The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (740 page)

 

Sealed by a massive, thick wall of cut limestone at the end of a long-abandoned corridor in a forgotten passage of the Old Palace, the ancient Temple of the Errant no longer existed in the collective memory of the citizens of Letheras. Its beehive-domed central chamber would have remained unlit, its air still and motionless, for over four centuries, and the spoked branches leading off to lesser rooms would have last echoed to footfalls almost a hundred years earlier.

The Errant had walked out into the world, after all. The altar stood cold and dead and probably destroyed. The last priests and priestesses – titles held in secret against the plague of pogroms – had taken their gnostic traditions to their graves, with no followers left to replace them.

The Master of the Holds has walked out into the world. He is now among us. There can be no worship now – no priests, no temples. The only blood the Errant will taste from now on is his own. He has betrayed us.

Betrayed us all.

And yet the whispers never went away. They echoed like ghost-winds in the god's mind. With each utterance of his name, as prayer, as curse, he could feel that tremble of power – mocking all that he had once held in his hands, mocking the raging fires of blood sacrifice, of fervent, fearful faith. There were times, he admitted, that he knew regret. For all that he had so willingly surrendered.

Master of the Tiles, the Walker Among the Holds.
But the Holds have waned, their power forgotten, buried by the passing of age upon age. And I too have faded, trapped in this fragment of land, this pathetic empire in a corner of a continent. I walked into the world…but the world has grown old.

He stood now facing the stone wall at the end of the corridor. Another half-dozen heartbeats of indecision, then he stepped through.

And found himself in darkness, the air stale and dry in his throat. Once, long ago, he had needed tiles to manage such a thing as walking through a solid stone wall. Once, his powers had seemed new, brimming with possibilities; once, it had seemed he could shape and reshape the world. Such arrogance. It had defied every assault of reality – for a time.

He still persisted in his conceit, he well knew – a curse among all gods. And he would amuse himself, a nudge here, a tug there, to then stand back and see how the skein of fates reconfigured itself, each strand humming with his intrusion. But it was getting harder. The world resisted him.
Because I am the last, I am myself the last thread reaching back to the Holds.
And if that thread was severed, the tension suddenly snapping, flinging him loose, stumbling forward into the day's light…what then?

The Errant gestured, and flames rose once more from the clamshell niches low on the dome's ring-wall, casting wavering shadows across the mosaic floor. A sledgehammer had been taken to the altar on its raised dais. The shattered stones seemed to bleed recrimination still in the Errant's eyes.
Who served whom, damn you? I went out, among you, to make a difference – so that I could deliver wisdom, whatever wisdom I possessed. I thought – I thought you would be grateful.

But you preferred shedding blood in my name. My words just got in your way, my cries for mercy for your fellow citizens – oh, how that enraged you.

His thoughts fell silent. The hairs on the back of his neck rose.
What is this? I am not alone.

A soft laugh from one of the passageways. He slowly turned.

The man crouched there was more ogre than human, broad shoulders covered in bristly black hair, a bullet head thrust forward on a short neck. The bottom half of the face was strangely pronounced beneath long, curling moustache and beard, and large yellowed tusks jutted from the lower jaw, pushing clear of lip and thick, ringleted hair. Stubby, battered hands hung down from long arms, the knuckles on the floor.

From the apparition came a bestial, rank stench.

The Errant squinted, seeking to pierce the gloom beneath the heavy brows, where small narrow-set eyes glittered dull as rough garnets. ‘This is my temple,' he said. ‘I do not recall an open invitation to…guests.'

Another low laugh, but there was no humour in it, the Errant realized. Bitterness, as thick and pungent as the smell stinging the god's nostrils.

‘I remember you,' came the creature's voice, low and rumbling. ‘And I knew this place. I knew what it had been. It was…safe. Who recalls the Holds, after all? Who knew enough to suspect? Oh, they can hunt me down all they want – yes, they will find me in the end – I know this. Soon, maybe. Sooner, now that you have found me, Master of the Tiles. He might have returned me, you know, along with other…gifts. But he has failed.' Another laugh, this time harsh. ‘A common demise among mortals.'

