The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (901 page)

‘They're coming now,' Kallor said.

Kedeviss looked but could not see any movement in the gloom of the ruin's entrance.

‘It's too late to travel – we'll have to camp here. Make us a fine meal, Aranatha. Nenanda, build a fire. A house of sticks to set aflame – that'll make Gothos wince, I hope. Yes, entice him out here tonight, so that I can kill him.'

‘You can't kill him,' Aranatha said, straightening in the wagon bed.

‘Oh, and why not?'

‘I need to talk to him.'

Kedeviss watched her kin descend from the wagon, adjust her robes, then stride towards the ruin – where Skintick had appeared, helping Nimander, whose hands were dark with blood. Behind them, Desra.

‘That bitch sister of yours is uncanny,' Kallor said in a growl.

Kedeviss saw no need to comment on that.

‘She speaks with Gothos – why? What could they possibly say to each other?'

Shrugging, Kedeviss turned away. ‘I think I will do the cooking tonight,' she said.

 

Dying, the Captain stared across at the giant warrior with the shattered face. Woven carpets beneath each of them, the one on which sat the Captain now sodden with blood – blood that seemed to flow for ever, as if his body was but a valve, broken, jammed open, and out it came, trickling down from wounds that would never close. He was, he realized, back where he began. Opulence surrounded him this time, rather than grit and mud and dust on the edge of a dried riverbed, but did that make any real difference? Clearly it didn't.

Only the dying could laugh at that truth. There were many things, he now understood, to which only the dying could respond with honest mirth. Like this nemesis warrior sitting cross-legged, hunched and glowering opposite him.

A small brazier smouldered between them, perched on three legs. On the coals rested a squat kettle, and the spiced wine within steamed to sweeten the air of the chamber.

‘You shall have to knock out some of the inner walls,' the Captain said. ‘Have the slaves make you a new bed, one long enough, and other furniture besides.'

‘You are not listening,' the giant said. ‘I lose my temper when people do not listen.'

‘You are my heir—'

‘No. I am not. Slavery is an abomination. Slavery is what people who hate do to others. They hate themselves. They hate in order to make themselves different, better. You. You told yourself you had the right to own other people. You told yourself they were less than you, and you thought shackles could prove it.'

‘I loved my slaves. I took care of them.'

‘There is plenty of room for guilt in the heart of hate,' the warrior replied.

‘This is my gift—'

‘Everyone seeks to give me gifts. I reject them all. You believe yours is wondrous. Generous. You are nothing. Your empire is pathetic. I knew village dogs who were greater tyrants than you.'

‘Why do you torment me with such words? I am dying. You have killed me. And yet I do not despise you for that. No, I make you my heir. I give you my kingdom. My army will take your commands. Everything is yours now.'

‘I don't want it.'

‘If you do not take it, one of my officers will.'

‘This kingdom cannot exist without the slaves. Your army will become nothing more than one more band of raiders, and so someone will hunt them down and destroy them. And all you sought to build will be forgotten.'

‘You torment me.'

‘I tell you the truth. Let your officers come to kill me. I will destroy them all. And I will scatter your army. Blood to the grass.'

The Captain stared at this monster, and knew he could do nothing. He was sinking back against his heap of pillows, every breath shallower than the last. Swathed in robes and furs, he was none the less cold. ‘You could have lied,' he whispered.

 

The man's last words. Karsa studied the dead face for a moment longer. Then he thumped against the panel door to his left.

It opened a crack.

‘Everyone leave this carriage,' Karsa commanded. ‘Take whatever you want – but you do not have much time.'

Then he settled back once more. Scanned the remnants of the lavish feast he had devoured – while the Captain had simply watched, smug as a rich father even as he died. But Karsa was not his son. Not his heir, no matter what the fool desired. He was Toblakai. A Teblor, and far to the north waited his people.

Was he ready for them?

He was.

Would they be ready for him? Probably not.

A long walk awaited him – there was not a single horse in this paltry kingdom that could accommodate him. He thought back to his youth, to those bright days of hard drama, crowded with omens, when every blade of grass was saturated with significance – but it was the young mind that fashioned such things. Not yet bleached by the sun, not yet worn down by the wind. Vistas were to be crossed. Foes were to be vanquished with harsh barks of fierce triumph, blood spraying in the air.

