The Malazan Empire, page 422
Badar scrambled down and retrieved his spear.
The third squad appeared at the crook. One of them spoke. ‘I never even saw him.’
‘Our first kill, Leader,’ Ahlrada Ahn said.
Trull felt sick. ‘Drag the body from the trail, Sergeant Canarth. Cover this blood with dust. We must move on.’
The bridge was not a bridge at all. Trull had visited it once before, and left with naught but questions. Constructed, it seemed, from a single massive disc, notched in rows across its rim, which was broad enough to permit eight warriors to stride across it without shoulders touching. The disc was on end, filling the gap of the deep gorge below which roared the Katter River. The base of the wheel was lost in the chute’s darkness and the mist rising ceaselessly from the rushing water. To cross to the other side, one had to walk that curved, slick rim. The hub of the enormous wheel was visible, at least three man-lengths down. Thigh-thick rods of polished stone, spear-shaft straight, angled out from a projection on the hub on both sides, appearing to plunge into the rock wall of the gorge’s south side.
The squads gathered on the north edge, scanning the treeline opposite. Two of the Edur had already crossed, one returning to report back. No signs of scouts, no evidence of recent camps. The lone Faraed they had killed seemed to have been sent far in advance of the main forces, or had taken upon himself the task of a deep mission. His courage and his intelligence had cost him his life.
Trull approached the very edge of the wheel, where the angle of the stone first emerged from the surrounding rock. As before, he saw a thin, milky film between that carved perfection and the rough rock of the precipice. As he had done once before, long ago, he wiped that foam away with a finger, to reveal the straight line, too narrow to slip a dagger blade into, that separated the construct from the raw stone. A disc in truth, somehow set into the notch of the gorge.
And, even stranger, the disc moved. Incrementally turning in place. At the moment, it was midway along one of the shallow grooves carved in parallel rows across the rim. He knew he could set his feet on that first notch, and halt. And, had he the patience, he would eventually—days, maybe a week, maybe more—find himself stepping off onto the south side of the gorge.
A mystery without an answer. Trull suspected it was never intended as a bridge. Rather, it had been built for some other purpose. It did not make sense to him that it functioned solely as what had immediately occurred to him the first time he had visited. There were, after all, easier ways to measure the passage of time.
Trull straightened, then waved his warriors across.
Ahlrada took the lead.
They reached the other side and fanned out, seeking cover. The ground resumed its downward slope, amidst boulders, pines and straggly oaks. They would cautiously move down in a few moments, to search for defensible positions that permitted a line of sight down the trail.
Trull crouched near Ahlrada, scanning the area ahead, when he heard the warrior grunt, then step away, swearing under his breath.
‘What’s wrong, Captain?’
‘I felt it…move. Here.’
Trull edged over, and saw that Ahlrada’s original position had been on a slightly curved panel of stone, set lower than the surrounding rock. It was covered in dust and gravel, but looked too smooth to be natural. He reached down and brushed the panel clear.
And saw arcane symbols carved into the stone, row upon row, the language unknown to him. Deeply delineated grooves formed an incomplete box around the writing, the base and side lines visible. Beneath the base a new row of lettering was just beginning to show.
Trull glanced back at the bridge, then back at the recessed panel. ‘It moved?’
‘Yes, I am certain of it,’ Ahlrada said. ‘Not much, but yes.’
‘Was there a sound?’
‘More felt than heard, Leader. As if something huge and buried was…shifting.’
Trull stared down at the panel, running his fingers along the lettering. ‘Do you recognize the language?’
Ahlrada shrugged and looked away. ‘We should head down, Leader.’
‘You have seen such writing before.’
‘Not in…stone. In ice. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Ice?’
‘I once lived and hunted with the Den-Ratha, on the north coast. North and east, deep into the ice seas. Before the unification. There was a wall, covered in such writing, a berg that blocked our way. Twenty man-heights high, half a league wide. But it sank into the sea—it was gone the next season.’
