The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  Can one stop, can one turn and force one’s eyes to pierce the gloom? And see the fallen? Can one ever see the fallen? And if so, what emotion is born in that moment?

  There were tears on his cheeks, dripping down onto his chafed hands. He knew the answer to that question, knife-sharp and driven deep, and the answer was…recognition.

  Hull Beddict moved to stand beside Seren Pedac as Mayen walked away. Behind them, the Nerek were speaking in their native tongue, harsh and fast words, taut with disbelief. Rain hissed in the cookfires.

  ‘She should not have done that,’ Hull said.

  ‘No,’ Seren agreed, ‘she should not have. Still, I am not quite certain what has just happened. They were just words, after all. Weren’t they?’

  ‘She didn’t proclaim them guests, Seren. She blessed their arrival.’

  The Acquitor glanced back at the Nerek, frowned at their flushed, nervous expressions. ‘What are they talking about?’

  ‘It’s the old dialect—there are trader words in it that I understand, but many others that I don’t.’

  ‘I didn’t know the Nerek had two languages.’

  ‘Their name is mentioned in the annals of the First Landings,’ Hull said. ‘They are the indigenous people whose territory spanned the entire south. There were Nerek watching the first ships approach. Nerek who came to greet the first Letherii to set foot on this continent. Nerek who traded, taught the colonizers how to live in this land, gave them the medicines against the heat fevers. They have been here a long, long time. Two languages? I’m surprised there aren’t a thousand.’

  ‘Well,’ Seren Pedac said after a moment, ‘at least they’re animated once more. They’ll eat, do as Buruk commands—’

  ‘Yes. But I sense a new fear among them—not one to incapacitate, but the source of troubled thoughts. It seems that even they do not comprehend the full significance of that blessing.’

  ‘This was never their land, was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. The Edur certainly claim to have always been here, from the time when the ice first retreated from the world.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten. Their strange creation myths. Lizards and dragons and ice, a god-king betrayed.’

  After a moment she glanced over, and saw him staring at her.

  ‘What is it, Hull?’

  ‘How do you know such things? It was years before Binadas Sengar relinquished such information to me, and that as a solemn gift following our binding.’

  Seren blinked. ‘I heard it…somewhere. I suppose.’ She shrugged, wiping rainwater from her face. ‘Everyone has some sort of creation myth. Nonsense, typically. Or actual memories all jumbled up and infused with magic and miracles.’

  ‘You are being surprisingly dismissive, Acquitor.’

  ‘And what do the Nerek believe?’

  ‘That they were all born of a single mother, countless generations past, who was the thief of fire and walked through time, seeking that which might answer a need that consumed her—although she could never discover the nature of that need. One time, in her journey, she took within her a sacred seed, and so gave birth to a girl-child. To all outward appearances,’ he continued, ‘that child was little different from her mother, for the sacredness was hidden, and so it remains hidden to this day. Within the Nerek, who are the offspring of that child.’

  ‘And by this, the Nerek justify their strange patriarchy.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Hull conceded, ‘although it is the female line that is taken as purest.’

  ‘And does this first mother’s mother have a name?’

  ‘Ah, you noted the confused blending of the two, as if they were roles rather than distinct individuals. Maiden, mother and grandmother, a progression through time—’

  ‘Discounting the drudgery spent as wife. Wisdom unfurls like a flower in a pile of dung.’

  His gaze sharpened on her. ‘In any case, she is known by a number of related names, also suggesting variations of a single person. Eres, N’eres, Eres’al.’

  ‘And this is what lies at the heart of the Nerek ancestor worship?’

  ‘Was, Seren Pedac. You forget, their culture is destroyed.’

  ‘Cultures can die, Hull, but the people live on, and what they carry within them are the seeds of rebirth—’

  ‘A delusion, Seren Pedac,’ he replied. ‘Whatever might be born of that is twisted, weak, a self-mockery.’

  ‘Even stone changes. Nothing can stand still—’

  ‘Yet we would. Wouldn’t we? Oh, we talk of progress, but what we really desire is the perpetuation of the present. With its seemingly endless excesses, its ravenous appetites. Ever the same rules, ever the same game.’

