The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘I am no mother, but I need only look at Hanavat to find the strength I need.’

  The words were seared into his memory. In the voice of a childless woman, they left him more shaken, more distraught than he perhaps would otherwise have been.

  Was this what they were fighting for? Only one among a host of reasons, surely – and in truth he could not quite see how this path they’d chosen could serve such aspirations. He did not doubt the nobility of the Adjunct’s motivations, nor even the raw compassion so driving her to seek what was, in most eyes, virtually impossible. But there was something else here, something still hidden.

  How many great compassions arose from a dark source? A private place of secret failings?

  After she had sent Lostara away, Tavore had turned once more to the sword, and after a time Banaschar had stirred from his seat on the war-gear chest, risen and walked to her side.

  ‘I have stopped running, Adjunct.’

  She was silent, her eyes fixed on the weapon in its battered, scratched scabbard.

  ‘I – I wish to thank you for that. Proof,’ he added with a sour smile, ‘of your gifts of achieving the impossible.’

  ‘Priest,’ she said, ‘the Chal’Managa – the Snake – that was a manifestation of D’rek, was it not?’

  He found himself unable to meet her eyes, but managed a simple shrug. ‘I think so. For a time. Her children were lost. In her eyes, anyway. And that made her just as lost, I suppose. Together, they needed to find their way.’

  ‘Those details do not interest me,’ she said, tone hardening. ‘Banaschar, tell me. What does she want? Why is she so determined to be here? Will she seek to oppose me?’

  ‘Why would you think I have answers to those questions, Adjunct?’

  ‘Because she never left you either. She needed at least one of her worshippers to live on, and for some unknown reason she chose you.’

  He wanted to sit down again. Anywhere. Maybe even on the floor. ‘Adjunct, it is said that a worm finding itself in a puddle of ale will get drunk and then drown. I’ve often thought about that, and I admit, I’ve come to suspect that any puddle will do, and getting drunk has nothing to do with it. The damned things drown anyway. And yet, oddly enough, without any puddles the worms don’t show up at all.’

  ‘We have left the new lake behind us, Priest. No one drowned, not even you.’

  ‘They’re just children now.’

  ‘I know.’

  Banaschar sighed, nodded down at the sword. ‘She will protect it, Adjunct.’

  He heard her breath catch, and then, ‘But…that might well kill her.’

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  ‘Are you certain of this, Demidrek?’

  ‘Demi— Gods below, Adjunct – are you a student of theology as well? Tayschrenn was—’

  ‘As the last surviving priest of the Worm of Autumn, the honorific belongs to you, Banaschar.’

  ‘Fine, but where are the gold-stitched robes and the gaudy rings?’

  An aide entered behind them, coughed and then said, ‘Adjunct, three horses are saddled and waiting outside.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Suddenly Banaschar was chilled, his hands cold and stiff as if he’d left them in buckets of ice-water. ‘Adjunct – we do not know if the heart will be freed. If you—’

  ‘They will succeed, Demidrek. Your own god clearly believes that—’

  ‘Wrong.’

  She was startled to silence.

  ‘It’s simpler than that, Adjunct,’ Banaschar went on, the words tasting of ashes. ‘D’rek doesn’t care if the Crippled God is whole or not – if he’s little more than a gibbering fool, or a gutted body with a huge hole in his chest, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you have of him, she wants it gone.’

  ‘Then…’ Her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Correct. Listen to her last Demidrek, because he knows when his god has lost all faith.’

  ‘They won’t fail,’ Tavore whispered, eyes once more on the sword.

  ‘And if the Perish betray them? What then?’

  But she was shaking her head. ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘All our putative allies, Adjunct – are they strong enough? Wilful enough? Stubborn enough? When the bodies start falling, when the blood starts flowing – listen to me, Tavore – we have to weigh what we do – all that we do here – on the likelihood of their failing.’

  ‘I will not.’

  ‘Do you think I have no respect for Prince Brys Beddict – or Queen Abrastal? But Adjunct, they are striking where Akhrast Korvalain is at its strongest! Where the most powerful of the Forkrul Assail will be found – has it not once occurred to you that your allies won’t be enough?’

