The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘And now we’re giving you thirty thousand thirds,’ Rissarh said. ‘Work the columns, Beddict. Ten million peaks? Why not?’

  ‘If you think it’s so easy why don’t you do it yourselves?’

  ‘We’re not that smart,’ Shand said. ‘We’re not easily distracted, either. We stumbled onto your trail and we followed it and here we are.’

  ‘I left no trail.’

  ‘Not one most could see, true. But as I said, we don’t get distracted.’

  Tehol continued pacing. ‘The Merchant Tolls list Letheras’s gross at between twelve and fifteen peaks, with maybe another five buried—’

  ‘Is that five including your one?’

  ‘Mine was written off, remember.’

  ‘After a whole lot of pissing blood. Ten thousand curses tied to docks at the bottom of the canal, all with your name on them.’

  Hejun asked in surprise, ‘Really, Shand? Maybe we should get dredging rights—’

  ‘Too late,’ Tehol told her. ‘Biri’s got those.’

  ‘Biri’s a front man,’ Shand said. ‘You’ve got those rights, Tehol. Biri may not know it but he works for you.’

  ‘Well, that’s a situation I’ve yet to exploit.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugged. Then he halted and stared at Shand. ‘There’s no way you could know that.’

  ‘You’re right. I guessed.’

  His eyes widened. ‘You could make ten peaks, with an instinct like that, Shand.’

  ‘You’ve fooled everyone because you don’t make a wrong step, Tehol Beddict. They don’t think you’ve buried your peak—not any more, not after this long with you living like a rat under the docks. You’ve truly lost it. Where, nobody knows, but somewhere. That’s why they wrote off the loss, isn’t it?’

  ‘Money is sleight of hand,’ Tehol said, nodding. ‘Unless you’ve got diamonds in your hands. Then it’s not just an idea any more. If you want to know the cheat behind the whole game, it’s right there, lasses. Even when money’s just an idea, it has power. Only it’s not real power. Just the promise of power. But that promise is enough so long as everyone keeps pretending it’s real. Stop pretending and it all falls apart.’

  ‘Unless the diamonds are in your hands,’ Shand said.

  ‘Right. Then it’s real power.’

  ‘That’s what you began to suspect, isn’t it? So you went and tested it. And everything came within a stumble of falling apart.’

  Tehol smiled. ‘Imagine my dismay.’

  ‘You weren’t dismayed,’ she said. ‘You just realized how deadly an idea could be, in the wrong hands.’

  ‘They’re all the wrong hands, Shand. Including mine.’

  ‘So you walked away.’

  ‘And I’m not going back. Do your worst with me. Let Hull know. Take it all down. What’s written off can be written back in. The Tolls are good at that. In fact, you’ll trigger a boom. Everyone will sigh with relief, seeing that it was all in the game after all.’

  ‘That’s not what we want,’ Shand said. ‘You still don’t get it. When we buy the rest of the islands, Tehol, we do it the same way you did. Ten peaks…disappearing.’

  ‘The entire economy will collapse!’

  At that the three women all nodded.

  ‘You’re fanatics!’

  ‘Even worse,’ Rissarh said, ‘we’re vengeful.’

  ‘You’re all half-bloods, aren’t you?’ He didn’t need their answers to that. It was obvious. Not every half-blood had to look like a half-blood. ‘Faraed, for Hejun. You two? Tarthenal?’

  ‘Tarthenal. Letheras destroyed us. Now, we’re going to destroy Letheras.’

  ‘And,’ Rissarh said, smiling again, ‘you’re going to show us how.’

  ‘Because you hate your own people,’ Shand said. ‘The whole rapacious, cold-blooded lot of them. We want those islands, Tehol Beddict. We know about the remnants of the tribes you delivered to the ones you bought. We know they’re hiding out there, trying to rebuild all that they had lost. But it’s not enough. Walk this city’s streets and the truth of that is plain. You did it for Hull. I had no idea he didn’t know about it—you surprised me there. You know, I think you should tell him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he needs healing, that’s why.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  Shand stepped close and settled a hand on Tehol’s shoulder. The contact left him weak-kneed, so unexpected was the sympathy. ‘You’re right, you can’t. Because we both know, it wasn’t enough.’

