The Malazan Empire, page 695
A Letherii officer stepped forward, hands raised. ‘There’s no-one in the throne room,’ he said. ‘The Emperor is dead – his body’s in the arena—’
‘Take us there, then,’ Quick Ben demanded, with a glare at Fiddler. ‘I want to see for myself.’
The officer nodded. ‘We just came from there, but very well.’
Fiddler waved his squad forward, then scowled over at Smiles. ‘Do that later, soldier—’
She bared her teeth like a dog over a kill, then drew out a large knife and, with two savage chops, took the old man’s pretty hands.
Trull Sengar stepped out onto the sand of the arena, eyes fixed on the body lying near the far end. The gleam of coins, the head tilted back. He slowly walked forward.
There was chaos in the corridors and chambers of the Eternal Palace. He could search for his parents later, but he suspected he would not find them. They had gone with the rest of the Tiste Edur. Back north. Back to their homeland. And so, in the end, they too had abandoned Rhulad, their youngest son.
Why does he lie unmoving? Why has he not returned?
He came to Rhulad’s side and fell to his knees. Set down his spear. A missing arm, a missing sword.
He reached out and lifted his brother’s head. Heavy, the face so scarred, so twisted with pain that it was hardly recognizable. He settled it into his lap.
Twice now, I am made to do this. With a brother whose face, there below me, rests too still. Too emptied of life. They look so…wrong.
He would have tried, one last time, a final offering of reason to his young brother, an appeal to all that he had once been. Before all this. Before, in foolish but understandable zeal, he had grasped hold of a sword on a field of ice.
Rhulad would then, in another moment of weakness, pronounce Trull Shorn. Dead in the eyes of all Tiste Edur. And chain him to stone to await a slow, wasting death. Or the rise of water.
Trull had come, yes, to forgive him. It was the cry in his heart, a cry he had lived with for what seemed for ever. You were wounded, brother. So wounded. He had cut you down, laid you low but not dead. He had done what he needed to do, to end your nightmare. But you did not see it that way. You could not.
Instead, you saw your brothers abandon you.
So now, my brother, as I forgive you, will you now forgive me?
Of course, there would be no answer. Not from that ever still, ever empty face. Trull was too late. Too late to forgive and too late to be forgiven.
He wondered if Seren had known, had perhaps guessed what he would find here.
The thought of her made his breath catch in his throat. Oh, he had not known such love could exist. And now, even in the ashes surrounding him here, the future was unfolding like a flower, its scent sweet beyond belief.
This is what love means. I finally see—
The knife thrust went in under his left shoulder blade, tore through into his heart.
Eyes wide in sudden pain, sudden astonishment, Trull felt Rhulad’s head tilt to one side on his lap, then slide down from hands that had lost all strength.
Oh, Seren, my love.
Oh, forgive me.
Teeth bared, Sirryn Kanar stepped back, tugging his weapon free. One last Tiste Edur. Now dead, by his own hand. Pure justice still existed in this world. He had cleansed the Lether Empire with this knife, and look, see the thick blood dripping down, welling round the hilt.
A thrust to the heart, the conclusion of his silent stalk across the sands, his breath held overlong for the last three steps. And his blessed shadow, directly beneath his feet – no risk of its advancing ahead to warn the bastard. There was that one moment when a shadow had flitted across the sand – a damned owl, of all things – but the fool had not noticed.
No indeed: the sun stood at its highest point.
And every shadow huddled, trembling beneath that fierce ruler in the sky.
He could taste iron in his mouth, a gift so bitter he exulted in its cold bite. Stepping back, as the body fell to one side, fell right over that pathetic savage’s spear.
The barbarian dies. As he must, for mine is the hand of civilization.
He heard a commotion at the far end and spun round.
The quarrel pounded into his left shoulder, flung him back, where he tripped over the two corpses then twisted in his fall, landing on his wounded side.
Pain flared, stunning him.
‘No,’ Hedge moaned, pushing past Koryk who turned with a chagrined expression on his face.
