The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen, page 627
‘We’re assembled and waiting, Fist.’
Blinking, Keneb saw that his captain had arrived. Standing – waiting – how long? He squinted up at the greying sky. Shit. ‘Very well, we’ll head inland until we find some dry ground.’
‘Aye.’
‘Oh, Captain, have you selected out the mage you want?’
Faradan Sort’s eyes narrowed briefly, and in the colourless light the planes of her hard face looked more angular than ever. She sighed and said, ‘I believe so, Fist. From Sergeant Gripe’s squad. Beak.’
‘Him? Are you sure?’
She shrugged. ‘Nobody likes him, so you’ll not rue the loss.’
Keneb felt a flicker of irritation. In a low tone he said, ‘Your task is not meant to be a suicide mission, Captain. I am not entirely convinced this sorcerous communication system is going to work. And once the squads start losing mages, it will all fall apart. You will probably become the only link among all the units—’
‘Once we find some horses,’ she cut in.
‘Correct.’
He watched as she studied him for a long moment, then she said, ‘Beak has tracking skills, Fist. Of a sort. He says he can smell magic, which will help in finding our soldiers.’
‘Very good. Now, it’s time to move inland, Captain.’
‘Aye, Fist.’
A short time later, the forty-odd soldiers of Keneb’s command platoon were fighting their way through a bog of fetid, black water, as the day’s heat grew. Insects swarmed in hungry clouds. Few words were exchanged.
None of us are sure of this, are we? Find the Tiste Edur – this land’s oppressors – and cut them down. Free the Letherii to rebel. Aye, foment a civil war, the very thing we fled the Malazan Empire to avoid.
Odd, isn’t it, how we now deliver upon another nation what we would not have done to ourselves.
About as much moral high ground as this damned swamp. No, we’re not happy, Adjunct. Not happy at all.
Beak didn’t know much about any of this. In fact, he would be the first to admit he didn’t know much about anything at all, except maybe weaving sorcery. The one thing he knew for certain, however, was that no-one liked him.
Getting tied to the belt of this scary captain woman would probably turn out to be a bad idea. She reminded him of his mother, looks-wise, which should have killed quick any thoughts of the lustful kind. Should have, but didn’t, which he found a little disturbing if he thought about it, which he didn’t. Much. Unlike his mother, anyway, she wasn’t the type to browbeat him at every turn, and that was refreshing.
‘I was born a stupid boy to very rich noble-born parents.’ Usually the first words he uttered to everyone he met. The next ones were: ‘That’s why I became a soldier, so’s I could be with my own kind.’ Conversations usually died away shortly after that, which made Beak sad.
He would have liked to talk with the other squad mages, but even there it seemed he couldn’t quite get across his deep-in-the-bone love of magic. ‘Mystery,’ he’d say, nodding and nodding, ‘mystery, right? And poetry. That’s sorcery. Mystery and poetry, which is what my mother used to say to my brother when she crawled into his bed on the nights Father was somewhere else. “We’re living in mystery and poetry, my dear one,” she’d say – I’d pretend I was asleep, since once I sat up and she beat me real bad. Normally she never did that, with her fists I mean. Most of my tutors did that, so she wouldn’t have to. But I sat up and that made her mad. The House healer said I almost died that night, and that’s how I learned about poetry.’
The wonder that was sorcery was his greatest love, maybe his only one, so far, though he was sure he’d meet his perfect mate one day. A pretty woman as stupid as he was. In any case, the other mages usually just stared at him while he babbled on, which was what he did when getting nervous. On and on. Sometimes a mage would just up and hug him, then walk away. Once, a wizard he was talking to just started crying. That had frightened Beak.
The captain’s interview of the mages in the platoon had ended with him, second in line.
‘Where are you from, Beak, to have you so convinced you’re stupid?’
He wasn’t sure what that question meant, but he did try to answer. ‘I was born in the great city of Quon on Quon Tali in the Malazan Empire, which is an empire ruled by a little Empress and is the most civilized place in the world. All my tutors called me stupid and they should know. Nobody didn’t agree with them, either.’
