Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #1)

by Steven Erikson

As he led his horse through the streets of Unta he felt numb inside. The familiar sights, the teeming, interminable crowds, the voices and clash of languages all struck Paran as something strange, something altered, not before his eyes but in that unknowable place between his eyes and his thoughts. The change was his alone, and it made him feel shorn, outcast. Yet the place was the same: the scenes before him were as they always had been and even in watching them pass by all around him, nothing had changed.

Bridgeburners. They’d been the old Emperor’s élite, his favorites, but since Laseen’s bloody coup nine years ago they’d been pushed hard into every rat’s nest in sight. Almost a decade of this had cut them down to a single, undermanned division. Among them, names had emerged. The survivors, mostly squad sergeants, names that pushed their way into the Malazan armies on Genabackis, and beyond. Names, spicing the already sweeping legend of Onearm’s Host. Detoran, Antsy, Spindle, Whiskeyjack. Names heavy with glory and bitter with the cynicism that every army feeds on. They carried with them like an emblazoned standard the madness of this unending campaign.

From the massive sprawl of the camp followers’ slum of tents and shelters came a wailing dirge—a broken chorus of thousands of voices, the sound a chilling reminder that war was always a thing of grief. In some military headquarters back in the Empire’s capital of Unta, three thousand leagues distant, an anonymous aide would paint a red stroke across the 2nd Army on the active list, and then write in fine script beside it: Pale, late winter, the 1163rd Year of Burn’s Sleep. Thus would the death of nine thousand men and women be noted. And then forgotten.

What frightened Paran most, these days, was that he had grown used to being used. He’d been someone else so many times that he saw a thousand faces, heard a thousand voices, all at war with his own. When he thought of himself, of that young noble-born man with the overblown faith in honesty and integrity, the vision that came to him now was of something cold, hard, and dark. It hid in the deepest shadows of his mind, and it watched. No contemplation, no judgment, just icy, clinical observation. He didn’t think that that young man would see the light of day again. He would just shrink further back, swallowed by darkness, then disappear, leaving no trace. And Paran wondered if he even cared anymore.

Tattersail smiled. The smile faded as her thoughts returned to Captain Paran. “He’s going to be used,” she pronounced, flatly. “Like a sword.”

None could call Kruppe a fool, after all. Fat with sloth and neglect, yes; inclined to excesses, indeed, somewhat clumsy with a bowl of soup, most certainly. But not a fool. Such times are upon us when the wise man must choose. Is it not wisdom to conclude that other lives are of less importance than one’s own? Of course, very wise. Yes, Kruppe is wise.”

The curse of climbing is discovering how great the distance yet to climb.

That one’s own skull is too worthy a chamber for deception to reign—and yet Kruppe assures you from long experience that all deceit is born in the mind and there it is nurtured while virtues starve.”

From his years of study the alchemist knew that great power shaped different souls differently. Had Rake’s been twisted Baruk would have known immediately. But the Lord’s control seemed absolute. That alone engendered awe. The man shaped his power, not the other way around. Such control was, well, inhuman. He suspected that this would not be the first insight he’d have regarding this warrior-mage that would leave him astonished and frightened.

“I tracked down all but two.” Rake gazed at Baruk. “I want those two, preferably alive, but their heads will suffice.” “You killed those you found? How?” “With my sword, of course.” Baruk recoiled as if struck. “Oh,” he whispered. “Oh.” “The alliance,” Rake said, before draining his goblet. “I’ll speak to the Cabal on this matter,” Baruk answered, rising shakily to his feet. “Word of the decision will be sent to you soon.” He stared at the sword strapped to the Tiste Andii’s back. “Tell me, if you get those wizards alive, will you use that on them?” Rake frowned. “Of course.” Turning away, Baruk closed his eyes. “You’ll have their heads, then.”

“You are here as Laseen’s voice, as her will, Adjunct.” Tayschrenn spoke softly, “The woman named Lorn, the woman who once was a child, who once had a family,” he looked upon the Adjunct with anguish in his eyes, “that woman does not exist. She ceased to exist the day she became the Adjunct.” Lorn stared at the two men, her eyes wide. Standing beside her, Toc watched those words battering her will, crushing the anger, shattering into dust every last vestige of identity. And from her eyes rose the icy, clinical repose of the Adjunct to the Empress. Toc felt his heart pounding hard against his chest. He’d just witnessed an execution. The woman named Lorn had risen from the turgid mists of the past, risen to right a wrong, to find justice and in that last act reclaim its life—and she had been denied. Not by the words of Dujek or Tayschrenn, but by the thing known as the Adjunct.

