The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (205 page)

Spirits below! This Captain Paran was Tattersail’s lover – I should have anticipated something like this. The souls of two grown women …
‘Silverfox – daughter—’

‘We have met him, Mother,’ she said. ‘When driving the bhederin north – do you recall? The soldier who defied our lances? I knew then – I knew him, who he was.’ She faced the commander again. ‘Paran knows. Send him word that I am here. Please.’

‘Very well, lass.’ Whiskeyjack raised his head and studied the Barghast encampment. ‘The Bridgeburners will be … visiting … in any case. The captain now commands them. I am sure that Quick Ben and Mallet will be pleased to make your reacquaintance—’

‘You wish them to examine me, you mean,’ Silverfox said, ‘to help you decide whether I am worthy of your support. Fear not, Commander, the prospect does not concern me – in many ways I remain a mystery to myself, as well, and so I am curious as to what they will discover.’

Whiskeyjack smiled wryly. ‘You’ve the sorceress’s blunt honesty, lass – if not her occasional tact.’

Korlat spoke. ‘Commander Whiskeyjack, I believe we have things to discuss, you and I.’

‘Aye,’ he said.

The Tiste Andii turned to the Mhybe and Silverfox. ‘We shall take our leave of you two, now.’

‘Of course,’ the old woman replied, struggling to master her emotions.
The soldier who defied our lances – oh yes, I recall, child. Old questions … finally answered … and a thousand more to plague this old woman …
‘Come along, Silverfox, it’s time to resume your schooling in the ways of the Rhivi.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

*   *   *

Whiskeyjack watched the two Rhivi walk away. ‘She revealed far too much,’ he said after a moment. ‘The parley was working, drawing the bindings closer … then the child spoke…’

‘Yes,’ Korlat murmured. ‘She is in possession of secret knowledge – the knowledge of the T’lan Imass. Memories spanning millennia on this world. So much that those people witnessed … the Fall of the Crippled God, the arrival of the Tiste Andii, the last flight of the Dragons into Starvald Demelain…’ She fell silent, a veil descending over her eyes.

Whiskeyjack studied her, then said, ‘I’ve never seen a Great Raven become so obviously … flustered.’

Korlat smiled. ‘Crone believes the secret of her kind’s birth is not known to us. It is the shame of their origins, you see – or so they themselves view it. Rake is indifferent to its … moral context, as we all are.’

‘What is so shameful?’

‘The Great Ravens are unnatural creatures. The bringing down of the alien being who would come to be called the Crippled God was a … violent event. Parts of him were torn away, falling like balls of fire to shatter entire lands. Pieces of his flesh and bone lay rotting yet clinging to a kind of life in their massive craters. From that flesh the Great Ravens were born, carrying with them fragments of the Crippled God’s power. You have seen Crone and her kin – they devour sorcery, it is their true sustenance. To attack a Great Raven with magic serves only to make the creature stronger, to bolster its immunity. Crone is the First Born. Rake believes the potential within her is … appalling, and so he keeps her and her ilk close.’

She paused, then faced him. ‘Commander Whiskeyjack, in Darujhistan, we clashed with a mage of yours…’

‘Aye. Quick Ben. He’ll be here shortly, and I will have his thoughts on all this.’

‘The man you mentioned earlier to the child.’ She nodded. ‘I admit to a certain admiration for the wizard and so look forward to meeting him.’ Their gazes locked. ‘And I am pleased to have met you as well. Silverfox spoke true words when she said she trusted you. And I believe I do as well.’

He shifted uncomfortably. ‘There has been scant contact between us that would earn such trust, Korlat. None the less, I will endeavour to earn it.’

‘The child has Tattersail within her, a woman who knew you well. Though I never met the sorceress, I find that the woman she was – emerging further with each day in Silverfox – possessed admirable qualities.’

Whiskeyjack slowly nodded. ‘She was … a friend.’

‘How much do you know of the events leading to this … rebirth?’

‘Not enough, I am afraid,’ he replied. ‘We learned of Tattersail’s death from Paran, who came upon her … remains. She died in the embrace of a Thelomen High Mage, Bellurdan, who had travelled out onto the plain with the corpse of his mate, Nightchill, presumably intending to bury the woman. Tattersail was already a fugitive, and it’s likely Bellurdan was instructed to retrieve her. It is as Silverfox says, as far as I can tell.’

