The Second Collected Tales of Bauchelain & Korbal Broach: Three Short Novels of the Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  Calap cleared his throat yet again. ‘The Chief was silent and patient. Tales will wait. First, meagre staples are shared, for to eat in company is to acknowledge the kinship of need and, indeed, of pleasure no matter how modest.’ And once more he hesitated, and we all walked silent and brittle of repose.

  ‘Too grim,’ announced Tiny. ‘Brash Phluster, weave us another song and be quick about it.’

  Calap staggered and would have fallen if not for my arm.

  Brash weaved as if punched and suddenly sickly was his pallor. Drawing deep, ragged breaths, he looked round wildly, as if seeking succour, but no eyes but mine would meet his and as he fixed his terror upon me I inclined my head and gave him the strength of my assurance.

  Gulping, he tried out his singing voice. ‘Va la gla blah! Mmmmmmm. Himmyhimmyhimmy!’

  Behind us the harashal vulture answered in kind, giving proof to the sordid rumour of the bird’s talent at mimicry.

  ‘Today,’ Brash began in a reedy, quavering voice, ‘I shall sing my own reworking of an ancient poem, a chapter of the famous epic by Fisher kel Tath, Anomandaris.’

  Apto choked on something and the host ably pounded upon his back until the spasm passed.

  One of the mules managed a sharp bite of Flea’s left shoulder and he bellowed in pain, lumbering clear. The other mule laughed as mules were in the habit of doing. The Chanters as one wheeled to glare at Mister Ambertroshin, who shook his head and said, ‘Flea slowed his steps, he did. The beasts are hungry, aye?’

  Tulgord Vise turned at that. ‘You, driver,’ he barked, ‘from where do you hail?’

  ‘Me, sir? Why, Theft that’d be. A long way away, aye, no argument there, and varied the tale t’bring me here. A wife, you see, and plenty of Oponn’s infernal pushings. Should we run outta tales, why, I could spin us a night or two.’

  ‘Indeed,’ the Mortal Sword replied drily, one gauntleted hand settling on his sword’s shiny pommel, but this gesture was solitary as he once more faced forward in the saddle.

  ‘For your life?’ Arpo Relent asked, rather bitingly.

  Mister Ambertroshin’s bushy brows lifted. ‘I’d sore your stomach something awful, good sir. Might well sicken and kill you at that. Besides, the Dantoc Calmpositis, being a powerful woman rumoured to be skilled in the sorcerous arts, why, she’d be most displeased at losing her servant, I dare say.’

  The host gaped at that and then said, ‘Sorcerous? The Dantoc? I’d not heard—’

  ‘Rumours only, I’m sure,’ Mister Ambertroshin said, and he smiled round his pipe.

  ‘What does “Dantoc” mean?’ Arpo demanded.

  ‘No idea,’ the driver replied.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s just a title, ain’t it? Some kind of title, I imagine.’ He shrugged. ‘Sounds like one, t’me that is, but then, being a foreigner to it all, I can’t really say either way.’

  A tad wildly, Arpo Relent looked round. ‘Anyone?’ he demanded. ‘Anyone heard that title before? You, Apto, you’re from here, aren’t you? What’s a “Dantoc”?’

  ‘Not sure,’ the Judge admitted. ‘I don’t pay much attention to such things, I’m afraid. She’s well known enough in the city, to be sure, and indeed highly respected and possibly even feared. Her wealth has come from slave trading, I gather.’

  ‘Anomandaris!’ Brash shrieked, startling all three horses (but not the mules).

  ‘Anomandaris!’ cried the vulture, startling everyone else (but not the mules).

  ‘Right,’ said Tiny, ‘get on with it, Phluster.’

  ‘I shall! Hark well and listen to hear my fair words! This song recounts the penultimate chapter of the Slaying of Draconus—’

  ‘You mean “ultimate” surely,’ said Apto Canavalian.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Please, Brash, forgive my interruption. Do proceed.’

  ‘The Slaying of Draconus, and so …’

  He cleared his throat, assumed that peculiar mask of performance that seemed to afflict most poets, and then fell into that stentorian cadence they presumably all learned from each other and from generations past. Of what stentorian cadence do I speak? Why, the one that seeks to import meaning and significance to every damned word, of course, even when no such resonance obtains. After all, is there really anything more irritating (and somnolent) than a poetry reading?

