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

by Steven Erikson

  ‘No, Barunko! Wait!’

  To her utter astonishment, Barunko turned.

  ‘We’ve got to gather the others! Get us all to cover! Anywhere! We’ve got to get out of this!’

  He frowned, and then nodded. ‘Okay. Follow me!’

  There were dead demons everywhere. Bruised, bloody and exhausted, Tiny stood glowering, flanked by Flea and a one-eyed Midge, who now had a collection of eyeballs cupped in one hand and was poking them about, presumably looking for the right one.

  Steck Marynd, with Tulgord Vise on his back, finally appeared in the doorway, and Shartorial – now mostly naked after her spat with a few demons – rushed towards him. Behind them all, Brash Phluster slipped round and stumbled into the Apothecary, heading straight for the shelves at the back of the room and their rows of phials, flasks, bottles and jars.

  Apto straightened what was left of his prisoner’s tunic. ‘That was hairy,’ he said. ‘If not for my bad back I’d have joined in the slaughter. I’m sure you’re all aware of that—’

  Shartorial had said something – something probably unflattering regarding Apto – and now Steck Marynd carefully set Tulgord Vise down, straightened, and walked towards the critic.

  Who backed away. ‘What’s wrong, sir? Look at us – we all made it out alive! There’s nothing – she’s lying! Whatever she said is a lie!’

  ‘Don’t kill critic,’ said Tiny. ‘Tiny kills critic.’

  Steck paused and glanced back. ‘Not this time. This time, Steck Marynd will see justice done—’

  ‘No! Tiny sees justice! Done!’

  At the back of the chamber, Brash Phluster pushed into his mouth the piece of grey meat that had once been the front half of his tongue, and then started guzzling one bottle after another. He choked, gagged, coughed out the meat, stuffed it back in and resumed drinking.

  ‘Look at the poet!’ Apto cried.

  Everyone turned.

  Apto rushed past them all, back into the corridor, where he ran for his life. He heard angry shouts behind him. He found another corridor, pelted down it, and then, at the end of a short side passage, he found another set of stairs. At the threshold he paused. Up? No! They would expect that! Down! Down he ran.

  Very faintly, from somewhere above, he heard Flea say, ‘I thought he had a bad back!’

  Apto laughed nastily. Then stumbled, fell, bounced and flounced wildly down the steps, and finally came to rest on a landing, or, perhaps, the lowest level. In agony, he lay gasping in the darkness, and then heard something shuffling towards him. Panic gripped him. ‘What’s that? Who’s there? Leave me alone. I only ever speak the objective truth! Not my fault if I crushed your love of doing art, or whatever! Was it me who cut off your head? No! Listen, I own a villa and it’s all yours! I promise!’

  There was a low, weak chuckle, and then a demon’s drawn, ashen face loomed over Apto Canavalian. The demon grinned. ‘I remember you,’ it said. ‘From Crack’d Pot Trail.’

  ‘No! Not possible! We’ve never met, I swear it!’

  The demon’s smile broadened. ‘You’ve caught the attention of the Indifferent God. Very rare gift, this meeting here, oh, yes, very rare!’ It held up a flaccid length of knobby, bruised meat that dripped from both ends. ‘Look, I used it so much it fell off. Mother warned me but did I listen?’

  ‘I’m sorry, what?’

  ‘But I bet you have one. Should last me a week or two, easy.’

  Apto suddenly laughed. ‘You’re wrong there! I’ve just broken my spine! I can’t feel a thing from below the neck! Hah hah hah, you lose!’

  The possessed demon scowled. ‘Truly?’

  ‘Truth! In fact, I’ve never been more spineless than I am right now!’

  ‘Now you lie!’

  ‘All right,’ Apto admitted, ‘that was perhaps an exaggeration. But that doesn’t change anything. I broke my back, and I’ll probably die right here, lost and abandoned by all my friends. It’s a horrible way to go, and you know, if you were a merciful god, you’d—’

  ‘Kill you? But I’m not a merciful god, am I?’

  ‘You’re not? Oh, damn. I’m doomed, then.’

  The demon’s face split into a wide grin again. ‘Yes, you are. That’s right, no audience for you! All alone! Forgotten! Discarded!’ The demon pulled back, began shuffling away. ‘Need,’ it whispered, ‘to find another. Another … oh me, oh my, Mother was right! Why didn’t I listen? I never listen, oh why? Why?’

