The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (746 page)

He had taken to joining Captain Shurq Elalle and Skorgen Kaban the Pretty at their preferred table in the corner during lulls in the mayhem, when the serving wenches and scull-boys rushed about with more purpose than panic, dull exhaustion replacing abject terror in their glazed eyes – and all seemed, for the moment, right and proper.

There was a certain calm with this here captain –
a pirate if the Errant pisses straight and he ain't missed yet
– and a marked elegance and civility to her manner that told the proprietor that she had stolen not just coins from the highborn but culture as well, which marked her as a smart, sharp woman.

He believed he was falling in love, hopeless as that was. Stress of the profession and too much sampling of inland ales had left him – in his honest, not unreasonably harsh judgement – a physical wreck to match his moral lassitude which on good days he called his
business acumen.
Protruding belly round as a stew pot and damned near as greasy. Bulbous nose – one up on Skorgen there – with burst veins, hair-sprouting blackheads and swirling bristles that reached down from the nostrils to entwine with his moustache – once a fashion among hirsute men but no more, alas. Watery close-set eyes, the whites so long yellow he was no longer sure they hadn't always been that colour. A few front teeth were left, four in all, one up top, three below. Better than his wife, then, who'd lost her last two stumbling into a wall while draining an ale casket – the brass spigot knocking the twin tombstones clean out of their sockets, and if she hadn't then choked on the damned things she'd still be with him, bless her. Times she was sober she'd work like a horse and bite just as hard and both talents did her well working the tables.

But life was lonely these days, wasn't it just, then in saunters this glorious, sultry pirate captain. A whole sight better than those foreigners, walking in and out of the Brullyg Shake's Palace as if it was their ancestral home, then spending their nights here, hunched down at the games table – the biggest table in the whole damned tavern, if you mind, with a single jug of ale to last the entire night no matter how many of them crowded round their strange, foreign, seemingly endless game.

Oh, he'd demanded a cut as was his right and they paid over peaceably enough – even though he could make no sense of the rules of play. And how those peculiar rectangular coins went back and forth! But the tavern's take wasn't worth it. A regular game of Bale's Scoop on any given night would yield twice as much for the house. And the ale quaffed – a player didn't need a sharp brain to play Bale's, Errant be praised. So these foreigners were worse than lumps of moss renting a rock, as his dear wife used to say whenever he sat down for a rest.

Contemplating life, my love.
Contemplate this fist, dear husband. Wasn't she something, wasn't she just something. Been so quiet since that spigot punched her teeth down her throat.

‘All right, Ballant,' Skorgen Kaban said in a sudden gust of beery breath, leaning over the table. ‘You come and sit wi' us every damned night. And just sit. Saying nothing. You're the most tight-lipped tavernkeep I've ever known.'

‘Leave the man alone,' the captain said. ‘He's mourning. Grief don't need words for company. In fact, words is the last thing grief needs, so wipe your dripping nose, Pretty, and shut the toothy hole under it.'

The first mate ducked. ‘Hey, I never knew nothing about grief, Captain.' He used the back of one cuff to blot at the weeping holes where his nose used to be, then said to Ballant, ‘You just sit here, Keeper, and go on saying nothing to no-one for as long as you like.'

Ballant struggled to pull his adoring gaze from the captain, long enough to nod and smile at Skorgen Kaban, then looked back again to Shurq Elalle.

The diamond set in her forehead glittered in the yellowy lantern light like a knuckle sun, the jewel in her frown – oh, he'd have to remember that one – but she
was
frowning, and that was never good. Not for a woman.

‘Pretty,' she now said in a low voice, ‘you remember a couple of them Crimson Guard – in the squad? There was that dark-skinned one – sort of a more earthy colour than an Edur. And the other one, with that faint blue skin, some island mix, he said.'

‘What about them, Captain?'

‘Well.' She nodded towards the foreigners at the games table on the other side of the room. ‘Them. Something reminds me of those two in Iron Bars's squad. Not just skin, but their gestures, the way they move – even some of the words I've overheard in that language they're speaking. Just…odd echoes.' She then fixed her dark but luminous gaze on Ballant. ‘What do you know about them, Keeper?'

