Reaper's Gale (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #7)

by Steven Erikson

Take any segment of population, impose strict yet clear definitions on their particular characteristics, then target them for compliance. Bribe the weak to expose the strong. Kill the strong, and the rest are yours. Move on to the next segment.

our greatest enemies are those who are without certainty. The ones with questions, the ones who regard our tidy answers with unquenchable scepticism. Those questions assail us, undermine us. They…agitate. Understand, these dangerous citizens understand that nothing is simple; their stance is the very opposite of naivety. They are humbled by the ambivalence to which they are witness, and they defy our simple, comforting assertions of clarity, of a black and white world.

Consider this then a warning. Liars will lie, and continue to do so, even beyond being caught out. They will lie, and in time, such liars will convince themselves, will in all self-righteousness divest the liars of culpability. Until comes a time when one final lie is voiced, the one that can only be answered by rage, by cold murder, and on that day, blood shall rain down every wall of this vaunted, weaning society.

‘The Errant follows the Warlock King, to see what he plans. The Warlock King meddles with nefarious rituals set in place by another ascendant, who in turn leaves off eating a freshly killed corpse and makes for an unexpected rendezvous with said Warlock King, where they will probably make each other’s acquaintance then bargain to mutual benefit over the crumbling chains binding another ascendant – one soon to be freed, which will perturb someone far to the north, although that one is probably not yet ready to act. In the meantime, the long-departed Edur fleet skirts the Draconean Sea and shall soon enter the river mouth on its fated return to our fair city, and with it are two fell champions, neither of whom is likely to do what is expected of them. Now, to add spice to all of that, the secret that is the soul of one Scabandari Bloodeye will, in a depressingly short time, cease to be a secret, and consequently and in addition to and concomitant with, we are in for an interesting summer.’

‘Shadowthrone, what are advocates?’ ‘A profession devoted to the subversion of laws for profit,’ he replied, his cane inexplicably tapping as he shuffled back into the woods. ‘When I was Emperor, I considered butchering them all.’ ‘So why didn’t you?’ she asked as he began to fade into a miasma of gloom beneath the trees. Faintly came the reply, ‘The Royal Advocate said it’d be a terrible mistake.’

‘Your god marches to war – he will need all the help he can get.’ Hannan Mosag managed his own smile, a twisted, feral thing. ‘He is incapable of marching. He does not even crawl. The war comes to him, Sister.’

‘You mouth the echoes, yet quail from the source.’

‘It is as if,’ Icarium whispered, ‘my life awakens anew.’

‘Should a god be foolish enough to seek to steal our spirits, I will kill it.’

‘A god devoid of wisdom deserves what it gets.’

‘Togg’s a god.’ ‘Not a goddess?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then its teats are—’ ‘Useless. Precisely.’ ‘What of the others? “Hood’s Breath”?’ ‘Hood is the Lord of Death.’ ‘Thus…no breath.’ ‘Correct.’ ‘Beru’s mercy?’ ‘She has no mercy.’ ‘Mowri fend?’ ‘The Lady of the Poor fends off nothing.’

‘If they are so unhelpful, why do you worship them?’ ‘Imagine how much more unhelpful they’d be if we didn’t.’

Thus, it is my assessment that I will be killed in that contest, to the dismay of no-one and everyone.’

Axe, bound to both Saviour and Betrayer of the Empty Hold. Knuckles and the White Crow circle the Ice Throne like leaves in a whirlpool. Elder of Beast Hold stands at the Portal of the Azath Hold. Gate of the Dragon and Blood-Drinker converge on the Watcher of the Empty Hold – but no, this is all madness.

‘Hold on, I am no longer your student, Janath! Besides, I’m well over you, I’ll have you know. I haven’t dreamt of you in…in…years! Months!’ Her brows rose. ‘Weeks?’

‘It is well known that an adult man’s adolescent misapprehensions often insinuate themselves when said man is sleeping, in his dreams, I mean. Or, indeed, nightmares—’

‘Tehol Beddict,’ said Janath, ‘I am glad you are here.’ ‘You are?’ both Bugg and Tehol asked.

‘Janath, are you not impressed with what I have done with my extensive education?’ ‘It is a very fine roof, Tehol Beddict.’

‘Here’s a most telling question – the kind few dare utter, by the way. Which one among us, friends, is not haunted by a death wish? Perhaps we ought to discuss mutual suicide…’

Marching to war. Again. Seems the world wants me to be a soldier. Well, the world can go fuck itself.

‘You must leave when this is done, warrior. You must travel to your islands and gather our people, then bring them here. You are now my army. I am Karsa Orlong, Toblakai and Teblor. I am your war leader.’

