Return of the Crimson Guard: A Novel of the Malazan Empire

by Ian C. Esslemont

  Rillish turned to the now still form of Clearwater; the shaman's head was sunk to his chest, his greasy hair obscuring his face. He knelt beside him. ‘Clearwater? Can you hear me? I don't know what to say… Thank you. Thank you for my men.’

  ‘Thank not for a fair bargain,’ came a hoarse whisper. ‘Honour it.’

  Rillish straightened, ‘Yes.’ He faced the darkness, a hand on the grip of one Untan duelling sword, stepped forward …

  … And walked into a forest – tall conifers, birdsong, sunlight shafting down through boughs, movement between the thick trunks, a kind of large deer? – then one more step and into cool night. Hands steadied him, Chord and the female soldier. He looked up and was reassured to see familiar constellations: the Twins, the Wolf, the broad Path of Light. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Just west of the fort, seems,’ supplied Chord. ‘You can see the flames from the hilltop.’

  Rillish peered about, getting his bearings. They were in a deep gully, a dry river bed. Around them was – no one. ‘Where is everyone? The children?’

  ‘Headed off north-west already, sir. Couldn't stop them. Said they had directions from Clearwater. I sent the men with them.’

  ‘Very well, Sergeant.’

  ‘Shall we go?’ East, a pale orange glow backlit a hill. Rillish watched it for a time. ‘Care to take one last look, sir?’

  Wincing, Rillish squeezed his leg and brushed the night flies from his face. ‘No, Sergeant. It's all right. We best go.’

  ‘Yes, sir. There's our guide.’ Chord gestured up the gully where the dim figure of a Wickan girl stood waving them on impatiently.

  The female soldier slipped her shield to her back, offered an arm. Rillish accepted.

  * * *

  The weather of the Western Explorer's Sea had proven remarkably calm these last few days. The morning of the sixth day Shimmer took her usual place next to Jhep, her tillerman on the Wanderer, She wore only her long linen undershirt and pantaloons but the cold dawn wind did not chill her. A sailor brought her hot tea that she sipped, her eyes fixed on the waters far ahead on the north horizon. There an emerald nimbus grew, wavering like the lights one sometimes saw in the night sky. Cowl's ritual. It made her uneasy, this relying on Ruse's uncharacteristic, how had the High Mage put it, compliance. Shimmer's instincts told her to mistrust any such pose – for pose it surely must be. Especially when an Elder is involved. And this demonic rush to reach Quon … There was no need as far as she could see; and every reason for the opposite. Again, especially with unfinished business left behind.

  She looked to the Gedrand, the captured Kurzan three-tiered warship Skinner had taken as his flag vessel. Despite the incalculable advantage his presence brought to their Vow, Shimmer could not help wishing he had never returned. Simply catching sight of him now made her wince – where was the man she'd known? Who was this impostor? Her sources told her they'd yet to see him outside his armour. Reportedly, he slept sitting up, fully accoutred. And that armour; she had never seen anything like it. What was that dark patina that covered it with a crystal-like glitter? Skinner did not hide that his patron, Ardata of Jacuruku, had gifted it to him. She was some sort of witch queen, perhaps an Ascendant herself of those alien lands. And he made no secret they had been close. Lovers? Shimmer felt the cold wind and she wrapped her arms about herself. The Vow still drove him; of that she was sure. Yet what other, lesser, vows might he have sworn during all those years away? She dashed the cold tea over the side.

  ‘Send for Smoky,’ she called to a guardsman.

  ‘Aye.’

  Shortly afterwards the mage came working his way sternward, hand over hand along the gunwale, his face sickly pale. Shimmer could not help but smile. Never one to find his sea-legs was Smoky. ‘No further word from the investigation?’ she asked as he came close.

  ‘No, Commander.’ The mage's face was milky beneath his greasy tangled locks. His eyes narrowed ahead where a greenish curtain of light now climbed from the waves.

  Her sergeants brought Shimmer her armour. She raised her arms for them to slip the quilted aketon over her head, followed by her mail shirt that they shook to hang down to her calves, slit back and front. ‘You have questioned the Brethren?’

