The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail) (Novels of the Malazan Empire)

by Ian C. Esslemont

  ‘In truth, Lord Protector, I am come on another errand. I wish to question your champion. If I may.’

  Hiam grunted a laugh. ‘Your timing is impeccable, Adviser. You can have him. Just this afternoon he lost his mind. Went berserk. Tried to murder his cellmate – a companion of many years. Madness is a terrible thing. It can drive us to betray everyone around us. Sometimes for the most insignificant, or imagined, slights. Who is to know the reasons behind the breaking of a mind?’ And he shrugged.

  ‘That is a shame, m’lord. I’m sorry you lost so able a fighter. Still, he may be of use to me.’

  Hiam scooped up more of his stew. ‘What is it you require?’

  The Roolian – Malazan, Hiam corrected himself, and a damned mage – blew out his breath. ‘Oh, a private chamber, shackles, strong aides to help me. And chains, sir. Your strongest chains you use for hauling stone blocks.’

  Hiam was rather taken aback by these requests. Still, these he could manage. And, who knows? Perhaps something will come of it. He nodded. ‘Very well. I believe we can pull something together.’ He turned to Section Marshal Learthol. ‘Would you see to it?’

  Learthol dabbed his mouth, stood. ‘This way, Adviser, if you please.’

  Standing, Ussü straightened his heavy sodden robes and bowed to Hiam. ‘My thanks, Lord Protector.’

  Hiam watched the man go, Learthol bowing as he closed the door, and he wondered: had he just made an error? Still, the Lady permitted the man his infringements – she should be the final arbiter, not he.

  Ussü worked on his preparations long into the night before, exhausted, falling asleep at the work desk of the chambers provided. The next morning he awoke to hands and feet numb with cold, and frost thick in the corners of the stone chamber. The wind battered the one shuttered window. A servant arrived with an iron brazier stoked with charcoal and a modest meal of bread, goat’s cheese and cold tea.

  Two Theftian labourers arrived later, with orders to serve him. These he set to work fitting iron pins into joints in the walls, and securing lengths of chain. When all was in readiness, he briefed the two with detailed instructions as to how to proceed, then left to request the Champion be moved to his chamber. He decided not to be in sight until the man was secured: there remained the slight possibility that he might recognize him as a Malazan and become suspicious.

  From down the hall he watched while the man was marched, manacled and under guard, up to the room. On first setting eyes on the fellow he was aghast: this emaciated, haggard, tattered wretch was the Champion? Still, anyone else carrying such half-healed wounds, frostbite, and exposure damage would surely be dead. That he was apparently able to ignore all these mutilations spoke well for the coming experiment. He waited to give time for the man to be securely chained, then entered.

  The subject was laid out on a thick oaken table at the centre of the chamber, gagged. His legs were together and straight, wrapped in chain lengths secured to pins in either wall. His arms were together as well, stretched up over his head and extending down towards the floor, wrapped in chains, and secured to a pin sunk in the flagging. Ussü leaned over the grimed, stinking fellow to peer into his eyes.

  Nothing. No apparent awareness. Merely a dull stare straight up at the ceiling. Catatonic? Just as well. All the easier for his purposes. Yet … lack of a will to live would not do … He began cutting the rags from the man’s chest.

  ‘You do not know me,’ he told him, ‘but I believe I know you.’

  Tearing away the rags, he went to a table where his instruments had been laid out. ‘I must admit that when I heard that the Korelri Champion was a Malazan who denied being a Malazan … and named Bars, well, I became intrigued.’ He glanced back, and there, around the fellow’s eyes – a slight tightening? ‘I, as you can tell, am Malazan. Sixth Army, to be exact. Cadre mage Ussü at your service.’ Knife in hand, he bowed.

  He pressed a hand to the arc of the man’s naked ribs, testing, prodding. ‘You, on the other hand, are Bars, Iron Bars, Avowed of the Crimson Guard.’

  Ussü stepped back, reconsidering. Perhaps the stomach cavity? Less risk of harming a lung, but still, such bleeding. It drains the life force. The man’s eyes flicked sidelong to catch sight of him; the jaws shifted as if nearly summoned to speech.

