The Malazan Empire, page 189
He was still talking as Whiskeyjack left the tent and walked with Korlat towards the Tiste Andii encampment. After a few minutes, the commander glanced at the woman beside him. ‘I would have thought your lord would have departed by now – he’s not been seen for days.’
‘He will remain in our company for a time,’ Korlat said. ‘Anomander Rake has little patience for staff meetings and the like. Crone keeps him informed of developments.’
‘Then I am curious – what would he have of me?’
She smiled slightly. ‘That is for my lord to reveal, Commander.’
Whiskeyjack fell silent.
The Knight of Dark’s tent was indistinguishable from all the other tents of the Tiste Andii, unguarded and a little more than halfway down a row, weakly lit from within by a single lantern. Korlat halted before the flap. ‘My escort is done. You may enter, Commander.’
He found Anomander Rake seated in a leather-backed folding camp chair, his long legs stretched out before him. An empty matching chair was opposite, and set to one side within reach of both was a small table on which sat a carafe of wine and two goblets.
‘Thank you for coming,’ the Knight of Dark said. ‘Please, make yourself comfortable.’
Whiskeyjack settled into the chair.
Rake leaned forward and filled the two goblets, passed one over to the commander, who accepted it gratefully. ‘With the proper perspective,’ the Tiste Andii said, ‘even a mortal life can seem long. Fulfilling. What I contemplate at the moment is the nature of happenstance. Men and women who, for a time, find themselves walking in step, on parallel paths. Whose lives brush close, howsoever briefly, and are so changed by the chance contact’
Whiskeyjack studied the man opposite him through half-closed eyes. ‘I don’t view change as particularly threatening, Lord.’
‘Rake will suffice. To your point, I agree … more often than not. There is tension among the command, of which I am sure you are fully aware.’
The Malazan nodded.
Rake’s veiled eyes sharpened on Whiskeyjack’s for a moment, then casually slid away once more. ‘Concerns. Long-bridled ambitions now straining. Rivalries old and new. The situation has the effect of … separating. Each and every one of us, from all the others. Yet, if we abide, the calm return of instinct makes itself heard once more, whispering of … hope.’ The extraordinary eyes found the commander once again, a contact just as brief as the first.
Whiskeyjack drew a slow, silent breath. ‘The nature of this hope?’
‘My instincts – at the instant when lives brush close, no matter how momentary – inform me who is worthy of trust. Ganoes Paran, for example. We first met on this plain, not too far from where we are now camped. A tool of Oponn, moments from death within the jaws of Shadowthrone’s Hounds. A mortal, his every loss written plain, there in his eyes. Living or dying, his fate meant nothing to me. Yet…’
‘You liked him.’
Rake smiled, sipped wine. ‘Aye, an accurate summation.’
There was silence, then, that stretched as the two men sat facing each other. After a long while, Whiskeyjack slowly straightened in his chair, a quiet realization stealing through him. ‘I imagine,’ he finally said, studying the wine in his goblet, ‘Quick Ben has you curious.’
Anomander Rake cocked his head. ‘Naturally,’ he replied, revealing faint surprise and questioning in his tone.
‘I first met him in Seven Cities … the Holy Desert Raraku, to be more precise,’ Whiskeyjack said, leaning forward to refill both goblets, then settling back before continuing. ‘It’s something of a long tale, so I hope you can be patient.’
Rake half smiled his reply.
‘Good. I think it will be worth it’ Whiskeyjack’s gaze wandered, found the lantern hanging from a pole, settled on its dim, flaring gold flame. ‘Quick Ben. Adaephon Delat, a middling wizard in the employ of one of the Seven Holy Protectors during an abortive rebellion that originated in Aren. Delat and eleven other mages made up the Protector’s cadre. Our besieging army’s own sorcerors were more than their match – Bellurdan, Nightchill, Tayschrenn, A’Karonys, Tesormalandis, Stumpy – a formidable gathering known for their brutal execution of the Emperor’s will. Well, the city the Protector was holed up in was breached, the walls sundered, slaughter in the streets, the madness of battle gripped us all. Dassem struck down the Holy Protector – Dassem and his band of followers he called his First Sword – they chewed their way through the enemy ranks. The Protector’s cadre, seeing the death of their master and the shattering of the army, fled. Dassem ordered my company in pursuit, out into the desert. Our guide was a local, a man recently recruited into our own Claw…’
* * *
Kalam Mekhar’s broad, midnight face glistened with sweat. Whiskeyjack watched as the man twisted in the saddle, watched the wide shoulders shrug beneath the dusty, stained telaba.
