The Prime Master transferred his attention and stood forward: Surin, tall and straight despite his extraordinarily extended years. He raised a finger. ‘I remember you from classes. Pon-lor, yes? Promising material. You have done well, but now we are aware of your … condition. It is fatal, you know.’
Pon-lor nodded. He was mentally exhausted and knew he could not overcome all five – as they knew as well. ‘Eventually,’ he agreed.
Surin shook his lean hound’s head as if in regret. ‘You fool. Do you not understand who is coming? He must be destroyed at all costs! It is our sacred trust to do so. We guard against all such threats. It is the purpose of our order. You know this, yes?’
Pon-lor stood weaving, hardly able to control his body. ‘I’m beginning to suspect that he simply kept you contained and so you tried to get rid of him.’
‘Poisonous revisionism! You are dangerous indeed.’ He nodded to his fellows. ‘Continue.’ His raised hand clenched to a fist and Pon-lor gasped as something took hold of his heart. His chest wrenched as if torn. A great vice had hold of his ribs and was tightening. He fell to his knees. Distantly, in a blur, he sensed the ritual spiralling inwards. It was condensing and concentrating to its final compelling. His one good eye remained fixed upon Surin as he fought the power striving to pulp his heart. His other eye, meanwhile, gazed upon the argent bands of energy as they writhed and spun, the silhouette of Saeng within. Even as both eyes dimmed, it was plain to him that the brilliant gold of the ray-burst now outshone the pulsing energies, and that light eventually completely overcame his vision.
The crushing pressure upon his chest eased. He blinked to see Surin now staring at the dais, horror on his face. He waved his arms, shouted. Movement disturbed the shadows behind the Prime Master and a tall shape loomed forward. It glittered from a thousand points like a field of stars. A flash of silver and the master’s expression eased into puzzlement. Then the head slid aside and toppled from the torso. The body fell. Hanu, behind, tottered to steady himself upon his huge yataghan blade.
The remaining four masters at the compass points now shared their leader’s panic. They sought to extricate themselves from a ritual invocation gone far beyond their control. Lineaments of the energies crept up invisible lines towards their hands.
The summoned energies continued to tighten and coalesce into one solid bar of argent light so searing as to glow white. Within, barely visible, was Saeng, arms still upraised, face pointed to the sky. Yet even as Pon-lor levered himself to his feet he could see that something had changed. She was lower. Sinking, in fact, into the liquid light that now grasped her knees. It appeared to Pon-lor’s odd eye that she held something in her cupped hands: an object of pure brilliance – the source of the argent.
A questing lightning-tongue of energy reached the hand of one flailing master. The flesh and bones flashed instantly into ash and motes of soot that floated about him. The tendril continued creeping up his entire arm until that too had disappeared into ash.
All the masters screamed soundlessly as the tendrils found them. Each was consumed piece by piece by the flickering tongues. Pon-lor limped down to the dais where he shaded his gaze to try to make out Saeng’s form. She had descended further into what could not be gold now at all, but rather swirling raw power, perhaps akin in form to that he’d read Chaos itself might take. It coursed upwards in a narrow, focused band that ran through her cupped hands.
As Pon-lor watched, helpless, her head sank below the surface. Only her arms were visible now, still upraised, holding what might or might not be anything more than some sort of kernel, or seed, of concentrated power.
Her hands slid down to the coursing glittering surface of shimmering energies and the bar of power snapped out of existence. In the resulting darkness his one good eye was blind, but the other saw the glowing ray-burst sigil pulsing like a fallen star. A huge shape moved next to him and Hanu thrust his arm down into the concentrated liquid energy. The stone armour glowed red, then slurried away in streams of molten rock that smoked and sparked.
The arm emerged holding Saeng’s. With both hands he heaved her from the dais to the floor where she lay naked, her body smoking.
‘We must go!’ Pon-lor shouted, still deafened by the roaring.
Hanu nodded ponderously, and picked up his sister. In passing, he also snatched up a cloak from one dead Thaumaturg and draped it over her.
Light filled the chamber, blinding Pon-lor’s one good eye once again. It came pouring in through the narrow entrance like water from a bucket – an absolute solid gushing radiance that then snapped away just as instantly.
