She imagined that if she listened carefully enough, if all the sounds of thousands of soldiers marching and hundreds of wagons rolling were to suddenly fall away, if even the wind moaned into silence, she might hear still the droning words of the ritual that had ignited the fires, creating the desecrating cruelty that would become the Glass Desert.
This is what despair leads to, the kind of despair that steals light from the world, that mocks life’s own struggle to exist, to persist. Denying our desire to heal, to mend all that we break. Refusing hope itself.
If despair has a ritual, it was spoken here.
Riding this close to the glistening edge, to the banks of bones and cracked boulders, she felt as if she was taking it inside herself, as if deadly crystals had begun growing within her, whispering awake in the echoes of ancient words. When all you are is made wrong. This is how it feels.
Brys Beddict’s army was many days behind the other two, for the prince had made certain he was the last to leave the Bonehunters. They had marched with them to the desert’s very edge. Eight days through an increasingly parched and forbidding land. She wondered if he’d been hoping to change the Adjunct’s mind, to convince her of the madness of her determination to cross the Glass Desert. Or perhaps he had been considering accompanying that doomed force. For the first time since they had become lovers, Brys had closed himself to her. And not just me. To everyone.
And on the day we parted from them, he stood near Tavore, but he said nothing. Nor as we all watched the Bonehunters form up and set out, crossing that ghastly midden of crystals and bones, into the harsh glare beyond; we all watched, and not one of us – not one in the entire mass of soldiers – had a thing to say.
When the last burdened wagon rocked over the berm, and the last of the dust swirled away in the Malazans’ wake; when the column wavered and smeared in the fierce glare and rising heat, Brys had turned to face her.
The look in his face shocked her, cut through her every defence. Whatever he had thought to do to dissuade the Adjunct, the moment had passed. No, a thousand moments. Eight days’ worth, and not one grasped, not one taken in hand like a weapon. The brittle wall of silence had defeated him, defeated them all. That look …
Helpless. Filled with … Abyss below, filled with despair.
She was a singular woman, was Tavore Paran. They could all see that. They had all witnessed the terrible majesty of her will.
And her soldiers followed – that had been for Aranict the hardest thing to witness. The squads fell in, the companies formed up, and as they marched past Prince Brys they offered him a sharp, perfect salute. As if on a parade ground. Eyes hidden in the shadow of their helms, that closed fist on the chest, expressions chiselled from stone – gods, I will never forget that, any of it. Those faces. Horrifying in their emptiness. Those soldiers: veterans of something far beyond battles, far beyond shields locked and swords bared, beyond even the screams of dying comrades and the desolation of loss.
Veterans of a lifetime of impossible decisions, of all that is unbearable and all that is without reconciliation.
Brys Beddict rode to the head of the column then, to lead his soldiers south, along the very edge of the Glass Desert. It was clear that as soon as they reached its southernmost end, he would swing the army eastward, and the pace would become savage. They were a week or more behind the Perish and the Evertine Legion.
Aranict lit another stick of rustleaf. Her neck ached, as she found it impossible to face forward, to look ahead. The Glass Desert held her.
They’re out there. Do they reel beneath its onslaught? Has its madness infected them? Are they even now killing each other, frenzied with fever? It has been three days. They might already be dead, every one of them. More bones to crush, to push towards the shoreline – the only retreat left to them. She looked again at the bleached splinters. Did you all try to cross the desert?
The very notion chilled her. Shivering beneath her cloak, she forced her gaze away from the horror on her left, only to see its mangled verge stretching ahead, southward alongside the column, until the two seemed to merge in the hazy distance.
Brys, my love, from all of us what will you now forge? We Letherii have known too many defeats of late. And we tasted our own blood yet again, against the Nah’ruk. Not so bitter that time, for we saved the Bonehunters. Still, we pale beside our allies. In their shadow we are diminished.
And yet … they saluted us.
She could not get that moment out of her mind. The faces haunted her and she feared they would do so for the rest of her life.
