The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘Good,’ said Kettle.

  Udinaas turned, looked up. She was crouched at his side. ‘Why are you awake?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’m not. And neither are you. That temple, it fell over. After you left.’

  ‘Hope it crushed the Errant flat, then.’

  ‘No. You’d already sent him away. Her too.’

  ‘But not you.’

  ‘No. You didn’t know I was there.’

  ‘All right, so I am still dreaming. What do you want?’

  ‘That temple. It couldn’t have held all those souls. All that grief. It was broken and that’s why it fell over. That was what you were supposed to see. So you’d understand when everything happens. And not be sad. And be able to do what he wants you to do, just not in the way he thought it would be. That’s all.’

  ‘Good. Now crawl back to your own dreams, Kettle.’

  ‘Okay. Just remember, don’t cry too soon. You have to wait.’

  ‘Really. How long before I do this crying?’

  But she was gone.

  He’d caught some damn fever from the rotting ice. Shivering and hallucinating for three – maybe four – nights now. Bizarre dreams inside dreams and on and on. Delusions of warmth, the comfort of furs not sodden with sweat, the balm of mysterious conversations where meaning wasn’t an issue. I like this life. It’s predictable. Mostly. And when it isn’t, it feels no different. I take whatever comes at me. As if each night I receive lessons in…in taking control.

  Now it was time for the huge table heaped with all his favourite foods.

  They said he was gaunt as a wraith.

  But every night he ate his fill.

  With the dawn light pushing the shadows into the clefts and valleys and transforming the snow-clad peaks into molten gold, Seren Pedac rose from her furs and stood, feeling grimy and dishevelled. The high altitude left her throat sore and her eyes dry, and her allergies only exasperated those conditions. Shivering in the cutting wind, she watched Fear Sengar struggling to relight the fire. Long-frozen wood was reluctant to burn. Kettle had been gathering grasses and she now squatted down beside the Tiste Edur with her offerings.

  A ragged cough from where Udinaas lay still buried in furs. After a moment, he slowly sat up. Face flushed with fever, sweat on his brow, his eyes dull. He hacked out a noise Seren belatedly realized was laughter.

  Fear’s head snapped round as if wasp-stung. ‘This amuses you? You’d rather another cold meal to start the day?’

  Udinaas blinked over at the Tiste Edur, then shrugged and looked away.

  Seren cleared her throat. ‘Whatever amused him, Fear, had nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Speaking for me now?’ Udinaas asked her. He tottered weakly to his feet, still wrapped in the furs. ‘This might be another dream,’ he said. ‘At any moment that white-skinned warrior perched over there might transform into a dragon. And the child Kettle will open her mouth like a door, into which Fear Sengar will plunge, devoured by his own hunger to betray.’ The flat, murky eyes fixed on Seren Pedac. ‘And you will conjure lost ages, Acquitor, as if the follies of history had any relevance, any at all.’

  The whirl and snap of a chain punctuated the bizarre pronouncements.

  Udinaas glanced over at Clip, and smiled. ‘And you’re dreaming of sinking your hands into a pool of blood, but not any old blood. The question is, can you manipulate events to achieve that red torrent?’

  ‘Your fever has boiled your brain,’ the Tiste Andii warrior said with an answering smile. He faced Silchas Ruin. ‘Kill him or leave him behind.’

  Seren Pedac sighed, then said, ‘Clip, when will we begin our descent? Lower down, there will be herbs to defeat his fever.’

  ‘Not for days,’ he replied, spinning the chain in his right hand. ‘And even then…well, I doubt you’ll find what you’re looking for. Besides,’ he added, ‘what ails him isn’t entirely natural.’

  Silchas Ruin, facing the trail they would climb this day, said, ‘He speaks true. Old sorcery fills this fetid air.’

  ‘What kind?’ Seren asked.

  ‘It is fragmented. Perhaps…K’Chain Che’Malle – they rarely used their magic in ways easily understood. Never in battle. I do recall something…necromantic.’

  ‘And is that what this is?’

  ‘I cannot say, Acquitor.’

  ‘So why is Udinaas the one afflicted? What about the rest of us?’