Once, long ago it seemed now, he had set out to find glory, only to discover that it was nothing like what he had imagined it to be. It was a brutal truth that his companions then had understood so much better than he had, despite his being War Leader. Nevertheless, they had let themselves be pulled into his wake, and for this they had died. The power of Karsa's own will had overwhelmed them. What could be learned from that?

Followers will follow, even unto their own deaths. There was a flaw to such people – the willingness to override one's own instinct for self-preservation. And this flaw invited exploitation, perhaps even
required
it. Confusion and uncertainty surrendered to simplicity, so comforting, so deadly.

Without followers this Captain would have achieved nothing. The same the world over. Wars would disintegrate into the chaos of raids, skirmishes, massacres of the innocent, the vendetta of blood-feuds, and little else. Monuments would never be raised. No temples, no streets and roads, no cities. No ships, no bridges. Every patch of ploughed land would shrink to what a few could manage. Without followers, civilization would never have been born.

He would tell his people all this. He would make them not his followers, but his companions. And together they would bring civilization to ruin, whenever and wherever they found it. Because, for all the good it created, its sole purpose was to breed followers – enough to heave into motion forces of destruction, spreading a tide of blood at the whim of those few cynical tyrants born to lead. Lead, yes, with lies, with iron words –
duty, honour, patriotism, freedom
– that fed the wilfully stupid with grand purpose, with reason for misery and delivering misery in kind.

He had seen the enemy's face, its twin masks of abject self-sacrifice and cold-eyed command. He had seen leaders feed on the flesh of the bravely fallen.
And this is not the Teblor way. It shall not be my way.

The sounds of looting from the rooms around him were gone now. Silence on all sides. Karsa reached down and used a hook to lift the kettle from the coals and set it down on the small table amidst the foodstuffs, the silver plates and the polished goblets.

Then he kicked the brazier over, scattering coals on to the beautifully woven carpets, into the silks and woollen blankets, the furs. He waited to see flames ignite.

When the first ones began, Karsa Orlong rose and, hunched over to clear the panel door, made his way out.

 

Darkness in the world beyond the camp's cookfires. A mad profusion of stars overhead. Arrayed in a vast semicircle facing the enormous carriage was the kingdom of the Captain. Karsa Orlong stood in front of the throne on the balcony.

‘The slaves are free,' he said in a loud voice that carried to everyone. ‘The officers will divide the loot, the horses and all the rest – an equal share for all, slaves and free, soldier and crafter. Cheat anyone and I will kill you.'

Behind him on the carriage, flames licked out from the countless windows and vents. Black smoke rose in a thickening column. He could feel the heat gusting against his back.

‘Come the dawn,' he said, ‘everyone will leave. Go home. Those without a home – go find one. And know that the time I give you now is all that you will ever have. For when next you see me, when you are hiding there in your cities, I will come as a destroyer. Five years or twenty – it is what you have, what I give you. Use it well. All of you,
live well
.'

And that such a farewell should be received, not as a benediction, but as a threat, marked well how these people understood Karsa Orlong – who came from the north, immune to all weapons. Who slew the Captain without even touching him. Who freed the slaves and scattered the knights of the realm with not a single clash of swords.

The god of the Broken Face came among them, as each would tell others for the years left to them. And, so telling, with eyes wide and licking dry lips, they would reach in haste for the tankard and its nectar of forgetfulness.

Some, you cannot kill. Some are deliverers of death and judgement. Some, in wishing you a full life, promise you death. There is no lie in that promise, for does not death come to us all? And yet, how rare the one to say so. No sweet euphemism, no quaint colloquialism. No metaphor, no analogy. There is but one true poet in the world, and he speaks the truth.

Flee, my friends, but there is nowhere to hide. Nowhere at all.

See your fate, there in his Broken Face.

See it well.

 

Horses drawn to a halt on a low hilltop, grasses whispering unseen on all sides.

‘I once led armies,' Traveller said. ‘I was once the will of the Emperor of Malaz.'

Samar Dev tasted bitterness and leaned to one side and spat.

