The Malazan Empire, page 109
“The Seventh Army’s camped just over yonder,” Felisin said.
For a moment he looked credulous, then he gave a weary smile. “Funny, lass.” He climbed to his feet and scanned the horizon on all sides before tilting his head back and sniffing the air. “Mainland,” he pronounced.
“Why didn’t all that white hair burn off?” Felisin asked. “You’re not even singed.”
“That dragon’s warren,” Heboric said, “what was it?”
“Damned if I know,” Kulp admitted, running a hand through the white shock on his head as if to confirm that it still existed. “Chaos, maybe—a storm of it between warrens—I don’t know. Never seen anything like it before, though that don’t mean much—I’m no Ascendant, after all—”
“I’ll say,” Felisin muttered.
The mage squinted at her. “Those pocks on your face are fading.”
This time it was she who was startled.
Baudin grunted.
She whirled on him. “What’s so funny?”
“I saw that, only it don’t make you any prettier.”
“Enough of this,” Heboric said. “It’s midday, meaning it’ll get hotter before it gets cooler. We need somewhere to shelter.”
“Any sign of the marines?” Kulp asked.
“They’re dead,” Felisin said. “They went below decks, only the ship was on fire. Dead. Fewer mouths to feed.”
No one replied to that.
Kulp took the lead, evidently choosing as their destination the far ridge of hills. The others followed without comment.
Twenty minutes later Kulp paused. “We’d better pick up our pace. I smell a storm coming.”
Felisin snorted. “All I smell is rank sweat—you’re standing too close, Baudin, go away.”
“I’m sure he would if he could,” Heboric muttered, not unsympathetically. A moment later he looked up in surprise, as if he had not intended to voice aloud that thought. His toadlike face twisted in dismay.
Felisin waited to regain control of her breathing, then she swung to face the thug.
Baudin’s small eyes were like dull coins, revealing nothing.
“Bodyguard,” Kulp said, with a slow nod. His voice was cold as he addressed Heboric. “Out with it. I want to know who our companion is, and where his loyalties lie. I let it slide before, because Gesler and his soldiers were on hand. But not now. This girl has a bodyguard—why? Right now, I can’t see anyone caring a whit for a cruel-hearted creature like this one, meaning this loyalty’s been bought. Who is she, Heboric?”
The ex-priest grimaced. “Tavore’s sister, Mage.”
Kulp blinked. “Tavore? The Adjunct? Then what in Hood’s name was she doing in a mining pit?”
“She sent me there,” Felisin said. “You’re right—no loyalty involved. I was just one more in Unta’s cull.”
Clearly shaken, the mage spun to Baudin. “You’re a Claw, aren’t you?” The air around Kulp seemed to glitter—Felisin realized he’d opened his warren. The mage bared his teeth. “The Adjunct’s remorse, in the flesh.”
“Not a Claw,” Heboric said.
“Then what?”
“That’ll take a history lesson to explain—”
“Start talking.”
“An old rivalry,” the ex-priest said. “Dancer and Surly. Dancer created a covert arm for military campaigns. In keeping with the Imperial symbol of the demon hand gripping a sphere, he called them his Talons. Surly used that model in creating the Claw. The Talons were external—outside the Empire—but the Claw were internal, a secret police, a network of spies and assassins.”
“But the Claw are used in covert military operations,” Kulp said.
“They are now. When Surly became Regent in the absence of Kellanved and Dancer, she sent her Claws after the Talons. The betrayal started subtly—a string of disastrous botched missions—but someone got careless and gave the game away. The two locked daggers and fought it out to the bitter end.”
“And the Claw won.”
Heboric nodded. “Surly becomes Laseen, Laseen becomes Empress. The Claws sit atop the pile of skulls like well-fed crows. The Talons went the way of Dancer. Dead and gone…or, as a few mused now and then, so far underground as to seem extinct.” The ex-priest grinned. “Like Dancer himself, maybe.”
Felisin studied Baudin. Talon. What’s my sister got to do with some secret sect of revivalists still clinging to the memory of the Emperor and Dancer? Why not use a Claw? Unless she needed to work outside anyone else’s knowledge.
