The captain shook his head. ‘She left orders she wasn’t to be disturbed.’
‘She will receive me. Send word.’
‘No. Her orders were clear. No one.’
No one save the damned Warleader! Jatal gritted his teeth. ‘You cannot forestall me. As commander—’
The captain looked to the men and women of his contingent. His lips drew back in scorn. ‘You command none here among us Vehajarwi.’
Jatal had no idea what to do next. Such an insult demanded a challenge yet that would destroy the alliance. Here, on the very doorstep of their victory. The slap of the man’s disrespect was like ice down his back and he felt a strange calm descend upon him. He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see. You are a loyal dog following your mistress’s command. I understand such devotion.’ He gave the faintest of bows. ‘Another time, then.’
The captain watched him narrowly now, uncertain. He glanced to his fellows as if searching for guidance. Jatal turned and walked away. After he had gone a few paces laughter rang through the night – mockery following some insulting murmured comment, no doubt. The iciness gave way to a burning furnace heat that started somewhere in Jatal’s belly and rose all the way to sear his face and brow. He continued on stiff legs, a strange blurriness to his vision.
They think I will swallow these insults because I am a weakling – scholar, philosopher and poet. Well, we shall see. There will come a time and I will show them who is weak.
* * *
It seemed to Shimmer that the strange creatures of the jungle had lost interest in them. Perhaps she and her companions had lost their novelty; or they had travelled beyond the creatures’ territory; or perhaps they were at last drawing near to Ardata and the hidden city of Jakal Viharn. In any case, when she studied the passing vine-hung jungle she glimpsed only mundane animals among the trees and stands of grasses at the shore.
One afternoon her breath caught as they glided noiselessly past a stand of dense brown grasses and there in the midst a great cat crouched at the shore lapping up a drink. It was fully the size of a pony, coloured tawny brown, with enormous fangs that curved down alongside its muzzle. The fanged cat Rutana had mentioned, she imagined. Such beauty and murderous grace bound together. It galled her, but she had to admit that it reminded her of Skinner.
For a time a troop of bearded monkeys shadowed their progress. They employed all their limbs – tails included – to hang from branches far out over the water to investigate the ship as it drifted by. The vessel’s ghostly silence must have emboldened them. She, K’azz, Amatt, and Cole watched without speaking or moving as the troop clambered down bent limbs to study them with their large liquid brown eyes.
When one reached out a delicate hand to touch the vessel’s side Rutana finally snarled and waved her arms, sending them scattering in a burst of howling shrieking panic. Blazingly bright parakeets and macaws erupted from the nearby cover. They swooped over the river as streaks of snow-white, flaming red and iridescent blue.
‘Damned animals,’ the woman grumbled. ‘I hate them.’
‘Animals in general, or monkeys in particular?’ Shimmer asked.
Rutana just turned away, muttering beneath her breath.
‘We almost had a new crew,’ K’azz commented to Shimmer, startling her: it had been so long since he spoke.
She nodded her agreement. ‘I’ve heard stories of vessels crewed by monkeys. A traveller told of how he’d met someone who swore seeing such a ship arrive in Darujhistan.’
K’azz leaned on the railing. ‘Seeing that would make me wonder more … wherever would such a ship set sail from?’
Shimmer crooked a smile. ‘Why, from the Land of the Monkey-King, of course.’
K’azz inclined his head to the jungle. ‘Something tells me we’re not so far from such a land.’
Shimmer lost her smile. ‘Perhaps not. Monkey-Queen, then?’
‘Queen, yes. Monkeys, no.’
The Serpent rocked then, quite gently, as if brushing over a sandbar, and Shimmer and K’azz shared alarmed glances. They peered over the edge to study the passing murky-ochre waters. Gwynn and Lor-sinn appeared from below. Shimmer noted how the old mage’s white hair had grown to a remarkable extent, hanging about his head and shoulders like a great mane, while Lor-sinn appeared to have lost almost all her plumpness and now stood lean and bony in her oversized robes.
A scouring and grating sounded from below and everyone was jerked forward as the bows jumped upwards and the Serpent came to a sudden halt in midriver. A rotted spar fell from the shard of the forward mast to crash to the deck. Turgal, Cole and Amatt did not even flinch though the wreckage missed them by a bare arm’s length.
