The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

  The man stood unmoving, arms at his sides. ‘I am not here for Challice,’ he said.

  ‘If you want to think it was all your idea, fine. But I should tell you, I know her well – far better than you. She’s been working on you, filling your head – she’s pretty much led you here by the hand, even if you’re too thick to realize it. Of course, she probably didn’t want anyone too smart, since a clever man would have seen through her deadly scheming. A clever man would have walked away. Or run.’

  The man tilted his head slightly. ‘What is the value of all this, Gorlas Vidikas?’

  Gorlas sighed, glanced back at the foreman, who stood watching and listening – yes, something would have to be done about that – and then faced the man once more. ‘Since you’re too much the coward to actually tell me your name, I will just have to slice off your face, to take back to her as proof. Look at you, you’re not even wearing a sword. Foreman! Do we still have Murillio’s rapier? I forget, did that go back with him?’

  ‘Not sure, sir – want me to go and look?’

  ‘Well, find the waif a sword. Anything will do – it’s not as if he knows how to use it in any case. And hurry, before we lose the light and the mob down there gets bored waiting.’ He smiled at the man. ‘They’ve got bloodthirsty of late – my fault, that—’

  ‘Yes, about Murillio…’

  ‘Ah, is that why you’ve come? The duel was fairly fought. He simply could not match my skill.’

  ‘Where is the boy?’

  ‘So he’s the reason you’re here? This is getting difficult to believe. The child’s not some orphaned prince or something, is he? Rather, was he?’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘Yes. He’s dead, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So, still interested?’ Gorlas asked. ‘Of course, that’s not really relevant any more, because I want you to stay. I suppose you can try to run, but I assure you, you’ll be cut down before you get astride that fine horse – a horse I will welcome in my stables. Tell me, are you a better duellist than Murillio was? You’ll have to be. Much better.’

  The foreman had gone halfway down the trail before yelling instructions, and now a youth was scurrying up cradling a sword – not Murillio’s, but something found in one of the workings from the look of it. Thin, tapered to a point that was slightly bent. Iron, at least, but the patina was a thick crust over the blade’s spine, and both edges were severely notched. The handle, Gorlas saw as the foreman – breath wheezing – delivered it, wasn’t even wrapped.

  ‘Sorry about the lack of grip,’ Gorlas said. ‘But really, you should have come prepared.’

  ‘How did it feel,’ the man asked, ‘killing an old man?’

  ‘The duel was fair—’

  ‘Agreed to the death? I doubt that, Vidikas.’

  ‘I dislike the lack of respect in using my last name like that – especially when you won’t even tell me your name.’

  ‘Well, your wife calls you Useless, so if you’d prefer that…’

  Gorlas flung the weapon at the man’s feet, where it skidded in a puff of golden dust. ‘On guard,’ he ordered in a rasp. ‘To the death.’

  The man made no move to pick up the weapon. He stood as he had before, head tipped a fraction to one side.

  ‘You are a coward in truth,’ Gorlas said, drawing his rapier. ‘Cowards do not deserve to be treated with honour, so let us dispense with convention—’

  ‘I was waiting for you to say that.’

  The foreman, standing off to one side, still struggling with the ache in his chest from a labouring heart, was in the process of licking his gritty lips. Before he had finished that instinctive flicker, the scene before him irrevocably changed.

  And Gorlas Vidikas was falling forward, landing hard. His rapier rolled from his hand to catch up in the grass lining the track. Dust puffed up, then slowly settled.

  The stranger – had he even moved? the foreman was unsure – now turned to him and said, ‘You heard him dispense with the rules of the duel, correct?’

  The foreman nodded.

  ‘And, think back now, good sir, did you even once hear me voice a formal challenge?’

  ‘Well, I was part of the way down the trail for a moment—’

  ‘But not beyond range of hearing, I’m sure.’

  ‘Ah, no, unless you did whisper something—’

  ‘Think back. Gorlas was babbling on and on – could I have said anything even if I’d wanted to?’

  ‘True enough, thinking on it.’

  ‘Then are we satisfied here?’

