Errant fend, is he going to do that all evening?
‘I do not know what he is talking about,’ Yan Tovis said, but it was clear that she had been rattled. ‘You are all foreigners-what can you know of the Shake? We are barely worth mentioning even in Letherii history.’
‘Twilight,’ said Tavore, ‘you are here to assert your title as Queen-will you also proclaim this island sovereign?’
‘Yes.’
‘And, in that capacity, do you seek to treat with us?’
‘The sooner I can negotiate you Malazans off this island, the happier I will be. And you, as well.’
‘Why is that?’
The mage named Widdershins spoke up, ‘Those refugees of hers, Adjunct. One big squall of witches and warlocks. Oh, squiggily stuff for the most part-fouling water and cursin’ us with the runs and boils and the like. Mind, they could get together and work nastier rituals…’
Shurq Elalle stared at the strange man. Squiggily?
‘Yes,’ said Yan Tovis. ‘They could become troublesome.’
Gait grunted. ‘So saving all their lives don’t count for nothing?’
‘It does, of course. But, like all things, even gratitude wanes in time, soldier. Especially when the deed hangs over us like an executioner’s axe.’
Gait’s scowl deepened, then he prodded Yedan Derryg with his sword. ‘I need to keep this here?’ he asked.
The bearded, helmed soldier seemed to chew on his reply before answering, ‘That is for my Queen to decide.’
‘Belay my last order,’ Yan Tovis said. ‘We can deal with Brullyg later.’
‘Like demon-spawn you will!’ Brullyg drew himself up. Adjunct Tavore Paran, I hereby seek your protection. Since I have co-operated with you from the very start, the least you can do is keep me alive. Sail me to the mainland if that suits. I don’t care where I end up-just not in that woman’s clutches.’
Shurq Elalle smiled at the fool. Only everything you don’t deserve, Brullyg. Mercy? In the Errant’s fart, that’s where you’ll find that.
Tavore’s voice was suddenly cold. ‘Shake Brullyg, your assistance is duly noted, and you have our gratitude, although I do seem to recall something about this island’s imminent destruction beneath a sea of ice-which we prevented and continue to prevent. It may please the Queen that we do not intend to remain here much longer.’
Brullyg paled. ‘But what about that ice?’ he demanded. ‘If you leave-’
‘As the season warms,’ Tavore said, ‘the threat diminishes. Literally.’
‘So what holds you here?’ Yan Tovis demanded.
‘We seek a pilot to the Lether River. And Letheras.’
Silence again. Shurq Elalle, who had been gleefully observing Brullyg’s emotional dissolution, slowly frowned. Then looked round. All eyes were fixed on her. What had the Adjunct just said? Oh. The Lether River and Letheras.
And a pilot to guide their invasion fleet.
‘What’s that smell?’ Widdershins suddenly asked.
Shurq scowled. ‘The Errant’s fart, is my guess.’
Chapter Eighteen
The view thus accorded was a vista to answer my last day in the mortal world. The march down of hewn stones, menhirs and rygoliths showed in these unrelieved shadows the array of stolid faces, the underworld grimaces and hisses, bared teeth to threaten, the infinite rows of rooted gods and spirits stretching down the slope, across hill after hill, all the way, yes, to the limitless beyond sight, beyond the mirror of these misshapen, squinting eyes. And in these stalwart belligerents, who each in their day of eminence reached out clawed, grasping hands, the crimson touch of faith in all its demands on our time, our lives, our loves and our fears, were naught but mystery now, all recognition forgotten, abandoned to the crawl of remorseless change. Did their lost voices ride this forlorn wind? Did I tremble to the echo of blood beseechings, the tearing of young virgin flesh and the worider of an exposed heart, the bemused last beats of insistent outrage? Did I fall to my knees before this ghastly succession of holy tyranny, as might any-ignorant cowerer in crowded shadows?
The armies of the faithful were gone. They marched away in lifted waves of dust and ash. Priests and priestesses, the succumbers to hope who conveyed their convictions with the desperate thirst of demons hoarding fearful souls in their private meanings of wealth, they remained couched in the cracks of their idols, bits of crumbling bone lodged in the stone’s weaknesses, that and nothing more.
The view thus accorded, is the historian’s curse. Lessons endless on the pointlessness of games of intellect, emotion and faith.
The only worthwhile historians, I say, are those who conclude their lives in succinct acts of suicide.
His mother had loved his hands. A musician’s hands. A sculptor’s hands. An artist’s hands. Alas, they had belonged on someone else, for Chancellor Triban Gnol was without such talents. Yet his fondness for his hands, tainted as it might be by the mockery of a physical gift without suitable expression, had grown over the years. They had, in a sense, become his own works of art. When lost in thought, he would watch them, their sinuous movements filled with grace and elegance. No artist could capture the true beauty of these pointless instruments, and although there was darkness to such appreciation, he had long since made peace with that.
Yet now, the perfection was gone. The healers had done what they could, but Triban Gnol could see the misshapen marring of once-flawless lines. He could still hear the snap of his finger bones, the betrayal of all that his mother had loved, had worshipped in their secret ways.
His father, of course, would have laughed. A sour grunt of a laugh. Well, not his true father, anyway. Simply the man who had ruled the household with thick-skulled murky cruelty. He had known that his wife’s cherished son was not his own. His hands were thick and clumsy-all the more viciously ironic in that artistic talent resided within those bludgeon tools. No, Triban Gnol’s once-perfect hands had come from his mother’s lover, the young (so young, then) consort, Turudal Brizad, a man who was anything but what he seemed to be. Anything, yes, and nothing as well.
She would have approved, he knew, of her son’s finding in the consort-his father-a perfect lover.
Such were the sordid vagaries of palace life in King Ezgara Diskanar’s cherished kingdom, all of which seemed aged now, exhausted, bitter as ashes in Triban Gnol’s mouth. The consort was gone, yet not gone. Touch withdrawn, probably for ever now, a consort whose existence had become as ephemeral as his timeless beauty.
Ephemeral, yes. As with all things that these hands had once held; as with all things that had passed through these long, slim fingers. He knew he was feeling sorry for himself. An old man, beyond all hopes of attraction for anyone. Ghosts crowded him, the array of stained hues that had once painted his cherished works of art, layer upon layer-oh, the only time they had been truly soaked in blood had been the night he had murdered his father. All the others had died somewhat removed from such direct effort. A host of lovers who had betrayed him in some way or other, often in the simple but terrible crime of not loving him enough. And now, like a crooked ancient, he took children to his bed, gagging them to silence their cries. Using them up. Watching his hands do their work, the failed and ever-failing artist in pursuit of some kind of perfection, yet destroying all that he touched.
The crowding ghosts were accusation enough. They did not need to whisper in his skull.
Triban Gnol watched his hands as he sat behind his desk, watched their hunt for beauty and perfection, lost now and for ever more. He broke my fingers. 1 can still hear-