  Seren Pedac shrugged. ‘We were discussing the Nerek. A noble-born woman of the Hiroth Tiste Edur has blessed them—’

  ‘Before even our own formal welcome has been voiced.’

  Her brows rose. ‘You think this is yet another veiled insult to the Letherii? Instigated by Hannan Mosag himself? Hull, I think your imagination has the better of you this time.’

  ‘Think what you like.’

  She turned away. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

  Uruth had intercepted Mayen at the bridge. Whatever was exchanged between them was brief and without drama, at least none that Udinaas could determine from where he sat in front of the longhouse. Feather Witch had trailed Uruth after delivering the message from her mistress, and waited a half-dozen paces distant from the two Edur women, though not so far as to be out of earshot. Uruth and Mayen then approached side by side, the slaves trailing.

  Hearing low laughter, Udinaas stiffened and hunched lower on the stool. ‘Be quiet, Wither!’ he hissed.

  ‘There are realms, dead slave,’ the wraith whispered, ‘where memories shape oblivion, and so make of ages long past a world as real as this one. In this way, time is defeated. Death is defied. And sometimes, Udinaas the Indebted, such a realm drifts close. Very close.’

  ‘No more, I beg you. I’m not interested in your stupid riddles—’

  ‘Would you see what I see? Right now? Shall I send Shadow’s veil to slip over your eyes and so reveal to you unseen pasts?’

  ‘Not now—’

  ‘Too late.’

  Layers unfolded before the slave’s eyes, cobweb-thin, and the surrounding village seemed to shrink back, blurred and colourless, beneath the onslaught. Udinaas struggled to focus. The clearing had vanished, replaced by towering trees and a forest floor of rumpled moss, where the rain fell in sheets. The sea to his left was much closer, fiercely toppling grey, foaming waves against the shoreline’s jagged black rock, spume exploding skyward.

  Udinaas flinched away from the violence of those waves—and all at once they faded into darkness, and another scene rose before the slave’s eyes. The sea had retreated, beyond the western horizon, leaving behind trench-scarred bedrock ringed in sheer ice cliffs. The chill air carried the stench of decay.

  Figures scurried past Udinaas, wearing furs or perhaps bearing their own thick coat, mottled brown, tan and black. They were surprisingly tall, their bodies disproportionately large below small-skulled, heavy-jawed heads. One sported a reed-woven belt from which dead otters hung, and all carried coils of rope made from twisted grasses.

  They were silent, yet Udinaas sensed their terror as they stared at something in the northern sky.

  The slave squinted, then saw what had captured their attention.

  A mountain of black stone, hanging suspended in the air above low slopes crowded with shattered ice. It was drifting closer, and Udinaas sensed a malevolence emanating from the enormous, impossible conjuration—an emotion the tall, pelted creatures clearly sensed as well.

  They stared for a moment longer, then broke. Fled past Udinaas—

  —and the scene changed.

  Battered bedrock, pulverized stone, roiling mists. Two tall figures appeared, dragging between them a third one—a woman, unconscious or dead, long dark brown hair unbound and trailing on the ground. Ud
inaas flinched upon recognizing one of the walking figures—that blinding armour, the iron-clad boots and silver cloak, the helmed face. Menandore. Sister Dawn. He sought to flee—she could not avoid seeing him—but found himself frozen in place.

  He recognized the other woman as well, from fearfully carved statues left half buried in loam in the forest surrounding the Hiroth village. Piebald skin, grey and black, making her hard face resemble a war-mask. A cuirass of dulled, patchy iron. Chain and leather vambraces and greaves, a full-length cape of sealskin billowing out behind her. Dapple, the fickle sister. Sukul Ankhadu.

  And he knew, then, the woman they dragged between them. Dusk, Sheltatha Lore. Scabandari’s most cherished daughter, the Protectress of the Tiste Edur.

  The two women halted, releasing the limp arms of the one between them, who dropped to the gritty bedrock as if dead. Two sets of wide, epicanthic Tiste eyes seemed to fix on Udinaas.

  Menandore was the first to speak. ‘I didn’t expect to find you here.’

  As Udinaas struggled to find a response to that, a man’s voice at his side said, ‘What have you done to her?’

