The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (885 page)

Both men now smiled. And the younger one gestured with one hand.

A faint sound behind him made Traveller turn, to see four nomads rising as if from nowhere on the slope, armed with spears.

Traveller looked back at the father and son. ‘You are all too familiar with strangers, I think.'

They walked down into the camp. The silent dogs, ranging ahead, were met by a small group of children all bedecked in white flowers. Bright smiles flashed up at Traveller, tiny hands taking his to lead him onward to the hearthfires, where women were now preparing a midday meal. Iron pots filled with some milky substance steamed, the smell pungent, sweet and vaguely alcoholic.

A low bench was set out, four-legged and padded, the woven coverlet a rainbow of coloured threads in zigzag patterns. The wooden legs were carved into horse heads, noses almost touching in the middle, the manes flowing in sweeping curves, all stained a lustrous ochre and deep brown. The artistry was superb, the heads so detailed Traveller could see the veins along the cheeks, the lines of the eyelids and the dusty eyes both opaque and depthless. There was only one such bench, and it was, he knew, to be his for the duration of his stay.

The father and son, and three others of the band, two women and a very old man, all sat cross-legged in a half-circle, facing him across the fire. The children finally released his hands and a woman gave him a gourd filled with the scalded milk, in which floated strips of meat.

‘Skathandi,' said the father. ‘Camped down by the water. Here to ambush us and steal our horses, for the meat of the g'athend is highly prized by people in the cities. There were thirty in all, raiders and murderers – we will eat their horses, but you may have one to ride if you desire so.'

Traveller sipped the milk, and as the steam filled his face his eyes widened. Fire in his throat, then blissful numbness. Blinking tears from his eyes, he tried to focus on the man who had spoken. ‘You sprang the ambush, then. Thirty? You must be formidable warriors.'

‘This was the second such camp we found. All slain. Not by us, friend. Someone, it seems, likes the Skathandi even less than we do.'

The father hesitated, and in the pause his son said, ‘It was our thought that you were following that someone.'

‘Ah.' Traveller frowned. ‘Someone? There is but one – one who attacks Skathandi camps and slaughters everyone?'

Nods answered him.

‘A demon, we think, who walks like a storm, dark with terrible rage. One who covers well his tracks.' The son made an odd gesture with one hand, a rippling of the fingers. ‘Like a ghost.'

‘How long ago did this demon travel past here?'

‘Three days.'

‘Are these Skathandi a rival tribe?'

‘No. Raiders, preying on caravans and all who dwell on the Plain. Sworn, it is said, to a most evil man, known only as the Captain. If you see an eight-wheeled carriage, so high there is one floor above and a balcony with a golden rail – drawn, it is said, by a thousand slaves – then you will have found the palace of this Captain. He sends out his raiders, and grows fat on the trade of his spoils.'

‘I am not following this demon,' said Traveller. ‘I know nothing of it.'

‘That is probably well.'

‘It heads north?'

‘Yes.'

Traveller thought about that as he took another sip of the appallingly foul drink. With a horse under him he would begin to make good time, but that might well take him right on to that demon, and he did not relish a fight with a creature that could slay thirty bandits and leave nary a footprint.

One child, who had been kneeling beside him, piling handfuls of dirt on to Traveller's boot-top, now clambered up on to his thigh, reached into the gourd and plucked out a sliver of meat, and waved it in front of Traveller's mouth.

‘Eat,' said the son. ‘The meat is from a turtle that tunnels, very tender. The miska milk softens it and removes the poison. One generally does not drink the miska, as it can send the mind travelling so far that it never returns. Too much and it will eat holes in your stomach and you will die in great pain.'

‘Ah. You could have mentioned that earlier.' Traveller took the meat from the child. He was about to plop it into his mouth when he paused. ‘Anything else I should know before I begin chewing?'

‘No. You will dream tonight of tunnelling through earth. Harmless enough. All food has memory, so the miska proves – we cook everything in it, else we taste the bitterness of death.'

Traveller sighed. ‘This miska, it is mare's milk?'

Laughter erupted.

‘No, no!' cried the father. ‘A plant. A root bulb. Mare milk belongs to foals and colts, of course. Humans have their own milk, after all, and it is not drunk by adults, only babes. Yours, stranger, is a strange world!' And he laughed some more.

Traveller ate the sliver of meat.

Most tender – indeed, delicious. That night, sleeping beneath furs in a tipi, he dreamt of tunnelling through hard-packed, stony earth, pleased by its surrounding warmth, the safety of darkness.

