Darkness in and out, the dream drifting closer, almost within reach.
Almost . . .
The Errant stood in the waist-deep water, his hand on her back. He waited, even though her struggles had ceased.
Sometimes, it was true, a nudge was not enough.
The malformed, twisted thing that was Hannan Mosag crawled up the last street before the narrow, crooked alley that led to Settle Lake. Roving bands had come upon the wretched Tiste Edur in the darkness before dawn and had given him wide berth, chased away by his laughter.
Soon, everything would return to him. All of his power, purest Kurald Emurlahn, and he would heal this mangled body, heal the scars of his mind. With the demon-god freed of the ice and bound to his will once more, who could challenge him?
Rhulad Sengar could remain Emperor – that hardly mattered, did it? The Warlock King would not be frightened of him, not any more. And, to crush him yet further, he possessed a certain note, a confession – oh, the madness unleashed then!
Then, these damned invaders – well, they were about to find themselves without a fleet.
And the river shall rise, flooding, a torrent to cleanse this accursed city. Of foreigners. Of the Letherii themselves. I will see them all drowned.
Reaching the mouth of the alley, he dragged himself into its gloom, pleased to be out of the dawn’s grey light, and the stench of the pond wafted down to him. Rot, dissolution, the dying of the ice. At long last, all his ambitions were about to come true.
Crawling over the slick, mould-slimed cobblestones. He could hear thousands in the streets, somewhere near. Some name being cried out like a chant. Disgust filled Hannan Mosag. He never wanted anything to do with these Letherii. No, he would have raised an impenetrable wall between them and his people. He would have ruled over the tribes, remaining in the north, where the rain fell like mist and the forests of sacred trees embraced every village.
There would have been peace, for all the Tiste Edur.
Well, he had sent them all back north, had he not? He had begun his preparations. And soon he would join them, as Warlock King. And he would make his dream a reality.
And Rhulad Sengar? Well, I leave him a drowned empire, a wasteland of mud and dead trees and rotting corpses. Rule well, Emperor.
He found himself scrabbling against a growing stream of icy water that was working its way down the alley, the touch numbing his hands, knees and feet. He began slipping. Cursing under his breath, Hannan Mosag paused, staring down at the water flowing round him.
From up ahead there came a loud crack! and the Warlock King smiled. My child stirs.
Drawing upon the power of the shadows in this alley, he resumed his journey.
‘Ah, the fell guardians,’ Ormly said as he strode to the muddy bank of Settle Lake. The Champion Rat Catcher had come in from the north side, where he’d been busy in Creeper District, hiring random folk to cry out the name of the empire’s great revolutionary, the hero of heroes, the this and that and all the rest. Tehol Beddict! He’s taken all the money back – from all the rich slobs in their estates! He’s going to give it all to every one of you – he’s going to clear all your debts! And are you listening? I’ve more rubbish to feed you – wait, come back! True, he’d just added on that last bit.
What a busy night! And then a runner from Selush had brought him the damned sausage that a man had once used to pick his nose or something.
All right, there was some disrespect in that and it wasn’t worthy, not of Brys Beddict – the Hero’s very own brother! – nor of himself, Ormly of the Rats. So, enough of that, then.
‘Oh, look, sweetcakes, it’s him.’
‘Who, dove-cookie?’
‘Why, I forget his name. Tha’s who.’
Ormly scowled at the pair lolling on the bank like a couple of gaping fish. ‘I called you guardians? You’re both drunk!’
‘You’d be too,’ Ursto Hoobutt said, ‘if ‘n you had to listen to this simperin’ witch ‘ere.’ He wagged his head to mime his wife as he said: ‘Ooh, I wanna baby! A big baby, with only one upper lip but a bottom one too to clamp onto you know where an’ get even bigger! Ooh, syrup-smoochies, oh, please? Can I? Can I? Can I! ‘
‘You poor man,’ Ormly commiserated, walking up to them. He paused upon seeing the heaved and cracked slabs of ice crowding the centre of the lake. ‘It’s pushing, is it?’
