The Malazan Empire, page 843
‘Now, we step inside.’
‘They march in circles any longer and they’ll drop.’
Corporal Tarr squinted at the gasping, foot-dragging soldiers. ‘They’re out of shape, all right. Pathetic. Of course, we were supposed to think of something.’
Cuttle scratched at his jaw. ‘So we ended up thrashing them after all. Look, here comes Fid, thank the gods.’
The sergeant scowled upon seeing his two soldiers and almost turned round before Cuttle’s frantic beckoning beat down his defences, or at least elicited the man’s pity. Raking fingers through his red and grey beard, he walked over. ‘What are you two doing to those poor bastards?’
‘We run out of things to make them do,’ Cuttle said.
‘Well, stumbling round inside a compound only takes it so far. You need to get them out of the city. Get them practising entrenchments, redoubts and berms. You need to turn their penchant for wholesale rout into something like an organized withdrawal. You need to stretch their chain of command and see who’s got the guts to step up when it snaps. You need to make those ones squad-leaders. War games, too—set them against one of the other brigades or battalions being trained by our marines. They need to win a few times before they can learn how to avoid losing. Now, if Hedge comes by, you ain’t seen me, right?’
They watched him head off down the length of the colonnade.
‘That’s depressing,’ Cuttle muttered.
‘I’ll never make sergeant,’ Tarr said, ‘not in a thousand years. Damn.’
‘Good point, you just lifted my mood, Corporal. Thanks.’
Hedge pounced on his old friend at the end of the colonnade. ‘What’re you bothering with them for, Fid? These Bonehunters ain’t Bridgeburners and those Letherii ain’t soldiers. You’re wasting your time.’
‘Gods below, stop stalking me!’
Hedge’s expression fell. ‘It’s not that, Fid. Only, we were friends—’
‘And then you died. So I went and got over you. And now you show up all over again. If you were just a ghost then maybe I could deal with it—aye, I know you whispered in my ear every now and then, and saved my skin and all that and it’s not that I ain’t grateful either. But . . . well, we ain’t squad mates any more, are we? You came back when you weren’t supposed to, and in your head you’re still a Bridgeburner and you think the same of me. Which is why you keep slagging off these Bonehunters, like it was some rival division. But it isn’t, because the Bridgeburners are finished, Hedge. Dust and ashes. Gone.’
‘All right all right! So maybe I need to make some adjustments, too. I can do that! Easy. Watch me! First thing—I’ll get the captain to give me a squad—’
‘What makes you think you deserve to lead a squad?’
‘Because I was a—’
‘Exactly. A damned Bridgeburner! Hedge, you’re a sapper—’
‘So are you!’
‘Mostly I leave that to Cuttle these days—’
‘You did the drum! Without me!’
‘You weren’t there—’
‘That makes no difference!’
‘How can it not make a difference?’
‘Let me work on that. The point is, you were doing sapping stuff, Fid. In fact, the point is, you and me need to get drunk and find us some whores—’
‘Only works the other way round, Hedge.’
‘Now you’re talking! And listen, I’ll get a finger-bone nose-ring so I can fit right in with these bloodthirsty Bonehunters you’re so proud of, how does that sound?’
Fiddler stared at the man. His ridiculous leather cap with its earflaps, his hopeful grin. ‘Get a nose-ring and I’ll kill you myself, Hedge. Fine, then, let’s stir things up. Just don’t even think about asking for a squad, all right?’
‘So what am I supposed to do instead?’
‘Tag along with Gesler’s squad—I think it’s short of a body.’ And then he snorted a laugh. ‘A body. You. Good one.’
‘I told you I wasn’t dead no more, Fid.’
‘If you say so.’
Lieutenant Pores sat in the captain’s chair behind the captain’s desk, and held his hands folded together on the surface before him as he regarded the two women who had, until recently, been rotting in cells in some Letherii fort. ‘Sisters, right?’
When neither replied, Pores nodded. ‘Some advice, then. Should either of you one day achieve higher rank—say, captain—you too will learn the art of stating the obvious. In the meantime, you are stuck with the absurd requirement of answering stupid questions with honest answers, all the while keeping a straight face. You will need to do a lot of this with me.’
