Jatal stood immobile for a very long time indeed. A scattering of sand announced a spiny lizard scampering over one of his boots. He’d heard the foreign word ‘poleaxed’ and now he believed he finally understood. What Andanii proposed – proposed! – amounted to nothing less than the union of their two families. A union through their betrothal.
Now a strange dizziness assaulted him, and not just from the consideration of her obvious charms. Should they succeed in such a plan all the Adwami lands would be theirs. Only the total combined forces of all the rest of the families could possibly oppose them. And knowing the Adwami as he did, the possibility of such a grand alliance was virtually nil. As his foreign tutors had taught him of realpolitik: in such cases what usually happens is that a third of the remaining families will come out against, justly fearing the looming hegemony; another third will temporize, waiting to see which side appears to be gaining the upper hand; while the remaining third will overtly oppose yet at the same time send secret envoys pledging their loyalty in return for positions of preference in the coming hegemony. Apparently, such a sad tally was how things shook themselves out everywhere, not just among the patchwork of traditional hatreds, alliances and ongoing feuds that was Adwami politics.
He mounted absentmindedly, almost blind to his immediate surroundings, and urged Ash back south. As the shadows gathered among the walls of the canyons around him a further insight from Andanii’s words struck him like a wash of cold rain.
His brothers. She said she’d met a few and was glad he’d been sent.
Meaning … what? That he was unlike them.
Meaning that … she might have made the same proposal to one or more of them.
And they had turned her down.
He reeled in his saddle then, fighting the revolted convulsion of his stomach. Gods of our ancestors! Was that the way of it? Who was in the right? Were his elder brothers correct to have spurned her as an enemy? Was he the weak-willed puppet to deliver the Hafinaj into the hands of the Vehajarwi?
Or was it the reverse? They the mulish slaves to tradition, blind to daring new opportunities?
Ash, his favourite, sensed his inattention and slowed to a halt. Jatal pressed a sleeve against his chilled sweaty brow. Ye gods … that is the problem, isn’t it? How can one ever be certain which is the case?
* * *
In the dim light of the morning Murk warmed his aching bones at one of the driftwood fires the mercenary troops had thrown together. From his years of travel with an army it occurred to him that these warm lands always had the coldest nights. That just wasn’t fair at all. A passing mercenary pressed a stoneware mug of steaming tea into his hand and this small act confirmed his suspicions regarding this band: imperial veterans all, cashiered or deserted. The experienced troopers always took care of the mage cadre. That, he realized, was his and Sour’s position once again. Back to their second career. Such regard came with obligations, though. Always an even trade. Maybe this lot were Fourth or Eighth Army. If they’d been Fifth he’d know them. Or they’d know him.
Sour appeared, groaning and snuffling. Another mug of tea appeared for him. Their employer walked up soon after. To Murk’s satisfaction she looked rather less elegantly made up today. Her long dark hair was braided and pulled back tight. And she now wore a much more functional leather gambeson. Her tall leather boots had lost their polish. The labours of yesterday also showed in the dark circles under her eyes, her lined brow and her squinting pinched expression.
With typical imperiousness she curtly waved them to her.
‘Bad feelings ’bout this,’ Sour murmured under his breath.
‘You know,’ Murk answered, suddenly sick of his friend’s constant single note, ‘one of these days – why don’t you try surprising me?’
That silenced the squat bandy-legged fellow for a time. Until he rubbed dirty fingers on his brow leaving a long soot smear and cocked his head, puzzled. ‘Like how?’
Yusen joined them, and again Murk had to suppress an urge to salute. The captain wore an iron helmet complete with nasal bar and a long blackened camail that hung to his shoulders. A banded iron hauberk, mail skirting and greaves completed his gear. The shaded pale eyes holding on Spite did not appear pleased. She nodded to him and he raised a hand in the Malazan sign: move out.
The troopers all about grunted, rising, and heaved up their packs of gear. Murk noted that almost all were accoutred as heavy infantry, with large shields, short thrusting weapons and crossbows. They appeared to move together as an experienced unit. A mercenary troop of cashiered vets all from the same division? What was the likelihood of that?
Their employer motioned for him and Sour to accompany her.
