The Malazan Empire, page 532
‘Give me a few,’ he said, reaching out.
She dropped into his hand two leg bones, each the length of his thumb, then another that looked like a knuckle, slightly broader than his own. ‘You idiot. This one’s not from a bird.’
‘Well I don’t know, sir. Could be a skull?’
‘It’s solid.’
‘A woodpecker?’
‘Go back to your squad, Senny. When are you on the ramp?’
‘Looks like tomorrow now, sir. Fist Keneb’s soldiers got delayed – he pulled half of ’em back off, it was complete chaos! There’s no figuring officers, uh, sir.’
A wave sent the woman scurrying. Lieutenant Pores nestled the small bones into his palm, closing his fingers over to hold them in place, then he walked back to where Captain Kindly stood beside the four trunks that comprised his camp kit. Two retainers were busy repacking one of the trunks, and Pores saw, arranged on a camel-hair blanket, an assortment of combs – two dozen, maybe more, no two alike. Bone, shell, antler, tortoiseshell, ivory, wood, slate, silver, gold and blood-copper. Clearly, they had been collected over years of travel, the captain’s sojourn as a soldier laid out, the succession of cultures, the tribes and peoples he had either befriended or annihilated. Even so…Pores frowned. Combs?
Kindly was mostly bald.
The captain was instructing his retainers on how to pack the items. ‘…those cotton buds, and the goat wool or whatever you call it. Each one, and carefully – if I find a scratch, a nick or a broken tooth I will have no choice but to kill you both. Ah, Lieutenant, I trust you are now fully recovered from your wounds? Good. What’s wrong, man? Are you choking?’
Gagging, his face reddening, Pores waited until Kindly stepped closer, then he let loose a cough, loud and bursting and from his right hand – held before his mouth – three bones were spat out to clunk and bounce on the ground. Pores drew in a deep breath, shook his head and cleared his throat.
‘Apologies, Captain,’ he said in a rasp. ‘Some broken bones still in me, I guess. Been wanting to come out for a while now.’
‘Well,’ Kindly said, ‘are you done?’
‘Yes sir.’
The two retainers were staring at the bones. One reached over and collected the knuckle.
Pores wiped imaginary sweat from his brow. ‘That was some cough, wasn’t it? I’d swear someone punched me in the gut.’
The retainer reached over with the knuckle. ‘He left you this, Lieutenant.’
‘Ah, thank you, soldier.’
‘If you think any of this is amusing, Lieutenant,’ Kindly said. ‘You are mistaken. Now, explain to me this damned delay.’
‘I can’t, Captain. Fist Keneb’s soldiers, some kind of recall. There doesn’t seem to be a reasonable explanation.’
‘Typical. Armies are run by fools. If I had an army you’d see things done differently. I can’t abide lazy soldiers. I’ve personally killed more lazy soldiers than enemies of the empire. If this was my army, Lieutenant, we would have been on those ships in two days flat, and anybody still on shore by then we’d leave behind, stripped naked with only a crust of bread in their hands and the order to march to Quon Tali.’
‘Across the sea.’
‘I’m glad we’re understood. Now, stand here and guard my kit, Lieutenant. I must find my fellow captains Madan’Tul Rada and Ruthan Gudd – they’re complete idiots but I mean to fix that.’
Pores watched his captain walk away, then he looked back down at the retainers and smiled. ‘Now wouldn’t that be something? High Fist Kindly, commanding all the Malazan armies.’
‘Leastways,’ one of the men said, ‘we’d always know what we was up to.’
The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed. ‘You would like Kindly doing your thinking for you?’
‘I’m a soldier, ain’t I?’
‘And what if I told you Captain Kindly was insane?’
‘You be testing us? Anyway, don’t matter if’n he is or not, so long as he knows what he’s doing and he keeps telling us what we’re supposed to be doing.’ He nudged his companion, ‘Ain’t that right, Thikburd?’
‘Right enough,’ the other mumbled, examining one of the combs.
‘The Malazan soldier is trained to think,’ Pores said. ‘That tradition has been with us since Kellanved and Dassem Ultor. Have you forgotten that?’
