The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘I asked what you were carrying, that needs so few packs and so many guards.’

  ‘I am not at liberty to tell you, alas,’ Venitt Sathad said, as he began scanning the camp. ‘You had more soldiers here, not long ago.’

  ‘Went down the valley yesterday.’

  ‘To meet the Factor?’

  ‘Just so. And I’ve had a thought – if they come up this night, the campsite here won’t be big enough. Not for them and your group.’

  ‘I expect you are correct.’

  ‘Perhaps it’d be best, then, if you moved on. There’s another site two thousand paces down the valley. You’ve enough light, I should think.’

  Venitt Sathad smiled. ‘We shall do as you have asked, then. Mayhap we will meet your Factor on the way.’

  ‘Mayhap you will, sir.’

  In the man’s eyes, Venitt Sathad saw the lie. Still smiling, he walked back to his horse. ‘Mount up,’ he told his guards. ‘We ride on.’

  A most displeasing command, but Venitt Sathad had chosen his escort well. Within a very short time, the troop was once more on its way.

  He had no idea why the man he was sent to meet was on this trail, so far from Drene. Nor did Venitt know where Anict had gone, since on all sides but ahead there was naught but rugged, wild mountains populated by little more than rock-climbing horned sheep and a few cliff-nesting condors. Perhaps he would find out eventually. As it was, sooner or later Letur Anict would return to Drene, and he, Venitt Sathad, agent of Rautos Hivanar and the Letheras Liberty Consign, would be waiting for him.

  With some questions from his master.

  And some answers.

  A shriek echoed in the distance, then faded. Closer to hand, amidst flickering lantern-light and wavering shadows, the last cries of the slaughtered had long since fallen away, as soldiers of Orbyn’s guard walked among the piled bodies – mostly the young, women and the aged in this chamber – ensuring that none still breathed.

  None did. Orbyn Truthfinder had made certain of that himself. In a distracted way, torn as he was by distaste and the necessity that no carelessness be permitted. They had been four bells in this subterranean maze, at the most, to mark the first breach of wards at the entranceway in the crevasse and all that followed, from room to room, corridor to corridor, the assault of light and refulgent sorcery.

  Whatever elaborate organization of power had held fast in this buried demesne had been obliterated with scarce the loss of a single Letherii life, and all that then remained was simple butchery. Hunting down the ones who hid, who fled to the farthest reaches, the smallest storage rooms, the children huddling in alcoves and, for one, in an amphora half filled with wine.

  Less than four bells, then, to annihilate the Cult of the Black-Winged Lord. These degenerate versions of Tiste Edur. Hardly worth the effort, as far as Orbyn Truthfinder was concerned. Even more bitter to the tongue, there had been no sign of Fear Sengar or any of his companions. No sign, indeed, that they had ever been here.

  His gaze resting upon the heaped corpses, he felt sullied. Letur Anict had used him in his obsessive pursuit of efficiency, of cruel simplification of his world. One less nagging irritant for the Factor of Drene. And now they would return, and Orbyn wondered if this journey to track down a few wagonloads of cheap weapons had, in fact, been nothing more than a ruse. One that fooled him as easily as it would a wide-eyed child.

  He drew out a cloth to wipe the blood from his dagger, then slipped the long-bladed weapon back into its sheath below his right arm.

  One of his mages approached. ‘Truthfinder.’

  ‘Are we done here?’

  ‘We are. We found the chamber of the altar. A half-dozen tottering priests and priestesses on their knees beseeching their god for deliverance.’ The mage made a sour face. ‘Alas, the Black-Winged Lord wasn’t home.’

  ‘What a surprise.’

  ‘Yes, but there was one, sir. A surprise, that is.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘That altar, sir, it was truly sanctified.’

  Orbyn glanced at the mage with narrowed eyes. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Touched by Darkness, by the Hold itself.’

  ‘I did not know such a Hold even existed. Darkness?’

  ‘The Tiles possess an aspect of Darkness, sir, although only the oldest texts make note of that. Of the Fulcra, sir. The White Crow.’

  Orbyn’s breath suddenly caught. He stared hard at the mage standing before him, watched the shadows flit over the man’s lined face. ‘The White Crow. The strange Edur who accompanies Fear Sengar is so named.’

