The Crippled God (170 page)

Perhaps they thought that she had been intent on stealing their sergeant away from them. Perhaps, even, they blamed her for his death. She did not know, and now she had been commanded to join them once more, at this place where two Malazan marines were interred.

She had selected a polished jet stone from her modest collection – knowing how the humans would smile at that, these small leather bags the Tiste Andii always carried, with a stone to mark each gift of the owner’s heart. She possessed but a few. One for Anomander Rake, one for her fallen brother, Orfantal; one for Spinnock Durav – who cared nothing for her low birth – and one for Whiskeyjack. Soon, she had begun to suspect, she would set out to find two more. For Queen Yan Tovis. For Lord Nimander.

These stones were not to be surrendered.

To give one up was to set down a love, to walk away from it for evermore.

But it had been foolish, finding a stone for a man whose love she had known for so brief a time. He had never felt the way she had – he could
not have – she had gone too far, had given up too much. They’d not possessed the time to forge something eternal.

Then he had died, and it was as if he had been the one doing the walking away, leaving his own stone behind – the dull, lifeless thing that was her heart.

‘
The dead forget us
.’
So said Gallan
. ‘
The dead forget us, and this is why we fear death
.’

She had thought … there on that distant barrow now called the Awakening … a whisper of something, a presence arriving old and achingly familiar. As if he had looked upon her – as if she had felt his eyes –
no, you foolish woman. It was his soldiers gathered on that hill. If he was there at all, it was for them
.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the woman from the K’Chain Che’Malle ranks. Korlat had come to a halt with her memories, and now she looked on this stranger, offering a rueful half-smile. ‘My courage fails,’ she said.

The human woman, plain, past her youth, studied her for a moment. ‘What is that,’ she asked, ‘in your hand?’

Korlat thought to hide it away again, but then sighed and showed the black stone. ‘I thought … a gift. For the barrow. I have seen such practices before …’

‘Did you know them?’

After a moment, Korlat turned to retrace her steps. ‘No. I am sorry. I did not.’

But the woman took her arm. ‘Walk with me, then, and I will tell you about Mortal Sword Gesler and Shield Anvil Stormy.’

‘I was presumptuous—’

‘I doubt it,’ the woman replied. ‘But you can hold on to your tale, if you like. I am Kalyth.’

Korlat gave her own name.

‘They won free the heart of the Crippled God,’ said Kalyth as they drew closer. ‘But that is not how I remember them. They were stubborn. They snapped at each other like … like dogs. They mocked their own titles, told each other lies. They told me lies, too. Wild stories of their adventures. Ships on seas of fire. Dragons and headless Tiste Andii – whatever they are …’

Korlat turned at that, thought to speak, then decided to remain silent.

‘In the time I knew them,’ Kalyth went on, not noticing her companion’s reaction, ‘they pretty much argued without surcease. Even in the middle of terrible battle they bickered back and forth. And all the while, these two Malazans, they did all that needed to be done. Each and every time.’ She nodded towards the Spire.

‘Up there,’ she said, ‘they climbed through walls of fire, and at that
moment I realized that all those wild tales they told me – they were probably all true.

‘Stormy died on the stairs, keeping a wild witch away from the heart. Those flames he could not in the end defeat. Gesler – we are told – died saving the life of a dog.’ She pointed. ‘That one, Korlat, the one guarding the barrow’s entrance. See how they await me now? It is because I am the only one the dog will let pass into the chamber. I dragged Gesler’s body in there myself.’

When the woman at her side stopped talking then, Korlat looked down and saw how her face had crumpled – with her own words, as if their meaning only now struck true. She very nearly collapsed – would have done so if not for Korlat’s arm, now flexing to take the woman’s weight.

Kalyth righted herself. ‘I – I am sorry. I did not mean – oh, look at me …’

‘I have you,’ Korlat said.

They went on.

