Kellanved's Reach

by Ian C. Esslemont

  ‘Then it remains a mystery.’

  Kellanved nodded his agreement. ‘Yes. For now, it remains a mystery.’

  Dancer rose, stretching. ‘Well … it was worth a look, my friend.’

  Kellanved winced as if pained, then hung his head. ‘Let us leave this place.’

  Chapter 6

  In the main hall of Mock’s Hold, Malaz City, a battle raged back and forth across the central dining table. It shook and echoed from the thick tarred timbers that crossed the hall’s ceiling and rattled its closed and locked doors.

  At the long table where so many Malazan pirate admirals and captains once sat were now gathered Surly and the Napans who happened to be on the isle that day: Choss, Tocaras and Urko, together with Nedurian, Dujek, Jack, the mage Tayschrenn and the Dal Hon swordsman Dassem.

  Nedurian sat in stunned silence, his brows rising higher and higher as the fight wore on unrelenting all through what was meant to be a dinner of consolidation and organization. He exchanged a look of amazement with Dassem at his side.

  ‘No, I will not be the commander of this military,’ Tocaras emphasized for the twentieth time.

  ‘Then who?’ Surly pushed once more. ‘Give me a name.’

  ‘Amaron,’ Urko supplied.

  Surly looked to the ceiling. ‘He is not available for that.’

  Urko jabbed a finger. ‘Aha! So he is still alive!’

  Surly’s already sour expression deepened even further.

  Nedurian noted that so far no one had offered the position to Urko.

  Surly’s impatient gaze shifted to Tayschrenn. ‘And what have you to report? How goes the organization of our vaunted mage cadre?’

  The lean Kartoolian cleared his throat, leaning back. ‘Ah … well, the organization is that there’s no organization.’

  Surly pressed her hands to the table – its wood much scarred and abused by centuries of fights, stabbings, feuds and murders. ‘Clarify,’ she fairly snarled.

  ‘We have agreed that there will be no encumbrance of a hierarchy, nor the awkward delaying hindrance of a chain of command. Each elected cadre mage will report directly to Kellanved, or any one of a very few chosen representatives.’

  Nedurian couldn’t resist leaning to the Kartoolian and murmuring, ‘I like the positive light you cast that in …’

  Tayschrenn shot him a glare.

  ‘And these “chosen representatives”?’ Surly enquired, brow arched. ‘They are …?’

  The mage cleared his throat once more. ‘Ah. So far? Well … myself.’

  ‘I see. So, as command grade of one of our departments, you need a title.’

  The young mage appeared rather taken aback by the suggestion. ‘Well,’ he managed, ‘I suppose so …’

  Surly’s sour expression crooked upwards as she considered this. ‘You are the highest of the mages – so to speak. So, you are the High Mage.’

  Tayschrenn lifted a brow. ‘Really? High Mage? You’re going to—’

  Surly rapped her glass to the table. ‘Done.’

  Tayschrenn pressed a hand to his head and slumped in his chair.

  Nedurian elbowed him, murmuring, ‘Congratulations!’

  The mage pinched his brow, his expression pained. ‘Gods please deliver me.’

  Surly’s narrowed gaze now shifted to Choss. ‘You are the commander of our military then,’ she announced.

  With his long history of working with the woman, burly Choss merely waved a raised finger. ‘No. Not me. I’m no commander.’ He pointed to Dassem. ‘The lads and lasses will follow this one, though.’

  The swordsman, pale for a Dal Hon, shook his head. ‘No. I am a swordsman. Not a general. I do not have the training.’

  Her voice tight with impatience, Surly observed, ‘No one here has the training or the experience.’

  Into the following silence Urko leaned forward and said, ‘I nominate Cartheron.’

  Cartheron Crust, Nedurian knew, was currently at sea, coordinating the raiding.

  Surly pursed her lips, considering.

  ‘I second the proposal,’ Tocaras quickly put in.

  Surly nodded, and banged her glass to the table. ‘Done. Cartheron is military commander.’

  ‘And his title?’ Urko asked, rubbing his hands together. ‘Lord High Commander of All Armies?’

  Tocaras threw his hands out. ‘What armies?’

  Urko appeared affronted. ‘Well – mine’s the Seventh.’

