The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘What?’

  ‘That Tiste Edur, lass.’

  ‘Tiste Edur?’

  ‘Never mind. There they are.’

  Ahead, crouched at the dead end of an alley, six figures. Two women, four men. All in crimson surcoats. Weapons out. Blood on the blades. One, more lightly armoured than the others and holding what looked to be some sort of diadem in his left hand, stepped forward.

  And said something in a language Seren had never heard before.

  Iron Bars replied in an impatient growl. He drew Seren closer as the man who’d spoken began gesturing. The air seemed to shimmer all round them.

  ‘Corlo’s opening the warren, lass. We’re going through, and if we’re lucky we won’t run into anything in there. No telling how far we can get. Far enough, I hope.’

  ‘Where?’ she asked. ‘Where are we going?’

  A murky wall of blackness yawned where the alley’s blank wall had been.

  ‘Letheras, Acquitor. We got a ship awaiting us, remember?’

  Strangest armour I’ve ever seen.

  A damned fortune.

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Is he dead? Did you kill him? That Tiste Edur!’

  ‘No choice, lass. He was slowing us up and more were coming.’

  Oh, no.

  Vomit spilling out onto the sand.

  At least, Withal mused, the shrieks had stopped. He waited, seated on grass just above the beach, while the young Edur, on his hands and knees, head hanging down, shuddered and convulsed, coughed and spat.

  Off to one side, two of the Nachts, Rind and Pule, were fighting over a piece of driftwood that was falling apart with their efforts. Their games of destruction had become obsessive of late, leading the Meckros weaponsmith to wonder if they were in fact miming a truth on his behalf. Or the isolation was driving them insane.

  Another kind of truth, that one.

  He despised religion. Set no gods in his path. Ascendants were worse than rabid beasts. It was enough that mortals were capable of appalling evil; he wanted nothing to do with their immortal, immeasurably more powerful counterparts.

  And this broken god in his squalid tent, his eternal pain and the numbing smoke of the seeds he scattered onto the brazier before him, it was all of a piece to Withal. Suffering made manifest, consumed by the desire to spread the misery of its own existence into the world, into all the worlds. Misery and false escape, pain and mindless surrender. All of a piece.

  On this small island, amidst this empty sea, Withal was lost. Within himself, among a host of faces that were all his own, he was losing the capacity to recognize any of them. Thought and self was reduced, formless and untethered. Wandering amidst a stranger’s memories, whilst the world beyond unravelled.

  Nest building.

  Frenzied destruction.

  Fanged mouth agape in silent, convulsive laughter.

  Three jesters repeating the same performance again and again. What did it mean? What obvious lesson was being shown him that he was too blind, too thick, to understand?

  The Edur lad was done, nothing left in his stomach. He lifted his head, eyes stripped naked to the bones of pain and horror. ‘No,’ he whispered.

  Withal looked away, squinted along the strand.

  ‘No more…please.’

  ‘Never much in the way of sunsets here,’ Withal mused. ‘Or sunrises, for that matter.’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like!’

  The Edur’s scream trailed away. ‘The nests are getting more elaborate,’ Withal said. ‘I think he’s striving for a particular shape. Sloped walls, a triangular entrance. Then Mape wrecks it. What am I to take from all that?’

  ‘He can keep his damned sword. I’m not going. Over there. I’m not going over there and don’t try to make me.’

  ‘I have nothing to do. Nothing.’

  Rhulad crawled towards him. ‘You made that sword!’ he said in an accusatory rasp.

  ‘Fire, hammer, anvil and quenching. I’ve made more swords than I can count. Just iron and sweat. They were broken blades, I think. Those black shards. From some kind of narrow-bladed, overlong knife. Two of them, black and brittle. Just pieces, really. I wonder where he collected them from?’

  ‘Everything breaks,’ Rhulad said.

  Withal glanced over. ‘Aye, lad. Everything breaks.’

  ‘You could do it.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Break that sword.’

  ‘No. I can’t.’

  ‘Everything breaks!’

  ‘Including people, lad.’

  ‘That’s not good enough.’

  Withal shrugged. ‘I don’t remember much of anything any more. I think he’s stealing my mind. He says he’s my god. All I need to do is worship him, he says. And everything will come clear. So tell me, Rhulad Sengar, is it all clear to you?’

