Memories of Ice

  Trotts was the first one to extricate himself, stabbing down with his shortsword, kicking and stamping with his boots. Cursing, Mallet dragged himself clear of the Barghast's frenzy, fire lancing from the wound in his shoulder.

  Moments later, there was only the sound of gasping breaths in the stairwell.

  The healer twisted round, found a wall at his back, and slowly pushed himself upright—to glare up at Trotts. 'You stabbed me, you bastard!'

  Even as he said it, his words fell away as he looked at the Barghast. The huge warrior had taken more wounds than Mallet had thought possible. He had been chopped to pieces. Yet he did not even so much as waver as he grinned down at the healer. 'Stabbed you, did I? Good.'

  Mallet grimaced. 'I see your point, you blue-toothed cattle-dog. Why should you get all the fun?'

  'Aye. Where's Antsy and Det and Spin?'

  'Landing below. Det's dead. We'll have to carry Antsy. From the sound, Spin's still looking for a new helm.'

  'They'll all be too big,' Trotts growled. 'We need to find the kitchen—a cup.'

  Mallet pushed himself from the wall. 'Good idea. Let's get going, then.'

  'I'll take point, now—cooks are dangerous.'

  The Barghast, streaming blood, moved past the healer.

  'Trotts.'

  He paused. 'Aye?'

  'Spin said a score.'

  'Aye.'

  'All dead?'

  'Maybe half. The rest ran away.'

  'You scared them off, did you?'

  'Spin's hairshirt, is my guess. Come on, Healer.'

  Toc's head lolled, the scene rising and falling as the T'lan Imass carried him down the torchlit corridor. Occasionally, Tool stepped over a body or two.

  My brother. He called me that.

  I have no brother.

  Only a mother.

  And a god. Seer, where are you? Will you not come for me, now? The wolf dies. You have won. Free me, Lord of All. Free me to walk through Hood's Gate.

  They reached an arched doorway, the door lying shattered on this side. Wood still nailed to bronze bands shifted unsteadily underfoot as Tool crossed it. A large, domed chamber, twenty paces across, was before them. It had once been filled with strange mechanisms—machines used by torturers—but these had all been smashed into ruin, flung to the sides to lean like broken-boned beasts against the walls.

  Victims of rage… was this Tool's work? This undead, emotionless… thing?

  A sudden clang of blades from the arched doorway opposite.

  The T'lan Imass stopped. 'I shall have to set you down, now.'

  Down. Yes. It's time.

  Toc twisted his head as Tool slowly lowered him to the flagstones. A figure stood in the doorway on the other side of the chamber. Masked, white enamel, twin-scarred. A sword in each hand. Oh, I know you, do I not?

  The figure said nothing and simply waited until Tool had stepped away from Toc. The battered T'lan Imass drew the two-handed flint sword from his shoulder sling, then spoke, 'Mok, Third among the Seguleh, when you are done with me, would you take Toc the Younger from this place?'

  Lying on his side, Toc watched as the masked warrior tilted his head in acknowledgement. Mok, you damned fool. You are about to kill my friend… my brother.

  Blurred motion, two warriors closing too fast for Toc's lone eye to follow. Iron sang with stone. Sparks shooting through the gloom to light the broken instruments of torture surrounding them, in racing flashes of revelation—shadows dancing in the wood and metal tangle, and, to Toc, it was as if all the accumulated pain that these mechanisms had absorbed in their lifetimes was suddenly freed.

  By the sparks.

  By the two warriors… and all that sheathed their hidden souls.

  Freed, writhing, dancing, spider-bitten—mad, frantic in answer…

  In answer…

  Somewhere within him—as the battle continued on, the masked warrior driving the T'lan Imass back, back—the wolf stirred.

  Trapped. In this bent but unbroken mechanism, this torturing cage of bone… He saw, close, the shattered frame of… something. A beam, massive, its end capped in black, bruised bronze. Where bits were smeared—flesh, flesh and hair.

  Cage.

  Toc the Younger drew his mangled legs under him, planted a pustuled, malformed elbow on the flagstones, felt flesh tear as he twisted round, pivoted, dragged his legs up to kneel—then, hands, frozen into fists, pushing down on the stone. Lifting, tilting back to settle weight on hips that ground and seemed to crumble beneath tendon and thin muscle.