  But she was shaking her head, and Banaschar felt a flash of fury – will you be nothing more than a child, hands over your ears because you don’t like hearing what I have to say?

  ‘You do not yet understand, Demidrek. Nor, it seems, does your god.’

  ‘So tell me then. Explain it to me! How in Hood’s name can you be so sure?’

  ‘The K’Chain—’

  ‘Adjunct – this is the last gasp of those damned lizards. It doesn’t matter who seems to be commanding them either – the Matron commands. The Matron must command. If she sees too many of her children dying, she will withdraw. She has to! For the very survival of her kind!’

  ‘They are led by Gesler and Stormy, Banaschar.’

  ‘Gods below! Just how much faith have you placed in the efforts of two demoted marines?’

  She met his eyes unflinching. ‘All that I need to. Now, you have indulged your moment of doubt, I trust. It is time to leave.’

  He studied her for a moment longer, and then felt the tension draining from him. Managed a lopsided smile. ‘I am Demidrek to the Worm of Autumn, Adjunct. Perhaps she hears you through me. Perhaps, in the end, we can teach D’rek a lesson in faith.’

  ‘Better,’ she snapped, picking up the sword.

  They stepped outside.

  The three horses were waiting, two saddles as yet unfilled. Slouched in the third one… Banaschar looked up, nodded in greeting. ‘Captain.’

  ‘Priest,’ Fiddler replied.

  He and the Adjunct swiftly mounted up – the scrawny animals shifting beneath them – and then the three of them swung away. Rode out from the Malazan encampment on the grassy plain.

  Riding northwest.

  There had been few words on that journey. They rode through the night, alternating between canter and trot. The western horizon was lit on occasion with lurid lightning, the flashes stained red, but overhead the Jade Strangers commanded the night sky, bright enough to expunge the stars, and the rolling grasslands around them bore a hue of healthy green the day’s light would reveal as false. There had been no rain in this place for years, and the hoofs of their horses kicked up broken blades of grass like scythes.

  When they came in sight of a lone rise that dominated all the others, the Adjunct angled her horse towards it. The lesser hills they crossed as they drew closer all bore signs of ancient camps – boulders left in ragged rings to mark where the sides of tipis had been anchored down. A thousand paces to the northwest the land dropped down into a broad, shallow valley, and its far slope was marked by long curving stretches of rocks and boulders, forming lines, blinds and runs for herd beasts now long gone, as vanished as the hunters who had preyed upon them.

  Banaschar could feel the desolation of this place, like an itch under his skin, a crawling unease of mortality. It all passes. All our ways of doing things, seeing things, all these lost ways of living. And yet…could I step back into that age, could I stand unseen among these people, I would be no different – no different inside…gods, could I explain this, even to myself, I might someday make a claim to wisdom.

  Our worlds are so small. They only feel endless because our minds can gather thousands of them all at once. But if we stop moving, if we hold to one place, if we draw breath and look around…each o
ne is the same. Barring a few details. Lost ages are neither more nor less profound than the one we live in right now. We think it’s all some kind of forward momentum, endless leaving behind and reaching towards. But the truth is, wherever we find ourselves – with all its shiny gifts – we do little more than walk in circles.

  The thought makes me want to weep.

  They drew rein at the base of the hill. The sides were uneven, with projections of rust-stained bedrock pushing up through the thin skin of earth, the stone cracked and fissured by untold centuries of frost and heat. Closer to the summit was a crowded chaos of yellow-white dolomite boulders, their softer surfaces pecked and carved with otherworldly scenes and geometric patterns. Spikewood and some kind of prairie rose bushes, skeletal now and threatening with thorns, filled the spaces between the boulders.

  The Adjunct dismounted, drawing off her leather gloves. ‘Captain.’

  ‘Aye,’ he replied. ‘It will do.’

  When Fiddler slipped down from his horse, Banaschar followed suit.

  The Adjunct in the lead, they ascended the hillside. Now closer to the rotted outcrops, Banaschar saw bleached fragments of human bone trapped in cracks and crevasses, or heaped on ledges and in niches. On the narrow, winding tracks between the up-thrust bedrock, his boots crunched on beads made from polished nuts, and the ground was littered with the withered remnants of woven baskets.

