The Bonehunters

by Steven Erikson

  'Truly? Well, I am surprised. Pleasantly so. Very well. You must understand this, then. To speak of war among the gods, it is not simply a matter of, say, this goddess here scratching out the eyes of that god over there. Nor, even, of an army of acolytes from this temple marching upon an army from the temple across the street. A war among the gods is not fought with thunderbolts and earthquakes, although of course it is possible — but improbable — that it could come to that. The war in question, then, is messy, the battle-lines muddied, unclear, and even the central combatants struggle to comprehend what constitutes a weapon, what wounds and what is harmless. And worse still, to wield such weapons proves as likely to harm the wielder as the foe.'

  'Fanaticism breeds fanaticism, aye,' Mappo said, nodding. ' "In proclamation, one defines his enemy for his enemy".'

  She smiled her dazzling smile. 'A quote? From whom?'

  'Kellanved, the founding emperor of the Malazan Empire.'

  'Indeed, you grasp the essence of my meaning. Now, the nature of fanaticism can be likened to that of a tree — many branches, but one tap-root.'

  'Inequity.'

  'Or at least the comprehension of and the faith in, whether such inequity is but imagined or exists in truth. More often than not, of course, such inequity does exist, and it is the poison that breeds the darkest fruit. Mundane wealth is usually built upon bones, piled high and packed deep. Alas, the holders of that wealth misapprehend the nature of their reward, and so are often blithely indifferent in their ostentatious display of their wealth. The mis­apprehension is this: that those who do not possess wealth all yearn to, and so seek likeness, and this yearning occludes all feelings of resentment, exploitation and, most relevantly, injustice. To some extent they are right, but mostly they are woefully wrong. When wealth ascends to a point where the majority of the poor finally comprehend that it is, for each of them, unattainable, then all civility collapses, and anarchy prevails. Now, I was speaking of war among the gods. Do you grasp the connection, Mappo Runt?'

  'Not entirely.'

  'I appreciate your honesty, Trell. Consider this: when inequity burgeons into violent conflagration, the gods themselves are helpless. The gods cease to lead — they can but follow, dragged by the will of their worshippers. Now, suppose gods to be essentially moral entities — that is, possessing and indeed manifestly representing a particular ethos — well, then, such moral considerations become the first victim in the war. Unless that god chooses to defend him or herself from his or her own believers. Allies, enemies? What relevance such primitive, simplistic notions in that scenario, Mappo Runt?'

  The Trell gazed out at the heaving waves, this tireless succession born of distant convulsions, the broken tug of' tides, hard and bitter winds and all that moved in the world. And yet, staring long enough, this simple undulat­ing motion... mesmerizing. 'We are,' he said, 'as the soil and the sea.'

  'Another quote?'

  He shrugged. 'Driven by unseen forces, forever in motion, even when we stand still.' He struggled against a surge of despair. 'For all that the contestants proclaim that they are but soldiers of their god...'

  'All that they do in that god's name is at its core pro­foundly godless.'

  'And the truly godless — such as you spoke of earlier — cannot but see such blasphemers as allies.'

  She studied him until he grew uneasy, then she said, 'What drives Icarium to fight?'

  'When under control, it is... inequity. Injustice.'

  'And when out of control?'

  'Then... nothing.'

  'And the difference between the two is one of magnitude.'

  He glanced away once more. 'And of motivation.'

  'Are you sure? Even if inequity, in triggering his violence, then ascends, crossing no obvious threshold, into all-destroying annihilation? Mappo Trell, I believe motivations prove, ultimately, irrelevant. Slaughter is slaughter. Upon either side of the battlefield the face grins with blunt stupidity, even as smoke fills the sky from horizon to horizon, even as crops wither and die, even as sweet land turns to salt. Inequity ends, Trell, when no-one and no thing is left standing. Perhaps,' she added, 'this is Icarium's true purpose, why the Nameless Ones seek to unleash him. It is, after all, one sure way to end this war.'

  Mappo Trell stared at her, then said, 'Next time we speak like this, Spite, you can tell me your reasons for opposing the Nameless Ones. For helping me.'

  She smiled at him. 'Ah, you begin to doubt our alliance?'

  'How can I not?'

  'Such is war among the gods, Trell.'

  'We are not gods.'

