Steven Erikson - Dust of Dreams

‘And it all went down. Just before you all arrived. All went down. I lost everything. And my wife, why, she told me she’d only been waiting around until somebody better and richer showed up. So off she went, too.’ He wiped at his face. ‘Thought about killing myself, but I couldn’t figure out the best way. And then it hit me-join the army! But not the Letherii army, since the new King’s not looking to start any wars, is he? Besides, I’d probably get stationed here in the city and there I’d be, seeing all the people I once knew and thought my friends, and they’d be pretending I wasn’t even there. And then I heard you Malazans was marching into a war-’

‘Really? First I’ve heard of that.’

‘Well, something like that. The thing was, it hit me then that maybe it wasn’t a place to just up and get myself killed. No, it was a place where I could start over. Only’-and he pounded his thigh-‘first thing I do is mess up. Some new beginning!’

‘You’re fine,’ said Ruffle, grunting softly as she climbed to her feet. ‘Twit was the one who messed up, right?’

‘What? Oh, that’s right!’

‘I think maybe I come up with a new name for you,’ she said, looking down at him where he squatted behind his bundled kit. ‘How does Sunrise sound to you?’

‘Sunrise?’

‘Aye. Sergeant Sunrise. New beginnings, just like dawn breaking on the horizon. And every time you hear it out loud, you’ll be reminded of how you’ve begun again. Fresh. No debts, no disloyal friends, no cut-and-run wives.’

He suddenly straightened and impulsively hugged her. ‘Thanks, Ruffle. I won’t forget this. I mean it. I won’t.’

‘That’s nice. Now, spill out your bowl and spoon. Supper beckons.’

They found Brys Beddict standing on one of the canal bridges, the one closest to the river. He was leaning on the stone railing, eyes on the water flowing beneath the span.

Cuttle tugged on Fiddler’s arm as they were about to step on to the bridge. ‘What’s he doing?’ he whispered. ‘Looks like-’

‘I know what it looks like,’ Fiddler replied, grimacing. ‘But I don’t think it’s that. Come on.’

Brys glanced over as they approached, and straightened. ‘Good evening to you, soldiers.’

‘Commander Beddict,’ said Fiddler, nodding. ‘We’ve got ourselves a problem out in the camp, sir. That sweating ague, from the mosquitoes-got people falling ill everywhere, and our healers are dropping from exhaustion and making no headway.’

‘The Shivers, we call it,’ said Brys. ‘There’s a well, an imperial well, about half a league north of your camp. The water is drawn up by a sort of pump based on a mill. One of Bugg’s inventions. In any case, that water is filled with bubbles and rather tart to the taste, and it is the local treatment for the Shivers. I will dispatch teams to deliver casks to your camp. How many of your fellow soldiers have sickened?’

‘Two, maybe three hundred. With more every day, sir.’

‘We’ll start with five hundred casks-you need to get everyone drinking from them, as it may also possess some preventative properties, although no one has been able to prove that. I will also dispatch our military healers to assist your own.’

‘Thank you, sir. It’s been our experience that most of the time it’s the locals who get sick when foreigners arrive from across the seas. This time it’s proved the other way round.’

Brys nodded. ‘I gather that the Malazan Empire was predicated on expansion, the conquering of distant territories.’

‘Just a bit more rabid than your own Letherii expansion, sir.’

‘Yes. We proceeded on the principle of creep and crawl-that’s how our brother Hull described it, anyway. Spreading like a slow stain, until someone in the beleaguered tribe stood up and took notice of just what was happening, and then there’d be war. A war we justified at that point by claiming we were simply protecting our pioneering citizens, our economic interests, our need for security.’ His smile was sour. ‘The usual lies.’

Fiddler leaned on the railing beside Brys, and after a moment Cuttle did the same. ‘I remember a landing on one of the more remote of the Strike Islands. We weren’t assaulting, just making contact-the big island had capitulated by then. Anyway, the locals could muster about two hundred warriors, and there they were, looking out on a fleet of transports groaning with five thousand hardened marines. The old Emperor preferred to win without bloodshed, when he could. Besides, all of us, standing at the rails-sort of like we’re doing right now-well, we just pitied them.’

‘What happened?’ Cuttle asked.

‘The local chief gathered together a heap of trinkets on the beach, basically making himself look rich while at the same time buying our goodwill. It was a brave gesture, because it impoverished him. I don’t think he was expecting any reciprocal gesture from Admiral Nok. He just wanted us to take it and then go away.’ Fiddler paused, scratching at his beard, remembering those times. Neither Brys nor Cuttle prodded him to resume, but, with a sigh, he went on. ‘Nok had his orders. He accepts the gift. And then has us deliver on to that beach a golden throne for the chief, and enough silks, linens and wool to clothe every living person on that island-he gave the chief enough to turn around and be generous to his people. I still remember his face, the look on it…’ When he wiped at his eyes, only Brys held his gaze on Fiddler. Cuttle looked away, as if embarrassed.

‘That was a fine thing to do,’ said Brys.

‘Seemed that way. Until the locals started getting sick. Something in the wool, maybe. Fleas, a contagion. We didn’t even find out, not for days-we stayed away, giving the chief time and all that, and the village was mostly behind a fringe of thick mangroves. And then, one afternoon, a lookout spied a lone villager, a girl, staggering out on to the beach. She was covered in sores-that sweet, once smooth skin-’ He stopped, shoulders hunching. ‘Nok moved fast. He threw every Denul healer we had on to that island. We saved about two-thirds of them. But not the chief. To this day, I wonder what he thought as he lay dying-if an instant of calm spread out to flatten the storm of his fever, a single instant, when he thought that he had been betrayed, deliberately poisoned. I wondered if he cursed us all with his last breath. Had I been him, I know I would have. Whether we meant to or not-I mean, our intentions didn’t mean a damned thing. Offered no absolution. They rang hollow then and they still do.’

After a long moment, Brys returned his attention to the canal waters below. ‘This all flows out to the river, and the river into the sea, and out in the sea, the silts collected back here end up raining down to the bottom, down on to the valleys and plains that know no light. Sometimes,’ he added, ‘souls take the same journey, and they rain down, silent, blind. Lost.’

‘You two keep this up,’ Cuttle said in a growl, ‘and I’ll do the jumping.’

Fiddler snorted. ‘Sapper, listen to me. It’s easy to listen and even easier to hear wrongly, so pay attention. I’m no wise man, but in my life I’ve learned that knowing something-seeing it clearly-offers no real excuse for giving up on it. And when you put what you see into words, give ’em to somebody else, that ain’t no invitation neither. Being optimistic’s worthless if it means ignoring the suffering of this world. Worse than worthless. It’s bloody evil. And being pessimistic, well, that’s just the first step on the path, and it’s a path that might take you down Hood’s road, or it takes you to a place where you can settle into doing what you can, hold fast in your fight against that suffering. And that’s an honest place, Cuttle.’