‘I think not,’ Sha’ik said. ‘But, as I said, I will give it some thought. Now, your vast web of suspicions has snared L’oric as well? Why?’
‘He has been more elusive of late than is usual, Chosen One. His efforts to disguise his comings and goings have become somewhat extreme.’
‘Perhaps he grows weary of your incessant spying, Bidithal.’
‘Perhaps, though I am certain he remains unaware that the one ever seeking to maintain an eye on his activities is indeed me. Febryl and the Napan have their own spies, after all. I am not alone in my interests. They fear L’oric, for he has rebuffed their every approach—’
‘It pleases me to hear that, Bidithal. Call off your shadows, regarding L’oric. And that is a command. You better serve the Whirlwind’s interests in concentrating on Febryl, Korbolo Dom and Kamist Reloe.’
He bowed slightly. ‘Very well, Chosen One.’
Sha’ik studied the old man. ‘Be careful, Bidithal.’
She saw him pale slightly, then he nodded. ‘I am ever that, Chosen One.’
A slight wave of her hand dismissed him.
Bidithal bowed once more, then, gripping his walking stick, he hobbled from the chamber. Out through the intervening chambers, past a dozen of Mathok’s silent desert warriors, then out, finally into the cool night air.
Call off my shadows, Chosen One? Command or no, I am not so foolish as to do that.
Shadows gathered around him as he strode down the narrow alleyways between tents and huts. Do you remember the dark?
Bidithal smiled to himself. Soon, this fragment of shattered warren would become a realm unto itself. And the Whirlwind Goddess would see the need for a priesthood, a structure of power in the mortal world. And in such an organization, there would be no place for Sha’ik, except perhaps a minor shrine honouring her memory.
For now, of course, the Malazan Empire must be dealt with, summarily, and for that Sha’ik, as a vessel of the Whirlwind’s power, would be needed. This particular path of shadows was narrow indeed. Bidithal suspected that Febryl’s alliance with the Napan and Kamist Reloe was but temporary. The mad old bastard had no love for Malazans. Probably, his plans held a hidden, final betrayal, one concluding in the mutual annihilation of every interest but his own.
And I cannot pierce to the truth of that, a failure on my part that forces my hand. I must be…pre-emptive. I must side with Sha’ik, for it will be her hand that crushes the conspirators.
A hiss of spectral voices and Bidithal halted, startled from his dark musings.
To find Febryl standing before him.
‘Was your audience with the Chosen One fruitful, Bidithal?’
‘As always, Febryl,’ Bidithal smiled, wondering at how the ancient High Mage managed to get so close before being detected by his secret guardians. ‘What do you wish of me? It’s late.’
‘The time has come,’ Febryl said in a low, rasping tone. ‘You must choose. Join us, or stand aside.’
Bidithal raised his brows. ‘Is there not a third option?’
‘If you mean you would fight us, the answer is, regrettably, no. I suggest, however, we withhold on that discussion for the moment. Instead, hear our reward for you—granted whether you join us or simply remove yourself from our path.’
‘Reward? I am listening, Febryl.’
‘She will be gone, as will the Malazan Empire. Seven Cities will be free as it once was. Yet the Whirlwind Warren will remain, returned to the Dryjhna—to the cult of the Apocalypse which is and always has been at the heart of the rebellion. Such a cult needs a master, a High Priest, ensconced in a vast, rich temple, duly honoured by all. How would you shape such a cult?’ Febryl smiled. ‘It seems you have already begun, Bidithal. Oh yes, we know all about your…special children. Imagine, then, all of Seven Cities at your disposal. All of Seven Cities, honoured to deliver to you their unwanted daughters.’
Bidithal licked his lips, eyes shifting away. ‘I must think on this—’
‘There’s no more time for that. Join us, or stand aside.’
‘When do you begin?’
‘Why, Bidithal, we already have. The Adjunct and her legions are but days away. We have already moved our agents, they are all in place, ready to complete their appointed tasks. The time for indecision is past. Decide. Now.’