‘Captain,' Skorgen objected, ‘he's in mourning—'

‘Be quiet, Pretty. Me and Ballant are having an inconsequential conversation.'

Yes, most inconsequential, even if that diamond blinded him, and that wonderful spicy aroma that was her breath made his head swim as if it was the finest liqueur. Blinking, he licked his lips – tasting sweat – then said, ‘They have lots of private meetings with Brullyg Shake. Then they come down here and waste time.'

Even her answering grunt was lovely.

Skorgen snorted – wetly – then reached out with his one good hand and wiped clean the tabletop. ‘Can you believe that, Captain? Brullyg an old friend of yours and you can't e'en get in to see him while a bunch of cheap foreigners can natter in his ear all day an' every day!' He half rose. ‘I'm thinking a word with these here—'

‘Sit down, Pretty. Something tells me you don't want to mess with that crowd. Unless you're of a mind to lose another part of your body.' Her frown deepened, almost swallowing that diamond. ‘Ballant, you said they waste time, right? Now, that's the real curious part about all this. People like them don't waste time. No. They're waiting. For something or someone. And those meetings with the Shake – that sounds like negotiating, the kind of negotiating that Brullyg can't walk away from.'

‘That don't sound good, Captain,' Skorgen muttered. ‘In fact, it makes me nervous. Never mind avalanches of ice – Brullyg didn't run when that was coming down—'

Shurq Elalle thumped the table. ‘That's it! Thank you, Pretty. It was something one of those women said. Brevity or Pithy – one of them. That ice was beaten back, all right, but not thanks to the handful of mages working for the Shake. No – those foreigners are the ones who saved this damned island. And that's why Brullyg can't bar his door against them. It isn't negotiation, because they're the ones doing all the talking.' She slowly leaned back. ‘No wonder the Shake won't see me – Errant take us, I'd be surprised if he was still alive—'

‘No, he's alive,' Ballant said. ‘At least, people have seen him. Besides, he has a liking for Fent ale and orders a cask from me once every three days without fail, and that hasn't changed. Why, just yesterday—'

The captain leaned forward again. ‘Ballant. Next time you're told to deliver one, let me and Pretty here do the delivering.'

‘Why, I could deny you nothing, Captain,' Ballant said, then felt his face flush.

But she just smiled.

He liked these inconsequential conversations. Not much different from those he used to have with his wife. And…yes, here it was – that sudden sense of a yawning abyss awaiting his next step. Nostalgia rose within him, brimming his eyes.

Under siege, dear husband? One swing of this fist and those walls will come tumbling down – you do know that, husband, don't you?

Oh yes, my love.

Odd, sometimes he would swear she'd never left. Dead or not, she still had teeth.

 

Blue-grey mould filled pocks in the rotted ice like snow's own fur, shedding with the season as the sun's bright heat devoured the glacier. But winter, when it next came, would do little more than slow the inexorable disintegration. This river of ice was dying, an age in retreat.

Seren Pedac had scant sense of the age to come, since she felt she was drowning in its birth, swept along in the mud and refuse of long-frozen debris. Periodically, as their discordant, constantly bickering party climbed ever higher into the northern Bluerose Mountains, they would hear the thundering collapse of distant ice cliffs, calving beneath the besieging sun; and everywhere water streamed across bared rock, coughed its way along channels and fissures, swept past them in its descent into darkness – the journey to the sea just begun – swept past, to traverse subterranean caverns, shadowed gorges, sodden forests.

The mould was sporing, and that had triggered a recoil of Seren's senses – her nose was stuffed, her throat was dry and sore and she was racked with bouts of sneezing that had proved amusing enough to elicit even a sympathetic smile from Fear Sengar. That hint of sympathy alone earned her forgiveness – the pleasure the others took at her discomfort deserved nothing but reciprocation, when the opportunity arose, and she was certain it would.

Silchas Ruin, of course, was not afflicted with a sense of humour, in so far as she could tell. Or its dryness beggared a desert. Besides, he strode far enough ahead to spare himself her sneezing fits, with the Tiste Andii, Clip, only a few strides in his wake – like a sparrow harassing a hawk. Every now and then some fragment of Clip's monologue drifted back to where Seren and her companions struggled along, and while it was clear that he was baiting the brother of his god, it was equally evident that the Mortal Sword of the Black-Winged Lord was, as Udinaas had remarked, using the wrong bait.

