The Malazan Empire, page 260
And she has denied you. She has denied you all—
He could not escape – he had embraced their pain, and the flood of memories was destroying him. Too many, too fiercely felt – relived, every moment relived by these lost creatures – he was drowning.
He had promised them release, yet he knew now he would fail. There was no end, no way he could encompass this yearning gift, this desperate, begging desire.
He was alone—
— am Pran Chole, you must hear me, mortal!
Alone. Fading …
Hear me, mortal! There is a place – I can lead you! You must carry all we give you – not far, not long – carry us, mortal! There is a place!
Fading …
Mortal! For the Grey Swords – you must do this! Hold on – succeed – and you will gift them. I can lead you!
For the Grey Swords …
Itkovian reached out—
—and a hand, solid, warm, clasped his forearm—
* * *
The ground crawled beneath her. Lichens – green-stalked and green-cupped, the cups filled with red; another kind, white as bone, intricate as coral; and beneath these, grey shark-skin on the mostly buried stones – an entire world, here, a hand’s width from the ground.
Her slow, inexorable passage destroyed it all, scraped a swathe through the lichens’ brittle architecture. She wanted to weep.
Ahead, close now, the cage of bone and stained skin, the creature within it a shapeless, massive shadow.
Which still called to her, still exerted its terrible demand.
To reach.
To touch the ghastly barrier.
The Mhybe suddenly froze in place, a vast, invisible weight pinning her to the ground.
Something was happening.
The earth beneath her twisting, flashes through the gathering oblivion, the air suddenly hot. A rumble of thunder—
Drawing up her legs, pushing with one arm, she managed to roll onto her back. Breath rasping in shallow lungs, she stared—
* * *
The hand held firm. Itkovian began to comprehend. Behind the memories awaited the pain, awaited all that he came to embrace. Beyond the memories, absolution was his answering gift – could he but survive …
The hand was leading him. Through a mindscape. Yet he strode across it as would a giant, the land distant below him.
Mortal, shed these memories. Free them to soak the earth in the season’s gift. Down to the earth, mortal – through you, they can return life to a dying, desolate land.
Please. You must comprehend. Memories belong in the soil, in stone, in wind. They are the land’s unseen meaning, such that touches the souls of all who would look – truly look – upon it. Touches, in faintest whisper, old almost shapeless echoes – to which a mortal life adds its own.
Feed this dreamscape, mortal.
And know this. We kneel before you. Silenced in our hearts by what you offer to us, by what you offer of yourself.
You are Itkovian, and you would embrace the T’lan Imass.
Shed these memories – weep for us, mortal—
* * *
Heaving, churning cloud where before there had been naught but a formless, colourless, impossibly distant dome – the cloud spreading, tumbling out to fill the entire sky, drawing dark curtains across bruised rainbows. Lightning, crimson-stained, flickered from horizon to horizon.
She watched the falling, watched the descent – rain, no, hail—
It struck. Drumming roar on the ground, the sound filling her ears – sweeping closer—
To pummel her.
She screamed, throwing up her hands.
Each impact was explosive, something more than simply frozen rain.
Lives. Ancient, long forgotten lives.
And memories—
All raining down.
The pain was unbearable—
Then cessation, a shadow slipping over her, close, a figure, hunched beneath the trammelling thud of hail. A warm, soft hand on her brow, a voice—
‘Not much further, dear lass. This storm – unexpected—’ the voice broke, gasping as the deluge intensified, ‘yet … wonderful. But you must not stop now. Here, Kruppe will help you…’
Shielding as much of her from the barrage as he could, he began dragging her forward, closer …
* * *
Silverfox wandered. Lost, half blinded by the tears that streamed without surcease. What she had begun as a child, on a long forgotten barrow outside the city of Pale – what she had begun so long ago – now seemed pathetic.
She had denied the T’lan Imass.
Denied the T’lan Ay.
But only for a time – or so had been her intent. A brief time, in which she would work to fashion the world that awaited them. The spirits that she had gathered, spirits who would serve that ancient people, become their gods – she had meant them to bring healing to the T’lan Imass, to their long-bereft souls.
