The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  Well, the fool – huge or not – was about to be trampled or pushed aside. Motion was eternal. Motion was – a sudden spasm clutched at the Captain’s mind, digging fingers into his brain – the spirits, thrashing in terror – shrieking—

  A taste of acid on his tongue—

  Gasping, the Captain gestured.

  A servant, who sat behind him in an upright coffin-shaped box, watching through a slit in the wood, saw the signal and pulled hard on a braided rope. A horn blared, followed by three more.

  And, for the first time in seven years, the kingdom of Skathandi ground to a halt.

  The giant warrior strode for the head of the slave column. He drew his sword. As he swung down with that savage weapon, the slaves began screaming.

  From both flanks, the ground shook as knights charged inward.

  More frantic gestures from the Captain. Horns sounded again and the knights shifted en masse, swung out wide to avoid the giant.

  The sword’s downward stroke had struck the centre spar linking the yoke harnesses. Edge on blunt end, splitting the spar for half its twenty-man length. Bolts scattered, chains rushed through iron loops to coil and slither on to the ground.

  The Captain was on his feet, tottering, gripping the bollards of the balcony rail. He could see, as his knights drew up into ranks once more, all heads turned towards him, watching, waiting for the command. But he could not move. Pain lanced up his legs from the misshapen bones of his feet. He held on to the ornate posts with his feeble hands. Ants swarmed in his skull.

  The spirits were gone.

  Fled.

  He was alone. He was empty.

  Reeling back, falling into his throne.

  He saw one of his sergeants ride out, drawing closer to the giant, who now stood leaning on his sword. The screams of the slaves sank away and those suddenly free of their bindings staggered to either side, some falling to their knees as if subjecting themselves before a new king, a usurper. The sergeant reined in and, eyes level with the giant’s own, began speaking.

  The Captain was too far away. He could not hear, and he needed to – sweat poured from him, soaking his fine silks. He shivered as fever rose through him. He looked down at his hands and saw blood welling from the old wounds – opened once more – and from his feet as well, pooling in the soft padded slippers. He remembered, suddenly, what it was like to think about dying, letting go, surrendering. There, yes, beneath the shade of the cottonwoods—

  The sergeant collected his reins and rode at the canter for the palace.

  He drew up, dismounted in a clatter of armour and reached up to remove his visored helm. Then he ascended the steps.

  ‘Captain, sir. The fool claims that the slaves are now free.’

  Staring into the soldier’s blue eyes, the grizzled expression now widened by disbelief, by utter amazement, the Captain felt a pang of pity. ‘He is the one, isn’t he?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘The enemy. The slayer of my subjects. I feel it. The truth – I see it, I feel it. I taste it!’

  The sergeant said nothing.

  ‘He wants my throne,’ the Captain whispered, holding up his bleeding hands. ‘Was that all this was for, do you think? All I’ve done, just for him?’

  ‘Captain,’ the sergeant said in a harsh growl. ‘He has ensorcelled you. We will cut him down.’

  ‘No. You do not understand. They’re gone!’

  ‘Sir—’

  ‘Make camp, Sergeant. Tell him – tell him he is to be my guest at dinner. My guest. Tell him…tell him…my guest, yes, just that.’

  The sergeant, a fine soldier indeed, saluted and set off.

  Another gesture with one stained, dripping, mangled hand. Two maids crept out to help him to his feet. He looked down at one. A Kindaru, round and plump and snouted like a fox – he saw her eyes fix upon the bleeding appendage at the end of the arm she supported, and she licked her lips.

  I am dying.

  Not centuries. Before this day is done. Before this day is done, I will be dead. ‘Make me presentable,’ he gasped. ‘There shall be no shame upon him, do you see? I want no pity. He is my heir. He has come. At last, he has come.’

  The maids, both wide-eyed with fear now, helped him inside.

  And still the ants swarmed.

  The horses stood in a circle facing inward, tails flicking at flies, heads lowered as they cropped grass. The oxen stood nearby, still yoked, and watched them. Kedeviss, who leaned with crossed arms against one of the wagon’s wheels, seemed to be watching the grey-haired foreigner with the same placid, empty regard.

