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

  ‘Turner? Harmon. Well, friend, a word to the wise. There’s much worse they’ve done to some.’

  ‘Oh? Such as?’

  They were levelling a layer of gravel over the foundation. Head down, one answered, ‘A fellow dropped a tool on one of them stones and what happened to him was a terrible thing to see.’

  ‘So? What happened?’

  Eyes met to share gauging looks. ‘Magery happened,’ whispered a crew member. ‘The tall one with the staff – he just points, he does, and the man goes down screaming in agony. Bites his own tongue off.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Aye. There’s Warren magics here. Maybe these two are Free Cities mages from up north. Maybe Pale necromancers. Who knows?’

  The crew had a break as more gravel was sent for. They stood, stretching and grimacing over their aches and pains. ‘What’re they up to?’ Turner asked.

  Gazes slid aside, feet were shifted, uneasy. Harmon peered right and left then edged closer. A pained look crossed his face and he backed up a step. Then, taking a great breath, he leaned in. ‘Some kinda protection for the city, right? This is one o’ the new Legate’s improvements, right?’

  ‘One?’ grumbled another. ‘Only one I knows.’

  Turner looked suitably impressed. ‘Damn … you don’t say. Must be them stones, hey?’

  Harmon frowned, suddenly a touch uneasy. ‘Well, I suppose so.’

  ‘Only one way to find out, don’t you think?’ And Turner picked up a shovel and headed back up the trench for the tent.

  ‘Gods, man …’ Harmon hissed, appalled.

  ‘Don’t be a fool!’ another called, voice low.

  After that hammers started clanging and chisels ringing as the crew was suddenly very busy.

  Spindle was damned terrified, but he bet that these two Adepts – and he knew the two as such: as far above his capabilities as any Imperial High Mage – would see only what they expected to see: an empty-headed labourer.

  He pushed through the hanging flap to find himself almost blind in the shrouded darkness. Burn take it! Didn’t think of that.

  ‘What in the name of the Cursed Ones do you think you’re doing?’ a voice snarled down the length of the tent. Spindle bowed, touching his forehead repeatedly. ‘Just reportin’, sir. We’re almost done with the—’

  ‘I don’t give a shit what you’re finished with or not. Never come in here. Get out! Now!’

  Spindle could just make out a hunched figure, lantern set before him, bent over the glowing white blocks, instruments in hand. He bowed again, touching his forehead. ‘O’ course, sir. Yes. Course. Sorry.’ He backed away, bowing, feeling behind himself for the flap.

  ‘Out!’

  He scuttled backwards through the flap, turned round and ran straight into the other overseer, the tall quick-tempered one. This mage grabbed his arm, glowering murder. At his touch Spindle felt his hair shirt writhe as if it had come alive. The mage let go, obviously quite shocked. Spindle froze; he’d been found out. This Adept had him. But the tall fellow, scars healing on his face and hands, simply regripped his staff, slowly and stiffly, his knuckles white with strain. And the eyes, black pits in yellowed orbs, shifted to the side, urging him onwards. Spindle bowed again in his role of a normal labourer returning to his work, though this man had seen through his façade.

  All the rest of his shift he shared in the loading, levelling, and tamping of dirt, sand and gravels, but he hardly saw any of it. Nor did any of the crew bother him. They’d marked him as either touched or irredeemably dim. Trouble to be avoided, in either case. His hands did their tasks but his mind puzzled over what he’d glimpsed inside that tent. That strange hunchback bent over the stones – and such stones! Glowing they were, as if lit from within. But what had captured his attention were the tools. Magnificent tooled iron etching styluses, and an assortment of engineering instruments any saboteur would give his left hand for. A compass for inscribing arcs, a spirit level – only the second one he’d ever seen outside the Academy in Unta – and an eyepiece of what he suspected might be part of a surveyor’s instrument, one he’d only heard described: an alidade. Gods, he’d never even touched an alidade!

  How he wished he could talk to Fiddler or Hedge about this. Those two knew more engineering than he. With such tools you could lay down a perfect wall – straight or curved.

  And no one needs that kind of precision for a battlement!

  In the auditorium of the assembly chambers Councillor Coll had lately had a great deal of time on his hands. Fewer of his fellow Councillors than ever were now comfortable being seen in his company. The faction supporting the reinstallation of the Legate was pre-eminent and the subsequent favours, funds and prestige flowed accordingly. So now Councillor Coll sat surrounded by empty seats in assembly, hands clasped over his wide stomach, tapping his fingers. He used the time to think.

