‘What?’ Barathol asked, his own mood not improved by the youth’s superior airs.
‘You are summoned to the installation. Immediately.’
He half turned away. ‘In a minute. I’m just making a meal.’
‘Immediately,’ the young man repeated, emphasizing each syllable. Lifting his head he directed Barathol’s attention to his companions. Barathol peered out to see two Seguleh standing on the road, masked, swords at their hips.
Ah. So that’s how it is. The new cock of the roost. So be it. No business of mine.
He gave the clerk a slow nod. ‘Very well. I’ll get my gear.’
Barathol watched the faces of the passers-by as the little party walked the streets. At first there’d been jubilation. The average citizen now thought himself unassailable. Now, as the Seguleh went abroad to enforce the Legate’s will it seemed to him that a few people had finally – belatedly – begun to wonder. Just who did these swordsmen protect the city from? They limited themselves to guarding within the walls, atop Majesty Hill, and in the throne room itself. Protecting the ruler from … whom? Well, to his mind, from the ruled, of course. Perhaps this mounting suspicion was behind the worried, even pitying, glances that followed him. Could I be next? some seemed to wonder.
The worksite was guard by four Seguleh. Ducking into the tent Barathol found the two mages already present, awaiting him impatiently. ‘Begin at once,’ the tall one, Barukanal, commanded, motioning to the forge with his staff. Barathol rolled down his sleeves and donned his thick leather apron.
And who were these two anyway? Advisers? Hirelings? Surely not servants, as some believed. Yet why should such obviously powerful mages advise a mere Darujhistani aristocrat, mask or not? Unless, as others hinted, dark pacts were sealed, deals struck, and powers granted. To Barathol’s mind these more ominous speculations ran closer to whatever might be the truth of things.
He took over at the bellows from the worker who was prepping the coals. After pumping, he picked up a bar to stir the bed, testing the heat by holding his hand over the glowing pile.
‘This is your last pour,’ the hunched mage told him from the entrance.
Barathol eyed the man’s warped puzzle-piece face. A warning?
‘I go now to deal with those fools at K’rul’s,’ the hunched one told Barukanal.
‘I will finish things here,’ Barukanal answered.
Barathol straightened from the forge. K’rul’s? The Malazans? How to warn them? And finish things here? What did he mean by that?
Both now watched him, their eyes glittering in the glow of the forge. ‘Get back to work,’ the hunched one, Aman, told him and ducked from the tent.
Barathol reluctantly turned to nurturing the bed. Well, if anyone could handle themselves, it was those Bridgeburners. They hardly needed his help. He thought of that chaotic night not so many months ago. Antsy guiding him and his friend, poor dying Chaur, to that eerie structure on Coll’s estate. Do I not owe him more than I can ever repay?
He turned from the forge, wiping the sweat from his face. ‘I’m going for a bite,’ he announced. ‘The bed needs to heat yet.’
The mage did not move from the entrance. He leaned on his tall warped staff. ‘You will remain until the pour is done. Such are my orders.’
‘There is nothing I can do here for a while.’
A grimace twisted the mage’s face and he said, his voice tight and impatient with something that might have been pain, ‘The blacksmith’s sand awaits. I believe you have a mould to form?’
Barathol regarded the table, turned aside. ‘If I must.’ Well, I tried. After that blast they must know what to expect anyway.
After packing and setting the mould, checking the bed’s heat again, he set the ceramic crucible into the coals and heaped them up around. The bits and pieces of silver went in next. Barathol crowded his elbow through the entire process.
As the silver melted Barathol skimmed the slag of impurities from the top. It was hardly demanding work. The mould was uncomplicated, open-faced. Not like a lost-wax pour where so many little things could go wrong.
Outside in the night the picks and shovels had gone silent. The stones were set and ready for their pins.
Once the liquid silver reached the mark scratched into the glowing wall of the crucible, Barathol readied the bars he would use to lift and tilt the vessel. At that moment the mage’s hand shot out like a viper to grasp his wrist. He pulled against the grip but couldn’t free himself. And Barathol was a strong man; among the strongest. Not even his younger brother Kalam could beat him.