‘Something has come,’ Pon-lor panted into the silence that followed. He motioned to the entrance.
They emerged into the temple grounds and all seemed normal and mundane. It was still light. The Visitor still hung low in the west. But now a slim dark cloud rose into the sky over the top of the intervening halls and squat towers of the temple complex. It was churning, impossibly narrow. It seemed to stretch as it reached for the heights, and was as black as soot. It climbed enormously tall then its top swelled out into a great suspended circular crown of night.
A strong wind blew out of the west and stirred the surrounding treetops. Torn leaves and branches soared overhead. An avalanche-like roaring reached Pon-lor’s punished ears. ‘Take cover!’ he yelled to Hanu then dived behind a wall. Hanu knelt over Saeng.
Something struck the walls, towers and colonnaded walks of the temple complex. A great swatting hand came out of the west. Pon-lor could not close his odd eye. It stared skyward and there it witnessed entire giant trees come tumbling overhead; boulders and stones, sections of stone arches, the top of a well, an animal flailing its limbs, and black clouds of a near-infinite amount of dirt and sand and dust.
In that lashing storm Pon-lor found himself in the odd position of the helpless bystander as the broken fragments of his mind finally drifted out of touch with one another. Slowly, as the storm lashed him without, he could only watch while an inner storm drove the disparate fragments of his consciousness, one by one, out of his awareness. His memories, his reasoning, his very identity, became not only incoherent and unrecognizable, but utterly blank: empty gaps – entire parts of him gone, missing and irretrievable.
As the black dust and ash settled over his body, a similar darkness settled over his mind until it smothered his identity and consciousness into complete nothingness and he wandered lost and unremembering within his own skull.
* * *
For all Shimmer could tell it was perhaps four days later, or the next day, when she was with Lor, walking the grounds near their collection of huts. She was thinking that they had wasted enough time awaiting Ardata’s indulgence and should just go. There was nothing for them here. It had been a mistake. Skinner would not show – the goddess and he were not on good terms. It was also in fact very dangerous for K’azz; Skinner might decide to eliminate him.
Lor, walking with her, suddenly snapped up her head, her long ash-blond hair whipping, and stopped. Shimmer followed her gaze to see Ardata herself sitting on the lowest step of a nearby stone stupa. She was attended by the young woman they had met their first day, wrapped in her folds of pure white silks.
She and Lor backed away towards camp.
As she went, she thought she saw the young woman studying her, and her gaze widening in a strange sort of shock.
Shimmer in return sensed something about her, but couldn’t quite identify it at the moment. She turned away to head for camp. There, everyone was standing, eyeing the distant stupa and the woman in white robes with the cascading black hair. K’azz nodded to Shimmer. ‘It would appear to be time for my audience,’ he murmured to her, wryly.
‘You shouldn’t go alone.’
‘You are right, of course. I shouldn’t. But I will. Keep watch.’
‘Of course.’
He headed off. Walking away in his torn shirt and trousers, so thin and wiry, he seemed achingly fragile; like some sta
rving beggar or wretched vagabond. Shimmer motioned Gwynn to her. ‘Anyone else around?’
The man rubbed his forehead, grimacing his pain. ‘Impossible to tell. Ardata’s presence saturates everything. But if we are blind, then so are they.’
She grunted her acknowledgement, her eyes on the two as they spoke. Ardata motioned and the young woman left them. Shimmer noted her limp.
The two spoke alone for some time. Neither raised their voice or gesticulated. K’azz then gestured aside, inviting, and they walked away into the woods. Shimmer watched until they passed out of sight.
‘Should I follow?’ Gwynn asked.
She shook her head. ‘No. Allow them their privacy. There’s nothing we can do to stop her from pulling something anyway. No. We will wait.’ She eased herself down with her back to a tree, fanned herself to keep the bugs away. Cole and Amatt returned to preparing the palm leaves to be woven into the roof of another hut. Turgal sat at their main hut and helped himself to a drink from the pot they kept topped with sweetwater. Gwynn and Lor were arguing about something while squinting off to the west.
