The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (653 page)

Fiddler had come forward, a scrawny child sleeping or unconscious in his arms. ‘Adjunct,' he said through cracked lips, ‘without the captain, digging with her own hands, not one of us trapped under that damned city would have ever left it. We'd be mouldering bones right now.' He stepped closer, but his effort at lowering his voice to a whisper failed, as Keneb heard him say, ‘Adjunct, you hang the captain for desertion and you better get a lot more nooses, 'cause we'll leave this miserable world when she does.'

‘Sergeant,' the Adjunct said, seemingly unperturbed, ‘am I to understand that you and those squads behind you burrowed beneath Y'Ghatan in the midst of the firestorm, somehow managing not to get cooked in the process, and then dug your way clear?'

Fiddler turned his head and spat blood, then he smiled a chilling, ghastly smile, the flaking lips splitting in twin rows of red, glistening fissures. ‘Aye,' he said in a rasp, ‘we went hunting…through the bones of the damned city. And then, with the captain's help, we crawled outa that grave.'

The Adjunct's gaze left the ragged man, travelled slowly along the line, the gaunt faces, the deathly eyes staring out from dust-caked faces, the naked, blistered skin. ‘Bonehunters in truth, then.' She paused, as Pores led his healers forward with their waterskins, then said, ‘Welcome back, soldiers.'

 

Rivulets of water, reeking of urine, trickled down the steps leading to Coop's Hanged Man Inn, one of the score of disreputable taverns in the Docks Quarter of Malaz City that Banaschar, once a priest of D'rek, was now in the habit of frequenting. Whatever details had once existed in his mind to distinguish one such place from another had since faded, the dyke of his resolve rotted through by frustration and a growing panic, poisonous enough to immobilize him – in spirit if not in flesh. And the ensuing deluge was surprisingly comforting, even as the waters rose ever higher.

Little different, he observed as he negotiated the treacherous, mould-slimed steps, from this cursed rain, or so the long-time locals called it, despite the clear sky overhead. Mostly rain comes down, they said, but occasionally it comes up, seeping through the crumbling cobbles of the quarter, transforming such beneath-ground establishments as Coop's into a swampy quagmire, the entrance guarded by a whining cloud of mosquitoes, and the stench of overflowed sewers wafting about so thick the old-timers announce its arrival as they would an actual person miserably named Stink – greeted if not welcomed into already sordid company.

And most sordid was Banaschar's company these days. Veterans who avoided sobriety as if it was a curse; whores who'd long since hawked their hearts of gold – if they'd ever had them in the first place; scrawny youths with a host of appropriately modest ambitions – meanest thug in this skein of fetid streets and alleys; master thief of those few belongings the poor possessed; nastiest backstabber with at least fifty knots on their wrist strings, each knot honouring someone foolish enough to trust them; and of course the usual assortment of bodyguards and muscle whose brains had been deprived of air at some point in their lives; smugglers and would-be smugglers, informants and the imperial spies to whom they informed, spies spying on the spies, hawkers of innumerable substances, users of selfsame substances on their way to the oblivion of the Abyss; and here and there, people for whom no category was possible, since they gave away nothing of their lives, their histories, their secrets.

In a way, Banaschar was one such person, on his better days. Other times, such as this one, he could make no claim to possible – if improbable – grandiosity. This afternoon, then, he had come early to Coop's, with the aim of stretching the night ahead as far as he could, well lubricated of course, which would in turn achieve an overlong and hopefully entirely blissful period of unconsciousness in one of the lice-infested rat-traps above the tavern.

It would be easy, he reflected as he ducked through the doorway and paused just within, blinking in the gloom, easy to think of clamour as a single entity, one sporting countless mouths, and to reckon the din as meaningless as the rush of brown water from a sewer pipe. Yet Banaschar had come to a new appreciation of the vagaries of the noise erupting from human throats. Most spoke to keep from thinking, but others spoke as if casting lifelines even as they drowned in whatever despairing recognition they had arrived at – perhaps during some unwelcome pause, filled with the horror of silence. A few others fit neither category. These were the ones who used the clamour surrounding them as a barrier, creating in its midst a place in which to hide, mute and indifferent, fending off the outside world.

