‘Greetings and well met, elder brother,’ Jass said.
‘Well met, little brother,’ he choked out.
CHAPTER V
After considering for two nights and a day what to call their Andii guest, Fisher offered the name Jethiss. The man accepted it graciously as Fisher knew he would, for whatever else the Tiste Andii might have lost he had not forgotten his manners. As was the custom among the older races, gifts were not to be disputed or examined, but received with gratitude and an understanding of the obligation that binds giver and receiver.
The name was the best Fisher could parse out of the ancient lays and hero-songs that had come down to him from Tiste-influenced sources. It translated, roughly, as one-who-comes-from-the-sea. He thought it appropriate, descriptive, and poetic. The man simply took it on without question and was, from then onward, Jethiss.
He was kitted out from among the Malazan party, and so he wore thick sailor-style trousers tucked into tall leather moccasins that were bound by wrapped cloth and leather. He was given a faded gambeson of quilted linen and hide and a leather hauberk sewn with iron rings and lozenges to pull over it. A scuffed belt and worn gloves completed his accoutring. He was offered a battered iron pot-helmet, but turned it down, preferring instead to go bareheaded, his long hair loose.
The only thing missing was a weapon. After much cadging and harassing, Fisher was able to wheedle a set of Wickan long-knives out of a sympathetic veteran. The man had them at the bottom of his kit as souvenirs of an old campaign. The curved knives were wrapped in oiled cloth but were badly corroded none the less. Jethiss selected a flat rock and scraped the blades as he walked along through the days.
The party ascended winding mountain trails. The way was rocky, the slopes bare, and Fisher wondered if perhaps it was this feature of the landscape that lay behind the name the Bone Peninsula. He wondered, but was not convinced. Marshal Teal and his Letherii soldiers led the column. Malle and her Malazan guard followed. Enguf and his Genabackan pirates came bringing up the rear, puffing and sweating, unaccustomed as they were to any long overland march.
Fisher and Jethiss walked with Malle’s guard of twenty Malazan veterans. The Gris matriarch still rode her donkey, as sure-footed as any of its kind. Its hooves clicked and clattered over the stones as they climbed. At times the Cawn mage Holden walked with Fisher, but most of the time the mage walked alone, taking notes and making sketches – all for his hobby of natural philosophy, or so he claimed. Fisher wished he would simply drop the pretence, as he believed he knew what the man was doing. Especially as he once came quietly upon the fellow and heard him counting his steps as he paced along.
It was no surprise to him that the Malazans would be taking an interest in the interior of Assail, although if he’d been consulted he would have advised them not to get involved; in his opinion it was a pit that would swallow any entity foolish enough to jump in.
However, if the Malazans were casting an appraising eye over these lands, it was not his concern. Politics was not his province. It was history that interested him, both ancient and current. The mystery of their guest, for example. Who was he? What was his past? There were fewer and fewer Andii to be found these days. The fall of Moon’s Spawn had marked the end of an age for their kind. He’d heard that they had departed Coral. There were rumours that they’d withdrawn to the island of Avalli; one of the many rumours constantly swirling about the Andii and their supposedly devious plans and intentions.
He did not know any of the Andii personally. Few outside their society did. And they were a race well known for their similarity in face and kind. To put it bluntly: to outsiders they all looked alike. This one had the build and grace of a swordsman. His mind might be smothered by the trauma of his near-drowning, or perhaps as the result of a sorcerous attack, yet his hands knew what to do when they took up the long-knives. No clumsiness or hesitation there.
When they first walked together Fisher felt a strong temptation to quiz the man – to aid in the recovery of his memories, of course. Not to mention for the satisfaction of his own curiosity. Yet he held back, for he did not wish his company to become trying and thereby drive the fellow from him. And so as they walked he avoided all direct interrogation, preferring instead to amplify upon any questions the man posed, hoping that such information might elicit a memory or two.
Music seemed to please the Andii. And so Fisher had his idum out as they went, freely strumming, composing lines and melodies. The Malazan veterans in line about them were just as free with their comments. Most involved uses for which the instrument was not intended. However, none, he noted, ever actually told him to put it away.
