The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘What are your thoughts on the Letherii prince, Mortal Sword?’

  ‘Him I like. Aranict, too. Solid people, those two. From what I heard back in Letherii, before his brother took the throne, Brys was some kind of special bodyguard to the Letherii emperor. Unmatched with the sword. That tells me more about him than you think.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Anyone who has mastered a weapon – truly mastered it – is a humble man or woman. More than that, I know how he thinks, and something of what he sees. The way his brain works. And it seems that making him a prince hasn’t changed him any. So, Kalyth, worry not about the Letherii. Come the day, they’ll be there.’

  ‘Leaving only the Bolkando—’

  ‘She defers to Brys, I think. She doesn’t want to, but that’s just how it is. Besides,’ Gesler added, ‘she has red hair.’

  Kalyth frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Me and Stormy, we’re Falari. Plenty of red-haired people in Falar. So, I’ll tell you what Abrastal is like. Deadly temper, glowing-hot iron, but being a mother she’s learned the wisdom of knowing what’s in her control and what isn’t. She doesn’t like it but she lives with it. Likes her sex, too, but prone to jealousy – and all of that bluster, why, it’s all for show. Inside, she’s just looking for a man like me.’

  She gasped. ‘But she’s married! And to a king!’

  Gesler grinned. ‘Was just seeing if you were still listening, Destriant. Saw your attention drifting there.’

  ‘A Hunter found me – you’re closed off and Stormy is sleeping. A rider was seen, out from close to the Perish camp, riding into the Glass Desert.’

  ‘Any more detail than that?’

  ‘You can see what the Hunter saw, Mortal Sword.’

  ‘Right, I can, can’t I?’ He concentrated for a moment, and then swore under his breath. ‘Krughava.’

  ‘Where—’

  ‘To the Adjunct, I’d wager. But she’ll never make it.’

  ‘What should we do?’

  Gesler scratched his jaw, and then wheeled round. ‘Stormy! Wake up, you fat bearded ox!’

  Book Five

  A Hand Upon The Fates

  ‘I have had visions of the future, and each and every one of them ends up in the same place. Don’t ask me what it means. I already know. That’s the problem with visions of the future.’

  Emperor Kellanved

  Chapter Fourteen

  Where is the meaning in this stride foot following foot?

  Why must the land crawl so beneath us in our journey?

  All to take us to the place where we began so long ago

  Only to find it strange and unknown and unredeemed

  Who has blazed this trail and how weary must I become

  Before the rain grows gentle and soft as tears on the brow?

  Until the valley unfolds into a river the sweet colour of sand

  And trees ribbon the sky overhead with dusty leaves?

  How weary must you become as you rattle the chains

  And drown in the banners of meaning and rueful portent?

  If I make you share my torment foot following foot

  Know that this is my curse of the swallowed key

  And cruel desire

  And when our blood mixes and drains in the grey earth

  When the faces blur before our eyes in these last of last days

  We shall turn about to see the path of years we have made

  And wail at the absence of answers and the things left unseen

  For this is life’s legion of truth so strange so unknown

  So unredeemed and we cannot know what we will live

  Until the journey is done

  My beautiful legion, leave me to rest on the wayside

  As onward you march to the circling sun

  Where spin shadows tracing the eternal day

  Raise stones to signal my passing

  Unmarked and mysterious

  Saying nothing of me

  Saying nothing at all

  The legion is faceless and must ever remain so

  As faceless as the sky

  Skull’s Lament

  Anomandaris

  Fisher kel Tath

  WHITE AS BONE, THE BUTTERFLIES FORMED A VAST CLOUD OVERHEAD. Again and again their swirling mass dimmed the sun with a blessed gift of shadow that moments later broke apart, proving that curses hid in every gift, and that blessings could pass in the blink of an eye.

  An eye swarming with flies. Badalle could feel and indeed see them clustering at the corners; she could feel them drinking her tears. She did not resent their need, and their frenzied crawl and buzz felt cool against her scorched cheeks. Those that crowded her mouth she ate when she could, the taste bitter when she crushed them, the wings like patches of dry skin almost impossible to swallow.