The mage’s other hand came up with a short wicked blade. ‘Blood from the forger of the links,’ he whispered, close. ‘Such will strengthen the circle immeasurably.’
Barathol raised the bars to smash the man across the head but the mage clenched his grip ferociously and he groaned from the agony of the grinding bones. Ye gods, this creature could pinch my hand off like a petal!
The mage slashed the blade across Barathol’s numb wrist then held the wound over the crucible. Drops fell hissing and dancing.
‘Do not be upset,’ the creature murmured. ‘Aman would have taken the offering from your throat.’ He released him and moved to one side. ‘Now pour. Quickly.’
Working his hand, Barathol readied the bars. He pinched the crucible between their jaws. Grunting, he lifted the vessel and swung it to where the moulds waited. He poured until the level of the first swelled just above the lip of the mould where surface tension kept it from spilling, then moved to the second.
Finished, Barathol set the crucible on its stand to cool and stood back to wipe the sweat from his face. Blood dripped freely from his wrist. He washed his hands in the quenching water.
From where he was bent over the smoking moulds, the mage said, ‘Go now. Do not return. Your work is done.’
Barathol merely grunted. He wrapped his wounded wrist in a rag then pushed his way from the tent. In the trench the final two white stones waited end to end. The tips of the installation coming together to form one perfect infinite circle. Briefly Barathol wondered what this structure might be meant to enclose or foreclose. Was it to keep inviolate what lay within? Or was it to keep ineffective that which lay without?
No matter. It was no longer his concern. If it came to it he could simply do as Scillara suggested and pack up the family to go. He turned away, flexing his wrist. He’d had enough of all this. His concern now, was just the small circle of his family.
The uncomfortable echoes within that thought haunted him all the way down the hill.
Lady Envy was with her maid and dressmaker when a servant announced, ‘Someone is at the door, m’lady.’
Arms held outstretched, the dressmaker measuring a length of cloth against one, her maid’s hands in her freshly washed hair, Lady Envy stared at the man. ‘Well – answer it, you great oaf!’
The servant bowed from the waist and shuffled backwards, head lowered.
He returned accompanied by three Seguleh.
Lady Envy beamed. She drew her dressing gown tighter about her and shooed away her servants. The three remained immobile, tensed, hands close to their weapons, their attention everywhere but on her. Envy crossed the room, a hand at her lips. ‘How very thoughtful of Lim!’ she exclaimed. ‘Three new ones! The old ones had become rather battered.’
One turned – her! What a disappointment! – mask to give Envy a superior glance. Haughtiness? Was that haughtiness being turned upon me?
‘We have been warned against you, Envy,’ the Seguleh woman said. ‘Your enchantments hold no more power over us. The Second has knelt and we are bound by links far stronger than any you can forge.’
Envy fiddled at the knot of her gown. ‘What nonsense is this? Links?’
‘Where is he, sorceress?’
Envy seemed to have just discovered her wet hair; she began twining the length. ‘I’m sorry … where is who?’
‘The renegade. We know he is with you. Where is he
?’
‘Renegade? Whatever are you—’ But the three turned aside, dismissing her.
Oh really, this is too much!
Thurule had entered. The three fanned out facing him. The one who had spoken made a small gesture with her left hand, turning it palm up as if in interrogation. Thurule’s masked face seemed to drop ever so slightly. Perhaps it was the light, but it appeared as if his dark eyes behind the mask were blinking rapidly.
‘Choose!’ the woman commanded.
Carefully, Thurule raised a hand to his mask and peeled it away. The face revealed beneath appeared surprisingly youthful. He released the mask to let it fall before him then raised his sandalled foot and pressed down upon it. The mask shattered into powder and painted shards. His own face seemed to splinter in the act.
Ceramic, Envy marvelled. They are ceramic.
The three Seguleh relaxed, hands easing slightly from their weapons. Without a word they turned and left.
Envy crossed her arms and regarded Thurule. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Whatever am I to do with you now?’
