‘She is. Midge?’
‘She—’
‘Stop that too!’
The three brothers laughed, and Relish did, as well, stirring in me a few curdles of unease, especially the way she now walked, bold, swaggering the way curvy women did, her head held high and all those black tresses drifting around like ghostly serpents with glinting tongues testing the air. Why, I realized with a start, she really thought she was pregnant. All the signs were there.
Now, as any mother would tell you, pregnancy and freedom do not belong in the same sentence, except one indicating the loss of the latter with the closing pangs of the former. That being said, I’m no mother, nor was I in any way inclined to disavow Relish Chanter of whatever comforting notions she happened to hold at the time, and was this not considerate of me?
‘Look at me! I’m Nifty Gum the famous poet!’ Sellup had jammed her hand up inside the head and was moving the jaw up and down, making the teeth clack. ‘I say poet things! All the time! I have a new poem for everybody. Want to hear? It’s called The Lay of the Eggs! Ha ha, get it? A poem about eggs! I’m famous and everything and my brains taste like cheese!’
‘Stop that,’ Tulgord Vise said in a dangerous growl, one hand finding the grip of his sword.
‘I have found ruts,’ announced Steck Marynd from up ahead, reining in and leaning hard over his saddle as he squinted at the ground. ‘Carriage ruts, and heavy ones too.’
Tulgord rode up. ‘How long ago?’ he demanded.
‘A day, maybe less!’
‘We’ll catch them at the ferry! At last!’
‘Could be any carriage, couldn’t it?’ so queried Apto Canavalian, earning vicious stares from Tulgord and the Chanter brothers. ‘I mean,’ he stumbled on, ‘might not be those Nehemoth at all, right? Another pilgrim train, or—’
‘Aye,’ admitted Steck. ‘Worth keeping in mind, and we’re worn out, we are. Worn out. We can push, but not too hard.’ He tilted his crossbow towards Sardic Thew. ‘You, tell us about this ferry. How often does it embark? How long the crossing?’
Our host rubbed his lean jaw. ‘Once a day, usually at dusk. There’s a tidal draw, you see, that it needs to ride across to Farrog. Reaches the docks by dawn.’
‘Dusk?’ Steck’s narrow eyes narrowed some more. ‘Can we make it, Thew?’
‘With a decent pace and no halt for lunch … yes, woodsman, I would say it is possible.’
The air fairly bristled, and savage the smiles of Tiny, Midge, Flea and Tulgord Vise.
‘What is all this?’ demanded Arpo Relent, kicking his horse round so that he could see the rest of the party. ‘Are we chasing someone, then? What is he, a demon? I despise demons. If we catch him I’ll cut him to pieces. Pieces. Proclamation! The Guild of Demons is herewith disbanded, with prejudice! What, who set the city on fire? Well, put it out! Doesn’t this temple have any windows? I can’t see a damned thing through all this smoke – someone kill a priest. That always cheers me up. Ho, what’s this?’
‘Your penis,’ said Apto Canavalian. ‘And before anyone asks, no, I have no particular fascination for that word.’
‘But what’s it do? Oh, now I remember. Hmmm, nice.’
‘We pursue not a demon,’ said Tulgord Vise, straightening to assume a virtuous pose in knightly fashion. ‘Necromancers of the worst sort. Evil, murderous. We have avowed that in the name of goodness they must die.’
Arpo blinked up from his blurred right hand. ‘Necromancers? Oh, them. Miserable fumblers, don’t know a damned thing, really. Well, I’m happy to obliterate them just the same. Did someone mention Farrog? I once lived in a city called Fan’arrogal, wonder if it’s, uh, related. On a river mouth? Crawling with demons? Ooh, see that? Ooh! New building programme. Fountains!’
You will be relieved that I bit off a comment about pubic works.
Tulgord stared wide-eyed at Arpo, which was understandable, and then he tugged his horse back onto the path. ‘Lead us on, Marynd. I want this done with.’
Mister Must then spoke from atop the carriage. ‘Fan’arrogal, you said?’
Arpo was wiping his hand on his bared chest. ‘My city. Until the demon infestation, when I got fed up with the whole thing.’ He frowned, gaze clouding. ‘I think.’
‘After a night of slaughter that left most of the city in smouldering ruins,’ Mister Must said, his eyes thinned to slits behind his pipe’s smoke. ‘Or so the tale went. Farrog rose up from its ashes.’
