The Malazan Empire, page 544
The sister broke the long silence between them. ‘It should have been impossible.’
Her brother snorted, then said, ‘It was. That’s the whole point.’
‘Tavore won’t get what she wants.’
‘I know.’
‘She’s used to that.’
‘She’s had to deal with us, yes.’
‘You know, Nil, he saved us all.’
A nod, unseen beneath the heavy hood of Wickan wool.
‘Especially Quick Ben.’
‘Agreed. So,’ Nil continued, ‘we are also agreed that it is a good thing he is with us.’
‘I suppose,’ Nether replied.
‘You’re only sounding like that because you like him, sister. Like him the way a woman likes a man.’
‘Don’t be an idiot. It’s those dreams…and what she does…’
Nil snorted again. ‘Quickens your breath, does it? That animal hand, gripping him hard—’
‘Enough! That’s not what I meant. It’s just…yes, it’s a good thing he’s with this army. But her, with him, well, I’m not so sure.’
‘You’re jealous, you mean.’
‘Brother, I grow weary of this childish teasing. There’s something, well, compulsive about it, the way she uses him.’
‘All right, on that I would agree. But for you and me, sister, there is one vital question remaining. The Eres’al has taken an interest. She follows us like a jackal.’
‘Not us. Him.’
‘Exactly. And that is at the heart of the question here. Do we tell her? Do we tell the Adjunct?’
‘Tell her what? That some wet-crotched soldier in Fiddler’s squad is more important to her and her army than Quick Ben, Kalam and Apsalar all put together? Listen, we wait until we discover what the High Mage tells the Adjunct – about what just happened.’
‘Meaning, if he says little, or even claims complete ignorance—’
‘Or takes credit and struts around like a First Hero – that’s when we decide on our answer, Nil.’
‘All right.’
They were silent then for a dozen heartbeats, until Nil said, ‘You shouldn’t worry overmuch, Nether. A half-woman half-animal all covered in smelly fur isn’t much competition for his heart, I’d imagine.’
‘But it wasn’t my hand—’ Abruptly, she shut up, then offered up a most ferocious string of Wickan curses.
In the dark, Nil was smiling. Thankful, nonetheless, that his sister could not see it.
Marines crowded the hold, sprawled or curled up beneath blankets, so many bodies Apsalar was made uneasy, as if she’d found herself in a soldier barrow. Drawing her own coverings to one side, she rose. Two lanterns swung from timbers, their wicks low. The air was growing foul. She clasped on her cloak and made her way towards the hatch.
Climbing free, she stepped onto the mid deck. The night air was bitter cold but blissfully fresh in her lungs. She saw two figures at the prow. Nil and Nether. So turned instead and ascended to the stern castle, only to find yet another figure, leaning on the stern rail. A soldier, short, squat, his head left bare despite the icy wind. Bald, with a fringe of long, grey, ratty strands that whipped about in the frigid blasts. She did not recognize the man.
Apsalar hesitated, then, shrugging, walked over. His head turned when she reached the rail at his side. ‘You invite illness, soldier,’ she said. ‘At the least, draw up your hood.’
The old man grunted, said nothing.
‘I am named Apsalar.’
‘So you want my name back, do you? But if I do that, then it ends. Just silence. It’s always that way.’
She looked down on the churning wake twisting away from the ship’s stern. Phosphorescence lit the foam. ‘I am a stranger to the Fourteenth Army,’ she said.
‘Doubt it’ll make a difference,’ he said. ‘What I did ain’t no secret to nobody.’
‘I have but recently returned to Seven Cities.’ She paused, then said, ‘In any case, you are not alone with the burden of things you once did.’
He glanced over again. ‘You’re too young to be haunted by your past.’
‘And you, soldier, are too old to care so much about your own.’
He barked a laugh, returned his attention to the sea.
To the east clouds skidded from the face of the moon, yet the light cast down was muted, dull.