  ‘This evil—it’s of your making!’

  ‘Is it? Maybe you’re right. I accepted his bargain. But he lied, you see. He said he’d set me free, once I made the sword. He lies, Rhulad. That much I know. I know that now. This god lies.’

  ‘I have power. I am emperor. I’ve taken a wife. We are at war and Lether shall fall.’

  Withal gestured inland. ‘And he’s waiting for you.’

  ‘They’re frightened of me.’

  ‘Fear breeds its own loyalty, lad. They’ll follow. They’re waiting too, right now.’

  Rhulad clawed at his face, shuddered. ‘He killed me. That man—not a Letherii, not a Letherii at all. He killed us. Seven of my brothers. And me. He was so…fast. It seemed he barely moved, and my kin were falling, dying.’

  ‘Next time will be harder. You’ll be harder. It won’t be as easy to find someone to kill you, next time. And the time after that. Do you understand that, lad? It’s the essence of that mangled god who’s waiting for you.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘The god? A miserable little shit, Rhulad. Who has your soul in his hands.’

  ‘Father Shadow has abandoned us.’

  ‘Father Shadow is dead. Or as good as.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because if he wasn’t, he’d have never let the Crippled God steal you. You and your people. He’d have come marching ashore…’ Withal fell silent.

  And that, he realized, was what he was coming to. A blood-soaked truth.

  He hated religion, hated the gods. And he was alone.

  ‘I will kill him. With the sword.’

  ‘Fool. There’s nothing on this island that he doesn’t hear, doesn’t see, doesn’t know.’

  Except, maybe, what’s in my mind now. And, even if he knew, how could he stop me? No, he doesn’t know. I must believe that. After all, if he did, he’d kill me. Right now, he’d kill me.

  Rhulad climbed to his feet. ‘I’m ready for him.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Withal sighed. He glanced over at the two Nachts. Their contested driftwood was a scattering of splinters lying between them. Both creatures were staring down at it, bemused, poking fingers through the mess. The Meckros rose. ‘All right then, lad, let’s go.’

  She was behind the black glass, within a tunnel of translucent obsidian, and there were no ghosts.

  ‘Kurald Galain,’ Corlo said in a whisper, casting a glance back at them over one shoulder. ‘Unexpected. It’s a rotten conquest. That, or the Edur don’t even know it, don’t even know what they’re using.’

  The air stank of death. Withered flesh, the breath of a crypt. The black stone beneath their feet was greasy and uncertain. Overhead, the ceiling was uneven, barely a hand’s width higher than Iron Bars, who was the tallest among the group.

  ‘It’s a damned rats’ maze,’ the mage continued, pausing at a branching.

  ‘Just take us south,’ Iron Bars said in a low growl.

  ‘Fine, but which way is that?’

  The soldiers crowded round, muttering and cursing in their strange language.


  Corlo faced Seren, his expression strangely taut. ‘Any suggestions, Acquitor?’

  ‘What?’

  The mage said something in their native tongue to Iron Bars, who scowled and replied, ‘That’s enough, all of you. In Letherii. Since when was rudeness in the creed of the Crimson Guard? Acquitor, this is the Hold of Darkness—’

  ‘There is no Hold of Darkness.’

  ‘Well, I’m trying to say it in a way that makes sense to you.’

  ‘All right.’

  Corlo said, ‘But, you see, Acquitor, it shouldn’t be.’

  She simply looked at him in the gloom.

  The mage rubbed the back of his neck, and she saw the hand come away glistening with sweat. ‘These are Tiste Edur, right? Not Tiste Andii. The Hold of Darkness, that’s Tiste Andii. The Edur, they were from the, uh, Hold of Shadow. So, it was natural, you see, to expect that the warren would be Kurald Emurlahn. But it isn’t. It’s Kurald Galain, only it’s breached. Over-run. Thick with spirits—Tiste Andii spirits—’

  ‘They’re not here,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen them. Those spirits. They’re not here.’

  ‘They are, Acquitor. I’m just keeping them away. For now…’

  ‘But it’s proving difficult.’