  ‘If that stranger is so named, then he is not Tiste Edur, sir.’

  ‘Then what?’

  The mage gestured at the bodies lying on all sides. ‘Tiste Andii, they call themselves. Children of Darkness. Sir, I know little of this…White Crow, who travels with Fear Sengar. If indeed they walk together, then something has changed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The Edur and the Andii, sir, were most vicious enemies. If what we have gleaned from Edur legends and the like holds any truth, then they warred, and that war ended with betrayal. With the slaying of the White Crow.’ The mage shook his head. ‘That is why I do not believe in this White Crow who is with Fear Sengar – it is but a name, a name given in error, or perhaps mockery. But if I am wrong, sir, then an old feud has been buried in a deep grave, and this could prove…worrisome.’

  Orbyn looked away. ‘We have slaughtered the last of these Andii, have we not?’

  ‘In this place, yes. Should we be confident that they are the last Andii left? Even in Bluerose? Did not the Edur find kin across the ocean? Perhaps other contacts were made, ones our spies in the fleets did not detect. I am made uneasy, sir, by all of this.’

  You do not stand alone in that, mage. ‘Think more on it,’ he said.

  ‘I shall.’

  As the mage turned to leave Orbyn reached out a huge, plump hand to stay him. ‘Have you spoken with the Factor?’

  A frown, as if the mage had taken offence at the question. ‘Of course not, sir.’

  ‘Good. Of the altar, and the sanctification, say nothing.’ He thought for a moment, then added, ‘Of your other thoughts, say nothing as well.’

  ‘I would not have done otherwise, sir.’

  ‘Excellent. Now, gather our soldiers. I would we leave here as soon as we can.’

  ‘Yes sir, with pleasure.’

  Leave Letur Anict to his world made simpler. What he would have it to be and what it is, are not the same. And that, dear Factor, is the path to ruin. You will walk it without me.

  Clip stood facing south. His right hand was raised, the chain and its rings looped tight. He’d not spun it for more than a dozen heartbeats. His hair, left unbound, stirred in the wind. A few paces away, Silchas Ruin sat on a boulder, running a whetstone along the edge of one of his singing swords.

  Snow drifted down from a pale blue sky, some high-altitude version of a sun-shower, perhaps, or winds had lifted the flakes from the young peaks that reared on all sides but directly ahead. The air was bitter, so dry that wool sparked and crackled. They had crossed the last of the broken plateau the day before, leaving behind the mass of shattered black stone that marked its cratered centre. The climb this morning had been treacherous, as so many slabs of stone under foot were sheathed in ice. Reaching the crest of the caldera in late afternoon light, they found themselves looking upon a vast descending slope, stretching north for half a league or more to a tundra plain. Beyond that the horizon reached in a flat, hazy white line. Ice fields, Fear Sengar had said, to which Udinaas had laughed.

  Seren Pedac paced restlessly along the ridge. She had been walking with the others, well behind Clip and Silchas Ruin. There was light left to continue, yet the young Tiste Andii had perched himself on the crest to stare back the way they had come. Silent, expressionless.

  She walked over to stand before Udinaas, who had taken to carrying the Imass spear again and was now seated on a
rock poking the spear’s point into the mossy turf. ‘What is happening here?’ she asked him in a low voice. ‘Do you know?’

  ‘Familiar with the jarack bird, Acquitor? The grey-crested thief and murderer of the forest?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And what happens when a jarack female finds a nest containing some other’s bird’s hatchlings? An unguarded nest?’

  ‘It kills and eats the chicks.’

  He smiled. ‘True. Commonly known. But jaracks do something else on occasion, earlier in the season. They push out an egg and leave one of their own. The other birds seem blind to the exchange. And when the jarack hatches, of course it kills and eats its rivals.’

  ‘Then sounds its call,’ she said. ‘But it’s a call that seems no different from those of the other bird’s chicks. And those birds come with food in their beaks.’

  ‘Only to be ambushed by the two adult jaracks waiting nearby and killed in the nest. Another meal for their hatchling.’

  ‘Jaracks are in every way unpleasant birds. Why are we talking about jaracks, Udinaas?’

  ‘No reason, really. But sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves that we humans are hardly unique in our cruelty.’

  ‘The Fent believed that jaracks are the souls of abandoned children who died alone in the forest. And so they yearn for a home and a family, yet are so driven to rage when they find them they destroy all that they desire.’

