Ardata’s already thin lipless mouth tightened even further. ‘You take much upon yourself, Skinner. Have a care.’
‘A care? Very well … just what did you talk about?’
‘We spoke of responsibilities,’ K’azz supplied.
‘Responsibilities? Really? Is that so. Well … I have responsibilities as well.’ He gestured about to the Disavowed. ‘To my people. To lead them to the most advantageous position I can gain for them. And so, in consideration of that, I ask that you stand aside as Commander of the Crimson Guard and allow me to ascend to that position. Really, K’azz. It would be for the best. I hear you do not seem very interested in any of this of late.’
Shimmer listened, horrified. Horrified because, in a ruthless light, the man’s words possessed an awful logic. They were a mercenary company that took no contracts despite an empty treasury. That desperately needed to recruit to strengthen their numbers, yet hardly admitted any new members. That had sworn opposition to the Malazans, yet had withdrawn from all such direct opposition. And the prince was a commander who seemed completely uninterested in command. What, then, were they?
K’azz shook his head. It seemed to Shimmer that remorse pulled the skin tight about his eyes. ‘No. I cannot stand aside. Nor can you remove me. We are stuck with each other. And so I ask you – and all those who chose to follow you – to return to the Guard.’
Skinner raised a hand for a moment’s pause. ‘Oh, I am thinking of returning to the Guard.’ He beckoned to Shijel, who handed over one of his longswords. Skinner hefted it, getting a feel for the long slim blade. He returned his attention to K’azz and his mouth quirked up in that way it did when he was indulging his savage side. ‘But I have a condition first.’
The light changed again and Shimmer could not help but glance to the west. Darkness now gathered there, rather prematurely. It was as if sunset had somehow crept in upon them, though she knew it was hours before twilight. Yet there it was, a swelling adumbral gloom, spreading to encompass the west, swallowing the sun.
K’azz did not move though he must know what the man intended. ‘Do not do this, Skinner.’ His tone was beseeching but Shimmer felt that it was not for his life that he feared. She thought that Skinner, however, would take it that way. And she knew she was right when she saw how his mouth twisted his disgust – He thinks K’azz is pleading for his life. But if not that – then what is he doing?
He raised the longsword in both hands like a headsman’s axe. ‘I will make it quick, K’azz.’
Do something, K’azz! Shimmer pleaded. Why won’t you do something?
Ardata lifted a pale hand. ‘Before you act, Skinner, I have one final request of you.’
He let the blade slowly fall but did not shift his gaze from K’azz. ‘Oh?’
‘Yes. And you will consider carefully before answering, won’t you?’
Something in her tone warned him and he stepped back from K’azz to turn and give her his full attention. K’azz, for his part, merely lowered his gaze, his mouth clenched tight.
‘Yes?’ Skinner said.
‘I ask you, Skinner, one final time, that you reconsider my offer and stand here at my side.’
He took a long slow breath, pushed back his bunched hair. ‘We have been through this…’
‘Consider carefully,’ she warned him again.
‘Ardata – m’lady. This … place … is not for me. I have no wish to remain.’
‘No wish…’ she echoed faintly, her brows crimping.
A distant clatter of dry branches and a flurry of leaves announced the arrival of a strong wind out of the west. It blustered through the grounds stirring up clouds of dust that everyone waved from their faces. Leaves and broken branches gyred about. Shimmer brushed the dark dust, mixed with a scattering of ash, from her shoulders and sleeves.
Ardata’s dark eyes had been drawn again to the west, where they rested, full of puzzlement. A hand went to her white throat. ‘No wish…’ she repeated, as if to herself.
Skinner glanced about, uncertain. No one dared move as the goddess appeared to be approaching some decision that she seemed to dread. She turned back to Skinner. ‘If you must go, then I must take back my gift.’
Now Skinner frowned, even more wary. ‘You told me yourself,’ he answered, speaking very carefully, ‘that no one in the world would be able to do that. Not even you, should you wish it.’
‘That is true. No one can take my gift from you,’ she agreed. ‘However … I can ask that it return to me.’
She held out her slim hand and beckoned. A metallic shifting and grating sounded, coming from Skinner who spun, peering down at himself, his brows now clenched. ‘What is this…?’ he murmured.
