The Second Collected Tales of Bauchelain & Korbal Broach: Three Short Novels of the Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘Not a chance,’ chimed in Le Groutt, his large teeth gleaming.

  ‘Unless Barunko can throw us high, up near one of the spikes,’ Mortari said.

  ‘Grab hold of the corpse’s leg and hope it don’t tear off,’ added Le Groutt.

  ‘Up past that …’

  ‘Handholds and footholds.’

  Sighing, Plaintly Grasp turned to Barunko. ‘Well?’

  ‘Throwing? I can throw. Give me something to throw.’

  ‘You’ll be throwing Mortari,’ explained Plaintly. ‘Up to one of those spikes.’

  ‘Spikes?’

  ‘The ones on the wall.’

  ‘Wall?’

  ‘Over there.’ She pointed.

  Barunko looked about. ‘Wall,’ he said, grunting. ‘Show me.’

  Symon The Knife spat onto the greasy cobbles. ‘This is a problem,’ he said.

  ‘What is, Symon?’ Plaintly demanded in a hiss. ‘He said he can do it, didn’t he?’

  Drawing out a dagger, Symon gestured with it towards Barunko. ‘Back when the Party of Five was the terror of the city’s wealthy,’ he said, ‘our muscle here could still see past his own nose. Now, well …’

  ‘It don’t matter,’ insisted Plaintly. ‘We just point him in the right direction. Like we did on the last job—’

  ‘Oh,’ piped in Lurma Spilibus, ‘the last job.’

  ‘We survived it!’ Plaintly snapped. She grasped Barunko by an arm and started dragging him towards the alley mouth. ‘This way,’ she said. ‘You just grab Mortari and throw him as high as you can, right?’

  ‘Throw Mortari,’ Barunko said, nodding. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I’m right here—’

  Barunko spun, grasped hold of Mortari, and threw him across the street. The 2nd story man struck the palace wall with a meaty thud and then crumpled to the cobbles.

  ‘No,’ said Plaintly, ‘that was too soon. Le Groutt, come here. Barunko, let Le Groutt take your wrist, yes, like that. He’s going to lead you to the wall. When you get there, you throw him, upward. Straight up. Got it?’

  ‘Got it. Show me the wall. Where’s Le Groutt?’

  ‘He’s holding your wrist,’ said Plaintly. ‘Now, Le Groutt, lead him out there and quick about it.’

  Lurma moved up alongside her and they watched Le Groutt pull Barunko towards the wall, close to Mortari’s motionless form. ‘Plaintly?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going to scout to the left there. Think I see something.’

  ‘Go ahead, just be stealthy.’

  She scowled above her crossed eyes. ‘Don’t patronize me, Plaintly.’

  Shrugging, mostly to herself as she watched Lurma skitter one way and then that across the street, Plaintly returned her attention to Le Groutt and Barunko.

  Symondenalian crept to her side, working his knife around one hand. ‘More than Barunko’s sight is dull,’ he opined.

  Plaintly Grasp turned on him. ‘That’s what I always hated about you, Symon. You’re so judgemental.’

  ‘What? That man made a habit of using his head to bash in doors!’

  ‘And there wasn’t a door that his head couldn’t bash in!’

  At the wall, Le Groutt had positioned Barunko beneath one of the spikes, in the dried puddle of all that had leaked out from the corpse speared on it, and was whispering in the man’s ear. Nodding, Barunko grasped hold of Le Groutt, and in one swift surge, flung the man upward.

  Le Groutt sailed up past the spike, scrabbled desperately at the wall, and then slid back down. The spike impaled his left thigh, arresting his fall. He dangled there for a moment, and then began writhing alongside the withered corpse.

  ‘Come on,’ hissed Plaintly and she and Symon hurried across to join Barunko.

  Their muscle was crouched in a combative pose. ‘Did I do it?’ he asked when Plaintly and Symon arrived. ‘I heard a whimper! Is he hanging on?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Symon, ‘he is at that, Barunko.’

  There was a groan from Mortari, and a moment later the man slowly sat up, one side of his head so swollen it seemed another head was trying to make its way out from his cheek and temple.

  ‘What’s leaking on me?’ Barunko asked.

  ‘That’d be Le Groutt,’ said Symon. Then he dropped his knife. It landed point first on his right foot, sliding neatly through the leather of his shoe, slicing through everything else until it jammed in the sole. Symon stared down at the quivering weapon. ‘Fuck,’ he said, ‘that hurts.’

