The Malazan Empire, page 364
Then what is this ledge to which I still cling so desperately? Why do I persist in my belief that I can save myself? That I can return…find once more the place where madness cannot be found, where confusion does not exist.
The place…of childhood.
She stood in the main chamber, the chair that would be a throne behind her, its cushions cool, its armrests dry. She stood, imprisoned in a stranger’s armour. She could almost feel the goddess reaching out to engulf her on all sides—not a mother’s embrace, no, nothing like that at all. This one would suffocate her utterly, would drown out all light, every glimmer of self-awareness.
Her ego is armoured in hatred. She cannot look in, she can barely see out. Her walk is a shamble, cramped and stiff, a song of rusty fittings and creaking straps. Her teeth gleam in the shadows, but it is a rictus grin.
Felisin Paran, hold up this mirror at your peril.
Outside stole the first light of dawn.
And Sha’ik reached for her helm.
L’oric could just make out the Dogslayer positions at the tops of the cobbled ramps. There was no movement over there in the grey light of dawn. It was strange, but not surprising. The night just done would make even the hardest soldier hesitant to raise a gaze skyward, to straighten from a place of hiding to begin the mundane tasks that marked the start of a new day.
Even so, there was something strange about those trenches.
He strode along the ridge towards the hilltop where Sha’ik had established her forward post to observe the battle to come. The High Mage ached in every bone. His muscles shouted pain with every step he took.
He prayed she was there.
Prayed the goddess would deign to hear his words, his warning, and, finally, his offer.
All hovered on the cusp. Darkness had been defeated…somehow. He wondered at that, but not for long—there was no time for such idle musings. This tortured fragment of Kurald Emurlahn was awakening, and the goddess was about to arrive, to claim it for herself. To fashion a throne. To devour Raraku.
Ghosts still swirled in the shadows, warriors and soldiers from scores of long-dead civilizations. Wielding strange weapons, their bodies hidden beneath strange armour, their faces mercifully covered by ornate visors. They were singing, although that Tanno song had grown pensive, mournful, sighing soft as the wind. It had begun to rise and fall, a sussuration that chilled L’oric.
Who will they fight for? Why are they here at all? What do they want?
The song belonged to the Bridgeburners. Yet it seemed the Holy Desert itself had claimed it, had taken that multitude of ethereal voices for itself. And every soul that had fallen in battle in the desert’s immense history was now gathered in this place.
The cusp.
He came to the base of the trail leading up to Sha’ik’s hill. There were desert warriors huddled here and there, wrapped in their ochre telabas, spears thrust upright, iron points glistening with dew as the sun’s fire broke on the east horizon. Companies of Mathok’s light cavalry were forming up on the flats to L’oric’s right. The horses were jittery, the rows shifting uneven and restless. The High Mage could not see Mathok anywhere among them—nor, he realized with a chill, could he see the standards of the warleader’s own tribe.
He heard horses approach from behind and turned to see Leoman, one of his officers, and Toblakai riding up towards him.
The Toblakai’s horse was a Jhag, L’oric saw, huge and magnificent in its primal savagery, loping collected and perfectly proportionate to the giant astride its shoulders.
And that giant was a mess. Preternatural healing had yet to fully repair the terrible wounds on him. His hands were a crimson ruin. One leg had been chewed by vicious, oversized jaws.
Toblakai and his horse were dragging a pair of objects that bounced and rolled on the ends of chains, and L’oric’s eyes went wide upon seeing what they were.
He’s killed the Deragoth. He’s taken their heads.
‘L’oric!’ Leoman rasped as he drew rein before him. ‘Is she above?’
‘I don’t know, Leoman of the Flails.’
All three dismounted, and L’oric saw Toblakai favouring his mangled leg. A hound’s jaws did that. And then he saw the stone sword on the giant’s back. Ah, he is indeed the one, then. I think the Crippled God has made a terrible mistake…
Gods, he killed the Deragoth.