The woman on the right said, ‘Aye, sir, we’re sisters.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant Sinter. Wasn’t that satisfying? I’m sure it was. What I will find even more satisfying is watching you two washing down the barracks’ latrines for the next two weeks. Consider it your reward for being so incompetent as to be captured by these local fools. And then failing to escape.’ He scowled. ‘Look at you two—nothing but skin and bones! Those uniforms look like shrouds. I order you to regain your lost weight, in all the right places, within the same fortnight. Failure to do will result in a month on half-rations. Furthermore, I want you both to get your hair cut, down to the scalp, and to deposit said sheared hair on this desk precisely at the eighth bell this evening. Not earlier, not later. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir!’ barked Sergeant Sinter.
‘Very good,’ nodded Pores. ‘Now get out of here, and if you see Lieutenant Pores in the corridor remind him that he has been ordered to a posting on Second Maiden Fort, and the damned idiot should be on his way by now. Dismissed!’
As soon as the two women were gone, Pores leapt up from behind the captain’s desk, scanned the surface to ensure nothing had been knocked askew, and then carefully repositioned the chair just so. With a nervous glance out the window, he hurried out into the reception room and sat down behind his own, much smaller desk. Hearing heavy boots in the corridor he began shuffling the scrolls and wax tablets on the surface in front of him, planting a studious frown on his features in time for his captain’s portentous arrival.
As soon as the door opened, Pores leapt to attention. ‘Good morning, sir!’
‘It’s mid-afternoon, Lieutenant. Those wasp stings clearly rotted what’s left of your brain.’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Have those two Dal Honese sisters reported yet?’
‘No, sir, not hide nor . . . hair, sir. We should be seeing one or both any time now—’
‘Oh, and is that because you intend to physically hunt them down, Lieutenant?’
‘As soon as I’ve done this paperwork, sir, I will do just that, even if it takes me all the way to Second Maiden Fort, sir.’
Kindly scowled. ‘What paperwork?’
‘Why, sir,’ Pores gestured, ‘this paperwork, sir.’
‘Well, don’t dally, Lieutenant. As you know, I need to attend a briefing at half seventh bell, and I want them in my office before then.’
‘Yes, sir!’
Kindly walked past and went inside. Where, Pores imagined, he would spend the rest of the afternoon looking at his collection of combs.
‘Everyone’s right,’ Kisswhere muttered as she and her sister made their back to the dormitory, ‘Captain Kindly is not only a bastard, but insane. What was all that about our hair?’
Sinter shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘Well, there’s no regulations about our hair. We can complain to the Fist—’
‘No we won’t,’ Sinter cut in. ‘Kindly wants hair on his desk, we give him hair on his desk.’
‘Not mine!’
‘Nor mine, Kisswhere, nor mine.’
‘Then whose?’
‘Not whose. What’s.’
Corporal Pravalak Rim was waiting at the entrance. ‘Did you get commendations then?’ he asked.
‘Oh love,’ said Kisswhere, ‘Kindly doesn’t give out commendations. Just punishments.’
‘What?’
Sinter said, ‘The captain ordered us to put on weight,’ and then she stepped past him, ‘among other things.’ And then she paused and turned back to Pravalak. ‘Corporal, find us some shears, and a large burlap sack.’
‘Aye, Sergeant. Shears—how big?’
‘I don’t care, just find some.’
Kisswhere offered the young man a broad smile as he hurried off, and then she went inside, marching halfway down the length of the dormitory. She halted at the foot of a cot where the bedding had been twisted into something resembling a nest. Squatting in the centre of this nest was a wrinkled, scarified, tattooed bad dream with small glittering eyes. ‘Nep Furrow, I need a curse.’
‘Eh? Geen way! Groblet! Coo!’
‘Captain Kindly. I was thinking hives, the real itchy kind. No, wait, that’ll just make him even meaner. Make him cross-eyed—but not so he notices, just everyone else. Can you do that, Nep?’
‘War butt wod i’meen, eh?’
‘How about a massage?’
‘Kissands?’
‘My very own, yes.’
‘Urble ong eh? Urble ong?’
‘Bell to bell, Nep.’
‘Nikked?’
‘Who, you or me?’
‘Bat!’
‘Fine, but we’ll need to rent a room, unless of course you want an audience?’
