Dust of Dreams

by Erikson, Steven

  The servants poured the last offering, which to Tanakalian’s eyes looked like simple water, although of course by now that observation was not as reassuring as he would have preferred. A final cleansing, yes, from the Royal Well that holds the bones of a hundred mouldering kings! Delicious!

  ‘Spring water,’ said the Chancellor, his gentle tones somewhat strained, ‘lest in our many words we should grow thirsty. Please, now, let us take our seats. Once our words are completed, we shall dine on the finest foods the kingdom has to offer.’

  Sixth son’s testicles! Third daughter’s left breast!

  Tanakalian could almost hear Krughava’s inner groan.

  The sun was low when the final farewells were uttered and the two barbarians marched back down to their launch. Chancellor Rava and Conquestor Avalt escorted the Perish for precisely half the distance, where they waited until that clumsy skiff was pushed off the sands where it wallowed about before the rowers found their rhythm, and then the two dignitaries turned about and walked casually back towards the pavilion.

  ‘Curious, wasn’t it?’ Rava murmured. ‘This mad need of theirs to venture east.’

  ‘All warnings unheeded,’ Avalt said, shaking his head.

  ‘What will you say to old Tarkulf?’ the Chancellor asked.

  The Conquestor shrugged. ‘To give the fools whatever they need, of course, with a minimum of haggling on price. I will also advise we hire a salvage fleet from Deal, to follow in the wake of their ships. At least as far as the edge of the Pelasiar Sea.’

  Rava grunted. ‘Excellent notion, Avalt.’

  They strolled into the pavilion, made their way down the corridor and returned to the main chamber, secure once more in the presence of servants whose eardrums had been punctured and tongues carved out—although there was always the chance of lip-reading spies, meaning of course that these four hapless creatures would have to die before the sun had set.

  ‘This land-based force of theirs to cross the kingdom with,’ Rava said, sitting down once more, ‘do you foresee any problem?’

  Avalt collected the second decanter and poured some more wine. ‘No. These Perish place much value in honour. They will stay true to their word, at least on the march out. Those that make it back from the Wastelands—assuming any do—will be in no position to do much besides submitting to our will. We will strip the survivors of any valuables and sell them on as castrated slaves to the D’rhesh.’

  Rava made a face. ‘So long as Tarkulf never finds out. We were caught completely unawares when those allies of the Perish ran headlong into our forces.’

  Avalt nodded, recalling the sudden encounter during the long march towards the border of the Lether Empire. If the Perish were barbaric, then the Khundryl Burned Tears were barely human. But Tarkulf—damn his scaly crocodile hide—had taken a liking to them, and that was when this entire nightmare began. Nothing worse, in Avalt’s opinion, than a king deciding to lead his own army. Every night scores of spies and assassins had waged a vicious but mostly silent war in the camps. Every morning the nearby swamps were filled with corpses and squalling carrion birds. And there stood Tarkulf, breathing deep the night-chilled air and smiling at the cloudless sky—the raving, blessedly thick-headed fool.

  Well, thank the nine-headed goddess the King was back in his palace, sucking the bones of frog legs, and the Burned Tears were encamped across the river-bed just beyond the northeast marches, dying of marsh fever and whatnot.

  Rava drained his wine and then poured some more. ‘Did you see her face, Avalt?’

  The Conquestor nodded. ‘Still-births … fourteenth daughter’s blood … you always had a fertile, if vaguely nasty imagination, Rava.’

  ‘Belt juice is an acquired taste, Avalt. Strangers rarely take to it. I admit, I was reluctantly impressed that neither one actually gagged on the vile stuff.’

  ‘Wait until it shows up in any new scars they happen to suffer.’

  ‘That reminds me—where was their Destriant? I fully expected their High Priest would have accompanied them.’

  Rava shrugged. ‘For the moment, we cannot infiltrate their ranks, so that question cannot yet be answered. Once they come ashore and enter our kingdom, we’ll have plenty of camp followers and bearers and we will glean all we need to know.’

  Avalt leaned back, and then shot the Chancellor a glance. ‘The fourteenth? Felash, yes? Why her, Rava?’

  ‘The bitch spurned my advances.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just steal her?’