Trull knew that Ahlrada had, like Binadas, journeyed far and wide, had fashioned blood-bound kinships with many Edur from rival tribes. And, like Trull himself, had opposed the wars of subjugation conducted by Hannan Mosag. By all counts, he realized, they should be friends. ‘What did your Den-Ratha comrades say about it?’
‘The Tusked Man wrote them, they said.’ He shrugged again. ‘It is nothing. A myth.’
‘A man with tusks?’
‘He has been…seen. Over generations, sightings every now and then. Skin of green or grey. Tusks white as whale-bone. Always to the north, standing on snow or ice. Leader, this is not the time.’
Trull sighed, then said, ‘Send the squads down.’
A short time later Canarth reported that he smelled rotting meat.
But it was only a dead owl, lying beside the trail.
There were dark times for the Letherii, so long ago now. The First Empire, from which vast fleets had sailed forth to map the world. The coasts of all six continents had been charted, eight hundred and eleven islands scattered in the vast oceans, ruins and riches discovered, ancient sorceries and fierce, ignorant tribes encountered. Other peoples, not human, all of whom bled easily enough. Barghast, Trell, Tartheno, Fenn, Mare, Jhag, Krinn, Jheck…Colonies had been established on foreign coasts. Wars and conquests, always conquests. Until…all was brought down, all was destroyed. The First Empire collapsed in upon itself. Beasts rose in the midst of its cities, a nightmare burgeoning like plague.
The Emperor who was One was now Seven, and the Seven were scattered, lost in madness. The great cities burned. And people died in the millions.
The nightmare had a name, and that name was T’lan Imass.
Two words, inspiring hatred and terror. But, beyond those two words, there was nothing. All memory of who or what the T’lan Imass had been was lost in the chaos that followed.
Few Letherii remained who were aware of even that much. True, they knew the name ‘First Empire’. And they knew of the fall of that glorious civilization of so long ago, a civilization that was their legacy. And little else, barring the prophecy of rebirth.
Udinaas could no longer make that claim of blissful ignorance for himself. Within the world of ghosts and shades, the past lived on, breathed like a thing alive and ever restive. And voices haunted him, long dead voices. The Tiste Andii shade, Wither, was indifferent to the Letherii slave’s own desires, his pleading for silence, for an end to the grisly cacophony of regrets which seemed to be all that held ghosts together.
Udinaas knew enough horror, here among the living. And the distilling of old truths was, as far as he was concerned, not worth it.
T’lan Imass.
T’lan Imass…
What did he care about some ancient nemesis?
Because the dust of over four thousand of them was beneath their feet at this moment. A truth riding Wither’s raspy laughter.
‘And that dust has eyes, slave. Should you fear? Probably not. They’re not interested. Much. Not enough to rise up and slaughter you all, which they might not succeed in doing anyway. But, I tell you this, Udinaas, they would give it a good try.’
‘If they are dust,’ Udinaas muttered, ‘they cannot slaughter anyone.’
It was night. He sat with his back to a sloping rock face, on a ledge perched above the massive Edur encampment. The emperor had sent him off a short while ago. The hulking, gold-smeared bastard was in a foul mood. Wearied from dragging his bulk around, arguments with Hannan Mosag, the endless logistics of moving an army tens of thousands strong, families in tow. Not all was glory.
‘The dust can rise, Udinaas. Can take shape. Warriors of bone and withered flesh, with swords of stone. Where are these ones from? Which warleader sent them here? They do not answer our questions. They never do. There are no bonecasters among them. They are, like us, lost.’
Udinaas was tired of listening. The wraith was worse than a burrowing tick, buried deep in his brain. He had begun to doubt its existence. More likely the product of madness, a persona invented in his own mind. An inventor of secrets, seeding armies of ghosts to explain the countless voices whispering in his skull. Of course, it would insist otherwise. It might even flit across his vision, creeping disembodied, the sourceless, inexplicably moving shadow where none belonged. But the slave knew his eyes could be deceived. All part of the same corrupted perception.
