The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (1226 page)

As the column of dust and ashes rose skyward, as the cloud opened like a mushroom to fill half the sky, the sound finally reached them, solid as a rushing wall, igniting stunning agony inside their skulls. Sechul and Errastas were battered to the ground, sent tumbling. Even Kilmandaros was thrown from her feet – Sechul stared across at her, saw her mouth opened wide in a terrible scream that he could not hear amidst the howling wind, the crushing thunder of that eruption.

Twisting round, he stared at the vast, roiling cloud.
Korabas. You are returned to the world.

Within the maelstrom spinning vortices of dirt, dust and smoke had begun to form. He watched them coil, pushed out to the sides as if buffeted by some unseen column of rising air at the very centre. Sechul frowned.

Her wings? Are those made by her wings? Elder blood!

As the roar died away, Sechul Lath heard Errastas. Laughing.

‘Mother?'

Kilmandaros was climbing to her feet. She glanced across at her son. ‘Korabas Otataral iras'Eleint. Otataral, Sechul, is not a thing – it is a title.' She turned to Errastas. ‘Errant! Do you know its meaning?'

The one-eyed Elder God's laughter slowly died. He looked away. ‘What do I care for ancient titles?' he muttered.

‘Mother?'

She faced the terrible blight of earth and sky to the west. ‘Otas'taral. In every storm there is an eye, a place of…stillness. Otas'taral means the Eye of Abnegation. And now, upon the world, we have birthed a
storm
.'

Sechul Lath sank back down, covered his face with dust-stained hands.
Will I ever tire? Yes. I have. See what we have unleashed. See what we have begun.

Errastas staggered close, falling to his knees beside Sechul, who looked up into that ravaged face and saw both manic glee and brittle terror. The Errant smiled a ghastly smile. ‘Do you see, Setch? They have to stop her! They have no choice!'

Yes, please. Stop her.

‘She has begun to move,' Kilmandaros announced.

Sechul pushed Errastas to one side and sat up. But the sky revealed nothing: too much dust, too much smoke and ash – the pall had devoured two-thirds of the heavens, and the last third looked sickly, as if in retreat. The unnatural gloom was settling fast. ‘Where?' he demanded.

His mother pointed. ‘Track her by the ground. For now, it is all we can do.'

Sechul Lath stood.

‘There,' she said.

A broad swathe of bleached death, stretching in a line. ‘Northeast,' he whispered, watching the slow, devastating blight cutting its slash across the landscape. ‘All that lies beneath her…'

‘Where she passes,' said Kilmandaros, ‘no life shall ever return. The stillness of matter becomes absolute. She is the Eye of Abnegation, the storm's centre, where all must die.'

‘Mother, we have gone too far. This time—'

‘It's too late!' shrieked Errastas. ‘She is the heart of sorcery! Without the Eye of Abnegation, there can be no magic!'

‘What?'

But Kilmandaros was shaking her head. ‘It is not as simple as that.'

‘What isn't?' Sechul demanded.

‘Now that she is freed,' she said, ‘the Eleint must kill her. They have no choice. Their power is magical, and Korabas will kill all that magic depends upon. And since she is immune to their sorcery, it must be by fang and claw, and that will demand every Eleint – every
storm
, until T'iam herself is awakened. And as for K'rul, well, he can no longer refuse the Errant's summons – he was the one who harnessed the chaos of the dragons in the first place.'

‘
They have to kill her!
' cried Errastas. The blood leaking from his eye was now black with dust.

Kilmandaros grunted non-committally. ‘If they truly kill her, Errastas, then the storm dies.' She faced him. ‘But you knew this – or at least guessed the truth. What you seek is the death of all sorcery bound to laws of control. You seek to create a realm where no mortal can hurt you, ever again. A realm where the blood is sacrificed in our name, but in truth we have no power to intervene, even if we wanted to. You desire worship, Errastas, but one where you need give nothing in return. Have I guessed right?'

Sechul Lath shook his head. ‘They cannot kill her—'

Errastas wheeled on him. ‘But they must! I told you! I will see them all destroyed! The meddling gods –
I want our children dead!
K'rul will understand – he will see that there's no other way, no way to end this venal, pathetic tragedy.' He stabbed a finger at Sechul. ‘You thought this was a game? Cheating with the knuckles, and then a wink to the moll? I
summoned
the Elder Gods! K'rul thinks to ignore me? No! I have forced his hand!' He suddenly cackled, his fingers twitching. ‘She is a blood clot let loose in his veins! And she will find his brain, and he will die! I am the Master of the Holds,
and I will not be ignored!
'

Sechul Lath staggered back from Errastas. ‘They chained her the first time,' he said, ‘because killing her was not an option – not if they wanted to keep the warrens alive.' He whirled on Kilmandaros. ‘Mother – did you – did…'

She turned away. ‘I grew tired of this,' she said.