More often than not, Banaschar – who had once been a priest, who had once immersed himself within a drone of voices singing the cadence of prayer and chant – sought out such denizens for the dubious pleasure of their company.

Through the haze of durhang and rustleaf smoke, the acrid black-tail swirls from the lamp wicks, and something that might have been mist gathered just beneath the ceiling, he saw, hunched in a booth along the back wall, a familiar figure. Familiar in the sense that Banaschar had more than a few times shared a table with the man, although Banaschar was ignorant of virtually everything about him, including his given name, knowing him only as
Foreigner
.

A foreigner in truth, who spoke Malazan with an accent Banaschar did not recognize – in itself curious since the ex-priest's travels had been extensive, from Korel to Theft to Mare in the south; from Nathilog to Callows on Genabackis in the east; and, northward, from Falar to Aren to Yath Alban. And in those travels he had met other travellers, hailing from places Banaschar could not even find on any temple map. Nemil, Perish, Shal-Morzinn, Elingarth, Torment, Jacuruku and Stratem. Yet this man, whom he now approached, weaving and pushing through the afternoon crowd of sailors and the local murder of veterans, this man had an accent unlike any Banaschar had ever heard.

Yet the truth of things was never as interesting as the mystery preceding the revelation, and Banaschar had come to appreciate his own ignorance. In other matters, after all, he knew far too much – and what had that availed him?

Sliding onto the greasy bench opposite the huge foreigner, the ex-priest released the clasp on his tattered cloak and shrugged free from its folds – once, long ago it seemed now, such lack of consideration for the unsightly creases that would result would have horrified him – but he had done his share since of sleeping in that cloak, senseless on a vomit-spattered floor and, twice, on the cobbles of an alley – correct comportment, alas, had ceased being a moral necessity.

He leaned back now, the rough cloth bunching behind him, as one of Coop's serving wenches arrived with a tankard of Coop's own Leech Swill, a weak, gassy ale that had acquired its name in an appropriately literal fashion. Warranting the now customary affectation of a one-eyed squint into the brass-hued brew before the first mouthful.

The foreigner had glanced up once, upon Banaschar's arrival, punctuating the gesture with a sardonic half-grin before returning his attention to the fired-clay mug of wine in his hands.

‘Oh, Jakatakan grapes are all very well,' the ex-priest said, ‘it's the local water that turns that wine you like so much into snake's piss.'

‘Aye, bad hangovers,' Foreigner said.

‘And that is desirable?'

‘Aye, it is. Wakes me up again and again through the night, almost every bell, with a pounding skull and a bladder ready to explode – but if I didn't wake up that bladder
would
explode. See?'

Banaschar nodded, glanced round. ‘More heads than usual for an afternoon.'

‘You only think that because you ain't been here roun' this time lately. Three transports and an escort come in three nights past, from Korel.'

The ex-priest studied the other customers a little more carefully this time. ‘They talking much?'

‘Sounds it to me.'

‘About the campaign down there?'

Foreigner shrugged. ‘Go ask 'em if you like.'

‘No. Too much effort. The bad thing about asking questions—'

‘Is gettin' answers, aye – you've said that before.'

‘That is another bad thing – the way we all end up saying the same things over and over again.'

‘That's you, not me. And, you're gettin' worse.'

Banaschar swallowed two mouthfuls, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Worse. Yes indeed.'

‘Never good,' Foreigner observed, ‘seeing a man in a hurry.'

‘It's a race,' Banaschar said. ‘Do I reach the edge and plunge over or does my salvation arrive in time? Lay down a few coins on the outcome – I'd suggest the former but that's just between you and me.'

The huge man – who rarely met anyone's eyes while talking, and whose massive hands and wrists were scarred and puckered with weals – shook his head and said, ‘If that salvation's a woman, only a fool would wager agin me.'

Banaschar grimaced and lifted his tankard. ‘A fine idea. Let's toast all the lost loves in the world, friend. What happened to yours or is that too personal a question for this dubious relationship of ours?'