  The slave turned to see another Tiste, standing within an arm’s reach from where Udinaas sat on the stool. Taller than the women facing him, he was wearing white enamelled armour, blood-spattered, smudged and scarred by sword-cuts. A broken helm was strapped to his right hip. His skin was white as ivory. Dried blood marked the left side of his face with a pattern like branched lightning. Fire had burned most of his hair away, and the skin of his pate was cracked, red and oozing.

  Twin scabbarded longswords were slung on his back, the grips and pommels jutting up behind his broad shoulders.

  ‘Nothing she didn’t deserve,’ Menandore replied in answer to the Tiste man’s question.

  The other woman bared her teeth. ‘Our dear uncle had ambitions for this precious cousin of ours. Yet did he come when she screamed her need?’

  The battle-scarred man stepped past the slave’s position, his attention on the body of Sheltatha Lore. ‘This is a dread mess. I would wash my hands of it—all of it.’

  ‘But you can’t,’ Menandore said with strange glee. ‘We’re all poisoned by the mother’s blood, after all—’

  Sukul Ankhadu swung to her sister with the words, ‘Her daughters have fared worse than poison! There is nothing balanced to this shattering of selves. Look at us! Spiteful bitches—Tiam’s squalling heads rearing up again and again, generation after generation!’ She stabbed a finger at the Tiste man. ‘And what of you, Father? That she-nightmare sails out on feathered wings from the dark of another realm, legs spread oh so wide and inviting, and were you not first in line? Pure Osserc, First Son of Dark and Light, so precious! Yet there you were, weaving your blood with that whore—tell us, did you proclaim her your sister before or after you fucked her?’

  If the venom of her words had any effect, there was no outward sign. The one named Osserc simply smiled and looked away. ‘You shouldn’t speak of your mother that way, Sukul. She died giving birth to you, after all—’

  ‘She died giving birth to us all!’ Sukul Ankhadu’s raised hand closed into a fist that seemed to twist the air. ‘Dies, and is reborn. Tiam and her children. Tiam and her lovers. Her thousand deaths, and yet nothing changes!’

  Menandore spoke in a calm tone. ‘And who have you been arguing with, Osserc?’

  Osserc scowled. ‘Anomander. He got the better of me this time. Upon consideration,’ he continued after a moment, ‘not surprising. The weapon of anger often proves stronger than cold reason’s armour.’ Then he shrugged. ‘Even so, I delayed him long enough—’

  ‘To permit Scabandari’s escape?’ Menandore asked. ‘Why? Your kin or not, he’s shown himself for what he truly is—a treacherous murderer.’

  Osserc’s brows rose mockingly and he regarded the unconscious woman lying on the ground between his daughters. ‘Presumably, your cousin who’s clearly suffered at your hands is not dead, then. Accordingly, I might point out that Scabandari did not murder Silchas Ruin—’

  ‘True,’ Sukul snapped, ‘something far worse. Unless you think eating mud for eternity is a preferable fate.’

  ‘Spare me the outrage,’ Osserc sighed. ‘As you so often note, dear child, treachery and betrayal is our extended family’s most precious trait, or, if not precious, certainly its most popular one. In any case, I am done here. What do you intend doing with her?’

  ‘We think Silchas might enjoy the company.’

  Osserc stiffened. ‘Two draconean Ascendants in the same grounds? You sorely test that Azath House, daughters.’

  ‘Will Scabandari seek to free her?’ Menandore asked.

  ‘Scabandari is in no condition to free anyone,’ Osserc replied, ‘including himself.’

  The two women were clearly startled by this. After a moment, Menandore asked, ‘Who managed that?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Does it matter? It was Scabandari’s conceit to think this world’s gods had not the power to oppose him.’ He paused then to eye his daughters speculatively, and said, ‘Heed that as a warning, my dears. Mother Dark’s first children were spawned without need of any sire. And, despite what Anomander might claim, they were not Tiste Andii.’

  ‘We did not know this,’ Menandore said.

  ‘Well, now you do. Tread softly, children.’

  Udinaas watched the tall figure walk away, then the slave gasped as Osserc’s form blurred, shifted, unfolded to find a new shape. Huge, glittering gold and silver scales rippling as wings spread wide. A surge of power, and the enormous dragon was in the air.

