The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (912 page)

‘This room should do,' Nimander said as he went over to look down at Clip. ‘Any change?' he asked.

Desra glanced up. ‘No. The same slight fever, the same shallow breathing.'

Aranatha entered, looked round, then went to the booth, lifted the hinged counter and stepped through. She tried the latch on the panel door and when it opened, she disappeared into the back room.

A grunt from Skintick. ‘In need of the water closet?'

Nimander rubbed at his face, flexed his fingers to ease the ache, and then, as Nenanda arrived, he said, ‘Skintick and I will head out now. The rest of you…well, we could run into trouble at any time. And if we do one of us will try to get back here—'

‘If you run into trouble,' Aranatha said from the booth, ‘we will know it.'

Oh? How?
‘All right. We shouldn't be long.'

They had brought all their gear into the room and Nimander now watched as first Desra and then the other women began unpacking their weapons, their fine chain hauberks and mail gauntlets. He watched as they readied for battle, and said nothing as anguish filled him. None of this was right. It had never been right. And he could do nothing about it.

Skintick edged his way round the bedding and, with a tug on Nimander's arm, led him back outside. ‘They will be all right,' he said. ‘It's us I'm worried about.'

‘Us? Why?'

Skintick only smiled.

They passed through the gate and came out on to the main street once more. The mid-afternoon heat made the air sluggish, enervating. The faint singing seemed to invite them into the city's heart. An exchanged glance; then, with a shrug from Skintick, they set out.

‘That machine.'

‘What about it, Skin?'

‘Where do you think it came from? It looked as if it just…appeared, just above one of the buildings, and then dropped, smashing everything in its path, ending with itself. Do you recall those old pumps, the ones beneath Dreth Street in Malaz City? Withal found them in those tunnels he explored? Well, he took us on a tour—'

‘I remember, Skin.'

‘I'm reminded of those machines – all the gears and rods, the way the metal components all meshed so cleverly, ingeniously – I cannot imagine the mind that could think up such constructs.'

‘What is all this about, Skin?'

‘Nothing much. I just wonder if that thing is somehow connected with the arrival of the Dying God.'

‘Connected how?'

‘What if it was like a skykeep? A smaller version, obviously. What if the Dying God was
inside
it? Some accident brought it down, the locals pulled him out. What if that machine was a kind of throne?'

Nimander thought about that. A curious idea. Andarist had once explained that skykeeps – such as the one Anomander Rake claimed as his own – were not a creation of sorcery, and indeed the floating fortresses were held aloft through arcane manipulations of technology.

K'Chain Che'Malle, Kallor had said. Clearly, he had made the same connection as had Skintick.

‘Why would a god need a machine?' Nimander asked.

‘How should I know? Anyway, it's broken now.'

They came to a broad intersection. Public buildings commanded each corner, the architecture peculiarly utilitarian, as if the culture that had bred it was singularly devoid of creative flair. Glyphs made a mad scrawl on otherwise unadorned walls, some of the symbols now striking Nimander as resembling that destroyed mechanism.

The main thoroughfare continued on another two hundred paces, they could see, opening out on to an expansive round. At the far end rose the most imposing structure they had seen yet.

‘There it is,' Skintick said. ‘The Abject…altar. It's where the singing is coming from, I think.'

Nimander nodded.

‘Should we take a closer look?'

He nodded again. ‘Until something happens.'

‘Does being attacked by a raving mob count?' Skintick asked.

Figures were racing into the round, threadbare but with weapons in their hands that they waved about over their heads, their song suddenly ferocious, as they began marching towards the two Tiste Andii.

‘Here was I thinking we were going to be left alone,' Nimander said. ‘If we run, we'll just lead them back to the inn.'

‘True, but holding the gate should be manageable, two of us at a time, spelling each other.'

Nimander was the first to hear a sound behind him and he spun round, sword hissing from the scabbard.

Kallor.

The old warrior walked towards them. ‘You kicked them awake,' he said.

‘We were sightseeing,' said Skintick, ‘and though this place is miserable we kept our opinions to ourselves. In any case, we were just discussing what to do now.'

‘You could stand and fight.'

‘We could,' agreed Nimander, glancing back at the mob. Now fifty paces away and closing fast. ‘Or we could beat a retreat.'

‘They're brave right now,' Kallor observed, stepping past and drawing his two-handed sword. As he walked he looped the plain, battered weapon over his head, a few passes, as if loosening up his shoulders. Suddenly he did not seem very old at all.

Skintick asked, ‘Should we help him?'

‘Did he ask for help, Skin?'

‘No, you're right, he didn't.'

