The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (745 page)

His thoughts had brought him to this moment, this conflation of revelations, and he felt his heart grow cold in his chest. Varat Taun pushed his horse to a greater pace, until he came up alongside his commander. ‘Atri-Preda.'

She looked across at him.

‘I must go back,' he said.

‘To warn them?'

‘No, sir.'

‘What of your family, Varat Taun?'

He glanced away. ‘I have realized something. Nowhere is far enough.'

‘I see. Then, would you not wish to be at her side?'

‘Knowing I cannot save them…' Varat shook his head. ‘The Gral and I – together – I don't know, perhaps we can do something – if we're there.'

‘Can I talk you out of this?'

He shook his head.

‘Very well. Errant's blessing on you, Varat Taun.'

‘He is right,' said the Mocker behind them. ‘I too must return.'

A heavy sigh gusted from Yan Tovis. ‘So be it – I should have known better than to try to save anyone but myself – no, I'm not as bitter as that sounded. My apologies. You both have my blessing. Be sure to walk those horses on occasion, however.'

‘Yes sir. Atri-Preda? Thank you.'

‘What word do I send to your wife?'

‘None, sir. Please.'

Yan Tovis nodded.

Varat Taun guided his mount off the road, reining in. The monk followed suited, somewhat more awkwardly. The lieutenant watched in some amusement. ‘You have no horses in your lands?'

‘Few. Cabal is an archipelago for the most part. The mainland holdings are on the sides of rather sheer cliffs, a stretch of coast that is severely mountainous. And what horses we do have are bred for labour and food.'

To that, Varat Taun said nothing.

They waited on the side of the track, watching the column of mounted soldiers ride past.

Errant take me, what have I done?

The lake stretched on with no end in sight. The three figures had rowed their well-provisioned boat for what passed for a day and most of a night in the Shadow Realm, before the craft ran aground in shallows. Unable to find a way past, they had shouldered the packs and disembarked, wading in silty, knee-deep water. Now, midway through the next day, they dragged exhausted, numbed legs through a calm lake that had been no deeper than their hips since dawn – until they reached a sudden drop-off.

Trull Sengar had been in the lead, using his spear to probe the waters ahead, and now he moved to one side, step by step, the butt of the weapon stirring the grey, milky silts along the edge. He continued on for a time, watched by his companions. ‘Doesn't feel natural,' he finally said, making his way back to the others. ‘The drop-away is smooth, even.' Moving past Onrack and Quick Ben, he resumed probing the ledge in the opposite direction. ‘No change here.'

The wizard voiced a long, elaborate string of curses in his Malazan tongue, then said, ‘I could take to the air, drawing on Serc – although how long I could manage that is anyone's guess.' He glared across at Onrack. ‘You can just melt into silts, you damned T'lan Imass.'

‘Leaving me,' said Trull, who then shrugged. ‘I will swim, then – there may well be a resumption of the shallows ahead – you know, we've been walking on an unnaturally level bottom for some time. Imagine for the moment that we are on a submerged concourse of some sort – enormous, granted, but still. This drop-off could simply mark a canal. In which case I should soon find the opposite side.'

‘A concourse?' Quick Ben grimaced. ‘Trull, if this is a concourse beneath us it's the size of a city-state.'

Onrack said, ‘You will find one such construct, Wizard, covering the southeast peninsula of Stratem. K'Chain Che'Malle. A place where ritual wars were fought – before all ritual was abandoned.'

‘You mean when the Short-Tails rebelled.'

Trull swore under his breath. ‘I hate it when everyone knows more than me.' Then he snorted. ‘Mind you, my company consists of a mage and an undead, so I suppose it's no surprise I falter in comparison.'

‘Falter?' Onrack's neck creaked loud as the warrior turned to regard the Tiste Edur. ‘Trull Sengar, you are the Knight of Shadow.'

Quick Ben seemed to choke.

Above the wizard's sudden fit of coughing, Trull shouted: ‘I am
what
? Was this Cotillion's idea? That damned upstart—'

‘Cotillion did not choose you, friend,' Onrack said. ‘I cannot tell you who made you what you now are. Perhaps the Eres'al, although I do not comprehend the nature of her claim within the realm of Shadow. One thing, however, is very clear – she has taken an interest in you, Trull Sengar. Even so, I do not believe the Eres'al was responsible. I believe you yourself were.'

‘How? What did I do?'

The T'lan Imass slowly tilted its head to one side. ‘Warrior, you stood before Icarium. You held the Lifestealer. You did what no warrior has ever done.'

‘Absurd,' snapped Trull. ‘I was finished. If not for Quick Ben here – and the Eres'al – I'd be dead, my chopped-up bones mouldering outside the throne room.'

‘It is your way, my friend, to disarm your own achievements.'

‘Onrack—'

Quick Ben laughed. ‘He's calling you modest, Edur. And don't bother denying the truth of that – you still manage to startle me on that count. I've lived most of my life among mages or in the ranks of an army, and in neither company did I ever find much in the way of self-deprecation. We were all too busy pissing on each other's trees. One needs a certain level of, uh, bravado when it's your job to kill people.'

‘Trull Sengar fought as a soldier,' Onrack said to the wizard. ‘The difference between you two is that he is unable to hide his grief at the frailty of life.'

‘Nothing frail about us,' Quick Ben muttered. ‘Life stays stubborn until it has no choice but to give up, and even then it's likely to spit one last time in the eye of whatever's killed it. We're cruel in victory and cruel in defeat, my friends. Now, if you two will be quiet for a moment, I can go in search of a way out of here.'

‘Not flying?' Trull asked, leaning on his spear.

‘No, a damned gate. I'm beginning to suspect this lake doesn't end.'

‘It must end,' the Edur said.

