Who said nothing.
‘Death and dying,’ Scillara continued. ‘The way we suck the land dry. The way we squeeze all colour from every scene, even when that scene shows us paradise. And what we do to the land, we also do to each other. We cut each other down. Even Sha’ik’s camp had its tiers, its hierarchy, keeping people in their place.’
‘You don’t have to tell me about that,’ Cutter said. ‘I lived under something similar, in Darujhistan.’
‘I wasn’t finished. It’s why Bidithal found followers for his cult. What gave it its strength was the injustice, the unfairness, and the way bastards always seemed to win. You see, Bidithal had been one of those bastards, once. Luxuriating in his power – then the Malazans arrived, and they tore it all apart, and Bidithal found himself on the run, just one more hare fleeing the wolves. For him, well, he wanted it back, all that power, and this new cult he created was for that purpose. The problem was, either he was lucky or a genius, because the idea behind his cult – not the vicious rituals he imposed, but the idea – it struck a nerve. It reached the dispossessed, and that was its brilliance—’
‘It wasn’t his idea,’ Heboric said behind them.
‘Then whose was it?’ Cutter asked.
‘It belongs to the Crippled God. The Chained One. A broken creature, betrayed, wounded, imperfect in the way of street beggars, abandoned urchins, the physically and the morally damaged. And the promise of something better, beyond death itself – the very paradise Scillara spoke of, but one we could not deface. In other words, the dream of a place immune to our natural excesses, to our own depravity, and accordingly, to exist within it is to divest oneself of all those excesses, all those depravities. You just have to die first.’
‘Do you feel fear, Heboric?’ Scillara asked. ‘You describe a very seductive faith.’
‘Yes, to both. If, however, its heart is in fact a lie, then we must make the truth a weapon, a weapon that, in the end, must reach for the Crippled God himself. To shy from that final act would be to leave unchallenged the greatest injustice of all, the most profound unfairness, and the deepest betrayal imaginable.’
‘If it’s a lie,’ Scillara said. ‘Is it? How do you know?’
‘Woman, if absolution is free, then all that we do here and now is meaningless.’
‘Well, maybe it is.’
‘Then it would not even be a question of justifying anything – justification itself would be irrelevant. You invite anarchy – you invite chaos itself.’
She shook her head. ‘No, because there’s one force more powerful than all of that.’
‘Oh?’ Cutter asked. ‘What?’
Scillara laughed. ‘What I was talking about earlier.’ She gestured once more at the ancient signs of tillage. ‘Look around, Cutter, look around.’
Iskaral Pust plucked at the thick strands of web covering Mappo Runt’s massive chest. ‘Get rid of this! Before he wakes up, you damned hag. You and your damned moon – look, it’s going to rain. This is a desert – what’s it doing raining? It’s all your fault.’ He glanced up, smiling evilly. ‘She suspects nothing, the miserable cow. Oh I can’t wait.’ Straightening, he scurried back to the long bamboo stick he’d found – bamboo, for god’s sake – and resumed drilling the tiny fixing holes in the base.
Twisted wire eyelets, bound at intervals with wet gut right up to the finely tapered end. A carved and polished wooden spool and half a league’s worth of Mogora hair, spun together and felted or something similar, strong enough to reel in anything, including a miserable cow flopping about in the shallows. True, he’d have to wait a year or two, until the little wriggling ones grew to a decent size. Maybe he’d add a few bigger ones – there were those giant catfish he’d seen in that flooded realm, the one with all the monsters padding the shorelines. Iskaral Pust shivered at the recollection, but a true lover of fishing would understand the lengths an aficionado would go to in the hunt for worthy spawn. Even the extreme necessity of killing demons and such. Granted, that particular sojourn had been a little hairy. But he’d come back with a string of beauties.
As a child he’d wanted to learn the art of angling, but the women and elders in the tribe weren’t interested in that, no, just weirs and collecting pools and nets. That was harvesting, not fishing, but young Iskaral Pust, who’d once run away with a caravan and had seen the sights of Li Heng – for a day and a half, until his great-grandmother had come to retrieve him and drag him screaming like a gutted piglet back to the tribe – well, Iskaral Pust had discovered the perfect expression of creative predation, an expression which was – as everyone knew – the ideal manly endeavour.
