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

‘Yes, Lieutenant?’

  The giant’s tangled dark brows climbed his lined forehead. ‘Lieutenant? Nay. Just Scarza I am and Scarza I remain. I hold to none of these absurd pomposities of rank – my prince.’

  Jatal crooked a smile at the man’s slanting irreverence and reined Ash in. ‘Speaking only for yourself, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What news then? Any further sightings of our damned Agon friends?’

  A hand the size of a shovel rose to rub wide unshaven jowls. ‘None at all. Keeping as low as the scorpions, them.’

  ‘How appropriate too.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  Jatal regarded the man for a time. Of Thelomen blood? Or the ones named Toblakai? ‘And where are you from, Scarza?’

  ‘From my mother, m’lord. Bless her bounteous bosom. In the meantime, sir, the Warleader requests your presence in an insignificant fleabite of a village east of here, if you would. There is something there he believes may be of interest to you, as a scholar and such.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, Scarza-who-eschews-all-rank.’

  The man flashed his formidable canines. ‘Eschews? Too fancy a word by far for this lowly Scarza. I’ll show you the way, m’lord.’

  * * *

  Village was far too generous a description for the wretched cluster of rundown shabby huts. They passed Thaumaturg chattels who merely paused in their field labours, heads bowed and shoulders stooped, before returning to their tasks. The Warleader awaited them amid his honour-guard of twenty Adwami knights selected from the various tribes. Bowing, the bodyguards eased their mounts aside to make room for Jatal. The Warleader sat leaning forward on the horn of his saddle. He directed Jatal’s attention to the simple mechanism of a muscle-powered grain mill. Only, this being Thaumaturg land, the mechanism was not so simple. Instead of a mule or an ox providing the muscle powering the arm that turned the stone to grind the seed, it was the massive legs, broad back, and trunk-like arms of a man, who, had he lived in any other land, would no doubt be a champion wrestler or fighter.

  The Warleader gestured to the figure as it continued its endless round fettered to the wooden arm of the mill, strangely unconcerned despite the troop of foreign cavalry crowded around. ‘The work of the Thaumaturgs,’ the Warleader said. ‘Know you of their … creations?’

  The unease coiling in Jatal’s stomach tightened. He had in fact grown up hearing the stories brought back by the generations of his forebears’ raids into these lands. Tales of humans bred or distorted by the Thaumaturgs to serve certain … needs. Most of his brethren, he knew, laughed at such accounts, dismissing them as mere bedtime stories meant to scare children. Jatal, however, had read written narratives penned by travellers from disparate regions and times, all of which mentioned such research – and universally condemned the practice and its products.

  The sight of the broad back of the unfortunate as he continued his eternal labouring circle raised a fluttering unease within Jatal. Vague recollections of some of the descriptions he’d read returned as half-glimpsed horrors – many too dreadful to believe. Meanwhile, the human dray animal paced on, his head hanging, his long hair filthy and crawling with vermin – just like any neglected mule or ox. Jatal swallowed his disquiet, murmuring, ‘I have read first-hand accounts…’

  The Warlord grunted his satisfaction and waved Scarza forward. ‘Bring him to us.’

  The half-Thelomen or Trell sized the man up – fully as massive as he – and his hand went to his shortsword.

  ‘Unnecessary, good Scarza, I assure you. You’ll find the fellow fully as gentle as any cow or sheep.’

  The giant cocked a sceptical eye to the Warleader then shrugged his compliance. He stepped on to the beaten circular track to stand in the way of the fellow as he came around on yet another pass. The wooden arm swung around and struck him in the stomach, bouncing, then paused as the chattel stopped his pacing. The constant background grumbling of the mortar stones stilled.

  ‘You’ll come with me now,’ Scarza said gently. ‘No one intends you any harm.’

  The man didn’t answer. Nor did he even raise his head. He was filthy, unwashed, his simple rag loinwrap rotting off him. Scarza looked to the Warleader for guidance.

  ‘Untie him.’

  Scarza unwrapped the leather straps that secured the man’s hands to the wooden arm. It occurred to Jatal that those straps and that arm, no more than a tree branch, were in no way adequate to imprison such a brute. The lieutenant led him by those straps to the Warleader.