  'We are their hands, their feet, wayward and wilful. We fight for reasons that are, for the most part, essentially non­sensical, even when the justification seems plain and straightforward. Two kingdoms, one upriver, one down­river. The kingdom downriver sees the water arrive befouled and sickly, filled with silts and sewage. The king­dom upriver, being on higher land, sees its desperate efforts at irrigation failing, as the topsoil is swept away each time the rains come to the highlands beyond. The two kingdoms quarrel, until there is war. The downriver kingdom marches, terrible battles are fought, cities are burned to the ground, citizens enslaved, fields salted and made barren. Ditches and dykes are broken. In the end, only the downriver kingdom remains. But the erosion does nod cease. Indeed, now that there is no irrigation occurring upriver, the waters rush down in full flood, distempered and wild, and they carry lime and salt that settles on the fields and poisons the remaining soil. There is starvation, disease, and the desert closes in on all sides. The once victorious leaders are cast down. Estates are looted. Brigands rove unchecked, and within a single generation there are no kingdoms, neither upriver nor downriver. Was the justifi­cation valid? Of course. Did that validity defend the victors against their own annihilation? Of course not.

  'A civilization at war chooses only the most obvious enemy, and often also the one perceived, at first, to be the most easily defeatable. But that enemy is not the true enemy, nor is it the gravest threat to that civilization. Thus, a civilization at war often chooses the wrong enemy. Tell me, Mappo Runt, for my two hypothetical kingdoms, where hid the truest threat?'

  He shook his head.

  'Yes, difficult to answer, because the threats were many, seemingly disconnected, and they appeared, disappeared then reappeared over a long period of time. The game that was hunted to extinction, the forests that were cut down, the goats that were loosed into the hills, the very irrigation ditches that were dug. And yet more: the surplus of food, the burgeoning population and its accumulating wastes. And then diseases, soils blown or washed away; and kings — one after another — who could or would do nothing, or indeed saw nothing untoward beyond their fanatical focus upon the ones they sought to blame.

  'Alas,' she said, leaning now on the rail, her face to the wind, 'there is nothing simple in seeking to oppose such a host of threats. First, one must recognize them, and to achieve that one must think in the long term; and then one must discern the intricate linkages that exist between all things, the manner in which one problem feeds into another. From there, one must devise solutions and finally, one must motivate the population into concerted effort, and not just one's own population, but that of the neigh­bouring kingdoms, all of whom are participating in the slow self-destruction. Tell me, can you imagine such a leader ever coming to power? Or staying there for long? Me neither. The hoarders of wealth will band together to destroy such a man or woman. Besides, it is much easier to create an enemy and wage war, although why such hoarders of wealth actually believe that they would survive such a war is beyond me. But they do, again and again. Indeed, it seems they believe they will outlive civilization itself.'

  'You propose little hope for civilization, Spite.'

  'Oh, my lack of hope extends far beyond mere civiliz­ation. The Trell were pastoralists, yes? You managed the half-wild bhederin herds of the Masai Plains. Actually, a fairly successful way of living, all things considered.'

&n
bsp; 'Until the traders and settlers came.'

  'Yes, those who coveted your land, driven as they were by enterprise or the wasting of their own lands, or the poverty in their cities. Each and all sought a new source of wealth To achieve it, alas, they first had to destroy your people.'

  Iskaral Pust scrambled to the Trell's side. 'Listen to you two! Poets and philosophers! What do you know? You go on and on whilst I am hounded unto exhaustion by these horrible squirming things!'

  'Your acolytes, High Priest,' Spite said. 'You are their god. Indicative, I might add, of at least two kinds of absurdity'

  'I'm not impressed by you, woman. If I am their god, why don't they listen to anything I say?'

  'Maybe,' Mappo replied, 'they are but waiting for you to say the right thing.'

  'Really? And what would that be, you fat oaf?'

  'Well, whatever it is they want to hear, of course.'

  'She's poisoned you!' The High Priest backed away, eyes wide. He clutched and pulled at what remained of his hair, then whirled about and rushed off towards the cabin. Three bhok'arala — who had been attending him — raced after him, chittering and making tugging gestures above their ears.

  Mappo turned back to Spite. 'Where are we going, by the way?'

  She smiled at him. 'To start, the Otataral Sea.'