Kallor said: “I walked this land when the T’lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones. Do you grasp the meaning of this?” “Yes,” said Caladan Brood, “you never learn.”

“Tell me, Tool, what dominates your thoughts?” The Imass shrugged before replying. “I think of futility, Adjunct.” “Do all Imass think about futility?” “No. Few think at all.” “Why is that?” The Imass leaned his head to one side and regarded her. “Because, Adjunct, it is futile.”

“The Elder God walks again, risen from blood spilled on consecrated stone. K’rul came in answer to the child’s need and now aids us in our quest. He apologizes to you, Kruppe, for using the world within your dream, but no younger god can influence this place. Somehow you have made your soul immune to them.” “The rewards of cynicism,” Kruppe said, bowing.

“I am saddened,” Pran said, “that I may not return in twenty years to see the woman this child shall become.” “You shall,” K’rul said in a low tone, “but not as a T’lan. As a T’lan Imass Bonecaster.” The breath hissed between Pran’s teeth. “How long?” he asked. “Three hundred thousand years, Pran Chole of Cannig Tol’s Clan.” Kruppe laid a hand on Pran’s arm. “You’ve something to look forward to,” he said. The T’lan stared at Kruppe a moment, then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

He could feel sweat drain down his face and neck. Nonsense. That part of his mind lost itself to its own terror. It took the unknown and fashioned, in blind desperation, a visage it could recognize. Despair, he told himself, always demands a direction, a focus. Find the direction and the despair goes away.

When he had looked upon Sorry at Graydog, the source of his horror lay in the unveiling of what he was becoming: a killer stripped of remorse, armored in the cold iron of inhumanity, freed from the necessity to ask questions, to seek answers, to fashion a reasonable life like an island in a sea of slaughter. In the empty eyes of this child, he’d seen the withering of his own soul. The reflection had been unblemished, with no imperfections to challenge the truth of what he saw.

Whiskeyjack lifted a trembling hand to his forehead. In the days and nights ahead, people would die by his command. He’d been thinking of that as the fruition of his careful, precise planning—success measured by the ratio of the enemy’s dead to his own losses. The city—its busy, jostling multitudes unceasing in their lives small and large, cowardly and brave—no more than a gameboard, and the game played solely for the benefit of others. He’d made his plans as if nothing of himself was at stake. And yet his friends might die—there, he’d finally called them what they were—and the friends of others might die, and sons, daughters, parents. The roll-call of shattered lives seemed unending.

The demon lifted its gaze. Above them glowing figures descended, five in the first wave, one in the second. This last one radiated such power that Quick Ben shrank back, his blood chilled. The figure had something long and narrow strapped to its back. “Ben Adaephon Delat,” Pearl said plaintively, “see the last who comes. You send me to my death.” “I know,” Quick Ben whispered. “Flee, then. I will hold them enough to ensure your escape, no more.” Quick Ben sank down past the roof. Before he passed from sight Pearl spoke again. “Ben Adaephon Delat, do you pity me?” “Yes,” he replied softly, then pivoted and dropped down into darkness.

there’d been choices he could have made that would have sent him on a different path. But those days were dead, and the future held only nights, a stretch of darkness that led down to the eternal dark.

Betrayal was the greatest of all crimes in Rallick’s mind, for it took all that was human within a person and made it a thing of pain.

Baruk felt a wrongness, deep within him, as if his soul had been battered. For a single, brief second, he’d looked upon a world of absolute darkness, and from that darkness came sounds, the creak of wooden wheels, the clank of chains, the groans of a thousand imprisoned souls. Then it was gone, and he found himself sitting in his chair, Roald kneeling at his side with a pail of ice from the cellar.

