The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (947 page)

‘Yes. I was forced to backtrack to find you.' He was silent for a moment, looking into the flames, and then he said, ‘He does not seem the reluctant type.'

‘No, you're right. He doesn't.'

‘I'm hungry.'

‘Cook something.'

‘I will.'

She rubbed at her face, feeling the scrape of calluses from her hands, and then tugged at the knots in her hair. ‘Since meeting you,' she said, ‘I have almost forgotten what it is to be clean – oh, Letheras was all right, but we were pretty much in a prison, so it doesn't really count. No, with you it's just empty wastelands, blood-soaked sands, the occasional scene of slaughter.'

‘You sought me out, witch,' he reminded her.

‘I delivered your horse.' She snorted. ‘Since you two are so clearly perfect for each other, it was a matter of righting the cosmic balance. I had no choice.'

‘You just want me,' he said, ‘yet whenever we are together, you do nothing but second-guess everything. Surrender, woman, and you can stop arguing with yourself. It has been a long time since I spilled my seed into a woman, almost as long as since you last felt the heat of a man.'

She could have shot back, unleashed a flurry of verbal quarrels that would, inevitably, all bounce off his impervious barbarity. ‘You'd be gentle as a desert bear, of course. I'd probably never recover.'

‘There are sides of me, witch, that you have not seen, yet.'

She grunted.

‘You are ever suspicious of being surprised, aren't you?'

A curious question. In fact, a damned tangle of a question. She didn't like it. She didn't want to go near it. ‘I was civilized, once. Content in a proper city, a city with an underground sewer system, with Malazan aqueducts and hot water from pipes. Hallways between enclosed gardens and the front windows to channel cool air through the house. Proper soap to keep clothes clean. Songbirds in cages. Chilled wine and candied pastries.'

‘The birds sing of imprisonment, Samar Dev. The soap is churned by indentured workers with bleached, blistered hands and hacking coughs. Outside your cool house with its pretty garden there are children left to wander in the streets. Lepers are dragged to the edge of the city and every step is cheered on by a hail of stones. People steal to eat and when they are caught their hands are cut off. Your city takes water from farms and plants wither and animals die.'

She glared across at him. ‘Nice way to turn the mood, Karsa Orlong.'

‘There was a mood?'

‘Too subtle, was it?'

He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Speak your desires plain.'

‘I was doing just that, you brainless bhederin. Just a little…comfort. That's all. Even the illusion would have served.'

Traveller returned to the fire. ‘We are about to have a guest,' he said.

Samar Dev rose and searched round, but darkness was fast swallowing the plain. She turned with a query on her lips, and saw that Karsa had straightened and was looking skyward, to the northeast. And there, in the deepening blue, a dragon was gliding towards them.

‘Worse than moths,' Traveller muttered.

‘Are we about to be attacked?'

He glanced at her, and shrugged.

‘Shouldn't we at least scatter or something?'

Neither warrior replied to that, and after a moment Samar Dev threw up her hands and sat down once more beside the fire. No, she would not panic. Not for these two abominations in her company, and not for a damned dragon, either. Fine, let it be a single pass rather than three – what was she, an ant? She picked up another piece of dung and tossed it into the fire.
Moths? Ah, I see. We are a beacon, are we, a wilful abrogation of this wild, empty land. Whatever. Flap flap on over, beastie, just don't expect scintillating discourse.

The enormous creature's wings thundered as the dragon checked its speed a hundred paces away, and then it settled almost noiselessly on to the ground. Watching it, Samar Dev's eyes narrowed. ‘That thing's not even alive.'

‘No,' Karsa and Traveller said in unison.

‘Meaning,' she continued, ‘it shouldn't be here.'

‘That is true,' Traveller said.

In the gloom the dragon seemed to regard them for a moment, and then, in a blurring dissolution, the creature
sembled
, until they saw a tall, gaunt figure of indeterminate gender. Grey as cobwebs and dust, pallid hair long and ropy with filth, wearing the remnants of a long chain hauberk, unbelted. An empty, splintered scabbard hung from a baldric beneath the right arm. Leggings of some kind of thick hide, scaled and the hue of forest loam, reached down to grey leather boots that rose to just below the knees.