‘Where is Febryl hiding?’ Leoman asked as the four of them began the ascent.
Toblakai answered. ‘Dead. I forgot to tell you some things. I killed him. And I killed Bidithal. I would have killed Ghost Hands and Korbolo Dom, but I could not find them.’
L’oric rubbed a hand across his brow, and it came away wet and oily. Yet he could still see his breath.
Toblakai went on, inexorably. ‘And when I went into Korbolo’s tent, I found Kamist Reloe. He’d been assassinated. So had Henaras.’
L’oric shook himself and said to Leoman, ‘Did you receive Sha’ik’s last commands? Shouldn’t you be with the Dogslayers?’
The warrior grunted. ‘Probably. We’ve just come from there.’
‘They’re all dead,’ Toblakai said. ‘Slaughtered in the night. The ghosts of Raraku were busy—though none dared oppose me.’ He barked a laugh. ‘As Ghost Hands could tell you, I have ghosts of my own.’
L’oric stumbled on the trail. He reached up and gripped Leoman’s arm.
‘Slaughtered? All of them?’
‘Yes, High Mage. I’m surprised you didn’t know. We still have the desert warriors. We can still win this, just not here and not now. Thus, we need to convince Sha’ik to leave—’
‘That won’t be possible,’ L’oric cut in. ‘The goddess is coming, is almost here. It’s too late for that, Leoman. Moments from being too late for everything—’
They clambered over the crest.
And there stood Sha’ik.
Helmed and armoured, her back to them as she stared southward.
L’oric wanted to cry out. For he saw what his companions could not see. I’m not in time. Oh, gods below—And then he leapt forward, his warren’s portal flaring around him—and was gone.
The goddess had not lost her memories. Indeed, rage had carved their likenesses, every detail, as mockingly solid and real-seeming as those carved trees in the forest of stone. And she could caress them, crooning her hatred like a lover’s song, lingering with a touch promising murder, though the one who had wronged her was, if not dead, then in a place that no longer mattered.
The hate was all that mattered now. Her fury at his weaknesses. Oh, others in the tribe played those games often enough. Bodies slipped through the furs from hut to hut when the stars fell into their summer alignment, and she herself had more than once spread her legs to another woman’s husband, or an eager, clumsy youth.
But her heart had been given to the one man with whom she lived. That law was sacrosanct.
Oh, but he’d been so sensitive. His hands following his eyes in the fashioning of forbidden images of that other woman, there in the hidden places. He’d used those hands to close about his own heart, to give it to another—without a thought as to who had once held it for herself.
Another, who would not even give her heart in return—she had seen to that, with vicious words and challenging accusations. Enough to encourage the others to banish her for ever.
But not before the bitch killed all but one of her kin.
Foolish, stupid man, to have given his love to that woman.
Her rage had not died with the Ritual, had not died when she herself—too shattered to walk—had been severed from the Vow and left in a place of eternal darkness. And every curious spirit that had heard her weeping, that had drawn close in sympathy—well, they had fed her hungers, and she had taken their powers. Layer upon layer. For they too had been foolish and stupid, wayward and inclined to squander those powers on meaningless things. But she had a purpose.
The children swarmed the surface of the world. And who was their mother? None other than the bitch who had been banished.
And their father?
Oh yes, she went to him. On that last night. She did. He reeked of her when they dragged him into the light the following morning. Reeked of her. The truth was there in his eyes.
A look she would—could—never forget.
Vengeance was a beast long straining at its chains. Vengeance was all she had ever wanted.
Vengeance was about to be unleashed.
And even Raraku could not stop it. The children would die.
The children will die. I will cleanse the world of their beget, the proud-eyed vermin born, one and all, of that single mother. Of course she could not join the Ritual. A new world waited within her.
And now, at last, I shall rise again. Clothed in the flesh of one such child, I shall kill that world.
She could see the path opening, the way ahead clear and inviting. A tunnel walled in spinning, writhing shadows.
It would be good to walk again.
To feel warm flesh and the heat of blood.