  Reaching the summit, they saw that the dolomite boulders formed a rough ring, perhaps ten paces across, with the centre area more or less level. When the Adjunct walked between two boulders and stepped into the clearing, her lead boot skidded and she lurched back. Righting herself, she looked down, and then crouched to pick something up.

  Banaschar reached her side.

  She was holding a spear point made from chipped flint, almost dagger length, and the priest now saw that the entire stretch of level ground was carpeted in thousands of similar spear points.

  ‘Left here, all unbroken,’ muttered Banaschar, as Fiddler joined them. ‘Why, I wonder?’

  The captain grunted. ‘Never could figure out holy sites. Still, those tools are beautifully made. Even an Imass would be impressed.’

  ‘Here is my guess,’ Banaschar said. ‘They discovered a technology that was too successful. Ended up killing every animal they saw, until none were left. Why? Because we are all equally stupid, just as shortsighted, twenty thousand years ago or tomorrow, makes no difference. And the seduction of slaughter is like a fever. When they finally realized what they’d done, when they all began starving, they blamed their tools. And yet,’ he glanced across at Fiddler, ‘even to this day, we think efficiency’s a good thing.’

  Fiddler sighed. ‘I sometimes think we only invented war when we ran out of animals to kill.’

  Dropping the spear point – it broke in half when it struck the layer of its kin – the Adjunct stepped forward. Stone snapped with every stride. When she was at the very centre, she turned to face them.

  ‘This is not a matter of sacredness,’ she said. ‘There is nothing worth worshipping in this place, except perhaps a past that can never again exist, and the name for that is nostalgia. I am not a believer in innocence, either.’

  ‘Then why here?’ Banaschar asked.

  But it was Fiddler who answered, ‘Because it is defendable, Priest.’

  ‘Demidrek?’ Tavore asked, one hand now on the grip of her sword.

  He looked round, stepped over to one of the dolomite boulders. Swirling patterns, grooves flowing like hair. Demonic, vaguely human figures, faces composed of staring eyes and open mouths filled with sharp teeth. He sighed, looked back at the Adjunct, and then nodded. ‘She can… I don’t know…wrap herself round the base of this hill, like a dragon-worm of legend, I suppose.’

  ‘To what end, Demidrek?’

  ‘Containment.’

  ‘For how long?’

  Until she dies. He shrugged.

  He saw her studying him for a moment longer, and then the Adjunct Tavore drew out her Otataral sword.

  The rust-coloured blade seemed to blaze in Banaschar’s eyes, and he staggered back a step.

  Nearby, Fiddler swore under his breath. ‘Adjunct – it’s…awake.’

  ‘And,’ whispered Banaschar, ‘it shall summon.’

  Tavore kicked a space clear on the ground with one boot, and then set the sword’s tip against the earth. She pushed down using all of her weight.

  The blade slid, as if through sand, down to half its length.

  Stepping back, the Adjunct seemed to reel.

  Banaschar and Fiddler reached her at the same time, taking her weight – gods, there is so little left of her! Bones and skin! She slumped unconscious in their arms.

  ‘Here,’ grunted Fiddler, ‘let’s drag her back – find somewhere clear.’

  ‘No,’ said Banaschar. ‘I will carry her down to the horses.’

  ‘Right. I’ll go ahead, get her some water.’

  Banaschar had picked Tavore up. ‘Fiddler…’

  ‘Aye,’ he growled. ‘Like a starved child under that armour. When she comes round, Priest, we’re making her eat.’

  The soldier might as well have said, ‘We’re laying siege to the moon,’ and been absolutely convinced that he would do just that, and then take the damned thing down in ruin and flames. It’s how a soldier thinks. At least, this one, this damned marine. Saying nothing, he followed Fiddler down the narrow, twisting track.

  She had been laid down on a threadbare saddle blanket. Banaschar had unstrapped and removed her helm, and rested her head on the worn saddle they’d pulled from the Adjunct’s horse. Off to one side, Fiddler was splintering wood and building a small fire.

