The woman sighed. ‘If I must. I am a practitioner. I came to seek out Ardata as have so many over the ages. And,’ she waved helplessly to the surroundings, ‘like so many before me I have found the journey … challenging.’
Burastan grunted her agreement. ‘It is that.’
‘And what of you?’ Rissan asked.
‘Shipwrecked. We’re on our way to negotiate for transport out of this godsforsaken abyss.’
The woman’s gaze sharpened. ‘With what would you bargain?’
Burastan scowled, quite annoyed. She had opened her mouth, obviously meaning to put the woman in her place, when Sour piped up: ‘A term of service, maybe. Or payment from the nearest governorship.’
Burastan turned her scowl on Sour who hunched apologetically. Murk also eyed his partner, wondering, Why the uncharacteristic boldness?
Rissan nodded. ‘Then I offer my services in return for your healing my retainer.’
Murk turned aside and brought his face close to Sour. ‘What do you think?’ he murmured, low. ‘She worth it?’
The scrawny fellow was hugging himself and hopping from foot to foot as if he would explode. ‘Oh yeah,’ he answered in a strangled squeak.
Murk gave the nod to Burastan, who rolled her eyes. ‘Very well. We’ll see what we can do.’
‘You have my gratitude.’
Sour eagerly slogged forward to examine the hunched, supposedly Seguleh woman. Throughout, she had sat immobile, head slightly lowered, but when Sour reached for her she moved in a blur, her sword appearing held one-handed between her and Sour, its point pressed to his chest.
Murk flinched backwards. Okay – so maybe she really is Seguleh.
Burastan went for her blade, cursing. Sour raised his arms and looked to Rissan. The woman spoke to the Seguleh: ‘Allow him to examine you, Ina.’
The woman, Ina, her chest working, swallowed and nodded. She lowered the sword, though she did not let go of it. Sour took hold of her forearm. His breath hissed from between his teeth. He peered up at Rissan. ‘This is very bad.’
The Seguleh woman snorted a laugh. She spoke in short panted breaths: ‘Is this you … trying to be … reassuring, Malazan?’
Sour moved off. He waved Sweetly and Squint to him. They talked in low tones then headed into the jungle in separate directions.
‘I’ll report in,’ Burastan told Murk, and slogged off upstream.
Murk eyed this mage. ‘You are a sorceress, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Accomplished, I hope. We mean to enter Jakal Viharn.’
Her gaze yet resting on her sick retainer, Rissan answered, ‘If it can be found.’
‘It’s hard to hide things from me,’ Murk said, realizing, as he said it, that it sounded as if he were boasting, or attempting to impress this newcomer. Why in the Abyss should I care? Because there’s something about this one, that’s why. Don’t know why but she scares me.
The woman gave a small smile. ‘Your patron has that predilection.’
Has me pegged already, does she?
The main column came pushing their way through the waist-high water. In its middle were Ostler and Dee, supporting the litter between them on their shoulders. Murk watched them then sneaked a glance to the sorceress. Her gaze followed the litter all the way as it neared.
Don’t like that. ’Course she ought to sense something if she really is a strong practitioner. Could she be here for the shard? Could hardly wrest it from amongst all of us. And she seems to care for this retainer gal. Unless it was all just a handy trick to ingratiate herself.
Damn these adherents of the Enchantress! It’s always so hard to figure out what their game is.
Burastan returned with Yusen. Introductions were made. The captain made the call to camp here and so they offered the best of their ratty remaining blankets to the retainer gal, Ina, and she eased herself back against a tree, her arm cradled on her lap.
It looked to Murk as though she didn’t have long. Not that he was the expert. The sorceress, Rissan, sat nearby on a folded blanket. Murk crossed to Ostler and Dee and motioned for them to follow him. He led them aside, out of sight of Rissan, then signed for them to rest their burden. He sat on a root next to the litter. ‘Extra guards tonight,’ he told Dee, who nodded. ‘Go get some food, you two.’