‘What’s up, Miss Spite?’ Sour asked.
Her smoky gaze slid sideways to the poor fellow and Murk winced at the heat of that glare.
‘It’s what’s down, actually.’
‘Oh?’ Murk asked, as if disinterested. ‘What?’
‘Us.’
Sour’s face wrinkled up all puzzled once more. Then he scowled. ‘I don’t like the—’
Murk threw up a hand for silence. ‘We didn’t sign up for some sort of tomb robbery.’
The dismissive gaze shifted to him and Murk was startled to glimpse for an instant how the pupils churned like liquid magma only to flit to black once again in a blink. ‘You signed up with me, little man, and that is that.’ She smiled a straight savage slash. ‘You do as I say or I’ll hunt you down and slit you open like a pig, yes?’
He inclined his head in acceptance of the warning. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Sour shot him his I told you so look.
As they tramped between the rows of stone pillars, the barrier Spite raised yesterday hove into view flickering and shimmering ahead. Sour’s gaze moved significantly to the mercenaries following along. Murk knew the Warren-laid barrier of wards and snares was invisible to them and that without warning they would walk right into it: to their deaths if Spite had woven it so. Of course, she wouldn’t have brought them all this distance only to slay them, but still he couldn’t help holding his breath and stiffening as they all passed through the barrier. Within lay the inner ring of the standing dolmens and the flat central plaza of featureless white sand and gravel.
She turned to Yusen. ‘Start your soldiers digging around the bases of these pillars.’ He nodded and went to organize his troop. ‘You two. You’re with me.’
‘Yes, your Spitefulness,’ Sour answered.
Her response was a humourless predatory smile. She led them aside then snapped out an arm to indicate the plain of coarse sands. ‘You two are supposed to be thieves – find me a way into that.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Murk answered before his partner could come out with something else.
She stalked off. Murk sat himself down against a dolmen. Sour took another one, grumbling under his breath. ‘Knew we shouldn’t a taken the damned job.’
‘Kind of late now, mister prescient.’
‘You want my help or not?’
‘You know the drill.’
Sour kept grumbling but crossed his legs and rested his arms on his lap, squinting his eyes closed. Murk drove himself to likewise relax, though it was a forced sort of poise, the kind that usually accompanied the tension of battle. ‘Forced calm’, the magery schools called it. An acquired skill necessary for any battle mage. When his mind had stilled sufficiently he summoned his Warren and opened his eyes to regard the location through Meanas.
And almost walked away right then and there.
‘Queen’s tits!’ Sour grunted next to him.
Murk growled his awed assent. Before them the inner circular plaza of sand was not the flat calm it appeared in the mundane world. The pit, for it was a pit – a hole that opened on to the bottomless Abyss itself – roiled and stirred, agitated by something contained within. But that was as nothing compared to the storm of Warren-energies that lanced and flickered about the construct in a near-constant release of dea
dly charges. Coiled lightning-like ropes sizzled and whipped, anchored from each and every standing dolmen, and converged on whatever lay ensnared, imprisoned, at the very centre.
‘Do you know what this is…’ Sour murmured beneath his breath as if afraid to mention it aloud even here within a Warren.
‘Yes.’ Neither of them had ever seen one, of course. But among mages they were legendary. What they were looking at was a Chaining. A prison constructed by an assemblage of the world’s most powerful practitioners of any one age: Ascendants, mages, some say even gods themselves. All to contain the various scattered fragments of the Shattered God – not coincidentally also known as the Chained God.
‘We ain’t up to this,’ Sour hissed, and for once Murk heartily agreed. ‘We are pissing in too many ponds.’
‘Yeah … I get it.’
‘Gonna get our—’
‘Yes! All right! Trying to think here.’ Could just sneak in and out. No need to broadcast. These constructs ain’t made to keep things out. Rather the reverse, in actual fact. ‘What does the queen of soothsayers say?’
‘Doesn’t like me being here.’
‘That’s it? Nothing stronger?’
Vexation glowed from the presence of his partner. ‘What’d you mean? We’re all free to do as we choose! None of us is slaves. What about Ammanas?’
