The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  She wished for companions here, at her side. Cynnigig, especially. And Phyrlis. As it was, in this place, alone as she was, she felt oddly vulnerable.

  Perhaps most of all, would that Ganoes Paran, Master of the Deck, was with me. A surprisingly formidable human. A little too prone to take risks, however, and there was something here that invited a certain caution. She would need to heal this – there could be no doubt of that. Still…

  Ganath pulled her unhuman gaze from the dark fissure – in time to see, flowing across the flat rock to either side, and behind her, a swarm of shadows – and now figures, huge, reptilian, all closing in on where she stood.

  She cried out, her warren of Omtose Phellack rising within her, an instinctive response to panic, as the creatures closed.

  There was no escape – no time—

  Heavy mattocks slashed down, chopping through flesh, then bone. The blows drove her to the ground amidst gushes of her own blood. She saw before her the edge of the chasm, sought to reach out towards it. To drag herself over it, and fall – a better death—

  Massive clawed feet, scaled, wrapped in strips of thick hide, kicking up dust close to her face. Unable to move, feeling her life drain away, she watched as that dust settled in a dull patina over the pool of her blood, coating it like the thinnest skin. Too much dirt, the blood wouldn’t like that, it would sicken with all that dirt.

  She needed to clean it. She needed to gather it up, somehow pour it back into her body, back in through these gaping wounds, and hope that her heart would burn clean every drop.

  But now even her heart was failing, and blood was sputtering, filled with froth, from her nose and mouth.

  She understood, suddenly, that strange sense of order. K’Chain Che’Malle, a recollection stirred to life once more, after all this time. They had returned, then. But not the truly chaotic ones. No, not the Long-Tails. These were the others, servants of machines, of order in all its brutality. Nah’Ruk.

  They had returned. Why?

  The pool of blood was sinking down into the white, chalky dust where furrows had been carved by talons, and into these furrows the rest of the blood drained in turgid rivulets. The inexorable laws of erosion, writ small, and yet…yes, I suppose, most poignant.

  She was cold, and that felt good. Comforting. She was, after all, a Jaghut.

  And now I leave.

  The woman stood facing landwards, strangely alert. Mappo Runt rubbed at his face, driven to exhaustion by Iskaral Pust’s manic tirade at the crew of the broad-beamed caravel as they scurried about with what seemed a complete absence of reason: through the rigging, bounding wild over the deck and clinging – with frantic screams – to various precarious perches here and there. Yet somehow the small but seaworthy trader craft was full before the wind, cutting clean on a northeasterly course.

  A crew – an entire crew – of bhok’arala. It should have been impossible. It most certainly was absurd. Yet these creatures had been awaiting them in their no-doubt purloined craft, anchored offshore, when Mappo, Iskaral, his mule, and the woman named Spite pushed through the last of the brush and reached the broken rocks of the coast.

  And not just some random collection of the ape-like, pointy-eared beasts, but – as Iskaral’s shriek of fury announced – the High Priest’s very own menagerie, the once-residents of his cliff-side fastness league upon league eastward, at the rim of the distant Raraku Sea. How they had come to be here, with this caravel, was a mystery, and one unlikely to be resolved any time soon.

  Heaps of fruit and shellfish had crowded the midship deck, fussed over like votive offerings when the three travellers drew the dinghy – rowed ashore to greet them by a half-dozen bhok’arala – alongside the ship and clambered aboard. To find – adding to Mappo’s bemusement – that Iskaral Pust’s black-eyed mule had somehow preceded them.

  Since then there had been chaos.

  If bhok’arala could possess faith in a god, then their god had just arrived, in the dubious personage of Iskaral Pust, and the endless mewling, chittering, dancing about the High Priest was clearly driving Pust mad. Or, madder than he already was.

  Spite had watched in amusement for a time, ignoring Mappo’s questions – How did this come to be here? Where will they be taking us? Are we in truth still pursuing Icarium? No answers.

  And now, as the coastline crawled past, pitching and rolling on their right, the tall woman stood, her balance impressive, and stared with narrowed eyes to the south.