‘They remain together,’ the guide rumbled. ‘I would have thought they ‘d split … and force you to do the same. Or to choose among them, Commander. The trail leads out, sir, out into Raraku’s heart.’
‘How far ahead?’ Whiskeyjack asked.
‘Half a day, no more. And on foot.’
The commander squinted out into the desert’s ochre haze. Seventy soldiers rode at his back, a cobbled-together collection of marines, engineers, infantry and cavalry; each from squads that had effectively ceased to exist. Three years of sieges, set battles and pursuits for most of them. They were what Dassem Ultor judged could be spared, and, if necessary, sacrificed.
‘Sir,’ Kalam said, cutting into his thoughts. ‘Raraku is a holy desert. A place of power…’
‘Lead on,’ Whiskeyjack growled.
Dust-devils swirled random paths across the barren, wasted plain. The troop rode at a trot with brief intervals of walking. The sun climbed higher in the sky. Somewhere behind them, a city still burned, yet before them they saw an entire landscape that seemed lit by fire.
The first corpse was discovered early in the afternoon. Curled, a ragged, scorched telaba fluttering in the hot wind, and beneath it a withered figure, head tilted skyward, eye sockets hollowed pits. Kalam dismounted and was long in examining the body. Finally, he rose and faced Whiskeyjack. ‘Kebharla, I think. She was more a scholar than a mage, a delver of mysteries. Sir, there’s something odd—’
‘Indeed?’ the commander drawled. He leaned forward in his saddle, studied the corpse. ‘Apart from the fact that she looks like she died a hundred years ago, what do you find odd, Kalam?’
The man’s face twisted in a scowl.
A soldier chuckled behind Whiskeyjack.
‘Will that funny man come forward, please,’ the commander called out without turning.
A rider joined him. Thin, young, an ornate, oversized Seven Cities helmet on his head. ‘Sir!’ the soldier said.
Whiskeyjack stared at him. ‘Gods, man, lose that helm – you’ll cook your brains. And the fiddle – the damned thing’s broken anyway.’
‘The helmet’s lined with cold-sand, sir.’
‘With what?’
‘Cold-sand. Looks like shaved filings, sir, but you could throw a handful into a fire and it won’t get hot. Strangest thing, sir.’
The commander’s eyes narrowed on the helmet. ‘By the Abyss, the Holy Protector wore that!’
The man nodded solemnly. ‘And when Dassem’s sword clipped it, it went flying, sir. Right into my arms.’
‘And the fiddle followed?’
The soldier’s eyes thinned suspiciously. ‘No, sir. The fiddle’s mine. Bought it in Malaz City, planned on learning how to play it.’
‘So who put a fist through it, soldier?’
‘That would be Hedge, sir – that man over there beside Picker.’
‘He can’t play the damn thing!’ the soldier in question shouted over.
‘Well I can’t now, can I? It’s broke. But once the war’s done I’ll get it fixed, won’t I?’
Whiskeyjack sighed. ‘Return to your position, sir Fiddler, and not another sound from you, understood?’
‘One thing, sir. I got a bad feeling … about … about all of this.’
‘You’re not alone in that, soldier.’
‘Well, uh, it’s just that—’
‘Commander!’ the soldier named Hedge called out, nudging his mount forward. ‘The lad’s hunches, sir, they ain’t missed yet. He told Sergeant Nubber not to drink from that jug, but Nubber did anyway, and now he’s dead, sir.’
‘Poisoned?’
‘No, sir. A dead lizard. Got stuck in his throat. Nubber choked to death on a dead lizard! Hey, Fiddler – a good name, that. Fiddler. Hah!’
‘Gods,’ Whiskeyjack breathed. ‘Enough.’ He faced Kalam again. ‘Ride on.’
The man nodded, climbed back in his saddle.
Eleven mages on foot, without supplies, fleeing across a lifeless desert, the hunt should have been completed quickly. Late in the afternoon they came upon another body, as shrivelled as the first one; then, with the sun spreading crimson on the west horizon, a third corpse was found on the trail. Directly ahead, half a league distant, rose the bleached, jagged teeth of limestone cliffs, tinted red with the sunset. The trail of the surviving wizards, Kalam informed the commander, led towards them.