  ‘Yes. Imagine how much the Empire would pay for a living Avowed to study. Quite a lot, no doubt.’ The man’s astounding chest capacity decided things for Ussü. More room than had ever been offered before. It would be the front. He waved to his aides to take hold of legs and arms, then leaned over the man. ‘But that is not why we are here. They say the Avowed cannot be killed.’ He held the keen obsidian-bladed scalpel up before the man’s eyes. ‘This is what we are here to test.’

  The chains crashed and rang, almost singing with strain as the subject convulsed.

  Ussü flinched back, a hand on the man’s side as one might calm a spooked horse. But the bindings held – so far. He rolled his sleeves up. He traced the line of the cut between ribs, nodded to his aides, and slit the flesh down through the muscle.

  Gagged, the subject howled incoherencies, writhing and twisting. Ussü went to his instruments and selected his largest, most sturdy rib-spacer. He returned to the subject. ‘I’m told,’ he said conversationally, ‘that this is a worse agony than even trained torturers can inflict.’ He pushed the sharpened, toothed edges into the cut then struck it home with a heave of his bodyweight. Foam blew out around the edges of the gag and the eyes burned a blazing white-hot fury. Good! Rage will stoke the will to live.

  Ussü began turning the spacing screws. ‘Not that I am implying any sort of parallel between myself and some brute torturer. For the analogy breaks down here, you see? The torturer requires something from his victim and is attempting to draw it from him – or her. Yet I require nothing from you.’

  Which is a half-lie. I require that you live. ‘I, however, am motivated purely by curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge.’ Ussü paused in the turning. Does that not then make both torturers and I knowledgeseekers? He cocked his head, considering. The knowledge I seek is not held by anyone else … that is a fundamental distinction. Nodding, he continued widening the gap between the ribs.

  Something shook him then – not the subject, and not the waves slamming with mind-numbing regularity against the tons of stone beneath, but something new – an earth tremor. Ice outside the walls crackled as the entire structure rolled slightly, as if an immense giant had laid a gentle hand against the tower. The aides shared terrified glances. Ussü merely attempted to measure the extent of the displacement. Interesting … such tremors are common on Fist, but I understand rather rare events here in the Korel Isles.

  The movements subsided with a diminishing of the landslide roaring accompanying it. Ussü returned his attention to the subject, dismissing the event. He’d entered high on the torso as he’d decided to come in above and between the lungs. The subject had stopped writhing, as even the slightest motion now induced waves of intense agony – or so he intuited. The gap large enough, he wiped his hand on the side of his robes, then, keeping it flat, like a knife-edge, worked it down into the blood-filled cavity.

  The subject convulsed as if axe-struck, bellowing fury and anguish in a storm of mouthings and roaring. Ussü rode out the convulsion, hand up to his second knuckle in the man’s chest. After the waves of twitching passed, Ussü carefully began edging aside organs and pushing down through films of tissue to reach the heart, cradled as it was in its protective pocket of fat and muscle.

  Incredibly, the subject was still conscious. Just half an arm’s length away the eyes blazed at him like promises of Hood’s own vengeance. Ussü pulled his gaze away: he’d brushed the heart. It was time to summon his Warren. He reached out, mentally, opening himself to the wash of energies, and was seized by a torrent that nearly threw him off the body. Gods! What lay behind such might? There was something here – some mystery beyond this Crimson Guard. They’d touched something. Something dormant
, or hidden, with this vow of theirs.

  No matter. There lay future researches. For now, the task at hand. Ha! At hand! In hand, perhaps. Where was Greymane – the Betrayer – Stonewielder?

  He reached out, seeking him. The extraordinary might available to him drove Ussü’s consciousness far to the west, and there he found his man. An aura shone about him like a sky-gouging pillar, and the grey stone blade he carried in his hands streamed a molten puissance Ussü’s Warren interpreted as a blinding sun-flare. The earth rolled about the man as if it were a cloth, shaken, and the merest echo of that release cast Ussü away from the body like a blow. He struck the stone wall and slid down, stunned.

  His aides shook him awake. Coming to, he flailed, groggy. Then he stood, worked to catch his breath. He grasped one’s shirt. ‘The Lord Protector! Where is he! I must speak to him!’

  The aides, Theftian labourers, merely gazed at one another, baffled. Snarling, Ussü thrust them aside to stagger for the stairs. ‘Stay here! Watch him!’

