The Crippled God

  He seemed ready to say something, changed his mind and instead said, ‘I didn’t quite catch it all. Especially the, er, second half. But you know, Masan, all the stories about high attrition among officers in the Malazan military?’ He jerked a thumb at Ruthan Gudd. ‘It ain’t so with him.’

  The captain said, ‘If you hear a certain resentment in his tone, it’s because I saved his life.’

  ‘And as for the smugness in the captain’s tone—’

  ‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘Aye, the Adjunct sent me to find some people.’

  ‘Which you evidently failed to do,’ observed Bottle.

  ‘No she didn’t,’ said Ruthan Gudd.

  ‘So all this crawling skin I’m feeling isn’t fleas?’

  Ruthan Gudd bared his teeth in a hard grin. ‘Well no, it probably is, soldier. Frankly, I’d be surprised if you did feel something – oh, I know, you’re a mage. Fid’s shaved knuckle, right? Even so, these bastards know how to hide.’

  ‘Let me guess: they’re inside the horse. Isn’t there some legend about—’

  ‘The moral of which,’ Rudd interjected, ‘is consistently misapprehended. It’s nothing to do with what you think it’s to do with. The fact is, that tale’s moral is “don’t trust horses”. Sometimes people look way too hard into such things. Other times, of course, they don’t look hard enough. But most of the time by far, they don’t look at all.’

  ‘If you want,’ said Masan Gilani, ‘I can ask them to show themselves.’

  ‘I’ve absolutely no interest in—’

  ‘I do,’ Bottle cut him off. ‘Your pardon, sir, for interrupting.’

  ‘An apology I’m not prepared to accept, soldier. As for these guests, Masan Gilani, your offer is categorically—’

  Swirls of dust on all sides.

  Moments later five T’lan Imass encircled them.

  ‘Gods below,’ Ruthan Gudd muttered.

  As one, the undead warriors bowed to the captain. One spoke. ‘We greet you, Elder.’

  Gudd’s second curse was in a language Masan Gilani had never heard before.

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ he’d said with those hoary things bowing before him. And he’d not said much else. The T’lan Imass vanished again a short time later and the three soldiers continued on as the night deepened around them.

  Bottle wanted to scream. The captain’s company over the past few days had been an exercise in patience and frustration. He wasn’t a man for words. Ruthan Gudd. Or whatever your name really is. It’s not what I think? How do you know what I think? Besides, it’s exactly what I think. Fid has his shaved knuckle, and it seems the Adjunct has one, too.

  A Hood-damned Elder God – after all, what other kind of ‘Elder’ would T’lan Imass bow before? And since when did they bow before anything?

  Masan Gilani’s barrage of questions had withered the T’lan Imass to dust with, Bottle thought, a harried haste. But things from the past had a way of refusing illumination. As bad as standing stones, they held all their secrets buried deep inside. It wasn’t even a question of irritating coyness. They just don’t give a shit. Explanations? What’s the point? Who cares what you think you need to know, anyway? If I’m a stone, lean against me. If I’m a ruin, rest your weary arse on the rubble. And if I’m an Elder God, well, Abyss take you, don’t look to me for anything.

  But he’d ridden out against the Nah’ruk, when he could have ridden the other way. He went and made a stand. Which made him what? Another one in mysterious service to Adjunct Tavore Paran of Unta? But why? Even the Empress didn’t want her in the end. T’amber, Quick Ben, even Fiddler – they stood with her, even when it cost them their lives.

  Soldiers muttered she didn’t inspire a damned thing in them. Soldiers grumbled that she was no Dujek Onearm, no Coltaine, no Crust, no Dassem Ultor. They didn’t know what she was. None of us do, come to that. But look at us, right here, right now, walking back to her. A Dal Honese horsewoman who can ride like the wind – well, a heavy wind, then. An Elder God … and me. Gods below, I’ve lost my mind.

  Not quite. I tore it apart. Only to have Quick Ben make sure most of it came back. Do I feel different? Am I changed? How would I even know?

  But I miss the Bonehunters. I miss my miserable squad. I miss the damned Adjunct.

  We’re nothing but the sword in her hand, but we’re a comfortable grip. Use us, then. Just do it in style.

  ‘Camp glow ahead,’ said Masan Gilani, who once more rode her horse. ‘Looks damned big.’