“It was too bitter to contemplate from the very start,” Heboric was saying. “Throwing her younger sister into shackles like any other common victim. An example proclaiming her loyalty to the Empress—”
“Not just hers,” Felisin said. “House Paran. Our brother’s a renegade with Onearm on Genabackis. It made us…vulnerable.”
“It all went wrong,” Heboric said, staring at Baudin. “She wasn’t meant to stay long in Skullcup, was she?”
Baudin shook his head. “Can’t pull out a person who don’t want to go.” He shrugged, as if those words were enough and he would say nothing more on that subject.
“So the Talons remain,” Heboric said. “Then who commands you?”
“No one,” Baudin answered. “I was born into it. There’s a handful left, kicking around here and there, either old or drooling or both. A few first sons inherited…the secret. Dancer’s not dead. He ascended, alongside Kellanved—my father was there to see it, in Malaz City, the night of the Shadow Moon.”
Kulp snorted but Heboric was slowly nodding.
“I got close in my suppositions,” the ex-priest said. “Too close for Laseen, as it turned out. She suspects or knows outright, doesn’t she?”
Baudin shrugged. “I’ll ask next time we chat.”
“My need for a bodyguard is ended,” Felisin said. “Get out of my sight, Baudin. Take my sister’s concern through Hood’s gates.”
“Lass—”
“Shut up, Heboric. I will try to kill you, Baudin. Every chance I get. You’ll have to kill me to save your own skin. Go away. Now.”
The big man surprised her again. He made no appeal to the others, but simply turned away, taking a route at right angles to the one they had been traveling.
That’s it. He’s leaving. Out of my life, without a single word. She stared after him, wondering at the twisting in her heart.
“Damn you, Felisin,” the ex-priest snarled. “We need him more than he needs us.”
Kulp spoke. “I’ve a mind to join him and drag you with me, Heboric. Leave this foul witch to herself and Hood take her with my blessings.”
“Go ahead,” Felisin challenged.
The mage ignored her. “I took on the responsibility of saving your skin, Heboric, and I’ll stick to it because Duiker asked me. It’s your call, now.”
The old man hugged himself. “I owe her my life—”
“Thought you’d forgotten that,” Felisin sneered.
He shook his head.
Kulp sighed. “All right. I suspect Baudin will do better without us, in any case. Let’s get going before I melt, and maybe you can explain to me your comment about Dancer still being alive, Heboric? That’s a very intriguing idea…”
Felisin shut their words away as she walked. This changes nothing, dear sister. Your cherished agent murdered my lover, the only person in Skullcup who gave a damn about me. I was Baudin’s assignment, nothing more, and worse, he was incompetent, a bumbling, thick-skulled fool. Carrying around his father’s secret sigil—how pathetic! I will find you, Tavore. There, in my river of blood. That I promise—
“—sorcery.”
The word jarred her into awareness. She looked over at Kulp. The mage had quickened his step, his face pale.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“I said that storm rolling up behind us isn’t natural, that’s what I said.”
She glanced back. A bruised wall of sand cut the valley down its length—the hills she and Baudin had left earlier had vanished. The wall rolled toward them like a leviathan.
“Time to run, I think,” Heboric gasped at her side. “If we can reach the hills—”
“I know where we are!” Kulp shouted. “Raraku! That’s the Whirlwind!”
Ahead, two hundred or more paces away, rose the ragged, rock-strewn slopes of the hills. Deep defiles cut between each hump, like the imprint of vast ribs.
The three of them ran, knowing that they would not make it in time. The wind that struck their back howled like a thing demented. A moment later, the sand engulfed them.
“The truth of it was, we were out hunting Sha’ik’s corpse.”
Fiddler frowned at the Trell sitting opposite him. “Corpse? She’s dead? How? When?” Was this your doing, Kalam? I can’t believe it—
“Iskaral Pust claims she was murdered by a troop of Red Blades from Ehrlitan. Or so the Deck whispered to him.”
“I had no idea the Deck of Dragons could be so precise.”
“As far as I know, it cannot.”
They were sitting on stone benches within a burial chamber at least two levels below the Shadow priest’s favored haunts. The benches were attached alongside a rough-hewn wall that had once held painted tiles, and the indents in the limestone beneath them made it clear that the benches were actually pedestals, meant to hold the dead.
