A mostly naked woman stood in fullest profile, her arms raised overhead, balanced in her hands a rather large boulder, whilst directly below, at her very feet, was proffered the motionless head of a sleeping sibling.
Soft as my approach happened to be, Relish heard and glanced over. ‘Just like this,’ she whispered. ‘And … done.’
‘You have held this pose before, I think.’
‘I have. Until my arms trembled.’
‘I imagine,’ I ventured, drawing closer, ‘you have contemplated simply running away.’
She snorted, twisted to one side and sent the boulder thumping and bounding through some brushes in the dark. ‘You don’t know them. They’d hunt me down. Even if there was only one of them left, I’d be hunted down. Across the world. Under the seas. To the hoary moon itself.’ She fixed wounded, helpless eyes upon me. ‘I am a prisoner, with no hope of escape. Ever.’
‘I understand that it does seem that way right now—’
‘Don’t give me that steaming pile of crap, Flicker. I’ve had my fill of brotherly advice.’
‘Advice was not my intention, Relish.’
Jaded her brow. ‘You hungry for another roll? We damned near killed each other last time.’
‘I know and I dream of it still and will likely do so until my dying day.’
‘Liar.’
I let the accusation rest, for to explain that the dream wasn’t necessarily a pleasant one, would have, in my esteem, been untimely. I’m sure you agree.
‘So, not advice.’
‘A promise, Relish. To free you of their chains before this journey ends.’
‘Gods below, is this some infection or something? You and promises to women. The secret flaw you imagine yourself so clever at hiding—’
‘I hide nothing—’
‘So bold and steady-eyed then, thus making it the best of disguises.’ She shook her head. ‘Besides, such afflictions belong to pimply boys with cracking voices. You’re old enough to know better.’
‘I am?’
‘Never promise to save a woman, Flicker.’
‘Oh, and why?’
‘Because when you fail, she will curse your name for all time, and when you happen to succeed, she’ll resent you for just as long. A fool is a man who believes love comes of being owed.’
‘And this afflicts only men?’
‘Of course not. But I was talking of you.’
‘The fool in question.’
‘That’s where my theories fall apart – the ones about you, Flicker. You’re up to something here.’
‘Beyond plain survival?’
‘No one’s going to kill you on this journey. You have made sure of that.’
‘I have?’
‘You snared me and Brash using the old creep, Calap Roud. You hooked Purse Snippet. Now you shamed Tulgord Vise and he needs you alive to prove to you you’re wrong about him.’ She looked down at Tiny. ‘And even him, he’s snagged, too, because he’s not as stupid as he sounds. Just like Steck, he’s riding on your words, believing there are secrets in them. Your magic – that’s what you called it, isn’t it?’
‘I can’t imagine what secrets I possess that would be of any use to them.’
She snorted again. ‘If anybody wants to see you dead and mute, it’s probably Mister Must.’
Well now, that was a cogent observation indeed. ‘Do you wish to be freed of your brothers or not?’
‘Very deft, Flicker. Oh, why not? Free me, sweet hero, and you’ll have my gratitude and resentment both, for all time.’
‘Relish, what you do with your freedom is entirely up to you, and the same for how you happen to think about the manner in which it was delivered. As for me, I will be content to witness, as might a kindly uncle—’
‘Did you uncle me the other night, Flicker?’
‘Dear me, I should say not, Relish.’ And my regard descended to Tiny’s round face, so childlike in brainless repose. ‘You are certain he sleeps?’
‘If he wasn’t, your neck would already be snapped.’
‘I imagine you are correct. Even so. It is late, Relish, and we have far to walk come the morrow.’
‘Yes, Uncle.’
Watching her walk off to find her bedding, I contemplated myriad facets of humanly nature, as I selected the opposite direction in which to resume my wandering. Capemoths circled over my head like the bearers of grim thoughts, which I shooed away with careless gestures. The moon showed its smudged face to the east, like a wink through mud. Somewhere off to my right, lost in the gloom, Sellup was singing to herself as she stalked the night, as the undead will do.