To taste water. Food.
To breathe.
To kill.
Unmindful and unhearing, Sha’ik made her way down the slope. The basin awaited her, that field of battle. She saw Malazan scouts on the ridge opposite, one riding back to the encampment, the others simply watching.
It was understood, then. As she had known it would be.
Vague, distant shouts behind her. She smiled. Of course, in the end, it is the two warriors who first found me. I was foolish to have doubted them. And I know, either one would stand in my stead.
But they cannot.
This fight belongs to me. And the goddess.
‘Enter.’
Captain Keneb paused for a moment, seeking to collect himself, then he strode into the command tent.
She was donning her armour. A mundane task that would have been easier with a servant at hand, but that, of course, was not Tavore’s way.
Although, perhaps, that was not quite the truth. ‘Adjunct.’
‘What is it, Captain?’
‘I have just come from the Fist’s tent. A cutter and a healer were summoned at once, but it was far too late. Adjunct Tavore, Gamet died last night. A blood vessel burst in his brain—the cutter believes it was a clot, and that it was born the night he was thrown from his horse. I am…sorry.’
A pallor had come to her drawn, plain face. He saw her hand reach down to steady herself against the table edge. ‘Dead?’
‘In his sleep.’
She turned away, stared down at the accoutrements littering the table. ‘Thank you, Captain. Leave me now, and have T’amber—’
There was a commotion outside, then a Wickan youth pushed in. ‘Adjunct! Sha’ik has walked down into the basin! She challenges you!’
After a long moment, Tavore nodded. ‘Very well. Belay that last order, Captain. You both may go.’ She turned to resume strapping on her armour.
Keneb gestured the youth ahead and they strode from the tent.
Outside, the captain hesitated. It’s what Gamet would do…isn’t it?
‘Will she fight her?’ the Wickan asked.
He glanced over. ‘She will. Return to Temul, lad. Either way, we have a battle ahead of us this day.’ He watched the young warrior hurry off.
Then swung to face the modest tent situated twenty paces to his left. There were no guards stationed before its flap. Keneb halted before the entrance. ‘Lady T’amber, are you within?’
A figure emerged. Dressed in hard leathers—light armour, Keneb realized with a start—and a longsword strapped to her hip. ‘Does the Adjunct wish to begin her morning practice?’
Keneb met those calm eyes, the colour of which gave the woman her name. They seemed depthless. He mentally shook himself. ‘Gamet died last night. I have just informed the Adjunct.’
The woman’s gaze flicked towards the command tent. ‘I see.’
‘And in the basin between the two armies, Sha’ik now stands…waiting. It occurred to me, Lady, that the Adjunct might appreciate some help with her armour.’
To his surprise she turned back to her tent. ‘Not this morning, Captain. I understand your motives…but no. Not this morning. Good day, sir.’
Then she was gone.
Keneb stood motionless in surprise. All right, then, so I do not understand women.
He faced the command tent once more, in time to see the Adjunct emerge, tightening the straps on her gauntlets. She was helmed, the cheek guards locked in place. There was no visor covering her eyes—many fighters found their vision too impaired by the slits—and he watched her pause, lifting her gaze to the morning sky for a moment, before she strode forward.
He gave her some distance, then followed.
L’oric clawed his way through the swirling shadows, scraped by skeletal branches and stumbling over gnarled roots. He had not expected this. There had to be a path, a way through this blackwood forest.
That damned goddess was here. Close. She had to be—if he could but find the trail.
The air was sodden and chill, the boles of the trees leaning this way and that, as if an earthquake had just shaken the ground. Wood creaked overhead to some high wind. And everywhere flitted wraiths, lost shadows, closing on the High Mage then darting away again. Rising from the humus like ghosts, hissing over his head as he staggered on.
And then, through the trees, the flicker of fire.
Gasping, L’oric ran towards it.
It was her. And the flames confirmed his suspicion. An Imass, trailing the chains of Tellann, the Ritual shattered—oh, she has no place here, no place at all.
