The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘Far more violent than that of the Tiste, L’oric. Humans are not Tiste. Indeed, I have never heard of a Tiste tyrant…’

  ‘Perhaps I used the wrong word. I meant only—in human context—a personality of devastating power, or potential. Look at this Malazan Empire, born from the mind of Kellanved, a single man. What if he had been eternal?’

  Something in L’oric’s musings had reawakened Heboric. ‘Eternal?’ He barked a laugh. ‘Perhaps he is at that. There is one detail you might consider, perhaps more relevant than anything else that’s been said here. And that is, the Tiste are no longer isolated in their scheming. There are humans now, in their games—humans, who’ve not the patience of the Tiste, nor their legendary remoteness. The warrens of Kurald Galain and Kurald Emurlahn are no longer pure, unsullied by human presence. Meanas and Rashan? Perhaps they are proving the doors into both Darkness and Shadow. Or perhaps the matter is more complex than even that—how can one truly hope to separate the themes of Darkness and Light from Shadow? They are as those scholars said, an interdependent triumvirate. Mother, father and child—a family ever squabbling…only now the in-laws and grandchildren are joining in.’

  He waited for a reply from L’oric, curious as to how his comments had been received, but none was forthcoming. The ex-priest looked up, struggled to focus on the High Mage—

  —who sat motionless, a cup in one hand, the ring of the brewing pot in the other. Motionless, and staring at Heboric.

  ‘L’oric? Forgive me, I cannot discern your expression—’

  ‘Well that you cannot,’ the High Mage rasped. ‘Here I sought to raise the warning of Tiste meddling in human affairs—to have you then voice a warning in the opposite direction. As if it is not us who must worry, but the Tiste themselves.’

  Heboric said nothing. A strange, whispering suspicion flitted through him for a moment, as if tickled into being by something in L’oric’s voice. After a moment, he dismissed it. Too outrageous, too absurd to entertain.

  L’oric poured the tea.

  Heboric sighed. ‘It seems I am to be ever denied the succour of that brew. Tell me, then, of the giant of Jade.’

  ‘Ah, and in return you will speak of the Master of the Deck?’

  ‘In some things I am forbidden to elaborate—’

  ‘Because they relate to Sha’ik’s own secret past?’

  ‘Fener’s tusk, L’oric! Who in this rat’s nest might be listening in to our conversation right now? It is madness to speak—’

  ‘No-one is listening, Heboric. I have made certain of that. I am not careless with secrets. I have known much of your recent history since the very beginning—’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We agreed to not discuss sources. My point is, no-one else is aware that you are Malazan, or that you are an escapee from the otataral mines. Except Sha’ik, of course. Since she escaped with you. Thus, I value privacy—with my knowledge and with my thoughts—and am ever vigilant. Oh, there have been probes, sorcerous questings—a whole menagerie of spells as various inhabitants seek to keep track of rivals. As occurs every night.’

  ‘Then your absence will be detected—’

  ‘I sleep restful in my tent, Heboric, as far as those questings are concerned. As do you in your tent. Each alone. Harmless.’

  ‘You are more than a match for their sorceries, then. Which makes you more powerful than any of them.’ He heard as much as saw L’oric’s shrug, and after a moment the ex-priest sighed. ‘If you wish details concerning Sha’ik and this new Master of the Deck, then it must be the three of us who meet. And for that to occur, you will have to reveal more of yourself to the Chosen One than you might wish.’

  ‘Tell me this, at least. This new Master—he was created in the wake of the Malazan disaster on Genabackis. Or do you deny that? That bridge on which he stands—he was of, or is somehow related to, the Bridgeburners. And those ghostly guardians are all that remains of the Bridgeburners, for they were destroyed in the Pannion Domin.’

  ‘I cannot be certain of any of that,’ Heboric replied, ‘but what you suggest seems likely.’

  ‘So, the Malazan influence ever grows—not just on our mundane world, but throughout the warrens, and now in the Deck of Dragons.’

  ‘You make the mistake of so many of the empire’s enemies, L’oric. You assume that all that is Malazan is perforce unified, in intent and in goal. Things are far more complicated than you imagine. I do not believe this Master of the Deck is some servant of the Empress. Indeed, he kneels before no-one.’