  That day it occurred to him that in fact it had been some time since he’d even seen Lim; not that this ‘Legate’ was legally obliged to officiate here at the Council. Around mid-morning he heaved himself out of his seat – Ye gods but I am starting to get a touch heavy – to walk the steps down to the debate floor. Among the councillors present he selected one clearly in the Legate’s camp, one who would have nothing to risk in actually being seen talking to him. Conversation quietened in the man’s group as he drew near and the three councillors sketched the briefest greetings his way. Coll bowed to Councillor Ester-Jeen, who merely arched a supercilious brow.

  ‘Councillor Coll,’ he murmured.

  ‘Ester-Jeen.’

  The other two councillors remembered pressing business and bowed their leave-taking. ‘Yes?’ Ester-Jeen said, his tone implying the relationship of a superior to a petitioner. Coll let that pass, in his youth such a peremptory and disrespectful greeting would have drawn a challenge from him. He noted an unusual ornament on the man’s breast, a gold brooch worked in the shape of a tiny oval mask.

  ‘I was wondering, Ester-Jeen, just where is our illustrious leader? He doesn’t seem very interested in actually leading.’

  The man physically paled at Coll’s daring in giving voice to such disrespect. He dropped a gloved hand to the gilt rapier at his hip even though, as Coll knew, the councillor had never fought a duel. Then his eyes fluttered and the hand fell away as he seemed to remember that not only had Coll fought many duels but he was also a veteran of the Free Cities wars from years ago.

  He opted for a superior frosty glare. ‘The Legate is not required to sit here and be bored by the Council’s unending chatter. He will grant audience in the Great Hall for any official business.’

  ‘Audience?’ Coll repeated, outraged. Conversations surrounding them stilled. Coll glanced about, met many hostile, even some pitying, gazes. He lowered his voice. ‘Since when do we here in Darujhistan use such language as “audience”? And the Great Hall … we don’t use that. It’s considered …’ Coll searched for the right term, ‘well … cursed.’

  Having gauged the atmosphere of the room, Councillor Ester-Jeen was now quite at ease. No one, it appeared, was prepared to offer Coll any support whatsoever. The man was simply making a sad spectacle of his ignorance and isolation. Perhaps now, if he was very careful, he could even lure him into discrediting himself entirely. He spoke up, loudly. ‘If you have any legitimate business regarding matters before the Council then of course you may approach the Legate. Otherwise, Coll, I would suggest you not waste his time.’ And he offered a small shrug of embarrassment as if to say: I am very sorry to be the one to have to tell you this.

  He was gratified by the reaction his words elicited. The big man reared up as if slapped – which of course he had been – and his eyes widened, stunned. He glanced about at the gathered councillors and Ester-Jeen saw only flat gazes answering. Then Coll spun on his heels and marched for the doors. Ester-Jeen was delighted. He’s actually going to do it – the fool.

  When Coll pushed past Councillor Orr the young woman whispered through gri
tted teeth: ‘Don’t.’ But he was past listening. He could not let this stand. There was no way he could ever face any one of those present again unless he did exactly what that upstart useless popinjay wanted him to. He marched for the Great Hall.

  Majesty Hall itself was in truth a maze of halls and chambers and auditoriums, all of various sizes, ages, and levels of decrepitude. The Great Hall was among the most ancient of the hill’s architecture. It was sometimes used for ceremonial balls and mass assemblies. But other than that it stood empty and neglected, having a rather off-putting dusty air, quite similar to that of the equally old Despot’s Barbican.

  Coll found the double doors of panelled beaten copper and bronze, as tall as three men, unaccountably closed. Before them stood two city Wardens.

  ‘Open up,’ he snapped, not slowing in his headlong rush.

  The two shared helpless glances. Then, bowing to the inevitable, one threw open a small clerk’s door just before Coll brained himself on the polished copper panels. Coll was furious that he had to enter like some damned mouse but enter he did, ducking and stepping over the threshold. Within, he found the long hall lit by shafts of light streaming down from high openings. Motes hung in the shafts like the downy seeds of wild flowers over a sunny field. Other than that the Great Hall appeared empty. He walked slowly up its polished pink marble floor – recently dusted, he noted – his boot heels clicking loudly in the silence.

