‘Else I kill you for certain this time,’ added Whuffine.
‘I want my keep!’
‘No,’ said Whuffine.
‘I hate you all!’ Hurl hissed, rushing for the door. ‘Murder will have to wait. Now it’s the other sweet word! Now it’s hate. Hate hate hate hate! This isn’t over, oh no it isn’t—’
An odd sound came from the doorway, where Hurl suddenly stopped, and then stepped back, but when she did so she had no head, only an angled slice exposing her neck, from which blood pumped. Her knees then buckled and she collapsed upon the threshold.
Tiny Chanter stepped over her and peered into the tavern, looking round with a scowl. Blood trickled rivulets down the length of his huge sword’s blade. ‘Tiny don’t like witches,’ he said.
‘Begone,’ Whuffine said again. ‘My last warning.’
‘We’re storming the keep now,’ Tiny said, with a sudden bright smile.
To that, Whuffine shrugged.
‘Hah hah hah!’ said Tiny, before ducking back outside and bellowing commands to his brothers.
Eyes fixing on Feloovil, Whuffine sighed and shook his head. ‘All for a slip of the chisel,’ he said.
Huddled at the top of the stairs, Felittle edged back. A muffled murmuring came from between her legs, to which she responded with: ‘Shhh, my lovely. She won’t last much longer. I promise.’
And then it’s my turn!
Coingood broke the last of the manacles from Warmet Humble and stepped back as the broken form sank to its knees on the stained floor. ‘It wasn’t me,’ the Scribe whispered. ‘I’m a good scribe, honest! And I’ll burn your brother’s book.’
Warmet slowly lifted his head and looked upon Bauchelain. ‘My thanks,’ he said. ‘I thought mercy was dead. I thought I would spend an eternity hanging from chains, at the whim of my foul, evil brother’s lust for cruelty. His vengeance, his treachery, his brutality. See how broken I am. Perhaps I shall never heal, and so am doomed to shuffle about in these empty halls, muttering under my breath, a frail thing buffeted by inimical draughts. I see a miserable life ahead indeed, but I bless you nonetheless. Freedom never tasted as sweet as this moment—’
‘Are you done now?’ Bauchelain interrupted. ‘Excellent. Now, good Scribe, perhaps the other prisoner as well?’
‘No!’ snarled Warmet. ‘He cheats!’
The other prisoner weakly lifted his head. ‘Oh,’ he quailed, ‘so not fair.’
Shrugging, Bauchelain turned to his manservant. ‘By this, Mister Reese, we see the true breadth of honest compassion, extending no more than a single blessed hair from one’s own body, no matter its state. Upon the scene we can ably take measure, indeed, of the world’s strait, and if one must, at times, justify the tenets of tyranny, over which a reasonable soul may assert decent propriety over lesser folk, in the name of the threat of terror, then upon solid ground we stand.’
‘Aye, Master. Solid ground. Standing.’
Bauchelain then nodded to Warmet. ‘We happily yield this keep to you, sir, for as long as you may wish to haunt it, and by extension, the villagers below.’
‘Most kind of you,’ Warmet replied.
‘Mister Reese.’
‘Master?’
‘Upon this very night, we shall take our leave. Korbal prepares the carriage.’
‘What carriage?’ the manservant asked.
Bauchelain waved a dismissive hand.
Warmet slowly climbed to his feet. Coingood rushed to help him. ‘See, milord?’ he said. ‘See how worthy I am?’
Warmet grimaced with what few teeth he had left. ‘Worthy? Oh indeed, Scribe. Fear not. I am not my brother.’
As the sorcerer and his manservant made their way to the steep, stone stairs leading up to the ground level, Warmet loosed a low, evil laugh.
Both men turned.
Warmet shrugged. ‘Sorry. It was just a laugh.’
‘Tiny never gets lost,’ said Tiny, looking around with a frown on his broad, flat brow. The sun was carving its way through the heavy clouds on the horizon. Then he pointed. ‘There! See!’
The keep’s tower was perhaps a third of a league to the south. The brothers set out. Midge, Puny and Scant, and of course Tiny himself. A short time later, after crossing a number of denuded, sandy hills, passing near a wretched shack with thin smoke drifting from its chimney, they reached the track they had, somehow, missed last night.
