The Malazan Empire, page 833
‘What? A what?’
‘That drink you invented last reading—’
‘No, no alcohol. Not this time. Leave me alone. Until I’m ready.’
‘How will we know when you’re ready?’ Lostara Yil asked him.
‘Just sit down, in any order, Captain. You’ll know.’ He shot the Adjunct a beseeching look. ‘There’s too much power here. Way too much. I’ve no idea what I’ll bring down. This is a mistake.’
Tavore’s pinched features somehow managed to tauten. ‘Sometimes, Sergeant, mistakes are necessary.’
Hedge coughed abruptly, and then waved a hand. ‘Sorry, Adjunct, but you’re talking to a sapper there. Mistakes mean we turn into red mist. I take it you’re referring to other kinds, maybe? I hope?’
The Adjunct swung to Gesler’s oversized companion. ‘Adjutant Stormy, how does one turn an ambush?’
‘I ain’t no adjutant any more,’ the bearded man growled.
‘Answer my question.’
The huge man glared, then, seeing as it elicited no reaction whatsoever from the Adjunct, he grunted and then said, ‘You spring it and then charge ’em, hard and fast. Y’climb down the bastards’ throats.’
‘But first the ambush must be sprung.’
‘Unless y’can sniff ’em out beforehand, aye.’ His small eyes fixed on her. ‘We gonna sniff or charge tonight, Adjunct?’
Tavore made no reply to that, facing the Tiste Andii woman instead. ‘Sandalath Drukorlat, please sit. I understand your reluctance—’
‘I don’t know why I’m here,’ Sandalath snapped.
‘History,’ muttered the ex-priest.
A long moment of silence, and then the girl named Sinn giggled, and everyone jumped. Seeing this, Brys frowned. ‘Excuse me for interrupting, but is this the place for children?’
Quick Ben snorted. ‘The girl’s a High Mage, Brys. And the boy’s . . . well, he’s different.’
‘Different?’
‘Touched,’ said Banaschar. ‘And not in a good way, either. Please, Adjunct, call it off. Send Fiddler back to the barracks. There’s too many here—the safest readings involve a few people, not a mob like this one. Your poor reader’s gonna start bleeding from the ears halfway through.’
‘He’s right,’ said Quick Ben, shifting uneasily in his chair. ‘Fid’s ugly enough without earrings of blood and whatnot.’
The Adjunct faced Fiddler. ‘Sergeant, you know my desire in this—more than anyone else here, you also know my reasons. Speak now honestly, are you capable of this?’
All eyes fixed on the sapper, and Brys could see how everyone—excepting perhaps Sinn—was silently imploring Fiddler to snap shut the lid on this dread box. Instead, he grimaced, staring at the floor, and said, ‘I can do it, Adjunct. That’s not the problem. It’s . . . unexpected guests.’
Brys saw the ex-priest flinch at that, and a sudden, hot flood of alarm rose through the King’s Sword. He stepped forward—
But the Deck was in Fiddler’s hands and he was standing at one end of the table—even though not everyone had taken seats—and three cards clattered and slid on the polished surface.
The reading had begun.
Standing in the gloom outside the building, the Errant staggered back, as if buffeted by invisible fists. He tasted blood in his mouth, and hissed in fury.
In the main room of her small home, Seren Pedac’s eyes widened and then she shouted in alarm as Pinosel and Ursto Hoobutt ignited into flames where they sat—and she would have lunged forward if not for Bugg’s staying hand. A hand sheathed in sweat.
‘Do not move,’ the old man gasped. ‘Those fires burn nothing but them—’
‘Nothing but them? What does that mean?’
It was clear that the two ancient gods had ceased being aware of their surroundings—she could see their eyes staring out through the blue flames, fixed upon nothing.
‘Their essence,’ Bugg whispered. ‘They are being devoured . . . by the power—the power awakened.’ He was trembling as if close to incapacitation, sweat streaming like oil down his face.
Seren Pedac edged back and placed her hands upon her swollen belly. Her mouth was dry, her heart pounding hard. ‘Who assails them?’
‘They stand between your child and that power—as do I, Acquitor. We . . . we can withstand. We must—’
‘Who is doing this?’