  The mage nodded reluctantly.

  ‘And you’re lost.’

  Another nod.

  She tried to think, cut through the numbness—which seemed to be the only thing keeping away the pain of her battered flesh. ‘You said the spirits are not Edur.’

  ‘That’s right. Tiste Andii.’

  ‘What is the relationship between the two? Are they allied?’

  Corlo’s eyes narrowed. ‘Allied?’

  ‘Those wraiths,’ Iron Bars said.

  The mage’s gaze darted to his commander, then back again to Seren Pedac. ‘Those wraiths are bound. Compelled to fight alongside the Edur. Are they Andii spirits? Hood’s breath, this is starting to make sense. What else would they be? Not Edur spirits, since no binding magic would be needed, would it?’

  Iron Bars stepped in front of Seren. ‘What are you suggesting?’

  She remembered back to her only contact with the spirits, their hunger. ‘Mage Corlo, you say you’re keeping them away. Are they trying to attack us?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Let one through. Maybe we can talk to it, maybe we can get help.’

  ‘Why would it be interested in helping us?’

  ‘Make a bargain.’

  ‘With what?’

  She shrugged. ‘Think of something.’

  He muttered a string of foreign words that she guessed were curses.

  ‘Let one through,’ Iron Bars said.

  More curses, then Corlo walked a few steps ahead to clear some space. ‘Ready weapons,’ he said. ‘In case it ain’t interested in talking.’

  A moment later, the gloom in front of the mage wavered, and something black spread outward like spilled ink. A figure emerged, halting, uncertain.

  A woman, tall as an Edur but midnight-skinned, a reddish glint to her long, unbound hair. Green eyes, tilted and large, a face softer and rounder than Seren would have expected given her height and long limbs. She was wearing a leather harness and leggings, and on her shoulders rode the skin of some white-furred beast. She was unarmed.

  Her eyes hardened. She spoke, and in her words Seren heard a resemblance to Edur.

  ‘I hate it when that happens,’ Corlo said.

  Seren tried Edur. ‘Hello. We apologize for intruding on your world. We do not intend to stay long.’

  The woman’s expression did not change. ‘The Betrayers never do.’

  ‘I may speak in the language of the Edur, but they are no allies of ours. Perhaps in that, we share something.’

  ‘I was among the first to die in the war,’ the woman said, ‘and so not at the hands of an Edur. They cannot take me, cannot force me to fight for them. I and those like me are beyond their grasp.’

  ‘Yet your spirit remains trapped,’ Seren said. ‘Here, in this place.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  Seren turned to Iron Bars. ‘She asks what we want of her.’

  ‘Corlo?’

  The mage shrugged, then said, ‘We need to escape the influence of the Edur. We need to get beyond their reach. Then to return to our world.’

  Seren relayed Corlo’s statements to the woman.

  ‘You are mortal,’ she replied. ‘You can pass through when we cannot.’

  ‘Can you guide us?’

  ‘And what is to be my reward for this service?’

  ‘What do you seek?’

  She considered, then shook her head. ‘No. An unfair bargain. My service is not worth the payment I would ask. You require a guide to lead you to the border’s edge. I will not deceive. It is not far. You would find it yourselves before too long.’

  Seren translated the exchange for the Crimson Guardsmen, then added, ‘This is odd…’

  Iron Bars smiled. ‘An honest broker?’

  She nodded wryly. ‘I am Letherii, after all. Honesty makes me suspicious.’

  ‘Ask her what she would have us do for her,’ Iron Bars said.

  Seren Pedac did, and the woman held up her right hand, and in it was a small object, encrusted and corroded and unrecognizable. ‘The K’Chain Che’Malle counter-attack drove a number of us down to the shoreline, then into the waves. I am a poor fighter. I died on that sea’s foaming edge, and my corpse rolled out, drawn by the tide, along the muddy sands, where the mud swallowed it.’ She looked down at the object in her palm. ‘This was a ring I wore. Returned to me by a wraith—many wraiths have done this for those of us beyond the reach of the Edur. I would ask that you return me to my bones, to what little of me remains. So that I can find oblivion. But this is too vast a gift, for offering you so little—’

  ‘How would we go about doing as you ask?’

