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Arguing over seeds in the wind while barbarians batter down the gates. Indolence takes many forms, but it comes to every civilization that has outlived its will. You know that as well as I. In
this case it was an indolence characterized by a pursuit of knowledge, a frenzied search for answers to everything, no matter the value of such answers. A civilization can as easily drown in what it knows as in what it doesn’t know. Consider,’ he continued, ‘Gothos’s Folly. Gothos’s curse was in being too aware – of everything. Every permutation, every potential. Enough to poison every scan he cast on the world. It availed him naught, and worse, he was aware of even that.’ ‘You must be feeling better,’ Icarium said wryly. ‘Your pessimism has revived.
Indeed, perhaps the first true human civilization, from which all others were born.’ Leave this path of thought, Icarium. Leave it now. ‘And
You’re numb, girl, Heboric had said one of the few times he’d addressed her. Yet your thirst for feeling grows, until even pain will do. But you’re looking in the wrong places.
Cautiously, the man leaned forward to study the symbol etched on the pendant’s flat surface. Recognition paled his features as he involuntarily mouthed, ‘Clawmaster.’ ‘An end to your questions and accusations, Sergeant. Do not reveal what you now know to your men – at least until after I am gone. Understood?’ The sergeant nodded. ‘Pardon, sir,’ he whispered.
‘After centuries? Can you sense which warren, Icarium?’ ‘Kurald Galain. Elder, the Warren of Darkness.’ ‘Tiste Andii? In all the histories of Seven Cities that I am aware of, I’ve never heard mention of Tiste Andii present on this continent. Nor in my homeland, on the other side of the Jhag Odhan. Are you certain? This does not make sense.’ ‘I am not certain, Mappo. It has the feel of Kurald Galain, that is all. The feel of Dark. It is not Omtose Phellack nor Tellann. Not Starvald Demelain. I know of no other Elder Warrens.’
‘Soletaken. D’ivers. The spice of shapeshifters. Of course.’ He barked out a savage laugh that echoed in the chamber. ‘The Path of Hands, Icarium. The gate – it’s here.’ ‘More than a gate, I think,’ Icarium said. ‘Look upon the undamaged carvings
Iskaral Pust’s maze of genius cannot be plumbed by the likes of you. Look
Icarium and Mappo Trell, famed wanderers of the world, I charge you with this perilous task – find me my broom.’
like.’ ‘It’s a poor scholar who trusts anyone’s judgement,’ Duiker said. ‘Even and perhaps especially his own.’
Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck, of course. This truth a Wickan knows from the time he first learns to ride – long before he learns to walk.’
‘Something unexpected, Historian. A convergence is underway. The Path of Hands. The gate of the Soletaken and the D’ivers. An unhappy coincidence.’ Duiker scowled. ‘You said Tellann—’ ‘And so it was,’ the warlock cut in. ‘Is there a blending between shapeshifting and Elder Tellann? Unknown. Perhaps the D’ivers and Soletaken are simply passing through the warren – imagining it unoccupied by T’lan Imass and therefore safer. Indeed, no T’lan Imass to take umbrage with the trespass, leaving them with only each other to battle.’
Nodding, Duiker found himself watching a dung beetle struggle heroically to push aside a fragment of palm bark. He sensed something profound in what he watched, but was too weary to pursue it.
think I was giving orders . . . when you were still clutching the hem of your mother’s dress, Fiddler. I know – the one who possessed me. It’s his instincts that are ringing like steel on stone right now. Do as I say.’
Fiddler watched the two of them gallop on, then he slipped from the gelding’s back and approached the two men Apsalar had wounded. ‘Ah,’ he breathed when he came close and saw their slashed-open crotches, ‘that’s the lass I know.’
the gelding was responding to his every touch. The horse knew he was no Gral, but it’d evidently decided he was behaving in an approved manner, well enough to accord him some respect. It was, he reflected, this day’s lone victory.
‘The Emperor warred against armies, not civilians—’ ‘Except at Aren,’ Fiddler sardonically interjected, recalling his words with the Tanno Spiritwalker. ‘When the T’lan Imass rose in the city—’ ‘Not by Kellanved’s command!’ she retorted. ‘Who ordered the T’lan Imass into Aren? I shall tell you. Surly, the commander of the Claw, the woman who took upon herself a new name—’ ‘Laseen.’ Fiddler eyed the young woman quizzically. ‘I have never before heard that assertion, Apsalar. There were no written orders – none found, in any case—’ ‘I should have killed her there and then,’ Apsalar muttered.
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‘It was the Rope, the patron god of assassins, who possessed you. Yet your memories are—’ ‘Dancer’s.’ As soon as he said it, Fiddler knew it was true. ‘The Rope has another name. Cotillion. Hood’s breath, so obvious! No-one doubted that the assassinations occurred. Both Dancer and the Emperor . . . murdered by Laseen and her chosen Clawmasters. What did Laseen do with the bodies? No-one knows.’ ‘So Dancer lived,’ Crokus said with a frown. ‘And ascended. Became a patron god in the Warren of Shadow.’
