The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (953 page)

Snell said nothing. There was true terror inside him now. So much terror it filled him up, spilled out through his pores, and out from between his legs. This Bellam was a monster. He didn't feel anything for nobody. He just wanted to hurt Snell. A monster. A vicious demon, yes, a demon. Bellam was everything that was wrong with…with…everything.

‘I'll be good,' Snell whimpered. ‘You'll see. I'll make it right, all of it.'

But these were lies, and both of them knew it. Snell was what he was, and no amount of cuddling and coddling would change that. He stood, there in the mind, as if to say:
we are in your world. More of us than you imagine. If you knew how many of us there are, you'd be very, very frightened. We are here. Now, what are you going to do with us?
Snell was what he was, yes, and so, too, was Bellam Nom.

When he was dragged in through the narrow door of a nondescript shop at the near end of Twisty Alley, Snell suddenly recoiled – he knew this place. He knew—

‘What you got yourself there, Bellam?'

‘A fresh one, Goruss, and I'll let him go cheap.'

‘
Wait!
' Snell shrieked, and then a heavy hand clamped over his mouth and he was pulled into the gloom, smelling rank sweat, feeling a breath on his cheek as the ogre named Goruss leaned in close.

‘A screamer, iz he?'

‘A nasty little shit, in fact.'

‘We'll work that outer 'im.'

‘Not this one. He'd stab his mother just to watch the blood flow. 'Sprobably left a trail of tortured small animals ten leagues long, buried in little holes in every back yard of the neighbourhood. This is one of those, Goruss.'

‘Eighteen silver?'

‘Slivers?'

‘Yah.'

‘All right.'

Snell thrashed about as he was carried off into a back room, then down steps and into an unlit cellar that smelled of piss-soaked mud. He was gagged and bound and thrown into a low iron cage. Goruss then went back up the stairs, leaving Snell alone.

In the front room, Goruss sat down across from Bellam. ‘Ale, nephew?'

‘Too early for me, Uncle.'

‘How long you want me to hold him?'

‘Long enough to shit everything out of him. I want him so scared he breaks inside.'

‘Give him a night, then. Enough to run through all his terrors, but not so much he gets numb. Shit, nephew, I don't deal in anybody under, oh, fifteen years old, and we do careful interviewing and observing, and only the completely hopeless ones get shipped to the rowing benches. And even then, they get paid and fed and signed out after five years – and most of them do good after that.'

‘I doubt Snell knows any of that, Uncle. Just that children are dragged into this shop and they don't come back out.'

‘Must look that way.'

Bellam smiled. ‘Oh, it does, Uncle, it does.'

 

‘Not seen him in days.'

Barathol just nodded, then walked over to the cask of water to wash the grime off his forearms and hands. Chaur sat on a crate nearby, eating some local fruit with a yellow skin and pink, fleshy insides. Juice dribbled down his stubbled chin.

Scillara gave him a bright smile as she wandered into the front room. The air smelled brittle and acrid, the way it does in smithies, and she thought now that, from this moment on, the scent would accompany her every recollection of Barathol, this large man with the gentle eyes. ‘Had any more trouble with the Guilds?' she asked.

He dried himself off and flung the cloth to one side. ‘They're making it hard, but I expected that. We're surviving.'

‘So I see.' She kicked at a heap of iron rods. ‘New order?'

‘Swords. The arrival of the Malazan embassy's garrison has triggered a new fad among the nobles. Imperial longswords. Gave trouble to most of the local swordsmiths.' He shrugged. ‘Not me, of course.'

Scillara settled down in the lone chair and began scraping out her pipe. ‘What's so special about Malazan longswords?'

‘The very opposite, actually. The local makers haven't quite worked out that they have to reverse engineer to get them right.'

‘Reverse engineer?'

‘The Malazan longsword's basic design and manufacture is originally Untan, from the imperial mainland. Three centuries old, at least, maybe older. The empire still uses the Untan foundries and they're a conservative bunch.'

‘Well, if the damned things do what they're supposed to do, why make changes?'