Whose army are they? These Bonehunters. What is their cause? And the strength within them, where does it come from? Is it held in the soul of the Adjunct? No – at least, I don’t think so. Oh, she is the focus for them all, but they have no love for her. They see her, if at all, as no different from a mountain, a column of storm clouds, a bitter grey sea – they see her as part of the natural world, a thing to be borne, to be weathered.
I saw in their faces the erosion of her will, and they bore it. They bore it as they did all else. These Malazans, they shame the gods themselves.
‘Coming up on us fast, Highness, out of the northwest.’
Brys nodded. ‘Draw in the flying wing, Preda. I will take out our standard-bearer and my Atri-Ceda – when you see us ride out from the column, fall the wing in behind us.’
‘Yes, Highness.’
Brys listened to the Preda dispatching riders, one out to the flanking wing of light cavalry, another to retrieve Aranict from down the column. The standard-bearer rode up beside the prince, his face pale and drawn. ‘No need for alarm, soldier,’ Brys said to the young man. ‘This shall be a meeting of allies.’
‘But … lizards, sir!’
‘K’Chain Che’Malle. Not Short-Tails – I am sure you have heard, the army now approaching us subsequently defeated the Nah’ruk.’
The young man nodded, nervously licking his lips.
Brys studied him. ‘Soldier, our clash with the Nah’ruk – was that your first taste of battle?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You bore this standard?’
‘No, sir. Well, I was the third to take it up that day, and by then we were in full retreat—’
‘Withdrawal,’ Brys corrected. ‘Trust me, a full retreat is a far messier thing than what we managed.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Brys glanced up at the standard and fought down a groan, reminded once again of his brother’s perverse humour. Not a legion’s standard. No, the Imperial Standard, no less. Depending from a cross-bridge of iron, the cloth was a tattered rectangle of colourless wool – it was, in fact, a fair copy of Tehol’s blanket, almost to scale. And where one might expect some elegant or proud heraldic crest at centre, there was instead the new royal sigil of King Tehol the Only of Lether: a three-quarter-on rendition of his brother’s roof-top bed, and if one looked carefully one would see cowering beneath that bed a row of six plucked – but living – hens. Eyeing it, Brys recalled his meeting with Tehol upon the unveiling.
‘You would have our armies fight under that?’
‘Well, I did. The bed, I mean. And so did the chickens – can you imagine the extent of their holy dread, knowing that God wanted to cook them? All right, not their god, not precisely. Though we cannot actually be sure of that, can we? Bugg, are you worshipped by hens and cocks?’
‘Not both at the same time, sire.’
‘Thank you. Most enlightening.’
‘My very reason to exist, sire. You are welcome.’
‘Tehol—’
‘Yes, Brys?’
‘I understand your notion that dignity cannot be found in the … er, material – not a throne, not a crown, not even a fine estate or whatnot – but when it comes to the military—’
‘Oh, that’s all I ever hear from you, brother! “It’s not that way in the military, Tehol”, “The enlisted won’t go for that, Tehol”, “They don’t like pink, Tehol”. The pathetic con
servatism of that hoary institution is, frankly, embarrassing.’
‘I don’t recall any mention of pink, sire.’
‘There wasn’t, Bugg. I was being illustrative.’
‘What kind of illustration did you have in mind? Shall I summon the court artist again?’
‘Abyss no! After that debacle with my wife and that pretty guard—’
‘Ex-guard, sire.’
‘Really? By whose order? I demand to know!’
‘Your wife, the queen, sire.’
‘That interfering cow … oh, don’t look at me like that, beloved – I was but referring to you in your official capacity. Thus, while I rail at the queen, my love for my beautiful wife remains in its usual beaming manner for ever untarnished—’
‘Too bad the same cannot be said for that poor young woman, husband.’
‘I never tarnished her – not once!’
‘Tehol, have you seen that damned painting?’
‘Only once, dearest, since you went and burned the only copy. And – that’s right, you look well at this wagging finger – that artist has been depressed ever since—’
‘More like running scared,’ suggested Bugg.