Shimmer peered more closely as some sort of rippling gleamed from the long coat of mail. It was as if each link was moving of its own accord.
The scales were shifting, she was certain. Each seemed to wiggle individually. She thought she saw multiple legs unlocking as, in descending waves, each scale detached itself from its fellows.
Skinner spun faster. He slapped at himself. ‘What is this…?’ he shouted, panic in his voice.
‘I am sorry, Skinner,’ Ardata said, her voice sad, yet firm. ‘I gave you every chance. But you have chosen to reject my gifts.’
Skinner then threw his head back and howled. The scales, Shimmer saw, were scales no longer. Each was a thin black spider the size of a coin. They were digging themselves into his flesh, perhaps gnawing their way in, disappearing into him. He fell, thrashing and shrieking in agony. Shimmer turned her face, yet could not look entirely away. An arm reached out, beckoning to Ardata, who merely watched, her face immobile.
Inhuman, Shimmer reminded herself, remembering K’azz’s warning. Not human.
Skinner was now no more than a writhing pile of wiggling black spiders. Here and there patches of wet white bone gleamed through the heap. More and more of the skeleton revealed itself. The heaving and twisting of the heap slowed, then halted. The swarm of spiders hissed and squirmed amid the pale bones. Then Ardata lowered her hand and the spiders – if they were indeed mere spiders – scuttled off the carcass in a flowing slurry of midnight that made its way across the dusty ground to slip beneath the lip of her robes and disappear.
Shimmer fought a shudder and a heave of revulsion that would have doubled her over. She saw Mara staring, her face sickly grey and frozen in shock and disbelief. Cole, Amatt and Turgal all stared, their faces hardening, though not in triumph or victory but in anger, and Shimmer thought she understood. He might have betrayed them, abandoned the Guard, but in the end they were not pleased to see him fall for he was one of them.
Oh, Skinner. I am so sorry. We all tried to warn you. Yet you would not be turned from your path. You betrayed everyone, didn’t you? And, in the end, so too were you.
In the long silence that followed, K’azz cleared his throat and murmured: ‘Perilous indeed are the gifts of Ardata.’
‘As are all the gifts of the Azathanai,’ said a new voice.
Ardata spun. ‘Who are you?’
It was a middle-aged woman in dirty torn robes. She bowed. Behind her stood a file of soldiers who appeared to Shimmer to be Quon Talian, yet were painted and dressed in native fashion in loose loincloths. They did, however, still have their weapons, which they carried in their hands or on belts about their shoulders. Two of the soldiers carried bodies over their shoulders – more unconscious mages perhaps.
‘Just a sorceress,’ the woman murmured.
‘Yet you are not overcome in the … disturbance?’
‘I managed to protect myself in time.’
‘How very fortunate for you.’ Ardata pressed her hand to her throat once more. She tilted her head and her voice fell to a low whisper: ‘Do I know you…?’
Shimmer felt the hairs of her neck stirring in the sudden crackling of energy in the air. What is this? A confrontation? Who is this woman?
‘It is … possible,’ the sorceress allowed.
�
��And what is it you wish?’ Ardata asked, her attention full on the woman. Shimmer shivered upon seeing her robes stirring as if with a life of their own.
The newcomer was completely unruffled. ‘I wish a great deal,’ she answered offhandedly. ‘First, however, we really ought to speak of your daughter.’
Ardata laughed, yet her hand clutched at her throat. ‘You are mistaken. I have no daughter.’
The woman’s face stiffened. ‘That is a terrible thing to say, Ardata.’
The Queen of Witches threw her arms straight down, the fingers clawed. Dust swirled about her. Beneath Shimmer’s sandalled feet the ground shuddered as if drummed. Rocks tumbled down nearby ruined walls. The tall palms swayed.
K’azz gestured, his hand signing the imperative: retreat!
Shijel darted forward to snatch his sword then ducked away, hunched. K’azz waved Shimmer back.