  Apto listened to its whining dwindle, and then, finally, all was silence.

  He sat up. ‘Shit,’ he muttered, ‘that was close.’

  ‘It worked!’ cried Brash Phluster. ‘It worked! I can talk again! And sing! Aaalahh la la lah leeee!’

  ‘Tiny tear out his tongue again,’ said Tiny. ‘Everyone cheers. A standing ovation.’

  Brash Phluster snapped his mouth shut and shrank back to cower beneath the shelves.

  ‘We’re forgetting why we’re here,’ said Steck Marynd. ‘The Nehemoth.’ He turned to Shartorial Infelance. ‘Milady? Can you lead us to the throne room?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but I fear there will be many, many guards—’

  ‘On your authority, however?’

  She considered, and then nodded. ‘Yes, a special audience. But I will need a change of attire if I am to be convincing.’

  ‘I would advise,’ said Steck, ‘that you do so on your own, and then return here when you are ready.’ He glanced at Tulgord Vise. ‘That salve is working, but the bones still need more time to properly knit.’

  ‘Soon,’ promised the Mortal Sword. ‘I can feel the heat of their mending!’

  ‘Very well,’ said Shartorial. She then leaned close and kissed Steck Marynd, before rushing out of the room.

  Brash Phluster crept out a few steps. ‘I will sing of this, Steck Marynd, the love that defied chains, and bars, and locked doors, and the fact that you haven’t bathed in weeks and are pretty homely besides.’

  ‘That’s not his tongue,’ said Midge, ‘that’s someone else’s.’

  Brash Phluster shrugged. ‘What if it was? There were plenty lying about, and besides, look at that new eye of yours!’

  Midge scowled. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, where did you find the dead goat? Is what I’m wondering.’

  ‘It’s a demon’s eye!’ said Midge. ‘And with it I can see demon things!’

  ‘What demon things?’ Brash asked.

  Midge waved about. ‘Things demons can see, of course. That table there, and those chairs.’

  ‘I can see those too.’

  ‘But I see them the way demons do!’

  ‘Well, with one eye at least.’

  Midge made a fist. ‘Not if I tear out my other eye and find another demon eye!’

  ‘Possibly,’ Brash said, and then shrugged, ‘though I’m not convinced of that.’

  Flea laughed and pointed. ‘Look, Tiny, Midge has a goat eye! Ha ha!’

  ‘It’s not a goat! It’s a demon!’

  ‘Does it even work?’ Brash Phluster asked.

  Midge slumped. ‘It will. Soon.’

  ‘Tiny eats goats for breakfast and demons for lunch. Tiny eats dragons for supper.’

  ‘And then sits on the shit bucket for the rest of the night,’ said Brash Phluster.

  Steck Marynd snorted, and then eyed the poet curiously. ‘Most peculiar. I now wonder what potion you’ve swallowed, beyond the one miraculously mending your tongue.’

  ‘The Make Tiny Kill Poet potion,’ said Tiny.

  Brash Phluster sneered. ‘This is what an empowered artist is like, Tiny Chanter. No sharper weapon than talent, no crueller eye than that of an artist unleashed. Insult or threaten me again and I’ll see you flensed alive, mocked in a thousand songs, aped by ten thousand mummers and twenty thousand clowns. I’ll see you—’

  ‘Better cease the threats,’ advised Steck Marynd, ‘before the witless thug does what all witless thugs do.’

  ‘Which is?’ Brash P
hluster asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tiny, ‘which is?’

  ‘Why, kill the artist, of course.’

  ‘Yes, this is what Tiny is going to do.’

  Brash laughed, ‘Really? So, Tiny Chanter, you’re a witless thug, are you?’

  ‘Tiny’s not witless. Tiny’s not a thug. Tiny’s not a witless thug either.’

  ‘So you won’t be killing me after all?’

  Tiny frowned, and then glanced at Midge, but Midge had one hand covering his good eye and was taking baby steps, his other hand held out lest he walk into something unexpected. Tiny then glanced at Flea, who looked back, smiled and waved.

  Groaning, Tulgord Vise slowly regained his feet, wincing as he put his full weight on his legs. Then he straightened and let out a heavy sigh. ‘Almost ready,’ he said.

  Shartorial Infelance rushed back into the chamber, wearing a new shimmery dress of creamy silk with rose petal patterns spilling down to the hem, which sat delicately above the tops of her small feet. Her hair was freshly coiffed, too.