Soon, then, and he and his mule would have the ultimate excuse to leave the hoary temple of home. Going fishing, dear. Ah, how he longed to say those words.
‘You are an idiot,’ Mogora said.
‘A clever idiot, woman, and that’s a lot more cleverer than you.’ He paused, eyeing her, then said, ‘Now all I need to do is wait until she’s asleep, so I can cut off all her hair – she won’t notice, it’s not like we have silver mirrors hanging about, is it? I’ll mix it all up, the hair from her head, from her ears, from under her arms, from—’
‘You think I don’t know what you’re up to?’ Mogora asked, then cackled as only an old woman begotten of hyenas could. ‘You are not just an idiot. You’re also a fool. And deluded, and immature, and obsessive, and petty, spiteful, patronizing, condescending, defensive, aggressive, ignorant, wilful, inconsistent, contradictory, and you’re ugly as well.’
‘So what of it?’
She gaped at him like a toothless spider. ‘You have a brain like pumice stone – throw stuff at it and it just sinks in! Disappears. Vanishes. Even when I piss on it, the piss just poofs! Gone! Oh how I hate you, husband. With all your obnoxious, smelly habits – gods, picking your nose for breakfast – I still get sick thinking about it – a sight I am cursed never to forget—’
‘Oh be quiet. There’s nutritious pollen entombed in snot, as everyone well knows—’
A heavy sigh interrupted him, and both Dal Honese looked down at Mappo. Mogora scrabbled over and began stripping away the webs from the Trell’s seamed face.
Iskaral Pust leaned closer. ‘What’s happened to his skin? It’s all lined and creased – what did you do to him, woman?’
‘The mark of spiders, Magi,’ she replied. ‘The price for healing.’
‘Every strand’s left a line!’
‘Well, he was no beauty to begin with.’
A groan, then Mappo half-lifted a hand. It fell back and he groaned again.
‘He’s now got a spider’s brain, too,’ Iskaral predicted. ‘He’ll start spitting on his food – like you do, and you dare call picking my nose disgusting.’
‘No self-respecting creature does what you did this morning, Iskaral Pust. You won’t get no spiders picking their noses, will you? Ha, you know I’m right.’
‘No I don’t. I was just picturing a spider with eight legs up its nose, and that reminded me of you. You need a haircut, Mogora, and I’m just the man to do it.’
‘Come near me with intentions other than amorous and I’ll stick you.’
‘Amorous. What a horrible thought—’
‘What if I told you I was pregnant?’
‘I’d kill the mule.’
She leapt at him..
Squealing, then spitting and scratching, they rolled in the dust.
The mule watched them with placid eyes.
Crushed and scattered, the tiles that had once made the mosaic of Mappo Runt’s life were little more than faint glimmers, as if dispersed at the bottom of a deep well. Disparate fragments he could only observe, his awareness of their significance remote, and for a seemingly long time they had been retreating from him, as if he was slowly, inexorably floating towards some unknown surface.
Until the silver threads arrived, descending like rain, sleeting through the thick, murky substance surrounding him. And he felt their touch, and
then their weight, halting his upward progress, and, after a time of motionlessness, Mappo began sinking back down. Towards those broken pieces far below.
Where pain awaited him. Not of the flesh – there was no flesh, not yet – this was a searing of the soul, the manifold wounds of betrayal, of failure, of self-recrimination, the very fists that had shattered all that he had been… before the fall.
Yet still the threads drew the pieces together, unmindful of agony, ignoring his every screamed protest.
He found himself standing amidst tall pillars of stone that had been antler-chiselled into tapering columns. Heavy wrought-iron clouds scudded over one half of the sky, a high wind spinning strands across the other half, filling a void – as if something had punched through from the heavens and the hole was slow in healing. The pillars, Mappo saw, rose on all sides, scores of them, forming some pattern indefinable from where he stood in their midst. They cast faint shadows across the battered ground, and his gaze was drawn to those shadows, blankly at first, then with growing realization. Shadows cast in impossible directions, forming a faint array, a web, reaching out on all sides.
