When Rhulad had sent Trull away, he had said nothing.
But then, neither had Uruth. And what of his own conspiracy? With Binadas? Find Trull. Please. Find the bravest among us. Recall the Sengar bloodline, son. Our first strides onto this world. Leading a legion onto its stony ground, loyal officers of Scabandari. Who drew the first Andii blood on the day of betrayal? That is our blood. That – not this.
So, Tomad had sent Binadas away. Had sent a son to his death. Because I had not the will to do it myself.
Coward.
Watching him still, Uruth carefully refilled her goblet.
Binadas, my son, your slayer awaits Rhulad’s pleasure. Is that enough?
Like any old fool who had once wagered mortal lives, the Errant wandered the corridors of enlivened power, muttering his litany of lost opportunities and bad choices. Exhalation of sorcery averted the eyes of those who strode past, the guards at various doorways and intersections, the scurrying servants who fought their losing battle with the crumbling residence known – now with irony – as the Eternal Domicile. They saw but did not see, and no afterimage remained in their minds upon passing.
More than any ghost, the Elder God was forgettable. But not as forgettable as he would have liked. He had worshippers now, at the cost of an eye binding him and his power, warring with his will in the guise of faith. Of course, every god knew of that war – such subversion seemed the primary purpose of every priest. Reduction of the sacred into the mundane world of mortal rivalries, politics and the games of control and manipulation of as many people as there were adherents. Oh, and yes, the acquisition of wealth, be it land or coin, be it the adjudication of fate or the gathering of souls.
With such thoughts haunting him, the Errant stepped into the throne room, moving silently to one side to take his usual place against a wall between two vast tapestries, as unnoticed as the grandiose scenes woven into those frames – images in which could be found some figure in the background very closely resembling the Errant.
The Chancellor Triban Gnol – with whom the Errant had shared a bed when expedience demanded it – stood before Rhulad who slouched like some sated monstrosity, poignant with wealth and madness. One of the Chancellor’s bodyguards hovered a few paces back from Gnol, looking bored as his master recited numbers.
Detailing, once more, the growing dissolution of the treasury.
These sessions, the Errant understood, with some admiration, were deliberate travails intended to further exhaust the Emperor. Revenues and losses, expenses and the sudden peak in defaulted debts, piled up in droning cadence like the gathering of forces preparing to lay siege.
An assault against which Rhulad had no defence.
He would surrender, as he always did. Relinquishing all management to the Chancellor. A ritual as enervating to witness as it was to withstand, yet the Errant felt no pity.
The Edur were barbarians. Like children in the face of civilized sophistication.
Why do I come here, day after day? What am I waiting to witness here? Rhulad’s final collapse? Will that please me? Entertain me? How sordid have my tastes become?
He held his gaze on the Emperor. Dulled coins luridly gleaming, a rhythm of smudged reflection rising and settling with Rhulad’s breathing; the black sanguine promise of the sword’s long, straight blade, tip dug into the marble dais, the grey bony hand gripping the wire-wrapped handle. Sprawled there on his throne, Rhulad was indeed a metaphor made real. Armoured in riches and armed with a weapon that promised both immortality and annihilation, he was impervious to everything but his own growing madness. When Rhulad fell, the Errant believed, it would be from the inside out.
The ravaged face revealed this truth in a cascade of details, from the seamed scars of past failures to which, by virtue of his having survived them, he was indifferent, to whatever lessons they might hold. Pocked flesh to mock the possession of wealth long lost. Sunken eyes wherein resided the despairing penury of his spirit, a spirit that at times pushed close to those glittering dark prisms and let loose its silent howl.
Twitches tracked this brutal mien. Random ripples beneath the mottled skin, a migration of expressions attempting to escape the remote imperial mask.
One could understand, upon looking at Rhulad on his throne, the lie of simplicity that power whispered in the beholder’s ear. The seductive voice urging pleasurable and satisfying reduction, from life’s confusion to death’s clarity.
This, murmured power, is how I am revealed. Stepping naked through all the disguises. I am threat and if threat does not suffice, then I act. Like a reaper’s scythe.