  'Why?'

  'Isn't this breeze enlivening?'

  'It's damned chilly.'

  'Yes. Lovely, isn't it?'

  ****

  A vast oblong pit, lined with slabs of limestone, then walls of brick, rising to form a domed roof, the single entrance ramped and framed in limestone, including a massive lintel stone on which the imperial symbol had been etched above the name Dujek Onearm, and his title, High Fist. Within the barrow lanterns had been set out to aid in drying the freshly plastered walls.

  Just outside, in a broad, shallow bowl half-filled with slimy clay, basked a large toad, blinking sleepy eyes as it watched its companion, the imperial artist, Ormulogun, mixing paints. Oils by the dozen, each with specific qualities; and pigments culled from crushed minerals, duck eggs, dried inks from sea-creatures, leaves and roots and berries; and jars of other mediums: egg whites from turtles, snakes, vultures; masticated grubs, gull brains, cat urine, dog drool, the snot of pimps—

  All right, the toad reflected, perhaps not the snot of pimps, although given the baffling arcanum of artists, one could never be certain. It was enough to know that people who delved into such materials were mostly mad, if not to start with, then invariably so after years spent handling such toxins.

  And yet, this fool Ormulogun, somehow he persisted, with his stained hands, his stained lips from pointing the brushes, his stained beard from that bizarre sputtering technique when the pigments were chewed in a mouthful of spit and Hood knew what else, his stained nose from when paint-smeared fingers prodded, scratched and explored, his stained breeches from—

  'I know what you're thinking, Gumble,' Ormulogun said.

  'Indeed? Please proceed, then, in describing my present thoughts.'

  'The earwax of whores and stained this and stained that, the commentary swiftly descending into the absurd as befits your inability to think without exaggeration and puerile hyperbole. Now, startled as you no doubt are, shift that puny, predictable brain of yours and tell me in turn what I'm thinking. Can you? Hah, I thought not!'

  'I tell you, you grubber of pastes, my thoughts were not in the least as you just described in that pathetic paucity of pastiche you dare call communication, such failure being quite unsurprising, since I am the master of language whilst you are little more than an ever-failing student of portraiture bereft of both cogent instruction of craft and, alas, talent.'

  'You seek to communicate to the intellectually deaf, do you?'

  'Whilst you paint to enlighten the blind. Yes yes,' Gumble sighed, the effort proving alarmingly deflating — alarming even to himself. He quickly drew in another breath. 'We wage our ceaseless war, you and I. What will adorn the walls of the great man's barrow? Why, from you, the usual. Propagandistic pageantry, the politically aligned reaffirmation of the status quo. Heroic deeds in service on the empire, and an even more heroic death, for in this age, as in every other, we are in need of our heroes — dead ones, that is. We do not believe in living ones, after all, thanks to you—'

  'To me? To me?'

  'The rendition of flaws is your forte, Ormulogun. Oh, consider that statement! I impress even myself with such perfectly resonating irony. Anyway, such flaws in the sub­ject are as poison darts flung into heroism. Your avid attention destroys as it always must—'

  'No no, fool, not always. And with me, with Ormulogun the Great, never. Why? Well, it is simple, although not sei simple you will ever grasp it — even so, it is this: great art is not simply rendition. Great art is transformation. Great art is exaltation and exaltation is spiritual in the purest, most spiritual sense—'

  'As noted earlier,' Gumble drawled, 'comprehensive erudition and brevity eludes the poor man. Besides which, I am certain I have heard that definition of great art before. In some other context, likely accompanied by a pounding of the fist on table — or skull-top, or at the very least a knee in the kidneys. No matter, it all sounds very well. Too bad you so consistently fail to translate it into actuality.'

  'I have a mallet with which I could translate you into actuality, Gumble.'

  'You would break this exquisite bowl.'

  'Aye, I'd shed a few tears over that. But then I'd get better.'

  'Dujek Onearm standing outside the shattered gates of Black Coral. Dujek Onearm at the parley with Caladan Brood and Anomander Rake. Dujek Onearm and Tayschrenn outside Pale, the dawn preceding the attack. Three primary walls, three panels, three images.'

  'You've looked at my sketchings! Gods how I hate you!'