  Hiam was with Master Engineer Stimins discussing the potential damage from the tremor when the Overlord’s adviser, Ussü, burst in among them. Blood stained his robes, hands and arms, as if he’d been groping his way through a slaughterhouse. Two nearby Chosen drew blades on him. Hiam took one look at the man’s stricken gaze and waved the guards aside.

  ‘Lady forefend, man, what is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘Who named him Stonewielder?’ the Malazan demanded, almost frenzied.

  Hiam felt his jaws clenching. ‘We do not discuss that,’ he ground out.

  ‘Who! Dammit, I must know.’

  Master Engineer Stimins caught Hiam’s gaze, cocked a brow. Hiam gave him curt assent. ‘There are locals on these islands. Indigenous tribals who survive here and there, such as in the Screaming range. They first named him Stonewielder. There are long-standing predictions of the wall’s destruction. As old as the wall itself. They claimed he fit them. The stone’s revenge against the wall – that sort of nonsense.’

  The Malazan mage had been nodding his agreement, as if in confirmation. ‘Yes. You here in Korel dismiss the Warrens – but they are real. One is named D’riss. The Warren of the Earth. The very ground beneath our feet. This … weapon … many claimed Greymane carries. Just now I found him, and it. It channels D’riss directly, Lord Protector. The might of the earth. And it has just been unsheathed against the wall. I felt it. Far to the west the Stormwall is being shaken to its roots. You felt the tremor, didn’t you? There is worse to come at any moment.’

  Hiam met Stimins’ gaze. Poor man. Driven mad by the Lady. Yet … the old predictions. The land throwing off the wall, and the old Lord Protector Ruel’s vision: the wall collapsing in a great shuddering of the earth, the Riders pouring through to cover the land …

  ‘Calm yourself, Adviser—’ he began.

  ‘Calm myself?’ the man fairly choked. ‘The end is coming. I go to prepare for it. I suggest you do as well.’ And he lurched away.

  The Chosen guards looked to Hiam for orders to pursue him, but he shook his head.

  ‘I don’t like this mention of the west,’ Stimins breathed, his voice low. ‘I’d have preferred it if he’d claimed it was here – overtopping. But not out there, to the west. Not an undermining … Send a message,’ he suggested. ‘Status report.’

  Hiam gave a thoughtful nod. ‘Yes. There’s been a tremor, after all.’ His nod gathered conviction. ‘Yes. I’ll be up top. See to the repairs.’

  Stimins snorted. ‘Wouldn’t be anywhere else, would I?’

  CHAPTER XII

  We cannot learn without pain.

  Wisdom of the Ancients

  Kreshen Reel, compiler

  THE FIRST SIGN STALL HAD OF TROUBLE WAS MEMBERS OF THE WORK gang standing up from their hammering to stare southwards. Stall pushed himself from the rock he’d been leaning against and, taking up his spear, drew his cloak tighter about himself. Evessa straightened as well, sent him a questioning look. He motioned to the rock field far below, where a lone figure climbed the rugged slope that sprawled down from the rear of the Stormwall. Taking up her spear, Evessa waved to Stall and the two took their time picking their way down to the man.

  Closer, Stall saw him to be a bull of a fellow, apparently unarmed, full helm under an arm. Against the cold he wore a plain cloak and thick robes in layers over his armour. He and Evessa spread out to stand ahead of the fellow, to either side.

  Stall planted his spear, called, ‘Who are you? Name yourself!’

  The man did not answer immediately. He peered up past them to the slope where the rear of this section of the curved curtain wall soared like a fortress. The gang peered down from among the rocks where they worked on the buttressing ordered by Master Engineer Stimins.

  The stranger nodded to himself, took a deep breath, and drew on his helm. ‘I suggest you go now,’ he told them in accented Korelri.

  Stall lowered his spear. ‘You’ll have to come with us for questioning …’

  Kneeling, the man pressed a gauntleted hand to the bare stony ground. Stall and Evessa shared a look – was the fellow touched? Stall began: ‘Don’t give us any …’

  The ground shook. Rocks clattered, falling. Grating and roaring, the larger boulders shifted. Evessa cried out and had to jump when the huge rocks she stood upon ground together. The reverberation fanned out around them into the distance, from where the echoes of scraping and shifting returned ever more faintly. The workers cried out, scattering, clambering among the rocks.

