The Malazan Empire, page 186
Senu snapped, ‘Come and eat, Stonearrow!’
Uh oh, I think I just overstepped the familiarity thing.
* * *
Blood had filled the gutters, not long past. Sun and absence of rain had preserved the turgid flow as dust-dulled black, deep enough to hide the hump of the cobbles lying underneath, the mortal river reaching down to the silty waters of the bay.
No-one in Callows had been spared. She had come upon the heaped pyres on her approach down the inland road, and judged the slaughter at perhaps thirty thousand.
Garath ranged ahead, slipping beneath the arch of the gate. She followed at a slower pace.
The city had been beautiful, once. Copper-sheathed domes, minarets, poetically winding streets overlooked by ornate balconies riotous with flowering plants. The lack of hands to nourish the precious plants had turned the gardens brown and grey. Leaves crackled underfoot as Lady Envy walked down the central avenue.
A trader city, a merchants’ paradise. The masts of countless ships were visible in the harbour ahead, all motionless, indicating that the crafts had been holed and sat one and all in the mud of the bay.
Ten days, no more, since the slaughter. She could smell Hood’s breath, a sigh at unexpected bounty, a faint ripple of unease at what it signified. You are troubled, dear Hood. This bodes ill, indeed …
Garath led her unerringly, as she knew he would. An ancient, almost forgotten alleyway, the cobbles heaved, cracked and covered in decades of rubbish. Into a small, sagging house, its foundation stones of a far sharper cut than those that rested upon them. Within, a single room with a reed-matted floor of thick, wooden boards. A desultory scatter of poorly made furniture, bronze cooking plate over a brick-housed hearth, rotting foodstuffs. A child’s toy wagon off to one side.
The dog circled in the centre of the small room.
Lady Envy approached, kicked aside the reed mats. No trapdoor. The inhabitants had had no idea of what lay beneath their home. She unveiled her warren, passed a hand over the floorboards, watched them dissolve into dust, creating a circular hole. A damp, salty breath wafted from its darkness.
Garath padded to the edge, then dropped out of sight. She heard the clatter of claws some distance below.
With a sigh, Lady Envy followed.
No stairs, and the pavestones of the floor were a long time in halting her warren-slowed fall. Vision enhanced, she looked around, then sniffed. The temple was all of this one chamber, squalid, once low-ceilinged though the beams of that roof had long since vanished. There was no raised altarstone, but she knew that for this particular ascendant, the entire floor of cut stone served that sacred function. Back in the days of blood … ‘I can imagine what awakened this place to you,’ she said, eyes on Garath, who had lain down and was moments from sleep. ‘All that blood, seeping down, dripping, dripping onto your altar. I admit, I prefer your abode in Darujhistan. Far grander, almost worthy of complementing my esteemed presence. But this…’ Her nose wrinkled.
Garath, eyes closed, twitched.
Welcome, Lady Envy.
‘Your summons was uncharacteristically distraught, K’rul. Is this the work of the Matron and her undead hunters? If so, then calling me here was unnecessary. I am well aware of their efficacy.’
Crippled and chained he may be, Lady Envy, but this particular god is never so obvious. His game displays a master’s sleight of hand. Nothing is as he would have us believe, and his use of unwitting servants is as brutal as his treatment of enemies. Consider, after all, the Pannion Seer. No, for Callows, death came from the sea. A warren-twisted fleet. Cold-eyed, unhuman killers. Seeking, ever seeking, they now ply the world’s oceans.
‘Seeking what, dare I ask?’
A worthy challenge, no less.
‘And do these dreadful seaborne murderers have a name?’
One enemy at a time, Lady Envy. You must cultivate patience.
She crossed her arms. ‘You sought me out, K’rul, and you can be certain that I had not anticipated that you and I would ever meet again. The Elder Gods are gone, and good riddance, as far as I’m concerned – and that includes my father, Draconus. Were we companions two hundred thousand years ago, you and I? I think not, though the memories are admittedly vague. Not enemies, true enough. But friends? Allies? Most certainly not. Yet here you have come. I have gathered your own unwitting servants, as you asked. Have you any idea the demands on my energies to hold those three Seguleh in check?’
Ah, yes, and where is the Third now?
