The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (887 page)

So they would not have to wait until the morrow after all. Most
consequential
indeed.

Happy days!

 

Conspiracies are the way of the civilized world, both those real and those imagined, and in all the perambulations of move and countermove, why, the veracity of such schemes is irrelevant. In a subterranean, most private chamber in the estate of Councilman Gorlas Vidikas sat fellow Council members Shardan Lim and Hanut Orr in the company of their worthy host, and the wine had flowed like the fount of the Queen of Dreams – or if not dreams then at least irresponsible aspirations – throughout the course of the night just past.

Still somewhat inebriated and perhaps exhausted unto satiation by self-satisfaction, they were comfortably silent, each feeling wiser than their years, each feeling that well-spring of power against which reason was helpless. In their half-lidded eyes something was swollen and nothing in the world was unattainable. Not for these three.

‘Coll will be a problem,' Hanut said.

‘Nothing new there,' Shardan muttered, and the other two granted him soft, muted laughter. ‘Although,' he added as he played with a silver candle snuffer, ‘unless we give him cause for suspicion, there is no real objection he can legitimately make. Our nominee is well enough respected, not to mention harmless, at least physically.'

‘It's just that,' Hanut said, shaking his head, ‘by virtue of us as nominators, Coll will be made suspicious.'

‘We play it as we discussed, then,' Shardan responded, taunting with death the nearest candle's flame. ‘Bright-eyed and full of ourselves and brazenly awkward, eager to express our newly acquired privilege to propose new Council members. We'd hardly be the first to be so clumsy and silly, would we?'

Gorlas Vidikas found his attention wandering – they'd gone through all this before, he seemed to recall. Again and again, in fact, through the course of the night, and now a new day had come, and still they chewed the same tasteless grist. Oh, these two companions of his liked the sound of their own voices all too well. Converting dialogue into an argument even when both were in agreement, and all that distinguished the two was the word choices concocted in each reiteration.

Well, they had their uses none the less. And this thing he had fashioned here was proof enough of that.

And now, of course, Hanut once more fixed eyes upon him and asked yet again the same question, ‘Is this fool of yours worth it, Gorlas? Why him? It's not as if we aren't approached almost every week by some new prospect wanting to buy our votes on to the Council. Naturally, it serves us better to string the fools along, gaining favour upon favour, and maybe one day deciding we own so much of them that it will be worth our while to bring them forward. In the meantime, of course, we just get richer and more influential
outside
the Council. The gods know, we can get pretty damned rich with
this
one.'

‘He is not the type who will play the whore to our pimp, Hanut.'

A frown of distaste. ‘Hardly a suitable analogy, Gorlas. You forget that you are the junior among us here.'

The one who happens to own the woman you both want in your beds. Don't chide me about whores and pimps, when you know what you'll pay for her.
Such thoughts remained well hidden behind his momentarily chastened expression. ‘He'll not play the game, then. He wants to attain the Council, and in return we shall be guaranteed his support when we make our move to shove aside the elder statesmen and their fossilized ways, and take the
real
power.'

Shardan grunted. ‘Seems a reasonable arrangement, Hanut. I'm tired, I need some sleep.' And he doused the candle before him as he rose. ‘Hanut, I know a new place for breakfast.' He smiled at Gorlas. ‘I am not being rude in not inviting you, friend. Rather, I imagine your wife will wish to greet you this morning, with a breakfast you can share. The Council does not meet until mid-afternoon, after all. Take your leisure, Gorlas, when you can.'

‘I will walk you both out,' he replied, a smile fixed upon his face.

 

Most of the magic Lady Challice Vidikas was familiar with was of the useless sort. As a child she had heard tales of great and terrible sorcery, of course, and had she not seen for herself Moon's Spawn? On the night when it sank so low its raw underside very nearly brushed the highest rooftops, and there had been dragons in the sky then, and a storm to the east that was said to have been fierce magic born of some demonic war out in the Gadrobi Hills, and then the confused madness behind Lady Simtal's estate. But none of this had actually affected her directly. Her life had slipped through the world so far as most people's did, rarely touched by anything beyond the occasional ministrations of a healer. All she had in her possession was a scattering of ensorcelled items intended to do little more than entrance and amuse.

