Forge of Darkness

EIGHT

‘There is nothing bold in the wearing of weapons,’ haut said, the vertical pupils of his eyes narrowed down to the thinnest of lines as he studied the array on the table’s battered, gouged surface. ‘Each one you see here is but a variation. What they share is of far greater import, Korya. They are all arguments in iron.’ He turned upon her his lined, weathered face, and his tusks were the hue of old horn in the meagre light, the greenish cast of his skin reminding her of verdigris. ‘You will eschew such obvious conceits. For you, iron is the language of failure.’

Korya gestured at the weapons on the table. ‘Yet, these are yours, and by their wear, you have argued many times, master.’

‘And won the last word each and every time, yes. But what has that availed me? More years heaped upon my back, more days beneath the senseless sun and the empty wind in my face. More nights under indifferent stars. More graves to visit, more memories to haunt me. In my dreams, Korya, I have lost the gift of colour. For so long now, in passing through my eyes the world is bleached of all life, and strikes upon my soul in dull shades of grey.’

‘I must tire you, then, master.’

He grunted. ‘Foolish child. You are my lone blaze. Now, heed me well, for I shall not repeat myself. We must quit this place.’

‘Do you fear the return of the Jheleck?’

‘Cease interrupting me. I have spoken now of the education awaiting you, but all that I have done has been in preparation. There are things you must now learn that are beyond my expertise. We journey south, to where powers are awakening.’

‘I do not understand, master. What powers? Have not the Jaghut surrendered all claims upon such things?’

Haut took up a weighty belt bearing a sword in a heavy leather scabbard. He strapped it on, adjusted it briefly, and then removed it with a scowl. The weapon thumped heavily back on to the tabletop. ‘Azathanai,’ he said. ‘Someone has been precipitous. But I must speak with my kin. Those who have remained, that is. The rest can go rot.’

‘Why am I so important, master?’

‘Who said you were?’

‘Why then have you spent years preparing me, if I am to have little or no value?’

‘Impertinence serves you well, Korya, but you ever risk the back of someone’s hand across the face.’

‘You have never struck me.’

‘So, like some Jheleck mongrel, you play the odds, do you?’ He lifted free a heavy halberd, stepped back and waved it about, until the blade bit into a wall, sending stone chips flying. He dropped the weapon with a clang, rubbed at his wrists.

‘What will you discuss with your kin?’

‘Discuss? We never discuss. We argue.’

‘With iron?’

A quick, savage smile lit his features, only to vanish again a moment later. ‘Delightful as the notion is, no.’

‘Then why are you girded for war?’

‘I fear too light a step,’ he replied.

Korya fought the urge to leave the chamber, to head back up the tower. To stand beneath the morning stars and watch the sun slay them all. Haut had forbidden her any possessions beyond a change of clothes for this journey. Even so, she believed they would never return here.

Haut collected a double-bladed axe with an antler shaft and hefted it. ‘Thel Akai. Where did I come by this? Handsome weapon… trophy or gift? My conscience makes no stir, so… not booty. How often, I wonder, must triumph drip blood? And is it by this that we find its taste so sweet?’

‘Master, if it is not by iron I am to defend myself, then what?’

‘Your wits, child. Now, can you not see that I am busy?’

‘You told me to listen well, master. I remain, listening well.’

‘I did? You are?’

‘We are to travel south, among your kin. Yet the source of your curiosity will be found among the Azathanai. Thus, I assume we will meet with them as well. This promises to be a long journey, and yet we have but a small bag of food, a single waterskin each, two blankets and a pot.’

‘I see your point. Find us a ladle.’

‘Will you be passing me on to one of your kin, master? To further my education?’

‘Who would have you? Get such absurd notions out of your head. We might as well be bound together in shackle and chain. You are the headache I cannot expunge from my skull, the old wound crowing the coming of rain, the limp that stumbles on flat ground.’ He found a leather strap to take the weight of the Thel Akai axe. ‘Now,’ he said as he collected up his helm and faced her, ‘are you ready?’

‘The ladle?’

‘Since you are so eager to be armed, why not? It hangs on a hook above the hearth.’

‘I know that,’ she snapped, turning round to retrieve it. ‘I mislike mysteries, master.’

‘Then I shall feed you nothing but, until you are bloated and near to bursting.’

‘I despise riddles even more.’

‘Then I shall make of you an enigma to all. Oh, just reach for it, will you? There. No, tuck it into your belt. Now you can walk with a swagger, bold as a wolf. Unless you’d rather carry the axe?’

‘No. Weapons frighten me.’

‘Then some wisdom at least I have taught you. Good.’

She did not want to leave. By far the greater host of her memories belonged in this tower, rather than in the place of her birth; but now it seemed she would make her pilgrimage, by a most circuitous route, back home. In her path, however, she would find other Jaghut, and then the Azathanai. Since the Jheleck visit, Haut had been animated by something, his mood mercurial, and it seemed that his infirmities were vanishing from his withered form, like skins in the heat. He bore himself like a warrior now, readying himself for an argument in iron.

She followed him to the door, frowning at it as if seeing it for the first time. All at once, she had no faith in what waited beyond it. A sweep of yellow grasses, the muted rise of worn hills ahead, a sky paling as if brushed with light — these would be as they always were. What then to fear?

As Haut reached out for the handle he paused and glanced back. ‘You’re learning.’

‘I don’t understand.’

