Aranict glanced at Brys, who now answered her earlier shrug with one of his own. She was silent for a moment, thinking, and then she said, ‘Yes, Faint. Atri-Ceda. High Mage. I am named Aranict.’ She cocked her head and asked, ‘The Letherii you speak, it is high diction, is it not? Where did you learn it?’
Faint shook her head. ‘City. Seven Cities. Ehrlitan. Lowborn tongue, in slums. You speak like whore.’
Aranict pulled hard on her rustleaf, and then smiled. ‘This should be fun.’
The ghost of Sweetest Sufferance held up her clay pipe, squinted at the curls of smoke rising from it. ‘
See that, Faint? That’s the perfect breath of every life-giving god there ever was. Holier than incense. Why, if priests filled their braziers with rustleaf, the temples would be packed, worshippers like salted fish in a barrel
—’
‘Worshippers?’ Faint snorted. ‘Addicts, you mean.’
‘
Variations on a theme, darling. You’ve stopped wincing with every breath, I see
.’
Faint leaned back on the heap of blankets. ‘You heard Precious. That Aranict is tapping Elder magic—’
‘
And something else, too, she said. Newborn, she called it – what in Hood’s name is that supposed to mean?
’
‘I don’t care. All I know is I’ve stopped aching everywhere.’
‘
Me too
.’
Sweetest puffed contentedly for a time, and then said, ‘
They were nervous round Amby though, weren’t they?
’ She glanced over at the silent man where he sat close to the tent’s entrance. ‘
Like they never seen a Bole before, right, Amby?
’
The man gave no sign of having heard her, which Faint found something of a relief.
He must think I’ve gone mad, having a one-way conversation like this. Then again, he might be right. Something snapped in me, I suppose
.
Sweetest Sufferance rolled her eyes at Faint.
‘Did you see the tack on that commander’s horse,’ Faint asked in a low voice. ‘A different rig from what the lancers had. The set-up was different, I mean. That over-tug inside the horn. The stirrup angle—’
‘
What’re you going on about, Faint?
’
‘The prince’s horse, idiot. He had his tack worked in the Malazan style.’
Sweetest Sufferance frowned at Faint. ‘
Coincidence?
’ She waved a hand. ‘
Sorry, pretend I didn’t say that. So, that is strange, isn’t it? Can’t think the Malazans ever got this far. But maybe they did. Oh, well, they must have, since you saw what you saw
—’
‘Your head’s spinning, isn’t it?’
‘
I might crawl out and throw up soon
,’ she replied. ‘
Amby, don’t be blocking that flap, right? Now, Malazan tack. What do you think that means?
’
‘If Precious and Aranict can work out a way of talking to each other, we might find out.’
‘
We ever use the Holds, Faint?
’
‘Not on purpose. No. Master Quell had some stories, though. The early days, when things were a lot wilder than what we go through – when they didn’t know how to control or even pick their gates. Every now and then, one of the carriages would plunge into some world nobody even knew existed. Got into lots of trouble, too. Quell once told me about one realm where there was virtually no magic at all. The shareholders who ended up there had a Hood’s hole of a time getting back.’
‘
Yeah, we had it easy, didn’t we?
’
‘Until our master got eviscerated, yes, Sweetie.’
‘
You know, I doubt Precious is going to get much that’s useful from that High Mage
.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Sweetest shrugged. ‘
It’s not like we got anything to offer them, is it? Not like we can bargain or make a deal
.’
‘Sure we can. Get us back home and the Trygalle will offer ’em a free delivery. Anything, anywhere.’
‘
You think so? Why? I can’t think we’re that important, Faint
.’
‘You ain’t read all the articles, have you? If we’re in trouble, we can bargain with the full backing of the Guild, and they will honour those bargains to the letter.’
‘
Really? Well now, they know how to take care of their shareholders. I’m impressed
.’