Tired?
‘But – but the heart of the Crippled God—'

Errastas spat. ‘What do we care about that dried-up slab of meat? He'll be as dead as the rest of them by the time this is done! So will the Forkrul Assail – and all the rest who'd think to challenge me! You didn't believe me, Setch – you chose to not take me seriously –
again.
'

Sechul Lath shook his head. ‘I understand you now. Your real enemy is the Master of the Deck of Dragons. Dragons who
are
warrens – all that new, raw power. But you knew that you could not hope to match that Master – not so long as the gods and warrens remained dominant. So you devised a plan to kill it all. The Deck, the sorcery of the Dragons, the Master – the gods. But what makes you think that the Holds will somehow prove immune to the Eye of Abnegation?'

‘Because the Holds are
Elder
, you fool. It was K'rul's bartering with the Eleint that made this whole mess – that brought the warrens into the realms, that forced order upon the chaos of the Old Magic. K'rul's conniving that saw one dragon selected among the Grand Clan, chosen to become the Negator, the Otataral, while all the others would chain themselves to aspects of magic. They brought
law
to sorcery, and now I will shatter that law. For ever more!'

‘K'rul sought peace—'

‘He sought to trump us! And so he did – but that ends today! Today! Sechul Lath, did you not agree to end it all? By your words, you agreed!'

I wasn't serious. I'm never serious. That's my curse.
‘So, Errastas, if you will not seek the heart of the Crippled God, where will you go now?'

‘That is my business,' he snapped, turning to study the bleached scar crossing the land. ‘Far away.' He faced Sechul again. ‘Mael finally comprehends what we have done here – but tell me, do you see him? Does he charge towards us now in all his fury? He does not. And Ardata? Know that she too now schemes anew. As does Olar Ethil – the Elders once more approach ascension, a return to rule. There is much to be done.'

The Errant set off, then. Southward.

He flees.

Sechul turned to Kilmandaros. ‘I see my path now, Mother, from this moment onward. Shall I describe it for you? I see myself wandering, lost and alone. With only a growing madness for company. It is a vision – I see it clear as day. Well,' and his laugh was dry, ‘every pantheon needs a fool, drooling and wild-eyed.'

‘My son,' she said, ‘it is only a plan.'

‘Excuse me? What?'

‘The Errant. What we have unleashed here cannot be controlled. Now, more than ever, the future is unknown, no matter what he chooses to believe.'

‘Can she be chained again, Mother?'

She shrugged. ‘Anomander Rake is dead. The other Eleint who partook of the chaining, they too are now dead.'

‘K'rul—'

‘She is loose
within
him. He can do nothing. The Eleint who come will fight her. They will seek to take her down – but Korabas has long ago surrendered her sanity, and she will fight them to the bitter end. I expect most will die.'

‘Mother,
please.
'

Kilmandaros sighed. ‘You will not stay with me, my son?'

‘To witness your meeting with Draconus? I think not.'

She nodded.

‘Draconus will kill you!'

She faced him with burning eyes. ‘It was only a plan, my beloved son.'

THESE SOLDIERS.
THE TWO WORDS HUNG IN HER MIND LIKE MEAT
from butcher hooks. They twisted slowly, aimlessly. They dripped, but the drips had begun to slow. Lying on her side atop the packs of wrapped food, Badalle could let her head sink down on one side and see the rough trail stretching away behind them. Not much was being left behind now – barring the bodies – and beneath the light of the Jade Strangers those pale shapes looked like toppled statues of marble lining a long-abandoned road. Things with their stories gone, their histories for ever lost. When she tired of that view, she could set her gaze the opposite way, looking ahead, and from her vantage point the column was like a swollen worm, with thousands of heads upon its elongated back, each one of them slave to the same crawling body.

Every now and then the worm cast off a part of it that had died, and these pieces were pushed out to the sides. Hands would reach down from those walking past, collecting up fragments of clothing which would be used during the day, stitched together to make flies – gifts of shade from the dead – and by the time those discarded pieces came close to her, why, they'd be mostly naked, and they'd have become marble statues.
Because, when things fail, you topple the statues.

Directly before her, the bared backs of the haulers glistened with precious sweat as they strained in their yokes. And the thick ropes twisted as they went taut and gusted out breaths of glittering dust all down their length.
They call these soldiers heavies. Some of them anyway. The ones who don't stop, who don't fall down, who don't die. The ones who scare the others and make them keep going. Until they fall over dead. Heavies. These soldiers.

She thought back. The sun had been spilling out along the horizon. The day was going away, and it had been a day when no one had spoken, when the Snake had been silent. She had been walking three paces behind Rutt, and Rutt walked hunched over around Held, who was huddled in his arms, and Held's eyes were closed against the glare – but then, they were always closed, because so much in the world was too hard to look at.