This side of the small round barrow, the group of humans parted before them, as many eyes on Korlat as on Kalyth. She saw Hedge there, along with Quick Ben and Kalam, and the grey-bearded man she now knew to be Fiddler, Whiskeyjack’s closest friend. Their expressions were flat, and she weathered their regards with as much dignity as she could muster. Near them stood a mother and daughter, the latter, though little more than a child, pulling hard on a stick of rustleaf – and on this one’s other side stood an older woman doing the same with her own, beside a handsome young man. She saw a White Face Barghast chieftain grinning openly at herself – his desires made plain in the amused glint in his eyes.

Just beyond Whiskeyjack’s old squad stood a man and a woman – possibly siblings – in the company of an older man weighed down in the robes of a High Priest, the gold silk patterned in the sinewy forms of serpents. Behind this group stood a man picking at his teeth and beside him, seated on a stool, was an artist, sketching frantically on bleached lambskin with a wedge of charcoal. At his feet was a bloated toad.

Arrayed in a semicircle around this group was an honour guard of some sort, facing outward, but as Korlat and Kalyth approached they smartly turned round, gauntleted hands lifting to their chests in salute. And she saw that they were the soldiers who had fought at the Awakening.

Kalyth leaned close against Korlat and disengaged her arm. ‘I believe there are burial gifts,’ she said, nodding to a soldier’s chest waiting beside the barrow entrance. ‘I will take it inside.’ She looked up at Korlat. ‘I will take your gift, Korlat, if you like.’

She held up her hand, opened it to look at the gleaming stone in her hand.

There was a commotion from Whiskeyjack’s squad and Korlat faced them, ready to retreat – to flee this place.

‘Captain!’ snapped the plain woman behind the marines.

Korlat saw that the squad had reached for their weapons, swords now half drawn. At that woman’s bark they had halted their motions, and Korlat stared, frightened and dismayed by what she saw in their faces.

The plain woman stepped round to place herself between Korlat and the squad. Standing directly in front of Fiddler, she said, ‘What in Hood’s name do you think you’re doing?’

‘Forgive us, Adjunct,’ Fiddler replied, eyes still on Korlat.

‘Explain yourselves! High Mage! Kalam – one of you, speak!’

‘Your pardon, Adjunct,’ Fiddler ground out. ‘I would ask the Tiste Andii a question.’

‘By your threat,’ snapped the Adjunct, turning to Korlat, ‘should she refuse the courtesy, I will defend her decision.’

Korlat shook her head, drawing a deep, fortifying breath. ‘No, thank you, Adjunct. This soldier was Whiskeyjack’s closest friend. If he would ask me something, I shall answer as best I am able.’

The Adjunct stepped back.

Fiddler’s gaze fell to the stone in her hand. ‘You mean to give that up? Did you know Gesler and Stormy?’

Korlat shook her head.

‘Then … why?’

Her thoughts fumbled, words failing her, and her eyes fell from Fiddler’s.

‘Is it his?’

She looked back up, startled. Behind Fiddler the marines of the squad stared – but now she saw that what she had taken for rage in their expressions was in fact something else, something far more complicated.

‘Korlat, is it
his
?’

She faced the barrow entrance. ‘They were marines,’ she said in a weak voice. ‘I thought … a measure of respect.’

‘If you give that up, you will destroy him.’

She met Fiddler’s eyes, and at last saw the raw anguish in them. ‘I thought … he left me.’

‘No, he hasn’t.’

Hedge spoke. ‘He only found love once, Korlat, and we’re looking at the woman he chose. If you give up that stone, we’ll cut you to pieces and leave your bones scattered across half this world.’

Korlat stepped close to Fiddler. ‘How do you know this?’

His eyes flickered, were suddenly wet. ‘On the hill. His ghost – he
saw you on the plain. He – he couldn’t take his eyes off you. I see now – you thought … through Hood’s Gate, the old loves forgotten, drifting away. Maybe you even began questioning if it ever existed at all, or meant what you thought it meant. Listen, they’ve told me the whole story. Korlat, he’s waiting for you. And if he has to, he’ll wait for ever.’

Her hand closed about the stone, and all at once the tension fell away, and she looked past Fiddler to the soldiers of the squad. ‘You would have killed me for forsaking him,’ she said. ‘I am reminded of the man he was – to have won such loyalty among his friends.’