The lie of simplicity. Rhulad still believed it. In that he was no different from every other ruler, through every age, in every place where people gathered to fashion a common, the weal of community with its necessity for organization and division. Power is violence, its promise, its deed. Power cares nothing for reason, nothing for justice, nothing for compassion. It is, in fact, the singular abnegation of these things – once the cloak of deceits is stripped away, this one truth is revealed.
And the Errant was tired of it. All of it.
Mael once said there was no answer. For any of this. He said it was the way of things and always would be, and the only redemption that could be found was that all power, no matter how vast, how centralized, no matter how dominant, will destroy itself in the end. What entertained then was witnessing all those expressions of surprise on the faces of the wielders.
This seemed a far too bitter reward, as far as the Errant was concerned. I have naught of Mael’s capacity for cold, depthless regard. Nor his legendary patience. Nor, for that matter, his temper.
No Elder God was blind to the folly of those who would reign in the many worlds. Assuming it was able to think at all, of course, and for some that was in no way a certain thing.
Anomander Rake saw it clearly enough, and so he turned away from its vastness, instead choosing to concentrate on specific, minor conflicts. And he denied his worshippers, a crime so profound to them that they simply rejected it out of hand. Osserc, on the other hand, voiced his own refusal – of the hopeless truth – and so tried again and again and failed every time. For Osserc, Anomander Rake’s very existence became an unconscionable insult.
Draconus – ah, now he was no fool. He would have wearied of his tyranny – had he lived long enough. I still wonder if he did not in fact welcome his annihilation. To die beneath the sword made by his own hands, to see his most cherished daughter standing to one side, witness, wilfully blind to his need . . . Draconus, how could you not despair of all you once dreamed?
And then there was Kilmandaros. Now she liked the notion of . . . simplicity. The solid righteousness of her fist was good enough for her. But then, see where it took her!
And what of K’rul? Why, he was—
‘Stop!’ Rhulad shrieked, visibly jolting on the throne, the upper half of his body suddenly leaning forward, the eyes black with sudden threat. ‘What did you just say?’
The Chancellor frowned, then licked his withered lips.
‘Emperor, I was recounting the costs of disposing the corpses from the trench-pens—’
‘Corpses, yes.’ Rhulad’s hand twitched where it folded over the throne’s ornate arm. He stared fixedly at Triban Gnol, then, with a strange smile, he asked, ‘What corpses?’
‘From the fleets, sire. The slaves rescued from the island of Sepik, the northernmost protectorate of the Malazan Empire.’
‘Slaves. Rescued. Slaves.’
The Errant could see Triban Gnol’s confusion, a momentary flicker, then . . . comprehension.
Oh now, let us witness this!
‘Your fallen kin, sire. Those of Tiste Edur blood who had suffered beneath the tyranny of the Malazans.’
‘Rescued.’ Rhulad paused as if to taste that word. ‘Edur blood.’
‘Diluted—’
‘Edur blood!’
‘Indeed, Emperor.’
‘Then why are they in the tren
ch-pens?’
‘They were deemed fallen, sire.’
Rhulad twisted on the throne, as if assailed from within.
His head snapped back. His limbs were seized with trembling. He spoke as one lost. ‘Fallen? But they are our kin. In this entire damned world, our only kin!’
‘That is true, Emperor. I admit, I was somewhat dismayed at the decision to consign them to those most terrible cells—’
‘Whose decision, Gnol? Answer me!’
A bow, which the Errant knew hid a satisfied gleam in the Chancellor’s eyes – quickly disguised as he looked up once more. ‘The disposition of the fallen Sepik Edur was the responsibility of Tomad Sengar, Emperor.’
Rhulad slowly settled back. ‘And they are dying.’
‘In droves, sire. Alas.’
‘We rescued them to deliver our own torment. Rescued them to kill them.’
‘It is, I would suggest, a somewhat unjust fate—’
‘Unjust? You scrawny snake – why did you not tell me of this before?’
‘Emperor, you indicated no interest in the financial details—’
Oh, a mistake there, Gnol.
‘The what?’