Though he spoke, no words emerged from the ogre's mouth. That heavy, awkward voice was in the Errant's head, which was all for the best – those tusks would have brutalized every utterance into near incomprehensibility. ‘You are a god.'

More laughter. ‘I am.'

‘You walked into the world.'

‘Not by choice, Master of the Tiles. Not like you.'

‘Ah.'

‘And so my followers died – oh, how they have died. Across half the world, their blood soaked the earth. And I could do nothing. I
can
do nothing.'

‘It is something,' the Errant observed, ‘to hold yourself to such a modest form. But how much longer will that control last? How soon before you burst the confines of this temple of mine? How long before you heave yourself into the view of all, shouldering aside the clouds, shaking mountains to dust—'

‘I will be long from here before then, Master of the Tiles.'

The Errant's smile was wry. ‘That is a relief, god.'

‘You have survived,' the god now said. ‘For so long. How?'

‘Alas,' said the Errant, ‘my advice to you would be useless. My power quickly dissipated. It had already been terribly wounded – the Forkrul Assail's pogroms against my faithful saw to that. The thought of another failure like that one was too much…so I willingly relinquished most of what remained to me. It made me ineffectual, beyond, perhaps, this city and a modest stretch of river. And so not a threat to anyone.'
Not even you, tusked one.
‘You, however, cannot make a similar choice. They will want the raw power within you – in your blood – and they will need it spilled before they can drink, before they can bathe in what's left of you.'

‘Yes. One last battle awaits me. That much, at least, I do not regret.'

Lucky you.
‘A battle. And…a war?'

Amusement in his thoughts, then, ‘Oh, indeed, Master of the Tiles. A war – enough to make my heart surge with life, with hunger. How could it not? I am the Boar of Summer, Lord of the Hosts on the Field of Battle. The chorus of the dying to come…ah, Master, be glad it will be nowhere close—'

‘I am not so sure of that.'

A shrug.

The Errant frowned, then asked, ‘How long do you intend to remain here, then?'

‘Why, as long as I can, before my control crumbles – or I am summoned to my battle, my death, I mean. Unless, of course, you choose to banish me.'

‘I would not risk the power revealed by that,' the Errant said.

A rumbling laugh. ‘You think I would not go quietly?'

‘I know it, Boar of Summer.'

‘True enough.' Hesitation, then the war god said, ‘Offer me sanctuary, Errant, and I will yield to you a gift.'

‘Very well.'

‘No bargaining?'

‘No. I've not the energy. What is this gift, then?'

‘This: the Hold of the Beasts is awakened. I was driven out, you see, and there was need, necessity,
insistence
that some inheritor arise to take my place – to assume the voices of war. Treach was too young, too weak. And so the Wolves awoke. They flank the throne now – no, they
are
the throne.'

The Errant could barely draw breath at this revelation. A Hold,
awakened
? From a mouth gone dry as dust, he said, ‘Sanctuary is yours, Boar of Summer. And, for your trail here, my fullest efforts at…misdirection. None shall know, none shall even suspect.'

‘Please, then, block those who call on me still. Their cries fill my skull – it is too much—'

‘Yes, I know. I will do what I can. Your name – do they call upon the Boar of Summer?'

‘Not often,' the god replied. ‘Fener. They call upon Fener.'

The Errant nodded, then bowed low.

He passed through the stone wall and once more found himself in the disused corridor of the Old Palace.
Awakened? Abyss below…no wonder the Cedance whirls in chaos. Wolves? Could it be…

 

This is chaos! It makes no sense!
Feather Witch stared down at the chipped tiles scattered on the stone floor before her.
Axe, bound to both Saviour and Betrayer of the Empty Hold. Knuckles and the White Crow circle the Ice Throne like leaves in a whirlpool. Elder of Beast Hold stands at the Portal of the Azath Hold. Gate of the Dragon and Blood-Drinker converge on the Watcher of the Empty Hold – but no, this is all madness.

