Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

The Mhybe heard footsteps behind her, and a moment later a tall, black-skinned woman arrived to stand beside the Rhivi. The newcomer's angled eyes held on the child playing on the hillside. The prairie wind sent strands of long black hair over her face. Fine, scaled armour glinted from beneath her black-dyed, rawhide shirt.

'Deceptive,' the Tiste Andii woman murmured, 'is she not?'

The Mhybe sighed, then nodded.

'Hardly a thing to generate fear,' the midnight-skinned woman continued, 'or be the focus of searing arguments …'

'There have been more, then?'

'Aye. Kallor renews his assault.'

The Mhybe stiffened. She looked up at the Tiste Andii. 'And? Has there been a change, Korlat?'

'Brood remains steadfast,' Korlat replied after a moment. She shrugged. 'If he has doubts, he hides them well.'

'He has,' the Mhybe said. 'Yet his need for the Rhivi and our herds outweighs them still. This is calculation, not faith. Will such need remain, once an alliance with the onearmed Malazan is fashioned?'

'It is hoped,' Korlat ventured, 'that the Malazans will possess more knowledge of the child's origins-'

'Enough to alleviate the potential threat? You must make Brood understand, Korlat, that what the two souls once were is nothing to what they have become.' Her eyes on the playing child, the Mhybe continued, 'She was created within the influence of a T'lan Imass — its timeless warren became the binding threads, and were so woven by an Imass bonecaster — a bonecaster of flesh and blood, Korlat. This child belongs to the T'lan Imass. She may well be clothed in the flesh of a Rhivi, and she may well contain the souls of two Malazan mages, but she is now a Soletaken, and more — a Bonecaster. And even these truths but brush the edges of what she will become. Tell me, what need have the immortal T'lan Imass for a flesh and blood Bonecaster?'

Korlat's grimace was wry. 'I am not the person to ask.'

'Nor are the Malazans.'

'Are you certain of that? Did not the T'lan Imass march under Malazan banners?'

'Yet they do so no longer, Korlat. What hidden breach exists between them now? What secret motives might lie beneath all that the Malazans advise? We have no way of guessing, have we?'

'I imagine Caladan Brood is aware of such possibilities,' the Tiste Andii said drily. 'In any case, you may witness and partake in these matters, Mhybe. The Malazan contingent approaches, and the Warlord seeks your presence at the parley.'

The Mhybe turned about. Caladan Brood's encampment stretched out before her, precisely organized as usual. Mercenary elements to the west, the Tiste Andii holding the centre, and her own Rhivi camps and the bhederin herds to the east. The march had been a long one, from the Old King Plateau, through the cities of Cat and then Patch, and finally onto the south-wending old Rhivi Trail crossing the plain that was the Rhivi's traditional home. A home torn apart by years of war, of marching armies and the incendiaries of the Moranth falling from the sky. quorls whirling in black-specked silence, horror descending on our camps. our sacred herds.

Yet now, we are to clasp wrists with our enemy. With the Malazan invaders and the cold-blooded Moranth, we are to weave braids of marriage — our two armies — jaws locked on one another's throats for so long, but a marriage not in the name of peace. No, these warriors now seek another enemy, a new enemy …

Beyond Brood's army to the south rose the recently mended walls of Pale, the stains of violence a chilling reminder of Malazan sorceries. A knot of riders had just departed from the city's north gate, an unmarked grey banner announcing their outlawry for all to see as they slowly rode across the bare killing ground towards Brood's encampment.

The Mhybe's gaze narrowed suspiciously on that pennant. Old woman, your fears are a curse. Think not of mistrust, think not of the horrors visited upon us by these once-invaders. Dujek Onearm and his Host have been outlawed by the hated Empress. One campaign has ended. A new one begins. Spirits below, shall we ever see an end to war?

The child joined the two women. The Mhybe glanced down at her, saw within the steady, unwavering eyes of the girl a knowledge and wisdom that seemed born of millennia — and perhaps it was indeed so. Here we three stand, for all to see — a child of ten or eleven years, a woman of youthful visage with unhuman eyes, and a bent old woman — and it is, in every detail, an illusion, for what lies within us is reversed. I am the child. The Tiste Andii has known thousands of years of life, and the girl. hundreds of thousands.

Korlat had also looked down at the child. The Tiste Andii smiled. 'Did you enjoy your play, Silverfox?'

'For a time,' the girl replied in a voice surprisingly low. 'But I grew sad.'

Korlat's brows rose. 'And why is that?'

'There was once a sacred trust here — between these hills and spirits of the Rhivi. It is now broken. The spirits were naught but untethered vessels of loss and pain. The hills will not heal.'

The Mhybe felt her blood turn to ice. Increasingly, the child was revealing a sensitivity to rival the wisest shoulderwoman among the tribes. Yet there was a certain coolness to that sensitivity, as if a hidden intent lay behind every compassionate word. 'Can nothing be done, daughter?'

Silverfox shrugged. 'It is no longer necessary.'

Such as now. 'What do you mean?'

The round-faced girl smiled up at the Mhybe. 'If we are to witness the parley, Mother, we'd best hurry.'

The place of meeting was thirty paces beyond the outermost pickets, situated on a low rise. The recent barrows that had been raised to dispose of the dead after the fall of Pale were visible to the west. The Mhybe wondered if those countless victims now watched from afar the scene unfolding before her. Spirits are born of spilled blood, after all. And without propitiation, they often twist into inimical forces, plagued by nightmare visions and filled with spite. Is it only the Rhivi who know these truths?

From war to alliance — how would such ghosts look upon this?

'They feel betrayed,' Silverfox said beside her. 'I will answer them, Mother.' She reached out to take the Mhybe's hand as they walked. 'This is a time for memories. Ancient memories, and recent memories …'

'And you, daughter,' the Mhybe asked in a low, febrile tone, 'are you the bridge between the two?'

'You are wise, Mother, despite your own lack of faith in yourself. The hidden is slowly revealed. Look on these once-enemies. You fight in your mind, raising up all the differences between us, you struggle to hold on to your dislike, your hatred of them, for that is what is familiar. Memories are the foundations of such hatred. But, Mother, memories hold another truth, a secret one, and that is all that we have experienced, yes?'

The Mhybe nodded. 'So our elders tell us, daughter,' she said, biting back a faint irritation.

'Experiences. They are what we share. From opposite sides, perhaps, but they are the same. The same.'

'I know this, Silverfox. Blame is meaningless. We are all pulled, as tides are pulled by an unseen, implacable will-'

The girl's hand tightened in the Mhybe's hand. 'Then ask Korlat, Mother, what her memories tell her.'

Glancing over at the Tiste Andii, the Rhivi woman raised her brows and said, 'You have been listening, yet saying nothing. What reply does my daughter expect from you?'

Korlat's smile was wistful. 'Experiences are the same. Between your two armies, indeed. But also … across the breadth of time. Among all who possess memories, whether an individual or a people, life's lessons are ever the same lessons.' The Tiste Andii's now-violet eyes rested on Silverfox. 'Even among the T'lan Imass — is this what you are telling us, child?'