‘So who taught you about magic?’
‘We had a Seti witch in charge of the stables. In the country estate. She said that for me sorcery was the lone candle in the darkness. The lone candle in the darkness. She said my brain had put out all the other candles, so this one would shine brighter and brighter. So she showed me magic, first the Seti way, which she knew best. But later, she always found other servants, other people who knew the other kinds. Warrens. That’s what they’re called. Different coloured candles for each and every one of them. Grey for Mockra, green for Ruse, white for Hood, yellow for Thyr, blue for—’
‘You know how to use Mockra?’
‘Yes. Want me to show you?’
‘Not now. I need you to come with me – I am detaching you from your squad, Beak.’
‘All right.’
‘You and I, we are going to travel together, away from everyone else. We’re going to ride from unit to unit, as best we can.’
‘Ride, on horses?’
‘Do you know how?’
‘Quon horses are the finest horses in the world. We bred them. It was almost another candle in my head. But the witch said it was different, since I’d been born into it and riding was in my bones like writing in black ink.’
‘Do you think you’ll be able to find the other squads, even when they’re using sorcery to hide themselves?’
‘Find them? Of course. I smell magic. My candle flickers, then leans this way and whatever way the magic’s coming from.’
‘All right, Beak, you are now attached to Captain Faradan Sort. I’ve chosen you, over all the others.’
‘All right.’
‘Grab your gear and follow me.’
‘How close?’
‘Like you were tied to my sword-belt, Beak. Oh, and how old are you, by the way?’
‘I’ve lost count. I was thirty but that was six years ago so I don’t know any more.’
‘The warrens, Beak – how many candles do you know about?’
‘Oh, lots. All of them.’
‘All of them.’
‘We had a half-Fenn blacksmith for my last two years and he once asked me to list them, so I did, then he said that was all of them. He said: “That’s all of them, Beak.”’
‘What else did he say?’
‘Nothing much, only he made me this knife.’ Beak tapped the large weapon at his hip. ‘Then he told me to run away from home. Join the Malazan Army, so I wouldn’t get beaten any more for being stupid. I was one year less than thirty when I did that, just like he told me to, and I haven’t been beaten since. Nobody likes me but they don’t hurt me. I didn’t know the army would be so lonely.’
She was studying him the way most people did, then she asked, ‘Beak, did you never use your sorcery to defend yourself, or fight back?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever seen your parents or brother since?’
‘My brother killed himself and my parents are dead – they died the night I left. So did the tutors.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Beak admitted. ‘Only, I showed them my candle.’
‘Have you done that since, Beak? Showed your candle?’
‘Not all of it, not all the light, no. The blacksmith told me not to, unless I had no choice.’
‘Like that last night with your family and tutors.’
‘Like that night, yes. They’d had the blacksmith whipped and driven off, you see, for giving me this knife. And then they tried to take it away from me. And all at once, I had no choice.’
So she said they were going away from the others, but here they were, trudging along with the rest, and the insects kept biting him, especially on the back of his neck, and getting stuck in his ears and up his nose, and he realized that he didn’t understand anything.
But she was right there, right at his side.
The platoon reached a kind of island in the swamp, moated in black water. It was circular, and as they scrambled onto it Beak saw moss-covered rubble.
‘Was a building here,’ one of the soldiers said.
‘Jaghut,’ Beak called out, suddenly excited. ‘Omtose Phellack. No flame, though, just the smell of tallow. The magic’s all drained away and that’s what made this swamp, but we can’t stay here, because there’s broken bodies under the rocks and those ghosts are hungry.’
They were all staring at him. He ducked his head. ‘Sorry.’
But Captain Faradan Sort laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘No need, Beak. These bodies – Jaghut?’
