Orb Sceptre Throne Read online

  For an instant the little man’s brows pinched in concern, unnoticed. Then he puffed out his chest – though to nowhere near the protrusion of the straining lower buttons of his waistcoat.

  ‘Do not despair, my High Alchemicalness. The Eel has eyes like a hawk! And had it any limbs, why, they would be the thews of a panther! No pale wriggling albino cave fish is the Eel! Er … that is … unlike said fish, no pickling jar could ever be quick enough to capture it!’

  All through the alleys of the bourse of the dancing girls, beneath its multicoloured awnings and drifting fumes of burning prayer sticks, the gossip of the day was fixed upon the unprecedented arrival of a bright new star among the constellation of its most talented practitioners.

  The heart of the bourse was the narrow Way of Sighs, a length of shadowed alley not incidentally overlooked by the open window alcoves of the dancers’ quarters. Here in the cool of the twilight the girls often gathered in their window seats to take in the pleasant night air, observe dusk prayers, and to receive the admiration of suitors lingering below. This eve the courtiers and young bravos talked among themselves, comparing rapturous descriptions of the new dancer’s goddess-like grace and classical beauty; while, above, tortoiseshell combs yanked rather savagely through midnight manes of hair.

  She had appeared out of nowhere, this diminutive captivating sprite whose confidence so far surpassed her apparent age. No school could boast of having trained her, though many wished they had. A secretive rise of her painted lips and a flash of her green-tinged sloe-eyes easily deflected even the subtlest of questioning and left would-be interrogators speechless. Schooling at home by her mother, herself once a very famous dancer, was all she had admitted so far.

  Then the romance began. How the alleyways resounded, the awnings fluttered, with twice the usual wistful sighs of admiration! The dedicated, brilliant dancer (no doubt of the lowest of family origins) and the awkward son of a noble house (and that house in poverty and decline). Why, it was like the stories of old! Jeshin Lim, the bookish, unpromising son of the once great Lim family, cousin to councilman Shardan, himself cut off so tragically, madly in love with a dancing girl of no family and no connections. What other explanation could there be but pure unadorned love?

  In their window nooks some clenched perfectly manicured nails to palms and muttered through pearl teeth of bewitchment.

  Then the unlikeliest of strokes. The cousin vaulted to a seat on the Council! All nod sagely at the obvious tonic to a man of the love and devotion of a gifted woman. And the path to said Council seat no doubt paved by the freely given gold bangles and anklets from those very shapely limbs!

  Yet inevitably must come the tragic and tearful end. All know the conclusion to such star-crossed affairs. Lim, having achieved the vaunted rank of councilman, is far too prominent for such a low entanglement.

  And so, in the cooling breezes of the window nooks, brushes now slid smoothly through long black hair, and kohl-lined eyes were languid and satisfied in the certain knowledge of such pending devastation.

  Now he came, this very eve, drawn in a hired carriage to the apartment houses near the dancers’ quarters where so many girls were similarly kept at the expense of their, shall we say, patrons.

  Lim’s carriage pulled up at the private entrance and he stepped down wrapped in a dark hooded cloak. He held a delicate gold mask pressed to his face, obscuring his features. The guard bowed respectfully, eyes averted, and pulled the sliding bolt. The councilman slipped within.

  He came to one specific door along the second-floor hall and knocked four quick raps: their agreed secret code. Yet the door did not open; no smooth naked arms entwined him. The gold mask edged right and left, then a hand rose to try the latch, and found it unlocked. He stepped within, pushed the door shut behind. ‘My love?’

  No answer from the cluttered darkened room. Layered carpets covered the floor in heaps, cushions lay about draped in abandoned gossamer clothes. He edged forward tentatively. ‘My dear?’

  He found her at the window – no open seated alcove here: bars sealed these small openings. She was peering out to where the blue-tinted night flames of the city seemed to battle the green-tinged night sky above.

  ‘I am sorry, my dear …’ he began.

  She turned, arms crossed over her small high breasts. For a moment her eyes seemed to flash with a green light akin to that of the night sky. ‘And who is this who comes intruding upon my privacy?’

