‘As was I. You were right all along. Now go. Do what you can.’
‘But they will know!’
‘I will hold them off for as long as I can.’
‘But you are no master!’
A sad half-smile lifted one edge of his mouth. ‘As you can see, my mind is now working in a strange new way. I see things … differently. In a way none of them can. They will find it very difficult to penetrate my thoughts. Now go.’
He urged her away, but before he released her arm it seemed as if he would lower his face to her, only to quickly turn away to Hanu. She caught his hand and squeezed it and the brow over his good eye rose in surprise, and gratitude. She turned to the pillar of coursing energies and readied herself.
The trick, she knew, was to allow the power to run through one’s self without any interference or attempt at redirection. That was the hard part – resisting the urge to manipulate. Terror alone would drive her to do so. The driving urge to self-preservation.
She glanced back to see Pon-lor demonstrating surprising strength in snapping the spear haft then yanking it one-handed from Hanu’s armoured back. Encouraged by that, she stepped up on to the dais. She had her defences raised as tautly as she knew how, yet even so the raging stream of spinning sizzling power appeared to be able to snuff her to ashes instantly. She had to yield to what had been instilled in her all these many years: the training, the discipline, the insights. But most of all, the trust. Trust in one’s abilities. Trust enough to make that leap, and that release.
All her powers heightened, her arms out, she stepped into the flow.
* * *
Murk decided that he was getting the feel for this jungle tramping. All one had to do was turn one’s expectations completely round – that was all. Instead of hacking and slashing one’s way through the dense brush all one had to do was let go the idea of beating it down. Which was pretty much impossible anyway. What you had to do was slip through all kinda sideways and there you went. It was just another way of moving. A way that didn’t push against all the league after league of spines and trees and poisonous vines.
And as for all the damned biting, stinging and sucking bugs – once you had a thick enough layer of dirt smeared over you and kept there by your oils and sweat, they never bothered you again. It was like they couldn’t smell you any more. Just like Sour said. There you go. His partner had finally found his place in the world. And it was the one place no one else wanted ever to be. Go figure it. Well, once they returned to civilization he’d be blundering round once more all wide-eyed stupid, and Murk’d have to take him in hand again.
And the diet. Well, once you got your head round the obvious idea that you really ought to eat what was literally growin’ on the trees around you and crawlin’ all over everything in limitless numbers, then your problem was solved. As to the taste, well, that wasn’t so bad once you got used to it. Tasted like nuts, really.
He walked near the middle of the loose column alongside the litter with Dee and Ostler. Sour had survived his mission to cut off the arm of a Seguleh but it had been a close thing. The woman had grabbed his throat the moment she understood what was going on and only the intervention of her employer, Rissan, had saved the man’s life. He was out front now, ranging with the scouts. Their guest walked with the captain towards the rear. The bodyguard, Ina, had lived up to the reputation of the Seguleh in being back on her feet the day after the amputation. She walked behind Rissan. The stump ending at her elbow was wrapped in cloth and tied tight to her body. She hadn’t said a thing to anyone since that night and walked with her head hanging low. Murk thought he understood something of what she must be feeling. Imagine, a one-armed Seguleh! Sounded like a bad joke. Still, if she really was one, then even with her off hand she was probably more deadly than any of them.
The going was easier now. They’d entered a region of open park-like woods. The upper canopy was solid, but below, the ground was mostly open, even dusty, with almost no brush. It looked almost manicured. He saw files of ants walking along, each carrying off a piece of the fallen leaf litter. The mystery, then, of where all the fallen detritus had gone was solved. They’d seen those half-creatures shadowing them at a discreet distance. So far, none had attacked. They seemed content merely to monitor their progress.
With the sun beating down it was now damned hot. Water was their main worry. Sour had them sucking on stems and fruits for moisture. Still, Murk was feeling the heat, and he knew the signs of water-starvation; he’d seen enough of it in the army. The night rains vanished instantly. Yusen had everyone capturing what they could in any remaining containers, while Sour showed them how to use big leaves to do the same.