Beads of sweat on the back of the Chancellor’s neck now.
‘The varied expenses associated with their imprisonment, sire.’
‘They are Tiste Edur!’
Another bow.
Rhulad suddenly clawed at his face and looked away.
‘Edur blood,’ he murmured. ‘Rescued from slavery. Trenchpens is their reward.’
Triban Gnol cleared his throat. ‘Many died in the holds of the ships, sire. As I understand it, their maltreatment began upon leaving Sepik Island. What is it you would have me do, Emperor?’
And so deftly you regain ground, Triban Gnol.
‘Bring me Tomad Sengar. And Uruth. Bring to me my father and mother.’
‘Now?’
The sword scraped free, point lifting to centre on Triban Gnol. ‘Yes, Chancellor. Now.’
Triban Gnol and his bodyguard quickly departed.
Rhulad was alone in his throne room, now holding his sword out on nothing.
‘How? How could they do this? These poor people – they are of our own blood. I need to think.’ The Emperor lowered the sword then shifted about on the throne, drawing his coinclad legs up. ‘How? Nisall? Explain this to me – no, you cannot, can you. You have fled me. Where are you, Nisall? Some claim you are dead. Yet where is your body? Are you just another bloated corpse in the canal – the ones I see from the tower – were you one of those, drifting past? They tell me you were a traitor. They tell me you were not a traitor. They all lie to me. I know that, I can see that. Hear that. They all lie to me—’ He sobbed then, his free hand covering his mouth, his eyes darting about the empty room.
The Errant saw that gaze slide right over him. He thought to step forward then, to relinquish the sorcery hiding him, to say to the Emperor: Yes, sire. They all lie to you. But I will not. Do you dare hear the truth, Emperor Rhulad? All of it?
‘Slaves. This – this is wrong. Tomad – Father – where did this cruelty come from?’
Oh, dear Rhulad . . .
‘Father, we will talk. You and me. Alone. And Mother, yes, you too. The three of us. It has been so long since we did that. Yes, that is what we will do. And you must . . . you must not lie to me. No, that I will not accept.
‘Father, where is Nisall?
‘Where is Trull?’
Could an Elder God’s heart break? The Errant almost sagged then, as Rhulad’s plaintive query echoed momentarily in the chamber, then quickly died, leaving only the sound of the Emperor’s laboured breathing.
Then, a harder voice emerging from the Emperor: ‘Hannan Mosag, this is all your fault. You did this. To us. To me. You twisted me, made me send them all away. To find champions. But no, that was my idea, wasn’t it? I can’t – can’t remember – so many lies here, so many voices, all lying. Nisall, you left me. Udinaas – I will find you both. I will see the skin flayed from your writhing bodies, I will listen to your screams—’
The sound of boots in the hallway beyond.
Rhulad looked up guiltily, then settled into the throne.
Righting the weapon. Licking his lips. Then, as the doors creaked open, he sat with a fixed grin, a baring of his teeth to greet his parents.
Dessert arrived at the point of a sword. A full dozen Letherii guards, led by Sirryn Kanar, burst into the private chambers of Tomad and Uruth Sengar. Weapons drawn, they entered the dining room to find the two Edur seated each at one end of the long table.
Neither had moved. Neither seemed surprised.
‘On your feet,’ Sirryn growled, unable to hide his satisfaction, his delicious pleasure at this moment. ‘The Emperor demands your presence. Now.’
The tight smile on Tomad’s face seemed to flicker a moment, before the old warrior rose to his feet.
Sneering, Uruth had not moved. ‘The Emperor would see his mother? Very well, he may ask.’
Sirryn looked down at her. ‘This is a command, woman.’
‘And I am a High Priestess of Shadow, you pathetic thug.’
‘Sent here by the Emperor’s will. You will stand, or—’
‘Or what? Will you dare lay hands on me, Letherii? Recall your place.’
The guard reached out.
‘Stop!’ Tomad shouted. ‘Unless, Letherii, you wish your flesh torn from your bones. My wife has awakened Shadow, and she will not suffer your touch.’