Fiddler flexed his leg, reached down and kneaded his knuckles in the still-swollen flesh around the mended bone. Elixirs, unguents…forced healing still hurts. His emotions were dark—had been for days now as the High Priest of Shadow found one excuse after another for delaying their departure, the latest being the need for more supplies. In a strange way Iskaral Pust reminded the sapper of Quick Ben, the squad’s mage. An endless succession of plans within plans. He imagined peeling through them one by one, right down to thumbprint schemes all awhirl in devious patterns. It’s quite possible that his very existence is nothing more than a collection of if-this and then-that suppositions. Hood’s Abyss, maybe that’s all we all are!
The High Priest made his head spin. As bad as Quick Ben and this Togg’s thorn called Tremorlor. An Azath House, like the Deadhouse in Malaz City. But what are they, precisely? Does anyone know? Anyone at all? There were nothing but rumors, obscure warnings, and few of those at that. Most people did their best to ignore such Houses—the denizens of Malaz City seemed to nurture an almost deliberate ignorance, “Just an abandoned house,” they say. “Nothing special, except maybe a few spooks in the yard.” But there’s a skittish look in the eyes of some of them.
Tremorlor, a House of the Azath. Sane people don’t go looking for places like that.
“Something on your mind, soldier?” Mappo Runt quietly asked. “I’ve been watching such a progression of expressions on your face as to fill a wall in Dessembrae’s temple.”
Dessembrae. The Cult of Dassem.
“It appears I’ve just said something unwelcome to your ears,” Mappo continued.
“Eventually a man reaches a point where every memory is unwelcome,” Fiddler said, gritting his teeth. “I think I’ve reached that point, Trell. I’m feeling old, used up. Pust has something in mind—we’re part of some colossal scheme that’ll likely see us dead before too long. Used to be I’d get a sniff or two of stuff like that. Had a nose for trouble, you might say. But I can’t work it out—not this time. He’s baffled me, plain and simple.”
“I think it’s to do with Apsalar,” Mappo said after a time.
“Aye. And that worries me. A lot. She don’t deserve any more grief.”
“Icarium pursues the question,” the Trell said, squinting down at the cracked, worn pavestones. The lantern’s oil was getting low, deepening the chamber’s gloom. “I admit I have been wondering if the High Priest is intending to force Apsalar into a role she seems made for…”
“A role? Like what?”
“Sha’ik’s prophecy speaks of a rebirth…”
The sapper paled, then vehemently shook his head. “No. She wouldn’t do it. This land’s not hers, the goddess of the Whirlwind means nothing to her. Pust can try and force it all he wants, the lass will turn her back—mark my words.” Suddenly restless, Fiddler stood up and began pacing. His footfalls whispered with faint echoes in the chamber. “If Sha’ik’s dead, she’s dead. Hood take any obscure prophecies! The Apocalypse will fizzle out, the Whirlwind sink back into the ground to sleep another thousand years or however long it is until the next Year of Dryjhna comes around…”
“Yet Pust seems to place much significance on this uprising,” Mappo said. “It’s far from over—or so he seems to believe.”
“How many gods and Ascendants are playing in this game, Trell?” Fiddler paused, eyeing the ancient warrior. “Does she physically resemble Sha’ik?”
Mappo shrugged his massive shoulders. “I saw the Whirlwind Seer but once, and that at a distance. Light-skinned for a Seven Cities native. Dark eyes, not especially tall or imposing. It’s said the power is—was—within her eyes. Dark and cruel.” He shrugged a second time. “Older than Apsalar. Perhaps twice her years. Same black hair, though. Details are irrelevant in matters of faith and attendant prophecies, Fiddler. Perhaps only the role need be reborn.”
“The lass ain’t interested in vengeance against the Malazan Empire,” the sapper growled, resuming his pacing.
“And what of the shadowy god who once possessed her?”
“Gone,” he snapped. “Nothing but memories and blissfully few of those.”
“Yet daily she discovers more. True?”