Hedge said, ‘You’ve got centuries – well, who knows how long? Don’t think he expects you to be celibate or anything – we ain’t expectin’ that neither. But that stone – we know what it means to your kind. You just shocked us, that’s all.’

Korlat slowly turned to the barrow. ‘Then I should leave here, for I have nothing for these fallen soldiers.’

The Adjunct surprised her by stepping forward and taking her arm. She led her to the chest. ‘Open it,’ she invited.

Wondering, Korlat crouched down, lifted back the lid. The chest was empty. Baffled, she straightened, met the Adjunct’s eyes.

And saw a wry smile. ‘They were marines. Everything of value they’ve already left behind. In fact, Korlat of the Tiste Andii, if Gesler and Stormy could, they’d be the first ones to loot their own grave goods.’

‘And then bitch about how cheap we were,’ Fiddler said behind them.

‘We are here to see the barrow sealed,’ said the Adjunct. ‘And, if we can, get that Wickan demon to yield, before it starves to death.’

A thousand paces away from this scene, a gathering of Jaghut warriors stood facing a barrow raised to embrace the fallen Imass.

They were silent, as befitted the moment – a moment filled with respect and that bone-deep loss for comrades fallen in a battle shared, a time lived to the hilt – but for all that, it was a silence riotous with irony.

After a time, a small creature looking like a burst pillow of rotted straw came up to lie down at the feet of one of the Jaghut. From the filthy tangle out came a lolling tongue.

One of the warriors spoke, ‘Varandas, our commander never tires of pets.’

‘Clearly,’ replied another, ‘he has missed us.’

‘Or does the once-Lord of Death return with alarming appetites?’

‘You raise disquiet in me,’ said Sanad.

‘You promised to never speak of that – oh, you mean my query on appetites. Humblest apologies, Sanad.’

‘She lies, Gathras, this I swear!’

‘The only one lying here is the dog, surely!’

The warriors all stared down at the creature.

And then roared with laughter. That went on, and on.

Until Hood whirled round. ‘
Will you all shut up!
’

In the sudden silence that followed, someone snorted.

When Hood reached for the sword at his hip, his warriors all found somewhere else to look. Until the ratty dog rose and lifted a leg.

Weathering their raucous laughter and the steady stream tapping his ankle, Hood slowly closed his eyes.
This is why Jaghut chose to live alone
.

Brys Beddict turned at the sound of distant laughter. Squinted at the Jaghut warriors standing at the Imass barrow. ‘Errant’s nudge, but that’s hardly fitting, is it?’

Aranict frowned. ‘Theirs is an odd humour, my love. I do not think disrespect is the intention. Indifference would have managed that succinctly enough. Instead, they walked out there, and requested solitude.’

‘Ah,’ murmured Brys, taking her hand, ‘it is, I believe, time.’

He led her towards the Adjunct, where Queen Abrastal, Felash and Spax now joined Tavore. Just beyond them, Aranict saw, was Ganoes – not one to join in these moments, yet never far from his sister.

Brys spoke as soon as they drew near. ‘There was some tension at the barrow, Adjunct. I trust all is well?’

‘A misunderstanding, Prince.’

‘The cattledog—’

‘No – once the barrow was sealed, the beast joined Destriant Kalyth, and at her side I believe it will stay until its life is done.’

‘There is word,’ said Abrastal, ‘of a tribe on the plateau north of Estobanse, remote kin of Kalyth’s Elan. Bhederin herders.’

‘They will journey alone?’ Brys asked in concern.

‘With only a few hundred K’ell Hunters as escort, yes,’ replied the Bolkando queen.

‘Prince Brys,’ said Felash, ‘your brother the king’s fleet is only days away.’ Her languid gaze flicked to Aranict.

‘I’ve not yet told him,’ Aranict replied, lighting a stick. ‘Beloved,’ she now said, ‘your brother is with that fleet.’

‘Tehol hates the sea – are you certain of that?’