The Crippled God

  ‘Brewing pots and lighting pipe bowls doesn’t count for anything with you, Pretty? I tell you, I’m considering finding my own handmaiden once we get home. Of course,’ she added, ‘there’s no rule says it has to be a woman, is there?’

  A flush crept up the man’s misshapen face.

  Shurq clapped him on the back. ‘You’re right about her, Pretty. I’m thinking she’s as mean a sorceress as the Princess herself, and probably a lot more besides. That woman hides herself well, but one glimpse of her wrists … well, unless she’s throwing bales of hay around when no one’s looking – and given the scars on her hands those bales got knives in them – well, aye, she’s more than she seems.’

  ‘What’s her name anyway?’

  ‘No idea.’ Shurq grunted. The sailors at the camp were watching them now. ‘All right, Pretty, let me do the talking.’

  ‘Aye, Cap’n, better you’n me.’

  ‘And if I mess up, you can beat on some heads.’

  ‘T’bring ’em round, like.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Cool beneath the umbrella, Felash watched her handmaid crawl up from the water. ‘You need more fat on you, dear,’ she observed. ‘I’m sure the sun will warm you up soon enough, as it has done me. In any case,’ she gestured with the mouthpiece, ‘the passage awaits you.’

  Gasping, the older woman slowly worked her way well clear of the water line. In her right hand was a splinter of wood, black against her bluish knuckles. Behind her, in the shallows, the ice was fast melting as the last remnants of Omtose Phellack faded. At the bay’s outer edge, where the shelf fell away to deeper water, the Undying Gratitude was settling lower into her glittering, weeping nest.

  Once the handmaid had recovered enough to begin moving, she dressed herself in quilted undergarments and then the heavy scaled armour retrieved from bundles of waxed canvas. Taking up the paired throwing axes, a leather-sheathed short sword, an underarm holster of four throwing knives, and her helm, she completed her attire by tucking the wood splinter into her belt. ‘Highness, I am ready.’

  ‘Well said. My patience was wearing ominously thin.’ Sighing, Felash set the mouthpiece down and rose. ‘Where did you put the last of the sweets?’

  ‘Beside the brick of rustleaf, Highness.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Wonderful. See how thin I’m getting? It’s an outrage. Do you recall your own childhood, dear, when your chest was flat and all your bones jutted every which way?’

  ‘No, Highness, I was never boy-thin, thank the Errant’s nudge.’

  ‘Nor me. I have always been suspicious of grown men who seem to like that in their women. What’s wrong with little boys if they’re into pallid bony wraiths?’

  ‘Perhaps it appeals to their protective natures, Highness.’

  ‘Protecting is one thing, diddling is entirely another. Now, where was I? Oh yes, throwing you into the Hold of Ice. Best unsheathe at least a few of your weapons, dear. Who knows what you’ll land in.’

  The handmaid drew her axes. ‘I am ready.’

  ‘… that condescending, patronizing cow doesn’t deserve tits like that, or that soft blemish-free skin and lustrous hair. And the way those hips swing, why, I’m amazed she doesn’t throw out her back with every step, and those damned luscious lips look ready made to wrap themselves round— Gods, what was that?’

  The thunderclap shivered the water in the bay, set the sand to blurry trembling. Shurq Elalle turned to see an enormous white cloud billowing out and up from Felash’s camp. The sailors – well out of earshot behind her – were now on their feet, shouting in alarm.

  ‘Stay here, Skorgen. And calm those fools down!’ She set off at a run.

  The camp was a mess, gear flung about as if a whirlwind had erupted in its midst. Princess Felash was slowly picking herself up from the blasted sand. Her hair was awry, her clothes dishevelled. Her face was red, as if she’d been repeatedly slapped.

  ‘Highness, are you all right?’

  The girl coughed. ‘I believe the theory has proved itself, Captain. It seems there is far more to Omtose Phellack than a few chunks of ice. The passage I found, well, it’s hard to say where precisely it led—’

  ‘Where is your handmaiden, Highness?’

  ‘Well, let us hope she is exploring in wonder and delight.’

  ‘You sent her through?’