  Rava’s wrinkled face twisted. ‘I tried. Heed this warning, Conquestor, do not try getting past a Royal blood’s handmaidens—the cruellest assassins this world has ever seen. Word got back to me, of course … three days and four nights of the most despicable torture of my agents. And the bitches had the temerity to send me a bottle of their pickled eyeballs. Brazen!’

  ‘Have you retaliated?’ Avalt asked, taking a drink to disguise his shiver of horror.

  ‘Of course not. I overreached, casting my lust upon her. Lesson succinctly delivered. Heed that as well, my young warrior. Not every slap of the hand should ignite a messy feud.’

  ‘I heed everything you say, my friend.’

  They drank again, each with his own thoughts.

  Which was just as well.

  The servant standing behind and to the right of the Chancellor was making peace with his personal god, having worked hard at exchanging the blink code with his fellow spy across the table from him, and well knowing that he was about to have his throat slit wide open. In the interval when the two snakes were escorting the Perish down to their boat, he had passed on to a plate-bearer a cogent account of everything that had been said in the chamber, and that woman was now preparing to set out this very night on her perilous return journey to the capital.

  Perhaps Chancellor Rava, having overreached, was content to accept the grisly lesson of his temerity, as delivered by Lady Felash’s torturers upon his clumsy agents. The Lady, alas, was not.

  It was said that Rava’s penis had all the lure of an eviscerated snake belly. The very thought of that worm creeping up her thigh was enough to send the fourteenth daughter of the King into a sizzling rage of indignation. No, she had only begun delivering her lessons to the hoary old Chancellor.

  In the tiny kingdom of Bolkando, life was an adventure.

  Yan Tovis was of a mind to complete the ghastly slaughter her brother had begun, although it was questionable whether she’d succeed, given the blistering, frantic fury of Pully and Skwish as they spat and cursed and danced out fragments of murder steps, sending streams of piss in every direction until the hide walls of the hut were wine-dark with the deluge. Twilight’s own riding boots were similarly splashed, although better suited to shed such effrontery. Her patience, however, was not so immune.

  ‘Enough of this!’

  Two twisted faces snapped round to glare at her. ‘We must hunt him down!’ snarled Pully. ‘Blood curses! Rat poisons, thorn fish. Nine nights in pain! Nine an’ nine amore!’

  ‘He is banished,’ said Yan Tovis. ‘The matter is closed.’

  Skwish coughed up phlegm and, snapping her head round, sent it splatting against the wall just to the left of Twilight. Growling, Yan Tovis reached for her sword.

  ‘Accident!’ shrieked Pully, lunging to collide with her sister, and then pushing the suddenly pale witch back.

  Yan Tovis struggled against unsheathing the weapon. She hated getting angry, hated that loss of control, especially since once it was awakened in her, it was almost impossible to rein in. At this moment, she was at the very edge of rage. One more insult—by the Errant, an unguarded expression—and she would kill them both.

  Pully had wits enough to recognize the threat, it was clear, since she continued pushing Skwish back, until they were both against the far wall, and then she pitched round, head bobbing. ‘R’grets, Queen, umbeliss r’grets. Grief, an’ I’m sure, grief, Highness, an’ it may be that shock has the sting a venom in these old veins.
Pologies, fra me and Skwish. Terrible tale, terrible tale!’

  Yan Tovis managed to release the grip of her longsword. In bleak tones she said, ‘We have no time for all this. The Shake has lost its coven, barring you two. And it has lost its Watch. There are but the three of us now. A queen and two witches. We need to discuss what we must do.’

  ‘An’ it says,’ said Pully, vigorously nodding, ‘an’ it says the sea is blind t’the shore an’ as blind to the Shake, and the sea, it does rises. It does rises, Highness. The sixth prophecy—’

  ‘Sixth prophecy!’ hissed Skwish, pushing her way round her sister and glaring at Yan Tovis. ‘What of th’fifteenth prophecy? The Night of Kin’s Blood! “And it rises and the shore will drown, all in a night tears into water and the world runs red! Kin upon kin, slaughter marks the Shake and the Shake shall drown! In the unbreathing air.” And what could be more unbreathing than the sea? Your brother has killed us all an us all!’

