‘All right. Let’s hear some of the others.’
‘That the Tiste Andii who invaded this realm were so thorough in their destruction,’ the third dragon said, ‘and so absolute in their insistence that the throne remain unclaimed.’
Cotillion drew a slow, long breath. He glanced back at Edgewalker, but the apparition said nothing. ‘And what,’ he asked the dragons, ‘so spurred their zeal?’
‘Vengeance, of course. And Anomandaris.’
‘Ah, I think I can now assume I know who imprisoned the three of you.’
‘He very nearly killed us,’ said the female dragon. ‘An overreaction on his part. After all, better Eleint on the Throne of Shadow than another Tiste Edur, or worse, a usurper.’
‘And how would Eleint not be usurpers?’
‘Your pedantry does not impress us.’
‘Was all this before or after the Sundering of the Realm?’
‘Such distinctions are meaningless. The Sundering continues to this day, and as for the forces that conspired to trigger the dread event, those were many and varied. Like a pack of enkar’al closing on a wounded drypthara. What is vulnerable attracts…feeders.’
‘Thus,’ said Cotillion, ‘if freed, you would once again seek the Shadow Throne. Only this time, someone occupies that throne.’
‘The veracity of that claim is subject to debate,’ the female dragon said.
‘A matter,’ added the first dragon, ‘of semantics. Shadows cast by shadows.’
‘You believe that Ammanas is sitting on the wrong Shadow Throne.’
‘The true throne is not even in this fragment of Emurlahn.’
Cotillion crossed his arms and smiled. ‘And is Ammanas?’
The dragons said nothing, and he sensed, with great satisfaction, their sudden disquiet.
‘That, Cotillion,’ said Edgewalker behind him, ‘is a curious distinction. Or are you simply being disingenuous?’
‘That I cannot tell you,’ Cotillion said, with a faint smile.
The female dragon spoke, ‘I am Eloth, Mistress of Illusions – Meanas to you – and Mockra and Thyr. A Shaper of the Blood. All that K’rul asked of me, I have done. And now you presume to question my loyalty?’
‘Ah,’ Cotillion said, nodding, ‘then I take it you are aware of the impending war. Are you also aware of the rumours of K’rul’s return?’
‘His blood is growing sickly,’ said the third dragon. ‘I am Ampelas, who shaped the Blood in the paths of Emurlahn. The sorcery wielded by the Tiste Edur was born of my will – do you now understand, Usurper?’
‘That dragons are prone to grandiose claims and sententiousness? Yes, I do indeed understand, Ampelas. And I should now presume that for each of the warrens, Elder and new, there is a corresponding dragon? You are the flavours of K’rul’s blood? What of the Soletaken dragons, such as Anomandaris and, more relevantly, Scabandari Bloodeye?’
‘We are surprised,’ said the first dragon after a moment, ‘that you know that name.’
‘Because you killed him so long ago?’
‘A poor guess, Usurper, poorer for that you have revealed the extent of your ignorance. No, we did not kill him. In any case, his soul remains alive, although tormented. The one whose fist shattered his skull and so destroyed his body holds no allegiance to us, nor, we suspect, to anyone but herself.’
‘You are Kalse, then,’ Cotillion said. ‘And what path do you claim?’
‘I leave the grandiose claims to my kin. I have no need to impress you, Usurper. Furthermore, I delight in discovering how little you comprehend.’
Cotillion shrugged. ‘I was asking about the Soletaken. Scabandari, Anomandaris, Osserc, Olar Ethil, Draconus—’
Edgewalker spoke behind him: ‘Cotillion, surely you have surmised by now that these three dragons sought the Shadow Throne for honourable reasons?’
‘To heal Emurlahn, yes, Edgewalker, I understand that.’
‘And is that not what you seek as well?’
Cotillion turned to regard the creature. ‘Is it?’
Edgewalker seemed taken aback for a moment, then, head cocking slightly, it said, ‘It is not the healing that concerns you, it is who will be sitting on the Throne afterwards.’