‘You have to hand it to them,’ Faint agreed. ‘I mean, excepting when we’re torn off the carriage on a run and left behind to get ripped apart and eaten. Or cut down in a deal that goes sour. Or we run up a whopping tab in the local pit. Or some alien disease takes us down. Or we lose a limb or three, get head-bash addled, or—’
‘
Giant lizards drop outa the sky and kill us, yes. Be quiet, Faint. You’re not helping things at all
.’
‘What I’m doing,’ Faint said, closing her eyes, ‘is trying not to think about those runts, and the hag that took them.’
‘
It’s not like they were shareholders, dearie
.’
Ah, now that’s my Sweetest
. ‘True enough. Still. We got stretched out plain to see that day, Sweetest, and the rack’s tightening still, at least in my mind. I just don’t feel good about it.’
‘
Think I’ll head out and throw up now
,’ Sweetest said.
Slipping past Amby was easy, Faint saw, for a ghost.
Precious Thimble rubbed at her face, which had gone slightly numb. ‘How are you doing this?’ she asked. ‘You’re pushing words into my head.’
‘The Empty Hold is awake once more,’ Aranict replied. ‘It is the Hold of the Unseen, the realms of the mind. Perception, knowledge, illusion, delusion. Faith, despair, curiosity, fear. Its weapon is the false belief in chance, in random fate.’
Precious was shaking her head. ‘Listen. Chance is real. You can’t say it isn’t. And mischance, too. You said your army got caught in a fight nobody was looking for – what was that?’
‘I dread to think,’ Aranict replied. ‘But I assure you it was not blind chance. In any case, your vocabulary has improved dramatically. Your comprehension is sound—’
‘So you can stop shoving stuff in, right?’
Aranict nodded. ‘Drink. Rest now.’
‘I have too many questions for that, Atri-Ceda. Why is the Hold empty?’
‘Because it is home to all which cannot be possessed, cannot be owned. And so too is the
throne
within the Hold empty, left eternally vacant. Because the very nature of rule is itself an illusion, a conceit and the product of a grand conspiracy. To have a ruler one must choose to be ruled over, and that forces notions of inequity to the fore, until they
become, well, formalized. Made central to education, made essential as a binding force in society, until everything exists to prop up those in power. The Empty Throne reminds us of all that. Well, some of us, anyway.’
Precious Thimble frowned. ‘What did you mean when you said the Hold was
awake
once more?’
‘The Wastelands are so called because they are damaged—’
‘I know that – I can’t do a damned thing here.’
‘Nor could I, until recently.’ The Atri-Ceda plucked out a stick of rolled rustleaf and quickly lit it. Smoke thickened the air in the tent. ‘Imagine a house burning down,’ she said, ‘leaving nothing but heaps of ash. That’s what happened to magic in the Wastelands. Will it ever come back? Ever heal? Maybe that’s what we’re seeing here, but the power doesn’t just show up. It grows, and I think now it has to start in a certain way. Beginning with … wandering. And then come the Holds, like plants taking root.’ Aranict gestured. ‘Much wandering in these Wastelands of late, yes? Powerful forces, so much violence, so much
will
.’
‘And from Holds to warrens,’ muttered Precious, nodding to herself.
‘Ah, the Malazans speak of this, too. These
warrens
. If they are destined to appear here, they have yet to do so, Precious Thimble. And is there not concern that they are ill?’
‘Malazans,’ Precious hissed. ‘You’d think they
invented
warrens, the way they go on. Things got sickly for a time, sure, but then that went away.’
‘The Holds have always been the source of magical power on this continent,’ Aranict said, shrugging. ‘In many ways, we Letherii are very conservative, but I am beginning to think there are other reasons for why there has been no change here. The K’Chain Che’Malle remain. And the Forkrul Assail dominate the lands to the east. Even the creatures known as the T’lan Imass are among us now, and without question the Hold of Ice is in the ascendant, meaning the Jaghut have returned.’ She shook her head. ‘The Malazans speak of war among the gods. I fear that what is coming will prove more terrible than any of us can imagine.’
Precious licked her lips, glanced away. The tent seemed to have closed round her, like a death-shroud being drawn tight. She shivered. ‘We just want to go home.’
