The Malazan Empire, page 857
‘Attend to the wounded,’ barked Yedan, lifting his cheek grilles to cool his throbbing face, snatching in deep breaths.
‘We can get moving now,’ Brevity said, tugging at his shield arm. ‘We can just walk on through to . . . wherever. You, Watch, you need to be in charge of the Shake army, did you know that?’
‘The Shake have no army—’
‘They better get one and soon.’
‘Besides, I am an outlaw—I slaughtered—’
‘We know what you did. You’re an Errant-damned up-the-wall madman, Yedan Derryg. Best kinda commander an army could have.’
Pithy said, ‘Leave the petitioning to us, sweetie.’ And she smiled.
He looked round. One wounded. None dead. None dead that counted, anyway. Screams of pain rose from the killing field. He paid that no attention, simply sheathed his sword.
When Yedan Derryg walked into the fading portalway—the last of them all—he did not look back. Not once.
There was great joy in discarding useless words. Although one could not help but measure each day by the sun’s fiery passage through the empty sky, and each night by the rise and set of a haze-shrouded moon and the jade slashes cutting across the starscape, the essential meaning of time had vanished from Badalle’s mind. Days and nights were a tumbling cavort, round and round with no beginning and no end. Jaws to tail. They rolled on and left nothing but a scattering of motionless small figures collapsed on to the plain. Even the ribbers had abandoned them.
Here, at the very edge of the Glass, there were only the opals—fat carrion beetles migrating in from the blasted, lifeless flanks to either side of the trail. And the diamonds—glittering spiked lizards that sucked blood from the fingertips their jaws clamped tight round every night—diamonds becoming rubies as they grew engorged. And there were the Shards, the devouring locusts sweeping down in glittering storms, stripping children almost where they stood, leaving behind snarls of rags, tufts of hair and pink bones.
Insects and lizards ruled this scorched realm. Children were interlopers, invaders. Food.
Rutt had tried to lead them round the Glass, but there was no way around that vast blinding desert. A few of them gathered after the second night. They had been walking south, and at this day’s end they had found a sinkhole filled with bright green water. It tasted of limestone dust and made many children writhe in pain, clutching their stomachs. It made a few of them die.
Rutt sat holding Held, and to his left crouched Brayderal—the tall bony girl who reminded Badalle of the Quitters. She had pushed her way in, and for that Badalle did not like her, did not trust her, but Rutt turned no one away. Saddic was there as well, a boy who looked upon Badalle with abject adoration. It was disgusting, but he listened best to her poems, her sayings, and he could repeat them back to her, word for word. He said he was collecting them all. To one day make a book. A book of this journey. He believed, therefore, that they were going to survive this, and that made him a fool.
The four of them had sat, and in the silences that stretched out and round and in and through and sometimes between them all, they pondered what to do next. Words weren’t needed for that kind of conversation. And no one had the strength for gestures, either. Badalle thought that Saddic’s book should hold vast numbers of blank pages, to mark such silences and all they contained. The truths and the lies, the needs and the wants. The nows and the thens, the theres and the heres. If she saw such pages, and could crisp back each one, one after another, she would nod, remembering how it was. How it was.
It was Brayderal who stained the first blank page. ‘We got to go back.’
Rutt lifted his bloodshot eyes. He drew Held tighter against his chest. Adjusted the tattered hood, reached in a lone finger to stroke an unseen cheek.
That was his answer, and Badalle agreed with him. Yes she did. Stupid, dangerous Brayderal.
Who scratched a bit at the sores encrusting her nostrils. ‘We can’t go round it. We can only cross it. But crossing it means we all die and die bad. I’ve heard of this Glass Desert. Never crossed. No one ever crosses it. It goes on for ever, straight down the throat of the setting sun.’
Oh, Badalle liked that one. That was a good scene to keep alive in her head. Down the throat, a diamond throat, a throat of glass, sharp, so very sharp glass. And they were the snake. ‘We got thick skin,’ she said, since the page was already ruined. ‘We go down the throat. We go down it, because that’s what snakes do.’