The Jaghut flung open the door. Darkness swirled in like smoke around him, tendrils curling round his legs. He muttered something, but, turned away as he was from her, she could not make out the words.

Dread held Korya motionless. Her heart beat wildly, like a trapped bird.

This time, when Haut spoke, she heard him clearly. ‘I begin to see now, what they did. It is clever, yet rife with risk. Very well, we shall walk it, and see where it leads.’

‘Master — what has happened to the world?’

‘Nothing… yet. Come along.’

Somehow she managed to step into his wake, the ladle banging at her thigh with each stride. Flickers of irritation sought to distract her, but she held her gaze upon the strange, smoky darkness. As it flowed up and around her, she was startled to realize that she could see through its ethereal substance. Haut marched ahead, his worn boots thumping and scuffing across gravel.

Crossing the threshold of the tower’s entrance, she beheld a narrow path running along a ridge barely an arm’s reach across. To either side there was nothing but empty space. She swallowed down a sudden vertigo. When she spoke, the vastness devoured her voice. ‘Master, how can this be?’

Under her feet, she felt the gravel shifting unsteadily and looked down. She saw, in gleam and sparkle, jewellery: a thick carpet of gems, rings, baubles; a veritable treasure underfoot. Haut paid it no heed, kicking through the clutter as if it were nothing more than woodchips and pebbles. Crouching, she collected up a handful. The rings were all cut through, twisted as if pulled from senseless fingers. She held a neck torc of solid gold, bent and gouged as if by knife cuts. Snapped necklaces slithered down between the fingers of her hand, cool as serpents. Glancing up, she saw that Haut had stopped and was looking back at her.

Korya shook her head in disbelief. ‘Wealth to make a noble less than a beggar. Master, who would leave such a trail?’

Haut grunted. ‘Wealth? Is it rarity that warrants value? If so, of greater value than these trinkets are trust, truth and integrity. Of greater value still, forgiveness. Of greatest value among them all, an outstretched hand. Wealth? We live in paucity. And this here is a most treacherous path — and we must walk it with unerring step, child.’

Korya dropped the treasure and straightened. ‘I fear that I might stumble. I might fall, master.’

He shrugged, as if the notion gave him no qualm. ‘This is loot. A slayer’s hoard. The path wends upward and who can say what waits at its very end? A keep groaning beneath melted sheaths of gold? A throne of diamond where sits a rotted corpse? Will you believe this path to be so obvious? Who defends this realm? What army kneels in service to gold and silver? How warm is their bed of jewels at night?’

‘I said I dislike riddles, master. What realm is this?’

‘Ah, such a nuanced word. Realm. An invitation to balance, all stationary, mote tilted against mote, the illusion of solidity. A place to walk through, encompassing the span of one’s vision and calling it home. Did you expect the world you knew? Did you imagine the future awaits you no different in substance from the past? Where are the grasslands, you ask. Where is the tumble of days and nights — but of those, what more can I teach you? What more can be learned of them than any child of sound wits can comprehend after but a handful of years?’

With these words drifting back to her, and then out to the sides to fall away leaving no echo, Haut resumed his march.

Korya followed. ‘This is Azathanai.’

‘Very good,’ he answered without turning.

‘What do they mean by it?’

‘Ask the Jheleck. Bah, too late for that. The fools left, tails between their hairy legs. And to think, they wanted you. Another bauble. I wonder — what will your kin do with a score of Soletaken pups?’

‘I don’t know. Tame them, I suppose.’

Haut’s laugh was sharp, cutting. ‘To tame something, one must take advantage of its stupidity. They will never tame those beasts, because savage though they may be, they are not stupid.’

‘Then, as hostages, they will learn the ways of the Tiste, and see them not as strangers, nor enemies.’

‘You believe this? Perhaps it will be so.’

The path continued its climb, though not so steep as to make uncertain their purchase. But her legs were getting tired. ‘Master, did you expect this?’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Child, we have been invited.’

‘By whom?’

‘That remains to be discovered.’

She knew her life was yet modest, but already she had a sense that most promises would, eventually, prove empty. There was nowhere to go but forward, but no one could avow that what lay ahead was a better life. Potential felt like a burden, possibility like wolves on her trail. Her dreams of godly powers were the frayed remnants of childhood; they trailed like wisps behind her, tired as the streamers of last year’s fete. She thought back to the dolls in the trunk’s silent, dark confines, the eyes staring at nothing, the mouths smiling at no one, now well behind her — long gone from reach, or a moment’s rush across the floor. There was stillness in that place, as still as the room surrounding it, as still as the keep itself. And just as the dolls dwelt in their trunk, so too had she and Haut dwelt in the keep, and it might well be true that this realm was but another version, and that it was all a matter of scale.

The gods and goddesses were in their rooms. She could almost see them, standing at the high windows looking out and dreaming of better places, better times, better lives. And like the dolls, their eyes were focused on vast distances and nothing closer to hand could make them waver, not for a moment.

Yet stranger memories haunted her now. Her room in the tower, the dead flies lying in the grit of the stone windowsill, crowded up against the discoloured glass, as if in the frenzy to escape they had bludgeoned themselves to death trying to reach an unattainable light. She should never have swept the spiders’ webs from the frame, for the spiders would have fed well on the flies’ futility.

Was the future no more than a succession of worlds one longed to live in? Each one for ever beyond reach, with such pure light and vistas that ran on without end? Was frenzy and anguish really that different?