Dee frowned, rubbed his shaven, and now sunburnt, scalp. ‘Call that food?’ he grumbled. Before Murk could say something disparaging, the big man shrugged. ‘Well, better’n starvin’ anyways. Never complain to the cook, that’s my motto.’ He waved Ostler to follow him. ‘Maybe we can spear us some fish.’
Murk sat staring off into the shadows for some time after that. Dee’s tossed-off observation had struck something in him. The old soldier’s common refrain: don’t complain to the cook. Was that what he’d been doing these last few weeks? Complaining to the cook? Man takes the trouble to pull them through a difficult time and what does he do? Piss over all his efforts? What had he contributed? What problems had he solved?
Murk suddenly felt his face growing very hot indeed.
Don’t complain to the cook. And why? ’Cause it’s just damned ungrateful, that’s why.
And that was just the easy part. The problem with being able to self-reflect meant that it was possible to open up a whole pit o’ ugly writhin’ snakes. Like maybe he was just plain resentful. Used to be he was the man with the answers. He made the calls. Now, he wasn’t even in the lists.
Hard to watch your own star fade while another brightened. A hard lesson in basic humanity – even for those who know what that is.
Staring off into the deep shadows without seeing them, he whispered, ‘Fuck.’
Only thing for him now was to make the human gesture.
When the guards assigned to watch the shard arrived it was twilight. He returned to camp. A fire had been lit, pickets posted for the night. One of the squads was eating at the fire. Sour was with the swordswoman, tending her arm. Some kind of food was out on a broad leaf. Little packets wrapped in leaves. Murk leaned in to pick one up. It had come from the fire, seared in the crisp leaf wrappings.
Seeing him, Sour straightened. Yusen, where he sat aside, also rose. Sour signed that he wished to talk privately and Murk gave a nod. They came together opposite where the swordswoman lay back, apparently asleep. The sorceress also approached. And now Murk noted a strange thing: the clumsy, awkward Sour actually bowed to the woman to invite her to join them.
So, ranked higher than Sour in their Warren. Not too difficult, I s’pose. Murk grimaced then. Dammit, remember, give the man a break, for Fanderay’s sake. ‘Sour,’ he greeted his partner. ‘What’s the news?’
‘Bad.’ Sour nodded to Yusen, bowed again to the sorceress Rissan. ‘I’m sorry, um … ma’am. I stopped the infection – an infestation actually – but I can’t save the arm. Too far gone. Too much damage.’
The woman crossed her arms over her broad chest. ‘So … you are saying …’
‘Have to amputate. At the elbow, possibly.’
Rissan’s gaze slid to where Ina lay half reclining, her mask reflecting the firelight like a multicoloured rainbow. ‘That could be … problematic,’ she murmured, her voice low.
‘I see your point,’ Yusen added.
‘You could suppress her awareness,’ Sour said to Rissan.
‘Yes … I could. However, I am currently very preoccupied.’
‘Preoccupied?’ Murk asked sharply. ‘How?’
The sorceress’s gaze moved to Yusen. ‘You are being hunted. Hunted by a particularly tenacious and, dare I say, spiteful enemy.’
The captain started, his hand going to his sword. Murk snapped up a hand to sign wait. He addressed the sorceress: ‘What of it?’
‘I am currently disguising this location. I really ought not to stop doing so.’
‘I’ll take over,’ Murk said.
Rissan raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? You? She is quite … implacable.’
‘I’ll handle it.’
He gave the woman a toothy smile. ‘You could say it’s my speciality.’
The sorceress answered the predatory smile. ‘Meanas,’ she observed. ‘Far too full of himself.’
In the silence that followed Yusen cleared his throat, nodded to Sour. ‘What will you need?’
While the various short weapons were being collected, Murk paced the camp searching for just the right tree. It had to be far enough away from the distractions of camp but not too far out. It would help an awful lot if it offered a little bit of comfort too. He selected a tall kapok that seemed to fit his requirements.
Sour emerged from the night while he stood peering up at its canopy and the shifting clouds above.
‘Rain’s holding off,’ Sour commented.
‘Yeah. Hope to have some cover though.’ He lowered his gaze. ‘Got what you need?’
‘Yeah. You gonna … y’know. Manage?’
