The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen, page 348
The old man hobbling out through the city gate that day was beneath notice. Enqura searched for him, but Febryl succeeded in evading the Holy Protector, in leaving the man to his fate.
Unforgivable.
A hard word, a truth harder than stone. But Febryl was never able to decide to which crime it applied. Three betrayals, or two? Was the destruction of all that knowledge—the slaying of all those scholars and teachers—was it, as the Mezla and other Falad’han later pronounced—the foulest deed of all? Fouler even than the T’lan Imass rising to slaughter the citizens of Aren? So much so that Enqura’s name has become a curse for Mezla and natives of Seven Cities alike? Three, not two?
And the bitch knew. She knew his every secret. It had not been enough to change his name; not enough that he had the appearance of an old man, when the High Mage Iltara, most trusted servant to Enqura, had been young, tall and lusted after by both men and women? No, she had obliterated, seemingly effortlessly, his every barricade, and plundered the pits of his soul.
Unforgivable.
No possessor of his secrets could be permitted to live. He refused to be so…vulnerable. To anyone. Even Sha’ik. Especially Sha’ik.
And so she must be removed. Even if it means dealing with Mezla. He had no illusions about Korbolo Dom. The Napan’s ambitions—no matter what claims he made at present—went far beyond this rebellion. No, his ambitions were imperial. Somewhere to the south, Mallick Rel, the Jhistal priest of Elder Mael, was trekking towards Aren, there to surrender himself. He would, in turn, be brought before the Empress herself.
And then what? That snake of a priest would announce an extraordinary reversal of fortunes in Seven Cities. Korbolo Dom had been working in her interests all along. Or some such nonsense. Febryl was certain of his suspicions. Korbolo Dom wanted a triumphant return into the imperial fold. Probably the title of High Fist of Seven Cities as well. Mallick Rel would have twisted his part in the events at the Fall and immediately afterwards. The dead man, Pormqual, would be made the singular focus for the debacle of Coltaine’s death and the slaying of the High Fist’s army. The Jhistal would slip through, somehow, or, if all went awry, he would somehow manage to escape. Korbolo Dom, Febryl believed, had agents in the palace in Unta—what was being played out here in Raraku was but a tremble on a much vaster web.
But I shall defeat it in the end. Even if I must appear to acquiesce right now. He has accepted my conditions, after all—a lie, of course—and I in turn accept his—another lie, naturally.
He had walked through the outskirts of the city and now found himself in the wilder region of the oasis. The trail had the appearance of long disuse, covered in crackling, dried palm fronds and gourd husks, and Febryl knew his careless passage was destroying that illusion, but he was indifferent to that. Korbolo’s killers would repair the mess, after all. It fed their self-deceptions well enough.
He rounded a bend in the path and entered a clearing ringed in low stones. There had once been a well here, but the sands had long since filled it. Kamist Reloe stood near the centre, hooded and vulpine, with four of Korbolo’s assassins positioned in a half-circle behind him.
‘You’re late,’ Kamist Reloe hissed.
Febryl shrugged. ‘Do I look like a prancing foal? Now, have you begun the preparations?’
‘The knowledge here is yours, Febryl, not mine.’
Febryl hissed, then waved one claw-like hand. ‘No matter. There’s still time. Your words only remind me that I must suffer fools—’
‘You’re not alone in that,’ Kamist Reloe drawled.
Febryl hobbled forward. ‘The path your…servants would take is a long one. It has not been trod by mortals since the First Empire. It has likely grown treacherous—’
‘Enough warnings, Febryl,’ Kamist Reloe snapped, his fear showing through. ‘You need only open the path. That is all we ask of you—all we have ever asked.’
‘You need more than that, Kamist Reloe,’ Febryl said with a smile. ‘Would you have these fools stride in blind? The goddess was a spirit, once—’
‘That is no secret.’