‘Not malign—just vast. Abyss below, this is no ordinary caster of the Tiles!’ She sat, terrified now, her fear for her unborn son white-hot in her soul, and stared at Pinosel and Ursto Hoobutt—who burned and burned, and beneath the flames they were melting like wax.
In a crowded room on the top floor of an inn, a flurry of once-dead beasts now scampered, snarled and snapped jaws. The black-furred rat, trailing entrails, had suddenly fallen upward to land on the ceiling, claws digging into the plaster, intestines dangling like tiny sausages in a smoke-house. The blue bat-turtle had bitten off the iguana’s tail and that creature escaped in a slithering dash and was now butting at the window’s shutters as if desperate to get out. The flicker bird, shedding oily feathers, flapped in frantic circles over the heads of everyone—none of whom had time to notice, as bottles smashed down, wine spilling like thinned blood, and the barely begun carving of riders on charging horses now writhed and reared on Crump’s lap, whilst he stared bug-eyed, mouth gaping—and moments later the first tiny horse dragged itself free and leapt down from the sapper’s thigh, wooden hoofs clopping across the floor, misshapen lump of rider waving a splinter.
Bellowing, shouts, shrieks—Ebron vomited violently, and, ducking to avoid that gush, Limp slipped in a puddle of wine and shattered his left knee. He howled.
Deadsmell started crawling for a corner. He saw Masan Gilani roll under the fancy bed as the flicker bird cracked headlong into a bedpost, exploding in a cloud of rank feathers.
Smart woman. Now, if only there was room under there for me, too.
In another section of the city, witnesses would swear in the Errant’s name, swear indeed on the Empty Throne and on the graves of loved ones, that two dragons burst from the heart of an inn, wreckage sailing out in a deadly rain of bricks, splinters, dust and fragments of sundered bodies that cascaded down into streets as far as fifty paces away—and even in the aftermath the next morning no other possible explanation sufficed to justify that shattered ruin of an entire building, from which no survivors were pulled.
______
The entire room trembled, and even as Hellian drove her elbow into a bearded face and heard a satisfying crunch, the wall opposite her cracked like fine glass and then toppled into the room, burying the figures thrashing about in pointless clinches on the floor. Women screamed—well, the fat one did, and she was loud enough and repetitive enough in those shrieks to fill in for everyone else—all of whom were too busy scrabbling out from the wreckage.
Hellian staggered back a step, and then, as the floor suddenly heaved, she found herself running although she could not be sure of her precise direction, but it seemed wise to find the door wherever that might be.
When she found it, she frowned, since it was lying flat on the floor, and so she paused and stared down for a time.
Until Urb stumbled into her. ‘Something just went up across the street!’ he gasped, spitting blood. ‘We got to get out of here—’
‘Where’s my corporal?’
‘Already down the stairs—let’s go!’But, no, it was time for a drink—
‘Hellian! Not now!’
‘Gare away! If not now, when?’
‘Spinner of Death, Knight of Shadow, Master of the Deck.’ Fiddler’s voice was a cold, almost inhuman growl. ‘Table holds them, but not the rest.’ And he started flinging cards, and each one he threw shot like a plate of iron to a lodestone, striking one person after another—hard against their chests, staggering them back a step, and with each impact—as Brys stared in horror—the victim was lifted off the floor, chair tumbling away, and slammed against the wall behind them no matter the distance.
The collisions cracked bones. Backs of heads crunched bloodily on the walls.
It was all happening too fast, with Fiddler standing as if in the heart of a maelstrom, solid as a deep-rooted tree.
The first struck was the girl, Sinn. ‘Virgin of Death.’ As the card smacked into her chest it heaved her, limbs flailing, up to a section of wall just beneath the ceiling. The sound she made when she hit was sickening, and she went limp, hanging like a spiked rag doll.
‘Sceptre.’
Grub shrieked, seeking to fling himself to one side, and the card deftly slid beneath him, fixing on to his chest and shoving him bodily across the floor, up against the wall just left of the door.
Quick Ben’s expression was one of stunned disbelief as Fiddler’s third card slapped against his sternum. ‘Magus of Dark.’ He was thrown into the wall behind him with enough force to send cracks through the plaster and he hung there, motionless as a corpse on a spike.
