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

  The group of captives dwindled as the night wore on. Eventually, as he knew they would, two Agon priests came for him. They had to lift him by the arms as he made no effort to put strength into his legs – he saw no reason to cooperate. Oddly, he felt as if he was watching the proceedings as from a great distance, looking down on a play, or a dance of meaningless shadow figures.

  They dragged him up the stairs and into the darkened hall. Pools and streaks of messy deaths marred the polished set flags of the floor, as did bloody handprints and smears on the walls. Tapestries lay torn and wet with fluids. The heat of many fires struck him as a furnace exhalation and made him drowsy. He hardly registered a thick greasy miasma of roasting flesh.

  A shout halted the two dragging him along. Another priest stood before him; Jatal raised his gaze up the man’s completely naked form, caked in drying gore, to the grimed shining face and wild, mud-hardened nest of kinked hair. The man smiled a mouthful of small white teeth filed to sharp points. He looked vaguely familiar.

  ‘Greetings, Prince Jatal of the Hafinaj,’ the Agon priest announced. He motioned and the two holding Jatal released his arms. Jatal straightened, swaying slightly. ‘I am told you are an educated man. A philosopher.’ He gestured for Jatal to join him. ‘Come. You may appreciate this.’

  ‘If you would take my heart – go ahead,’ he told the priest. ‘You are welcome to it. I have no more use for it.’

  The priest gave a small deprecatory wave. Jatal now recognized him as the one who had confronted their council what seemed now so long ago. ‘If that is truly the case then we do not want it. We are only interested in what others value.’

  Jatal frowned, puzzled. ‘You mean gold?’

  ‘Oh no. Not wealth. I mean what people really value about themselves.’ He leaned close to whisper and Jatal smelled the stink of rotting flesh. ‘The delusions people hold about themselves.’ The priest took his arm to usher him into a side chamber. Here a figure writhed, gagged and bound, on one of the ubiquitous stone operating platforms. It was a Thaumaturg captive. Shaduwam priests appeared to be in the process of burning the flesh from him piece by piece. They pressed white-hot irons to him then lifted them away taking the melted flesh with them. The figure flinched and squirmed with the hiss and smoke of every application.

  ‘So much for their vaunted negation of the flesh,’ the priest murmured, sounding greatly satisfied.

  Jatal understood now; it came to him as an epiphany that somehow lightened the load upon his shoulders. ‘For you there is only the flesh.’

  The priest smiled, pleased. ‘Exactly, my prince. I knew you would see through to the truth of it. For us there is only the flesh. No good or bad. Only the flesh and its demands. We are all nothing more than that. Why deny it? It follows, then, that there are no opposites. Nothing can be said to be negative, or positive.’ He waved his hand dismissing all such figments as he urged Jatal along. ‘That is all illusion. Constructs of epistemologies that are at their root flawed, deluded, or self-serving.’

  Jatal felt dizzy once more. ‘You are saying that morality is an arbitrary construct?’

  The priest steadied him as they came to a large chamber. He brightened even more. ‘Exactly!’ He squeezed Jatal’s arm. ‘You are a philosopher. You begin to see the absurdity of it all, yes?’

  Jatal knew he ought to argue, but a strange numbing fog smothered his mind. He strove to rally his thoughts, but all that fell away when he saw that the room ahead was an assembly hall. Corpses littered it; the Thaumaturgs appeared to have put up quite a resistance here. But what he’d seen so far of the shaduwam suggested they were even more fanatical. At the end of the hall, slouched in a high-backed chair carved from black stone, was the Warleader. Shaduwam attended him. They were attempting to treat a wound in his side – though he still wore his mail armour. The priest marched Jatal straight up to him.

  Something about this man seated in a tall chair, his mail hood thrown back, his long iron-grey hair sweaty, his gaze utterly dismissive, sent a chill up Jatal’s back that was so strong it penetrated the strange numbing haze that blanketed his thoughts.

  ‘Why is this one here?’ the Warleader demanded of the priest.

  ‘You are done with him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jatal hardly understood that they were discussing him. All he knew was that he faced his rival. He swallowed to clear his throat. ‘She’s dead,’ he murmured – or tried to.

