Maybe closer to the palace – tenement blocks there, and crowded together. It’d save us a lot of this ducking and crawling crap.
And what could be messy ambushes.
‘Hood’s breath, Fid, there’s a hundred out there and still more coming.’ Cuttle pointed. ‘There, that’s the man in charge.’
‘Who’s our best shot with the crossbow?’ Fiddler asked.
‘You.’
Shit.
‘But Koryk’s all right. Though, if I’d pick anyone, it’d be Corabb.’
Fiddler slowly smiled. ‘Cuttle, sometimes you’re a genius. Not that it’ll ever earn you rank of corporal or anything like that.’
‘I’ll sleep easy tonight, then.’ Cuttle paused, then mused, ‘Forty paces and a clear shot, but we’d blow any chance of ambush.’
Fiddler shook his head. ‘No, this is even better. He looses his quarrel, the man goes down. We rush out, throw five or six sharpers, then wheel and back into the alley – away as fast as we can. The survivors rush up, crowd the alley mouth, and Gesler hits ‘em from behind with another five or six sharpers.’
‘Beautiful, Fid. But how’s Gesler gonna know—’
‘He’ll work it out.’ Fiddler turned and gestured Corabb forward.
A freshly appointed Finadd of the Main Garrison, standing five paces from Atri-Preda Beshur, turned from reviewing his squads to see an aide’s head twitch, sparks flying from his helm, and then Finadd Gart, who was beside the Atri- Preda, shrieked. He was holding up one hand, seemingly right in Beshur’s face, and there was a quarrel stub jutting from that hand, and blood was gushing down Beshur’s face – as the Atri-Preda staggered back, the motion pulling Gart’s hand with him. For the quarrel was buried in Beshur’s forehead.
The new Finadd, nineteen years of age and now the ranking officer of this full-strength unit, stared in disbelief.
Shouts, and he saw figures appearing at the mouth of an alley a ways down the street. Five, six in all, rushing forward with rocks in their hands—
Pointing, the Finadd screamed the order to countercharge, and then he was running at the very head of his soldiers, waving his sword in the air.
Thirty paces.
Twenty.
The rocks flew out, arced towards them. He ducked one that sailed close past his right shoulder and then, suddenly deaf, eyes filled with grit, he was lying on the cobbles and there was blood everywhere. Someone stumbled into his line of sight, one of his soldiers. The woman’s right arm dangled from a single thin strip of meat, and the appendage swung wildly about as the woman did a strange pirouette before promptly sitting down.
She looked across at him, and screamed.
The Finadd sought to climb to his feet, but something was wrong. His limbs weren’t working, and now there was a fire in his back – someone had lit a damned fire there – why would they do that? Searing heat reaching down, through a strange numbness, and the back of his head was wet.
Struggling with all his will, he brought one hand up behind, to settle the palm on the back of his head.
And found his skull entirely gone.
Probing, trembling fingers pushed into some kind of pulped matter and all at once the burning pain in his back vanished.
He could make things work again, he realized, and pushed some more, deeper.
Whatever he then touched killed him.
As Fiddler led his squad into a seeming rout, with fifty or sixty Letherii soldiers charging after them, Gesler raised his hand, which held a burner. Aye, messy, but there were a lot of them, weren’t there?
Fiddler and his marines made it into the alley, tore off down it.
A crowd of Letherii reached the mouth, others pushing up behind them.
And munitions flew, and suddenly the street was a conflagration.
Without waiting, and as a gust of fierce heat swept over them, Gesler turned and pushed Stormy to lead the retreat.
Running, running hard.
They’d find the next street and swing right, come up round the other side of the walled compound. Expecting to see Fiddler and his own soldiers waiting opposite them again. More alley mouths, and just that much closer to the palace.
‘We got gold, damn you!’
‘Everybody’s got that,’ replied the barkeep, laconic as ever.
Hellian glared at him. ‘What kinda accent is that?’
‘The proper kind for the trader’s tongue, which makes one of us sound educated and I suppose that’s something.’