‘No, sir, we ain’t. There’s thinkin’ and there’s thinkin’ and that’s jus’ the way it is. Soldiers do one kind and leaders do the other. Ain’t good the two gettin’ mixed up.’
‘Must make life easy for you.’
A nod. ‘Aye, sir, that it does.’
‘If your friend scratches that comb he’s admiring, Captain Kindly will kill you both.’
‘Thikburd! Put that down!’
‘But it’s pretty!’
‘So’s a mouthful of teeth and you want to keep yours, don’t ya?’
And with soldiers like these, we won an empire.
The horses were past their prime, but they would have to do. A lone mule would carry the bulk of their supplies, including the wrapped corpse of Heboric Ghost Hands. The beasts stood waiting on the east end of the main street, tails flicking to fend off the flies, already enervated by the heat, although it was but mid-morning.
Barathol Mekhar made one last adjustment to his weapons belt, bemused to find that he’d put on weight in his midriff, then he squinted over as Cutter and Scillara emerged from the inn and made their way towards the horses.
The woman’s conversation with the two Jessas had been an admirable display of brevity, devoid of advice and ending with a most perfunctory thanks. So, the baby was now the youngest resident of this forgotten hamlet. The girl would grow up playing with scorpions, rhizan and meer rats, her horizons seemingly limitless, the sun overhead the harsh, blinding and brutal face of a god. But all in all, she would be safe, and loved.
The blacksmith noted a figure nearby, hovering in the shadow of a doorway. Ah, well, at least someone will miss us. Feeling oddly sad, Barathol made his way over to the others.
‘Your horse will collapse under you,’ Cutter said. ‘It’s too old and you’re too big, Barathol. That axe alone would stagger a mule.’
‘Who’s that standing over there?’ Scillara asked.
‘Chaur.’ The blacksmith swung himself onto his horse, the beast side-stepping beneath him as he settled his weight in the saddle. ‘Come to see us off, I expect. Mount up, you two.’
‘This is the hottest part of the day,’ Cutter said. ‘It seems we’re always travelling through the worst this damned land can throw at us.’
‘We will reach a spring by dusk,’ Barathol said, ‘when we’ll all need it most. We lie over there, until the following dusk, because the next leg of the journey will be a long one.’
They set out on the road, that quickly became a track. A short while later, Scillara said, ‘We have company, Barathol.’
Glancing back, they saw Chaur, carrying a canvas bundle against his chest. There was a dogged expression on his sweaty face.
Sighing, the blacksmith halted his horse.
‘Can you convince him to go home?’ Scillara asked.
‘Not likely,’ Barathol admitted. ‘Simple and stubborn – that’s a miserable combination.’ He slipped down to the ground and walked back to the huge young man. ‘Here, Chaur, let’s tie your kit to the mule’s pack.’
Smiling, Chaur handed it over.
‘We have a long way to go, Chaur. And for the next few days at least, you will have to walk – do you understand? Now, let’s see what you’re wearing on your feet – Hood’s breath—’
‘He’s barefoot!’ Cutter said, incredulous.
‘Chaur,’ Barathol tried to explain, ‘this track is nothing but sharp stones and hot sand.’
‘There’s some thick bhederin hide in our kit,’ Scillara said, lighting her pipe, ‘somewhere. Tonight I can make him sandals. Unless you want us to stop right now.’
The blacksmith unslung his axe, then crouched and began pulling at his boots. ‘Since I’ll be riding, he can wear these until then.’
Cutter watched as Chaur struggled to pull on Barathol’s boots. Most men, he knew, would have left Chaur to his fate. Just a child in a giant’s body, after all, foolish and mostly useless, a burden. In fact, most men would have beaten the simpleton until he fled back to the hamlet – a beating for Chaur’s own good, and in some ways very nearly justifiable. But this blacksmith…he hardly seemed the mass murderer he was purported to be. The betrayer of Aren, the man who assassinated a Fist. And now, their escort to the coast.