  ‘Ain’t for me to say that either way,’ the foreman replied. ‘It’s the man this one was working for.’

  ‘Who, being absent, will have to rely solely upon your report.’

  ‘Er, I suppose so.’

  The man shrugged. ‘Do as you see fit, then.’ He glanced down into the pit. ‘You get the feeling they’re about to start cheering,’ he said.

  ‘They ain’t decided.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘They ain’t decided if whoever replaces Vidikas is gonna be any better, you see?’

  ‘Because, in their experience, they’re all the same.’

  The foreman nodded. ‘Didn’t think you was nobleborn.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘No, you’re pretty much like them below. Like me, even.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ The man walked to the body of Gorlas Vidikas, bent down to roll it on to its back, and the foreman saw the two knife handles, blades buried to the hilts, jutting from Gorlas’s chest.

  He decided to lick his lips again, and somehow the dust suddenly tasted sweeter. ‘Know anything ’bout property law, by any chance?’

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘Like, if I was paying on a loan to this man—’

  ‘No, no idea. Though I imagine if you just sit tight, maybe wait to see if anybody ever shows up to collect, well, that would hardly be considered illegal. Would it now?’

  ‘No, seems proper enough to me,’ the foreman agreed.

  The man worked the knives back out, wiped the blood off on the stained, rumpled cloak. ‘Did he tell true about Harllo?’

  ‘What? Oh. He did. The lad tried to escape, and was killed.’

  The man sighed, and then straightened. ‘Ah, shit, Murillio,’ he muttered. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Wait – this Harllo – was he that important? I mean—’ and the foreman gestured, to encompass not only the corpse lying on the road, but the one that had been there the day before as well, ‘all this killing. Who was Harllo?’

  The man walked to his horse and swung himself into the saddle. He collected the reins. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said after a moment’s consideration. ‘The way it started, well, it seemed…’ he hesitated, and then said, ‘he was a boy nobody loved.’

  Bitter and scarred as he was, even the foreman winced at that. ‘Most of ’em are, as end up here. Most of ’em are.’

  The man studied him from the saddle.

  The foreman wondered – he didn’t see much in the way of triumph or satisfaction in that face looking down at him. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing, in fact. Whatever it was, it didn’t fit.

  The stranger drew the horse round and set off up the road. Heading back to the city.

  The foreman coughed up a throatful of rank phlegm, then stepped forward and spat down, quite precisely, on to the upturned face of Gorlas Vidikas. Then he turned round. ‘I want three guards and the fastest horses we got!’

  He watched the runner scramble.

  From the pit below rose the occasional snatch of harsh laughter. The foreman understood that well enough, and so he nodded. ‘Damn and below, I’ll give ’em all an extra flagon of ale anyway.’

  Cutter rode for a time as dusk surrendered to darkness. The horse was the first to sense a loss of will, as the rider on its back ceased all efforts at guiding its pace. The beast dropped from a canter to a trot, then a walk, and then it came to rest and stood at
the edge of the road, head lowering to snag a tuft of grass.

  Cutter stared down at his hands, watched as the reins slithered free. And then he began to weep. For Murillio, for a boy he had never met. But most of all, he wept for himself.

  Come to me, my love. Come to me now.

  A short time later, three messengers thundered past – paying him no heed at all. The drum of horse hoofs was slow to fade, and the clouds of dust left in their wake hung suspended, lit only by starlight.

  Venaz the hero, Venaz who followed orders, and if those meant something vicious, even murderous, then that was how it would be. No questions, no qualms. He had returned up top in grim triumph. Another escape thwarted, the message sweetly delivered. Even so, he liked being thorough. In fact, he’d wanted to make sure.

  And so, in keeping with his new privileges as head of the moles, when he collected a knotted climbing rope and set off back into the tunnels, he was not accosted. He could do as he liked now, couldn’t he? And when he returned, carrying whatever proof he could find of the deaths of Bainisk and Harllo, then Gorlas Vidikas would see just how valuable he was, and Venaz would find a new life for himself.