‘Damn you, Koryk,’ Fiddler started.
‘No,’ said Quick Ben, ‘You don’t understand, Fid.’
Koryk shrugged. ‘Sorry, Sergeant. Habit.’
Fiddler watched the wizard follow Hedge over to where the three bodies were lying on the sand. But the sapper was paying no attention to the skewered Letherii, instead landing hard on his knees beside one of the Tiste Edur.
‘See the coins on that one?’ Cuttle asked. ‘Burned right in—’
‘That was the Emperor,’ said the captain who had brought them here. ‘Rhulad Sengar. The other Edur…I don’t know. But,’ he then added, ‘your friends do.’
Yes, Fiddler could see that, and it seemed all at once that there was nothing but pain in this place. Trapped in the last breaths, given voice by Hedge’s alarmingly uncharacteristic, almost animal cries of grief. Shaken, Fiddler turned to his soldiers. ‘Take defensive positions, all of you. Captain, you and the other prisoners over there, by that wall, and don’t move if you want to stay alive. Koryk, rest easy with that damned crossbow, all right?’
Fiddler then headed over to his friends.
And almost retreated again when he saw Hedge’s face, so raw with anguish, so…exposed.
Quick Ben turned and glanced back at Fiddler, a warning of some sort, and then the wizard walked over to the fallen Letherii.
Trembling, confused, Fiddler followed Quick Ben. Stood beside him, looking down at the man.
‘He’ll live,’ he said.
Behind them, Hedge rasped, ‘No he won’t.’
That voice did not even sound human. Fiddler turned in alarm, and saw Hedge staring up at Quick Ben, as if silent communication was passing between the two men.
Then Hedge asked, ‘Can you do it, Quick? Some place with…with eternal torment. Can you do that, wizard? I asked if you can do that!’
Quick Ben faced Fiddler, a question in his eyes.
Oh no, Quick, this one isn’t for me to say—
‘Fiddler, help me decide. Please.’
Gods, even Quick Ben’s grieving. Who was this warrior? ‘You’re High Mage, Quick Ben. Do what needs doing.’
The wizard turned back to Hedge. ‘Hood owes me, Hedge.’
‘What kind of answer is that?’
But Quick Ben turned, gestured, and a dark blur rose round the Letherii, closed entirely about the man’s body, then shrank, as if down into the sand, until nothing remained. There was a faint scream as whatever awaited the Letherii had reached out to take hold of him.
Then the wizard snapped out a hand and pulled Fiddler close, and his face was pale with rage. ‘Don’t you pity him, Fid. You understand me? Don’t you pity him!’
Fiddler shook his head. ‘I – I won’t, Quick. Not for a moment. Let him scream, for all eternity. Let him scream.’
A grim nod, then Quick Ben pushed him back.
Hedge wept over the Tiste Edur, wept like a man for whom all light in the world has been lost, and would never return.
And Fiddler did not know what to do.
Watching from an unseen place, the Errant stepped back, pulled away as if he would hurl himself from a cliff.
He was what he was.
A tipper of balances.
And now, this day – may the Abyss devour him whole – a maker of widows.
Ascending the beach’s gentle slope, Karsa Orlong halted. He reached down to the sword impaling his leg, and closed a hand about the blade itself, just above the hilt. Unmindful of how the notched edges sliced into his flesh, he dragged the weapon free.
Blood bloomed from the puncture wounds, but only for a moment. The leg was growing numb, but he would have use of it for a while yet.
Still holding the cursed sword by its blade, he pushed himself forward, limped onto the sward. And saw, a short distance to his right, a small hut from which smoke gusted out.
The Toblakai warrior headed over.
Coming opposite it, he dropped the iron sword, took another step closer, bent down and pushed one hand under the edge of the hut. With an upward heave, he lifted the entire structure clear, sent it toppling onto its back like an upended turtle.
Smoke billowed, caught the breeze, and was swept away.
Before him, seated cross-legged, was an ancient, bent and broken creature.
A man. A god.
