‘His hands are solid now, Scillara.’
She started. ‘What?’
‘Solid jade – not pure, filled with… imperfections. Flaws, particles buried deep inside. Like they were flecked with ash, or dirt.’
‘You examined his corpse?’
Cutter nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Greyfrog came back to life…’
‘So you thought the old man might do the same.’
‘It was a possibility, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. He’s mummifying – and fast.’
Barathol Mekhar spoke: ‘His funeral shroud was soaked in salt water then packed in even more salt, Cutter. Keeps the maggots out. A fist-sized bundle of rags was pushed into the back of his throat, and a few other places besides. The old practice was to remove the intestines, but the locals have since grown lazier – there were arts involved. Skills, mostly forgotten. What’s done is to dry out the corpse as quickly as possible.’
Cutter glanced at Scillara, then shrugged. ‘Heboric was chosen by a god.’
‘But he failed that god,’ she replied.
‘They were T’lan Imass!’
A flow of smoke accompanied Scillara’s words as she said, ‘Next time we get swarmed by flies, we’ll know what’s coming.’ She met his eyes. ‘Look, Cutter, there’s just us, now. You and me, and until the coast, Barathol. If you want to drop Heboric’s body off on the island, that’s fine. If those jade hands are still alive, they can crawl back to their master on their own. We just bury the body above the tideline and leave it at that.’
‘And then?’
‘Darujhistan. I think I want to see this magnificent city of yours. You said rooftops and alleys – what were you there? A thief? Must have been. Who else knows alleys and rooftops? So, you can teach me the ways of a thief, Cutter. I’ll follow in your shadow. Hood knows, stealing what we can from this insane world makes as much sense as anything else.’
Cutter looked away. ‘It’s not good,’ he said, ‘following anyone’s shadow. There’s better people there… for you to get along with. Murillio, maybe, or even Coll.’
‘Will I one day discover,’ she asked, ‘that you’ve just insulted me?’
‘No! Of course not. I like Murillio! And Coll’s a Councilman. He owns an estate and everything.’
Barathol said, ‘Ever seen an animal led to slaughter, Cutter?’
‘What do you mean?’
But the big man simply shook his head.
After repacking her pipe, Scillara settled back in her saddle, a small measure of mercy silencing, for the moment at least, her baiting of Cutter. Mercy and, she admitted, Barathol’s subtle warning to ease up on the young man.
That old killer was a sharp one.
It wasn’t that she held anything against Cutter. The very opposite, in fact. That small glimmer of enthusiasm – when he spoke of Darujhistan – had surprised her. Cutter was reaching out to the comfort of old memories, suggesting to her that he was suffering from loneliness. That woman who left him. The one for whom he departed Darujhistan in the first place, I suspect. Loneliness, then, and a certain loss of purpose, now that Heboric was dead and Felisin Younger stolen away. Maybe there was some guilt thrown in – he’d failed in protecting Felisin, after all, failed in protecting Scillara too, for that matter – not that she was the kind to hold such a thing against him. They’d been T’lan Imass, for Hood’s sake.
But Cutter, being young and being a man, would see it differently. A multitude of swords that he would happily fall on, with a nudge from the wrong person. A person who mattered to him. Better to keep him away from such notions, and a little flirtation on her part, yielding charming confusion on his, should suffice.
She hoped he would consider her advice on burying Heboric. She’d had enough of deserts. Thoughts of a city lit by blue fire, a place filled with people, none of whom expected anything of her, and the possibility of new friends – with Cutter at her side – were in truth rather enticing. A new adventure, and a civilized one at that. Exotic foods, plenty of rustleaf…
She had wondered, briefly, if the absence of regret or sorrow within her at the surrendering of the child she had carried inside all those months was truly indicative of some essential lack of morality in her soul, some kind of flaw that would bring horror into the eyes of mothers, grandmothers and even little girls as they looked upon her. But such thoughts had not lasted long. The truth of the matter was, she didn’t care what other people thought, and if most of them saw that as a threat to… whatever… to their view on how things should be… well, that was just too bad, wasn’t it? As if her very existence could lure others into a life of acts without consequence.