As it was wont to do these last few days, Murk’s gaze drifted down to the litter with its rags and the burden wrapped within. Was he doing the right thing? She’d expressed her will and he chose to respect that. Though doubts harried and bit at him like these damned bugs, he was still of the opinion that he was right to do so. It was a question not of right or wrong, but of respect. He had to respect this thing as a separate entity fully capable of making up its own mind. Even if it looked and sounded like a child.
Mercenaries running past shook him from his reverie. They were headed pell-mell for the front. Burastan came jogging to his side. ‘A problem?’ he demanded.
She jerked a hand to the rear. ‘Our guest the sorceress says we’ve entered Jakal Viharn already.’
He scowled his puzzlement. ‘What? That can’t be right.’ He waved to the surrounding jungle. ‘There’s nothing here.’
‘All the same, Captain’s ordered a halt. Call your partner.’
Murk nodded. He reached out to give his Warren the barest touch – just enough to send a message to Sour: recall. He motioned for Dee and Ostler to rest. The two big swordsmen eyed one another then shrugged and set down the litter.
Murk returned with Burastan to the rear. Here he found Yusen with the sorceress and her bodyguard. They were eyeing some sort of much weathered stone marker, or stela. Murk studied the flat, worn standing stone. The carving on its face had been reduced to nothing more than suggestions of lines and depressions. He turned to Rissan. ‘You can read that?’
‘I do not need to read it,’ she answered. ‘Its message is impregnated into it in many different ways.’
Murk gave it a one-eyed squint through his Warren. There was something there … but so faint, so damnably ancient. ‘And what does it say?’
‘It marks the boundary of Jakal Viharn.’
Murk snorted. ‘There ain’t nothing here. There’s supposed to be a huge city. Temple towers, streets paved in gold. You know … fabled Jakal Viharn and such.’
The sorceress was unmoved. ‘There was such a place here, once. Long ago. A large ceremonial centre servicing millions. But to call it a city … well…’ She tilted her head. ‘Those who saw it could only interpret it through their own experience … if you see what I mean.’
Yusen nodded, though Burastan was frowning, uncertain.
‘We know cities,’ Murk said, explaining, ‘so that’s what we called it.’
‘Indeed.’
Sour and the scouts arrived. Yusen motioned them to him. ‘We sit tight for the meantime. I want a careful look round first.’
Sour cocked one goggling bug-eye to Murk. ‘You’re up, partner.’
Murk scowled. Great. Guess what? You get to go spy on the Witch-Queen Ardata. He squinted up at the bright blue sky. ‘Not in full on daylight. I want to wait for dusk.’
Yusen was rubbing a thumb over his chin. He nodded. ‘Accepted.’
* * *
When dusk gathered under the trees and a deep purple took the eastern sky, Murk entered Jakal Viharn. He kept to the shadows, naturally enough. He’d been warned not to have Meanas raised fully as Ardata would take it as a challenge; mild disguising of his presence, well, that was apparently acceptable.
He remembered his briefing – that was the only word he could think of for it – when
their guest sorceress Rissan took him aside for ‘a few words’.
‘Do not go in with your Warren blazing,’ she’d told him, rather imperiously.
‘Hey,’ he objected, ‘I follow the spirit of Meanas.’
‘Not entirely, I should hope,’ she remarked coolly. She crossed her arms and regarded him critically. ‘Now … if you should meet her or see her watching you, don’t overtly respond. Don’t run off, or duck away. Just lower your gaze and bow. Then go on your way. She’s been treated like a goddess for ages here and she’s become, how shall I put it … accustomed to it.’
‘Any wards or protections I should know about?’
‘I do not believe so.’
‘Guards?’
‘None that should accost you.’
He shrugged. ‘Fine then. No problem. I’ll just have a quick look round then report back.’
‘I doubt you will see anything,’ she answered. ‘Jakal Viharn covers many square leagues.’ She waved him on his way.
The woman’s haughtiness had quite annoyed him at the time. Must be some high muckety-muck back home. Now, however, walking the treed grounds, he wondered how she came to such intimate knowledge of Ardata and her ways. Well, perhaps it was her particular area of expertise.
