The Malazan Empire, page 885
He suddenly pitched forward, curling up like a gut-stabbed child. A moment later a wretched sob broke loose. His body trembled, bones creaking in dried sockets, as he wept, tearless, leaking nothing but the sounds pushing past his withered throat.
A voice broke through from a few paces away, ‘Compelling you to such things, Herald, leaves me no pleasure.’
Collecting himself with a groan, Toc the Younger straightened in the saddle and fixed his eye upon the ancient bonecaster standing now in the place where Tool had been. He bared dull, dry teeth. ‘Your hand was colder than Hood’s own, witch. Do you imagine Hood is pleased at you stealing his Herald? At your using him as you will? This will not go unanswered—’
‘I have no reason to fear Hood—’
‘But you have reason to fear me, Olar Ethil!’
‘And how will you find me, Dead Rider? I stand here, yet not here. No, in the living world I am huddled beneath furs, sleeping under bright stars—’
‘You have no need of sleep.’
She laughed. ‘Guarded well by a young warrior—one you knew well, yes? One you chase at night, there behind his eyes—and yes, when I saw the truth of that, why, he proved my path to you. And you spoke to me, begging for his life, which I accepted into my care. It has all led . . . to this.’
‘And here,’ Toc muttered, ‘I’d given up believing in evil. How many others do you plan to abuse?’
‘As many as I need, Herald.’
‘I will find you. When my other tasks are finally done, I swear, I will find you.’
‘To achieve what? Onos Toolan is severed from you. And, more importantly, from your kind.’ She paused, and then added with a half-snarl, ‘I don’t know what you meant by that rubbish you managed to force out, about Tool finding his children. I need him for other things.’
‘I was fighting free of you, bonecaster. He saw—he heard—’
‘And failed to understand. Onos Toolan hates you now—think on that, think on the deepness of his love, and know that for an Imass hatred runs deeper still. Ask the Jaghut! It is done, and can never be mended. Ride away from this, Herald. I now release you.’
‘I look forward,’ said Toc, gathering the reins, ‘to the next time we meet, Olar Ethil.’
Torrent’s eyes snapped open. Stars in blurred, jade-tinged smears spun overhead. He drew a deep but ragged breath, shivered beneath his furs.
Olar Ethil’s crackling voice cut through the darkness. ‘Did he catch you?’
He was in no hurry to reply to that. Not this time. He could still smell the dry, musty aura of death, could still hear the drumbeat of hoofs.
The witch continued, ‘Less than half the night is done. Sleep. I will keep him from you now.’
He sat up. ‘Why would you do that, Olar Ethil? Besides,’ he added, ‘my dreams belong to me, not you.’
Rasping laughter drifted across to him. ‘Do you see his lone eye? How it glitters in darkness like a star? Do you hear the howl of wolves echoing out from the empty pit of the one he lost? What do the beasts want with him? Perhaps he will tell you, when at last he rides you down.’
Torrent bit down one reply, chose another: ‘I escape. I always do.’
She grunted. ‘Good. He is filled with lies. He would use you, as the dead are wont to do to mortals.’
In the night Torrent bared his teeth. ‘Like you?’
‘Like me, yes. There is no reason to deny it. But listen well, I must leave your side for a time. Continue southward on your journey. I have awakened ancient springs—your horse will find them. I will return to you.’
‘What is it you want, Olar Ethil? I am nothing. My people are gone. I wander without purpose, caring not if I live or die. And I will not serve you—nothing you can say can compel me.’
‘Do you believe me a Tyrant? I am not. I am a bonecaster—do you know what that is?’
‘No. A witch.’
‘Yes, that will do, for a start. Tell me, do you know what a Soletaken is? A D’ivers?’
‘No.’
‘What do you know of Elder Gods?’
‘Nothing.’
He heard something like a snarl, and then she said, ‘How can your kind live, so steeped in ignorance? What is history to you, warrior of the Awl’dan? A host of lies to win you glory. Why do you so fear the truth of things? The darker moments of your past—you, your tribe, all of humanity? There were thousands of my people who did not join the Ritual of Tellann—what happened to them? Why, you did. No matter where they hid, you found them. Oh, on rare occasions there was breeding, a fell admixture of blood, but most of the time such meetings ended in slaughter. You saw in our faces the strange and the familiar—which of the two frightened you the most? When you cut us down, when you carved the meat from our bones?’