‘Oh, I’ll show you something!’ She drew out her corporal’s sword, giving him a hard push on the chest to clear the weapon, then hammered the pommel down on the bartop. The weapon bounced up from her hand, the edge scoring deep across Hellian’s right ear. She swore, reached up and saw her hand come away red with blood. ‘Now look what you made me do!’
‘And I suppose I also made you invade our empire, and this city, and—’
‘Don’t be an idiot, you ain’t that important. It was the winged monkeys did that.’
The barkeep’s thin, overlong face twisted slightly as he arched a single brow.
Hellian turned to her corporal. ‘What kinda sword you using, fool? One that don’t work right, that’s what kind, I’d say.’
‘Aye, Sergeant.
‘Sorry, Sergeant.’
‘Aye and sorry don’t cut it with me, Corporal. Now get that sword outa my sight.’
‘Did you hear it coming?’ another one of her soldiers asked.
‘What? What’s that supposed to mean, Boatsnort?’
‘Uh, my name’s—’
‘I just told you your name!’
‘Nothing, Sergeant. I didn’t mean nothing.’
The barkeep cleared his throat. ‘Now, if you are done with jabbering amongst yourselves, you can kindly leave. As I said before, this tavern is dry—’
‘They don’t make taverns dry,’ Hellian said.
‘I’m sure you didn’t say that quite right—’
‘Corporal, you hearing all this?’
‘Yes.
‘Aye.’
‘Good. String this fool up. By his nostrils. From that beam right there.’
‘By his nostrils, Sergeant?’
‘That you again, Snortface?’
Hellian smiled as the corporal used four arms to grab the barkeep and drag him across the counter. The man was suddenly nowhere near as laconic as he was a moment ago. Sputtering, clawing at the hands gripping him, he shouted, ‘Wait! Wait! ‘
Everyone halted.
‘In the cellar,’ the man gasped.
‘Give my corporal directions and proper ones,’ Hellian said, so very satisfied now, except for her dribbling ear, but oh, if any of her soldiers got out of line she could pick the scab and bleed all over them and wouldn’t they feel just awful about it and then do exactly what she wanted them to do, ‘which is guard the door.’
‘Sergeant?’
‘You heard me, guard the door, so we’re not disturbed.’
‘Who are we on the lookout for?’ Snivelnose asked. ‘Ain’t nobody—’
‘The captain, who else? She’s probably still after us, damn her.’
Memories, Icarium now understood, were not isolated things. They did not exist within high-walled compartments in a mind. Instead, they were like the branches of a tree, or perhaps a continuous mosaic on a floor that one could play light over, illuminating patches here and there. Yet, and he knew this as well, for others that patch of light was vast and bright, encompassing most of a life, and although details might be blurred, scenes made hazy and uncertain with time, it was, nevertheless, a virtual entirety. And from this was born a sense of a self.
Which he did not possess and perhaps had never possessed. And in the grip of such ignorance, he was as malleable as a child. To be used; to be, indeed, abused. And many had done so, for there was power in Icarium, far too much power.
Such exploitation was now at an end. All of Taralack Veed’s exhortations were as wind in the
distance, and he was not swayed. The Gral would be Icarium’s last companion.
He stood in the street, all of his senses awakened to the realization that he knew this place, this modest patch of the mosaic grey with promise. And true illumination was finally at hand. The measuring of time, from this moment and for ever onward. A life begun again, with no risk of losing his sense of self.
My hands have worked here. In this city, beneath this city.
And now awaits me, to be awakened.
And when I have done that, I will begin anew. A life, a host of tesserae to lay down one by one.
He set out, then, for the door.
The door into his machine.
He walked, unmindful of those scurrying in his wake, of the figures and soldiers moving out of his path. He heard but held no curiosity for the sounds of fighting, the violence erupting in the streets to either side, the detonations as of lightning although this dawn was breaking clear and still. He passed beneath diffused shadows cast down by billowing smoke from burning buildings, wagons and barricades. He heard screams and shouts but did not seek out where they came from, even to lend succour as he would normally have done. He stepped over bodies in the street.