‘Same,’ Murk answered, his thoughts elsewhere. ‘Could put the boot to this right now if he wanted … so, either he approves, or, like you said … we really are free to choose…’
‘I think your boy just plans for everything,’ Sour grumbled, ‘that’s what I think.’
‘As if yours doesn’t.’
‘I think she just makes it her business to know the players and follows the odds.’
‘That doesn’t sound so reverent.’
‘She never asked for no worship.’
Murk grunted his assent then cleared his throat. ‘Well, that’s enough hemming and hawing, don’t you think?’
Sour stood, stretching. ‘Yeah, s’pose so…’
‘Let’s have a look.’ Following the paths of Shadow, Murk stepped into the construct. As was their usual arrangement, his partner monitored his progress by way of the Warren of Thyr. Murk carefully edged between the twisting coiled power ‘chains’ where they spread to be anchored at each dolmen. Touching one, he knew, would diffuse him into nothingness. He walked a full circuit of the construct.
For an instant he froze as a new vision out of Meanas superimposed itself upon the scene before him: that of another, similar construct, its enormous fetters lying shattered before dissolving to be swept away as if by some unseen wind. It took a moment for him to gather his composure after that, but eventually he managed to calm his pulse enough to continue on.
He returned to Sour and the two shared a nod of understanding. They lowered their Warrens and went to find Spite.
She was squatting, her back to them, next to a pit dug around one of the dolmens. Murk heard a whimper from Sour where he stood with his knuckles jammed into his mouth. Murk resisted elbowing the man: the sweeping double curve presented was breathtaking.
She straightened, facing them, brushing the sand from her hands. ‘Well?’
‘You can get in,’ Murk said, ‘but can you get out?’
‘You leave that to me.’
‘What’s with the digging?’
‘Have to break the bindings.’
Murk shook a negative. ‘No. It’s suspended over the Abyss. Break the bonds and it’s lost for ever.’
The rumbling growl that escaped Spite did not sound human. Murk felt the tiny hairs of his forearms straightening in atavistic fear.
‘It’s like one of them trick musical instruments,’ Sour said.
Both Murk and Spite eyed the squat fellow with his matted unwashed hair, scrunched-up frog-face, and one squinted eye higher than the other. ‘A what?’ Murk asked.
‘A conun-drum,’ he said with a grin.
Murk stared anew, studying the man. By all the gods … sometimes I wonder, I really do.
Spite’s eyes seethed now, almost roiling with a deep crimson glow as she regarded the plaza. ‘What if we left two in place? I might manage against two.’
Murk tilted his head, considering. ‘Maybe. Opposite tendrils.’
‘Yes, good. Can you break the bonds?’
‘Have to give a look. Sour here might be better at that than I.’
Her scepticism couldn’t have been more obvious. ‘Really? Well, get to it.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
After Spite stalked off Yusen approached. ‘What’s the word?’
‘Sour and I are gonna give the dolmens a poke.’ The man’s frowned disapproval vexed Murk. ‘What did you expect? You took the job.’
‘I’ll earn my pay, mage. Don’t have to like it.’
‘Yeah, well, life’s tough all over.’
A ghost of a smile flitted across the officer’s face. ‘That’s my line.’ He gestured to nearby troopers. ‘Ostler, Tanner, Dee … you’re with these two.’
That’s better. We ain’t dead yet.
* * *
The view from one of the windows of the Dead House offered a prospect on the harbour and the dark waters of Malaz Bay beyond. Osserc preferred this view. Such a preference was, he could admit, all too human of him. He had slipped now into his elder, slimmer version of the Tiste form. He allowed himself such an indulgence, for, having succeeded in one long-blunted ambition, that of penetrating the Azath, he now felt another all too human emotion … that of a vague troubling dissatisfaction.
He let out a long breath, sending cobwebs fluttering across the glazing. Now he must face the mountain of smugness waiting downstairs and sit himself before him and endure the predictable ritual of the petitioner before the possessor.
It was, to be frank, all too exquisitely distasteful. And he would rather die. Almost.
His mouth hardening, he turned. Enough. The inevitable awaits, as it so prosaically does. And he would face it. Was that not his strength? Accepting what must come – what cannot be avoided? So he had thought … once.