‘You jumped on the wrong stone,' the man said. ‘My love ain't lost, an' maybe some days I'd think of swapping places wi' you, but not today. Not yesterday neither, nor the day afore that. Come to think of it—'

‘No need to continue. My salvation is not a woman, or if she was, it wouldn't be because she's a woman, if you understand me.'

‘So, we just had one of them hypothetical conversations?'

‘Learned Malazan from an educated sailor, did you? In any case, hypothetical is the wrong word for what you mean, I think. More like, metaphorical.'

‘You sure of that?'

‘Of course not, but that's not the point, is it? The woman's a broken heart, or maybe just a mud slide you ride until it buries you, until it buries all of us.' Banaschar finished his ale, waved the tankard in the air for a moment, then settled back with a belch. ‘Heard about a Napan sailor, drank a keg's worth of Leech Swill, then, standing too close to a lit wick, went and blew off most of his backside. How does that illuminate matters, I wonder?'

‘Momentarily, I'd imagine.'

Satisfied with that answer, Banaschar said nothing. A server arrived with a pitcher with which she refilled the ex-priest's tankard. He watched her leave, swaying through the press, a woman with things that needed doing.

It was easy to think of an island as isolated – certainly most islanders shared a narrow perspective, a blend of smug arrogance and self-obsession – but the isolation was superficial, a mere conceit. Drain the seas and the rocky ground linking everything was revealed; the followers of D'rek, the Worm of Autumn, understood this well enough. Rumours, attitudes, styles, beliefs rattling chains of conviction, all rolled over the waves as easily as the wind, and those that fitted comfortably soon became to the islanders their own – and indeed, as far as they were concerned, had originated with them in the first place.

There had been a purge, and the air still smelled of ash from the Mouse Quarter, where mobs had descended on the few dislocated Wickan families resident there – stablers, stitchers and riveters of leather tack, weavers of saddle blankets, an old woman who healed dray horses and mules – and had, with appalling zeal, dragged them from their hovels and shacks, children and elders and all in between; then, after looting them of their scant possessions, the mob had set fire to those homes. Herded into the street and surrounded, the Wickans had then been stoned to death.

Coltaine wasn't dead, people said. That entire tale was a lie, as was the more recent rumour that Sha'ik had been killed by the Adjunct. An imposter, it was said, a sacrificial victim to deflect the avenging army. And as for the rebellion itself, well, it had not been crushed. It had simply disappeared, the traitors ducking low once more, weapons sheathed and hidden beneath telaba. True enough, the Adjunct had even now chased down Leoman of the Flails, trapping him in Y'Ghatan, but even that was but a feint. The Red Blades were once more free in Aren, the bones of the betrayed High Fist Pormqual broken and scattered along Aren Way, the grasses already growing thick on the barrows holding Pormqual's betrayed army.

Had not concerned residents of Aren journeyed out to the hill known as The Fall? And there dug holes into the barrow in search of the cursed Coltaine's bones? And Bult's, Mincer's, Lull's? Had they not found nothing?
All lies.
The traitors had one and all disappeared, including Duiker, the imperial historian whose betrayal of his Empress – and of the empire itself – was perhaps the foulest moment of them all.

And finally, the latest news. Of a disastrous siege. Of terrible plague in Seven Cities. Disparate, disconnected, yet like pokers thrust into the fire, sending sparks bursting into the dark. And, in whispers harsh with the conviction of truth, Sha'ik Reborn had reappeared, and now called to her more followers.

The last pebbles on the cart.

Down in the Mouse, the mob had acted on its own. The mob needed no leaders, no imperial directives – the mob understood justice, and on this island – this birthplace of the empire – justice was held in red hands. The battered, pulped corpses were dumped in the river, which was too turgid, too thick with sewage and refuse, the culverts beneath the bridges too narrow to carry those bodies through and out into the bay.

And this too was seen as an omen. The ancient sea god had rejected those corpses. Mael, empowered by the enlivening of faith here on the island, would not accept them into the salty bay of Malaz Harbour – what greater proof was needed?