  Someone, or thing, waited at the far end. Some sort of large seat had been constructed of white stone blocks and someone sat upon it. He wore a long loose cloak of rich material, a deep maroon. But what was most mystifying was the large gold mask that entirely covered his face.

  The Queen-damned Legate has lost his gibbering mind.

  Coll stopped short of the – what should he call it? A dais? – and squinted up at the figure. ‘Lim? Is that you? What is all this ridiculous mummery?’

  The figure on the dais flicked a hand and out from the side of the hall shuffled an old man in dusty frayed clothes, grey hair all askew. The man bowed to Coll, and, nervously rubbing his hands at his chest, gulped, ‘I speak for the Legate.’

  ‘What? You?’ Coll turned on Lim. ‘Speak for your damned self!’ He drew breath to excoriate the fool but stopped; he saw that the gold mask, beaten in the design of a calm half-smiling face, had no holes in it whatsoever. None for eyes or mouth. How in Burn’s mysteries does the man breathe?

  A strange urge almost overcame Coll then to tear the mask from the fool’s face but he was distracted by the emergence of a second man from the side of the hall. A tall familiar figure walking with a staff of twisted gnarled wood. His one-time employer, High Alchemist Baruk.

  Relief flooded Coll. ‘Thank goodness … Baruk, what is all this nonsense?’

  The man came very close and Coll saw that the man was Baruk, yet not. A nest of pale scars skeined his face and hands and his lips were drawn back from his teeth in a savage gleeful smile. Yet only a dead sort of dismissal, if even that, animated his eyes.

  And suddenly Coll knew. He knew. All those whispered rumours and hearsay. The T’orrud Cabal. It was true. Baruk had been with them all along. And now, after all these years, they’d made their move and claimed power. He flinched away from this man whom he’d thought a friend. ‘You’ll never succeed,’ he breathed, feeling utterly empty inside. ‘The Cabal will be deposed. You will see.’

  Baruk shook his head, the smile broadening to become somehow even more fey. ‘You still don’t understand, Coll,’ he whispered, leaning close. ‘We’re here now because the Cabal failed.’

  The hamlet clinging on at the southern edge of the Dwelling Plain was on no map. Once every few years a caravan train of camels and mules passed by on its way south to Callows and Morn beyond. But other than such intermittent visitors only ill-advised travellers, the desperate, criminal, or utterly lost, ever found their way to such an isolated stretch of emptiness. The inhabitants, refugees mostly, peppered by a few hardened locals born and raised, were bent to their task of squeezing any sustenance out of the unproductive sandy soil. Those in the southernmost fields noted the strange phenomenon first: a dark snaking line coming out of the depths of the hard brush of the Plain of Lamatath to the south. A few stopped to peer, hands shading their eyes, then returned to hoeing and jabbing at the hard soil as if to beat it into submission.

  When next they looked up the line had drawn nearer, taken on more dimension in the shimmering heat-glare of the sun. A double file of men jogging, it looked like, no doubt on the move since the dawn and not stopping yet. Some leaned on their hoes to watch for a time, wondering at the bizarre sight. One or two thought that perhaps they ought to sound some sort of alarm. Though what any of them could do in the face of such an unprecedented visitation they were not sure.

  Close to noon, the sun at its highest, their unrelenting steady approach brought the file of men – and women – close enough now to make out details. Everyone had stopped working to watch, silent. Lightly armoured they were in leathers, those leathers now dark with sweat. All were armed with long blades, some carrying two. All lean, wiry and nut-dark. But these details were as nothing compared to their most extraordinary feature: all wore masks. And multicoloured they were too. Painted almost gayly.

  They could be faintly heard now. Their sandalled feet fell unusually light upon the dry hardpan, all in unison, like a distant drumming. The double file of men and women passed straight across the landscape, unwavering, arrow-like, pointed north-east. Without a pause each easily vaulted a heaped wall of fieldstone as they came to it. The sight made one farmer think of a stream of water flowing magically northward.

  And on they passed, none even sparing a glance for the closest of the farmers who stood not an arm’s reach aside. Apart from the beat of their footfalls, utterly silent. Ghost-like. Indeed, it was almost like a vision imposed by the heat. Only the dust remained to hang in the still air, the file now to the north, jogging onward, diminishing.