‘Gods below,’ whispered Sardic Thew with eyes bulging upon Arpo Relent, ‘you’re the Indifferent God! Returned to us at last!’
Brash Phluster snorted. ‘He’s a man with a cracked skull, Thew. Look what’s leaking out now, will you?’
‘I’d rather not,’ said Apto, quickly setting off after the Nehemothanai.
I regarded Mister Must. ‘Fan’arrogal? That name appears in only the obscurest histories of the region.’
Wiry brows lifted. ‘Indeed now? Well, had to have picked it up somewhere, didn’t I?’
‘As footmen will do,’ said I, nodding.
Grunting, Mister Must snapped the traces and the mules lurched forward. I stepped to one side and found myself momentarily alone, as the others had already hurried after the Nehemothanai. Well, almost alone.
‘I’m Nifty Gum and I’ll do anything she says!’ Clack-clack.
Ah, a fan’s dream, what?
‘Kill some time,’ commanded Tiny Chanter, once I had caught up.
‘Her tears spilled down upon the furs when, with a final soft caress, he left the hut. The grey of dawn mocked all the colours in the world, and in this lifeless realm she sat unmoving, as a faint wind moaned awake outside. Earlier, she had listened for the sledge’s runners scraping the snow, but had heard nothing. Now, she listened for the bickering among the hunting dogs, the crunch of wrapped feet as the ice over the pits was cracked open. She listened for the cries of delight upon finding the carcass of the animal the Fenn had slain.
‘She listened, then, for the sounds of her life of yesterday and all the days before it, for as long as she could remember. The sounds of childhood, which in detail did not change though she was a child no longer. He was gone, a cavern carved out of her soul. He had brought dark words and bright gifts, in the way of strangers and unexpected guests.
‘But, beyond this hut … only silence.’
‘A vicious tale,’ commented Steck Marynd. ‘You should have let it die with Roud.’
‘The demand was otherwise,’ I replied to the man riding a few strides ahead. ‘In any case, the end, as you well know, is now near. Finally, she rose, heavy and weightless, chilled and almost fevered, and with her furs drawn about her she emerged into the morning light.
‘Dead dogs were strewn about on the stained snow, their necks snapped. To the left of the Chief’s hut the remnants of a bonfire died in a drift of ashes and bones. The corpses of her beloved kin were stacked in frozen postures of cruel murder beside the ghastly hearth, and closer to hand laid the butchered remnants of three children.
‘The sledge with its mute cargo remained where he had left it, although the hides had been taken, exposing the frost-blackened body of another Fenn. Dead of a sword thrust.
‘A keening cry lifting up through the numbness of her soul, she staggered closer to that sledge, and she looked down upon a face years younger than that of the Fenn who had come among them. For, as is known to all, age is difficult to determine among the Tartheno Toblakai. She then recalled his tale, the battle upon the glacier, and all at once she understood—’
‘What?’ demanded Midge. ‘Understood what? Hood take you, Flicker, explain!’
‘It is the hero who wins the fated battle against his evil enemy,’ said I, with unfeigned sorrow. ‘So it is in all tales of comfort. But there is no comfort in this tale. Alas, while we may rail, sometimes the hero dies. Fails. Sometimes, the last one standing is the enemy, the Betrayer, the Kinslayer. Sometimes, dear Midge, there is no comfort. None.’
Apto Canavalian fixed upon me an almost accusatory glare. ‘And what,’ he said, voice rough with fury, ‘is the moral of that story, Flicker?’
‘Moral? Perhaps none, sir. Perhaps, instead, the tale holds another purpose.’
‘Such as?’
Purse Snippet answered in the coldest of tones. ‘A warning.’
‘A warning?’
‘Where hides the gravest threat? Why, the one you invite into your camp. Avas Didion Flicker, you should have abandoned this tale – gods, what was Roud thinking?’
‘It was the only story he knew by heart!’ Brash Phluster snapped, and then he wheeled on me. ‘But you! You know plenty! You could have spun us a different one! Instead – instead—’
‘He chooses to sicken our hearts,’ Purse said. ‘I said I would abide, Flicker. For a time. Your time, I think, has just run out.’
‘The journey has not ended yet, Lady Snippet. If firm you will hold to this bargain, then I have the right to do the same.’
‘Do you imagine I remain confident of your prowess?’
