The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (3 page)

1154th Year of Burn’s Sleep
96th Year of the Malazan Empire
The Last Year of Emperor Kellanved’s Reign

The stains of rust seemed to map blood seas on the black, pocked surface of Mock’s Vane. A century old, it squatted on the point of an old pike that had been bolted to the outer top of the Hold’s wall. Monstrous and misshapen, it had been cold-hammered into the form of a winged demon, teeth bared in a leering grin, and was tugged and buffeted in squealing protest with every gust of wind.

The winds were contrary the day columns of smoke rose over the Mouse Quarter of Malaz City. The Vane’s silence announced the sudden falling-off of the sea breeze that came clambering over the ragged walls of Mock’s Hold, then it creaked back into life as the hot, spark-scattered and smoke-filled breath of the Mouse Quarter reached across the city to sweep the promontory’s heights.

Ganoes Stabro Paran of the House of Paran stood on tiptoe to see over the merlon. Behind him rose Mock’s Hold, once capital of the Empire but now, since the mainland had been conquered, relegated once more to a Fist’s holding. To his left rose the pike and its wayward trophy.

For Ganoes, the ancient fortification overlooking the city was too familiar to be of interest. This visit was his third in as many years; he’d long ago explored the courtyard with its heaved cobblestones, the Old Keep—now a stable, its upper floor home to pigeons and swallows and bats—and the citadel where even now his father negotiated the island export tithe with the harbor officials. In the last instance, of course, a goodly portion was out of bounds, even for a son of a noble house; for it was in the citadel that the Fist had his residence, and in the inner chambers that such affairs of the Empire as concerned this island were conducted.

Mock’s Hold forgotten behind him, Ganoes’ attention was on the tattered city below, and the riots that ran through the Mouse, its poorest quarter. Mock’s Hold stood atop a cliff. The higher land of the Pinnacle was reached by a switch-back staircase carved into the limestone of the cliff wall. The drop to the city below was eighty armspans or more, with the Hold’s battered wall adding still another six. The Mouse was at the city’s inland edge, an uneven spreading of hovels and overgrown tiers cut in half by the silt-heavy river that crawled toward the harbor. With most of Malaz City between Ganoes’ position and the riots, it was hard to make out any detail, beyond the growing pillars of black smoke.

It was midday, but the flash and thundering concussion of magery made the air seem dark and heavy.

Armor clanking, a soldier appeared along the wall near him. The man leaned vambraced forearms on the battlement, the scabbard of his longsword scraping against the stones. “Glad for your pure blood, eh?” he asked, gray eyes on the smoldering city below.

The boy studied the soldier. He already knew the complete regimental accoutrements
of the Imperial Army, and the man at his side was a commander in the Third—one of the Emperor’s own, an élite. On his dark gray shoulder-cloak was a silver brooch: a bridge of stone, lit by ruby flames.
A Bridgeburner
.

High-ranking soldiers and officials of the Empire commonly passed through Mock’s Hold. The island of Malaz remained a vital port of call, especially now that the Korel wars to the south had begun. Ganoes had brushed shoulders with more than his share, here and in the capital, Unta.

“Is it true, then?” Ganoes asked boldly.

“Is what true?”

“The First Sword of Empire. Dassem Ultor. We heard in the capital before we left. He’s dead. Is it true? Is Dassem dead?”

The man seemed to flinch, his gaze unwavering on the Mouse. “Such is war,” he muttered, under his breath, as if the words were not meant for anyone else’s ears.

“You’re with the Third. I thought the Third was with him, in Seven Cities. At Y’ghatan—”

“Hood’s Breath, they’re still looking for his body in the still-hot rubble of that damned city, and here you are, a merchant’s son three thousand leagues from Seven Cities with information only a few are supposed to possess.” He still did not turn. “I know not your sources, but take my advice and keep what you know to yourself.”

Ganoes shrugged. “It’s said he betrayed a god.”

Finally the man faced him. His face was scarred, and something that might have been a burn marred his jaw and left cheek. For all that, he looked young for a commander. “Heed the lesson there, son.”

“What lesson?”

“Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don’t notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly.”

“I want to be a soldier. A hero.”

“You’ll grow out of it.”