  A flash from her stunning eyes. ‘Of course I sent her through! Did you not insist on the necessity, given our terrible plight? Can you begin to imagine my sacrifice, the appalling extremity of the service we are providing here?’

  Shurq Elalle studied the plump girl. ‘What if she doesn’t come back?’

  ‘I shall be most displeased. At the same time, we shall have before us evidence to support certain other theories about Omtose Phellack.’

  ‘Excuse me, what other theories?’

  ‘Why, the ones about shrieking demons, clouds of madness, flesh-eating plants, treacherous voles and a hundred other nightmares in a similar vein. Now, please be so kind as to rebuild my fire here, will you?’

  She reached for her last throwing knife, found the sheath empty. Cursing, she ducked beneath the scything slash and threw herself to the left, shoulder-rolling until she came up against the bulk of the first fiend she’d slain. Her hands scrabbled up its muricated hide, found the wedge of one of her axes. Grunting as she tugged it free, she rolled over the body – it quivered as six swords punched into it in the spot where she’d been a moment earlier – and regained her feet in time to send the axe flying.

  It crunched into the demon’s brow, rocking its head back.

  She lunged for it, tugging away one of the heavy swords gripped by the closest hand, which was twitching as the huge beast sagged on to its knees. Blade clashing as she beat away the swords flailing about at the ends of the five other arms, she chopped into its thick neck, once, twice, three times, until the head rolled free.

  Spinning, she looked for more of the damned things. Five corpses and nothing more. Apart from her heavy breaths, the glade was silent.

  From one fire straight into another – she’d landed in the middle of a camp – and it was her luck that she’d been ready when they clearly were not. The fire burned on here and there, where the hottest embers had scattered. If she was not careful, she’d end up burning down the forest – and all the wood the captain and her crew sorely needed.

  The handmaid retrieved her weapons, and then stamped out the smouldering flames.

  She cursed as something bit into the back of her neck. Scrabbling with one hand, she closed her fist about something small and furry, brought it round for a closer look. A vole, with a mouthful of her flesh. Snorting, she flung the thing away.

  ‘Well, Highness,’ she muttered, ‘seems I’ve found some trees.’

  Some beast shrieked close by, and the cry was echoed by a half-dozen more, surrounding the glade, drawing closer.

  ‘Errant’s bunghole, those things sound vicious.’

  Pointless hanging around here, she decided. Choosing a direction at random, she ducked into the forest.

  Absurdly dark, and the air was damp and cold. Plunging forward, she held her axes at the ready. A shriek sounded directly behind her and she whirled round. Something skittered on the forest floor. Another damned vole. She watched it pause, tilt its head back, and loose another curdling shriek.

  A short time later she’d left the voracious things behind. The huge boles of the trees thinned out, with more undergrowth now impeding her way. She caught glimpses of the sky, a sweep of stars, no moon. A dozen paces ahead the ground fell away. She came to the edge, looked down into a ravine crowded with treefall, the trunks grey as bones.

  Clumps of low fog wandered the length of the channel, glowing like swamp gas.

  The channel was the product of flash flooding, and those trees had been savagely uprooted, flung down and carried along in the tumult. Studying the wreckage, she caught a shape in the ravine’s gloom, twenty or so paces downstream. At first sh
e’d assumed it was a barrier of knotted branches and trees, but that detritus had fetched up against something else … a hull.

  She drew out the splinter of wood in her belt. It seemed to be sweating in her hand.

  Boots skidding, she half slid, half stumbled down the steep bank of the ravine. Avoiding the fog as best she could, she clambered and climbed her way closer to the ship. How it had made it this far down this treacherous, winding channel without being torn to pieces was something of a mystery, but she knew enough to trust this sorcerous link. Whatever shape it was in, there would be enough of it to be of some use.

  At last she reached the hull, set her hand against it. Not rotten. She thumped it, was rewarded with a faint hollow sound. Five arm-spans above her was an ornately carved gunnel, the heavy rail formed in the shape of entwining serpents running the length of the ship – which she judged to be somewhere between fifteen and twenty paces.

  She glanced down then, to see the fog rising up to swallow her knees. And in that fog, small clawed hands reached out to grasp her thighs, the talons stabbing deep, the limbs writhing like worms. Gasping at the pain, she pulled out her sword and began hacking.