‘You speak nonsense,’ Torrent said. ‘You tell me you are Imass, as if I should know what that means. I do not. Nor do I care. Peoples die. They vanish from the world. It is as it was and ever will be.’
‘You are a fool. From my ancient blood ran every stream of Soletaken and D’ivers. And my blood, ah, it was but half Imass, perhaps even less. I am old beyond your imagining, warrior. Older than this world. I lived in darkness, I walked in purest light, I cast curses upon shadow. My hands were chipped stone, my eyes spawned the first fires to huddle round, my legs spread to the first mortal child. I am known by so many names even I have forgotten most of them.’
She rose, her squat frame dangling rotted furs, her hair lifting like an aura of madness to surround her withered face, and advanced to stand over him.
A sudden chill gripped Torrent. He could not move. He struggled to breathe.
She spoke. ‘Parts of me sleep, tormented by sickness. Others rail in the fury of summer storms. I am the drinker of birth waters. And blood. And the rain of weeping and the oil of ordeal. I did not lie, mortal, when I told you that the spirits you worship are my children. I am the bringer of a land’s bounty. I am the cruel thief of want, the sower of suffering.
‘So many names . . . Eran’ishal, Mother to the Eres’al—my first and most sentimental of choices.’ She seemed to flinch. ‘Rath Evain to the Forkrul Assail. Stone Bitch to the Jaghut. I have had a face in darkness, a son in shadow, a bastard in light. I have been named the Mother Beneath the Mountain, Ayala Alalle who tends the Gardens of the Moon, for ever awaiting her lover. I am Burn the Sleeping Goddess, in whose dreams life flowers unending, even as those dreams twist into nightmares. I am scattered to the very edge of the Abyss, possessor of more faces than any other Elder.’ She snapped out a withered, bony hand, the nails long and splintered, and slowly curled her fingers. ‘And he thinks to hunt me down!’ Her head tilted back to the sky. ‘Chain down your servants, Hood!’ She fixed him once more with her eyes. ‘Tell me, mortal! Did he catch you?’
Torrent stared up at her. An old hag crackling with venom and rage. Her dead breath reeked of serpents among the rocks. The onyx knuckles of her eyes glistened with the mockery of life. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you were once all those things, Olar Ethil. But not any more. It’s all torn away from you, isn’t it? Scattered and lost, when you gave up life—when you chose to become this thing of bones—’
That hand lunged down, closed about his neck. He was lifted from the ground as if he weighed less than an orthen, flung away. Slamming hard down on one shoulder, breath whooshing from his lungs, half-blinded and unable to move.
She appeared above him, rotted teeth glittering like stumps of smoky quartz. ‘I am promised! The Stone Bitch shall awaken once more, in plague winds and devouring locusts, in wildfires and drowning dust and sand! And you will fall upon each other, rending flesh with teeth and nails! You will choose evil in fullest knowledge of what you do—I am coming, mortal, the earth awakened to judgement! And you shall kneel, pleading, begging—your kind, human, shall make pathos your epitaph, for I will give you nothing, yield not a single instant of mercy!’ She was gasping now, a pointless bellows of unwarmed breath. She trembled in terrible rage. ‘Did he speak to you?’
Torrent sat up. ‘No,’ he said through gritted teeth. He reached up to the swollen bruises on his throat.
‘Good.’ And Olar Ethil turned away. ‘Sleep, then. You will awaken alone. But do not think you are rid of me, do not think that.’ A pause, and then, ‘He is filled with lies. Beware him.’
Torrent hunched forward, staring at the dew-speckled ground between his crooked legs. He closed his eyes. I will do as you ask. When the time comes, I will do as you ask.