  ‘What is wrong?’ Mappo asked, not expecting an answer.

  She surprised him. ‘A murder. There are godless ones walking the sands of Seven Cities once again. I believe I understand the nature of this alliance. Complexities abound, of course, and you are but a Trell, a hut-dwelling herder.’

  ‘Who understands nothing of complexities, aye. Even so, explain. What alliance? Who are the godless ones?’

  ‘That hardly matters, and serves little by way of explanation. It falls to the nature of gods, Mappo Runt. And of faith.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘If one asserts a distinction between the gifts from a god and the mortal, mundane world in which exists the believer,’ she said, ‘then this is as an open door to true godlessness. To the religion of disbelief, if you will.’ She glanced over, sauntered closer. ‘Ah, already I see you frowning in confusion—’

  ‘I frown at the implications of such a distinction, Spite.’

  ‘Truly? Well, I am surprised. Pleasantly so. Very well. You must understand this, then. To speak of war among the gods, it is not simply a matter of, say, this goddess here scratching out the eyes of that god over there. Nor, even, of an army of acolytes from this temple marching upon an army from the temple across the street. A war among the gods is not fought with thunderbolts and earthquakes, although of course it is possible – but improbable – that it could come to that. The war in question, then, is messy, the battle-lines muddied, unclear, and even the central combatants struggle to comprehend what constitutes a weapon, what wounds and what is harmless. And worse still, to wield such weapons proves as likely to harm the wielder as the foe.’

  ‘Fanaticism breeds fanaticism, aye,’ Mappo said, nodding. ‘“In proclamation, one defines his enemy for his enemy”.’

  She smiled her dazzling smile. ‘A quote? From whom?’

  ‘Kellanved, the founding emperor of the Malazan Empire.’

  ‘Indeed, you grasp the essence of my meaning. Now, the nature of fanaticism can be likened to that of a tree – many branches, but one tap-root.’

  ‘Inequity.’

  ‘Or at least the comprehension of and the faith in, whether such inequity is but imagined or exists in truth. More often than not, of course, such inequity does exist, and it is the poison that breeds the darkest fruit. Mundane wealth is usually built upon bones, piled high and packed deep. Alas, the holders of that wealth misapprehend the nature of their reward, and so are often blithely indifferent in their ostentatious display of their wealth. The misapprehension is this: that those who do not possess wealth all yearn to, and so seek likeness, and this yearning occludes all feelings of resentment, exploitation and, most relevantly, injustice. To some extent they are right, but mostly they are woefully wrong. When wealth ascends to a point where the majority of the poor finally comprehend that it is, for each of them, unattainable, then all civility collapses, and anarchy prevails. Now, I was speaking of war among the gods. Do you grasp the connection, Mappo Runt?’

  ‘Not entirely.’

  ‘I appreciate your honesty, Trell. Consider this: when inequity burgeons into violent conflagration, the gods themselves are helpless. The gods cease to lead – they can but follow, dragged by the will of their worshippers. Now, suppose gods to be essentially moral entities – that is, possessing and indeed manifestly representing a particular ethos – well, then, such moral considerations become the first victim in the war. Unless that god chooses to defend him or herself from his or her own believers. Allies, enemies? What
relevance such primitive, simplistic notions in that scenario, Mappo Runt?’

  The Trell gazed out at the heaving waves, this tireless succession born of distant convulsions, the broken tug of tides, hard and bitter winds and all that moved in the world. And yet, staring long enough, this simple undulating motion…mesmerizing. ‘We are,’ he said, ‘as the soil and the sea.’

  ‘Another quote?’

  He shrugged. ‘Driven by unseen forces, forever in motion, even when we stand still.’ He struggled against a surge of despair. ‘For all that the contestants proclaim that they are but soldiers of their god…’

  ‘All that they do in that god’s name is at its core profoundly godless.’

  ‘And the truly godless – such as you spoke of earlier – cannot but see such blasphemers as allies.’

  She studied him until he grew uneasy, then she said, ‘What drives Icarium to fight?’

  ‘When under control, it is…inequity. Injustice.’