  No-one ventured a response, barring another broken laugh from Udinaas.

  Rings clacked. ‘I have made my suggestion,’ Clip said.

  Again, the conversation seemed to die. Kettle walked over to stand close to Udinaas, as if conferring protection.

  The small campfire was finally alight, if feebly so. Seren collected a tin pot and set out to find some clean snow, which should have been a simple enough task. But the rotted patches were foul with detritus. Smears of decaying vegetation, speckled layers of charcoal and ash, the carcasses of some kind of ice-dwelling worm or beetle, wood and pieces of countless animals. Hardly palatable. She was surprised they weren’t all sick.

  She halted before a long, narrow stretch of ice-crusted snow that filled a crack or fold in the rock. She drew her knife, knelt down and began pecking at it. Chunks broke away. She examined each one, discarding those too discoloured with filth, setting the others into the pot. Not much like normal glaciers – those few she had seen up close. After all, they were made of successive snowfalls as much as creeping ice. Those snowfalls normally produced relatively pristine strata. But here, it was as if the air through which the snow fell had been thick with drifting refuse, clogging every descending flake. Air thick with smoke, ash, pieces of once living things. What could have done that? If just ash then she could interpret it as the result of some volcanic eruption. But not damned fragments of skin and meat. What secret hides in these mountains?

  She managed to dig the knife-point deep into the ice, then settled her weight on it. The entire remaining slab of ice lifted suddenly, prised away from the crack. And there, lying beneath it, a spear.

  The shaft, long as Seren was tall, was not wood. Polished, mottled amber and brown, it looked almost…scaled. The broad head was of one piece, blade and stem, ground jade, milky smooth and leaf-shaped. No obvious glue or binding held the socket onto the shaft.

  She pulled the weapon loose. The scaled texture, she saw, was created by successive, intricate layering of horn, which explained the mottled appearance. Again, she could discern no indication of how the layers were fixed. The spear was surprisingly heavy, as if the shaft had mineralized.

  A voice spoke behind her. ‘Now that is an interesting find.’

  She turned, studied Clip’s mocking expression, and felt a flash of irritation. ‘In the habit of following people around, Clip?’

  ‘No, mostly I lead them. I know, that task serves to push you to one side. Leaves you feeling useless.’

  ‘Any other bright observations you want to make?’

  He shrugged, spinning the damned chain back and forth. ‘That spear you found. It’s T’lan Imass.’

  ‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’

  ‘It will.’

  ‘It’s not a weapon you fight with, is it?’

  ‘No. And I don’t hide in trees and throw fruit either.’

  She frowned.

  He laughed, turning away. ‘I was born in Darkness, Acquitor.’

  ‘And?’

  He paused, glanced back at her. ‘Why do you think I am the Mortal Sword of the Black-Winged Lord? My good looks? My charming personality? My skill with these blades here?’

  ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘you’ve just exhausted my list of reasons.’

  ‘Ha ha. Hear me. Born in Darkness. Blessed by our Mother. The first in thousands of years – she turned away, you know. From her chosen sons. Thousands of years? More like tens of thousands. But not from me. I can walk the Darkness, Acquitor.’ He waved his chain-spinning hand back towards the others. ‘Not even Silchas
Ruin can make that claim.’

  ‘Does he know?’

  ‘No. This is our secret for as long as you choose.’

  ‘And why would I choose to not tell him this, Clip?’

  ‘Because I am the only one here who can keep him from killing you. You and Udinaas – the two he considers most useless. Indeed, potential enemies.’

  ‘Enemies? Why would he think that?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘We’re just bugs he can crush underfoot any time he likes. An enemy is one who poses a threat. We don’t.’

  ‘Well, on that count, I see no need to enlighten you. Yet.’

  Snorting, she turned and collected the pot with its chunks of glittering ice.

  ‘Plan on keeping your find?’ Clip asked.

  She looked down at the weapon in her right hand. ‘Udinaas can use it as a crutch.’

  Clip’s laugh was bitterly cruel. ‘Oh, the injustice, Acquitor. For a storied weapon such as that one.’

  She frowned at him. ‘You speak as if you recognise it. Do you?’