She awoke to the howling of wolves. Setoc slowly sat up, ran a hand through the tangles of her matted hair, and then drew her bedroll closer about her body. False dawn was ebbing, almost drowned out by the glare of the jade slashes. As the echoes of those howls faded, Setoc cocked her head—had something else stirred her awake? She could not be certain. The stillness of night embraced them—she glanced across to the motionless form of Cafal. She’d run him into exhaustion. Each night since they’d begun this journey he’d fallen into deep sleep as soon as their paltry evening meal was done.
As her eyes adjusted, she could make out his face. It had grown gaunt, aged by deprivation. She knew he’d not yet reached his thirtieth year of life, but he seemed decades older. He lay like a dead man, yet she sensed from him troubled dreams. He was desperate to return to his tribe.
‘Something terrible is about to happen.’ These words had ground out from him again and again, a litany of dread, a chant riding out his tortured breaths as he ran.
She caught a scent, a sudden mustiness in the cool, dry air. Visions of strange fecundity fluttered across her eyes, as if the present was peeling away, revealing this landscape in ancient times.
An oasis, a natural garden rich with colour and life. Iridescent birds sang among palm fronds. Monkeys scampered, mouths stained with succulent fruit. A tiny world, but a complete one, seemingly changeless, untouched by her kind.
When she saw the grey cloud drifting closer, inexplicable bleak despair struck her and she gasped aloud. She saw the dust settling like rain, a dull patina coating the leaves, the globes of fruit, the once-clear pool of water. And everything began to die.
In moments there was nothing but blackened rot, dripping down the boles of the palms. The monkeys, covered in oozing sores, their hair falling away, curled up and died. The birds sought to flee but ended up on the grey ground, flapping and twitching, then falling still.
The oasis dried up. The winds blew away what was left and sands closed about the spring until it too vanished.
Setoc wept.
What had done this? Some natural force? Did some mountain erupt to fill the sky with poison ash? Or was it a god’s bitter breath? Had some wretched city burned, spewing acidic alchemies into the air? Was this desecration an accident, or was it deliberate? She had no answer to such questions; she had only their cruel yield of grief.
Until a suspicion lifted from beneath her sorrow, grisly and ghastly. It . . . it was a weapon. But who wages war upon all living things? Upon the very earth itself? What could possibly be won? Was it just . . . stupidity? Setoc shook herself. She did not like such thoughts.
But this anger I feel, does it belong to the wolves? To the beasts on their forgotten thrones? No, not just them. It is the rage of every unintended victim. It is the fury of the innocents. The god whose face is not human, but life itself.
She is coming . . .
Setoc caught a host of vague shapes in the darkness now, circling, edging closer. Curious in the manner of all wolves, yet cautious. Old memories left scars upon their souls, and they knew what the presence of these two-legged intruders meant for them, for their kind.
They could smell her tears. Their child was in pain, and so the wolves spun their spiral ever tighter. Bringing their heat, the solid truth of their existence—and they would bare fangs to any and every threat. They would, if needed, die in her stead.
And she knew she deserved none of this.
How did you find me? After this long? I see you, grey-nosed mother—was I the last one to suckle from your teats? Did I drink in all your strength until you were left with aching bones, failing muscles? I see the clouds in your eyes, but they cannot hide your love—and it is that love that breaks my heart.
Still, she held out her hand.
Moments later she felt that broad head rise beneath it.
The warm, familiar smells of old assailed her, stinging her eyes. ‘You must not stay,’ she whispered. ‘Where I go . . . you will be hunted down. Killed. Listen to me. Find the last of the wild places—hide there for ever more. Be free, my sweet ones . . .’
She heard Cafal awaken, heard his muffled grunt of shock. Seven wolves crowded their small camp, shy as uninvited children.
Her mother moved up closer, fur sliding the length of Setoc’s arm. ‘You must go,’ she whispered to the beast. ‘Please.’
‘Setoc,’ said Cafal. ‘They bring magic.’
‘What?’
‘Can’t you feel the power—so harsh, so untamed—but I think, yes, I can use it. A warren, close enough the barrier feels thin as a leaf. Listen, if we run within it, I think—’
‘I know,’ she said in a croak, leaning her weight against the she-wolf, so solid, so real, so sure. ‘I know, Cafal, the gift they bring.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said in growing excitement as he tugged aside his blankets, ‘we can get there in time. We can save—’
‘Cafal, none of this is for you. Don’t you understand anything? It’s not for you!’