‘Very well. Your path is clear, Febryl. I accept your offer. But my cult must remain my own, to shape as I choose. No interference—’
‘None. That is a promise—’
‘Whose?’
‘Mine.’
‘And what of Korbolo Dom and Kamist Reloe?’
Febryl’s smile broadened. ‘What worth their vows, Bidithal? The Empress had Korbolo Dom’s once. Sha’ik did as well…’
As she had yours, too, Febryl. ‘Then we—you and I—understand each other.’
‘We do indeed.’
Bidithal watched the High Mage stride away. He knew my shadow spirits surrounded me, yet was dismissive of them. There was no third option. Had I voiced defiance, I would now be dead. I know it. I can feel Hood’s cold breath, here in this alley. My powers are…compromised. How? He needed to discover the source of Febryl’s confidence. Before he could do anything, before he could make a single move. And which move will that be? Febryl’s offer…appeals.
Yet Febryl had promised no interference, even as he had revealed an arrogant indifference to the power Bidithal had already fashioned. An indifference that bespoke of intimate knowledge. You do not dismiss what you know nothing of, after all. Not at this stage.
Bidithal resumed his journey back to his temple. He felt…vulnerable. An unfamiliar sensation, and it brought a tremble to his limbs.
A faint stinging bite, then numbness spreading out from her lungs. Scillara leaned her head back, reluctant to exhale, believing for the briefest of moments that her need for air had vanished. Then she exploded into coughing.
‘Be quiet,’ Korbolo Dom snarled, rolling a stoppered bottle across the blankets towards her. ‘Drink, woman. Then open those screens—I can barely see with all the water wrung from my eyes.’
She listened to his boots on the rushes, moving off into one of the back chambers. The coughing was past. Her chest felt full of thick, cloying liquid. Her head was swimming, and she struggled to recall what had happened a few moments earlier. Febryl had arrived. Excited, she believed. Something about her master, Bidithal. The culmination of a long-awaited triumph. They had both gone to the inner rooms.
There had been a time, once, she was fairly certain, when her thoughts had been clear—though, she suspected, most of them had been unpleasant ones. And so there was little reason to miss those days. Except for the clarity itself—its acuity that made recollection effortless. She so wanted to serve her master, and serve him well. With distinction sufficient to earn her new responsibilities, to assume new roles—ones that did not, perhaps, involve surrendering her body to men. One day, Bidithal would not be able to attend to all the new girls as he did now—there would be too many, even for him. She was certain she could manage the scarring, the cutting away of pleasure.
They would not appreciate the freeing, of course. Not at first. But she could help them in that. Kind words and plenty of durhang to blunt the physical pain…and the outrage.
Had she felt outrage? Where had that word come from, to arrive so sudden and unexpected in her thoughts?
She sat up, stumbled away from the cushions to the heavy screens blocking the outside night air. She was naked, but unmindful of the cold. A slight discomfort in the heaviness of her unbound breasts. She had twice been pregnant, but Bidithal had taken care of that, giving her bitter teas that broke the seed’s roots and flushed it from her body. There had been that same heaviness at those times, and she wondered if yet another of the Napan’s seeds had taken within her.
Scillara fumbled at the ties until one of the screens folded down, and she looked out onto the dark street.
The guards were both visible, near the entrance
which was situated a few paces to her left. They glanced over, faces hidden by helms and the hoods of their telabas. And, it seemed, continued staring, though offering no greeting, no comment.
There was a strange dullness to the night air, as if the smoke filling the tent chamber had settled a permanent layer over her eyes, obscuring all that she looked at. She stood for a moment longer, weaving, then walked over to the entrance.
Febryl had left the flaps untied. She pushed them aside and stepped out between the two guards.
‘Had his fill of you this night, Scillara?’ one asked.
‘I want to walk. It’s hard to breathe. I think I’m drowning.’
‘Drowning in the desert, aye,’ the other grunted, then laughed.
She staggered past, choosing a direction at random.
Heavy. Filled up. Drowning in the desert.
‘Not this night, lass.’
She stumbled as she turned about, threw both arms out for balance, and squinted at the guard who had followed. ‘What?’