  Nimander knew just how deceptive that look could be. Of them all – these paltry few left – she saw the clearest, with acuity so sharp it intimidated almost everyone subject to it. The emptiness – if the one being watched finally turned to meet those eyes – would slowly fade, and something hard, unyielding and immune to obfuscation would slowly rise in its place. Unwavering, ever sharpening until it seemed to pierce the victim like nails being hammered into wood. And then she’d casually look away, unmindful of the thumping heart, the pale face and the beads of sweat on the brow, and the one so assailed was left with but two choices: to fear this woman, or to love her with such savage, demanding desire that it could crush the heart.

  Nimander feared Kedeviss. And loved her as well. He was never good with choices.

  If Kallor sensed that regard – and Nimander was certain he did – he was indifferent to it, preferring to divide his attention between the empty sky and the empty landscape surrounding them. When he wasn’t sleeping or eating. An unpleasant guest, peremptory and imperious. He would not cook, nor bother cleansing his plate afterwards. He was a man with six servants.

  Nenanda was all for banishing the old man, driving him away with stones and pieces of dung, but Nimander found something incongruous in that image, as if it was such an absurd impossibility that it had no place even in his imagination.

  ‘He’s weakening,’ Desra said at his side.

  ‘We’re soon there, I think,’ Nimander replied. They were just south of Sarn, which had once been a sizeable city. The road leading to it had been settled all along its length, ribbon farms behind stalls, shops and taverns. The few residents left were an impoverished lot, skittish as whipped dogs, hacking at hard ground that had been fallow too long – at least until they saw the travellers on the main road, whereupon they dropped their hoes and hurried away.

  The supplies left at the T-intersection had been meticulously packed into wooden crates, the entire pile covered in a tarp with its corners staked. Ripe fruits, candied sugar-rocks dusted in salt, heavy loaves of dark bread, strips of dried eel, watered wine and three kinds of cheese – where all this had come from, given the wretched state of the farms they’d passed, was a mystery.

  ‘He would kill us as soon as look at us,’ Desra said, her eyes now on Kallor.

  ‘Skintick agrees.’

  ‘What manner of man is he?’

  Nimander shrugged. ‘An unhappy one. We should get going.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Desra. ‘I think we should get Aranatha to look at Clip.’

  ‘Aranatha?’ He looked round, found the woman sitting, legs folded under her like a fawn’s, plucking flowers from the sloped bank of the road. ‘Why? What can she do?’

  Desra shook her head, as if unable to give her reasons. Or unwilling.

  Sighing, Nimander said, ‘Go ahead, ask her, then.’

  ‘It needs to come from you.’

  Why? ‘Very well.’ He set out, a dozen strides taking him to where Aranatha sat. As his shadow slipped over her she glanced up and smiled.

  Smiles so lacking in caution, in diffidence or wry reluctance, always struck him as a sign of madness. But the eyes above it, this time, were not at all vacuous. ‘Do you feel me, Nimander?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean by that, Aranatha. Desra would like you to examine Clip. I don’t know why,’ he added, ‘since I don’t recall you possessing any specific ski
lls in healing.’

  ‘Perhaps she wants company,’ Aranatha said, rising gracefully to her feet.

  And he was struck, as if slapped across the face, by her beauty. Standing now so close, her breath so warm and so strangely dark. What is happening to me? Kedeviss and now Aranatha.

  ‘Are you all right, Nimander?’

  ‘Yes.’ No. ‘I’m fine.’ What awakens in me? To deliver both anguish and exaltation?

  She placed a half-dozen white flowers in his hand, smiled again, then walked over to the wagon. A soft laugh from Skintick brought him round.

  ‘There’s more of that these days,’ his cousin said, gazing after Aranatha. ‘If we are to be an incongruous lot, and it seems we are, then it follows that we confound each other at every turn.’

  ‘You are speaking nonsense, Skintick.’