  Since the Shards had left, only the butterflies and the flies remained, and there was something pure in these last two forces. One white, the other black. Only the extremes remained: from the unyielding ground below to the hollow sky above; from the push of life to the pull of death; from the breath hiding within to the last to leave a fallen child.

  The flies fed upon the living, but the butterflies waited for the dead. There was nothing in between. Nothing but this walking, the torn feet and the stains they left behind, the figures toppling and then stepped over.

  In her head, Badalle was singing. She sensed the presence of others – not those ahead of her or those behind her, but ghostly things. Invisible eyes and veiled thoughts. An impatience, a harsh desire for judgement. As if the Snake’s very existence was an affront. To be ignored. Denied. Fled from.

  But she would not permit any to escape. They did not have to like what they saw. They did not have to like her at all. Or Rutt or Held or Saddic or any of the bare thousand still alive. They could rail at her thoughts, at the poetry she found in the heart of suffering, as if it had no meaning to them, no value. No truth. They could do all of that; still she would not let them go.

  I am as true as anything you have ever seen. A dying child, abandoned by the world. And I say this: there is nothing truer. Nothing.

  Flee from me if you can. I promise I will haunt you. This is my only purpose now, the only one left to me. I am history made alive, holding on but failing. I am everything you would not think of, belly filled and thirst slaked, there in all your comforts surrounded by faces you know and love.

  But hear me. Heed my warning. History has claws.

  Saddic still carried his hoard. He dragged it behind him. In a sack made of clothes no longer needed by anyone. His treasure trove. His …things. What did he want with them? What meaning hid inside that sack? All those stupid bits, the shiny stones, the pieces of wood. And the way, with every dusk, when they could walk no further, he would take them all out to look at them – why did that frighten her?

  Sometimes he would weep, for no reason. And make fists as if to crush all his baubles into dust, and it was then that she realized that Saddic didn’t know what they meant either. But he wouldn’t leave them behind. That sack would be the death of him.

  She imagined the moment when he fell. This boy she would have liked for a brother. On to his knees, hands all entwined in the cloth sleeves, falling forward so that his face struck the ground. He’d try to get back up, but he’d fail. And the flies would swarm him until he was no longer even visible, just a seething, glittering blackness. Where Saddic had been.

  They’d eat his last breath. Drink the last tears from his eyes which now just stared. Invade his open mouth to make it dry as a cave, a spider hole. And then the swarm would explode, rush away seeking more of life’s sweet water. And down would descend the butterflies. To strip away his skin, and the thing left – with its sack – would no longer be Saddic.

  Saddic will be gone. Happy Saddic. Peaceful Saddic, a ghost hovering, looking down at that sack. I would have words for him, for his passing. I would stand over him, looking down at all those flutterin
g wings so like leaves, and I would try, one more time, to make sense of the sack, the sack that killed him.

  And I would fail. Making my words few. Weak. A song of unknowing. All I have for my brother Saddic.

  When that time comes, I will know it is time for me to die, too. When that time comes, I will give up.

  And so she sang. A song of knowing. The most powerful song of all.

  They had a day left, maybe two.

  Is this what I wanted? Every journey must end. Out here there is nothing but ends. No beginnings left. Out here, I have nothing but claws.

  ‘Badalle.’ The word was soft, like crumpled cloth, and she felt it brush her senses.

  ‘Rutt.’

  ‘I can’t do this any more.’

  ‘But you are Rutt. The head of the Snake. And Held, who is the tongue.’

  ‘No. I can’t. I have gone blind.’

  She moved up alongside him, studied his old man’s face. ‘They’re swollen,’ she said. ‘Closed up, Rutt. It’s to keep them safe. Your eyes.’

  ‘But I can’t see.’

  ‘There’s nothing to see, Rutt.’

  ‘I can’t lead.’