‘Perhaps, but what kind of spirit? One that rides the desert winds, you might think. But you are wrong. A spirit of stone? Sand? No, none of these.’ He waved one hand. ‘Look about you. Raraku holds the bones of countless civilizations, leading back to the First Empire, the empire of Dessimbelackis. And still further—aye, the signs of that are mostly obliterated, yet some remain, if one has the eyes to see…and understand.’ He limped over to one of the low stones ringing the clearing, struggling to hide the wince of pain from his overworked bones. ‘Were you to dig down through this sand, Kamist Reloe, you would discover that these boulders are in fact menhirs, stones standing taller than any of us here. And their flanks are pitted and grooved in strange patterns…’
Kamist swung in a slow circle, studying the protruding rocks with narrowed eyes. ‘T’lan Imass?’
Febryl nodded. ‘The First Empire of Dessimbelackis, Kamist Reloe, was not the first. That belonged to the T’lan Imass. There was little, it is true, that you or I might recognize as being…imperial. No cities. No breaking of the ground to plant crops or irrigate. And its armies were undead. There was a throne, of course, upon which was meant to sit a mortal—the progeny race of the T’lan Imass. A human. Alas, humans viewed empire…differently. And their vision did not include T’lan Imass. Thus, betrayal. Then war. An unequal contest, but the T’lan Imass were reluctant to annihilate their mortal children. And so they left—’
‘Only to return with the shattering of the warren,’ Kamist Reloe muttered, nodding. ‘When the chaos erupted with the ritual of Soletaken and D’ivers.’ He faced Febryl once more. ‘The goddess spirit is…was…T’lan Imass?’
Febryl shrugged. ‘There were once texts—inscribed on fired clay—from a cult of the First Empire, copies of which survived until the fall of Ugarat. The few T’lan Imass the humans managed to destroy when they rebelled were each buried in sacred sites. Sites such as this one, Kamist Reloe.’
But the other mage shook his head. ‘She is a creature of rage. Such fury does not belong to T’lan Imass—’
‘Unless she had reason. Memories of a betrayal, perhaps, from her mortal life. A wound too deep to be eradicated by the Ritual of Tellann.’ Febryl shrugged. ‘It does not matter. The spirit is T’lan Imass.’
‘It is rather late in the day for you to be revealing this to us,’ Kamist Reloe growled, turning his head to spit. ‘Does the Ritual of Tellann still bind her?’
‘No. She broke those chains long ago and has reclaimed her soul—Raraku’s secret gifts are those of life and death, as primal as existence itself. It returned to her all that she had lost—perhaps even the rebirth of her rage. Raraku, Kamist Reloe, remains the deepest mystery of all, for it holds its own memories…of the sea, of life’s very own waters. And memories are power.’
Kamist Reloe drew his cloak tighter about his gaunt form. ‘Open the path.’
And when I have done this for you and your Mezla friends, High Mage, you will be indebted to me, and my desires. Seven Cities shall be liberated. The Malazan Empire will withdraw all interests, and our civilization shall flower once more…
He stepped to the centre of the ring of stones and raised his hands.
Something was coming. Bestial and wild with power. And with each passing moment, as it drew ever nearer, L’oric’s fear grew. Ancient wars…such is the feel of this, as of enmity reborn, a hatred that defies millennia. And though he sensed that no-one mortal in the oasis city was the subject of that wrath, the truth remained that…we are all in the way.
He needed to learn more. But he was at a loss as to which path he should take. Seven Cities was a land groaning beneath unseen burdens. Its skin was thick with layers, weathered hard. Their secrets were not easily prised loose, especially in Raraku.
He sat cross-legged on the floor of his tent, head lowered, thoughts racing. The Whirlwind’s rage had never before been so fierce, leading him suspect that the Malazan army was drawing close, that the final clash of wills was fast approaching. This was, in truth, a convergence, and the currents had trapped other powers, pulling them along with relentless force.
And behind it all, the whispers of a song…
He should flee this place. Take Felisin—and possibly Heboric as well—with him. And soon. Yet curiosity held him here, at least for the present. Those layers were splitting, and there would be truths revealed, and he would know them. I came to Raraku because I sensed my father’s presence…somewhere close. Perhaps here no longer, but he had been, not long ago. The chance of finding his trail…
The Queen of Dreams had said Osric was lost. What did that mean? How? Why? He hungered for answers to such questions.