He had an ulterior motive for strumming fragments of songs, of course. He knew that music could pluck the deepest memories from the recesses of human minds. He’d seen it often enough wherever he played, were it in the field around a fire, in the most isolated backwoods tavern, or in the richest court. A scrap of melody, or a turn of phrase, could summon images just as powerfully as any magic – and so indeed were bards considered to possess their own sort of sorcery.
He’d seen tears brought to the eyes of oldsters as they relived a childhood memory long thought buried. He’d heard people confess that they could almost hear the sea or smell the forest where they last heard this or that song. Or feel again the touch of a departed lover. It was not precisely why he pursued the craft and art of his calling. But it was close.
And so he strummed phrases from old lays and ballads as they climbed the paths through thick forest and over steep bare slopes of broken tilted stone. And occasionally their guest’s pace faltered. He would pause as if distracted, cock his head as if searching for some flitting scrap of something. Sometimes he would frown and his hands clench as if he were reliving some powerful emotion. Yet the man seemed unaware of all this himself. He would walk on without comment. Perhaps shake his head once or twice as if freeing it from some clinging fugue or daydream.
Fisher was not surprised. He knew that music spoke to the emotions, not the intellect. The heart was where people truly lived, and died. He also knew that this magic that music and poetry were said to possess was the power to touch that heart. So he pursued his phrasings from melodies and strumming from ancient hero cycles and lays. Perhaps at some point Jethiss might stop and turn to him and say with wonder: that reminds me …
The inland valleys and forests they crossed were not entirely empty. Tiny villages huddled here and there. Their inhabitants were a trickle of homesteaders slowly journeying inland and north from the lower, more settled, part of the peninsula. To a man and woman they looked with stunned incomprehension upon the arrival of this pocket army of outlanders.
To Fisher’s relief, Teal was strict in keeping his guard in hand. If they came across a clutch of chickens, not all were taken. Maize cribs were not entirely emptied. Larders were thinned, but not cleaned out. It seemed the Letherii officer was more than familiar with the art of taxing to the very bone – but not beyond. The Malazans under Malle were particularly watchful of the women and girls. It seemed they did not want to leave behind a name synonymous with wholesale rape and murder, and this also Fisher could not fail to note.
Enguf’s Genabackan pirates, however, clung hard to their traditional right to rape, murder, loot and burn. It took the threat of turning upon them from both Teal’s guard and Malle’s veterans to bring it to a stop. Even then, the Letherii and Malazans had to divide their time between scavenging for provisions and guarding the cottages and farms. Enguf’s crew were mutinous, but their captain kept reminding them of the real reward ahead – all the gold they could carry. As it was, Fisher believed a number of the crew members had dropped away as they’d journeyed inland. Deserted with an eye on plain old-fashioned brigandage, probably.
On the seventh day he found the Cawn mage Holden waiting for him as he slogged past along a forest trail. He stepped out of the column and raised his brows in a question. The mage waved him over, then led him up a thin path t
hrough the woods. A cottage built of wattle and daub stood ahead, roofed in straw. The young and rather sour-faced mage of Cat, Alca, was standing with what Fisher presumed was the settler himself, a youngish fellow in tattered shirt and trousers with a defiant look on his lined face.
‘What is it?’ Fisher asked Holden.
‘Intelligence – if you can call it that.’
Fisher nodded a greeting to the farmer, who returned the gesture.
‘Would you care to repeat what you’ve said?’ Alca asked him.
The man nodded, his jaws set. ‘Aye. I’m not afeared.’
Fisher wanted to ask what the man was not afraid of, but decided not to interrupt.
‘You are travelling the Wight Road,’ the farmer said, addressing himself to Fisher. The way was actually more of a path, an old trail that linked passes through the high ridges, but Fisher did not correct him.
‘Yes.’
‘You should turn back.’
Fisher glanced to the mages. Holden’s face held scepticism, even tolerant amusement; Alca was grim, as if she was conducting an interrogation. ‘Oh? Why is that?’
‘Because o’ the Bonewight.’