Now that’s a laugh, isn’t it? The most deadly seducers are the ones encouraging conformity. If you can only feel safe when everybody else feels, thinks and looks the same as you, then you’re a Hood-damned coward… not to mention a vicious tyrant in the making.
‘So, Barathol Mekhar, what awaits you on the coast?’
‘Probably plague,’ he said.
‘Oh now that’s a pleasant thought. And if you survive that?’
He shrugged. ‘A ship, going somewhere else. I’ve never been to Genabackis. Nor Falar.’
‘If you go to Falar,’ Scillara said, ‘or empire-held Genabackis, your old crimes might catch up with you.’
‘They’ve caught up with me before.’
‘So, either you’re indifferent to your own death, Barathol, or your confidence is supreme and unassailable. Which is it?’
‘Take your pick.’
A sharp one. I won’t get any rise from him, no point in trying. ‘What do you think it will be like, crossing an ocean?’
‘Like a desert,’ Cutter said, ‘only wetter.’
She probably should have glared at him for that, but she had to admit, it was a good answer. All right, so maybe they’re both sharp, in their own ways. I think I’m going to enjoy this journey.
They rode the track, the heat and sunlight burgeoning into a conflagration, and in their wake clumped Chaur, still smiling.
The Jaghut Ganath stood looking into the chasm. The sorcerous weaving she had set upon this… intrusion had shattered. She did not need to descend that vast fissure, nor enter the buried sky keep itself, to know the cause of that shattering. Draconean blood had been spilled, although that in itself was not enough. The chaos between the warrens had also been unleashed, and it had devoured Omtose Phellack as boiling water does ice.
Yet her sense of the sequence of events necessary for such a thing to happen remained clouded, as if time itself had been twisted within that once-floating fortress. There was outrage locked in the very bedrock, and now, a most peculiar imposition of… order.
She wished for companions here, at her side. Cynnigig, especially. And Phyrlis. As it was, in this place, alone as she was, she felt oddly vulnerable.
Perhaps most of all, would that Ganoes Paran, Master of the Deck, was with me. A surprisingly formidable human. A little too prone to take risks, however, and there was something here that invited a certain caution. She would need to heal this – there could be no doubt of that. Still…
Ganath pulled her unhuman gaze from the dark fissure – in time to see, flowing across the flat rock to either side, and behind her, a swarm of shadows – and now figures, huge, reptilian, all closing in on where she stood.
She cried out, her warren of Omtose Phellack rising within her, an instinctive response to panic, as the creatures closed.
There was no escape – no time—
Heavy mattocks slashed down, chopping through flesh, then bone. The blows drove her to the ground amidst gushes of her own blood. She saw before her the edge of the chasm, sought to reach out towards it. To drag herself over it, and fall – a better death—
Massive clawed feet, scaled, wrapped in strips of thick hide, kicking up dust close to her face. Unable to move, feeling her life drain away, she watched as that dust settled in a dull patin
a over the pool of her blood, coating it like the thinnest skin. Too much dirt, the blood wouldn’t like that, it would sicken with all that dirt.
She needed to clean it. She needed to gather it up, somehow pour it back into her body, back in through these gaping wounds, and hope that her heart would burn clean every drop.
But now even her heart was failing, and blood was sputtering, filled with froth, from her nose and mouth.
She understood, suddenly, that strange sense of order. K’Chain Che’Malle, a recollection stirred to life once more, after all this time. They had returned, then. But not the truly chaotic ones. No, not the Long-Tails. These were the others, servants of machines, of order in all its brutality. Nah’Ruk.
They had returned. Why?
The pool of blood was sinking down into the white, chalky dust where furrows had been carved by talons, and into these furrows the rest of the blood drained in turgid rivulets. The inexorable laws of erosion, writ small, and yet… yes, I suppose, most poignant.
She was cold, and that felt good. Comforting. She was, after all, a Jaghut.
And now I leave.