‘I know secrets.’ ‘Me too.’ ‘None to compare with mine. I was there when Redmask’s sister killed herself.’ ‘And I suckled at the tit of a K’Chain Che’Malle Matron. If tit is the right word.’ The old man’s face twisted in disbelief. ‘That is a good lie. But it is not the game I am playing. I saw with my own eyes the great sea canoes. Upon the north shore. Thousands upon thousands.’ Toc began returning the arrows to the hide quiver. ‘These arrows were made by a dead man. Dead for a hundred thousand years, or more.’ The wrinkled scowl opposite him deepened. ‘I have seen skeletons running in the night – on this very plain.’ ‘This body you see isn’t mine. I stole it.’ ‘I alone know the truth of Bast Fulmar.’ ‘This body’s father was a dead man – he gasped his last breath even as his seed was taken on a field of battle.’ ‘The victory of long ago was in truth a defeat.’ ‘This body grew strong on human meat.’ ‘Redmask will betray us.’ ‘This mouth waters as I look at you.’ The old man pushed himself to his feet. ‘Evil speaks in lies.’ ‘And the good know only one truth. But it’s a lie, because there’s always more than one truth.’

‘Were you beautiful once, Emroth?’ ‘I do not remember.’ ‘I was hopeless with women,’ Hedge said. ‘My ears are too big – yes, that’s why I wear this leather cap. And I got knobby knees. It’s why I became a soldier, you know. To meet women. And then I discovered that women soldiers are scary. I mean, a lot more scary than normal women, which is saying something. I guess with you Imass, well, everyone was a warrior, right?’ ‘I understand,’ Emroth said. ‘You do? Understand what?’ ‘Why you have no companions, Hedge of the Bridgeburners.’ ‘You’re not going to turn into a cloud of dust on me, are you?’ ‘In this place, I cannot. Alas.’

We were never as the Nerek, the Tarthenal and the others. We could raise no army against the invaders. Our belief in the shore held no vast power, for it is a belief in the mutable, in transformation. A god with no face but every face. Our temple is the strand where the eternal war between land and sea is waged, a temple that rises only to crumble yet again. Temple of sound, of smell, taste and tears upon every fingertip.

‘It skidded when you breathed – I saw it, you cheat!’ ‘I ain’t breathed.’ ‘Oh right, you’re a Hood-damned corpse, are you?’ ‘No, I just ain’t breathed when you said I did. Look, it’s in the trough, you deny it?’ ‘Here, let me take a closer look. Ha, no it isn’t!’ ‘You just sighed and moved it, damn you!’ ‘I didn’t sigh.’ ‘Right, and you’re not losing neither, are ya?’ ‘Just because I’m losing doesn’t mean I sighed right then. And see, it’s not in the trough.’ ‘Hold on while I breathe—’ ‘Then I’ll sigh!’ ‘Breathing is what winners do. Sighing is what losers do. Therefore, I win.’ ‘Sure, for you cheating is as natural as breathing, isn’t it?’

‘Having a reason to be miserable is always worse than having no reason but being miserable anyway.

The woman – sudden centre of attention with most conversations falling away – seemed for all her impressive girth to glide as she moved between the blessedly widely spaced tables, and in her dark violet eyes there gleamed a sultry confidence so at odds with her ungainly proportions that Tehol felt an alarming stir in his groin and sweat prickled in enough manly places to make him shift uneasily in his chair, all thoughts of the meal on the plate before him torn away like so many clothes. He did not believe it possible that flesh could move in as many directions all at once, every swell beneath the silk seemingly possessed of corporeal independence, yet advancing in a singular chorus of overt sexuality. Her shadow engulfing him, Tehol loosed a small whimper, struggling to drag his eyes up, past the stacked folds of her belly, past the impossibly high, bulging, grainsack-sized breasts – lost for a moment in that depthless cleavage – then, with heroic will, yet higher to the smooth udder beneath her chin; higher still, neck straining, to that so round face with its broad, painted, purple lips – higher – Errant help me – to those delicious, knowing eyes.

That, Tehol Beddict, is perhaps the lowest you have gone yet.’ ‘But we’ve just begun.’

‘I was just imaging her stuck there, wedged in Huldo’s alleyway. Unable to turn. Helpless, in fact.’ ‘There it is,’ he said with a sigh, ‘you did indeed manage to sink lower.’

There was Jhag blood in this Icarium, but of that Karsa knew little. Father or mother a Jaghut; it hardly mattered which. Yet the other parent. Father or mother. Well, he had seen enough in Icarium’s face to know that blood. To know it like the whisper of his very own. Toblakai.

Every field of battle holds every cry uttered Threaded like roots between stones and broken armour, shattered weapons, leather clasps rotting into the earth. Centuries are as nothing to those voices, those aggrieved souls. They die in the now And the now is for ever. On the Deal Plains Rael of Longspit

The Emperor of a Thousand Deaths remains on the throne. A foreign army uninterested in negotiation approaches. A champion who is a god will soon draw his sword.

‘The sea remembers. In every wave, every current. The sea, Immortal One, remembers the shore.’

‘The perils of unfettered expansion, Advocate Sleem, are revealed in the dust and ashes left behind. Assume the species’ immortality since it suits the game. Every game. But that assumption will not save you in the end. No, in fact, it will probably kill you. That one self-serving, pious, pretentious, arrogant assumption.’

