Assail (14 page)

Many of the crew, those who had been with Burl the longest, now looked shamed by his words. Gaff saw this and clenched his lips against saying more, though his hardened expression made it clear he was only temporarily silenced. Burl waved the crew back to work and pulled open the door to the cabin.

Within, he went to where Whellen lay sleeping, or under some sort of spell. The man looked deathly pale and Burl pulled another blanket over him. What ails you, man? he wondered. If they only knew. If he only had a ship’s mage; but such men or women were few in the Southern Confederacy. For now he would wait. Things had to change. And Gaff – he would hear from him again. Perhaps he’d made a mistake in not running the man through the moment he understood just how far he would go in his mania. Yet if Gaff dared not move against him because he could not count on the crew’s support, then so too was he constrained. If he wanted to remain captain he couldn’t go round running crew members through over a few heated words.

He sat down heavily. It was cold in the cabin, and the aura of frigid air seemed to be wafting from his stricken first mate. Burl set his elbows on his captain’s table and held his head in his hands. By the Thousand-faced god, you’d better not be some damned curse-carrier, Whellen. Because if you are … Ach!

He slumped back into his chair. Never mind. The one who carries any curse is always the last to know, yes? It wouldn’t be a damned curse otherwise, would it? This last thought chilled him and he pulled his gaze from Whellen.

So it could just as easily be me, couldn’t it?

* * *

Two days into the climb into the Bone range, Fisher’s guest awoke. Officially within the party, Fisher was appended to Malle’s Malazans. The expedition’s overall leader, Marshal Teal of Lether, had been against taking him on, as, in his words, ‘he saw no profit in hiring a mere wandering player’.

Fisher had then rather reluctantly revealed that he had travelled through this region before. After demonstrating local knowledge to the satisfaction of Malle’s own expert on Assail, the mage Holden, the Gris noblewoman offered to take him on, she said, to play and sing tales for her edification.

Therefore, it was in a Malazan-style field tent that Fisher sat idly strumming his current instrument, a stringed idum, consisting of a long narrow arm on a round gourd-like body. It was a traditional instrument of the Seven Cities region.

He was strumming and plucking, exploring possible composition elements for his current travels, when a voice spoke from within the tent. ‘You play well.’

He lowered the instrument’s arm from where he’d held it close to his ear and turned on his stool next to the open flap. Outside, the fires of the expedition crackled and cast a flickering light within the tent. His guest still lay within his blankets on the travois, but now his eyes glittered as dark as if the night itself was watching.

‘You are with us!’ Fisher came to his side. ‘I am Fisher. Fisher Kel Tath. And you are?’

‘I …’ The Andii frowned. ‘I am …’ He rubbed his brow and the frown rose into growing alarm. Fisher glanced away from the open panic that surfaced in the man’s night-black eyes. ‘I – cannot remember,’ he confessed, almost awed. ‘I cannot remember anything.’

Fisher pulled his stool next to the travois. ‘It is all right. I understand you nearly drowned. No doubt your memories will return in time. Do you remember anything of the sea, or drowning?’

‘No. That is …’ The man rubbed his brow with both hands as if struggling to pull memories from his mind. ‘Perhaps. I think I remember … fighting for breath.’

Fisher studied the man. Could he in truth be amnesiac? He’d heard that sometimes a near death by drowning could do that to a person. Of course, a sceptic would note how that was all too convenient. ‘So. You do not remember your name. What of your past? Any images, or places?’

The Andii gave an angry shake of his head – angry only with his own failure. ‘No. Nothing.’

‘Yet you are of the opinion that I play well.’

The man offered a half-smile. ‘Perhaps I should say that your playing was pleasing to my ear.’

‘Ah. Well, I thank you. Now, what of a name? I cannot just say hey you.’

‘No. That would certainly not do.’ He sat up in the travois then rubbed his brow anew, as if dizzy. He looked to Fisher and the bard thought the man’s glance uncharacteristically open and unguarded for an Andii. Or for any adult, for that matter. It was too much of the honest artlessness of youth. ‘Can you give me one?’