  ‘Her allies have arrived,’ said Ruthan Gudd, then added, ‘I expect.’

  Bottle snorted. ‘Does she know you’re alive, Captain?’

  ‘Why should she?’

  ‘Well, because …’

  ‘I’m a captain, soldier.’

  ‘Who rode alone into the face of a Nah’ruk legion! Armoured in ice! With a sword of ice! A horse—’

  ‘Oh, enough, Bottle. You have no idea how much I regret doing what I did. It’s nice not being noticed. Maybe one day you humans will finally understand that, and do away with all your mad ambitions, your insipid self-delusional megalomania. You weren’t shat out by some god on high. You weren’t painted in the flesh of the divine – at least, not any more than anyone or anything else. What’s with you all, anyway? You jam a stick up your own arse then preen at how tall and straight you’re standing. Soldier, you think you put your crawling days behind the day you left your mother’s tit? Take it from me – you’re still crawling, lad. Probably always will.’

  Bludgeoned by the tirade, Bottle was silent.

  ‘You two go on,’ said Masan Gilani. ‘I need to piss.’

  ‘That last time was the horse then?’ Rudd asked.

  ‘Oh, funny man – or whatever.’ She reined in.

  ‘So they bowed to you,’ Bottle said as he and the captain continued on. ‘Why take it out on me?’

  ‘I didn’t – ah, never mind. To answer you, no, the Adjunct knows nothing about me. But as you say, my precious anonymity is over – or it is assuming the moment we’re in camp you go running off to your sergeant.’

  ‘I’m sure I will,’ Bottle replied. ‘But not, if you like, to babble about you being an Elder God.’

  ‘God? Not a god, Bottle. I told you: it’s not what you think.’

  ‘I’ll keep your ugly little secret, sir, if that’s how you want it. But that won’t change what we all saw that day, will it?’

  ‘Stormrider magic, yes. That.’

  ‘That.’

  ‘I borrowed it.’

  ‘Borrowed?’

  ‘Yes,’ he snapped in reply. ‘I don’t steal, Bottle.’

  ‘Of course not, sir. Why would you need to?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Bottle nodded in the gloom, listening as Masan rode back up to them. ‘Borrowed.’

  ‘A misunderstood people, the Stormriders.’

  ‘No doubt. Abject terror leaves little room for much else.’

  ‘Interestingly,’ Ruthan Gudd said in a murmur, ‘needs have converged somewhat. And I’m too old to believe in coincidence. No matter. We do what we do and that’s that.’

  ‘Sounds like something Fiddler would say.’

  ‘Fiddler’s a wise man, Bottle. He’s also the best of you, though I doubt many would see that, at least not as clearly as I do.’

  ‘Fiddler, is it? Not the Adjunct, Captain?’

  He heard Ruthan Gudd’s sigh, and it was a sound filled with sorrow. ‘I see pickets.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Masan Gilani. ‘Not Malazan. Perish.’

  ‘Our allies,’ said Bottle, glaring at Ruthan Gudd, but of course it was too dark for him to see that. Then again, what’s darkness to a Hood-cursed ice-wielding Imass-kneeling Elder God?

  Who then spoke. ‘It was a guess, Bottle. Truly.’

  ‘You took my anger.’

  The voice came out of the shadows. Blinking, Lostara Yil slowly sat up, the furs sliding down, the chill air sweeping around her bared breasts, b
ack and belly. A figure was sitting on the tent’s lone camp stool to her left, cloaked, hooded in grey wool. The two hands, hanging down past the bend of his knees, were pale as bone.

  Lostara’s heart thudded hard in her chest. ‘I felt it,’ she said. ‘Rising like a flood.’ She shivered, whispered, ‘And I drowned.’

  ‘Your love summoned me, Lostara Yil.’

  She scowled. ‘I have no love for you, Cotillion.’

  The hooded head dipped slightly. ‘The man you chose to defend.’

  His tone startled her. Weary, yes, but more than that. Lonely. This god is lonely.

  ‘You danced for him and none other,’ Cotillion went on. ‘Not even the Adjunct.’

  ‘I expected to die.’

  ‘I know.’

  She waited. Faint voices from the camp beyond the flimsy walls, the occasional glow of a hooded lantern swinging past, the thud of boots.

  The silence stretched.