Kurald Thyrllan had been born of violence, the shattering of Darkness. The Elder Warren had since branched off in many directions, reaching to within the grasp of mortal humans as Thyr. And, before that, in the guise of life-giving fire, Tellann.
Tellann was a powerful presence here in Seven Cities, obscure and buried deep perhaps, but pervasive none the less. Whereas Kurald Thyrllan had been twisted and left fraught by the shattering of its sister warren. There were no easy passages into Thyrllan, as he well knew.
Very well, then. I shall try Tellann.
He sighed, then slowly climbed to his feet. There were plenty of risks, of course. Collecting his bleached telaba in the crook of one arm, he moved to the chest beside his cot. He crouched, passing a hand over it to temporarily dispel its wards, then lifted back the lid.
Liosan armour, the white enamel gouged and scarred. A visored helm of the same material, the leather underlining webbed over eyes and cheeks by black iron mail. A light, narrow-bladed longsword, its point long and tapering, scabbarded in pale wood.
He drew the armour on, including the helm, then pulled his telaba over it, raising the hood as well. Leather gauntlets and sword and belt followed.
Then he paused.
He despised fighting. Unlike his Liosan kin, he was averse to harsh judgement, to the assertion of a brutally delineated world-view that permitted no ambiguity. He did not believe order could be shaped by a sword’s edge. Finality, yes, but finality stained with failure.
Necessity was a most bitter flavour, but he saw no choice and so would have to suffer the taste.
Once more he would have to venture forth, through the encampment, drawing ever so carefully on his powers to remain unseen by mortals yet beneath the notice of the goddess. The ferocity of her anger was his greatest ally, and he would have to trust in that.
He set out.
The sun was a crimson glare behind the veil of suspended sand, still a bell from setting, when L’oric reached the Toblakai’s glade. He found Felisin sleeping beneath the shade they had rigged between three poles on the side opposite the carved trees, and decided he would leave her to her rest. Instead, sparing a single bemused glance at the two Teblor statues, he strode over to stand before the seven stone faces.
Their spirits were long gone, if they had ever been present. These mysterious T’lan Imass who were Toblakai’s gods. And the sanctification had been wrested from them, leaving this place sacred to something else. But a fissure remained, the trail, perhaps, from a brief visitation. Sufficient, he hoped, for him to breach a way into the Warren of Tellann.
He unveiled power, forcing his will into the fissure, widening it until he was able to step through—
Onto a muddy beach at the edge of a vast lake. His boots sank to the ankles. Clouds of insects flitted up from the shoreline to swarm around him. L’oric paused, stared upward at an overcast sky. The air was sultry with late spring.
I am in the wrong place…or the wrong time. This is Raraku’s most ancient memory.
He faced inland. A marshy flat extended for another twenty paces, the reeds waving in the mild wind, then the terrain rose gently onto savanna. A low ridge of darker hills marked the horizon. A few majestic trees rose from the grasslands, filled with raucous white-winged birds.
A flash of movement in the reeds caught his attention, and his hand reached for the hilt of his sword as a bestial head appeared, followed by humped shoulders. A hyena, such as could be found west of Aren and, more rarely, in Karashimesh, but this one was as large as a bear. It lifted its wide, stubby head, nose testing the air, eyes seeming to squint.
The hyena took a step forward.
L’oric slid the sword from the scabbard.
At the blade’s hiss the beast reared up, lunging to its left, and bolted into the reeds.
He could mark its flight by the waving stalks, then it appeared once more, sprinting up the slope.
L’oric resheathed his weapon. He strode from the muddy bank, intending to take the trail the hyena had broken through the reeds, and, four paces in, came upon the gnawed remains of a corpse. Far along in its decay, limbs scattered by the scavenger’s feeding, it was a moment before the High Mage could comprehend its form. Humanoid, he concluded. As tall as a normal man, yet what remained of its skin revealed a pelt of fine dark hair. The waters had bloated the flesh, suggesting the creature had drowned. A moment’s search and he found the head.
He crouched down over it and was motionless for some time.
