The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘They will. You are newly ascended. Even in this world of yours, I am certain that there is no shortage of followers, of those who are desperate to believe. And they will hunt down others and make of them victims. They will cut them and fill bowls with their innocent blood, in your name, Ganoes Paran, and so beseech your intercession, your adherence to whatever cause they righteously fashion. The Errant thought to defeat them, as you might well seek to do, and so he became the god of change. He walked the path of neutrality, yet flavoured it with a pleasure taken in impermanence. The Errant’s enemy was ennui, stagnation. This is why the Forkrul Assail sought to annihilate him. And all his mortal followers.’ She paused, then added, ‘Perhaps they succeeded. The Assail were never easily diverted from their chosen course.’

  Paran said nothing. There were truths in her words that even he recognized, and they now weighed upon him, settling heavy and imponderable upon his spirit. Burdens were born from the loss of innocence. Naïveté. While the innocent yearned to lose their innocence, those who had already done so in turn envied the innocent, and knew grief in what they had lost. Between the two, no exchange of truths was possible. He sensed the completion of an internal journey, and Paran found he did not appreciate recognizing that fact, nor the place where he now found himself. It did not suit him that ignorance remained inextricably bound to innocence, and the loss of one meant the loss of the other.

  ‘I have troubled your mind, Ganoes Paran.’

  He glanced up, then shrugged. ‘You have been…timely. Much to my regret, yet still,’ he shrugged again, ‘perhaps all for the best.’

  She faced the sea again and he followed her gaze. A sudden calm upon the modest bay before them, whilst white-caps continued to chop the waters beyond. ‘What is happening?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re coming.’

  Some distant clamour, now, rising as if from a deep cavern, and the sunset seemed to have grown sickly, its very fires slave to a chaotic tumult, as if the shades of a hundred thousand sunsets and sunrises now waged celestial war. Whilst the horizons closed in, flickering with darkness, smoke and racing storms of sand and dust.

  A stirring upon the pellucid waters of the bay, silt clouds rising from beneath, and the calm was spreading outward now, south, stilling the sea’s wildness.

  Ganath stepped back. ‘What have you done?’

  Muted but growing, the scuffle and rumble, the clangour and throat-hum, the sound of marching armies, the echoing of locked shields, the tympanous beat of iron and bronze weapons upon battered rims, of wagons creaking and churning rutted roads, and now the susurration, thrumming collisions, walls of horseflesh hammering into rows of raised pikes, the animal screams filling the air, then fading, only for the collision to repeat, louder this time, closer, and there was a violent patter cutting a swath across the bay, leaving a pale, muddy red road in its wake that bled outward, edges tearing, even as it sank down into the depths. Voices, now, crying out, bellowing, piteous and enraged, a cacophony of enmeshed lives, each one seeking to separate itself, seeking to claim its own existence, unique, a thing with eyes and voice. Fraught minds clutching at memories that tore away like shredded banners, with every gush of lost blood, with every crushing failure – soldiers, dying, ever dying—

  Paran and Ganath watched, as colourless, sodden standards pierced the surface of the water, the spears lifting into the air, streaming mud – standards, banners, pikes bearing grisly, rotting trophies, rising along the entire shoreline now.

  Raraku Sea had given up its dead.

  In answer to the call of one man.

  White, like slashes of absence, bone hands gripping shafts of black wood, forearms beneath tattered leather and corroded vambraces, and then, lifting clear of the water, rotted helms and flesh-stripped faces. Human, Trell, Barghast, Imass, Jaghut. The races, and all their race-wars. Oh, could I drag every mortal historian down here, to this shore, so that they could look upon our true roll, our progression of hatred and annihilation.

  How many would seek, desperate in whatever zealotry gripped them, to hunt reasons and justifications? Causes, crimes and justices – Paran’s thoughts stuttered to a halt, as he realized that, like Ganath, he had been backing up, step by step, pushed back, in the face of revelation. Oh, these messengers would earn so much…displeasure. And vilification. And these dead, oh how they’d laugh, understanding so well the defensive tactic of all-out attack. The dead mock us, mock us all, and need say nothing…

  All those enemies of reason – yet not reason as a force, or a god, not reason in the cold, critical sense. Reason only in its purest armour, when it strides forward into the midst of those haters of tolerance, oh gods below, I am lost, lost in all of this. You cannot fight unreason, and as these dead multitudes will tell you – are telling you even now – certitude is the enemy.