They had been ascending for what seemed half a day, and still the path ahead wended its way ever upward. Fires burned in the muscles of her legs, making her imagine peat fires — some childhood memory, a place where the forest had died so long ago it had rotted into the ground, in layer upon layer, all soaked through with water the colour of rust. She remembered bundles of sodden skins pulled out from the pools, dangling stone weights from black ropes. She remembered stuffing wiry as hair, and the day was cold and the air was thick with midges, and knives flashed as the bundles were cut open and the hides rolled out.

The memory, arriving now so suddenly, halted Korya in her tracks.

Jheleck skins.

Haut must have sensed her absence behind him, for he turned about, and then made his way back down to her.

‘Master,’ she said, ‘tell me of the first encounters between the Jheleck and my people.’

The Jaghut’s pained expression filled her with dismay.

When he said nothing she spoke, her tone dull but relentless: ‘I found a memory, master. We understood nothing of Soletaken, did we? That the giant wolves we slew were in fact people. We killed them. We hunted them, because it is a lust in our souls, to hunt.’ She wanted to spit that last word, but it came out as lifeless as the others. ‘We cut their hides from their carcasses and we cured those skins in the bogs.’

He gestured for her to walk and set out once again. ‘The origin of the Jheleck is a mystery, hostage. When they have sembled into their walking forms, standing upon two legs, they bear some resemblance to the Dog-Runners of the far south. Their features are perhaps more bestial, but then, that should hardly surprise you — the frigid world of the far north is a harsh home, after all.’

‘Do the Dog-Runners treat with them?’

‘There are Jheck in the south now. It may be that they do.’

‘We hunted them. For pleasure.’

‘It is the legacy of most intelligent beings to revel in slaughter for a time,’ Haut replied. ‘In this we play at being gods. In this, we lie to ourselves with delusions of omnipotence. There is but one measure to the wisdom of a people, and that is the staying hand. Fail in restraint and murder thrives in your eyes, and all your claims to civilization ring hollow.’

‘Is there such a legacy among you Jaghut?’

‘There was a time, Korya, when the Jaghut ceased their forward stride.’

A faint chill came to her at that, as if he but plucked at her earlier thoughts with fullest knowing.

‘We faced a choice then,’ Haut went on. ‘To resume our onward journey, or to turn round, to discover the blessing that is walking back the way we came. In our standing in one place, we argued for centuries, until finally, in our mutual and well-deserved disgust, we each chose our own paths.’

‘And so ended your civilization.’

‘It was never much of one to begin with. But then, few are. So, you recall a grim memory, and would now chew it. Your next decision is crucial. Do you spit it out or do you swallow it down?’

‘I would walk from civilization.’

‘You cannot, for it resides within you.’

‘And not within you?’ she demanded.

‘Do not be a fool, Korya,’ he replied, his voice drifting back soft as a knife edge on a whetstone. ‘You saw well my array of weapons. Most arguments in iron are arguments of civilization. Which paint shall we wear? By which name are we to be known? Before what gods must we bow? And who are you to answer such questions on my behalf? I take up this axe to defend my savagery — but know this: you will hear the echo of such sentiments in every age to come.’

She snorted. ‘You imagine that I will live through ages, master?’

‘Child, you will live for ever.’

‘A child’s belief!’

‘An adult’s nightmare,’ he shot back.

‘You would I never grew up? Or are you happy to contemplate my eternal nightmare?’

‘The choice is yours, Korya. Spit it out or swallow it down.’

‘I don’t believe you. I will not live for ever. Nothing does, not even the gods.’

‘And what do you know of gods?’

‘Nothing.’ Everything. I stood with them, at the window.

In the dark of the trunk, the eyes saw nothing, yet knew it not. She could have taken the dolls out before she left. Set them out in a row upon the windowsill, among the dead flies, and pressed their flat faces against the grimy glass. She could have told them to see all there was to be seen.

But, goddess that she had once been, she was never so cruel.

We are not flies.

One day she had come to the window only to find all the flies gone. The sun’s warmth had brought them all back to life. That day had been the most frightening day of her young life.

I should have fed them to the spiders. If I had not swept their homes away.

In this place… ‘I have begun remembering things,’ she said.

He grunted, not turning, not slowing his stride. ‘And are these memories yours?’

‘I think so. Who else’s?’

‘That remains to be seen, hostage. But it has begun.’

Mahybe. The vessel waiting to be filled. Trunk of dolls. Reach in, quickly now! Choose one, upon your life — choose one!

Another memory assailed her, but it could not be real. She was outside the tower, hovering in the hot summer air. Before her, the window, and through its grey glass, she saw row upon row of faces. She floated, looking upon them, wondering at their sad expressions.

Now at last, I think I know what the gods and goddesses were all looking at.

Jewels crunched and rolled under her feet. She imagined herself old, bent and broken, with at her hand all the gold, silver and gems of the world, and in her heart there was yearning, and she knew that she would give it all up… for one child’s dream.

Children died. Feren held those words in her mind, swaddled and snug-tight in bitter embrace. Some fell from the womb with eyes closed, and the warmth of the blood upon their faces was cruel mockery. They were expunged in waves of pain, only to lie still in dripping hands. No woman deserved that. For others, there were but a handful of years which only later seemed crowded, cries of hunger, small hands grasping, luminous eyes that seemed wise in the ways of things not spoken. And then one day, those eyes stared out from half-closed lids, seeing nothing.

Mischance was scurrilous. Fate had a way of walking into empty rooms with smug familiarity. Children died. The laments of the mothers were hollow sounds to anyone’s ears. People turned away and studied the ground, or some feature upon the horizon, as if it were changing before their eyes.

