Ian Esslemont - Assail

Malle waved to a stool. ‘Fisher Kel Tath,’ she invited. ‘Please be seated.’

‘I thank you, m’lady.’

She waved a black-gloved hand to Holden. ‘Holden of Cawn.’

‘The songster and I know each other of old, ma’am,’ Holden explained.

‘Oh. How convenient.’ She indicated the girl. ‘This is Alca of Cat, new to my service.’

Fisher bowed to the girl, whose pale lipless mouth drew down as if anticipating some sort of insult from him. He merely inclined his head in greeting once more, and indicated the rolled parchments. ‘You come well prepared.’

‘These?’ Malle snorted her scorn and tossed back a tiny glass of some thick blood-red liqueur. ‘Mere traveller’s tales. Might as well draw monsters on their borders.’ She eyed him speculatively. ‘You, however, have travelled through here before.’

‘Along the coast only, ma’am. Never inland.’

‘And why not?’

‘Very dangerous.’

She eyed her mages. ‘How very encouraging. Dangerous in what manner?’

He shrugged, extended his legs. ‘I do not know exactly. All I can say is that those who attempt to cross the spine of the Bone range are never seen again. There are stories, of course. Many rumours.’

Malle refilled her tumbler from a tall thin crystal decanter. ‘And have these stories a common theme?’

‘A monster. A threat. A price to be paid.’

The woman held the tiny glass between the fingertips of both hands and studied him over the rim. Under her steady gaze he was thankful that he had told the truth.

‘Interesting …’ she said at last.

Fisher frowned at that. ‘How so?’

‘Holden?’

The old mage cleared his throat and spat into a bronze pot next to his feet. ‘The oldest accounts have a road that tracks the top of the Bone Peninsula. Know you of that?’

Now Fisher regarded Malle steadily. ‘I have heard stories of such an ancient traveller’s account. It is said that the imperial archive in Unta possesses it.’

Behind the glass a small tight-lipped smile came and went from the old woman’s mouth. ‘Archivists can get into debt as easily as anyone.’ She waved to invite him to speak. ‘What have you heard?’

Fisher wasn’t certain that he believed the woman’s explanation, but outwardly he gave the appearance of not particularly caring either way. ‘I am a singer, a collector of songs and tales. And there are very old ones from this region that speak variously of the Bone Road, the Bridge of Bone, or the Way of Bone.’

‘Colourful,’ the old woman commented dryly. ‘Any other hazards we should be mindful of?’

Fisher opened his arms. ‘Well, there are always bandits, thieves, and mountain tribes.’

‘I doubt that any ragged bandits would attack a party of some hundred armed men and women,’ the girl sneered. ‘Hard knocks for poor rewards.’

Fisher shifted his gaze to her. ‘Some might fight to defend their territory.’ The girl just snorted, looking sour.

‘Anything else?’ Malle enquired.

Fisher nodded. ‘Then there are the supernatural dangers.’

Holden chuckled and winked. ‘Ah yes. The legendary ghoulies, ghosties and giants of Assail.’

Fisher did not share the man’s amusement. ‘The ghosts are real, my friend. The further north you go the worse they get. That and the cold.’

Alca leaned forward. She slid her forearms along her thighs to her knees. ‘These stories of cold and ice interest me. Since we landed I have sensed it. It is Elder. Omtose Phellack. This land was once held by the Jaghut — is that not so?’

Fisher studied the girl more closely; not so young as he had thought. And a scholar. Perhaps a researcher into the Warrens. He crossed one leg over the other and clasped his hands over his knee. ‘Some say all lands were once held by the Jaghut. But yes. It is thought that their mark lingers.’

‘And beyond the Jaghut there lies the threat of the namesake of this region,’ said Malle.

Fisher simply blinked at her. ‘Those are just stories, m’lady.’

‘Indeed? Let us hope so.’

Her tone told Fisher that his audience was at an end. He bowed his head and rose.

‘You had wished to speak of some matter?’ she enquired.

Fisher’s brows shot up — ah yes. He’d quite forgotten. ‘Our guest is awake and I wish to request equipment for him. Warm sturdy clothes and a weapon.’

‘And does our guest possess a name?’

Fisher shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, he remembers nothing. The shock of nearly drowning, perhaps.’

The old woman’s smile of sympathy was cold. ‘Perhaps.’ She gestured curtly to Holden. ‘See to it.’

‘Aye, ma’am.’

Bowing to all, Fisher ducked from the tent. As he crossed the camp it occurred to him that he’d entered to make a request only to find himself the object of an intense cross-examination regarding the peninsula and the lands beyond. Understandable, he supposed, given that they intended to penetrate within. Yet among the rolled charts and pressed fibre sheets he’d glimpsed a flat wooden box, closed and clasped. And he knew such boxes. They held draughting instruments: compasses, tools for measuring angles and scales. These people were not only consulting maps — they were assembling their own.

The party might in truth be after gold, but he considered it a good bet that these Malazans were after something else as well.

* * *

Once Jute Hernan, late of Delanss, was certain the Silver Dawn had passed beyond of the maze of rocks that choked the entrance to the aptly named Fear Narrows, he loosed the terror that squeezed his own chest like bound cordage and inhaled fully. He allowed his gaze to rise inland, up the calm channel of the long twisting narrows itself.

What he saw waiting ahead did not give him much cheer. Tall sheer cliffs on both sides offered little or no anchorage. And the Dawn was in desperate need of refit and repairs after threading through the Guardian Rocks; she was leaking at the seams, stores were water-spoiled, and she was desperately short of sweet water. Once more, he did his best to dredge up the tales of this region that he’d soaked up with his warm milk and bread when a boy. They told of how those vessels with enough luck, or piloted with enough skill, to navigate the Guardian Rocks could look forward to shelter within a protected port called Old Ruse, itself one of the many wonders of the region.

Scanning the rearing cliff walls, he saw no hint of any such tranquil or welcoming harbourage. Perhaps it was all sailors’ fancies and flights of tale-telling round the alehouses. Yet so far the stories had proved accurate to some degree: yes, the lands could be found more or less south of Genabackis; yes, the north-east coast was warded and ringed by hidden rocks and shoals; and, yes, an even worse hazard along this stretch of shore was its inhabitants, who, having no interest in trade or relations with the outside world, treated any vessels within their reach as sheep to be slaughtered, thus supporting the mariners’ universal wariness of the Wrecker’s Coast. And if one did pass beyond all this, one did come to a narrow inlet warded by series after series of jagged rocks. A formation any vessel would only dare attempt during the hours of highest tides. The Guardian Rocks.

Now, according to all the tales, what lay before his crew of the pick of all the mariners and pirates of Falar was Fear Narrows: a hostile inhospitable chute which allowed access to the broad calm Sea of Dread. Deceptively calm. Or so the stories always went.

Jute headed for the Dawn ’s quarterdeck, nodding encouragement to the men and women of the crew as he went. Not that he felt it — it was simply his role as he saw it: reassuring these volunteers, each of them daring and intrepid enough to answer his call to join a voyage like none before. A voyage to the ends of the world in search of riches, though for most, including himself, such a voyage was a reward in itself.