  Sukul Ankhadu and Menandore stared after him, until the dragon dwindled to a gleaming ember in the heavy sky, winked out and was gone.

  Sukul grunted, then said, ‘I’m surprised Anomander didn’t kill him.’

  ‘Something binds them, sister, of which not we nor anyone else knows a thing about. I am certain of it.’

  ‘Perhaps. Or it might be something far simpler.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘They would the game continue,’ Sukul said with a tight smile. ‘And the pleasure would pale indeed were one to kill the other outright.’

  Menandore’s eyes fell to the motionless form of Sheltatha Lore. ‘This one. She took a lover from among this world’s gods, did she not?’

  ‘For a time. Begetting two horrid little children.’

  ‘Horrid? Daughters, then.’

  Sukul nodded. ‘And their father saw that clearly enough from the very start, for he named them appropriately.’

  ‘Oh? And what were those names, sister?’

  ‘Envy and Spite.’

  Menandore smiled. ‘This god—I think I would enjoy meeting him one day.’

  ‘It is possible he would object to what we plan to do with Sheltatha Lore. Indeed, it is possible that even now he seeks our trail, so that he might prevent our revenge. Accordingly, as Osserc is wont to say, we should make haste.’

  Udinaas watched as the two women moved apart, leaving their unconscious cousin where she lay.

  Menandore faced her sister across the distance. ‘Sheltatha’s lover. That god—what is his name?’

  Sukul’s reply seemed to come from a vast distance, ‘Draconus.’

  Then the two women veered into dragons, of a size almost to match that of Osserc. One dappled, one blindingly bright.

  The dappled creature lifted into the air, slid in a banking motion until she hovered over Sheltatha Lore’s body. A taloned claw reached down and gathered her in its grasp.

  Then the dragon rose higher to join her sister. And away they wheeled. Southward.

  The scene quickly faded before the slave’s eyes.

  And, once more, Udinaas was sitting outside the Sengar longhouse, a half-scaled fish in his red, cracked hands, its facing eye staring up at him with that ever-disturbing look of witless surprise—an eye that he had seen, with the barest of variations, all morning and all afternoon, and now, as dusk closed round him, it stared yet
again, mute and emptied of life. As if what he held was not a fish at all.

  Just eyes. Dead, senseless eyes…Yet even the dead accuse.

  ‘You have done enough, slave.’

  Udinaas looked up.

  Uruth and Mayen stood before him. Two Tiste women, neither dappled, neither blindingly bright. Just shades in faint, desultory variation.

  Between them and a step behind, Feather Witch stood foremost among the attending slaves. Large eyes filled with feverish warnings, fixed on his own.

  Udinaas bowed his head to Uruth. ‘Yes, mistress.’

  ‘Find a salve for those hands,’ Uruth said.

  ‘Thank you, mistress.’

  The procession filed past, into the longhouse.

  Udinaas stared down at the fish. Studied that eye a moment longer, then dug it out with his thumb.

  Seren Pedac stood on the beach in the rain, watching the water in its ceaseless motion, the way the pelting rain transformed the surface into a muricated skin, grey and spider-haired as it swelled shoreward to break hissing, thin and sullen on the smooth stones.

  Night had arrived, crawling out from the precious shadows. The dark hours were upon them all, a shawl of silence settling on the village behind her. She was thinking of the Letherii slaves.

  Her people seemed particularly well suited to surrender. Freedom was an altar supplicants struggled to reach all their lives, clawing the smooth floor until blood spattered the gleaming, flawless stone, yet the truth was it remained for ever beyond the grasp of mortals. Even as any sacrifice was justified in its gloried name. For all that, she knew that blasphemy was a hollow crime. Freedom was no god, and if it was, and if it had a face turned upon its worshippers, its expression was mocking. A slave’s chains stole something he or she had never owned.

  The Letherii slaves in this village owed no debt. They served recognizable needs, and were paid in food and shelter. They could marry. Produce children who would not inherit the debts of their parents. The portions of their day allotted their tasks did not progress, did not devour ever more time from their lives. In all, the loss of freedom was shown to be almost meaningless to these kin of hers.