She remembered the look on Rint’s face, her beloved brother, and how it crumpled with comprehension. She remembered the old women working quietly, businesslike, and not meeting her gaze. She remembered her fury at the sound of youths laughing nearby, and then hearing the bark of someone hushing them. It was not that death was rare. In dogged step it ever remained close, cold as a shadow. The blunt truth was, the world beat upon a soul until bones bent and hearts broke.

Since then, she had been crawling away, and it had been years and for all that she had aged since that time she felt but a day older, the bruise of grief still fresh beneath her skin, with the echo of insensitive laughter hard in her ears.

As they travelled across Bareth Solitude, each night she took to her bed the young man, bastard son of Draconus, and told herself that it was because the Lord had asked it of her. But it was getting more and more difficult to meet her brother’s eye. Arathan was pouring his seed into her, twice, three times a night, and she did nothing to prevent what might come of that; just as she had done nothing the night that she slept with Grizzin Farl, but at least then she’d had the excuse of being rather drunk. Something wayward had taken hold of her, a rushing towards fate, eager to sink into dire consequences.

She had no fear of her own future, and to be mired in circumstances of one’s own making offered its own delusion of control. But she was claiming that which belonged to others — the years ahead of them, the lives they would be made to lead. Mothers who lost could become obsessed with protectiveness and that might well find Feren, and for that her child would suffer through life. Arathan could sire a bastard and so show his father a mirrored reflection, and the eyes in their self-regard would be cold and unforgiving. Her brother, disarmed anew, might flee from an uncle’s love, stung by the pain of a loss still too sharp to bear.

Arathan was the same age her son would now be, a young man spread-eagled beneath the world, as all young men were. He was not her son, but he could give her a son. Indeed, she was certain that he would. Her brother had seen something of this strange, macabre compact in her mind, this blending of fates, one empty, the other fast filling. She was convinced of that.

It was one thing to use for pleasure. It was another thing entire to just use. She taught Arathan the ways of lovemaking, whispering of grateful women in the future. But who were these women, who would give thanks to Feren for all that she’d given the man in their bed? Where would he find these women, this frail bastard son, soon to be abandoned among the Azathanai? Not a question with which she need concern herself, of course; and she reminded herself of this often, to little avail. He would be what she made him, and in turn he would make in her what he could never be: a son. And afterwards, in the dark and the heat, she would stroke his hair, and make his hands into fists — soft tips and absent nails — which she then closed her own hands around — and in fleeting ecstasy, sick with guilt, she imagined the boy’s fists to be smaller than they were, as if by the strength of her grip she could crush them down to proper proportions.

There was a kind of recklessness in women. To open her legs was to invite it in, and with the invitation came surrender. Each night, the taste of that surrender stole into her like a drug. Her brother could see it, and was right to fear it. A woman who does not care is a dangerous woman.

Each day, as they rode across the barren land, she longed for the night to come, for the boy’s helpless eagerness, for the shudders of his body against hers, for the waves that seemed to steal away his life — so much of it, rushing into her. She meant to use that life.

Children died. But a woman could make more children. Sons were born and sometimes they died, but there were many sons. And even dreams of the future held in hands, places of darkness.

Riding at his sister’s side, trapped in the silence between them, Rint studied the lie of the land, wishing that monuments might rise before them, erupting from the hard ground, halting them in their tracks. All forward progress denied: nothing to do but turn round and return to Kurald Galain.

When she took with child, she would flee, like a thief down a street, into hidden alleys, secret courses that none could follow. A prize in her womb, she would draw knife and hiss at any who drew near. Even her brother.

He cursed Draconus, cursed this entire venture; he felt his body weaken with anguish at the sight of young Arathan, riding so proud at his father’s side. He’d thought better of his sister. The world, crowding close round this meagre party, had grown sordid.

The day was drawing to a close, shadows stretched into their path from the lead riders, ephemeral and misshapen. To either side the plain rolled out, rippled like a dislodged rug, threadbare on the rises where the winter winds cut like knives for months on end. The deeper basins were bleached white, made lifeless by leaching salts.

They had passed some ruins just after noon. Foundation stones of pitted granite formed a rectangle on a level span just above a broad, shallow basin. The scale of the structure seemed oversized for Azathanai, and Rint saw little sign of their legendary stone-working skills in the roughly hewn granite. The walls had long since tumbled, forming a scree down the slope on the basin side and lying in heaps upon the opposite side. There was no evidence that anyone had ever harvested the rubble. Apart from the lone building, Rint saw no other signs of habitation — no pen walls, no field enclosures, and the ground bore no evidence of ploughing. He wondered at it as they rode by.

Only ignorance emptied the past. Fools built the world from nothing — the whim of a god, some bold acclamation of existence in the Abyss. None of these visions of creation did more than serve the vanity of those holding them. As if all was made for them; for their eyes to witness, for their wonder to behold. Rint did not believe it. The past had no beginning. Something always existed before, no matter how far back one reached. It was the conceit of a mortal life, which began and so must end, to then imagine all of existence following suit, as if cowed into obedience. In myriad forms all that existed had always existed.