‘Took your time, too,’ Pinosel muttered, casting her husband her third glowering look since Ormly had arrived. She swished whatever was in the jug in her left hand, then tilted it back to drink deep. Then wiped at her mouth, leaned forward and glared up at Ormly from lowered brows. ‘Ain’t gonna have no jus’ one upper lip, neither. Gonna be healthy—’
‘Really, Pinosel,’ Ormly said, ‘the likelihood of that—’
‘You don’t know nothing!’
‘All right, maybe I don’t. Not about the likes of you two, anyway. But here’s what I do know. In the Old Palace there’s a panel in the baths that was painted about six hundred years ago. Of Settle Lake or something a lot like it, with buildings in the background. And who’s sitting there in the grasses on the bank, sharing a jug? Why, an ugly woman and an even uglier man – both looking a lot like you two!’
‘Watchoo yer callin’ ugly,’ Pinosel said, lifting her head with an effort, taking a deep breath to compose her features, then patting at her crow’s nest hair. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘I’ve had better days.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ mumbled Ursto.
‘An’ I ‘eard that! An’ oose fault is that, porker-nose?’
‘Only the people that ain’t no more ‘ere t’worship us an’ all that.’
‘ ‘Zactly!’
Ormly frowned at the pond and its ice. At that moment a huge slab buckled with a loud crack! And he found himself involuntarily stepping back, one step, two. ‘Is it coming up?’ he demanded.
‘No,’ Ursto said, squinting one-eyed at the groaning heap of ice. ‘That’d be the one needing his finger back.’
The meltwater fringing the lake was bubbling and swirling now, bringing up clouds of silt as some current swept round the solid mass in the middle. Round and round, like a whirlpool only in reverse.
And all at once there was a thrashing, a spray of water, and a figure in its midst – struggling onto the bank, coughing, streaming muddy water, and holding in one incomplete hand a scabbarded sword.
Pinosel, her eyes bright as diamonds, lifted the jug in a wavering toast. ‘Hail the Saviour! Hail the half-drowned dog spitting mud!’ And then she crowed, the cry shifting into a cackle, before drinking deep once more.
Ormly plucked the severed finger from his purse and walked down to where knelt Brys Beddict. ‘Looking for this?’ he asked.
There had been a time of sleep, and then a time of pain. Neither had seemed to last very long, and now Brys Beddict, who had died of poison in the throne room of the Eternal Domicile, was on his hands and knees beside a lake of icy water. Racked with shivers, still coughing out water and slime.
And some man was crouched beside him, trying to give him a severed finger swollen and dyed pink.
He felt his left hand gripping a scabbard, and knew it for his own. Blinking to clear his eyes, he flitted a glance to confirm that the sword still resided within it. It did. Then, pushing the man’s gift away, he slowly settled onto his haunches, and looked round.
Familiar, yes.
The man beside him now laid a warm hand on his shoulder, as if to still his shivering. ‘Brys Beddict,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Tehol is about to die. Brys, your brother needs you now.’
And, as Brys let the man help him to his feet, he drew out his sword, half expecting to see it rusted, useless – but no, the weapon gleamed with fresh oil.
‘Hold on!’ shouted another voice.
The man steadying Brys turned slightly. ‘What is it, Ursto?’
‘The demon god’s about to get free! Ask ‘im!’
‘Ask him what?’
> ‘The name! Ask ‘im what’s its name, damn you! We can’t send it away without its name!’
Brys spat grit from his mouth. Tried to think. The demon god in the ice, the ice that was failing. Moments from release, moments from . . . ‘Ay’edenan of the Spring,’ he said. ‘Ay’edenan tek’ velut !enan.’
The man beside him snorted. ‘Try saying that five times fast! Errant, try saying it once!’
But someone was cackling.
‘Brys—’
He nodded. Yes. Tehol. My brother – ‘Take me,’ he said.
‘Take me to him.’
‘I will,’ the man promised. ‘And on the way, I’ll do some explaining. All right?’
Brys Beddict, Saviour of the Empty Throne, nodded.
‘Imagine,’ Pinosel said with a gusty sigh, ‘a name in the old tongue. Oh now, ain’t this one come a long way!’
‘You stopped being drunk now, munch-sweets?’