They watched as Kallor marched directly into the face of the mob.

And all at once that mob blew apart, people scattering, crowding out to the sides as the singing broke up into wails of dismay. Kallor hesitated for but a moment, before resuming his march. In the centre of a corridor now that had opened up to let him pass.

‘He just wants to see that altar,' Skintick said, ‘and he's not the one they're bothered with. Too bad,' he added, ‘it might have been interesting to see the old badger fight.'

‘Let's head back,' Nimander said, ‘while they're distracted.'

‘If they let us.'

They turned and set off, at an even, unhurried pace. After a dozen or so strides Skintick half turned. He grunted, then said, ‘They've left us to it. Nimander, the message seems clear. To get to that altar, we will have to go through them.'

‘So it seems.'

‘Things will get messy yet.'

Yes, they would.

‘So, do you think Kallor and the Dying God will have a nice conversation? Observations on the weather. Reminiscing on the old tyrannical days when everything was all fun and games. Back when the blood was redder, its taste sweeter. Do you think?'

Nimander said nothing, thinking instead of those faces in that mob, the black stains smeared round their mouths, the pits of their eyes. Clothed in rags, caked with filth, few children among them, as if the kelyk made them all equal, regardless of age, regardless of any sort of readiness to manage the world and the demands of living. They drank and they starved and the present was the future, until death stole away that future. A simple trajectory. No worries, no ambitions, no dreams.

Would any of that make killing them easier? No.

‘I do not want to do this,' Nimander said.

‘No,' Skintick agreed. ‘But what of Clip?'

‘I don't know.'

‘This kelyk is worse than a plague, because its victims invite it into their lives, and then are indifferent to their own suffering. It forces the question – have we any right to seek to put an end to it, to destroy it?'

‘Maybe not,' Nimander conceded.

‘But there is another issue, and that is mercy.'

He shot his cousin a hard look. ‘We kill them all for their own good? Abyss take us, Skin—'

‘Not them – of course not. I was thinking of the Dying God.'

Ah…well. Yes, he could see how that would work, how it could, in fact, make this palatable. If they could get to the Dying God without the need to slaughter hundreds of worshippers. ‘Thank you, Skin.'

‘For what?'

‘We will sneak past them.'

‘Carrying Clip?'

‘Yes.'

‘That won't be easy – it might be impossible, in fact. If this city is the temple, and the power of the Dying God grants gifts to the priests, then they will sense our approach no matter what we do.'

‘We are children of Darkness, Skintick. Let us see if that still means something.'

 

Desra pulled her hand from Clip's brow. ‘I was wrong. He's getting worse.' And she straightened and looked across to Aranatha. ‘How are they?'

A languid blink. ‘Coming back, unharmed.'

Something was wrong with Aranatha. Too calm, too…empty. Desra always considered her sister to be vapid – oh, she wielded a sword with consummate elegance, as cold a killer as the rest of them when necessity so demanded – but there was a kind of pervasive disengagement in Aranatha. Often descending upon her in the midst of calamity and chaos, as if the world in its bolder mayhem could bludgeon her senseless.

Making her unreliable as far as Desra was concerned. She studied Aranatha for a moment longer, their eyes meeting, and when her sister smiled Desra answered with a scowl and turned to Nenanda. ‘Did you find anything to eat in the taproom? Or drink?'

The warrior was standing by the front door, which he held open with one hand. At Desra's questions he glanced back. ‘Plenty, as if they'd just left – or maybe it was a delivery, like the kind we got on the road.'

‘Someone must be growing proper food, then,' said Kedeviss. ‘Or arranging its purchase from other towns and the like.'

‘They've gone to a lot of trouble for us,' Nenanda observed. ‘And that makes me uneasy.'

‘Clip is dying, Aranatha,' Desra said.

‘Yes.'

‘They're back,' Nenanda announced.

‘Nimander will know what to do,' Desra pronounced.

‘Yes,' said Aranatha.

 

She circled once, high above the city, and even her preternatural sight struggled against the eternal darkness below. Kurald Galain was a most alien warren, even in this diffused, weakened state. Passing directly over the slumbering mass of Silanah, Crone cackled out an ironic greeting. Of course there was no visible response from the crimson dragon, yet the Great Raven well knew that Silanah sensed her wheeling overhead. And no doubt permitted, in a flash of imagery, the vision of jaws snapping, bones and feathers crunching as delicious fluids spurted – Crone cackled again, louder this time, and was rewarded with a twitch of that long, serpentine tail.

She slid on to an updraught from the cliff's edge, then angled down through it on a steep dive towards the low-walled balcony of the keep.