The woman stood facing landwards, strangely alert. Mappo Runt rubbed at his face, driven to exhaustion by Iskaral Pust’s manic tirade at the crew of the broad-beamed caravel as they scurried about with what seemed a complete absence of reason: through the rigging, bounding wild over the deck and clinging – with frantic screams – to various precarious perches here and there. Yet somehow the small but seaworthy trader craft was full before the wind, cutting clean on a northeasterly course.
A crew – an entire crew – of bhok’arala. It should have been impossible. It most certainly was absurd. Yet these creatures had been awaiting them in their no-doubt purloined craft, anchored offshore, when Mappo, Iskaral, his mule, and the woman named Spite pushed through the last of the brush and reached the broken rocks of the coast.
And not just some random collection of the ape-like, pointy-eared beasts, but – as Iskaral’s shriek of fury announced – the High Priest’s very own menagerie, the once-residents of his cliff-side fastness league upon league eastward, at the rim of the distant Raraku Sea. How they had come to be here, with this caravel, was a mystery, and one unlikely to be resolved any time soon.
Heaps of fruit and shellfish had crowded the midship deck, fussed over like votive offerings when the three travellers drew the dinghy – rowed ashore to greet them by a half-dozen bhok’arala – alongside the ship and clambered aboard. To find – adding to Mappo’s bemusement – that Iskaral Pust’s black-eyed mule had somehow preceded them.
Since then there had been chaos.
If bhok’arala could possess faith in a god, then their god had just arrived, in the dubious personage of Iskaral Pust, and the endless mewling, chittering, dancing about the High Priest was clearly driving Pust mad. Or, madder than he already was.
Spite had watched in amusement for a time, ignoring Mappo’s questions – How did this come to be here? Where will they be taking us? Are we in truth still pursuing Icarium? No answers.
And now, as the coastline crawled past, pitching and rolling on their right, the tall woman stood, her balance impressive, and stared with narrowed eyes to the south.
‘What is wrong?’ Mappo asked, not expecting an answer.
She surprised him. ‘A murder. There are godless ones walking the sands of Seven Cities once again. I believe I understand the nature of this alliance. Complexities abound, of course, and you are but a Trell, a hut-dwelling herder.’
‘Who understands nothing of complexities, aye. Even so, explain. What alliance? Who are the godless ones?’
‘That hardly matters, and serves little by way of explanation. It falls to the nature of gods, Mappo Runt. And of faith.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘If one asserts a distinction between the gifts from a god and the mortal, mundane world in which exists the believer,’ she said, ‘then this is as an open door to true godlessness. To the religion of disbelief, if you will.’ She glanced over, sauntered closer. ‘Ah, already I see you frowning in confusion—’
‘I frown at the implications of such a distinction, Spite.’
‘Truly? Well, I am surprised. Pleasantly so. Very well. You must understand this, then. To speak of war among the gods, it is not simply a matter of, say, this goddess here scratching out the eyes of that god over there. Nor, even, of an army of acolytes from this temple marching upon an army from the temple across the street. A war among the gods is not fought with thunderbolts and earthquakes, although of course it is possible – but improbable – that it could come to that. The war in question, then, is messy, the battle-lines muddied, unclear, and even the central combatants struggle to comprehend what constitutes a weapon, what wounds and what is harmless. And worse still, to wield such weapons proves as likely to harm the wielder as the foe.’
‘Fanaticism breeds fanaticism, aye,’ Mappo said, nodding. ‘ “In proclamation, one defines his enemy for his enemy”.’
She smiled her dazzling smile. ‘A quote? From whom?’
‘Kellanved, the founding emperor of the Malazan Empire.’
‘Indeed, you grasp the essence of my meaning. Now, the nature of fanaticism can be likened to that of a tree – many branches, but one tap-root.’
‘Inequity.’