The man beside her grunted, as if acknowledging the gesture as commentary. ‘We served death, of course, in all that we did. For all our claims otherwise. Imposing peace, ending stupid feuds and tribal rivalries. Opening roads to merchants without fear of banditry. Coin flowed like blood in veins, such was the gift of those roads and the peace we enforced. And yet, behind it all,
he
waited.'

‘All hail civilization,' Samar Dev said. ‘Like a beacon in the dark wilderness.'

‘With a cold smile,' Traveller continued, as if not hearing her, ‘he waits. Where all the roads converge, where every path ends. He waits.'

A dozen heartbeats passed, with nothing more said.

To the north something burned, lancing bright orange flames into the sky, lighting the bellies of churning clouds of black smoke.
Like a beacon…

‘What burns?' Traveller wondered.

Samar Dev spat again. She just couldn't get that foul taste out of her mouth. ‘Karsa Orlong,' she replied. ‘Karsa Orlong burns, Traveller. Because that is what he does.'

‘I do not understand you.'

‘It's a pyre,' she said. ‘And he does not grieve. The Skathandi are no more.'

‘When you speak of Karsa Orlong,' Traveller said, ‘I am frightened.'

She nodded at that admission – a response he probably could not even see. The man beside her was an honest one. In many ways as honest as Karsa Orlong.

And on the morrow these two would meet.

Samar Dev well understood Traveller's fear.

Expectation is the hoary curse of humanity. One can listen to words, and see them as the unfolding of a petal or, indeed, the very opposite: each word bent and pushed tighter, smaller, until the very packet of meaning vanishes with a flip of deft fingers. Poets and tellers of tales can be tugged by either current, into the riotous conflagration of beauteous language or the pithy reduction of the tersely colourless.

As with art, so too with life. See a man without fingers standing at the back of his house. He is grainy with sleep that yields no rest, no relief from a burdensome world (and all that), and his eyes are strangely blank and might be shuttered too as he stares out on the huddled form of his wife as she works some oddity in her vegetable patch.

This one is terse. Existence is a most narrow aperture indeed. His failing is not in being inarticulate through some lack of intellect. No, this mind is most finely honed. But he views his paucity of words – in both thought and dialogue – as a virtue, sigil of rigid manhood. He has made brevity an obsession, an addiction, and in his endless paring down he strips away all hope of emotion and with it empathy. When language is lifeless what does it serve? When meaning is rendered down what veracity holds to the illusion of depth?

Bah!
to such conceits! Such anal self-serving affectation! Wax extravagant and let the world swirl thick and pungent about you! Tell the tale of your life as you would live it!

A delighted waggle of fingers now might signal mocking cruelty when you are observing this fingerless man who stands silent and expressionless as he studies his woman. Decide as you will.
His woman.
Yes, the notion belongs to him, artfully whittled from his world view (one of expectation and fury at its perpetual failure). Possession has its rules and she must behave within the limits those rules prescribe. This was, to Gaz, self-evident, a detail that did not survive his own manic editing.

But what was Thordy doing with all those flat stones? With that peculiar pattern she was building there in the dark loamy soil? One could plant nothing beneath stone, could one? No, she was sacrificing fertile ground, and for what? He didn't know. And he knew that he might never know. As an activity, however, Thordy's diligent pursuit was a clear transgression of the rules, and he might have to do something about that. Soon.

Tonight he would beat a man to death. Exultation, yes, but a cold kind. Flies buzzing in his head, the sound rising like a wave, filling his skull with a hundred thousand icy legs. He would do that, yes, and this meant he didn't have to beat his wife – not yet, anyway; a few more days, maybe a week or so – he would have to see how things went.

Keep things simple, give the flies not much to land on, that was the secret. The secret to staying sane.

The wedges of his battered fingerless hands burned with eager fire.

But he wasn't thinking much of anything at all, was he? Nothing to reach his face, his eyes, the flat line of his mouth. Sigil of manhood, this blank façade, and when a man has nothing else at least he could have that. And he would prove it to himself again and again. Night after night.

Because this is what artists did.

 

Thordy was thinking of many things, none of them particularly relevant – or so she would have judged if pressed to examination, although of course there was no one who might voice such a challenge, which was just as well. Here in her garden she could float, as aimless as a leaf blown down on to a slow, lazy river.