  ‘That was … amazing,’ said Brash Phluster.

  ‘We have a chance!’ she said breathlessly, her cheeks pink, her eyes alight, ‘there’s no guards anywhere!’

  Steck Marynd smiled. ‘Necromancers garner little loyalty, it seems. As expected. To your weapons, friends, it’s time to end this!’

  Brash Phluster watched them all rush from the room, and then he turned back to the shelf and began pocketing as many phials and bottles as he could. He hummed under his breath as he did so, and it was a fine hum indeed.

  Emancipor cursed as the mob seethed against one side of the carriage. He leaned down towards the speaking tube. ‘It’s no good, Master! The whole damned city’s in the streets! They’ve torn apart all the monsters!’

  The side door opened and out stepped Bauchelain. One gesture cleared a space as bodies went flying. He climbed up beside his manservant and stood looking at the mobbed street ahead.

  ‘I see. How unfortunate. Can you see Korbal Broach?’

  ‘He veered into a crow and flew away, Master.’

  ‘Did he now? Well, to be expected, as he has every confidence in my ability to extricate ourselves from this situation.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ said Emancipor. ‘Uh, exactly how do you plan on doing that, by the way?’

  ‘Well, first of all, I shall set the horses on fire.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Fear not, Mister Reese, they’re used to it.’

  ‘Right. That’s good, then. And after that?’

  ‘Well, as much as it offends my sensibilities, I shall have to walk ahead and clear for us a path. Shield your gaze as best you can, Mister Reese, as it shall be a messy traverse.’ And from somewhere he drew out a midnight blue two-handed sword that then burst into flickering blue flames. ‘In this blade,’ Bauchelain said, ‘are imprisoned a thousand hungry demons, and tonight, Mister Reese, they shall feed unto gluttony.’

  ‘Right, good for them I say. Just get us out of here!’

  Bauchelain smiled. ‘Why, Mister Reese, whence the source of this admirable self-interest? Most enchanting.’

  ‘Aye, Master, self-interest, that’s me all over.’

  Bauchelain brandished the sword, the gesture spraying out writhing tongues of blue flame – sufficient to draw some attention, as cries of terror arose on all sides. ‘Now then, allow me some room, Mister Reese, and keep tight the traces as you follow along.’

  ‘Aye Master, count on it!’

  Bauchelain then leapt down.

  And began the terrible slaughter.

  Scratched, bitten, and battered, the Party of Five reached the back of the giant black carriage. Lurma Spilibus scrabbled at the latch of the storage trap and, eventually, found it. She then twisted the latch, only to turn her cross-eyed face at Plaintly. ‘Locked!’

  ‘Then pick it and hurry up!’

  While she set to work, Barunko and Symon fended off wild, panicked citizens, most of whom seemed to be in a strange frenzy and disinclined to reason on this night, while Le Groutt scared people by leering with his misaligned jaw, and Mortari poked at his swollen head with a shard of broken glass, spurting goo at anyone who came too close.

  ‘It’s jammed!’ said Lurma, ‘and now I’ve broken the pick!’

  With a bearish growl, Barunko stepped back, reached round and tore open the trap door.

  Plaintly peered in. ‘You won’t believe this!’ she hissed. ‘It’s full of gold coins and gems and diamonds and bolts of silk and—’

  ‘Let’s go!’ cried Lurma, and she clambered inside. The others quickly followed. When Barunko, who was last, grunted his way into the narrow space, the trap door slammed shut, leaving them all in utter darkness.

  Plaintly listened but only heard lots of harsh breaths and the rustle of coins shifting under them. ‘We all here?’ she asked. ‘Count off!’

  Mortari said, ‘Me!’

  Le Groutt said, ‘Eee!’

  ‘I’m here,’ said Barunko.

  ‘So am I,’ hissed Lurma Spilibus.

  ‘That’s it, then!’ said Plaintly Grasp. ‘We’re all here! The Party of Five!’

  ‘No,’ said Symon, ‘you forgot me!’

  ‘What? Oh, wait, we really are the Party of Six!’

  ‘You counted wrong,’ said Barunko, ‘although you’re right. What I mean is, with Symon included, there’s six of us, but only if that includes you, Plaintly. Or in my case, me.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you include me?’ Plaintly demanded. ‘Or you? Anyway, until Symon spoke I counted five, so we must be the Party of Six!’