‘No. Forkrul Assail and Tiste Liosan. They fought on the ruins. During what they called the Just Wars. Here, it was only a skirmish, but nobody survived. They killed each other, and the last warrior standing had a hole in her throat and she bled out right where the Fist is standing. She was Forkrul Assail, and her last thought was about how victory proved they were right and the enemy was wrong. Then she died.’
‘It’s the only dry land anywhere in sight,’ Fist Keneb said. ‘Can any mage here banish the ghosts? No? Hood’s breath. Beak, what are they capable of doing to us anyway?’
‘They’ll eat into our brains and make us think terrible things, so that we all end up killing each other. That’s the thing with the Just Wars – they never end and never will because Justice is a weak god with too many names. The Liosan called it Serkanos and the Assail called it Rynthan. Anyway, no matter what language it spoke, its followers could not understand it. A mystery language, which is why it has no power because all its followers believe the wrong things – things they just make up and nobody can agree and that’s why the wars never end.’ Beak paused, looking around at the blank faces, then he shrugged. ‘I don’t know, maybe if I talk to them. Summon one and we can talk to it.’
‘I think not, Beak,’ the Fist said. ‘On your feet, soldiers, we’re moving on.’
No-one complained.
Faradan Sort drew Beak to one side. ‘We’re leaving them now,’ she said. ‘Which direction do you think will get us out of this the quickest?’
Beak pointed north.
‘How far?’
‘A thousand paces. That’s where the edge of the old Omtose Phellack is.’
She watched Keneb and his squads move down from the island, splashing their way further inland, due west. ‘How long before they’re out of this heading in that direction – heading west, I mean?’
‘Maybe twelve hundred paces, if they stay out of the river.’
She grunted. ‘Two hundred extra steps won’t kill them. All right, Beak, north it is. Lead on.’
‘Aye, Captain. We can use the old walkway.’
She laughed then. Beak had no idea why.
There was a sound in war that came during sieges, moments before an assault on the walls. The massed onagers, ballistae and catapults were let loose in a single salvo. The huge missiles striking the stone walls, the fortifications and the buildings raised a chaotic chorus of exploding stone and brick, shattered tiles and collapsing rooftops. The air itself seemed to shiver, as if recoiling from the violence.
Sergeant Cord stood on the promontory, leaning into the fierce, icy wind, and thought of that sound as he stared across at the churning bergs of ice warring across the strait. Like a city tumbling down, enormous sections looming over where Fent Reach used to be were splitting away, in momentary silence, until the waves of concussion rolled over the choppy waves of the sea, arriving in thunder. Roiling silver clouds, gouts of foamy water—
‘A mountain range in its death-throes,’ muttered Ebron at his side.
‘War machines pounding a city wall,’ Cord countered.
‘A frozen storm,’ said Limp behind them.
‘You all have it wrong,’ interjected Crump through chattering teeth. ‘It’s like big pieces of ice…falling down.’
‘That’s…simply stunning, Crump,’ said Corporal Shard. ‘You’re a Hood-damned poet. I cannot believe the Mott Irregulars ever let you get away. No, truly, Crump. I cannot believe it.’
‘Well, it’s not like they had any choice,’ the tall, knock-kneed sapper said, rubbing vigorously at both sides of his jaw before adding, ‘I mean, I left when no-one was looking. I used a fish spine to pick the manacles – you can’t arrest a High Marshal anyhow. I kept telling them. You can’t. It’s not allowed.’
Cord turned to his corporal. ‘Any better luck at talking to your sister? Is she getting tired holding all this back? We can’t tell. Widdershins doesn’t even know how she’s doing it in the first place, so he can’t help.’
‘Got no answers for you, Sergeant. She doesn’t talk to me either. I don’t know – she doesn’t look tired, but she hardly sleeps any more anyway. There’s not much I recognize in Sinn these days. Not since Y’Ghatan.’
Cord thought about this for a time, then he nodded. ‘I’m sending Widdershins back. The Adjunct should be landing in the Fort by now.’
