The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘Apsal’ara, you arrived spitting like a cat. But it wasn’t long before you set out to find a means of escape. And you would not rest.’ He paused, and wiped a hand across his face. ‘There are so few here I have come to…admire.’ The smile Draconus then offered her was defenceless, shocking. ‘If we must fall, then I would choose the ones at my side – yes, I am selfish to the last. And I am sorry for dragging you out here so unceremoniously.’

  She walked alongside him, saying nothing. Thinking. At last, she sighed. ‘It is said that only one’s will can fight against chaos, that no other weapons are possible.’

  ‘So it is said.’

  She shot him a look. ‘You know me, Draconus. You know…I have strength. Of will.’

  ‘You will fight long,’ he agreed, nodding. ‘So very long.’

  ‘The chaos will want my soul. Will seek to tear it apart, strip away my awareness. It will rage all around me.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Some of us are stronger than others.’

  ‘Yes, Apsal’ara. Some of us are stronger than others.’

  ‘And these you would gather close about you, that we might form a core. Of resistance, of stubborn will.’

  ‘So I have thought.’

  ‘To win through to the other side? Is there an other side, Draconus?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know,’ she repeated, making the words a snarl. ‘All my life,’ she said, ‘I have chosen to be alone. In my struggles, in my victories and my failings. Draconus, I will face oblivion in the same way. I must – we all must. It does nothing to stand together, for we each fall alone.’

  ‘I understand. I am sorry, then, Apsal’ara, for all this.’

  ‘There is no other side, Draconus.’

  ‘No, probably not.’

  She drew up more of her chain, settled its crushing weight on to her shoulders, and then pulled away from the man, back towards the wagon. No, she could not give him anything, not when hope itself was impossible. He was wrong to admire her. To struggle was her own madness, resisting something that could not be resisted, fighting what could not be defeated.

  This foe would take her mind, her self, tearing it away piece by piece – and she might sense something of those losses, at least to begin with, like vast blanks in her memory, perhaps, or an array of simple questions she could no longer answer. But before long, such knowledge would itself vanish, and each floating fragment would swirl about, untethered, alone, unaware that it had once been part of something greater, something whole. Her life, all her awareness, scattered into frightened orphans, whimpering at every strange sound, every unseen tug from the surrounding darkness. From woman to child, to helpless babe.

  She knew what was coming. She knew, too, that in the end there was a kind of mercy to that blind ignorance, to the innocence of pieces. Unknowing, the orphans would dissolve away, leaving nothing.

  What mind could not fear such a fate?

  ‘Draconus,’ she whispered, although she was far from his side now, closing in on the wagon once more, ‘there is no other side of chaos. Look at us. Each chained. Together, and yet alone. See us pass the time as we will, until the end. You made this sword, but the sword is only a shape given to something far beyond you, far beyond any single creature, any single mind. You just made it momentarily manageable.’

  She slipped into the gloom behind the lead wheel. Into the thick, slimy rain.

  ‘Anomander Rake understands,’ she hissed. ‘He understands, Draconus. More than you ever did. Than you ever will. The world within Dragnipur must die. That is the greatest act of mercy imaginable. The greatest sacrifice. Tell me, Draconus, would you relinquish your power? Would you crush down your selfishness, to choose this…this emasculation? This sword, your cold, iron grin of vengeance – would you see it become lifeless in your hands? As dead as any other hammered bar of iron?’

  She ducked beneath the lead axle and heaved the chain on her shoulders up and on to the wooden beam. Then climbed up after it. ‘No, Draconus, you could not do that, could you?’

  There had been pity in Rake’s eyes when he killed her. There had been sorrow. But she had seen, even then, in that last moment of locked gazes, how such sentiments were tempered.

  By a future fast closing in. Only now, here, did she comprehend that.

  You give us chaos. You give us an end to this.

  And she knew, were she in Anomander Rake’s place, were she the one possessing Dragnipur, she would fail in this sacrifice. The power of the weapon would seduce her utterly, irrevocably.

  None other. None other but you, Anomander Rake.

  Thank the gods.

