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)

by Ian C. Esslemont

  And always it had been the fault of others: of Anomander’s interference, of the Azathanai’s machinations. T’riss, Envy, all the scheming Elders. The Jaghut. Whoever. Anyone, perhaps, other than himself. Yet was that really the truth? Could he really be as pathetic as all those he had sneered at all these ages? In a way, of course – for was he not of them?

  What then did he lack? He decided that, oddly enough, it was the one thing he had thought he in no way lacked: courage. Not the physical courage to face challenges. That he had in abundance. No, what he lacked, it seemed, was emotional courage. The courage to face the hard interior truths and make the hard choices.

  There. He had finally reached it.

  And it was something that could never have been imposed from without, of course.

  The answer lies within you. Ah. And of course self-evident … with the luxury of looking back.

  He tipped his head ever so slightly to Gothos across the table. ‘Thank you, prick.’

  The Jaghut raised a grizzled brow. ‘I? I did nothing.’

  ‘I know. As was required. And anticipated.’ He stood. ‘I will go now. If I ever see you again it will be too soon.’

  ‘Who knows what the future holds – Tiste Liosan.’

  Osserc again fractionally inclined his head in farewell. He walked up the hall. Here, curled up asleep before the door, he found the Nacht creature. He gently nudged it aside with a sandalled foot. Farewell, Azath. Perhaps I shall never encounter you again either. And I hope not. Your lessons are far too … demanding. He lifted the latch and pushed open the rough, adzed plank door, and stepped outside.

  In the grounds, halfway up the short flagged walk to the front gate, he paused. A troubled frown crossed his brow and he turned his face to the southwest.

  The Visitor looms as ever. Yet that is not my concern. Others address that. No, there is something else going on. Power is being gathered. All to a purpose. And that purpose … somehow it touches upon … Thyrllan.

  He staggered as if from a blow to the chest. He raised his fists to the south. ‘No!’ came the groan, torn from his throat.

  They must not!

  CHAPTER XV

  Over the years it became obvious that our annexation of the jungle region bordering the Gangrek Mounts would never be complete until we could rid ourselves of these bothersome wild forest people. Therefore, a great line of soldiers was organized of many thousands of men and through the banging of arms and the setting of fires, these families were driven to the edges of the mounts and all there were put to the sword. In this fashion the land was reclaimed for proper settlement and the opening up to agriculture and development.

  Author unnamed

  Papers of the Thaumaturg Archives

  For Pon-lor, Saeng’s probing and tentative struggle to gain control of the Thaumaturgs’ ritual took place in an enlightening double vision. Through one eye he beheld the chamber: the ray-burst sigil of poured hammered gold, the coursing sizzling pillar of energy, and Saeng herself enmeshed within, arms raised, eyes closed in profound concentration. Through his other orb he beheld a bizarre manifestation he could only interpret as a glimpse of those foreign magical disciplines named Warrens, or, long ago, Holds. Beneath Saeng’s feet the gold appeared to be a molten poured pool: it shook with the lashings of power. The surface jumped and dimpled. At times it appeared so brilliant it could not possibly consist of any physical substance he knew but only of liquid light itself, flashing into existence, rippling and glaring, as if struggling to burst through.

  Almost immediately the first of the masters arrived within the chamber. Pon-lor was not surprised to see Shu-jen, the Ninth. He grasped the man’s mind before he could study Saeng’s efforts and communicate with his brothers. The master responded superbly. He would have overcome Pon-lor had the latter not possessed his unique advantage. He succeeded in interrupting the man’s heart, then released him to stagger, gasping and staring sightlessly, and fall.

  Three appeared next. Pon-lor engaged them all at once, keeping them occupied so that they could not direct their attention to Saeng. They turned to the attack immediately, hoping to rid themselves of him. Pon-lor allowed their terrifyingly strong efforts to slide through into the broken landscape of his mind where two became irretrievably lost and confused. The third managed to escape the trap, pulling his consciousness back just in time. Pon-lor pursued. He pushed his own jagged mismatched awareness into the master’s mind, where it broke the fellow’s identity in the manner of a thrown stone shattering a mirror.

