The Malazan Empire, page 609
And now I hear Hannan Mosag speaking through you, warlock. Answering other…suspicions. So be it.
Nisall. First Concubine, I am sorry. But know this, I will avenge you in truth. As I will avenge my brave warrior – Sister take me, that was careless—
‘The Chancellor will speak to the Emperor—’
‘Only if he is stupid,’ Bruthen Trana said, ‘or inclined to panic. He is neither. No, he needs to be pushed, kept off balance – oh, we will deliver panic, yes, and sooner or later he will do as you say. Speak to Rhulad. And then we will have him. And Invictad. Two snakes in the same basket – a basket soaked in oil. And it will be Triban Gnol himself who strikes the spark.’
‘How?’
‘You will see.’
Tehol stared down through the roof hatch in unmitigated horror. ‘That was a mistake,’ he said.
Leaning beside him, also looking down, Bugg nodded. ‘It was an act of mercy, Master. Twelve hens in a sack, half crushing each other, jostled about in fetid darkness. There was the risk of suffocation.’
‘Precisely! Peaceful demise, remote, unseen. No wringing of necks required! But now look at them! They’ve taken over our room! My house. My abode, my very hearth—’
‘About that – seems one of them has caught fire, Master.’
‘It’s smouldering, and too brainless to care. If we wait we can dine on roast chicken for breakfast. And which one laid that egg?’
‘Hmm, a most gravid mystery indeed.’
‘You may find this amusing right now, Bugg, but you are the one who will be sleeping down there. They’ll peck your eyes out, you know. Evil has been bred into them, generation after generation, until their tiny black bean brains are condensed knots of malice—’
‘You display unexpected familiarity with hens, Master.’
‘I had a tutor who was a human version.’
Bugg leaned back and glanced over at the woman sleeping in Tehol’s bed.
‘Not her. Janath was only mildly vicious, as properly befits all instructors, plagued as they often are by mewling, lovestruck, pimply-faced students.’
‘Oh, Master, I am sorry.’
‘Be quiet. We’re not talking about that. No, instead, Bugg, my house has been invaded by rabid hens, because of your habit of taking in strays and the like.’
‘Strays? We’re going to eat those things.’
‘No wonder strays avoid you these days. Listen to them – how will we sleep with all that racket going on?’
‘I suppose they’re happy, Master. And in any case they are taking care of that cockroach infestation really fast.’
Creaking from the bed behind them drew their attention.
The scholar was sitting up, looking about in confusion.
Tehol hastily pushed Bugg towards her.
She frowned as the old man approached. ‘Where am I? Who are you? Are we on a roof?’
‘What do you last recall?’ Bugg asked.
‘Being alone. In the dark. He moved me…to a new place.’
‘You have been freed,’ he said.
Janath was examining her shapeless, rough tunic. ‘Freed,’ she said in a low voice.
‘That shift was all we could find at short notice,’ Bugg said. ‘Of course, we will endeavour to, uh, improve your apparel as soon as we are able.’
‘I have been healed.’
‘Your physical wounds, yes.’
Grimacing, she nodded. ‘The other kind is rather more elusive.’
‘You seem remarkably…sound, Janath.’
She glanced up at him. ‘You know me.’
‘My master was once a student of yours.’ He watched as she sought to look past him, first to one side, then the other. Bemused, Bugg turned, to see Tehol moving back and forth in an effort to keep the manservant between himself and the woman on the bed. ‘Tehol? What are you doing?’
‘Tehol? Tehol Beddict?’
Bugg spun round again, to see Janath gathering her tunic and stretching it out here and there in an effort to cover as much of her body as she could.
‘That lecherous, pathetic worm? Is that you, Tehol? Hiding there behind this old man? Well, you certainly haven’t changed, have you? Get out here, front and centre!’
Tehol stepped into view. Then bridled. ‘Hold on, I am no longer your student, Janath! Besides, I’m well over you, I’ll have you know. I haven’t dreamt of you in…in…years! Months!’
Her brows rose. ‘Weeks?’