  ‘Tell him our way,’ Hejun said. ‘Tehol Beddict. Do it right this time.’

  He pulled away and studied them. These three damned women. ‘It’s the Errant’s curse, that he walks down paths he’s walked before. But that trait of yours, of not getting distracted, it blinds both ways, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, Shand, that Lether is about to fall—and not through my doing. Find Hull and ask him—I’m sure he’s up there, somewhere. In the north. And, you know, it’s rather amusing, how he fought so hard for your people, for every one of those tribes Lether then devoured. Because now, knowing what he knows, he’s going to fight again. Only, this time, not for a tribe—not for the Tiste Edur. This time, for Lether. Because he knows, my friends, that we’ve met our match in those damned bastards. This time, it’s the Edur who will do the devouring.’

  ‘What makes you think so?’ Shand demanded, and he saw the disbelief in her expression.

  ‘Because they don’t play the game,’ he said.

  ‘What if you’re wrong?’

  ‘It’s possible. Either way, it’s going to be bloody.’

  ‘Then let’s make it easier for the Tiste Edur.’

  ‘Shand, you’re talking treason.’

  Her lips pressed into a thin line.

  Rissarh barked a laugh. ‘You idiot. We’ve been doing that all along.’

  Errant take me, she’s right. ‘I’m not convinced a host of barbaric Edur overlords will do any better.’

  ‘We’re not talking about what’s better,’ Shand said. ‘We’re talking about revenge. Think of Hull, of what was done to him. Do it back, Tehol.’

  I don’t believe Hull would see it that way. Not quite. Not for a long, long time. ‘You realize, don’t you, that I’ve worked very hard at cultivating apathy. In fact, it seems to be bearing endless fruit.’

  ‘Yes, the skirt doesn’t hide much.’

  ‘My instincts may be a bit dull.’

  ‘Liar. They’ve just been lying in wait and you know it. Where do we start, Tehol Beddict?’

  He sighed. ‘All right. First and foremost, we lease out this ground floor. Biri needs the storage.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I happen to like my abode, and I don’t intend to leave. As far as anyone else is concerned, I’m still not playing the game. You three are the investors. So, put those damned weapons away; we’re in a far deadlier war now. There’s a family of Nerek camped outside my house. A mother and two children. Hire them as cook and runners. Then head down to the Merchant Tolls and get yourselves listed. You deal in property, construction and transportation. No other ventures. Not yet. Now, seven properties are for sale around the fifth wing of the Eternal Domicile. They’re going cheap.’

  ‘Because they’re sinking.’

  ‘Right. And we’re going to fix that. And once we’ve done that, expect a visit from the Royal Surveyor and a motley collection of hopeful architects. Ladies, prepare to get rich.’

  Looking for solid grounding? Bugg’s Construction is your answer.

  Until the flood sweeps the entire world away, that is.

  ‘Can we buy you some clothes?’

  Tehol blinked. ‘Why?’

  Seren stared down. The valley stretched below, its steep sides unrelieved forest, a deep motionless green. The glitter of rushing water threaded through the shadows in the cut’s nadir. Blood of the Mountains, the Edur called that river. Tis’f
orundal. Its waters ran red with the sweat of iron.

  The track they would take crossed that river again and again.

  The lone Tiste Edur far below had, it seemed, emerged from that crimson stream. Striding to the head of the trail then beginning the ascent.

  As if knowing we’re here.

  Buruk the Pale was taking his time with this journey, calling a halt shortly after midday. The wagons would not tip onto that rocky, sliding path into the valley until the morrow. Caution or drunk indifference, the result was the same.

  Hull stood at her side. Both of them watched the Tiste Edur climb closer.

  ‘Seren.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You weep at night.’

  ‘I thought you were asleep.’

  He said nothing for a moment, then, ‘Your weeping always woke me.’

  And this is as close as you dare, isn’t it? ‘Would that yours had me.’

  ‘I am sure it would have, Seren, had I wept.’