‘We are run aground?’ Lor-sinn wondered aloud.
‘In the middle of the channel?’ Rutana answered, derisive.
Shimmer noticed that the jungle surrounding them was very quiet. The birds were silent, and no animal hooted or roared. It was as if everything that lived among the trees and shore was suddenly tensed, listening.
In the spell of suspended motion – Shimmer somehow feeling as if they were still moving – K’azz stepped quietly to Cole’s side. ‘Check the hull,’ he murmured.
The short barrel-shaped swordsman flashed a smile of assent and headed for the companionway. Rutana snapped her fingers for Nagal’s attention then waved to the bow. The unnaturally large man – perhaps, Shimmer speculated, carrying a touch of the ancient Thelomen blood – actually crouched and edged forward as if wary of attack. The sight of that wariness sent a thrill of fear down Shimmer’s spine. What is it they dread?
Cole emerged from below and Shimmer glanced to him then could not look away. The swordsman, almost always ready with a smile or a joke, now stood as if bewildered, confusion and unease wrinkling his face.
‘Yes?’ K’azz urged the man.
‘Hull’s gone in the bottom,’ he murmured, and he rubbed his brow. ‘Looks like it rotted away long ago.’
‘How then—’ Shimmer began but a hiss from Nagal silenced her. He then cast a scathing glare to Rutana who winced and clamped a hand on the amulets tied round her arm and squeezed there, as if massaging a wound. Shimmer dared a step towards the bow and Rutana let out a low snarl of warning: she ignored it and took one more. Closer to the pointed bow she could see that the Serpent had fetched up on some sort of sandbar or bank. Though what such a feature was doing here near the middle of the river she had no idea.
She blew out her breath in disgust. Gods! What are these two on about? She turned to K’azz. ‘It’s just a—’ she was silenced again, this time by Nagal snapping up a hand. He eased the hand down to the water as if inviting her to peer closer. Shimmer leaned out over the side. She squinted to see past the dazzling glimmer of the light on the waves and it seemed to her that the sandbar curved downward, disappearing into the darkness of the river rather than shallowing at its edges. In fact, the obstruction now struck her as the shape of a submerged cylinder, like an immense log of titanic scale, fully as large around as their ship itself. Yet pale as if carved of marble. More detail reached her and she backed away, her hand going to her throat. She turned a mute stare of awe on Rutana.
A smile of savage satisfaction crept up the woman’s lips and she nodded. Oh yes, fool! she seemed to gloat.
For the log or cylinder was not smooth. It was scaled in serried rows and those plate-sized scales pulsed opalescent. It was alive and it was easily of great enough girth to swallow the entire ship.
Slowly, step by step, she eased her way to K’azz’s side. They had all gathered around him. Gwynn’s white hair now stood up as if in utter fright and he carried his staff readied in both hands. Lor-sinn had thrown off her robes and now stood in a thin white silk blouse, the sleeves pushed up her arms. Her Warren was raised, for Shimmer could make out the aura of cobalt mage-fire dancing about her hands and in her eyes. Cole, Turgal and Amatt had ranged themselves before K’azz. Turgal had readied his broad infantryman’s shield. Amatt held his two-hande
d blade, sheathed, in one hand.
‘What is it?’ Shimmer asked of Gwynn.
‘It is a Worm of the Earth,’ he answered grimly. ‘A scion of D’rek.’
‘Older than D’rek,’ K’azz answered as if distracted, gazing over the river.
Gwynn frowned at this and eyed his commander as if troubled. Shimmer resolved to question the mage later as to why – should there be a later for any of them. For here was a foe before which even they, Avowed of the Crimson Guard, were helpless.
Nagal urged Rutana forward. Clutching at the mass of amulets that clacked and swung from her neck, she gingerly crossed the littered deck. The Serpent’s foredeck couldn’t really be called a forecastle in that it was quite low, rising less than Shimmer’s height. It narrowed to a long steeply raked bowsprit. Past this, Shimmer caught movement far upriver: a swelling bulge sweeping the waters as of something immense beneath shifting sluggishly. A sudden bizarre thought struck her then and she almost laughed aloud at its insanity. How long was this beast and did it follow the entire course of the river – or did the course of the river follow it?