  ‘Let’s just say it belongs with us.’

  Frustrated, she moved past him, back towards the camp.

  The spear drew attention, frighteningly fast from Silchas Ruin, who – before he spun round to face her – seemed to flinch. Udinaas, too – his head snapping up as she walked towards him. She felt her heart lurch in her chest and was suddenly afraid.

  She sought to hide it by holding stubbornly to her original thought. ‘Udinaas, I found this – you can use it to keep your balance.’

  He grunted, then nodded. ‘A ground-stone tip – can’t have much of an edge, can it? At least I won’t stumble and poke my eye out, unless I work hard at it, and why would I do that?’

  ‘Do not mock it,’ Silchas Ruin said. ‘Use it in the manner the Acquitor has suggested, by all means. But know that it is not yours. You will have to surrender it – know that, Udinaas.’

  ‘Surrender it – to you, perchance?’

  Again the flinch. ‘No.’ And Silchas Ruin turned away once more.

  Udinaas grinned weakly at Seren. ‘Have you just given me a cursed weapon, Acquitor?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He leaned on it. ‘Well, never mind. I’ve a whole collection of curses – one more won’t make much difference.’

  Ice was melted, waterskins refilled. Another pot of frozen snow provided the water for a broth of herbs, rinds of myrid fat, berries and nuggets of sap taken from maple trees – the last of which they had seen ten days ago, at an elevation where the air was invigorating and sweetly pungent with life. Here, there were no trees. Not even shrubs. The vast forest surrounding them was barely ankle high – a tangled world of lichen and mosses.

  Holding a bowl of the soup in trembling hands, Udinaas spoke to Seren. ‘So, just to get things straight in this epic farce of ours, did you find this spear or did it find you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No matter. It’s yours now.’

  ‘No. Silchas is right. You’ve but loaned it to me, Acquitor. It slides like grease in my hands. I couldn’t use it to fight – even if I knew how, which I don’t.’

  ‘Not hard,’ Clip said. ‘Just don’t hold it at the sharp end and poke people with it until they fall over. I’ve yet to face a warrior with a spear I couldn’t cut to pieces.’

  Fear Sengar snorted.

  And Seren knew why. It was enough to brighten this morning, enough to bring a wry smile to her lips.

  Clip noted it and sneered, but said nothing.

  ‘Pack up,’ Silchas Ruin said after a moment. ‘I weary of waiting.’

  ‘I keep telling you,’ Clip said, spinning the rings once more, ‘it’ll all come in its own time, Silchas Ruin.’

  Seren turned to face the rearing peaks to the north. The gold had paled, as if drained of all life, all wonder. Another day of weary travel awaited them. Her mood plunged and she sighed.

  Given the choice, this game should have been his own. Not Cotillion’s, not Shadowthrone’s. But enough details had drifted down to Ben Adaephon Delat, heavy and grim as the ash from a forest fire, to make him content, for the moment, to choke on someone else’s problems. Since the Enfilade at Pale, his life had been rather headlong. He felt as if he was plunging down a steep hill, for ever but one step from bone-snapping, blood-spraying disaster.

  Used to be he thrived on such feelings. Proof that he was alive.

  Yet…too many friends had fallen to the wayside on the journey. Far too many, and he was reluctant to let others take their places – not even this humble Tiste Edur with his too-full heart, his raw wound of grief; nor that damned T’lan Imass who now waded through a turgid sea of memories, as if seeking one – just one – that did not sob with futility. The wrong company indeed for Quick Ben – they were such open invitations to friendship. Not pity – which would have been easier. No, their damned nobility demolished that possibility.

  And look where all his friends had gone. Whiskeyjack, Hedge, Trotts, Dujek Onearm, Kalam…well, wasn’t it always the way, that the pain of loss so easily overwhelmed the…the not-yet-lost? And that sad list was only the most recent version. All since Pale. What of all the others, from long ago? Us damned survivors don’t have it easy. Not even close.

  The thought made him sneer inside. What was this feeling sorry for himself? Pathetic indulgence and nothing else.

