Stonewielder (61 page)

She found Warran standing off to that side, but he was obviously not what Jheval meant with his nod – it was certainly what Warran himself was staring at in the far distance.

For a moment the bizarre horizon line confused her until she remembered that this was Chaos and so need not make sense to her. The darkened sky was dominated by rippling curtains of light such as those she’d seen over the Strait of Storms in her youth. But these
lights circled and danced around an empty black spot in the sky close to the horizon. And it may be that she was mistaken, but it also seemed as if the land itself curved up to meet the thing.

‘Is that it?’ she asked Warran, hushed. ‘The Whorl?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. That is it. And it looks as if it does not end in Chaos. It looks as if it touches upon the Abyss. Upon nonexistence itself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that hole is eating everything. Chaos included.’

At first she rejected the man’s melodramatic pronouncement. Ridiculous! Yet, Chaos
was
stuff. Just unformed or differently organized stuff that
she
would call chaotic. Not nothingness. That was Outside. Beyond. The Infinite Abyss.

Gods above and below.
Infinite
. Did that mean unquenchable? Would it perhaps never stop? Was Tayschrenn somehow involved in such a … such a flaw in existence?

Or was he its first victim?

‘Yes, everything,’ Warran continued, eyeing the distant bruise as if personally affronted. ‘Even all the fish.’

*    *    *

Bakune did not think his time wasted while he waited for the eve of the new year, the Festival of Renewal. He haunted the common room of the Sailor’s Roost – or Boneyman’s, as everyone called it – and listened to the bustle and murmur of illegal commerce surrounding him. Then slowly, as he became a familiar face, he started asking questions. And in less than a week he learned more about the habits, preferences and operations of the Roolian black market and smuggling than he’d pieced together in a lifetime administering justice from the civil courts. At first he fumed at Karien’el. It seemed he’d been the man’s pet; fed only what the captain wanted pursued. But then, as he had more time to reflect, he realized that as much of the blame lay with him.

This deeper understanding came one night while he sat with the Jasstonese captain of a scow that plied the main pilgrim way of the Curl, from Dourkan to Mare. The man, Sadeer, was rude, a glutton, and smelled like a goat, but he loved to talk – especially if the audience was appreciative of his wisdom.

‘These pilgrims,’ Sadeer announced, belching and wiping his fingers on his sleeves, ‘we feed on them. They are our food.’

Bakune cocked a brow. ‘Oh? How so?’

The fat captain gestured as if encompassing the town and beyond. ‘Why, our entire economy depends upon them, my friend. What would this town be but a wretched fishing village were it not for your famous Cloister and Hospice? And what demand would there be for my poor vessel, such as it is? We feed upon them, you see?’

‘Their gold is much needed, yes,’ Bakune admitted, sipping his drink.

Sadeer choked on a mouthful of spice-rubbed fish. He waved furiously. ‘No, no,’ he finally managed, and gulped down a glass of wine. ‘That is not really what I mean. Gold is just one measure – you see? The meaningless transfer of coin from one bag to another is just a mutually agreed-upon measure of exchange. The important value lies elsewhere …’

Bakune dutifully rose to the bait: ‘And where is that?’

Sadeer wagged a sausage-like finger. ‘Ah-ha, my friend! You have hit upon it. The true value, the deeper measure, is attention. Attention and relevance. That is what really matters in the end. The lack of gold, the condition of poverty, that can be remedied. But the lack of attention? Irrelevance? These are much harder to overcome. They are in fact terminal.’

‘I see … I think.’

The Jasstonese captain was picking his teeth with a sliver of ivory. ‘Exactly. The true economy is relevance. Once you are judged irrelevant – you are out.’

Later that night, after Sadeer had risen, belching, and lumbered off to find a brothel, Bakune sat at his small round table thinking. Attention. He’d not paid attention. Or had turned a convenient blind eye to what he did not want to pursue. That was his fault. A narrowed vision – and wasn’t that precisely what the priest had accused him of?