  ‘Dark was the room

  Deep was the gloom

  That was Draconus’s tomb

  Dank was the air

  Daunting the bier

  On which he laid eyes astare

  The chains not yet broken

  For he not yet woken

  His vows not yet revoken

  His sword still to awaken

  In its scabbard black oaken

  Cold hands soon to stroken’

  ‘Gods below, Phluster!’ snarled Calap Roud. ‘The original ain’t slave to rhymes, and those ones are awful! Just sing it as Fisher would and spare us all your version!’

  ‘You’re just jealous! I’m making Fisher’s version accessible to everyone, even children! That’s the whole point!’

  ‘It’s a tale of betrayal, incest and murder, what on earth are you doing singing it to children?’

  ‘It’s only the old who get shocked these days, old man!’

  ‘And it’s no wonder, with idiots like you singing to innocent children!’

  ‘Got to keep them interested, Calap, something you never did understand, even with a grown-up audience! Now, be quiet and keep your opinions to yourself, I got a song to sing!

  ‘And his head flew into the air

  On a fountain of gore and hair!

  And—’

  ‘Hold on, poet,’ said Tiny, ‘I think you missed a verse there.’

  ‘What? Oh, damn! Wait.’

  ‘And it better start getting funny, too.’

  ‘Funny? But it’s not a funny story!’

  ‘I get his brain,’ said Midge. ‘All that fat.’

  ‘You get half,’ said Flea.

  ‘Wait! Here, here, wait—

  ‘Envy and Spite were the daughters

  To the Consort of Dark Fathers

  She the left breast and her the right

  Two tits named Envy and Spite!

  And deadly their regarrrrd!

  Cold the nipples’ rewarrrd!

  And when Anomander rose tall

  Between them so did they fall

  Sliding down in smears of desire

  Down the bold warrior’s gleaming spire!

  And crowded the closet!

  Sharp the cleaving hatchet!’

  ‘Damn me, poet,’ said Tulgord Vise, ‘the Tomb of Draconus has a closet?’

  ‘They had to hide somewhere!’

  ‘From what, a dead man?’

  ‘He was only sleeping—’

  ‘Who sleeps in a tomb? Was he ensorcelled? Cursed?’

  ‘He ate a poisoned egg,’ suggested Nifty Gum, ‘which was secreted into the clutch of eggs he was served for breakfast. There was a wicked witch who haunted the secret passages of the rabbit hole behind the carrot patch behind the castle—’

  ‘I hate carrots,’ said Flea.

  Brash Phluster was tearing at his hair. ‘What castle? It was a tomb I tell you! Even Fisher agrees with me!’

  ‘A carrot through the eye can kill as easily as a knife,’ observed Midge.

  ‘I hate witches, too,’ said Flea.

  ‘I don’t recall any hatchet in Anomandaris,’ said Apto Canavalian. ‘Rake had a sword—’

  ‘And we been hearing all about it,’ said Relish Chanter, and was too bold in her wink at me, but for my fortune none of her brothers were paying any attention to her.

  ‘I don’t recall much sex either – and you’re singing your version to children, Brash? Gods, there must be limits.’

  ‘On art? Never!’ cried Brash Phluster.

  ‘I want to hear about the poisoned egg and the witch,’ said Sellup.

  Nifty Gum smi
led. ‘The witch had a terrible husband who spoke the language of the beasts and knew nothing of humankind, and in seeking to teach him the gifts of love the witch failed and was cast aside. Spiteful and bitter, she pronounced a vow to slay every man upon the world, at least, all those who were particularly hairy. Those she could not kill she would seduce only to shave clean their chest and so steal their power, which she stored in the well at the top of the hill. But her husband of old haunted her still, and at night she dreamed of warped mirrors bearing both her face and his and sometimes the two were one in the same.

  ‘The city was named Tomb. This detail, by the way, is what confused legions of artists, including Fisher himself, who, dare I add, is not so nearly as tall as me. And Draconus was the city’s king, a proud and noble ruler. Indeed he had two daughters, born of no mother, but of his will and magic gifts. Shaped of clay and sharp stones, neither possessed a heart. Their names they took upon themselves the night they became women, when each saw her own soul’s truth and could not look away, could not lie or deceive even unto their own selves.’