  ‘For this, there is no one better.’

  ‘Badalle—’

  ‘Even the stones are gone. Just walk, Rutt. The way is clear; for as far as I can see, it’s clear.’

  He loosed a sob. The flies poured in and he bent over, coughing, retching. He stumbled and she caught him before he fell. Rutt righted himself, clutching Held tight. Badalle heard a soft whimper rising from them both.

  No water. This is what is killing us now. Squinting, she glanced back. Saddic was nowhere in sight – had he already fallen? If he had, it would be just as well that she’d not seen it. Other faces, vaguely familiar, stared at her and Rutt, waiting for the Snake to begin moving once again. They stood hunched over, tottering. They stood with backs arched and bellies distended as if about to drop a baby. Their eyes were depthless pools where the flies gathered to drink. Sores crusted their noses, their mouths and ears. Skin on cheeks and chins had cracked open and glistened beneath ribbons of flies. Many were bald, missing teeth, their gums bleeding. And Rutt was not alone in being blind.

  Our children. See what we have done to them. Our mothers and fathers left us to this, and now we leave them, too, in our turn. There is no end to the generations of the foolish. One after another after another and at some point we all started nodding thinking this is how it has to be, and so we don’t even try to change things. All we pass down to our children is the same stupid grin.

  But I have claws. And I will tear away that grin. I swear it.

  ‘Badalle.’

  She had begun singing out loud. Wordless, the tone low and then building, thickening. Until she could feel more than one voice within her, and each in turn joined her song. Filling the air. Their sound was one of horror, a terrible thing – she felt its power growing. Growing.

  ‘Badalle?’

  I have claws. I have claws. I have claws. Show me that grin one more time. Show it, I’m begging you! Let me tear it from your face. Let me rip deep, until my talons score your teeth! Let me feel the blood and let me hear the meat splitting and let me see the look in your eyes as you meet mine let me see I have claws I have claws I have claws—

  ‘Badalle!’

  Someone struck her, knocked her down. Stunned, she stared up into Saddic’s face, his round, wizened face. And from his eyes red tears tracked down through the dust on his leathery cheeks.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ she whispered. ‘It’s all right, Saddic. Don’t cry.’

  Rutt knelt beside her, groped with one hand until his fingers brushed her forehead. ‘What have you done?’

  His tone startled her. The cloth is torn. ‘They’re all too weak,’ she said. ‘Too weak to feel anger. So I felt it for them – for all of you—’ She stopped. Rutt’s fingertips leaked blood. She could feel crystal shards digging into her back. What?

  ‘You moved us,’ Saddic said. ‘It…hurt.’

  She could hear wailing now. The Snake was writhing in pain. ‘I went…I went looking.’

  ‘For what?’ Rutt demanded. ‘For what?’

  ‘For claws.’

  Saddic shook his head. ‘Badalle. We’re children. We don’t have claws.’

  The sun dimmed then and she squinted past Saddic. But the butterflies were gone. Flies, look at all the flies.

  ‘We don’t have claws, Badalle.’

  ‘No, Saddic, you’re right. We don’t. But someone does.’

  The power of the song still clung to her, fierce as a promise. Someone does. ‘I’m taking us there,’ she said, meeting Saddic’s wide eyes.

  He drew back, leaving her to stare up at the sky. Flies, roiling in a massive cloud, black as the Abyss. She clambered to her feet. ‘Take my hand, Rutt. It’s time to walk.’

  She crouched, staring up at the gate. Beneath it the crumbling ruin of Kettle House was like a thing crushed under a heel. Something like blood oozed out from its roots to carve runnels down the slope. She believed it was dead, but of course there was no way to know for sure.

  There was no glory in failure. Kilava had learned that long, long ago. The passing of an age was always one of dissolution, a final sigh of exhaustion and surrender. She had seen her kin vanish from the world – the venal mockery that were the T’lan Imass hardly weighed as much as dust upon the scales of survival – and she well understood the secret desires of Olar Ethil.