  The Warleader eyed him, frowning. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘She is dead. Andanii is dead.’

  Pain twisted the man’s features. He gestured impatiently to the priests who were busy lighting candles and preparing some sort of draught. ‘Do not despair,’ he told Jatal, his voice tight. ‘Soon you will be as well.’

  Puzzlement and outrage wormed their way through the fog of Jatal’s thoughts. He stood weaving, suddenly exhausted beyond all effort. ‘That is all you have to say? After all she chose to give you?’

  The Warleader’s thick brows rose. ‘Ahh,’ he breathed. ‘I understand. All she gave me, you say. She gave me a great deal of her time, that is true.’ He pointed to the tall tankard of fluids the priests were mixing. ‘Now!’ he ordered. ‘We will do this now.’

  ‘But … my lord…’ one objected. ‘You must prepare further.’

  ‘Do you question me?’

  The priest fell to his knees. ‘Forgive me, lord.’

  The Warleader gestured impatiently for the drink. Another of the shaduwam handed it to him. He drank it in a long series of swallows, wiped the spilled thick dark fluids from his beard. He regarded Jatal once again with his dead flat eyes. ‘She encouraged me to talk – to tell stories. And I did. More than I ought to have. I was perhaps pleased by her attentions though I certainly knew better. And from listening to me all those evenings your princess came closest of anyone to grasping a certain secret. One not even she could believe. One she dared not pass on to anyone – not even to you. Especially not to you.’

  He pointed to a lit candle and a priest brought it to him. The Warleader passed a hand through its smoke, wafting it to his face and inhaling deeply. This he did several times. Jatal assumed he was deadening the pain of the wound in his side, from which a great deal of blood had spilled to smear his armour.

  ‘And so, my prince,’ the man said, straightening, ‘I choose to give you something in her honour. Something which you do not want. Because, you see, I understand you now. You are just like me. You are a jealous man.’ He reached out and pulled a gripping tool from the table nearby. It was an instrument Jatal had seen physicians using in field infirmaries. ‘Now,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘But, lord, who…?’

  The Warleader cuffed the priest aside. ‘I shall. Now.’ He pressed the instrument into the wound at his side, turning it and gouging. He gasped at the agony of it, even mitigated by the drink and the fumes he’d inhaled.

  He withdrew a blood-smeared object and extended it to Jatal who took it, wonderingly, in both hands. The arrow must have passed almost completely through the Warleader’s body, for the point and most of the shaft had been broken off, leaving perhaps two hand’s-breadths of wood, and the fletching, embedded in the wound. Jatal turned it over, wiped the blood from its slick surface. All the while, the Warleader watched, his eyes glittering with something that might have been cruel satisfaction.

  Jatal pinched the wet feathers to let their colour come through – though he suspected he knew already what to expect.

  ‘She did choose to follow me, Prince Jatal,’ the Warleader said, his voice now relaxed, even content. ‘She had something to give me, you see.’

  The colours of the fletching showed through as Vehajarwi.

  ‘She gave me that. Because, you see, she had given everything else she had to you.’

  Rising, the man closed his hard hand over Jatal’s on the shaft. ‘And now I give it to you. The gift of pain. True soul-destroying anguish. It is yours now. Carry it in your heart.’ He
waved Jatal off. Turning aside, he addressed the priest: ‘Let him live. Let him live long.’ The man’s words seemed to come from a great distance. A hand pushed Jatal away. ‘Go,’ the Warleader called. ‘Go with my blessing and with my curse.’

  Aware of nothing, Jatal stumbled away. He found himself under open golden sky, on a set of stairs; it was late afternoon. He looked down: he still held the bloody shaft in both hands. His cheeks were cold and wet. Shaduwam priests shouldered him aside, ignoring him. They led prisoners up the stairs: some were from among the mercenaries who had followed the Warleader, others were of the Adwami. None he saw were of the Hafinaj.

  Blinking, Jatal started forward once more, his eyes on the arrow shaft. When he looked up again, strangely dizzy, he found he walked a narrow alley that opened on to a broad main thoroughfare. This he entered. A party of shaduwam brushed past him; they paid him no more attention than if he’d been a shade.