‘Your cynicism lies in your willing abuse of others to consolidate your superiority over them. My cynicism is in regard to humanity’s wilful blindness with respect to its own extinction.’

‘You know, Tehol Beddict, I never imagined you for an agent of evil.’ Tehol smoothed back his hair and swelled his chest.

‘Disparaging my abode? You, an un-paying guest! I am deeply hurt, Janath.’ ‘No you’re not.’ ‘Well, the hens are and since they do not speak Letherii…’

‘Don’t like me? But that makes no sense! How can I not be likeable? Admirable, even? I am become the epitome of triumphant acquisitiveness, the very icon of this great unnamed god! And if I do nothing with all my vast wealth, why, I have earned the right. By every rule voiced in the sacred litany, I have earned it!’ ‘But where is the virtue in then destroying all that wealth? In destroying the very system you used to create it in the first place?’ ‘Janath, where is the virtue in any of it? Is possession a virtue? Is a lifetime of working for some rich toad a virtue? Is loyal employment in some merchant house a virtue? Loyal to what? To whom? Oh, have they paid for that loyalty with a hundred docks a week? Like any other commodity? But then, which version is truer – the virtue of self-serving acquisitiveness or the virtue of loyalty to one’s employer? Are the merchants at the top of their treasure heaps not ruthless and cut-throat as befits those privileges they have purportedly earned? And if it’s good enough for them, why not the same for the lowest worker in their house? Where is the virtue in two sets of rules at odds with each other, and why are those fancy words like “moral” and “ethical” the first ones to bleat out from the mouths of those who lost sight of both in their climb to the top? Since when did ethics and morality become weapons of submission?’

I die and die. More deaths, yes, than anyone can imagine. I die and I die, and I die. But where is my peace?

I went in search of death In the cast down wreckage Of someone’s temple nave I went in search among flowers Nodding to the wind’s words Of woeful tales of war I went among the blood troughs Behind the women’s tents All the children that never were And in the storm of ice and waves I went in search of the drowned Among bony shells and blunt worms Where the grains swirled Each and every one crying out its name its life its loss I went on the current roads That led me nowhere known And in the still mists afield Where light itself crept uncertain I went in search of wise spirits Moaning their truths in dark loam But the moss was silent, too damp to remember my search Finding at last where the reapers sow Cutting stalks to take the season I failed in my proud quest To a scything flint blade And lying asward lost to summer Bared as its warm carapace of youthful promise was sent away into autumn’s reliquary sky Until the bones of night Were nails glittering in the cold oblivion, and down the darkness death came to find me Before Q’uson Tapi Toc Anaster

‘I suggest a huge mutual suicide,’ Udinaas said. ‘You and all your wretched kin, and you, Clip, you could just jump in to appease your ego or something. Vanish from the mortal realms, all of you, and leave the rest of us alone.’

‘Unwelcome relatives. Pushed into closets. Bar the door, ignore the knocking and let’s hope they move on. It’s ever the problem with all these creation stories. “We’re the first, isn’t it obvious? Those others? Ignore them. Imposters, interlopers, and worse! Look at us, after all! Dark, Light, and the gloom in between! Could anyone be purer, more elemental, than that?” The answer, of course, is yes.

‘Dead or no,’ Hedge said, ‘you’d be nervous too if you was carrying a sack of cussers on your back.’ ‘Damn you, Hedge – that was a cusser in your hand back there! When the dragon—’ ‘Aye, Quick, so you just keep them kitties away from me, lest I jump back and turn an ankle or something. And stop talking about Shadowthrone and Cotillion, too.’ ‘A sack full of cussers. Now I am nervous – you may be dead, but I’m not!’ ‘Just so.’

‘There is too much within you, Trull Sengar. You humble me.’

‘Never mind the truth. The past is what I say it is. That is the freedom of teaching the ignorant.’

Open to them your hand to the shore, watch them walk into the sea. Press upon them all they need, see them yearn for all they want. Gift to them the calm pool of words, watch them draw the sword. Bless upon them the satiation of peace, see them starve for war. Grant them darkness and they will lust for light. Deliver to them death and hear them beg for life. Beget life and they will murder your kin. Be as they are and they see you different. Show wisdom and you are a fool. The shore gives way to the sea. And the sea, my friends, Does not dream of you.

Such dark skin. Such dark eyes, and oh, she spied him out and gave him that gleaming smile, before leading him by the hand into a back room of the local gaol and delivering her recruiting pitch sitting on him and rocking with exalted glee until he exploded right into the Malazan military.

His brothers had expressed their disbelief and were in a panic about how to explain to their ma and da how their youngest son had gone and got himself signed up and lost his virginity to a fifty-year-old demoness in the process – and was, in fact, not coming home at all.

Skulldeath was twenty-three years old. Such was his discipline that he had not spilled seed once, not even in his sleep. As the squad mage Mulvan Dreader would say later, Skulldeath was truly a man about to explode.

They are finished and they know it. And so, there will be no rout, no retreat of any sort. Look at them! There they will stand, until none stand.’