‘Or at least the comprehension of and the faith in, whether such inequity is but imagined or exists in truth. More often than not, of course, such inequity does exist, and it is the poison that breeds the darkest fruit. Mundane wealth is usually built upon bones, piled high and packed deep. Alas, the holders of that wealth misapprehend the nature of their reward, and so are often blithely indifferent in their ostentatious display of their wealth. The misapprehension is this: that those who do not possess wealth all yearn to, and so seek likeness, and this yearning occludes all feelings of resentment, exploitation and, most relevantly, injustice. To some extent they are right, but mostly they are woefully wrong. When wealth ascends to a point where the majority of the poor finally comprehend that it is, for each of them, unattainable, then all civility collapses, and anarchy prevails. Now, I was speaking of war among the gods. Do you grasp the connection, Mappo Runt?’
‘Not entirely.’
‘I appreciate your honesty, Trell. Consider this: when inequity burgeons into violent conflagration, the gods themselves are helpless. The gods cease to lead – they can but follow, dragged by the will of their worshippers. Now, suppose gods to be essentially moral entities – that is, possessing and indeed manifestly representing a particular ethos – well, then, such moral considerations become the first victim in the war. Unless that god chooses to defend him or herself from his or her own believers. Allies, enemies? What relevance such primitive, simplistic notions in that scenario, Mappo Runt?’
The Trell gazed out at the heaving waves, this tireless succession born of distant convulsions, the broken tug of tides, hard and bitter winds and all that moved in the world. And yet, staring long enough, this simple undulating motion… mesmerizing. ‘We are,’ he said, ‘as the soil and the sea.’
‘Another quote?’
He shrugged. ‘Driven by unseen forces, forever in motion, even when we stand still.’ He struggled against a surge of despair. ‘For all that the contestants proclaim that they are but soldiers of their god…’
‘All that they do in that god’s name is at its core profoundly godless.’
‘And the truly godless – such as you spoke of earlier – cannot but see such blasphemers as allies.’
She studied him until he grew uneasy, then she said, ‘What drives Icarium to fight?’
‘When under control, it is… inequity. Injustice.’
‘And when out of control?’
‘Then… nothing.’
‘And the difference between the two is one of magnitude.’
He glanced away once more. ‘And of motivation.’
‘Are you sure? Even if inequity, in triggering his vio
lence, then ascends, crossing no obvious threshold, into all-destroying annihilation? Mappo Trell, I believe motivations prove, ultimately, irrelevant. Slaughter is slaughter. Upon either side of the battlefield the face grins with blunt stupidity, even as smoke fills the sky from horizon to horizon, even as crops wither and die, even as sweet land turns to salt. Inequity ends, Trell, when no-one and no thing is left standing. Perhaps,’ she added, ‘this is Icarium’s true purpose, why the Nameless Ones seek to unleash him. It is, after all, one sure way to end this war.’
Mappo Trell stared at her, then said, ‘Next time we speak like this, Spite, you can tell me your reasons for opposing the Nameless Ones. For helping me.’
She smiled at him. ‘Ah, you begin to doubt our alliance?’
‘How can I not?’
‘Such is war among the gods, Trell.’
‘We are not gods.’
‘We are their hands, their feet, wayward and wilful. We fight for reasons that are, for the most part, essentially nonsensical, even when the justification seems plain and straightforward. Two kingdoms, one upriver, one downriver. The kingdom downriver sees the water arrive befouled and sickly, filled with silts and sewage. The kingdom upriver, being on higher land, sees its desperate efforts at irrigation failing, as the topsoil is swept away each time the rains come to the highlands beyond. The two kingdoms quarrel, until there is war. The downriver kingdom marches, terrible battles are fought, cities are burned to the ground, citizens enslaved, fields salted and made barren. Ditches and dykes are broken. In the end, only the downriver kingdom remains. But the erosion does not cease. Indeed, now that there is no irrigation occurring upriver, the waters rush down in full flood, distempered and wild, and they carry lime and salt that settles on the fields and poisons the remaining soil. There is starvation, disease, and the desert closes in on all sides. The once victorious leaders are cast down. Estates are looted. Brigands rove unchecked, and within a single generation there are no kingdoms, neither upriver nor downriver. Was the justification valid? Of course. Did that validity defend the victors against their own annihilation? Of course not.
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