‘Tehol, about this Imperial Standard—’
‘Not again, Brys. I thought we were past all that. It’s lovely and most apt—’
‘But who will rally under it?’
‘Brys, if an army must rally, one must presume it is in dire straits, yes? Well then, where better to hide than under the king’s bed?’
‘With all the other chickens,’ added Bugg. ‘Well now, sire, that’s clever.’
‘Hold on,’ said the queen, ‘What did you mean by “the only copy”?’
‘Brys! Rally the troops!’
Sweating under the bright sun, the king’s brother snorted – but how he missed those days now. The chaotic palace of King Tehol seemed very far away. He squinted up at the standard, and smiled.
Aranict arrived, reining in. ‘Prince, it pleases me to see you smiling. What so amuses you?’
‘Nothing, Atri-Ceda. That is, nothing of import. We have been found by the K’Chain Che’Malle – such a motley collection of allies we make, don’t you think? No matter. Ride with me. I would become acquainted with our new commanders.’
The woman frowned. ‘Are they not two common marines, sire? Anyone can acquire a title – it hardly makes them fit to demand the obedience of a prince, not to mention the queen of the Bolkando.’
‘Gesler and Stormy are far more than just Malazan marines, Aranict. And I am not referring to their new titles.’
‘I don’t recall meeting them.’
‘I will be pleased to introduce you, if you like.’
With the standard-bearer twenty paces ahead, they set out side by side, horse hoofs thumping as if on hollow ground. ‘Brys, do you hear that?’
‘We ride across an ancient lake bed,’ he said. ‘Often the lake remains, but only beneath the surface, and I think that must have been the case here, once. But now …’
‘The water’s gone.’
‘Yes. Gone.’
‘Might we all fall through?’
He shrugged.
‘So now even the ground under us is uncertain.’
‘I am sorry, Aranict. I have been neglecting you.’
‘Yes, you have.’
The flying wing was swinging in behind them, thirty Bluerose lancers in perfect formation. Brys thought about the soldier he’d lost – to love, no less. Henar Vygulf now marched with the Bonehunters. And if I have sent him to his death … I do not think he will curse my name. ‘I am not very good with grief, Aranict. When our parents died, well, without Tehol and Hull I don’t think I would have made it through. Kuru Qan once told me that grieving had nothing to do with the ones gone, and everything to do with the ones left behind. We feel the absences in our life like open wounds, and they never really close, no matter how many years pass.’
‘Do you grieve then for the Adjunct and the Bonehunters?’
‘It makes no sense, does it? She … well … she is a difficult woman to like. She views a human gesture as if it was some kind of surrender, a weakness. Her responsibilities consume her, because she will allow herself nothing else.’
‘It was said she had a lover,’ said Aranict. ‘She died saving Tavore’s life.’
‘Imagine the wound that made.’
‘No one wants to be un-liked, Brys. But if it must be so, one can strive for other things. Like respect. Or even fear. Choices fall away, without you even noticing, until there are very few left, and you realize that you are nothing but what you are.’
Brys thought about that, and then sighed. ‘I should have liked her. I should have found something – beyond her competence, beyond even her stubbornness. Something …’
‘Brys, what is it that you grieve over? Is it your own failure to find in Tavore the reasons you need for following her?’
He grunted. ‘I should have talked to you days ago.’
‘You were too busy saying nothing.’
‘I stayed close, as long as I could. Like a man dying of thirst – was she my salvation? Or just a mirage?’ He shook his head.
‘We won’t turn back, will we?’
‘No, we won’t.’
‘We’ll see this through.’
‘Yes, and so I must hide my uncertainty – from my officers, from my soldiers—’
‘But not from me, Brys.’
He turned to study her face, was shocked to see tears streaking her dusty cheeks. ‘Aranict?’
‘Never mind this,’ she said, as if angry with herself. ‘Do you want to be like her, Brys? Do you want your responsibilities to consume you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘And since we began marching with the Bonehunters, what has the Adjunct given you?’