She stirred, clambered onto her feet, then reached down and tugged at her husband. ‘Come on.’
‘But we got to wait – to use the name and send it away!’
‘We got time. Let’s perch ourselves down top of Wormface Alley, have another jug, an’ we can watch the Edur crawl up t’us like the Turtle of the Abyss.’
Ursto snorted. ‘Funny how that myth didn’t last.’
A deeper, colder shadow slid over Hannan Mosag and he halted his efforts. Almost there, yes – where the alley opened out, he saw two figures seated in careless sprawls and leaning against one another. Passing a jug between them.
Squalid drunks, but perhaps most appropriate as witnesses – to the death of this gross empire. The first to die, too. Also fitting enough.
He made to heave himself closer, but a large hand closed about his cloak, just below his collar, and he was lifted from the ground.
Hissing, seeking his power—
Hannan Mosag was slowly turned about, and he found himself staring into an unhuman face. Grey-green skin like leather. Polished tusks jutting from the corners of the mouth. Eyes with vertical pupils, regarding him now without expression.
Behind him the two drunks were laughing.
The Warlock King, dangling in the air before this giant demoness, reached for the sorcery of Kurald Emurlahn to blast this creature into oblivion. And he felt it surge within him—
But now her other hand took him by the throat.
And squeezed.
Cartilage crumpled like eggshells. Vertebrae crunched, buckled, broke against each other. Pain exploded upward, filling Hannan Mosag’s skull with white fire.
As the sun’s bright, unforgiving light suddenly bathed his face.
Sister Dawn – you greet me—
But he stared into the eyes of the demoness, and saw still nothing. A lizard’s eyes, a snake’s eyes.
Would she give him nothing at all?
The fire in his skull flared outward, blinding him, then, with a soft, fading roar, it contracted once more, darkness rushing into its wake.
But Hannan Mosag’s eyes saw none of this.
The sun shone full on his dead face, highlighting every twist, every marred flare of bone, and the unseeing eyes that stared out into that light were empty.
As empty as the Jaghut’s own.
Ursto and Pinosel watched the Jaghut fling the pathetic, mangled body away.
Then she faced them. ‘My ritual is sundered.’
Pinosel laughed through her nose, which proved a messy outburst the cleaning of which occupied her for the next few moments.
Ursto cast her a disgusted glance, then nodded to the Jaghut sorceress. ‘Oh, they all worked at doing that. Mosag, Menandore, Sukul Ankhadu, blah blah.’ He waved one hand. ‘But we’re here, sweetness. We got its name, y’see.’
The Jaghut cocked her head. ‘Then, I am not needed.’
‘Well, that’s true enough. Unless you care for a drink?’ He tugged the jug free of Pinosel’s grip, raised it.
The Jaghut stared a moment longer, then she said, ‘A pleasing offer, thank you.’
The damned sun was up, but on this side the city’s wall was all shadow. Except, Sergeant Balm saw, for the wide open gate.
Ahead, Masan Gilani did that unthinkable thing again and rose in her stirrups, leaning forward as she urged her horse into a gallop.
From just behind Balm, Throatslitter moaned like a puppy under a brick. Balm shook his head. Another sick thought just popping into his head like a squeezed tick. Where was he getting them from anyway? And why was that gate open and why were they all riding hard straight for it?
And was that corpses he saw just inside? Figures moving about amidst smoke? Weapons?
What was that sound from the other side of that gate?
‘Sharpers!’ Deadsmell called out behind him. ‘Keneb’s in! He’s holding the gate!’
Keneb? Who in Hood’s name was Keneb?
‘Ride!’ Balm shouted. ‘They’re after us! Ride for Aren!’
Masan Gilani’s rising and lowering butt swept into the shadow of the gate.
Throatslitter cried out and that was the sound all right, when the cat dives under the cartwheel and things go squirt and it wasn’t his fault he’d hardly kicked at all. ‘It dived out there, Ma! Oh, I hate cities! Let’s go home – ride! Through that hole! What’s it called? The big false-arched cantilevered hole!’
Plunging into gloom, horse hoofs suddenly skidding, the entire beast slewing round beneath him. Impact. Hip to rump, and Balm was thrown, arms reaching out, wrapping tight round a soft yielding assembly of perfected flesh – and she yelped, pulled with him as he plunged past dragging Masan Gilani from her saddle.