  Maybe the hag would succeed. The spirits knew, she was ripe for redemption.

  Kilava had lied. To Onrack, to Udinaas, to Ulshun Pral and his clan. There had been no choice. To remain here would have seen them all slain, and she would not have that on her conscience.

  When the wound was breached, the Eleint would enter this world. There was no hope of stopping them. T’iam could not be denied, not with what was coming.

  The only unknown, to her mind, was the Crippled God. The Forkrul Assail were simple enough, as bound to the insanity of final arguments as were the Tiste Liosan. Kin in spirit, those two. And she believed she knew what her brother intended to do, and she would leave him to it, and if her blessing meant anything, well then he had it, with all her heart. No, the Crippled God was the only force that troubled her.

  She remembered the earth’s pain when he was brought down from the sky. She remembered his fury and his agony when first he was chained. But the gods were hardly done with him. They returned again and again, crushing him down, destroying his every attempt to find a place for himself. If he cried out for justice, no one was interested in listening. If he howled in wretched suffering, they but turned away.

  But the Crippled God was not alone in that neglect. The mortal realm was crowded with those who were just as wounded, just as broken, just as forgotten. In this way, all that he had become – his very place in the pantheon – had been forged by the gods themselves.

  And now they feared him. Now, they meant to kill him.

  ‘Because the gods will not answer mortal suffering. It is too much…work.’

  He must know what they intended – she was certain of it. He must be desperate in seeking a way out, an escape. No matter what, she knew he would not die without a fight. Was this not the meaning of suffering?

  Her feline eyes narrowed on the gate. Starvald Demelain was a fiery red welt in the sky, growing, deepening.

  ‘Soon,’ she whispered.

  She would flee before them. To remain here was too dangerous. The destruction they would bring to this world would beggar the dreams of even the Forkrul Assail. And once upon the mortal realm, so crowded with pathetic humans, there would be slaughter on a colossal scale. Who could oppose them? She smiled at the thought.

  ‘There are a few, aren’t there? But too few. No, friends, let them loose. T’iam must be reborn, to face her most ancient enemy. Chaos against order, as simple – as banal – as that. Do not stand in their path – not one of you could hope to survive it.’

&
nbsp; What then of her children?

  ‘Dear brother, let us see, shall we? The hag’s heart is broken, and she will do whatever she can to see it healed. Despise her, Onos – the spirits know, she deserves nothing else – but do not dismiss her. Do not.’

  It seemed very complicated.

  Kilava Onass looked up at the wound.

  ‘But it isn’t. It isn’t anything like that at all.’

  Rock cracked in Kettle House, startling her. Reddish mists roiled out from the sundered walls.

  ‘She was flawed, was Kettle. Too weak, too young.’ What legacy could be found in a child left alone, abandoned to the fates? How many truths hid in the scatter of small bones? Too many to bear thinking about.

  Another stone shattered, the sound like snapping chains.

  Kilava returned her attention to the gate.

  Gruntle slumped against a massive boulder, in the full sun, and leaned his head back against the warm stone, closing his eyes. Instinct’s a bitch. The god who had damned him was a burning presence deep inside, filling him with an urgency he could not understand. His nerves were frayed; he was exhausted.

  He had journeyed through countless realms, desperate to find the quickest path to take him…where? A gate. A disaster about to be unleashed. What is it you so fear, Trake? Why can you not just tell me, you miserable rat-chewing bastard? Show me an enemy. Show me someone I can kill for you, since that seems to be the only thing that pleases you.

  The air stank. He listened to the flies crawling on the corpses surrounding him. He didn’t know where he was. Broad-leafed trees encircled the glade; he had heard geese flying overhead. But this was not his world. It felt…different. Like a place twisted by sickness – and not the sickness that had taken the twenty or so wretched humans lying here in the high grasses, marring their skin with weeping pustules, swelling their throats and forcing their tongues past blistered lips. No, all of that was just a symptom of some deeper disease.