‘Look at that,’ he said. ‘I got good eyes, but that moon’s nothing but a blur. Not the haze of cloud, neither. It’s a distant world, ain’t it? Another realm, with other armies crawling around in the fog, killing each other, draggin’ children into the streets, red swords flashing down over’n over. And I bet they look up every now and then, wonderin’ at all the dust they kicked up, makin’ it hard to see that other world overhead.’
‘When I was a child,’ Apsalar said, ‘I believed that there were cities there, but no wars. Just beautiful gardens, and the flowers were ever in bloom, every season, day and night, filling the air with wondrous scents…you know, I told all of that to someone, once. He later said to me that he fell in love with me that night. With that story. He was young, you see.’
‘And now he’s just that emptiness in your eyes, Apsalar.’
She flinched. ‘If you are going to make observations like that, I will know your name.’
‘But that would ruin it. Everything. Right now, I’m just me, just a soldier like all the others. You find out who I am and it all falls apart.’ He grimaced, then spat down into the sea. ‘Very well. Nothing ever lasts, not even ignorance. My name’s Squint.’
‘I hate to puncture your ego – as tortured as it is – but no vast revelation follows your name.’
‘Do you lie? No, I see you don’t. Well, never expected that, Apsalar.’
‘Nothing changes, then, does it? You know nothing of me and I know nothing of you.’
‘I’d forgotten what that was like. That young man, what happened to him?’
‘I don’t know. I left him.’
‘You didn’t love him?’
She sighed. ‘Squint, it’s complicated. I’ve hinted at my own past. The truth is, I loved him too much to see him fall so far into my life, into what I was – and still am. He deserves better.’
‘You damned fool, woman. Look at me. I’m alone. Once, I wasn’t in no hurry to change that. And then, one day I woke up, and it was too late. Now, alone gives me my only peace, but it ain’t a pleasant peace. You two loved each other – any idea how rare and precious that is? You broke yourself and broke him too, I’d think. Listen to me – go find him, Apsalar. Find him and hold onto him – now whose ego tortures itself, eh? There you are, thinking that change can only go one way.’
Her heart was thudding hard. She was unable to speak, every counter argument, every refutation seeming to melt away. Sweat cooled on her skin.
Squint turned away. ‘Gods below, a real conversation. All edges and life…I’d forgotten. I’m going below – my head’s gone numb.’ He paused. ‘Don’t suppose you’d ever care to talk again? Just Squint and Apsalar, who ain’t got nothing in common except what they don’t know about each other.’
She managed a nod, and said, ‘I would…welcome that, Squint.’
‘Good.’
She listened to his footsteps dwindle behind her. Poor man. He did the right thing taking Coltaine’s life, but he’s the only one who can’t live with that.
Climbing down into the hold, Squint stopped for a moment, hands on the rope rails to either side of the steep steps. He could have said more, he knew, but he had no idea he’d slice so easily through her defences. That vulnerability was…unexpected.
You’d think, wouldn’t you, that someone who’d been possessed by a god would be tougher than that.
‘Apsalar.’
She knew the voice and so did not turn. ‘Hello, Cotillion.’
The god moved up to lean against the rail at her side. ‘It was not easy to find you.’
‘I am surprised. I am doing as you ask, after all.’
‘Into the heart of the Malazan Empire. That detail was not something we had anticipated.’
‘Victims do not stand still, awaiting the knife. Even unsuspecting, they are capable of changing everything.’
He said nothing for a time, and Apsalar could feel a renewal of tension within her. In the muted moonlight his face looked tired, and in his eyes as he looked at her, something febrile.
‘Apsalar, I was…complacent—’
‘Cotillion, you are many things, but complacency is not one of them.’
‘Careless, then. Something has happened – it is difficult to piece together. As if the necessary details have been flung into a muddy pool, and I have been able to do little more than grope, half-blind and not even certain what it is I am looking for.’
‘Cutter.’