‘That seems to be the thinking, yes. The locals have gone mad folding and refolding, trying to capture that rough solidity, but the Untan smiths are in the habit of working iron not hot enough. It's also red iron that they're using – the Untan Hills are rotten with it even though it's rare everywhere else.' He paused, watching as she lit her pipe. ‘This can't be of any real interest to you, Scillara.'

‘Not really, but I do like the sound of your voice.' And she looked up at him through the smoke, her eyes half veiled.

‘Anyway, I can make decent copies and the word's gone out. Eventually, some swordsmith will work things out, but by then I'll have plenty of satisfied customers and even undercutting me won't be too damaging.'

‘Good,' she said.

He studied her for a moment, and then said, ‘So, Cutter's gone missing, has he?'

‘I don't know about that. Only that I've not seen him in a few days.'

‘Are you worried?'

She thought about it, and then thought some more. ‘Barathol, that wasn't my reason for visiting you. I wasn't looking for someone to charge in as if Cutter's been kidnapped or something. I'm here because I wanted to see you. I'm lonely – oh, I don't mean anybody'll do, either, when I say that. I just wanted to see you, that's all.'

After a moment, he shrugged and held out his hands. ‘Here I am.'

‘You won't make it easy, will you?'

‘Scillara, look at me. Please, look. Carefully. You're too fast for me. Cutter, that historian, even that Bridgeburner, you leave them all spinning in your wake. Given my choice, I'd rather go through the rest of my life beneath the notice of everyone. I'm not interested in drama, or even excitement.'

She stretched out her legs. ‘And you think I am?'

‘It's life that you're full of.' Barathol frowned and then shook his head. ‘I'm not very good at saying what I mean, am I?'

‘Keep trying.'

‘You can be…overwhelming.'

‘Typical, put on a little fat and suddenly I'm too much for him.'

‘You're not fat and you know it. You have,' he hesitated, ‘shape.'

She thought to laugh, decided that it might come out too obviously hurt, which would make him feel even worse. Besides, her comment had been little more than desperate misdirection – she'd lost most of the weight she'd put on during her pregnancy. ‘Barathol, has it not occurred to you that maybe I am as I am because behind it all there's not much else?'

His frown deepened.

Chaur dropped down from the crate and came over. He patted her on the head with a sticky hand and then hurried off into the yard.

‘But you've lived through so much.'

‘And you haven't? Gods below, you were an officer in the Red Blades. What you did in Aren—'

‘Was just me avoiding a mess, Scillara. As usual.'

‘What are we talking about here?'

His eyes shied away. ‘I'm not sure. I suppose, now that Cutter's left you…'

‘And Duiker's too old and Picker's a woman and that's fun but not serious – for me, at least – I've found myself in need of another man. Chaur's a child, in his head, that is. Leaving…you.'

The harsh sarcasm of her voice stung him and he almost stepped back. ‘From where I'm standing,' he said.

‘Well,' she said, sighing, ‘it's probably what I deserve, actually. I have been a bit…loose. Wayward. Looking, trying, not finding, trying again. And again. From where you're standing, yes, I can see that.'

‘None of that would matter to me,' Barathol then said. ‘Except, well, I don't want to be just another man left in your wake.'

‘No wonder you've devoted your life to making weapons and armour. Problem is, you're doing that for everyone else.'

He said nothing. He simply watched her, as, she realized, he had been doing for some time now. All at once, Scillara felt uncomfortable. She drew hard on her pipe. ‘Barathol, you need some armour of your own.'

And he nodded. ‘I see.'

‘I'm not going to make promises I can't keep. Still, it may be that my waywardness is coming to an end. People like us, who spend all our time looking, well, even when we
find
it we usually don't realize – until it's too late.'

‘Cutter.'

She squinted up at him. ‘He had no room left in his heart, Barathol. Not for me, not for anyone.'

‘So he's just hiding right now?'

‘In more ways than one, I suspect.'

‘But he's broken your heart, Scillara.'

‘Has he?' She considered. ‘Maybe he has. Maybe I'm the one needing armour.' She snorted. ‘Puts me in my place, doesn't it.' And she rose.