  ‘That is my task, isn’t it? I have no sense of where it is we’re heading – no, I don’t mean Bastion, nor even the confrontation that I think is coming. I mean us, Nimander. Especially you. The less control you have, the greater your talent for leadership seems to become, the qualities demanded of such a person – like those flowers in your hand, petals unfolding.’

  Nimander grimaced at this and scowled down at the blossoms. ‘They’ll be dead shortly.’

  ‘So may we all,’ Skintick responded. ‘But…pretty while it lasts.’

  Kallor joined them as they prepared to resume the journey. His weathered face was strangely colourless, as if drained of blood by the incessant wind. Or whatever memories haunted him. The flatness in his eyes suggested to Nimander that the man was without humour, that the notion was as alien to him as mending the rips in his own clothes. ‘Are you all finally done with your rest?’ Kallor asked, noting the flowers still in Nimander’s hand with a faint sneer.

  ‘The horses needed it,’ Nimander said. ‘Are you in a hurry? If so, you could always go ahead of us. When you stop for the night we’ll either catch up with you or we won’t.’

  ‘Who would feed me, then?’

  ‘You could always feed yourself,’ Skintick said. ‘Presumably you’ve had to do that on occasion.’

  Kallor shrugged. ‘I will ride the wagon,’ he said, heading off.

  Nenanda had collected the horses and now led them over. ‘They all need re-shoeing,’ he said, ‘and this damned road isn’t helping any.’

  A sudden commotion at the wagon brought them all round, in time to see Kallor flung backward from the side rail, crashing heavily on the cobbles, the look on his face one of stunned surprise. Above him, standing on the bed, was Aranatha, and even at that distance they could see something dark and savage blazing from her eyes.

  Desra stood near her, mouth hanging open.

  On the road, lying on his back, Kallor began to laugh. A rasping, breathy kind of laugh.

  With a bemused glance at Skintick and Nenanda, Nimander walked over.

  Aranatha had turned away, resuming her ministrations to Clip, trickling water between the unconscious man’s lips. Tucking the flowers under his belt, Nimander pulled himself on to the wagon and met Desra’s eyes. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He helped himself to a handful,’ Desra replied tonelessly, nodding towards Aranatha. ‘She, er, pushed him away.’

  ‘He was balanced on a wheel spoke?’ Skintick asked from behind Nimander.

  Desra shook her head. ‘One hand on the rail. She just…sent him flying.’

  The old man, his laughter fading away, was climbing to his feet. ‘You damned Tiste Andii,’ he said, ‘no sense of adventure.’

  But Nimander could see that, despite Kallor’s seeming mirth, the grizzled warrior was somewhat shaken. Drawing a deep breath and wincing at some pain in his ribs, he moved round to the back of the wagon and once more climbed aboard, this time keeping his distance from Aranatha.

  Nimander leaned on the rail, close to Aranatha. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  Glancing up, she gave him another one of those appallingly innocent smiles. ‘Can you feel me now, Nimander?’

  Was the idea of water enough to create an illusion so perfect that every sense was deceived? The serpent curl of the One River, known as Dorssan Ryl, encircled half the First City of Kharkanas. Before the coming of light there was no reflection from its midnight surface, and to settle one’s hand in its ceaseless flow was to feel naught but a cooler breath against the skin as the current sighed round the intrusion. ‘Water in Darkness, dreams in sleep’ – or so wrote one of the Mad Poets of the ninety-third century, during the stylistic trend in poetry characterized by brevity, a style that crashed in the following century during the period of art and oratory known as the Flowering Bright.

  Water in perfect illusion…was this fundamentally no different from real water? If the senses provide all that defines the world, then were they not the arbiters of reality? As a young acolyte, fired with passions of all sorts, Endest Silann had argued bell after bell with his fellow students over such matters. All those ‘Essence of truth, senses will lie’ themes that seemed so important then, before every universe exploded in the conflagration of creation, shoving all those bright, flaring candles over the table edge, down into the swirling sea of wax where every notion, every idea, melted into one and none, into the scalding sludge that drowned everyone no matter how clever, how wise, how poetic.