  Stall returned his attention to the stranger to see that he now carried a sword: a great two-handed length of dull grey. The man’s eyes glared a bright pale blue from the darkness of his helm. ‘Go now!’ he commanded. ‘Warn everyone to flee!’

  Stall looked to Evessa, cocked a brow. The Jourilan woman inclined her head; Stall nodded. The two backed away. The man was clearing stones from the ground before him. Stall and Evessa picked up their pace, waving away the remaining workers watching them, uncertain.

  ‘Run, you damned fools!’ Stall yelled.

  So which would it be? Greymane wondered while he stood waiting to give everyone time to put more room between he and they. The greatest mass-murderer of the region? Or a semi-mythical deliverer?

  Both, I imagine. It could not be avoided. Many would die. And rightly or wrongly he would be blamed. Yet was he not just one link in an unbroken chain of causality stretching back who knew how far? Albeit the final one.

  Devaleth’s argument returned to haunt him – not that he didn’t know the same doubts: what guarantee did he have that the Riders would not overrun all the lands? Objectively, that much water didn’t exist in the world. Subjectively, every observation, action, and account supported his conclusion.

  They would strike for the Lady.

  Just as he should have when he had his chance. Regrets choked him now. He hoped Kyle would not be too angry with him – he’d had to keep everyone at arm’s length. The fool probably would have tried to follow him!

  And were the troops free of the coast? Certainly they should be by now – especially with Devaleth forewarned. And she should reach Banith as well, through Ruse. Yet what of every other coastal settlement of the region? Were they not all threatened? Yes, many would die. But at least after that it would be over. It would not go on eternally, year after year, as it had for centuries.

  Or so he told himself.

  Enough! Enough self-flagellation. It was too late then; it is even later now. What he should have done long ago awaited him still. Time to act.

  A short thrust first, I think. To warn everyone what is to come.

  He knelt, raised the stone sword, point down. Burn, accept this offering and answer. Bless my intent. Right this ancient wrong. Heal this wound upon the world.

  He slammed the blade down into the earth.

  At first nothing happened. The blade slid easily through the exposed stone. A kind of silence grew around him. Then came a vibration, the ground uneasy, sh
uddering. Up the slope boulders slid, subsiding. Rocks tumbled to either side. Far above, where the wall met the overcast sky with its embrasures, lift-houses, and quarters, clouds of birds erupted from their perches to take flight in dark swaths. Enormous hanging accumulations of ice, some longer than a man, snapped away, plunging down the rear to smash to the rocks below. Tiny figures raced madly back and forth.

  Run while you can. Greymane yanked the blade free. Setting his left foot back firmly, he raised the sword straight up overhead to its fullest extension. Tensing his body, he snapped the blade down as if to gouge a slice from the earth. The rough stone blade struck the granite in an eruption of force that shuddered straight up to his grip. A crack split the rounded worn bedrock, shooting off ahead to disappear beneath the jumbled scree slope. Kneeling, he kept his death’s grip on the length of carved stone. Water appeared from among the jumbled rocks. It shot down over his knees in a frigid sheen.

  Oh shit. I’m under the wall.

  Well, he chided himself, you didn’t really think you’d survive this, did you?

  A bell-like booming resounded from the towering wall. Two lift-houses built up over the rear fell away in a litter of fractured stone to tumble like doll’s houses down the curved face and explode in shards of wood and stone at the base. Cut blocks of the curtain wall, each perhaps as large as a man, shifted, dirt and moss cascading down. Water shot from the lowest in a jetting spray, darkening the rocks of the slope.

  Greymane yanked the blade free. Enough? Well, best make sure of it.

  He raised the sword again. One more. Then run like a madman. This time he swept the blade down as if he were sinking it into water. The naked time-gnawed bedrock parted in a gap that took even his grip. The very ground around him seemed to sink then flex upwards like a struck drum. Boulders the size of houses heaved aside to crash and tumble like catapult stones. A grinding screech as of a death-shriek sounded from the distance where the rearing curtain wall wavered as if struck by a giant’s battering ram. Then it bulged outward at its base, stones shifting, and water burst forth in a gushing, heaving rush.