‘Mason of Death.’ Hedge bleated and made the mistake of turning round. The card struck his back and hammered him face first into the wall, whereupon the card began pushing him upward, leaving a red streak below the unconscious man.
The others followed, quick as a handful of flung stones. In each, the effect was the same. Violent impact, walls that shook. Sandalath Drukorlat, Queen of Dark. Lostara Yil, Champion of Life.
‘Obelisk.’ Bottle.
Gesler, Orb.
Stormy, Throne.
And then Fiddler faced Brys. ‘King of Life.’
The card flashed out from his hand, glittering like a dagger, and Brys snatched a breath the instant before it struck, eyes closing—he felt the blow, but nowhere near as viciously as had the others, and nothing touched his breast. He opened his eyes to see the card hovering, shivering, in the air before him.
Above it, he met Fiddler’s flat eyes.
The sapper nodded. ‘You’re needed.’
What?
Two remained untouched, and Fiddler turned to the first and nearest of these. ‘Banaschar,’ he said. ‘You keep poor company. Fool in Chains.’ He drew a card and snapped out his hand. The ex-priest grunted and was flung back over his chair, whereupon he shot upward to the domed ceiling. Dust engulfed the man at the impact.
Fiddler now faced the Adjunct. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’
Staring, pale as snow, she said nothing.
‘For you, Tavore Paran . . . nothing.’
She flinched.
The door suddenly opened, hinges squealing in the frozen silence.
Turudal Brizad stepped into the chamber and then halted. Turudal . . . no, of course not. The Errant. Who stands unseen behind the Empty Throne. I wondered when you would show yourself. Brys realized he had drawn his sword; realized, too, that the Errant was here to kill him—a deed without reason, a desire without motive—at least none fathomable to anyone but the Errant himself.
He will kill me.
And then Fiddler—for his audacity.
And then everyone else here, so that there be no witnesses.
Fiddler slowly turned to study the Errant. The Malazan’s smile was chilling. ‘If that card was for you,’ he said, ‘it would have left the table the moment you opened the door. I know, you think it belongs to you. You think it’s yours. You are wrong.’
The Errant’s lone eye seemed to flare. ‘I am the Master of the Tiles—’
‘And I don’t care. Go on then. Play with your tiles, Elder. You cannot stand against the Master of the Deck—your time, Errant, is past.’
‘I have returned!’
As the Errant, raw power building round him, took another stride into the chamber, Fiddler’s low words cut into his path. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’
The Elder God sneered. ‘Do you think Brys Beddict can stop me? Can stop what I intend here?’
Fiddler’s brows lifted. ‘I have no idea. But if you take one more step, Errant, the Master of the Deck will come through. Here, now. Will you face him? Are you ready for that?’
And Brys glanced to that card lying on the table. Inanimate, motionless. It seemed to yawn like the mouth of the Abyss itself, and he suddenly shivered.
Fiddler’s quiet challenge had halted the Errant, and Brys saw uncertainty stirred to life on the once-handsome features of Turudal Brizad.
‘For what it is worth,’ Brys Beddict said then, ‘you would not have made it past me anyway, Errant.’
The single eye flicked to him. ‘Ridiculous.’
‘I have lived in stone, Elder One. I am written with names beyond counting. The man who died in the throne room is not the man who has returned, no matter what you see.’
‘You tempt me to crush you,’ the Errant said in a half-snarl.
Fiddler swung round, stared down at the card on the table. ‘He is awakened.’ He faced the Elder God. ‘It may be too late . . . for you.’
And Brys saw the Errant suddenly step back, once, twice, the third time taking him through the doorway. A moment later and he vanished from sight.
Bodies were sliding slowly towards the floor. As far as Brys could see, not one was conscious. Something eased in the chamber like the release of a breath held far too long.
‘Adjunct.’
Tavore’s attention snapped from the empty doorway back to the sapper.
Spring the ambush. Find your enemy.
‘This wasn’t a reading,’ Fiddler said. ‘No one here was found. No one was claimed. Adjunct, they were marked. Do you understand?’
‘I do,’ she whispered.