He stood alone, something she had come to expect of late. The Son of Darkness was closing in, like an onyx flower as the bells of midnight rang on, chime by chime to the twelfth and last, and then there would be naught but echoes, until even these faded, leaving silence. She crooked her wings to slow her plummet, the keep still rushing up to meet her. A flurry of beating wings and she settled atop the stone wall, talons crunching into the granite.

‘And does the view ever change?' Crone asked.

Anomander Rake looked down, regarded her for a time.

She opened her beak to laugh in silence for a few heartbeats. ‘The Tiste Andii are not a people prone to sudden attacks of joy, are they? Dancing into darkness? The wild cheerful cavort into the future? Do you imagine that our flight from his rotting flesh was not one of rapturous glee? Pleasure at being born, delight at being alive? Oh, I have run out of questions for you – it is indeed now a sad time.'

‘Does Baruk understand, Crone?'

‘He does. More or less. Perhaps. We'll see.'

‘Something is happening to the south.'

She bobbed her head in agreement. ‘Something, oh yes, something all right. Are the priestesses in a wild orgy yet? The plunge that answers
everything
! Or, rather, postpones the need for answers for a time, a time of corresponding bliss, no doubt. But then…reality returns. Damn reality, damn it to the Abyss! Time for another plunge!'

‘Travel has soured your mood, Crone.'

‘It is not in my nature to grieve. I despise it, in fact. I rail against it! My sphincter explodes upon it! And yet, what is it you force upon me, your old companion, your beloved servant?'

‘I have no such intention,' he replied. ‘Clearly, you fear the worst. Tell me, what have your kin seen?'

‘Oh, they are scattered about, here and there, ever high above the petty machinations of the surface crawlers. We watch as they crawl this way and that. We watch, we laugh, we sing their tales to our sisters, our brothers.'

‘And?'

She ducked her head, fixed one eye upon the tumultuous black seas below. ‘This darkness of yours, Master, breeds fierce storms.'

‘So it does.'

‘I will fly high above the twisting clouds, into air clear and cold.'

‘And so you shall, Crone, so you shall.'

‘I dislike it when you are generous, Master. When that soft regard steals into your eyes. It is not for you to reveal compassion. Stand here, yes, unseen, unknowable, that I might hold this in my mind. Let me think of the ice of true justice, the kind that never shatters – listen, I hear the bells below! How sure that music, how true the cry of iron.'

‘You are most poetic this day, Crone.'

‘It is how Great Ravens rail at grief, Master. Now, what would you have me do?'

‘Endest Silann is at the deep river.'

‘Hardly alone, I should think.'

‘He must return.'

She was silent for a moment, head cocked. Then she said, ‘Ten bells have sounded.'

‘Ten.'

‘I shall be on my way, then.'

‘Fly true, Crone.'

‘I pray you tell your beloved the same, Master, when the time is nigh.'

He smiled. ‘There is no need for that.'

No purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine. This scattering of sticks in the dust, that any adult might kick through without a moment's thought, is in truth the bones of a vast world, clothed, fleshed, a fortress, a forest, a great wall against which terrible hordes surge and are thrown back by a handful of grim heroes. A nest for dragons, and these shiny smooth pebbles are their eggs, each one home to a furious, glorious future. No creation was ever raised as fulfilled, as brimming, as joyously triumphant, and all the machinations and manipulations of adults are the ghostly recollections of childhood and its wonders, the awkward mating to cogent function, reasonable purpose; and each façade has a tale to recount, a legend to behold in stylized propriety. Statues in alcoves fix sombre expressions, indifferent to every passer-by. Regimentation rules these creaking, stiff minds so settled in habit and fear.

To drive children into labour is to slaughter artists, to scour deathly all wonder, the flickering dart of imagination eager as finches flitting from branch to branch – all crushed to serve grown-up needs and heartless expectations. The adult who demands such a thing is dead inside, devoid of nostalgia's bright dancing colours, so smooth, so delicious, so replete with longing both sweet and bitter – dead inside, yes, and dead outside, too. Corpses in motion, cold with the resentment the undead bear towards all things still alive, all things still warm, still breathing.

Pity these ones? Nay, never, never so long as they drive on hordes of children into grisly labour, then sup languid of air upon the myriad rewards.

Dare this round self descend into hard judgement? This round self does dare! A world built of a handful of sticks can start tears in the eyes, as the artist on hands and knees sings a score of wordless songs, speaks in a hundred voices, and moves unseen figures across the vast panorama of the mind's canvas (pausing but once to wipe nose on sleeve). He does so dare this! And would hasten the demise of such cruel abuse.

