company.
One eye left, capable of seeing… almost… In daylight a blurred haze swarmed before his vision, and there was pain, so much pain, until he could not even so much as turn his head – oh yes, the healers had worked on him – with orders, he now knew, to fail him again and again, to leave him with a plague of senseless scars and phantom agonies. And, once out of his room, they would laugh, at the imagined success of their charade.
Well, he would deliver their gifts back into their laps, all those healers.
In this soft, warm darkness, he stared upward from where he lay on the cot. Things unseen creaked and groaned. A rat scuttled back and forth along one side of the cramped chamber. His sentinel, his bodyguard, his caged soul.
A strange smell reached him, sweet, cloying, numbing, and he felt his aches fading, the shrieking nerves falling quiescent.
'Who's there?' he croaked.
A rasping reply, 'A friend, Tene Baralta. One, indeed, whose visage matches your own. Like you, assaulted by betrayal. You and I, we are torn and twisted to remind us, again and again, that one who bears no scars cannot be trusted. Ever. It is a truth, my friend, that only a mortal who has been broken can emerge from the other side, whole once more. Complete, and to all his victims, arrayed before him, blindingly bright, yes? The searing white fires of his righteousness. Oh, I promise you, that moment shall taste sweet.'
'An apparition,' Tene Baralta gasped. 'Who has sent you? The Adjunct, yes? A demonic assassin, to end this-'
'Of course not – and even as you make such accusations, Tene Baralta, you know them to be false. She could kill you at any time-'
'My soldiers protect me-'
'She will not kill you,' the voice said. 'She has no need. She has already cast you away, a useless, pathetic victim of Y'Ghatan. She has no realization, Tene Baralta, that your mind lives on, as sharp as it has ever been, its judgement honed and eager to draw foul blood. She is complacent.'
'Who are you?'
'I am named Gethol. I am the Herald of the House of Chains. And I am here, for you. You alone, for we have sensed, oh yes, we have sensed that you are destined for greatness.'
Ah, such emotion here, at his words… no, hold it back. Be strong… show this Gethol your strength. 'Greatness,' he said. 'Yes, of that I have always been aware, Herald.'
'And the time has come, Tene Baralta.'
'Yes?'
'Do you feel our gift within you? Diminishing your pain, yes?'
'I do.'
'Good. That gift is yours, and there is more to come.'
'More?'
'Your lone eye, Tene Baralta, deserves more than a clouded, uncertain world, don't you think? You need a sharpness of vision to match the sharpness of your mind. That seems reasonable, indeed, just.'
'Yes.'
'That will be your reward, Tene Baralta.'
'If I do what?'
'Later. Such details are not for tonight. Until we speak again, follow your conscience, Tene Baralta. Make your plans for what will come. You are returning to the Malazan Empire, yes? That is good. Know this, the Empress awaits you. You, Tene Baralta, more than anyone else in this army. Be ready for her.'
'Oh, I shall, Gethol.'
'I must leave you now, lest this visitation be discovered – there are many powers hiding in this army. Be careful. Trust no-one-'
'I trust my Red Blades.'
'If you must, yes, you will need them. Goodbye, Tene Baralta.'
Silence once more, and the gloom, unchanged and unchanging, inside and out. Destined, yes, for greatness. They shall see that. When I speak with the Empress. They shall all see that.
Lying in her bunk, the underside of the one above a mere hand'sbreadth away, knotted twine and murky tufts of bedding, Lostara Yil kept her breathing slow, even. She could hear the beat of her own heart, the swish of blood in her ears.
The soldier in the bunk beneath her grunted, then said in a low voice, 'He's now talking to himself. Not good.'
The voice from within Tene Baralta's cabin had been murmuring through the wall for the past fifty heartbeats, but had now, it seemed, stopped.
Talking to himself? Hardly, that was a damned conversation. She closed her eyes at the thought, wishing she had been asleep and unmindful of the ever more sordid nightmare that was her commander's world: the viscous light in his eye when she looked upon him, the muscles of his frame sagging into fat, the twisted face beginning to droop, growing flaccid where there were no taut scars. Pallid skin, strands of hair thick with old sweat.
What has burned away is what tempered his soul. Now, there is only malice, a mottled collection of stains, fused impurities.
And I am his captain once more, by his own command. What does he want with me? What does he expect?
Tene Baralta had ceased speaking. And now she could sleep, if only her mind would cease its frantic racing.
Oh Cotillion, you knew, didn't you? You knew this would come. Yet, you left the choice to me. And now freedom feels like curse.
Cotillion, you never play fair.
The western coast of the Catal Sea was jagged with fjords, high black cliffs and tumbled boulders. The mountains rising almost immediately behind the shoreline were thick with coniferous trees, their green needles so dark as to be almost black. Huge red-tailed ravens wheeled overhead, voicing strange, harsh laughter as they banked and pitched towards the fleet of ominous ships that approached the Malazans, swooping low only to lift with heavy, languid beats of their wings.
The Adjunct's flagship was now alongside Nok's own, and the Admiral had just crossed over to join Tavore as they awaited the arrival of the Perish.
Keneb stared with fascination at the massive warships drawing ever nearer. Each was in fact two dromons linked by arching spans, creating a catamaran of cyclopean proportions. The sudden dying of the wind had forced oars into the becalmed waters, and this included a double bank of oars on the inward side of each dromon, foreshortened by the spans.
The Fist had counted thirty-one of the giant craft, arrayed in a broad, flattened wedge. He could see ballistae mounted to either side of the wolf-head prows, and attached to the outer rails along the length of the ships was a double row of overlapping rectangular shields, their bronze facings polished and glinting in the muted sunlight.
As the lead ship closed, oars were lifted, shipped.
One of Nok's officers said, 'Look beneath the surface between the hulls, Admiral. The spans above are matched by ones below the waterline… and those possess rams.'
'It would be unwise indeed,' Nok said, 'to invite battle with these Perish.'
'Yet someone had done just that,' the Adjunct said. 'Mage-fire damage, there, on the one flanking the flagship. Admiral, what do you imagine to be the complement of soldiers aboard each of these catamarans?'
'Could be as many as two hundred marines or the equivalent for each dromon. Four hundred per craft – I wonder if some of them are at the oars. Unless, of course, there are slaves.'