  ‘Unless,’ said Mortari, ‘someone else is in here with us!’

  Plaintly Grasp tensed. ‘Oh gods, we’re not alone!’

  ‘No,’ said Mortari. ‘There’s me and Le Groutt and Lurma and …’

  ‘I can’t find the damned trap door,’ said Barunko. ‘It was right behind me, I swear!’

  ‘Everyone split up and start looking for the trap door,’ said Plaintly.

  ‘Everyone?’ asked Mortari.

  ‘Everyone!’

  ‘Even the one who’s hiding in here with us?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Plaintly, fighting off her panic as she did not like confining spaces. ‘Even that one!’

  ‘That means,’ said Mortari, ‘we’re actually the Party of Seven!’

  ‘No, six,’ said Plaintly, who wasn’t yet convinced of Barunko’s argument.

  ‘Eleven,’ said Lurma Spilibus.

  ‘Seven,’ said a voice no-one recognized.

  Traversing empty corridors, crossing abandoned chambers already looted and with stains of blood here and there on the floor, Shartorial Infelance led them at last to the twin doors behind which waited the throne room.

  The Nehemothanai began checking weapons, straps and fittings.

  ‘Poet ran away,’ said Tiny.

  Grunting, Steck Marynd said, ‘I’m not surprised. One can only hope that the potion that made him smarter than normal will wear off.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Tulgord Vise as he examined the longsword he’d found.

  ‘A man with sufficient wits will likely escape this wretched night with his life,’ Steck replied. ‘A man with the normal wits of Brash Phluster is much more likely to die, and most horribly, too.’

  ‘You reveal a cruel streak,’ observed Tulgord Vise.

  Steck Marynd shrugged. ‘He’ll survive the night, I’m sure. Beyond that, however, well, since when was an artist hard-eyed and silken-tongued enough to tell the truth, of any use to anyone? That man could become an icon of dissent, a lodestone to disenfranchised revolutionaries, the namby-pamby favourite of the worshipping classes of fawners, hangers-on and other assorted miscreants.’ He paused as everyone was staring at him, Tiny with a frown, Midge with a scowl that made his demon eye glow, Flea with a wide smile, Tulgord Vise with a thoughtful expression, and Shartorial Infelance with an adoring one.

  Suddenly uncomfortable, Steck said, ‘I had aspirations
to be a weaver of epics, once. It’s said, after all, that there’s an epic tale in each and every one of us. It’s all down to just writing it down, and only the lucky few of us ever find the time away from the necessities of living, socializing, daydreaming and wishful thinking.’ He grimaced and stared at a wall. ‘Can’t be very hard, anyway,’ he muttered. ‘Look at Brash Phluster, for Hood’s sake!’ Then, scowling, he shook his head and collected up his crossbow. ‘Well, never mind all that shit. We’ve got some necromancers to kill!’

  Shartorial Infelance flung herself onto Steck. ‘I knew it!’ she cried, loudly planting wet, sloppy kisses to his face. ‘Oh, you could be the Century’s Greatest Artist, I just know it!’

  ‘Tiny wants to throw up.’

  Swearing under his breath, Tulgord Vise stepped forward and kicked open the twin doors to the throne room.

  One of the doors collided with something that made a crunching sound, followed by muffled curses, and an instant later an enormous demon bedecked in supple furs, oiled chain, iron torcs and assorted other accoutrements, staggered into view, clutching its nose which was now streaming blood.

  ‘Bastard!’ it groaned, glowing eyes bright with tears.

  ‘Stand aside if you value your life!’ Tulgord Vise bellowed.

  Blinking, the demon stepped to one side, and then, as the Nehemothanai bulled into the room, it said, ‘You’re too late if you’re after Bauchelain and Korbal Broach.’

  ‘Not again!’ cried Tulgord Vise.

  Tiny laughed. ‘Look! Tiny sees a throne for the taking! Hah ha ha! Hah! Hah ha!’

  ‘Forget it,’ said the demon. ‘Tried that. It’s no good.’

  Tiny frowned up at the creature. ‘You don’t know Tiny Chanter.’

  ‘That’s true, I don’t. Who is he?’

  ‘This is Tiny Chanter,’ said Tiny, thumping his own chest. ‘High Mage! D’ivers! King of Toll City of Stratem! Leader of the Nehemothanai! And now king of Farrog, hah!’