Four days now, this quest into the ravaged north, climbing the spine of the mountains. Skirting huge masses of broken ice that slid – almost perceptibly – ever downslope, voicing terrible groans and gasps.
The leviathans are fatally wounded,
Udinaas once observed,
and will not go quietly.

Melting ice exuded a stench beyond the acrid bite of the mould spores. Decaying detritus: vegetation and mud frozen for centuries; the withered corpses of animals, some of them beasts long extinct, leaving behind twisted hides of brittle fur every whisper of wind plucked into the air, fractured bones and bulging cavities filled with gases that eventually burst, hissing out fetid breath. It was no wonder Seren Pedac's body was rebelling.

The migrating mountains of ice were, it turned out, cause for the near-panic among the Tiste Andii inhabitants of the subterranean monastery. The deep gorge that marked its entrance branched like a tree to the north, and back down each branch now crawled packed snow and enormous blocks of ice, with streams of meltwater providing the grease, ever speeding their southward migration. And there was fetid magic in that ice, remnants of an ancient ritual still powerful enough to defeat the Onyx Wizards.

Seren Pedac suspected that there was more to this journey, and to Clip's presence, than she and her companions had been led to believe.
We walk towards the heart of that ritual, to the core that remains. Because a secret awaits us there.

Does Clip mean to shatter the ritual? What will happen if he does?

And what if to do so ruins us? Our chances of finding the soul of Scabandari Bloodeye, of releasing it?

She was beginning to dread this journey's end.

There will be blood.

Swathed in the furs the Andii had provided, Udinaas moved up alongside her. ‘Acquitor, I have been thinking.'

‘Is that wise?' she asked.

‘Of course not, but it's not as if I can help it. The same for you, I am sure.'

Grimacing, she said, ‘I have lost my purpose here. Clip now leads. I…I don't know why I am still walking in your sordid company.'

‘Contemplating leaving us, are you?'

She shrugged.

‘Do not do that,' said Fear Sengar behind them.

Surprised, she half turned. ‘Why?'

The warrior looked uncomfortable with his own statement. He hesitated.

What mystery is this?

Udinaas laughed. ‘His brother offered you a sword, Acquitor. Fear understands – it wasn't just expedience. Nor was your taking it, I'd wager—'

‘You do not know that,' Seren said, suddenly uneasy. ‘Trull spoke – he assured me it was nothing more—'

‘Do you expect everyone to speak plainly?' the ex-slave asked. ‘Do you expect
anyone
to speak plainly? What sort of world do you inhabit, Acquitor?' He laughed. ‘Not the same as mine, that's for certain. For every word we speak, are there not a thousand left unsaid? Do we not often say one thing and mean the very opposite? Woman, look at us – look at yourself. Our souls might as well be trapped inside a haunted keep. Sure, we built it – each of us – with our own hands, but we've forgotten half the rooms, we get lost in the corridors. We stumble into rooms of raging heat, then stagger back, away, lest our own emotions roast us alive. Other places are cold as ice – as cold as this frozen land around us. Still others remain for ever dark – no lantern will work, every candle dies as if starved of air, and we grope around, collide with unseen furniture, with walls. We look out through the high windows, but distrust all that we see. We armour ourselves against unreal phantasms, yet shadows and whispers make us bleed.'

‘Good thing the thousand words for each of those were left unsaid,' Fear Sengar muttered, ‘else we find ourselves in the twilight of all existence before you are through.'

Udinaas replied without turning. ‘I tore away the veil of your reason, Fear, for asking the Acquitor to stay. Do you deny that? You see her as betrothed to your brother. And that he happens to be dead means nothing, because, unlike your
youngest
brother, you are an honourable man.'

A grunt of surprise from Udinaas, as Fear Sengar reached out to grasp the ex-slave, hands closing on the wrapped folds of fur. A surge of anger sent Udinaas sprawling onto the muddy scree.