The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (844 page)

‘I have begun,' the Chancellor resumed, ‘preparing our conditional surrender. To the Malazans. At the very least, they will enforce peace in the city, an end to the riots. Likely working in consort with the Patriotists. Once order is restored, we can begin the task of resurrecting the economy, minting—'

‘Where are my people?' Rhulad Sengar asked.

‘They will return, Emperor. I am sure of it.'

Rhulad turned to face the throne. And suddenly went perfectly still. ‘
It is empty
,' he whispered. ‘Look!' He spun round, pointing his sword back at the throne. ‘Do you see? It is
empty
!'

‘Sire—'

‘Like my father's chair in our house! Our house in the village! Empty!'

‘The village is no longer there, Emperor—'

‘But the chair remains! I see it! With my own eyes – my father's chair! The paint fades in the sun. The wood joins split in the rain. Crows perch on the weathered arms!
I see it!
'

The shout echoed in silence then. Not a guard stirring. The Chancellor with bowed head, and who knew what thoughts flickered behind the serpent's eyes?

Surrender. Conditional. Rhulad Sengar remains. Rhulad Sengar and, oh yes, Chancellor Triban Gnol. And the Patriotists. ‘We cannot be conquered. We are for ever. Step into our world and it devours you.'

Rhulad's broad shoulders slowly sagged. Then he walked up to the throne, turned about and sat down. Looked out with bleak eyes. In a croaking voice he asked, ‘Who remains?'

The Chancellor bowed. ‘But one, Emperor.'

‘One? There should be two.'

‘The challenger known as Icarium has fled, Emperor. Into the city. We are hunting him down.'

Liar.

But Rhulad Sengar seemed indifferent, his head turning to one side, eyes lowering until they fixed on the gore-spattered sword. ‘The Toblakai.'

‘Yes, Emperor.'

‘Who murdered Binadas. My brother.'

‘Indeed, sire.'

The head slowly lifted. ‘Is it dawn?'

‘It is.'

Rhulad's command was soft as a breath. ‘
Bring him.
'

 

They let the poor fool go once he had shown them the recessed door leading under the city wall. It was, of course, locked, and while the rest of the squads waited in the slowly fading darkness – seeking whatever cover they could find and it wasn't much – Fiddler and Cuttle went down into the depression to examine the door.

‘Made to be broken down,' Cuttle muttered, ‘so it's like the lad said – we go in and then the floodgates open and we drown. Fid, I don't see a way to do this, not quietly enough so as no-one hears and figures out we've taken the trap.'

Fiddler scratched at his white beard. ‘Maybe we could dismantle the entire door, frame and all.'

‘We ain't got the time.'

‘No. We pull back and hide out for the day, then do it tomorrow night.'

‘The Adjunct should be showing up by then. Keneb wants us first in and he's right, we've earned it.'

At that moment they heard a thump from behind the door, then the low scrape of the bar being lifted.

The two Malazans moved to either side, quickly cocking their crossbows.

A grinding sound, then the door was pushed open.

The figure that climbed into view was no Letherii soldier. It was wearing plain leather armour that revealed, without question, that it was a woman, and on her face an enamel mask with a modest array of painted sigils. Two swords strapped across her back. One stride, then two. A glance to Fiddler on her right, then to Cuttle on her left. Pausing, brushing dirt from her armour, then setting out. Onto the killing field, and away.

Bathed in sweat, Fiddler settled back into a sitting position, the crossbow trembling in his hands.

Cuttle made a warding gesture, then sat down as well. ‘Hood's breath was on my neck, Fid. Right there, right then. I know, she didn't even reach for those weapons, didn't even twitch…'

‘Aye,' Fid answered, the word whispered like a blessing.
A Hood-damned Seguleh. High ranked, too. We'd never have got our shots off – no way. Our heads would have rolled like a pair of oversized snowballs.

‘I looked away, Fid. I looked right down at the ground when she turned my way.'

‘Me too.'

‘And that's why we're still alive.'

‘Aye.'

Cuttle turned and peered down into the dark tunnel. ‘We don't have to wait till tomorrow night after all.'

