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

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ he would sometimes ask from where he squatted under a tree.

  ‘The old dead,’ she’d answer.

  ‘Aren’t you scared?’

  ‘No. They’re dead.’

  Befuddled, he’d throw up his hands. ‘Then – why aren’t they gone?’

  ‘Because they’re angry. Only anger is strong enough to keep the feet of the dead to the ground.’

  Then he would glower because secretly he was afraid. And as the months passed he began to pester her. ‘It isn’t safe,’ he’d say. ‘We shouldn’t be here.’

  And he was right. But not in the way either of them imagined.

  One night she sat on the edge of a choked swampy depression. She was speaking with the shade of a woman who’d been drowned here in what she claimed had once been a great reservoir. In those days, the spirit asserted, its waters had been clear and deeper than a tall man. Among the trees behind her, Hanu pretended he was one of the ancient warrior-kings as he swung a heavy branch.

  ‘Drowned?’ she asked. ‘What do you mean you were drowned?’

  ‘Heavy rocks were tied to me and I was thrown in,’ the shade replied.

  Saeng resisted the urge to curse. Sometimes the dead could be so literal. ‘I mean why were you drowned?’

  ‘I was a priestess of the old faith.’

  ‘The old faith? You mean—’ and Saeng lowered her voice, ‘the damned God-King?’

  ‘No,’ came the uninflected voice of the ghost. ‘Not him. It was at his orders that the temple was burned and I was slain. I speak of the ancient old religion. The worship of Light. The Great Sun.’

  Saeng leaped up from the edge of the swamp. For the first time something said by one of these shades seemed to touch her very heart.

  Hanu appeared at her side. ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

  Saeng’s hand had gone to her throat. ‘A spirit,’ she managed. By the ancients! Could Mother have been right all this time? ‘She claims to be a priestess of an old faith.’

  Hanu waved his contempt. ‘Which? They’re like flies.’

  But she held his gaze long and hard and eventually his brows crimped. ‘No…’ he breathed, and she nodded her certainty.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘The one Mother goes on about…?’

  ‘The same faith that runs in your blood,’ came the shade’s voice from behind and Saeng jumped once again. She turned on it. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Hanu demanded, peering about.

  The ghost raised an arm, pointing off into the jungle. ‘And now comes your time of trial and your time to choose. Remember all that we have taught.’

  Saeng stared her confusion. ‘What? Taught? What do you mean?’

  The woman clasped her hands before her and it seemed to Saeng that she was peering down at her as if she were her own daughter. ‘Really, child. You did not think that you were called for no reason, did you?’

  ‘What is it?’ Hanu whispered, insistent.

  ‘Called?’ But the shade dispersed like smoke. Saeng turned to her brother. ‘It seemed to suggest that something is coming.’

  Hanu frowned, considering. ‘The Choosing is approaching,’ he murmured.

  Of course. The Choosing. Suddenly her heart tripped as if a grip were attempting to stop it. ‘You mustn’t go.’

  He snorted. ‘It’s required, Saeng. We’ll all be arrested if I’m not seen. Ancients, all our neighbours will see to that!’

  Saeng knew what he meant. It was an ugly truth, but better one of another family be chosen than one of theirs.

  * * *

  A month later the great travelling column of the ruling Thaumaturgs swung through their province. And eventually a representative arrived even at their insignificant village. He came escorted by twenty soldiers and carried in a great palanquin of lacquered wood shaded by white silks.

  Saeng watched from next to her mother among the villagers crowded together by the sharp proddings of the soldiers’ sticks while the menfolk of age lined up for the Choosing. She was apprehensive for Hanu, but not overly so, as it had been years since any son of the village had been selected for service.

  The palanquin was lowered and the theurgist stepped out. He was dressed exquisitely in rich layered silks of deepest sea blue and blossom gold, and was rather fat about the middle, and short. Yet he held the all-important ivory baton of office, which he carried negligently in one ringed hand, swinging it back and forth.