His sister had made herself the lover of a bastard son who was of an age to match that of the son she had lost. Things twisted in thinking about that. Things peeled back, exposing ugly secrets in lurid half-light. The past had a face and it was a face she would make alive once more. Arathan deserved better and there was no cause to wonder at his innocence, his naivete in these matters: he was in his age of foolishness, as came upon all young men. Dreams raged like fires of the sun, but high as those flames might carry him, the fall promised an endless plunge into despair. Subtlety was lost — these were Arathan’s years of stumbling, awkward his limbs and overborne his mind, and the depthless love he now felt for Feren would soon turn to wounded hatred.

Such were Rint’s fears and he felt helpless before them. Twisting in his saddle he looked back the way they had come, seeking sign of Ville and Galak, but the plain stretched unbroken into the eastern gloom. Even under the best of circumstances they were still a day or two away.

Somewhere ahead of them were the first settlements of the Azathanai. He imagined imposing keeps, castles and palaces. Gardens where water flowed up from the ground in ceaseless servitude. And upon walls and around solid doors there would be scorch marks, from fires set by Jheleck raiders; and within the airy chambers, where the furniture was poor and worthless, there would be a faint hint of old smoke — not the smoke of woodfires, but that of cloth and bedding, acrid and bitter. These would not be welcoming places, and he knew he would long to be quit of them as soon as possible.

Why would the Azathanai feel any need, beyond simple hospitality, to entertain Lord Draconus? There was a mystery here. Grizzin Farl had looked upon Draconus as he would an old friend, and the familiarity between them in that night of revelry was no false performance. But as far as Rint knew, the Lord had dwelt within Kurald Galain all his life, and his years away from the House had been spent fighting in the wars. The Protector of the Azathanai had never visited the realm of the Tiste, as far as Rint could recall. How then did they meet?

There were hidden currents here. Draconus was not simply taking his bastard son away, even for reasons of blunting the ambitions of his enemies in the court. Something else was in play.

The day’s heat was slow to fade. They arrived upon another set of ruins similar to the last ones, although here there was evidence of at least three buildings, all massive and each one seemingly constructed without account of the others. Angles were discordant, lines clashing, and yet from what Rint could determine, the three buildings had all been raised at once. The remains of the walls were chest high at the corners, half that height along the walls. Stones seemed to have fallen randomly, inside and outside the structures, and there were no visible remnants of roofing in any of the buildings.

Sergeant Raskan turned back to Rint and Feren. ‘We will camp here,’ he said.

Rint rose in his stirrups, looked about. ‘I see no well, no source of water, sergeant.’

‘Only what we carry this night, I’m afraid.’

Displeased with this information, Rint dismounted. He slapped dust from his leather leggings. ‘Had you told us this in the morning, sergeant, we could have filled a few more skins.’

‘My error,’ said Draconus from a few paces ahead. The Lord still sat astride his horse, a figure in black mail and weathered leather, the ruins stark behind him. ‘My memory was that this settlement was occupied.’

Startled, Rint looked round again. ‘Not for centuries, I would say, Lord. Not for centuries.’

Grimacing, Draconus dismounted. ‘We shall have to make do.’

‘And on the morrow, Lord?’ Rint asked.

Raskan shot him a sharp look at the question, but Draconus was easy in his reply, ‘By midday, we should reach Herelech River which, unlike most in these lands, flows year round.’

‘Very good, Lord,’ Rint said.

Feren was removing the saddle from her horse, as if unmindful of the challenges facing them this night. The horses needed most of the water they carried. There would be little left for cooking and none for washing away the day’s sweat and grime. Yet his sister seemed eager to yield to all these inconveniences.

He realized he was scowling as he watched her, and so turned away.

Arathan had slipped down from his gelding, standing with a little less of the unsteadiness he had shown before. He was finding himself on this journey. More than he imagined, no doubt. But be wary, Arathan, that by this journey’s end you do not lose far more than what you gained.

Raskan watched the Borderswords readying the camp. Lord Draconus had walked up to wander in the ruins, while Arathan brushed down his horses, beginning with the gelding — though the young man’s eyes strayed over to Feren again and again.

Now that Arathan rode at his father’s side these days — ever since the night of Grizzin Farl’s visit — the sergeant had found himself more or less alone, riding between Draconus and his son to the fore, and the two Borderswords behind him, yet he felt himself a bridge to neither. Rint and Feren were at odds, but in the silent manner of siblings wishing to hide their mutual enmity from outsiders, lest family secrets spill forth. And of the conversations the Lord held with his bastard son, well, it seemed that there were few of those, and when they did occur, Raskan could not make out the words exchanged between them.

The ease that had been Grizzin Farl’s gift was crumbling. Deep in the night, Feren rutted with Arathan amidst gasps and low cries that sounded oddly desperate; and she was not content with a single grapple. He had heard her wake the boy up more than once, and it was beginning to show in the dark smudges under Arathan’s eyes.

Raskan wondered when Draconus would intercede. Surely the Lord could see that something untoward was being forged between Feren and his son. She was twice his age, if not older. And Raskan thought he saw a weakness in her that had heretofore been well hidden. The veneer of professionalism was fraying in the Bordersword.

Nor was her brother oblivious of all this.

Tensions mounted.

Draconus reappeared. ‘Jheleck,’ he said, gesturing at the ruins behind him.

‘They struck here, Lord?’

‘All that they could carry, including the roof beams and slate tiles.’

Raskan frowned. ‘It must have been long ago, Lord. Was it Grizzin Farl who assured you that this place was still occupied? Clearly he did not come along this trail.’

Draconus studied him briefly, and then nodded. ‘As you say, sergeant. No matter. We shall make do, I am sure.’