‘She has,’ said Ebron, pulling at his nose as if to confirm it hadn’t frozen off. Like Widdershins, the squad mage had no idea how Sinn was managing to fend off mountains of ice. A bad jolt to his confidence, and it showed. ‘The harbour’s blocked, the thug in charge is contained. Everything is going as planned.’
A grunt from Limp. ‘Glad you’re not the superstitious type, Ebron. As for me, I’m getting down off this spine before I slip and blow a knee.’
Shard laughed. ‘You’re just about due, Limp.’
‘Thanks, Corporal. I really do appreciate your concern.’
‘Concern is right. I got five imperials on you living up to your name before the month’s out.’
‘Bastard.’
‘Shard,’ Cord said after they’d watched – with some amusement – Limp gingerly retreat from the promontory, ‘where is Sinn now?’
‘In that old lighthouse,’ the corporal replied.
‘All right. Let’s get under some cover ourselves – there’s more freezing rain on the way.’
‘That’s just it,’ Ebron said in sudden anger. ‘She’s not just holding the ice back, Sergeant. She’s killing it. And the water’s rising and rising fast.’
‘Thought it was all dying anyway.’
‘Aye, Sergeant. But she’s quickened that up – she just took apart that Omtose Phellack like reeds from a broken basket – but she didn’t throw ’em away, no, she’s weaving something else.’
Cord glared at his mage. ‘Sinn ain’t the only one not talking. What do you mean by “something else”?’
‘I don’t know! Hood’s balls, I don’t!’
‘There’s no baskets over there,’ Crump said. ‘Not that I can see. Marsh pigs, you got good eyes, Ebron. Even when I squint with one eye, I don’t see—’
‘That’s enough, Sapper,’ Cord cut in. He studied Ebron for a moment longer, then turned away. ‘Come on, I got a block of ice between my legs and that’s the warmest part of me.’
They headed down towards the fisher’s shack they used as their base.
‘You should get rid of it, Sergeant,’ Crump said.
‘What?’
‘That block of ice. Or use your hands, at least.’
‘Thanks, Crump, but I ain’t that desperate yet.’
It had been a comfortable life, all things considered. True, Malaz City was hardly a jewel of the empire, but at least it wasn’t likely to fall apart and sink in a storm. And he’d had no real complaints about the company he kept. Coop’s had its assortment of fools, enough to make Withal feel as if he belonged.
Braven Tooth. Temper. Banaschar – and at least Banaschar was here, the one familiar face beyond a trio of Nachts and, of course, his wife. Of course. Her. And though an Elder God had told him to wait, the Meckros blacksmith would have been content to see that waiting last for ever. Damn the gods, anyway, with their constant meddling, they way they just use us. As they like.
Even after what had to be a year spent on the same ship as the Adjunct, Withal could not claim to know her. True, there had been that prolonged period of grief – Tavore’s lover had been killed in Malaz City, he’d been told – and the Adjunct had seemed, for a time, like a woman more dead than alive.
If she was now back to herself, then, well, her self wasn’t much.
The gods didn’t care. They’d decided to use her as much as they had used him. He could see it, that bleak awareness in her unremarkable eyes. And if she had decided to stand against them, then she stood alone.
I would never have the courage for that. Not even close. But maybe, to do what she’s doing, she has to make herself less than human. More than human? Choosing to be less to be more, perhaps. So many here might see her as surrounded by allies. Allies such as Withal himself, Banaschar, Sandalath, Sinn and Keneb. But he knew better. We all watch. Waiting. Wondering.
Undecided.
Is this what you wanted, Mael? To deliver me to her? Yes, she was who I was waiting for.
Leading, inevitably, to that most perplexing question: But why me?
True, he could tell her of the sword. His sword. The tool he had hammered and pounded into life for the Crippled God. But there was no answering that weapon.
Yet the Adjunct was undeterred. Choosing a war not even her soldiers wanted. With the aim of bringing down an empire. And the Emperor who held that sword in his hands. An Emperor driven mad by his own power. Another tool of the gods.