The horses were exhausted, as were the soldiers. Water was becoming a concern. Whiskeyjack called a halt, and camp was prepared.
After the meal, and with soldiers stationed at pickets, the commander joined Kalam Mekhar at the hearth.
The assassin tossed another brick of dung onto the flames, then checked the water in the battered pot suspended by a tripod over the fire. ‘The herbs in this tea will lessen the loss of water come the morrow,’ the Seven Cities native rumbled. ‘I’m lucky to have it – it’s rare and getting rarer. Makes your piss thick as soup, but short. You’ll still sweat, but you need that—’
‘I know,’ Whiskeyjack interjected. ‘We’ve been on this damned continent long enough to learn a few things, Clawleader.’
The man glanced over at the settling soldiers. ‘I keep forgetting that, Commander. You’re all so … young.’
‘As young as you, Kalam Mekhar.’
‘And what have I seen of the world, sir? Scant little. Bodyguard to a Holy Falah in Aren—’
‘Bodyguard? Why mince words? You were his private assassin.’
‘My journey has just begun, is what I was trying to say, sir. You – your soldiers – what you’ve seen, what you’ve been through…’ He shook his head. ‘It’s all there, in your eyes.’
Whiskeyjack studied the man, the silence stretching.
Kalam removed the pot and poured out two cups of the medicinal-smelling brew, handed one up to the commander. ‘We’ll catch up with them tomorrow.’
‘Indeed. We’ve ridden steady the day through, twice the pace of a soldier’s jog. How much distance have we closed with these damned mages? A bell’s worth? Two? No more than two. They’re using warrens…’
The assassin, frowning, slowly shook his head. ‘Then I would have lost the trail, sir. Once they entered a warren, all signs of them would have vanished.’
‘Yes. Yet the footprints lead on, unbroken. Why is that?’
Kalam squinted into the fire. ‘I don’t know, sir.’
Whiskeyjack drained the bitter tea, dropped the tin cup to the ground beside the assassin, then strode away.
Day followed day, the pursuit taking them through the battered ravines, gorges and arroyos of the hills. More bodies were discovered desiccated figures that Kalam identified one after another: Renisha, a sorceror of High Meanas; Keluger, a Septime Priest of D’riss, the Worm of Autumn; Narkal, the warrior-mage, sworn to Fener and aspirant to the god’s Mortal Sword; Ullan, the Soletaken priestess of Soliel.
Deprivation took its toll on the hunters. Horses died, were butchered and eaten. The surviving beasts thinned grew gaunt. Had not the mages’ trail led Kalam and the others unerringly to one hidden spring after another, everyone would have died there in Raraku’s relentless wasteland.
Set’alahd Crool, a Jhag half-blood who’d once driven Dassem Ultor back a half-dozen steps in furious counterattack, his sword ablaze with the blessing of some unknown ascendant; Etra, a mistress of the Rashan warren; Birith’erah, mage of the Serc warren who could pull storms down from the sky; Gellid, witch of the Tennes warren …
And now but one remained ever ahead, elusive, his presence revealed only by the light footprints he left behind.
The hunters were embraced in silence, now. Raraku’s silence. Tempered, honed, annealed under the sun. The horses beneath them were their match, lean and defiant, tireless and wild-eyed.
Whiskeyjack was slow to understand what he saw in Kalam’s face when the assassin looked upon him and his soldiers, slow to grasp that the killer’s narrowed eyes held disbelief, awe, and more than a little fear. Yet Kalam himself had changed. He ‘d not travelled far from the land he called home, yet an entire world had passed beneath him.
Raraku had taken them all.
Up a steep, rocky channel, through an eroded fissure, the limestone walls stained and pitted, and out into a natural amphitheatre, and there, seated cross-legged on a boulder on the clearing’s opposite side, waited the last mage.
He wore little more than rags, was emaciated, his dark skin cracked and peeling, his eyes glittering hard and brittle as obsidian.
Kalam’s reining in looked to be a tortured effort. He managed to turn his horse round, met Whiskeyjack’s eyes. ‘Adaephon Delat, a mage of Meanas,’ he said in a bone-dry rasp, his split lips twisting into a grin. ‘He was never much, sir. I doubt he’ll be able to muster a defence.’