‘I think,’ Fiddler said, as grief clenched his face, ‘I think I can see the end.’
She nodded.
‘Tavore,’ said Fiddler, his voice now ragged. ‘I am so sorry.’
To that, the Adjunct simply shook her head.
And Brys knew that, while he did not understand everything here, he understood enough. And if it could have meant anything, anything at all, he would have repeated Fiddler’s words to her. To this Adjunct, this Tavore Paran, this wretchedly lonely woman.
At that moment, the limp form of Banaschar settled on to the tabletop, like a corpse being lowered on a noose. As he came to rest, he groaned.
Fiddler walked over and collected the card called the Master of the Deck. He studied it for a moment, and then returned it to the deck in his hands. Glancing over at Brys, he winked.
‘Nicely played, Sergeant.’
‘Felt so lifeless . . . still does. I’m kind of worried.’
Brys nodded. ‘Even so, the role did not feel . . . vacant.’
‘That’s true. Thanks.’
‘You know this Master?’
‘Aye.’
‘Sergeant, had the Errant called your bluff—’
Fiddler grinned. ‘You would’ve been on your own, sir. Still, you sounded confident enough.’
‘Malazans aren’t the only ones capable of bluffing.’
And, as they shared a true smile, the Adjunct simply stared on, from one man to the other, and said nothing.
Bugg stood at the back window, looking out on Seren Pedac’s modest garden that was now softly brushed with the silvery tones reflected down from the dusty, smoky clouds hanging over the city. There had been damage done this night, far beyond one or two knocked-down buildings. The room had been silent behind him for some time now, from the moment that the reading had ended a short while ago. He still felt . . . fragile, almost fractured.
He heard her stir into motion behind him, the soft grunt as she climbed upright, and then she was beside him. ‘Are they dead, Bugg?’
He turned and glanced at the now conjoined, colourless puddles on the floor beneath the two chairs. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted, and then added, ‘I think so.’
‘Th-that was not . . . expected—please tell me, Ceda, that such a fate was not in the plans tonight.’
‘No, Acquitor.’
‘Then . . . what happened?’
He rubbed at the bristles on his chin, and then sighed and shook his head. ‘She chooses a narrow path—gods, the audacity of it! I must speak with the King. And with Brys—we need to decide—’
‘Ceda! Who killed Pinosel and Ursto?’
He faced her, blinked. ‘Death but passed through. Even the Errant was . . . dismissed.’ He snorted. ‘Yes. Dismissed. There is so much power in this Deck of Dragons. In the right hands, it could drain us all dry. Every god, new and elder. Every ascendant cast into a role. Every mortal doomed to become a face on a card.’ He resumed his gaze out the window. ‘He dropped one on to the table. Your son’s. The table would hold it, he said. Thus, he made no effort to claim your son. He let it be. He let him be.’ And then he shivered. ‘Pinosel and Ursto—they just sat too close to the fire.’
‘They . . . what?’
‘The caster held back, Acquitor. No one attacked Ursto and Pinosel. Even your unborn son’s card did not try for him. The caster locked it down. As would a carpenter driving a nail through a plank of wood. Abyss take me, the sheer brazen power to do that leaves me breathless. Acquitor, Ursto and Pinosel were here to defend you from the Errant. And yes, we felt him. We felt his murderous desire. But then he was thrown back, his power scattered. What arrived in its place was like the face of the sun, ever growing, becoming so vast as to fill the world—they were pinned there, trapped in those chairs, unable to move . . .’ He shook himself. ‘We all were.’ He looked down at the puddles. ‘Acquitor, I truly do not know if they are dead. The Lord of Death fed on no one this night, beyond a few hapless souls in a destroyed inn. They may be simply . . . reduced . . . and after a time they will reconstitute themselves, find their shapes—their flesh and bone—once more. I do not know, yet I will hope.’
He saw her studying his face, and wondered if he’d managed to hide any of his anxiety, his grief. The look in her eyes spoke of his failure.
‘Speak with this caster,’ she said. ‘And . . . ask him . . . to refrain. Never again in this city. Please.’
‘He was unwilling, Acquitor. He did what he could. To protect . . . everyone.’ Except, I think, himself. ‘I do not think there will be another reading.’