Tehol drew himself straighter. ‘It is well known that an adult man’s adolescent misapprehensions often insinuate themselves when said man is sleeping, in his dreams, I mean. Or, indeed, nightmares—’
‘I doubt I feature in your nightmares, Tehol,’ Janath said. ‘Although you do in mine.’
‘Oh, really. I was no more pathetic than any other pathetic, lovestruck student. Was I?’
To that she said nothing.
Bugg said to her, ‘You are indeed on a roof—’
‘Above a chicken coop?’
‘Well, as to that. Are you hungry?’
‘The fine aroma of roasting chicken is making my mouth water,’ she replied. ‘Oh, please, have you no other clothes? I have no doubt at all what is going on in my former student’s disgusting little brain right now.’
‘Come the morning,’ Bugg said, ‘I will pay a visit to Selush – her wardrobe, while somewhat abysmal in taste, is nonetheless extensive.’
‘Want my blanket?’ Tehol asked her.
‘Gods below, Master, you’re almost leering.’
‘Don’t be insane, Bugg. I was making light. Ha ha, we’re trapped in a dearth of attire. Ha ha. After all, what if that had been a child’s tunic?’
In a deadpan voice, Janath said, ‘What if it had.’
‘Errant’s blessing,’ Tehol said with a loud sigh, ‘these summer nights are hot, aren’t they?’
‘I know one hen that would agree with you,’ Bugg noted, walking back to the hatch, from which a column of smoke was now rising.
‘Tehol Beddict,’ said Janath, ‘I am glad you are here.’
‘You are?’ both Bugg and Tehol asked.
She nodded, not meeting their eyes. ‘I was going mad – I thought I had already done so. Yathvanar – he beat me, he raped me…and told me of his undying love all the while. So, Tehol, you are as his opposite – harmless in your infatuation. You remind me of better days.’ She was silent for a long moment. ‘Better days.’
Bugg and Tehol exchanged a look, then the manservant made his way down the ladder. From above he heard Tehol say, ‘Janath, are you not impressed with what I have done with my extensive education?’
‘It is a very fine roof, Tehol Beddict.’
Nodding to himself, Bugg went in search of roasted chicken through clouds of acrid smoke. Surrounded on all sides by mindless clucking. Abyss take me, I might as well be in a temple…
The morning sun pushed through the slats on the shutters, stretching ribbons of light across the long, heavy table dominating the council room. Wiping his hands with a cloth, Rautos Hivanar entered and moved to stand behind his chair at one end of the table. He set the cloth down and studied the arrayed faces turned towards him – and saw in more than one expressions of taut fear and anxiety.
‘My friends, welcome. Two matters on the agenda. We will first address the one that I suspect is foremost in your minds at the moment. We have reached a state of crisis – the dearth of hard coin, of silver, of gold, of cut gems and indeed of copper bars, is now acute. Someone is actively sabotaging our empire’s economy—’
‘We knew this was coming,’ interrupted Uster Taran. ‘Yet what measures were taken by the Consign? As far as I can see, none. Rautos Hivanar, as much on the minds of those assembled here is the question of your continued position as Master.’
‘I see. Very well, present to me your list of concerns in that regard.’
Uster’s craggy face reddened. ‘List? Concerns? Errant take us, Rautos, have you not even set the Patriotists on the trail of this mad creature? Or creatures? Could this not be an effort from the outside – from one of the border kingdoms – to destabilize us prior to invasion? News of this Bolkando Conspiracy should have—’
‘A moment, please. One issue at a time, Uster. The Patriotists are indeed pursuing an investigation, without result to date. A general announcement to that effect, while potentially alleviating your anxieties, would have been, in my judgement, equally likely to trigger panic. Accordingly, I chose to keep the matter private. My own inquiries, in the meantime, have led me to eliminate external sources to this financial assault. The source, my friends, is here in Letheras—’
‘Then why haven’t we caught the bastard?’ demanded Druz Thennict, his head seeming to bob atop its long, thin neck.
‘The trails are most cleverly obscured, good Druz,’ said Rautos. ‘Quite simply, we are at war with a genius.’