  Good work led to good rewards. A simple enough truth.

  Whatever flood had filled part of the passage deep in the Settle had mostly drained away, easing his trek to the crevasse. When he reached it he crouched at the edge, listening carefully – to make certain that no one was still alive, maybe scuffling about in the pitch blackness down below. Satisfied, he worked Bainisk’s rope off the knob of stone and replaced it with his own, then sent the rest of the coil tumbling over the edge.

  Venaz set his lantern to its lowest setting and tied half a body-length of twine to the handle, and the other end to one ankle. He let the lantern down, and then followed with his legs. He brought both feet together, the rope in between, and edged further over until they rested on a knot. Now, so long as the twine didn’t get fouled with the rope, he’d be fine.

  Moving with great caution, he began his descent.

  Broken, bleeding bodies somewhere below, killed by rocks – not by Venaz, since he’d not even cut the rope. Bainisk had done that, the fool. Still, Venaz could take the credit – nothing wrong with that.

  Even with the knots, the slow going was making his arms and shoulders ache. He didn’t really have to do this. But maybe it would be the one deed that made all the difference in the eyes of Gorlas Vidikas. Nobles looked for certain things, mysterious things. They were born with skills and talents. He needed to show the man as much as he could of his own talents and all that.

  The lantern clunked below him and he looked down to see the faint blush of dull light playing across dry, jagged stones. A few moments later he was standing, somewhat uneasily as the rocks shifted about beneath him. He untied the lantern and put away the twine, and then twisted the wick up a couple of notches. The circle of light widened.

  He saw Bainisk’s feet, the worn soles of the moccasins, the black-spattered shins, both of which were snapped and showing the split ends of bones. But there was no flowing blood. Bainisk was dead as dead come.

  He worked his way closer and stared down at the smashed face, slightly startled by the way it seemed fixed in a smile.

  Venaz crouched. He would collect Bainisk’s belt-pouch, where he kept all his valuables – the small ivory-handled knife that Venaz so coveted; the half-dozen coppers earned as rewards for special tasks; the one silver coin that Bainisk had cherished the most, as it showed on one face a city skyline beneath a rainbow or some sort of huge moon filling the sky – a coin, someone had said, from Darujhistan, but long ago, in the time of the Tyrants. Treasures now belonging to Venaz.

  But he could not find the pouch. He rolled the body over, scanned the blood-smeared rocks beneath and to all sides. No pouch. Not even fragments of string.

  He must have given it to Harllo. Or maybe he’d lost it somewhere back up the passage – if Venaz didn’t find it down here he could make a careful search on his way back up top.

  Now, time to find the other boy, the one he’d hated almost from the first. Always acted like he was smarter than everyone else. It was that look in his eyes, as if he knew he was better, so much better it was easy to be nice to all the stupider people. Easy to smile and say nice things. Easy to be helpful and generous.

  Venaz wandered out from Bainisk’s body. Something was missing – and not just Harllo’s body. And then, after a moment, he realized what it was. The rest of the damned rope, which should have fallen close to the cliff base, close to Bainisk. The damned rope was gone – and so was Harllo.

  He worked his way along the crevasse and after twenty or so steps he reached the edge of the floor, which he discovered wasn’t a floor at all, but a plug, a bridge of fallen rock. The crevasse dropped away an unknown depth, and the air rising from below was hot and dry. Frightened by the realization that he was standing on something that could collapse and fall away at any moment, Venaz hurried back in the other direction.

  Harllo was probably badly hurt. He must have been. Unless…maybe he had been already down, standing, holding the damned rope, just waiting for Bainisk to join him. Venaz found his mouth suddenly dry. He’d been careless. That wouldn’t go down well, would it? This could only work out right if he tracked the runt down and finished him off. The thought sent a cold tremor through him – he’d never actually killed somebody before. Could he even do it? He’d have to, to make everything right.

  The plug sloped slightly upward on the other side of Bainisk’s body, and each chunk of stone was bigger, the spaces between them whistling with winds from below. Terrifying grating sounds accompanied his every tender step.