Shimmer peered in that direction: the light did seem strange through the trees to the west. A new glow seemed to be diminishing the baleful emerald presence of the Visitor.
Lor and Gwynn sensed it first. They both jerked to their feet as if at a loud noise. Shimmer was quick to follow. She scanned the surroundings and what she discovered there made her shoulders fall. They were encircled by a ring of faces every one of which she knew. The full complement of the Disavowed. Skinner had brought everyone.
They drove Turgal ahead of them as they closed. The man himself came forward, his arms out, as if to say: Fancy meeting you lot here.
Gwynn, Shimmer noted, had squared off against Mara, while Lor eyed Petal. Shimmer turned her full attention to Skinner and was startled to see that the man was not armed. If I could slay him all this would be over. Her hand went to the grip of her whipsword. He and I.
She edged forward, knees bent, while Skinner merely watched, a strange grin playing about his mouth.
A flash blinded Shimmer then – coming out of the west. She blinked, quite dazzled, and rubbed at her eyes. Everyone round her was cursing the light. Then Lor screamed. Shimmer groped for her. She blinked away tears as she searched for her through dark spots floating before her eyes. She found her writhing on the ground, her hands at her face. Fresh blood smeared her eyes, mouth and nose. She was whimpering as if beyond agony.
‘What is it?’ Shimmer demanded, yelling.
‘The Warrens,’ Lor gurgled through a mouthful of blood. ‘Struck!’
She straightened. What is this? Some sort of censure from Ardata? She saw Skinner leaning over a prostrate Mara. He turned his head to her and she returned her hand to her weapon. Do it now, woman – end it!
‘Hold!’ The voice cut across the grounds, unstrained, yet utterly commanding. Shimmer slipped her hand from her weapon. Skinner merely grinned, as if having read her mind.
The Disavowed parted and Ardata, accompanied by K’azz, entered.
‘She’ll kill you,’ Shimmer whispered to Skinner.
He straightened and pushed back his dirty-blond hair. Leaning to her, he answered as if confiding a secret: ‘She cannot kill me – no one can.’ He tapped the black scales of his armour.
A surly ‘Don’t count on it’ was the best she could manage.
Shimmer knelt again at Lor’s side. The woman was unconscious, as were most of the rest of the mages: Gwynn, Mara, Petal and Red. Unconscious or weakly struggling, utterly incapacitated. She stood and peered about to catch the gaze of all the nearby Disavowed. None would meet her eye.
‘What has happened here?’ Skinner demanded of Ardata.
She was peering to the west and Shimmer was quite startled to see unguarded wonder, even amazement, upon her face. ‘A surprise. A great surprise. Something very strange and … unexpected.’ She seemed unable to wrest her gaze from that horizon.
‘A disruption in the Warrens?’ Shimmer asked.
‘Far more than a disruption,’ Ardata answered, distracted. ‘An impact. But over now. The ripples diminish even as we speak.’
Next to Ardata, K’azz lightly tilted his head in greeting to his one-time lieutenant. ‘Skinner.’
‘K’azz,’ Skinner answered. He bowed to Ardata. ‘My apologies, m’lady.’
‘Skinner,’ she answered. With a visible effort, she turned her troubled gaze from the west. ‘You may not believe me when I say this – but it is good to see you again.’
He bowed once more. Then he returned his attention to K’azz. He studied his old commander as if disappointed. ‘It was foolish of you to come. That is, unless …’ He raised one brow in an unspoken question.
Ardata’s already thin lipless mouth tightened even further. ‘You take much upon yourself, Skinner. Have a care.’
‘A care? Very well … just what did you talk about?’
‘We spoke of responsibilities,’ K’azz supplied.
‘Responsibilities? Really? Is that so. Well … I have responsibilities as well.’ He gestured about to the Disavowed. ‘To my people. To lead them to the most advantageous position I can gain for them. And so, in consideration of that, I ask that you stand aside as Commander of the Crimson Guard and allow me to ascend to that position. Really, K’azz. It would be for the best. I hear you do not seem very interested in any of this of late.’
