Night of Knives

by Ian C. Esslemont

  Betrayed. The last assault on Y’Ghatan all over again. He hadn’t learned a damned thing. Temper threw back his head and howled an incandescent rage so consuming that every fibre of his body seemed to take flame.

  Agayla and Obo occupied a point of rock suspended within a channel of raw streaming power. The surf had risen over the strand, punishing the rocks above. The wind lashed sleet at them, yet it parted before their small circle of calm like dust brushed aside. Overhead, a roof of clouds skimmed the hilltops, eclipsing the sky, and extended inland to enshroud the island. To the distant south thunderheads towered ever higher, roiling and billowing, lancing the seas in a constant discharge of lightning that lit the lunging dance of the distant Riders.

  A sense of presence behind him brought Obo’s head around. He fixed his gaze on the bare hillside where two figures descended. One motioned for the other to remain among the rocks and continued down alone, his dark robes flapping in the wind. The second moved to shelter in the lee of a tall plinth of rock and squatted, elbows at his knees, his shirt shining wetly. ‘Someone’s comin’.’ Agayla did not respond. Obo turned to her: she sat hunched forward, hands clutched at her head as if to hold it from bursting. ‘Your boy, Agayla. Looks like I lose my bet.’

  She looked up but with eyes empty of understanding. Slowly, awareness awoke within. She blinked, squared her shoulders and pushed herself upright. ‘Good. Very good.’

  As the figure drew near, his bald scalp gleaming, Obo mouthed a curse. ‘So. It’s him. I don’t trust this one. The stink of the Worm clings to him.’

  ‘He is free from all bindings, Obo. I wouldn’t have approached him otherwise.’ She bowed to the newcomer. ‘Greetings, Tayschrenn.’

  Tayschrenn answered the courtesy. ‘Obo,’ he offered. Obo turned his back. Tayschrenn gestured to the south. ‘This is incalculably worse than I imagined.’

  Agayla nodded. ‘We are masking most from the island. Appalling, isn’t it?’

  ‘Reminds me of the Emperor at his most brutal.’

  Obo barked, ‘He was a fool with a sharp stick compared to this!’ He glared at the two of them. When Tayschrenn returned his look, he jerked away to stare south once again. What he saw there made him flinch.

  Tayschrenn took in Agayla’s exhaustion and Obo’s rigid stance; he invited her to sit. ‘You’re losing.’

  Agayla merely gave a tired nod, too worn even to pretend. ‘Yes. Before the dawn we shall fail. That is . . . unless you commit yourself.’

  ‘Yet some force was forestalling this. Where are they?’

  ‘He has been overcome.’

  ‘He?’ One against all this? There is no one. Osserc, perhaps—’

  Obo snorted again.

  Agayla merely massaged her fingers across her brow. ‘Really, Tay. You, above all, should know there are ancient powers, those that see past your and Kellanved’s empire-building as just another pass of season. The paths to Ascendancy are far more varied than you imagine.’ Sighing, Agayla straightened. ‘But now is not the time for that. Surly’s campaign against magery had left him sorely diminished. A fraction of talent remained to draw upon and so he was overwhelmed.’

  ‘She had no way of foreseeing the deeper consequences of her actions.’

  ‘You did.’

  Obo spun around. 7s that so?’

  His face a mask, Tayschrenn clasped his hands at his knees. ‘I did have some presentiment of it, yes. Unease at the alteration of such an age-old balance of power.’ He met Obo’s glare. ‘But I swear upon the Nameless Ones I had no suspicion of anything this profound . . . this . . . perilous.’

  Looking at Agayla, Obo spat. ‘And this is the one you would approach.’

  The strength of the anger that clutched Tayschrenn’s chest in response to Obo’s scorn surprised him; no one treated him in this manner. He had tolerated Kellanved’s mockery and now ignored Surly’s mistaken rivalry, but no one ever spurned him with contempt. From a pocket in the lining of his cloak he drew out a pair of wet kidskin gloves and struggled to slip them over his hands. Clenching and unclenching his fingers, he reflected that Obo was, after all, Obo. The man would slam a door in the face of Hood himself.

  Agayla merely watched, her gaze weighing. Tayschrenn shook the uncomfortable sensation of being judged – and found wanting.

  ‘Yet you allowed it,’ Agayla observed, speculatively.