  Fifteen paces on, another sudden drop-off. Baffled, Venaz worked his way along the edge. He reached the facing wall – the other side of the crevasse – and held high the lantern. In the light he saw an angular fissure, two shelves of bedrock where one side had shifted faster and farther than the other – he could even see where the broken seams continued between the shelves. The drop had been about a body’s height, and the fissure – barely a forearm wide – angled sharply into a kind of chute.

  Bainisk would never have squeezed into that crack. But Harllo could, and did – it was the only way off the plug.

  Venaz retied the lantern, and then forced himself into the fissure. A tight fit. He could only draw half-breaths before the cage of his ribs met solid, unyielding stone. Whimpering, he pushed himself deeper, but not so deep as to get stuck – no, to climb he’d need at least one arm free. By crabbing one leg sideways and squirming with his torso, he moved himself into a position whereby he could hitch himself up in increments. The dry, baked feel of the stone began as a salvation. Had it been wet he would simply have slid back down again and again. Before he’d managed two man-heights, however, he was slick with sweat, and finding streaks of the same above him, attesting to Harllo’s own struggles. And he found that the only way he could hold himself in place between forward hitches was to take the deepest breath he could manage, turning his own chest into a wedge, a plug. The rough, worn fabric of his tunic was rubbing his skin raw.

  How much time passed? How long this near vertical passage? Venaz lost all sense of such details. He was in darkness, a world of stone walls, dry gusts of air along one flank, a right arm that screamed with fatigue. He bled. He oozed sweat. He was a mass of scrapes and gouges. But then the fissure widened in step fractures, each one providing a blessed ledge on which to finally rest his quivering muscles. Widening, becoming a manageable chute. He was able to draw in deep breaths, and the creaking ache of his ribs slowly faded. He continued on, and before long he reached a new stress fracture, this one cutting straight into the bedrock, perpendicular to the chute.

  Venaz hesitated, and then worked his way into it, to see how far it went – and almost instantly he smelled humus, faint and stale, and a little farther in he arrived at an almost horizontal dip where forest detritus had settled. Behind that heady smell there was somethi
ng else – acrid, fresh. He brightened the lantern and held it out before him. A steep slope of scree rose along the passage, and even as he scanned it there was the clatter of stones bouncing down to patter amidst the dried leaves and dead moss.

  He hurried to the base of the slide and peered upward.

  And saw Harllo – no more than twenty man-heights above him, flattened on the scree, pulling himself upward with feeble motions.

  Yes, he had smelled the boy.

  Venaz smiled, and then quickly shuttered the lantern. If Harllo found out he was being chased still, he might try to kick loose a deadly slide of the rubble – of course, if he did that it’d take him down with it. Harllo wasn’t stupid. Any wrong move on this slide and they’d both die. The real risk was when he reached the very top, pulling clear. Then there could be real trouble for Venaz.

  And smell that downward draught – that was fresh, clean air. Smelling of reeds and mud. The lake shore.

  Venaz thought about things, and thought some more. And then settled on a plan. A desperate, risky one. But really, he had no choice. No matter what, Harllo would hear him on this climb. Fine, then, let him.

  He laughed, a low, throaty laugh that he knew would travel up the stones like a hundred serpents, coiling with icy poison round Harllo’s heart. Laughed, and then crooned, ‘Harrrllo! Found youuu!’

  And he heard an answering cry. A squeal like a crippled puppy underfoot, a whimper of bleak terror. And all of this was good.

  Panic was what he wanted. Not the kind that would make the boy scrabble wildly – since that might just send him all the way back down – but the kind that would, once he gained the top, send him flying out into the night, to run and run and run.

  Venaz abandoned the lantern and began climbing.

  The chase was torturous. Like two worms they snaked up the dusty slabs of shale. Desperate flight and pursuit were both trapped in the stuttering beating of hearts, the quaking gasps of needful lungs. All trapped inside, for their limbs could move but slowly, locked in an agonizing tentativeness. Minute slides froze them both, queasy shifts made them spread arms and legs wide, breaths held, eyes squeezed shut.