Memories of Ice Page 7

  The wave struck him from behind, sent him sprawling onto the hot, steaming ground. Screaming, the wizard writhed beneath the sorcerous onslaught. He tried to pull himself further away, but the power was too great. It began dragging him back. He clawed at the ground, stared at the furrows his fingers gouged in the earth, saw the dark blood welling from them.

  Oh, Burn, forgive me.

  The invisible, implacable grip pulled him closer to the tent entrance. Hunger and rage radiated from the figure within, as well as a certainty that such desires were moments from deliverance. Quick Ben was helpless. 'You will know such pain!' the god roared.

  Something reached up through the earth, then. A massive hand closed about the wizard, like a giant child snatching at a doll. Quick Ben screamed again as it pulled him down into the churning, steaming soil. His mouth filled with bitter earth.

  A bellow of fury echoed dimly from above.

  Jagged rocks ripped along the wizard's body as he was pulled further down through the flesh of the Sleeping Goddess. Starved of air, darkness slowly closed around his mind.

  Then he was coughing, spitting up mouthfuls of gritty mud. Warm, sweet air filled his lungs. He clawed dirt from his eyes, rolled onto his side. Echoing groans buffeted him, the flat, hard ground beneath him slowly buckling and shifting. Quick Ben rose to his hands and knees. Blood dripped from his soul's torn flesh—his clothes were naught but strips—but he was alive. He looked up.

  And almost cried out.

  A vaguely human-shaped figure towered over him, easily fifteen times the wizard's own height, its bulk nearly reaching the cavern's domed ceiling. Dark flesh of clay studded with rough diamonds gleamed and glittered as the apparition shifted slightly. It seemed to be ignoring Quick Ben—though the wizard knew that it had been this beast that had saved him from the Crippled God. Its arms were raised to the ceiling directly above it, hands disappearing into the murky, red-stained roof. Vast arcs of dull white gleamed in that ceiling, evenly spaced like an endless succession of ribs. The hands appeared to be gripping or possibly were fused to two such ribs.

  Just visible beyond the creature, perhaps a thousand paces down the cavern's length, squatted another such apparition, its arms upraised as well.

  Twisting, Quick Ben's gaze travelled the opposite length of the cavern. More servants—the wizard saw four, possibly five of them—each one reaching up to the ceiling. The cavern was in fact a vast tunnel, curving in the distance.

  I am indeed within Burn, the Sleeping Goddess. A living warren. Flesh, and bone. And these… servants…

  'You have my gratitude!' he called up to the creature looming above him.

  A flattened, misshapen head tilted down. Diamond eyes stared like descending stars. 'Help us.'

  The voice was childlike, filled with despair. Quick Ben gaped. Help?

  'She weakens,' the creature moaned. 'Mother weakens. We die. Help us.'

  'How?'

  'Help us, please.'

  'I-I don't know how.'

  'Help.'

  Quick Ben staggered upright. The clay flesh, he now saw, was melting, running in wet streams down the giant's thick arms. Chunks of diamond fell away. The Crippled God's killing them, poisoning Burn's flesh. The wizard's thoughts raced. 'Servant, child of Burn! How much time? Until it is too late?'

  'Not long,' the creature replied. 'It nears. The moment nears.' Panic gripped Quick Ben. 'How close? Can you be more specific? I need to know what I can work with, friend. Please try!'

  'Very soon. Tens. Tens of years, no more. The moment nears. Help us.'

  The wizard sighed. For such powers, it seemed, centuries were as but days. Even so, the enormity of the servant's plea threatened to overwhelm him. As did the threat. What would happen if Burn dies? Bern fend, I don't think I want to find out. All right, then, it's my war, now. He glanced down at the mud-strewn ground around him, questing with his senses. He quickly found the tracker. 'Servant! I will leave something here, so that I may find you again. I will find help—I promise—and I will come back to you—'

  'Not me,' the giant said. 'I die. Another will come. Perhaps.' The creature's arms had thinned, were now almost devoid of their diamond armour. 'I die now.' It began to sag. The red stain in the ceiling had spread to the ribs it held, and cracks had begun to show.

  'I will find an answer,' Quick Ben whispered. 'I swear it.' He gestured and a warren opened. Without a last glance—lest the vision break his heart—he stepped within, and was gone.