  ‘Banished,’ said Twilight, her tone flat. ‘I have no brother.’

  ‘We need a king!’ wailed Skwish, pulling at her hair.

  ‘We do not!’

  The two witches froze, frightened by her ferocity, shocked by her words.

  Yan Tovis drew a deep breath—there was no hiding the tremble in her hands, the extremity of her fury. ‘I am not blind to the sea,’ she said. ‘No—listen to me, both of you! Be silent and just listen! The water is indeed rising. That fact is undeniable. The shore drowns—even as half the prophecies proclaim. I am not so foolish as to ignore the wisdom of the ancient seers. The Shake are in trouble. It falls to us, to me, to you, to find a way through. For our people. Our feuding must end—but if you cannot set aside all that has happened, and do it now, then you leave me no choice but to banish you both.’ Even as she uttered the word ‘banish’ she saw—with no little satisfaction—that both witches had heard something different, something far more savage and final.

  Skwish licked her withered lips, and then seemed to sag against the hut’s wall. ‘We muss flee th’shore, Queen.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We muss leave. Pu’a’call out t’the island, gather all the Shake. We muss an’ again we muss begin our last journey.’

  ‘As prophesized,’ whispered Pully. ‘Our lass journey.’

  ‘Yes. Now the villagers are burying the bodies—they need you to speak the closing prayers. And then I shall see to the ships—I will go myself back out to Third Maiden Isle—we need to arrange an evacuation.’

  ‘Of the Shake only y’mean!’

  ‘No, Pully. That damned island is going to be inundated. We take everyone with us.’

  ‘Scummy prizzners!’

  ‘Murderers, slackers, dirt-spitters, hole-plungers!’

  Yan Tovis glared at the two hags. ‘Nonetheless.’

  Neither one could hold her gaze, and after a moment Skwish started edging towards the doorway. ‘Prayers an’ yes, prayers. Fra th’dead coven, fra all th’Shake an’ th’shore.’

  Once Skwish had darted out of sight, Pully sketched a ghastly curtsy and then hastened after her sister.

  Alone once more, Yan Tovis collapsed down into the saddle-stool that passed for her throne. She so wanted to weep. In frustration, in outrage and in anguish. No, she wanted to weep for herself. The loss of a brother—again—again.

  Oh. Damn you, Yedan.

  Even more distressing, she thought she understood his motivations. In one blood-drenched night, the Watch had obliterated a dozen deadly conspiracies, each one intended to bring her down. How could she hate him for that?

  But I can. For you no longer stand at my side, brother. Now, when the Shore drowns. Now, when I need you most.

  Well, it served no one for the Queen to weep. True twilight was not a time for pity, after all. Regrets, perhaps, but not pity.

  And if all the ancient prophecies were true?

  Then her Shake, broken, decimated and lost, were destined to change the world.

  And I must lead them. Flanked by two treacherous witches. I must lead my people—away from the shore.

  With the arrival of darkness, two dragons lifted into the night sky, one bone-white, the other seeming to blaze with some unquenchable fire beneath its gilt scales. They circled once round the scatter of flickering hearths that marked the Imass encampment, and then winged eastward.

  In their wake a man stood on a hill, watching until they were lost to his sight. After a time a second figure joined him.

  If they wept the darkness held that truth close to its heart.

  From somewhere in the hills an emlava coughed in triumph, announcing to the world that it had made a kill. Hot blood soaked the ground, eyes glazed over, and something that had lived free lived no more.

  Chapter Three

  On this the last day the tyrant told the truth

  His child who had walked from the dark world

  Now rose as a banner before his father’s walls

  And flames mocked like celebrants from every window

  A thousand thousand handfuls of ash upon the scene

  It is said that blood holds neither memory nor loyalty

  On this the last day the tyrant thus beheld a truth

  The son was born in a dark room to womanly cries

  And walked a dark keep along halls echoing pain

  Only to flee on a moonless night beneath the cowl

  Of his master’s weighted fist and ravaging face

  The beget proved to all that a shadow stretches far

  Only to march back to its dire maker ever deepening

  Its matching desire and this truth is plain as it is blind

  Tyrants and saints alike must fall to the ground

  In their last breaths taken in turn by the shadow

  Of their final repose where truth holds them fast

  On a bed of stone.