  Tayschrenn accepted the opening to explain. ‘To have opposed Surly’s orders would have aroused unnecessary suspicion.’

  ‘Suspicion of . . .?’

  ‘Collusion, communication, sympathizing with him.’

  ‘Ah. I see.’ She pushed the strands of wet hair from her face, wiped a hand over her brow. Tayschrenn would have offered a cloth had he anything not already sodden. She sighed, peered up at him. ‘Poor Tayschrenn. One day you will wake up and abandon this petty politicking and manoeuvring. It will burn you so many times, and you will scald so many others before you discover wisdom.’ The woman’s dark eyes probed his awareness. She whispered, ‘You have not yet even journeyed far enough to wonder on the cost, have you?’

  Tayshcrenn stared – never, not since his training in the temple, had anyone brushed aside his defences with such ease. He shook himself. ‘Do you wish my aid or not?’

  ‘That is just it, you see. We may not want your aid.’

  Staggered, Tayschrenn wiped a hand across his mouth. Here stood two powers – yes, he could admit to that, powers – facing annihilation under the heels of an enemy of incalculable might, and they would reject his aid?

  ‘But, the island . . . thousands of souls.’

  ‘Oh, come. More died at the fall of Unta alone. Do not pretend their fate concerns you. No, if we fall then you will have to commit yourself, won’t you?’

  ‘Would I? You say I care nothing for these lives, yet I would commit myself to their defence? I am sorry to disappoint you Agayla. I would stand aside.’

  Obo, silent for so long, snorted his derision at that.

  ‘Oh?’ Agayla breathed, turning her face to the south. ’Would you?’

  Her gaze drew Tayschrenn’s own. What he saw drove all conscious thought from his mind, as if a veil had been ripped aside, and now he saw for the first time the appalling truth of what, to normal senses, resembled a storm-front of unprecedented scale. The weather was the mere side effect of a much more profound battle between contending Realms. Summoning his Thyr Warren, he probed the work of the Stormriders’ mysterious sorcerers, the Wandwielders. It appeared like a curtain of energy, a replica of the shimmering light that sometimes played above the northern night sky. Streaming down from the heights of the atmosphere, it cut a dividing line that, unlike most human theurgical manipulations, did not end at the water but plunged downward through it. With his inner-eye, Tayschrenn followed its dizzying descent and was horrified to see it continue unbroken, down through the depths of the cut into unplumbed crevasses, where he glimpsed a glowing heart of otherworldly ice. A heart that, as he watched, throbbed and swelled. He broke away, dazed by a vertiginous sense of power such as he had known only once before – as a supplicant before his old master, D’rek, the Worm of Autumn that gnaws at the World.

  ‘You may choose to stand aside, Tayschrenn,’ Agayla observed. ‘Malaz would fall, no longer a barrier forestalling the Riders’ expanse. That is the ancient worry, is it not? That free of the confines of the strait, they would dominate the seas? A menace to all?’

  Tayschrenn nodded warily, uncertain of her point. ‘Yes. Of course.’

  Shuddering, she crossed her arms then met Tayschrenn’s gaze squarely. ‘But what if it was not the island itself they sought? Think on it. What sits in Malaz, within a stone’s throw of the shore? What if this was not some mindless storm seeking escape, but a calculated reach for power, for influence?’ She swept an arm out to the horizon-spanning cataclysm of sky and sea. ‘Tell me, Tayschrenn – could the House withstand all this?’

  He stared, stunned. The House? What could it be to th
ese alien beings? Yet. . . what were they to anyone? An enigma. A focal point of power and potentialities. That much was certain: it was possible. Perhaps the island was not simply in their way. Perhaps they wanted it; wanted the prize it held. Tayschrenn damned the sorceress – she and all others aligned with the Enchantress – their eyes saw everywhere. Yet he had to help. He could not risk the alternative she had set before him as, he was certain, she’d known all along.

  ‘Very well, Agayla.’ He bowed his head. ‘You win. You shall have all my strength. Every ounce I possess. The Riders must be contained.’

  ‘Don’t expect me to get all slobbery,’ Obo muttered.

  At first Kiska thought it a dream. A tingling prickled her skin. She felt as if someone were watching her. Slowly, awareness of just where she slept trickled into her thoughts and she snapped awake.