A world where her mother was young once more.
A dreamworld, gift of K’rul. Gift of the Daru, Kruppe.
Gift of love, in answer to all she had taken from her mother.
But the T’lan Ay had turned away, were silent to her desperate call – and now Whiskeyjack was dead. Two marines, two women whose solid presence she had come to depend on – more than they could ever have realized. Two marines, killed defending her.
Whiskeyjack. All that was Tattersail keened with inconsolable grief. She had turned from him as well. Yet he had stepped into Kallor’s path.
He had done that, for he remained the man he had always been.
And now, lost too were the T’lan Imass. The man, Itkovian, the mortal, Shield Anvil without a god, who had taken into himself the slain thousands of Capustan – he had opened his arms—
You cannot embrace the pain of the T’lan Imass. Were your god still with you, he would have refused your thought. You cannot. They are too much. And you, you are but one man – alone – you cannot take their burden. It is impossible.
Heart-breakingly brave.
But impossible.
Ah, Itkovian …
Courage had defeated her, but not her own – which had never been strong – no, the courage of those around her. On all sides – Coll and Murillio, with their misguided honour, who had stolen her mother and were no doubt guarding her even now, as she slowly died. Whiskeyjack and the two marines. Itkovian. And even Tayschrenn, who had torn himself – badly – unleashing his warren to drive Kallor away. Such extraordinary, tragically misguided courage—
I am Nightchill, Elder Goddess. I am Bellurdan, Thelomen Skullcrusher. I am Tattersail, who was once mortal. And I am Silverfox, flesh and blood Bonecaster, Summoner of the T’lan.
And I have been defeated.
By mortals—
The sky heaved over her – she looked up. Eyes widening in disbelief—
* * *
The wolf thrashed, battered against the bone bars of its cage – its cage … my ribs. Trapped. Dying—
And that is a pain I share.
His chest was on fire, blossoms of intense agony lashing into him as if arriving from somewhere outside, a storm, blistering the skin covering his ribs—
—yet it grew no stronger, indeed, seemed to fade, as if with each wounding something was imparted to him, a gift—
Gift? This pain? How – what is it? What comes to me?
Old, so very old. Bittersweet, lost moments of wonder, of joy, of grief – a storm of memories, not his – so many, arriving like ice, then melting in the flare of impact – he felt his flesh grow numb beneath the unceasing deluge—
—was suddenly tugged away—
Blinking in the darkness, his lone eye as blind as the other one – the one he had lost at Pale. Something was pounding at his ears, a sound, then. Shrieking, the floor and walls shaking, chains snapping, dust raining from the low ceiling. I am not alone in here. Who? What?
Claws gouged the flagstones near his head, frantic and yearning.
Reaching. It wants me. What does? What am I to it?
The concussions were growing closer. And now voices, desperate bellowing coming from the other side of walls … down a corridor, perhaps. Clash of weapons, screams and gurgles, clatter of armour – pieces dancing on the floor.
Toc shifted his head – and saw something in the darkness. Huge, straining as it shrieked without pause. Massive, taloned hands stretched imploringly – reaching out—
For me.
Grey light flashed in the cavern, revealing in an instant the monstrous, fat-layered reptile chained opposite Toc, its eyes lit with terror. The stone that was within reach of the creature was gouged with countless scars, on all sides, a hatch-marked nightmare of madness, triggering horror within the Malazan … for it was a nightmare he recognized within himself.
She – she is my soul—
The Seer stood before him, moving in desperate, jerky motions – the old man’s body, that the Jaghut had occupied for so long, was falling to pieces – and muttering a singsong chant as, ignoring Toc, he edged ever closer to the Matron, to Mother.
The enormous beast cringed, claws scraping as it pushed itself against the wall. Its shrieks did not pause, resounding through the cavern.
The Seer held something in his hands, pallid, smooth and oblong – an egg, not from a bird. A lizard’s egg, latticed in grey magic.