  He set his hands down once more, drew the knobbed things that had once been his feet under him, knees lifting.

  Balance… now. And will.

  Trembling, slick with sweat beneath the tattered remnants of his shapeless tunic, Toc slowly rose upright. His head spun, blackness threatening, but he held on.

  Kruppe gasped, lifting her, pulling at her arm. 'You must touch, lass. This world—it was made for you—do you understand? A gift—there are things that must be freed.'

  Freed.

  Yes, she understood that word. She longed for it, worshipped it, knelt, head bowed, before its altar. Freed. Yes, that made sense.

  Like these memories of ice, raining, raining down upon us.

  Freed… to feed the earth—

  —deliverance, of meaning, of emotion, history's gift—the land underfoot, the layers, so many layers—

  To feed the earth.

  What place is this?

  'Reach, dearest Mhybe, Kruppe begs you! Touch—'

  She raised a trembling hand—

  Upright.

  To see Tool reeling beneath blows, the flint sword fending slower with each flashing blade that reached for him.

  Upright. A step. One step. Will do.

  The cage, the wolf stirring, the wolf seeking to draw breath—unable—

  He lurched towards the beam and its upthrust, bronze-capped end.

  One step, then toppling.

  Forward, lifting his arms high—clear—the beam's end seeming to rise to meet him. Meet his chest—the ribs—bones shattering in an explosion of pain—

  To touch—

  The cage! Broken! Freed!

  The wolf drew breath. And howled.

  The hammer held high in Brood's hands, trembling, iron shaking—

  As a god's howl ripped the air, a howl climbing, a call—

  Answered.

  On the killing field, T'lan Ay rising from the ground, the beasts blurring forward in a silent, grey wave, cutting through K'Chain Che'Malle—tearing the undead reptiles down, rending—the giant, armoured reptiles buckling before the onslaught.

  Other K'ell Hunters wheeling, racing for the gate—wolves pursuing.

  Far overhead, condors breaking away from their deadly dance with two black dragons, speeding back towards the keep, Korlat and Orfantal following, and behind them, tens of thousands of Great Ravens—

  —and above the keep, something was happening—

  Holding the Mhybe, now unconscious, in his arms, Kruppe staggered back as Togg tore itself free of the shattered cage, the god's howl blistering the air.

  The deluge of hail ceased. Abrupt. The sky darkened.

  A pressure, a force, ancient and bestial. Growing.

  Togg, huge, one-eyed, white, silver-tipped fur—howling

  The wolf-god, emerging with the force of heaving stone, his cry seeming to span the sky.

  A cry that was answered. On all sides.

  Paran ducked even lower to a sudden descent of gloom, cold, a weight overwhelming the captain.

  Beside him, Quick Ben groaned, then hissed. This is it, friend. Kurald Galain. I can use this—get us over this wall—we have to see—'

  See what? Gods, I'm being crushed!

  The pressure dimmed suddenly. Hands gripped his harness, dragged him up, metal scraping, leather catching, up and over the low wall to thump down on the other side.

  The darkness continued its preternatural fall, dulling t
he sun to a grey, fitfully wavering disc.

  Condors overhead, screaming—

  —and in those screams, raw terror—

  Paran twisted round, looked upon the scene on the parapet. Thirty paces away, on the far edge, crouching, was a figure the captain knew instinctively to be the Seer. Human flesh and skin had sloughed away, revealing a Jaghut, naked, surrounded in misty clouds of ice crystals. Clutched in the Seer's hands, an egg the size of a cusser. At his side, huge and misshapen, a K'Chain Che'Malle—no. The Matron. What flowed from her left Paran horrified and filled with pity. She was mindless, her soul stripped, filled with a pain he knew she could not even feel—the only mercy that remained.

  Two heavily armoured K'ell Hunters had been guarding their mother, but were now moving forward, weapons rising, thumping across the roof as, at a stairwell fifteen paces to Paran's left, two figures appeared. Masked, painted from head to toe in blood, each wielding two swords, clambering free of a passageway strewn with the bodies of Urdomen and Seerdomin.