  ‘Yes. They maintain they saw nothing that night. Indeed, they even claim that nothing happened – because they did not see it.’

  ‘And Stoop has not appeared among them?’

  ‘No. No sign of him.’

  ‘Have they been suborned?’

  The question startled Smoky. His glance to Shimmer was alarmed. He answered, thoughtfully, ‘I don't think that possible …’

  ‘Then we are left with this youth as an enemy agent. A spy with powerful allies.’

  ‘Yes. His escape would suggest such a conclusion.’

  Shimmer took her helmet and sword and waved the soldiers away. ‘Unless those searching were not trying so very hard.’

  The mage's hairless brows rose. ‘I had not considered that. It points in, ah, unhealthy directions.’

  She pulled on her helmet, swung closed the lower face guard. ‘Greymane suggested it.’

  Smoky's gaze flicked to the broad back of the man at the bow. ‘I see … Yes, that makes sense. Close to the matter, but not Vowed, and thus not sharing our blindnesses. It would take an outsider, wouldn't it? Thank you, Commander.’

  ‘The Brethren fully back Skinner, of course.’

  ‘They never stopped demanding it. A strike against Quon.’

  ‘Exactly. Their priorities are not necessarily ours.’

  ‘True. Yet perhaps suborned is too strong.’ Smoky pushed his wind-blown hair from his face. ‘Perhaps seduced, or swayed?’

  Shimmer belted on her whipsword, adjusted its weight at her hips. ‘Perhaps. Now, shouldn't you be lending your strength to the ritual?’

  ‘Gods, no. I'm just a minor battle mage of Telas – though I admit to some glimpses into Elder Thryllan in moments of inspiration. Not conducive, you imagine, to current shared efforts on the bridling of Ruse.’

  ‘If you say so, mage.’ Again, how she wished she had kept Blues and his blade close! But theirs was a desperate gamble they'd decided worth the throw. It was too late for regret. And what of Cal-Brinn? What had happened to his command? His opinion on these ritual magics she would accede to.

  ‘Shimmer …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Be careful.’

  A nod. ‘I could say the same to you.’

  Snorting, Smoky headed to the bow.

  The glow strengthened through the morning, thickening into a wavering curtain of green and deep violet accompanied by a constant thunder ahead. As Cowl and the other Avowed mages readied themselves for just the right moment the partition, or portal, whatever it was, paced them, maintaining its distance some hundred cables before them. The sea that emerged from beneath reached them emerald with foaming bubbles as if churned by energies and, more troubling, flecked by driftwood and litter such as that which gathers along any shore. At mid-deck, the Kurzani first mate bellowed orders: sails were being lowered, men were securing materiel. Shimmer recognized preparations for a coming gale.

  What did that screen disguise? Shimmer had heard the ususal legends and stories of whirlpools and ship-shredding storms that awaited any fool impudent enough, or desperate enough, to try Mael's realm. But all such tales came down to them from long ago and might be just no more than that – imaginings. Truth told, no one knew what awaited them; not any of their twelve mages, Avowed or not, nor any of their sailors, for none had ever heard again from anyone who had actually dared.

  Why this unholy hurry? Why this quick thrust for Quon – just three vessels darting ahead of the fleet – the Wanderer’, Gedrand and Kestral? They carried the majority of the Avowed, yes. But what could Skinner hope to accomplish with a mere two thousand men?

  Flags waved from the sides of the neighbouring Gedrand. At the bow, Smoky's arms were raised as he communicated with his fellow mages. Any moment now
. Shimmer wrapped one arm around the stern-mast. Ahead, the gate had stopped its backward sweep and now awaited them, fathoms tall. It resembled an enormous waterfall, appearing from empty air. Shimmer was assaulted by the disorienting impression that the gate that awaited them was in fact the surface of the sea and it was they who were racing uncontrollably down a chute to their destruction. Togg, Oponn, Burn and Fanderay protect us. But Hood … look on you who can never have us!