I met her eyes, my lockbox of secrets cracked open – just a sliver – but enough to steal the colour from her face, and I said this, ‘You should be by now, Lady.’
How many worlds exist? Can we imagine places like and yet unlike our own? Can we see the crowds, the swarming sea of strangers and all those faces scratching our memories, as if we once knew them, even when we knew them not? What value building bitter walls between us? After all, is it not a conceit to shake one’s head in denial of such possibilities, when in our very own world we can find a multitude of worlds, one behind the eyes of every man, woman, child and beast you happen to meet?
Or would you claim that these are in fact all facets of the same world? A man kneels in awe before a statue or standing stone, whilst another pisses at its base. Do these two men see the same thing? Do they even live in the same world?
And if I tell you that I have witnessed each in turn, that indeed I have both bowed in humility and reeled before witless desecration, what value my veracity when I state with fierce certainty that numberless worlds exist, and are in eternal collision, and that the only miracle worth a damned thing is that we manage to agree on anything?
Nothing stinks worse than someone else’s piss. And if you do not believe me, friends, try standing in my boots for a time.
And so to this day I look with fond indulgence upon my memories of the Indifferent God, if god he was, there within the cracked pot of Arpo Relent’s head, for all the pure pleasure he found in the grip of his right hand. Its issue was one of joy, after all, and far preferable to the spiteful, small-minded alternative.
The name of Avas Didion Flicker is not entirely unknown among the purveyors of entertainment, if not culture, throughout Seven Cities, and by virtue of living as long as I have, I am regarded with some modest veneration. This has not yielded vast wealth, not by any measure beyond that of personal satisfaction at the canon of words marking a lifetime’s effort, and as everyone knows, satisfaction is a wavering measure in one’s own mind, as quick to pale as it is to glow. If I now choose to stand full behind this faint canon and its even fainter reputation, well, the stance is not precisely comfortable.
And the relevance of this humble admission? Well now, that’s the question, isn’t it?
Mortal Sword Tulgord Vise had girthed himself for battle. Weapons cluttered his scaled hands, the pearled luminescence of his armour was fair blinding in the noble light. His eyes were savage arrow-heads straining at the taut bowstring of righteous anticipation. His beard bristled like the hackled rump of a furious hedgehog. The veins webbing his nose were bursting into crimson blooms beneath the skin. His teeth gnashed with every flare of his nostrils and strange smells swirled in his wake.
The Chanter brothers walked in a three-man shieldwall, suddenly festooned with halberds and axes and two-handed and even three-handed swords. Swathed in bear skin, Tiny commanded the centre, with the seal skinned Midge on his left and the seal skinned Flea on his right, thus forming a bestial wall in need of a good wash. Relish sauntered a step behind them, regal as a pregnant queen immune to bastardly rumours (they’re just jealous).
Steck Marynd still rode ahead, crossbow at the ready. Two thousand paces ahead the trail lifted to form a rumpled ridge, and behind it was naught but sky. Flanking this ominously near horizon was a host of crooked, leaning standards from which depended sun-bleached rags flapping like the wings of skewered birds. Every dozen or so heartbeats Steck twisted round in his saddle to look upon the Chanters, who being on foot were dictating the pace of this avenging army. He visibly ground his teeth at their insouciance.
Purse Snippet, with visage fraught and drawn, cast pensive glances my way, as did Sardic Thew and indeed Apto Canavalian, but still I held my silence. Yes, I could feel the twisting, knotting strain of the Nehemothanai, possibly only moments from launching forward, but I well knew that neither Tulgord nor Steck were such fools as to abandon the alliance with the Chanters upon the very threshold of battle. By all counts, Bauchelain and Korbal Broach were deadly, both in sorcery and in hard iron. Indeed, if but a small portion of the tales we had all heard on this pilgrimage were accurate, why, the necromancers had left a trail of devastation across half the known world, and entire frothing armies now nipped at their heels.
No, the Chanters, formidable and vicious, would be needed. And what of Arpo Relent? Why, he could be host to a terrible god, and had he not promised assistance?
Yet, for all this, the very air creaked.
‘Gods,’ whispered Brash Phluster clawing at his hair, ‘let them find them! I cannot bear this!’