At the keep’s gate they found Relish sitting near a heap that consisted of one corpse lying atop another, with both heads caved in by weapon blows. Their sister rose upon seeing them. ‘You useless twits,’ she said. ‘I saw what was left of the tavern, and Feloovil was wearing a shroud and didn’t want to cook me any breakfast.’
‘Be quiet,’ Tiny retorted. He walked up to the door and kicked at it.
‘It’s open,’ Relish replied.
‘Tiny don’t use his hands.’ He kicked again.
Puny walked past and opened the heavy door. They all trooped inside.
They found servants huddled in the stables, their eyes wide and full of fear, and in the house itself there was little to see, barring a pair of broken iron statues lying in murky pools of some foul oily liquid, and the exploded body of some man in robes, lying in the dining hall with demonic footprints stamped in the man’s own blood around the corpse.
‘We’ll have to search every room,’ Puny said, ‘and see what’s been squirrelled away, or who’s hiding.’
Tiny grunted, glaring about. ‘The bastards fled. I can feel it. We’re not finished with them. Not a chance. Tiny never finishes with anything.’
‘Look!’ cried Scant. ‘Cookies!’ And he and Puny rushed to the table.
From the dirty window, Birds Mottle had watched the Chanters walk past in the pale light of early dawn, and once they were out of sight she sighed and turned back to study Hordilo where he lay on the bed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m heading into Spendrugle.’
‘What for?’ he demanded.
‘I’m tired of this. I’m tired of you, in fact. I never want to see you again.’
‘If that’s what you think,’ he retorted, ‘then go on, y’damned gull-smeared cow!’
‘I’d rather sleep with a goat,’ she said, reaching for her weapon belt.
‘We was never married, you know,’ Hordilo said. ‘I was just using you. Marriage is for fools and I’m no fool. You think I believed you last night? I didn’t. I saw you eyeing that goat on the way here.’
‘What goat?’
‘You don’t fool me, woman. There ain’t a woman in the whole world who can fool me.’
‘I suppose not,’ she said, on her way out.
Down in Spendrugle she found the rest of the squad, and there was much rejoicing, before they all headed off to plunder the wreck of the Suncurl.
Feeling turgid and sluggish, Ackle walked into the tavern, whereupon he paused and looked round. ‘Gods, what happened here? Where is everyone?’
From the bar, Feloovil lifted a head to show him a smudged, blotchy face and red eyes. ‘All dead,’ she said.
‘I always knew it was catching,’ Ackle replied.
‘Come on in and have yourself a drink.’
‘Really? Even though I’m dead, too?’
Feloovil nodded. ‘Why not?’
‘Thank you!’
‘So,’ she said as she drew out an ale from the tap, ‘where’s that tax collector hiding?’
‘Oh, he’s not hiding,’ Ackle said. ‘He’s dead, too.’
Feloovil held up the tankard. ‘Now,’ she smiled, ‘that’s something we can both drink to.’
And so they did.
A little while later Ackle looked round and shivered. ‘I don’t know, Feloovil. It’s quiet as a grave in here.’
On the road wending north, away from the coast, the massive, black-lacquered carriage rolled heavily, leaf-springs wincing over stones and ruts. The team of six black horses steamed in the chill morning air, and their red eyes flared luminous
ly in the growing light.
For a change, Bauchelain sat beside Emancipor as he worked the traces.
‘Such a fine morning, Mister Reese.’
‘Aye, Master.’
‘A most enlightening lesson, wouldn’t you say, on the nature of tyranny? I admit, I quite enjoyed myself.’
‘Aye, Master. Why we so heavy here? This carriage feels like a ship with a bilge full of water.’
‘Ah, well, we are carrying the stolen treasure, so it is no wonder, is it?’
Emancipor grunted around his pipe. ‘Thought you and Korbal didn’t care much for wealth and all that.’
‘Only as a means to an end, Mister Reese, as I believe I explained last night. That said, since our ends are of much greater value and significance than what might be concocted by a handful of outlawed sentries, well, the course ahead is obvious, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Obvious, Master. Aye. Still, can’t help but feel sorry for that squad.’
‘In this, Mister Reese, your capacity for empathy shames humankind.’
‘Heh! And see where it’s got me!’