Hard onto cobbles, Balm’s head slamming down, denting and dislodging his helm. Her weight deliciously flattening him for a single exquisite moment before she rolled off.
Horses stumbling, hoofs cracking down way too close. Soldiers rushing in, pulling them clear.
Balm stared up into a familiar face. ‘Thom Tissy, you ain’t dead?’
The ugly face spread into a toad’s grin – toad under a brick oh they smile wide then don’t they – and then a calloused hand slapped him hard. ‘You with us, Balm? Glad you arrived – we’re getting pressed here – seems the whole damned city garrison is here, tryin’ to retake the gate.’
‘Garrison? What’s Blistig thinking? We’re on his side! Show me the famous dancing girls of Aren, Tissy, that’s what I’m here to see and maybe more than see, hey?’
Thom Tissy dragged Balm onto his feet, set the dented helm back onto Balm’s head, then he took him by the shoulders and turned him round.
And there was Keneb, and there, just beyond, barricades of wreckage and soldiers crouching down reloading crossbows while others hacked at Letherii soldiers trying to force a breach. Somewhere to the right a sharper detonated in an alley mouth where the enemy had been gathering for another rush. People screamed.
Fist Keneb stepped up to Balm. ‘Where are the rest, Sergeant?’
‘Sir?’
‘The Adjunct and the army!’
‘In the transports, sir, where else? Worst storm I’ve ever seen and now all the ships are upside down—’
Behind Balm Deadsmell said, ‘Fist, they should be on the march.’
‘Get Masan Gilani back on her horse,’ Keneb said and Balm wanted to kiss the man, ‘and I don’t care if she kills the beast but I want her to reach the Adjunct – they need to step it up. Send their cavalry ahead riding hard.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘We’re running low on munitions and quarrels and there’s more of the Letherii gathering with every damned breath and if they find a decent commander we won’t be able to hold.’
Was the Fist talking to Balm? He wasn’t sure, but he wanted to turn round to watch Masan Gilani jump with her legs spread onto that horse’s back, oh yes he did, but these hands on his shoulders wouldn’t let him and someone was whimpering in his ear—
‘Stop making that sound, Sergeant,’ Keneb said.
>
Someone rode back out through the gate and where did they think they were going? There was a fight here! ‘Boyfriends of the dancing girls,’ he whispered, reaching for his sword.
‘Corporal,’ Keneb said. ‘Guide your sergeant here to the barricade to the left. You too, Throatslitter.’
Deadsmell said, ‘He’ll be fine in a moment, sir—’
‘Yes, just go.’
‘Aye, Fist.’
Boyfriends. Balm wanted to kill every one of them.
‘This city looks like a hurricane went through it,’ Cuttle said in a low mutter.
He had that right. The looting and all the rest was days old, however, and now it seemed that word of the Malazan breach was sweeping through in yet another storm – this one met with exhaustion – as the squad crouched in shadows near one end of an alley, watching the occasional furtive figure rush across the street.
They’d ambushed one unit forming up to march for the western gate. Quarrels and sharpers and a burner under the weapons wagon – still burning back there by the column of black smoke lifting into the ever-brightening sky. Took them all out, twenty-five dead or wounded, and before he and Gesler had pulled away locals were scurrying out to loot the bodies.
The captain had commandeered Urb and his squad off to find Hellian and her soldiers – the damned drunk had taken a wrong turn somewhere – which left Fiddler and Gesler to keep pushing for the palace.
Forty paces down the street to their right was a high wall with a fortified postern. City Garrison block and compound, and now that gate had opened and troops were filing out to form up ranks in the street.
‘That’s where we find the commander,’ Cuttle said. ‘The one organizing the whole thing.’
Fiddler looked directly across from where he and his marines were hiding and saw Gesler and his soldiers in a matching position in another alley mouth. It’d be nice if we were on the roofs. But no-one was keen to break into these official-looking buildings and maybe end up fighting frenzied clerks and night watch guards. Noise like that and there’d be real troops pushing in from behind them.