Nep Furrow was getting excited, in all the wrong ways, she saw. He jumped round, squirmed, his skin glistening with sweat. ‘Blether squids, Kiss, blether squids!’
‘With the door barred,’ she said. ‘I won’t have any strangers walking in.’
‘Hep haw! Curseed?’
‘Aye, cross-eyed, but he can’t know it—’
‘Impable, lees in glusion.’
‘Illusion? A glamour? Oh, that’s very good. Get on it, then, thanks.’
Badan Gruk rubbed at his face as Sinter collapsed on to the cot beside him. ‘What in Hood’s name are we doing here?’ he asked.
Her dark eyes flicked to his—the momentary contact sweet as a caress—and then she looked away. ‘You’re the only kind of soldier a body can trust, Badan, did you know that?’
‘What? No, I—’
‘You’re reluctant. You’re not cut out for violence and so you don’t go looking for it. You use your wits first and that silly bonekisser as a last resort. The dangerous ones do it the other way round and that costs lives every time. Every time.’ She paused. ‘Did I hear right? Some drunk marine sergeant crossed this damned empire from tavern to tavern?’
He nodded. ‘And left a trail of local sympathizers, too. But she wasn’t afraid of spilling blood, Sinter, she just picked out the right targets—people nobody liked. Tax collectors, provosts, advocates.’
‘But she’s a drunk?’
‘Aye.’
Shaking her head, Sinter fell back on to the cot. She stared at the ceiling. ‘How come she doesn’t get busted down?’
‘Because she’s one of the Y’Ghatan Stormcrawlers, that’s why. Them that went under.’
‘Oh, right.’ A moment’s consideration, and then: ‘Well, we’re marching soon.’
Badan rubbed at his face again. ‘But nobody knows where, or even why. It’s a mess, Sinter.’ He hesitated, and then asked, ‘You got any bad feelings about it?’
‘Got no feelings at all, Badan. About anything. And no, I don’t know what took me by the throat the night of Fid’s reading, either. In fact, I don’t even remember much of that night, not the ride, nor what followed.’
‘Nothing followed. Mostly, you just passed out. Some Fenn had already stepped in, anyway. Punched a god in the side of the head.’
‘Good.’
‘That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?’
‘Well, like the one-eyed hag says, there’s all kinds of worship in the world, Badan.’
‘I don’t . . .’ but the look she shot him ground the words down to dust in his mouth. He flinched and glanced away. ‘That thing you said about wits, Sinter, was that a joke, too?’
She sighed, closing her eyes. ‘No, Badan. No. Wake me when Rim gets back, will you?’
Trailed by Lostara Yil, Keneb, Blistig and Quick Ben, the Adjunct Tavore strode down the length of the throne room and halted ten paces from the two thrones.
‘Welcome to you all,’ said King Tehol. ‘Adjunct, my Chancellor here informs me that you have a list of requests, most of which will contribute to a happy burgeoning of the royal coffers. Now, if I was the venal sort I would say let’s get right to that. But I am no such sort and so I would like to broach an entirely different matter, one of immense importance.’
‘Of course, sire,’ said Tavore. ‘We are at your disposal and will assist in any way we can.’
The King beamed.
Lostara wondered at the Queen’s sigh, but not for long.
‘Wonderful! Now, as soon as I recall the specific details of what I wanted to ask, why, I will. In the meantime, my Ceda tells me that you have stirred awake a sorcerous nest of trouble. My Chancellor, alas, assures me that the confusion is exaggerated—which of the two am I to believe? Please, if you can, break asunder this dreadful deadlock.’
Frowning, Tavore turned and said, ‘High Mage, can you address this matter, please?’
Quick Ben moved to stand beside the Adjunct. ‘Sire, both your Chancellor and your Ceda are, essentially, correct.’
Lostara saw Bugg smile, and then scowl from where he stood to the right of Tehol’s throne.
‘How fascinating,’ the King murmured, leaning forward to settle his chin in one hand. ‘Can you elaborate, High Mage?’
‘Probably not, but I will try. The situation, terrifying as it is, is probably temporary. The reading of the Deck of Dragons, which Preda Brys Beddict attended, seems to have illuminated a structural flaw in the . . . uhm . . . fabric of reality, a wounding of sorts. It seems, sire, that someone—someone very powerful—attempted to impose a new structure upon the already existing warrens of sorcery.’
