She snorted a laugh and shivered. ‘I have had more teachers than you could imagine. Most older than your vaunted Thaumaturg Academy. Have you not considered that perhaps that is why power terrifies me?’ She adjusted her seating on the litter on the floor of the cave, peered out into the dark where Hanu’s broad armoured back was just visible in the shifting glow of the Visitor. ‘In any case, I know what to do. I must find the Great Temple – the old temple to Light.’
The Thaumaturg was quiet for a time. She glanced over to see him eyeing the fire, his mouth gently pursed. ‘And should you find this temple,’ he murmured, ‘and find there is no impending calamity … what then? What will you do? Where would you go?’
Saeng felt her eyes drooping. Gods of the Abyss, she was tired. Her leg ached abominably, her back was stiff, her buttocks numb. ‘I do not know. Hanu cannot have a life here – hunted by you and Ardata’s creatures as well. Perhaps we will leave this cursed land. Sail away. I have heard many stories of all the continents across the seas. Of beautiful fields of ice. Rich empires. Huge cities.’
‘You are cold,’ the Thaumaturg said. ‘May I strengthen the fire?’
‘Go ahead.’
The man did something, she wasn’t sure what, and the fire brightened, leaping to life. A wave of warmth enveloped her. Yet sleep would not come – not immediately – not with an enemy across from her. Through slit eyes she watched him in the flickering glow. He was staring out of the cave mouth, looking very thoughtful, showing no sign of exhaustion. She knew these Thaumaturgs could go for days without sleep and she knew that he intended to keep watch through the night.
As her eyes blinked heavier and heavier the thought came to her – just like Hanu.
* * *
In the morning the bandit lad, Thet-mun, produced root bulbs he’d collected from various plants in the jungle. He showed them how to prepare them and cook them over the fire on sticks. The entire time not once did he directly look at or address Saeng. Though, furtively, he did make warding gestures her way against hexing and evil. Pon-lor spoke for her, asking what the plants looked like, whether the time of year mattered, and such questions. It seemed the lad had learned all this esoteric natural history from his aunt.
Pon-lor then explained that Saeng was looking for a great temple, a major structure of some sort, and asked whether Thet-mun had heard of any such thing. He hadn’t. But he did admit that his aunt had told him stories of such things here in the forest of Himatan. He said he’d climb a tree and have a look around. Which he promptly ran off to do – perhaps merely to get away from Saeng.
As she sat there nibbling the hot bulb on its stick, it occurred to Saeng that they all owed this lad’s aunt a great deal.
After she finished eating, Saeng limped a short distance off to relieve herself. She found fresh rainwater trapped in broad leaves and tipped it into her mouth. She even wet a corner of her skirt to clean her face as best she could. When she returned Thet-mun was back. Spotting her, he quickly turned away, slouching, and hurried off. Pon-lor came to her.
‘The lad says he saw no tall hillock or structure standing above the canopy in any direction.’ He offered a small apologetic rise of his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry. But there’s nothing here.’
‘Well. We’ll just keep going then.’
His brows crimped in frustration. ‘Saeng…’ he began, but she brushed past him, gingerly, holding her leg. She motioned to Hanu.
‘We do not need him,’ she sent to Hanu.
‘We could use the lad.’
Saeng paused. ‘True. But we’ll just have to go without.’
‘Saeng,’ the Thaumaturg repeated, a note of warning in his voice.
She turned, crossed her arms. ‘Yes?’
‘I cannot let you wander further into the jungle. We must return.’ He took a deep breath, as though saddened. ‘I’m sorry.’
She looked to Hanu. ‘We’ve been through all this already…’
‘I thought you would listen to reason.’
‘Reason?’ she snorted. ‘Your thinking is reason? Then pray tell, what is mine? Blind wilful childishness?’
He gave her that indulgent look again – the one that seemed to say: oh, come now.
She waved him away, dismissing him to the jungle and his own fate. ‘We’re going, Hanu.’
‘Hanu…’ the young master called, low but firmly. Saeng glanced back, for some reason alarmed. What was this? Some sort of new trick? The Thaumaturg continued in slow and clear command: ‘Yeosh than’al. Azgreth sethul.’