‘Your words are true,’ she said without inflection. ‘Then why,’ the sapper demanded, ‘didn’t Cotillion reveal himself to us? To Whiskeyjack, to Kalam? To Dujek? Dammit, Dancer knew us all – and if that bastard understood the notion of friendship at all, then those I’ve just mentioned were his friends—’ Apsalar’s sudden laugh rattled both men. ‘I could lie and say he sought to protect you all. Do you really wish the truth, Bridgeburner?’ Fiddler felt himself flushing. ‘I do,’ he growled. ‘Dancer trusted but two men. One was Kellanved. The other was Dassem Ultor, the First Sword. Dassem is dead.
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When slaughter is flung back on the perpetrators, the thirst for blood is quickly quenched. The Emperor would have acted swiftly, decisively. Hood’s breath, he would never have let it slide this far.
squinted. ‘Looks like he’s been in a scrap,’ he observed. Crokus pulled Moby down into his arms. ‘He’s bleeding everywhere!’
his head – decades old – was seared anew
Young, yet old. One life whole, another incomplete. I have seen, Leoman!’
‘She said she would be . . . renewed . . .’ He sighed, the Book heavy in his hands. ‘We wait.’ The Toblakai raised his head, sniffed. ‘There’s a storm coming.’
‘I’m not much in your eyes any more, am I, Heboric? Was I ever?’ Felisin, House of Paran, whose sister was Adjunct Tavore, whose brother rode with Adjunct Lorn. Nobleborn, a spoiled little girl. A whore. He did not reply, making his way to the gap in the back wall.
‘It must have been a great offence that drove you from your god, Heboric.’ He did not reply.
‘What kind of trouble?’ Heboric shrugged. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’ve suspicions.’ He grimaced. ‘Sawark said, “Look south.”’
‘Who are you anyway?’ ‘Imperial Historian. And who are you, Stormy?’ The man grunted. ‘Nobody. Nobody at all.’
‘Ever had a spell roll onto you? My bones have been rattled damn near out of their sockets. I shat my pants, too. But I’m alive.’ ‘So far,’ Stormy said, grinning.
succour found there. Seven Cities had risen
Kulp sighed. ‘We go to pick up a High Priest of Fener, Corporal. Feed me to a dhenrabi and no-one mourns the loss. Anger a High Priest and his foul-tempered god might well cock one red eye in your direction.
We’re Boar Company, of the disbanded First Army. Before Laseen crushed the cult, that is. Now we’re just marines attached to a miserable Coastal Guard.’
impediment than an asset – they were better
Men had been gutted, their entrails pulled out, wrapped around women – wives and mothers and aunts and sisters – who had been raped before being strangled with the intestinal ropes. The historian saw children with their skulls crushed, babies spitted on tapu skewers. However, many young daughters had been taken by the attackers as they plunged deeper into the district. If anything, their fates would be more horrific than those visited on their kin.
The Wickans had then killed them all. There was no risk of reprisal to prevent them later retrieving their arrow shafts. The killing must have been absolute, every escape closed off, then the precise, calculated murder of every Hissari in the square.
I’ve not heard a single dockside curse pass his lips, no salty metaphors, no barbed catechisms.’ ‘So, not Iskaral Pust’s craft.’ ‘No. Leaving . . .’ ‘Well, either the mule or Servant.’
‘We have to assume,’ Mappo said slowly, ‘that the characteristic of never answering directly is bred into the man. As natural as breathing.’
fools. Tremorlor . . . If the gods will it, this track will lead us to that legendary gate. Raraku has a heart, Quick Ben said. Tremorlor, a House of the Azath.
Despite himself, Fiddler’s heart broke for those Gral horses, even as he aimed and fired.
‘For all that they have twice saved us,’ Crokus said, ‘those Moranth munitions are horrible, Fiddler.’
Duiker watched them stride westward, knowing that should he see them again, it would be from the ranks of the Malazan army. And somehow they would be less than human then. The game the mind must play to unleash destruction.
He’d stood amidst the ranks more than once, sensing the soldiers alongside him seeking and finding that place in the mind, cold and silent, the place where husbands, fathers, wives and mothers became killers. And practice made it easier, each time. Until it becomes a place you never leave.
Duiker knew he might rejoin the army only to die with them.
‘Shut up, Baudin,’ Heboric snapped, wrapping his arms around himself. He glared up at the man from under the ridge of his brows. ‘That’s not a column over there,’ he rasped. ‘It’s a finger.’
Fingers, to hand. Hand to arm, arm to body . . . For all the logic of that progression, it was impossible, Felisin thought. No such thing could be fashioned, no such thing could stand or stay in one piece. A hand, but no arm, no body.
hate myself, but he hates everyone
else. Which of us has lost the most?
‘What’s happened to you?’ He glanced over. ‘I wish I knew.’ ‘You burned your wrist on that statue.’
the talon of some large cat, amber-coloured and smooth. She wondered if it held poison, painted invisibly on its surface. The item was ominous in its mystery.
‘Well,’ he said with a cold grin, ‘no-one would think you anything but nobleborn. Mind you, opening your legs for anyone and everyone back in Skullcup was proof enough, I suppose.’ ‘It kept us all alive, you bastard.’ ‘Kept you plump and lazy, you mean. Most of what me and Heboric ate came from the favours I did for the Dosii guards. Beneth gave us dregs to keep you sweet. He knew we wouldn’t tell you about it. He used to laugh at your noble cause.’