Half wincing, Fisher lowered his gaze. Ye gods, what a responsibility! Naming an Andii was not something anyone should casually take on. Yet he knew many old Tiste Andii lays, and they were jammed full of names and ancestries. ‘I … could,’ he allowed.

‘Very good.’ And the man sat waiting as if Fisher was about to bestow it right away.

Fisher gave a rather nervous laugh. ‘Let me consider the matter. Such things require … care.’

‘Ah. I see.’ And the man nodded his acceptance.

Fisher cleared his throat into the silence. ‘In the meantime, let me see to kitting you out properly. We are headed into mountains. Your thin cloth trousers and shirt, though they are of an expensive weave, will not do. And you need footgear of a sort – that will be a challenge. And some sort of weapon. Do you use a sword?’

With the mention of the word ‘sword’ the man’s head snapped to him and for an instant the black eyes held an expression that was far from innocent openness. Then the mood cleared and the Andii smiled as if having discovered something. ‘Yes. I remember … a sword. Something about a sword.’

Fisher slapped his thighs and rose. ‘There you are. Progress already. Soon it will all come back. Now wait here – I’ll see what I can pull together.’

He made the rounds of the three camps. Marshal Teal offered to sell him equipment at an insultingly inflated price. Enguf’s raiders had no extra gear, and were in fact short of everything themselves. He returned to the Malazan camp and headed for Malle’s tent.

Three guards sat on stools before the closed flap. A small fire burned low in front of them while behind a thin slit of lamplight cut through the tent opening. They were three of a kind: gnarled veterans in battered light armour, the heaviest item of which was a shirt of mail. Like three boulders, Fisher thought, that had rolled and bashed their way across countless fields and continents until every edge carried a bruise or a scar.

‘Lookee here,’ one commented, nudging his fellow. ‘It’s that foreign screecher. Where’s that cat you keep stretched on a stick and torture every night?’

‘Evening lads,’ Fisher said placidly. ‘Here to see the mistress. And it’s an idum. An instrument out of Seven Cities.’

‘Oh, I know that,’ the first said. ‘Heard them played. Broke every one of them I saw after that.’

‘You wasn’t in Seven Cities,’ the one on the right objected.

‘Was so.’

‘Yes, he was,’ said the one in the middle. ‘I remember it distinctly – he was advertised as the famous Malazan dancing boy.’

The one on the right now nodded his agreement. ‘Oh, I remember now. His bum was everywhere.’

The first joined in the nodding. ‘I distracted them and you stuck your knives in – or something like that.’

Fisher struggled to keep his face straight. ‘Gentlemen … your mistress?’

‘Now I know
she
wasn’t in Seven Cities,’ the middle one said.

The one on the right rubbed his jaw with a gnarled paw. ‘She mighta bin.’

‘Would you announce me?’ Fisher asked.

‘As what?’ the first asked, looking him up and down. Fisher raised his eyes to the night sky. The guard nudged the one in the middle. ‘Your turn.’

This one kicked the one on his right. ‘Your turn.’

The last dropped his hand from his jaw and sighed his annoyance. ‘I can’t believe I have to be the one to go to all the trouble.’ He lifted his head and shouted: ‘Hey, Malle! It’s that foreign bandolier here to see you!’

‘That’s balladeer, Riley dear,’ Malle called from within. ‘Now send him in.’

‘What’s the difference?’ Riley asked out of the side of his mouth.

‘He wouldn’t fit so well across your chest,’ the one in the middle answered.

‘Oh, I dunno about that,’ Riley answered, eyeing Fisher up and down. ‘He just might.’

Fisher sketched a salute and edged between them.

Inside, a number of lamps cast a warm yellow glow. Tables and stools cluttered the outer half of the tent. Hangings concealed a private rear sleeping chamber. With Malle were her two hired mages, one of whom he knew: the old and battered Holden of Cawn, mage of Serc. The other was new to him: a young plain lass, obviously the mage of Telas he’d sensed earlier. A low table between them lay cluttered with scraps of food, glasses, and rolled sheets of parchment he recognized as charts and maps.