‘As I understand things,’ Cotillion replied, ‘once these dragons did what K’rul asked of them, they were compelled to return to Starvald Demelain. As the sources of sorcery, they could not be permitted to interfere or remain active across the realms, lest sorcery cease to be predictable, which in turn would feed Chaos – the eternal enemy in this grand scheme. But the Soletaken proved a problem. They possessed the blood of Tiam, and with it the vast power of the Eleint. Yet, they could travel as they pleased. They could interfere, and they did. For obvious reasons. Scabandari was originally Edur, and so he became their champion—’
‘After murdering the royal line of the Edur!’ Eloth said in a hiss. ‘After spilling draconean blood in the heart of Kurald Emurlahn! After opening the first, fatal wound upon that warren! What did he think gates were?’
‘The Tiste Andii for Anomandaris,’ Cotillion continued. ‘Tiste Liosan for Osserc. The T’lan Imass for Olar Ethil. These connections and the loyalties born of them are obvious. Draconus is more of a mystery, of course, since he has been gone a long time—’
‘The most reviled of them all!’ Eloth shrieked, the voice filling Cotillion’s skull so that he winced.
Stepping back, he raised a hand. ‘Spare me, please. I am not really interested in all that, to be honest. Apart from discovering if there was enmity between Eleint and Soletaken. It seems there is, with the possible exception of Silanah—’
‘Seduced by Anomandaris’s charms,’ snapped Eloth. ‘And Olar Ethil’s endless pleadings…’
‘To bring fire to the world of the Imass,’ Cotillion said. ‘For that is her aspect, is it not? Thyr?’
Ampelas observed, ‘He is not so uncomprehending as you believed, Kalse.’
‘Then again,’ Cotillion continued, ‘you too claim Thyr, Eloth. Ah, that was clever of K’rul, forcing you to share power.’
‘Unlike Tiam,’ Ampelas said, ‘when we’re killed we stay dead.’
‘Which brings me to what I truly need to understand. The Elder Gods. They are not simply of one world, are they?’
‘Of course not.’
‘And how long have they been around?’
‘Even when Darkness ruled alone,’ Ampelas replied, ‘there were elemental forces. Moving unseen until the coming of Light. Bound only to their own laws. It is the nature of Darkness that it but rules itself.’
‘And is the Crippled God an Elder?’
Silence.
Cotillion found he was holding his breath. He had taken a twisted path to this question, and had made discoveries along the way – so much to think about, in fact, that his mind was numb, besieged by all that he had learned. ‘I need to know,’ he said in a slow release of his breath.
‘Why?’ Edgewalker asked.
‘If he is,’ Cotillion said, ‘then another question follows. How does one kill an elemental force?’
‘You would shatter the balance?’
‘It’s already been shattered, Edgewalker! That god was brought down to the surface of a world. And chained. His power torn apart and secreted in minuscule, virtually lifeless warrens, but all of them linked to the world I came from—’
‘Too bad for that world,’ Ampelas said.
The smug disregard in that reply stung Cotillion. He breathed deep and remained silent, until the anger passed. Then he faced the dragons again. ‘And from that world, Ampelas, he is poisoning the warrens. Every warren. Are you capable of fighting that?’
‘Were we freed—’
‘Were you freed,’ Cotillion said, with a hard smile, ‘you would resume your original purpose, and there would be more draconean blood spilled in the Realm of Shadow.’
‘And you and your fellow usurper believe you are capable of that?’
‘You as much a
s admitted it,’ Cotillion said. ‘You can be killed, and when you have been killed, you stay dead. It is no wonder Anomandaris chained the three of you. In obstinate stupidity you have no equals—’
‘A sundered realm is the weakest realm of all! Why do you think the Crippled God is working through it?’
‘Thank you,’ said Cotillion to Ampelas in a quiet tone. ‘That is what I needed to know.’ He turned away and began walking back down the approach.
‘Wait!’
‘We will speak again, Ampelas,’ he said over a shoulder, ‘before it all goes to the Abyss.’
Edgewalker followed.
As soon as they were clear of the ring of stones, the creature spoke: ‘I must chide myself. I have underestimated you, Cotillion.’
‘It’s a common enough mistake.’
‘What will you do now?’
‘Why should I tell you?’
Edgewalker did not immediately reply. They continued down the slope, strode out onto the plain. ‘You should tell me,’ the apparition finally said, ‘because I might be inclined to give you assistance.’