  ‘You saved us,’ she finally said. ‘For that, I suppose I have to thank you.’

  ‘No, Lostara Yil, you do not. I possessed you, after all. You didn’t ask for that, but then, even all those years ago, the grace of your dance was … breathtaking.’

  Her breath caught. Something was happening here. She didn’t understand it. ‘If you did not wish my gratitude, Cotillion, why are you here?’ Even as she spoke, she flinched at her own tone’s harshness. That came out all wrong—

  His face remained hidden. ‘Those were early days, weren’t they. Our flesh was real, our breaths … real. It was all there, in reach, and we took it without a moment’s thought as to how precious it all was. Our youth, the brightness of the sun, the heat that seemed to stretch ahead for ever.’

  She realized then that he was weeping. Felt helpless before it. What is this about? ‘I took your anger, you said.’ And yes, she could remember it, the way the power filled her. The skill with the swords was entirely her own, but the swiftness – the profound awareness – that had belonged to him. ‘I took your anger. Cotillion, what did you take from me?’

  He seemed to shake his head. ‘I think I’m done with possessing women.’

  ‘What did you take? You took that love, didn’t you? It drowned you, just as your anger drowned me.’

  He sighed. ‘Always an even exchange.’

  ‘Can a god not love?’

  ‘A god … forgets.’

  She was appalled. ‘But then, what keeps you going? Cotillion, why do you fight on?’

  Abruptly he stood. ‘You are chilled. I have disturbed your rest—’

  ‘Possess me again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The love that I feel. You need it, Cotillion. That need is what brought you here, wasn’t it? You want to … to drown again.’

  His reply was a frail whisper. ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Why not? I offer this to you. As a true measure of my gratitude. When a mortal communes with her god, is not the language love itself?’

  ‘My worshippers love me not, Lostara Yil. Besides, I have nothing worthy to give in exchange. I appreciate your offer—’

  ‘Listen, you shit, I’m trying to give you some of your humanity back. You’re a damned god – if you lose your passion where does that leave us?’

  The question clearly rocked him. ‘I do not doubt the path awaiting me, Lostara Yil. I am strong enough for it, right to the bitter end—’

  ‘I don’t doubt any of that. I felt you, remember? Listen, whatever that end you see coming … what I’m offering is to take away some of its bitterness. Don’t you see that?’

  He was shaking his head. ‘You don’t understand. The blood on my hands—’

  ‘Is now on my hands, too, or have you forgotten that?’

  ‘No. I possessed you—’

  ‘You think that makes a difference?’

  ‘I should not have come here.’

  ‘Probably not, but here you are, and that hood doesn’t hide everything. Very well, refuse my offer, but do you really think it’s just women who feel love? If you decide never again to feel … anything, then best you swear off possession entirely, Cotillion. Steal into us mortals and we’ll take what we need from you, and we’ll give in return whatever we own. If you’re lucky, it’ll be love. If you’re not lucky, well, Hood knows what you’ll get.’

  ‘I am aware of this.’

  ‘Yes, you must be. I’m sorry. But, Cotillion, you gave me more than your anger. Don’t you see that? The man I love does not now grieve for me. His love is not for a ghost, a brief moment in his life that he can never recapture. You gave us both a chance to live, and to love – it doesn’t matter for how much longer.’

  ‘I also spared the Adjunct, and by extension this entire army.’

  She cocked her head, momentarily disoriented. ‘Do you regret that?’

  He hesitated, and that silence rippled like ice-water through Lostara Yil.

  ‘While she lives,’ he said, ‘the path awaiting you, and this beleaguered, half-damned army, is as bitter as my own. To the suffering to come … ah, there are no gifts in any of this.’

  ‘There must be, Cotillion. They exist. They always do.’

  ‘Will you all die in the name of love?’ The question seemed torn from something inside him.

  ‘If die we must, what better reason?’

  He studied her for a dozen heartbeats, and then said, ‘I have been considering … amends.’

  ‘Amends? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Our youth,’ he murmured, as if he had not heard her, ‘the brightness of the sun. She chose to leave him. Because, I fear, of me, of what I did to her. It was wrong. All of it, so terribly wrong. Love … I’d forgotten.’

