Return of the Crimson Guard

so abandoned were the energies here that enforcing the control of manipulation would try his skill to its limit.

He was flexing his gloved hands when Skinner stopped. ‘There, Cowl. What is that?’

He looked ahead, then up. Just visible above the narrow gap of a side ravine rose an ochre-brick tower. Cowl stared. Great Mother Dark — who might possibly… He hurriedly stepped aside into cover. ‘We should go. Now.’

Absently, Skinner raised an iron-gauntleted hand to shake a finger at Cowl. ‘I think not. I am curious.’

‘Do not fool yourself. There are entities here far more powerful than those Liosan.’

‘Then let us go meet these great powers.’

‘Are you insane? I will take us out, now.’

The finger pointed. ‘No. You will accompany me in case you are needed.’

The Avowed High Mage stood silent for a time, stroked the scars that traced a pearly thatching along his neck. Even more imperious than when he left us is our Skinner. Still, he was powerful even then, and now this Ardata seems to have invested even greater potentialities within him. Why would she have done so and then apparently meekly allow him to go? There is a greater mystery here. And perhaps it would be interesting… He waved an invitation to proceed.

After investigating for a time they could not discover any way up to the tower. It seemed that whoever built or occupied the structure had no use for the sheltered ways all other travellers were forced to walk in order to pass through this deadly reach of the warren. That alone made the sweat cold that soaked Cowl's silk shirt, layered thin hauberk, pocketed vest and many weapon belts. They also had to pause while he renewed each of the layered protections he had woven around them. After this, Skinner selected the shallowest ravine wall and punched out depressions as hand-holds. Cowl waited, face averted, while the dry clay clumps rained down.

Eyes shaded, he waited until his seemingly irresistible commander had almost reached the top then took a breath and launched himself at the rotten wall. A soft moccasin touch within one gap, a deft pull upon a protruding rock, and in an instant he had ascended the wall as if flying up.

Reaching the top and pulling himself erect, Skinner grunted to see Cowl standing before him. He gestured to himself. ‘I don't suppose you could have…’

‘No.’

A blasted landscape of harsh shadows and brilliant whites assaulted their vision. The energies pulsing outward felt like a hand thrusting Cowl backwards. The commingled roar of its rush was a thunder almost beyond his capacity to hear. Face averted, he ran for the cover of the tower. Even Skinner joined him, hunched against the raw, yammering aurora. The bricks of the tower scorched Cowl's fingertips. ‘You're not going in, are you?’ he shouted.

‘Of course. And you are coming with me.’

In the end, he followed, if only to avoid the indignity of being dragged by his belts. They found an opening leading to an empty ground floor and stairs up. All was built of the same clay bricks — all of which had equally bulged and sagged in the unrelenting kiln heat. Skinner led the way up. The brick stairway circled the tower three times before ending at an empty circular chamber, roofed and featuring one slit window that faced directly upon Kurald Liosan. They kept to one side, wary of the blade of brilliant light cutting across the chamber's middle. Cowl noted that the motes of dust that drifted into the blade puffed into wisps of smoke. Skinner crossed his arms. ‘Your evaluation?’

‘Some sort of a research, or observation or communication tower, I should think.’

A grunt from Skinner. ‘Very well. Let us then communicate.’

‘You're not going to…’

‘Yes. I am.’

‘We don't know what will happen!’

The mailed finger pointed once more. ‘Exactly, Cowl. And this is where you always fall short. You don't know what you can do — until you do it.’ And he stepped up before the slit window. Instantly his surcoat burst into flames. Grunting anew, this time in pain, he averted the vision slit of his full helm. So great was the force driving in that Skinner shifted a mailed foot back, leaning into the stream. ‘Do you see anything?’ he bellowed.

Cowl attempted to send his awareness out ahead but it was like trying to push a boat up a foaming set of rapids. Still, he could sense something… something very potent… approaching… ‘Something's coming!’

A shape, a presence, occluded the stream of power. It seemed to hover before the slit window. Through eyes shaded and narrowed Cowl had the impression first of a coiling, shifting serpent, then a winged entity, then a globe of roiling flame. Whatever it was it seemed entirely protean, without any set shape.

‘Who are you? came a thought so powerful as to ring the chamber like a bell.

‘Skinner. Avowed of the Crimson Guard. Who-’

‘These titles are meaningless. You are not he — that is plain.’

‘Who-’ Skinner began, then a blast struck the tower, which rocked. Raw, yammering power seared through the slit window throwing Cowl backwards to the floor. Dust as dry as death swirled in the desiccated air. The blade of light returned. Carefully Cowl straightened, coughing, peering into the shifting curtains of brick dust. A groan brought him to the rear of the chamber. Here, Skinner straightened from the wall. Behind him crushed and broken brick tumbled to the floor. He patted his chest, sending the black ash that was his surcoat floating out into the chamber. The helm shifted to Cowl. ‘You are going to say something. I can see it in your face.’

Cowl raised a hand to his neck. He struggled to keep his mouth straight. ‘If I were to say something, Skinner, I suppose it would be that what goes around comes around.’

The Avowed commander ground out a long, slow growl.

The entire trip to the Golden Hills Lieutenant Rillish spent surrounded by a moiling horde of Wickan cavalry. Mounts had been provided for all; recovering, he could ride now with major discomfort, but he could ride. A large cart, a kind of wheeled yurt, had been assembled for the youth and it now constituted the centre of the churning mass of yelling, chanting horsemen. Early on Rillish had leant to Sergeant Chord, asking, ‘What is that they're repeating?’

‘Well, sir, they seem to think the youth carries the spirit of Coltaine, reborn.’

The name impressed Rillish no end. Coltaine. Leader of the last Wickan challenge to Malazan rule. Through negotiation he had then become one of the Empire's most feared commanders, and had died battling a rebellion in Seven Cities — though some claimed he had actually led it himself. That news had come four days ago. Plenty of time to ruminate on the truth, or suspicious convenience, of the timing of such a manifestation. After mulling it over — Nil and Nether seemed to accept it explicitly — he decided that it wasn't a truth for him to judge. He wasn't a Wickan. Not that he would endorse just any culture's practices — slavery of women, for example. Sure, it was a tradition among many peoples not to allow women access to power. Fine, so long as the ‘tradition’ was recognized for what it was: just another form of slavery.

So he would go along with the story. Never mind, whispered that scoffing sceptic's voice within him, how convenient it might prove for him.

Five days of wending up and down steep defiles and crossing rocky rushing streams brought them to a high broad plateau dotted with encampments of yurts and surging herds of horses. A great exulting war call went up from the column followed by a ululation of singing from the many camps. Mounted youths charged back and forth, spears raised. Some climbed to stand on the bare backs of their mounts; others leapt side to side, running alongside their horses, hands wrapped in manes.

‘You'll have your hands full with this lot,’ Rillish said to Nether who happened to be at his side. Her answer was a long, amused look, then she kneed her mount ahead.

A bivouac was set aside for Rillish and his command. He set to its ordering along with Sergeant Chord. ‘Now what do you think, sir?’ Chord asked while they inspected the soldiers’ work, some raising tents, others assembling imitations of the yurts in blankets and cloaks over a framework of branches. Fires were going and water was heating in clay pots over the flames.

‘Don't know for certain, of course. Some kind of an army will be organized, I imagine. They obviously intend to swoop down and clear the invaders out.’ Rillish caught the eye of the soldier who had helped him escape from the fort and nodded his greeting. Smiling broadly, she saluted.