Return of the Crimson Guard (108 page)

‘Hello? Vessel …’ Jenoso scanned for the name –
Beru, no! Who would name a vessel that?
‘Ah,
Ragstopper?’

A pale-faced, sickly-looking sailing hand appeared at the rail. ‘No one comes aboard!’ he fairly howled, pointing.

‘Very well – that is your business. Mine is registration and inspection. Now, let me aboard.’

‘No! Go away!’

‘Do not be ridiculous. Your cargo must be inspected, fees levied. Come, come. I haven't all day.’

The man yanked at his long, unkempt, mangy hair. ‘Plague!’ he shouted. ‘Yes, that's right! We've plague! Look out! Ooo!’

Jenoso blinked his confusion. ‘Well, in that case you are in contravention of standard procedure. You must anchor in the bay, raise a black flag …’

An old man with a shock of grey-white bristly hair and a seamed, wind-darkened face pushed the sailor aside. ‘Did I hear the words “standard procedure”? What's happened to all the ports these days? Why, times were in Cawn a few silver moons would –
Holy Dessembrae forfend!’
the man cried, staring at the town. ‘You must've tried to tax the wrong people!’

Jenoso struggled to ignore the accuracy of that off-the-cuff observation. ‘Never mind – more so, greater funds are now needed for reconstruction – ergo, the matter at hand.’

The old captain, his thin, sun-faded shirt barely hanging on his bony frame, gestured a clawed hand to him. ‘Why the Imperial colours? I thought Cawn was open to the highest bidder. Or has the bidding closed?’

Again Jenoso struggled to keep his features, and tone, even. ‘I'll have you know that not just yesterday a massed army of close to thirty thousand Cawnese provincial forces marched through here on their way west to the support of the Empire.’

The captain rubbed a hand over his face, grimacing. ‘That so. Yesterday or not yesterday? Which?’

‘Ah … pardon?’

‘You said “not yesterday”– so, which was it?’

It seemed to the harbour-assessor that somehow control of the situation was slipping away from him yet he couldn't exactly put his finger on just how and when it happened. ‘Ah, yesterday, or so …’

‘Well, why didn't you just say so, man! Gods!’

Jenoso's grip tightened so hard on his wax tablet he felt his hot fingertips pressing into it. ‘Sir! The matter at hand …!’

‘What's the matter with the hand dealt to us here is that we're throwin’ in our hand. Looks like the Empire's got all the ports in the fist of her hand so we're pushin’ off!’

The harbour-assessor's knotted brows hurt. ‘I'm sorry … ?’

‘So am I. Cast off!’

‘What – me?’

‘Why? Are you enlisting?’ He gestured aside, ‘Cast off!’

‘Aw, no, Captain! Please!’ someone pleaded. ‘Soliel's mercy, sir! We want water, food …’

‘What you want is a chance to desert! Now move!’

‘Sir …’ Jenoso called, ‘Sir!’

‘Yes? You still here?’

‘Sadly so.’

A fey laugh from the captain. ‘That's the spirit, lad.’

Sailors, barefoot, dressed in ragged trousers and shirts climbed over the sides to slide down the mooring ropes. Jenoso pointed. ‘Wait. You can't do that – wait. Mooring and unmooring at a whim! You owe fees – docking, launch crews must be paid …’

‘Tell you what,’ the captain announced, ‘here's a down-payment,’ and he tossed something, a small ball of some kind.

In his panic, Jenoso dropped his tablet to catch the dark ball. He juggled it in his hands, staring. ‘What is this?’ he fairly squeaked.

‘It's what you think it is.’

Jenoso froze, the ball, or ovoid, held at arm's length. His mouth gaped but no sound emerged.

‘Raise sails!’ the captain ordered, ‘we've a seaward breeze. It's less than the gas passed from a countessa during a reception, but it'll do.’

Canvas and ropes rasped, feet pounded the deck. Jenoso remained frozen. His arms ached.

