The Malazan Empire, page 781
The harsh sarcasm of her voice stung him and he almost stepped back. ‘From where I’m standing,’ he said.
‘Well,’ she said, sighing, ‘it’s probably what I deserve, actually. I have been a bit…loose. Wayward. Looking, trying, not finding, trying again. And again. From where you’re standing, yes, I can see that.’
‘None of that would matter to me,’ Barathol then said. ‘Except, well, I don’t want to be just another man left in your wake.’
‘No wonder you’ve devoted your life to making weapons and armour. Problem is, you’re doing that for everyone else.’
He said nothing. He simply watched her, as, she realized, he had been doing for some time now. All at once, Scillara felt uncomfortable. She drew hard on her pipe. ‘Barathol, you need some armour of your own.’
And he nodded. ‘I see.’
‘I’m not going to make promises I can’t keep. Still, it may be that my waywardness is coming to an end. People like us, who spend all our time looking, well, even when we find it we usually don’t realize – until it’s too late.’
‘Cutter.’
She squinted up at him. ‘He had no room left in his heart, Barathol. Not for me, not for anyone.’
‘So he’s just hiding right now?’
‘In more ways than one, I suspect.’
‘But he’s broken your heart, Scillara.’
‘Has he?’ She considered. ‘Maybe he has. Maybe I’m the one needing armour.’ She snorted. ‘Puts me in my place, doesn’t it.’ And she rose.
Barathol started. ‘Where are you going?’
‘What? I don’t know. Somewhere. Nowhere. Does it matter?’
‘Wait.’ He stepped closer. ‘Listen to me, Scillara.’ And then he was silent, on his face a war of feelings trying to find words. After a moment, his scowl deepened. ‘Yesterday, if Cutter had just walked in here to say hello, I’d have taken him by the throat. Hood, I’d have probably beaten him unconscious and tied him up in that chair. Where he’d stay – until you dropped by.’
‘Yesterday.’
‘When I thought I had no chance.’
She was having her own trouble finding words. ‘And now?’
‘I think…I’ve just thrown on some armour.’
‘The soldier…unretires.’
‘Well, I’m a man, and a man never learns.’
She grinned. ‘That’s true enough.’
And then she leaned close, and as he slowly raised his arms to take her into an embrace she almost shut her eyes – all that relief, all that anticipation of pleasure, even joy – and the hands instead grasped her upper arms and she was pushed suddenly to one side. Startled, she turned to see a squad of City Guard crowding the doorway.
The officer in the lead had the decency to look embarrassed.
‘Barathol Mekhar? By city order, this smithy is now under temporary closure, and I am afraid I have to take you into custody.’
‘The charge?’
‘Brought forward by the Guild of Smiths. Contravention of proper waste disposal. It is a serious charge, I’m afraid. You could lose your business.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Barathol said. ‘I am making use of the sewage drains – I spill nothing—’
‘The common drain, yes, but you should be using the industrial drain, which runs alongside the common drain.’
‘This is the first I have heard of such a thing.’
‘Well,’ said a voice behind the guards, ‘if you were a member of the Guild, you’d know all about it, wouldn’t you?’
It was a woman who spoke, but Scillara could not see past the men in the doorway.
Barathol threw up his hands. ‘Very well, I am happy to comply. I will install the proper pipes—’
‘You may do so,’ said the officer, ‘once the charges are properly adjudicated, fines paid, and so forth. In the meantime, this establishment must be shut down. The gas valves must be sealed. Materials and tools impounded.’
‘I see. Then let me make some arrangement for my helper – somewhere to stay and—’
‘I am sorry,’ cut in the officer, ‘but the charge is against both you and your apprentice.’
‘Not precisely,’ said the unseen woman. ‘The blacksmith cannot have an apprentice unless he is a member of the Guild. The two are colluding to undermine the Guild.’
The officer’s expression tightened. ‘As she said, yes. I’m not here to prattle on in the language of an advocate. I do the arrest and leave one of my guards to oversee the decommissioning of the establishment by a qualified crew.’
‘A moment,’ said Barathol. ‘You are arresting Chaur?’