Whiskeyjack said nothing. He angled his mount past the assassin, approached the wizard.
‘One question,’ the wizard asked, his voice barely a whisper yet carrying clearly across the amphitheatre.
‘What?’
‘Who in Hood’s name are you?’
Whiskeyjack raised a brow. ‘Does it matter?’
‘We have crossed Raraku entire,’ the wizard said. ‘Other side of these cliffs is the trail leading down to G’danisban. You chased me across the Holy Desert … gods, no man is worth that. Not even me!’
‘There were eleven others in your company, wizard.’
Adaephon Delat shrugged. ‘I was the youngest – the healthiest – by far. Yet now, finally, even my body has given up. I can go no further.’ His dark eyes reached past Whiskeyjack. ‘Commander, your soldiers…’
‘What of them?’
‘They are more … and less. No longer what they once were. Raraku, sir, has burned the bridges of their pasts, one and all – it’s all gone.’ He met Whiskeyjack’s eyes in wonder. ‘And they are yours. Heart and soul. They are yours.’
‘More than you realize,’ Whiskeyjack said. He raised his voice. ‘Hedge, Fiddler, are we in place?’
‘Aye!’two voices chorused.
Whiskeyjack saw the wizard’s sudden tension. After a moment, the commander twisted in his saddle. Kalam sat stiffly on his horse a dozen paces back sweat streaming down his brow. Flanking him and slightly behind were Fiddler and Hedge, both with their crossbows trained on the assassin. Smiling, Whiskeyjack faced Adaephon Delat once again.
‘You two have played an extraordinary game. Fiddler sniffed out the secret communications – the scuffed stone-faces, the postures of the bodies, the curled fingers – one, three, two, whatever was needed to complete the cipher – we could have cut this to a close a week past, but by then I’d grown … curious. Eleven mages. Once the first one revealed her arcane knowledge to you – knowledge she was unable to use – it was just a matter of bargaining. What choice did the others possess? Death by Raraku’s hand, or mine. Or … a kind of salvation. But was it, after all? Do their souls clamour within you, now, Adaephon Delat? Screaming to escape their new prison ? But I am left wondering, none the less. This game – you and Kalam – to what end?’
The illusion of deprivation slowly faded from the wizard, revealing a fit, hale young man. He managed a strained smile. ‘The clamour has … subsided somewhat. Even the ghost of a life is better than Hood’s embrace, Commander. We’ve achieved a … balance, you could say.’
‘And you a host of powers unimagined.’
‘Formidable, granted, but I’ve no desire to use them now. The game we played, Whiskeyjack? Only one of survival. At first. We didn’t think you ‘d make it, to be perfectly honest. We thought Raraku would come to claim you – I suppose she did in a way, though not in a way I would have anticipated. What you and your soldiers have become…’ He shook his head.
‘What we have become,’ Whiskeyjack said ‘you have shared. You and Kalam.’
The wizard slowly nodded. ‘Hence this fateful meeting. Sir, Kalam and I, we’ll follow you, now. If you would have us.’
Whiskeyjack grunted ‘The Emperor will take you from me.’
‘Only if you tell him, Commander.’
‘And Kalam ?’ Whiskeyjack glanced back at the assassin.
‘The Claw will be … displeased’ the man rumbled. Then he smiled. ‘Too bad for Surly.’
Grimacing, Whiskeyjack twisted further to survey his soldiers. The array of faces could have been carved from stone. A company, culled from the army’s cast-offs, now a bright, hard core. ‘Gods,’ he whispered under his breath, ‘what have we made here?’
The first blood-letting engagement of the Bridgeburners was the retaking of G’danisban – a mage, an assassin, and seventy soldiers who swept into a rebel stronghold of four hundred desert warriors and crushed them in a single night.
* * *
The lantern’s light had burned low, but the tent’s walls revealed the dawn’s gentle birth. The sounds of a camp awakening and preparing for the march slowly rose to fill the silence that followed Whiskeyjack’s tale.
Anomander Rake sighed. ‘Soul-shifting.’
‘Aye.’
‘I have heard of shifting one soul – sending it into a vessel prepared for it. But to shift eleven souls – eleven mages – into the already-occupied body of a twelfth…’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Brazen, indeed. I see now why Quick Ben requested I probe him no further.’ His eyes lifted. ‘Yet here, this night, you unveil him I did not ask—’