  ‘Then why the Bridgeburner guardians?’

  Heboric sensed that the question was a leading one, but decided he would play along. ‘Some loyalties defy Hood himself—’

  ‘Ah, meaning he was a soldier in that illustrious company. Well, things are beginning to make sense.’

  ‘They are?’

  ‘Tell me, have you heard of a Spiritwalker named Kimloc?’

  ‘The name is vaguely familiar. But not from around here. Karakarang? Rutu Jelba?’

  ‘Now resident of Ehrlitan. His history is not relevant here, but somehow he must have come into recent contact with a Bridgeburner. There is no other explanation for what he has done. He has given them a song, Heboric. A Tanno song, and, curiously, it begins here. In Raraku. Raraku, friend, is the birthplace of the Bridgeburners. Do you know the significance of such a song?’

  Heboric turned away, faced the hearth and its dry heat, and said nothing.

  ‘Of course,’ L’oric went on after a moment, ‘that significance has now diminished somewhat, since the Bridgeburners are no more. There can be no sanctification…’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ Heboric murmured.

  ‘For the song to be sanctified, a Bridgeburner would have to return to Raraku, to the birthplace of the company. And that does not seem likely now, does it?’

  ‘Why is it necessary a Bridgeburner return to Raraku?’

  ‘Tanno sorcery is…elliptical. The song must be like a serpent eating its tail. Kimloc’s Song of the Bridgeburners is at the moment without an end. But it has been sung, and so lives.’ L’oric shrugged. ‘It’s like a spell that remains active, awaiting resolution.’

  ‘Tell me of the giant of jade.’

  The High Mage nodded. He poured out the tea and set the cup down in front of Heboric. ‘The first one was found deep in the otataral mines—’

  ‘The first one!’

  ‘Aye. And the contact proved, for those miners who ventured too close, fatal. Or, rather, they disappeared. Leaving no trace. Sections of two others have been discovered—all three veins are now sealed. The giants are…intruders to our world. From some other realm.’

  ‘Arriving,’ Heboric muttered, ‘only to be wrapped in chains of otataral.’

  ‘Ah, you are not without your own knowledge, then. Indeed, it seems their arrival has, each time, been anticipated. Someone, or something, is ensuring that the threat these giants impose is negated—’

  But Heboric shook his head at that and said, ‘No, I think you are wrong, L’oric. It is the very passage—the portal through which each giant comes—that creates the otataral.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘Of course not. There are too many mysteries surrounding the nature of otataral to be certain of anything. There was a scholar—I forget her name—who once suggested that otataral is created by the annihilation of all that is necessary for sorcery to operate. Like slag with all the ore burned out. She called it the absolute draining of energy—the energy that rightfully exists in all things, whether animate or otherwise.’

  ‘And had she a theory as to how that could occur?’

  ‘Perhaps the magnitude of the sorcery unleashed—a spell that is all-devouring of the energy it feeds on.’

  ‘But not even the gods could wield such magic.’

  ‘True, but I think it is nevertheless possible…through ritual, such as a cadre—or army—of mortal sorcerers could achieve.’

  ‘In the manner
of the Ritual of Tellann,’ L’oric nodded. ‘Aye.’

  ‘Or,’ Heboric said softly as he reached for the cup, ‘the calling down of the Crippled God…’

  L’oric was motionless, staring fixedly at the tattooed ex-priest. He said nothing for a long time, whilst Heboric sipped the hen’bara tea. He finally spoke. ‘Very well, there is one last piece of information I will tell you—I see now the need, the very great need to do so, though it shall…reveal much of myself.’

  Heboric sat and listened, and as L’oric continued speaking, the confines of his squalid hut dimmed to insignificance, the heat of the hearth no longer reaching him, until the only sensation left came from his ghostly hands. Together, there at the ends of his wrists, they became the weight of the world.

  The rising sun washed all tones from the sky to the east. Karsa checked his supplies one last time, the foodstuffs and waterskins, the additional items and accoutrements necessary for survival in a hot, arid land. A kit wholly unlike what he had carried for most of his life. Even the sword was different—ironwood was heavier than bloodwood, its edge rougher although almost—but not quite—as hard. It did not slice the air with the ease of his oiled bloodwood sword. Yet it had served him well enough. He glanced skyward; dawn’s colours were almost entirely gone, now, the blue directly above vanishing behind suspended dust.