  Taking a waterskin, the priest soaked a bundle of bandages from the sapper’s kit bag and began tenderly wiping the sweat and grime from Tavore’s brow and those so-plain features. With her eyes closed, he saw the child she had once been – serious, determined, impatient to grow up. But the face was gaunter than it should have been, too old, too worn down. He brushed tendrils of damp, lank hair from her forehead. Then glanced over at Fiddler. ‘Is it just exhaustion, do you— Gods below, Fiddler!’

  The man was breaking up his Deck of Dragons, using his knife to split each card. He paused, looked across at the priest. ‘She’s getting a cooked meal.’

  Banaschar watched as the sapper fed the splinters into the fire. The paints filled the flames with strange colours. ‘You don’t expect to survive, do you?’

  ‘Even if I do, I’m done with this. All of it.’

  ‘You couldn’t retire from soldiering even if you wanted to.’

  ‘Really? Just watch me.’

  ‘What will you do? Buy a farm, start growing vegetables?’

  ‘Gods no. Too much work – never could figure out soldiers saying they’d do that once they buried their swords. Earth grows what it wants to grow – spending the rest of your life fighting it is just another damned war.’

  ‘Right, then. Get drunk, tell old stories in some foul tavern—’

  ‘Like you was doing back in Malaz City?’

  Banaschar’s smile was wry. ‘I was about to advise against it, Captain. Maybe it sounds good from here – being able to live every moment without purpose, emptied of all pressure. But take it from me, you’d do just as well topping yourself – it’s quicker and probably a lot less miserable.’

  Fiddler poured some water into a pot and then set it on the flames. He began dropping shreds of dried meat into it. ‘Nah, nothing so…wasteful. Thought I’d take up fishing.’

  ‘Never figured you for a man of the seas.’

  ‘You mean, like, in a boat with lines and nets? Out on the waves and o’er the deeps? No, not that kind of fishing, Priest. Sounds like work to me, and dangerous besides. No, I’ll stay ashore. I’m thinking hobby, not livelihood.’

  Glancing down at Tavore’s lined face, Banaschar sighed. ‘We should all live a life of hobbies. Doing only what gives us pleasure, only what rewards us in
secret, private ways.’

  ‘Wise words, Priest. You’re just filled with surprises tonight, aren’t you?’

  When Banaschar shot the man a look, he saw his faint grin and the tension eased out from him. He grunted. ‘I went into the priesthood looking for wisdom and only then did I realize I’d gone in precisely the wrong direction.’

  ‘Piety not all it’s made out to be, then?’

  ‘Is soldiering, Fiddler?’

  The man slowly settled back, stirring with his knife blade. ‘Had a friend once, tried warning an eager little boy away from the soldier’s life.’

  ‘And did your friend succeed?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter if he did or didn’t. That’s not the point.’

  ‘So, what is the point, then?’

  ‘You can’t steer anyone away from the path they’re going to take. You can show ’em that there’s plenty of other paths – you can do that much – but past that? They’ll go where they go.’

  ‘Your friend should have scared that boy rigid. That might’ve worked.’

  Fiddler shook his head. ‘Can’t feel someone else’s terror, either, Banaschar. We only know terror for what it is when it looks us dead in the eye.’

  There was a sigh from Tavore and the priest looked down. ‘You fainted, Adjunct.’

  ‘The – the sword…’

  ‘It’s done.’

  She struggled to sit up. ‘Then we must leave.’

  ‘We will, Adjunct,’ Fiddler said. ‘But first, we eat.’

  Tavore pushed Banaschar’s hands away and struggled upright. ‘You damned fool – do you know who that sword is summoning?’

  ‘Aye. Just burned that card, as it happens.’

  Banaschar almost felt the Adjunct’s shock, like a jolt of sparks snapping through the air between them.

  The priest snorted. ‘You’ve gone and made her speechless, sapper.’

  ‘Good. Can’t eat and talk at the same time. Come over here, Adjunct, else me and the priest will have to hold you and force this stew down your throat. Won’t do anyone any good if you go and collapse at the wrong moment, will it?’