  He pulled back then in a panic as he sensed he was not alone. The remaining five of the Circle of Masters now stood about the circumference of the chamber. Their glittering narrowed gazes were all fixed on Saeng where she stood just visible within the roaring puissance.

  The Prime Master transferred his attention and stood forward: Surin, tall and straight despite his extraordinarily extended years. He raised a finger. ‘I remember you from classes. Pon-lor, yes? Promising material. You have done well, but now we are aware of your … condition. It is fatal, you know.’

  Pon-lor nodded. He was mentally exhausted and knew he could not overcome all five – as they knew as well. ‘Eventually,’ he agreed.

  Surin shook his lean hound’s head as if in regret. ‘You fool. Do you not understand who is coming? He must be destroyed at all costs! It is our sacred trust to do so. We guard against all such threats. It is the purpose of our order. You know this, yes?’

  Pon-lor stood weaving, hardly able to control his body. ‘I’m beginning to suspect that he simply kept you contained and so you tried to get rid of him.’

  ‘Poisonous revisionism! You are dangerous indeed.’ He nodded to his fellows. ‘Continue.’ His raised hand clenched to a fist and Pon-lor gasped as something took hold of his heart. His chest wrenched as if torn. A great vice had hold of his ribs and was tightening. He fell to his knees. Distantly, in a blur, he sensed the ritual spiralling inwards. It was condensing and concentrating to its final compelling. His one good eye remained fixed upon Surin as he fought the power striving to pulp his heart. His other eye, meanwhile, gazed upon the argent bands of energy as they writhed and spun, the silhouette of Saeng within. Even as both eyes dimmed, it was plain to him that the brilliant gold of the ray-burst now outshone the pulsing energies, and that light eventually completely overcame his vision.

  The crushing pressure upon his chest eased. He blinked to see Surin now staring at the dais, horror on his face. He waved his arms, shouted. Movement disturbed the shadows behind the Prime Master and a tall shape loomed forward. It glittered from a thousand points like a field of stars. A flash of silver and the master’s expression eased into puzzlement. Then the head slid aside and toppled from the torso. The body fell. Hanu, behind, tottered to steady himself upon his huge yataghan blade.

  The remaining four masters at the compass points now shared their leader’s panic. They sought to extricate themselves from a ritual invocation gone far beyond their control. Lineaments of the energies crept up invisible lines towards their hands.

  The summoned energies continued to tighten and coalesce into one solid bar of argent light so searing as to glow white. Within, barely visible, was Saeng, arms still upraised, face pointed to the sky. Yet even as Pon-lor levered himself to his feet he could see that something had changed. She was lower. Sinking, in fact, into the liquid light that now grasped her knees. It appeared to Pon-lor’s odd eye that she held something in her cupped hands: an object of pure brilliance – the source of the argent.

  A questing lightning-tongue of energy reached the hand of one flailing master. The flesh and bones flashed instantly into ash and motes of soot that floated about him. The tendril continued creeping up his entire arm until that too had disappeared into ash.

  All the masters screamed soundlessly as the tendrils found them. Each was consumed piece by piece by the flickering tongues. Pon-lor limped down to the dais where he shaded his gaze to try to make out Saeng’s form. She had descende
d further into what could not be gold now at all, but rather swirling raw power, perhaps akin in form to that he’d read Chaos itself might take. It coursed upwards in a narrow, focused band that ran through her cupped hands.

  As Pon-lor watched, helpless, her head sank below the surface. Only her arms were visible now, still upraised, holding what might or might not be anything more than some sort of kernel, or seed, of concentrated power.

  Her hands slid down to the coursing glittering surface of shimmering energies and the bar of power snapped out of existence. In the resulting darkness his one good eye was blind, but the other saw the glowing ray-burst sigil pulsing like a fallen star. A huge shape moved next to him and Hanu thrust his arm down into the concentrated liquid energy. The stone armour glowed red, then slurried away in streams of molten rock that smoked and sparked.