  A hand shook his shoulder incessantly. Quick Ben opened his eyes.

  'Damn you, mage,' Picker hissed. 'It's almost dawn—we have to fly.'

  Groaning, the wizard unfolded his legs, wincing with every move, then let the corporal help him upright.

  'Did you get it back?' she demanded as she half carried him to the waiting quorl.

  'Get what back?'

  'That pebble.'

  'No. We're in trouble, Picker—'

  'We're always in trouble—'

  'No, I mean all of us.' He dug in his heels, stared at her. 'All of us.'

  Whatever she saw in his expression left her shaken. 'All right. But right now we've got to get moving.'

  'Aye. You'd better strap me in—I won't be able to stay awake.'

  They came to the quorl. The Moranth seated in the forward chitinous saddle swung its helmed head to regard them in silence.

  'Queen of Dreams,' Picker muttered as she wrapped the leather harness around Quick Ben's limbs. 'I ain't never seen you this scared, Wizard. You got me ready to piss ice-cubes.'

  They were the last words of the night that Quick Ben remembered, but remember them he did.

  Ganoes Paran was plagued by images of drowning, but not in water. Drowning in darkness. Disorientated, thrashing in panic in an unknown and unknowable place. Whenever he closed his eyes, vertigo seized him, knots tightening in his gut, and it was as if he'd been stripped down to a child once again. Terrified, uncomprehending, his soul twisting with pain.

  The captain left the barricade at the Divide, where the day's last traders were still struggling through the press of Malazan guards, soldiers and clerics. He'd done as Dujek had commanded, setting up his encampment across the throat of the pass. Taxation and wagon searches had yielded a substantial haul, although, as the news spread, the takings were diminishing. It was a fine balance, keeping the tax at a level that the merchants could stomach, and allowing enough contraband through lest the chokehold turn to strangulation and travel between Darujhistan and Pale dried up entirely. Paran was managing, but just barely. Yet it was the least of his difficulties.

  Since the debacle at Darujhistan, the captain had been feeling adrift, tossed this way and that by the chaotic transformation of Dujek and his renegade army. The Malazans' anchor had been cut away. Support structures had collapsed. The burden upon the officer corps had grown overwhelming. Almost ten thousand soldiers had suddenly acquired an almost childlike need for reassurance.

  And reassurance was something Paran was unable to give. If anything, the turmoil within him had deepened. Threads of bestial blood coursed his veins. Fragmented memories—few of them his own—and strange, unearthly visions plagued his nights. Daylight hours passed in a confused haze. Endless problems of materiel and logistics to deal with, the turgid needs of management pushed again and again through the rising flood of physical maladies now besetting him.

  He'd been feeling ill for weeks, and Paran had his suspicions as to the source. The blood of the Hound of Shadow. A creature that plunged into Dark's own realm… yet can I be sure of this? The emotions frothing this crest… more like a child's. A child's…

  He pushed the thought away once more, knowing full well it would soon return—even as the pain in his stomach flared once again—and, with another glance up to where Trotts held sentinel position, continued making his way up the hillside.

  The pain of illness had changed him—he could see that within himself, conjured as an image, a scene both peculiar and poignant. He
felt as if his own soul had been reduced into something piteous—a bedraggled, sweat-smeared rat, trapped within a rock-fall, twisting and squirming through cracks in a desperate search for a place where the pressure—the vast, shifting weight—relented. A space in which to breathe. And the pain all around me, those sharp stones, are settling, still settling, the spaces between them vanishing… darkness rising like water…

  Whatever triumphs had been achieved in Darujhistan now seemed trivial to Paran. Saving a city, saving the lives of Whiskeyjack and his squad, the shattering of Laseen's plans, they had one and all crumbled into ash in the captain's mind.

  He was not as he had been, and this new shaping was not to his liking.

  Pain darkened the world. Pain dislocated. Turned one's own flesh and bones into a stranger's house, from which no escape seemed possible.

  Bestial blood… it whispers of freedom. Whispers of a way out—but not from the darkness. No. Into that darkness, where the Hounds went, deep into the heart of Anomander Rake's cursed sword—the secret heart of Dragnipur.

  He almost cursed aloud at that thought, as he worked his way along the hillside trail overlooking the Divide. Day's light was fading. The wind combing the grasses had begun to fall away, the rasping voice retreating to a murmur.