One such object was before her now, on her dresser, a hemisphere of near-perfect glass in which floated a semblance of the moon, shining as bright as it would in the night sky. The details on its face were exact, at least from the time when the real moon's visage had been visible, instead of blurred and uncertain as it was now.

A wedding gift, she recalled, although she'd forgotten from whom it had come. One of the less obnoxious guests, she suspected, someone with an eye to romance in the old-fashioned sense, perhaps. A dreamer, a genuine well-wisher. At night, if she desired darkness in the room, the half-globe needed covering, for its refulgent glow was bright enough to read by. Despite this inconvenience, Challice kept the gift, and indeed kept it close.

Was it because Gorlas despised it? Was it because, while it had once seemed to offer her a kind of promise, it had, over time, transformed into a symbol of something entirely different? A tiny moon, yes, shining ever so bright, yet there it remained, trapped with nowhere to go. Blazing its beacon like a cry for help, with an optimism that never waned, a hope that never died.

Now, when she looked upon the object, she found herself feeling claustrophobic, as if she was somehow sharing its fate. But
she
could not shine for ever, could she? No, her glow would fade, was fading even now. And so, although she possessed this symbol of what might be, her sense of it had grown into a kind of fascinated resentment, and even to look upon it, as she was doing now, was to feel its burning touch, searing her mind with a pain that was almost delicious.

All because it had begun feeding a desire, and perhaps this was a far more powerful sorcery than she had first imagined; indeed, an enchantment tottering on the edge of a curse. The burnished light breathed into her, filled her mind with strange thoughts and hungers growing ever more desperate for appeasement. She was being enticed into a darker world, a place of hedonistic indulgences, a place unmindful of the future and dismissive of the past.

It beckoned to her, promising the bliss of the ever-present moment, and it was to be found, she knew,
somewhere out there.

She could hear her husband on the stairs, finally deigning to honour her with his company, although after a night's worth of drinking and all the manly mutual raising of hackles, verbal strutting and preening, he would be unbearable. She had not slept well and was, truth be told, in no mood for him (but then, she realized, she had been in no mood for him for some time, now – shock!), so she swiftly rose and went to her private changing room. A journey out into the city would suit her restlessness. Yes, to walk without purpose and gaze upon the detritus of the night's festivities, to be amused by the bleary eyes and unshaven faces and the last snarl of exhausted arguments.

And she would take her breakfast upon a terrace balcony in one of the more elegant restaurants, perhaps Kathada's or the Oblong Pearl, permitting her a view of the square and Borthen Park where servants walked watchdogs and nannies pushed two-wheeled prams in which huddled a new generation of the privileged, tucked inside nests of fine cotton and silk.

There, with fresh fruits and a carafe of delicate white wine, and perhaps even a pipe bowl, she would observe all the life meandering below, sparing a thought (just once and then done with) for the dogs she didn't want and the children she didn't have and probably would never have, given Gorlas's predilections. To think, for a time, in a musing way, of his parents and their dislike of her – convinced that she was barren, no doubt, but no woman ever got pregnant from that place, did she? – and of her own father, now a widower, with his sad eyes and the smile he struggled to fashion every time he looked upon her. To contemplate, yet again, the notion of pulling her father aside and warning him – about what? Well, her husband, for one, and Hanut Orr and Shardan Lim for that matter. Dreaming of a great triumvirate of tyranny and undoubtedly scheming to bring it about. But then, he would laugh, wouldn't he? And say how the young Council members were all the same, blazing with ambition and conviction, and that their ascension was but a matter of time, as unstoppable as an ocean tide, and soon they would come to realize that and cease their endless plans of usurpation. Patience, he would tell her, is the last virtue learned.
Yes, but often too late to be of any value, dear Father. Look at you, a lifetime spent with a woman you never liked, and now, free at last, you find yourself grey, a fresh stoop to your shoulders, and you sleep ten bells every night—

Such thoughts and others whilst she refreshed herself and began selecting her attire for the day. And in the bedroom beyond she heard Gorlas sit on the bed, no doubt unlacing his boots, knowing well that she was here in the tiny chamber and clearly not caring.

