‘No,’ came a voice from Hurl's side. She turned, arm shielding her face, and there was Silk. The man's eyes blazed a rage she had never seen upon him. ‘Not again.’ The searing incandescent heat suddenly diminished to an uncomfortable glow. The mage advanced into the storm. Hurl pulled herself along in his wake.
Silk reached the threshold and took it from Rell whom he eased backwards to Hurl. ‘You have done more than we could have hoped and more,’ he told the swordsman. Rell was like an ember in Hurl's arms as she dragged him back. Crisp skin sloughed from his arms where she held him.
Silk now faced the twin pillars of flame that had halted, perhaps uncertain. ‘You would dare unleash such flames upon this threshold? His outrage pierced the furnace roar. ‘Bastard practitioners of a degenerate Warren! Thyr! Retarded child of incestuous union! You provoke me now to teach you the blind shortcomings of your sad ignorance! Behold now, for the last instant of your consciousness, the true wellspring of power of which yours is but a corrupted rivulet!’
Silk threw his arms wide and Hurl gaped. Of all the Forgotten Gods! Had the man lost his mind?
‘I summon you!’ His words shook the stones beneath Hurl's feet. She winced at their power. ‘Come! You who have been gone so long! Grant us a glimpse of that which has gone out from the World! Show us how it was when Light first cleaved Night! Bless us with a vision of Pure Undiluted Light, Kurald Liosan!’
Nothing happened. Hurl, recovering, almost cursed the man. Orlat, she saw far beyond, had cocked his head as if reaching the same conclusion as her: poor guy, the pressure was just too much.
Then something struck Hurl from behind. Not a fist or a club, but a wall. It was like falling backwards into water only it was the water that was rushing up to hit her. Then nothing. Silence. Whiteness. The physical presence of light like a sea of blinding radiance. Silk in silhouette like a shadow eroding. The two mages and Orlat and his men, black paper cutouts shredding and wisping away like dust in a wind of Light.
Then gone. Dawn coming like darkness, so pale and weak was it. The ceiling dim above her. A face, close. Bearded. Malazan greys. A voice near but sounding so far away. ‘Bring healers.’
CHAPTER IV
See the mourning exile sitting by the lake. His cloak is ragged, his stomach cramped. Does he cry for fallen friends, for tankards never to be raised again to the long rafters? Where are his companions, his brothers and benchmates? All stiff and staring in fields they lie. Their spears are broken, their swords blunt. Oh, where shall he go, this lone exile? Shall he cross the water? What is to become of him? What if he were you? Lament of the Lonely Traveller
Anonymous (attributed by some to Fisher Tel Kath)
TWELVE DAYS AFTER THE STORM, THE KESTRAL AND THE› Wanderer dropped anchor at a length of uninhabited shoreline of the Sea of Chimes. At Shimmer's orders, the Nabrajan captains had kept clear of all coastline where possible, yet what lengths of shore Kyle had glimpsed appeared far from promising: grey and black tumbled rocks skirted by twisted and stunted trees, distant dusty-grey rounded hillocks, and forests of thin black-limbed evergreens. Glimpses of a level plateau of some sort broken up by copses of trees.
That dawn Kyle had watch. In the calm, almost glass-like bay, he sat cross-legged on the raised cargo hatch at mid-deck, needle in hand, attempting to mend the padded quilted shirt he wore beneath his hauberk.
‘A sailor'd do a better job of that.’
Kyle looked up. It was Greymane, standing at the gunwale. He hadn't heard a thing. How could a man so big be so quiet? He returned to his sewing. ‘Have to learn some time.’
‘True enough.’
Kyle kept his head down. Why was the renegade talking to him? The man was practically an Avowed – had even fought against them in the past, so he'd heard. The Malazan cleared his throat. ‘Kyle, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘I've been meaning to have a word about the Spur. I understand you're a Bael native – that the Ascendant, or whatever he was, we found up there meant something to you, and maybe your people…’
Kyle looked up from his sewing. ‘Yes?’
‘Well,’ the man frowned at the deck, ‘I suppose I want to apologize for that. I didn't intend for things to go the way they went.’ He looked out over the water, to the dark treed shore a stone's throw distant, crossed his arms. ‘Things just have a way of taking on a life of their own…’
Kyle watched, wondering if perhaps he'd been forgotten. For the man was now obviously thinking of other things.
After standing silent for a time the Malazan said, ‘You know they call me a renegade.’
Kyle looked up from his sewing once more. ‘Yes.’
‘Ever wondered why?’
Kyle shrugged. ‘No. It means nothing to me.’
The man laughed. ‘Good. Then I'll tell you. I'm a renegade because I tried to make peace, Kyle. Strike an accord. For that I enraged the Korelans and was denounced by Malazan command. Me ‘n’ a handful of others.’ The big man glanced to Kyle, his pale ice-blue eyes bright in the gathering dawn. ‘And do you know why of all of them I alone survived the hunt that followed?’
‘No.’
‘Because I ran the farthest of all of them. Was the most thorough coward of the lot.’
Kyle's fists clenched his undershirt. This was not what he wanted to hear. Apologies! Confessions! Damn the man. He, a coward? What could he mean by such a ridiculous claim? ‘Perhaps I'm not the one you should be talking to…’
‘No. You're the one. Perhaps the only one. Because you're not from around here, Kyle. No one from around here would understand.’
The renegade pushed himself from the gunwale, walked off, his sandalled feet silent on the deck. Kyle watched him go. Understand? He didn't understand any of it.
The next morning Kyle saw Shimmer for the first time in months; apparently she'd been locked away in the only private cabin for what seemed the entire crossing. A sailor told him that she appeared suddenly that dawn, startling the captain as had no other event during the voyage. Later, word came for the Ninth squad to assemble.
They stood at attention, some having come across from the Wanderer, Shimmer examined them and they in turn examined her. At first Kyle hardly recognized her. Gone was all her usual garb of war and so startling was the transformation he could well appreciate the captain's reaction. Her hair was unbounded by her usual bright steel domed helmet and hung midnight-black and shimmering to the small of her back. The next thing Kyle noted was her height – she barely reached his chin. He'd always held an impression of her as taller. Her eyes, however, remained the same. Black under narrow slanted lids, they matched the blue-Napan cast of her face. And they held that slow reserved light that had seen just about all they possibly could, and wouldn't be surprised by anything more. Instead of her glittering coat of fine mail that reached her ankles and her long whipsword sheathed at her back, she now wore only a short-sleeved soft leather jacket and loose pantaloons.
‘Just north up the coast stands Fortress Haven,’ she began, ‘one of the first of our settlements here in Stratem. There, Lieutenant Skinner pledged he would return and await us. The Ninth Blade will go secretly without alarming any Malazan forces or spies that may be present, and contact him.’