  ‘These,’ Ganath whispered, ‘these dead have no blood to give you, Ganoes Paran. They will not worship. They will not follow. They will not dream of glory in your eyes. They are done with that, with all of that. What do you see, Ganoes Paran, in these staring holes that once were eyes? What do you see?’

  ‘Answers,’ he replied.

  ‘Answers?’ Her voice was harsh with rage. ‘To what?’

  Not replying, Paran forced himself forward, one step, then another.

  The first ranks stood upon the shore’s verge, foam swirling round their skeletal feet, behind them thousands upon thousands of kin. Clutching weapons of wood, bone, horn, flint, copper, bronze and iron. Arrayed in fragments of armour, fur, hide. Silent, now, motionless.

  The sky overhead was dark, lowering and yet still, as if a storm had drawn its first breath…only to hold it.

  Paran looked upon that ghastly rank facing him. He was not sure how to do this – he had not even known if his summoning would succeed. And now…there are so many. He cleared his throat, then began calling out names.

  ‘Shank! Aimless! Runter! Detoran! Bucklund, Hedge, Mulch, Toes, Trotts!’ And still more names, as he scoured his memory, his recollection, for every Bridgeburner he knew had died. At Coral, beneath Pale, in Blackdog Forest and Mott Wood, north of Genabaris and northeast of Nathilog – names he had once fixed in his mind as he researched – for Adjunct Lorn – the turgid, grim history of the Bridgeburners. He drew upon names of the deserters, although he knew not if they lived still or, if indeed dead, whether or not they had returned to the fold. The ones that had vanished in Blackdog’s great marshes, that had disappeared after the taking of Mott City.

  And when he was done, when he could remember no more names, he began his list again.

  Then saw one figure in the front row dissolving, melting into sludge that pooled in the shallow water, slowly seeping away. And in its place arose a man he recognized, the fire-scorched, blasted face grinning – Paran belatedly realized that the brutal smile held no amusement, only the memory of a death-grimace. That and the terrible damage left behind by a weapon.

  ‘Runter,’ Paran whispered. ‘Black Coral—’

  ‘Captain,’ cut in the dead sapper, ‘what are you doing here?’

  I wish people would stop asking me that. ‘I need your help.’

  More Bridgeburners were forming in the front ranks. Detoran. Sergeant Bucklund. Hedge, who now stepped from the water’s edge. ‘Captain. I always wondered why you were so hard to kill. Now I know.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Aye, you’re doomed to haunt us! Hah! Hah hah!’ Behind him, the others began laughing.

  Hundreds of thousands of ghosts, all joined in laughter, was a sound Ganoes Paran never, ever wanted to hear again. Mercifully, it was shortlived, as if all at once the army of dead forgot the reason for their amusement.

  ‘Now,’ Hedge finally said, ‘as you can see, we’re busy. Hah!’

  Paran shot out a hand. ‘No, please, don’t start again, Hedge.’

  ‘Typical. People need to be dead to develop a real sense of humour. You know, Captain, from this side the world seems a whole lot funnier.
Funny in a stupid, pointless way, I’ll grant you—’

  ‘Enough of that, Hedge. You think I don’t sense the desperation here? You’re all in trouble – even worse, you need us. The living, that is, and that’s the part you don’t want to admit—’

  ‘I admitted it clear enough,’ Hedge said. ‘To Fid.’

  ‘Fiddler?’

  ‘Aye. He’s not too far away from here, you know. With the Fourteenth.’

  ‘He’s with the Fourteenth? What, has he lost his mind?’

  Hedge smirked. ‘Damn near, but, thanks to me, he’s all right. For now. This ain’t the first time we’ve walked among the living, Captain. Gods below, you shoulda seen us twist Korbolo’s hair – him and his damned Dogslayers – that was a night, let me tell you—’

  ‘No, don’t bother. I need your help.’

  ‘Fine, be that way. With what?’