Even though he cloaked himself in the shifting shadows of Meanas, he kept to the verges and the gloom of trees. The sky was unusually clear this night; perhaps the rainy season was on the wane. The Visitor blazed like a literal vengeful eye of some falling god. It cast shadows as dense as spilled ink. Next to it the moon was a pale weak smear.
He walked and walked, and then he found he had to walk even more. Jakal Viharn, he realized, was just as their guest sorceress had asserted: an immense sprawling complex of countless temples, shrines, monasteries and plain enigmatic ruins. He even caught sight of the curve of a river where it glimmered in the dusk like a crimson snake. He realized he could wander for days without discovering anything. He might as well turn back now.
What to do. He idled within a grove of bamboo. The grove crowded round a diminutive altar of ancient brick. Placed on the altar and before it lay countless carved stone heads – doubtless taken from the many statues he’d passed lying about half buried. It was a grisly collection of decapitated staring trophies. And he would have been most disturbed if he’d been the least bit superstitious and taken it as an omen.
Rissan, he reflected, had warned against any overt use of his Warren. And if it could ever be said that Shadow was not something, that would most certainly be overt. Therefore, he decided, a little oblique probing shouldn’t go amiss. He eased his sensitivity outwards, passively, receiving impressions of movement among the infinite shadows flitting and dancing about Jakal Viharn. Scanning in an ever-broadening circle, he at last came to a concentration of moving shadows. Ambulatory. Could be anything: a group of night-foraging animals, a herd of restless water buffalo, who knew? But it was a lead, and so he started that way, jogging, his senses raised and now actively probing.
It was a good thing he had his Warren up for otherwise he would’ve walked right into the trap. It was masterfully laid; an ambush he never would’ve expected. His sensitivity warned him of it in good time and so he halted and began edging round, shadow-wrapped, disguised in the lineaments of night itself.
From the deep shade of a tree, he watched them. Three foreign soldiers keeping an eye on this obvious approach through the woods – the one he’d naturally almost taken. Two men and one woman. They still had their armour, albeit leathers. In all, they appeared to have weathered the entrance into Himatan better than his troop. He couldn’t be certain where they hailed from, though they had the look of Quon types, tall and broad, with curly black hair on one. None had spoken yet, which troubled Murk: very professional. Too professional for out here in the middle of Himatan. What were they doing here? Who were they?
A cascade of liquid silver wavered down then over the scene, the moon breaching a cloud, and the fittings of their armour and weapons gleamed in the light. The woman shifted and the light caught her full on: her bunched thick mane piled high and pinned, her long coat of dark stained scaled leather armour, heavy longsword at her side, and he knew her, had heard of her often enough. If it were daylight that hair would be flame red and that armour the deep crimson of dried blood.
Jacinth, Skinner’s lieutenant.
Murk slowly edged backwards. They’d come to negotiate with Ardata to escape these renegades.
But Skinner had got here first.
* * *
Shimmer lay in her hut unable to sleep. This night the ghosts of all the dead Avowed, the Brethren, were calling to her with an insistence that simply could not be ignored. She rose, pulled on her gambeson, belted her sword, and headed out to walk the camp.
She found almost everyone up already: Cole, Amatt and Turgal guarded the perimeter while K’azz stood at the near-dead smouldering fire. He was peering down, hands clasped behind his back, seemingly pensive, or perhaps studying the smoke for visions of the future, as some seers do. Lor emerged from the night accompanied by Gwynn; the two had fallen in together. Lor never was one to go very long between lovers.
K’azz raised his head and signed to the two mages that they should watch the perimeter. They nodded and separated. Shimmer moved to head off as well, but he motioned her to him. ‘Stay with me, Shimmer,’ he said, his voice tight.
‘What is it?’
‘What do you sense?’
She peered into the dense night, uneasy. ‘The Brethren are … troubled.’
‘Indeed. For many reasons.’
She studied his shadowed face, so stark and sharp in the contrast of light and dark. ‘Why hasn’t Ardata come to you?’ she asked. ‘She hired you, didn’t she?’
‘She requested that I come.’
‘She demanded.’
‘For her, Shimmer, that was as close to a request as is possible.’
‘Nagal as much as blamed you for Rutana’s death.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘And now he won’t even speak to us.’
‘Yes.’