  ‘Lift his head,’ the Warleader said.

  Even the half-breed betrayed a hesitation born of unease, yet he obeyed, using his hand to push the man’s chin up.

  Jatal winced and the bodyguards cursed their surprise and disgust. The poor fellow’s eyes were no more than empty pits where the ends of tendons and muscles writhed.

  ‘Open his mouth,’ the Warleader ordered in a strange sort of calm detachment, as if he were examining some curious insect or piece of artwork and not a man at all. Scarza’s great expanse of chest lifted as he took a steadying breath, but he did comply. He squeezed the man’s cheeks, forcing his jaws apart.

  Jatal glimpsed within the emptiness of the cavity of his mouth then quickly averted his gaze. The poor unfortunate’s tongue also had been carved away.

  ‘Now lift his hair from his forehead, Scarza. Push it back.’

  ‘That is quite enough,’ Jatal breathed shakily.

  The Warleader somehow trapped Jatal’s averted gaze. His stare was strangely compelling, his dark eyes almost hidden within the tight folds of his tanned features, his mouth bracketed by severe lines. For a moment, the image of a mask occurred to Jatal. He fancied that the flesh of the Warleader’s face was itself a mask and that what lay beneath was not human. ‘That is certainly not enough, young prince. This is only the beginning. Turn and look upon the handiwork of the Thaumaturgs. This is what they would intend for you.’ He nodded curtly to Scarza, who thrust back the slave’s hair.

  Beginning near the temples lay twin pearly scars. Each traced lines up the sides of the man’s forehead to disappear up amid his hairline. Jatal squinted his puzzlement. ‘What is this?’

  ‘You have heard, no doubt,’ said the Warleader, ‘of those who have endured head wounds that have left them behaving oddly? Forgetful? Even mindless?’

  His gaze still on the disfigured face of the slave, Jatal nodded. ‘Yes. I have read treatises from chirurgeons and mediciners speculating upon the head as the seat of some aspects of personality.’

  ‘Just so, my prince. This man still has a sort of intelligence – he can stand, probably eat what is given him. And no doubt follow simple orders. But his essence, his identity as an individual capable of initiative and self-awareness, has been taken from him. Our Thaumaturgs view flesh as you view clay or wood – to be shaped as required. And what we see here is a mild example of the true depths of their … research.’

  Something more than disgust churned acid in Jatal’s stomach. He knew these things intellectually of course … but to be confronted with the reality – in the flesh, as they say – made him feel threatened on a level far more intimate than any mundane enemy. It felt as if what these Thaumaturgs practised somehow endangered his own distinctiveness, his claim to uniqueness as a human being. It made him shiver to his core. And we are riding into this asylum?

  He pulled his gaze away with a shudder.

  ‘What should we do with him?’ the Warleader asked, again his neutral tone suggesting that what they discussed was no more than the fate of a sack of grain or a hog.

  Jatal wanted to draw his sword and hack the perverted thing to pieces. He forced himself to take a calming breath. This unfortunate, abhorrent though he might be, was in fact the victim. Destroying him would solve nothing. It was the inhuman authors of his suffering who ought to be eliminated: these Thaumaturgs – but that was not their mission. Jatal shifted his attention to the Warleader to find the man studying him with a steady
gaze, as if he were the true subject of all this. ‘Killing him would be pointless. But we cannot let him be seen.’ Jatal paused, searching for the right words. ‘It would cause … unease … within the ranks.’

  The Warleader nodded curtly. ‘I concur. He should be disposed of – even though such things will become ever more common as we advance. Regardless, better to delay such discoveries for as long as possible.’ He waved to Scarza. ‘Get rid of it.’

  The giant rubbed his wide jaws. ‘Perchance we could simply let him go…’

  ‘He’d merely sit down somewhere and starve to death. No, it is a mercy.’

  Still the lieutenant hesitated, frowning. He tapped a thumb to one curving canine. ‘’Tis no fault of his own…’

  The Warleader’s voice hardened: ‘Then perhaps we should track down his father who sold him into it!’ And in a single blur he drew the heavy bastard sword at his side, swung it up, and brought it cleaving down atop the creature’s head, chopping the skull clear down past its ears.