  As the bow pierced the barrier Shimmer had one last impression of Smoky, arms raised as if to fend off some vision of ruin, Greymane, the Malazan renegade, knees bent in a ready stance, one arm stretched tight, a rope twisted around it, then the roaring – no, hissing, seething, gate was upon them and she was blinded …

  A shuddering crash – an arm-wrenching blow threw Shimmer down as if hammered. The screech of wood cracking, the heavy slow creak of an enormous weight slamming into the deck – a split mast – and men shrieking. Water splashing and washing sullenly, turgid, followed by silence leaving only the groan of wounded. Shimmer pulled herself to her feet, rubbed her shoulder where she had collided with the mast.

  ‘Man overboard!’ came a shout.

  ‘Man overboard!’ a distant echo sounded. Shimmer looked to port, where the Gedrand wallowed, one mast split a third from the top and tangled among its rigging.

  ‘The Kestral?’ she called across.

  A voice responded, faint, ‘Here also!’

  Yes. Wherever here was. ‘Smoky!’

  ‘Overboard,’ a Guardsman answered.

  Shimmer went to the side. Men and women foundered splashing on a surface of wreckage and pale driftwood. So dense was the debris that the ropes thrown to them hardly even got wet. Shimmer spotted the kinky-haired mage clinging to a log. Something about the waters and the horizon was strange but she didn't have the time to give over to that just then. ‘Captain!’ The Kurzani captain and the first mate came to her. ‘Report.’

  ‘Seams sprung,’ said the first mate, pulling at his full black beard. ‘Taking on water.’

  ‘Can you re-caulk?’

  A resigned shrug. ‘Have to try.’

  ‘Very well. Take all you need for pumping and bailing. Dismissed.’ Shimmer went to help the old tillerman, Jhep, to his feet. He seemed to have taken a blow from the broad wood handle. ‘Send the mage to me!’ she shouted as loud as she could.

  ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ someone responded from the deck.

  She sat the man next to the tiller, which stood motionless though no one controlled it. Frowning, Shimmer rested a hand upon it, feeling for any sensation of motion or pull. Nothing. They were dead in the water. Not what she was expecting.

  ‘Commander.’

  Water dripping to the deck planking next to Shimmer announced Smoky's presence. Shimmer studied the tillerman's eyes: both looking forward, pupils matching. She knew what to look for, the danger signs; years in the battlefield would teach anyone the basic treatment of wounded. ‘Take over here, Smoky.’

  ‘Yes, Commander. Have you seen?’

  ‘Seen what? I've been busy.’

  Smoky waved an arm in a broad sweep all around. The mage was looking off to the distance. His gaze seemed stricken. ‘Well,’ he said, his voice tight. ‘Better take a look.’

  Shimmer straightened and went to the side. Glancing out she stopped, her hands frozen at the shoulders of her mail coat. What she had taken to be distant islands – the source of the driftwood and jetsam – were not. Ships surrounded them, or rather they rested in the midst of a sea of motionless vessels stretching from horizon to horizon.

  Complete silence oppressed Shimmer with its weight. A sea of ghost ships. Most of those nearby appeared to be galleys, though more distant vessels looked to be far larger, tiered sailing vessels. One such leagues out among the grey timber expanse must be enormous to stand so tall. All the crew on deck, she now saw, lined the sides motionless, staring. Some kind of enchantment? But no, probably the sight alone sufficed. ‘Smoky,’ she managed. ‘What is this?’

  ‘You're asking me?’

  ‘The Shoals,’ said a voice in Kurzan, lifeless and flat.

  Shimmer turned. It was Jhep, his eyes dead of emotion. ‘The Shoals? Explain.’

  A weak shrug. ‘Legend. Old myth. Place where the god of the sea sends those he curses. Or those who trespass against him. Maybe this is where all those who try to use Ruse end up, hey? No wonder we heard nothing.’ And he laughed, coughing.

  The blow to the head – must be. The alternative … Gods! No wonder there had been no resistance; you were always welcome to enter. But exiting, well, there was none.