  The arm emerged holding Saeng’s. With both hands he heaved her from the dais to the floor where she lay naked, her body smoking.

  ‘We must go!’ Pon-lor shouted, still deafened by the roaring.

  Hanu nodded ponderously, and picked up his sister. In passing, he also snatched up a cloak from one dead Thaumaturg and draped it over her.

  Light filled the chamber, blinding Pon-lor’s one good eye once again. It came pouring in through the narrow entrance like water from a bucket – an absolute solid gushing radiance that then snapped away just as instantly.

  ‘Something has come,’ Pon-lor panted into the silence that followed. He motioned to the entrance.

  They emerged into the temple grounds and all seemed normal and mundane. It was still light. The Visitor still hung low in the west. But now a slim dark cloud rose into the sky over the top of the intervening halls and squat towers of the temple complex. It was churning, impossibly narrow. It seemed to stretch as it reached for the heights, and was as black as soot. It climbed enormously tall then its top swelled out into a great suspended circular crown of night.

  A strong wind blew out of the west and stirred the surrounding treetops. Torn leaves and branches soared overhead. An avalanche-like roaring reached Pon-lor’s punished ears. ‘Take cover!’ he yelled to Hanu then dived behind a wall. Hanu knelt over Saeng.

  Something struck the walls, towers and colonnaded walks of the temple complex. A great swatting hand came out of the west. Pon-lor could not close his odd eye. It stared skyward and there it witnessed entire giant trees come tumbling overhead; boulders and stones, sections of stone arches, the top of a well, an animal flailing its limbs, and black clouds of a near-infinite amount of dirt and sand and dust.

  In that lashing storm Pon-lor found himself in the odd position of the helpless bystander as the broken fragments of his mind finally drifted out of touch with one another. Slowly, as the storm lashed him without, he could only watch while an inner storm drove the disparate fragments of his consciousness, one by one, out of his awareness. His memories, his reasoning, his very identity, became not only incoherent and unrecognizable, but utterly blank: empty gaps – entire parts of him gone, missing and irretrievable.

  As the black dust and ash settled over his body, a similar darkness settled over his mind until it smothered his identity and consciousness into complete nothingness and he wandered lost and unremembering within his own skull.

  * * *

  For all Shimmer could tell it was perhaps four days later, or the next day, when she was with Lor, walking the grounds near their collection of huts. She was thinking that they had wasted enough time awaiting Ardata’s indulgence and should just go. There was nothing for them here. It had been a mistake. Skinner would not show – the goddess and he were not on good terms. It was also in fact very dangerous for K’azz; Skinner might decide to eliminate him.

  Lor, walking with her, suddenly snapped up her head, her long ash-blond hair whipping, and stopped. Shimmer followed her gaze to see Ardata herself sitting on the lowest step of a nearby stone stupa. She was attended by the young woman they had met their first day, wrapped in her folds of pure white silks.

  She and Lor backed away towards camp.

  As she went, she thought she saw the young woman studying her, and her gaze widening in a strange sort of shock.

  Shimmer in return sensed something about her, but couldn’t quite identify it at the moment. She turned away to head for camp. There, everyone was standing, eyeing the distant stupa and the woman in white robes with the cascading black hair. K’azz nodded to Shimmer. ‘It would appear to be time for my audience,’ he murmured to her, wryly.

  ‘You shouldn’t go alone.’

  ‘You are right, of course. I shouldn’t. But I will. Keep watch.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He headed off. Walking away in his torn shirt and trousers, so thin and wiry, he seemed achingly fragile; like some starving beggar or wretched vagabond. Shimmer motioned Gwynn to her. ‘Anyone else around?’

  The man rubbed his forehead, grimacing his pain. ‘Impossible to tell. Ardata’s presence saturates everything. But if we are blind, then so are they.’

  She grunted her acknowledgement, her eyes on the two as they spoke. Ardata motioned and the young woman left them. Shimmer noted her limp.

  The two spoke alone for some time. Neither raised their voice or gesticulated. K’azz then gestured aside, inviting, and they walked away into the woods. Shimmer watched until they passed out of sight.