‘Whatever you wish,’ the man said, speaking the first words she had ever heard from him. He wouldn’t raise his gaze from the fragments littering the polished floor.
She hugged her chilled shoulders. ‘Well … you have rather lost that certain mysterious cachet I kept you for, I must say.’ She bit at a finger with perfect white teeth. ‘I’m going to have to let you go, Thurule.’
The man’s brows clenched as he bowed. ‘I understand. I am unworthy. ’
Oh, Dark Mother! Please! She turned away, snapping her fingers. ‘Palley! Where are you? My hair is drying! The court awaits me!’
Her maid rushed back into the room. When Envy glanced back the man was gone. Thank the false gods! Really. How positively embarrassing.
Madrun and Lazan Door were tossing dice against the steps of Lady Varada’s estate house when four masked Seguleh entered the compound. The two shared knowing looks as Lazan scooped up the dice.
‘Our taciturn kin approach,’ Madrun rumbled. ‘Perhaps we too should remain silent as well. We could stare at one another till the gods pack up the world and return from whence they came.’
‘And these would yet remain none the wiser,’ Lazan answered. ‘No, reflections of themselves these understand all too well.’ They straightened to meet the arrivals, the giant Madrun in his clashing patchwork clothes looming over all. ‘You are bold burglars, sirs,’ Lazan greeted them.
‘You two are known to us,’ one said. ‘Cause no trouble and you may remain.’
‘This is of no help,’ Madrun complained to Lazar. ‘Trouble has so many facets.’
‘Stand aside. We are here to search the premises.’
‘Does doing our job constitute trouble?’ Lazar enquired, smiling, revealing his silver-tipped gold teeth.
The four spread out. The spokesman stepped forward. Olive green dominated the swirls painted upon his mask. From the pattern Madrun and Lazan Door knew him to be of the Four Hundredth. ‘I shall enter,’ he said calmly. ‘If you interfere my companions will act. Is this clear enough even for you?’
Madrun raised his hand. ‘A moment, please. If you would. Am I to understand, then, that you mean to enter while your companions wait, poised, in case we should attempt to stop you? Is that what you are trying to explain?’
The spokesman remained silent for some time. From behind his mask his gaze stabbed between the two, blazing. He drew breath to speak again, reconsidered, and clamped his jaws against it. His hand went to his sword.
‘Gentlemen and lady …’ a sibilant voice quavered from the doorway, ‘may I direct your attention to what I have here?’
All turned to face the doorway where Studious Lock floated amid his gauzy layers of tattered wrap. He held in one rag-covered hand a glass sphere containing a dark mist. ‘Spores of the Even-tine fungus. Known as the Mind-gnawer among the clans of the northern Odhan. Inhaled, they germinate within sending fibres stealing up into the brain and releasing pathogens that render the poor victim insane … before killing him … or her. My companions have of course been consuming an inoculating chemical regularly. I myself am immune for reasons I need not expound here.’
Inoculating chemical? Madrun mouthed to Lazan.
‘So, gentleman … and lady,’ Studlock added, nodding to the female Seguleh, ‘will you enter?’
The spokesman eased his hand from his sword. ‘We shall not press the matter now, Studious. But we shall return.’
‘Please do so. I look forward to expounding on yet another of my preparations. Or, perhaps, remaining silent and exploring the results in dissection. Always most edifying, that.’
The spokesman bowed, keeping his eyes upon Madrun and Lazan, then backed away.
Once the four had left, the gazes of the two guards swung to Studlock. The giant Madrun’s carried a degree of alarm. Lazan’s held grudging approval. ‘Well played,’ he murmured. ‘That orb, I presume, holds nothing of the kind.’
Studious, who had been admiring the object, now blinked at Lazan from behind his gauzy mask. ‘What’s that? Nothing of the kind? Not at all. It holds precisely that.’ And he threw it down to shatter on the steps.
Both guards leapt from the vicinity.
A good five paces off Madrun straightened his vest and the billowing frilled shirt beneath it and cleared his throat. ‘This inoculating chemical you mentioned, Studious. It’s efficacy is beyond reproach, yes?’