  Surly pinched her brows again. ‘You can’t call your command the Seventh Army, Urko. We only have one.’

  The huge fellow leaned back, crossing his thick arms. ‘Seven is my lucky number – so my command is the Seventh.’

  Surly exchanged a significant look with Choss and Tocaras then waved her acceptance. ‘Fine. As you like.’

  It occurred to Nedurian that Cartheron wasn’t here – and only Cartheron had any influence over his gigantic brother.

  Surly looked to the veteran Dujek. ‘You have a command,’ she told him.

  Dujek rubbed a hand over his thinning hair then pointed to Jack next to him. ‘This one has the officer training …’

  Surly shook her head. ‘Cartheron has expressed his confidence in you. So, for now you’re in command.’

  Dujek nodded. ‘My thanks … ah, what do I call you, if I may ask?’

  The woman appeared genuinely surprised by the question. She waved it aside. ‘I prefer to work behind the scenes.’

  ‘She’s in charge of intelligence,’ Tocaras put in. ‘In command of the – what do they call themselves again?’

  ‘The Claws,’ Surly supplied, in a subdued voice.

  ‘Right. The Claws.’

  ‘So,’ Urko pressed. ‘Is there a title there?’

  Surly eyed him for a long time without saying anything, until the big fellow cleared his throat and shrugged. ‘Just asking. But what about Cartheron? Could we make him, like, the Munificent and Splendid Lord High Inspector General? Because he’d really want that, I’m sure.’

  Leaning forward, Nedurian dared to offer, tentatively, ‘In the Talian hegemony, the title would have been Sword of the Emperor.’

  Surly studied him, and he felt himself shrinking under her evaluating gaze. ‘How go things with the battle mages?’ she asked.

  Nedurian coughed to clear his throat. ‘Well. We now have as many middling talents, hedge-wizards, wind-callers and such as we want to assign to the ranks.’ He didn’t supply that this only happened after Agayla gave her tacit approval to his recruiting efforts.

  ‘Infallible Highest Lord of All High?’ Urko suggested.

  Surly’s hard gaze swivelled back to the giant Crust brother. ‘We have Claws,’ she said meditatively. ‘Why not Fists? Fists for commanders rather than Swords. That would make Cartheron High Fist.’

  Urko rubbed a paw across his chin, thinking, then he shrugged. ‘Not nearly as embarrassing as I’d hoped, but it’ll do.’

  ‘And the sea-lord?’ Choss asked.

  ‘I will ask Admiral Nok,’ Surly said. ‘I believe he will accept.’

  Nedurian blew out a breath. Admiral Nok! Last great Napan sea commander. The man had scuttled his vessel in defiance of Tarel’s taking the throne and been in hiding all this time. Through her corps of messengers and intelligence agents – these Claws – Surly must be in communication with him.

  The lean woman nodded at that, as if in conclusion. ‘That about covers it, I believe. Unless anyone has any other issues to raise?’ No one spoke. ‘Very good. Then this meeting is adjourned. I suggest we all have work to do.’ And she pushed back her chair, rising.

  Everyone rose with her, bowing.

  The Napans went their separate ways, but Dujek, together with his young aide Jack, lingered behind with Tayschrenn and Nedurian. The Kartoolian mage eyed Nedurian speculatively, then said, ‘You are a veteran of the military – are you as appalled by all this as I expect you must be?’

  Nedurian blew out a breath, surprised by such frankness. In tru
th, he had been shocked by the chaos and disorganization. But in another way he was reassured, as he saw no blind dumb blowhard aristocrat striving to take control of things, as had been a problem in the later Talian hegemony. Surly was obviously brutally efficient, while Kellanved’s partner, this assassin Dancer, also struck him as no fool.

  ‘Everyone has to start somewhere,’ he offered diplomatically.

  The High Mage’s answering smile was one of amusement – guarded amusement. ‘Indeed.’

  ‘And what about you?’ Dujek asked Nedurian. ‘No command?’

  He waved a hand, demurring. ‘I’ve had my fill of that, thank you. I’ll help get things rolling, then I’ll take a position in some regiment or company.’

  ‘In my command, I hope,’ Dujek said, slapping his shoulder.

  They exited the hall, Nedurian heading for Rampart Way, and the long walk down into town. He reflected that all this concern about military command would have been funny if it weren’t so pressing and dire – as Malaz Island had no military to speak of.