Who looked up with narrowed eyes filled with pain. Then those eyes shifted, to behind Karsa, and the warrior turned.
The spirit of the Emperor had arrived, he saw. Young – younger than Karsa had imagined Rhulad Sengar to be – and, with his clear, unmarred flesh, a man not unhandsome. Lying on the ground as if in gentle sleep.
Then his eyes snapped open and he shrieked.
A short-lived cry.
Rhulad pushed himself onto his side, up onto his hands and knees – and saw, lying close by, his sword.
‘Take it!’ the Crippled God cried. ‘My dear young champion, Rhulad Sengar of the Tiste Edur. Take up your sword!’
‘Do not,’ Karsa said. ‘Your spirit is here – it is all you have, all you are. When I kill it, oblivion will take you.’
‘Look at his leg! He is almost as crippled as I am! Take the sword, Rhulad, and cut him down!’
But Rhulad still hesitated, there on his hands and knees, his breaths coming in rapid gasps.
The Crippled God wheezed, coughed, then said in a low, crooning voice, ‘You can return, Rhulad. To your world. You can make it right. This time, you can make everything right. Listen to me, Rhulad. Trull is alive! Your brother, he is alive, and he walks to the Eternal Domicile! He walks to find you! Kill this Toblakai and you can return to him, you can say all that needs to be said!
‘Rhulad Sengar, you can ask his forgiveness.’
At that the Tiste Edur’s head lifted. Eyes suddenly alight, making him look…so young.
And Karsa Orlong felt, in his heart, a moment of regret.
Rhulad Sengar reached for the sword.
And the flint sword swung down, decapitating him.
The head rolled, settled atop the sword. The body pitched sideways, legs kicking spasmodically, then growing still as blood poured from the open neck. In a moment, that blood slowed.
Behind Karsa, the Crippled God hacked laughter, then said, ‘I have waited a long time for you, Karsa Orlong. I have worked so hard…to bring you to this sword. For it is yours, Toblakai. No other can wield it as you can. No other can withstand its curse, can remain sane, can remain its master. This weapon, my Chosen One, is for you.’
Karsa Orlong faced the Crippled God. ‘No-one chooses me. I do not give anyone that right. I am Karsa Orlong of the Teblor. All choices belong to me.’
‘Then choose, my friend. Fling away that pathetic thing of stone you carry. Choose the weapon made for you above all others.’
Karsa bared his teeth.
The Crippled God’s eyes widened briefly, then he leaned forward, over his brazier of smouldering coals. ‘With the sword, Karsa Orlong, you will be immortal.’ He waved a gnarled hand and a gate blistered open a few paces away. ‘There. Go back to your homeland, Karsa. Proclaim yourself Emperor of the Teblor. Guide your people for ever more. Oh, they are sorely beset. Only you can save them, Karsa Orlong. And with the sword, none can stand before you. You will save them, you will lead them to domination – a campaign of slaughtered “children” such as the world has never seen before. Give answer, Toblakai! Give answer to all the wrongs you and your people have suffered! Let the children witness!’
Karsa Orlong stared down at the Crippled God.
And his sneer broadened, a moment, before he turned away.
‘Do not leave it here! It is for you! Karsa Orlong, it is for you!’
Someone was coming up from the sand. A wide, heavily muscled man, and three black-skinned bhokorala.
Karsa limped to meet them.
Withal felt his heart pounding in his chest. He’d not expected…well, he’d not known what to expect, only what was expected of him.
‘You are not welcome,’ said the giant with the tattooed face and the wounded leg.
‘I’m not surprised. But here I am anyway.’ Withal’s eyes flicked to the sword lying in the grass. The Tiste Edur’s head was resting on it like a gift. The weaponsmith frowned. ‘Poor lad, he never understood—’
‘I do,’ growled the giant.
Withal looked up at the warrior. Then over to where crouched the Crippled God, before returning once more to his regard of the giant. ‘You said no?’
‘As much.’
‘Good.’
‘Will you take it now?’
‘I will – to break it on the forge where it was made.’ And he pointed to the ramshackle smithy in the distance.