She was thinking about freedom. She was thinking about how a mind could turn to stone, the patterns solid and immovable in the face of seemingly unbearable pressures, and the way dust trickled down faint as whispers, unnoticed by any. And she was thinking of the cool, polished surface of these slate slabs, the waxy feel of them, and the way the sun reflected soft, milky white and not at all painful to rest eyes upon. And she was remembering the way her husband talked in his sleep, a pouring forth of words as if whatever dam held them back in his wakefulness was kicked down and out gushed tales of gods and promises, invitations and bloodlust, the pain of maimed hands and the pain of maiming that those hands delivered.

And she noted the butterflies dancing above the row of greens just off to her left, almost within reach if she stretched out a dirt-stained hand, but then those orange-winged sprites would wing away though she posed them no threat. Because life was uncertain and danger waited in the guise of peaceful repose.

And her knees ached and nowhere in her thoughts could be found expectation – nowhere could be found such hard-edged proof of reality as the framework of what waited somewhere ahead. No hint at all, even as she laid down stone after stone. It was all outside, you see, all outside.

 

The clerk at the office of the Guild of Blacksmiths had never once in his life wielded hammer and tongs. What he did wield demanded no muscles, no weight of impetus atop oaken legs, no sweat streaming down to sting the eyes, no gusts of scalding heat to singe the hairs on the forearms. And so, in the face of a true blacksmith, the clerk gloried in his power.

That pleasure could be seen in his small pursed lips turned well down at each end, could be caught in his watery eyes that rested everywhere and nowhere; in his pale hands holding a wooden stylus like an assassin's dagger, the tip stained blue by ink and wax. He sat on his stool behind the broad counter that divided the front room as if guarding the world's wealth and every promise of paradise that membership in this most noble Guild offered its hallowed, upright members (and the fat man winks).

So he sat, and so Barathol Mekhar wanted to reach over the counter, pluck the clerk into the air, and break him in half. Over and over again, until little more than a pile of brittle tailings remained heaped on the scarred counter, with the stylus thrust into it like a warrior's sword stabbing a barrow.

Dark was the amusement in Barathol's thoughts as the clerk shook his head yet again.

‘It is simple – even for you, I'm sure. The Guild demands credentials, specifically the sponsorship of an accredited Guild member. Without this, your coin is so much dross.' And he smiled at this clever pun voiced to a smith.

‘I am new to Darujhistan,' Barathol said, again, ‘and so such sponsorship is impossible.'

‘Yes it is.'

‘As for apprenticeship—'

‘Also impossible. You say you have been a blacksmith for many years now and I do not doubt such a claim – the evidence is plain before me. This of course makes you over-qualified as an apprentice and too old besides.'

‘If I cannot be apprenticed how can I get a sponsor?'

A smile of the lips and shake of the head. A holding up of the palms. ‘I don't make the rules, you understand.'

‘Can I speak to anyone who might have been involved in devising these rules?'

‘A blacksmith? No, alas, they are all off doing smithy things, as befits their profession.'

‘I can visit one at his or her place of work, then. Can you direct me to the nearest one?'

‘Absolutely not. They have entrusted me with the responsibilities of operating the administration of the Guild. If I were to do something like that I would be disciplined for dereliction of duty, and I am sure you do not want that on your conscience, do you?'

‘Actually,' said Barathol, ‘that is a guilt I can live with.'

The expression hardened. ‘Honourable character is an essential prerequisite to becoming a member of the Guild.'

‘More than sponsorship?'

‘They are balanced virtues, sir. Now, I am very busy today—'

‘You were sleeping when I stepped in.'

‘It may have appeared that way.'

‘It appeared that way because it was that way.'

‘I have no time to argue with you over what you may or may not have perceived when you stepped into my office—'

‘You were asleep.'

‘You might have concluded such a thing.'

‘I did conclude it, because that is what you were. I suppose that too might result in disciplinary measures, once it becomes known to the members.'

‘Your word against mine, and clearly you possess an agenda, one that reflects poorly on your sense of honour—'

‘Since when does honesty reflect poorly on one's sense of honour?'

The clerk blinked. ‘Why, when it is vindictive, of course.'