‘Febryl has wearied of your spying. He wants Bidithal blind and deaf in this camp. It grieves me, Scillara. It does. Truly.’ He took her by the arm, gauntleted fingers closing tight. ‘It’s a mercy, I think, and I will make it as painless as possible. For I liked you, once. Always smiling, you were, though of course that was mostly the durhang.’ He was leading her away as he spoke, down from the main avenue into the rubbish-cluttered aisles between tent-walls. ‘I’m tempted to take my pleasure of you first. Better a son of the desert than a bow-legged Napan for your last memory of love, yes?’
‘You mean to kill me?’ She was having trouble with the thought, with thinking at all.
‘I’m afraid I must, lass. I cannot defy my master, especially in this. Still, you should be relieved that it is me and not some stranger. For I will not be cruel, as I have said. Here, into these ruins, Scillara—the floor has been swept clean—not the first time it’s seen use, but if all signs are removed immediately there is no evidence to be found, is there? There’s an old well in the garden for the bodies.’
‘You mean to throw me down the well?’
‘Not you, just your body. Your soul will be through Hood’s gate by then, lass. I will make certain of that. Now, lie yourself down, here, on my cloak. I have looked upon your lovely body unable to touch for long enough. I have dreamt of kissing those lips, too.’
She was lying on the cloak, staring up at dim, blurry stars, as the guard unhitched his sword-belt then began removing his armour. She saw him draw a knife, the blade gleaming black, and set it to one side on the flagstoned floor.
Then his hands were pushing her thighs apart.
There is no pleasure. It is gone. He is a handsome man. A woman’s husband. He prefers pleasure before business, as I once did. I think. But now, I know nothing of pleasure.
Leaving naught but business.
The cloak was bunching beneath her as his grunts filled her ears. She calmly reached out to one side and closed her hand around the hilt of the knife. Raised it, the other hand joining it over and above the guard.
Then she drove the knife down into his lower back, the blade’s edge gouging between two vertebrae, severing the cord, the point continuing on in a stuttering motion as it pierced membranes and tore deep into the guard’s middle and lower intestines.
He spilled into her at the moment of death, his shudders becoming twitches, the breath hissing from a suddenly slack mouth as his forehead struck the stone floor beside her right ear.
She left the knife buried halfway to its hilt—as deep as her strength had taken it—in his back, and pushed at his limp body until it rolled to one side.
A desert woman for your last memory of love.
Scillara sat up, wanting to cough but swallowing until the urge passed. Heavy, and heavier still.
I am a vessel ever filled, yet there’s always room for more. More durhang. More men and their seeds. My master found my place of pleasure and removed it. Ever filled, yet never filled up. There is no base to this vessel. This is what he has done.
To all of us.
She tottered upright. Stared down at the guard’s corpse, at the wet stains spreading out beneath him.
A sound behind her. Scillara turned.
‘You murdering bitch.’
She frowned at the second guard as he advanced, drawing a dagger.
‘The fool wanted you alone for a time. This is what he gets for ignoring Febryl’s commands—I warned him—’
She was staring at the hand gripping the dagger, so was caught unawares as the other hand flashed, knuckles cracking hard against her jaw.
Her eyes blinked open to jostling, sickening motion. She was being dragged through rubbish by one arm. From somewhere ahead flowed the stench of the latrine trench, thick as fog, a breath of warm, poisoned air. Her lips were broken and her mouth tasted of blood. The shoulder of the arm the guard gripped was throbbing.
The man was muttering. ‘…pretty thing indeed. Hardly. When she’s drowning in filth. The fool, and now he’s dead. It was a simple task, after all. There’s no shortage of whores in this damned camp. What—who—’
He had stopped.
Head lolling, Scillara caught a blurred glimpse of a squat figure emerging from darkness.
The guard released her wrist and her arm fell with a thump onto damp, foul mud. She saw him reaching for his sword.
Then his head snapped up with a sound of cracked teeth, followed by a hot spray that spattered across Scillara’s thighs. Blood.