  Here, in Raraku’s heart, the Whirlwind Goddess had stolen the colour of the sun’s own fire, leaving the landscape pallid and deathly. Colourless, Karsa Orlong? Bairoth Gild’s ghostly voice was filled with wry humour. Not so. Silver, my friend. And silver is the colour of oblivion. Of chaos. Silver is when the last of the blood is washed from the blade—

  ‘No more words,’ Karsa growled.

  Leoman spoke from nearby. ‘Having just arrived, Toblakai, I am yet to even speak. Do you not wish my farewell?’

  Karsa slowly straightened, slinging his pack over a shoulder. ‘Words need not be spoken aloud, friend, to prove unwelcome. I but answered my own thoughts. That you are here pleases me. When I began my first journey, long ago, none came to witness.’

  ‘I asked Sha’ik,’ Leoman replied from where he stood ten paces away, having just passed through the trail’s gap in the low, crumbled wall—the mud bricks, Karsa saw, were on their shaded side covered with rhizan, clinging with wings contracted, their mottled colourings making them almost identical to the ochre bricks. ‘But she said she would not join me this morning. Even stranger, it seemed as if she already knew of your intentions, and was but awaiting my visit.’

  Shrugging, Karsa faced Leoman. ‘A witness of one suffices. We may now speak our parting words. Do not hide overlong in your pit, friend. And when you ride out with your warriors, hold to the Chosen One’s commands—too many jabs from the small knife can awaken the bear no matter how deep it sleeps.’

  ‘It is a young and weak bear, this time, Toblakai.’

  Karsa shook his head. ‘I have come to respect the Malazans, and fear that you would awaken them to themselves.’

  ‘I shall consider your words,’ Leoman replied. ‘And now ask that you consider mine. Beware your gods, friend. If you must kneel before a power, first look upon it with clear eyes. Tell me, what would your kin say to you in parting?’

  ‘“May you slay a thousand children.”’

  Leoman blanched. ‘Journey well, Toblakai.’

  ‘I shall.’

  Karsa knew that Leoman could neither see nor sense that he was flanked where he stood at the trail’s gap in the wall. Delum Thord on the left, Bairoth Gild on the right. Teblor warriors, blood-oil smeared in crimson tones even the Whirlwind could not eradicate, and they stepped forward as the Teblor swung about to face the western trail.

  ‘Lead us. Lead your dead, Warleader.’

  Bairoth’s mocking laugh clicked and cracked like the potsherds breaking beneath Karsa Orlong’s moccasins. The Teblor grimaced. There would be, it seemed, a fierce price for the honour.

  None the less, he realized after a moment, if there must be ghosts, it was better to lead them than to be chased by them.

  ‘If that is how you would see it, Karsa Orlong.’

  In the distance rose the swirling wall of the Whirlwind. It would be good, the Teblor reflected, to see the world beyond it again, after all these months. He set out, westward, as the day was born.

  ‘He has left,’ Kamist Reloe said as he settled onto the cushions.

  Korbolo Dom eyed the mage, his blank expression betraying nothing of the contempt he felt for the man. Sorcerers did not belong in war. And he had shown the truth of that when destroying the Chain of Dogs. Even so, there were necessities to contemplate, and Reloe was the least of them. ‘That leaves only Leoman,’ he rumbled from where he lay on the pillows and cushions.

  ‘Who departs with his rats in a few days.’

  ‘Will Febryl now advance his plans?’

  The mage shrugged. ‘It is hard to say, but there is a distinct avidness in his gaze this morning.’

  Avidness. Indeed. Another High Mage, another insane wielder of powers better left untapped. ‘There is one who remains, who perhaps presents us with the greatest threat of them all, and that is Ghost Hands.’

  Kamist Reloe sneered. ‘A blind, doddering fool. Does he even know that hen’bara tea is itself the source of the thinning fabric between his world and all that he would flee from? Before long, his mind will vanish entirely within the nightmares, and we need concern ourselves with him no more.’