From the far end of the table, Horul Rinnesict snorted, then said, ‘Why not just mint more coins and take the pressure off?’
‘We could,’ Rautos replied, ‘although it would not be easy. There is a fixed yield from the Imperial Mines and it is, of necessity, modest. And, unfortunately, rather inflexible. Beyond that concern, you might ask yourself: what would I do then, were I this saboteur? A sudden influx of new coin? If you sought to create chaos in the economy, what would you do?’
‘Release my hoard,’ Barrakta Ilk said in a growl, ‘setting off runaway inflation. We’d be drowning in worthless coin.’
Rautos Hivanar nodded. ‘It is my belief that our saboteur cannot hide much longer. He or she will need to become overt. The key will lie in observing which enterprise is the first to topple, for it is there that his or her trail will become readily discernible.’
‘At which point,’ said Barrakta, ‘the Patriotists will pounce.’
‘Ah, this leads me into the second subject. There has, I understand, been news from Drene – no, I have no specifics as yet, but it seems to have triggered something very much like panic among the Patriotists. Last night, here in Letheras, a number of unprecedented arrests occurred—’
Uster laughed. ‘What could be unprecedented about the Patriotists arresting people?’
‘Well, foremost among them was the First Concubine.’
Silence around the table.
Rautos Hivanar cleared his throat, working hard to keep the fury from his voice. ‘It seems Karos Invictad acted in haste, which, as I am sure you all know, is quite unlike him. As a result, things went awry. There was a clash, both inside and outside the Eternal Domicile, between the Patriotists and the Tiste Edur.’
‘That damned fool!’ bellowed Barrakta, one fist pounding on the tabletop.
‘The First Concubine is, I understand, dead. As are a number of guards – primarily those in the Patriotist compound, and at least two bodyguards to the Chancellor.’
‘Has that damned snake turned suicidal as well?’
‘It almost seems so, Barrakta,’ Rautos conceded. ‘All very troubling – especially Karos Invictad’s reluctance to be forthcoming on what exactly happened. The only hint I possess of just how extreme events were last night is a rumour that Karos was beaten, nearly to death. I cannot confirm that rumour, since he was seeing no-one, and besides, no doubt healers visited in the aftermath.’
‘Rautos,’ murmured Druz, ‘do we need to distance ourselves from the Patriotists?’
‘It is worth considering,’ Rautos replied. ‘You might wish to begin preparations in that regard. In the meantime, however, we need the Patriotists, but I admit to worry that they may prove lacking come the day we most need their services.’
‘Hire our own,’ Barrakta said.
‘I have done so.’
Sharp nods answered this quiet statement.
Uster Taran cleared his throat. ‘My apologies, Rautos. You proceed on matters with your usual assurance. I regret my doubt.’
‘As ever,’ Rautos said, reaching once more for the cloth and wiping his hands, ‘I welcome discourse. Indeed, even challenge. Lest I grow careless. Now, we need to assess the health of our own holdings, to give us all a better indication of our resilience…’
As the meeting continued, Rautos wiped at his hands again and again. A corpse had snagged on one of the mooring poles opposite the estate’s landing this morning. Bloated and rotting, crawling with crayfish and seething with eels.
An occasional occurrence, but one that each time struck him with greater force, especially in the last few years. This morning it had been particularly bad, and though he had approached no closer than the uppermost tier in his yard, still it was as if some residue had reached him, making his hands oddly sticky – a residue that he seemed unable to remove, no matter how hard he tried.
Chapter Ten
The One God strode out – a puppet trailing severed strings – from the conflagration. Another city destroyed, another people cut down in their tens of thousands. Who among us, witnessing his emergence, could not but conclude that madness had taken him? For all the power of creation he possessed, he delivered naught but death and destruction. Stealer of Life, Slayer and Reaper, in his eyes where moments earlier there had been the blaze of unreasoning rage, now there was calm. He knew nothing. He could not resolve the blood on his own hands. He begged us for answers, but we could say nothing.
We could weep. We could laugh.
We chose laughter.