‘How churlish of you, Mister Reese. You are very well paid, and taken care of with respect to your many needs, no matter how insipid they might be. I must tell you: you, sir, are the first of my manservants to have survived for as long as you have. Accordingly, I look upon you with considerable confidence, and not a little affection.’
‘Glad to hear it, Master. Still’ – he glanced across at Bauchelain – ‘what happened to all those other manservants you had?’
‘Why, I had to kill them, each and every one. Despite considerable investment on my part, I might note. Highly frustrating, as you might imagine. And indeed, on a number of occasions, I was in fact forced to defend myself. Imagine, one’s own seemingly loyal manservant attempting to kill his master. This is what the world has come to, Mister Reese. Is it any wonder that I envisage a brighter future, one where I sit secure upon a throne, ruling over millions of wretched subjects, and immune to all concerns over my own safety? This is the tyrant’s dream, Mister Reese.’
‘I was once told that dreams are worthy things,’ said Emancipor, ‘even if they end up in misery and unending horror.’
‘Ah, and who told you that?’
He shrugged. ‘My wife.’
The open road stretched ahead, a winding track of dislodged cobbles and frozen mud; on all sides, the day brightened with an air of optimism.
Bauchelain then leaned back and said, ‘Behold, Mister Reese, this new day!’
‘Aye, Master. New day.’
CRACK’D POT TRAIL
‘There will always be innocent victims in the pursuit of evil.’
THE LONG YEARS are behind me now. In fact, I have never been older. It comes to a man’s career when all of his cautions – all that he has held close and private for fear of damaging his reputation and his ambitions for advancement – all in a single moment lose their constraint. The moment I speak of, one might surmise, arrives the day – or more accurately, the first chime after midnight – when one realizes that further advancement is impossible. Indeed, that caution never did a thing to augment success, because success never came to pass. Resolved I may be that mine was a life gustily pursued, riches admirably attained and so forth, but the resolution is a murky one nonetheless. Failure wears many guises, and I have worn them all.
The sun’s gilded gift enlivens this airy repose, as I sit, an old man smelling of oil and ink, scratching with this worn quill whilst the garden whispers on all sides and the nightingales crouch mute on fruit-heavy branches. Oh, have I waited too long? Bones ache, twinges abound, my wives eye me from the shadows of the colonnade with black-tipped tongues poking out from painted mouths, and in the adjudicator’s office the water-clock dollops measured patience like the smacking of lips.
Well I recall the glories of the holy cities, when in disguise I knelt before veiled tyrants and god-kissed mendicants of the soul, and in the deserts beyond the crowded streets the leather-faced wanderers of the caravan tracks draw to the day’s end and the Gilk guards gather in shady oases and many a time I travelled among them, the adventurer none knew, the poet with the sharp eyes who earned his keep unravelling a thousand tales of ancient days – and days not so ancient, if only they knew.
They withheld nothing, my rapt listeners, for dwelling in a desert makes a man or woman a willing audience to all things be they natural or unnatural; while I, for all the wounds I delivered, for all the words of weeping and the joys and all the sorrows of love and death that passed my tongue, smooth as olives, sweetly grating as figs, I never let a single drop of blood. And the night would draw on, in laughter and tears and expostulations and fervent prayers for forgiveness (eyes ashine from my languid explorations of the paramour, the silk-drenched beds and the flash of full thigh and bosom) as if the spirits of the sand and the gods of the whirlwinds might flutter in shame and breathless shock – oh no, my friends, see them twist in envy!
My tales, let it be known, sweep the breadth of the world. I have sat with the Toblai in their mountain fastnesses, with the snows drifting to bury the peeks of the longhouses. I have stood on the high broken shores of the Perish, watching as a floundering ship struggled to reach shelter. I have walked the streets of Malaz City, beneath Mock’s brooding shadow, and set eyes upon the Dead-house itself. Years alone assail a mortal wanderer, for the world is round and to witness it all is to journey without end.
But now see me in this refuge, cooled by the trickling fountain, and the tales I recount upon these crackling sheets of papyrus, they are the heavy fruits awaiting the weary traveller in yonder oasis. Feed then or perish. Life is but a search for gardens and gentle refuge, and here I sit waging the sweetest war, for I shall not die while a single tale remains to be told. Even the gods must wait spellbound.