He was woken shortly before dawn by a young woman, soft of limb and damp with desire, who wrapped herself tight about him. He was startled when she prised open his mouth with her own and deposited a full mouthful of spit, strongly spiced with something, and would not pull away until he swallowed it down. By the time she and the drug she had given him were done, there was not a seed left in his body.

In the morning, Traveller and the father went down to the abandoned Skathandi horses. With help from the mute dogs they were able to capture one of the animals, a solid piebald gelding of sixteen or so hands with mischief in its eyes.

The dead raiders, he noted as his companion went in search among the camp's wreckage for a worthy saddle, had indeed been cut to pieces. Although the work of the scavengers had reduced most of the corpses to tufts of hair, torn sinew and broken bones, there was enough evidence of severed limbs and decapitations to suggest some massive edged weapon at work. Where bones had been sliced through, the cut was sharp with no sign of crushing.

The father brought over the best of the tack, and Traveller saw with surprise that it was a Seven Cities saddle, with Malazan military brands on the leather girth-straps.

He was just finishing cinching the straps tight – after the gelding could hold its breath no longer – when he heard shouting from the Kindaru camp, and both he and the father turned.

A rider had appeared on the same ridge that Traveller had come to yesterday, pausing for but a moment before guiding the mount down into the camp.

Traveller swung himself on to his horse and gathered the reins.

‘See the beast she rides!' gasped the man beside him. ‘It is a Jhag'athend! We are blessed! Blessed!' And all at once he was running back to the camp.

Traveller set heels to his gelding and rode after the man.

The rider was indeed a woman, and Traveller saw almost immediately that she was of Seven Cities stock. She looked harried, threadbare and worn, but a ferocious fire blazed in her eyes when they fell upon Traveller as he rode into the camp.

‘Is there anywhere in the world where I won't run into damned Malazans?' she demanded.

Traveller shrugged. ‘And I hardly expected to encounter an Ugari woman on the back of a Jhag stallion here on the Lamatath Plain.'

Her scowl deepened. ‘I am told there's a demon travelling through here, heading north. Killing everyone in his path and no doubt enjoying every moment of it.'

‘So it seems.'

‘Good,' snapped the woman.

‘Why?' Traveller asked.

She scowled. ‘So I can give him his damned horse back, that's why!'

 

As fast as his small feet could carry him, the small boy rushed through Two-Ox Gate and out on to the raised cobble road that, if he elected to simply hurry on, and on, would take him to the very edge of the world, where he could stand on the shore staring out upon a trackless ocean, so vast it swallowed the sun every night. Alas, he wasn't going that far. Out to the hills just past the shanty town to collect dung, a bag full, as much as he could carry balanced on his head.

It is said by wise and sentimental poets that a child's eyes see farther than an adult's, and who would – with even less than a moment's thought – claim otherwise? Beyond the ridge awaits a vista crowded with possibilities, each one deemed more improbable than the last by teeth-grinding codgers eager to assert a litany of personal failures should anyone care to hear, but no one does and if that isn't proof the world's gone to ruin then what is? But
improbabilities
is a word few children know, and even if they did, why, they would dismiss the notion with a single hand fluttering overhead as they danced to the horizon. Because it will not do to creep timorously into the future, no, one should leap, sail singing through the air, and who can say where one's feet will finally set down on this solid, unknown land?

The boy hurried on, tracked by the dull eyes of the lepers in front of their hovels, squatting forlorn and forgotten each in a nest of flies when flies with singular poignancy expound the proof of cold-legged indifference. And the scrawny half-wild dogs crept out to follow him for a time, gauging with animal hunger if this one might be weakened, a thing to be taken down. But the boy collected rocks and when a dog drew too close he let fly. Ducked tails and startled yelps and now the dogs vanished like ghosts beneath stilted shacks and down narrow, twisting lanes off the main road.

Overhead, the sun regarded all with its unblinking omnipotence, and went on stealing moisture from every surface to feed its unquenchable thirst. And there were long-legged birds prancing on the sewage flats just past Brownrun Bay, beaks darting down to snatch up fleas and whatnot, while lizard-ducks nested on floating shit islands further out, calling to one another their hissing announcement of each bell in perfect cadence with the city's water clocks and those sonorous chimes drifting out over the lake, although why lizard-ducks were obsessed with such artificial segmentation of time was a question as yet unanswered even after centuries of scholarly pursuit – not that the foul-smelling creatures gave a whit for the careers they had spawned, more concerned as they were with enticing up from the soupy water eels that would swallow their eggs, only to find the shells impervious to all forms of digestion, whilst the scaled monstrosities within prepared to peck their way free and then feed on eel insides unto gluttony.