‘Go back to the others, Cuttle. Get Keneb to draw 'em up. I'm heading in to check the other end. If it's unguarded and quiet, well and good. If not…'

‘Aye, Fid.'

The sergeant dropped down into the tunnel.

He moved through the dark as fast as he could without making too much noise. The wall overhead was damned thick and he'd gone thirty paces before he saw the grey blur of the exit at the end of a sharp slope. Crossbow in hands, Fiddler edged forward.

He need not have worried.

The tunnel opened into a cramped blockhouse with no ceiling. One bench lined the wall to his right. Three bodies were sprawled on the dusty stone floor, bleeding out from vicious wounds.
Should've averted your eyes, soldiers.
Assuming she even gave them the time to decide either way – she'd wanted out, after all.

The door opposite him was ajar and Fiddler crept to it, looked out through the crack. A wide street, littered with rubbish.

They'd been listening to the riots half the night, and it was clear that mobs had swept through here, if not this night then other nights. The garrison blocks opposite were gutted, the windows soot-stained.
Better and better.

He turned round and hastened back down the tunnel.

At the other end he found Cuttle, Faradan Sort and Fist Keneb, all standing a few paces in from the door.

Fiddler explained to them what he had found. Then said, ‘We got to go through right away, I think. Eight hundred marines to come through and that'll take a while.'

Keneb nodded. ‘Captain Faradan Sort.'

‘Sir.'

‘Take four squads through and establish flanking positions. Send one squad straight across to the nearest barracks to see if they are indeed abandoned. If so, that will be our staging area. From there, I will lead the main body to the gate, seize and secure it. Captain, you and four squads will strike into the city, as far as you can go, causing trouble all the way – take extra munitions for that.'

‘Our destination?'

‘The palace.'

‘Aye, sir. Fiddler, collect Gesler and Hellian and Urb – you're the first four – and take your squads through. At a damned run if you please.'

 

In the grey light of early dawn, four figures emerged from a smear of blurred light twenty paces from the dead Azath Tower behind the Old Palace. As the portal swirled shut behind them, they stood, looking round.

Hedge gave Quick Ben a light push to one side, somewhere between comradely affection and irritation. ‘Told you, it's reunion time, wizard.'

‘Where in Hood's name are we?' Quick Ben demanded.

‘We're in Letheras,' Seren Pedac said. ‘Behind the Old Palace – but something's wrong.'

Trull Sengar wrapped his arms about himself, his face drawn with the pain of freshly healed wounds, his eyes filled with a deeper distress.

Hedge felt some of his anticipation dim like a dying oil lamp as he studied the Tiste Edur.
The poor bastard. A brother murdered in front of his eyes. Then, the awkward goodbye with Onrack – joy and sadness there in plenty, seeing his old friend and the woman at his side – a woman Onrack had loved for so long. So long? Damned near incomprehensible, that's how long.

But now – ‘Trull Sengar.'

The Tiste Edur slowly looked over.

Hedge shot Quick Ben a glance, then he said, ‘We've a mind to escort you and Seren. To her house.'

‘This city is assailed,' Trull Sengar said. ‘My youngest brother – the Emperor—'

‘That can all wait,' Hedge cut in. He paused, trying to figure out how to say what he meant, then said, ‘Your friend Onrack stole a woman's heart, and it was all there. In her eyes, I mean. The answer, that is. And if you'd look, just look, Trull Sengar, into the eyes of Seren Pedac, well—'

‘For Hood's sake,' Quick Ben sighed. ‘He means you and Seren need to get alone before anything else, and we're going to make sure that happens. All right?'

The surprise on Seren Pedac's face was almost comical.

But Trull Sengar then nodded.

Hedge regarded Quick Ben once again. ‘You recovered enough in case we walk into trouble?'

‘Something your sharpers can't handle? Yes, probably. Maybe. Get a sharper in each hand, Hedge.'

‘Good enough…since you're a damned idiot,' Hedge replied. ‘Seren Pedac – you should know, I'm well envious of this Tiste Edur here, but anyway. Is your house far?'

‘No, it is not, Hedge of the Bridgeburners.'

‘Then let's get out of this spooky place.'