  ‘And when out of control?’

  ‘Then…nothing.’

  ‘And the difference between the two is one of magnitude.’

  He glanced away once more. ‘And of motivation.’

  ‘Are you sure? Even if inequity, in triggering his violence, then ascends, crossing no obvious threshold, into all-destroying annihilation? Mappo Trell, I believe motivations prove, ultimately, irrelevant. Slaughter is slaughter. Upon either side of the battlefield the face grins with blunt stupidity, even as smoke fills the sky from horizon to horizon, even as crops wither and die, even as sweet land turns to salt. Inequity ends, Trell, when no-one and no thing is left standing. Perhaps,’ she added, ‘this is Icarium’s true purpose, why the Nameless Ones seek to unleash him. It is, after all, one sure way to end this war.’

  Mappo Trell stared at her, then said, ‘Next time we speak like this, Spite, you can tell me your reasons for opposing the Nameless Ones. For helping me.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Ah, you begin to doubt our alliance?’

  ‘How can I not?’

  ‘Such is war among the gods, Trell.’

  ‘We are not gods.’

  ‘We are their hands, their feet, wayward and wilful. We fight for reasons that are, for the most part, essentially nonsensical, even when the justification seems plain and straightforward. Two kingdoms, one upriver, one downriver. The kingdom downriver sees the water arrive befouled and sickly, filled with silts and sewage. The kingdom upriver, being on higher land, sees its desperate efforts at irrigation failing, as the topsoil is swept away each time the rains come to the highlands beyond. The two kingdoms quarrel, until there is war. The downriver kingdom marches, terrible battles are fought, cities are burned to the ground, citizens enslaved, fields salted and made barren. Ditches and dykes are broken. In the end, only the downriver kingdom remains. But the erosion does not cease. Indeed, now that there is no irrigation occurring upriver, the waters rush down in full flood, distempered and wild, and they carry lime and salt that settles on the fields and poisons the remaining soil. There is starvation, disease, and the desert closes in on all sides. The once victorious leaders are cast down. Estates are looted. Brigands rove unchecked, and within a single generation there are no kingdoms, neither upriver nor downriver. Was the justification valid? Of course. Did that validity defend the victors against their own annihilation? Of course not.

  ‘A civilization at war chooses only the most obvious enemy, and often also the one perceived, at first, to be the most easily defeatable. But that enemy is not the true enemy, nor is it the gravest threat to that civilization. Thus, a civilization at war often chooses the wrong enemy. Tell me, Mappo Runt, for my two hypothetical kingdoms, where hid the truest threat?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Yes, difficult to answer, because the threats were many, seemingly disconnected, and they appeared, disappeared then reappeared over a long period of time. The game that was hunted to extinction, the forests that were cut down, the goats that were loosed into the hills, the very irrigation ditches that were dug. And yet more: the surplus of food, the burgeoning population and its accumulating wastes. And then diseases, soils blown or washed away; and kings – one after another – who could or would do nothing, or indeed saw nothing untoward beyond their fanatical focus upon the ones they sought to blame.

  ‘Alas,’ she said, leaning now on the rail, her face to the wind, ‘there is nothing simple in seeking to oppose such a host of threats. First, one must recognize them, and to achieve that one must think in the long term; and then one must discern the intricate linkages that exist between all things, the manner in which one problem feeds into another. From there, one must devise solutions and finally, one must motivate the population into concerted effort, and not just one’s own population, but that of the neighbouring kingdoms, all of whom are participating in the slow self-destruction. Tell me, can you imagine such a leader ever coming to power? Or staying there for long? Me neither. The hoarders of wealth will band together to destroy such a man or woman. Besides, it is much easier to create an enemy and wage war, although why such hoarders of wealth actually believe that they would survive such a war is beyond me. But they do, again and again. Indeed, it seems they believe they will outlive civilization itself.’

  ‘You propose little hope for civilization, Spite.’

  ‘Oh, my lack of hope extends far beyond mere civilization. The Trell were pastoralists, yes? You managed the half-wild bhederin herds of the Masal Plains. Actually, a fairly successful way of living, all things considered.’