Even a serpent has grandiose designs, yet must slither in minute increments, struggling for distances a giant or god would scorn. Tongue flicking for the scent, this way and that. Salvation is the succulent fruit at hunt's end, the sun-warmed bird's egg, the soft cuddly rat trapped in the jaws.

So searches the serpent, friend to the righteous. So slides the eel through the world's stirred muck, whiskers a-probing. Soon, one hopes, soon!

 

Young Harllo was not thinking of justice, nor of righteous freedom, nor was he idly fashioning glittering worlds from the glistening veins of raw iron, or the flecks of gold in the midst of cold, sharp quartzite. He had no time to kneel in some overgrown city garden building tiny forts and reed bridges over run-off tracks left by yesterday's downpour. No, for Harllo childhood was over. Aged six.

At this moment, then, he was lying on a shelf of hard, black stone, devoured by darkness. He could barely hear the workers far above, although rocks bounced their way down the crevasse every now and then, echoing with harsh barks from the floor far below.

The last time here he had dangled from a rope, and there had been no careless rain of stones – any one of which could crush his skull. And on his descent back then, his outstretched arms had encountered no walls, leading him to believe the crevasse was vast, opening out perhaps into a cavern. This time, of course, there was no rope – Harllo should not even be here and would probably be switched once he was found out.

Bainisk had sent him back to Chuffs at shift's end. And that was where he ought now to be, hurriedly devouring his bowl of watery soup and husk of black bread, before stumbling off to his cot. Instead, he was climbing down this wall, without light to ensure that he would not be discovered by those working above.

Not a cavern after all. Instead, a pocked, sheer cliff-face – and those gaping holes were all oddly regular, rectangular, although not until Harllo reached this balcony ledge did he comprehend that he was climbing down the face of some buried building. He wanted to slip into one of these windows and explore, but he had promised to deliver
splints
to the Bone Miner below, and that was what he would do.

Careful questioning had led him to a definition of ‘splints', but he could not find sticks suitable for the purpose of fixing the Miner's shattered legs. Either too feeble and small, or not straight enough; and besides, all the wood brought to the camp was too well guarded. Instead, he had gone to the tailings heaps, where all manner of garbage was thrown. Eyed suspiciously by the old women who'd sold children and grandchildren to the mine yet found they could not sever their ties – thus dooming themselves to this fringe-world at camp's edge – Harllo had picked through the rubbish.

Often, and especially from the run-off tunnels pumped through layers of sandstone, miners would find piles of bones from long-dead creatures. Bones heavy and solid and almost impossible to break. Skulls and the like were sold to collectors – scholars with squinty eyes and too much coin and time for their own good. The pieces already fractured off, broken up and forming a kind of gravel, went to the herbalists for their gardens and the mock-healers for potions and pastes – or so Bainisk called them,
mock-healers
, with a sneer –
ground-up bone's good only for constipation!
This left the oversized long bones – which for some reason were believed to be cursed.

Out on the heaps he found two that seemed to have been from the same kind of beast. After some examination and comparison, he confirmed that he had a right one and a left one. They were heavy, thick and ridged, and he hoped they would do.

Between shifts at the main tunnel there was a half-bell when no one was under rock, and Harllo, sweating beneath the weight of the bones, hurriedly carried them in; then, finding an abandoned side-passage, he stashed them along with some lengths of rope and leather laces. That had been before his shift, and now here he was, trying to do what he had promised.

Those long leg bones were strapped to his back. His neck and shoulders were raw from the ropes and more than once he had thought the swinging of the heavy bones would tug him away from the wall, but he had held on, this far at least.

And now, lying on this balcony ledge, Harllo rested.

If someone went looking for him and didn't find him, an alarm would be raised. Always two possibilities when someone went missing. Flight, or lost in the tunnels. Searches would set out in both directions, and some old woman would say how she saw him at the heaps, collecting bones and who knew what else. Then someone else would recall seeing Harllo carrying something back to the main tunnel mouth in between shifts – and Venaz would say that Harllo was clearly up to something, since he never came back for his meal. Something against the rules! Which would put Bainisk in a bad situation, since Bainisk had favoured him more than once. Oh, this was all a mistake!

Groaning, he slipped over the edge, cautious with his handholds, and resumed his journey down.

And, not two man-heights down from the balcony, his groping feet found another ledge, followed immediately by another – a staircase, angling steeply down the wall. One hand maintaining contact with the seamless stone, Harllo worked his way down, step by step.