Chthonic spirits swarmed her burning body, the accretions of power she had gathered unto herself over hundreds of thousands of years. Hatred and spite had twisted them all into malign, vicious creatures.
Marsh water and mould had blackened the limbs of the Imass. Moss covered the torso like dangling, knotted fur. Ropes of snarled, grey hair hung down, tangled with burrs. From her scorched eye sockets, living flames licked out. The bones of her cheeks were white, latticed in cracks from the heat.
Toothless, the heavy lower jaw hanging—barely held in place by rotting strips of tendon and withered muscle.
The goddess was keening, a wavering, eerie cry that did not pause for breath, and it seemed to L’oric that she was struggling.
He drew closer.
She had stumbled into a web of vines, the twisted ropes entangling her arms and legs, wrapped like serpents about her torso and neck. He wondered that he had not seen them earlier, then realized that they were flickering, one moment there, the other gone—although no less an impediment for their rhythmic disappearance—and they were changing…
Into chains.
Suddenly, one snapped. And the goddess howled, redoubled her efforts.
Another broke, whipping to crack against a tree.
L’oric edged forward. ‘Goddess! Hear me! Sha’ik—she is not strong enough for you!’
‘My—my—my child! Mine! I stole her from the bitch! Mine!’
The High Mage frowned. Who? What bitch? ‘Goddess, listen to me, please! I offer myself in her stead! Do you understand?’
Another chain broke.
And a voice spoke low behind L’oric. ‘Interfering bastard.’
He spun, but too late, as a wide-bladed knife was driven deep between his ribs, tearing a savage path to his heart.
Or where his heart should have been, had L’oric been human.
The serrated tip missed, sliding in front of the deep-seated organ, then jammed into the side of the sternum.
L’oric groaned and sagged.
The killer dragged his knife free, crouched and pulled L’oric’s head back by the jaw. Reached down with the blade.
‘Never mind that, fool!’ hissed another voice. ‘She’s breaking the chains!’
L’oric watched the man hesitate, then growl and move away.
The High Mage could feel blood filling his chest. He slowly turned onto his side, and could feel the warm flow seep down from the wound. The change in position gave him a mostly unobscured view of the goddess—
—and the assassins now closing in on her.
Sorcery streamed from their knives, a skein of death-magics.
The goddess shrieked as the first knife was driven into her back.
He watched them kill her. A prolonged, brutal butchering. Korbolo’s Talons, his chosen assassins, who had been waiting in ambush, guided here by Febryl—no-one else could have managed that path—and abetted by the sorcerous powers of Kamist Reloe, Henaras and Fayelle. She fought back with a ferocity near to match, and soon three of the four assassins were dead—torn limb from limb. But more chains now ensnared the goddess, dragging her down, and L’oric could see the fires dying in her eye sockets, could see spirits writhe away, suddenly freed and eager to flee. And the last killer darted in, hammering down with his knife. Through the top of the skull. A midnight flash, the detonation flinging the killer back. Both skull and blade had shattered, lacerating the Talon’s face and chest. Blinded and screaming, he reeled back, tripped over a root and thumped to the ground.
L’oric listened to the man moaning.
Chains snaked over the fallen body of the goddess, until nothing visible was left of her, the black iron links heaped and glistening.
Whatever high wind had lashed the treetops now fell away, leaving only silence.
They all wanted this shattered warren. This fraught prize. But Toblakai killed Febryl. He killed the two Deragoth.
He killed Bidithal.
And as for Korbolo Dom—something tells me the Empress will soon speak to him in person. The poor bastard.
Beneath the High Mage, his lifeblood soaked the moss.
It came to him, then, that he was dying.
Twigs snapped nearby.
‘I’m hardly surprised. You sent your familiar away, didn’t you? Again.’
L’oric twisted his head around, stared upward, and managed a weak smile.
‘Father.’
‘I don’t think much has changed in your room, son, since you left it.’
‘Dusty, I would think.’