‘Of course, Lord. Shall I attend to your horse?’

‘No, thank you. Leave me with something to do while supper is being prepared.’ Draconus seemed to hesitate, however, and seeing this Raskan edged closer.

‘Lord?’

‘A quiet word with you, sergeant.’

They walked off a way, round the faint mound on which stood the ruins. Raskan was startled to see an avenue carved into the slope on this side, marking the entrance to a barrow. But before he could enquire as to it, Draconus spoke.

‘The boy needs warning off.’

At once Raskan understood the Lord’s meaning, and so he nodded. ‘I fear so, Lord. It is natural zeal-’

‘Her zeal is anything but natural, sergeant.’

He had meant Arathan’s, but Draconus had cut to a deeper truth. ‘I think she is eager to beget a child from this union, Lord. But I do not think it is to hold a blade above House Dracons.’

‘No, I agree — that would be pointless.’

Raskan wondered at that comment, but knew no proper means of querying it. ‘She advances in years, perhaps-’

‘She is forty years of age, give or take a year. She can bear more children for decades to come, if not longer.’

‘It is the capacity for love for a child that withers among older women, Lord,’ said Raskan. ‘Few choose to give birth once past their first century. Tracks deepen to ruts. Independence is hoarded with avarice.’

‘This is not the source of her impatience, sergeant.’

He was not inclined to disagree with that assessment. He had ventured his observations in invitation to Draconus, that the Lord might choose them to mitigate his unease. But this man standing before him was not one to embrace delusions simply because they offered comfort. After a moment, Raskan said, ‘One might wonder, since we do not know, if she has never been a mother before. But to my eyes, Lord, hers is a body that has carried a child to term, and fed it at the breast.’

‘No doubt of that, sergeant.’

‘I would warn him, then, Lord. But he is only half the problem here.’

‘Yes.’

‘As her commander I can-’

‘No, sergeant. You show courage in assuming that burden, but it is not yours to bear. It is mine, and I will speak with her. Tonight, with darkness upon us. Take Arathan off, but away from this place here.’

‘Yes, Lord. Back along our trail, perhaps?’

‘That will do.’

Arathan could not take his eyes off her. She had become his vortex, around which he circled, tugged inward with a force against which he had no strength. Not that he struggled much. In her heated embrace he thought he could vanish, meld into her flesh, her bones. He thought that, one day, he might look out from her eyes, as if she had devoured him whole. He would not have resented the loss of his freedom, the abandonment of his future. Her drawn breath would be his; the taste in her mouth would be his taste, the supple movement of her limbs his own.

They would look for him, in the morning, and find no trace, and he would hide well behind her eyes and she in turn would give nothing away, content in a glutted, swollen way. He wondered if what he was feeling was the definition of love.

Unfurling his bedroll, Arathan collected up the weights and set them near his saddle. He had thoughts of Sagander, and how his tutor now fared. It would seem strange to be delivering gifts from a scholar who had been left behind, and all the knowledge the old man so desired would remain beyond his reach. Questions never asked, answers never offered — these remained somewhere ahead of Arathan, formless as a low cloud on the horizon. The weights, carefully stacked on the dusty ground, looked useless. Out here, nothing could be weighed, nothing could be measured out; out here, so far now beyond the borders of Kurald Galain, there was a kind of wildness, swirling through everyone.

He felt every current and at times seemed but moments from drowning, swept under into something animal, something base. Such a fate, when he considered it, amounted to little or no loss. All that he had known, all that he had come from, now seemed small, banal. The sky was vast overhead, the plain unending, and in moving beneath, in crossing it, they made bold their desires. This motion he felt, day after day, seemed to him far grander than any raised keep, any ruined house. He remembered playing in a heap of sand behind the workhouse, when he was much younger. It had been brought in for the potter who was visiting on her rounds. Something to do with grit in the clay, and moulds for firing and shaping. The sand had felt soft, sun-warmed on the surface but cool underneath, and he recalled lying sprawled across it, reaching out with one hand, watching his fingers sink deep, and then dragging handfuls close, as if to bury himself.

Travelling across this world felt much the same, as if by movement alone all could be taken hold of, taken in grasp, and thereby claimed as one’s own.

Musing on this, as he watched Feren building the fire for the night’s meal, Arathan thought he found an understanding of the nature of war; one that might impress even Sagander. When more than one hand reached out; when there was challenge over what was claimed: then would blood spill. There was nothing rational in it. The sand slipped through the fingers, sifted down and away from the hands that would hold it, and it remained long after the claimant had left. Nothing rational. Just desire, raw as a body’s release in the night.

‘Arathan.’

He looked up. ‘Sergeant Raskan.’

‘The light fast fades. Come with me.’

Arathan straightened. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Back up the trail.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it is my wish.’

Bemused, Arathan followed the man. Raskan walked as if in a hurry to leave the camp. He had removed his worn-out boots and now wore the moccasins Draconus had given him — but so precious were they in Raskan’s eyes that he had taken to wearing them only at day’s end. Arathan could not be certain that this was the reason, but he suspected that it was. A gift from his lord. There was value in that. It made Raskan seem younger than he was, but nowhere near so young as Arathan felt when in the sergeant’s company.

The track bore signs of their horses’ passage. Torn grasses, hoofprints stamped deep, a ragged line that did not seem to belong on this open, rolling landscape.

‘Did you drop something on the trail, sergeant? What are we looking for?’