Nagal, his long hair hanging free down nearly to his waist, grasped Rutana’s wrist and lowered her out over the side of the Serpent. The Avowed crowded the side as he did so. Shimmer could not speak for her fellow Guards, but she felt a sort of shamefaced embarrassment that this woman should be the one to have to act on their behalf. That, and enormous relief.
Leaning far out and showing almost inhuman strength, Nagal gingerly lowered the sinewy woman into the water until she came to rest upon the back of the colossal beast. Up to her waist in the waters she bent over, hands extended. She murmured and whispered as she rubbed the beast’s back.
Shimmer shared an awed glance with Lor-sinn who blew out a breath, suitably impressed. K’azz’s angular, bony face revealed only a calm detachment, as if he were merely a disinterested observer and none of this had any bearing upon them.
After a time Shimmer noted another of the unaccountably large waves disturb the surface of the river. It wove up and down towards them until it reached their position and Shimmer caught her breath as the monstrous girth shifted, rolling, and taking Rutana with it. She disappeared into the murky rust-hued waves. Shimmer looked to Nagal, but the man did not appear dismayed; rather, he scanned the waters as if confident of her reappearance.
A grating and scraping shook the decking beneath their feet. The Serpent shuddered. Shimmer imagined shield-sized scales gouging wood as they shifted. The bow fell, rocking, and it was apparent to her that the ship had sunk far lower in the water than before. They now had no more freeboard above the waves than the length of her arm.
A splash sounded followed by a gasp and there was Rutana. She threw back her head, her thick mane of kinky hair tossing spray. She swam for the Serpent. Nagal reached out again and they clasped wrists and he lifted her up on to the deck. She stood in her sodden layered dresses, water pouring from her. She lifted her chin to them as if in defiance. Her lips were tightly clenched, utterly colourless.
K’azz inclined his head as if to say, well done.
She tossed her hair again, her eyes flashing, and Shimmer’s disquiet grew. For the witch’s eyes had shone a golden yellow at that instant, and it seemed to her that the pupils were slit like those of a serpent as well.
‘And what was that?’ Shimmer asked, her voice hoarse with disuse.
The wiry woman shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘You could call it a guardian, I suppose. Some say they are drawn here by our mistress. Or perhaps they have merely been driven out of all other regions.’
Like you, Shimmer suddenly realized. Like these creatures, you and Nagal are worshippers of Ardata and no more human than they. You don’t want us, you said. Why do you resent K’azz? Is it because he is human? Are you afraid of losing your goddess, Rutana?
The woman clamped her lips tight once again, as if regretting even these few words. A shudder took her bony frame, perhaps from the cold, and she lifted her pointed chin upriver. ‘We are close now.’ She turned away.
Shimmer looked to her Avowed brethren. Cole blew out a breath as if to say, thank the gods! Amatt drew off his great helm revealing his scarred cheeks and ragged beard. He sent a scowl to the waters. Turgal likewise began unbuckling his rusted armour. The cerulean flickerings of Lor-sinn’s Warren energies died away and the woman sat heavily on a hatch-cover as if her legs could no longer support her weight. K’azz had already turned away and now stood facing the waters once more, his sinewy hands clasped behind his back. Gwynn met Shimmer’s gaze; somehow the man appeared even more unfriendly and gloomy than usual. She gestured him to her. He raised a snowy brow then came to her side.
‘Yes?’
She turned away to face the passing waters and reaching jungle branches. Shapes undulated just below the murky waves alongside the vessel. From their spiked back-ridges she knew them as giant sturgeon. ‘Good eating, those,’ she said, motioning to the fish.
The mage pursed his lips, his eyes questioning. ‘So I have heard.’
Shimmer tried to recall her last meal, failed. She spoke as if distracted. ‘You say you never came to the interior?’
He straightened, nodding. ‘Yes.’
‘You heard no rumours? No hints of what we might be facing?’
The older mage’s lips drew up as if the questioning amused him. ‘I heard many rumours.’