‘That would mean more to me if I knew who – what – you are.’
‘You may consider me…an elemental force.’
A dull chill seeped through Cotillion. ‘I see. All right, Edgewalker. It appears that the Crippled God has launched an offensive on multiple fronts. The First Throne of the T’lan Imass and the Throne of Shadow are the ones that concern us the most, for obvious reasons. In these two, we feel we are fighting alone – we cannot even rely upon the Hounds, given the mastery the Tiste Edur seem to hold over them. We need allies, Edgewalker, and we need them now.’
‘You have just walked away from three such allies—’
‘Allies who won’t rip our heads off once the threat’s been negated.’
‘Ah, there is that. Very well, Cotillion, I will give the matter some consideration.’
‘Take your time.’
‘That seems a contrary notion.’
‘If one is lacking a grasp of sarcasm, I imagine it does at that.’
‘You do interest me, Cotillion. And that is a rare thing.’
‘I know. You have existed longer…’ Cotillion’s words died away. An elemental force. I guess he has at that. Dammit.
There were so many ways of seeing this dreadful need, the vast conspiracy of motivations from which all shades and casts of morality could be culled, that Mappo Runt was left feeling overwhelmed, from which only sorrow streamed down, pure and chilled, into his thoughts. Beneath the coarse skin of his hands, he could feel the night’s memory slowly fading from the stone, and soon this rock would know the assault of the sun’s heat – this pitted, root-tracked underbelly that had not faced the sun in countless millennia.
He had been turning over stones. Six since dawn. Roughly chiselled dolomite slabs, and beneath each one he had found a scatter of broken bones. Small bones, fossilized, and though in countless pieces after the interminable crushing weight of the stone, the skeletons were, as far as Mappo could determine, complete.
There were, had been, and would always be, all manner of wars. He knew that, in all the seared, scar-hardened places in his soul, so there was no shock in his discovery of these long-dead Jaghut children. And horror had run a mercifully swift passage through his thoughts, leaving at the last his old friend, sorrow.
Streaming down, pure and chilled.
Wars in which soldier fought soldier, sorceror clashed with sorceror. Assassins squared off, knife-blades flickering in the night. Wars in which the lawful battled the wilfully unlawful; in which the sane stood against the sociopath. He had seen crystals growing up in a single night from the desert floor, facet after facet revealed like the petals of an opening flower, and it seemed to him that brutality behaved in a like manner. One incident leading to another, until a conflagration burgeoned, swallowing everyone in its path.
Mappo lifted his hands from the slab’s exposed underside and slowly straightened. To look over at his companion, still wading the warm shallows of the Raraku Sea. Like a child unfolding to a new, unexpected pleasure. Splashing about, running his hands through the reeds that had appeared as if remembered into existence by the sea itself.
Icarium.
My crystal.
When the conflagration consumed children, then the distinction between the sane and the sociopath ceased to exist. It was his flaw, he well knew, to yearn to seek the truth of every side, to comprehend the myriad justifications for committing the most brutal crimes. Imass had been enslaved by deceitful Jaghut tyrants, led down paths of false worship, made to do unspeakable things. Until they had uncovered the deceivers. Unleashing vengeance, first against the tyrants, then against all Jaghut. And so the crystal grew, facet after facet…
Until this…He glanced down once more upon the child’s bones. Pinned beneath dolomite slabs. Not limestone, for dolomite provided a good surface for carving glyphs, and though soft, it absorbed power, making it slower to erode than raw limestone, and so it held those glyphs, faded and soft-edged after all these thousands of years to be sure, but discernible still.
The power of those wards persisted, long after the creature imprisoned by them had died.
Dolomite was said to hold memories. A belief among Mappo’s own people, at least, who in their wanderings had encountered such Imass edifices, the impromptu tombs, the sacred circles, the sight-stones on hill summits – encountered, and then studiously avoided. For the hauntings in these places was a palpable thing.
Or so we managed to convince ourselves.
He sat here, on the edge of Raraku Sea, in the place of an ancient crime, and beyond what his own thoughts conjured, there was nothing. The stone he had set his hands upon seemed possessed of the shortest of memories. The cold of darkness, the heat of the sun. That, and nothing more.
The shortest of memories.