  Paran hesitated. He’d needed to get to this point, yet now that he’d arrived, this was suddenly the last place he wanted to be. ‘You, here,’ he said, ‘in Raraku – this sea, it’s a damned gate. Between whatever nightmare world you’re from, and mine. I need you, Hedge, to summon…something. From the other side.’

  The mass of ghosts collectively recoiled, the motion snatching a tug of air seaward.

  The dead Bridgeburner mage Shank asked, ‘Who you got in mind, Captain, and what do you want it to do?’

  Paran glanced back over a shoulder at Ganath, then back again. ‘Something’s escaped, Shank. Here, in Seven Cities. It needs to be hunted down. Destroyed.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t know, maybe there are entities out there that could do it, but there’s no time to go looking for them. You see, this…thing…it feeds on blood, and the more blood it feeds on, the more powerful it gets. The First Emperor’s gravest mistake, attempting to create his own version of an Elder God – you know, don’t you? What – who – I am talking about. You know…it’s out there, loose, unchained and hunting—’

  ‘Oh it hunted all right,’ Hedge said. ‘They set it free, under a geas, then gave their own blood to it – the blood of six High Mages, priests and priestesses of the Nameless Ones – the fools sacrificed themselves.’

  ‘Why? Why set Dejim Nebrahl free? What geas did they set upon it?’

  ‘Just another path. Maybe it’ll lead where they wanted it to, maybe not, but Dejim Nebrahl is now free of its geas. And now it just…hunts.’

  Shank asked, in a tone filled with suspicion, ‘So, Captain, who is it you want? To take the damned thing down?’

  ‘I could only think of one…entity. The same entity that did it the first time. Shank, I need you to find the Deragoth.’

  Chapter Nine

  If thunder could be caught, trapped in stone, and all its violent concatenation stolen from time, and tens of thousands of years were freed to gnaw and scrape this racked visage, so would this first witnessing unveil all its terrible meaning. Such were my thoughts, then, and such they are now, although decades have passed in the interval, when I last set eyes upon that tragic ruin, so fierce was its ancient claim to greatness.

  The Lost City of the Path’Apur

  Prince I’farah of Bakun, 987–1032 Burn’s Sleep

  He had washed most of the dried blood away and then had watched, as time passed, the bruises fade. Blows to the head were, of course, more problematic, and so there had been fever, and with fever in the mind demons were legion, the battles endless, and there had been no rest then. Just the heat of war with the self, but, finally, that too had passed, and shortly before noon on the second day, he watched the eyes open.

  Incomprehension should have quickly vanished, yet it did not, and this, Taralack Veed decided, was as he had expected. He poured out some herbal tea as Icarium slowly sat up. ‘Here, my friend. You have been gone from me a long time.’

  The Jhag reached for the tin cup, drank deep, then held it out for more.

  ‘Yes, thirst,’ the Gral outlaw said, refilling the cup. ‘Not surprising. Blood loss. Fever.’

  ‘We fought?’

  ‘Aye. A sudden, inexplicable attack. D’ivers. My horse was killed and I was thrown. When I awoke, it was clear that you had driven off our assailant, yet a blow to your head had dragged you into unconsciousness.’ He paused, then added, ‘We were lucky, friend.’

  ‘Fighting. Yes, I recall that much.’ Icarium’s unhuman gaze sought out Taralack Veed’s eyes, searching, quizzical.

  The Gral sighed. ‘This has been happening often of late. You do not remember me, do you, Icarium?’

  ‘I – I am not sure. A companion…’

  ‘Yes. For many years now. Your companion. Taralack Veed, once of the Gral Tribe, yet now sworn to a much higher cause.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘To walk at your side, Icarium.’

  The Jhag stared down at the cup in his hands. ‘For many years now, you say,’ he whispered. ‘A higher cause…that I do not understand. I am…nothing. No-one. I am lost—’ He looked up. ‘I am lost,’ he repeated. ‘I know nothing of a higher cause, such that would make you abandon your people. To walk at my side, Taralack Veed. Why?’

  The Gral spat on his palms, rubbed them together, then slicked his hair back. ‘You are the greatest warrior this world has ever seen. Yet cursed. To be, as you say, forever lost. And that is why you must have a companion, to recall to you the great task that awaits you.’

  ‘And what task is this?’