‘Is that your apprentice’s name?’
‘He’s not my apprentice. He’s a simpleton—’
‘Little more than a slave, then,’ snapped the unseen official of the Guild. ‘That would be breaking a much more serious law, I should think.’
Scillara watched as two men went to the yard and returned with a wide-eyed, whimpering Chaur. Barathol attempted to console him, but guards stepped in between them and the officer warned that, while he didn’t want to make use of shackles, he would if necessary. So, if everyone could stay calm and collected, they could march out of here like civilized folk. Barathol enquired as to his right to hire an advocate and the officer replied that, while it wasn’t a right as such, it was indeed a privilege Barathol could exercise, assuming he could afford one.
At that point Scillara spoke up and said, ‘I’ll find one for you, Barathol.’
A flicker of relief and gratitude in his eyes, replaced almost immediately by his distress over the fate of Chaur, who was now bawling and tugging his arms free every time a guard sought to take hold of him.
‘Let him alone,’ said Barathol. ‘He’ll follow peacefully enough – just don’t grab him.’
And then the squad, save one, all marched out with their prisoners. Scillara fell in behind them, and finally saw the Guild official, a rather imposing woman whose dignity was marred by the self-satisfied smirk on her face.
As Scillara passed behind the woman, she took hold of her braid and gave it a sharp downward tug.
‘Ow!’ The woman whirled, her expression savage.
‘Sorry,’ Scillara said. ‘Must have caught on my bracelet.’
And as Scillara continued on down the street, she heard, from the squad officer: ‘She’s not wearing any bracelet.’
The Guild woman hissed and said, ‘I want her—’
And then Scillara turned the corner. She did not expect the officer to send anyone in pursuit. The man was doing his job and had no interest in complicating things.
‘And there I was,’ she muttered under her breath, ‘about to trap a very fine man in my messed-up web. Hoping – praying – that he’d be the one to untangle my life.’ She snorted. ‘Just my luck.’
From rank superstitions to scholarly treatises, countless generations had sought understanding of those among them whose minds stayed undeveloped, childlike or, indeed, seemingly trapped in some other world. God and demon possession, stolen souls, countless chemical imbalances and unpleasant humours, injuries sustained at birth or even before; blows to the head as a child; fevers and so on. What could never be achieved, of course (barring elaborate, dangerous rituals of spirit-walking), was to venture into the mind of one thus afflicted.
It would be easy to assume an inner world of simple feelings, frightening unknowns and the endless miasma of confusion. Or some incorporeal demon crouched down on every thought, crushing the life from it, choking off every possible passage to awareness. Such assumptions, naturally, are but suppositions, founded only on external observation: the careful regard of seemingly blank eyes and stupid smiles, repetitive behaviour and unfounded fears.
Hold tight, then, this hand, on this momentary journey into Chaur’s mind.
The world he was witness to was a place of objects, some moving, some never moving, and some that were still but could be moved if one so willed it. These three types were not necessarily fixed, and he well knew that things that seemed destined to immobility could suddenly come awake, alive, in explosive motion. Within himself, Chaur possessed apprehensions of all three, in ever shifting forms. There was love, a deeply rooted object, from which came warmth, and joy, and a sense of perfect well-being. It could, on occasion, reach out to take in another – someone or something on the outside – but, ultimately, that was not necessary. The love was within him, its very own world, and he could go there any time he liked. This was expressed in a rather dreamy smile, an expression disengaged with everything on the outside.
Powerful as it was, love was vulnerable. It could be wounded, jabbed into recoiling pain. When this happened, another object was stirred awake. It could be called hate, but its surface was mottled with fear and anger. This object was fixed as deeply in his soul as was love, and the two needed each other even if their relationship was strained, fraught. Prodded into life by love’s pain, hate opened eyes that could only look outward – never to oneself, never even to the identity known as Chaur. Hate blazed in one direction and one only – to the outer world with its objects, some moving, some not, some that might do either, shifting from one to the next and back again.
Hate could, if it must, make use of Chaur’s body. In lashing out, in a frenzied reordering of the world. To bring it back into the right shape, to force an end to whatever caused love its pain.