  THE SUN WALKS FAR

  RESTLO FARAN

  Y

  our kisses make my lips numb.’

  ‘It’s the cloves,’ Shurq Elalle replied, sitting up on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Got a toothache?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’ Scanning the clothing littering the floor, she spied her leggings and reached over to collect them. ‘You marching soon?’

  ‘We are? I suppose so. The Adjunct’s not one to let us know her plans.’

  ‘Commander’s privilege.’ She rose to tug the leggings up, frowning as she wriggled—was she getting fat? Was that even possible?

  ‘Now there’s a sweet dance. I’m of a mind to just lean forward here and—’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, love.’

  ‘Why not?’

  You’ll get yourself a numb face. ‘Ah, a woman needs her secrets.’ Well, this one does, at least.

  ‘I’m also of a mind to stay right here,’ the Malazan said.

  Leaning far over to lace up her boots, Shurq scowled. ‘It’s not even midnight, Captain. I wasn’t planning on a quiet evening at home.’

  ‘You’re insatiable. Why, if I was half the man I’d like to be …’

  She smiled. It was hard being annoyed with this one. She’d even grown used to that broad waxed moustache beneath his misshapen nose. But he was right about her in ways even he couldn’t imagine. Insatiable indeed. She tugged on the deerhide jerkin and tightened the straps beneath her breasts.

  ‘Careful, you don’t want to constrict your breathing, Shurq. Hood knows, the fashions hereabouts all seem designed to emasculate women—would that be the right word? Emasculate? Everything seems designed to imprison you, your spirit, as if a woman’s freedom was some kind of threat.’

  ‘All self-imposed, sweetie,’ she replied, clasping her weapon belt and then collecting her cape from where it lay in a heap on the floor. She shook it out. ‘Take ten women, all best friends. Watch one get married. Before you know it she’s top of the pile, sitting smug and superior on her marital throne. And before long every woman in that gaggle’s on the hunt for a husband.’ She swung the cape
behind her and fastened the clasps at her shoulders. ‘And Queen Perfect Bitch sits up there nodding her approval.’

  ‘History? My my. Anyway, that doesn’t last.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Sure. It’s sweet blossoms until her husband runs off with one of those best friends.’

  She snorted and then cursed. ‘Damn you, I told you not to make me laugh.’

  ‘Nothing will crack the perfection of your face, Shurq Elalle.’

  ‘You know what they say—age stalks us all, Ruthan Gudd.’

  ‘Some old hag hunting you down? No sign of that.’

  She made her way to the door. ‘You’re lovely, Ruthan, even when you’re full of crap. My point was, most women don’t like each other. Not really, not in the general sense. If one ends up wearing chains, she’ll paint them gold and exhaust herself scheming to see chains on every other woman. It’s our innate nasty streak. Lock up when you leave.’

  ‘As I said—I intend staying the night.’

  Something in his tone made her turn round. Her immediate reaction was to simply kick him out, if only to emphasize the fact that he was a guest, not an Errant-damned member of the household. But she’d heard a whisper of iron beneath the man’s words. ‘Problems in the Malazan compound, Captain?’

  ‘There’s an adept in the marines …’

  ‘Adept at what? Should you introduce him to me?’

  His gaze flicked away, and he slowly edged up in the bed to rest his back against the headboard. ‘Our version of a caster of the Tiles. Anyway, the Adjunct has ordered a … a casting. Tonight. Starting about now.’

  ‘And?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Maybe I’m just superstitious, but the idea’s given me a state of the nerves.’

  No wonder you were so energetic. ‘And you want to stay as far away as possible.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘All right, Ruthan. I should be back before dawn, I hope. We can breakfast together.’

  ‘Thanks, Shurq. Oh, have fun and don’t wear yourself out.’

  Little chance of that, love. ‘Get your rest,’ she said, opening the door. ‘Come the morning you’ll need it.’

  Always give them something before leaving. Something to feed anticipation, since anticipation so well served to blind a man to certain obvious discrepancies in, uh, appetite. She descended the stairs. Cloves. Ridiculous. Another visit to Selush was required. Shurq Elalle’s present level of maintenance was proving increasingly complicated, not to mention egregiously expensive.