  ‘Stop pissing about, Symon,’ hissed Plaintly. ‘Barunko, that was a good throw. Honest. He just got hung up on the spike.’ She squinted upward. ‘Looks like he’s trying to pull himself loose.’

  Mortari used the wall to stand up. ‘There were puppies,’ he said. ‘I never thought she’d have puppies. I should’ve guessed, the way she kept coming back and hanging around.’

  Lurma Spilibus joined them. ‘I found an old postern gate,’ she said. ‘Picked the lock. We’re in.’

  ‘Great work,’ Plaintly said, and then turned back to Barunko. ‘Barunko, you got to throw Mortari up there, so he can help get Le Groutt off that spike.’

  ‘Throw Mortari,’ Barunko said, nodding.

  Plaintly pushed Mortari into Barunko’s huge hands. ‘Here he is—’

  Barunko threw the man upward.

  There was a thud, a scrape, and then a yelp.

  Plaintly stepped slightly away from the wall and looked up. She placed her hands on her hips, and then said, ‘Okay, good throw. Symon, get that knife out of your foot, you’re next.’

  Ambassador Ophal D’Neeth Flatroq exited the compound via the back postern gate, creeping out into the alley. It was dark. Just how he liked it. Hunched in his black snake-skin cloak he peered up and then down the alley. A scrawny cat eyed him from a heap of rubbish, hackles slowly lifting. Meeting its lambent eyes, Ophal’s tongue darted out and he blinked.

  The cat fled in a scatter of dried leaves and pod husks.

  Ophal crept deeper into the shadows, edging along a wall, his broad, bare, nail-less feet silent on the grimy cobbles. There was a route to the Royal Palace that never left alleys and unlit stretches of street. He had made use of it many times in the decade or so of his posting in the city of Farrog. Ideally, he would meet no-one en route, but that was no certainty. Encounters were unfortunate, but he had long since grown used to inspiring terror in the natives, and without question some advantages accrued with the reputation now attending the lone Ambassador of Nightmaria.

  His was the only embassy in existence, a concession to the proximity of Farrog to the High Kingdom. As a general rule, his people avoided contact with neighbouring realms. To be sure, familiarity was the seed of contempt, and history was replete with welcoming kingdoms suffering the eventual ignominy of cultural degradation, moral confusion and the eventual, and fatal, loss of self-identity.

  All trade was strictly prescribed. No foreigner had ever managed to penetrate the kingdom beyond the trade posts situated along the borders at one of the seven high-roads. The lands to either side of the high-roads were a maze of gorges, sheer cliffs, sink-holes and crevices, and even there, watchful wardens ensured that no hardy adventurer or spy ever managed to slip into the high plateaus where the cities of the Imperial Kingdom thrived in their splendid isolation.

  How he missed his home! And yet, necessities abided, responsibilities settled their burden, and besides, no-one back there much liked him, anyway.

  Sighing, he continued on, creeping from alley to shadow, narrow wend to the twisted and foul trenches of the city’s open sewers, his only company thus far resident rats, kilaptra worms, and three-eyed dart-snakes. Of these, he made an effort to avoid only the dart-snakes, as they were in the habit of trying to nest in whatever cracks and folds of the flesh a body might possess. For all his … eccentricities, Ophal was relieved that obesity did not count among them. Come to think of it, he could not recall the last time he’d seen an overweight citizen of Farro
g. Mostly, from what he could discern from the high narrow windows of the embassy tower, the swarming figures below all shared a wretched hint of emaciation. It was, therefore, a mystery where the dart-snakes nested.

  The question remained with him, gnawing away inside. An examination of the matter seemed worthy of some diligence, pointing at some treatise or at least a monograph. Assuming he’d find the time, and all things considered, the next while promised to be somewhat busy.

  This new, belligerent and entirely unreasonable king of Farrog had made all too plain his venal desires, and now his wish would be answered. The Ambassador of Nightmaria was this night on his way to the Royal Palace, to deliver the official declaration of war between Nightmaria and Farrog.

  His exploration of the nesting habits of three-eyed dart-snakes would, alas, have to wait.

  As he made his way along a walled trench, ankle-deep in foul sewage, a kitten appeared on the ledge to his left, scampering along the narrow track. His hand snapped out, knobby, scaled fingers closing tight about the creature. It squealed, but the cry was short-lived, as he quickly broke its neck and then, disarticulating his lower jaw, began pushing the mangled furry carcass into his mouth.