 

Silts swirled up round his feet, spun higher, engulfing his shins, then whirled away like smoke on the current. Strange pockets of luminosity drifted past, morphing as if subjected to unseen pressures in this dark, unforgiving world.

Bruthen Trana, who had been sent to find a saviour, walked an endless plain, the silts thick and gritty. He stumbled against buried detritus, tripped on submerged roots. He crossed current-swept rises of hardened clay from which jutted polished bones of long-dead leviathans. He skirted the wreckage of sunken ships, the ribs of the hulls splayed out and cargo scattered about. And as he walked, he thought about his life and the vast array of choices he had made, others he had refused to make.

No wife, no single face to lift into his mind's eye. He had been a warrior for what seemed all his life. Fighting alongside blood kin and comrades closer than any blood kin. He had seen them die or drift away. He had, he realized now, watched his entire people pulled apart. With the conquest, with the cold-blooded, anonymous nightmare that was Lether. As for the Letherii themselves, no, he did not hate them. More like pity and yes, compassion, for they were as trapped in the nightmare as anyone else. The rapacious desperation, the gnawing threat of falling, of drowning beneath the ever-rising, ever-onrushing torrent that was a culture that could never look back, could not even slow its headlong plunge into some gleaming future that – if it came at all – would ever only exist for but a privileged few.

This eternal seabed offered its own commentary, and it was one that threatened to drag him down into the silts, enervated beyond all hope of continuing, of even moving. Cold, crushing, this place was like history's own weight – history not of a people or a civilization, but of the entire world.

Why was he still walking? What saviour could liberate him from all of this? He should have remained in Letheras. Free to launch an assault on Karos Invictad and his Patriotists, free to annihilate the man and his thugs. And then he could have turned to the Chancellor. Imagining his hands on Triban Gnol's throat was most satisfying – for as long as the image lasted, which was never long enough. A bloom of silts up into his eyes, another hidden object snagging his foot.

And here, now, looming before him, pillars of stone. The surfaces, he saw, cavorted with carvings, unrecognizable sigils so intricate they spun and shifted before his eyes.

As he drew closer, silts gusted ahead, and Bruthen Trana saw a figure climbing into view. Armour green with verdigris and furred with slime. A closed helm covering its face. In one gauntleted hand was a Letherii sword.

And a voice spoke in the Tiste Edur's head:
‘You have walked enough, Ghost.'

Bruthen Trana halted. ‘I am not a ghost in truth—'

‘You are, stranger. Your soul has been severed from now cold, now rotting flesh. You are no more than what stands here, before me. A ghost.'

Somehow, the realization did not surprise him. Hannan Mosag's legacy of treachery made all alliances suspect. And he had, he realized, felt…severed. For a long time, yes. The Warlock King likely did not waste any time in cutting the throat of Bruthen Trana's helpless body.

‘Then,' he said, ‘what is left for me?'

‘One thing, Ghost. You are here to summon him. To send him back.'

‘But was not his soul severed as well?'

‘His flesh and bones are here, Ghost. And in this place, there is power. For here you will find the forgotten gods, the last holding of their names. Know this, Ghost, were we to seek to defy you, to refuse your summoning, we could. Even with what you carry.'

‘Will you then refuse me?' Bruthen Trana asked, and if the answer was
yes
, then he would laugh. To have come all this way. To have sacrificed his life…

‘No. We understand the need. Better, perhaps, than you.'
The armoured warrior lifted his free hand. All but the foremost of the metal-clad fingers folded. ‘
Go there,'
it said, pointing towards a pillar.
‘The side with but one name. Draw forth that which you possess of his flesh and bone. Speak the name so written on the stone.
'

Bruthen Trana walked slowly to the standing stone, went round to the side with the lone carving. And read thereon the name inscribed: ‘“Brys Beddict, Saviour of the Empty Hold.” I summon you.'

The face of the stone, cleaned here, seeming almost fresh, all at once began to ripple, then bulge in places, the random shapes and movement coalescing to create a humanoid shape, pushing out from the stone. An arm came free, then shoulder, then head, face – eyes closed, features twisted as if in pain – upper torso. A leg. The second arm – Bruthen saw that two fingers were missing on that hand.