  ‘The Fent were in the habit of abandoning children?’

  Seren Pedac grimaced. ‘Only in the last hundred or so years.’

  ‘Impediments to their self-destructive appetites, I should think.’

  She said nothing to that comment, yet in her mind’s eye she saw Hull Beddict suddenly standing beside her, drawing to his full height, reaching down to take Udinaas by the throat and dragging the man upright.

  Udinaas suddenly bolted forward, choking, one hand clawing up towards her.

  Seren Pedac stepped back. No, dammit! She struggled to cast the vision away.

  It would not leave.

  Eyes bulging, face blackening, Udinaas closed his own hands about his neck, but there was nothing to pull away—

  ‘Seren!’ Kettle shrieked.

  Errant fend! What, how…oh, I’m killing him! Hull Beddict stood, crushing the life from Udinaas. She wanted to reach out to him, drag his grip loose, but she knew she would not be strong enough. No, she realized, she needed someone else—

  And conjured into the scene within her mind another figure, stepping close, lithe and half seen. A hand flashing up, striking Hull Beddict in his own throat. The Letherii staggered back, then fell to one knee, even as he released Udinaas. Hull then reached for his sword.

  A spear shaft scythed into view, caught Hull flat on the forehead, snapping his head back. He toppled.

  The Edur warrior now stood between Hull Beddict and Udinaas, spear held in a guard position.

  Seeing him, seeing his face, sent Seren reeling back. Trull Sengar? Trull—

  The vision faded, was gone.

  Coughing, gasping, Udinaas rolled onto his side.

  Kettle rushed to crouch beside the ex-slave.

  A hand closed on Seren’s shoulder and swung her round. She found herself staring up into Fear’s face, and wondered at the warrior’s strange expression. He – he could not have seen. That would be—

  ‘Shorn,’ Fear whispered. ‘Older. A sadness—’ He broke off then, unable to go on, and twisted away.

  She stared after him. A sadness upon his eyes.

  Upon his eyes.

  ‘Deadly games, Acquitor.’

  She started, looked over to see that Silchas Ruin was now studying her from where he sat. Beyond him, Clip had not turned round, had not even moved. ‘I did not. I mean. I didn’t—’

  ‘Imagination,’ Udinaas grated from the ground to her right, ‘is ever quick to judge.’ He coughed again, then laughter broke from his ravaged throat. ‘Ask any jealous man. Or woman. Next time I say something that annoys you, Seren Pedac, just swear at me, all right?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Udinaas. I didn’t think—’

  ‘You thought all right, woman.’

  Oh, Udinaas. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘What sorcery have you found?’ Fear Sengar demanded, his eyes slightly wild as he glared at her. ‘I saw—’

  ‘What did you see?’ Silchas Ruin asked lightly, slipping one sword into its scabbard, then drawing the other.

  Fear said nothing, and after a moment he pulled his gaze from Seren Pedac. ‘What is Clip doing?’ he demanded.

  ‘Mourning, I expect.’

  This answer brought Udinaas upright into a sitting position. Glancing at Seren, he nodded, mouthed Jarack.

  ‘Mourning what?’ Fear asked.

  ‘All who dwelt within the Andara,’ Silchas Ruin replied, ‘are dead. Slaughtered by Letherii soldiers and mages. Clip is the Mortal Sword of Darkness. Had he been there, they would now still be alive – his kin. And the bodies lying motionless in the darkness would be Letherii. He wonders if he has not made a terrible mistake.’

  ‘That thought,’ the young Tiste Andii said, ‘was fleeting. They were hunting for you, Fear Sengar. And you, Udinaas.’ He turned, his face appalling in its calm repose. The chains spun out, snapped in the cold air, then whirled back inward again. ‘My kin would have made certain there would remain no evidence that you were there. Nor were the Letherii mages powerful enough – nor clever enough – to desecrate the altar, although they tried.’ He smiled. ‘They brought their lanterns with them, you see.’

  ‘The gate didn’t stay there long enough anyway,’ Udinaas said in a cracking voice.

  Clip’s hard eyes fixed on the ex-slave. ‘You know nothing.’

  ‘I know what’s spinning from your finger, Clip. You showed us once before, after all.’

