Corien chuckled his appreciation of the point.
A long silence followed that. Antsy peered about the black, which seemed to him no longer absolute. His vision was adjusting; he could make out blobs of greater and lesser darkness, catch hints of movement. Someone slid down one wall to a sitting position. ‘We’ll wait,’ said Malakai. ‘We’re wet and it’s night. We’ll have more light in the morning.’
Everyone sat. Equipment banged to the floor. ‘What was that about, Red?’ Corien asked. ‘There on the boat?’
Antsy debated not bothering to answer but decided that since they were all stuck together he might as well make the effort. ‘I wanted some information so I put a knife to one of them. We capsized.’
Corien laughed a loud barracks-room bray. ‘Remind me not to withhold information from you in the future.’
Antsy allowed himself a sour half-smile. He hugged his pannier to his chest. He was soaked, cold, and his mouth hurt like the devil. This was not going the way he’d imagined. Then he laughed, thinking of something: ‘I’m sure as Hood not keeping watch tonight.’
Orchid and Corien chuckled.
‘I will. Everyone get some sleep,’ growled Malakai.
No one spoke again that night.
Kiska had no idea how long they sat imprisoned in their cliff-face cave. Or even that such concepts as days or hours mattered here at what now truly seemed to be the ‘Shores of Creation’. Leoman practised with his morningstars at the widest point of the cave-fissure. Kiska had her chance to practise close work with the stave. She tested herself until her arms burned then threw herself down to sleep.
But sleep would not come. Instead, her thoughts wandered to one of her last assignments within the Claw. One of a team pursuing indigenous leaders in Seven Cities. Assassination, disruption of nativist movements, the seeding of spies and provocateurs. Ugly work. Murder, torture, extortion, blackmail. That was where she fell away from the Claw. Not out of squeamishness, or adherence to any sort of misplaced moral philosophy — if they weren’t doing it to others then others’d be doing it to them, after all — no, it was purely professional disgust. The politicking within the Claw. The careerist lies and backstabbing. The toadying and outright favouritism in promotions. At first it only disgusted her and she kept her distance.
But then it happened to her.
It had been a routine operation. The target was an entrenched anti-occupation movement gaining strength around Aren. She’d been second in command of the Hand assigned the clean-up. They were lucky to have two locally recruited agents: Seven Cities natives who favoured the Malazan mission of suppressing the wasteful feuding, the opening up of the culture to the wider world.
These two were tasked with infiltrating the movement.
During this time the Hand waited and watched. Buildings were noted. Members were marked. The Hand held off until word was passed of a major meet or gathering. The night was set. Kiska’s Hand was positioned; the sign was given; they moved.
They stepped right into an ambush.
Somehow, these Seven Cities patriots had gotten word of the attack. A number proved to be hardened veterans from the first war of invasion. When it all was over the small dank cellar was a bloodbath. Only she and the Hand commander remained standing.
On searching the side rooms she found their agents. Both had been monstrously tortured. Mauled and carved almost beyond recognition as human. Bound and hanging like meat. Unbelievably, one still lived. Though eyeless, his stomach eviscerated, the innards dangling in loops, he mouthed that the insurgents had been tipped off. That he’d overheard their boasting of a source within the Claw itself.
Both Kiska and Lotte, the Hand commander, immediately knew who it probably was. The man was Lotte’s rival for promotion to the regional directorate. Kiska was all for murdering him that night. Right then and there with the blood still wet on their boots and gloves. But Lotte demurred. He was willing to grant his rival this round. The operation would be reported as botched, a black mark on his record, and the other fellow would get the directorship.
But with Kiska’s help he vowed to see to it that the man’s tenure would be one long series of failures and setbacks in the region. He would be removed. And then, Lotte proposed, he himself and Kiska could potentially rule the Seven Cities holdings from behind the scenes. In the dark of the cellar, the stink of blood and bile a miasma in the air, the dead a carpet round their feet, and Lotte’s gaze bright upon her weighing, guarded, Kiska thought it prudent to agree.
But her faith in the virtue of her calling had been shaken — no, more than shaken … it had been stabbed through the heart. Lost among the self-promotion and careerist manoeuvring within the order was any concern or responsibility to their larger mission serving the Empire. It seemed that the entire Malazan goal of subduing the Seven Cities region could go down in flames so long as one Claw operative managed to sabotage his rivals. And also dead were two infinitely valuable local agents, loyal and dedicated to the Malazan cause. Betrayed for a cheap leg- up in one bureaucrat’s career. Kiska was sickened beyond disgust by the utter short-sighted selfishness of it.
Shortly after that she abandoned the Claw and fled to the service of High Mage Tayschrenn. There they dared not touch her, and there she remained until
So now she sought him. Across all the face of creation, it seemed, she sought her master. Again she scoured among her feelings for the reasons for such pursuit. The most uncomfortable suspicion was of course that she longed for his attention, his embrace as a man. She studied that urge as ruthlessly as possible to come to the conclusion: no. She no longer dreamt of such a liaison — the stuff of some syrupy courtly romance. When she’d been younger she’d allowed herself the illusion. But no longer. Perhaps some scholar would argue she sought him as the father figure she’d never truly known as a child. Perhaps. What she thought far more germane was that she considered him possibly the only one left who could enforce some sort of standard of behaviour, or moral direction, upon the Empire. If that were at all possible.
All very high-sounding in purpose and aspiration.
But the suspicion pricked her: perhaps the truth was far less noble. Perhaps she was here because she was afraid the Claw would eventually come for her. The organization was famous for never forgetting. But no, all that was so long ago and far away. They had much bigger things to concern themselves with. And she had leverage. She knew things about the Empire. Things no one wanted whispered.
She opened her eyes to the familiar narrow cave. Something was different. She heard whispering, a murmuring out beyond the cave mouth. Leoman lay asleep, his breath even, the pulse at his neck steady. Thinking of Seven Cities: this man had served in the resistance against Malazan occupation alongside Yathengar, or at least in sympathy with him. And in that region he had delivered a heart-thrust to the Empire with the conflagration at Y’Ghatan.
The dizzying idea came to her that in her actions she was somehow aiding him in some hidden goals against the Empire. Perhaps she should take the opportunity now to slay him in his sleep, or regret it later. Yet she knew she could not bring herself to commit murder. She was no cold-blooded killer, though trained in such techniques.
She rose and glided soundlessly to the opening.
It was unguarded. The lumpish beings who had barricaded them in had moved off. They were whispering — well, croaking, belching and lisping — among themselves. It was the gloomy dusk of night. Alien stars glimmered overhead. It occurred to her that if she wished she could make up new constellations among them. The Stave and the Morningstar perhaps.
The lumpy guards squealed and burbled as they caught sight of her, and they came limping up to surround her. It seemed to her that she could smack them to pieces with her staff, but she felt pity for them. Pity and sadness. She couldn’t bring herself to strike any one of them.