Brys Beddict, positioned to the left of the Queen, asked, ‘High Mage, can you explain these “warrens” which seem so central to your notions of magic?’
‘Unlike the sorcery that prevailed on this continent until recently, Preda, magic everywhere else exists in a more formalized state. The power, so raw here, is elsewhere refined, aspected, organized into something like themes, and these themes are what we call warrens. Many are accessible to mortals and gods alike; others are’—and he glanced at Bugg—‘Elder. Some are virtually extinct, or inaccessible due to ignorance or deliberate rituals of sealing. Some, in addition, are claimed and ruled over by elements either native to those warrens, or so fundamentally related to them as to make the distinction meaningless.’
King Tehol lifted a finger. ‘A moment, whilst I blink the glaze from my eyes. Now, let’s mull on what has been said thus far—I’m good at mulling, by the way. If I understand you, High Mage, the realm the Tiste Edur called Kurald Emurlahn represents one of these warrens, yes?’
‘Aye,’ Quick Ben responded, and then hastily added, ‘sire. The Tiste warrens—and there are three that we know of—are all Elder. Two of them, by the way, are no longer ruled by the Tiste. One is virtually sealed. The other has been usurped.’
‘And how do these warrens relate to your Deck of Dragons?’
The High Mage flinched. ‘Not my Deck, sire, I assure you. There is no simple answer to your question—’
‘It’s about time! I was beginning to feel very stupid. Please understand, I have no problem about being stupid. Feeling stupid is entirely another matter.’
‘Ah, yes, sire. Well, the Deck of Dragons probably originated as a means of divination—less awkward than tiles, burnt bones, silt patterns, random knots, knucklebones, puke, faeces—’
‘Understood! Please, there are ladies present, good sir!’
‘Forgive me, sire. In some obvious ways, the High Houses of the Deck relate to certain warrens and as such they present a kind of window looking in on those warrens—conversely, of course, things can in turn look out from the other side, which is what makes a reading so . . . risky. The Deck is indifferent to barriers—in the right hands it can reveal patterns and relationships hidden to mortal eyes.’
‘Even what you describe,’ said Brys, ‘hardly matches what happened at that reading, High Mage.’
‘Aye, Preda, which brings us back to the wound that is this city. Someone drew a knife and carved a new pattern here. New, and yet ancient beyond belief. There was an attempt at a reawakening, but what awoke was broken.’
‘And do you know who that “someone” might have been?’ King Tehol asked.
‘Icarium Lifestealer, sire. A Champion intended to cross blades with Emperor Rhulad Sengar.’
Tehol leaned back and said, ‘Ceda, do you have anything to add at this moment?’
Bugg started and then winced. ‘The High Mage’s knowledge is most impressive, sire. Uncannily so.’
Queen Janath asked, ‘Can this wound be healed, Ceda? And if not, what is the threat to Letheras should it continue to . . . bleed?’
The old man made a face that suggested he’d just tasted something unpleasant. ‘Letheras is now like a pool of water with all the silts stirred up. We are blinded, groping, and none of us can draw more than a thin, shallow handful of magic. The effect ripples outward and will soon incapacitate the mages throughout the kingdom.’
‘High Mage,’ Janath then said, ‘you said earlier that the effect is temporary. Does this presume a healing is imminent?’
‘Most wounds heal themselves, over time, Highness. I expect that will begin . . . as soon as we Malazans get the Hood out of here. The reading gave that wound a sharp poke. Blood flowed out, and in this instance, blood is power.’
‘Well now,’ mused the King. ‘How fascinating, how curious, how alarming. I think we had best proceed with haste to the matter of filling the royal coffers. Adjunct Tavore, you wish to supply a baggage train sufficient to see you into and, presumably, across the Wastelands. This we are happy to provide, at a complimentary, reduced rate—to show our appreciation of your exemplary efforts in ousting the Edur tyranny. Now, my Chancellor has already begun arranging matters from our end, and he informs me that his projected estimate to meet your needs is substantial. It will take us approximately four weeks to assemble such a train and hopefully only moments for you to pay for it. Of course, Brys will arrange his escort’s resupply, so you need not worry about that.’