‘Then we die.’
They all gave her silence for that. To say such things! To blot the page that way! They gave her silence. For that.
Rutt turned his head. Rutt set his eyes upon the Glass Desert. He stared that way a long, long time, as darkness quenched the glittering flats. And then he finished his looking, and he leaned forward and rocked Held to sleep. Rocked and rocked.
So it was decided. They were going into the Glass Desert.
Brayderal took a blank page for herself. She had thousands to choose from.
Badalle crawled off, trailed by Saddic, and she sat staring into the night. She threw away words. There. Here. Then. Now. When. Everybody had to cut what they carried, to cross this desert. Toss away what wasn’t needed. Even poets.
‘You have a poem,’ Saddic said, a dark shape beside her. ‘I want to hear it.’
‘I am throwing away
Words. You and me
Is a good place to start
Yesterday I woke up
With five lizards
Sucking my fingers
Like tiny pigs or rat pups
They drank down
You and me
I killed two of them
And ate what they took
But that wasn’t taking back
The words stayed gone
We got to lighten the load
Cut down on what we carry
Today I stop carrying
You
Tomorrow I stop carrying
Me.’
After a time of no words, Saddic stirred. ‘I’ve got it, Badalle.’
‘To go with the silent pages.’
‘The what?’
‘The blank ones. The ones that hold everything that’s true. The ones that don’t lie about anything. The silent pages, Saddic.’
‘Is that another poem?’
‘Just don’t put it on a blank page.’
‘I won’t.’
He seemed strangely satisfied, and he curled up tight against her hip, like a ribber when ribbers weren’t ribbers but pets, and he went to sleep. She looked down on him, and thought about eating his arms.
Chapter Nine
Down past the wind-groomed grasses
In the sultry curl of the stream
There was a pool set aside
In calm interlude away from the rushes
Where not even the reeds waver
Nature takes no time to harbour our needs
For depthless contemplation
Every shelter is a shallow thing
The sly sand grips hard no manner
Of anchor or even footfall
Past the bend the currents run thin
In wet chuckle where a faded tunic
Drapes the shoulders of a broken branch
These are the dangers I might see
Leaning forward if the effort did not prove
So taxing but that ragged collar
Covers no pale breast with tapping pulse
This shirt wears the river in birth foam
And languid streaming tatters
Soon I gave up the difficult rest
And floated down in search of boots
Filled with pebbles as every man needs
Somewhere to stand.
CLOTHES REMAIN
FISHER
‘I’m stuffed,’ said King Tehol, and then, with a glance at his guest, added, ‘Sorry.’
Captain Shurq Elalle regarded him with her crystal goblet halfway to her well-padded, exquisitely painted lips. ‘Yet another swollen member at my table.’
‘Actually,’ observed Bugg, ‘this is the King’s table.’
‘I wasn’t being literal,’ she replied.
‘Which is a good thing,’ cried Tehol, ‘since my wife happens to be sitting right here beside me. And though she has no need to diet, we’d all best stay figurative.’ And his eyes shifted nervously before he hid himself behind his own goblet.
‘Just like old times,’ said Shurq. ‘Barring the awkward pauses, the absurd opulence, and the weight of an entire kingdom pressing down upon us. Remind me to decline the next invitation.’
‘Longing for a swaying deck under your feet?’ Tehol asked. ‘Oh, how I miss the sea—’
‘How can you miss what you’ve never experienced?’
‘Well, good point. I should have been more precise. I miss the false memory of missing a life on the sea. It was, at the risk of being coarse, my gesture of empathy.’
‘I don’t really think the captain’s longings should be the subject of conversation, husband,’ Queen Janath said, mostly under her breath.
Shurq heard her none the less. ‘Highness, this night has made it grossly obvious that you hold to an unreasonable prejudice against the dead. If I was still alive I’d be offended.’
‘No you wouldn’t.’
‘In a gesture of empathy, indeed I would!’