  The blood's whisper was but one of many, each demanding his attention, each offering contradictory invitations—disparate paths of escape. But always escape. Flight. This cowering creature can think of nothing else… even as the burdens settle… and settle.

  Dislocation. All I see around me… feels like someone else's memories. Grass woven on low hills, outcrops of bedrock studding the summits, and when the sun sets and the wind cools, the sweat on my face dries, and darkness comes—and I drink its air as if it was the sweetest water. Gods, what does that mean?

  The confusion within him would not settle. I escaped the world of that sword, yet I feel its chains about me none the less, drawing ever tighter. And within that tension, there was an expectation. Of surrender, of yielding… an expectation to become… what? become what? The Barghast sat amidst high, tawny grasses on a summit overlooking the Divide. The day's flow of traders had begun to ebb on both sides of the barricade, the clouds of dust fading over the rutted road. Others were setting up camps—the throat of the pass was turning into an unofficial wayside. If the situation remained as it was, the wayside would take root, become a hamlet, then a village.

  But it won't happen. We're too restless for that. Dujek's mapped out our immediate future, shrouded in the dust of an army on the march. Even worse, there're creases in that map, and it's starting to look like the Bridgeburners are about to fall into one. A deep one.

  Breathless and fighting yet more twinges, Captain Paran moved to crouch down beside the half-naked, tattooed warrior. 'You've been strutting like a bull bhederin since this morning, Trotts,' he said. 'What have you and Whiskeyjack brewed up, soldier?'

  The Barghast's thin, wide mouth twisted into something like a smile, his dark eyes remaining fixed on the scene down in the valley. 'The cold darkness ends,' he growled.

  'To Hood it does—the sun's moments from setting, you grease-smeared fool.'

  'Cold and frozen,' Trotts continued. 'Blind to the world. I am the Tale, and the Tale has been unspoken for too long. But no longer. I am a sword about to leave its scabbard. I am iron, and in the day's light I shall blind you all. Hah.'

  Paran spat into the grasses. 'Mallet mentioned your sudden… loquaciousness. He also mentioned that it hasn't done anyone else any good, since with its arrival you've lost what little sense you showed before then.'

  The Barghast thumped his chest, the sound reverberating like a drumbeat. 'I am the Tale, and soon it shall be told. You will see, Malazan. You all will.'

  'The sun's withered your brain, Trotts. Well, we're heading back to Pale tonight—though I'd imagine Whiskeyjack's already told you that. Here comes Hedge to relieve you as lookout.' Paran straightened, disguising the wince that came with the movement. I'll just finish my rounds, then.'

  He trudged off.

  Damn you, Whiskeyjack, what have you and Dujek cooked up? The Pannion Domin… why are we sparing a mole's ass for some upstart zealots? These things burn out. Every time. They implode. The scroll scribblers take over—they always do—and start arguing obscure details of the faith. Sects form. Civil war erupts, and there it is, just one more dead flower trampled on history's endless road.

  Aye, it's all so bright and flushed right now. Only, colours fade. They always do.

  One day, the Malazan Empire will come face to face with its own mortality. One day, dusk will fall on the empire.

  He bent over as yet another knot of burning pain seized his stomach. No, think not of the empire! Think not of Laseen's cull! Trust in Tavore, Ganoes Paran—your sister will salvage the House. Better than you might have managed. Far better. Trust in your sister… The pain eased slightly. Drawing a deep breath, the captain resumed making his way down to the crossing.

  Drowning. By the Abyss, I am drowning.

  Clambering like a rock ape, Hedge reached the summit. His bandy legs carried him to the Barghast's side. As he passed behind Trotts he reached out and gave the warrior's single knotted braid a sharp tug. 'Hah,' he said, moving to settle down beside the warrior, 'I love the way your eyes bug out when I do that.'

  'You, sapper,' the Barghast said, 'are the scum beneath a pebble in a stream running through a field of sickly pigs.'

  'Good one, though a tad longwinded. Got the captain's head spinning, have ya?'

  Trotts said nothing, his gaze now on the distant Tahlyn Mountains.

  Hedge pulled his scorched leather cap from his head, scratched vigorously through the few remaining wisps of hair on his pate, studied his companion for a long moment. 'Not bad,' he judged. 'Noble and mysterious. I'm impressed.'