The sorceress beckoned aside, close to Shimmer. Backing away Shimmer bumped into someone. She spun to find the girl, or young woman, wrapped in her white robes. Yet for an instant she did not appear young. Rather, it was as if she were an aged crone, her face disfigured, the flesh swollen, grey and pebbled, the eyes clouded to blind white staring orbs. Shimmer reached out to steady her. At that moment she returned to the appearance of the young woman, her face pretty once more, elfin and heart-shaped. She peered up at Shimmer, searchingly. ‘It is you,’ she murmured, full of wonder. ‘The one I have seen so often. Even when I was a child. Why is that?’
Shimmer stared, stricken. Unmerciful gods! It is her. One and the same. The child, woman, crone. Oh, the fate that awaits you … She rested her hands gently on the young woman’s slim shoulders.
The girl, whose frightened gaze now peered at Ardata, jumped at the touch. She peered up, shivering, wary. She shuddered as if she were desperate to escape. ‘Be brave,’ Shimmer told her, her voice thick with emotion. ‘Be brave.’ The girl started in recognition, then gave a solemn determined nod.
Shimmer ached to hold her then but the sorceress beckoned again, calling, ‘Come.’
‘Strangers frighten her!’ Ardata called.
The sorceress took the young woman’s hand. She faced Ardata. ‘Or perhaps it is you who are frightened that others should see her?’
A wordless animal snarl escaped the Queen of Witches. Power now rose about her in glimmering tendrils like the lacing of webbing. She threw out an arm, pointing. ‘Who are you? How dare you?’
The sorceress held the girl before her, hands on her shoulders. The ground between her and Ardata erupted into flames. The thin grass blew away in rising ash and soot. Then the soil crackled and smoked as if dropped into a crucible. It slumped into a growing pool of glowing liquid rock.
K’azz, Shimmer, her companions, the Avowed and Disavowed, all flinched back then. They shielded their faces against the blasting heat. A lean woman had been hovering close to the sorceress all this time. She had one good arm, the other bound to her side. At that moment she darted forward and wrapped her one arm round the girl to pull her aside. The woman’s sandals, shirt and hair burst aflame as she did so. Soldiers rushed forward with a few tattered blankets to throw over her. Through the waves of heat and smoke it appeared to Shimmer that the girl was weeping.
‘Let her go, Ardata,’ the sorceress called through the crackling filaments. ‘It is time to let go.’
‘Who are you!’ the Queen of Witches howled.
‘Look closely … sister,’ the sorceress answered.
Ardata jerked back a step, her eyes growing huge. ‘No! Not you.’
The sorceress’s voice came loud and reverberating: ‘Let it all go, sister.’
‘No!’ She thrust her arms out and a coruscating wall of power washed towards the sorceress, only to halt suspended between them. The sorceress seemed to be holding it in place, somehow containing it.
K’azz bellowed over the roar in his best battlefield voice: ‘Retreat!’
Everyone now scrambled in earnest. The one-armed woman chaperoned the girl off while soldiers carried the unconscious, or bleary, mages. Shimmer saw Quon soldiers falling and being helped up by Disavowed as everyone fled in a panic from the titanic and still escalating confrontation.
Behind a set of low ruined walls and a broken bell-shaped tower, Shimmer paused and turned back to watch. A glaring light of summoned powers blazed from the clearing beyond. K’azz came to her side, as did an older officer whose bearing fairly shouted imperial service. Both forces gathered here all intermingled. One of the Quon soldiers was hurried over; he was supported by two others. This one wore only a loincloth, his hair a tangled mess. His goggling eyes were tearing, bloodshot, and he was squeezing his head as if to keep it from flying apart. ‘Still too close!’ he shouted to the officer, his words slurred. ‘Just run for it!’
The officer caught K’azz’s gaze and they shared a curt nod.
‘Move out!’ K’azz yelled.
Everyone set off once more at the fastest possible pace. Soldiers shared the burden of the staggering and dazed mages. Two ran past carrying Petal draped over a stretcher between them. The one-armed woman, singed, her hair half gone, actually scooped up the girl and took off with her at a run. Shimmer stared, amazed. Damn! Who is that woman?
Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw the top of a swelling dome of lightning-lanced power. It appeared to be chasing after them. The expanding wall of flickering energies swallowed trees and ruins as it came.
‘Hurry!’ she yelled, now truly panicked.