‘The Abyss is not always twisted with wild storms. Sometimes it's like this – placid, colourless, a tide rising so slowly that it's impossible to notice, but rise it does, swallowing this tilted, dying realm.'

‘The Shadow Realm is
dying
, Quick Ben?'

The wizard licked his lips – a nervous gesture Trull had seen before from the tall, thin man – then shrugged. ‘I think so. With every border an open wound, it's not that surprising. Now, quiet everyone. I need to concentrate.'

Trull watched as Quick Ben closed his eyes.

A moment later his body grew indistinct, grainy at its edges, then began wavering, into and out of solidity.

The Tiste Edur, still leaning on his spear, grinned over at Onrack. ‘Well, old friend, it seems we wander the unknown yet again.'

‘I regret nothing, Trull Sengar.'

‘It's virtually the opposite for me – with the exception of talking you into freeing me when I was about to drown in the Nascent – which, I've just realized, doesn't look much different from this place. Flooding worlds. Is this more pervasive than we realize?'

A clattering of bones as the T'lan Imass shrugged. ‘I would know something, Trull Sengar. When peace comes to a warrior…'

The Edur's eyes narrowed on the battered undead. ‘How do you just cast off all the rest? The surge of pleasure at the height of battle? The rush of emotions, each one threatening to overwhelm you, drown you? That sizzling sense of being alive? Onrack, I thought your kind felt…nothing.'

‘With awakening memories,' Onrack replied, ‘so too other…forces of the soul.' The T'lan Imass lifted one withered hand. ‘This calm on all sides – it mocks me.'

‘Better a wild storm?'

‘I think, yes. A foe to fight. Trull Sengar, should I join this water as dust, I do not think I would return. Oblivion would take me with the promise of a struggle ended. Not what I desire, friend, for that would mean abandoning you. And surrendering my memories. Yet what does a warrior do when peace is won?'

‘Take up fishing,' Quick Ben muttered, eyes still closed, body still wavering. ‘Now enough words from you two. This isn't easy.'

Wavering once more in and out of existence, then, suddenly – gone.

 

Ever since Shadowthrone had stolen him away – when Kalam needed him the most – Quick Ben had quietly seethed. Repaying a debt in one direction had meant betraying a friend in another. Unacceptable.

Diabolical.

And if Shadowthrone thinks he has my loyalty just because he pushed Kal into the Deadhouse, then he is truly as mad as we all think he is. Oh, I'm sure the Azath and whatever horrid guardian resides in there would welcome Kalam readily enough. Mount his head on the wall above the mantel, maybe – all right, that's not very likely. But the Azath collects. That's what it does, and now it has my oldest friend. So, how in Hood's name do I get him out?

Damn you, Shadowthrone.

But such anger left him feeling unbalanced, making concentration difficult.
And the skin rotting from my legs isn't helping either.
Still, they needed a way out. Cotillion hadn't explained much.
No, he'd just expected us to figure things out for ourselves. What that means is that there's only one real direction. Wouldn't do to have us get lost now, would it?

Slightly emboldened – a momentary triumph over diffidence – Quick Ben concentrated, his senses reaching out to the surrounding ether. Solid, clammy, a smooth surface yielding like sponge under the push of imagined hands. The fabric of this realm, the pocked skin of a ravaged world. He began applying more pressure, seeking…
soft spots, weaknesses – I know you exist.

Ah, you are now aware of me – I can feel that. Curious, you feel almost…feminine. Well, a first time for everything.
What had been clammy beneath his touch was now simply cool.
Hood's breath, I'm not sure I like the images accompanying this thought of pushing through.

Beyond his sense of touch, there was nothing. Nothing for his eyes to find; no scent in the tepid air; no sound beyond the faint swish of blood in the body – there one moment, gone the next as he struggled to separate his soul, free it to wander.

This isn't that bad—

A grisly tearing sound, then a vast, inexorable inhalation, tearing his spirit loose – yanking him forward and through, stumbling, into acrid swirling heat, thick clouds closing on all sides, soft sodden ground underfoot. He groped forward, his lungs filling with a pungent vapour that made his head reel.
Gods, what sickness is this? I can't breathe
—

The wind spun, drove him staggering forward – sudden chill, stones turning beneath his feet, blessed clean air that he sucked in with desperate gasps.

Down onto his hands and knees. On the rocky ground, lichen and mosses. On either side, a thinly spread forest in miniature – he saw oaks, spruce, alder, old and twisted and none higher than his hip. Dun-hued birds flitted among small green leaves. Midges closed in, sought to alight – but he was a ghost here, an apparition –
thus far. But this is where we must go.

The wizard slowly lifted his head, then climbed to his feet.

He stood in a shallow, broad valley, the dwarf forest covering the basin behind him and climbing the slopes on all sides, strangely park-like in the generous spacing of the trees. And they swarmed with birds. From somewhere nearby came the sound of trickling water. Overhead, dragonflies with wingspans to match that of crows darted in their uncanny precision, feeding on midges. Beyond this feeding frenzy the sky was cerulean, almost purple near the horizons. Tatters of elongated clouds ran in high ribbons, like the froth of frozen waves on some celestial shore.

Primordial beauty –
tundra's edge. Gods, I hate tundra. But so be it, as kings and queens say when it's all swirled down the piss-hole. Nothing to be done for it. Here we must come
.

Trull Sengar started at the sudden coughing – Quick Ben had reappeared, half bent over, tears streaming from his eyes and something like smoke drifting from his entire body. He hacked, then spat and slowly straightened.

Grinning.

 

The proprietor of the Harridict Tavern was a man under siege. An affliction that had reached beyond months and into years. His establishment, once devoted to serving the island prison's guards, had since been usurped along with the rest of the port town following the prisoners' rebellion. Chaos now ruled, ageing honest folk beyond their years. But the money was good.