What significance, then, such details of the natural world, when the boy simply walked on, his long hair bleached by the sun and stirred like a mane by the freshening breeze? Why, none other than the value of indifference, beneath which a child may pass unnoticed, may pass by free as a fluffed seed on the warm currents of summer air. With only a faint memory of his dream the night before (and yes, the one before that, too, and so on) of that face so vicious and the eyes so caustic as to burn him with their dark intentions, the face that might pursue him through each day with the very opposite of indifference, and see how deadly that forgetfulness might be for the child who hurried on, now on a dirt track winding its way up into the modest hills where baleful goats gathered beneath the occasional tree.

For the blessing of indifference might be spun on end, momentarily offering the grim option of curse, because one child's gift can well be another's hurt. Spare then a moment for the frightened beast named Snell, and all the cruel urges driving him to lash out, to torment the brother he never wanted. He too thrives on indifference, this squat, round-shouldered, swaggering tyrant before whom the wild dogs in the shanty town cowered in instinctive recognition that he was one of their own, and the meanest of the lot besides; while the boy, chest swelled with power, continued on, trailing his intended victim with something in his soul that went far beyond a simple beating this time, oh, yes. The thing inside, it spread black, hairy legs like a spider, his hands transformed there at the end of his wrists, oh, spiders, yes, hook-taloned and fanged and onyx-eyed, and they could close into bony fists if they so desired, or they could stab with venom – why not both?

He carried rocks as well. To wing at the lepers he passed, then laugh as they flinched or cried out in pain, and he rode their ineffectual curses all the way up the road.

While, all along the hillside, the sun had done its work, and the boy filled his bag with tinder-dry dung for this night's hearthfire. Bent over like an old man, he roved this way and that. This bounty would please the woman-who-was-not-his-mother, who mothered him as a mother should – although, it must be said, lacking something essential, some maternal instinct to awaken cogent realization that her adopted son lived in grave danger – and as the sack bulked in his grip, he thought to pause and rest for a time, there, up on the summit of the hill. So that he could look out over the lake, watch the beautiful sails of the feluccas and fisher boats.

Set free his mind to wander – oh, memories are made of moments such as this one.

And, alas, of the one soon to come.

But give him these moments of freedom, so precious for their rarity. Begrudge not this gift of indifference.

It could, after all, very well be his last day of such freedom.

Down on the track at the base of the hill, Snell has spied his quarry. The spiders at the ends of his wrists opened and closed their terrible black legs. And like a monster that wrings goats' necks for the pleasure of it, he clambers upward, eyes fixed on that small back and tousled head there at the edge of the ridge.

 

In a temple slowly drowning there sat a Trell entirely covered in drying, blackening blood, and in his soul there was enough compassion to encompass an entire world, yet he sat with eyes of stone. When it is all one can do to simply hold on, then to suffer is to weather a deluge no god can ease.

Beneath the blood, faint traceries of spider's web tattooing etched his dark brown hide. These stung like hot wires wrapped about his body, his limbs; wrapped everywhere and seeming to tighten incrementally with every shiver that took him.

Three times now he had been painted in the blood of Burn, the Sleeping Goddess. The web was proving a skein of resistance, a net trapping him on the inside, and keeping out the blessed gift of the goddess.

He would pass through Burn's Gate, into the molten fires of the underworld, and the priests had prepared for that, yet now it seemed they would fail in fashioning a means of protecting his mortal flesh. What then could he do?

Well, he could walk away from this place and its huddled, doleful priests. Find another way to cross a continent, and then an ocean. He could perhaps try another temple, try to bargain with another god or goddess. He could—

‘We have failed you, Mappo Runt.'

He glanced over to meet the anguished eyes of the High Priest.

‘I am sorry,' the old man went on. ‘The web that once healed you is proving most…selfish. Claiming you for its own – Ardatha never yields her prizes. She has snared you, for purposes unknown to any but her. She is most hateful, I think.'

‘Then I will wash this off,' Mappo said, climbing to his feet, feeling the blood crack, pluck hairs from his skin. The web sang agony through him. ‘The one who healed me in Ardatha's name is here in the city – I think I had better seek her out. Perhaps I can glean from her the spider goddess's intent – what it is she would have me do.'

‘I would not recommend that,' the High Priest said. ‘In fact, Mappo, I would run away. Soon as you can. For now, at least, Ardatha's web does not seek to hold you back from the path you have chosen. Why risk a confrontation with her? No, you must find another way, and quickly.'

