A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

wonder?'
    'Momentarily, I'd imagine.'
    Satisfied with that answer, Banaschar said nothing. A
server arrived with a pitcher with which she refilled the expriest's
tankard. He watched her leave, swaying through the
press, a woman with things that needed doing.
    It was easy to think of an island as isolated – certainly
most islanders shared a narrow perspective, a blend of smug
arrogance and self-obsession – but the isolation was superficial,
a mere conceit. Drain the seas and the rocky ground
linking everything was revealed; the followers of D'rek, the
Worm of Autumn, understood this well enough. Rumours,
attitudes, styles, beliefs rattling chains of conviction, all
rolled over the waves as easily as the wind, and those that
fitted comfortably soon became to the islanders their own
–and indeed, as far as they were concerned, had originated
with them in the first place.
    There had been a purge, and the air still smelled of ash
from the Mouse Quarter, where mobs had descended on the
few dislocated Wickan families resident there – stablers,
stitchers and riveters of leather tack, weavers of saddle
blankets, an old woman who healed dray horses and mules
–and had, with appalling zeal, dragged them from their
hovels and shacks, children and elders and all in between;
then, after looting them of their scant possessions, the mob
had set fire to those homes. Herded into the street and
surrounded, the Wickans had then been stoned to death.
    Coltaine wasn't dead, people said. That entire tale was a
lie, as was the more recent rumour that Sha'ik had been
killed by the Adjunct. An imposter, it was said, a sacrificial
victim to deflect the avenging army. And as for the
rebellion itself, well, it had not been crushed. It had simply
disappeared, the traitors ducking low once more, weapons
sheathed and hidden beneath telaba. True enough, the
Adjunct had even now chased down Leoman of the Flails,
trapping him in Y'Ghatan, but even that was but a feint.
The Red Blades were once more free in Aren, the bones of
the betrayed High Fist Pormqual broken and scattered
along Aren Way, the grasses already growing thick on the
barrows holding Pormqual's betrayed army.
    Had not concerned residents of Aren journeyed out to
the hill known as The Fall? And there dug holes into the
barrow in search of the cursed Coltaine's bones? And Bult's,
Mincer's, Lull's? Had they not found nothing? AM lies. The
traitors had one and all disappeared, including Duiker,
the imperial historian whose betrayal of his Empress – and
of the empire itself – was perhaps the foulest moment of
them all.
    And finally, the latest news. Of a disastrous siege. Of
terrible plague in Seven Cities. Disparate, disconnected,
yet like pokers thrust into the fire, sending sparks bursting
into the dark. And, in whispers harsh with the conviction
of truth, Sha'ik Reborn had reappeared, and now called to
her more followers.
    The last pebbles on the cart.
    Down in the Mouse, the mob had acted on its own. The
mob needed no leaders, no imperial directives – the mob
understood justice, and on this island – this birthplace of
the empire – justice was held in red hands. The battered,
pulped corpses were dumped in the river, which was too
turgid, too thick with sewage and refuse, the culverts
beneath the bridges too narrow to carry those bodies
through and out into the bay.
    And this too was seen as an omen. The ancient sea god
had rejected those corpses. Mael, empowered by the
enlivening of faith here on the island, would not accept
them into the salty bay of Malaz Harbour – what greater
proof was needed?
    The Emperor's ghost had been seen, in the overgrown
yard of the Deadhouse, a ghost feeding on the souls of the
slaughtered Wickans.
    In the D'rek temples in Jakata and here in Malaz City,
the priests and priestesses had vanished, sent out at night,
it was whispered, to hunt down the rest of the Wickans left
on the island – the ones who'd fled upon hearing of the
purge in Malaz City – for the Worm of Autumn herself
hungered for Wickan blood.
    An army of citizens was said to be massing on the old
borders, at the edge of the Wickan Plains on the mainland,
and was about to march, with the aim of destroying every
last damned betrayer in their squalid, stinking huts. And
had the Empress sent out her legions to disperse that army?
No, of course not, for she approved.
    The Imperial High Mage Tayschrenn was in Malaz City,
ensconced in Mock's Hold. What had brought him here?
And