Ian Esslemont - Assail

He slumped back into his chair. Never mind. The one who carries any curse is always the last to know, yes? It wouldn’t be a damned curse otherwise, would it? This last thought chilled him and he pulled his gaze from Whellen.

So it could just as easily be me, couldn’t it?

* * *

Two days into the climb into the Bone range, Fisher’s guest awoke. Officially within the party, Fisher was appended to Malle’s Malazans. The expedition’s overall leader, Marshal Teal of Lether, had been against taking him on, as, in his words, ‘he saw no profit in hiring a mere wandering player’.

Fisher had then rather reluctantly revealed that he had travelled through this region before. After demonstrating local knowledge to the satisfaction of Malle’s own expert on Assail, the mage Holden, the Gris noblewoman offered to take him on, she said, to play and sing tales for her edification.

Therefore, it was in a Malazan-style field tent that Fisher sat idly strumming his current instrument, a stringed idum, consisting of a long narrow arm on a round gourd-like body. It was a traditional instrument of the Seven Cities region.

He was strumming and plucking, exploring possible composition elements for his current travels, when a voice spoke from within the tent. ‘You play well.’

He lowered the instrument’s arm from where he’d held it close to his ear and turned on his stool next to the open flap. Outside, the fires of the expedition crackled and cast a flickering light within the tent. His guest still lay within his blankets on the travois, but now his eyes glittered as dark as if the night itself was watching.

‘You are with us!’ Fisher came to his side. ‘I am Fisher. Fisher Kel Tath. And you are?’

‘I …’ The Andii frowned. ‘I am …’ He rubbed his brow and the frown rose into growing alarm. Fisher glanced away from the open panic that surfaced in the man’s night-black eyes. ‘I — cannot remember,’ he confessed, almost awed. ‘I cannot remember anything.’

Fisher pulled his stool next to the travois. ‘It is all right. I understand you nearly drowned. No doubt your memories will return in time. Do you remember anything of the sea, or drowning?’

‘No. That is …’ The man rubbed his brow with both hands as if struggling to pull memories from his mind. ‘Perhaps. I think I remember … fighting for breath.’

Fisher studied the man. Could he in truth be amnesiac? He’d heard that sometimes a near death by drowning could do that to a person. Of course, a sceptic would note how that was all too convenient. ‘So. You do not remember your name. What of your past? Any images, or places?’

The Andii gave an angry shake of his head — angry only with his own failure. ‘No. Nothing.’

‘Yet you are of the opinion that I play well.’

The man offered a half-smile. ‘Perhaps I should say that your playing was pleasing to my ear.’

‘Ah. Well, I thank you. Now, what of a name? I cannot just say hey you.’

‘No. That would certainly not do.’ He sat up in the travois then rubbed his brow anew, as if dizzy. He looked to Fisher and the bard thought the man’s glance uncharacteristically open and unguarded for an Andii. Or for any adult, for that matter. It was too much of the honest artlessness of youth. ‘Can you give me one?’

Half wincing, Fisher lowered his gaze. Ye gods, what a responsibility! Naming an Andii was not something anyone should casually take on. Yet he knew many old Tiste Andii lays, and they were jammed full of names and ancestries. ‘I … could,’ he allowed.

‘Very good.’ And the man sat waiting as if Fisher was about to bestow it right away.

Fisher gave a rather nervous laugh. ‘Let me consider the matter. Such things require … care.’

‘Ah. I see.’ And the man nodded his acceptance.

Fisher cleared his throat into the silence. ‘In the meantime, let me see to kitting you out properly. We are headed into mountains. Your thin cloth trousers and shirt, though they are of an expensive weave, will not do. And you need footgear of a sort — that will be a challenge. And some sort of weapon. Do you use a sword?’

With the mention of the word ‘sword’ the man’s head snapped to him and for an instant the black eyes held an expression that was far from innocent openness. Then the mood cleared and the Andii smiled as if having discovered something. ‘Yes. I remember … a sword. Something about a sword.’

Fisher slapped his thighs and rose. ‘There you are. Progress already. Soon it will all come back. Now wait here — I’ll see what I can pull together.’

He made the rounds of the three camps. Marshal Teal offered to sell him equipment at an insultingly inflated price. Enguf’s raiders had no extra gear, and were in fact short of everything themselves. He returned to the Malazan camp and headed for Malle’s tent.

Three guards sat on stools before the closed flap. A small fire burned low in front of them while behind a thin slit of lamplight cut through the tent opening. They were three of a kind: gnarled veterans in battered light armour, the heaviest item of which was a shirt of mail. Like three boulders, Fisher thought, that had rolled and bashed their way across countless fields and continents until every edge carried a bruise or a scar.

‘Lookee here,’ one commented, nudging his fellow. ‘It’s that foreign screecher. Where’s that cat you keep stretched on a stick and torture every night?’

‘Evening lads,’ Fisher said placidly. ‘Here to see the mistress. And it’s an idum. An instrument out of Seven Cities.’

‘Oh, I know that,’ the first said. ‘Heard them played. Broke every one of them I saw after that.’

‘You wasn’t in Seven Cities,’ the one on the right objected.

‘Was so.’

‘Yes, he was,’ said the one in the middle. ‘I remember it distinctly — he was advertised as the famous Malazan dancing boy.’

The one on the right now nodded his agreement. ‘Oh, I remember now. His bum was everywhere.’

The first joined in the nodding. ‘I distracted them and you stuck your knives in — or something like that.’

Fisher struggled to keep his face straight. ‘Gentlemen … your mistress?’

‘Now I know she wasn’t in Seven Cities,’ the middle one said.

The one on the right rubbed his jaw with a gnarled paw. ‘She mighta bin.’

‘Would you announce me?’ Fisher asked.

‘As what?’ the first asked, looking him up and down. Fisher raised his eyes to the night sky. The guard nudged the one in the middle. ‘Your turn.’

This one kicked the one on his right. ‘Your turn.’

The last dropped his hand from his jaw and sighed his annoyance. ‘I can’t believe I have to be the one to go to all the trouble.’ He lifted his head and shouted: ‘Hey, Malle! It’s that foreign bandolier here to see you!’

‘That’s balladeer, Riley dear,’ Malle called from within. ‘Now send him in.’

‘What’s the difference?’ Riley asked out of the side of his mouth.

‘He wouldn’t fit so well across your chest,’ the one in the middle answered.

‘Oh, I dunno about that,’ Riley answered, eyeing Fisher up and down. ‘He just might.’

Fisher sketched a salute and edged between them.

Inside, a number of lamps cast a warm yellow glow. Tables and stools cluttered the outer half of the tent. Hangings concealed a private rear sleeping chamber. With Malle were her two hired mages, one of whom he knew: the old and battered Holden of Cawn, mage of Serc. The other was new to him: a young plain lass, obviously the mage of Telas he’d sensed earlier. A low table between them lay cluttered with scraps of food, glasses, and rolled sheets of parchment he recognized as charts and maps.