All of this depended upon observation, but such observation did not rely overmuch on what he saw, or heard, smelled, touched or tasted. Hate’s secret vision was much sharper – it saw colours that did not exist for others, and those colours were, on an instinctive level, encyclopedic. Seeing them, hate knew everything. Knew, indeed, far beyond what a normal mind might achieve.
Was this little more than a peculiar sensitivity to nonverbal communication? Don’t ask Chaur. He is, after all, in his own world.
His object called hate had a thing about blood. Its hue, the way it flowed, the way it smelled and tasted, and this was a bizarre truth: his hate loved blood. To see it, to immerse oneself in it, was to feel joy and warmth and contentment.
The guards flanking Chaur, walking at ease and with modest thoughts of their own, had no inkling of all that swirled in the seemingly simple mind of their prisoner. Who walked, limbs loose and swinging now that the natural tension that had bound up the huge man’s neck and shoulders had eased away – clearly, the oaf had forgotten all the trouble he was in, had forgotten that they were all walking to a gaol, that soon Chaur would find himself inside a cage of stolid black iron bars. All those thick walls enclosing the simpleton’s brain were clearly back in place.
Not worth a second glance.
And so there were none to see the hate-filled eyes peering out through every crack, every murder hole, every arrow slit – a thousand, ten thousand glittering eyes, seeing everything, the frenzied flicking as immobile objects were observed, gauged and then discarded; as others were adjudged potentially useful as things that, while unmoving, could be made to move. Seeing all, yes, absorbing and processing at speeds that would stun one of normal intelligence – because this was something different, something alien, something almost perfect in its own way, by its own rules, by all the forces it could assemble, harbour, and then, when the time was appropriate, unleash upon a most unsuspecting world.
The simple ones aren’t simple. The broken ones aren’t broken. They are rearranged. For better, for worse? Such judgements are without relevance. After all, imagine a world where virtually every mind is simpler than it imagines itself to be, or is so utterly broken that it is itself unaware of its own massive, stunning dysfunction. In such a world, life goes on, and madness thrives. Stupidity repeats. Behaviours destroy and destroy again, and again, yet remain impervious to enlightenment. Crimes against humanity abound, and not one victimizer can even comprehend one day becoming victim; not a single cruel soul understands that cruelty delivered yields cruelty repaid tenfold. It is enough to eat today and let tomorrow’s children starve. Wealth ever promises protection against the strictures of an unkind, avaricious world, and yet fails to deliver on that promise every single time, be the slayer disease, betrayal or the ravaging mobs of revolution. Wealth cannot comprehend that the very avarice it fears is its own creation, the toxic waste product of its own glorious exaltation. Imagine such a world, then – oh, don’t bother. Better to pity poor, dumb Chaur.
Who, without warning, exploded into motion. Placid thoughts in guardian skulls shattered into oblivion as fists smashed, sending each man flying out to the side. As dulled senses of something awry shot the first spurt of chemical alarm through the nearest of the remaining guards, Chaur reached him, picked him up by belt and neck, and threw him against a happily immobile stone wall on the right. The officer and the last guard both began their whirl to confront the still mostly unknown threat, and Chaur, smiling, was there to meet them. He had in his left hand – gripped by one ear – a heavy amphora, which he had collected from a stall to his left, and he brought this object round to crash into the officer. Clay shards, a shower of pellet grain, and in their midst a crumpling body. The last guard, one hand tugging at his sword, mouth open to begin a shout of alarm, saw in his last conscious moment Chaur and his broad smile, as the simpleton, with a roundhouse swing, drove his fist into the side of the man’s head, collapsing the helm on that side and sending the headpiece flying. In a welter of blood from ear and temple, the guard fell to the ground, alive but temporarily unwilling to acknowledge the fact.
And Chaur stood now facing Barathol, with such pleased, excited eyes that the blacksmith could only stare back, speechless, aghast.
Gorlas Vidikas stepped out from the carriage and paused to adjust his leggings, noting with faint displeasure the discordant creases sitting in that sweaty carriage had left him with, and then glanced up as the sickly foreman wheezed his way over.