  ‘Should I follow?’ Gwynn asked.

  She shook her head. ‘No. Allow them their privacy. There’s nothing we can do to stop her from pulling something anyway. No. We will wait.’ She eased herself down with her back to a tree, fanned herself to keep the bugs away. Cole and Amatt returned to preparing the palm leaves to be woven into the roof of another hut. Turgal sat at their main hut and helped himself to a drink from the pot they kept topped with sweetwater. Gwynn and Lor were arguing about something while squinting off to the west.

  Shimmer peered in that direction: the light did seem strange through the trees to the west. A new glow seemed to be diminishing the baleful emerald presence of the Visitor.

  Lor and Gwynn sensed it first. They both jerked to their feet as if at a loud noise. Shimmer was quick to follow. She scanned the surroundings and what she discovered there made her shoulders fall. They were encircled by a ring of faces every one of which she knew. The full complement of the Disavowed. Skinner had brought everyone.

  They drove Turgal ahead of them as they closed. The man himself came forward, his arms out, as if to say: Fancy meeting you lot here.

  Gwynn, Shimmer noted, had squared off against Mara, while Lor eyed Petal. Shimmer turned her full attention to Skinner and was startled to see that the man was not armed. If I could slay him all this would be over. Her hand went to the grip of her whipsword. He and I.

  She edged forward, knees bent, while Skinner merely watched, a strange grin playing about his mouth.

  A flash blinded Shimmer then – coming out of the west. She blinked, quite dazzled, and rubbed at her eyes. Everyone round her was cursing the light. Then Lor screamed. Shimmer groped for her. She blinked away tears as she searched for her through dark spots floating before her eyes. She found her writhing on the ground, her hands at her face. Fresh blood smeared her eyes, mouth and nose. She was whimpering as if beyond agony.

  ‘What is it?’ Shimmer demanded, yelling.

  ‘The Warrens,’ Lor gurgled through a mouthful of blood. ‘Struck!’

  She straightened. What is this? Some sort of censure from Ardata? She saw Skinner leaning over a prostrate Mara. He turned his head to her and she returned her hand to her weapon. Do it now, woman – end it!

  ‘Hold!’ The voice cut across the grounds, unstrained, yet utterly commanding. Shimmer slipped her hand from her weapon. Skinner merely grinned, as if having read her mind.

  The Disavowed parted and Ardata, accompanied by K’azz, entered.

  ‘She’ll kill you,’ Shimmer whispered to Skinner.

  He straightened and pushed back his dirty-blond hair. Leaning to her, he ans
wered as if confiding a secret: ‘She cannot kill me – no one can.’ He tapped the black scales of his armour.

  A surly ‘Don’t count on it’ was the best she could manage.

  Shimmer knelt again at Lor’s side. The woman was unconscious, as were most of the rest of the mages: Gwynn, Mara, Petal and Red. Unconscious or weakly struggling, utterly incapacitated. She stood and peered about to catch the gaze of all the nearby Disavowed. None would meet her eye.

  ‘What has happened here?’ Skinner demanded of Ardata.

  She was peering to the west and Shimmer was quite startled to see unguarded wonder, even amazement, upon her face. ‘A surprise. A great surprise. Something very strange and … unexpected.’ She seemed unable to wrest her gaze from that horizon.

  ‘A disruption in the Warrens?’ Shimmer asked.

  ‘Far more than a disruption,’ Ardata answered, distracted. ‘An impact. But over now. The ripples diminish even as we speak.’

  Next to Ardata, K’azz lightly tilted his head in greeting to his onetime lieutenant. ‘Skinner.’

  ‘K’azz,’ Skinner answered. He bowed to Ardata. ‘My apologies, m’lady.’

  ‘Skinner,’ she answered. With a visible effort, she turned her troubled gaze from the west. ‘You may not believe me when I say this – but it is good to see you again.’

  He bowed once more. Then he returned his attention to K’azz. He studied his old commander as if disappointed. ‘It was foolish of you to come. That is, unless…’ He raised one brow in an unspoken question.