‘Farewell to all these bureaucracy-choked lands!’ The captain bellowed. ‘A curse upon all you assessors and collectors and all you state-run bandits! May you choke in Hood's craw! Goodbye to all fees, tithes, taxes, bills and levies! Damn you all to the darker side of the Abyss!’

The sails caught the weak breeze. Sailors struggled to push off with poles. The captain continued his rant. Unavoidably, this strange activity attracted the attention of the harbour guard and a detachment marched down to investigate. Its sergeant found the harbour-assessor white-faced, arms quivering, a death-grip on an object in his hands. The sergeant gently pulled it from him to study it. ‘Stamp of the Imperial Arsenal,’ he said musingly.

‘Is it …’ the harbour-assessor stammered, weak-voiced, ‘is it …’

‘It's just a smoker,’ the sergeant said, tossing it hand to hand. He raised his chin to the ship easing into the bay. ‘Who was that?’

‘The
Ragstopper^
Jenoso gasped as he flexed and massaged his hands together. Peering down he saw that his tablet had slipped neatly through a gap in the dock slats to drop into the harbour.
He pressed his hot hands to his face and fought an urge to cry.

The
Ragstopper,
you say? Well, we'll be waiting for him. No matter where he puts in – we'll be waiting for him.’

* * *

The seas were climbing and heavy clouds prefaced a squall, but Yathengar stamped his staff to the deck of the
Forlorn
regardless, calling assembly of the ritual participants. Ho sat at the stern with Su and Devaleth; the Wickan witch perfectly miserable in the rough weather and the Korelan sea-mage perfectly at ease.

The participants, some twenty-three, not including Yath, shuffled together and again Ho was struck by the sad spectacle.
We look like a collection of village idiots, all of us. Hair hacked and badly shaved, dressed in rags scrounged on the ship – all old clothing and sandals and such thrown overboard. Some men even shaved their body hair. Those pale are sun-burned. The skin of all is raw, cracked and bleeding from repeated scrubbing. You'd think plague had broken out on board. Yet it's working – that and having left the islands far behind. I can feel my powers returning. They are there; I just have to dare to reach for them.

The participants arranged themselves in rows before Yath, Seven Cities priest and mage. Ho, of course, had researched ritual magics to a degree far greater than most scholarly mages and Su, he knew, must also be familiar with its demands. Wickan warlocks and witches employed it regularly. Devaleth, he imagined, must also be conversant – Ruse was infamous for the complexity of its rituals.

And none of them had elected to participate. Was this the mere product of personal dislike of Yath, or was there more here – a deeper suspicion, or healthy dread, of the consequences for any participant should things go wrong? Maybe both.

It began well enough. Ho detected only the most negligible interference from the presence of any lingering traces of Otataral. Around the sitting, concentrating mages, the mundane sailing of the vessel continued. The Avowed crew shortened the sails and secured everything against the coming storm. Blues was at the stern-tiller with Treat while Fingers sat beside them propped up against the side. The skies darkened, the thick low clouds churning. Ho wanted to call it all off, but he understood that time was pressing. Events were converging on Quon. A cusp of a kind was approaching during which they must act or thereafter lose any chance of influencing its outcome.

He studied his own rasped-raw palms and the soles of his feet, his bloodied nails cut short by a knife – and all self-inflicted! Was there a metaphor here of some kind for the pursuits of him and his companions? If so, it was not a pleasant one.

Mouthings pulled his attention to Grief – Blues – at the stern tiller along with Treat and Dim. The man's eyes were on Yath, his lips moving as he followed along in the invocation, nodding to himself at Yath's choices in his groundwork for the merging to come. Ho straightened, amazed – the man's a mage!
Yes, one of us indeed!

‘You're a mage as well,’ he said to Blues.

The man shared a glance with Fingers, a sardonic smile raised one edge of his lips. ‘Don't spread it around. Fingers and I like to surprise people with it.’

‘What Warren, may I ask?’

A shrug. ‘D'riss.’