  The wide approach ended at tall double gates in the walls of the Inner City. Jatal passed through the open gates to enter the narrow ways of the city proper. Its peasant citizens stared from open doorways as he passed. He stepped over corpses, through the ashen remains of burned-down barriers, past the bodies of horses, the still-wet remains of Adwami troopers, torn into fragments.

  Oh Andanii … I betrayed you even while you held true. I am not worthy of your sacrifice.

  A few of the peasant inhabitants followed him now, at a distance, as he stumbled along. Some, he noted, stooped now and then to pick up rocks. Something struck his shoulder, hard. He blinked, confused. The words of the poet came to him: Blood is brightest / Against the purest snow …

  A blow to his head spun him into a wall. He leaned against it, dazed. Stones smacked into the brick wall about him. The crowd of inhabitants closed now, emboldened. Frenzied enraged eyes glared their murder at him. Clawed hands reached for him. They tore the bloodied robes from him; their ragged nails gouged his flesh; they yanked his hair as if meaning to tear the top of his head off. Hands fought to unbuckle the straps of his armour. Men and women spat and screamed their rage at him. Thumbs jammed into his eyes. Fingers pulled and tore at his lips. Their press squeezed the breath from his lungs.

  My love … I come to you … Please do not turn from me.

  A petrifying bellowed roar shook the stones beneath him. Light reached his eyes as the piled-on bodies scattered. An immense figure was there, straddling him, throwing the peasants like children to smash into the walls. His armour hung from him in tattered links and hanging straps. He swung the broken haft of his axe, pulverizing heads with each blow: Scarza, bloodied yet whole.

  The half-giant lifted Jatal to his feet. ‘You’ll live?’ he growled.

  ‘Yes – no.’

  The lieutenant eyed him with a strange expression. ‘Well, this way. The bastard betrayed all of us but we can still get away.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No.’ He peered down: he still held the shaft in both hands. The blood had dried, sticking his fingers closed.

  ‘Ah. I see.’ The fellow peered up and down the street, empty now that the mob had fled. ‘She’s gone then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry, lad.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘For this.’

  Jatal frowned, blinking. The axe handle blurred for him and he knew nothing more.

  * * *

  Pain brought him to consciousness. He brought his hands to his head and held it; a great bump had swelled up on the side of his skull just behind the temple.

  ‘Not broken, is it?’ Scarza’s low voice enquired from the dark.

  ‘I wish it were.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ They were in a copse next to fields. A distant yellow glow marked what Jatal imagined must be the fires of Anditi Pura.

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that,’ Scarza answered from where he sat up against a tree.

  Jatal simply waved to grant the man the point. He shifted over to lean against another trunk. ‘You shouldn’t have intervened.’

  ‘I was just happening by. Spur of the moment thing.’

  Jatal eyed the dark hulking figure, half obscured by a shadow cast by the shafts of the Visitor. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Those were my men. Bastards, half of them. Murderers, rapists. But still, mine. Can’t let some jumped-up Warleader sell them out. Or me, to be honest.’

  ‘Do you know who he is?’

  ‘Him?’ The wide dark shoulders shrugged. ‘Does it matter? Some renegade general. Maybe years ago he tried to take over from these Thaumaturgs – fails. Flees abroad. Gathers himself a mercenary army. Makes a deal with the neighbouring country. Comes back and makes them pay. It’s an old story. Seen it a thousand times.’

  ‘I think there’s more to it than that.’

  ‘Think what you will. You can question him all you want after we catch him.’

  Jatal studied the shaded figure. His eyes gleamed hungrily in the dark. A spark of humour actually animated the man’s expression. Is he as mad as I should be? Am I mad? Am I imagining this? ‘What do you mean? He’s surrounded by his shaduwam pets.’

  ‘No, he isn’t. He rode off alone like the very fiends of the Abyss were after his spirit. Which they are, I’m sure.’

  Jatal half rose, then fell back, slumping. ‘Then he’s gone. We’ve missed him. And…’ He stopped himself from going any further.