  ‘Until the traders and settlers came.’

  ‘Yes, those who coveted your land, driven as they were by enterprise or the wasting of their own lands, or the poverty in their cities. Each and all sought a new source of wealth. To achieve it, alas, they first had to destroy your people.’

  Iskaral Pust scrambled to the Trell’s side. ‘Listen to you two! Poets and philosophers! What do you know? You go on and on whilst I am hounded unto exhaustion by these horrible squirming things!’

  ‘Your acolytes, High Priest,’ Spite said. ‘You are their god. Indicative, I might add, of at least two kinds of absurdity.’

  ‘I’m not impressed by you, woman. If I am their god, why don’t they listen to anything I say?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Mappo replied, ‘they are but waiting for you to say the right thing.’

  ‘Really? And what would that be, you fat oaf?’

  ‘Well, whatever it is they want to hear, of course.’

  ‘She’s poisoned you!’ The High Priest backed away, eyes wide. He clutched and pulled at what remained of his hair, then whirled about and rushed off towards the cabin. Three bhok’arala – who had been attending him – raced after him, chittering and making tugging gestures above their ears.

  Mappo turned back to Spite. ‘Where are we going, by the way?’

  She smiled at him. ‘To start, the Otataral Sea.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Isn’t this breeze enlivening?’

  ‘It’s damned chilly.’

  ‘Yes. Lovely, isn’t it?’

  A vast oblong pit, lined with slabs of limestone, then walls of brick, rising to form a domed roof, the single entrance ramped and framed in limestone, including a massive lintel stone on which the imperial symbol had been etched above the name Dujek Onearm, and his title, High Fist. Within the barrow lanterns had been set out to aid in drying the freshly plastered walls.

  Just outside, in a broad, shallow bowl half-filled with slimy clay, basked a large toad, blinking sleepy eyes as it watched its companion, the imperial artist, Ormulogun, mixing paints. Oils by the dozen, each with specific qualities; and pigments culled from crushed minerals, duck eggs, dried inks from sea-creatures, leaves and roots and berries; and jars of other mediums: egg whites from turtles, snakes, vultures; masticated grubs, gull brains, cat urine, dog drool, the snot of pimps—

  All right, the toad reflected, perhaps not the snot of pimps, although given the baffling arcanum of artists, one
could never be certain. It was enough to know that people who delved into such materials were mostly mad, if not to start with, then invariably so after years spent handling such toxins.

  And yet, this fool Ormulogun, somehow he persisted, with his stained hands, his stained lips from pointing the brushes, his stained beard from that bizarre sputtering technique when the pigments were chewed in a mouthful of spit and Hood knew what else, his stained nose from when paint-smeared fingers prodded, scratched and explored, his stained breeches from—

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, Gumble,’ Ormulogun said.

  ‘Indeed? Please proceed, then, in describing my present thoughts.’

  ‘The earwax of whores and stained this and stained that, the commentary swiftly descending into the absurd as befits your inability to think without exaggeration and puerile hyperbole. Now, startled as you no doubt are, shift that puny, predictable brain of yours and tell me in turn what I’m thinking. Can you? Hah, I thought not!’

  ‘I tell you, you grubber of pastes, my thoughts were not in the least as you just described in that pathetic paucity of pastiche you dare call communication, such failure being quite unsurprising, since I am the master of language whilst you are little more than an ever-failing student of portraiture bereft of both cogent instruction of craft and, alas, talent.’

  ‘You seek to communicate to the intellectually deaf, do you?’

  ‘Whilst you paint to enlighten the blind. Yes yes,’ Gumble sighed, the effort proving alarmingly deflating – alarming even to himself. He quickly drew in another breath. ‘We wage our ceaseless war, you and I. What will adorn the walls of the great man’s barrow? Why, from you, the usual. Propagandistic pageantry, the politically aligned reaffirmation of the status quo. Heroic deeds in service of the empire, and an even more heroic death, for in this age as in every other, we are in need of our heroes – dead ones, that is. We do not believe in living ones, after all, thanks to you—’