‘Stretched senseless half a league from the city. It was vital to get him away from that T’lan Imass – the gods know, I didn’t drag him along for the company. You’re missing my point, K’rul. The Seguleh will not be controlled. Indeed, I wonder who humours whom when it comes to those three frightful warriors. Mok will challenge Tool. Mark my words, and while a part of me thrills at the thought – to witness such a clash! None the less, the destruction of one or the other will ill suit your plans, I imagine. The First Sword was almost defeated by Thurule, you know. Mok will chop him into kindling—’
K’rul’s soft laughter filled her head. Hopefully, not before Mok and his brothers have carved their way into the Pannion Seer’s throne room. Besides, Onos T’oolan is far more subtle of thought than you might imagine, Lady Envy. Let them battle, if Mok so chooses. I suspect, however, that the Third may well surprise you with his … constraint.
‘Constraint? Tell me, K’rul, did you think the Seguleh First would send someone as highly ranked as the Third to lead his punitive army?’
Admittedly, no. For this task, of splitting the Seer’s forces into two fronts, I had expected perhaps three or four hundred Eleventh Level initiates. Sufficient to inconvenience the Seer enough to draw an army or two away from the approaching Malazans. Yet, with the Second missing, and with Mok’s growing prowess, no doubt the First had his reasons.
‘One final question, then. Why am I doing you these favours, anyway?’
As petulant as ever, I see. Very well. You chose to turn your back on the need, when last it arose. Disappointing, that, yet enough did indeed attend to manage the Chaining – although at a cost that your presence would have diminished. But, even chained, the Crippled God will not rest. He exists in endless, tormenting pain, shattered, broken within and without, yet he has turned that into a strength. The fuel for his rage, his hunger for vengeance—
‘The fools who pulled him down are long dead, K’rul. Vengeance is just an excuse. The Crippled God is driven by ambition. Lust for power is the core of his rotten, shrivelled heart.’
Perhaps, perhaps not. Time will tell, as the mortals say. In any case, you defied the summons at the Chaining, Lady Envy. I will not brook your indifference a second time.
‘You?’ She sneered. ‘Are you my master, K’rul? Since when—’
Visions flooded her mind, staggering her. Darkness. Then chaos, wild, unfocused power, a universe devoid of sense, of control, of meaning. Entities flung through the maelstrom. Lost, terrified by the birth of light. A sudden sharpening – pain as of wrists opened, the heat spilling forth – a savage imposition of order, the heart from which blood flowed in even, steady streams. Twin chambers to that heart – Kurald Galain, the Warren of Mother Dark – and Starvald Demelain, the Warren of … Dragons. And the blood – the power – now sweeping in currents through veins, through arteries, branching out through all existence, and the thought that came to her then stole all warmth from her flesh. Those veins, those arteries, they are the warrens. ‘Who created this? Who?’
Dear Lady, K’rul replied, you have your answer, and I will be damned if I am going to countenance your impertinence. You are a sorceress. By Light’s Wild Mane, your power feeds on the very blood of my eternal soul, and I will have your obedience in this!
Lady Envy staggered another step, suddenly released by the visions, disorientated, her heart thudding in her chest. She drew in a sharp breath. ‘Who knows the … the truth, K’rul?’ That, in striding through the warrens, we travel through your very flesh. That, when we draw upon the power of the warrens, we draw your very blood? ‘Who knows?’
She felt a casual shrug in his reply.
Anomander Rake, Draconus, Osric, a handful of others. And now you. Forgive me, Lady Envy, I have no wish to be a tyrant. My presence within the warrens has ever been passive – you are free to do as you choose, as is every other creature who swims my immortal blood. I have but one excuse, if you will. This Crippled God, this stranger from an unknown realm … Lady Envy, I am frightened.
A chill stole through her as the words sank into her mind.
K’rul continued after a moment. We have lost allies in our foolishness. Dassem Ultor, who was broken by Hood’s taking of his daughter at the Time of the Chaining – this was a devastating blow. Dassem Ultor, the First Sword reborn—
‘Do you think,’ she asked slowly, ‘that Hood would have taken her for the Chaining, had I answered the summons?’ Am I, she wondered, to blame for Dassem Ultor’s loss?