  There must be another explanation. Currents … a backwater …’

  ‘There's no current,’ said Smoky.

  ‘Well – any ship would sink in time.’

  ‘No. No sinking in this sea.’

  Exasperated, Shimmer faced Smoky. ‘Explain yourself, Hood take you!’

  Grinning, the Cawn mage touched a finger to his tongue. ‘Salt. The saltiest sea I've ever tasted. Nothing can sink here. Even I floated and I can't swim.’

  Shimmer threw herself to the gunwale, gripped it in both hands.

  Damn Mael! Damn these fool mages whose arrogance had brought them to such an end. Damn Cowl! How Hood must be laughing now; he need not trouble himself to take them away – they had just up and taken themselves!

  Thinking of that, she allowed herself a fey grin, sharing the amusement. The poetic justice of it! She drew off her helmet. It all supported a private conviction of hers; that there existed a persistent balance in creation that in the end somehow always asserted itself. Usually in the manner least anticipated by everyone involved.

  She turned to Smoky. ‘What now, mage?’ She waved to the horizon-spanning fields of marooned vessels. ‘You might burn an awful conflagration here to teach Mael a lesson, hey?’

  But the wild-haired mage, resembling a drowned rat in his sodden robes already drying leaving a rime of salt flakes, was peering aside, pensive. ‘Something's up with the KestraL’

  Shimmer spun. Through the jumbled rigging of the Gedrand she could make out the tall masts of the Kestral. Flags waved from the tallest. ‘Captain! Smoky!’

  ‘Aye.’

  She sensed Smoky at her side, questing, but he shrugged. Nothing. The captain was called up from below. He arrived drying his hands, soaked to his waist. He studied the signals. ‘Get a man up high!’

  Sailors scrambled up the rigging.

  Atop the main-mast a sailor scanned the horizons, gestured a direction. ‘Light! A glow far off. Like the magery.’

  ‘What bearing!’ the captain bellowed.

  Arms held out wide in hopeless ignorance.

  Yes. What bearing? Shimmer glanced about the pale, almost colourless sky, the monotonous horizon all around. Who can say in such a place as this?

  ‘Show direction!’ the captain called. ‘Pilot – mark it.’ The Kurzani mate squinted up at the sailor, turned and raised a bronze disk to an eye that he peered through – slit with thin needle-fine holes Shimmer knew from studying it. He nodded to the captain. ‘Marked.’

  The captain clapped his hands together. ‘Very good, Pilot. Men!’ he roared. ‘Lower launches! Ready oarsmen!’

  ‘Aye!’

  Shimmer began unbuckling her belt. She looked to the Gedrand; they too had reached the same decision as sailors clambered over the launches readying them. So, becalmed we must oar to the gate – if that is what the glow promises. She imagined what a trial must await them. Rowing through a millennia of debris! Pushing rotting vessels from their path. Who knew how long it would take. But they were Avowed. They would win their way through … eventually. No task could daunt them; what was time to them? It was a perspective natural to Shimmer now, but one she knew others, mortals, could not possibly understand or share. She suspected it made the Avowed something of an alien kind apart.

  She peered back to the swath of wreckage the entrance of their three vessels had cut. So, Mael. You
strand us here then dangle escape in the distance. Why? To what purpose?

  A lesson perhaps, yes? Pass through, Avowed. But do not return. This awaits. Now go. And I won't make it easy either.

  * * *

  Reaching the coast, they turned south, keeping to the screening cover of the treeline. Badlands and Coots scouted and hunted game while Stalker walked with Kyle who fumed, feeling useless, his swordarm in a sling. Now that the pressing rush to flee for his life had passed, the plains youth had begun to wonder now about his circumstances and these worried him. In fact, they struck him as damned mysterious. What had the Avowed mage, and the shaman meant about his having some sort of protection? Who could that be? Or what? And, though he did not want to be ungrateful, why were these three men taking such trouble to help him? Their desertion seemed real; but why now and with him? But could this not have been their best chance? Four do stand a better chance than three. And Stalker did say the Guard were quitting the land for Quon in any case …