Sloped forehead, solid chinless jaw, a brow ridge so heavy it formed a contiguous shelf over the deep-set eye sockets. The hair still clinging to fragments of scalp was little longer than what had covered the body, dark brown and wavy.
More ape-like than a T’lan Imass…the skull behind the face is smaller, as well. Yet it stood taller by far, more human in proportion. What manner of man was this?
There was no evidence of clothing, or any other sort of adornment. The creature—a male—had died naked.
L’oric straightened. He could see the hyena’s route through the reeds, and he set out along it.
The overcast was burning away and the air growing hotter and, if anything, thicker. He reached the sward and stepped onto dry ground for the first time. The hyena was nowhere to be seen, and L’oric wondered if it was still running. An odd reaction, he mused, for which he could fashion no satisfactory explanation.
He had no destination in mind; nor was he even certain that what he sought would be found here. This was not, after all, Tellann. If anything, he had come to what lay beneath Tellann, as if the Imass, in choosing their sacred sites, had been in turn responding to a sensitivity to a still older power. He understood now that Toblakai’s glade was not a place freshly sanctified by the giant warrior; nor even by the T’lan Imass he had worshipped as his gods. It had, at the very beginning, belonged to Raraku, to whatever natural power the land possessed. And so he had pushed through to a place of beginnings. But did I push, or was I pulled?
A herd of huge beasts crested a distant rise on his right, the ground trembling as they picked up speed, stampeding in wild panic.
L’oric hesitated. They were not running towards him, but he well knew that such stampedes could veer at any time. Instead, they swung suddenly the other way, wheeling as a single mass. Close enough for him to make out their shapes. Similar to wild cattle, although larger and bearing stubby horns or antlers. Their hides were mottled white and tan, their long manes black.
He wondered what had panicked them and swung his gaze back to the place where the herd had first appeared.
L’oric dropped into a crouch, his heart pounding hard in his chest.
Seven hounds, black as midnight, of a size to challenge the wild antlered cattle. Moving with casual arrogance along the ridge. And flanking them, like jackals flanking a pride of lions, a score or more of the half-human creatures such as the one he had discovered at the lakeshore. They were clearly subservient, in the role of scavengers to predators. No doubt there was some mutual benefit to the partnership, though L’oric could imagine no real threat in this world to those dark hounds.
And, there was no doubt in his mind, those hounds did not belong here.
Intruders. Strangers to this realm, against which nothing in this world can challenge. They are the dominators…and they know it.
And now he saw that other observers were tracking the terrible beasts. K’Chain Che’Malle, three of them, the heavy blades at the end of their arms revealing that they were K’ell Hunters, were padding along a parallel course a few hundred paces distant from the hounds. Their heads were turned, fixed on the intruders—who in turn ignored them.
Not of this world either, if my father’s thoughts on the matter are accurate. He was Rake’s guest for months in Moon’s Spawn, delving its mysteries. But the K’Chain Che’Malle cities lie on distant continents. Perhaps they but recently arrived here, seeking new sites for their colonies…only to find their dominance challenged.
If the hounds saw L’oric, they made no sign of it. Nor did the half-humans.
The High Mage watched them continue on, until they finally dipped into a basin and disappeared from sight.
The K’ell Hunters all halted, then spread out cautiously and slowly closed to where the hounds had vanished.
A fatal error.
Blurs of darkness, launching up from the basin. The K’ell Hunters, suddenly surrounded, swung their massive swords. Yet, fast as they were, in the span of a single heartbeat two of the three were down, throats and bellies torn open. The third one had leapt high, sailing twenty paces to land in a thumping run.
The hounds did not pursue, gathering to sniff at the K’Chain Che’Malle corpses whilst the half-humans arrived with hoots and barks, a few males clambering onto the dead creatures and jumping up and down, arms waving.
L’oric thought he now understood why the K’Chain Che’Malle had never established colonies on this continent.
He watched the hounds and the half-humans mill about the kill site for a while longer, then the High Mage began a cautious retreat, back to the lake. He was nearing the edge of the slope down to the reeds when his last parting glance over one shoulder revealed the seven beasts all facing in his direction, heads raised.