  Yet as the dust settled it revealed a newcomer. One of the masked. He’d stopped next to one of the children: young Hireth. Who stood staring up, mouth agape, water gourd in one hand. The man knelt, held out a hand for the gourd. Hireth’s father dared to edge slightly closer; the visitor seemed to ignore him. As if being shaken out of a daze Hireth snapped her mouth shut then held out the gourd. The man took it. He turned his head aside while he lifted his mask to drink, then rose and handed back the gourd. Something in his manner made her bend her knees in a curtsy. The man reached out to gently run a hand down one cheek of her bare upturned face. The father almost started forward then but something in the gentleness of the touch, its near reverence, made him stop. He watched spellbound, his pickaxe clenched in his sweaty hands. Jogging all the day under this sun and not even breathing hard! These are demons off on some summoned errand. Go now. Do not trouble us!

  And the stranger set off, running gracefully at a league-swallowing easy pace. Hireth’s father came to her. ‘Did he say anything, child?’

  She shook her head, as if she too had somehow been captured by the visitors’ spell of silence.

  He squeezed her shoulder to reassure her. So, he hadn’t spoken. Somehow he didn’t imagine the man, or demon, had. And he’d been different from the rest. His mask had been very pale, all creamy white it was. With only one smear of reddish dirt across the brow.

  CHAPTER X

  Let it be known that a number of centuries past an ambitious and expansionist dynasty of rulers named the Jannids asserted control over the southern city states. These rulers prosecuted successful campaigns across the lands gaining sway all the way north to the Pannion region. They were famous for having raised countless stelae upon which they ordered engraved the detailed histories of those campaigns listing their victories, together with exhaustive compilings of treasure taken, prisoners, and states humbled. Only in one campaign were they crushed – a defeat that triggered their downfall. This is known because of one unpolished boulder that lies on the we
stern shore south of Morn. Carved on it are a mere four words: ‘The Jannids fell here.’

  Histories of Genabackis

  Sulerem of Mengal

  THE FIRST VESSEL LEAVING DARUJHISTAN’S HARBOUR THAT MORNING was an old merchantman ferrying passengers and freight westward around the lakeshore. Upon sighting the ancient ship, its paint sun-faded to a uniform pale grey, sails patched and threadbare, sides battered and scraped to naked slivers, Torvald halted on the wharf. Passengers brushed past laden with rolled reed mats and bags of possessions. Some drove young sucklings ahead of them. Just about all carried fowl gobbling inside cages woven of reed and green branches.

  He turned on one of the city Wardens sent to escort him to the docks. ‘This is supposed to be a diplomatic mission,’ he hissed, struggling to keep his voice low. ‘I can’t go on this tub!’

  One of the guards tucked a folded pinch of leaves into a cheek and leaned against piled crates. ‘It’s a secret mission, Councillor,’ he drawled.

  Torvald tried his best superior glare but the fellow was clearly indifferent. ‘If it’s so secret then how come you know about it? And don’t call me Councillor.’

  A lazy roll of the shoulders from the man. ‘Orders.’

  Torvald began to wonder just what those orders were. See him from the city even if it means throwing him from the docks, perhaps. He picked up his heavy travelling bag and slipped its strap over a shoulder. ‘Fine. Secret. Tell your superiors you saw me off then,’ he said, and headed up the gangway.

  The small deck was crammed with goods. Pigs squealed, terrified, sheep bawled, and caged birds gabbled. All this did nothing for the state of the decking. The only available space was a suspiciously clear arc surrounding two figures sitting against the side close to the bow. Torvald could well understand the avoidance: one of them was a giant of a fellow with a massive tangle of hair and beard all unkempt together like a great mane of dirty blond and grey. His shoulders were titanic, his upper arms as massive as Torvald’s own thighs, and his chest swept out like a barrel. Torvald thought him perhaps a travelling strongman. The fellow next to him was a skinny Rhivi tribesman elder looking particularly frail in such company. To Torvald the two would have appeared a far more intimidating pair if the big fellow hadn’t been so clearly absorbed in studying the city, laid out pink and golden in the dawn’s light, climbing in cliff ridge over cliff ridge to Majesty Hill beyond. The old fellow was clearly sick as a dog, bleary-eyed and pale.