And, Mappo now understood, he stood at its very centre.
A young woman stepped into view from behind one of the pillars. Long hair the colours of dying flames, eyes the hue of beaten gold, dressed in flowing black silks. ‘This,’ she said in the language of the Trell, ‘is long ago. Some memories are better left alone.’
‘I have not chosen it,’ Mappo said. ‘I do not know this place.’
‘Jacuruku, Mappo Runt. Four or five years since the Fall. Yet one more abject lesson in the dangers that come with pride.’ She lifted her arms, watched as the silks slid free, revealing unblemished skin, smooth hands. ‘Ah, look at me. I am young again. Extraordinary, that I once believed myself fat. Does it afflict us all, I wonder, the way one’s sense of self changes over time? Or, do most people contend, wilfully or otherwise, a changeless persistence in their staid lives? When you have lived as long as I have, of course, no such delusions survive.’ She looked up, met his eyes. ‘But you know this, Trell, don’t you? The gift of the Nameless Ones shrouds you, the longevity haunts your eyes like scratched gemstones, worn far past beauty, far past even the shimmer of conceit.’
‘Who are you?’ Mappo asked.
‘A queen about to be driven from her throne, banished from her empire. My vanity is about to suffer an ignominious defeat.’
‘Are you an Elder Goddess? I believe I know you…’ He gestured. ‘This vast web, the unseen pattern amidst seeming chaos. Shall I name you?’
‘Best you did not. I have since learned the art of hiding. Nor am I inclined to grant favours. Mogora, that old witch, will rue this day. Mind you, perhaps she is not to blame. There is a whisper in the shadows about you, Mappo. Tell me, what possible interest would Shadowthrone have in you? Or in Icarium, for that matter?’
He started. Icarium. I failed him – Abyss below, what has happened? ‘Does he yet live?’
‘He does, and the Nameless Ones have gifted him with a new companion.’ She half-smiled. ‘You have been… discarded. Why, I wonder? Perhaps some failing of purpose, a faltering – you have lost the purity of your vow, haven’t you?’
He looked away. ‘Why have they not killed him, then?’
She shrugged. ‘Presumably, they foresee a use for his talents. Ah, the notion terrifies you, doesn’t it? Can it be true that you have, until this moment, retained your faith in the Nameless Ones?’
‘No. I am distressed by the notion of what they will release. Icarium is not a weapon—’
‘Oh you fool, of course he is. They made him, and now they will use him… ah, now I understand Shadowthrone. Clever bastard. Of course, I am offended that he would so blithely assume my allegiance. And even more offended to realize that, in this matter, his assumption was correct.’ She paused, then sighed. ‘It is time to send you back.’
‘Wait – you said something – the Nameless Ones, that they made Icarium. I thought—’
‘Forged by their own hands, and then, through the succession of guardians like you, Mappo, honed again and yet again. Was he as deadly when he first crawled from the wreckage they’d made of his young life? As deadly as he is now? I would imagine not.’ She studied him. ‘My words wound you. You know, I dislike Shadowthrone more and more, as my every act and every word here complies with his nefarious expectation. I wound you, then realize that he needs you wounded. How is it he knows us so well?’
‘Send me back.’
‘Icarium’s trail grows cold.’
‘Now.’
‘Oh, Mappo, you incite me unto weeping. I did that, on occasion, when I was young. Although, granted, most of my tears were inspired by self-pity. And so, we are transformed. Leave now, Mappo Runt. Do what you must.’
He found himself lying on the ground, bright sun overhead. Two beasts were fighting nearby – no, he saw as he turned his head, two people. Slathered in dusty spit, dark streaks of gritty sweat, tugging handfuls of hair, kicking and gouging.
‘Gods below,’ Mappo breathed. ‘Dal Honese.’
They ceased scrapping, looked over.
‘Don’t mind us,’ Iskaral Pust said with a blood-smeared smile, ‘we’re married.’