The Crippled God hissed, ‘You said it could never be broken, Withal!’
The weaponsmith shrugged. ‘We’re always saying things like that. Pays the bills.’
A horrid cry was loosed from the Crippled God, ending in strangled hacking coughs.
The giant was studying Withal in return, and he now asked, ‘You made this cursed weapon?’
‘I did.’
The back-handed slap caught Withal by surprise, sent him flying backward. Thumping hard onto his back, staring up at the spinning blue sky – that suddenly filled with the warrior, looking down.
‘Don’t do it again.’
And after saying that, the giant moved off.
Blinking in the white sunlight, Withal managed to turn onto his side, and saw the giant walk into a portal of fire, then vanish as the Crippled God screamed again. The portal suddenly disappeared with a snarl.
One of the nachts brought its horrid little face close over Withal, like a cat about to steal his breath. It cooed.
‘Yes, yes,’ Withal said, pushing it away, ‘get the sword. Yes. Break the damned thing.’
The world spun round him and he thought he would be sick. ‘Sandalath, love, did you empty the bucket? Sure it was piss but it smelled mostly of beer, didn’t it? I coulda drunk it all over again, you see.’
He clambered upward, swayed back and forth briefly, then reached down and, after a few tries, collected the sword.
Off to the smithy. Not many ways of breaking a cursed sword. A weapon even nastier would do it, but in this case there wasn’t one. So, back to the old smith’s secret. To break an aspected weapon, bring it home, to the forge where it was born.
Well, he would do just that, and do it now.
Seeing the three nachts peering up at him, he scowled. ‘Go bail out the damned boat – I’m not in the mood to drown fifty sweeps from shore.’
The creatures tumbled over each in their haste to rush back to the beach.
Withal walked to the old smithy, to do what needed doing.
Behind him, the Crippled God bawled to the sky.
A terrible, terrible sound, a god’s cry. One he never wanted to hear ever again.
At the forge, Withal found an old hammer, and prepared to undo all that he had done. Although, he realized as he set the sword down on the rust-skinned anvil and studied the blood-splashed blade, that was, in all truth, impossible.
After a moment, the weaponsmith raised the hammer.
Then brought it down.
Epilogue
She walked through the shrouds of dusk
And came to repast
At the Gates of Madness.
Where the living gamed with death
And crowed triumphant
At the Gates of Madness.
Where the dead mocked the living
And told tales of futility
At the Gates of Madness.
She came to set down her new child
There on the stained altar
At the Gates of Madness.
‘This,’ said she, ‘is what we must do,
In hope and humility
At the Gates of Madness.’
And the child did cry in the night
To announce bold arrival
At the Gates of Madness.
Have we dreamed this enough now?
Our promise of suffering
At the Gates of Madness?
Will you look down upon its new face
And whisper songs of anguish
At the Gates of Madness?
Taking the sawtoothed key in hand
To let loose a broken future
At the Gates of Madness?
Tell then your tale of futility to the child
All your games with death
At the Gates of Madness.
We who stand here have heard it before
On this the other side
Of the Gates of Madness.
Prayer of Child
The Masked Monks of Cabal
Dragging his soul from its place of exhaustion and horror, the sound of a spinning chain awoke Nimander Golit. He stared up at the stained ceiling of his small room, his heart thumping hard in his chest, his body slick with sweat beneath damp blankets.
That sound – it had seemed so real—
And now, with eyes widening, he heard it again.
Spinning, then odd snaps! Then spinning once more.
He sat up. The squalid town outside slept, drowned in darkness unrelieved by any moon. And yet…the sound was coming from the street directly below.
Nimander rose from the bed, made his way to the door, out into the chilly hallway. Grit and dust beneath his bare feet as he padded down the rickety stairs.
Emerging, he rushed out into the street.
Yes, night’s deepest pit, and this was not – could not be – a dream.
The hissing chain and soft clack, close, brought him round. To see another Tiste Andii emerge from the gloom. A stranger. Nimander gasped.