Sirryn Kanar found he was trembling. With rage. ‘Then advise her, Tomad Sengar, of her son’s impatience.’
Uruth slowly drained her goblet of wine, set it carefully down, then rose. ‘Sheathe your weapons, Letherii. My husband and I can walk to the throne room in your company, or alone. My preference is for the latter, but I permit you this single warning. Sheathe your swords, or I will kill you all.’
Sirryn gestured to his soldiers and weapons slid back into scabbards. After a moment, his did the same. I will have an answer for this, Uruth Sengar. Recall my place? Of course, if the lie suits you, as it does me . . . for now.
‘Finally,’ Uruth said to Tomad, ‘we shall have an opportunity to tell our son all that needs to be told. An audience.
Such privilege.’
‘It may be you shall await his pleasure,’ Sirryn said.
‘Indeed? How long?’
The Letherii smiled at her. ‘That is not for me to say.’
‘This game is not Rhulad’s. It is yours. You and your Chancellor.’
‘Not this time,’ Sirryn replied.
‘I have killed Tiste Edur before.’
Samar Dev watched Karsa Orlong as the Toblakai examined the tattered clamshell armour shirt he had laid out on the cot. The pearlescent scales were tarnished and chipped, and large patches of the thick leather underpanels – hinged with rawhide – were visible. He had gathered a few hundred holed coins – made of tin and virtually worthless – and was clearly planning to use them to amend the armour.
Was this a gesture of mockery, she wondered. A visible sneer in Rhulad’s face? Barbarian or not, she would not put it past Karsa Orlong.
‘I cleared the deck of the fools,’ he continued, then glanced over at her. ‘And what of those in the forest of the Anibar? As for the Letherii, they’re even more pathetic – see how they cower, even now? I will explore this city, with my sword strapped to my back, and none shall stop me.’
She rubbed at her face. ‘There is a rumour that the first roll of champions will be called. Soon. Raise the ire of these people, Karsa, and you will not have to wait long to face the Emperor.’
‘Good,’ he grunted. ‘Then I shall walk Letheras as its new emperor.’
‘Is that what you seek?’ she asked, her eyes narrowing on him in surprise.
‘If that is what is needed for them to leave me be.’
She snorted. ‘Then the last thing you want is to be emperor.’
He straighten
ed, frowning down at the gaudy if bedraggled armour shirt. ‘I am not interested in fleeing, witch.
There is no reason for them to forbid me.’
‘You can step outside this compound and wander where you will . . . just leave your sword behind.’
‘That I will not do.’
‘Then here you remain, slowly going mad at the Emperor’s pleasure.’
‘Perhaps I shall fight my way through.’
‘Karsa, they just don’t want you killing citizens. Given that you are so, uh, easily offended, it’s not an unusual request.’
‘What offends me is their lack of faith.’
‘Right,’ she snapped, ‘which you have well earned by killing Edur and Letherii at every turn. Including a Preda—’
‘I did not know he was that.’
‘Would it have made a difference? No, I thought not.
How about the fact that he was a brother to the Emperor?’
‘I did not know that either.’
‘And?’
‘And what, Samar Dev?’
‘Murdered him with a spear, wasn’t it?’
‘He assailed me with magic—’
‘You have told me this tale, Karsa Orlong. You had just slaughtered his crew. Then kicked in the door to his cabin.
Then crushed the skulls of his bodyguards. I tell you, in his place I too would have drawn upon my warren – assuming I had one, which I don’t. And I would have thrown everything I had at you.’
‘There is no point to this conversation,’ the Toblakai said in a growl.
‘Fine,’ she said, rising from her chair. ‘I am off to find Taxilian. At least his obdurate obsessions are less infuriating.’
‘Is he your lover now?’
She halted at the doorway. ‘And if he was?’
‘Just as well,’ Karsa said, now glowering down at his patchy armour. ‘I would break you in two.’
Jealousy to join the host of other madnesses? Spirits below! She turned back to the door. ‘I’d be more inclined towards Senior Assessor. Alas, he has taken vows of celibacy.’
‘The fawning monk is still here?’
‘He is.’
‘You have sordid tastes, witch.’