  'Hood take us!' Quick Ben swore. 'Those are Seguleh!'

  But Paran's attention had already left them, was oblivious of the battle as the K'ell Hunters closed with the Seguleh. The storm-cloud that had towered overhead for so long was still climbing, shredding apart, almost lost in darkness. Something, he realized with a chill, was coming.

  'Captain! Follow me!'

  Quick Ben was edging along the low wall, following its curve towards the harbourside.

  Paran scrambled after the wizard. They halted where they had a full view of the harbour and the bay.

  Far out in the bay, the horizon's line of ice was exploding all along its length, in white, spewing clouds.

  The waters of the harbour had grown glass-smooth beneath the dark, now motionless air. The web of ropes spanning it—with its shacks and dangling lines and withered corpses—suddenly trembled.

  'In Hood's name what's—'

  'Shh! Oh, Abyss! Watch!'

  And he did.

  The glass-smooth waters of the harbour… shivered… swelled… bulged.

  Then, impossibly, fled on all sides.

  Black, enormous—something—rising from the depths.

  Seas thrashed, a ring of foam racing outward. A sudden push of cold wind hammered the parapet, made the structure sway, then tremble.

  Rock, ragged, scarred—a Hood-damned mountain!—rising from the harbour, lifting the vast net with it.

  And the mountain grew larger, rose higher, darkness bleeding from it in radiating waves.

  'They've unveiled Kurald Galain!' Quick Ben shouted through the roaring wind. 'All of them!'

  Paran stared.

  Moon's Spawn.

  Rising.

  Rake hid it—

  —oh, Abyss below, did Rake hide it!

  Rising, water descending down its battered sides in tumbling falls, into mist that flowed as the edifice climbed ever higher.

  The Cut. Ortnal's Cut—that chasm—

  'Look!' Quick Ben hissed. Those cracks…'

  And now he saw the cost of Rake's gambit. Huge fissures scarred the face of Moon's Spawn, fissures from which water still poured in un-diminished volume.

  Rising.

  Two-thirds now clear of the churned seas.

  Slowly spinning, bringing into view, high on one side, a ledge—

  Where stood a lone figure.

  Memories… gone. In their wake, tens of thousands of souls. Silent. 'To me, then, I will take your pain, now.' 'You are mortal.' 'I am mortal.'

  'You cannot carry our pain.' 'I can.' 'You cannot deliver it—'

  'I shall.' 'Itkovian—'

  'Your pain, T'lan Imass. Now.'

  It rose before him, a wave of immeasurable height, rose, towering, then plunged towards him. And they saw, one and all. They saw Itkovian's welcoming smile.

  Moon's Spawn rose, shrouded in darkness, beyond the city. Caladan Brood stared. Cascading clouds of mist, streams of water falling, fading. Dragons, now, wheeling outward, black, one crimson, waves of Kurald Galain, lashing out, incinerating the demonic condors.

  Moon's Spawn, leaning—a massive chunk of midnight stone sloughing from one side, rocking the entire edifice—leaning, sliding, forward, towards the keep—

  On the killing field below, scattered remnants of soldiers—Malazan, Barghast, Grey Swords, Gruntle and the handful of followers that were all that remained of his legion—had one and all crossed the stone bridge and were converging on the shattered north gate. Unimpeded. The wall east of the gate was empty of mages, of anyone—stripped clean.

  Fires lit the city beyond the wall. The sky was filling with Black Moranth, Great Ravens—Kurald Galain spreading out, down, onto Coral—

  A true unveiling. All of the Tiste Andü, joined in ritual magic—the world has never known this—in all the millennia since their arrival—never known this. Burn's heart, what will come of this unveiling?

  He continued staring, overcome with a vast, soul-numbing helplessness.

  The power flowed towards Korlat. Her eyes flashed as she and her brother swept on the cold, familiar currents of Kurald Galain, towards Moon's Spawn.

  Oh, it was dying—she could see that. Dying, but not yet completed its dreadful, deadly task.

  She watched it moving, drawing closer to the keep's parapet—to where, she could now see, stood the Seer—the Jaghut, clutching the Matron's Finnest, staring upward, frozen, as the black, towering mountain inexorably approached.

  Darkness, come to this world. To this place, this city.

