Steven Erikson - The lees of Laughter's End

This thing of dreams

An army marching close

Each soldier cut off

At the knees

Which was strange and all

Since they were

Foot soldiers.”

Aye, Cook’s latest, his morning paean to the slop he shoveled into the bowls. That pompous face and that rolling cadence, as if the tumbling refuse of words coughed out from his throat was some kind of profound thing-why, I’ve read poetry, oh yes, and heard plenty, too. Said, sung, whined, gargled, mewled, sniffed, shouted, whispered, spat. Aye, what seaman hasn’t?

But what do we know? We’re no brush-stroked arched brow over cold, avid eye, oh no. We’re just the listeners, wading through some ponce’s psychological trauma as the idiot stares into a mirror all love/hate all masturbatory up’n’down and it’s us who when the time comes-comes, hah-who are meant to gasp and twist pelvic in linguistic ecstasy.

Yeah, well, Cook can stroke his own damned ladle, know what I mean?

Briv, Carpenter’s helper, gave him a nudge. “Get on wi’ya.”

“Leave me be,” snarled Briv, Cook’s helper. “I’m going, all right?”

And down they went, the steep steps, down into the hold, where horror did abide-up near the head, that is. And all three seamen (or two seamen and one seawoman who was, in fact, a seaman), desperately needed to go to the bathroom.

Briv, carpenter’s helper, stayed one step behind Briv, Cook’s helper, and one step ahead of Briv, Rope Braider, who, if she braided ropes as bad as she did her hair, would probably better serve the ship as Cook. Since Cook was a poet.

But then, without a rope braider, things would get unraveled and that wouldn’t do. And listen to those demons scrapping near the bow-if he bent right down to look between his own ankles, through the gap in the steps, he might see something of that snarling, hissing, snapping, thumping battle. But what good would that do him, hey? None a whit. They was just up there bashing the precious hull, bruising the wood, punching out the caulk and gouging nasty gouges and if reefs and shoals and rocks and deadheads weren’t enough trouble, here they had unmindful demons doing all kinds of damage.

Now, if Carpenter had knowed his business, well, it’d be all right, wouldn’t it? But the man was a fool. Killing him had been a gift to the world. Funny, though, how that one death-cry seemed to unleash all the rest of what showed up and now people were dead everywhere and there, see, that was Ably Druther, his body at least, sitting there barely a nail’s throw behind the steps. Sitting like he was just waiting for his head to come home. Looked crazy upside down like this, and whatever fought in the gloom further up, well, that was blessedly hard to make out “Damn you, Briv,” hissed Briv, Rope Braider, “you tryin’ t’catch your own shit in your mouth or something?”

“You don’t sound ladylike,” Briv replied, straightening up then hastening two steps to catch up to Briv, Cook’s helper. “We shoulda brought a lantern.”

The giant eunuch was down on the walkway now and not waiting courteously for the sailors to join him, just heading on sternward to the strongroom. Briv, Cook’s helper, should never have given the hairless freak the key. Why, Briv, Carpenter’s helper, could have stood up to him easily enough “Ow! You’re treading on my heel, woman!”

“There’s a headless guy sitting behind me, so hurry on, Briv!”

“He’s not paying you any mind.”

“There’s eyes on my backside, I’d swear it.”

“Not him, if you turned his head it went and fell off.”

“Look, a woman knows these things. When someone’s giving ’em the up down left right. Worse on a ship, too, all these letches.”

“Lich, not letch.”

“How do you know? Anyway, since I’m the only decent female aboard, it’s all on me, you know.”

“Who’s all on you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Not really. Just curious.” And, maybe, aghast, but it paid a man to be polite to a woman. Even one whose breasts seemed to float up and down like cork and twine buoys on a swell.

The eunuch had halted before the strongroom door.

Briv, Briv and Briv crowded up behind him.

“Is this a good idea?” Cook’s helper asked as the eunuch slid the key into the lock.

“Ooh,” sighed Rope Braider.

Key turned. Tumblers clicked.

“Is this a good idea?” asked Cook’s helper once again.

Sech’kellyn were bad enough. but Sech’kellyn wearing ensorcelled collars, well, that boded ill indeed. Homunculi, of sorts, Sech’kellyn were Jaghut creations, modeled-it was said by the scant few with sufficient authority to voice an opinion-on some ancient race of demons called the Forkassail. White as bone, too many knees, ankles, elbows, even shoulders. Being perfectionists of the worst sort, the Jaghut succeeded in inventing a species that bred true. And, even more typical of Jaghut, they went and made themselves mostly extinct, leaving their abominable conjurations free to do whatever they pleased, which was usually kill everyone in sight. At least until someone powerful showed up to hammer them back down and chain their life-forces and then maybe bury them somewhere nobody would ever disturb, like, say, under a poorly made alley in a fast-growing city.

A powerful enough sorcerer could subsequently reawaken the geas on such creatures, could indeed bind them to his or her will, for nefarious and untoward purposes, of course.

Perhaps this was what had been done to the six Sech’kellyn in the strong room.

But in truth, it was nothing like that at all.

It was much worse.

Oh yes.

Wizards delegate. one could always tell the wizards who did by the way they sat around in their towers day and night concocting evil schemes of world domination. Somebody else was scrubbing out the bedpan. Wizards who didn’t delegate never had the time to think up a black age of tyranny, much less execute what was necessary to achieve it. Dishes piled up and so did laundry. Dust balls gathered to conspire usurpation. Squirrels made the roof leak and occasionally fell down somewhere in the walls where they couldn’t get back out and so died and then mummified, displaying grotesque expressions after wearing their teeth out gnawing brick.

Mizzankar Druble of Jhant-which had been a city on Stratem that fell into dust centuries past and the presence of which was not even guessed at by the folk of Jatem’s Landing, a new settlement not three thousand paces down along the very same shore-Mizzankar Druble of Jhant, then-who had been, it was agreed by all now long dead, a most terrible sorcerer, a conjuror, an enchanter, a thaumaturge, and ugly besides-Mizzankar Druble of Jhant, aye-who’d raised a spire of gnarled, bubbly, black, glassy stone all in a single night in the midst of a raging storm which was why it had no windows and the door, well, it was knee-high and about wide enough for a lone foot as if that made any sense, since Mizzankar was both tall and fat so everyone who were now dead decided he must have raised that tower from the inside out, since the poor fool ended up stuck in there and Hood knew what terrible plans he was making which more than justified piling up all the brush and logs and such and roasting the evil wizard like the nut in a hazel-Mizzankar Druble of Jhant, yes, he had been a wizard who had delegated.

Like hounds needing a master, the Sech’kellyn were demanding servants. And as such, the task was indeed full time and not much fun either. Mizzankar Druble-who in truth had been a minor wizard with the unfortunate penchant of attempting rituals far too powerful to control, one of them resulting-in a misjudged battle with an undead squirrel-in the explosive, terrifying eruption of molten rock that rose all round him where he stood in his pathetic protective circle-thus creating a towering prison he never did escape-but Mizzankar Druble, wise enough to delegate, and happily possessing six demonic servants hatefully created by some miserable Jaghut, understood-in a spasmodic moment of clarity-the need for a powerful, preferably enormous, demon that could assume the burden of commanding the Sech’kellyn.