‘Well, I do apologize,’ said the Queen. ‘I just find your, uh, excessively overt invitations to be somewhat off-putting—’
‘My excessively overt what? It’s called make-up! And clothes!’
‘More like dressing the feast,’ murmured Janath.
Tehol and Bugg shared a wince.
Shurq Elalle smirked. ‘Jealousy does not become a queen—’
‘Jealousy? Are you mad?’
The volume of the exchange was escalating. ‘Yes, jealousy! I’m not getting any older and that fact alone—’
‘Not any older, true enough, just more and more . . . putrid.’
‘No less putrid than your unseemly bigotry! And all I need do by way of remedy is a bag full of fresh herbs!’
‘That’s what you think.’
‘Not a single man’s ever complained. I bet you can’t say the same.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Shurq Elalle then chose the most vicious reply of all. She said nothing. And took another delicate mouthful of wine.
Janath stared, and then turned on her husband.
Who flinched.
In a tight, low voice, Janath asked, ‘Dear husband, do I fail in pleasing you?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Am I the subject of private conversations between you and this—this creature?’
‘Private? You, her? Not at all!’
‘Oh, so what then is the subject of those conversations?’
‘No subject—’
‘Too busy to talk, then, is it? You two—’
‘What? No!’
‘Oh, there’s always time for a few explicit instructions. Naturally.’
‘I don’t—we don’t—’
‘This is insane,’ snapped Shurq Elalle. ‘When I can get a man like Ublala Pung why should I bother with Tehol here?’
The King vigorously nodded, and then frowned.
Janath narrowed her gaze on the undead captain. ‘Am I to understand that my husband is not good enough for you?’
Bugg clapped his hands and rose. ‘Think I’ll take a walk in the garden. By your leave, sire—’
‘No! Not for a moment! Not unless I can go with you!’
‘Don’t even think it,’ hissed Janath. ‘I’m defending your honour here!’
‘Bah!’ barked Shurq Elalle. ‘You’re defending your choice in men! That’s different.’
Tehol straightened, pushing his chair back and mustering the few remaining tatters of his dignity. ‘We can only conclude,’ he intoned loftily, ‘that nostalgic nights of reminiscences are best contemplated in the abstract—’
‘The figurative,’ suggested Bugg.
‘Rather than the literal, yes. Precisely. And now, my Chancellor and I will take the night air for a time. Court musicians—you! Over there! Wax up those instruments or whatever you have to do. Music! Something friendly!’
‘Forgiving.’
‘And forgiving!’
‘Pacifying.’
‘Pacifying!’
‘But not patronizing—’
‘But not—All right, that will do, Bugg.’
‘Of course, sire.’
Shurq watched the two cowards flee the dining hall. Once the door had closed, and the dozen or so musicians had finally settled on the same song, the captain leaned back in her chair and contemplated the Queen for a moment, and then said, ‘So, what’s all this about?’
‘I had some guests last night, ones that I think you should meet.’
‘All right. In what capacity?’
‘They may have need of you and your ship. It’s complicated.’
‘No doubt.’
Janath waved a handmaiden over and muttered some instructions. The short, overweight woman with the pimply face waddled off.
‘You really don’t trust Tehol, do you?’ Shurq asked, watching the handmaiden depart.
‘It’s not a matter of trust. More a question of eliminating temptation.’
She snorted. ‘Never works. You know that, don’t you? Besides, he’s a king. He has royal leave to exercise kingly excesses. It’s a well-established rule. Your only reasonable response is to exercise in kind.’
‘Shurq, I’m a scholar and not much else. It’s not my way—’
‘Make it your way, Highness. And then the pressure’s off both of you. No suspicions, no jealousies, no unreasonable expectations. No unworkable prohibitions.’
‘Such liberating philosophy you have, Captain.’
‘So it is.’
‘And doomed to sink into a most grisly mire of spite, betrayal and loneliness.’
‘That’s the problem with you living. You’re all stuck on seeing only the bad things. If you were dead like me you’d see how pointless all that is. A waste of precious energy. I recommend your very own ootooloo—that’ll put your thoughts in the right place.’