  Jatal and the surrounding bodyguards flinched in their saddles. The huge carcass twitched, still standing though quite dead. The severed tendons of the eye pits squirmed, the mouth fell open, and as the body tottered to its side, the blade grated its path clear of the skull.

  ‘Now get rid of it, Lieutenant,’ the Warleader announced into the silence, his voice low. ‘If you would be so good.’

  Scarza wiped away the spattering of fresh droplets that dotted his chest, then saluted. ‘Aye, Warleader.’ He grasped an ankle and dragged the body off.

  The Warleader wiped the blade on a scrap of cloth then resheathed it. He crossed his arms on the horn of the saddle and regarded Jatal through half-slit eyes. ‘Still … these Thaumaturgs and their horrors ought to be wiped from the earth, yes?’

  ‘That is not our goal, Warleader. But yes, if it could be done.’

  The man gave a slow thoughtful nod. ‘Yes. If it could be done.’

  Jatal inclined his head a fraction and then urged his mount aside. ‘Until later.’

  The Warleader bowed. ‘Aye, prince of the Hafinaj.’

  As he walked Ash back to the column, something urged Jatal to glance behind; he found the Warleader’s gaze yet remained upon him, steady and unblinking. Under that hot stabbing stare he rode on feeling a new foreboding.

  * * *

  That evening in his tent, reclining on the unrolled carpets and bedding, Jatal attempted yet again to ease his mind by treating himself to selections from Shivanara. But the magic of the words eluded him – his mind wandered elsewhere, flirting with the stories of the Thaumaturgs he’d heard whispered at wayside inns and round the hearthfires late at night. Of harems of playthings drugged into unending desire, or their bodies altered to heighten their master’s ecstasy – the manner of said refinements usually varying with the teller. Privately, he’d scoffed at such heated prurient imaginings. It seemed to him that these theurgists were far too keenly preoccupied with matters of life and death to waste time and resources on such debauchery. Yet the low class labourers, soldiers and servants did enjoy the titillation of such fantasies.

  Sighing, he pressed the slim volume to his forehead, murmuring, ‘Apologies, O Poet.’

  The heavy cloth flap lifted and a female servant entered, bowing, a tray in her arms. ‘An evening repast, my prince?’

  He waved to the low table and shut his eyes, attempting to steady his thoughts. What awaited them at Isana Pura? How large a garrison? They needed better intelligence. Perhaps he should investigate…’

  Jatal frowned and opened his eyes: the servant yet remained, head bowed. ‘Yes?’

  The woman raised her head and Jatal stared, stunned. Princess Andanii regarded him, one expressive brow cocked. He sprang to his feet. ‘Princess! By the ancestors—’ He clamped his mouth shut, hunching, terrified he’d been overheard.

  She covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. ‘If only you could have seen your face, Jatal.’

  He crossed to her side, hissing, ‘What are you doing here?’

  Her teasing smile hardened. ‘Really, Prince. What sort of question is that?’

  Jatal flinched, bowing. ‘Apologies, Princess. I mean – what if you are discovered? Your reputation…’

  ‘If I am discovered?’ She pressed a hand to her chest, ‘All will sigh … Ah, young love!’

  Jatal forced himself to a low table to pour himself a tumbler of wine from one of the decanters. He sat, rather heavily, and set down the leather-bound volume. ‘Of course, my princess…’

  She reclined opposite, regarded him, chin in fist. ‘Is that why you have not come to me?’

  Jatal hurriedly swallowed his drink. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘My reputation. You feared compromising my reputation.’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Ah, yes. Of course…’

  She lay back, stretching. Her breasts rose beneath the thin servant’s shift. Jatal looked away. ‘Have you given more thought to our union?’ she asked.

  Jatal coughed on his drink. He gestured to the glass, which he hurriedly set down. He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, my princess. I have. I believe we should keep it secret. Only the master of your horse, and mine, need know. Publicly, our uneasy accord stands. Privately, we have agreed to a – temporary – formal cessation of hostilities.’

  Andanii sat up. She affected a frown and tugged at the string tying the front of her plain servant’s blouse. ‘A cessation of hostilities only … my prince? Not an intimate … partnership? A union of our … resources?’