  Darkness, that would never dissipate.

  Coral. Black, black Coral…

  It took no more than a half-dozen heartbeats before Lady Envy realized—as she watched the Bridgeburners crumble before the Urdomen attack—that she had misunderstood Picker's last comment. Not confidence, not even bravado. Rather, a comment rife with fatalism, no doubt typical of these soldiers, but entirely new to Lady Envy.

  As comprehension struck her, she acted. A small gesture with one hand.

  Sufficient to rupture the flesh of the Urdomen warriors.

  They crumpled en masse.

  But the damage had already been done.

  Two Bridgeburners remained standing, and both bore wounds.

  She watched as they began checking their fallen comrades, finally gathering around one, pulling him clear. Only one among those fallen, then, who still breathed.

  Heavy boots down the hallway, fast approaching.

  Lady Envy scowled, raised her hand again—

  'Wait!' Picker screamed. 'That's Mallet! Spin! Over here, you bastards!'

  Behind the first two who had appeared—Mallet and Spin, she presumed—staggered two more soldiers in the garb of the Bridgeburners. All were terribly wounded—the Barghast in particular, whose armour was nothing more than fragments and whose body was a mass of cuts and gaping holes. Even as she watched, he staggered, sank to his knees, teeth bared in a smeared grin.

  And died.

  'Mallet!'

  The large man in the lead spun round, reeled at the sudden motion—and Lady Envy noted that he had taken a sword thrust that had gone right through him, just below the right shoulder. He stumbled back towards the Barghast.

  'It is too late for him, I am afraid,' Lady Envy called out. 'And you, Healer—Mallet—you are done with your warren and you know it. Gather to me, then, and I shall oblige. As for you, Picker, a more honest answer to my question earlier would have resulted in a far less horrible episode.'

  Wiping blood from her eyes, Picker simply stared.

  'Ah, well,' Lady Envy sighed, 'perhaps it is best that you have no recollection of that sardonic quip. Come forward all of you—oh!'

  She swung about suddenly, as sorcery descended—Kurald Galain—overwhelming in its power.

  'Down those stairs!' she cried. 'We must work clear of this! Quickly!'

  Four dragging one, the surviving Bridgeburners followed Lady Envy.

  Splinters of bone struck the wall.
Tool staggered back, crashing against the stone, sword falling from his hands, ringing on the flagstones. Mok raised both weapons—

  —and flew to one side, through the air, spinning, weapons sailing from his hands—to collide with a wall, then slide in a heap among shattered wood and metal. Tool raised his head.

  A huge black panther, lips peeled back in a silent snarl, slowly padded towards the unconscious Seguleh. 'No, sister.'

  The Soletaken hesitated, then glanced back. 'No. Leave him.'

  The panther swung round, sembled.

  Yet the rage remained in Kilava's eyes as she strode towards Tool. 'You were defeated! You! The First Sword!'

  Tool slowly lowered himself to collect his notched sword. 'Aye.'

  'He is a mortal man!'

  'Go to the Abyss, Kilava.' He straightened, back scraping as he continued leaning against the wall.

  'Let me kill him. Now. Then once more you shall have no worthy challenger.'

  'Oh, sister,' Tool sighed. 'Do you not realize? Our time—it has passed. We must relinquish our place in this world. Mok—that man you so casually struck from behind—he is the Third. The Second and the First are his masters with swords. Do you understand me, Kilava? Leave him… leave them all.'

  He slowly turned until he could see Toc the Younger. The body, speared through on a shaft of wood, did not move. 'The ancient wolf-god is free,' Kilava said, following his gaze. 'Can you not hear it?'

  'No. I cannot.'

  'That howl now fills another realm, the sound of birth. A realm… brought into existence by the Summoner. As for what now gives it life, something else, something else entire.' A scrape from the doorway. Both swung their heads.

  Another T'lan Imass stood beneath the arch. Impaled with swords, cold-hammered copper sheathing canines. 'Where is she?' Tool tilted his head. 'Who do you seek, kin?'

  'You are Onos T'oolan.' The attention then shifted to Kilava. 'And you are his sister, the One who Defied—'

  Kilava's lip curled in contempt. 'And so I remain.'