The stairs creaked beneath his feet. In the main hall the only source of light was a fire burning in a stone hearth at one end. At the long battered main table waited the House’s current … what? Resident? Custodian? Curator? Curse? Or just plain servant? He did not know, not having been accepted among the Azath in the usual manner. As was his manner. Not the usual, that is.
All the appearance was, of course, an illusion – only the inner essence being real. He regarded the fellow hunched at the table, amber firelight flickering from coarse iron-grey hair, lined green-tinged skin and prominent thrusting tusks. A Jaghut, and not just any Jaghut. Gothos himself, hoary old teller of tales and self-appointed judge of all. Once known, appropriately enough, as the Lord of Hate.
He sat opposite. The figure did not stir, though Osserc glimpsed the shimmer of light within the eyes hidden by their cascade of wiry hair. Osserc crossed his legs, set one hand atop the other on one knee, and exhaled a long tired breath.
The two regarded one another in silence for some time after that exhalation. The fire continued to burn, though neither stirred to feed it. At length Osserc inhaled through his nose and plucked a bit of dust from his trousers. ‘Is this all there is, then,’ he offered as a statement. ‘Disappointing.’
Gothos’ habitual sour expression deepened even further. ‘You disappoint me. How conceited to think that existence should arrange itself merely to be interesting to you.’
Osserc clenched his teeth so tightly he heard them creak. After a time he managed to loosen his jaws enough to grate his answer. ‘Such was not my expectation, I assure you. Yet still. One must admit to the … mundaneness of it.’
Now the wide hunched shoulders fell even further and Gothos slouched back against the high-backed chair. He shook his head in exaggerated frustration. ‘The mere fact that you sought does not somehow call into being that which you sought. O
r imply that there should be anything to seek at all. Typical backwards thinking.’ A clawed hand rose to wave as if dispersing smoke or fumes. ‘Positing a question does not magically create an answer.’
Lips tight, Osserc snapped his gaze to the murky ceiling. His entwined clenched fingers shook until they became numb. Eventually he mastered himself enough to clear his throat and say, slow and thick, ‘You try my patience, Gothos.’
Now a one-sided smile crept up the Jaghut’s lips and the hidden gaze seemed to sharpen. ‘Really? I rather hoped to break it.’
‘Break it? Or exhaust it?’
A slow shrug of the shoulders. ‘The choice is yours – as the way out is through me.’
‘Through you? You mean that to leave I must twist your arm, or some such childishness?’
Gothos inspected the blackened nails of one hand, each broken and striated. ‘If that is the best you can think of … but I’d rather hoped for more from you. But be that as it may. The way is open. You may go whenever you should choose. As has been the case since you entered, of course. However…’ and he shrugged again.
Osserc’s answering smile was as brittle as old dead branches. ‘I see. I may go … but without any answers.’ Gothos merely stared back. Osserc settled into his chair. Once more he eased his hands one on the top of the other over his crossed legs. ‘I understand. We must face one another until you relinquish what you know. Very well. You were foolish to enter into this with me, Gothos. The will of any other you would crush. But not mine.’
To this Gothos, as was his wont, gave no answer.
The fire continued to burn though neither stirred to feed it.
* * *
The great lumbering beast that was the army of the Thaumaturgs lurched onward, threading east through the jagged mounts that stood like rotten bones from the forest canopy, and Cohort Leader Pon-lor watched it go.
After the ordered columns of soldiers came the roped human chains of bearers, their feet great lumps of black mud, hunched almost double beneath their massive loads, hands clutching the cloth bindings that supported the fat baskets and boxes and ran round as tumplines to their heads. Then came the supply train of carts and further bearers and labourers, all conveying the necessary materiel and services of an army on the march in hostile territory: the small portable smithies, the various messes, the infirmaries, and behind them yet more tramping bearers bringing along even further materiel and supplies. With this sauntering mass came a second army – the camp followers. Wives and husbands and children of officers and soldiers, and surgeons and clerks and tradesmen. Plus their mistresses and prostitutes. And their soothsayers, petty traders and merchants, unsanctioned private healers, minor apothecaries, arrack and palm-wine tappers, professional gamblers, singers, dancers and thieves.
The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail) (Novels of the Malazan Empire) Page 272