  Prince Jatal found he could not speak. His pulse was now a pounding roar; his throat as parched as the worst quarter of their Quar-el emptiness. He could only watch fascinated as Andanii glided towards him on all fours.

  ‘In some lands,’ she began, her voice low, ‘a woman who is not afraid of power is denounced as a shameless seductress. A slut and a whore. While a man from that same culture who reaches out and takes what he wants is lauded as justly virile, a daring hero.’ She pushed him back upon the bedding and straddled him. ‘What think you of that inconsistency, O learned prince?’

  Jatal slid his hands over her thighs, up under her skirt, found them hot and slick with sweat. He forced a swallow to wet his throat, almost dizzy with need. ‘I think that any man who denounces a woman merely for acting as he would…’ he hissed as Andanii clenched her thighs, ‘is a very small and frightened little man.’

  Andanii began untying his belt. ‘And you, Jatal? Are you frightened?’

  ‘No, my princess. I am not frightened.’ Not of you. It is your ambition that terrifies me. Are you here with me now because you see a worthy alliance … or a weak partner easily dominated? This uncertainty tortures me. That, and the truth that I do not know what I would do … if either should prove true.

  A line from Shivanara came to him then:

  And – oh, gods – what does it mean that amid fields of rotting corpses

  The most fragrant blossoms grow?

  * * *

  The moment the solid canopy of tall trees closed over him, Murk knew he didn’t want to be where he was. The column of Malazan regulars, however, plunged on without pause, as if some enraged Ascendant were on their tails – which, frankly, was as close to the truth as Murk wished to tiptoe. He and Sour followed the chest strapped in its litter, bouncing and being knocked about as Dee and Ostler stumbled over exposed roots, banged into trees, and ducked branches. And with each knock and judder of the chest Sour, at his side, would grab his arm, or gasp, or whine, until sick of it Murk shook him off, growling, ‘It ain’t made of glass, damn it!’

  Sour released his arm, hunching like a browbeaten child. Sighing, Murk jerked a thumb to the rear. ‘Cover our tracks.’

  The crab-like fellow straightened, his brows shooting up. ‘Oh! Right.’

  Murk watched, sidelong, as his partner’s gaze got that absent look and turned inward. He walked now avoiding roots and branches, but without actually looking directly at anything. Behind the
m Murk knew a distracting maze of misdirection, erasures and blind paths was now uncoiling, all springing from the muddled mind at his side. A frustrating addled mess that would drive any sane person who tried to order it into despair. How Sour did it was a mystery to him: a personal twisted melding of Thyr and Mockra, or simply a path demarking the borderlands between. Either way, it helped immensely that the fellow wasn’t quite sane in the conventional sense.

  As for himself, it was time for him to do his part. If Sour was deflecting any effort to trace them, then he would see to it they weren’t really here at all. He summoned his Warren and with his next step he not only trod the jungle around them but simultaneously walked the paths of Meanas.

  He found that he now walked two jungles. One was of Jacuruku; the other was a shadow-forest of dark trees. The discovery almost made him trip over his own feet. He knew this shadow-forest: it was a feature, a hazard, of the Shadow Realm that all avoided. A wide impenetrable wood from which none ever returned. So this was what it hid. Or mirrored. Jacuruku. Or, perhaps more accurately, a Shadow of Ardata’s realm.

  In any case, bad news for him. There was little he could do here. He would have to limit himself to manipulations from outside the Warren proper. In fact, I’ve lingered long enough as it is …

  He was about to drop his access when he glimpsed a bright light off to one side.

  Now, a light in the woods might not be too unusual. But this was Shadow, where a bright glow was as natural as a pool of water in the coals of a blacksmith’s forge. He knew it was stupid, and he shouldn’t, but he was curious – what could possibly be generating such a radiance here in the very home of Shadow? He picked his way onward, threading between the brittle black branches.

  It was the glowing image of child, a young girl, perhaps six or so. Yet the image was not really a child as it was sculpted of a pale greenish luminosity. She was peering about as if fascinated, displaying no fear at all, just curiosity – rather like himself.

  Murk stepped into the glade. ‘Who are you, child?’

  She turned to face him and he flinched from eyes of pure jade brilliance. ‘Who am I?’ she echoed in a high piping voice. ‘I do not know. No one here really knows.’