Magic that waxed with every word of the Seer’s song.
Toc watched as something exploded from the Matron’s body, a coruscation of power that sought to flee upward—
—but was, instead, snared by the web of sorcery; snared, then drawn into the egg in the Seer’s hands.
The Matron’s shrieking suddenly ceased. The creature settled back with a mindless whimper.
In the numbing silence within the cavern, Toc could now hear more clearly the sounds of battle in the corridor beyond. Close, and closing.
The Seer, clutching the Finnest, spun to stare down at Toc. The Jaghut’s smile split the corpse’s desiccated lips. ‘We shall return,’ he whispered.
The sorcery blossomed once more, then, as heavy chains clattered freely to the floor, darkness returned.
And Toc knew that he was alone within the cavern. The Seer had taken Mother’s power, and then he had taken her as well.
The wolf thrashed in his chest, launching spikes of pain along his broken, malformed limbs. It yearned to loose its howl, its call to lover and to kin. Yet it could not draw breath—
—cannot draw breath. It dies. The hail, these savage gifts, they mean nothing. With me, the god’s fatal choice, we die—
The sounds of fighting had stopped. Toc heard iron bars snap, one after another, heard metal clang on the flagstones.
Then someone was crouching down beside him. A hand that was little more than rough bone and tendon settled on Toc’s forehead.
The Malazan could not see. There was no light. But the hand was cool, its weight gentle.
‘Hood? Have you come for us, then?’ The words were clearly spoken in his mind, but came out incomprehensibly – and he realized that his tongue was gone.
‘Ah, my friend,’ the figure replied in a rasp. ‘It is I, Onos T’oolan, once of the Tarad Clan, of the Logros T’lan Imass, but now kin to Aral Fayle, to Toc the Younger.’
Kin.
Withered arms gathered him up.
‘We are leaving now, young brother.’
Leaving?
* * *
Picker eyed the breach. The bravado that had been behind her proclamation that they would follow the T’lan Imass into the keep had not survived a sudden return to caution once they came within sight of the fortress. It was under assault, and whatever enemy had stormed into the keep had kicked hard the hornet nest.
K’Chain Che’Malle were thundering back through the compound gate. Sorcerous detonations shook the entire structure. Urdomen and Beklites raced along the top of the walls. Twisting spirals of grey lightning writhed skyward from the south roof, linking the score of condors wheeling overhead. Beyond it, filling the sky above the harbour, was an enormous storm-cloud, flashes burgeoning from its heaving depths.
The lieutenant glanced back at her paltry squads. They’d lost the three badly wounded soldiers, as she had expected. Not one of the Bridgeburners crouching in the smoke-hazed street had been spared – she saw far too much blood on the soot-smeared uniforms behind her.
To the northwest, the sounds of battle continued, drawing no closer. Picker knew that Dujek would have sought to reach the keep, if at all possible. From what she could hear, however, he was being pushed back, street by street.
The gambit had failed.
Leaving us on our own.
‘K’Chain Che’Malle!’ a soldier hissed from the back. ‘Coming up behind us!’
‘Well, that settles it, then,’ Picker muttered. ‘Doubletime to Hedge’s breach!’
The Bridgeburners sprinted across the rubble-littered street.
Blend was the first to complete her scramble over the tower’s wreckage. Immediately beyond was a shattered building – three walls and half of the roof remaining. Within lay dusty darkness, and what might be a doorway far to the left of the room’s far wall.
Two steps behind Blend, Picker leapt clear of the tumbled stone blocks to land skidding on the room’s floor – colliding with a cursing, backpedalling Blend.
Feet tangling, the two women fell.
‘Damn it, Blend—’
‘Guards—’
A third voice cut in. ‘Picker! Lieutenant!’
As her Bridgeburners gathered behind her, Picker sat up to see Hedge, Bluepearl and seven additional Bridgeburners – the ones who had taken crossbows to the top of the wall and had survived the consequences – emerge from the shadows.
