the beginning.”

  “Why?”

  “That I do not know. Now that you ask it—” He frowned. “An interesting question. Dedication to noble vows?
Protection of the Azath?” Mappo shrugged.

  “Hood’s stubby ankles!” Rellock growled. “Might be guilt, for all we know.”

  All eyes swung to him.

  After a long, silent moment, Fiddler shook himself. “Come on, then. Into the maze.”

  Arms and limbs. What clawed at the binding roots, what stretched and twisted in a hopeless effort to pull free, what reached out in supplication, in silent appeal and in deadly offer from all sides, was an array of imprisoned life, and few among those horridly animate projections were human in origin.

  Fiddler’s imagination failed his compulsive desire to fashion likely bodies, heads and faces to such limbs, even as he knew that the reality of what lay hidden within the woven walls would pale his worst nightmares.

  Tremorlor’s gnarled jail of roots held demons, ancient Ascendants and such a host of alien creatures that the sapper was left trembling in the realization of his insignificance and that of all his kind. Humans were but one tiny, frail leaf on a tree too massive even to comprehend. The shock of that unmanned him, mocking his audacity with an endless echo of ages and realms trapped within this mad, riotous prison.

  They could hear battles raging on all sides, thus far mercifully in other branches of the tortured maze. The Azath was being assailed from all fronts. The sound of snapping, shattering wood cracked through the air. Bestial screams rent the iron-smeared air above them, voices lost from the throats that released them, voices the only thing that could escape this terrifying war.

  The crossbow’s stock was slick with sweat in Fiddler’s hands as he edged forward, keeping to the center of the path, beyond the reach of those grasping, unhuman hands. A sharp bend lay just ahead. The sapper crouched down, then glanced back at the others.

  Only three Hounds remained. Shan and Gear had set off, taking divergent paths. Where they were now and what was happening to them Fiddler had no idea, but Baran, Blind and Rood did not seem perturbed at their absence. The sightless female padded at Icarium’s side as if she was nothing more than a well-trained companion to the Jhag. Baran held back as rear-guard, while Rood—pale, mottled, a solid mass of muscle—waited not five paces from Fiddler’s position, motionless. Its eyes, a dark liquid brown, seemed fixed on the sapper.