  Her thighs were shredded and streaming blood by the time she cut herself loose and worked her way up the side of the hull, using the clutter of trees and branches for foot- and handholds. Gasping, she lifted herself over the gunnel and thumped down on the slanted deck.

  And found herself in the midst of a squall of black-haired, scaled apes. Howling, the dog-sized creatures bared dagger-long fangs, eyes flashing lurid yellow, and raised their knotted clubs. Then they rushed her.

  From somewhere up the length of ravine, there came a deep, rumbling roar. But she had no time to think about that.

  ‘My ootooloo thinks this is sex – how strange.’

  Felash glanced sidelong at the captain, her lids slowly settling in a lazy blink. ‘Back in the palace, there are exquisite mouthpieces carved in the semblance of a penis.’ She gestured with one hand. ‘All part of a princess’s education—’

  Shurq set the mouthpiece down. ‘Enough of that, I think, Highness. I leave you to your … devices.’

  ‘Adventure arrives in all manner of guises, Captain. Had your ootooloo a brain, I am sure it would most avidly concur.’

  ‘But that’s the whole point about, er, desire. It’s mostly brainless. Most of the world’s tragedy is found in this one misunderstanding. We tie too much to it, you see. Things like loyalty and precious intimacy, love and possession, and sooner or later it all goes wrong. Why, I knew men – and I do mean “knew” – who’d come to me twice a week hungry for the brainless stuff, and afterwards they’d babble on about their wives.’

  ‘What would they tell you? Please, I must know.’

  ‘Starved for gossip, are you?’

  ‘The palace seems terribly far away at the moment.’

  ‘Just so, Highness. Well. Some would tell me about all the sorcery of love being gone between them, the embers of desire cold as stone now. Others would complain about how complicated it had all become, or how rote, or how fraught. And still more would talk of their wives as if they were possessions, to be used when it suited the men and otherwise left alone, but the very notion of those wives perhaps doing what the husband happened to be doing – there with me – well, that could light a murderous rage in their eyes.’

  ‘So, while being with you, most of them still missed the point?’

  ‘Very astute, Highness. Yes, they missed the point entirely.’

  ‘Because what you offered was sex without complications.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Brainless.’

  ‘Yes. And that freed them, and freedom made them happy – or anyway forgetful – at least for a short time. But once the flush was past, well, that old world and all its chains just came rattling back down. They’d leave as if they were condemned to swim the canal.’

  ‘You have led a varied and extraordinary life, Captain.’

  ‘Life? Wrong word, Highness.’

  ‘Oh, one doesn’t have to be breathing to be alive – and before you comment on how ridiculously obvious that statement seems, I do implore you to give it a second consideration, as I was not referring to your condition.’

  ‘Then I am indeed curious as to what you might mean, Highness.’

  ‘In my years of education, I have—’

  A roar drowned out her next words, and they swung round to see a torrent of muddy, foaming water pounding into the bay just beyond the shallows. Rushing from a gaping wound almost swallowed in gouts of steam, the flood thundered aside the slabs of floating ice, clearing a broad swathe. A moment later what seemed half a forest exploded out from the wound, snapped branches and sundered trees, and then the prow of a ship lunged into view, outward like a thrust fist, and then plunging down to the bay’s churning waters.

  The raucous flow drove the ship straight for the reef.

  ‘Errant’s bitch!’ swore Shurq Elalle.

  Abruptly, in wallows of spume and steam, the ship heeled, came about, and they saw a figure at the stern rudder, pushing hard against the current.

  The wound thundered shut, cutting off the wild flow. Branches and logs skirled in the spinning water.

  Felash watched the captain run into the shallows.

  The strange ship had crunched briefly against the coral shelf before pulling clear. It was fortunate, the princess decided, that the seas were calm, but it was obvious that one woman alone could not manage the craft, and that disaster still loomed. Glancing to the right, she saw the crew pelting along the strand, clearly intent on joining the captain.

  Felash looked back to the ship. ‘Dearie, couldn’t you have found a prettier one?’