  And this eases my guilt? She nodded towards that distant Tiste Edur. ‘Do you recognize him?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Will he cause us trouble?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I believe he will be our escort back to Hiroth lands.’

  ‘Noble-born?’

  Hull nodded. ‘Binadas Sengar.’

  She hesitated, then asked, ‘Have you cut flesh for him?’

  ‘I have. As he has for me.’

  Seren Pedac drew her furs tighter about her shoulders. The wind had not relented, though something of the valley’s damp rot now rode its bludgeoning rush. ‘Hull, do you fear this Great Meeting?’

  ‘I need only look back to see what lies ahead.’

  ‘Are you so sure of that?’

  ‘We will buy peace, but it will be, for the Tiste Edur, a deadly peace.’

  ‘But peace none the less, Hull.’

  ‘Acquitor, you might as well know, and so understand me clearly. I mean to shatter that gathering. I mean to incite the Edur into war with Letheras.’

  Stunned, she stared at him.

  Hull Beddict turned away. ‘With that knowledge,’ he said, ‘do as you will.’

  Chapter Three

  Face to the Light

  betrayed by the Dark

  Father Shadow lies bleeding

  Unseen and unseeing

  lost

  until his Children

  take the final path

  and in the solitude

  of strangers

  Awaken once more

  TISTE EDUR PRAYER

  A hard silence that seemed at home in the dense, impenetrable fog. The Blackwood paddles had been drawn from water thick as blood, which ran in rivulets, then beads, down the polished shafts, finally drying with a patina of salt in the cool, motionless air. And now there was nothing to do but wait.

  Daughter Menandore had delivered a grim omen that morning. The body of a Beneda warrior. A bloated corpse scorched by sorcery, skin peeled back by the ceaseless hungers of the sea. The whispering roar of flies stung into flight by the arrival of those Edur whose slaves had first found it.

  Letherii sorcery.

  The warrior wore no scabbard, no armour. He had been fishing.

  Four K’orthan longboats had set out from the river mouth shortly after the discovery. In the lead craft rode Hannan Mosag and his K’risnan Cadre, along with seventy-five blooded warriors. Crews of one hundred followed in the three additional raiders.

  The tide carried them out for a time. It soon became clear that no wind waited offshore, so they left the three triangular sails on each ship furled and, thirty-five warriors to a side, had begun paddling.

  Until the Warlock King had signalled a halt.

  The fog enclosed the four raider longboats. Nothing could be seen twenty strokes of the paddle in any direction. Trull Sengar sat on the bench behind Fear. He had set his paddle down and now gripped the new iron-sheathed spear his father had given him.

  The Letherii ships were close, he knew, drifting in the same manner as the Edur longboats. But they relied solely upon sail and so could do nothing until a wind rose.

  And Hannan Mosag had made certain there would be no wind.

  Shadow wraiths flickered over the deck, roving restlessly, long-clawed hands reaching down as they clambered on all fours. They prowled as if eager to leave the confines of the raider. Trull had never seen so many of them, and he knew that they were present on the other longboats as well. They would not, however, be the slayers of the Letherii. For that, the Warlock King had summoned something else.

  He could feel it. Waiting beneath them. A vast patience, suspended in the depths.

  Near the prow, Hannan Mosag slowly raised a hand, and, looking beyond the Warlock King, Trull saw the hulk of a Letherii harvest ship slowly emerge from the fog. Sails furled, lanterns at the end of out-thrust poles, casting dull, yellow light.

  And then a second ship, bound to the first by a thick cable.

  Shark fins cut the pellucid surface of the water around them.

  And then, suddenly, those fins were gone.

  Whatever waited below rose.

  Emerged unseen with a shivering of the water.

  A moment, blurred and uncertain.

  Then screams.

  Trull dropped his spear and clapped both hands to his ears—and he was not alone in that response, for the screams grew louder, drawn out from helpless throats and rising to shrieks. Sorcery flashed in the fog, briefly then ceased.

  The Letherii ships were on all sides now. Yet nothing could be seen of what was happening on them. The fog had blackened around them, coiling like smoke, and from that impenetrable gloom only the screams clawed free, like shreds of horror, the writhing of souls.