‘Were they … related? Lovers?’
K’azz squinted at the smoke as if divining some message. ‘You could say they are, were, two of a kind.’
‘I see. So, what is the trouble? Is he close?’
K’azz nodded. ‘Yes. As is … another. One stirring the Brethren by his presence.’
Shimmer frowned, considering. She couldn’t think of anyone. ‘Who?’
By way of answer K’azz dipped his head to direct her attention aside; she turned, hand on the long grip of her whipsword, to face that direction. Shortly, a wavering appeared over the grounds. Like heat waves dancing in the air. Though this was night. A shape took form, slim and dark, whip-lean in fact, in tattered dark silks. A pale hatchet-like face ghosted into vision beneath mussed black hair and Shimmer hissed out an appalled breath. She drew her sword.
‘Cowl!’
The gangly scarecrow shape offered Shimmer a mocking bow. The others came running up, weapons ready. K’azz waved them down. ‘Cowl,’ he greeted the ex-Master Assassin and High Mage of the Crimson Guard.
The man executed a deep courtier’s bow, his arms extended out from his sides. ‘My lord.’
‘This is impossible!’ Shimmer burst out. ‘We heard you were taken by an Azath!’
‘You heard correctly,’ he answered, his gaze fixed upon K’azz. The mage’s eyes appeared almost to hunger so eagerly did they drink up the sight.
‘None can escape the Azath.’
‘You are wrong, obviously.’
‘He was taken, Shimmer,’ K’azz said. ‘But he alone possessed one pre-existing means of escape. Is that not so, Cowl?’
The ex-High Mage nodded solemnly. His avid gaze edged to Shimmer. ‘A prior commitment,’ he said, and smiled.
Shimmer winced at the madness betrayed by that twisted ghastly smile. Entombed by the Azath! Could anyone emerge sane from such a trial? And the m
an was hardly what anyone would call sane to begin with.
The burning gaze slid back to K’azz. ‘Skinner is near, Commander. What will you do? He has with him all his Disavowed. You are outnumbered ten to one.’
Shimmer spun to scan the surroundings. Skinner here? She looked to Cole and Amatt: both remained on guard, glancing back to them at the centre occasionally.
‘I did not come to fight him,’ K’azz said.
‘No? Of course not.’
‘You have a message from him?’ K’azz asked.
Cowl shook an exaggerated negative. ‘Oh, no. Not him. I am done with him now … now that I have glimpsed the truth.’
‘The truth?’
‘Oh yes. I came to bring it to you, K’azz…’ the assassin raised a finger to him, chidingly, ‘but I see now that you already know it. You have known it for some time but have kept it to yourself.’ He snorted his scorn. ‘You think that a mercy? Well, time will tell.’
‘What is he going on about?’ Shimmer demanded.
‘Another time, Shimmer,’ K’azz said.
‘Yes, Lieutenant,’ Cowl echoed. ‘Another time.’ And he bowed to K’azz again, withdrawing. ‘Commander…’
Shimmer stared after him. Cowl, for as long as she had known him, had never bowed to anyone. Yet now he had to K’azz. Twice. The man he’d always been so open in his contempt for. What had changed? His imprisonment had shown him something. K’azz, he claimed, knew. And she would ask, though she already knew she would get no answer.
‘Now what?’ she asked K’azz.
‘Now we wait.’
‘For what?’
‘For whoever will visit us next.’
‘I do not like this passivity.’
A wintry smile climbed K’azz’s skull-like features. ‘This is Himatan, Shimmer. Visions and messages come to one of their own accord. One cannot demand inspiration.’
* * *
In retrospect, Osserc could not identify the precise moment when it happened. All he knew was that at one instant he was inwardly fuming against Gothos, and at the next he was suddenly fuming in impatience at himself. All his life he had steadfastly pursued what he saw as his duties and obligations – yet these he suddenly saw as nothing more than rag-thin substitutions, delusions and diversions. He had chased them with utter single-mindedness, yet how far had all this got him? What progress had he made? Towards anything? What had he to show for all this time? Precious little progress towards … what? What was it he really desired? Reconciliation or forgiveness? No, too wretched and backward-looking, that.
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 328