  He awoke to the sting of a needle at the corner of one eye. Flinching back, gasping, scrabbling away over the warm bodies. In his wake, that blind artist, the mad Tiste Andii, Kadaspala, face twisted in dismay, the bone stylus drawing back.

  ‘Wait! Come back! Wait and wait, stay and stay, I am almost done! I am almost done and I must be done before it’s too late, before it’s too late!’

  Ditch saw that half his mangled body now bore tattoos, all down one side – wherever skin had been exposed whilst he was lying unconscious atop the heap of the fallen. How long had he been lying there, insensate, whilst the insane creature stitched him full of holes? ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘not me. Not me!’

  ‘Necessary. The apex and the crux and the fulcrum and the heart. He chose you. I chose you. Necessary! Else we are all lost, we are all lost, we are all lost. Come back. Where you were and where you were, lying just so, your arm over, the wrist – the very twitch of your eye—’

  ‘I said no! Come at me again, Kadaspala, and I will choke the life from you. I swear it. I will crush your neck to pulp. Or snap your fingers, every damned one of them!’

  Lying on his stomach, gaping sockets seeming to glare, Kadaspala snatched his hands back, hiding them beneath his chest. ‘You must not do that and you must not do that. I was almost finished with you. I saw your mind went away, leaving me your flesh – to do what was needed and what was needed is still needed, can’t you understand that?’

  Ditch crawled further away, well beyond the Tiste Andii’s reach, rolling and then sinking down between two demonic forms, both of which shifted sickeningly beneath his weight. ‘Don’t come any closer,’ he hissed.

  ‘I must convince you. I have summoned Draconus. He is summoned. There will be threats, they come with Draconus, they always come with Draconus. I have summoned him.’

  Ditch slowly lowered himself down on to his back. There would be no end to this, he knew. Each time his mind fell away, fled to whatever oblivion it found, this mad artist would crawl to his side, and, blind or not, he would resume his work. What of it? Why should I really care? This body is mostly destroyed now, anyway. If Kadaspala wants it – no, damn him, it is all I have left.

  ‘So many are pleased,’ the Tiste Andii murmured, ‘to think that they have become something greater than they once were. It is a question of sacrifices, of which I know all there is to know, yes, I know all there is to know. And,’ he added, somewhat breathlessly, ‘there is of course more to it, more to it. Salvation—’

  ‘You cannot be serious.’

  ‘It is not quite a lie, not quite a lie, my friend. Not quite a lie. And truth, well, truth is never as true as you think it is, or if it is, then not for long not for long not for long.’

  Ditch stared up at the sickly sky overhead, the flashes of reflected argent spilling through what seemed to be roiling clouds of grey dust. Everything felt imminent, something hovering at the edge of his vision. There was a strangeness in his mind, as if he was but moments from hearing some devastating news, a fatal illness no healer could solve; he knew it was coming, knew it to be inevitable, but the details were unknown and all he could do was wait. Live on in endless anticipation of that cruel, senseless pronouncement.

  If there were so many sides to existing, why did grief and pain overwhelm all else? Why were such gri
m forces so much more powerful than joy, or love, or even compassion? And, in the face of that, did dignity really provide a worthy response? It was but a lifted shield, a display to others, whilst the soul cowered behind it, in no way ready to stand unmoved by catastrophe, especially the personal kind.

  He felt a sudden hatred for the futility of things.

  Kadaspala was crawling closer, his slithering stalking betrayed in minute gasps of effort, the attempts at stealth pathetic, almost comical.

  Blood and ink, ink and blood, right, Kadaspala? The physical and the spiritual, each painting the truth of the other.

  I will wring your neck, I swear it.

  He felt motion, heard soft groans, and all at once a figure was crouching down beside him. Ditch opened his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said, sneering, ‘you were summoned.’

  ‘Just how many battles, wizard, are you prepared to lose?’

  The question irritated him, but then it was meant to. ‘Either way, I have few left, don’t I?’