He did not recall noticing any of this his first time down here. Of course, the candle light had been feeble – which made easier catching the glitter of gold and the like – and he had gone straight back to the rope. And hadn't his mind been awhirl? A talking Imass! Down here for maybe hundreds of years – with no one to talk to and nothing to look at, oh, how miserable that must have been.

So. He should not be resenting doing all this for the Bone Miner. A few switches to the back wasn't much to pay for this mercy.

He reached the floor and paused. So dark! ‘Hello? It's me! Dev'ad Anan Tol, can you hear me?'

‘I can. Follow, then, the sound of my voice. If such a thing is possible—'

‘It is…I think. Scratch the rock you're sitting on – I'll feel that under my feet—'

‘That,' said the Imass, ‘is an impressive talent.'

‘I'm good when I can't see. Vibrations, it's called.'

‘Yes. Can you feel this then?'

‘I'm getting closer, yes. I think I can start a lantern here. Shuttered so it won't spread out.' He crouched down, the ends of the long bones thunking behind him, and untied the small tin lantern from his belt. ‘This one's called a pusher. You can fix it on to a pole and push it ahead. If the wick dims fast then you know it's bad air. Wait.' A moment later and soft golden light slanted like a path, straight to where sat the Bone Miner. Harllo grinned. ‘See, I was almost there, wasn't I?'

‘What is it that you carry, cub?'

‘Your
splints
. And rope and string.'

‘Let me see those…bones. Yes, give them to me—' And he reached out skeletal hands to grasp the splints as soon as Harllo came close enough. A low grating gasp from the Imass, then soft muttering. ‘By the Shore of Jaghra Til, I had not thought to see…Cub, my tools…for this. The gift is not in balance.'

‘I can try to find some better ones—'

‘No, child. The imbalance is the other way. These are emlava, a male, his hind long bones. True, they twist and cant. Still…yes…possible.'

‘Will they work as splints then?'

‘No.'

Harllo sagged.

The Imass rumbled a low laugh. ‘Ah, cub. Not splints. No.
Legs.
'

‘So you can walk again? Oh, I'm glad!'

‘If indeed I was somehow caught in the Ritual of Tellann, yes, I think I can fashion…from these…why do you fret so, cub?'

‘I had to sneak down here. If they find out I'm missing…'

‘What will happen?'

‘I might be beaten – not so much as to make me useless. It won't be so bad.'

‘You should go, then, quickly.'

Harllo nodded, yet still he hesitated. ‘I found a building, a buried building. Was that where you lived?'

‘No. It was a mystery even to the Jaghut Tyrant. Countless empty rooms, windows looking out upon nothing – blank rock, pitted sandstone. Corridors leading nowhere – we explored most of it, I recall, and found nothing. Do not attempt the same, cub. It is very easy to get lost in there.'

‘I better go,' said Harllo. ‘If I can come down here again—'

‘Not at risk of your hide. Soon, perhaps, I will come to you.'

Harllo thought of the consternation such an event would bring, and he smiled. A moment later he shuttered the lantern and set off for the stairs.

From sticks a fortress, a forest, a great wall. From sticks, a giant, rising up in the darkness, and to look into the pits of its eyes is to see twin tunnels into rock, reaching down and down, reaching back and back, to the very bones of the earth.

And so he rises, to look upon you – Harllo imagines this but none of it in quite this way. Such visions and their deadly promise belong to the adults of the world. To answer what's been done. What's been done.

 

And in the city every building wears a rictus grin, or so it might seem, when the stone, brick, plaster and wood breathe in the gloom of dusk, and the gas lanterns are yet to be set alight, and all the world is ebbing with shadows drawing together to take away all certainty. The city, this artifice of cliffs and caves, whispers of madness. Figures scurry for cover, rats and worse peer out curious and hungry, voices grow raucous in taverns and other fiery sanctuaries.

Is this the city of the day just past? No, it is transformed, nightmare-tinged, into a netherworld so well suited to the two figures walking – with comfort and ease – towards the gate of an estate. Where stand two guards, nervous, moments from warning the strangers off – for the Lady of the House was in residence and she valued her privacy, yes, she did. Or so it must be assumed, and Scorch and Leff, having discussed the matter at length, were indeed convinced that, being a Lady, she valued all those things few others could afford, including…er, privacy.

They held crossbows because who could say what might creep into view and besides, the heavy weapons were so comforting to cradle when clouds devoured the stars and the moon had forgotten to rise and the damned lanterns still weren't lit. True enough, torches in sconces framed the arched gateway but this did little more than blind the two guards to the horrors lurking just beyond the pool of light.