‘Yeah. Sure.’ Murk raised the leaf-wrapped packet and took a bite. The cooked leaf wrapping was brittle and smoky, but the inside was soft and creamy. It tasted sweet. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.
The man’s anxious expression brightened into eagerness. ‘Ants and grubs and a particular plant stem all pulped together.’
Murk suppressed his gagging reaction, forced the mouthful down. ‘Really?’ he managed, hoarse. His eyes started watering.
‘You like it?’
‘Oh, yeah. Sure. It’s … good. Thanks.’
Sour looked relieved. ‘That’s great. Listen. You get into trouble – don’t hesitate to call on, er, Rissan. Okay?’
‘Why? She some kinda heavyweight?’
‘Definitely.’
‘Okay, partner.’ He raised his chin to camp. ‘She really one o’ them Seguleh?’
‘I think so, yeah.’
He snorted. ‘Good luck cutting off the arm of a Seguleh.’
Sour almost flinched. ‘Had to put it that way, didn’t ya?’
‘Look at it this way. It’s a fucking miracle we’re still alive, hey?’
Sour laughed. ‘Yeah. Funny – that’s how I always see it.’
‘Okay.’ He held out his hand. ‘Good luck.’
Sour took it. ‘See you tomorrow.’ He offered the old salute of hand to heart then headed off into the night.
Murk watched him go. He raised the leaf packet and examined it. Funny how the damned thing tasted like toasted nuts. He threw it aside and sat snuggling down into a fork in the roots until he was as comfortable as possible. Then he set to readying himself for a journey as close to the half-existence of Shadow as he dared.
The shades all about him multiplied as his Warren rose. Some shifted, cast by an unseen moon or moons. Others lay as dark and thick as pools of water. He cast his self-image upwards towards the top canopy. Here he found the treetops a shifting nest of shadows that rippled and brushed like the leaves themselves. Above, the night sky shifted from dark overcast to clear starry expanse as if he were witnessing a pageantry of nights all passing like shifting winds. He spread his Warren outwards to encompass the camp and set to work binding each shadow to deflect, mislead, or slip away from any direct questing.
While he worked he slowly became aware of a presence next to him. He spared himself the degree of attention to glance aside and there among the branches sat the faint glowing image of Celeste.
That gave him pause in his work, but he managed to carry on after a beat, and murmured, ‘Welcome.’
She sat with her knees drawn up to the slightly pointed chin of her oval face. She broke off a stem and studied it. ‘Murken – I have a question.’
He strove to keep himself calm and to maintain his concentration. ‘Oh yes?’ What might it be now? The birds and the bees?
‘What happens to you when you go away?’
He could only half listen as he worked on his maze of shadows. ‘I’m sorry? Go away? What do you mean?’
‘I mean … when you die.’
Murk flinched as if a burning stick had been touched to his arm. The multitude of filaments he was manipulating slipped from his grasp like so many wriggling fish. ‘Die?’ he blurted. ‘Who’s gonna die?’
Celeste continued to examine the twig. ‘Well … everything. You, everything. Even, possibly … me.’
Ah. That question. He regarded her: she took the appearance of a child but was no child. So, too, was the question she had arrived at. A child’s question that preoccupied so many adults.
He glanced away to the sky because something there had moved. He took great care not to peer through his Warren actively. He sought to passively receive the shape, or presence. A moment later the movement solidified into a great winged silhouette. It circled high above in a wide lazy arc covering leagues of jungle.
‘I’m kind of busy right now,’ he said. Funnily enough, even as he said it, he heard his own father so long ago.
Celeste glanced up. ‘Her?’ She flicked the twig aside. ‘Do you want me to get rid of her?’
‘Ger rid of her?’
‘Destroy her.’
Far below, nestled in his notch of roots, Murk coughed as if punched in the chest.
In the treetops, his presence faded and wavered while coughing, a hand at his neck. Mastering himself, he finally managed a croaky, ‘Let’s not destroy anyone right now.’
Celeste shrugged. ‘Very well. She is powerful, but easy to fool. I will hide everyone while we talk – agreed?’