  ‘She has secrets,’ Korbolo Dom muttered, leaning forward to collect a bowl of figs. ‘Far beyond those gifted her by the Whirlwind. Febryl proceeds headlong, unmindful of his own ignorance. When the battle with the Adjunct’s army is finally joined, success or failure will be decided by the Dogslayers—by my army. Tavore’s otataral will defeat the Whirlwind—I am certain of it. All that I ask of you and Febryl and Bidithal is that I am unobstructed in commanding the forces, in shaping that battle.’

  ‘We are both aware,’ Kamist growled, ‘that this struggle goes far beyond the Whirlwind.’

  ‘Aye, so it does. Beyond all of Seven Cities, Mage. Do not lose sight of our final goal, of the throne that will one day belong to us.’

  Kamist Reloe shrugged. ‘That is our secret, old friend. We need only proceed with caution, and all that opposes us will likely vanish before our very eyes. Febryl kills Sha’ik, Tavore kills Febryl, and we destroy Tavore and her army.’

  ‘And then become Laseen’s saviour—as we crush this rebellion utterly. Gods, I swear I will see this entire land empty of life if need be. A triumphant return to Unta, an audience with the Empress, then the driven knife. And who will stop us? The Talon are poised to cut down the Claws. Whiskeyjack and the Bridgeburners are no more, and Dujek remains a continent away. How fares the Jhistal priest?’

  ‘Mallick travels without opposition, ever southward. He is a clever man, a wise man, and he will play out his role to perfection.’

  Korbolo Dom made no reply to that. He despised Mallick Rel, but could not deny his usefulness. Still, the man was not one to be trusted…to which High Fist Pormqual would attest, were the fool still alive. ‘Send for Fayelle. I would a woman’s company now. Leave me, Kamist Reloe.’

  The High Mage hesitated, and Korbolo scowled.

  ‘There is the matter,’ Kamist whispered, ‘of L’oric…’

  ‘Then deal with him!’ Korbolo snapped. ‘Begone!’

  Bowing his head, the High Mage backed out of the tent.

  Sorcerers. Could he find a way to destroy magic, the Napan would not hesitate. The extinction of powers that could slaughter a thousand soldiers in an instant would return the fate of mortals to the mortals themselves, and this could not but be a good thing. The death of warrens, the dissolution of gods as memory of them and their meddling slowly vanished, the withering of all magic…the world then would belong to men such as Korbolo himself. And the empire he would shape would permit no ambiguity, no ambivalence.

  His will unopposed, the Napan cou
ld end, once and for all, the dissonant clangour that so plagued humanity—now and throughout its history.

  I will bring order. And from that unity, we shall rid the world of every other race, every other people, we shall overpower and crush every discordant vision, for there can in the end be only one way, one way of living, of ruling this realm. And that way belongs to me.

  A good soldier well knew that success was found in careful planning, in incremental steps.

  Opposition had a way of stepping aside all on its own. You are now at Hood’s feet, Whiskeyjack. Where I have always wanted you. You and your damned company, feeding worms in a foreign land. None left to stop me, now…

  Chapter Eleven

  This was a path she did not welcome.

  THE SHA’IK REBELLION

  TURSABAAL

  The breaths of the horses plumed in the chill morning air. Dawn had but just arrived, the air hinting nothing of the heat the coming day would deliver. Wrapped in the furs of a bhederin, old sweat making the lining of his helm clammy as the touch of a corpse, Fist Gamet sat motionless on his Wickan mount, his gaze fixed on the Adjunct.

  The hill just south of Erougimon where Coltaine had died had come to be known as the Fall. Countless humps on the summit and slopes indicated where bodies had been buried, the metal-strewn earth already cloaked in grasses and flowers.

  Ants had colonized this entire hill, or so it seemed. The ground swarmed with them, their red and black bodies coated in dust yet glittering none the less as they set about their daily tasks.

  Gamet, the Adjunct and Tene Baralta had ridden out from the city before dawn. Outside the gates to the west, the army had begun to stir. The march would begin this day. The journey north, to Raraku, to Sha’ik and the Whirlwind. To vengeance.