He nodded. ‘There was an attack. An ambush, I think – even the memories held in the ground, where the blood spilled, were all fragmented – I could read so little.’
What has happened? She wanted to ask that question. Now, cutting through his slow, cautious approach – not caution – he is hedging—
‘A small settlement is near the scene – they were the ones who cleaned things up.’
‘He is dead.’
‘I don’t know – there were no bodies, except for horses. One grave, but it had been opened and the occupant exhumed – no, I don’t why anyone would do that. In any case, I have lost contact with Cutter, and that more than anything else is what disturbs me.’
‘Lost contact,’ she repeated dully. ‘Then he is dead, Cotillion.’
‘I honestly do not know. There are two things, however, of which I am certain. Do you wish to hear them?’
‘Are they relevant?’
‘That is for you to decide.’
‘Very well.’
‘One of the women, Scillara—’
‘Yes.’
‘She gave birth – she survived to do that at least, and the child is now in the care of the villagers.’
‘That is good. What else?’
‘Heboric Light Touch is dead.’
She turned at that – but away from him – staring out over the seas, to that distant, murky moon. ‘Ghost Hands.’
‘Yes. The power – the aura – of that old man – it burned like green fire, it had the wild rage of Treach. It was unmistakable, undeniable—’
‘And now it is gone.’
‘Yes.’
‘There was another woman, a young girl.’
‘Yes. We wanted her, Shadowthrone and I. As it turns out, I know she lives, and indeed she appears to be precisely where we wanted her to be, with one crucial difference—’
‘It is not you and Shadowthrone who control her.’
‘Guide, not control – we would not have presumed control, Apsalar. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of her new master. The Crippled God.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Felisin Younger is Sha’ik Reborn.’
Apsalar nodded. ‘Like a sword that kills its maker…there are cycles to justice.’
‘Justice? Abyss below, Apsalar, justice is nowhere to be seen in any of this.’
‘Isn’t it?’ She faced him again. ‘I sent Cutter away, because I feared he would die if he stayed with me. I sent him away and that is what killed him. You sought to use Felisin Younger, and now she finds herself a pawn in another god’s hand. Treach wanted a Destriant to lead his followers into war, but Heboric is killed in the middle of nowhere, having achieved nothing. Like a tiger cub getting its skull crushed – all that potential, that possibility, gone. Tell me, Cotillion, what task did you set Cutter in that company?’
He did not answer.
‘You charged him to protect Felisin Younger, didn’t you? And he failed. Is he alive? For his own sake, perhaps it is best that he is not.’
‘You cannot mean that, Apsalar.’
She closed her eyes. No, I do not mean that. Gods, what am I to do…with this pain? What am I to do?
Cotillion slowly reached up, his hand – the black leather glove removed – nearing the side of her face. She felt his finger brush her cheek, felt the cold thread that was all that was left of the tear he wiped away. A tear she had not known was there.
‘You are frozen,’ he said in a soft voice.
She nodded, then shook her head suddenly as everything crumbled inside – and she was in his arms, weeping uncontrollably.
And the god spoke, ‘I’ll find him, Apsalar. I swear it. I’ll find the truth.’
Truths, yes. One after another, one boulder settling down, then another. And another. Blotting out the light, darkness closing in, grit and sand sifting down, a solid silence when the last one is in place. Now, dear fool, try drawing a breath. A single breath.
There were clouds closed fast round the moon. And one by one, gardens died.
Chapter Nineteen
Cruel misapprehension, you choose the shape
and cast of this wet clay in your hands, as the wheel
ever spins
Tempered in granite, this fired shell hardens
into the scarred shield of your deeds, and the dark
decisions within
Settle hidden in suspension, unseen in banded strata
awaiting death’s weary arrival, the journey’s repast
to close you out
We blind grievers raise you high, honouring all
you never were and what rots sealed inside follows you
to the grave
I stand now among the mourners, displeased
by my suspicions as the vessel’s dust drifts—
oh how I despise funerals.