Korlat looked away and said nothing for a long time. When she finally did, her question, so simple and logical, left Whiskeyjack with a pounding heart: ‘Commander, we sense Tattersail and Nightchill within the child – and she herself admits to these two – but now I wonder, where then is this Thelomen, Bellurdan?’

He could only draw a deep breath and shake his head.
Gods, I don’t know …

Chapter Four

Mark these three, they are all that give shape,

all that lie beneath the surface of the world,

these three, they are the bones of history.

Sister of Cold Nights! Betrayal greets your dawn!

You chose to trust the knife, even as it found your heart.

Draconus, Blood of Tiam! Darkness was made to embrace your soul, and these chains that now

hold you, they are of your own fashioning.

K’rul, yours was the path the Sleeping Goddess chose,

a thousand and more years ago, and she sleeps still,

even as you awaken – the time has come, Ancient One,

to once more walk among the mortals, and make of your grief, the sweetest gift.

A
NOMANDARIS

F
ISHER
K
EL
T
ATH

Covered from head to toe in mud, Harllo and Stonny Menackis emerged from behind the carriage as it rocked its way up the slope. Grinning at the sight, Gruntle leaned against the buckboard.

‘Serves us right to lay wagers with you,’ Harllo muttered. ‘You always win, you bastard.’

Stonny was looking down at her smeared clothing with dismay. ‘Callows leathers. They’ll never recover.’ She fixed hard blue eyes on Gruntle. ‘Damn you – you’re the biggest of us all. Should have been you pushing, not sitting up there, and never mind winning any bet’

‘Hard lessons, that’s me,’ the man said, his grin broadening. Stonny’s fine green and black attire was covered in brown slime. Her thick black hair hung down over her face, dripping milky water. ‘Anyway, we’re done for the day, so let’s pull this thing off to the side – looks like you two could do with a swim.’

‘Hood take you,’ Harllo snapped, ‘what do you think we was doing?’

‘From the sounds, I’d say drowning. The clean water’s upstream, by the way.’ Gruntle gathered the tresses again. The crossing had left the horses exhausted, reluctant to move, and it took some cajoling on the captain’s part to get them moving again. He halted the carriage a short distance off to one side of the ford. Other merchants had camped nearby, some having just managed the crossing and others preparing to do so on their way to Darujhistan. In the past few days, the situation had, if anything, become even more chaotic. Whatever had remained of the ford’s laid cobbles in the river bed had been pushed either askew or deeper into the mud.

It had taken four bells to manage the crossing, and for a time there Gruntle had wondered if they would ever succeed. He climbed down and turned his attention to the horses. Harllo and Stonny, now bickering with each other, set off upstream.

Gruntle threw an uneasy glance towards the massive carriage that had gone before them on the ford, now parked fifty paces away. It had been an unfair bet.
The best kind.
His two companions had been convinced that this day wouldn’t see the crossing of their master Keruli’s carriage. They’d been certain that the monstrous vehicle ahead of them would bog down, that it’d be days sitting there in midstream before other merchants got impatient enough to add the muscle of their own crews to move it out of the way.

Gruntle had suspected otherwise. Bauchelain and Korbal Broach were not the kind of people to stomach inconvenience.
They’re damned sorcerers, anyway.
Their servant, Emancipor Reese, had not even bothered to get down from the driver’s bench, and simple twitches of the tresses had led the train of oxen onwards. The huge contrivance seemed to glide across the ford, not even jolting as the wheels moved over what Gruntle knew to be churned, uneven footing.
Unfair bet, aye. At least I’m dry and clean.

There had been enough witnesses to the unnatural event to accord a certain privacy to the mages’ present encampment, so it was with considerable curiosity that Gruntle watched a caravan guard stride towards it. He knew the man well. A Daru, Buke worked the smaller caravanserai, signing with merchants just scraping by. He preferred working alone, and Gruntle knew why.

Buke’s master had tried the crossing earlier in the day. The dilapidated wagon had fallen to pieces in midstream, bits of wood and precious bundles of produce floating away as the master wallowed helplessly. Buke had managed to save the merchant, but with the loss of goods the contract had ceased to exist. After making arrangements for the master to accompany a train back to Darujhistan, Buke was, with scant gratitude for his efforts, cut loose by the merchant.