Is there anything more fraught than family? We do not choose our kin, after all, and even by marriage one finds oneself saddled with a whole gaggle of new relations, all gathered to witness the fresh mixing of blood and, if of proper spirit, get appallingly drunk, sufficient to ruin the entire proceedings and to be known thereafter in infamy. For myself, I have always considered this gesture, offered to countless relations on their big day, to be nothing more than protracted revenge, and have of course personally partaken of it many times. Closer to home, as it were, why, every new wife simply adds to the wild, unwieldy clan. The excitement never ends!
Even so, poor Relish. Flaw or not, I vowed that I would have to do something about it, and if this be my weakness, then so be it.
‘Flicker!’
The hiss brought me to a startled halt. ‘Brash?’
The gangly poet emerged from night’s felt, his hair upright and stark, thorn-scratches tracked across his drawn cheeks, his tongue darting to wet his lips and his ears twitching at imagined sounds. ‘Why didn’t anyone kill him?’
‘Who?’
‘Apto Canavalian! Who won’t vote for any of us. The worst kind of judge there is! He wastes the ground he stands upon!’
‘Arpo Relent attempted the very thing you sought, dear poet, and, alas, failed – perhaps fatally.’
Brash Phluster’s eyes widened. ‘The Well Knight’s dead?’
‘His Wellness hangs in the balance.’
‘Just what he deserves!’ snarled the poet. ‘That murderous bag of foul wind. Listen! We could just run – this very night. What’s to stop us? Steck’s lost somewhere – who knows, maybe Nifty and his fans jumped him. Maybe they all killed each other out there in the desert.’
‘You forget, good sir, the Chanters and, of course, Tulgord Vise. I am afraid, Brash, that we have no choice but to continue on—’
‘If Arpo dies, we can eat him, can’t we?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘And maybe that’ll be enough. For everyone. What do you think?’
‘It’s certainly possible. Now, Brash, take yourself to bed.’
He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Gods, it’s not fair how us artists are treated, is it? They’re all vultures! Don’t they see how every word is a tortured excretion? Our sweat drips red, our blood pools and blackens beneath our fingernails, our teeth loosen at night and we stagger through our dreams gumming our words. I write and lose entire manuscripts between dusk and dawn – does that happen to you? Does it?’
‘That it does, friend. We are all cursed with ineffable genius. But consider this, perhaps we each are in fact not one, but many, and whilst we sleep in this realm another version of us wakens to another world’s dawn, and sets quill to parchment – the genius forever beyond our reach is in fact his own talent, though he knows it not and like you and I, he frets over the lost works of his nightly dreams.’
Brash was staring at me with incredulous eyes. ‘That is cruelty without measure, Flicker. How could you even imagine such diabolical things? A thousand other selves, all equally tortured and tormented! Gods below!’
‘I certainly do not see it that way,’ did I reply. ‘Indeed, the notion leads me to ever greater efforts, for I seek to join all of our voices into one – perhaps, I muse, this is the truth of real, genuine genius. My myriad selves singing in chorus, oh how I long to be
deafened by my own voice!’
‘Yearn away,’ Brash said, with a sudden wicked grin. ‘You’re doomed, Flicker. You just made me realize something, you see. I am already deafened by my own voice, meaning I already am a genius. Your argument proves it!’
‘Thank goodness for that. Now, sing yourself off to sleep, Brash Phluster, and we will speak more of this upon the morning.’
‘Flicker, do you have a knife?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’m going to make Apto vote for me even if I have to kill him to do it.’
‘That would be murder, friend.’
‘We are awash in blood already, you fool! What’s one little dead critic more? Who’d miss him? Not me. Not you.’
‘A dead man cannot vote, Brash.’
‘I’ll force him to write a proxy note first. Then we can eat him.’
‘I sincerely doubt he would prove palatable. No, Brash Phluster, you will receive no weapon from me.’
‘I hate you.’
Off he stormed, in the manner of a golit bird hunting snakes.
‘His mind has cracked.’ With this observation, Purse Snippet appeared, her cloak drawn tight about her lithe form.
‘Will no one sleep this night?’ I asked, in some exasperation.
‘Our cruel and unhappy family is in tatters.’
To this I grunted.