There was no outrunning it. Scaled and bear-like, the beast massed as much as the Trygalle carriage, and its long, loping run covered more ground than the terrified horses could manage, exhausted as they now were. The red and black, ridged scales covering the animal were each the size of bucklers, and mostly impervious to missile fire, as had been proved by the countless quarrels that had skidded from its hide as it drew ever closer. It possessed a single, overlarge eye, faceted like an insect’s and surrounded by a projecting ridge of protective bone. Its massive jaws held double rows of sabre teeth, each one as long as a man’s forearm. Old battle-scars had marred the symmetry of the beast’s wide, flat head.
The distance between the pursuer and the pursued had closed to less than two hundred paces. Paran abandoned his over-the-shoulder study of the beast and urged his horse ahead. They were pounding along a rocky shoreline. Twice they had clattered over the bones of some large creature, whale-like although many of the bones had been split and crushed. Up ahead and slightly inland, the land rose into something like a hill – as much as could be found in this realm. Paran waved towards it. ‘That way!’ he shouted to the driver.
‘What?’ the man shrieked. ‘Are you mad?’
‘One last push! Then halt and leave the rest to me!’
The old man shook his head, yet steered the horses up onto the slope, then drove them hard as, hoofs churning in the mud, they strained to pull the huge carriage uphill.
Paran slowed his horse once more, caught a glimpse of shareholders gathered round the back of the carriage, all staring at him as he reined in, directly in the beast’s path.
One hundred paces.
Paran fought to control his panicking horse, even as he drew a wooden card from his saddlebag. On which he scored a half-dozen lines with his thumbnail. A moment to glance up – fifty paces, head lowering, jaws opening wide. Oh, a little close—
Two more deeper scores into the wood, then he flung the card out, into the path of the charging creature.
Four soft words under his breath—
The card did not fall, but hung, motionless.
The scaled bear reached it, voicing a bellowing roar – and vanished.
Paran’s horse reared, throwing him backward, his boots leaving the stirrups as he slid onto its rump, then off, landing hard to skid in the mud. He picked himself up, rubbing at his behind.
Shareholders rushed down to gather round him.
‘How’d you do that?’
‘Where’d it go?’
‘Hey, if you coulda done that any time what was we runnin’ for?’
Paran shrugged. ‘Where – who knows? And as for the “how”, well, I am Master of the Deck of Dragons. Might as well make the grand title meaningful
.’
Gloved hands slapped his shoulders – harder than necessary, but he noted their relieved expressions, the terror draining from their eyes.
Hedge arrived. ‘Nice one, Captain. I didn’t think any of you’d make it. From what I saw, though, you left things nearly too late – too close. Saw your mouth moving – some kind of spell or something? Didn’t know you were a mage—’
‘I’m not. I was saying “I hope this works”.’
Once again, everyone stared at him.
Paran walked over to his horse.
Hedge said, ‘Anyway, from that hilltop you can see our destination. The High Mage thought you should know.’
From the top of the hill, five huge black statues were visible in the distance, the intervening ground broken by small lakes and marsh grasses. Paran studied the rearing edifices for a time. Bestial hounds, seated on their haunches, perfectly rendered yet enormous in scale, carved entirely of black stone.
‘About what you had expected?’ Hedge asked, clambering back aboard the carriage.
‘Wasn’t sure,’ Paran replied. ‘Five… or seven. Well, now I know. The two shadow hounds from Dragnipur found their… counterparts, and so were reunited. Then, it seems, someone freed them.’
‘Something paid us a visit,’ Hedge said, ‘the night us ghosts annihilated the Dogslayers. Into Sha’ik’s camp.’
Paran turned to regard the ghost. ‘You haven’t mentioned this before, sapper.’
‘Well, they didn’t last long anyway.’
‘What in Hood’s name do you mean, they didn’t last long?’
‘I mean, someone killed them.’
‘Killed them? Who? Did a god visit that night? One of the First Heroes? Or some other ascendant?’
Hedge was scowling. ‘This is all second-hand, mind you, but from what I gathered, it was Toblakai. One of Sha’ik’s bodyguards, a friend of Leoman’s. Afraid I don’t know much about him, just the name, or, I suppose, title, since it’s not a real name—’
‘A bodyguard named Toblakai killed two Deragoth hounds?’
The ghost shrugged, then nodded. ‘Aye, that’s about right, Captain.’
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