  ‘I would join with the substance of this ring. You would see me no more. And you would need to travel to the shoreline, then cast this into the sea.’

  ‘That does not seem difficult.’

  ‘Perhaps it isn’t. The inequity lies in the exchange of values.’

  Seren shook her head. ‘We see no inequity. Our desire is of equal value as far as we are concerned. We accept your bargain.’

  ‘How do I know you will not betray me?’

  The Letherii turned to Iron Bars. ‘She doesn’t trust us.’

  The man strode to halt directly before the Tiste Andii woman. ‘Acquitor, tell her I am an Avowed, of the Crimson Guard. If she would, she can seek the meaning of that. By laying her hand on my chest. Tell her I shall honour our pact.’

  ‘I’ve not told you what it is yet. She wants us to throw the thing she’s holding into the sea.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Doing so will end her existence. Which seems to be what she wants.’

  ‘Tell her to seek the cast of my soul.’

  ‘Very well.’

  The suspicious look in the woman’s eyes grew more pronounced, but she stepped forward and set her left hand on the man’s chest.

  The hand flinched away and the woman staggered back a step, shock, then horror, writ on her face. ‘How—how could you do—why?’

  Seren said, ‘Not the response you sought, I think, Iron Bars. She is…appalled.’

  ‘That is of no concern,’ the man replied. ‘Does she accept my word?’

  The woman straightened, then, to Seren’s question, she nodded and said, ‘I cannot do otherwise. But…I had forgotten…this feeling.’

  ‘What feeling?’

  ‘Sorrow.’

  ‘Iron Bars,’ Seren said, ‘whatever this “Avowed” means, she is overwhelmed with…pity.’

  ‘Yes well,’ he said, turning away, ‘we all make mistakes.’

  The woman said, ‘I will lead you now.’

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Sandalath Drukorlat.’

  ‘Thank yo
u, Sandalath. It grieves me to know that our gift to you is oblivion.’

  She shrugged. ‘Those who I once loved and who loved me believe I am gone in truth. There is no need for grief.’

  No need for grief. Where, then, does the pity lie?

  ‘Stand up, lads,’ Iron Bars said, ‘she’s making ready to go.’

  Mape lay on the knoll like something dead, but the Nacht’s head slowly turned as Withal and Rhulad strode into view. She had stolen a hammer from the smithy some time back, to better facilitate her destruction of Pule’s nests, and now carried it with her everywhere. Withal watched askance as the gnarled, black-skinned creature lifted the hammer into view, eyes still fixed on him and the Tiste Edur, as if contemplating murder.

  Of the three Nachts, Mape made him the most nervous. Too much intelligence glittered in her small black eyes, too often she watched with something like a smile on her apish face. And the strength the creatures had displayed was sufficient to make any man worried. He knew Mape could tear his arms from his shoulders, were she so inclined.

  Perhaps the Crippled God had bound them, as demons could be bound, and it was this and this alone that kept the beasts from Withal’s throat. An unpleasant notion.

  ‘What’s to stop me,’ Rhulad asked in a growl, ‘from driving the sword right through his scrawny chest?’

  ‘Do not ask that question of me, Edur. Only the Crippled God can answer it. But I don’t think it could ever be that easy. He’s a clever bastard, and there in that tent his power is probably absolute.’

  ‘The vastness of his realm,’ Rhulad said, sneering.

  Yes. Now why do those words, said in that way, interest me?

  The ragged canvas shelter was directly ahead, smoke drifting from the side that had been drawn open. As they approached, the air grew hotter, drier, the grasses withered and bleached underfoot. The earth seemed strangely blighted.

  They came opposite the entrance. Within, the god’s huddled form in the gloom. Tendrils of smoke rising from the brazier.

  A cough, then, ‘Such anger. Unreasonable, I think, given the efficacy of my gift.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back,’ Rhulad said. ‘Leave me here. Choose someone else.’

  ‘Unwitting servants to our cause appear…from unexpected sources. Imagine, an Avowed of the Crimson Guard. Be glad it was not Skinner, or indeed Cowl. They would have taken more notice of you, and that would not have been a good thing. We’re not yet ready for that.’ A hacking cough. ‘Not yet ready.’