Her gaze snapped to her brother. He had stilled, seeming immobile. ‘Hanu!’ she sent, pleading. He did not respond. Then he moved in slow heavy steps towards Pon-lor. ‘Hanu!’ she fairly wailed.
The damned Thaumaturg awaited him, arms crossed, nodding his satisfaction.
Saeng’s power erupted about her, sending the litter of the jungle floor flying in a rising gyre.
‘Hold!’ Pon-lor yelled, raising an arm. ‘I control your brother now. Shall I command him to kill himself?’
Saeng held herself quivering in tensed suppressed energies. She felt as if she should explode. That she should throw herself upon the man in an ecstasy of ripping and destruction. But before she could act Hanu snapped out an arm to grab the man by his throat.
Saeng’s power dropped from her in a rush. Her shoulders slumped, her hair falling.
Pon-lor’s hands scrabbled at Hanu’s armoured gauntlet. He gurgled, his face reddening. Her brother lifted him from his feet. The man was gasping now, frantic, his face purpling.
‘Hanu…’ she called, warning.
The man’s eyes found hers. They glistened in panic.
‘Drop him,’ she urged. When her brother did not respond she sent, ‘Please do not kill him, Hanu.’
The man crashed limply to the ground. She came to stand where he lay wheezing and flailing groggily.
‘You owe me your life,’ she told him. ‘Now kindly leave us alone.’ She motioned to Hanu, and, taking his arm, limped away.
* * *
When Pon-lor’s vision cleared he found Thet-mun, crouched, peering down at him. He was moodily chewing on some sort of stick or stalk.
The lad was shaking his head. ‘Man. I really can pick ’em, can’t I? First Jak, now you. Fuckin’ losers.’ He shook his head again.
Pon-lor sat up and rubbed his neck. He experimentally edged his head from side to side. ‘We will follow them at a discreet distance.’
‘No we fucking won’t. You can. I won’t. I’m goin’. I’ve had it.’
Massaging his neck, Pon-lor squinted up at him. ‘No? I could compel you, you know.’
The lad straightened. He took the stick from his mouth, picked at his teeth. ‘And there’s a thousand ways I could get you killed in this jungle. I could feed you something that would eat you from the inside out. I could direct you into poisonous leaves. Lead you over a pit.’
Pon-lor flexed his neck, felt the vertebrae pop. ‘I get the idea.’
The lad was nodding vigorously. ‘Yeah. So … there you go. I’m leavin’.’
‘Would you like my advice? Before you go?’
Thet-mun scowled down at him, uncertain. ‘What? Advice? Whaddya mean?’
Pon-lor waved him off. ‘Go home, Thet. Go back to your village. Claim your quarter section of land. Take a wife. Raise some kids.’
The lad chuffed a laugh. ‘Yeah, right. That’s for losers. Farming! Ha!’ And he walked away, laughing and shaking his head. He disappeared almost immediately as if swallowed whole.
Pon-lor sat for a time. He massaged his neck. In the silence, the jungle noise of birds calling and insects whirring swelled to fill the air. The sun shafted down through the canopy raising steaming tendrils of mist where it touched. Ants swarmed over the disturbed rotting vegetation that littered the floor.
Sighing, he rose, dusted himself off. He tore a strip of cloth from the edge of his robe and used it to tie back his hair. He cast his awareness out upon the leag
ues surrounding him. Almost instantly he sensed her there. The signature of her aura was unmistakable. Suppressed for now, but present all the same.
Clasping his hands behind his back, he set off. Here and there amid the root-tangled dirt he discerned the hardened depression of the yakshaka’s heavy tread. Broken stems and brushed aside branches betrayed his lumbering progress. He nodded his satisfaction to himself. Yes, very good. All those days observing the bandits finding their way through the jungle. Following spoor. Identifying sign.
He reclasped his hands and rocked back and forth on his sandals in meditation. Yes. I do believe I’m getting the hang of it.
* * *
The priest had promised to drop them some way from the target so that they would have time to recover from the Crippled God’s magics. As it was, Mara found that her reaction was nowhere near as violent as before. She was shaken, dizzy and nauseous, yes, but far from her earlier experience of nearly blacking out. She wondered whether she should be relieved or alarmed by the development.