  Jeshin stared, confused, then lowered the mask and examined it wryly. He pushed back the hood, revealing his long black hair, his narrow scholar’s face. He tapped a finger to the gold mask. ‘You see? Even now I come as you request. Though why this façade of anonymity when everyone seems to know of … well.’ He tossed the mask aside.

  ‘You should not have come,’ she said, hugging herself even tighter, as if struggling to keep something in.

  Jeshin turned away, pacing. ‘Yes, yes. Now that I am a councillor. Even now you shame me in your concern for my reputation.’ He spun upon her. ‘Yet perhaps there is a way. I no longer need the blessings of my family …’

  Slipping forward, she silenced him with a finger to his lips. ‘No.’ She spoke soothingly, as if to a child. ‘I’ll not have you weakened in any way. Your opponents will use it against you. Paint you an impetuous fool. You must not be compromised.’ And she peered up at him, her gaze almost furtive. ‘Your great vision for the city, remember?’

  He squeezed her to him. ‘But without you?’

  Dancer that she was, she somehow easily eluded his grasp to put her back to him. ‘We … both … must make sacrifices,’ she said, facing the window once more.

  He shook his head in awed admiration. ‘Your determination is a lesson to me.’

  She turned, finger at her chin. ‘Yet there is one last thing I can do for you, my Jeshin, my noble councillor.’

  He waved the suggestion aside, still shaking his head. ‘You have done enough – too much. Your advice, the things you knew … As they say: all secrets are revealed beneath the feet of the dancer.’

  Her henna-lined lips drew up, pleased. ‘That is a very old saying. And very true. No, one last word that has come to me. There is an extraordinarily wealthy man in the city who shares your vision of a strong Darujhistan that commands the respect it deserves.’ Her lips drew down, dismissive. ‘True, he is a northerner, from Cat. But he should support you. His name is Humble. Humble Measure.’

  Jeshin frowned. ‘The ironmonger?’

  ‘He is more than that. Trust in me.’

  The young councillor held out his hands as if in surrender. ‘If you say so, dearest. I shall contact him.’

  ‘Excellent. With his resources your ascent will be assured.’

  Jeshin stared, almost awestruck. ‘I do not deserve you, my love.’

  Smiling once more, she pressed a palm to his chest and gently urged him down to a heap of cushions. ‘You shall, my love. You shall.’

  Standing above him she struck the opening pose of Burn Awakening, one leg raised, toe just brushing the floor, one hand lifted to her face as if warding off the harsh glare of a primeval dawn. From this pose she flowed into the first four devotional motions, one to each corner of the world, bowing, hands raised in supplication, palms inward.

  Then she danced.

  Staring, mesmerized, his pulse racing, Jeshin could only moan, ‘Oh, Taya … Taya …’

  The retreat had been established in the coastal mountains south of Mengal generations ago. Some named it a monastery, others a school. Those who entered did so in the understanding of a voluntary abandonment of the world, with all its diversions and deluding ambitions.

  Why the legendary Traveller, slayer of Anomander Rake, the very son of Darkness and Lord of Moon’s Spawn, would come here was a mystery to Esten Rul. If he had defeated the most feared and powerful Ascendant once active in the world he would not be squatting in some dusty monastery full of mumbling priests and acolytes.

  And that w
as not what he planned on doing after he in turn defeated this Traveller.

  Even now, assured by numerous independent sources, he could not quite believe that this squalid mountain-hugging collection of huts and open-air temples was the retreat of the great swordsman. Entering the main sand courtyard he paused, eyed the passing robed priests on their unhurried ways. None even cast him a single glance. This was not the sort of treatment to which Esten Rul, master duellist and swordsman of three continents, was accustomed. These shaven-headed wretches obviously did not possess the wit to understand that the man who stood before them was acknowledged a master on Quon Tali and Falar. And that he had taken the measure of the current crop of talents here in Genabackis and frankly thought them rather second-rate.

  One oldster was dutifully sweeping up the leaves that littered the courtyard and this one he approached.

  ‘You. Old man. Where can I find the one who goes by the name Traveller?’