Malle waved to a stool. ‘Fisher Kel Tath,’ she invited. ‘Please be seated.’

‘I thank you, m’lady.’

She waved a black-gloved hand to Holden. ‘Holden of Cawn.’

‘The songster and I know each other of old, ma’am,’ Holden explained.

‘Oh. How convenient.’ She indicated the girl. ‘This is Alca of Cat, new to my service.’

Fisher bowed to the girl, whose pale lipless mouth drew down as if anticipating some sort of insult from him. He merely inclined his head in greeting once more, and indicated the rolled parchments. ‘You come well prepared.’

‘These?’ Malle snorted her scorn and tossed back a tiny glass of some thick blood-red liqueur. ‘Mere traveller’s tales. Might as well draw monsters on their borders.’ She eyed him speculatively. ‘You, however, have travelled through here before.’

‘Along the coast only, ma’am. Never inland.’

‘And why not?’

‘Very dangerous.’

She eyed her mages. ‘How very encouraging. Dangerous in what manner?’

He shrugged, extended his legs. ‘I do not know exactly. All I can say is that those who attempt to cross the spine of the Bone range are never seen again. There are stories, of course. Many rumours.’

Malle refilled her tumbler from a tall thin crystal decanter. ‘And have these stories a common theme?’

‘A monster. A threat. A price to be paid.’

The woman held the tiny glass between the fingertips of both hands and studied him over the rim. Under her steady gaze he was thankful that he had told the truth.

‘Interesting …’ she said at last.

Fisher frowned at that. ‘How so?’

‘Holden?’

The old mage cleared his throat and spat into a bronze pot next to his feet. ‘The oldest accounts have a road that tracks the top of the Bone Peninsula. Know you of that?’

Now Fisher regarded Malle steadily. ‘I have heard stories of such an ancient traveller’s account. It is said that the imperial archive in Unta possesses it.’

Behind the glass a small tight-lipped smile came and went from the old woman’s mouth. ‘Archivists can get into debt as easily as anyone.’ She waved to invite him to speak. ‘What have you heard?’

Fisher wasn’t certain that he believed the woman’s explanation, but outwardly he gave the appearance of not particularly caring either way. ‘I am a singer, a collector of songs and tales. And there are very old ones from this region that speak variously of the Bone Road, the Bridge of Bone, or the Way of Bone.’

‘Colourful,’ the old woman commented dryly. ‘Any other hazards we should be mindful of?’

Fisher opened his arms. ‘Well, there are always bandits, thieves, and mountain tribes.’

‘I doubt that any ragged bandits would attack a party of some hundred armed men and women,’ the girl sneered. ‘Hard knocks for poor rewards.’

Fisher shifted his gaze to her. ‘Some might fight to defend their territory.’ The girl just snorted, looking sour.

‘Anything else?’ Malle enquired.

Fisher nodded. ‘Then there are the supernatural dangers.’

Holden chuckled and winked. ‘Ah yes. The legendary ghoulies, ghosties and giants of Assail.’

Fisher did not share the man’s amusement. ‘The ghosts are real, my friend. The further north you go the worse they get. That and the cold.’

Alca leaned forward. She slid her forearms along her thighs to her knees. ‘These stories of cold and ice interest me. Since we landed I have sensed it. It is Elder. Omtose Phellack. This land was once held by the Jaghut – is that not so?’

Fisher studied the girl more closely; not so young as he had thought. And a scholar. Perhaps a researcher into the Warrens. He crossed one leg over the other and clasped his hands over his knee. ‘Some say all lands were once held by the Jaghut. But yes. It is thought that their mark lingers.’

‘And beyond the Jaghut there lies the threat of the namesake of this region,’ said Malle.

Fisher simply blinked at her. ‘Those are just stories, m’lady.’

‘Indeed? Let us hope so.’

Her tone told Fisher that his audience was at an end. He bowed his head and rose.

‘You had wished to speak of some matter?’ she enquired.

Fisher’s brows shot up – ah yes. He’d quite forgotten. ‘Our guest is awake and I wish to request equipment for him. Warm sturdy clothes and a weapon.’