Two days later came the Festival of Renewal. Boneyman’s was crowded. It was not a day, nor a night, to be a foreigner on the streets of Banith, or in all of Rool for that matter. Unless one wore the loincloth of the penitent. From the door, Bakune watched while the holy icons were paraded through the streets on their cumbersome platforms held aloft by hordes of the devout all competing for the privilege – some trampled underfoot in an ecstasy of fervour. A number of the platforms carried young girls or boys draped in the white silk of purity, dusted with the red petals of sacrifice. Drops of
blood spotted the silks of some, dripping from the stipulated woundings at wrists and neck.

Bakune now winced at the sight. How could he not have seen it before? The children, the red petals symbolizing blood, the woundings. All prescribed. All handed down as ancient ritual. What was all this but a more sophisticated playing out of what in earlier times had been done in truth? Ranks of the penitents came next, marching in step, naked but for their loincloths, each wielding flail or whip or chain, each lashing their backs in step after slow measured step up the devotional way to the Cloister doors.

Blood now flowed in truth. No stand-in. No delicate inferential symbolism. Flesh was torn. A carmine sheen smeared the backs of these men. It ran down their legs to paint their footsteps red. Bakune flinched as cold drops struck his cheek. He raised a hand and examined the traces on his fingers.

I
am implicated. Marked as accomplice and abettor. Sentenced. My hands are just as red
.

Unable to stand the sight of it all, he went inside.

He stood at the bar of the low-ceilinged common room and glimpsed Boneyman himself sitting in a far corner: bald, gleaming in sweat, nothing but hollow skin and bones; hence the name.

‘Not a good night to be out,’ growled a voice next to Bakune and he turned: the priest had emerged from their room.

Bakune signed for a glass of wine. ‘Does everyone know my plans?’

‘Not so hard to guess.’

‘You would dissuade me?’

A slow shake of the head. ‘No. I’ll come along.’

‘You will? Why?’

‘You’ll need me.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘In case you succeed.’

Bakune studied the man: the squat toad-like posture that instead of conveying weakness or sluggishness somehow gave the impression of great power held in check. ‘And if you are along, then so too your companion, Manask, yes?’

The man grimaced his irritation. ‘Yes. But on a night like this … he would hardly be noticed.’

But Bakune was not listening; he was plucking at half-memories. Something about two men, a priest and a giant. Something about the first invasion … ‘Did you fight in the first invasions?’

The man’s gaze slid to the open door where hordes still lined the way and the occasional icon or statue of the Lady tottered past over the heads of the crowd. ‘You are Roolian,’ he said. ‘What do you think of your quaint local festival now?’

So, a change of topic. Very well … for now
. ‘It disgusts me,’ Bakune answered curtly, and he downed his wine.

The narrow weighing gaze slid back to Bakune. ‘Disgust … Is that all?’

Bakune considered. He examined his empty glass. No. There was more than that. Far more. ‘It terrifies me,’ he admitted.

The priest was nodding his slow profound agreement.

At dusk Hyuke and Puller thumped down at Bakune’s table. ‘What’s the plan?’ the sergeant asked. He was tossing nuts into his mouth one by one and spitting the shells to the floor. The nuts stained his mouth red.

‘Surveillance,’ Bakune said, and he grimaced his distaste at the sight of the man’s carmine lips, teeth, and tongue.

‘Is that all? What if we get a bite?’

‘Then capture.’

The ex-Watchmen nudged one another, winking.

‘Alive!’ Bakune said.

The two lost their smirks.

‘You have your truncheons?’

‘Yeah. Got ’em.’

‘And the priest will be along as well.’

‘Hunh,’ grunted Hyuke. ‘That means the big guy.’

‘You’ve seen him?’

Hyuke gave a look that asked how stupid he could be.

Bakune coughed into a fist. Right. How could anyone
not
see that thief?

Puller had been pinching his lower lip. ‘Where?’ he suddenly asked.

‘Where what?’ Hyuke said, annoyed. ‘Where’d we see him? When he escaped. That’s when.
Eluding pursuit
, he called it. Throwing a guy off a roof! That’s eluding pursuit all right.’