Now it was Barathol's turn to pause. And attempt a new tack. ‘I can pay an advance on my dues – a year's worth or more, if necessary.'

‘Without sponsorship such payment would be construed as a donation. There is legal precedent to back that interpretation.'

‘You'd take my coin and give me nothing in return?'

‘That is the essence of a charitable donation, is it not?'

‘I don't think it is, but never mind that. What you are telling me is that I cannot become a member of the Guild of Blacksmiths.'

‘Membership is open to all blacksmiths wishing to work in the city, I assure you. Once you have been sponsored.'

‘Which makes it a closed shop.'

‘A what?'

‘The Malazan Empire encountered closed shops in Seven Cities. They broke them wide open. I think even some blood was spilled. The Emperor was not one to cringe before professional monopolies of any sort.'

‘Well,' the clerk said, licking his slivery lips, ‘thank all the gods the Malazans never conquered Darujhistan!'

 

Barathol stepped outside and saw Mallet waiting across the street, eating some kind of flavoured ice in a broad-leaf cone. The morning's heat was fast melting the confection, and purple water was trickling down the healer's pudgy hand. His lips were similarly stained.

Mallet's thin brows rose as the blacksmith approached. ‘Are you now a proud if somewhat poorer member of the Guild?'

‘No. They refused me.'

‘But why? Can you not take some kind of exam—'

‘No.'

‘Oh…so now what, Barathol?'

‘What? Oh, I'll open up a smithy anyway. Independent.'

‘Are you mad? They'll burn you out. Smash up your equipment. Descend on you in a mob and beat you to death. And that's just on opening day.'

Barathol smiled. He liked Malazans. Despite everything, despite the countless mistakes the Empire had made, all the blood spilled, he liked the bastards. Hood knew, they weren't nearly as fickle as the natives of his homeland. Or, he added wryly, the citizens of Darujhistan. To Mallet's predictions he said, ‘I've handled worse. Don't worry about me. I plan on working here as a blacksmith, whether the Guild likes it or not. And eventually they will have to accept me as a member.'

‘That won't feel very triumphant if you're dead.'

‘I won't be. Dead, that is.'

‘They'll try to stop anyone doing business with you.'

‘I am very familiar with Malazan weapons and armour, Mallet. My work meets military standards in your old empire, and as you know, those are set high.' He glanced across at the healer. ‘Will the Guild scare you off? Your friends?'

‘Of course not. But remember, we're retired.'

‘And being hunted by assassins.'

‘Ah, I'd forgotten about that. You have a point. Even so, Barathol, I doubt us few Malazans can keep you in business for very long.'

‘The new embassy has a company of guards.'

‘True.'

‘And there are other Malazans living here. Deserters from the campaigns up north—'

‘That's true, too, though they tend to hide from us – not that we care. In fact, we'd rather get their business at the bar. What's the point in grudges?'

‘Those that come to me will be told just that, then, and so we can help each other.'

Mallet tossed the sodden cone away and wiped his hands on his leggings. ‘They tasted better when I was a young brat – although they were more expensive since a witch was needed to make the ice in the first place. Here, of course, it's to do with some of the gases in the caverns below.'

Barathol thought about that for a moment as he looked upon the healer with his purple lips and saw, for the briefest moment, how this man had been when he was a child, and then he smiled once more. ‘I need to find a suitable location for my smithy. Will you walk with me, Mallet?'

‘Glad to,' the healer replied. ‘Now, I know the city – what precisely are you looking for?'

And so Barathol told him.

And oh how Mallet laughed and off they went into the city's dark chambers of the heart, where blood flowed in a roar and all manner of deviousness was possible. If the mind was so inclined. A mind such as Barathol Mekhar's when down –
down!
– was thrown the ghastly gauntlet!

 

The ox, the selfsame ox, swung its head back and forth as it pulled the cartload of masonry into the arched gateway, into blessed shade for a few clumping strides, and then out into the bright heat once more – delicate blond lashes fluttering – to find itself in a courtyard and somewhere close was sweet cool water, the sound as it trickled an invitation, the smell soft as a kiss upon the broad glistening nose with its even more delicate blond hairs, and up rose the beast's massive head and would not the man with the switch have pity on this weary, thirsty ox?