He walked alongside an ash-laden greasy canal for a time, then reached a bridge and crossed over into what was clearly an older part of the city. Down another street to an intersection, whereupon he swung left and continued on.
There were more people here in this quarter – with the day growing bolder and all sounds of fighting a distant roar to the west – yet even here the people seemed dazed. None of the usual conversations, the hawkers crying their wares, beasts pulling loaded carts. The drifting smoke wafted down like an omen, and the citizens wandered through it as if lost.
He drew nearer the door. Of course, it was nothing like a door in truth. More like a wound, a breach. He could feel its power stir to life, for as he sensed it so too did it sense him.
Icarium then slowed. A wound, yes. His machine was wounded. Its pieces had been twisted, shifted out of position. Ages had passed since he had built it, so he should not be surprised. Would it still work? He was no longer so sure.
This is mine. I must make it right, no matter the cost.
I will have this gift. I will have it.
He started forward once more.
The house that had once disguised this nexus of the machine had collapsed into ruin and no efforts had been made to clear the wreckage. There was a man standing before it.
After a long moment, Icarium realized that he recognized this man. He had been aboard the ships, and the name by which he had been known was Taxilian.
As Icarium walked up to him, Taxilian, his eyes strangely bright, bowed and stepped back. ‘This, Icarium,’ he said, ‘is your day.’
My day? Yes, my first day.
Lifestealer faced the ruin.
A glow was now rising from somewhere inside, shafts slanting up between snapped timbers and beams, lancing out in spears from beneath stone and brick. The glow burgeoned, and the world beneath him seemed to tremble. But no, that was no illusion – buildings groaned, shuddered. Splintering sounds, shutters rattling as from a gust of wind.
Icarium drew a step closer, drawing a dagger.
Thunder sounded beneath him, making the cobbles bounce in puffs of dust. Somewhere, in the city, structures began to break apart, as sections and components within them stirred into life, into inexorable motion. Seeking to return to a most ancient pattern.
More thunder, as buildings burst apart.
Columns of dust corkscrewed skyward.
And still the white glow lifted, spread out in a fashion somewhere between liquid and fire, pouring, leaping, the shafts and spears twisting in the air. Engulfing the ruin, spilling out onto the street, lapping around Icarium, who drew the sharp-edged blade diagonally, deep, up one forearm; then did the same with the other – holding the weapon tight in a blood-soaked hand.
Who then raised his hands.
To measure time, one must begin. To grow futureward, one must root. Deep into the ground with blood.
I built this machine. This place that will forge my beginning. No longer outside the world. No longer outside time itself. Give me this, wounded or not, give me this. If K’rul can, why not me?
All that poured from his wrists flared incandescent. And Icarium walked into the white.
Taxilian was thrown back as the liquid fire exploded outward. A moment of surprise, before he was incinerated. The eruption tore into the neighbouring buildings, obliterating them. The street in front of what had once been Scale House became a maelstrom of shattered cobbles, the shards of stone racing outward to stipple walls and punch through shutters. The building opposite tilted back, every brace snapping, then collapsed inward.
Fleeing the sudden storm, Taralack Veed and Senior Assessor ran – a half-dozen strides before both were thrown from their feet.
The Cabalhii monk, lying on his back, had a momentary vision of a mass of masonry rushing down, and in that moment he burst out laughing – a sound cut short as the tons of rubble crushed him.
Taralack Veed had rolled with his tumble, narrowly avoiding that descending wall. Deafened, half blind, he used his hands to drag himself onward, tearing his nails away and lacerating his palms and fingers on the broken cobbles.
And there, through the dust, the billowing white fire, he saw his village, the huts, the horses in their roped kraal, and there, on the hill beyond, the goats huddled beneath the tree, sheltering from the terrible sun. Dogs lying in the shade, children on their knees playing with the tiny clay figurines that some travelling Malazan scholar had thought to be of great and sacred significance, but were in truth no more than toys, for all children loved toys.