Hood alone could answer that question, Lady Envy. And he’d likely lie, in any case. Dassem, his Champion – Dessembrae – had grown to rival his power. There is little value in worrying such questions, beyond the obvious lesson that inaction is a deadly choice. Consider: from Dassem’s fall, a mortal empire now totters on the edge of chaos. From Dassem’s fall, the Shadow Throne found a new occupant. From Dassem’s fall … ah, well, the tumbling dominoes are almost countless. It is done.
‘What is it you wish of me, now, K’rul?’
There was need. To show you the vastness of the threat. This Pannion Domin is but a fragment of the whole, yet you must lead my chosen into its very heart.
‘And once there? Am I a match for the power that resides there?’
Perhaps, but that is a path it may prove unwise to take, Lady Envy. I shall trust in your judgement, and in that of others, unwitting and otherwise. Indeed, you may well choose to cut the knot that is at the heart of the Domin. Or, you may find a way to loosen it, to free all that has been bound for three hundred thousand years.
‘Very well, we shall play it as it comes. What joy! I can leave now? I so long to return to the others, to Toc the Younger in particular. He’s a darling, isn’t he?’
Take great care of him, Lady. The scarred and the flawed are what the Crippled God seeks in his servants. I shall endeavour to keep Toc’s soul from the Chained One’s grasp, but, please, maintain your guard. Also … there is something else to that man, something … wild. We shall have to await its awakening before understanding comes to us, however. Oh, o! ne last thing …
‘Yes?’
Your party nears the Domin’s territory. When you return to them, you must not attempt your warren in an effort to hasten your journey.
‘Why?’
Within the Pannion Domin, Lady, my blood is poisoned. It is a poison you can defeat, but Toc the Younger cannot.
Garath awoke, rose and stretched before her. K’rul was gone.
‘Oh my,’ Lady Envy whispered, suddenly soaked in sweat. ‘Poisoned. By the Abyss … I need a bath. Come, Garath, let us go collect the Third. Shall I awaken him with a kiss?’
The dog glanced over at her.
‘Twin scars on his mask, and the imprint of painted lips! Would he be the Fourth, then, or the Fifth? How do they count lips, do you think? One upper, one lower, or both together? Let’s find out.’
* * *
Dust and the dark swirl of sorcery rose beyond the hills directly ahead.
‘Shield Anvil,’ Farakalian said, ‘have our allies already sprung a trap?’
Itkovian frowned. ‘I do not know. No doubt we shall discover the truth when they elect to reappear and inform us.’
‘Well,’ the soldier muttered, ‘that is a fight before us. An ugly one, by the looks of the magic unleashed.’
‘I’ll not argue that observation, sir,’ the Shield Anvil replied. ‘Riders, re-form as inverted crescent, hands to weapons. Slow trot to first line-of-sight.’
The decimated wing fell into formation, rode on.
They were close to the trader road, now, Itkovian judged. If a caravan had been hit by some of these K’Chain Che’Malle, the outcome was foregone. A caravan with an attendant mage or two might well make a fight of it, and from the brimstone stench that now wafted towards them, the latter circumstance seemed the likeliest.
As they approached a rise, a row of T’lan Imass emerged to stand along its crest, backs to Itkovian and his riders. The Shield Anvil counted a dozen. Perhaps the rest were busy with the battle – still beyond his line of sight. He saw the Bonecaster Pran Chole and angled his new horse in the undead shaman’s direction.
They reached the rise. The sorcerous detonations had ceased, all sounds of battle fading away.
The trader road ran below. Two carriages had made up the caravan, one much larger than the other. Both had been destroyed, ripped apart. Splintered wood, plush padding and clothes lay strewn on all sides. On a low hill off to the right lay three figures, the ground blackened around them. None moved. Eight more bodies were visible around the wagons, only two conscious – black-chain-armoured men slowly regaining their feet.
These details registered only briefly on the Shield Anvil’s senses. Wandering among the dismembered corpses of five K’Chain Che’Malle hunters were hundreds of huge, gaunt wolves – with pitted eyes that were a match to those of the T’lan Imass.
Studying the silent, terrifying creatures, Itkovian spoke to Pran Chole. ‘Are these … yours, sir?’