  A dark woman bent over her, hands out as if grasping for her. Kiska jumped to her feet and the woman flinched away, startled. Kiska’s hands flew reflexively to her waist, sleeves, and collar but came away empty. She snarled, arms raised.

  The woman straightened, held out open hands. ‘Hold on, child. You gave me quite a start there.’

  Kiska glanced around. Hattar was gone, as was his weapon belt. Embers glowed in the hearth and the candles had burned low. Her own blade lay sheathed on the table. Someone stood in the doorway: it was the hunchback, the very man who had lent her the weapon.

  ‘I startled you?’ Kiska laughed. She straightened, wincing at the pain that lanced her side and knee.

  The woman was the Napan mercenary mage. She nodded. ‘Yes. You were under a light ward – a healing slumber. I was only testing its strength but you awoke and broke it easily. Your resistance is unusually strong.’

  Kiska snorted, dismissing the woman’s words. What was she really up to? Where was Hattar? Or Tayschrenn, for that matter? ‘Where is everyone? What time is it?’

  The woman knelt to warm her hands at the hearth and, Kiska supposed, to reassure her. ‘We were hoping you could tell us. No one’s here. The hold is empty. And the time?’ She shrugged. ‘After the tenth bell of the night, I believe.’

  Kiska picked up the weapon and tucked it at her side. ‘If you want answers just go upstairs. I’m sure the Claws would be happy to help you.’

  The jangle of steel announced the hunchback’s shambling advance. In the hearth’s faint glow Kiska saw that he wore a rusted and battered steel pot helmet. Armour hung from his bent frame in layers of mail folds with steel scales at the shoulders, chest, stomach and arms. He also carried a long-hafted throwing-axe. Kiska stared, appalled, certain that any normal man would’ve collapsed under that load.

  ‘She means you no harm, lass,’ he growled. ‘Everyone’s gone. What do you know of it?’

  She looked from one to the other. ‘What does it matter? It’s finished. Surly won.’

  The woman flinched. ‘You were there? You saw it?’

  Then Kiska remembered with whom she spoke and her breath caught. ‘Oh, and Ash. I saw him. He’s dead. I’m sorry.’

  The woman brushed back her long hair, sighed. ‘I’m not. The man’s better off dead. He should have died a long time ago. These times were not to his liking. Still, I owed him a great debt.’

  Kiska looked away. ‘Well, I’m glad you’re okay.’

  ‘So you saw him as well?’

  Kiska rubbed her arms to warm them against the unusual cold. She felt chilled and hungry but refreshed, as if she’d slept a full night. Even her knee felt strong, throbbing and stiff, but firm. ‘No. I didn’t see that. But I was there just afterwards. Surly said Kell – that they fell from the balcony, down the cliff. No one could survive that. It’s a hundred fathoms.’

  Lubben and the woman eyed each other, clearly sceptical.

  Stung, Kiska stepped away. ‘It was good enough for Surly. She said it was finished. Even—’ she stopped herself, swallowed. ‘Well, everyone agreed.’ But as she said it, she wondered. Where were Hattar and Tayschrenn? Or Surly? Had Tayschrenn laid that spell upon her – if a spell it had been, as the woman claimed? Had they lied about the end of things? If so, it couldn’t have been because of her presence. No, they must have had other reasons, and no doubt different reasons at that. They may have lied to each other out of habit. The Malazan way, she remembered Tayschrenn whispering with biting irony. And now in the High Mage’s words Kiska heard a measure of self-disgust as well. Rubbing her hands at her sides, she looked away. ‘I guess I don’t know. I thought everything was over.’

  ‘Well it isn’t,’ said the woman, sounding oddly angered. ‘That’s for sure.’ Kiska looked at her, puzzled. ‘There’s an immense disturbance among the Warrens here,’ the woman explained. ‘I can feel it as strongly as the storm breaking over the island. That’s probably where everyone’s gone.’

  ‘The Deadhouse,’ Kiska breathed, remembering Oleg’s words.

  The woman eyed her sharply, taking her measure a second time. ‘Yes. The Deadhouse. All this,’ and she pointed upstairs, ‘was probably nothing more than a diversion. A side show.’

  ‘But all the dead. And Ash, too.’

  The woman turned to the embers. ‘Nothing like a massacre to confirm appearances.’ She took a poker from a stand beside the hearth and raked the remaining coals, spreading them among the ashes. ‘There’s nothing more to learn here, Lubben.’ She spoke with a strength of command that surprised Kiska. ‘We’ll go to the House.’