Splashing, and Icarium was striding up onto the shoreline, his eyes bright with pleasure. ‘Such a worthy boon, yes, Mappo? I am enlivened by these waters. Oh, why will you not swim and so be blessed by Raraku’s gift?’
Mappo smiled. ‘Said blessing would quickly wash off this old hide, my friend. I fear the gift would be wasted, and so will not risk disappointing the awakened spirits.’
‘I feel,’ Icarium said, ‘as if the quest begins anew. I will finally discover the truth. Who I am. All that I have done. I will discover, too,’ he added as he approached, ‘the reason for your friendship – that you should always be found at my side, though I lose myself again and again. Ah, I fear I have offended you – no, please, do not look so glum. It is only that I cannot understand why you have sacrificed yourself so. As far as friendships go, this must be a most frustrating one for you.’
‘No, Icarium, there is no sacrifice involved. Nor frustration. This is what we are, and this is what we do. That is all.’
Icarium sighed and turned to look out over the new sea. ‘If only I could be as restful of thought as you, Mappo…’
‘Children have died here.’
The Jhag swung round, his green eyes studying the ground behind the Trell. ‘I saw you pitching rocks. Yes, I see them. Who were they?’
Some nightmare the night before had scoured away Icarium’s memories. This had been happening more often of late. Troubling. And…crushing. ‘Jaghut. From the wars with the T’lan Imass.’
‘A terrible thing to have done,’ Icarium said. The sun was fast drying the water beaded on his hairless, green-grey skin. ‘How is it that mortals can be so cavalier with life? Look at this freshwater sea, Mappo. The new shoreline burgeons with sudden life. Birds, and insects, and all the new plants, there is so much joy revealed, my friend, that my heart feels moments from bursting.’
‘Infinite wars,’ Mappo said. ‘Life’s struggles, each trying to push the other aside, and so win out.’
‘You are grim company this morning, Mappo.’
‘Aye, I am at that. I am sorry, Icarium.’
‘Shall we remai
n here for a time?’
Mappo studied his friend. Bereft of his upper garments, he looked more savage, more barbaric than usual. The dye with which he had disguised the colour of his skin had mostly faded away. ‘As you like. This journey is yours, after all.’
‘Knowledge is returning,’ Icarium said, eyes still on the sea. ‘Raraku’s gift. We were witness to the rise of the waters, here on this west shore. Further west, then, there will be a river, and many cities—’
Mappo’s gaze narrowed. ‘Only one, now, to speak of,’ he said.
‘Only one?’
‘The others died thousands of years ago, Icarium.’
‘N’karaphal? Trebur? Inath’an Merusin? Gone?’
‘Inath’an Merusin is now called Mersin. It is the last of the great cities lining the river.’
‘But there were so many, Mappo. I recall all their names. Vinith, Hedori Kwil, Tramara…’
‘All practising intensive irrigation, drawing the river’s waters out onto the plains. All clearing forests to build their ships. Those cities are dead now, my friend. And the river, its waters once so clear and sweet, is now heavy with silts and much diminished. The plains have lost their topsoil, becoming the Lato Odhan to the east of the Mersin River, and Ugarat Odhan to the west.’
Icarium slowly raised his hands, set them against his temples, and closed his eyes. ‘That long, Mappo?’ he asked in a frail whisper.
‘Perhaps the sea has triggered such memories. For it was indeed a sea back then, freshwater for the most part, although there was seepage through the limestone escarpment from Longshan Bay – that vast barrier was rotting through, as it will do again, I imagine, assuming this sea reaches as far north as it once did.’
‘The First Empire?’
‘It was falling even then. There was no recovery.’ Mappo hesitated, seeing how his words had wounded his friend. ‘But the people returned to this land, Icarium. Seven Cities – yes, the name derives from old remembrances. New cities have grown from the ancient rubble. We are only forty leagues from one right now. Lato Revae. It is on the coast—’
Icarium turned away suddenly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am not yet ready to leave, to cross any oceans. This land holds secrets – my secrets, Mappo. Perhaps the antiquity of my memories will prove advantageous. The lands of my mindscape are the lands of my own past, after all, and they might well yield truths. We shall walk those ancient roads.’
The Malazan Empire Page 464