Raskan halted, glanced back at the camp, but all that was visible was the red and orange glow from the fire. The smell of its smoke reached them, thin and devoid of any heat. ‘Your father wanted you to learn the ways of the flesh. To lie with a woman. He judged the Bordersword useful in that, without having to worry about anything… political.’

Arathan looked down at the ground, unable to meet Raskan’s dark eyes. He brought a finger to his mouth to chew on the nail, and tasted the past night’s lovemaking. He quickly pulled it away.

‘But the feelings that can build, between a man and a woman… well, these things can’t be predicted.’ The sergeant shifted about, muttered a moment under his breath, and then continued, ‘You’ll not marry her. You’ll not spend the rest of your life with her. She’s twice your age, with twice your needs.’

Arathan looked off into the darkness, wanting to run there, lose himself. Let Raskan utter his cruel words to empty shadows.

‘Are you understanding me?’

‘There should have been more women with us,’ Arathan said. ‘So you could’ve had one, too.’

‘Like a hole in the ground? There’s more to it than that. There’s more to them than that. It’s what I’m getting at. She ain’t a whore so she don’t think like a whore. What do you think coin pays, when it goes between a man and a woman? It pays for no hard feelings, that’s what it pays for. Your father thought it would serve you. A few nights. Enough to make you familiar with the whole thing. He didn’t want you to take on a woman, half lover, half mother.’

Arathan trembled, wanting to strike the man, wanting to draw his sword and cut him to pieces. ‘You don’t know what he wanted,’ he said.

‘I do. He sent me to you — he knows what we’re talking about right now. And there’s more than that — he’s taken Feren off, too. He’s telling it to her as plain as I am to you. It’s gotten too much, too important-’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘She’s taking your seed-’

‘I know.’

‘And when she’s got it, she’ll toss you aside.’

‘She won’t.’

‘She has to. To keep you from claiming that child years from now. To keep you from stealing it once it comes of age, or once you decide it’s time.’

‘I wouldn’t do that. I’ll live with her-’

‘Your father can’t allow that.’

‘Why not? What does it matter to him? I’m a bastard son and he’s throwing me away!’

‘Stop shouting, Arathan. I tried making you see. I tried using words of reason, but you’re not ready for that, not yet old enough for it. Fine. See if you understand this: if you two keep it up, your father will kill her.’

‘Then I will kill him.’

‘Right, you’ll want to, and he doesn’t want that between you. So that’s why it’s got to end here and now. You’re not to be given to a Bordersword woman just because you want it, and that’s not because she ain’t good enough for you or anything. It’s because she only wants one thing from you and once she gets it, she’ll hurt you bad.’

‘Why do you keep saying that? You don’t know anything about her!’

‘I know more than you, Arathan. She’s had a child and lost it — that’s what I know. It ain’t just a guess, either; there’s something about her. And now, how she’s taken you in. It’s not right, none of it.’

‘Is my father killing her right now?’ Arathan stepped past the sergeant.

Raskan grasped him by the arm and pulled him round. ‘No, he isn’t. It’s not what he wants, and I guarantee you, Feren’s not acting as hot-blooded as you are at this moment. She’s listening; she’s hearing what he’s saying. Your nights with her are done with and that will be the proof to my words.’

Arathan pulled free and set off back to the camp.

After a moment, Raskan followed. ‘It’s all right,’ he said to the boy striding ahead, ‘I knew it wouldn’t be easy.’

The moment she saw the sergeant lead Arathan away, Feren knew what was coming. When Draconus gestured, she straightened. To her brother she said, ‘Don’t burn the stew — it’s already sticking.’

He grunted his understanding — of everything.

The Lord led her past the ruins, round to the base of the mound on which the houses had been built.

Feren was not interested in getting an earful. ‘I have done as you asked of me, Lord.’

‘Shed your iron.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Your dagger. Your sword, and the belt.’

She made no move. ‘You would disarm me, Lord Draconus? I would know: to what end?’

An instant later and she was lying on the ground, her bones aching from the impact. She was not sure what had happened — had he struck her? She felt no imprint from a fist or hand. Stunned, too weak to move, she felt him fumbling at her waist, then heard the rasp as he stripped the belt from her. Metal clanged some distance away. The dagger followed.

She fumbled at his hands, trying to push them away, and sought to draw her legs up to protect herself.

He gave an irritated grunt, and then she felt him grasp her left ankle. She was twisted on to her stomach, and then he was dragging her through the grasses. She wanted to cry out — to summon her brother — but then more blood would flow. Crimes would tear through them all — too many to countenance.

If Draconus was intent on raping her, she would permit it. Vengeance could lie in wait a long time.

He dragged her down into a channel lined with boulders, and in the grainy gloom she saw the stacked stones of a squat, wide doorway pass to either side, and all at once the night sky vanished into deeper darkness.

She was still weak, still helpless in his grasp. Was this sorcery? Was this the power from his lover, Mother Dark? To reach so far, to be so easily abused by this man, this Consort — no, it did not make sense.

In the low confines of the barrow, as the floor sloped sharply downward, Feren smelled death. Old, withered, dried out.

He dragged her alongside a stone sarcophagus.

Sudden fear ripped through Feren. ‘Lord,’ she gasped. ‘I yield. There is no need-’

‘Be quiet,’ he hissed. ‘We take a terrible risk here.’

He released her leg, used one foot to turn her on to her back, pushing her roughly up alongside the cold stone. ‘Be still.’