Listen then, nightingale, and hold close and sure to your branch. Darkness abides. I am but a chronicler, occasional witness and teller of magical lies in which hide the purest truths. Heed me well, for in this particular tale I have my own memory, a garden riotous and overgrown yet, dare I be so bold, rich in its fecundity, from which I now spit these gleaming seeds. This is a story of the Nehemoth, and of their stern hunters, and too it is a tale of pilgrims and poets, and of me, Avas Didion Flicker, witness to it all.
There on the pilgrim route across the Great Dry, twenty-two days and twenty-three nights in a true season from the Gates of Nowhere to the Shrine of the Indifferent God, the pilgrim route known to all as Cracked Pot Trail. We begin with the wonder of chance that should gather in one place and at one time such a host of travellers, twenty-three days beyond the Gate. And too the curse of mischance, that the season was unruly and not at all true. Across the bleak wastes the wells were dry, the springs mired in foul mud. The camps of the Finders were abandoned, their hearth-ashes cold. Our twenty-third day, yet we still had far to go.
Chance for this gathering. Mischance for the straits these travellers now found themselves in. And the tale begins on this night, in a circle round a fire.
What is a circle but the mapping of each and every soul?
The Travellers Are Described
IN THIS CIRCLE let us meet Mister Must Ambertroshin, doctor, footman and carriage driver to the Dantoc Calmpositis. Broad of shoulder and once, perhaps, a soldier in a string of wars, but for him the knots have long since been plucked loose. His face is scarred and seamed, his beard a nest of copper and iron. He serves the elderly woman who never leaves the tall carriage, whose face is ever hidden behind the heavy curtains of the windows. As with others here, the Dantoc is on pilgrimage. Wealth yields little succour when the soul spends too freely, and now she would come bowl in hand to beg before the Indifferent God. On this night and for them both, however, benediction is so distant it could well be on the other side of the world.
Mister Must is of that amiable type, a walking satchel of small skills, quick to light his pipe in grave consideration. Each word he speaks is measured
as a miser’s coin, snapping sharp upon the wooden tabletop so that one counts by sound alone even when numbers are of no interest. By his singular squint people listen to him, suspicious perhaps of his cleverness, his wise secrets. Whiskered and solid, he is everyman’s footman, and many fates shall ride upon his shoulders anon.
The second circle is a jostled one, a detail requiring some explanation. There are two knights among the Nehemothanai, the stern pursuers of the most infamous dread murderers and conjurers Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, and close upon the corpse-strewn trail of these two blackguards are these dangerous men and women, perhaps only days from their quarry. But there is more to their urgency. It is said a mysterious woman leads a vengeful army, also seeking the heads of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. Where is she? None here know.
Tulgord Vise has announced himself the Mortal Sword of the Sisters, and he is purity in all but name. His cloak is lined in white fur downy as a maiden’s scented garden. The bold enamelled helm covering his stentorian skull gleams like egg-white on a skillet. His coat of polished mail smiles in rippling rows of silver teeth. The pommel of his proud sword is an opal stone any woman could not help but reach out and touch – were she so brave, so bold.
His visage glows with revelation, his eyes are the nuggets of a man with a secret hoard none could hope to find. All evil he has seen has died by his hand. All nobility he has granted by his presence he has sired in nine months’ time. This is Tulgord Vise, knight and champion of truth in the holy light of the Sisters.
Wheel now to the other knight, so brash as to intrude upon the Mortal Sword’s winsome claim to singular piety. By title, Arpo Relent is a Well Knight, hailing from a distant city that once was pure and true but now, by the bone-knuckled hands of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, a sunken travesty of all that it had once been. So does the Well Knight charge, and so too is announced the very heart of his vow of vengeance.
If blessed white bolsters the mien of Tulgord Vise, it is the gold of the sun to gilt Arpo Relent’s stolid intransigence, and the concatenation of comportment between these two knights promises a most uncivil clash to come. Arpo is broad of chest. Sibling swords, long-bladed and scabbarded in black wood filigreed in gold, are mounted one upon each hip, with pommels like golden eggs that could hatch a woman’s sigh, and proud indeed of these weapons is Arpo Relent, and most unmindful of sighs is this paragon of chastity, and what might we make of that?
The Second Collected Tales of Bauchelain & Korbal Broach: Three Short Novels of the Malazan Empire Page 14