The wraith hides in the blood of the Wyval. The Wyval hides in the shadow of the wraith. A game of mutual negation. The emperor sensed nothing. Hannan Mosag and his K’risnan sensed nothing. Feather Witch, Mayen, Uruth, the host of bound wraiths, the hunting dogs, the birds and the buzzing insects—all sensed nothing.
And that was absurd.
As far as Udinaas was concerned, in any case—the judgement conjured by some rational, sceptical part of his brain, that knot of consciousness the wraith endlessly sought to unravel—Wither was not real.
Wyval blood. Sister of Dawn, the sword-wielding mistress known to the Edur as Menandore—her and the hungry place between her legs. Infection and something like rape. He thought he understood the connection now. He was indeed infected, and true to Feather Witch’s prediction, that un-human blood was driving him mad. There had been no blazing white bitch who stole his seed. Fevered delusions, visions of self-aggrandizement, followed by the paranoid suspicion that the promised glory had been stolen from him.
Thus explaining his sordid state right now, slave to an insane Tiste Edur. A slave, huddled beneath every conceivable heel. Cowering and useless once all the internal posturing and self-justifications were cast away.
Feather Witch. He had loved her and he would never have her and that was that. The underscored truth laid bare, grisly exposure from which he withheld any direct, honest examination.
Madmen built houses of solid stone. Then circled looking for a way inside. Inside, where cosy perfection waited. People and schemes and outright lies barred his every effort, and that was the heart of the conspiracy. From outside, after all, the house looked real. Therefore it was real. Just a little more clawing at the stone door, a little more battering, one more pounding collision will burst that barrier.
And on and on and round and round. The worn ruts of madness.
He heard scrabbling on the stone below, and a moment later Feather Witch clambered into view. She pulled herself up beside him, her motions jerky, as if fevered.
‘Is it my turn to run?’ he asked.
‘Take me there, Indebted. That dream realm. Where I found you before.’
‘You were right all along,’ Udinaas said. ‘It doesn’t exist.’
‘I need to go there. I need to see for myself.’
‘No. I don’t know how.’
‘Idiot. I can open the path. I’m good at opening paths.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then you choose. Udinaas, take me to the ghosts.’
‘This is not a good place to do that—’
She had one hand clenched around something, and she now reached out and clutched his arm with that hand, and he felt the impression of a tile pressed between them.
And there was fire.
Blinding, raging on all sides.
Udinaas felt a weight push him from behind and he stumbled forward. Through the flames. In the world he had just left, he would now be falling down the cliffside, briefly, then striking the rocky slope and tumbling towards the treeline. But his moccasins skidded across flat, dusty ground.
Twisting, down onto one knee. Feather Witch staggered into view, like him passing unharmed through the wall of fire. He wheeled on her. ‘What have you done?’
A hand closed round the back of his neck, lifted him clear of the ground, then flung him down onto his back. The cold, ragged edge of a stone blade pressed against the side of his neck. He heard Feather Witch scream.
Blinking, in a cloud of dust.
A man stood above him. Short but a mass of muscles. Broad shoulders and overlong arms, the honey-coloured skin almost hairless. Long black hair hanging loose, surrounding a wide, heavily featured face. Dark eyes glittered from beneath a shelf-like brow. Furs hung in a roughly sewn cloak, a patchwork of tones and textures, the visible underside pale and wrinkled.
‘Peth tol ool havra d ara.’ The words were thick, the vocal range oddly truncated, as if the throat from which those sounds issued lacked the flexibility of a normal man’s.
‘I don’t understand you,’ Udinaas said. He sensed others gathered round, and could hear Feather Witch cursing as she too was thrown to the ground.
‘Arad havra’d ara. En’aralack havra d’drah.’
Countless scars. Evidence of a broken forearm, the bone unevenly mended and now knotted beneath muscle and skin. The man’s left cheekbone was dimpled inward, his broad nose flattened and pressed to one side. None of the damage looked recent. ‘I do not speak your language.’
The sword-edge lifted away from the slave’s neck. The warrior stepped back and gestured.
Udinaas climbed to his feet.
More fur-clad figures.
A natural basin, steeply walled on three sides. Vertical cracks in the stone walls, some large enough to provide shelter. Where these people lived.