She staggered to a nearby tree to lean, panting, bent over, hands on knees. She caught her breath, swallowed stinging bile. Her vision had cleared and now she could see her fellows picking themselves up off the leaf-littered jungle floor. Some had vomited – the new ones: Shijel and Black. They straightened now, recovering. Shijel drew his longswords and Black spat to clear his mouth then dropped his visor and readied his wide shield.
This was a piece of work long delayed. The priest had been missing for a good week. Mara had been of the hopeful opinion that he’d died – succumbed to one of the many diseases he obviously carried. And good riddance. Yet eventually he’d surfaced again, accosting them last night, even more emaciated and insanely obsessed than before. And Skinner had surprised him, promising to go after the shard lost in Himatan. He said he’d return the next night to run the errand. And so he had. And here they were.
Skinner now looked to Petal, who motioned aside. ‘We’re close. It’s a large party – too large. We’ll have to try to snatch it.’
‘Very well. Get us as close as you can and we’ll make a lunge for it.’
The big man’s neck bulged as he gave a curt answering nod. Skinner pointed to the priest. ‘You. Be quiet or I’ll run you through.’
The priest’s response was a long low inarticulate snarl.
Petal gestured, raising his Warren, then motioned them on. The party advanced, Petal and Skinner leading, Shijel and Black with the priest, while Mara brought up the rear. Petal’s magics would obscure them – at least momentarily – perhaps enough to allow them to grab the prize then escape by way of the priest. Mara glimpsed the raiders through the trees and was surprised. At first she thought them locals who’d taken up arms and armour, dressed and painted as they were. But the stock differed, heavier, and darker or lighter of skin. The equipage troubled her; too familiar. A mercenary force out of Quon Tali? Perhaps.
Petal led them in a roundabout way towards their goal. It blazed unmistakable, like a lodestone of power in Mara’s vision. It lay wrapped on a makeshift litter of poles and cloth. They were almost at the shard when one of the painted raiders, a squat frog-like fellow with bulging mismatched eyes, stood up right before them and kicked Petal in his ample stomach.
Everything went to the Abyss after that. She instantly raised her Warren to blast away all those nearby. She unfortunately tossed aside Shijel and Black as well. Battle commands sounded amid the kicked-up dust and dead leaves and a thrill of recognition blazed through her. Malazans! Damned Malazans making their own play for the shard! It seemed this new emperor differed from his predecessors regarding the Shattered God. The others had been far too timid, to her mind.
The damned priest was right – this could not be allowed.
She turned for the litter but it wasn’t there. It had been spirited away somehow when she’d been distracted. Petal rose nearby, grasping his gut in both hands. He murmured, wincing, ‘The Enchantress herself works against us.’
Blast it! They’d been so close!
Skinner appeared, his bared Thaumaturg officer’s sword bloodied. He dragged the priest along by his shirt. ‘We startled them but they’re regrouping,’ he said, grimly. To Petal, ‘Where is it?’
The fat mage was rubbing his wide middle. ‘Hidden away.’
‘Well – find it!’
‘It will take time. This one is an inspired practitioner … his mind is particularly atypical.’
‘We don’t have time.’ Skinner restrained the priest like an uncooperative dog.
‘They will attack!’ the priest wailed.
‘Of course,’ Skinner answered, studying the surrounding jungle. ‘They’re Malazans.’
Black and Shijel came running up. ‘On their way,’ Black announced.
Skinner shook the gangly priest savagely, demanding, ‘Can you track it?’
The man yanked his rag shirt free and smoothed it down in a sad effort to regain his dignity. His gaze became sly as he peered past Mara. ‘Of course. Yes. No one can hide my master from me.’ He brushed past her closely, taking the opportunity to run a hand up her trousers over her buttock. He sped onward, her backhanded slap just missing his head.
Starting off, Skinner ordered, ‘Petal. Take these two and run these Malazans off our track. Mara, you’re with me.’ He chased after the priest.
Mara followed. As she left she heard a despairing Petal murmur, ‘Ah, running … Oh, dear.’