Cutter found himself oddly comforted by that notion. Kalam’s cousin…assassinations must run in the family. That huge double-bladed axe hardly seemed an assassin’s weapon. He considered asking Barathol – getting from him his version of what had happened at Aren all those years ago – but the blacksmith was a reluctant conversationalist, and besides, if he had his secrets he was within his right to hold on to them. The way I hold on to mine.
They set out again, Chaur trailing, stumbling every now and then as if unfamiliar with footwear of any kind. But he was smiling.
‘Damn these leaking tits,’ Scillara said beside him.
Cutter stared over at her, not knowing how he should reply to that particular complaint.
‘And I’m running out of rustleaf, too.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘What have you to be sorry about?’
‘Well, it took me so long to recover from my wounds.’
‘Cutter, you had your guts wrapped round your ankles – how do you feel, by the way?’
‘Uncomfortable, but I never was much of a rider. I grew up in a city, after all. Alleys, rooftops, taverns, estate balconies, that was my world before all this. Gods below, I do miss Darujhistan. You would love it, Scillara—’
‘You must be mad. I don’t remember cities. It’s all desert and dried-up hills for me. Tents and mud-brick hovels.’
‘There are caverns of gas beneath Darujhistan, and that gas is piped up to light the streets with this beautiful blue fire. It’s the most magnificent city in the world, Scillara—’
‘Then why did you ever leave it?’
Cutter fell silent.
‘All right,’ she said after a moment, ‘how about this? We’re taking Heboric’s body…where, precisely?’
‘Otataral Island.’
‘It’s a big island, Cutter. Any place in particular?’
‘Heboric spoke of the desert, four or five days north and west of Dosin Pali. He said there’s a giant temple there, or at least the statue from one.’
‘So you were listening, after all.’
‘Sometimes he got lucid, yes. Something he called the Jade, a power both gift and curse…and he wanted to give it back. Somehow.’
‘Since he’s now dead,’ Scillara asked, ‘how do you expect him to do anything like returning power to some statue? Cutter, how do we find a statue in the middle of a desert? You might want to consider that whatever Heboric wanted doesn’t mean anything any more. The T’lan Imass killed him, and so Treach needs to find a new Destriant, and if Heboric had any other kind of power, it must have dissipated by now, or followed him through Hood’s Gate – either way, there is nothing we can do about it.’
‘His hands are solid now, Scillara.’
She started. ‘What?’
‘Solid jade – not pure, filled with…imperfections. Flaws, particles buried deep inside. Like they were flecked with ash, or dirt.’
‘You examined his corpse?’
Cutter nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Greyfrog came back to life…’
‘So you thought the old man might do the same.’
‘It was a possibility, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. He’s mummifying – and fast.’
Barathol Mekhar spoke: ‘His funeral shroud was soaked in salt water then packed in even more salt, Cutter. Keeps the maggots out. A fist-sized bundle of rags was pushed into the back of his throat, and a few other places besides. The old practice was to remove the intestines, but the locals have since grown lazier – there were arts involved. Skills, mostly forgotten. What’s done is to dry out the corpse as quickly as possible.’
Cutter glanced at Scillara, then shrugged. ‘Heboric was chosen by a god.’
‘But he failed that god,’ she replied.
‘They were T’lan Imass!’
A flow of smoke accompanied Scillara’s words as she said, ‘Next time we get swarmed by flies, we’ll know what’s coming.’ She met his eyes. ‘Look, Cutter, there’s just us, now. You and me, and until the coast, Barathol. If you want to drop Heboric’s body off on the island, that’s fine. If those jade hands are still alive, they can crawl back to their master on their own. We just bury the body above the tideline and leave it at that.’
‘And then?’
‘Darujhistan. I think I want to see this magnificent city of yours. You said rooftops and alleys – what were you there? A thief? Must have been. Who else knows alleys and rooftops? So, you can teach me the ways of a thief, Cutter. I’ll follow in your shadow. Hood knows, stealing what we can from this insane world makes as much sense as anything else.’
Cutter looked away. ‘It’s not good,’ he said, ‘following anyone’s shadow. There’s better people there…for you to get along with. Murillio, maybe, or even Coll.’