I fixed my placid gaze upon the broad furry back of Tiny Chanter. ‘Perhaps the enemy is closer than any might imagine.’ So I spoke, at a pitch that might or might not reach that lumbering shieldwall. ‘After all, what secrets did Calap Roud possess? Did he not choose his tale after much consideration? Or so I seem to recall.’
Apto frowned. ‘I don’t—’
Tiny Chanter swung round, weapons shivering. ‘You! Flicker!’
‘Lady Snippet,’ said I, calm as ever, ‘There is more to my tale, my gift to you, this offering of redemption in this sullied, terrible world.’
Tulgord barked something to Steck who reined in and then wheeled his mount. The entire party had now halted, Mister Must grunting in irritation as he tugged on his traces.
Arpo looked round. ‘Is it raining again? Bouncing cat eyes, how I hate rain!’
‘Through gritted teeth and clenched jaws,’ I began, eyes fixed upon Purse Snippet’s, ‘do we not despair of the injustice that plagues our precious civilization? Are we not flayed by the unfairness to which we are ever witness? The venal escape unscathed. The corrupt duck into shadows and leave echoes of mocking laughter. Murderers walk the streets. Bullies grow hulking and make fortunes buying and selling property. Legions of black-tongued clerks steal from you every last coin, whilst their shrouded masters build extensions to their well-guarded vaults. Money lenders recline in the filth of riches stripped from the poor. Justice? How can one believe in justice when it bleeds and crawls, when it wears a thousand faces and each one dying before your very eyes? And without justice, how can redemption survive? We are whipped round, made to turn our backs on notions of righteous restitution, and should we raise our voices in protest, why, our heads are lopped off and set on spikes as warnings to everyone else. “Keep in line, you miserable shits, or you’ll end up like this!”’
Now that I had their attention, even Nifty’s, I waved my arms about, consumed by pious wrath. ‘Shall we plead to the gods for justice?’ And I jabbed a finger at Arpo Relent. ‘Do so, then! One is among us! But be warned, justice cuts clean, and what you ask for could well slice you in two on the backswing!’ I wheeled to face Purse Snippet once again. ‘Do you believe in justice, Lady?’
Mutely she shook her head.
‘Because you have seen! With your own eyes!’
‘Yes,’ she whisper
ed. ‘I have seen.’
I hugged myself, wretched with all my haunting thoughts. ‘Evil hides. Sometimes right in front of you. I hear something … something. It’s close. Yes, close. Lady, to our tale, then. She walked in the company of pilgrims and killers, but as the journey went on, as the straits grew ever direr, she began to lose the distinction – there among her companions, even within her own soul. Which the pilgrim? Which the killer? The very titles blurred in blood-stained mockery – how could she remain blind to that? How could anyone?
‘And so, as dreadful precipices loomed ever closer, it seemed the world was swallowed in grisly confusion. Killers, yes, on all sides. Wearing brazen faces. Wearing veiled ones. The masks all hide the same bloodless visage, do they not? Where is the enemy? Where? Somewhere ahead, just beyond the horizon? Or somewhere much closer? What was that warning again? Ah, yes … be careful who you invite into your camp. I hear something. What is it? Is it laughter? I think—’
Bellowing, Tiny Chanter pushed through our ranks and thumped against the carriage. ‘Everyone quiet!’ And he set the side of his head against the shuttered side window. ‘I hear … breathing.’
‘Yes,’ said Mister Must, looking down, ‘she does that.’
‘No! It’s – it’s—’
‘’Ware off there, sir,’ rumbled Mister Must, his stained teeth visible where they clenched the clay stem of his pipe. ‘I am warning you. Back off … now.’
‘An old woman, is it?’ Tiny sneered up at the driver. ‘Eats enough to shame a damned wolf!’
‘Her appetites are her business—’
Steck kicked his horse closer. ‘Flicker—’
‘By my bloody altar!’ cried Arpo Relent, ‘I just noticed!’
Tulgord raised his sword, head whipping round. ‘What? What did you just—’
The pipe stem snapped between Mister Must’s teeth and he set most narrow eyes upon the Well Knight. ‘Let the past lie, I always say. Deep in the quiet earth, deep and—’
‘I know you!’ Arpo roared, and then he launched himself at Mister Must.
Something erupted, engulfing the driver in flames. Arms outstretched, Arpo plunged into that raging maelstrom. Braying, the mules lunged forward.
The Second Collected Tales of Bauchelain & Korbal Broach: Three Short Novels of the Malazan Empire Page 29