Fisher nodded. This was the ‘monster’ he’d warned Malle about. It was the ‘lurking threat’ mentioned in the old lays. ‘I know the old stories. All that was long ago.’
The man shook his head. Fisher now saw that he was even younger than he’d thought. The hardscrabble life here in the wilderness had aged him brutally. ‘’Twas and ’twasn’t. It was and it still is. It will come. It wards the way north.’
Now Fisher frowned, struck by something. ‘“Wards”?’ he asked.
‘How do you know this?’ Alca demanded. ‘No one else has said anything.’
The settler shifted his attention to her. He held his chin high, defiant still. ‘They are all afeared o’ the Jotunfiend.’
Holden scowled his impatience. ‘Jotunfiend? You mean a ghoul? A ghostie?’
‘It’s as real as you strange foreigners.’
‘And where is this monster?’ Alca demanded.
‘It waits under its bridge.’
Holden let out a snort and pressed a hand to his forehead. ‘Ogres under bridges…’ He shook his head, looked to Fisher. ‘Never mind. Seems our friend here has heard the same old ghost stories you have.’ He waved Alca off. ‘Let’s go.’
The two mages left to return to the column. Fisher studied the slate-hued overcast sky where it showed between the trees. It looked like rain. He returned his gaze to the settler, who glared back, his jaws set once more. ‘Thank you for the warning,’ he said.
‘It is real,’ the man growled resentfully.
‘Thank you.’ Fisher turned to go.
As he was walking up the trail, the man shouted after him: ‘It took my brother!’
Fisher glanced back but the man had turned away to return to his work, cutting wood. The bard stood for a time, watching, but the man said no more. Fisher returned to the column.
When he fell in with the Malazans once more, Jethiss gave him a questioning look. Fisher gestured ahead, where the ground climbed to another ridge and another high pass. ‘Some sort of possible threat ahead. Something haunting the highlands.’
Jethiss nodded. ‘Ah. I saw your mage friends. They did not appear convinced.’
Fisher chuckled. ‘No. But then, they have not seen what I have seen.’
‘And neither have I, it would seem.’
Fisher studied him, his lined face, his blowing white-streaked hair. ‘I believe you have. You just do not remember it.’
The man gave an easy shrug. ‘Perhaps. Immaterial now. What is gone is gone. How could I miss that which I do not even recall?’
Sidelong, Fisher studied the man. Could he cultivate such an untroubled equanimity if he’d lost all that he’d ever been? He doubted it. It would take a strong and centred spirit to awake into a strange new existence and still keep one’s sanity. Let alone one’s sense of humour, or irony.
He shivered in the cold wind blowing down out of the heights and shaking the trees. Dampness chilled it. A late snowstorm? Would the pass be open? He pulled his travelling cloak tighter about himself. ‘The old songs and stories are consistent on it. There must be something there.’
‘Perhaps they merely reference one another, perpetuating the myth.’
He walked for a time in silence. Ahead, Malle, the old Gris matriarch on her donkey, raised a parasol and opened it. Fisher held out a hand; a few drops struck. A cold rain. And perhaps snow in the upper passes. This late in the season, too. He drew his idum from his back to check its oiled leather wrap. ‘Perhaps,’ he allowed. ‘We shall see.’
* * *
That night it snowed. Fisher watched it from the open front of his tent. The fat flakes hissed and melted as they slapped the ground.
He played late into the evening. At times Jethiss stirred, thrashing on his bedding. It was not until Fisher put away the instrument and lay down upon his own Malazan-issued blankets that he realized he’d unconsciously been playing themes from Anomandaris, his epic lay concerning Anomander Rake.
Yelling from somewhere in the camp shocked him awake in the dead of night. He bolted up, pulled on his boots, and ran out of the tent in his leather shirt and trousers. Almost everyone was up and milling about, most running to the perimeter. He spotted Marshal Teal with a bodyguard of four men, jogging for Enguf’s camp, and followed. The pirate commander was shouting and waving to disperse his crew back to their campfires and tents.
Marshal Teal closed upon the captain. ‘What was it?’ he demanded. ‘What happened?’