  It occurred to Saeng that the man was bored with his task and was merely going through the motions for the sake of ritual. A great churning hatred for him overtook her – a hatred she imagined just as strong as his for their downtrodden poverty, their mud-spattered cheap rags, and the responsibilities that took him away from his scheming at the capital deep in the heart of their nation.

  He paced a quick inspection of the assembled menfolk then headed back to the cool shade of his palanquin.

  Saeng eased out a taut breath of relief; yet again no one had been chosen. Once more their distant dreaded rulers had come, collected their taxation and tribute, examined the males of the village, and marched on never to be seen again until another year turned upon the wheel of their grinding fate.

  The representative paused, however. He swung the baton up to tap upon one shoulder next to the fat folds of his shaven neck. He turned and padded back to the assembly where he slowly retraced his steps, once more passing before the men, one by one. When he came abreast of Hanu he paused. The ivory baton, gold-chased, bounced heavily upon his shoulder. He leaned forward as if sniffing her elder brother, then suddenly rocked back as if thrust.

  His head turned and his black narrowed eyes scanned the crowd of villagers, Saeng included. Then his thick jowls bunched as he smiled with something like cruel satisfaction and he thrust out his baton to touch Hanu upon the chest. Their mother lurched forward crying out but Saeng caught her arm and held her.

  Hanu’s stunned gaze found hers. As the soldiers closed in and tied his arms, he stared, silent, until they urged him onward. Then he twisted to peer back over his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry – I’ll protect you! I swore! I swore!’ he called over and over until the soldiers yanked upon his fetters.

  Their mother cried into her arms, but Saeng watched while the soldiers prodded her brother off. She had to watch; she owed him that. The theurgist, whoever he was, some minor bureaucrat of their ruling elite, had returned to his palanquin. Saeng finally lost sight of her brother as he was urged up the track to disappear with the column into the hanging leaves of the jungle as if swallowed whole.

  At that moment, as she stood supporting her mother, she vowed her revenge upon them all. Upon their crushing rule, their contempt, and upon the blood-price they exacted from their own people. Who were they to make such demands? To impose such suffering and misery?

  She would see them burn. So did she swear.

  Yet all the while a quieter voice whispered a suspicion that burned like acid upon her soul: Would he not have been chosen but for your own castings upon him? Was not this all your fault?

  * * *

  Shimmer happened to be at the waterfront when a battered vessel came limping up to one of the piers of Haven. She sensed something unusual about it, though she was no mage with access to any Warren. Nevertheless, she was of the Avowed of the Crimson Guard, and more than a hundred years ago she had sworn to oppose the Malazan Empire for so long as it should endure. And over the years it seemed that this vow had caused preternatural instincts and strengths to accrue to her. She could now sense things far beyond what she could before. Such as this modest two-masted ship; or rather, those it carried. Something was there. No mere lost coastal traders, or fisherfolk thrown off course. Power walked its deck. Despite wearing only a loose shirt over trousers, belted, with a long-knife at her back, she went down to meet the vessel.

  They were certainly foreign. Of no extraction she was familiar with: hair night-black and straight; squat of build, clos
e even to her own petite stature. And dark, varying from a fair nut hue to a sun-darkened earthy brown. Their vessel flew no sigils or heraldry. It appeared to have had a very hard crossing of it. The crew busied themselves readying for docking and though no sailor herself she thought the ship’s company quite lacking in hands. The various lads and lasses who hung about the Haven waterfront took thrown lines and helped in the placement of a wood and rope gangway.

  First down was an arresting figure of a woman: shorter even than Shimmer, and painfully lean. Her hair blew in a great midnight cloud about her head and she wore a loose black dress that obscured her feet. Some sort of binding encircled her arms and from each hung bright amulets and charms. More amulets hung on multiple leather thong necklaces to rattle like a forest of baubles.

  After running a sceptical eye up and down Shimmer she announced in passable Talian: ‘You are no customs official.’