Gruntle had expected him to make his own way back to the city. Buke had a fine, healthy and well-equipped horse. A three days’ journey at the most.

Yet here he was, his tall, lean figure fully attired in a guard’s accoutrements, scale hauberk freshly oiled, crossbow strapped to back and longsword scabbarded at his hip, in quiet conversation with Emancipor Reese.

Though out of earshot, Gruntle could follow the course of the conversation by the shifting postures of the two men. After a brief exchange, he saw Buke’s shoulders drop fractionally. The grey-bearded guard glanced away. Emancipor Reese shrugged and half turned in dismissal.

Both men then swung about to face the carriage, and a moment later Bauchelain emerged, drawing his black leather cape around his broad shoulders. Buke straightened under the sorcerer’s attention, answered a few terse questions with equally terse replies, then gave a respectful nod. Bauchelain laid a hand on his servant’s shoulder and the old man came close to buckling under that light touch.

Gruntle clucked softly in sympathy.
Aye, that mage’s touch could fill an average man’s breeches, Queen knows … Beru fend, Buke’s just been hired. Pray he doesn’t come to regret it.

Tenement fires were deadly in Darujhistan, especially when gas was involved. The conflagration that had killed Buke’s wife, mother and four children had been particularly ugly. That Buke himself had been lying drunk and dead to the world in an alley not a hundred paces from the house hadn’t helped in the man’s recovery. Like many of his fellow guards, Gruntle had assumed that Buke would turn to the bottle with serious intent after that. Instead, he’d done the opposite. Taking solitary contracts with poor, vulnerable merchants obviously offered to Buke a greater appeal than the wasting descent of a permanent drunk. Poor merchants were robbed far more often than rich ones.
The man wants to die, all right. But swiftly, even honourably. He wants to go down fighting, as did his family, by all accounts. Alas, when sober – as he’s been ever since that night – Buke fights extremely well, and the ghosts of at least a dozen highwaymen would bitterly attest to that.

The chill dread that seemed to infuse the air around Bauchelain and, especially, around Korbal Broach, would have deterred any sane guard. But a man eager to embrace death would see it differently, wouldn’t he?

Ah, friend Buke, I hope you do not come to regret your choice. No doubt violence and horror swirls around your two new masters, but you’re more likely to be a witness to it than a victim yourself. Haven’t you been in suffering’s embrace long enough?

Buke set off to collect his horse and gear. Gruntle had begun a cookfire by the time the old man returned. He watched Buke stow his equipment and exchange a few more words with Emancipor Reese, who had begun cooking a meal of their own, then the man glanced over and met Gruntle’s gaze.

Buke strode over.

‘A day of changes, friend Buke,’ Gruntle said from where he squatted beside the hearth. ‘I’m brewing some tea for Harllo and Stonny, who should be back any moment – care to join us in a mug?’

‘That is kind of you, Gruntle. I will accept your offer.’ He approached the captain.

‘Unfortunate, what happened to Murk’s wagon.’

‘I warned him against the attempt. Alas, he did not appreciate my advice.’

‘Even after you pulled him from the river and pumped the water out of his lungs?’

Buke shrugged. ‘Hood brushing his lips put him in bad mood, I would imagine.’ He glanced over at his new masters’ carriage, lines crinkling the corners of his sad eyes. ‘You have had discourse with them, have you not?’

Gruntle spat into the fire. ‘Aye. Better had you sought my advice before taking the contract.’

‘I respect your advice and always have, Gruntle, but you would not have swayed me.’

‘I know that, so I’ll say no more of them.’

‘The other one,’ Buke said, accepting a tin mug from Gruntle and cradling it in both hands as he blew on the steaming liquid. ‘I caught a glimpse of him earlier.’

‘Korbal Broach.’

‘As you say. He’s the killer, you realize.’

‘Between the two, I don’t see much difference, to be honest.’

Buke was shaking his head. ‘No, you misunderstand. In Darujhistan, recall? For two weeks running, horribly mangled bodies were found in the Gadrobi District, every night. Then the investigators called in a mage to help, and it was as if someone had kicked a hornet’s nest—that mage discovered something, and that knowledge had him terrified. It was quiet, grant you, but I chanced on the details that followed. Vorcan’s guild was enlisted. The Council itself set forth the contract to the assassins. Find the killer, they said, using every method at your disposal, legal or otherwise. Then the murders stopped—’