‘No, no. Not that. And anyway, you weren’t hurt so bad. No, what I mean is where are we going?’

Hyuke glared at his partner. ‘Fine. Right.’ He looked to Bakune.

The Assessor envisioned his map. How useless that they should
have taken it, he realized, when he had every detail impressed upon his mind. ‘We’ll keep watch on the South Way.’

Hyuke grunted his ill-tempered agreement and spat more shells on to the floor.

The priest was waiting for him in the kitchen. The old cook – whose name Bakune had yet to discover – eyed the two of them like chickens ready for dismemberment. Bakune bowed a wary farewell to her and they hurried out into the alley. They kept to the lesser side streets, but even here the noise was inescapable, a constant low roar punctuated by cheering and chants.

As the dusk deepened, bonfires lit the night at major crossroads. Crowds circled them, chanting prayers to invoke the renewal and return of the Lady. Bakune saw the flaw in his plan then. Tradition dictated that these fires be kept alight all through the night. The most devoted would circle them continuously in a slow shuffle till dawn. The Cloister would be jammed with pilgrims and the priests would all be pressed into performing cleansings and blessings.

The night was just too damned busy. Still, was that not cover enough for anyone who could slip away or go unnoticed among the hordes and the tumult? What to do? He leaned to the priest. ‘We can’t see anything from here.’

The priest was nodding. He slipped a hood up over his head and motioned Bakune onward. They joined the throngs pushing and shoving their way up and down the street. Hawkers waved roasted meats on sticks and all the usual amulets, beads, blessed healing salves, and other trinkets.

The crowd thickened, pulling them along. Not even the priest’s none so gentle thrusts could free them. Bakune heard chanting ahead, and as the words uttered from hundreds of throats clarified in his mind the hair on the nape of his neck rose.

Burn her!
they chanted.
Burn her!

He caught the priest’s gaze, horrified. The man pushed ahead, drawing Bakune in his wake. At a tall heap of bracken and firewood two Guardians of the Faith held a girl wearing a torn white slip. Her hair was frizzy and wild, a Malazan half-breed. She was weeping, her hands tied at the wrist.

‘
No!
’ Bakune heard torn from the priest in a muffled grunt.

‘This one is known to many of you!’ one of the Guardians was shouting. ‘Long has she preached against the Lady! She espouses foreign gods! In our fathers’ time she would have been cleansed long
ago … but we have been wayward in our fidelity!’ The man gestured to the east. ‘And look how we are rewarded. Fresh invasions. The insult of foreign occupation!’

He raised both hands over the now silent crowd. ‘My friends – we are being punished! Yes, punished! For we have been lacking. Negligent. Too many of us give lip service only to our guardian, our deliverer, our one and only protector! The Lady is turning her face from us, and rightly so …’

He took a torch from a man next to him. ‘We must rededicate ourselves. Prove our devotion with blood … and with sacrifice …’ He pushed the girl down on to the piled bundled branches. She lay weeping, perhaps crazed with fear. He thrust the torch into the kindling.

Bakune stared, horrified, paralysed with disbelief. How could such an appalling barbaric thing be occurring before his eyes? Were they not all beyond such things? Would no one stop this?

The flames leapt up then almost immediately fell away. It was almost as if they were sucked down and snuffed. At Bakune’s side the priest had simultaneously smacked his hands together in a loud slap. Bakune stared at the man, as did many others nearby.

Oh no. More than a mere priest?

The two Guardians shared a bewildered look, then they peered out over the crowd. ‘Who is here?’ one called. ‘Reveal yourself!’

A woman who had been next to the priest suddenly pointed, shouting: ‘It was this one! I saw!’ She made a sign against evil at her chest. Bakune thought it prudent to join the crowd flinching away from the man.

One Guardian pushed forward. ‘Hold him!’

‘Ha ha!’ a great voice bellowed and a giant figure straightened from among the press, throwing off a cloak. ‘My diversion worked!’ Manask took one long step up on to the heaped bracken. ‘Now, while all eyes are elsewhere I shall snatch this innocent away!’