The castellan was examining the stone steps. ‘What’s that?’ He waved a wrapped hand. ‘Oh, that. There is no known antidote.’
‘No known …’ The gazes of the two met across the thirty feet between them. Lazan slapped his hand over his nose and capped teeth.
‘Well, that should be the end of them,’ Studlock announced, satisfied.
‘End of who?’ the giant Madrun fairly squeaked.
The castellan gazed at him, his masked head tilted. ‘Why, the ants of course! What else? Even-tine spores affect only them.’ He floated back inside. ‘Didn’t I say that?’
The two regarded one another for a time in silence. Lazan eased out his long-held breath. He raised a hand and shook it, rattling the dice. ‘The bones didn’t see that,’ he commented.
Madrun nodded in profound agreement. ‘Yes. Spores. Much too small to be seen.’
They took turns keeping watch at the ruined door to the bar. A barrier of a table and heaped chairs blocked it. A few of the regulars had banged on the table to be let in and Picker nearly speared one fellow who refused to believe the bar was actually closed and tried to climb in over the chairs.
Two days after the Seguleh entered town Blend was watching the street from a front window when she called out, ‘Trouble!’
Spindle snatched up his makeshift spear and ran for the front. He peered out between the slats they’d hammered across the window: the hunched mage, Aman, across the way. With him were several Seguleh. Spindle glanced back over his shoulder. The historian sat at his usual place. Picker had run for the rear. The bard was out. ‘Hood. We are so dead,’ he groaned.
He set aside the spear to pick up one of the readied crossbows. Blend did the same. ‘Raise your Warren,’ she told him.
‘My Warren’s no use here.’
Blend sent a scornful look from her window. ‘Your Warren’s never of any damned use. What about your other help?’
He was silent for a time, considering. Blend fired through the window. ‘The next one won’t miss!’ she bellowed. ‘Stay away!’
The mage, or whatever he was, Aman, remained across the street, watching, while the Seguleh advanced. Duiker came to Spindle’s side. ‘I’m unarmed. Perhaps I could talk to them …’
‘You could try,’ Spindle told him; then, to Blend, ‘My other help says we’re not alone here.’ He was forced to fire on an advancing Seguleh. The woman knocked the bolt aside with her blade. Gods damn! From only twenty feet away, too.
‘What are your terms?’ Duiker called from the
scorched doorway.
‘Your heads are my terms,’ the mage shouted back.
A scream of surprise and terror sounded from the rear and Blend jumped. Picker? She threw down the crossbow and ran for the door to the pantry and kitchen. Duiker took her place, thrusting with a spear. He drew the haft back, surprised, to examine its cleanly severed end.
As Blend reached the door it was thrust open to reveal a Seguleh. She swung, her blade biting into the man’s chest. He responded by grasping her arm and twisting. She buckled, hissing her pain and leaving the long-knife standing from the man’s leather-armoured chest.
Spindle stared, then sniffed the air. Vinegar? Blades hacked at the wooden slats behind him. ‘Hey – it’s them pickled fellows from downstairs!’
Picker rushed out from behind the preserved Seguleh. She twisted its grip from Blend’s wrist and it moved on, ignoring them. Spindle and Duiker retreated from the front where the living Seguleh were pushing back the barrier, and watched in disbelief as three more of the slow-walking, deliberate creatures emerged from the rear and took up defensive positions with the one Bland had stabbed: two at the front and two others holding the windows. The rest Spindle assumed were covering the back. At the entrance the two attacking Seguleh thrust and cut so beautifully he could only watch, awed. But their preserved – undead? – brethren, while slower, possessed the insurmountable advantage of already being dead. And so blades sliced into leathery hardened flesh to no visible effect and the attackers could make no headway.
As the assault wore on it looked to Spindle as if their protectors would be literally hacked to pieces, so he went behind the bar to collect his kitbag. Then he jumped up on to a table in full view of the entrance, he pulled out a wrapped object, shook off the layer of insulating cloth and held over his head his last remaining cusser. ‘See this?’ he shouted.
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) Page 236