  In his wake but at a safe distance, a veritable carpet of dart-snakes slithered after him, enraptured by something like worship.

  ‘Now’s the time,’ hissed Plaintly Grasp, glaring across at Lurma Spilibus, who scowled back at her.

  They were all huddled against the wall, the gaping postern entranceway close by. Blood smeared the cobbles beneath Mortari and Le Groutt, while Symondenalian Niksos had pulled off his thin leather moccasin to tip it upside down so that it could drain. Barunko had just punched at his own shadow, thinking it was a guard, cracking two knuckles against the wall.

  ‘But we’re not even inside yet!’ retorted Lurma.

  ‘Getting in’s always the hardest part,’ Plaintly replied. ‘Now we’ve done that and healing’s needed. Le Groutt can’t walk and Mortari’s … well, Mortari’s not all here.’

  ‘Not one of them looked like me,’ Mortari said, his swollen head tilted to one side. ‘No matter what anybody said.’ His tongue edged up to lick at the fluids draining from his nose. ‘Besides, I’d been drinking all week and she had the cutest ears.’

  ‘Lurma, get out that unguent, now.’

  Snarling, Lurma, known to many as The Fingers, fumbled in her purse and then withdrew a gilded vial. ‘It’s my only one,’ she said. ‘For when things get really nasty. And now we’re about to sneak into a Royal Palace crawling with demons and who knows what else. I’m telling you, Plaintly, this is a bad idea.’

  ‘Hand it over.’

  Lower lip trembling, Lurma passed the vial over. She and Plaintly struggled for a moment getting their hands to meet, as Lurma kept snatching the vial to the sides. ‘Just take it already!’

  ‘I’m trying! Hold still!’

  Finally, with the vial in hand, Plaintly crouched beside Le Groutt. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘one mouthful’s all you need. This is potent stuff.’

  Lurma snorted. ‘Of course it is. Only the best for The Fingers. And now it’s being wasted.’

  ‘He’s got a hole through his leg, Lurma,’ said Plaintly, ‘big enough for you to run your arm through.’

  ‘I’ve seen worse,’ Lurma replied, crossing her arms. ‘I could run half a day with a scratch like that.’

  Le Groutt gulped down his mouthful, and then settled back, sighing.

  Turning to Mortari, Plaintly said, ‘Now you, Mortari.’

  ‘She howled outside my window for I don’t know how many nights.’

  ‘I bet she did. Here, drink. One swallow!’

  Mortari drank down a mouthful and handed the vial back. ‘A spike went through my shoulder,’ he said. ‘Not good.’ He frowned. ‘And my head. What’s wrong with my head? Ma always said to let sleeping dogs lie, but did I listen? I must have. The puppies didn’t look like me at all, not a chance.’

  Le Groutt grunted. ‘Healed the flesh wounds, but his brain’s still addled.’

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ said Mortari, blinking, ‘being addled. She had this manic look afterwards, eyes all wild. Gave me the shivers. That’s just how it is, all those regrets after you went and did it. Anyway, after dropping the puppies she just let herself go, you know what I mean? Udders dragging and all that. I was still young. I had a future!’

  Plaintly handed the vial back to Lurma. ‘See?’ she said, ‘there’s some left.’

  ‘Hey,’ hissed Symon The Knife, ‘what about me?’

  ‘Not enough blood came out of that moccasin,’ said Plaintly. ‘You’ll manage.’

  ‘But I’m a knife fighter! I need to be light on my feet, dancing this way and that, dipping and sliding and weaving, a blur of deadly motion, blades flashing and flickering in the moonlight—’

  ‘Just throw the fucking things and run,’ muttered Lurma. ‘It’s what you always do.’

  Symon twisted round to her. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Plaintly Grasp, known to many as The Fence, held up her hands. ‘Stop bickering, you two! Le Groutt, you up to taking point?’

  ‘Point, aye. I got eyes like a cat. Handholds. Footholds.’ He pulled from his bag a coil of rope. Seeing Plaintly’s frown, he said, ‘Might be traps.’

  ‘Traps? This ain’t some Jhagut sepulcher, Le Groutt. It’s a fucking palace.’

  Le Groutt’s face turned stubborn. ‘I don’t go nowhere without my rope. And my ball o’wax. And my Cloak of Blending—’

  ‘Your what?’ Symon asked with a snicker. ‘Oh, you mean that dusty poncho, right, sorry.’