  'You should be. Such poses are not easy to hold, you know.'

  'You're a natural. So why are you twisting Paran around?'

  Trotts grinned, revealing a blue-stained row of filed teeth. 'It is fun. Besides, it's up to Whiskeyjack to explain things—'

  'Only he ain't done any explaining yet. Dujek wants us back in Pale, gathering up what's left of the Bridgeburners. Paran should be happy he's getting a company to command again, instead of just a couple of beat-up squads. Did Whiskeyjack say anything about the upcoming parley with Brood?'

  Trotts slowly nodded.

  Hedge scowled. 'Well, what?'

  'It is coming up.'

  'Oh, thanks for that. By the way, you're officially relieved of this post, soldier. They're cooking up a bhederin carcass for you down there. I had the cook stuff it with dung since that's how you like it.'

  Trotts rose. 'One day I may cook and eat you, sapper.'

  'And choke to death on my lucky bone.'

  The Barghast frowned. 'My offer was true, Hedge. To honour you, my friend.'

  The sapper squinted up at Trotts, then grinned. 'Bastard! You almost had me there!'

  Sniffing, Trotts turned away. '"Almost", he said. Hah hah.'

  Whiskeyjack was waiting when Paran returned to the trader post and its makeshift barricade. Once sergeant, now Dujek Onearm's second-in-command, the grizzled veteran had come in with the last flight of Moranth. He stood with his old squad's healer, Mallet, the two of them watching a score of soldiers from the 2nd Army loading the past week's toll onto the quorls. Paran approached, walking cautiously so as to hide the pain within him.

  'How fares the leg, Commander?' he asked. Whiskeyjack shrugged.

  'We were just discussing that,' Mallet said, his round face flushed. 'It's healed badly. Needs serious attention—'

  'Later,' the bearded commander growled. 'Captain Paran, have the squads assembled in two bells—have you decided what to do with what's left of the Ninth?'

  'Aye, they'll join what's left of Sergeant Antsy's squad.' Whiskeyjack frowned. 'Give me some names.'

  'Antsy's got Corporal Picker, and… let's see… Spindle, B
lend, Detoran. So, with Mallet here, and Hedge, Trotts and Quick Ben—'

  'Quick Ben and Spindle are now cadre mages, Captain. But you'll have them with your company in any case. Otherwise, I'd guess Antsy will be happy enough—'

  Mallet snorted. 'Happy? Antsy don't know the meaning of the word.' Paran's eyes narrowed. 'I take it, then, that the Bridgeburners won't be marching with the rest of the Host.'

  'No, you won't be—we'll go into that back at Pale, though.' Whiskeyjack's flat grey eyes studied the captain for a moment, then slid away. 'There's thirty-eight Bridgeburners left—not much of a company. If you prefer, Captain, you can decline the position. There's a few companies of elite marines short on officers, and they're used to nobleborns commanding them…' There was silence.

  Paran turned away. Dusk was coming, the valley's shadow rising up the slopes of the surrounding hillsides, a spatter of dim stars emerging from the sky's dome. I might take a knife in the back, is what he's telling me. Bridgeburners have an abiding dislike for nobleborn officers. A year ago he would have spoken those words out loud, in the belief that baring ugly truths was a good thing to do. The misguided notion that it was the soldier's way… when in fact it's the opposite that is a soldier's way. In a world full of pitfalls and sinkholes, you dance the edges. Only fools jump feet first, and fools don't live long besides. He'd felt knives enter his body once. Wounds that should have been fatal. The memory sheathed him in sweat. The threat was not something he could simply shrug off in a display of youthful, ignorant bravado. He knew that, and the two men facing him knew it as well. 'I still,' Paran said, eyes on the darkness devouring the south road, 'would consider it an honour to command the Bridgeburners, sir. Perhaps, in time, I might have the opportunity to prove myself worthy of such soldiers.'

  Whiskeyjack grunted. 'As you like, Captain. The offer remains open if you change your mind.'

  Paran faced him.

  The commander grinned. 'For a little while longer, anyway.'

  A huge, dark-skinned figure emerged from the gloom, her weapons and armour softly clinking. Seeing both Whiskeyjack and Paran, the woman hesitated, then, fixing her gaze on the commander, she said, 'The watch is being turned over, sir. We're all coming in, as ordered.'