Mappo considered this advice for a time, then grunted and said, ‘I see the wisdom in your words; thank you. Have you any suggestions?'

The expression drooped. ‘Unfortunately, I have.' He gestured and three young acolytes crept forward. ‘These ones will assist in scrubbing the blood from you. In the meantime, I will send a runner and, perchance, an arrangement can be fashioned. Tell me, Mappo Runt, are you rich?'

Sweetest Sufferance, who had been so named by a mother either resigned to the rigours of motherhood or, conversely, poisoned by irony, blinked rapidly as she was wont to do when returning to reality. She looked round bemusedly, saw her fellow survivors seated with her, the table in their midst a chaotic clutter of cups, tankards, plates, utensils and the remnants of at least three meals. Her soft brown eyes flicked from one item to the next, then slowly lifted, out past the blank-eyed faces of her companions, and took in the taproom of Quip's Bar.

Quip Younger was barely visible on the counter, sprawled across it with his upper body and head resting on one forearm. He slept with his mouth hanging open and slick with drool. Almost within reach of the man there squatted a rat on the counter, one front paw lifting every now and then as it seemed to study the face opposite and especially the gaping dark hole of Quip Younger's mouth.

A drunk was lying just inside the door, passed out or dead, the only other patron present this early in the morning (excepting the rat).

When she finally brought her attention back to her companions, she saw Faint studying her, one brow lifting.

Sweetest Sufferance rubbed at her round face, her cheeks reminding her, oddly enough, of the dough her mother used to knead just before the harvest festival, those big round cakes all glittering with painted honey that used to trap ants and it was her task to pick them off but that was all right because they tasted wonderful.

‘Hungry again, aren't ya?'

‘You can always tell,' Sweetest Sufferance replied.

‘When you rub your cheeks, there's a look comes into your eyes, Sweetie.'

 

Faint watched as Master Quell hissed awake with a sound no different from the noise an alligator might make when one stepped too close. And glared round a moment before relaxing into a relieved slump. ‘I was dreaming—'

‘Yah,' cut in Faint, ‘you're always dreaming, and when you ain't dreaming, you're doing, and now if only those two things were any different from each other, why, you'd actually get some rest, Master. Which we'd like to see, wouldn't we just.'

‘Got you through, didn't I?'

‘Losing five shareholders in the process.'

‘That's the risks y'take,' Quell said, grimacing. ‘Hey, who's paying for all this?'

‘You might've asked that once before. You are, of course.'

‘How long we been here? Gods, my bladder feels like I'm about to pass a papaya.' And with that he reeled – wincing – upright, and tottered for the closet behind the bar.

The rat watched him pass with suspicious eyes, then crept a few waddles closer to Quip Younger's mouth.

Glanno Tarp jerked alive in his chair. ‘No more bargains!' he snarled. ‘Oh,' he then said, slouching back down. ‘Somebody stopped bringing beer – can they do that? Sweetest, darling, I dreamt we was making love—'

‘Me too,' she said. ‘Only it wasn't a dream.'

Glanno's eyes widened. ‘Really?'

‘No, it was a nightmare. If you want another round, you'll have t'wake up Quip Younger.'

Glanno squinted over. ‘He'll wake up when he can't breathe, soon as the rat goes for it. A silver council says he swallows instead of spitting out.'

At the voicing of a wager Reccanto Ilk's watery grey eyes sharpened and he said, ‘I'll take that one. Only what if he does both? Swallows then chokes and spits out? When you say “swallows” you got to mean he chews if he has to.'

‘Now that's quibblering again and when you never done that, Ilk? It's pointless you saying you want to wager when you keep rectivifying things.'

‘The point is you're always too vague, Glanno, with these bets of yours. Y'need precision—'

‘What I need is…well, I don't know what I need, but whatever it is you ain't got it.'

‘I got it but I ain't giving it,' said Sweetest Sufferance. ‘Not to none of you, anyhow. There's a man out there, oh, yes, and I'll find him one day and I'll put him in shackles and lock him in my room and I'll reduce him to a pathetic wreck. Then we'll get married.'

‘The marriage prediceeds the wrecking,' Glanno said. ‘So I might dream of you, darling, but that's as far as it'll ever go. That's called self-prevarication.'

‘Are you sure?' Faint asked him, then, as the front door squealed open, she turned in her chair. An adolescent boy in a voluminous brown robe edged in warily, eyes like freshly laid turtle eggs. Lifting the robe he stepped gingerly over the drunk and padded across to their table and if he had a tail, why, Faint told herself, it'd be half wagging half slipping down between his legs.