  The sounds were in Trull’s skull, indifferent to his efforts to block them. Hundreds of voices. Hundreds upon hundreds.

  Then silence. Hard and absolute.

  Hannan Mosag gestured.

  The white cloak of fog vanished abruptly.

  The calm seas now rolled beneath a steady wind. Above, the sun glared down from a fiercely blue sky.

  Gone, too, was the black emanation that had engulfed the Letherii fleet.

  The ships wallowed, burned-out lanterns pitching wildly.

  ‘Paddle.’

  Hannan Mosag’s voice seemed to issue from directly beside Trull. He started, then reached down, along with everyone else, for a paddle. Rose to plant his hip against the gunnel, then chopped down into the water.

  The longboat surged forward.

  In moments they were holding blades firm in the water, halting their craft alongside the hull of one of the ships.

  Shadow wraiths swarmed up its red-stained side.

  And Trull saw that the waterline on the hull had changed. Its hold was, he realized, now empty.

  ‘Fear,’ he hissed. ‘What is going on? What has happened?’

  His brother turned, and Trull was shocked by Fear’s pallid visage. ‘It is not for us, Trull,’ he said, then swung round once more.

  It is not for us. What does he mean by that? What isn’t?

  Dead sharks rolled in the waves around them. Their carcasses were split open, as if they had exploded from within. The water was streaked with viscid froth.

  ‘We return now,’ Hannan Mosag said. ‘Man the sails, my warriors. We have witnessed. Now we must leave.’

  Witnessed—in the name of Father Shadow, what?

  Aboard the Letherii ships, canvas snapped and billowed.

  The wraiths will deliver them. By the Dusk, this is no simple show of power. This—this is a challenge. A challenge, of such profound arrogance that it far surpassed that of these Letherii hunters and their foolish, suicidal harvest of the tusked seals. At that realization, a new thought came to Trull as he watched other warriors tending to the sails. Who among the Letherii would knowingly send the crews of nineteen ships to their deaths? And why would those crews even agree to it?

  It was said gold was all th
at mattered to the Letherii. But who, in their right mind, would seek wealth when it meant certain death? They had to have known there would be no escape. Then again, what if I had not stumbled upon them? What if I had not chosen the Calach strand to look for jade? But no, now he was the one being arrogant. If not Trull, then another. The crime would never have gone unnoticed. The crime was never intended to go unnoticed.

  He shared the confusion of his fellow warriors. Something was awry here. With both the Letherii and with…us. With Hannan Mosag. Our Warlock King.

  Our shadows are dancing. Letherii and Edur, dancing out a ritual—but these are not steps I can recognize. Father Shadow forgive me, I am frightened.

  Nineteen ships of death sailed south, while four K’orthan raiders cut eastward. Four hundred Edur warriors, once more riding a hard silence.

  It fell to the slaves to attend to the preparations. The Beneda corpse was laid out on a bed of sand on the floor of a large stone outbuilding adjoining the citadel, and left to drain.

  The eye sockets, ears, nostrils and gaping mouth were all cleaned and evened out with soft wax. Chewed holes in its flesh were packed with a mixture of clay and oil.

  With six Edur widows overseeing, a huge iron tray was set atop a trench filled with coals that had been prepared alongside the corpse. Copper coins rested on the tray, snapping and popping as the droplets of condensation on them sizzled and hissed then vanished.

  Udinaas crouched beside the trench, staying far enough back to ensure that his sweat did not drip onto the coins—a blasphemy that meant instant death for the careless slave—and watched the coins, seeing them darken, becoming smoky black. Then, as the first glowing spot emerged in each coin’s centre, he used pincers to pluck it from the tray and set it down on one of a row of fired-clay plates—one plate for each widow.

  The widow, kneeling before the plate, employed a finer set of pincers to pick up the coin. And then pivoted to lean over the corpse.

  First placement was the left eye socket. A crackling hiss, worms of smoke rising upward as the woman pressed down with the pincers, keeping the coin firmly in place, until it melded with the flesh and would thereafter resist being dislodged. Right eye socket followed. Nose, then forehead and cheeks, every coin touching its neighbours.