Mock’s Vane squealed as a wayward gust from the harbor cleared the grainy smoke. Ganoes could now smell rotting fish and the waterfront’s stink of humanity.

Another Bridgeburner, this one with a broken, scorched fiddle strapped to his back, came up to the commander. He was wiry and if anything younger—only a few years older than Ganoes himself, who was twelve. Strange pockmarks covered his face and the backs of his hands, and his armor was a mixture of foreign accoutrements over a threadbare, stained uniform. A shortsword hung in a cracked wooden scabbard at his hip. He leaned against the merlon beside the other man with the ease of long familiarity.

“It’s a bad smell when sorcerers panic,” the newcomer said. “They’re losing control down there. Hardly the need for a whole cadre of mages, just to sniff out a few wax-witches.”

The commander sighed. “Thought to wait to see if they’d rein themselves in.”

The soldier grunted. “They are all new, untested. This could scar some of
them forever. Besides,” he added, “more than a few down there are following someone else’s orders.”

“A suspicion, no more.”

“The proof’s right there,” the other man said. “In the Mouse.”

“Perhaps.”

“You’re too protective,” the man said. “Surly says it’s your greatest weakness.”

“Surly’s the Emperor’s concern, not mine.”

A second grunt answered that. “Maybe all of us before too long.”

The commander was silent, slowly turning to study his companion.

The man shrugged. “Just a feeling. She’s taking a new name, you know. Laseen.”

“Laseen?”

“Napan word. Means—”

“I know what it means.”

“Hope the Emperor does, too.”

Ganoes said, “It means Thronemaster.”

The two looked down at him.

The wind shifted again, making the iron demon groan on its perch—a smell of cool stone from the Hold itself. “My tutor’s Napan,” Ganoes explained.

A new voice spoke behind them, a woman’s, imperious and cold. “Commander.”

Both soldiers turned, but without haste. The commander said to his companion, “The new company needs help down there. Send Dujek and a wing, and get some sappers to contain the fires—wouldn’t do to have the whole city burn.”

The soldier nodded, marched away, sparing the woman not a single glance.

She stood with two bodyguards near the portal in the citadel’s square tower. Her dusky blue skin marked her as Napan, but she was otherwise plain, wearing a salt-stained gray robe, her mousy hair cut short like a soldier’s, her features thin and unmemorable. It was, however, her bodyguards that sent a shiver through Ganoes. They flanked her: tall, swathed in black, hands hidden in sleeves, hoods shadowing their faces. Ganoes had never seen a Claw before, but he instinctively knew these creatures to be acolytes of the cult. Which meant the woman was . . .

The commander said, “It’s your mess, Surly. Seems I’ll have to clean it up.”

Ganoes was shocked at the absence of fear—the near-contempt in the soldier’s voice. Surly had created the Claw, making it a power rivaled only by the Emperor himself.

“That is no longer my name, Commander.”

The man grimaced. “So I’ve heard. You must be feeling confident in the Emperor’s absence. He’s not the only one who remembers you as nothing more than a serving-wench down in the Old Quarter. I take it the gratitude’s washed off long since.”

The woman’s face betrayed no change of expression to mark if the man’s words had stung. “The command was a simple one,” she said. “It seems your new officers are unable to cope with the task.”

“It’s got out of hand,” the commander said. “They’re unseasoned—”

“Not my concern,” she snapped. “Nor am I particularly disappointed. Loss of control delivers its own lessons to those who oppose us.”

“Oppose? A handful of minor witches selling their meager talents—to what sinister end? Finding the coraval schools on the shoals in the bay. Hood’s Breath, woman, hardly a threat to the Empire.”

“Unsanctioned. Defiant of the new laws—”

“
Your
laws, Surly. They won’t work, and when the Emperor returns he’ll quash your prohibition of sorcery, you can be certain of that.”

The woman smiled coldly. “You’ll be pleased to know that the Tower’s signaled the approach of the transports for your new recruits. We’ll not miss you or your restless, seditious soldiers, Commander.”

Without another word, or a single glance spared for the boy standing beside the commander, she swung about and, flanked by her silent bodyguards, reentered the citadel.

Ganoes and the commander returned their attention to the riot in the Mouse. Flames were visible, climbing through the smoke.