  Noting at last the host of blank expressions, he said, ‘The significance of this—’

  ‘Is a form of torture I will not abide,’ said Tiny Chanter.

  ‘Carrot through the eye,’ said Midge. ‘Anyone got a carrot?’

  ‘Eye,’ said Flea.

  ‘Anomander kills Draconus and gets the sword!’ shouted Brash Phluster. ‘You never let me get to the funny bits – you can’t vote, it’s not fair!’

  ‘Oh be quiet, will you?’ said Tulgord Vise. ‘Plenty of light left this day, and we’ve plenty of cooked meat from yesterday. No, what we need is water. Sardic Thew, what chance the next spring is dry?’

  The host stroked his jaw. ‘We’ve no more than trickles for days now, in every watering hole. I admit I am worried mightily, good sir.’

  ‘Might have to bleed someone,’ said Tiny, showing his tiny teeth again. ‘Who’s flush?’

  His brothers laughed.

  I spoke then. ‘Vows are as stone, each a menhir raised like a knuckled finger to the sky. The knights who hunted the Nehemoth were not alone in such cold chisel. Another travelled in the group, a strange and silent man who walked like a hunter in forestlands, yet in his face could be seen the ragged scrawl of a soldier’s cruel life, a past of friends dying in his arms, of the guilt of surviving, of teeth bared to fickle chance and a world stripped of all meaning. The gods are as nothing to a soldier, who in prayer only begs for life and righteous purpose, and both are selfish needs indeed. This is not reaching up to touch god. It is pulling the god down as if stealing a golden idol upon a mantelpiece. Begging voiced as a demand, a plea paid out as if owed, such are a soldier’s prayers.

  ‘Faith fell beneath his marching boots long ago. He knows the curse of reconciliation and knows too its falsity, the emptiness of the ritual. He has abandoned redemption and now lives to excoriate a stain from the world. That stain being the Nehemoth. In this, perhaps, he is the noblest of them all—’

  ‘Not true!’ hissed Arpo Relent. ‘The Well Knight serves only the Good, the Wellness of the soul and the flesh that is its home! Not a single three-finned fish has ever passed these lips! Not a sip of wretched liquor, not a stream of noxious smoke. Vegetables are the gift of god—’

  ‘Didn’t stop you stuffing your maw last night though, did it?’

  Arpo glared at Tiny who grinned back. ‘Necessity—’

  ‘Of which the hunter and soldier understood all too well,’ I resumed. ‘Necessity indeed. The vow stands tall upon the horizon, bold in bleak skies. Even the sun’s light cringes from that dark stone. Has rock earned worship? Does a man so lose himself as to kneel before insensate stone? Does one cherish home or the walls and ceiling so enclosing? To see that vow each day, each night, season upon season, year upon year, is it any wonder that it becomes unto itself a god before the supplicant’s eyes? In making vows we chisel the visage of a master and announce our abjection as its slave.

  ‘Yet, does not the soldier now standing unmoving behind his eyes not see and understand the dissembling demanded of him, the bending of reason, the burnishing into blindness the madness of absurd conviction? He does, and is mocked within himself, and the god of his vow is a closed fist inside iron scales and those iron scales mark the lie of his own hand, there upon the saddle horn.’

  At last, Steck Marynd did twist round in his saddle. ‘You presume at your peril, poet.’

  ‘As do we all,’ I replied. ‘I tell but a tale here. The hunter’s face is not your face. The knights are not as travel here in our company. The carriage is nothing like the carriage in my tale. To noble Purse Snippet I paint a scene close enough to be familiar, indeed comfortable, as much as such luxury can be achieved here on this fatal trail.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Steck. ‘You steal from what you see and claim it invention.’

  ‘Indeed, by simple virtue of changing a name or two here and there, or perhaps it is enough to say that what I relate is not what you may see around you. Each listener crowds eager with an armful of details and shall fill in and buttress up as he or she sees fit.’

  Apto Canavalian was frowning, as Judges are in the habit of doing when they can’t really think of anything worth thinking. He then shook his head, casting off the momentary fug, and said, ‘I see no real value in changing a few names and then making everyone pretend it isn’t what it obviously is. How is this invention, or even creative? Where is the imagination?’