The Dragon Hold was virtually dead. Everyone knew this, every Caster of the Tiles, every Dreamer of the Ages. Yet here it vied for dominance with the Empty Hold – and what of Ice? Timeless, unchanging, that throne had been dead for millennia.
White Crow – yes, I have heard. Some bandit in the reaches of the Bluerose Mountains now claims that title. Hunted by Hannan Mosag – that tells me there is power to that bandit's bold claim. I must speak again to the Warlock King, the bent, broken bastard.

She leaned back on her haunches, wiped chilled sweat from her brow. Udinaas had claimed to see a white crow, centuries ago it seemed now, there on the strand beside the village. A white crow in the dusk. And she had called upon the Wyval, her lust for power overwhelming all caution. Udinaas – he had stolen so much from her. She dreamed of the day he was finally captured, alive, helpless in chains.

The fool thought he loved me – I could have used that. I should have. My own set of chains to snap shut on his ankles and wrists, to drag him down. Together, we could have destroyed Rhulad long before he came to his power.
She stared down at the tiles, at the ones that had fallen face up – none of the others were in play, as the fates had decreed.
Yet the Errant is nowhere to be seen – how can that be?
She reached down to one of the face-down tiles and picked it up, looked at its hidden side.
Shapefinder. See, even here, the Errant does not show his hand.
She squinted at the tile.
Fiery Dawn, these hints are new…Menandore. And I was thinking about Udinaas – yes, I see now. You waited for me to pick you up from this field. You are the secret link to all of this.

She recalled the scene, the terrible vision of her dream, that horrendous witch taking Udinaas and…
Maybe the chains on him now belong to her. I did not think of that. True, he was raped, but men sometimes find pleasure in being such a victim. What if she is protecting him now? An immortal…rival. The Wyval chose him, didn't it? That must mean something – it's why she took him, after all. It must be.

In a sudden gesture she swept up the tiles, replacing them in their wooden box, then wrapping the box in strips of hide before pushing the package beneath her cot. She then drew from a niche in one wall a leather-bound volume, easing back its stained, mouldy cover. Her trembling fingers worked through a dozen brittle vellum pages before she reached the place where she had previously left off memorizing the names listed within – names that filled the entire volume.

Compendium of the Gods.

The brush of cool air. Feather Witch looked up, glared about. Nothing. No-one at the entrance, no unwelcome shadows in the corners – lanterns burned on all sides. There had been a taint to that unseemly breath, something like wax…

She shut the book and slid it back onto its shelf, then, heartbeat rapid in her chest, she hurried over to a single pavestone in the room's centre, wherein she had earlier inscribed, with an iron stylus, an intricate pattern.
Capture
. ‘The Holds are before me,' she whispered, closing her eyes. ‘I see Tracker of the Beasts, footfalls padding on the trail of the one who hides, who thinks to flee. But no escape is possible. The quarry circles and circles, yet is drawn ever closer to the trap. It pulls, it drags – the creature screams, but no succour is possible – none but my mercy –
and that is never free!
' She opened her eyes, and saw a smudge of mist bound within the confines of the inscribed pattern. ‘I have you! Ghost, spy – show yourself!'

Soft laughter.

The mist spun, wavered, then settled once more, tendrils reaching out tentatively – beyond the carved borders.

Feather Witch gasped. ‘You mock me with your power – yet, coward that you are, you dare not show yourself.'

‘Dear girl, this game will eat you alive.' The words, the faintest whisper – the touch of breath along both ears. She started, glared about, sensed a presence behind her and spun round – no-one.

‘Who is here?' she demanded.

‘Beware the gathering of names…it is…premature…'

‘Name yourself, ghost! I command it.'

‘Oh, compulsion is ever the weapon of the undeserving. Let us instead bargain in faith. That severed finger you keep round your neck, Caster, what do you intend with it?'

She clutched at the object. ‘I will not tell you—'

‘Then I in turn will reveal to you the same – nothing.'

She hesitated. ‘Can you not guess?'

‘Ah, and have I guessed correctly?'

‘Yes.'

‘Premature.'

‘I am biding my time, ghost – I am no fool.'