  ‘Dust, aye,’ Le Groutt said in a half-snarl. ‘To blend me into the walls and whatnot.’

  ‘Just get going,’ Plaintly said. ‘Then you, Symon, followed by Mortari and then Lurma and then me. Barunko takes up the rear.’

  ‘Up the rear,’ said Barunko, ‘Let me at ’im!’

  Etched pentagrams of various sizes crowded the floor, with only a narrow path winding amongst them. Emancipor stood just inside the doorway, licking lips that seemed impossibly dry with a tongue that was even drier. His breathing was rapid, with shivers running through him, the sweat on his brow cold as ice.

  ‘Mister Reese? Is something wrong?’

  The manservant squinted across at Bauchelain, who stood near a long, narrow table crowded with phials, beakers, stoppered urns, small ornate boxes, clay jars, blocks of pigment, brushes and reeds of charcoal. Upon a shelf above this table was a row of raised disks, each one home to a tiny demon. Most of them squatted motionless in the centre of their modest prisons, eyes glittering, although a few paced like caged rats. All bore the smudged remnants of brightly coloured paint.

  ‘Mister Reese?’

  ‘Huh? Oh, no Master, I’m fine. More or less. Maybe something I ate.’

  ‘Come along, then, and do recall, stay between the circles on the floor. There is a delicate art to conjuration. A mere misstep could prove disastrous. Now,’ he clapped his hands, ‘we’ll begin with the most demanding of charges, the summoning of an Andelainian Highborn Demon, perhaps even one of royal blood. Once we have compelled that worthy servant, we’ll add in a few dozen lesser demons, each serving as bait for the voracious appetites of the Indifferent God. Ah, I tell you, Mister Reese, it has been years since I last felt so … enlivened.’

  ‘Aye, Master, I see how excited you must be.’

  Bauchelain paused, raising a brow. ‘Indeed? Am I so obvious, then?’

  ‘Your beard twitched.’

  ‘It did?’

  ‘Once.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll allow you the sharp observation. This time. Imperturbability and equanimity are of course virtues I hold dear, as befits a Master of Necromancy and Conjuration, not to mention a tyrant king – oh no, I shall not be of the frothing variety of the latter, whose antics I find utterly distasteful and, well, embarrassing.’

  ‘Aye, Master, gibbering from the throne’s bad form, as yo
u say.’

  Bauchelain raised one long finger. ‘The illusion of control is essential, Mister Reese, at all times. Now, come along. I need you with me for the summoning.’

  Emancipor approached. Carefully. ‘What am I to do, Master? A demon prince, you said?’

  ‘Yes. Who shall arrive ill of temper, disgruntled and perhaps even enraged.’

  ‘And, uh, me?’

  ‘You will stand … here, as close to the edge of the circle as you can manage, without touching it, of course. Come along, don’t be shy. Yes, precisely. Now, don’t move.’

  ‘Master?’

  ‘Mister Reese?’

  ‘What do I do next?’

  ‘Why, nothing. Now, the demon, upon seeing you, will naturally reach for you, intent on your messy death. Assuming the pentagram possesses no unseen flaws in its pattern, such as, perhaps, a single cat hair lying athwart the outer ring’s line, the demon shall fail in grasping you.’

  ‘Cat hair?’ Emancipor turned to the other shelf, the one opposite the one bearing all the tiny demons, where a dozen cats were lying in solemn observation, tails twitching.

  ‘Or some such thing,’ Bauchelain murmured. ‘Very well then—’

  ‘Sir, if a single cat hair can break the circle, er, shouldn’t those creatures be banned from this chamber? I mean, it would seem a reasonable precaution.’

  ‘You might think that,’ said Bauchelain, with a slight frown at being interrupted. ‘There was a previous concern, you see. Mice.’

  ‘Mice?’

  ‘Many mice, Mister Reese. Possessing slithery tails, a common trait among mice specifically, and indeed, all rodents. A mouse that happens to find itself within or athwart a pentagram at the moment of conjuration, will often suffer the fate of possession. In fact, there are one or two mice still at large, somewhere in this chamber, that are in fact demonic.’

  ‘Demonic mice?’

  ‘Yes, alas. Which is why the cats are all up on that high shelf.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Leaving me confident that no cat hairs mar the line of the outer circle.’

  ‘Ah, right.’

  ‘I trust my logic satisfies you, Mister Reese. Now, may I begin? Thank you. Oh, and say or do nothing that might distract me.’