So, the Paths of the earth. A Warren very appropriate to their researches in the Pit. Was this how the man was able to so shrug off what happened to him there? Yet had he? He also, Ho noted, was not participating in the ritual. But Blues and his fellow Avowed now fought the heavy tiller arm, swinging it hard over. Devaleth stood, studied the waves surging towards them like slate towers.

‘Shorten the sails further,’ she called to Blues. ‘Now.’

Blues did not waste time thinking or reacting, he merely nodded to Treat who ran to relay the order. ‘We're much too damned light,’ the woman grumbled under her breath. ‘Should've taken on more ballast at the Pit …’

‘More Otataral?’ Ho asked of her, mockingly.

As an answer the sea-mage gestured ahead. ‘This will kill us just as surely.’

Icy spray slashed Ho's face. He wiped it away. ‘Then let's hope Yath succeeds.’

The Mare mage was now the only person standing unaided on the deck. Everyone else was sitting or clung to ropes or the sides. She stood with her feet widely spread, her hands clasped at her back. She looked down to Ho. ‘You and I both know it'll take all day to bring everyone into harmony for the casting. A wave could swamp us any time before then.’

‘Then you best help us,’ Su said, her dark face wrinkling up in a smile.

Devaleth raised her eyes to the clouded sky, muttered curses to her self in Korelan. Ho thought he heard echoes of the old Malazan accents in the language. ‘Oh, very well,’ she hissed in Talian. She
took the tiller arm, pushed at Blues. ‘Let go, you damned oaf.’ He shot an uncertain glance to Ho who gave his assent. Taking a deep breath, he and Dim relinquished the arm to Devaleth's control. Immediately the
Forlorn
steadied, its progress smoothing. She pushed the arm with just the finger and thumb of one hand and the prow fairly leapt to meet an oncoming wave. ‘Too light,’ the woman muttered, distastefully.

‘Is there no interference?’ Su called, eager.

‘Yes, there's bloody interference!’ the sea-mage snarled. The Otataral is a rasp gouging my mind! But I can push that aside – no, there's something else …‘ Her eyes narrowed to slits as she sought within, searching. ‘… Something I cannot identify. But it's there. It's pulling, like a tide or current, urging me aside …’ She shook her head. ‘Too ephemeral. Can't spare the time or effort – you chase it down!’ And she turned her back, putting an end to any further distraction.

Su offered Ho a knowing conspiratorial smile, and again he wondered: what did the old woman mean by such gestures? Was it no more than an invitation to read whatever suited his own fears or plans? Would she later claim to have known all along how everything was going to unfold? The affectation annoyed him no end. No one can know another's mind or their own deepest motivations, hopes or feelings. People were all of them strangers – sources of continual surprise – at times disappointing but at other times affirming. And so it must be for everyone, he imagined.

At the mid-deck Yath had sat as well, staff across his lap, struggling to weave the commingled contributions of the participants into one seamless flow of channelled power to be held, coalesced and distilled, then released in one awesome revelation of willed intent: the transference of the ship through Warren from one physical location to another.

* * *

‘What're they waiting for?’ Brill asked, an arm over his shovel, gazing off at the Guard lines to the south.

Nait didn't stop hacking furiously at the dry earth. ‘How in the Abyss should I know? Now stop your shirking and get to work!’ Grinning, Brill set once more to deepening their trench.
Just hold up a while longer,
Nait pleaded,
an we'll have us a nice defensive perimeter. Just a mite longer
… He swung a leg up and crouched in the grass, peering left and right. Not much movement. Pot-shots
from the skirmishers, nothing serious.
What's everyone waiting for?
It's damned unnerving is what it was.
No one eager to get killed, I guess.
May had chosen a good hill – not high enough to attract unwanted attention, but not too shallow neither. Not close to the centre, but not too far to the side. Once he'd snuck his squad down Nait had set everyone to digging a long semicircle of trench – their hidey-hole when the mages and Veils came hunting. May and the regulars were setting up the stone arbalest. This engagement, instead of stones, it will be throwing something far more deadly at any Avowed or mage who's fool enough to reveal his or her position.