‘Noble sir,’ he gasped, ‘about the interest payments – I’ve been ill, as you know—’
‘You’re dying, you fool,’ Gorlas snapped. ‘I am not here to discuss your problems. We both know what will happen should you default on the loan, and we both know – I should trust – that you are not long for this world, which makes the whole issue irrelevant. The only question is whether you will die in your bed or end up getting tossed out on your backside.’ After a moment, he stepped closer and slapped the man on his back, triggering a cloud of dust. ‘You’ve always got your shack here at camp, yes? Come now, it’s time to discuss other matters.’
The foreman blinked up at him, with all that pathetic piteousness perfected by every loser the world over. Better, of course, than the dark gleam of malice – the stupid ones were quick to hate, once they’d got a sense of how they’d been duped – no, best keep this one making all those mewling help-me faces.
Gorlas smiled. ‘You can stay in your lovely new home, friend. I will forgo the interest payments so you can leave this world in peace and comfort.’ And oh, wasn’t this such extraordinary favour? This concession, this grave sacrifice, why, it would not be remiss if this idiot fell to his knees in abject gratitude, but never mind that. A second thump on the back, this one triggering a coughing fit from the old man.
Gorlas walked to the edge of the vast pit and surveyed the bustling hive of activity below. ‘All is well?’
The foreman, after hacking out a palmful of yellow phlegm, hobbled up to stand hunched beside him, wiping a hand on a caked trouser leg. ‘Well enough, sir, yes, well enough indeed.’
See how his mood has improved? No doubt eaten up with worry all morning, the poor useless bastard. Well, the world needed such creatures, didn’t it? To do all the dirty, hard work, and then thank people like Gorlas for the privilege. You’re so very welcome, you stupid fool, and see this? It’s my smile of indulgence. Bask and bask well – it’s the only thing I give away that’s truly free.
‘How many losses this week?’
‘Three. Average, sir, that’s average as can be. One mole in a cave-in, the others died of the greyface sickness. We got the new vein producing now. Would you believe, it’s red iron!’
Gorlas’s brows lifted, ‘Red iron?’
A quick, eager nod. ‘Twice the price at half-weight, that stuff. Seems there’s growing demand—’
‘Yes, the Malazan longswords everyone’s lusting after. Well, this will make it easier to order one, since up to now only one smith had the skill to make the damned weapons.’ He shook his head. ‘Ugly things, if you ask me. Curious thing is, we don’t get red iron round here – not till now, that is – so how was the fool making such perfect copies?’
‘Well, noble sir, there’s an old legend ’bout how one can actually turn regular iron into the red stuff, and do it cheap besides. Maybe it ain’t just a legend.’
Gorlas grunted. Interesting. Imagine finding out that secret, being able to take regular iron, toss in something virtually worthless, and out comes red iron, worth four times the price. ‘You’ve just given me an idea,’ he murmured. ‘Though I doubt the smith would give up the secret – no, I’d have to pay. A lot.’
‘Maybe a partnership,’ the foreman ventured.
Gorlas scowled. He wasn’t asking for advice. Still, yes, a partnership might work. Something he’d heard about that smith…some Guild trouble. Well, could be Gorlas could smooth all that over, for a consideration. ‘Never mind,’ he said, a tad overloud, ‘it was just a notion – I’ve already discarded it as too complicated, too messy. Let’s forget we ever discussed it.’
‘Yes, sir.’
But was the foreman looking oddly thoughtful? Might be necessary, Gorlas reflected, to hasten this fool’s demise.
From up the road behind them, a trader’s cart was approaching.
Stupid, really. He’d elected to wear his riding boots, but the things were ancient, worn, and it seemed his feet had flattened out some since he’d last used them, and now he had enormous blisters, damned painful ones. And so, for all his plans of a stentorian, impressive arrival at the camp, full of dour intent and an edge of bluster, to then be ameliorated by a handful of silver councils, a relieved foreman sending a runner off to retrieve the wayward child, Murillio found himself on the back of a rickety cart, covered in dust and sweating in the midst of a cloud of flies.