“One day I’ll be a soldier,” Ganoes said.

The man grunted. “Only if you fail at all else, son. Taking up the sword is the last act of desperate men. Mark my words and find yourself a more worthy dream.”

Ganoes scowled. “You’re not like the other soldiers I’ve talked to. You sound more like my father.”

“But I’m not your father,” the man growled.

“The world,” Ganoes said, “doesn’t need another wine merchant.”

The commander’s eyes narrowed, gauging. He opened his mouth to make the obvious reply, then shut it again.

Ganoes Paran looked back down at the burning quarter, pleased with himself.
Even a boy, Commander, can make a point
.

Mock’s Vane swung once more. Hot smoke rolled over the wall, engulfing them. A reek of burning cloth, scorched paint, and stone, and now of something sweet. “An abattoir’s caught fire,” Ganoes said. “Pigs.”

The commander grimaced. After a long moment he sighed and leaned back down on the merlon. “As you say, boy, as you say.”

. . . In the eighth year the Free Cities of Genabackis established contracts with a number of mercenary armies to oppose the Imperium’s advance; prominent among these were the Crimson Guard, under the command of Prince K’azz D’Avore (see Volumes III & V); and the Tiste Andii regiments of Moon’s Spawn, under the command of Caladan Brood and others.

The forces of the Malazan Empire, commanded by High Fist Dujek Onearm, consisted in that year of the 2nd, 5th, and 6th Armies, as well as legions of Moranth.

In retrospect two observations can be made. The first is that the Moranth alliance of 1156 marked a fundamental change in the science of warfare for the Malazan Imperium, which would prove efficacious in the short term. The second observation worth noting is that the involvement of the sorcerous Tiste Andii of Moon’s Spawn represented the beginning of the continent’s Sorcery Enfilade, with devastating consequences.

In the Year of Burn’s Sleep 1163, the Siege of Pale ended with a now legendary sorcerous conflagration . . .

I
MPERIAL
C
AMPAIGNS 1158–1194
V
OLUME
IV, G
ENABACKIS
I
MRYGYN
T
ALLOBANT
(
B.1151
)

The old stones of this road

have rung with iron

black-shod hoofs and drums

where I saw him walking

up from the sea between the hills soaked red

in sunset he came, a boy among the echoes

sons and brothers all in ranks

of warrior ghosts he came to pass

where I sat on the worn final

league-stone at day’s end—

his stride spoke loud all I needed

know of him on this road of stone—

the boy walks

another soldier, another one

bright heart not yet cooled

to hard iron

M
OTHER’S
L
AMENT
A
NONYMOUS

1161st Year of Burn’s Sleep
103rd Year of the Malazan Empire
7th Year of Empress Laseen’s Rule

“Prod and pull,” the old woman was saying, “’tis the way of the Empress, as like the gods themselves.” She leaned to one side and spat, then brought a soiled cloth to her wrinkled lips. “Three husbands and two sons I saw off to war.”

The fishergirl’s eyes shone as she watched the column of mounted soldiers thunder past, and she only half listened to the hag standing beside her. The girl’s breath had risen to the pace of the magnificent horses. She felt her face burning, a flush that had nothing to do with the heat. The day was dying, the sun’s red smear over the trees on her right, and the sea’s sighing against her face had grown cool.

“That was in the days of the Emperor,” the hag continued. “Hood roast the bastard’s soul on a spit. But look on, lass. Laseen scatters bones with the best of them. Heh, she started with
his
, didn’t she, now?”

The fishergirl nodded faintly. As befitted the lowborn, they waited by the roadside, the old woman burdened beneath a rough sack filled with turnips, the girl with a heavy basket balanced on her head. Every minute or so the old woman shifted the sack from one bony shoulder to the other. With the riders crowding them on the road and the ditch behind them a steep drop to broken rocks, she had no place to put down the sack.

“Scatters bones, I said. Bones of husbands, bones of sons, bones of wives and bones of daughters. All the same to her. All the same to the Empire.” The old woman spat a second time. “Three husbands and two sons, ten coin apiece a year. Five of ten’s fifty. Fifty coin a year’s cold company, lass. Cold in winter, cold in bed.”