  Oh, there were fighting men and women aplenty; an entire isle of them. But an army? No, that was something else entirely, as he knew full well, having seen the most organized and regimented example of recent times close up.

  His duty, then, was to do everything he could to help these fledgling soldiers have a fair chance on the field.

  Footsteps behind brought him up short and he turned to see the Dal Hon swordsman Dassem. He nodded a greeting, which the wiry youth returned sombrely, as was his manner.

  For a time they walked together in silence. Nedurian enjoyed the cool wind and the view over the harbour. Most vessels, he noted, were still out on raids. Then he looked at the swordsman. ‘Tayschrenn asked me if I was dismayed after what we witnessed in there. What of you? Any second thoughts?’

  The youth shrugged his enviably wide shoulders. ‘Hood directed my footsteps here. That is enough for me. As for the personal foibles or inadequacies of any of these people, all that is irrelevant. I am reminded of a story I heard of a duellist in Unta who was considered very boring and dull in his style. He possessed no flair or inspiration – no, how do you say, panache. Everyone mocked him and looked down upon him for it. Yet in bout after bout he emerged victorious. He simply ground down his opponents.’

  Nedurian nodded expectantly. ‘And so …?’

  Dassem waved a hand. ‘And so, what appears as a weakness may in fact prove a strength. No one can know until contact with one’s opponent is made.’

  Nedurian allowed himself a half-smile, and continued down the stone steps. ‘Well … to my mind a good dose of preparation wouldn’t hurt.’

  ‘Our thinking,’ murmured Dassem, ‘runs on similar lines, I believe.’

  Nedurian scratched the scar down his cheek; it always itched in the cold. ‘Oh?’

  The dark youth eyed him sidelong. ‘Tell me of the famous Talian military. What in your opinion worked, and what did not?’

  * * *

  The crossing to the Isle of the Blessed was a boggy stretch of tidal mudflats exposed a few hours a day at each low tide. Heboric waited patiently for the tide to go out, along with a shabby gathering of sick and crippled who sat wrapped in their tattered remnants of clothes on the sands. Some rocked themselves in silent misery, others jabbered insanely to no one. For a time the more hale of them had pawed at Heboric, begging for food or coin, but seeing how the man merely brushed aside their reaching hands, all diseased and rotting, some flowing with pus, the beggars turned away in disgust – no coin could be cadged from this one, even if he bore the mark of a priest of Fener.

  Once the waters of the bay became low enough, the day’s gathering of penitents pushed out into the waves. The passage was difficult; some became trapped in the heavy clinging mud. These, the most infirm, called out to their fellows for aid but the passing file, all struggling through the muck, ignored them.

  Save for Heboric, who slogged over to the nearest and heaved him free. The man promptly pulled a rusted blade from his clay-smeared rags, demanding, ‘All your coin, fool!’

  Heboric gestured down his naked torso to his sodden loincloth. ‘I wear only this wrap, friend – but you are free to search it if you wish.’

  The hunched pilgrim flinched from him and floundered away, snarling, ‘What are you? Some kind of freak?’

  Heboric watched him go, amusement crooking his mouth.

  ‘The sick are ever selfish,’ another voice called from farther away, and Heboric turned. A slim hooded form, wrapped in tattered lengths of dirty rags, stood in the waves some distance off.

  ‘Not all,’ Heboric answered.

  This one tilted his, or her, head in acquiescence. ‘True. But none of those will you find on the Isle of the Blessed.

  Heboric glanced to the island rising just a few leagues distant. The other struggled onwards to join him. ‘And what of you?’ he asked the stranger.

  ‘I am as selfish as any other,’ the figure answered, closer now, and from her voice Heboric knew her for a woman. ‘Those,’ she added, ‘who claim not to be selfish are usually lying.’

  Heboric nodded his agreement. ‘True. Those who find it necessary to make the claim.’

  ‘And you?’ the woman rejoined.

  Grinning his frog-like lopsided grin, Heboric gestured to his naked form. ‘As you see, I have spent a lifetime acquiring enormous wealth.’

  She looked him up and down. ‘Well, I see that you are at least rich in faith. What errand brings a priest of Fener to Poliel’s house?’