Enguf was bleeding at the mouth. He wiped away the blood with the back of his hand. ‘Just a difference of opinion regarding this expedition of yours.’
Teal’s brows arched. ‘A difference of opinion? Really.’
‘We were debating its merits.’
‘A debate? Is that what this was? Sounded more like a damned tavern brawl.’
The captain rubbed his jaw. ‘For the Southern Confederacy, this was a debate.’
‘I see. Well, perhaps next time you could conduct your debating in such a manner that you do not alarm the entire camp.’
‘Well, perhaps I’ll just raise that at the next meeting!’
‘Gentlemen,’ Fisher interrupted. ‘It’s over now, whatever it was. I suggest we continue this discussion in the morning.’
Marshal Teal eyed him up and down, his mouth a sour line. ‘Very well. However,’ and he waved at him, ‘next time you respond to an alarm … I suggest you bring a weapon.’ And he stormed off.
Fisher watched him go, then looked down. It was true; he hadn’t brought a weapon. Not even his belt.
Enguf muttered under his breath, ‘The lads and lasses don’t like it. All this marching, with no loot in sight. Plenty of targets left behind along the coast…’ He shook his shaggy head and peered closely at Fisher. ‘How far now, would you say?’
Fisher let out a breath. His shoulders were damp and chilled with melted snow. ‘We’re close to the highest passes. Downhill from then on to the Sea of Gold.’
‘The Sea of Gold so close, you say?’ He nodded, impressed. ‘They’ll like that. Maybe that’ll keep ’em quiet.’ He frowned then, looking Fisher up and down as well. ‘And don’t come running without a weapon, y’damned fool.’ He lumbered off.
Fisher turned away to go back to his tent and flinched, almost jumping. Jethiss was there. The man seemed to have appeared from nowhere, emerging from the dark like magic. He held something out to him: his sheathed sword wrapped in its belt. Fisher ruefully shook his head and took it from him.
* * *
Two days later they tramped through the slush and muck of lingering snow cover. They were high here, but nowhere near the treeline. The spine of the Bone Peninsula did not rise anywhere as high as the Salt range. They marched through coniferous forest; the tall pine and spruce growing far apart, with moss and bare rock and patches of snow betwee
n. Ahead lay a pass, the ridgeline not far away.
Fisher was just thinking how quiet everything had been so far when he spotted Teal’s forward scouts come running pell-mell back to the column. He jogged up to the front along with some of Malle’s people.
The scouts were panting and short of breath. ‘What is it?’ Teal snapped.
‘Some kind of bridge,’ one of them managed, gulping and pointing ahead. ‘Spans a defile. Looks like the only way across.’
Fisher caught Holden’s eye; the mage rolled his gaze skyward. Teal grunted. ‘Imagine that. Let’s take a look.’ He turned to his men, called, ‘Spread out,’ and signed the order. The Letherii troops quickly shuffled to right and left, forming a skirmish line. The Malazans and Genabackans followed suit. Malle remained behind with a guard of five veterans. Fisher and Jethiss joined the line.
Hunched, dodging from tree to tree, Fisher edged up next to Holden. ‘A bridge…’ he murmured.
‘Just because there’s some old relic bridge doesn’t mean…’
The scouts signalled from the forward right, and the skirmish line shifted that way. They came to the broken rock of the ridge. Mixed snow and rain swirled down. Fisher’s hands were becoming chill in the cloth he’d wrapped around them. He edged forward to peer over the lip. A steep slope of bare rock overlooked a dark defile. Blowing snow obscured the further distances.
Holden murmured from next to him, ‘Where in Togg’s name is the way down?’
Fisher peered around as well – where was it?
Down the ridge behind him, Jethiss pointed off to the south. Fisher nodded and touched Holden’s shoulder, and they pushed themselves back from the lip. Off to the south of their position Teal was conferring with his scouts and a few of Malle’s veterans. The pair jogged over to join them.
‘One at a time, I reckon,’ one scout was saying.
‘A night-time descent?’ Teal asked.
The scouts shook their heads. ‘Too dangerous.’ Teal looked even more sour.
‘So where’s this bridge?’ Holden asked.
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 353