This would be their last night. They knew it – the whole Snake knew it. Badalle had said nothing to change their minds. Perhaps she too had given up – it was hard to know for certain. Defiance could hold its shape, even when it was made of nothing but cinders and ash. Anger could look hot to the touch, when in truth it was lifeless and cold. In this way, the world could deceive. It could lie, and in lying it invited delusion. It invited the idea that what it
was
was true. In this way, the world could make belief a fatal illness.

She stared down at the backs of the heavies, and remembered more.

 

Rutt's steps wavered. Halted. His voice cracked as it made a wordless sound, and then it cracked a second time, and he said, ‘Badalle. The flies are walking now.'

She looked down at her legs, to see if they could take her up alongside him, and, slowly, agonizingly, they did. And far ahead, to the place where he was looking with his blinded, closed-up eyes, she saw swarming shapes, black as they came out of the sunset's red glare. Black and seething. Flies, walking on two legs, one clump, then another and another, emerging from the blood-light.

‘The flies,' said Rutt, ‘are walking.'

But she had sent them away. Her last command of power, the one that used her up. And now, this day, she had been blowing nothing but air from her lips.

Badalle squinted.

‘I want to be blind again, Badalle.'

She studied the puffed masses filling his sockets. ‘You still are, Rutt.'

‘Then…they are in my head. The flies…
in my head.
'

‘No. I see them too. But that seething – it is just the sun's light behind them. Rutt, they are people.'

He almost fell then, but widened his stance and, with terrible grace, he straightened. ‘Fathers.'

‘No. Yes. No.'

‘Did we turn round, Badalle? Did we somehow turn round?'

‘No. See, the west – we have walked into the sun, every day, every dusk.' She was silent then. The Snake was coiling up behind the two of them, its scrawny body of bones drawing together, as if that could keep it safe. The figures from the sunset were coming closer. ‘Rutt, there are…children.'

‘What is that, upon their skin – their faces?'

She saw the one father among them, his beard grey and rust, his eyes suffering the way the eyes of some fathers did – as they sent their young ones away for the last time. But the faces of the children drew her attention.
Tattoos.
‘They have marked themselves, Rutt.'
Droplets, black tears. No, I see the truth of it now. Not tears. The tears have dried up, and will never return. These marks, upon face and hands, arms and neck, shoulders and chest. These marks.
‘Rutt.'

‘Badalle?'

‘They have claws.'

A ragged breath fell out from him, left him visibly trembling.

‘Try now, Rutt. Your eyes. Try to open them.'

‘I – I can't—'

‘Try. You must.'

The father, along with his mob of clawed children, drew closer. They were wary – she could see that.
They did not expect us. They did not come looking for us. They are not here to save us.
She could see their suffering now, the thirst that gripped their faces like taloned, skeletal hands.
Claws will make you suffer.

Yet the father, now standing before Rutt, reached down to the waterskin strapped to his sword belt. There was little water in it – that was obvious by its thinness, the ease with which he lifted it. Tugging the stopper free, he held it out to Rutt.

Who in turn thrust out Held. ‘Her first,' he said. ‘Please, the little one first.'

The gesture was unambiguous and without hesitation the father stepped up, and as Rutt pulled the cloth from in front of Held's small, wizened face the bearded man leaned close.

She saw him recoil, saw him look up and stare hard into Rutt's slitted eyes.

Badalle held her breath. Waited.

Then he shifted the waterskin, dipped the mouthpiece over Held's mouth, and the water trickled down.

She sighed. ‘This father, Rutt, is a good father.'

One of the clawed children, a year or two older than Rutt, came up then and gently took Held from Rutt's arms – he might have resisted, but did not have the strength, and when the babe was in the cradle of the strange boy's arms Rutt's own arms remained crooked, as if he still held her, and Badalle saw how the tendons at his elbows had shrunk, drawn tight. And she thought back, trying to recall when she had last seen Rutt not holding Held, and she couldn't.

The baby was a ghost in his arms now.

The father was weeping – she could see the tracks down his darkened, pitted cheeks – and he guided the mouthpiece into Rutt's mouth, forced it past the boy's lips. A few drops, and then out again.

Rutt swallowed.

The other children with claws slipped past them, into the coiled Snake, each pulling out their own waterskins. But there were not enough of them. Still they went.

And now Badalle saw a new Snake, coming out of the sunset, and this one was of iron and chains, and she knew that she had seen it before, in her dreams. She had looked down upon this glittering serpent.
Fathers and mothers, but children all. And there – I see her – that is their one mother – I see her. She comes.

People spilled out around the woman, with more waterskins.