  What am I thinking of these days? Naught but the nonsense of my wasted youth. ‘Certainty scours, a world without wonder.’ Ah, then, perhaps those terse poets had stumbled on to something after all. Is this what obsesses me now? A suspicion that all the truths that matter lie somewhere in a soul’s youth, in those heady days when words and thoughts could still shine – as if born from nothing solely for our personal edification.

  Generation upon generation, this does not change. Or so it comforts us to believe. Yet I wonder, now, does that stretch of delight grow shorter? Is it tightening, cursed into a new kind of brevity, the one with ignorance preceding and cynicism succeeding, each crowding the precious moment?

  What then the next generation? Starved of wonder, indifferent to the reality or the unreality of the water flowing past, caring only whether they might drift or drown. And then, alas, losing the sense of difference between the two.

  There was no one, here in his modest chamber, to hear his thoughts. No one, indeed, who even cared. Deeds must tumble forward, lest all these witnesses grow bored and restless. And if secrets dwelt in the lightless swirl of some unseen, unimagined river, what matter when the effort to delve deep was simply too much? No, better to…drift.

  But worries over the mere score of young Tiste Andii growing now in Black Coral was wasted energy. He had no wisdom to offer, even if any of them was inclined to listen, which they weren’t. The old possessed naught but the single virtue of surviving, and when nothing changed, it was indeed an empty virtue.

  He remembered the great river, its profound mystery of existence. Dorssan Ryl, into which the sewers poured the gritty, rain-diluted blood of the dead and dying. The river, proclaiming its reality in a roar as the rain lashed down in torrents, as clouds, groaning, fell like beasts on to their knees, only to fold into the now-raging currents and twist down into the black depths. All this, swallowed by an illusion.

  There had been a woman, once, and yes, he might have loved her. Like the hand plunged into the cool water, he might have been brushed by this heady emotion, this blood-whispered obsession that poets died for and over which people murdered their dearest. And he recalled that the last time he set eyes upon her, down beside Dorssan Ryl, driven mad by Mother’s abandonment (many were), there was nothing he recognized in her eyes. To see, there in a face he had known, had adored, that appalling absence – she was gone, never to return.

  So I held her head under, watched those staring, uncomprehending eyes grow ever wider, filling with blind panic – and there! At the last moment, did I not see – a sudden light, a sudden—

  Oh, this was a nightmare. He had done nothing, he had been too much the coward. A
nd he had watched her leave, with all the others so struck by loss, as they set out on a hopeless pilgrimage, a fatal search to find Her once again. What a journey that must have been! Before the last crazed one fell for the final time, punctuating a trail of corpses leagues long. A crusade of the insane, wandering into the nowhere.

  Kharkanas was virtually an empty city after they’d gone. Anomander Rake’s first lordship over echoing chambers, empty houses. There would be many more.

  A calm, then, drifting on like flotsam in the stream, not yet caught by the rushes, not yet so waterlogged that it vanished, tumbled like a severed moon into the muddy bed. Of course it couldn’t last. One more betrayal was needed, to shatter the world once and for all.

  The night just past Endest Silann, making his way to a back storeroom on the upper level, came upon the Son of Darkness in a corridor. Some human, thinking the deed one of honour, had hung a series of ancient Andii tapestries down both walls of the passage. Scenes of Kharkanas, and one indeed showing Dorssan Ryl – although none would know if not familiar with that particular vantage point, for the river was but a dark slash, a talon curled round the city’s heart. There was no particular order, arrayed so in ignorance, and to walk this corridor was to be struck by a collage of images, distinct as memories not one tethered to the next.

  Anomander Rake had been standing before one, his eyes a deep shade of amber. Predatory, fixed as a lion’s before a killing charge. On the faded tapestry a figure stood tall amidst carnage. The bodies tumbled before him all bled from wounds to the back. Nothing subtle here, the weaver’s outrage dripped from every thread. White-skinned, onyx-eyed, sweat-blackened hair braided like hanging ropes. Slick swords in his hands, he looked out upon the viewer, defiant and cold. In the wracked sky behind him wheeled Locqui Wyval with women’s heads, their mouths open in screams almost audible.

  ‘He did not mean it,’ said Anomander Rake.