Why, he had had his very own collection and this was long before he killed his woman and her lover, before killing the man’s brother who had proclaimed the feud and had drawn the knife.
But now, all at once, the goats were crying out, crying out in dread pain and terror – dying! The huge tree in flames, branches crashing down.
The huts were burning and bodies sprawled in the dust with faces red with ruin. And this was death, then, death in the breaking of what had always been, solid and predictable, pure and reliable. The breaking – devastation, to take it all away.
Taralack Veed screamed, bloodied hands reaching for those toys – those beautiful, so very sacred toys—
The enormous chunk of stone that slanted down took the top of Taralack Veed’s head at an angle, crushing bone and brain, and, as it skidded away, it left a greasy smear of red- and grey-streaked hair.
* * *
Throughout the city, buildings erupted into clouds of dust. Stone, tile, bricks and wood sailed outward, and white fire poured forth, shafts of argent light arcing out through walls, as if nothing could exist that could impede them. A shimmering, crazed web of light, linking each piece of the machine. And the power flowed, racing in blinding pulses, and they all drew inward, to one place, to one heart.
Icarium.
The north and west outer walls detonated as sections of their foundations shifted, moved four, five paces, twisting as if vast pieces of a giant puzzle were being moved into place. Rent, sundered, parts of those walls toppled and the sound of that impact rumbled beneath every street.
In the courtyard of an inn that had, through nefarious schemes, become the property of Rautos Hivanar, a huge piece of metal, bent at right angles, now lifted straight upward to twice the height of the man standing before it. Revealing, at its base, a hinge of white fire.
And the structure then tilted, dropped forward like a smith’s hammer.
Rautos Hivanar dived to escape, but not quickly enough, as the massive object slammed down onto the backs of his legs.
Pinned, as white fire licked out towards him, Rautos could feel his blood draining down from his crushed legs, turning the compound’s dust into mud.
Yes, he thought, as it began with mud, so it now ends— r />
The white fire enveloped him.
And sucked out from his mind every memory he possessed.
The thing that died there a short time later was not Rautos Hivanar.
The vast web’s pulsing lasted but a half-dozen heartbeats. The shifting of the pieces of the machine, with all the destruction that entailed, was even more short-lived. Yet, in that time, all who were devoured by the white fire emptied their lives into it. Every memory, from the pain of birth to the last moment of death.
The machine, alas, was indeed broken.
As the echoes of groaning stone and metal slowly faded, the web flickered, then vanished. And now, dust warred with the smoke in the air above Letheras.
A few remaining sections of stone and brick toppled, but these were but modest adjustments in the aftermath of what had gone before.
And in this time of settling, the first voices of pain, the first cries for help, lifted weakly from heaps of rubble.
The ruins of Scale House were naught but white dust, and from it nothing stirred.
The bed of a canal had cracked during the earthquake, opening a wide fissure into which water plunged, racing down veins between compacted bricks and fill. And in the shaking repercussions of falling structures, buried foundations shifted, cracked, slumped.
Barely noticed amidst all the others, then, the explosion that tore up through that canal in a spray of sludge and water was relatively minor, yet it proved singular in one detail, for as the muddy rain of the canal’s water sluiced down onto the still-buckling streets, a figure clawed up from the canal, hands reaching for mooring rungs, pulling itself from the churning foam.
An old man.
Who stood, ragged tunic streaming brown water, and did not move while chaos and spears of blinding light tore through Letheras. Who remained motionless, indeed, after those terrifying events vanished and faded.
An old man.
Torn between incandescent rage and dreadful fear.
Because of who he was, the fear won out. Not for himself, of course, but for a mortal man who was, the old man knew, about to die.
And he would not reach him in time.
Well, so it would be rage after all. Vengeance against the Errant would have to wait its turn. First, vengeance against a man named Karos Invictad.