‘Between my legs, you mean.’
‘Exactly. Our very own treasure chest, our pleasure box, the gift most women lock up and swallow the key to, and then call themselves virtuous. What value in denying the gift and all it offers? Madness! What’s the value of a virtue that makes you miserable and wretched?’
‘There are other kinds of pleasure, Shurq—’
‘But none so readily at hand for each and every one of us. You don’t need coin. Errant fend, you don’t even need a partner! I tell you, excess is the path to contentment.’
‘And have you found it? Contentment, I mean, since your excesses are not in question.’
‘I have indeed.’
‘What if you could live again?’
‘I’ve thought about it. A lot, lately, in fact, since there’s a necromancer among the Malazans who says he can attempt a ritual that might return me to life.’
‘And?’
‘I’m undecided. Vanity.’
‘Your ageless countenance.’
‘The prospect of unending pleasure, actually.’
‘Don’t you think you might tire of it someday?’
‘I doubt it.’
Queen Janath pursed her lips. ‘Interesting,’ she murmured.
Tehol plucked a globe of pinkfruit from the tree beside the fountain. He studied it. ‘That was harsh,’ he said.
‘They wanted to make it convincing,’ said Bugg. ‘Are you going to eat that?’
‘What? Well, I thought it made a nice gesture, holding it just so, peering at it so thoughtfully.’
‘I figured as much.’
Tehol handed him the fruit. ‘Go ahead, ruin the prosaic beauty of the scene.’
Squishy, wet sounds competed with the fountain’s modest trickle.
‘Spies and secret handshakes,’ said Tehol. ‘They’re worse than the Rat Catchers’ Guild.’
Bugg swallowed, licked his lips. ‘Who?’
‘Women? Lovers and ex-lovers? Old acquaintances, I don’t know. Them. They.’
‘This is a court, sire. The court plots and schemes with the same need that we—uh, you—breathe. A necessity. It’s healthy, in fact.’
‘Oh now, really.’
‘All right, not healthy, unless of course one can achieve a perfect equilibrium, each faction played off against the others. The true measure of success for a king’s Intelligence Wing.’
Tehol frowned. ‘Who’s flapping that, by the way?’
‘Your Intelligence Wing?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I am.’
‘Oh. How goes it?’
‘I fly in circles, sire.’
‘Lame, Bugg.’
‘As it must be.’
‘We need to invent another wing, I think.’
‘Do we now?’
Tehol nodded, plucking another fruit and studying it contemplatively. ‘To fly true, yes. A counter-balance. We could call it the King’s Stupidity Wing.’
Bugg took the fruit and regarded it. ‘No need, we already have it.’
‘We do?’
‘Yes, sire.’
‘Hah hah.’
Bugg bit into the globe and then spat it out. ‘Unripe! You did that on purpose!’
‘How stupid of me.’
Bugg glared.
The two women who followed the spotty handmaiden back into the dining room were an odd study in contrast. The short, curvy one dripped and dangled an astonishing assortment of gaudy jewellery. The clothing she wore stretched the definition of the word. Shurq suspected it had taken half the night to squeeze into the studded leggings, and the upper garment seemed to consist of little more than a mass of thin straps that turned her torso into a symmetrical display of dimples and pouts. Her plumpness was, perhaps, a sign of her youth as much as of soft living, although there was plenty of indolence in her rump-swaying, overly affected manner of walking—as if through a crowd of invisible but audibly gasping admirers—perched so perfectly atop high spike-heeled shoes, with one hand delicately raised. Her petite features reminded Shurq of the painted exaggeration employed by stage actors and weeping orators, with ferociously dark eye liner flaring to glittering purple below the plucked line of her eyebrows; white dust and false bloom to the rounded plump cheeks; pink and amber gloss on the full lips in diagonal barbs converging on the corners of her faintly downturned mouth. Her hair, silky black, was bound up in a frenzied array of braided knots speared with dozens of porcupine quills, each one tipped with pearls.