  Draconus reached down and dragged Ditch from between the two demons, roughly throwing him on to his stomach – no easy thing, since Ditch was not a small man, yet the muscles behind that effort made the wizard feel like a child.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ditch demanded, as Draconus placed his hands to either side of the wizard’s head, fingers lacing below his jaw.

  Ditch sought to pull his head back, away from that tightening grip, but the effort failed.

  A sudden wrench to one side. Something in his neck broke clean, a crunch and snap that reverberated up into his skull, a brief flare of what might have been pain, then…nothing.

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Not the solution I would have preferred,’ Draconus said from above him, ‘but it was obvious that argument alone would not convince you to cooperate.’

  Ditch could not feel his body. Nothing, nothing at all beneath his neck. He broke it – my neck, severed the spinal cord. He – gods! Gods! ‘Torment take you, Elder God. Torment take your soul. An eternity of agony. Death of all your dreams, sorrow unending among your kin – may they too know misery, despair – all your—’

  ‘Oh, be quiet, Ditch. I haven’t the time for this.’

  The scene before Ditch’s eyes rocked then, swung wild and spun, as Draconus dragged him back to where he had been lying before, to where Kadaspala needed him to be. The apex, the crux, the heart, the whatever. You have me now, Tiste Andii.

  And yes, I did not heed your threat, and look at me now. True and true, you might say, Ditch never learns. Not about threats. Not about risks. And no, nothing – nothing – about creatures such as Draconus. Or Anomander Rake. Or any of them, who do what they have to do, when it needs doing.

  ‘Hold your face still,’ Kadaspala whispered close to one ear. ‘I do not want to blind you, I do not want to blind you. You do not want to be blind, trust me, you do not want to be blind. No twitching, this is too important, too too too important and important, too.’

  The stab of the stylus, a faint sting, and now, as it was the only sensation he had left, the pain shivered like a blessing, a god’s merciful touch to remind him of his flesh – that it still existed, that blood still flowed beneath the skin.

  The healer, Ditch, has devastating news.

  But you still have your dignity. You still have that.

  Oh yes, he still has his dignity. See the calm resignation in these steady eyes, the steeled expression, the courage of no choice.

  Be impressed, won’t you?

  The south-facing slopes of God’s Walk Mountains were crowded with ruins. Shattered domes, most of them elliptical in shape, lined the stepped tiers like broken teeth. Low walls linked them, although these too had collapsed in places, where run-off from the snow-clad peaks had cut trenches and gullies like gouges down the faces, as if the mountains themselves were eager to wash away the last remnants of the long dead civilization.

  Water and earth will heal what needs healing. Water and earth, sun and wind, these will take away every sign of wilful assertion, of cogent imposition. Brick crumbles to rubble, mortar drifts away as grit on the breeze. These mountains, Kedeviss knew, will wash it all away.

  The notion pleased her, and in these sentiments she was little different from most Tiste Andii – at least those she knew and had known. There was a secret delight in impermanence, in seeing arrogance taken down, whether in a single person or in a bold, proud civilization. Darkness was ever the last thing to remain, in the final closing of eyelids, in the unlit depths of empty buildings, godless temples. When a people vanished, their every home, from the dishevelled hovel of the destitute to the palaces of kings and queens, became nothing but a sepulchre, a tomb host to nothing but memories, and even these quickly faded.

  She suspected that the dwellers of the village, there at the foot of the nearest mountain, on the edge of a lake in headlong retreat, knew nothing about the sprawling city whose ruins loomed above them. A convenient source of cut stone and oddly glazed bricks and nothing more. And of course, whatever little knowledge they had possessed, they had surrendered it all to saemankelyk, for it was clear as the troupe drew closer that the village was lifeless, abandoned.

  Against the backdrop of the mountains, the figure of Clip – striding well ahead of the rest of them – looked appropriately diminished, like an ant about to tackle a hillside. Despite this, Kedeviss found her gaze drawn to him again and again. I’m not sure. Not sure about him. Distrust came easy, and even had Clip been all smiles and eager generosity, still she would have her suspicions. They’d not done well with strangers, after all.