The Secrets of Clay
Panith Fanal
His eyes opened in the darkness. Lying motionless, he waited until his mind separated the sounds that had awakened him. Two sources, Barathol decided. One distant, one close at hand. Caution dictated he concentrate on the latter.
Bedclothes rustling, pulled and tugged by adjusting hands, a faint scrape of sandy gravel, then a muted murmur. A long exhaled breath, then some more shifting of positions, until the sounds became rhythmic, and two sets of breathing conjoined.
It was well. Hood knew, Barathol wasn’t the one with a chance of easing the haunted look in the Daru’s eyes. He then added another silent prayer, that Scillara not damage the man with some future betrayal. If that happened, he suspected Cutter would retreat so far from life there would be no return.
In any case, such matters were out of his hands, and that, too, was well.
And so…the other, more distant sound. A susurration, more patient in its rhythm than the now quickening lovemaking on the opposite side of the smouldering firepit. Like wind stroking treetops…but there were no trees. And no wind.
It is the sea.
Dawn was approaching, paling the eastern sky. Barathol heard Scillara roll to one side, her gasps low but long in settling down. From Cutter, a drawing up of coverings, and he then turned onto one side and moments later fell into sleep once more.
Scillara sat up. Flint and iron, a patter of sparks, as she awakened her pipe. She had used the last of her coins to resupply herself with rustleaf the day before, when they passed a modest caravan working its way inland. The meeting had been sudden, as the parties virtually collided on a bend in the rocky trail. An exchange of wary looks, and something like relief arriving in the faces of the traders.
The plague was broken. Tanno Spiritwalkers had so pronounced it, lifting the self-imposed isolation of the island of Otataral.
But Barathol and his companions were the first living people this troop had encountered since leaving the small, empty village on the coast where their ship had delivered them. The merchants, transporting basic staples from Rutu Jelba, had begun to fear they were entering a ghost land.
Two days of withdrawal for Scillara had had Barathol regretting ever leaving his smithy. Rustleaf and now lovemaking – the woman is at peace once more, thank Hood.
Scillara spoke: ‘You want I should prepare breakfast, Barathol?’
He rolled onto his back and sat up, studied her in the faint light.
She shrugged. ‘A woman knows. Are you upset?’
‘Why would I be?’ he replied in a rumble. He looked over at the still motionless form of Cutter. ‘Is he truly asleep once more?’
Scillara nodded. ‘Most nights he hardly sleeps at all – nightmares, and his fear of them. An added benefit to a roll with him – breaks loose his exhaustion afterwards.’
‘I applaud your altruism,’ Barathol said, moving closer to the firepit and prodding at the dim coals with the point of his cook-knife. From the gloom to his right, Chaur appeared, smiling.
‘You should at that,’ Scillara said in reply to Barathol’s comment.
He glanced up. ‘And is that all there is? For you?’
She looked away, drew hard on her pipe.
‘Don’t hurt him, Scillara.’
‘Fool, don’t you see? I’m doing the opposite.’
‘That’s what I concluded. But what if he falls in love with you?’
‘He won’t. He can’t.’
‘Why not?’
She rose and walked over to the packs. ‘Get that fire going, Barathol. Some hot tea should take away the chill in our bones.’
Unless that’s all you have in them, woman.
Chaur went to Scillara’s side, crouching to stroke her hair as, ignoring him, she drew out wrapped foodstuffs.
Chaur watched, with avid fascination, every stream of smoke Scillara exhaled.
Aye, lad, like the legends say, some demons breathe fire.
They let Cutter sleep, and he did not awaken until mid-morning – bolting into a sitting position with a confused, then guilty expression on his face. The sun was finally warm, tempered by a pleasantly cool breeze coming in from the east.
Barathol watched as Cutter’s scanning gaze found Scillara, who sat with her back to a boulder, and the Daru flinched slightly at her greeting wink and blown kiss.