The Bonecaster at his side shrugged. ‘Gone from our company for a time. T’lan Ay often accompany us, but are not bound to us … beyond the Ritual itself.’ He was silent for a long moment, then continued, ‘We had thought them lost. But it seems that they too have heard the summons. Three thousand years since our eyes last rested upon the T’lan Ay.’
Itkovian finally looked down on the undead shaman. ‘Is that a hint of pleasure in your voice, Pran Chole?’
‘Yes. And sorrow.’
‘Why sorrow? From the looks of it, these T’lan Ay took not a single loss against these K’Chain Che’Malle. Four, five hundred … against five. Swift destruction.’
The Bonecaster nodded. ‘Their kind are skilled at defeating large beasts. My sorrow arises from a flawed mercy, mortal. At the First Gathering, our misplaced love for the ay – these few that remained – led us onto a cruel path. We chose to include them in the Ritual. Our selfish needs were a curse. All that made the flesh and blood ay honourable, proud creatures was taken away. Now, like us, they are husks, plagued by dead memories.’
‘Even undead, they have majesty,’ Itkovian acknowledged. ‘As with you.’
‘Majesty in the T’lan Ay, yes. Among the T’lan Imass? No, mortal. None.’
‘We differ in opinion, then, Pran Chole.’ Itkovian turned to address his soldiers. ‘Check the fallen.’
The Shield Anvil rode down to the two chain-clad men, who now stood together beside the remnants of the larger of the two carriages. Their ringed armour was in tatters. Blood leaked from them, forming sodden pools at their feet. Something about the two men made Itkovian uneasy, but he pushed the emotion away.
The bearded one swung to face the Shield Anvil as he reined in before them. ‘I bid you welcome, warrior,’ he said, his accent strange to Itkovian’s ears. ‘Extraordinary events, just past.’
Despite his inner discipline, his unease deepened. None the less, he managed an even tone as he said, ‘Indeed, sir. I am astonished, given the attention the K’ell Hunters evidently showed you two, that you are still standing.’
‘We are resilient individuals, in truth.’ His flat gaze scanned the ground beyond the Shield Anvil. ‘Alas, our companions were found lacking in such resources.’
Farakalian, having conferred with the soldiers crouched among the fallen, now rode towards Itkovian.
‘Shield Anvil. Of the three Barghast on the hill, one lies dead. The other two are injured, but will survive with proper ministration. Of the rest, only one breathes no more. An array of injuries to attend to. Two may yet die, sir. None of the survivors has yet regained consciousness. Indeed, each seems in unusually deep sleep.’
Itkovian glanced at the bearded man. ‘Do you know more of this unnatural sleep, sir?’
‘I am afraid not.’ He faced Farakalian. ‘Sir, among the survivors, can you include a tall, lean, somewhat elderly man, and a shorter, much older one?’
‘I can. The former, however, hovers at the gates.’
‘We’d not lose him, if at all possible.’
Itkovian spoke, ‘Soldiers of the Grey Swords are skilled in the art of healing, sir. They shall endeavour to the best of their abilities, and no more can be asked of them.’
‘Of course. I am … distraught.’
‘Understood.’ The Shield Anvil addressed Farakalian: ‘Draw on the Destriant’s power if necessary.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He watched the man ride off.
‘Warrior,’ the bearded man said, ‘I am named Bauchelain, and my companion here is Korbal Broach. I must ask, these undead servants of yours – four-footed and otherwise—’
‘Not servants, Bauchelain. Allies. These are T’lan Imass. The wolves, T’lan Ay.’
‘T’lan Imass,’ the one named Korbal Broach whispered in a reedy thin voice, his eyes suddenly bright as he stared at the figures on the ridge. ‘Undead, born of the greatest necromantic ritual there has ever been! I would speak with them!’ He swung to Bauchelain. ‘May I? Please?’
‘As you wish,’ Bauchelain replied with an indifferent shrug.
‘A moment,’ Itkovian said. ‘You both bear wounds that require attending to.’
‘No need, Shield Anvil, though I thank you for your concern. We heal … swiftly. Please, concentrate on our companions. Now, that is odd – our beasts of burden and sundry horses are untouched – do you see? Fortunate indeed, once I complete my repairs to our carriage.’
Itkovian studied the wreckage to which Bauchelain now swung his attention.