‘I do not know how I can help you,’ Aranict said. ‘The Holds are not realms one willingly travels through. Even drawing upon their power invites chaos and madness. They are places of treachery, of deadly traps and pits leading down into unknown realms. Worse, the more powerful rituals demand blood.’
Precious gathered herself, met the Atri-Ceda’s gaze. ‘In the east,’ she said. ‘Something’s there – I can feel it. A thing of vast power.’
‘Yes,’ Aranict said, nodding.
‘It is where you are going, isn’t it? This army and the war to come. You are going to fight for that power, to take it for yourself.’
‘Not quite, Precious Thimble. That power – we mean to set it free.’
‘And if you do? What happens then?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘You keep speaking of the Malazans. Are they here? Are they one of the armies marching to this war?’
Aranict seemed about to say one thing, then changed her mind and said, ‘Yes.’
Precious sat back on her haunches. ‘I am from One-Eye Cat, a city of Genabackis. We were conquered by the Malazans. Winning is all that matters to them, Atri-Ceda. They will lie. They will backstab. Whatever you see on the surface, don’t believe it. Don’t. With them, nothing is as it seems, not ever.’
‘They are a complicated people—’
Precious snorted. ‘Their first emperor was where it all started. The sleight of hand, the deadly misdirection – everything the Malazan Empire became infamous for started with
him
. And though he’s now dead and gone, nothing has changed. Tell your commander, Aranict. Tell him. The Malazans – they’ll betray you.
They’ll betray you
.’
Brys glanced up as she entered the tent. ‘You were able to speak to her?’
‘I was, after some curious work – it’s as I said, the power of the Holds ever grows. I was never before able to manipulate the Empty Hold the way I did this night. In fact –’ she settled down on the bed mat, started pulling off her boots – ‘I don’t feel very good about what I had to do. By the time I was done not even her innermost thoughts were hidden from me. I feel … sullied.’
He moved closer, slipped an arm round her. ‘Was there no other way?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. But this was the quickest. She had some interesting opinions on the Malazans.’
‘Oh?’
‘Doesn’t trust them. Her people didn’t fare well during the Malazan conquest of Genabackis. Yet for all that resentment, a part of her recognizes that some good came of it in the end. The enforcement of laws and justice, and so on. Hasn’t dulled her hatred, though.’
‘Trust,’ Brys mused. ‘Always a difficult issue.’
‘Well,’ Aranict said, ‘Tavore
is
hiding something.’
‘I believe what she is hiding is her awareness of just how wretched her chances are, Aranict.’
‘But that’s just it,’ Aranict said. ‘From what I gleaned from Precious Thimble, the Malazans
never
do something at which they’re likely to fail. So if Tavore’s chances look as bad as we all seem to think, what are we missing?’
‘Now that is an interesting question,’ Brys admitted.
‘Anyway,’ Aranict said, ‘they’ll be coming with us to Kolanse.’
‘Very well. Can we trust them?’
Aranict settled back on the mat with a heavy sigh. ‘No.’
‘Ah. Will that prove a problem?’
‘I doubt it. If Precious Thimble attempts to draw upon a Hold, she’ll get her head ripped off by all that raw power. Too young, and doesn’t know what she’s doing.’
‘Hmm. Could such a personal disaster put anyone else at risk?’
‘It could, Brys. Good thing you brought me along, isn’t it?’
He lay down beside her. ‘Whatever happened to the shy, nervous woman I made my Atri-Ceda?’
‘You seduced her, you fool.’
‘Errant’s push!’ She sank down on to her knees, head hanging, her breath coming in gasps.
Spax drew up his leggings, stepped away from where she knelt close to the tent’s back wall. ‘Best dessert there is,’ he said. ‘Better run off now. I have to see your mother, and if she catches a glimpse of you anywhere near here, she’ll know.’
‘What if she does?’ Spultatha snapped. ‘It’s not as if she’s opened
her
legs to you, is it?’