‘What were your duties, then, during the time you were here?’
‘As I said. We were in the south. Skinner ordered a port city built.’
‘So it was his plan to open the country to trade and travel?’
‘Yes … Eventually.’
‘Eventually?’
He shrugged his rounded shoulders. ‘The coast is a treacherous swamp. There are no suitable quarries. The fever of chilling-sweats is rampant – people died in droves. These beast Soletaken raided us, dragging men and women into the jungle. We lost many workers and constantly had to raid the villages to procure more.’
Shimmer stared despite herself. She had no idea Skinner’s rule had been that terrible. ‘I didn’t know,’ she breathed.
The old mage winced, hunching even more. ‘I’m not proud of it.’
‘You refused to return.’
‘Yes. I couldn’t go back.’
She then asked, swiftly, in an effort to catch an unguarded reaction, ‘What is it about K’azz that makes you uneasy?’ The man blinked, surprised. His gaze skittered aside. Too guarded, this one. Serves me right for trying to get the drop on a mage.
‘You have known him for longer than I,’ he began tentatively. ‘Did he ever show any, er, talent? Any access to the Warrens?’
‘No. None that I know of. Why?’
He frowned in thought. ‘I cannot place it. But I feel a dim aura around him. It is as if he were connected to a Warren, or a source of some sort. It is like a faint scent in the air. One I cannot identify. And he knows things. Things he shouldn’t know.’
‘Oh? Things you do not know, so how could he? Is that what you mean?’
A crooked twitch of a smile from the man. ‘You are too direct, Shimmer.’ He tilted his head as if reconsidering. ‘Still – a blustering reaction could have betrayed the truth. But no. Things he ought not to know.’
‘Such as?’
Again a shrug. ‘Many such instances. Just now, when he remarked that these Worms are far older than D’rek. As soon as he said it I recognized the truth of it. Yet it had never before occurred to me.’
Shimmer grunted, disappointed. She’d hoped for something more. Something pointing to an answer to the mystery that the man had become. ‘He has … changed,’ she remarked, her voice low.
‘Yes. He is now closed to me.’
Closed. Yes. He has walled himself off from the rest of us. Why? What is he afraid of? Or hiding? Or protecting us from?
‘Look there!’ Rutana called, pointing, her voice shrill.
Stone humps stood from the river ahead. As
the Serpent drew closer they resolved into statues and architectural features – a bell-shaped stupa, a cyclopean lintel over a submerged entranceway. All were gripped in the fists of trees and hung with flowering lianas. All were eroded to shapeless forms. The statues might have once carried human, or even beast, characteristics. All elements of faces or forms had been scoured away. Time and the relentless probing tendrils and roots of the flowers had ground the rock away as if it were mere sand.
‘We are close,’ Rutana reaffirmed. ‘Very close now.’
Close to what? Shimmer wondered. All I see is a gulf of time. An immensity I cannot even begin to comprehend. Yet is it so? Perhaps it has been only a few brief centuries or decades and that is all that is required to wipe away all remnants and signs of human existence.
Perhaps this is the true lesson Himatan presents here.
* * *
The first hint Pon-lor had that something was going on was when the weasel-thin Thet-mun rushed to Jak’s side and whispered excitedly to him. The column had halted and Pon-lor stood breathing heavily, his legs leaden and aching – he wasn’t used to so much walking. His arms were tied tightly behind his back. His robes now hung from him sodden and torn, no better than rags. At night he was left lying in the rain. For food, scraps were thrown in the dirt before him; so far he’d refused them all.
It was, he decided, the harshest test yet of his Thaumaturg training in the denial and mastering of the demands of the flesh. Should he survive he might even suggest instituting it as a sort of final examination. Any normal man, he knew, would have succumbed long ago: to starvation, exposure, or any one of a number of sicknesses.
Jak snapped out a series of low orders then swaggered over to stand before him. As he always did, he reached up and made a show of running Pon-lor’s jade comb through his long hair. Finishing his ministrations, he knotted the hair through itself then looked him up and down and sniffed his disapproval. ‘You’re a mess, spoiled noble boy,’ he said. ‘Want a drink?’
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 305