* * *
The chase was a confusing dash through a maze of immensely tall and wide tree trunks that almost touched one another. Thick roots writhed over the ground like ridged snakes, some nearly as tall as she. Ahead, Skinner jumped the roots, pushed through tall fronds of undergrowth and parted stands of stiff spear-like grasses. The nightly rain started falling from the canopy in fat drops. In his glittering black armour the man moved like a patch of deeper night amid the streamers of starlight and the Jade Banner’s glow. Unencumbered by heavy armour or weapons, Mara kept up.
She almost slammed into the priest who was standing stock still, poised as if listening to the night. Skinner stood nearby. ‘What is it?’ she asked him, her voice low. The big man’s shrug of contempt seemed to call a curse down on all this damned mummery.
‘Something new,’ the priest answered. He pointed to the darkness. ‘Another mage. Follower of that pathetic usurper, Shadowthrone.’
‘Can you still track it?’ Skinner demanded, unimpressed.
The man jerked, insulted. ‘Of course! Yes. It calls to me. Offspring of my master.’
Skinner waved him onward. ‘Well…’
‘Fine!’ He adjusted the rags that passed as his long shirting, hanging down past his loin wrap, then ran on. Skinner chuffed his scorn and followed. Mara fell in behind. They went slower now, tracing a winding route. The dense woods and stands of bamboo appeared far more dark this night than Mara remembered. Meanas, closing in upon us. To either side routes beckoned, appearing to be the way Skinner had taken, but she ignored them, keeping her eye upon the trail the priest had broken; somehow his passage erased or overlay the puzzling twisting of ways and paths that wove all about her. Tatters of shadows even seemed to hang here and there like torn spiderweb.
Then she burst in upon a standoff, almost tumbling forward. The priest struggled in the grip of a soldier while another faced Skinner. Two others, the mages, stood at the litter.
‘Back off or he’s dead,’ the Malazan holding the priest warned.
Skinner gave an off-hand wave. ‘A good plan, soldier. But there’s a flaw. You see – I don’t give a damn.’ And he attacked, clashing swords with the soldier who faced him.
‘Gotta do it, Murk…’ one of the mages warned the other.
The second winced. ‘Oh man, I really don’t want to…’
Do what? Mara summoned energies for a strike. Then the two mages and the litter between them disappeared as if smothered by darkness. Hood take it! The soldier holding the priest threw him into Skinner then the
two Malazans fled in opposite directions.
Skinner snatched the priest by his throat. ‘Where did they go?’
‘I do not know!’ he wailed. ‘It is gone! My torment will be unending!’
‘Oh, shut up.’ He turned his helmed head to Mara.
She studied the dissipating lines of manipulation: a distraction? Were they in truth still there? Merely disguised? Yet she detected a betraying blurring and melting away. ‘Shadow,’ she judged.
‘Him!’ the priest snarled. ‘Upstart. Poseur. He is nothing!’
Skinner shook the priest again, making his teeth clack. ‘Can you follow?’
The priest batted at Skinner’s armoured forearm. ‘Yes, I shall! My master’s reach knows no boundaries. Ready yourselves.’
Mara clenched her gut and throat in queasy anticipation.
The surroundings blurred darkly, as if enmeshed in thickening shifting murk. Then the nauseating inner twist seemed to yank her inside out and she fell to her knees and one hand, gagging. This could not be good for her, she decided.
‘Sacred Queen!’ someone yelped.
‘Do not move,’ Skinner barked.
Blinking to clear her vision, Mara peered up. They’d found them. Two mages sitting with the litter. She glanced around: they were still within woods, but this one was very different. Far more dark and crowded, the trees and brush all black, bare and brittle, seemingly dead. The sky churned above them like a cauldron of lead. Shadow. How it unnerved her. People shouldn’t be here. This is not our realm.
The priest was pawing at the wrapped package, chuckling and whispering to it. One of the mages slapped him away and he hissed at the man.
‘You led us on a good chase, Malazan,’ Skinner said. ‘But it’s done now. Stand aside.’
The taller, slimmer mage in the tattered shirt and vest sent something through his Warren. He’s the one! Mara sent a thrust of power against him, slapping him backwards to smack his skull against a tree trunk. Broken branches rained down. The man wrapped his arms around his head and curled into a ball. He groaned his pain.
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 308