  The shadows deepened, and a moment later she was alone in her tent. She? Cotillion, listen to my prayer. For all your fears, love is not something you can forget. But you can turn your back on it. Do not do that. A god had sought her out. A god suffering desperate need. But she couldn’t give him what he desired – perhaps, she saw now, he’d been wise in rejecting what she’d offered. The first time, it was anger for love. But I saw no anger left in him.

  Always an even exchange. If I opened my love to him … whatever he had left inside himself, he didn’t want to give it to me. And that, she now comprehended, had been an act of mercy.

  The things said and the things not said. In the space in between, a thousand worlds. A thousand worlds.

  The Perish escort of two armoured, helmed and taciturn soldiers halted. The one on the left pointed and said to Bottle, ‘There, marine, you will find your comrades. They have gathered at the summons of their captain.’ To Masan Gilani and Ruthan Gudd, the soldier continued, ‘The Adjunct’s command tent lies elsewhere, but as we have come to the edge of the Bonehunter encampment, I expect you will have little difficulty in finding your own way.’

  ‘Much as we will miss your company,’ Ruthan Gudd said, ‘I am sure you are correct. Thank you for guiding us this far, sirs.’

  The figures – Bottle wasn’t even sure if they were men or women, and the voice of the one who’d spoken gave no hint whatsoever – bowed, and then turned about to retrace their routes.

  Bottle faced his companions. ‘We part here, then. Masan, I expect I’ll see you soon enough. Captain.’ He saluted smartly.

  The man scowled in reply. Gesturing to Masan, he set off for the heart of the camp.

  Bottle faced the direction the guard had indicated. What’s Sort got to say to them, then? Guess I’m about to find out.

  They’d set no pickets. A small mass of soldiers were seated or standing in a basin, and at the far end, hunched down on a boulder … is that Fiddler? Gods below, don’t tell me this is all that’s left! Tentatively, he approached.

  They made their own way through a relatively quiet camp. It was late, and Masan was not looking forward to rousing the Adjunct, but she knew Tavore would not abide any delays to any of this. Though my report probably won’t impress her. Five beat-up T’lan Imass is all I’ve got to sho
w. No, it was Ruthan Gudd who was marching into a serious mess. She hoped she’d be witness to at least some of that exchange, if only to revel in the captain’s discomfort.

  Elder! Well, I won’t tell. But all the rest you did, Captain, now that sounded interesting. Too bad I missed it.

  They passed through a few groups here and there, and Masan sensed a heightening attention from those faces turned their way, but no one accosted them. No one said a damned thing. Strange and stranger still.

  They came to within sight of the command tent. Two guards were stationed at the flap, and the glow of lantern light painted the canvas walls.

  ‘Does she ever sleep?’ Ruthan Gudd wondered in a drawl.

  ‘In her boots,’ Masan replied, ‘I doubt I would.’

  The eyes of the guards were now on them, and both slowly straightened, their shadowed gazes clearly fixing on the captain. Both saluted when he halted before them.

  ‘She probably wants to see us,’ Ruthan said.

  ‘You have leave to enter, sir,’ one of them said.

  As the captain moved to the entrance the same guard said, ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Welcome back.’

  Masan followed him inside.

  ‘Of all the luck,’ muttered Ruthan Gudd upon seeing a dozing Skanarow. He held a hand to stay Masan. ‘Please,’ he whispered, ‘don’t wake her.’

  ‘Coward,’ she mouthed in reply.

  Grimacing, he edged past the sleeping woman. As she neared, Masan’s gaze fell to one wayward booted foot, and she gave it a kick.

  Skanarow bolted upright. ‘Adj— Gods below!’

  That shout rang loud as a hammered cauldron.

  At the very threshold to the inner chamber, Ruthan Gudd wheeled. Whatever he intended to say, he had no chance, as Skanarow was upon him in an instant. Such was the force of her lunge and embrace that he staggered back, splitting the curtain, into the Adjunct’s presence.

  Skanarow held her kiss as if glued to the captain’s mouth.

  Grinning, Masan Gilani edged in behind them, caught the Adjunct’s astonished gaze.

  Tavore was standing beside a small folding map table. She was otherwise alone, accounting for her half-dressed state – only the quilted undergarment of her armour covered her torso, and below that nothing but loose linen trousers, the knees so stained they’d have embarrassed a farmer. Her face was strangely streaked in the half-light of a single oil lamp.