She thought she saw a strange emerald glow trailing from one hand of the guard’s killer—a hand taloned like a huge cat’s.
The figure stepped over the crumpled form of the guard, who had ceased moving, and slowly crouched down beside Scillara.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ the man growled. ‘Or so I’ve just realized. Extraordinary, how single lives just fold into the whole mess, over and over again, all caught up in the greater swirl. Spinning round and round, and ever downward, it seems. Ever downward. Fools, all of us, to think we can swim clear of that current.’
The shadows were strange on him. As if he stood beneath palms and tall grasses—but no, there was only the night sky above the squat, broad-shouldered man. He was tattooed, she realized, in the barbs of a tiger.
‘Plenty of killing going on lately,’ he muttered, staring down at her with amber eyes. ‘All those loose threads being knotted, I expect.’
She watched him reach down with that glowing, taloned hand. It settled, palm-downward, warm between her breasts. The tips of the claws pricked her skin and a tremble ran through her.
That spread, coursing hot through her veins. That heat grew suddenly fierce, along her throat, in her lungs, between her legs.
The man grunted. ‘I thought it was consumption, that rattling breath. But no, it’s just too much durhang. As for the rest, well, it’s an odd thing about pleasure. Something Bidithal would have you never know. Its enemy is not pain. No, pain is simply the path taken to indifference. And indifference destroys the soul. Of course, Bidithal likes destroyed souls—to mirror his own.’
If he continued speaking beyond that, she did not hear, as sensations long lost flooded into her, only slightly blunted by the lingering, satisfying haze of the durhang. She felt badly used between her legs, but knew that feeling would pass.
‘Outrage.’
He was gathering her into his arms, but paused. ‘You spoke?’
Outrage. Yes. That. ‘Where are you taking me?’ The question came out between coughs, and she pushed his arms aside to bend over and spit out phlegm while he answered.
‘To my temple. Fear not, it’s safe. Neither Febryl nor Bidithal will find you there. You’ve been force-healed, lass, and will need to sleep.’
‘What do you want with me?’
‘I’m not sure yet. I think I will need your help, and soon. But the choice is yours. Nor will you have to surrender…anything you don’t want to. And, if you choose to sim
ply walk away, that is fine as well. I will give you money and supplies—and maybe even find you a horse. We can discuss that tomorrow. What is your name?’
He reached down once more and lifted her effortlessly.
‘Scillara.’
‘I am Heboric, Destriant to Treach, the Tiger of Summer and the God of War.’
She stared up at him as he began carrying her along the path. ‘I am afraid I am going to disappoint you, Heboric. I think I have had my fill of priests.’
She felt his shrug, then he smiled wearily down at her. ‘That’s all right. Me too.’
Felisin awoke shortly after L’oric returned with a freshly slaughtered lamb for his demon familiar, Greyfrog. Probably, the High Mage reflected when she first stirred beneath the tarpaulin, she had been roused to wakefulness by the sound of crunching bones.
The demon’s appetite was voracious, and L’oric admired its singlemindedness, if not its rather untidy approach to eating.
Felisin emerged, wrapped in her blankets, and walked to L’oric’s side. She was silent, her hair in disarray around her young, tanned face, and watched the demon consuming the last of the lamb with loud, violent gulps.
‘Greyfrog,’ L’oric murmured. ‘My new familiar.’
‘Your familiar? You are certain it’s not the other way round? That thing could eat both of us.’
‘Observant. She is right, companion L’oric. Maudlin. I would waddle. Alas. Torpid vulnerability. Distraught. All alone.’
‘All right.’ L’oric smiled. ‘An alliance is a better word for our partnership.’
‘There is mud on your boots, and snagged pieces of reed and grass.’
‘I have travelled this night, Felisin.’
‘Seeking allies?’
‘Not intentionally. No, my search was for answers.’
‘And did you find any?’
He hesitated, then sighed. ‘Some. Fewer than I would have hoped. But I return knowing one thing for certain. And that is, you must leave. As soon as possible.’
Her glance was searching. ‘And what of you?’
‘I will follow, as soon as I can.’
The Malazan Empire Page 350