  The half-Trell was silent for a time in the dark. At length he spoke, his voice gentle: ‘She was something, Prince of the Hafinaj. She truly was. I am sorry.’

  Yes. Sorry. I am sorry. He is. Yet nothing will bring her back. And nothing can redeem me. Unless. Unless I finish her task for her. Then finish myself. Only that might serve to redress so great an injustice.

  ‘When did he leave?’

  ‘Half the night ago.’

  Jatal gaped. ‘What? Then why … you are cruel. Is this your revenge? Tormenting me so?’

  ‘Not at all. You needed to recover. We will track him and ride even harder.’

  Jatal snorted. ‘Ride? You?’

  ‘For this I will run.’ The half-Trell’s voice held an unfamiliar chilling resolve.

  ‘And me? Am I to run as well?’

  Scarza tapped a finger to the side of his wide flattened nose. ‘There are horses nearby. I smell them.’

  ‘Then why aren’t we on our way?’

  The dark glittering eyes regarded Jatal closely. ‘You are ready? You are resolved?’

  ‘To the end.’

  The giant was on his feet in an instant. ‘Good. Let us collect as many horses as we can. I may even ride one for an hour or so! Just to catch my breath.’

  Jatal stood as well. He felt rested; he was bruised and battered, but that was a minor matter. He hungered also but he would deal with that when he could stand it no longer. After all, what were such demands of the flesh compared to the task he had vowed to see through to the finish.

  CHAPTER XII

  After the storm passed we were in unfamiliar waters, irrevocably driven off course. We found ourselves within sight of an unknown coast. We put in for water but lost men to bizarre wild animals, poisonous plants, and other hazards of its inhospitable jungle and so we quit the coast in haste. Raising sails, we espied a simple dugout paddled by one occupant. We allowed the man to come aboard. He was painted and mostly naked after the barbarous fashion. He studied the vessel, its equipage, our dress and accoutrements, all in the most childlike curious wonder. Then, turning to me, tears welling from his eyes, he said in slanted Talian: ‘Thank the gods for my deliverance. For I am Whelhen Mariner, shipwrecked these last twelve years.’

  Resenal D’Ord,

  Master of the Lance Excerpt from ship’s journal

  The land is sinking. This was Shimmer’s conclusion after staring for interminable days and nights at a shore that hardly deserved the name. Or the waters are rising. Where the river ended and the land began appe
ared to be a debate this jungle was unable to resolve. Their route twisted and turned. Countless channels and streams led off from the main way only to reappear round the next tight bend.

  To further muddy the situation the water itself was taking on the characteristics of the surrounding land. No current could be seen pulling on the thick layer of lilies and wide flat pads that utterly choked the surface. The rotting prow of the Serpent actually seemed to catch on the tough plants, tugging and ripping. Tall water birds flapped from their path looking like disgruntled priests wrapped in brown robes with long disapproving faces. They walked atop the pads on stilt-like legs and made better progress than the ship. It puzzled her that the channel could really be so shallow. Countless water snakes likewise slithered among the massed floating plants, fleeing the disturbance. Thick clouds of insects hovered above the fat pink and white blossoms of the lilies. Dragonflies the size of her fist stooped these dense clouds while birds chased them all, snapping everything up in their pointed beaks.

  The scent of all those blossoms melded into an overpowering stink of corrupted sweetness, which combined with the rot of dead plant matter and the miasma of the standing water. She could almost see the fumes hanging like scarves in the dead air. Or perhaps it was the dust and pollen.

  The sun beat down with a drowsy heat made far worse by the unbearable humidity. Merely bending her arm raised drops of sweat. She wore only a long undershirt now, over trousers and open sandals. Her long hair she tied up high with the aid of thin sticks. Her thoughts seemed to coil as turgid as the water itself. Where was this capital Rutana promised? She claimed they were close yet no towers or walls reared above the canopy.

  Ruined foundations, stone stelae and tumbled carved blocks did stand here and there, vine-choked and eroded. But no sign of current occupation showed itself. They had better be close, because beneath her hands the wood railing felt spongy with rot. She couldn’t imagine what was keeping the vessel together. It ought to have disintegrated long ago.