She halted close to the bearded father, her eyes on Badalle, and when she spoke it was in the language of Badalle's dreams. ‘Fiddler, they are walking the wrong way.'

‘Aye, Adjunct.'

‘I see only children.'

‘Aye.'

Standing behind this woman was another soldier. ‘But… Adjunct, who do they belong to?'

She turned. ‘It doesn't matter, Fist, because they now belong to us.'

Rutt turned to Badalle. ‘What are they saying?'

‘They're saying we have to go back.'

The boy mouthed the last word.
Back?

Badalle said, ‘Rutt, you did not fail. You guided the Snake, and your blind tongue flicked out and found these strangers who are strangers no longer. Rutt, you led us from death and into life. Rutt,' she stepped close, ‘you can rest now.'

The bearded man – whose name was Fiddler – managed to break Rutt's fall, but both went down to their knees.

The Adjunct took a half-step. ‘Captain? Does he live?'

He looked up after a moment. ‘If his heart still beats, Adjunct, I can neither feel nor hear it.'

Badalle spoke in their language. ‘He lives, Father. He has just gone away. For a time.'

The man Mother had called Fist, who had been standing back, now edged forward and said, ‘Child, how is it you speak Malazan? Who are you?'

Who am I? I don't know. I've never known.
She met Mother's eyes. ‘Rutt led us to you. Because you are the only ones left.'

‘Only ones?'

‘The only ones who will not turn away from us. You are our mother.'

At that the Adjunct seemed to step back, her eyes flaring as if struck to pain. And then she looked away from Badalle, who then pointed at Fiddler. ‘And he is our father, and soon he will go away and we will never see him again. It is the way of fathers.' That thought made her sad, but she shook her head against the feeling. ‘It is just the way.'

The Adjunct seemed to be trembling and unable to look upon Badalle. Instead, she turned to the man beside her. ‘Fist, broach the reserve casks.'

‘Adjunct! Look at them! Half will die before dawn!'

‘Fist Blistig, I have given you an order.'

‘We cannot spare any water! Not for these – these…'

‘Obey my command,' said the Adjunct in a weary tone, ‘or I will have you executed. Here. Immediately.'

‘And face open rebellion! I swear it—'

Fiddler had straightened and now he walked to stand in front of Fist Blistig, so close that the Fist took a step back. He said nothing, only smiled, his teeth white amidst that tangle of rusty beard.

Snarling an oath, Blistig swung round. ‘On your heads, then.'

The Adjunct spoke. ‘Captains Yil and Gudd, accompany Fist Blistig.'

A man and a woman who had been hanging back swung round to flank Blistig as he marched back into the column.

Fiddler returned to where Rutt was lying. He knelt beside the boy, settled one hand to one side of the thin face. Then he looked up at Badalle. ‘He led you?'

She nodded.

‘How far? How long?'

She shrugged. ‘Kolanse.'

The man blinked, looked over at the Adjunct for an instant, and then back to Badalle. ‘How many days, then, to water?'

She shook her head. ‘To Icarias, where there are wells… I – I can't remember. Seven days? Ten?'

‘Impossible,' said someone from the crowd gathered behind the Adjunct. ‘We have a day's supply left. Without water, three days at the most – Adjunct, we cannot make it.'

Badalle cocked her head. ‘Where there is no water, there is blood. Flies. Shards. Where there is no food, there are children who have died.'

Someone said, ‘Fist Blistig is right this time, Adjunct. We can't do this.'

‘Captain Fiddler.'

‘Aye?'

‘Have your scouts guide the ones who can walk back to the food wagons. Ask the Khundryl to attend to those who cannot. See to it that everyone gets water, and food if they can manage any.'

‘Aye, Adjunct.'

Badalle watched him ease his arms under Rutt, watched him lift the boy.
Rutt is now Held. He carried Held until he could carry her no longer, and now he is carried, and this is how it goes on.

‘Adjunct,' she said as Fiddler carried Rutt away, ‘I am named Badalle, and for you I have a poem.'

‘Child, if you stand there unattended to for much longer, you are going to die. I will hear your poem, but not now.'

Badalle smiled. ‘Yes, Mother.'

 

And for you I have a poem.
She stared at the straining backs, the shedding ropes, the toppled statues by the wayside. Two nights now since that meeting, since the last time Badalle had seen the Adjunct. Or the man named Fiddler. And the water was now gone, and still Rutt would not wake, and Saddic sat atop the bales putting his things in patterns only to pack them away again, until the next time.

And she listened to the arguments. She heard the fighting, saw the sudden roiling eddies where fists lashed out, soldiers grappled, knives were drawn. She watched as these men and women stumbled towards death, because Icarias was too far away. They had nothing left to drink, and now those who drank their own piss were starting to go mad, because piss was poison – but they would not bleed out the dead ones. They just left them to lie on the ground.