‘Oh? We hit them a second time? Good.’
‘K’Chain Che’Malle,’ said Beroke. ‘Civil war, Masan Gilani.’ The warrior gestured with a twisted arm. ‘Your army … I do not think they all died. Your commander—’
‘Tavore’s alive then?’
‘Her sword is.’
Her sword. Oh. That Otataral blade . ‘Can I send you ahead? Can you find a trail, if there is one?’
‘Thenik will scout the path before us,’ Beroke said. ‘It is a risk. Strangers would not welcome us.’
‘I can’t imagine why.’
Another protracted look. Then Beroke said, ‘If our enemies should find us, Masan Gilani, before the moment of our final resurrection, then all we aspire to win will be lost.’
‘Win? Win what?’
‘Why, our Master’s release.’
She thought about asking a few more questions, decided against it. Gods below, you’re not who I was sent to find, are you? Still, you wanted to find us, didn’t you? Sinter, I wish you were here, to explain what’s going on. But my gut’s telling me bad things. Your Master? No, don’t tell me . ‘All right. Let’s ride clear of this, and then you feed us like you promised. But decent food, right? I’m civilized. Dal Honese, Malazan Empire. The Emperor himself came from Dal Hon.’
‘Masan Gilani,’ said Beroke, ‘we know nothing of this empire of which you speak.’ The T’lan Imass warrior paused, and then added, ‘But the one who was once emperor … him we do know.’
‘Really? Before or after he died?’
The five Imass regarded her once more. Then Beroke asked, ‘Masan Gilani, what is the relevance of that question?’
She blinked, and then slowly shook her head. ‘None, none at all, I guess.’
Another T’lan Imass spoke now. ‘Masan Gilani?’
‘What?’
‘Your old emperor.’
‘What of him?’
‘Was he a liar?’
Masan Gilani scratched her head, and then she gathered up her reins, swung back on to her horse. ‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On whether you believe all the lies people say about him. Now, let’s get out of this, eat and get watered, and then find Tavore’s sword, and if Oponn’s smiling down on us, she’ll still be attached to it.’
She was startled when the five Imass bowed. Then they collapsed into dust and swirled away. ‘Where’s the dignity in that?’ she wondered, and then looked out one more time over the battlefield and its seething orthen. Where’s the dignity in anything, woman?
For now, keep it all inside. You don’t know what has happened here. You don’t know anything for certain. Not yet. Just hold on .
There’s plenty of dignity in just holding on. The way Ma did .
The smell of burning grass. Wetness pressed against one cheek, cold air upon the other, the close sound of a click beetle. Sunlight, filtered through shut lids. Dusty air, seeping into his lungs and then back out again. There were parts of him lying about. In pieces. Or so it felt, but even the idea of it seemed impossible, so he discarded the notion despite what his senses were telling him.
Thoughts, nice to find he was having them. A notable triumph. Now, if he could just pull his varied bits together, the ones that weren’t there. But that could wait. First, he needed to find some memories.
His grandmother. Well, an old woman, at least. Assumptions could be dangerous. One of her sayings, maybe. What about parents? What about them? Try to remember, how hard can that be? His parents. Not very bright, those two. Strange in their dullness – he’d always wondered if there wasn’t more to them. There had to be, didn’t there? Hidden interests, secret curiosities. Was Mother really that fascinated by what Widow Thirdly was wearing today? Was that the extent of her engagement with the world? The poor neighbour only owned two tunics and one ankle-length robe, after all, and pretty threadbare at that, as befitted a woman whose husband was a withered corpse in the sands of Seven Cities and the death coin wasn’t much to live by, was it? And that old man from down the street, the one trying to court her, well, he was just out of practice, that’s all. Not worth your sneers, Mother. He’s just doing his best. Dreaming of a happier life, dreaming of waking something up in the widow’s sad eyes.
It’s an empty world without hope.
And if Father had a way of puttering about whistling some endless song and pausing every now and then to look distracted by a thought, if not thoroughly confused by its very existence, well, a man of decent years had plenty to think about, didn’t he? It certainly looked like that. And if he had a way of ducking in crowds, of meeting no one’s eyes, well, there was a world of men who’d forgotten how to be men. Or maybe they never learned in the first place. Were these his parents? Or someone else’s?