  ‘And you’re no ship’s captain.’ Another figure stepped up on to the gangway, yanking Shimmer’s attention away from the woman: a towering man in layered shirts, a curved dirk at his side. He too was dark, like the woman, as the Kanese can be, skin the hue of ironwood rather than the black of Dal Hon. He too wore his hair long, but gathered atop his head by some sort of carved stone clasp. The thick timbers of the gangway groaned and bounced as he descended.

  After looking Shimmer up and down, he rumbled, ‘She is of them.’ His gaze was not challenging, yet something of his eyes made her uneasy: the irises glittered as if dusted in gold.

  The woman’s gaze sharpened, a sudden wariness touching it. ‘Ah. I see it now. I was fooled – no Isturé would have deigned to appear so … informal.’

  Shimmer frowned, and not only at being discussed as if she were not standing right before these two foreigners. And that word … why did it grate like a dull blade across her back?

  Yet with Blues gone north she was the acting governor and so she inclined her head, all politeness. ‘I’m sorry, but you have me at a disadvantage. What was that you said?’

  ‘Isturé. It is our word for you in our lands.’

  ‘Us…?’

  The woman did not even try to disguise her distaste. ‘You Avowed. It translates as something like “undying fiend”.’

  Shimmer reflexively retreated a step and her hand went to her long-knife at her back. ‘What do you two want here?’

  The woman opened her hands in a gesture of apology. ‘Forgive my ill-temper. I have been set a task that finds in me a reluctant servant. We come with an offer for you Crimson Guard.’

  Shimmer relaxed her stance a touch. Behind the two foreigners the sailors climbed the rigging to prepare the ship for the repairs of a port call. They worked barefoot, the soles of their feet black with tar. ‘An offer?’ she answered, doubtful. ‘What would that be?’

  ‘Employment.’

  She understood now, and she shook her head. ‘We are no longer accepting contracts.’

  ‘Well, perhaps that is for your general to decide. K’azz.’

  ‘He’s not … seeing potential employers right now.’

  ‘He will see us.’

  ‘I doubt that very—’

  ‘There is an inn, or hostel, here in this hamlet?’

  Shimmer gritted her teeth against her annoyance at being interrupted. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you stayed on your vessel…’

  ‘I think not. I am quite as sick of it as they are of me.’

  That I can well understand. ‘If you insist.’ She invited them onward. ‘We have an inn with some few plain rooms … but I cannot guarantee they will take you.’

  The woman’s smile was a wolfish flash of needle ivory teeth. ‘Our gold is good, and innkeepers are the same breed everywhere.’

  As they climbed the gentle slope up to the hamlet Shimmer introduced herself.

  ‘Rutana,’ the woman answered. She gestured back to the man who followed with slow deliberate steps. ‘This is Nagal.’

  ‘And where are you from?’

  She snorted a harsh laugh. ‘A land close to this but of which you would never have heard.’

  Shimmer’s patience hadn’t been tested like this for some time. ‘Try me,’ she managed to offer lightly.

  ‘Very well. We come from the land known to some as Jacuruku.’

  Despite her irritation Shimmer was impressed. ‘Indeed. I know it. I haven’t been there, but K’azz has.’

  ‘So I have been told. You will take a message to K’azz for us.’

  Shimmer’s irritation gave way to wonder at the woman’s breathtaking imperiousness. ‘Oh?’ she answered. ‘Will I?’

  ‘Yes. You will.’

  ‘And what is that message?’

  Rutana stopped. She scowled, as if only now noting something in Shimmer’s tone. She tugged on the tight lacing of the leather straps cinching her left arm and winced as if at an old nagging wound. Shimmer noted that the amulets knotted there were small triangular boxes each of which appeared to contain some sort of tiny carved figurine. ‘Skinner walks our land,’ the woman finally ground out. ‘Tell him that, Isturé. The curse that is Skinner walks our land.’