  Heboric lost his grin and slogged onward, his pace slow to accommodate the woman at his side. ‘This plague. It is unlike our sister of sickness. Its touch seems … different. I would ask about that, and other things.’

  ‘And you expect answers?’

  He shook his head, chuckling. ‘Do I look that much a fool? No, I can only ask. That is all we mortals can do – make the effort. Try. The rest is in the hands of the gods.’ He extended a hand to her. ‘And you?’

  She lifted her rag-wrapped shoulders. ‘The truth is the island is my home. It is one of the few places I am welcome.’

  Heboric nodded at that. Where else might the afflicted go? ‘Yet you would leave it?’

  ‘I am not yet ready to let go of the world.’

  ‘I am told none leave the Isle of the Blessed.’

  The woman cocked her wrapped head. Only her eyes peered through, brown and large, and Heboric found them very attractive eyes indeed. ‘Well,’ she allowed, ‘that is at least poetic.’

  He smiled. ‘Yet isn’t it dangerous for you? I mean …’ Heboric realized he was treading into uncomfortable ground. ‘That is, some people would fear you as a carrier …’

  She nodded. ‘Some do throw rocks and garbage to drive me away. Some have attacked me with staffs and rods.’ She shrugged again, conveying equanimity. ‘But they are not the worst. The worst are those who ask how much for sex.’

  Heboric coughed into a fist, quite taken aback. ‘Sex? Really? I mean … not that you are no longer … that is …’

  She rescued him from his floundering, saying, ‘It is believed in some circles that sex with an afflicted will make the partner immune.’

  Heboric nodded his understanding. ‘Ah … I see. But that is absurd.’

  ‘Yes. Just like the other belief that sex with a virgin will cure various illnesses, or make the partner younger.’

  ‘That I’ve heard of,’ Heboric commented, shaking his head.

  They had reached the island and climbed a shore of black gravel. Here stood ramshackle huts of sea-wrack and hides. A few small cookfires smouldered about. The inhabitants of the huts scrambled away as they approached, limping, some crawling on no more than stumps. Heboric wondered if they were fleeing in shame.

  ‘Why do they hide?’ he asked his companion.

  ‘They are frightened of you,’ she answered. ‘You are obviously strong and healthy. They fear you are here to take from them what little they have.’ She g
estured ahead with a hand that may have been wrapped in dirty linen but was quite obviously nothing more than a knot of bone. ‘This way to the house of Poliel.’

  They climbed a path of beaten dirt. Crude shrines and altars lined the way, no more than piled stones draped in ragged scarves or covered in wax from countless candles. One larger shrine, tall and humped, like a hood, was obviously dedicated to the god of death. Heboric gestured to it, surprised. ‘Hood?’

  ‘The Grey One is no stranger to this isle,’ she said, passing on.

  They came to a narrow gorge between two tall cliffs pocketed by caves. Again the inhabitants scurried away before them, all bent and limping, some on crude crutches of sticks. It was as if, Heboric mused, he carried the plague or some such thing.

  ‘This is not the reception I was expecting,’ he told the woman.

  ‘We are not yet at the house. Come.’ She urged him onwards.

  Uneasy, but unable to pin down his suspicions, he followed, warily. The path led to a wide valley, cultivated with fields. Workers, perhaps the more healthy of the isle’s inhabitants, could be seen hoeing and scraping the stony soil. Beyond rose a structure of dressed bluish native stone – the Temple of Poliel, goddess of pestilence and illness.

  The woman calmly walked on and Heboric was beginning to suspect that he had fallen in with one of the priestesses of the house. ‘I will be welcome?’ he asked. ‘I do not wish to trespass.’

  ‘All visitors to this isle are welcome. You may make your petition before the altar.’

  He bowed to the woman. ‘Thank you. You have some authority here, I take it?’

  The woman paused as if surprised. Her liquid brown eyes regarded him with humour. ‘Some.’ She urged him on with the hand that was no more than a stump.

  The entry to the Temple of Poliel possessed no door; it stood as an open archway of stone. Shabby ragged figures lined each wall, every one of them hardly more than bundles of sticks. Outstretched arms ending in bone or rotting pus-filmed flesh beseeched Heboric. He could not help but cringe from them as he and his escort passed up the hall between.