  Spitting out silty water, Shurq Elalle pulled herself on to the deck. Something slimy beneath her boots sent her down on to her backside with a thump. She held up one palm. Blood. Lots and lots of blood. Swearing, she regained her feet and made for the bow. ‘Is there an anchor?’ she shouted. ‘Where’s the damned anchor?’

  From the stern, the handmaid yelled back, ‘How should I know?’

  Shurq saw her crew now plunging into the shallows. Good.

  ‘We’re drifting back to that reef,’ the handmaiden cried. ‘How do I stop it doing that?’

  ‘With a damned anchor, you stupid cow!’

  Failing to find anything, and feeling somewhat bad about her outburst, Shurq turned about and began making her way back to the stern. One clear look at the handmaiden stopped her in her tracks. ‘Gods, woman, what happened to you?’

  ‘It’s the damned voles,’ she snarled. ‘This – that thing – is that what you call a sea-anchor?’

  Shurq forced her eyes away from the woman to where she was pointing. ‘Mael’s kiss, aye, it is!’ Five quick steps along she halted yet again. ‘Is that water I’m hearing below? Are we taking on water?’

  The handmaiden leaned on the rudder’s handle and looked over with red-shot, exhausted eyes. ‘You’re asking me, Captain?’

  Shurq whirled, reached the landward gunnel. Glared down at her thrashing crew. ‘Get aboard, you lazy pigs! Man the pumps! Fast!’

  Back on shore, Felash settled down on the log, careful once more to avoid the iron spikes. Drawing on her hookah, she watched the antics with some contentment. As she exhaled a stream of smoke, she heard and felt a rattle in her throat.

  Almost time for her afternoon cough.

  He kicked his way through the clutter, the crumpled helms, the crushed iron scales, the bones that crumbled into dust and lifted grey clouds to swirl about his legs. Ahead, across an expanse of level land buried in corpses, was a mound of the same twisted bodies, and from the top of that mound rose the trunks of two trees, bound at the centre to form an upright X. The remnants of a body hung from it, flesh in shreds, black hair hanging down over the desiccated face.

  Silchas Ruin could see, even from this distance, the long-shafted arrow buried in the figure’s forehead.

&n
bsp; Here, in this place, realms folded one upon another. Chaos and madness in such profusion as to stain time itself, holding horror in an implacable grip. Here, the skin of a hundred worlds bore the same seared brand. He did not know what had happened at this battle – this slaughter – to leave such a legacy, nor even the particular world in which the actual event had taken place.

  He slowly crossed the killing field, towards the mound and its grisly shrine.

  Other figures moved about, walking as if lost, as if seeking friends amidst the faceless thousands. At first he’d thought them ghosts, but they were not ghosts. They were gods.

  His passage caught the attention of one, and then another, and then still more. Some simply looked away again, resuming whatever it was they were doing. A few set out to intercept him. As they drew closer, he heard their voices, their thoughts.

  ‘A stranger. Interloper. This is not his world, this is not his curse, this is nothing to him.’

  ‘He comes to mock us, the fragments of us snared here.’

  ‘He does not even hear the cries that so deafen us, all these chains of desire …’

  ‘And despair, Shedenul, so much despair …’

  Silchas Ruin reached the base of the mound, studied the twisted bodies before him, a steep slope of solid bone, leathery flesh, armour and shattered weapons.

  A half-dozen gods gathered around him.

  ‘Tiste Liosan?’

  ‘No, Beru. Tiste Andii. His white skin mocks the darkness within him.’

  ‘Does he belong in the war? He is dangerous. We don’t want him anywhere near us when we slay the Fallen One. When we feed and so free ourselves—’

  ‘Free?’ growled one in a thick, heavy voice. ‘Mowri, from the legacy of our followers we shall never be free. This is the bargain we made—’

  ‘I made no such bargain, Dessembrae!’

  ‘Nevertheless, Beru. Mortal desire gave us shape. Mortal desire dragged us into all their realms. It was not enough that we ascended, not enough that we should seek out our own destinies. I tell you, though most of me still walks a distant world – and his howls of betrayal deafen me – in curse and prayer I am knotted here like a fist. Do I desire worship? I do not. Do I seek ever greater power? I have been shown its futility, and now all my purpose settles like ash upon my soul. Here, we are trapped, and so we shall remain—’