Ian Esslemont - Stonewielder

His commander bit down on a convulsive laugh. He pushed his hands up through his hair so ferociously Corlo thought he meant to tear it out. ‘Yes. Well. Back to that.’

‘No choice.’

‘No. None.’

Corlo allowed himself a shallow nod of assent. ‘I’ll tell them to clean up.’

Bars said nothing; Corlo thought his eyes looked empty, as if the man had retreated to somewhere far away. He gingerly edged his way to the door, which opened to his knock.

‘You can clean the place up, but leave him alone.’

The Korelri Chosen simply motioned him to follow. The curt ingratitude raised no anger in Corlo; it was shame that burned in his chest as he descended the barracks stairs. I am the same as you, he told the iron-armoured back of his guide. No, perhaps I am even worse. I am a collaborator. A traitor who conspires with the enemy in the enslavement of my friend.

For a hundred years ago the original men and women of the Crimson Guard had sworn a terrible vow: the eternal opposition of the Malazan Empire. And thereby was granted them something approaching immortality — so long as the Empire should endure. But even so Corlo knew they could die. If Bars really want to, he could do it. The wall is high and the waters cold. Nooses throttle. Long thin blades pierce the eye and the brain behind.

That was his fear. That the man would just give up. Most would have by now, probably. But Bars had never given up in the past — that had always been his strength as an Avowed in the Guard. That was what Corlo was counting on.

The man just had to be reminded of it from time to time.

An inhabitant of Malaz city on the isle of that name, out during a night of its frigid autumn rains — a drunk, or a baker, or a night watchman, should there have ever been a night watch in Malaz — might have seen a slim cloaked figure lingering before the iron gate of an abandoned house of particularly evil reputation. The Deadhouse, the locals called it, when forced to acknowledge its existence at all. A house where none live, where the grounds are humped with the mounds of countless burials, and where those who enter never leave.

Such a wet and chilled witness might have seen the figure place a hand upon the gate, obviously intending to enter where no resident would ever dare, and then might have heard a shout, a woman’s voice commanding, ‘Hold!’

No doubt at this point any resident of Malaz, who ought not to have been out in the first place in such fell weather and at such a time, would have had the sense to withdraw, to leave these callers on night-time errands to their dark business, and to speak of such things to no one. And so they would not have seen the taller of the two, revealed as a young woman, take the hand of the speaker, an older woman in a shawl, and kiss it.

Kiska stretched out her legs and peered about at the cramped and cluttered nest of shelves and boxes and stacked burlap sacks that was Agayla’s spice shop. To think as a child it had once seemed roomy to her. She rubbed a towel over her damp short hair and gave a gentle snort; that had been a long time ago. Still, each breath — and she sniffed the heady, redolent melange of countless spices — reminded her of that home.

Her aunt Agayla returned carrying soup on a tray. Not a true blood relation, but close enough for those less bureaucratic days when anyone could take in anyone and damn the local authorities who could go jump in the bay anyway. Her long hair was touched by more grey than Kiska remembered. Her arms were even thinner and more wiry than they had been, but for all that she looked remarkably well preserved.

The woman regarded her now over the steaming bowls. Her narrow severe face was set in hard disapproval.

‘I wasn’t about to kill myself, Agayla.’

A dark brow arched. ‘Oh? What were you about to do then?’

‘It’s… complicated, auntie.’

Both brows rose. ‘Ah. Complicated, is it?’

‘Auntie! I…’ She searched for words in the face of the woman’s censure, and failed. She waved a hand. ‘Never mind.’

‘Drink your soup.’

Feeling exactly like the sullen resentful child she must have been more than a decade ago, Kiska scooped up the bowl and spoon. It was delicious, of course. The best meal she’d tasted in years. A twisted bunch of twigs floated on the surface that she nudged aside to sip the broth. Sage? she wondered, inhaling its sharp breath.

‘I’ve heard, of course,’ Agayla began, setting down her own bowl. ‘And I am deeply sorry.’

Heard? Yes, Kiska imagined the woman had. Who hadn’t? The High Mage Tayschrenn, possibly the greatest practitioner of the age, sucked into a void and cast out not even the gods knew where. And she, his bodyguard, left alive to face the truth of her complete, and abject, failure. She must be the most storied failure since Greymane. Yes, there was no doubt Agayla had heard. She herself had yet to bolt awake every morning without seeing it.

‘They were Avowed, girl. That you faced them down at all is remarkable.’

‘Yet I wasn’t good enough.’

‘Console yourself with the fact that there are few who would have been.’ The woman gathered her long mane of hair over one shoulder and began pulling a shell comb through it. Kiska watched. Despite her resentment, she felt the magic of the familiar ritual stealing over her as her limbs relaxed, and the knot of her shoulders eased. She remembered standing behind the woman on so many nights doing that very brushing, counting every stroke. ‘So what did you intend?’ Agayla asked, after a time.

‘A proposition for whoever opened that door.’

The brushing paused; dark eyes regarded her, glittering. ‘A proposition of what?’

‘A service for a service. They help me find him and I will serve them.’

The woman set down the comb. ‘A very dangerous gamble.’

‘What? Entering the grounds?’

‘No. Dangerous should they, or it, actually accept your offer.’

To hide her irritation at that familiar high-handedness, Kiska looked away, to where sacks of some sort of dried leaves sat slumped and threadbare. ‘It is no longer for you to say, Agayla. I was Tayschrenn’s bodyguard for a decade. I travelled with him to negotiate treaties. Met an ambassador sent from Anomander Rake himself. I have visited Darujhistan where we met a delegation of ex-Free City mages. I now know you for a talented practitioner in your own way, Agayla. At least here on this island. But this is a very small island. And these are larger matters.’

The woman’s thick dark brows climbed higher than Kiska had ever seen. ‘Oho! I see the way the tiles have fallen now. Quite sufficient, am I, for curing the pox? Or helping out the local girls who have gotten themselves into trouble, yes?’

‘No offence, auntie — but have you even left the island?’

Agayla knotted her hair into one long braid. ‘This island hedge-witch can be of no help to one like yourself who has moved in such high and mighty circles, hmm?’

‘Agayla…’

‘Just call the wind and make my candles, shall I?’

Kiska simply hung her head and waited for the storm to blow itself out. Eventually she said, studying her hands on her lap, ‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘You’re young yet, child,’ Agayla said, her voice softening. ‘Full of yourself. Quite certain you know the way of things now that you’ve seen the world. When in truth you’ve hardly even begun your education.’

Kiska’s head snapped up. ‘Don’t treat me like a child. I may still be so in your memories, but I have moved on. I am a grown woman now and I will make my own decisions.’ She steeled herself for more argument but it never came. Her aunt merely inclined her head, conceding the point.

‘True. To me, you will always be that child whose cries I soothed, whose hands I guided. Nothing can ever change that.’ She bound up the thick coil of her hair. ‘So enough talk for tonight. Sleep. Your bed remains. Things may look different in the morning.’