  'There was no need,' Gumble said, 'to do something so crass, not to mention implicitly depressing, as to examine your sketchings.' Ormulogun quickly gathered up his chosen paints, styli and brushes, then made his way down into the barrow. Gumble stayed where he was, and thought about eating flies.

  ****

  Ganoes Paran looked down at the armour laid out on the cot. A High Fist's armour, one sleeve of chain newly attached. The inheritance left a sour, bitter taste in his mouth. Proclamation, was it? As if anything he'd done whilst a soldier could justify such a thing. Every Fist in this army was better qualified to assume command. What could it have been, there in Dujek's logs, to so thoroughly twist, even falsify, Paran's legacy as the captain and commander of the Bridgeburners? He considered finding out for him­self, but knew he would do no such thing. He already felt imposter enough without seeing proof of the duplicity before his own eyes. No doubt Dujek had good reasons, likely having to do with protecting, if not elevating, the reputation of House Paran, and thereby implicitly supporting his sister Tavore in her new command of the Fourteenth.

  Politics dictated such official logs, of course. As, I suppose, they will dictate my own entries. Or not. What do I care? Posterity be damned. If this is my army, then so be it. The Empress can always strip me of the command, as she no doubt will when she hears about this field promotion. In the mean­time, he would do as he pleased.

  Behind him, Hurlochel cleared his throat, then said, 'High Fist, the Fists may be on their feet, but they're still weak.'

  'You mean they're out there standing at attention?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'That's ridiculous. Never mind the armour, then.'

  They walked to the flap and Hurlochel pulled the canvas aside. Paran strode outside, blinking in sunlight. The entire army stood in formation, standards upright, armour glinting. Directly before him were the Fists, Rythe Bude foremost among them. She was wan, painfully thin in gear that seemed oversized for her frame. She saluted and said, 'High Fist Ganoes Paran, the Host awaits your inspection.'

  'Thank you, Fist. How soon will they be ready to march?'

  'By dawn tomorrow, High Fist.'

  Paran sc
anned the ranks. Not a sound from them, not even the rustle of armour. They stood like dusty statues. 'And precisely how,' he asked in a whisper, 'am I to live up to this?'

  'High Fist,' Hurlochel murmured at his side, 'you rode with one healer into G'danisban and then singlehandedly struck down a goddess. Drove her from this realm. You then forced the sister of that goddess to gift a dozen mortals with the power to heal—'

  'That power will not last,' Paran said.

  'Nonetheless. High Fist, you have killed the plague. Something even Dujek Onearm could not achieve. These soldiers are yours, Ganoes Paran. No matter what the Empress decides.'

  But I don't want a damned army!

  Fist Rythe Bude said, 'Given the losses to disease, High Fist, we are sufficiently supplied to march for six, perhaps seven days, assuming we do not resupply en route. Of course,' she added, 'there are the grain stores in G'danisban, and with the population virtually non-existent—'

  'Yes,' Paran cut in. 'Virtually non-existent. Does that not strike you as strange, Fist?'

  'The goddess herself—'

  'Hurlochel reports that his outriders are seeing people, survivors, heading north and east. A pilgrimage.'

  'Yes, High Fist.'

  She was wavering, he saw. 'We will follow those pilgrims, Fist,' Paran said. 'We will delay another two days, during which the stores of G'danisban will be used to establish a full resupply — but only if enough remains to sustain the population still in the city. Commandeer wagons and carts as needed. Further, invite those citizens the soldiers come upon to join our train. At the very least, they will find a livelihood accompanying us, and food, water and pro­tection. Now, inform the captains that I will address the troops the morning of our departure — at the consecration and sealing of the barrow. In the meantime, you are all dismissed.'

  The Fists saluted. Shouts from the captains stirred the ranks into motion as soldiers relaxed and began splitting up.

  I should have said something to them here and now. Warned them not to expect too much. No, that wouldn't do. What does a new commander say? Especially after the death of a great leader, a true hero? Dammit, Ganoes, you're better off saying nothing. Not now, and not much when we seal the barrow and leave the old man in peace. 'We're following pilgrims. Why? Because I want to know where they're going, that's why.' That should do. Mentally shrugging, Paran set off. In his wake followed Hurlochel and then, ten paces back, the young G'danii woman Naval D'natha, who was now, it seemed, a part of his entourage.