  In what was obviously a deliberate insult the fellow had the effrontery to continue sweeping. Esten stamped his foot down on the bundled straw of the broom. ‘I am talking to you, grandfather.’

  The man peered up at him, very dark, not a local, his scalp freshly shaven, the face scarred and graven in lines of care. Yet the eyes: utterly without fear, deep midnight blue like ocean depths.

  The weight of that gaze made Esten look away, uncomfortable. So, not a servant after all. A broken-down veteran perhaps, shattered by battle. ‘You know of him?’

  ‘The one those here call Master? Yes.’

  Esten grunted. So, their master, was he? Of course. What else could such a man be? ‘Where is he? Which of these pathetic huts?’ The old man looked him up and down. Esten saw his eyes casting over the quillons of his sheathed rapier.

  ‘You would challenge him?’

  ‘No, I’m here delivering flowers from Black Coral. Of course I’m here to challenge him, you senile fool!’

  The old man closed his eyes as if pained; lowered his head. ‘Go back to Darujhistan. The one called Traveller has … retired … from all swordplay.’ He returned to his sweeping.

  Esten barely restrained himself from cuffing the insolent fool. He set his hand instead on the grip of his sword. ‘Do not try me. I am not used to such treatment. Take me to Traveller or I will find someone else who will – at sword-point.’

  The old man stilled. He turned to face him: the eyes had narrowed now, and darkened even more. ‘Is that the way of it? Very well. I will take you to Traveller, but before I do you must demonstrate your worthiness.’

  Esten gaped at the man. ‘What? Demonstrate my … worthiness?’ He peered about in disbelief. A crowd of the robed monks, or priests, or whatever they were, had gathered silent and watchful. Esten Rul was not a man to be spooked but he found their quiet regard a touch unnerving. He returned his attention to the old sweeper, gave a vague gesture of invitation with one gloved hand. ‘And pray tell how do I do that?’

  ‘By defeating the least of us.’

  Esten bit down on his impatience and took a slow calming breath. ‘And … that would be?’

  A sad slow shrug from the man. ‘Well … that would be me.’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Yes. I’m very new here.’

  ‘You …’ He stepped away as if the fellow were a lunatic. ‘But you’re just cleaning the court!’

  A rueful nod. ‘Yes. And I’ve yet to get it right. It’s the wind, you know. No matter how careful you are the wind just comes tumbling through and all your plans and care are for naught.’

  Esten snorted his disgust and turned away. He raised his hands to his mouth to bellow: ‘Traveller! Can you hear me? Are you hiding here? Come out and face me!’

  ‘Defeat me and they will bring you to him.’

  Having turned full circle Esten faced the man again. ‘Really … just like that?’

  ‘Yes. Just like that. It is an ancient practice. One remembered and honoured here.’

  Esten opened his hands as if in a gesture of futility. ‘Well … if I must … You do have a weapon?’

  The old man merely shrugged his regretful apology once more and raised his broom.

  From the gates to the monastery an acolyte watched the foreign duellist walking down the zigzag mountain trail. The swordsman’s hands were clasped behind his back and his head was lowered as if he had just been given a great deal to think about. The acolyte bowed to the man at the gate where he leaned on his broom, the wood of the haft nicked and gouged.

  ‘Will he return, Master?’ the acolyte asked.

  ‘I keep telling you lot not to call me that,’ sighed the man who had given up the name Traveller. He shrugged. ‘Let’s hope not. He’s been offered a lesson. We can only hope it will be heeded.’ He shifted his grip on the broom. ‘But … life is nothing more than a series of lessons and few learn enough of them.’ He looked to the courtyard and winced. ‘Gods – you turn away for one moment and everything goes to the Abyss. I’m going to have to start all over again …’

  ‘As we all should, Master.’

  For an instant a small smile graced the man’s pain-ravaged face, then the mouth eased back into its habitual slash of a grimace. ‘Well said. Yes. As we all should. Every day. With every breath.’