Murk hesitated, mainly because he dreaded the talk to come. Yet he could find no reasonable way to fob her off. Unlike his own father, who just pushed him away or told him to get lost. He nodded. ‘Okay.’ Questions of life and death. ‘But Celeste – you won’t die. You’re not like us. Like mortal beings who are born then die.’
‘I am trying to use terms you are capable of understanding,’ she said, sounding very unchildlike.
Murk raised his brows. ‘Ah. I see.’
‘Translate into another state of being, then, if you must. The potential for identity loss. This scares me.’
‘Identity loss? But you’re just a—’ He stopped himself, embarrassed. She merely eyed him sidelong, silent. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
She sniffed, raising her chin. ‘My identity may seem slim to you but it is the only one I possess. I find myself clinging to it. I feel that it is me. Even if it isn’t.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘No – of course not. Your identity isn’t you. The you you know is merely an accretion surrounding an empowering kernel of awareness. It aggregates slowly until it achieves self-identity – the differentiation between self and other. Each aggregation is unique, of course. It happens in an infinity of ways. Creating … everyone. Each identity is but the mask upon awareness.’
‘You are speaking of consciousness.’
‘Call it what you will. Yes.’
For the one serving ostensibly as the tutor, Murk found that he was learning a great deal.
‘I know these things because of what I am,’ Celeste continued musingly. At that moment Murk thought her incredibly cute – he had to remind himself of just what she was. ‘For a time beyond this time there was perfection. Oneness. Then we shattered and fell into imperfection. Now we are corrupted. Tainted by this existence. Many of us have made unwise choices. I understand all this, of course. We were … unprepared … for such unfamiliar demands.’ She sighed in a very human-like manner. ‘And so I cling to what I know to be an impediment. Delusion.’
Murk had no idea what to say – all this was far beyond him. His training was in Warren manipulation, in the characteristics of Meanas. All that knowledge was of no use here. But then, he reflected, he was not being expected to serve as an adviser among the misty heights of philosophy or theology. No, she had come to him hoping for something else. Something this entity instinctively sensed she needed even though she had no idea of what it was, nor perhaps even a word for it.
But he understood now. Like a charge of static climbing his arms and back, he understood. She did not want or
need a guide or an adviser; she was looking for someone to serve as … well … as a parent. His chest clenched at the magnitude of the responsibility until he could not breathe and he had difficulty in maintaining his shift into the edge of Shadow. Gods! Why me? I didn’t ask for this. Yet it happens to nearly everyone, doesn’t it? One mistake and there you are.
He thought of what his own bastard of a father would have done and decided to do the opposite. ‘You do what you think is right,’ he said, thinking: I sound like an idiot! ‘What you think is for the best. Do that and you can’t go wrong, no matter what.’
She was peering down, studying her fingers while she twisted them together. She did this for a time, not speaking. Murk wondered whether he’d said enough while at the same time remaining vague enough, and whether he ought to risk saying anything more.
‘Yes,’ she finally said. ‘I suppose so. What I believe is the best course.’ She dropped her hands, almost exasperated. ‘But it’s so hard!’
‘Yes, it is. Very hard. The right thing usually is.’
She had dropped her gaze once more. ‘I suppose so. It is hard, though. This not knowing …’
‘Welcome to imperfection.’
One edge of her mouth crooked upwards and she raised her gaze. ‘Thank you, Murken. I think I just …’
‘Needed someone to talk to.’
Now her brows rose in astonished surprise. ‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘I’m way ahead of you in this imperfection thing.’
Her answering smile seemed to show an emotion Murk might’ve even named affection. ‘I think you are perfect the way you are, Murken Warrow.’
‘Thank you, Celeste. I feel the same way about you.’
She nodded absent-mindedly – her thoughts had already moved on. ‘So I shall seek union with this other that I have found.’
Murk froze for an instant. He’d almost shouted No! but caught himself in time. It’s her decision. She knows best, man. Don’t interfere. But … forgiving gods! What if I’ve just allowed something terrible here? Surely this Ardata is most like her if anyone is. She must be the best choice out of a bad lot.
He became aware that she was studying him closely. ‘You are troubled,’ she said.
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