Creed of the Mockers
Cabal
Let’s play a game, the wind whispered. Then it laughed in the soft hiss of dust and sand.
Hedge sat, listening, the crumbly stone block beneath him eroded into a saddle shape, comforting enough, all things considered. It might have been an altar once, fallen through some hole in the sky – Hood knew, enough strange objects had tumbled down from the low, impenetrable clouds during his long, meandering journey across this dire world. Some of them far too close for comfort.
Yes, probably an altar. The depression wherein resided his behind felt too even, too symmetrical to be natural. But he did not worry about blasphemy – this was, after all, where the dead went. And the dead included, on occasion, gods.
The wind told him as much. It had been his companion for so long, now, he had grown accustomed to its easy revelations, its quiet rasp of secrets and its caressing embrace. When he stumbled onto a scatter of enormous bones, hinting at some unhuman, monstrous god of long ago, the wind – as it slipped down among those bones, seeped between jutting ribs and slithered through orbitals and into the hollow caves of skulls – moaned that god’s once-holy name. Names. It seemed they had so many, their utterances now and for ever more trapped in the wind’s domain. Voiced in the swirl of dust, nothing but echoes now.
Let’s play a game.
There is no gate – oh, you’ve seen it, I well know.
But it is a lie. It is what your mind builds, stone by stone.
For your kind love borders. Thresholds, divisions, delineations. To enter a place you believe you must leave another. But look around and you can see. There is no gate, my friend.
I show you this. Again and again. The day you comprehend, the day wisdom comes to you, you will join me. The flesh that encompasses you is your final conceit. Abandon it, my love. You once scattered yourself and you will do so again. When wisdom arrives. Has wisdom arrived yet?
The wind’s efforts at seduction, its invitations to his accepting some kind of wilful dissolution, were getting irritating. Grunting, he pushed himself upright.
On the slope to his left, a hundred or more paces away, sprawled the skeleton of a dragon. Something had shattered its ribcage, puncturing blows driving shards and fragments inward – fatally so, he could see even from this distance. The bones looked strange, sheathed one and all in something like black, smoky glass. Glass that webbed down to the ground, then ran in frozen streams through furrows on the slope. As if the beast’s melting flesh had somehow vitrified.
He had seen the same on the two other dragon remains he had come across.
He stood, luxuriating in his conceit – in the dull pain in his lower back, the vague earache from the insistent wind, and the dryness at the back of his throat that forced him to repeatedly clear it. Which he did, before saying, ‘All the wonders and miseries of a body, wind, that is what you have forgotten. What you long for. You want me to join you? Ha, it’s the other way round.’
You will never win this game, my love—
‘Then why play it?’
He set off at an angle up the hillside. On the summit, he could see more stone rubble, the remnants of a temple that had dropped through a hole in the earth, plucked from mortal eyes in a conflagration of dust and thunder. Like cutting the feet out from under a god. Like obliterating a faith with a single slash of the knife. A hole in the earth, then, the temple’s pieces tumbling through the Abyss, the ethered layers of realm after realm, until they ran out of worlds to plunge through.
Knock knock, right on Hood’s head.
Your irreverence will deliver unto you profoundest regret, beloved.
‘My profoundest regret, wind, is that it never rains here. No crashing descent of water – to drown your every word.’
Your mood is foul today. This is not like you. We have played so many games together, you and I.
‘Your breath is getting cold.’
Because you are walking the wrong way!
‘Ah. Thank you, wind.’
A sudden bitter gust buffeted him, evincing its displeasure. Grit stung his eyes, and he laughed. ‘Hood’s secret revealed, at last. Scurry on back to him, wind, you have lost this game.’
You fool. Ponder this question: among the fallen, among the dead, will you find more soldiers – more fighters than non-fighters? Will you find more men than women? More gods than mortals? More fools than the wise? Among the Fallen, my friend, does the echo of marching armies drown all else? Or the moans of the diseased, the cries of the starving?
‘I expect, in the end,’ he said after a moment, ‘it all evens out.’
You are wrong. I must answer you, even though it will break your heart. I must.