No light was reflected from the pits of its eyes. It approached with peculiar caution, like a wild animal, and halted at the very edge of the firelight. Whereupon it lifted both hands, brought them together into a peak before its face, and bowed.

In the native tongue of Ugari, it said, ‘Witch, I greet you.'

Samar Dev rose, shocked, baffled. Was it some strange kind of courtesy, to address her first? Was this thing in the habit of ignoring ascendants as if they were nothing more than bodyguards? And from her two formidable companions, not a sound.

‘And I greet you in return,' she managed after a moment.

‘I am Tulas Shorn,' it said. ‘I scarce recall when I last walked this realm, if I ever have. The very nature of my demise is lost to me, which, as you might imagine, is proving disconcerting.'

‘So it would, Tulas Shorn. I am Samar Dev—'

‘Yes, the one who negotiates with spirits, with the sleeping selves of stream and rock, crossroads and sacred paths. Priestess of Burn—'

‘That title is in error, Tulas Shorn—'

‘Is it? You are a witch, are you not?'

‘Yes, but—'

‘You do not reach into warrens, and so force alien power into this world. Your congress is with the earth, the sky, water and stone. You are a priestess of Burn, chosen among those of whom she dreams, as are others, but you, Samar Dev, she dreams of often.'

‘How would you know that?'

Tulas Shorn hesitated, and then said, ‘There is death in dreaming.'

‘You are Tiste Edur,' said Karsa Orlong, and, baring his teeth, he reached for his sword.

‘More than that,' said Traveller, ‘one of Hood's own.'

Samar Dev spun to her two companions. ‘Oh, really! Look at you two! Not killed anything in weeks – how can you bear it? Planning on chopping it into tiny pieces, are you? Well, why not fight for the privilege first?'

Traveller's eyes widened slightly at her outburst.

Karsa's humourless smile broadened. ‘Ask it what it wants, then, witch.'

‘The day I start taking orders from you, Karsa Orlong, I will do just that.'

Tulas Shorn had taken a step back. ‘It seems I am not welcome here, and so I shall leave.'

But Samar Dev's back was up, and she said, ‘I welcome you, Tulas Shorn, even if these ones do not. If they decide to attack you, I will stand in their way. I offer you all the rights of a guest – it's my damned fire, after all, and if these two idiots don't like it they can make their own, preferably a league or two away.'

‘You are right,' Traveller said. ‘I apologize. Be welcome, then, Tulas Shorn.'

Karsa shrugged. ‘I suppose,' he said, ‘I've killed enough Edur. Besides, this one's already dead. I still want to know what it wants.'

Tulas Shorn edged in warily – a caution that seemed peculiarly out of place in a corpse, especially one that could veer into a dragon at any moment. ‘I have no urgent motivations, Tartheno Toblakai. I have known solitude for too long and would ease the burden of being my only company.'

‘Then join us,' Karsa said, returning to crouch at the fire. ‘After all,' he added, ‘perhaps one day I too will tire of my own company.'

‘Not any time soon, I would wager,' said the Tiste Edur.

Traveller snorted a laugh, and then looked shocked at himself.

Samar Dev settled down once more, thinking of Shorn's words. ‘
There is death in dreaming
.' Well, she supposed, there would be at that. Then why did she feel so…rattled?
What were you telling me, Tulas Shorn?

‘Hood has released you?' Traveller asked. ‘Or was he careless?'

‘Careless?' The Tiste Edur seemed to consider the word. ‘No, I do not think that. Rather, an opportunity presented itself to me. I chose not to waste it.'

‘So now,' said Traveller, eyes fixed on the withered face enlivened only by reflected firelight, ‘you wing here and there, seeking what?'