  ‘I have never,’ said Nimander as he walked at her side, ‘seen a city like that.’

  ‘They certainly had a thing about domes,’ observed Skintick behind them. ‘But let’s hope that some of those channels still run with fresh water. I feel salted as a lump of bacon.’

  Crossing the dead lake had been an education in human failure. Long lost nets tangled on deadheads, harpoons, anchors, gaffs and more shipwrecks than seemed reasonable. The lake’s death had revealed its treachery in spiny ridges and shoals, in scores of mineralized tree trunks, still standing from the day some dam high in the mountains broke to send a deluge sweeping down into a forested valley. Fisher boats and merchant scows, towed barges and a few sleek galleys attesting to past military disputes, the rusted hulks of armour and other things less identifiable – the lake bed seemed a kind of concentrated lesson on bodies of water and the fools who dared to navigate them. Kedeviss imagined that, should a sea or an ocean suddenly drain away to nothing, she would see the same writ large, a clutter of loss so vast as to take one’s breath away. What meaning could one pluck free from broken ambition? Avoid the sea. Avoid risks. Take no chances. Dream of nothing, want less. An Andiian response, assuredly. Humans, no doubt, would draw down into thoughtful silence, thinking of ways to improve the odds, of turning the battle and so winning the war. For them, after all, failure was temporary, as befitted a shortlived species that didn’t know any better.

  ‘I guess we won’t be camping in the village,’ Skintick said, and they could see that Clip had simply marched through the scatter of squatting huts, and was now attacking the slope.

  ‘He can walk all night if he likes,’ Nimander said. ‘We’re stopping. We need the rest. Water, a damned bath. We need to redistribute our supplies, since there’s no way we can take the cart up and over the mountains. Let’s hope the locals just dropped everything like all the others did.’

  A bath. Yes. But it won’t help. We cannot clean our hands, not this time.

  They passed between sagging jetties, on to the old shore by way of a boat-launch ramp of reused quarry stones, many of which had been carved with strange symbols. The huts rested on solid, oversized foundations, the contrast between ancient skill and modern squalor so pathetic it verged on the comical, and Kedeviss heard Skintick’s amused snort as they wended their way between the first structures.

  A rectangular well dominated t
he central round, with more perfectly cut stone set incompetently in the earth to form a rough plaza of sorts. Discarded clothing and bedding was scattered about, bleached by salt and sun, like the shrunken remnants of people.

  ‘I seem to recall,’ Skintick said, ‘a child’s story about flesh-stealers. Whenever you find clothes lying on the roadside and in glades, it’s because the stealers came and took the person wearing them. I never trusted that story, though, since who would be walking round wearing only a shirt? Or one shoe? No, my alternative theory is far more likely.’

  Nimander, ever generous of heart, bit on the hook. ‘Which is?’

  ‘Why, the evil wind, of course, ever desperate to get dressed in something warm, but nothing ever fits so the wind throws the garments away in a fit of fury.’

  ‘You were a child,’ Kedeviss said, ‘determined to explain everything, weren’t you? I don’t really recall, since I stopped listening to you long ago.’

  ‘She stabs deep, Nimander, this woman.’

  Nenanda had drawn up the cart and now climbed down, stretching out the kinks in his back. ‘I’m glad I’m done with that,’ he said.

  Moments later Aranatha and Desra joined them.

  Yes, here we are again. With luck, Clip will fall into a crevasse and never return.

  Nimander looked older, like a man whose youth has been beaten out of him. ‘Well,’ he said with a sigh, ‘we should search these huts and find whatever there is to find.’

  At his command the others set out to explore. Kedeviss remained behind, her eyes still on Nimander, until he turned about and regarded her quizzically.

  ‘He’s hiding something,’ she said.

  He did not ask whom she meant, but simply nodded.

  ‘I’m not sure why he feels the need for us, ’Mander. Did he want worshippers? Servants? Are we to be his cadre in some political struggle to come?’

  A faint smile from Nimander. ‘You don’t think, then, he collected us out of fellowship, a sense of responsibility – to take us back…to our “Black-Winged Lord”?’