  In the nameless outskirts of the shanty town rambling westward of Darujhistan, an old woman squatted in front of her shack and carved a stick beneath a night sky dominated by the slashing lurid green banner of the Scimitar. Her hair was a wild bush about her head tied with lengths of string, ribbon, beads, and twists of leather. Her bare feet where they poked out beneath her layered skirts were as dark as the earth the toes gripped. She droned to herself in a language no one understood.

  An old woman living alone in a decrepit hut was nothing unusual for the shanty town, peopled as it was by the poorest, most broken-down of the lowest class of tannery workers, sewer cleaners and garbage haulers of Darujhistan. Every second shack seemed occupied by an old widow or grandmother, the menfolk dying off early as they do everywhere – the men claiming this proves they do all the hard work, and the women knowing it’s because men aren’t tough enough to endure being old.

  And so this woman had lived in her squalid hut for as long as anyone could remember and none remarked upon it, except for all the surrounding old widows and grandmothers who amongst themselves knew her as ‘that crazy old woman’.

  Squatting in the mud before her hut she brought the thin stick she was carving close to eyes clouded by milky cataracts and studied the intricate tracery of curve and line that ran end to end. She crooned to herself, ‘Almost, now. Almost.’ Then she glanced fearfully, and rather blindly, to the starry night sky and its intruding alien banner, muttering, ‘Almost now. Almost.’

  The stick went into a sack at her side. From a smaller bag she drew a pipe and a pinch of a sticky dark substance like gum that she rolled into a ball then pressed into the pipe. She lit the pipe with a twig from a low fire, drew the smoke in deep and held it down in her lungs for a long time before leaning her head back and letting the great plume blow skyward.

  She blinked her watering eyes. ‘Almost, now. Almost.’

  BOOK I

  Orb

  CHAPTER I

  The problem with paths is that once you have chosen one, You cannot choose the others.

  Attributed to Gothos’ Folly

  ON THE SOUTH coast of Genabackis the former fishing village of Hurly was a mess. Nearly two years before, its original inhabitants had drowned without warning in tidal waves that inundated it when the last fragments of the titanic floating mountain named Moon’s Spawn crashed into the Rivan Sea. Then, when the flood waters receded, like a swarm of flies a motley army of treasure-hunters had descended upon its corpse. And soon after that came a worse plague: the thieves, conmen and other swindlers who preyed upon all.

  Representatives of the Southern Confederation of Free Cities were the first to arrive at the scene of devastation. Wreckers and pirates from way back, they salv
aged everything they could, namely the surviving boats of the region, and established a concession out to the newly born isles. A few months later transport fees and tariffs were settled upon and four separate armed challenges to their monopoly had been successfully put down.

  Now, after more than a year of trade, the Southern Confederation had firmly established itself as the sole agent for the islands, which they named, with characteristic directness, the Spawns.

  Jallin, nicknamed the Jumper for his habit of ambushing from the rear, had to admit that the good times in Hurly were officially over. He and all the other hustlers and scavengers could feel the pinch of lean times. The one-time flood of fortune-hunters had thinned to a trickle of ragged men and women no better off than those who’d already clawed out a spot in the festering town.

  Jallin the Jumper knew this well. He’d seen the cycle play itself out in town after town up north, where the Malazan wars had fuelled the rabid, cannibalistic economics of scarcity and demand. He sensed that here the frenzy of fortunes won overnight and even more quickly lost would never reach the pitch it had seasons ago. And it was ending before he’d made his big strike. Just as it had at Pale, Kurl and Callows. Only this time he wouldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t. Because Hurly was the end of the road. As far south as all these losers and dregs could slide. Everyone’s last chance.

  So he paid close attention when yet another new arrival came tramping down the town’s muddy main track. The newcomer was a wiry ragged veteran, a foreigner by his ruddy hair and ginger moustache – a Malazan. He wore army-standard sandals and cloak, and carried battered leather panniers over one shoulder. That the man was a veteran didn’t worry Jallin; almost all the loser fortune-hunters who came down that road had once marched in any number of armies up north – and usually deserted from every damned one. To him they were pathetic in their willingness to get maimed or killed for the promise of a handful of coin or a scratch of land.