And what then would Darujhistan offer up to her this bright day? Well, she would see, wouldn't she?

 

She turned from watching her students in the compound and, eyes alighting upon him, she scowled. ‘Oh, it's you.'

‘This is the new crop, then? Apsalar's sweet kiss, Stonny.'

Her scowl turned wry and she walked past him into the shade of the colonnade, where she sat down on the bench beside the archway, stretching out her legs. ‘I won't deny it, Gruntle. But it's something I've been noticing – the noble-born children are all arriving lazy, overweight and uninterested. Sword skill is something their fathers want for them, as obnoxious to them as lyre lessons or learning numbers. Most of them can't even hold up the practice swords for longer than fifty heartbeats, and here it's expected I can work them into something worth more than snot in eight months. Apsalar's sweet kiss? Yes, I'll accept that. It
is
theft, all right.'

‘And you're doing well by it, I see.'

She ran one gloved hand along her right thigh. ‘The new leggings? Gorgeous, aren't they?'

‘Stunning.'

‘Black velvet doesn't work on any old legs, you know.'

‘Not mine, anyway.'

‘What do you want, Gruntle? I see the barbs have faded, at least. News was you were positively glowing when you came back.'

‘A disaster. I need a new line of work.'

‘Don't be ridiculous. It's the only thing you're remotely good at. Oafs like you need to be out there, chopping through the thick skulls of bandits and whatnot. Once you start staying put this city is doomed and it just so happens that I like living here, so the sooner you're back out on the trails the better.'

‘I missed you too, Stonny.'

She snorted.

‘Bedek and Myrla are well, by the way.'

‘Stop right there.'

He sighed, rubbed at his face.

‘I mean it, Gruntle.'

‘Look, an occasional visit is all I'm asking—'

‘I send money.'

‘You do? That's the first I've heard of that. Not a mention from Bedek and from how they're doing, well, you can't be sending much, or very often.'

She glared at him. ‘Snell meets me outside the door and the coins go right into his hands – I make sure, Gruntle. Anyway, how dare you? I made the adoption legal and so I don't owe them anything, damn you.'

‘Snell. Well, that probably explains it. Next time try Myrla or Bedek, anyone but Snell.'

‘You're saying the little shit is stealing it?'

‘Stonny, they're barely scraping by, and, thinking on it, well, I know you well enough to know that, adoption or no, you won't see them starve – any of them, especially not your son.'

‘Don't call him that.'

‘Stonny—'

‘The spawn of rape – I can see
his
face, right there in Harllo's own, looking up at me. I can see it clear, Gruntle.' And she shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes, and her legs had drawn up, tightly clenched, and all the bravado was gone as she clasped her arms tight about herself, and Gruntle felt his heart breaking yet again and there was nothing he could do, nothing he could say to make it any better, only worse.

‘You'd better go,' she said in a tight voice. ‘Come back when the world dies, Gruntle.'

‘I was thinking about the Trygalle Trade Guild.'

Her head snapped round. ‘Are you mad? Got a damned death wish?'

‘Maybe I do.'

‘Get out of my sight, then. Go on, run off and get yourself killed.'

‘Your students look ready to keel over,' Gruntle observed. ‘Repeated lunges aren't easy for anyone – I doubt any of them will be able to walk come the morrow.'

‘Never mind them. If you're really thinking of signing on with the Trygalle, say it plain.'

‘I thought you might talk me out of it.'

‘Why would I bother? You got your life just like I got mine. We aren't married. We aren't even lovers—'

‘Had any success in that area, Stonny? Someone might—'

‘Stop this. Stop all of it. You're like this every time you come back from a bad one. All full of pity and damn near dripping with sanctimony while you try and try to convince me.'