  ‘Buried six feet down, I should think,’ said I, and smiled. ‘In some far off land in no way similar to any place you know, of course.’

  ‘Then why bother with the pathetic shell-game, now you’ve shown us where the nut hides?’

  ‘Did I really need to show you for you to know where it is?’

  ‘No, which makes it even more ridiculous.’

  ‘I most heartily agree, sir,’ said I. ‘Now, if you will permit, may I continue?’

  Flitting eagerness in the Judge’s eyes, as if at last he understood. It warms the soul when this is witnessed, I do assure you.

  Before I could speak, however, Purse Snippet asked, ‘Poet, how fares their trek, these hunters and pilgrims of yours?’

  ‘Not well. In flesh and in spirit, they are all lost. The enemy has drawn close – closer than any among them is aware—’

  ‘What!’ bellowed Tulgord Vise, wheeling his horse around and half-drawing his sword. ‘Do you glean too close to a secret here, Flicker? Dare not be coy with me. I kill coy people out of faint irritation, and you venture far beyond that! You sting like spider hairs in the eye! On your life, speak true!’

  ‘Not once have I strayed from what is true, sir. Now you show us your clutter of details and would build us something monstrous! Shall I weigh upon your effort? Terrible its flaws, sir, set no hope or belief upon such a rickety frame. This tale is thin and clear as a mountain rook. Sir, the blinding mud so stirred resides behind your eyes and nowhere else.’

  ‘You dare insult me?’

  ‘Not at all. But may I remind you, my life is in the palm of Lady Snippet, not in yours, sir. And I am telling her a tale, and for this breath at least she withholds her judgement on its merit. In the Lady’s name, may I continue?’

  ‘What’s all this?’ Tiny demanded. ‘Flea?’

  Flea scowled.

  ‘Midge?’

  Midge scowled, too.

  The host waved his hands. ‘Whilst you slept—’

  ‘While we sleep everything stops!’ Tiny roared, his face the hue of masticated roses. ‘No votes! No decisions! No nothing!’

  ‘Incorrect,’ said Purse Snippet, and so flat and so certain her tone that the Chanters were struck dumb. ‘I am not chained to you,’ she went on, her eyes knuckling hard as stone upon Tiny’s faltering visage. ‘And the blades with which you would seek to threaten me strike no fear in this breast. I have charged this poet to speak me a story, to continue what I so poorly began. If he fails in satisfying me, he dies
. This is the pact and it does not concern you, nor anyone else here. Only myself and Avas Flicker.’

  ‘And how does he fair so far, Milady?’ Apto asked.

  ‘Poorly,’ she said, ‘but for the moment I shall abide.’

  The day was most desultory, in the manner of interminable treks the world over. Heat oppressed, the ground grew harder underfoot, stones sharp stabbed beneath soles already tender with threat. The ancient pilgrim track was rutted and dusty, repository of every discarded or surrendered aspiration and ambition. To journey is to purge, as all wise ancients know, and of purging the elderly know better than most.

  But what burdens could be so cast off our straining shoulders here on Cracked Pot Trail? Crushing and benumbing this weight, that our art should have purpose, but dare I hazard that those of you who are witness to this grim tale who are neither poet nor musician, not sculptor or painter, you cannot hope to imagine the sudden prickling sweat that bespeaks performance, no matter its shaping. Within the heated skull vicious thoughts ravage the softer allowances. What if my audience is composed of nothing but idiots? Raving lunatics! What if their tastes are so bad not even a starving vulture would pluck loose a single rolling eyeball? What if they hate me on sight? Look at all those faces! What do they see and what notions ply the unseen waters of their thoughts? Am I too fat, too thin, too nervous, too ugly to warrant all this attention? The composing of art is the most private of endeavours, but the performance paints the face in most dramatic hues. Does failure in one devour the other? Do I even like any of these people? What do they want with me anyway? What if— what if I just ran away? No! They’d hate me even more than they do now! Dare I speak out? Ah, these are most unwelcome streams, swirling so dark and biting. Assume the best and let the worst arrive as revelation (and, perhaps, dismay). An artist truly contemptuous of his or her audience deserves nothing but contempt in return.