He met her glare unblinking—the dawn was finally paling the sky—and then nodded. ‘Where will they lead you, then? Do you know?’
She turned away from his despair. ‘Oh, Cafal, you really are a fool. Of course we’re returning to your tribe’s camp. No other path is possible, not any more.’
‘I—I don’t understand.’
‘I know. Never mind. It’s time to leave.’
Destriant Kalyth scanned the south horizon, the blasted, unrelieved emptiness revealed in the toneless light of the rising sun. ‘Where then,’ she muttered, ‘are my hands of fire?’ She turned to her two exhausted companions. ‘You understand, don’t you? I cannot do this alone. To lead your kind, I need my own kind. I need to look into eyes little different from my own. I need to see their aches come the dawn, the sleep still in their faces—spirits fend, I need to see them cough the night loose and then piss a steaming river!’
The K’Chain Che’Malle regarded her with their reptilian eyes, unblinking, unhuman.
Kalyth’s beseeching frustration trickled away, and she fixed her attention on Sag’Churok, wondering what he had seen—those fourteen undead Jaghut, the battle that, it was now clear, completely eradicated their pursuers. This time, anyway. Was there something different in the K’ell Hunter? Something that might be . . . unease?
‘You wanted a Destriant,’ she snapped. ‘If you thought that meant a doe-eyed rodara, it must finally be clear just how wrong you were. What I am given, I intend to use—do you understand?’ Still, for all the bravado, she wished she had the power to bind those Jaghut to her will. She wished they were with them right now. Still not human, but, well, closer. Yes, getting closer. She snorted and turned back to study the south.
‘No point in waiting round here, is there? We continue on.’
‘Destriant,’ Sag’Churok whispered in her mind, ‘we are running out of time. Our enemy draws ever closer—no, not hunting the three of us. They hunt the Rooted, our final refuge in this world.’
‘We’re all the last of our kind,’ she said, ‘and you must have realized by now, in this world and in every other, there is no such thing as refuge.’ The world finds you. The world hunts you down.
Time, once more, to ride Gunth Mach as if she were nothing more than a beast, Sag’Churok lumbering at their side, massive iron blades catching glares from the sun in blinding spasms. To watch small creatures start from the knotted grasses and bound away in panic. Plunging through clouds of midges driven apart by the prows of reptilian heads and broad heaving chests.
To feel the wind’s touch as if it was a stranger’s caress, startling in its unwelcome familiarity, reminding her again and again that she still lived, that she was part of the world’s meat, forever fighting the decay dogging its trail. None of it seemed real, as if she was simply waiting for reality to catch up to her. Each day delivered the same message, and each day she met it with the same bemused confusion and diffident wariness.
These K’Chain Che’Malle felt none of that, she believed. They did not think as she did. Everything was a taste, a smell—thoughts and feelings, the sun’s very light, all flowing in a swarm of currents. Existence was an ocean. One could skate upon the surface, clinging to the shallows, or one could plunge into the depths, until the skull creaked with the pressure. She knew they saw her and her kind as timid, frightened by the mystery of unplumbed depths. Creatures floundering in fears, terrified of drowning knee-deep in truths.
But your Matron wants you to slide into the shallows, to find my world of vulnerabilities—to find out what we do to defeat them. You seek new strategies for living, you seek our secret of success. But you don’t understand, do you? Our secret is annihilation. We annihilate everyone else until none are left, and then we annihilate each other. Until we too are gone.
Such a wondrous secret. Well, she would give it to them, if she could. Her grand lessons of survival, and only she would hear the clamouring howl of the ghosts storming her soul.
Riding Gunth Mach’s back, Kalyth’s hands itched. Destinies were drawing close. I will find my hands of fire, and we will use you, Sag’Churok. You and Gunth Mach and all your kind. We will show you the horrors of the modern world you so want to be a part of.
She thought of their dread enemy, the faceless killers of the K’Chain Che’Malle. She wondered at this genocidal war, and suspected it was, in its essence, no different from the war humans had been engaged in for all time. It is the same, but it is also different. It is . . . naïve.