On the final side of the basin, to the Letherii’s left, the land opened out. And in the distance—the slave’s eyes widened—a shattered city. As if it had been pulled from the ground, roots and all, then broken into pieces. Timber framework beneath tilted, heaved cobble streets. Squat buildings pitched at random angles. Toppled columns, buildings torn in half with the rooms and floors inside revealed, many of those rooms still furnished. Vast chunks of rotting ice were visible in the midst of the broken cityscape.
‘What place is this?’ Feather Witch asked.
He turned to see her following his gaze from a few paces away.
‘Udinaas, where have you brought us? Who are these savages?’
‘Vis vol‘raele absi‘arad.’
He glanced at the warrior who’d spoken, then shrugged and returned his attention to the distant city. ‘I want to go and look.’
‘They won’t let you.’
There was only one way to find out. Udinaas set out for the plain.
The warriors simply watched.
After a moment, Feather Witch followed, and came to his side. ‘It looks as if it has just been…left here. Dropped.’
‘It is a Meckros city,’ he said. ‘The wood at the bases, it is the kind that never grows waterlogged. Never rots. And see there’—he pointed—‘those are the remnants of docks. Landings. That’s a ship’s rail, dangling from those lines. I’ve never seen a Meckros city, but I’ve heard enough descriptions, and this is one. Plucked from the sea. That ice came with it.’
‘There are mounds, freshly raised,’ she said. ‘Do you see them?’
Raw, dark earth rising from the flats around the ruins, each barrow ringed in boulders. ‘The savages buried the Meckros dead,’ he said.
‘There are hundreds…’
‘And every one big enough to hold hundreds of corpses.’
‘They feared disease,’ she said.
‘Or, despite their appearance, they are a compassionate people.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Indebted. The task would have taken months.’
He hesitated, then said, ‘That was but one clan, Feather Witch, back there. There are almost four thousand living in this region.’
She halted, grasped his arm and pulled him round. ‘Explain this to me!’ she hissed.
He twisted his arm loose and continued walking. ‘These ghosts hold strong memories. Of their lives, of their flesh. Strong enough to manifest as real, physical creatures. They’re called T’lan Imass—’
Her breath caught. ‘The Beast Hold.’
He glanced at her. ‘What?’
‘The Bone Perch. Elder, Crone, Seer, Shaman, Hunter and Tracker. The Stealers of Fire. Stolen from the Eres’al.’
‘Eres’al. That’s the Nerek goddess. The false goddess, or so claimed our scholars and mages, as justification for conquering the Nerek. I am shocked to discover the lie. In any case, aren’t the images on the tiles those of beasts? For the Beast Hold, I mean.’
‘Only among the poorer versions. The skins of beasts, draped round dark, squat savages. That is what you will see on the oldest, purest tiles. Do not pretend at ignorance, Udinaas. You brought us here, after all.’
They were approaching the nearest barrows, and could see, studding the raw earth, countless objects. Broken pottery, jewellery, iron weapons, gold, silver, small wooden idols, scraps of cloth. The remnant possessions of the people buried beneath.
Feather Witch made a sound that might have been a laugh. ‘They left the treasure on the surfaces, instead of burying it with the bodies. What a strange thing to do.’
‘Maybe so looters won’t bother digging and disturbing the corpses.’
‘Oh, plenty of looters around here.’
‘I don’t know this realm well enough to say either way,’ Udinaas said, shrugging.
The look she cast him was uneasy.
Closer now, the destroyed city loomed before them. Crusted barnacles clinging to the bases of massive upright wooden pillars. Black, withered strips of seaweed. Above, the cross-sectioned profiles of framework and platforms supporting streets and buildings. And, in the massive chunks of grey, porous ice, swaths of rotting flesh—not human. Oversized limbs, clad in dull scales. A long, reptilian head, dangling from a twisted, torn neck. Entrails spilled from a split belly. Taloned, three-toed feet. Serrated tails. Misshapen armour and harnesses of leather, stretches of brightly coloured cloth, shiny as silk.