‘Instinct can set one on a path,' Tulas Shorn said, ‘with no destination in mind.' It raised both hands and seemed to study them. ‘I have thought to see life once more, awakened within me. I do not know if such a thing is even possible. Samar Dev, is such a thing possible? Can she dream me alive once more?'

‘Can she – what? I don't know. Call me a priestess if you like, but I don't worship Burn, which doesn't make me a very good priestess, does it? But if she dreams death, then she dreams life, too.'

‘From one to the other is generally in one direction only,' Traveller observed. ‘Hood will come for you, Tulas Shorn; sooner or later, he will come to reclaim you.'

For the first time, she sensed evasiveness in the Tiste Edur as it said, ‘I have time yet, I believe. Samar Dev, there is sickness in the Sleeping Goddess.'

She flinched. ‘I know.'

‘It must be expunged, lest she die.'

‘I imagine so.'

‘Will you fight for her?'

‘I'm not a damned priestess!' She saw the surprise on the faces of Karsa and Traveller, forced herself back from the ragged edge of anger. ‘I wouldn't know where to start, Tulas Shorn.'

‘I believe the poison comes from a stranger's pain.'

‘The Crippled God.'

‘Yes, Samar Dev.'

‘Do you actually think it can be healed?'

‘I do not know. There is physical damage and then there is spiritual damage. The former is more easily mended than the latter. He is sustained by rage, I suspect. His last source of power, perhaps his only source of power whilst chained in this realm.'

‘I doubt he's in the negotiating mood,' Samar Dev said. ‘And even if he was, he's anathema to the likes of me.'

‘It is an extraordinary act of courage,' said Tulas Shorn, ‘to come to know a stranger's pain. To even consider such a thing demands a profound dispensation, a willingness to wear someone else's chains, to taste their suffering, to see with one's own eyes the hue cast on all things – the terrible stain that is despair.' The Tiste Edur slowly shook its head. ‘I have no such courage. It is, without doubt, the rarest of abilities.'

None spoke then for a time. The fire ate itself, indifferent to witnesses, and in its hunger devoured all that was offered it, again and again, until night and the disinterest of its guests left it to starve, until the wind stirred naught but ashes.

If Tulas Shorn sought amiable company, it should have talked about the weather.

In the morning, the undead Soletaken was gone. And so too were Traveller's and Samar Dev's horses.

‘That was careless of us,' Traveller said.

‘He was a guest,' Samar Dev said, baffled and more than a little hurt by the betrayal. They could see Havok, standing nervously some distance off, as if reluctant to return from his nightlong hunting, as if he had been witness to something unpleasant.

There was, however, no sign of violence. The picket stakes remained where they had been pounded into the hard ground.

‘It wanted to slow us down,' Traveller said. ‘One of Hood's own, after all.'

‘All right,' Samar Dev glared across at a silent Karsa Orlong, ‘the fault was all mine. I should have left you two to chop the thing to bits. I'm sorry.'

But Karsa shook his head. ‘Witch, goodwill is not something that needs an apology. You were betrayed. Your trust was abused. If there are strangers who thrive on such things, they will ever remain strangers – because they have no other choice. Pity Tulas Shorn and those like it. Even death taught it nothing.'

Traveller was regarding the Toblakai with interest, although he ventured no comment.

Havok was trotting towards them. Karsa said, ‘I will ride out, seeking new mounts – or perhaps the Edur simply drove your beasts off.'

‘I doubt that,' Traveller said.

And Karsa nodded, leaving Samar Dev to realize that he had offered the possibility for her sake, as if in some clumsy manner seeking to ease her self-recrimination. Moments later, she understood that it had been anything but clumsy. It was not her inward chastisement that he spoke to; rather, for her, he was giving Tulas Shorn the benefit of the doubt, although Karsa possessed no doubt at all – nor, it was clear, did Traveller.

Well then, I am ever the fool here. So be it.
‘We'd best get walking, then.'

In setting out, they left behind a cold hearth ringed in stones, and two saddles.