‘Do doubts finally afflict you, Avas Didion Flicker? I intend no mercy, be certain of that.’
‘The burdens are weighty indeed, Lady Snippet, but I remain confident that I shall prevail.’
She drew still closer, her eyes searching mine, as women’s eyes are in the habit of doing when close we happen to stand. What secret promise are they hoping to discover? What fey hoard of untold riches do they yearn to prise open? Could they but imagine the murky male realm lurking behind these lucid pearls, they might well shatter the night with shrieks and flee into the shelter of darkness itself. But this is the mystery of things, is it not? We bounce through guesses and hazy uncertainties, and call it rapport, bridged and stitched with smiles and engaging expressions, whilst behind both sets of eyes maelstroms rage benighted in wild images of rampant sex and unlikely trysts. Or so I fancy, and why not? Such musings are easy vanquish over probable truths (that at least one of us is either bored rigid or completely mindless with all the perspicacity of a jellyfish, and oft I have caught myself in rubbery wobble, mind, or even worse: is that intensity merely prelude to picking crabs from my eyebrows? Oh yes, we stand close and behind our facades we quiver in trepid tremulosity, even as our mouths flap a league a breath).
Where were we? Ah yes, standing close, her eyes tracking mine like twin bows with arrows fixed, whilst I shivered like two hares in lantern light.
‘How, then,’ asked Purse Snippet (eyes tracking … tracking – I am pinned!), ‘do you intend to save me, noble sir? In the manner of all those others, in a tangle of warm flesh and the oblivion of sated desires? Have you any idea just how many men I have had? Not to mention women? And each time a new candidate steps forth, what do I see in those oh-so-eager eyes?’ She slowly shook her head. ‘The conviction writ plain that this one can do what none before was capable of doing, and what must I then witness?’
‘I would hazard, the pathetic collapse of such brazen arrogance?’
‘Yes. But here, and now, I look into your eyes and what do I see?’
‘To be honest, Lady, I have no idea.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Do you see? She had crowbar in hand, the treasure chest looms (mine, not hers, we’re being figurative here. We’ll get to the literal in a moment), and the lock looks flimsy indeed. And in her eyes what do I see? Why, the conviction that she and she alone has what it takes (whatever it takes, don’t ask me), to crack loose that mysterious lockbox of fabulous revelations that is, well, the real me.
Bless her.
Do you all finally understand my angst? I mean, is this all there is? What is this anyway? I don’t know. Ask my wives. They prised me loose long ago, to their eternal disappointment, of which they continually remind me, lest I stupidly wander into some impractical daydream (such as this: Is there some woman out there who still thinks me mysterious? I must find her! That kind of daydream). As tired old philosophers say, the scent is ever sweeter over the garden wall. And my, how we do climb.
What a tirade of cynicism! I am not like this at all, I do assure you. I have this lockbox hidden inside me, you see … do come find it, will you?
It is a sage truth that there can never be too many disappointed wives.
Her lips found mine. Have I missed something? I have not. Quick as a cat upon a mouse, a cock upon a snail, a crow upon a sliver of dead meat. And her tongue went looking for the treasure chest. She didn’t believe me, recall? They never do.
In my weakness, which I call upon in times of need, I could not resist.
Was she the most beautiful woman I ever knowingly shared fluids with? She was indeed. Shall I recount the details? I shall not. In protection of her sweet modesty, of that luscious night my lips shall remain forever sealed.
Oh, forget that. I cupped her full breasts, which is what men do for some unknown reason, except perhaps that it has something to do with the way we gauge value, upon scales as it were, replete with aesthetic appreciation, engineering terminology and so on. With a dancer’s grace (and muscle) she drew one meaty thigh up along my left hip, grinding her mound against my crotch with an undulating, circular gyration that snapped the buttons of my collar and burst seams everywhere. With nefarious insistence, that leg somehow wrapped itself to rest athwart my buttocks (buttocks, what a maddeningly absurd word), her taut calf appearing upon my right, curling round (was this even possible?) to hook over my hip. If this was not outrageous enough, the very foot at the end of that selfsame leg suddenly plunged beneath my breeches to snare the rearing tubeworm of my weakness, between big toe and the rest.