  Silchas Ruin, finished with the second sword, now sheathed it and rose. ‘Udinaas,’ he said to Clip, ‘is as much a mystery as the Acquitor here. Knowledge and power, the hand and the gauntlet. We should move on. Unless,’ he paused, facing Clip, ‘it is time.’

  Time? Time for what?

  ‘It is,’ Udinaas said, using the Imass spear to get to his feet. ‘They knew they were going to die. Hiding in that deep pit took them nowhere. Fewer young, ever weaker blood. But that blood, well, spill enough of it…’

  Clip advanced on the ex-slave.

  ‘No,’ Silchas Ruin said.

  The Mortal Sword stopped, seemed to hesitate, then shrugged and turned away. Chain spinning.

  ‘Mother Dark,’ Udinaas resumed with a tight smile. ‘Open your damned gate, Clip, it’s been paid for.’

  And the spinning chain snapped taut. Horizontally. At each end a ring, balanced as if on end. Within the band closest to them there was…darkness.

  Seren Pedac stared, as that sphere of black began growing, spilling out from the ring.

  ‘She has this thing,’ Udinaas muttered, ‘about birth canals.’

  Silchas Ruin walked into the Dark and vanished. A moment later there was a ghostly flit as Wither raced into the gate. Kettle took Udinaas’s hand and led him through.

  Seren glanced over at Fear. We leave your world behind, Tiste Edur. And yet, I can see the realization awaken in your eyes. Beyond. Through that gate, Fear Sengar, waits the soul of Scabandari.

  He settled a hand on his sword, then strode forward.

  As Seren Pedac followed, she looked at Clip, met his eyes as he stood there, waiting, the one hand raised, the gate forming a spiralling tunnel out from the nearest ring. In some other world, she imagined, the gate emerged from the other ring. He’s carried it with him. Our way through to where we needed to go. All this time.

  Clip winked.

  Chilled by that gesture, the Acquitor stepped forward and plunged into darkness.

  Third Maiden Isle was dead astern, rising into view on the swells then falling away again in the troughs. The ferry groaned like a floundering beast, twisting beneath its fores
t of masts and their makeshift sails, and the mass of Shake huddled sick and terrified on the deck. Witches and warlocks, on their knees, wailed their prayers to be heard above the gale’s swollen fury, but the shore was far away now and they were lost.

  Yedan Derryg, drenched by the spume that periodically thrashed over the low gunnels with what seemed demonic glee, was making his way towards Yan Tovis, who stood beside the four men on the steering oar. She was holding on to a pair of thick ratlines, legs set wide to take the pitch and yawl, and as she studied her half-brother’s face as he drew nearer, she saw what she already knew to be truth.

  We’re not going to make it.

  Cleaving the lines once past the salt marsh, then up, rounding the peninsula and out along the north edge of the reefs, a journey of three days and two nights before they could tie up in one of the small coves on the lee side of Third Maiden Isle. The weather had held, and at dawn this day all had seemed possible.

  ‘The seams, Twilight,’ Yedan Derryg said upon reaching her. ‘These waves are hammering ’em wide open. We’re going down—’ He barked a savage laugh. ‘Beyond the shore, be well as they say! More bones to the deep!’

  He was pale – as pale as she no doubt was – yet in his eyes there was a dark fury. ‘Tour’s Spit lies two pegs off the line, and there’re shoals, but, sister, it’s the only dry land we might reach.’

  ‘Oh, and how many on the deck there know how to swim? Any?’ She shook her head, blinking salty spray from her eyes. ‘What would you have us do, crash this damned thing onto the strand? Pray to the shore that we can slip through the shoals untouched? Dear Watch, would you curl up in the lap of the gods?’

  Bearded jaw bunched, cabled muscles growing so tight she waited to hear bone or teeth crack, then he looked away. ‘What would you have us do, then?’

  ‘Get the damned fools to bail, Yedan. We get any lower and the next wave’ll roll us right over.’

  Yet she knew it was too late. Whatever grand schemes of survival for her people she had nurtured, deep in her heart, had come untethered. By this one storm. It had been madness, flinging this coast-creeping ferry out beyond the shore, even though the only truly dangerous stretch had been…this one, here, north from Third Maiden Isle to the lee of Spyrock Island. The only stretch truly open to the western ocean.