  Skirting the edge of a submerged ravine, they sloshed through tepid, waist-deep water, their passage swirling up clouds of silts that had rested lightly on some unseen, interminably paved lake-bottom. Tracked now by some kind of fish, their humped backs appearing every now and then to one side or the other, the dorsal fin ribbed, the bulge of water hinting at sizes a little too large for restful contemplation.

  Least pleasant of all, Trull Sengar’s comment only moments past that these fish were probably the same kind that had once tried to eat him.

  And Onrack the Broken had replied, ‘Yes, they are the same as the ones we fought on the floodwall, although of course they were then in their land-dwelling stage of life.’

  ‘So why are they here?’ Trull then asked.

  ‘Hungry,’ Onrack answered.

  Enough, right then and there, to stir Quick Ben from his morose taciturnity. ‘Listen to you two! We’re about to be attacked by giant wizard-eating fish and you’re reminiscing! Look, are we in real danger or what?’

  Onrack’s robust, prognathous face swung to regard him for a moment, then the T’lan Imass said, ‘We were assuming that you were warding us from them, Quick Ben.’

  ‘Me?’ He looked about, seeking any sign of dry land – but the milky water stretched on and on.

  ‘Is it time, then, to make use of your gate?’

  Quick Ben licked his lips. ‘I think so. I mean, I’ve recovered from the last time, more or less. And I found somewhere to go. It’s just…’

  Trull Sengar leaned on his spear. ‘You came out of that magical journey, Quick Ben, wearing the grin of the condemned. If indeed our destination is as fraught as it must be, I can understand your reluctance. Also, having observed you for some time now, it is clear to me that your battle against Icarium has weakened you at some fundamental level – perhaps you fear you will not be able to fashion a gate durable enough to permit the passage of all three of us? If so—’

  ‘Wait,’ the wizard interjected, silently cursing. ‘All right, I am a little…fragile. Ever since Icarium. You see far too much, Trull Sengar. But I can take us all through. That’s a promise. It’s just…’ He glanced over at Onrack. ‘Well, there may be some…unanticipated, uh, developments.’

  Onrack spoke, ‘I am at risk?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Maybe.’

  ‘This should not unduly affect your decision,’ the T’lan Imass replied. ‘I am expendable. These fish cannot eat me, after all.’

  ‘If we leave,’ Quick Ben said, ‘you will be trapped here for ever.’

  ‘No. I will abandon this form. I will join oblivion in these waters.’


  ‘Onrack—’ Trull began in clear alarm.

  But Quick Ben cut in, ‘You’re coming with us, Onrack. I’m just saying there’s a little uncertainty with what will happen to you. I can’t explain more. It just relates to where we will find ourselves. To the aspect of that realm, I mean.’

  Trull Sengar snorted. ‘Sometimes,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘you are truly hopeless, wizard. Best open the gate now, before we end up in the belly of a fish.’ He then pointed behind Quick Ben. ‘That one looks to be the biggest yet – see the others scatter – and it’s coming straight for us.’

  Turning, the wizard’s eyes widened.

  The waist-deep water did not even reach its eyes, and the monstrous fish was simply bulling its way through the shallows. A damned catfish of some sort, longer than a Napan galley—

  Quick Ben raised his arms and shouted in a loud, oddly high-pitched voice: ‘It’s time to leave!’

  Fragile. Oh yes, there is that. I poured too much through me trying to beat him back. There’s only so much mortal flesh and bone can take. The oldest rule of all, for Hood’s sake.

  He forced open the gate, heard the explosive plunge of water into the realm beyond – the current wrapping round his legs – and he lunged forward, shouting, ‘Follow me!’

  Once again, that nauseating, dreadful moment of suffocation, then he was staggering through a stream, water splashing out on all sides, rushing away – and cold wintry air closed in amidst clouds of vapour.

  Trull Sengar stumbled past him, using the spear to right himself a moment before falling.

  Gasping, Quick Ben turned.

  And saw a figure emerge from the white mists.

  Trull Sengar’s shout of surprise startled into the air birds from a nearby swath of knee-high trees, and as they raced skyward they spun in a half-circle over the head of Onrack the Broken. At their cries, at the swarm of tiny shadows darting around him, the warrior looked up, then halted.