“The Lord of Moon’s Spawn, Adjunct. He will have no choice but to intervene.” “He’s capable of stopping the Tyrant?” “Yes, Adjunct. He is, although it will cost him dearly, weaken him. More, he is capable of delivering the single punishment that a Jaghut Tyrant fears most.” A faint gleam of light rose in Tool’s eye sockets as the Imass stared at Lorn. “Enslavement, Adjunct.”

She’d given the boy his life, surprising both him and herself. Lorn smiled ruefully. Prediction had become a privilege now lost to her. Never mind the outside world, she could not even guess her own actions, or the course of her thoughts. Was this the true nature of emotion? she wondered. The great defier of logic, of control—the whims of being human. What lay ahead?

A tight smile played on the Lord’s thin lips. “An accurate assessment, Baruk. In this case, however, Laseen wants Darujhistan intact. I mean to prevent that. But destroying the city to defy her would be too easy. I could have managed that weeks ago. No, I want Darujhistan to remain as it is. Yet out of Laseen’s reach. That, Alchemist, is victory.” His gray eyes were on Baruk. “I would not have sought an alliance with you otherwise.” The alchemist frowned. “Unless you plan treachery.” Rake was silent for a time, studying his hands clasped on his lap. “Baruk,” he said softly, “as any commander of long standing knows, treachery breeds its own. Once committed, whether against an enemy or an ally, it becomes a legitimate choice for everyone in your command, from the lowest private seeking promotion, to your personal aides, bodyguards, and officers. My people know of our alliance with you, Alchemist. If I were to betray it, I would not long remain the Lord of Moon’s Spawn. And rightly so.”

“So fear holds you in check, Son of Darkness?” Rake scowled. “That title is held by those fools who think me worthy of worship. I dislike it, Baruk, and would not hear it again from you. Does fear hold me in check? No. As powerful as fear is, it is no match for what compels me. Duty.”

“All right,” he growled, “enough with the flapping lips. We’ve got work to do. Corporal?” “Sergeant?” Kalam replied. “Get yourself ready. You’ve got the daylight hours to re-establish contact with the Assassins’ Guild. Meanwhile, I want everyone else to lay out their weapons and give them a good cleaning. Repairs to armor. There’ll be an inspection, and if I find a single damn thing I don’t like, there’ll be Hood’s heel coming down. Understood?”

He fashioned an empire of sorts, bereft of cities yet plagued with the endless dramas of society, its pathetic victories and inevitable failures. The community of enslaved Imass thrived in this quagmire of pettiness. They even managed to convince themselves that they possessed freedom, a will of their own that could shape destiny. They elected champions. They tore down their champions once failure draped its shroud over them. They ran in endless circles and called it growth, emergence, knowledge. While over them all, a presence invisible to their eyes, Raest flexed his will. His greatest joy came when his slaves proclaimed him god—though they knew him not—and constructed temples to serve him and organized priesthoods whose activities mimicked Raest’s tyranny with such cosmic irony that the Jaghut could only shake his head.

“Such is the irony of life,” Kruppe proclaimed, raising one pastry-filled hand over his head, “that one learns to distrust the obvious, surrendering instead to insidious suspicion and confused conclusion.

An apparition arrived. It paused to sniff the air, then began changing—veering. A Lord of the Galayn, and a Soletaken. “Well,” the Lord of Moon’s Spawn growled, “so am I.”

The woman shook her head. “I know of such creations from old,” she said. “The Deadhouse of Malaz City, the Odhanhouse of Seven Cities . . . Azath edieimarn, Pillars of Innocence—this door will not open to us.” “Yet it opened to them,” Horult said. “There is precedence. The Azath choose their own. It was so with the Deadhouse. Two men were chosen: one who would be Emperor, the other who would accompany him. Kellanved and Dancer.”

The Azath will not be touched, for it is new, a child.” Her eyes, soft brown, slowly regarded those of her companions. “The Queen of Darkness spoke thus of Light when it was first born: ‘It is new, and what is new is innocent, and what is innocent is precious.

Orfantal scowled. “Thus did Light survive, and so was Darkness destroyed, the purity vanquished—and now you would have us flawed as our Queen was flawed. Light became corrupted and destroyed our world, Korlat, or have you forgotten?” Korlat’s smile was a sad one. “Cherish such flaws, dear brother, for our Queen’s was hope, and so is mine. Now we must leave.”