Fiddler said nothing. If Crokus had been present, the walls would have been resounding with his anger—the lad had a fierce temper when it came to Apsalar. Crokus was young, not by nature cruel, but the sapper felt certain that the lad would kill Iskaral Pust without hesitation at the mere possibility of the High Priest seeking to use Apsalar. And trying to kill Pust would probably prove suicidal. Bearding a priest in his den was never a wise move.
The lass was finding her memories, it was true. And they weren’t shocking her as much as Fiddler would have expected—or hoped. Another disturbing sign. Although he told Mappo that Apsalar would refuse such a role, the sapper had to admit—to himself at least—that he couldn’t be so certain.
With memories came the remembrance of power. And let’s face it, there are few—in this world or any other—who’d turn their back on the promise of power. Iskaral Pust would know that, and that knowledge would shape any offer he made. Take on this role, lass, and you can topple an empire…
“Of course,” Mappo said, leaning back against the wall and sighing, “we may be on entirely the wrong…” He slowly sat forward again, brows knitting. “…trail.”
Fiddler’s eyes narrowed on the Trell. “What do you mean?”
“The Path of Hands. The convergence of Soletaken and D’ivers—Pust is involved.”
“Explain.”
Mappo pointed a blunt finger at the paving stones beneath them. “At the lowest levels of this temple there lies a chamber. Its floor—flagstones—displays a series of carvings. Inscribing something like a Deck of Dragons. Neither Icarium nor I have seen anything like it before. If it is indeed a Deck, it’s an Elder version. Not Houses, but Holds, the forces more elemental, more raw and primitive.”
“How does that relate to shapeshifting?”
“You can view the past as something like a mouldy old book. The closer you get to the beginning, the more fragmented are the pages. They veritably fall apart in your hands, and you’re left with but a handful of words—most of them in a language you can’t even understand.” Mappo closed his eyes for a long moment, then he looked up and said, “Somewhere among those scattered words is recounted the creation of shapeshifters—the forces that are Soletaken and D’ivers are that old, Fiddler. They were old even in Elder times. No one species can claim propriety, and that includes the four Founding Races: Jaghut, Forkrul Assail, Imass and K’Chain Che’Malle.
“No shapeshifter can abide another—under normal circumstances, that is. There are exceptions but I need not go into them here. Yet, within them all, there is a hunger as deep in the bone as the bestial fever itself. The lure to dominance. To command all other shapeshifters, to fashion an army of such creatures—all slaved to your desire. From an army, an Empire. An Empire of ferocity unlike anything that has been seen before—”
Fiddler grunted. “Are you implying that an Empire born of Soletaken and D’ivers would be inherently worse—more evil—than any other? I’m surprised, Trell. Nastiness grows like a cancer in any and every organization—human or otherwise, as you well know. And nastiness gets nastier. Whatever evil you let ride becomes commonplace, eventually. Problem is, it’s easier to get used to it than carve it out.”
Mappo’s answering smile was broken-hearted. “Well said, Fiddler. When I said ferocity I meant a miasma of chaos. But I will grant you that terror thrives equally well in order.” He rolled his shoulders a third time, sat straighter to work out kinks in his back. “The shapeshifters are gathering to the promise of a gate through which they can attain such Ascendancy. To become a god of the Soletaken and D’ivers—each shapeshifter seeks nothing less, and will abide no obstacle. Fiddler, we think the gate lies below, and we think that Iskaral Pust will do all he can to prevent the shapeshifters from finding it—even to painting false trails in the desert, to mimic the trail of handprints that all lead to the place of the gate.”
“And Pust has a role in mind for you and Icarium?”
“Likely,” Mappo conceded. His face was suddenly ashen. “I believe he knows about us—about Icarium, that is. He knows…”
Knows what? Fiddler was tempted to ask, though he realized that the Trell would not willingly explain. The name Icarium was known—not widely, but known nonetheless. A Jaghut-blood wanderer around whom swirled, like the blackest wake, rumors of devastation, appalling murders, genocide. The sapper mentally shook his head. The Icarium he was coming to know made those rumors seem ludicrous. The Jhag was generous, compassionate. If horrors still trailed in his wake they must be ancient—youth was the time of excess, after all. This Icarium was too wise, too scarred, to tumble into power’s river of blood. What did Pust hope would be unleashed by these two?