Everyone ran. They dodged trees, jumped the low stone foundations of buildings long gone. Far ahead, Black the Lesser pointed aside to a long earthwork mound. Yes! Intervening ground. The ragtag column curved in that direction.
When they reached the rear of the steep earthen mound they threw themselves down behind stone blocks and tall thick trees. Beyond the hillock, the sky blazed now with an astounding swelling concentration of power that appeared as bright as a sunrise. To the west, behind them, the sky hung a deep purple-black that choked the setting sun.
Then the bubble burst. That was the only way Shimmer could interpret what happened. A wave of pressure struck the mound a hammer blow and it juddered. Trees flew backwards from its crest. The wave hit them all like mattocks to the chest and Shimmer grunted, her breath knocked from her.
Dirt, dust and broken branches swept over and past them. Shimmer waved the dust from her, coughing, and searched among the crouched soldiers and Disavowed. She found the girl still with the one-armed woman. From the girl’s shuddering Shimmer could tell she still wept. The woman appeared to be whispering soothingly to her.
After the dust and branches swirled away there came a descending wave of leaves, and intermingled with them fluttered countless flower petals. They rained down over everyone in tears of crimson, purest white and orange and pink. She plucked one from her arm to rub its skin-like smoothness in her fingers.
She allowed herself to fall back against the tree she’d taken shelter behind. She draped her arms over her knees and let out a long breath. It was over – yet what was over? Just what had happened? From her encounters with Ardata, and from what they heard, she could only guess that the being was somehow holding on to everything. The past, the present, the future. Grasping them all at once and not letting anything go. Not even discerning between them. And perhaps she could live like that, as one of these Elder Gods. But what of others? What of her daughter? If indeed the girl truly was her daughter – not that she had to be. She deserved a life regardless. Even if it would be a hard one.
Everyone lay where they had fallen, breathless, almost dazed. The mages groaned and held their heads, wiped dried blood from their faces. Sitting back, Shimmer studied the western horizon and the setting sun. She saw Black the Lesser approach K’azz and the commander rose to take his hand and they shook.
So we are reunited. As we should be. One company. One troop. One … family?
Her gaze went to the girl. She appeared to be asleep now, nestled i
n the lean woman’s arm.
Shimmer let her head fall back. Yes, sleep. Could use some of that now. Have a look in the morning. She shut her eyes and allowed the muscles of her neck, shoulders, back and legs to unclench and fall into relaxation. And only then, finally, after weeks of fruitless searching, did she finally slip into a proper slumber.
* * *
Jatal opened his eyes to a landscape of undifferentiated grey. Pewter ash filled the air like a thick storm of drifting snow. It covered everything in pillow-like humps: the field of fallen tree trunks lying scattered for as far as he could see, the broken stripped branches, the scoured-smooth ground between. Even his arms, hands and legs lay beneath a downy layer of the flakes. He raised a hand to brush it away.
‘Ah!’ announced a disembodied voice nearby. ‘You live!’
He peered about; he could see no one.
An ash-fleeced boulder nearby moved. It stood and stretched. The slate-hued powder fell away in great clouds.
‘So, my friend – they missed!’ Scarza announced. ‘Us, in any case.’
‘Mostly,’ Jatal added, managing a self-mocking twist of a smile.
‘Ah-ha! Glad to be alive, hey?’
Jatal’s smile fell away. ‘We must search for him.’
‘I believe we will find him beneath a very large rock.’
‘None the less.’ Jatal struggled to rise. The half-Trell pushed him down. ‘Do not attempt that yet. Rest. Recover.’ He held out a singed black carcass about the size of a rat. ‘Eat.’
Jatal took it and held it up to examine it. ‘Did you cook this?’
‘The firestorm did,’ Scarza offered blithely. ‘I believe it used to be some sort of tree-dwelling rodent.’
‘Firestorm?’
‘You do not remember?’
‘No.’
‘You saved my life.’
‘I did?’
‘You most certainly did.’
Jatal tried to tear some meat from the dry carcass. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘“The stream!” You shouted that right away. I hadn’t thought of it. But running back to the stream saved us.’
‘What stream?’
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 330