Shimmer listened, horrified. Horrified because, in a ruthless light, the man’s words possessed an awful logic. They were a mercenary company that took no contracts despite an empty treasury. That desperately needed to recruit to strengthen their numbers, yet hardly admitted any new members. That had sworn opposition to the Malazans, yet had withdrawn from all such direct opposition. And the prince was a commander who seemed completely uninterested in command. What, then, were they?
K’azz shook his head. It seemed to Shimmer that remorse pulled the skin tight about his eyes. ‘No. I cannot stand aside. Nor can you remove me. We are stuck with each other. And so I ask you – and all those who chose to follow you – to return to the Guard.’
Skinner raised a hand for a moment’s pause. ‘Oh, I am thinking of returning to the Guard.’ He beckoned to Shijel, who handed over one of his longswords. Skinner hefted it, getting a feel for the long slim blade. He returned his attention to K’azz and his mouth quirked up in that way it did when he was indulging his savage side. ‘But I have a condition first.’
The light changed again and Shimmer could not help but glance to the west. Darkness now gathered there, rather prematurely. It was as if sunset had somehow crept in upon them, though she knew it was hours before twilight. Yet there it was, a swelling adumbral gloom, spreading to encompass the west, swallowing the sun.
K’azz did not move though he must know what the man intended. ‘Do not do this, Skinner.’ His tone was beseeching but Shimmer felt that it was not for his life that he feared. She thought that Skinner, however, would take it that way. And she knew she was right when she saw how his mouth twisted his disgust – He thinks K’azz is pleading for his life. But if not that – then what is he doing?
He raised the longsword in both hands like a headsman’s axe. ‘I will make it quick, K’azz.’
Do something, K’azz! Shimmer pleaded. Why won’t you do something?
Ardata lifted a pale hand. ‘Before you act, Skinner, I have one final request of you.’
He let the blade slowly fall but did not shift his gaze from K’azz. ‘Oh?’
‘Yes. And you will consider carefully before answering, won’t you?’
Something in her tone warned him and he stepped back from K’azz to turn and give her his full attention. K’azz, for his part, merely lowered his gaze, his mouth clenched tight.
‘Yes?’ Skinner said.
‘I ask you, Skinner, one final time, that you reconsider my offer and stand here at my side.’
He took a long slow breath, pushed back his bunched hair
. ‘We have been through this …’
‘Consider carefully,’ she warned him again.
‘Ardata – m’lady. This … place … is not for me. I have no wish to remain.’
‘No wish …’ she echoed faintly, her brows crimping.
A distant clatter of dry branches and a flurry of leaves announced the arrival of a strong wind out of the west. It blustered through the grounds stirring up clouds of dust that everyone waved from their faces. Leaves and broken branches gyred about. Shimmer brushed the dark dust, mixed with a scattering of ash, from her shoulders and sleeves.
Ardata’s dark eyes had been drawn again to the west, where they rested, full of puzzlement. A hand went to her white throat. ‘No wish …’ she repeated, as if to herself.
Skinner glanced about, uncertain. No one dared move as the goddess appeared to be approaching some decision that she seemed to dread. She turned back to Skinner. ‘If you must go, then I must take back my gift.’
Now Skinner frowned, even more wary. ‘You told me yourself,’ he answered, speaking very carefully, ‘that no one in the world would be able to do that. Not even you, should you wish it.’
‘That is true. No one can take my gift from you,’ she agreed. ‘However … I can ask that it return to me.’
She held out her slim hand and beckoned. A metallic shifting and grating sounded, coming from Skinner who spun, peering down at himself, his brows now clenched. ‘What is this …?’ he murmured.
Shimmer peered more closely as some sort of rippling gleamed from the long coat of mail. It was as if each link was moving of its own accord.
The scales were shifting, she was certain. Each seemed to wiggle individually. She thought she saw multiple legs unlocking as, in descending waves, each scale detached itself from its fellows.
Skinner spun faster. He slapped at himself. ‘What is this …?’ he shouted, panic in his voice.
‘I am sorry, Skinner,’ Ardata said, her voice sad, yet firm. ‘I gave you every chance. But you have chosen to reject my gifts.’
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