At this point, she’d already closed one hand about the bag and was rolling the marbles to and fro, whilst her other hand was driving a finger against previously unexplored areas of sexual sensitivity in that dubious crack people of all genders cannot help but possess.
And my thoughts at this stage in the proceedings? Picture, if you will, a newborn’s expression of interminable stunned witless stupidity, wide as a bright smile following wind, eyes spread to the wonder of it all when every bit of that ‘all’ is entirely beyond comprehension. If you have reared children or suffered the fate of caring for someone else’s, then you know well the look I faint describe herein. This was the state of my organ of thought. Immune to all intrusion as my clothing miraculously melted away and she mounted herself smooth as perfumed silk, only to suddenly pull free, unwind herself with serpent grace, and step back.
‘You get the rest when I am redeemed.’
Women.
I am at a loss for words. Even all these decades later. At a loss. Forgive.
For all our conceits we are, in the end, helpless creatures. We grasp all that is within reach, and then yearn for all beyond that reach. In said state, how can we hope for redemption? Staggering off to my bedroll, I slept fitfully that night, and was started awake just before dawn when Steck Marynd returned on his weary horse, the trundled form of Nifty Gum straddling the beast’s rump.
Mild and fleeting my curiosity at the absence of the Entourage, until exhaustion plucked me free of the miserable world one last time before the sun rose to announce the twenty-fifth day upon Cracked Pot Trail.
A Recounting of the Twenty-fifth Day
HIS FACE BLEAK, Steck Marynd crouched before the ash-heaped hearth, and told his tale whilst we gnawed on what was left of Calap Roud. Bludgeoning the heat with the sun barely squatting on the eastern hills. Turgid the dusted air through which crazed insects flitted. Squalid and pinched these faces on pilgrimage to expressions of ecstatic release. Unmindful the implacable mules and unhampered the
innocent horses.
The host sat in fret. Tiny, Midge and Flea crouched and picked like rock-apes over the last of the unspoiled meat. Relish braided blades of grass, making small nooses. Mister Must puttered about the carriage, pausing to scratch his backside every now and then, before adding more leaves to the pot of tea, stirring and whatnot. Apto Canavalian huddled beneath his threadbare blanket, as if withering beneath the murderous glares of Brash Phluster. Purse Snippet sipped at her steaming cup and a hand and a foot was visible from the ditch where Sellup was lying.
Tulgord Vise paced, fondling his pommel as knights will do.
Arpo Relent, alas, had not moved a single twitch from his facedown deliberations, and this was ominous indeed.
As for Nifty Gum, why, from what could be seen in that bunch and fold of cloak, that haystack of once glistening gold hair now as dishevelled as a hairball spat up by a dragon, he was at the very edge of gibbering unreason, as might afflict a famous person no-one wanted to know anymore. Buffeted by our disregard, he sat like an overgrown milestone, head lowered, hands hidden, his boots splashed with dark stains and churning with flies.
Steck Marynd prefaced his recount with a shudder and hands up at his face, as if in horror of memories resurrected. Then he lowered those weathered hands, revealing a visage of guttered faith, and began.
I am a man of doubts, though with eyes set upon me none would say such a thing. Is this not fair? Stalwart and firm, is Steck Marynd. Slayer of demons, hunter of necromancers, the very spine of the Nehemothanai – you will be silent, Mortal Sword, for even you must accept that this is a bloodied trail I have followed far longer than you. I am the cutter excising the cancer of evil, the surgeon setting blade to the tumour of cold malice. Such is the course of my life. I have chosen it and do not begrudge this nest of scars.
Yet, there are doubts within me, the begat of the very life I have chosen for myself. I tell you all this: when one looks into the eye of evil, one’s very soul is shaken, and trembles but one tug from uprooted and forever lost. The ground becomes uncertain underfoot. Balance tilts awry. To then strike it down, to destroy it utterly, is an act of self-preservation. In defence of one’s own soul. It is like that. Each and every time. But there are moments when it is not enough, not nearly enough.
The Second Collected Tales of Bauchelain & Korbal Broach: Three Short Novels of the Malazan Empire Page 26