‘Will I one day discover,’ she asked, ‘that you’ve just insulted me?’
‘No! Of course not. I like Murillio! And Coll’s a Councilman. He owns an estate and everything.’
Barathol said, ‘Ever seen an animal led to slaughter, Cutter?’
‘What do you mean?’
But the big man simply shook his head.
After repacking her pipe, Scillara settled back in her saddle, a small measure of mercy silencing, for the moment at least, her baiting of Cutter. Mercy and, she admitted, Barathol’s subtle warning to ease up on the young man.
That old killer was a sharp one.
It wasn’t that she held anything against Cutter. The very opposite, in fact. That small glimmer of enthusiasm – when he spoke of Darujhistan – had surprised her. Cutter was reaching out to the comfort of old memories, suggesting to her that he was suffering from loneliness. That woman who left him. The one for whom he departed Darujhistan in the first place, I suspect. Loneliness, then, and a certain loss of purpose, now that Heboric was dead and Felisin Younger stolen away. Maybe there was some guilt thrown in – he’d failed in protecting Felisin, after all, failed in protecting Scillara too, for that matter – not that she was the kind to hold such a thing against him. They’d been T’lan Imass, for Hood’s sake.
But Cutter, being young and being a man, would see it differently. A multitude of swords that he would happily fall on, with a nudge from the wrong person. A person who mattered to him. Better to keep him away from such notions, and a little flirtation on her part, yielding charming confusion on his, should suffice.
She hoped he would consider her advice on burying Heboric. She’d had enough of deserts. Thoughts of a city lit by blue fire, a place filled with people, none of whom expected anything of her, and the possibility of new friends – with Cutter at her side – were in truth rather enticing. A new adventure, and a civilized one at that. Exotic foods, plenty of rustleaf…
She had wondered, briefly, if the absence of regret or sorrow within her at the surrendering of the child she had carried inside all those months was truly indicative of some essential lack of morality in her soul, some kind of flaw that would bring horror into the eyes of mothers, grandmothers and even little girls as they looked upon her. But such thoughts had not lasted long. The truth of the matter was, she didn’t care what other people thought, and if most of them saw that as a threat to…whatever…to their view on how things should be…well, that was just too bad, wasn’t it? As if her very existence could lure others into a life of acts without consequence.
Now that’s a laugh, isn’t it? The most deadly seducers are the ones encouraging conformity. If you can only feel safe when everybody else feels, thinks and looks the same as you, then you’re a Hood-damned coward…not to mention a vicious tyrant in the making.
‘So, Barathol Mekhar, what awaits you on the coast?’
‘Probably plague,’ he said.
‘Oh now that’s a pleasant thought. And if you survive that?’
He shrugged. ‘A ship, going somewhere else. I’ve never been to Genabackis. Nor Falar.’
‘If you go to Falar,’ Scillara said, ‘or empire-held Genabackis, your old crimes might catch up with you.’
‘They’ve caught up with me before.’
‘So, either you’re indifferent to your own death, Barathol, or your confidence is supreme and unassailable. Which is it?’
‘Take your pick.’
A sharp one. I won’t get any rise from him, no point in trying. ‘What do you think it will be like, crossing an ocean?’
‘Like a desert,’ Cutter said, ‘only wetter.’
She probably should have glared at him for that, but she had to admit, it was a good answer. All right, so maybe they’re both sharp, in their own ways. I think I’m going to enjoy this journey.
They rode the track, the heat and sunlight burgeoning into a conflagration, and in their wake clumped Chaur, still smiling.
The Jaghut Ganath stood looking into the chasm. The sorcerous weaving she had set upon this…intrusion had shattered. She did not need to descend that vast fissure, nor enter the buried sky keep itself, to know the cause of that shattering. Draconean blood had been spilled, although that in itself was not enough. The chaos between the warrens had also been unleashed, and it had devoured Omtose Phellack as boiling water does ice.
Yet her sense of the sequence of events necessary for such a thing to happen remained clouded, as if time itself had been twisted within that once-floating fortress. There was outrage locked in the very bedrock, and now, a most peculiar imposition of…order.