  Taralack Veed rose. ‘You will know when the time comes. This task shall be made plain, so plain to you, and so perfect, you will know that you have been fashioned – from the very start – to give answer. Would that I could be more helpful, Icarium.’

  The Jhag’s gaze scanned their small encampment. ‘Ah, I see you have retrieved my bow and sword.’

  ‘I have. Are you mended enough to travel?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Although…hungry.’

  ‘I have smoked meat in my pack. The very hare you killed three days ago. We can eat as we walk.’

  Icarium climbed to his feet. ‘Yes. I do feel some urgency. As if, as if I have been looking for something.’ He smiled at the Gral. ‘Perhaps my own past…’

  ‘When you discover what you seek, my friend, all knowledge of your past will return to you. So it is prophesied.’

  ‘Ah. Well then, friend Veed, have we a direction in mind?’

  Taralack gathered his gear. ‘North, and west. We are seeking the wild coast, opposite the island of Sepik.’

  ‘Do you recall why?’

  ‘Instinct, you said. A sense that you are…compelled. Trust those instincts, Icarium, as you have in the past. They will guide us through, no matter who or what stands in our way.’

  ‘Why should anyone stand in our way?’ The Jhag strapped on his sword, then retrieved the cup and downed the last of the herbal tea.

  ‘You have enemies, Icarium. Even now, we are being hunted, and that is why we can delay here no longer.’

  Collecting his bow, then stepping close to hand the Gral the empty tin cup, Icarium paused, then said, ‘You stood guard over me, Taralack Veed. I feel…I feel I do not deserve such loyalty.’

  ‘It is no great burden, Icarium. True, I miss my wife, my children. My tribe. But there can be no stepping aside from this responsibility. I do what I must. You are chosen by all the gods, Icarium, to free the world of a great evil, and I know in my heart that you will not fail.’

  The Jhag warrior sighed. ‘Would that I shared your faith in my abilities, Taralack Veed.’

  ‘E’napatha N’apur – does that name stir your memories?’

  Frowning, Icarium shook his head.

  ‘A city of evil,’ Taralack explained. ‘Four thousand years ago – with one like me standing at your side – you drew your fearsome sword and walked towards its barred gates. Five days, Icarium. Five days. That is what it took you to slaughter the tyrant and every soldier in that city.’

  A look of horror on the Jhag’s face. ‘I – I did what?’

  ‘Yo
u understood the necessity, Icarium, as you always do when faced with such evil. You understood, too, that none could be permitted to carry with them the memory of that city. And why it was necessary to then slay every man, woman and child in E’napatha N’apur. To leave none breathing.’

  ‘No. I would not have. Taralack, no, please – there is no necessity so terrible that could compel me to commit such slaughter—’

  ‘Ah, dear companion,’ said Taralack Veed, with great sorrow. ‘This is the battle you must always wage, and this is why one such as myself must be at your side. To hold you to the truth of the world, the truth of your own soul. You are the Slayer, Icarium. You walk the Blood Road, but it is a straight and true road. The coldest justice, yet a pure one. So pure even you recoil from it.’ He settled a hand on the Jhag’s shoulder. ‘Come, we can speak more of it as we travel. I have spoken these words many, many times, my friend, and each time you are the same, wishing with all your heart that you could flee from yourself, from who and what you are. Alas, you cannot, and so you must, once more, learn to harden yourself.

  ‘The enemy is evil, Icarium. The face of the world is evil. And so, friend, your enemy is…’

  The warrior looked away, and Taralack Veed barely heard his whispered reply, ‘The world.’

  ‘Yes. Would that I could hide such truth from you, but I could not claim to be your friend if I did such a thing.’

  ‘No, that is true. Very well, Taralack Veed, let us as you say speak more of this whilst we journey north and west. To the coast opposite the island of Sepik. Yes, I feel…there is something there. Awaiting us.’

  ‘You must needs be ready for it,’ the Gral said.

  Icarium nodded. ‘And so I shall, my friend.’

  Each time, the return journey was harder, more fraught, and far, far less certain. There were things that would have made it easier. Knowing where he had been, for one, and knowing where he must return to, for another. Returning to…sanity? Perhaps. But Heboric Ghost Hands had no firm grasp of what sanity was, what it looked like, felt like, smelled like. It might be that he had never known.