  Lubben grunted his assent, cradled the axe to his chest. That the independent, cynical hunchback should submit so easily to orders from the woman struck Kiska as very telling. Back at the Inn, she’d acted as if second in command to Ash, who, if Surly was to be believed, had been an officer of the Bridge-burners. She might be of rank equivalent to a company commander herself.

  ‘Take me with you,’ Kiska blurted.

  The woman smiled at Kiska’s eagerness but shook her head. ‘No. It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘I can be of use. I know things.’

  The woman eyed her, tilted her head to one side. ‘Such as?’

  Kiska wet her lips, tried to recall everything important Oleg had said, together with all she suspected herself. ‘I know that we’d have to get there before dawn, but that use of a Warren would be dangerous because the hounds are sensitive to them and might even travel them at will. I know that there’s an event occurring focused on the House. And that,’ she paused, trying to remember the word Oleg had used, ‘that it might be a portal to Shadow—’

  ‘Enough! ’

  Kiska stopped short, surprised. The woman raised a hand apologetically. ‘Sorry. But some knowledge is best not hinted at anywhere at any time.’ She turned away, began pacing. Kiska watched, tense, desperate to press her case, but afraid she might just annoy her.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on her,’ Lubben offered from the darkness beyond the hearth’s meagre glow.

  The woman studied Kiska from the far side of the mantle. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you wish to come, fine. But you’ll do as I say.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your name is Kiska, yes?’

  ‘And yours?’

  She answered with a teasing smile, the black tattooing at her brow wrinkling. ‘Corinn. Now, Kiska: have you ever travelled by Warren?’

  Kiska’s first impulse was to lie, fearing such a lack would end her chances. She shook her head, frustrated by her inexperience.

  Corinn’s lips pursed for an instant, making Kiska’s heart sink, but then she shrugged. ‘Never mind. Just stay close. Lubben, stay to the rear.’

  He grunted, impatient.

  ‘But the hounds?’ Kiska asked.

  Again the smile, daring and spirited. ‘We’ll just have to move quickly.’ She waved a hand. The air shimmered before the hearth, as if hot air billowed from it. Grey streaks appeared, brightening into tatters of purest glimmering silver. These met and fused, creating a floating mirror of mercury that rippled like water.

  From Agayla’s hints, droppe
d here and there, Kiska recognized the Warren as that of Thyr, the Path of Light. She’d heard that the Enchantress, the Queen of Dreams, was supposed to be a practitioner of Thyr.

  Corinn stepped forward and disappeared into the floating oval of quicksilver as if submerging.

  Kiska hesitated, fearful despite her fascination.

  ‘Hurry, lass,’ Lubben urged. ‘It’ll not do to lose her and wander the paths alone forever.’

  Spurred by horror at the thought, Kiska jumped through. Whether Lubben followed she had no idea. It was as if she’d leapt into a hall of mirrors. Reflections of herself and Corinn serried off into infinite distances. Hundreds of Corinns turned, reaching out to her. She stood, unable to move, her heart thudding in panic. Which one was real? Which should she respond to?

  Like a swimmer broaching a lake, a new Corinn emerged from one image of herself. Kiska extended a hand and sighed in relief as it met flesh.

  ‘Where is Lubben?’

  Corinn pulled Kiska on. ‘Everyone walks their own path in Thyr. Now stay close.’

  They strode on without moving, or so it seemed to Kiska. She couldn’t discern any progress at all, yet still Corinn pulled her on. Then, as she studied the passing images of herself, she began to see differences, some slight, others startling. In one she appeared painfully gaunt and wore clothes no better than rags; in another she was maimed, her right arm missing from the elbow. That sent a shudder down through that arm, recalling a wound from a childhood fall. In yet another she wore the dark cloth of a Claw. She almost shouted her amazement.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she called to Corinn, yanking her to a halt. ‘What do all these images mean?’

  Corinn turned, irritation darkening the tattoos at her forehead. ‘You see images?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t you?’

  Corinn raised her brows, impressed. ‘So. You are a natural. Thyr must suit you.’ She urged Kiska on, saying over her shoulder, ‘They are just possibilities – phantasms—pay them no mind. That’s not why we’re here.’