Barathol started. ‘Where are you going?'

‘What? I don't know. Somewhere. Nowhere. Does it matter?'

‘Wait.' He stepped closer. ‘Listen to me, Scillara.' And then he was silent, on his face a war of feelings trying to find words. After a moment, his scowl deepened. ‘Yesterday, if Cutter had just walked in here to say hello, I'd have taken him by the throat. Hood, I'd have probably beaten him unconscious and tied him up in that chair. Where he'd stay – until you dropped by.'

‘Yesterday.'

‘When I thought I had no chance.'

She was having her own trouble finding words. ‘And now?'

‘I think…I've just thrown on some armour.'

‘The soldier…unretires.'

‘Well, I'm a man, and a man never learns.'

She grinned. ‘That's true enough.'

And then she leaned close, and as he slowly raised his arms to take her into an embrace she almost shut her eyes – all that relief, all that anticipation of pleasure, even joy – and the hands instead grasped her upper arms and she was pushed suddenly to one side. Startled, she turned to see a squad of City Guard crowding the doorway.

The officer in the lead had the decency to look embarrassed.

‘Barathol Mekhar? By city order, this smithy is now under temporary closure, and I am afraid I have to take you into custody.'

‘The charge?'

‘Brought forward by the Guild of Smiths. Contravention of proper waste disposal. It is a serious charge, I'm afraid. You could lose your business.'

‘I don't understand,' Barathol said. ‘I am making use of the sewage drains – I spill nothing—'

‘The common drain, yes, but you should be using the industrial drain, which runs alongside the common drain.'

‘This is the first I have heard of such a thing.'

‘Well,' said a voice behind the guards, ‘if you were a member of the Guild, you'd know all about it, wouldn't you?'

It was a woman who spoke, but Scillara could not see past the men in the doorway.

Barathol threw up his hands. ‘Very well, I am happy to comply. I will install the proper pipes—'

‘You may do so,' said the officer, ‘once the charges are properly adjudicated, fines paid, and so forth. In the meantime, this establishment must be shut down. The gas valves must be sealed. Materials and tools impounded.'

‘I see. Then let me make some arrangement for my helper – somewhere to stay and—'

‘I am sorry,' cut in the officer, ‘but the charge is against both you and your apprentice.'

‘Not precisely,' said the unseen woman. ‘The blacksmith cannot have an apprentice unless he is a member of the Guild. The two are colluding to undermine the Guild.'

The officer's expression tightened. ‘As she said, yes. I'm not here to prattle on in the language of an advocate. I do the arrest and leave one of my guards to oversee the decommissioning of the establishment by a qualified crew.'

‘A moment,' said Barathol. ‘You are arresting Chaur?'

‘Is that your apprentice's name?'

‘He's not my apprentice. He's a simpleton—'

‘Little more than a slave, then,' snapped the unseen official of the Guild. ‘That would be breaking a much more serious law, I should think.'

Scillara watched as two men went to the yard and returned with a wide-eyed, whimpering Chaur. Barathol attempted to console him, but guards stepped in between them and the officer warned that, while he didn't want to make use of shackles, he would if necessary. So, if everyone could stay calm and collected, they could march out of here like civilized folk. Barathol enquired as to his right to hire an advocate and the officer replied that, while it wasn't a right as such, it was indeed a privilege Barathol could exercise, assuming he could afford one.

At that point Scillara spoke up and said, ‘I'll find one for you, Barathol.'

A flicker of relief and gratitude in his eyes, replaced almost immediately by his distress over the fate of Chaur, who was now bawling and tugging his arms free every time a guard sought to take hold of him.

‘Let him alone,' said Barathol. ‘He'll follow peacefully enough – just don't grab him.'

And then the squad, save one, all marched out with their prisoners. Scillara fell in behind them, and finally saw the Guild official, a rather imposing woman whose dignity was marred by the self-satisfied smirk on her face.

As Scillara passed behind the woman, she took hold of her braid and gave it a sharp downward tug.

‘Ow!' The woman whirled, her expression savage.

‘Sorry,' Scillara said. ‘Must have caught on my bracelet.'