  * * *

  Later, Shimmer summoned Lor-sinn and Gwynn to discuss their visitors. At table Gwynn maintained his grim and dour demeanour, dressed all in black, saying little and smiling even less. His newly grown shock of white hair stood in all directions. Shimmer could very easily imagine the man spending even his free time sitting stiffly while he glowered into the darkness rather like a corpse presiding gloomily at its own wake. The second of her company mages present, Lor-sinn, was still obviously uncomfortable sitting so close to Shimmer among the seats normally occupied by Blues, Fingers, Shell, or the recently departed Smoky. Having the opportunity to study her more closely now, Shimmer thought that the woman was slowly but steadily losing the plumpness that had endeared her to so many of the company’s males.

  As servants brought soup Shimmer turned to Lor. ‘You are continuing to attempt to contact the Fourth in Assail?’

  ‘Yes, Commander.’

  ‘Shimmer will do.’

  ‘Yes, ah, Shimmer.’ She leaned forward over the table, ever eager to discuss her work. ‘My last effort was last week. I could try opening a portal if you wish…’

  ‘I would not risk that, Lor. Not into Assail. Nothing so drastic as yet. We will see what K’azz thinks.’ She turned to Gwynn. ‘And our friends the First?’

  The humourless mage – who only seemed to be getting even gloomier – studied his soup as if it were something unrecognizable. ‘As our visitors claim. Jacuruku still, Commander.’

  ‘Just Shimmer, please.’

  Gwynn bowed his head, then, as if reordering his thoughts, he set down his utensils, sighing. He cradled his chin on his fists. ‘This Rutana is a servant of ancient Ardata. Whom some name the Queen of Witches.’

  Shimmer nodded. She tasted the soup and found it pleasant. She set down her spoon. The servants slipped the main entrée of roasted game birds before them. She inhaled the steaming birds’ scent then sat back to meet Gwynn’s glistening steady gaze. ‘Yet you assure me they are enemies of Skinner.’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Then your point?’

  ‘They are here to draw us into their war. And, Commander, I have been there. I have seen it. And I strongly counsel against this.’

  ‘I see. Thank you for that blunt appraisal.’ She turned to Lor. ‘And you?’

  The mage shrugged her still-rounded shoulders. ‘It remains academic. No one even knows where in the interior K’azz has disappeared to.’

  Shimmer lowered her gaze to the small baked game hen. She plucked at the crisp skin. ‘I will send the message through our dead Brethren. They will find him.’

  ‘He may not bother to reply,’ Gwynn added.

  A touch too blunt, Shimmer thought, her lips tightening in irritation. ‘We shall see.’

  * * *

  Much later, Shimmer stood in the centre of her chambers. It was the set of
rooms which had once belonged to the old lord and ladies of the dynasty that had ruled this province as one of the petty kingdoms of Stratem before the arrival of the Crimson Guard. Officially it was Blues’, as it was his rotation as governor, and it would be K’azz’s should he be visiting. Not that whichever of the Avowed occupied the room would have altered anything. The furnishings remained sparse: a cot for a bed and a desk for paperwork. That was all. And a travel chest containing Shimmer’s armour. As for her whipsword, it hung in the main hall downstairs.

  Studying the empty room, its walls of dressed stone, the dusty old tapestries that dated back to the original dynasty, that hung rotting where the Guard had found them, her thoughts returned to her irritation at dinner. It was not Gwynn and his clumsy manners; no, it was K’azz’s absence. The man was avoiding something and what that might be worried her. At times what personal vanity she had left fancied he was avoiding her. At other times she cursed the man for running away from his responsibilities. It was damned hard work struggling to build a unified nation from the ground up. Roads had to be surveyed, bridges built, settlements planned. Things couldn’t be allowed to fall out haphazardly. And the man had walked away from the dull dreariness of it all – leaving others to clean up the mess. That irresponsibility had lowered her estimation of him a fair bit. She shook herself, frowning at the dark. In any case, he had to be contacted. She summoned the Brethren to her.

  Shortly, a ghostly shape coalesced within the room, lean, bandy-legged, right arm gone at the elbow: Stoop, their old siegemaster, recently lost to them. The shade offered a slight inclination of his head. ‘Shimmer,’ he breathed, and she was surprised to actually hear the word pronounced.