‘Not much—’
‘Nothing,’ she snapped. ‘Nothing but silence. Every time you needed something else, she gave you silence. Brys, you’ve said little to anyone for days. Don’t take on someone else’s wounds. Don’t.’
Chastened, he looked ahead. The dark stain of legions in the hazy distance, and a nearer group, humans and lizards both, drawing closer.
When the Guardian of the Names came for me, the sea ran from him like tears. But I was dead by then. I saw none of that. Only upon my rebirth did these visions find me. I see poor Rhulad Sengar lying cut and broken on the blood-spattered floor, crying out to his brothers. I see them turn away. I see my body slumping down against the dais. I see my king sitting lifeless on his throne.
Could we but have left him there, so useless to resist the puppet-masters who ever gather to symbols of power – are they all so blind as to not see the absurdity of their ambitions? The pathetic venality of all their petty scheming? Grasp those dead limbs, then, and make him do your will.
I have dreamed the names of a thousand lost gods. Will I ever speak them? Will I break upon this world one last time those names of the fallen? Is that enough, to give remembrance to the dead? A name upon my breath, spoken out loud, a whisper, a bold shout – will a distant soul stir? Find itself once more?
In speaking a god’s name, do we conjure it into being?
‘Brys.’
‘Aranict?’
‘Did you hear me?’
‘I did, and I will heed your warning, my love. But you should bear in mind that, sometimes, solitude is the only refuge left. Solitude … and silence.’
He saw how his words left her shaken, and was sorry. Shall I by name resurrect a god? Force its eyes to open once more? To see what lies all about us, to see the devastation we have wrought?
Am I that cruel? That selfish?
Silence. Tavore, I think I begin to understand you. Must the fallen be made to see what they died for, to see their sacrifice so squandered? Is this what you mean – what you have always meant – by ‘unwitnessed’?
‘Now it is you who weep – Errant’s shove, Brys, what a wretched pair we make. Gath
er yourself, please – we are almost upon them.’
He drew a shaky breath and straightened in his saddle. ‘I could not have stopped her, Aranict.’
‘Did you really expect to?’
‘I don’t know. But I think I have figured something out. She gives us silence because she dares not give us anything else. What we see as cold and indifferent is in fact the deepest compassion imaginable.’
‘Do you think that is true?’
‘I choose to believe it, Aranict.’
‘Well enough, then.’
Brys raised his voice. ‘Bearer!’
The young man reined in and swung his mount out to the right. Brys and Aranict drew up alongside him.
The two marines had dismounted, joining a woman, a boy and a girl. The woman was middle-aged, possibly an Awl by birth. The children were Malazans, though clearly unrelated. Had he seen these two before? In the palace? Possibly. Behind them all stood a half-dozen K’Chain Che’Malle, including three of the saddled creatures. Two of the remaining lizards were not as robust, yet bore huge blades instead of hands, while the third one was broader of snout, heavier of girth, and unarmed. Two ragged-looking dogs wandered out from between the legs of the lizards. The humans approached.
‘Aranict,’ said Brys under his breath, ‘tell me what you see.’
‘Not now,’ she said, her voice hoarse.
He glanced across to see her setting alight a stick of rustleaf, her hands shaking. ‘Tell me this at least. Shall a prince of Lether relinquish command to these ones?’
Smoke hissed out, and then, ‘The marines … yes, for one simple reason.’
‘Which is?’
‘Better them than those two children.’
I see.
At five paces away they halted, and the clean-shaven marine was the first to speak. His eyes on the standard, he said, ‘So it’s true.’
Brys cleared his throat. ‘My brother the king—’
‘Has no respect at all for the institutions of the military,’ said the marine, nodding. ‘Hood take me, for that reason alone I’d follow him anywhere. What think you, Stormy?’
The man scowled, scratched his red beard, and then grunted. ‘Do I have to?’
‘Do what? You oaf, I was saying—’