‘We tried getting back to you—’
‘Never mind, Hedge,’ Picker said, clambering to her feet. ‘You played it right, soldier, trust me—’
Hedge was holding a cusser in one hand, which he raised with a grin. ‘Held one back—’
‘Did a T’lan Imass come through here?’
‘Aye, a beat-up bastard, looked neither left nor right – just walked right past us – deeper into the keep—’
A Bridgeburner to the rear shouted, ‘We got that K’Chain Che’Malle coming up behind us!’
‘Through the door back there!’ Hedge squealed. ‘Clear the way, idiots! I’ve been waiting for this—’
Picker began shoving her soldiers towards the back wall.
The sapper scrambled back towards the breach.
The following events were a tumble in Picker’s mind—
Blend gripped her arm and bodily threw her towards the doorway, where her soldiers were plunging through into whatever lay beyond. Picker swore, but Blend’s hands were suddenly on her back, pushing her face first through the portal. Picker twisted with a snarl, and saw over Blend’s shoulder—
The K’Chain Che’Malle seemed to flow as it raced over the rubble, blades lifting.
Hedge looked up – to find himself four paces away from the charging reptile.
Picker heard him grunt, a muted, momentary sound—
The sapper threw the cusser straight down.
The K’Chain Che’Malle was already swinging – two huge blades descending—
The explosion beat them clean.
Blend and Picker were thrown through the doorway. The lieutenant’s head snapped back to the thudding, staccato impact of flying stones against her helm and the lowered visor and cheek-guards. Those that made it past lanced fire into her face, filled her nose and mouth with blood.
Deafened, she reeled back through clouds of dust and smoke.
Voices were screaming – issuing from what seemed very far away then swiftly closing to surround her.
Stones falling – a cross-beam of tarred wood, raging with flames, sweeping down, ending with a solid thud and crunch of bones – a death-groan amidst the chaos, so close to Picker that she wondered if it wasn’t her own.
Hands gripped her once again, pulled her round, propelled her down what seemed to be a corridor.
A tunnel of smoke and dust – no air – the pounding of boots, blind collisions, curses – darkness – that suddenly dissipated.
Picker stumbled into the midst of her soldiers, spitting blood, coughing. Around them, a room littered with dead Beklites, another door, opposite, that looked to have been shattered with a single punch. A lone lantern swung wildly from a hook above them.
‘Look!’ someone grunted. ‘A dog’s been chewing on the lieutenant’s chin!’
Not even a jest – simply the absurd madness of battle. Shaking her head to a spatter of blood, Picker spat again and surveyed her troops through stinging, streaming eyes.
‘Blend?’ The name came out mangled but understandable.
Silence.
‘Bucklund – back into the corridor! Find her!’
The Twelfth Squad’s sergeant was back a moment later, dragging a blood-drenched body through the doorway. ‘She’s breathing – Hood knows how! Her back’s full of stones and shards!’
Picker dropped to her knees beside her friend. ‘You damned idiot,’ she mumbled.
‘We should’ve had Mallet with us,’ Bucklund grumbled beside her.
Aye, not the only mistake in this fouled-up game.
‘Oh!’ a woman’s voice cried. ‘You are not Pannions!’
Weapons swung to the doorway.
A woman in a blindingly white telaba stood there, her long black hair shimmering, impossibly clean, perfectly combed. Veiled, stunningly beautiful eyes studied them. ‘Have you, by any chance, seen three masked warriors? They should have passed this way, looking for the throne room, assuming there is one, that is. You might have heard some fighting—’
‘No,’ Bucklund growled. ‘I mean, yes, we’ve heard fighting. Everywhere, ma’am. That is—’
‘Shut up,’ Picker sighed. ‘No,’ she said to the woman, ‘we ain’t seen no three masked warriors—’
‘What of a T’lan Imass?’
‘As a matter of fact, yeah—’
‘Excellent! Tell me, does she still have all those swords impaling her? I can’t imagine she’d leave—’
‘What swords?’ Picker demanded. ‘Besides, it was male. I think.’
‘It was,’ another soldier piped up, then reddened as her comrades swung to her with broad grins.