She saw him lean over her, reaching into the sarcophagus — there was, it seemed, no lid — and then there was the sound of rustling, creaks and faint pops, followed by a sifting, as of sand.

Draconus pulled the corpse on to the edge of the coffin. Dust rained down on Feren, covering her face. She coughed, gagged.

He used both his legs to hold her in place, pushed up against the sarcophagus, and she saw him fumbling with the withered corpse — the creature was huge, the limb bones long and thick. Black hair tumbled down to brush Feren’s face, smelling of mouldy skin.

A bony hand was suddenly pressed down on to her belly.

Convulsions of agony took Feren, strong enough to knock Draconus away — he staggered, still holding the corpse by one leather-wrapped wrist. The body tilted, and then slid down to land heavily on Feren’s legs.

‘Shit!’ he bellowed. ‘Move away, woman — quickly!’

From the corpse’s mouth came a moaning sound.

Terrified, the waves of pain from her belly fast fading, Feren pushed away from the body.

Draconus bent down and levered the huge corpse back into the sarcophagus. It thumped in a cloud of dust and cracking bones.

‘That will have to do,’ he muttered. ‘Blessings on you, and begging forgiveness, O Queen. Crawl out now, Feren, and be quick about it.’

She did as he commanded, and moments later clambered out through the chute and saw above her the swirl of stars, bright as a gift. Stumbling clear of the ramp, she fell to her knees, gasping, spitting out rank dust.

Draconus joined her, brushing down his leggings. He drew off his gloves and tossed them to one side. ‘Collect your weapons, Bordersword.’

‘Lord-’

‘I saw you flinch. I felt you flinch.’

Wondering, she nodded.

‘Death and life, in there, do not welcome each other’s touch. You are with child, Feren. The seed grows within you. Now, leave my son alone.’

Fumbling to retrieve her gear, fighting a return of the unnatural lassitude, she looked up at Draconus. She felt sullied; he might as well have raped her. She could still feel the imprint of that dead hand upon her belly. Feren bared her teeth. ‘Take him then.’

Rint sat alone at the fire. The supper had burned. Not enough water in the stew, not enough attention from the man tending to it. He had no doubts as to what was happening out there in the darkness, and he prayed that words would be enough — but his sister was a hard woman, not easily bullied. Lord or no, Draconus might find himself facing a viper. With that thought came to him bone-deep fear.

Should you hurt her, you will have war. With the Borderswords. With me. I will take you down, Consort, and to the Abyss with the consequences.

He heard a shout from Arathan, but not well enough to make out the words. Easy to guess, however. The Lord’s son was far gone, pulled back from manhood into being a child once more. The way she wanted it. But it would not do. Draconus had not been blind to the twisting of his desires. While from beyond the ruins there was no sound at all.

A few moments later Arathan emerged from the darkness, into the fire’s light. Seeing Rint he halted. Anger and shame seemed to roll from him in waves and he was shivering. For the briefest of instants their gazes locked, and then the son of Draconus looked away.

Raskan appeared behind him, went to crouch down beside the cookpot. He leaned over, sniffed and then scowled.

‘My apologies, sergeant,’ Rint said. ‘Not enough water.’

‘It will have to do,’ Raskan said, reaching for a bowl.

‘Where are they?’ Arathan demanded.

Rint said nothing, and Raskan busied himself ladling scorched stew into his bowl.

‘You won’t win. None of you will. She’s not afraid of my father, and neither am I.’

This was taking too long. Rint struggled to keep from rising, from drawing his sword and setting out to find them. If he did that, Raskan would intervene, assert his authority, and things would break down. Two lovers in the night could unleash a war, take down an entire realm. They could not see past each other; they never did.

‘Arathan,’ he snapped as the young man made to leave the fire.

‘I have no reason to listen to you.’

‘Maybe not. But I was wondering, did your tutor ever speak to you about sacrifice? Yielding your wants in the name of peace? Did he speak of such things as he sought to guide you from childhood into adulthood?’ Rint nudged the fire with one foot, sending sparks fleeing skyward. ‘A man understands sacrifice. What needs surrendering.’

‘You say this because you have no woman.’

‘Arathan, I have a wife. She dwells in Riven Keep. When I return I will have a daughter or a son. I was late to it, you see, because I serve with the Borderswords, and we have known war.’

These words seemed to have an effect. Arathan stood unmoving, as if drained of strength, emptied of will.

‘Had I known,’ Raskan said to Rint, looking up from his bowl, ‘I would have sent you back and found another among the Borderswords. You should have been with her, Rint.’

‘Had an uncle whose wife knifed him when she was in the heat of labour. Too many platitudes and assurances.’

‘She killed him?’

‘No, she took his caressing hand and pinned it to the ground.’ He hesitated, and then added, ‘The story goes, he pulled the knife from his hand and went back to stroking her hair. But not for long, as the midwives dragged him from the room. So, it ended well.’

Raskan snorted.

Footsteps announced the return of Feren. Draconus was nowhere in sight.

The sergeant straightened. ‘Where is the Lord?’

‘He makes propitiations,’ Feren replied. ‘Rint, you burned it, damn you.’

‘I did.’

‘Propitiations?’ Raskan asked.

‘The barrow,’ she said distractedly, selecting a bowl.

Arathan stood, his eyes upon her, but she paid him no heed as she filled the bowl, and Rint knew that his sister was done with the boy.

‘No,’ said Feren in the dark, ‘it’s finished.’

Arathan moved away, feeling lost. Tears blurred his vision. His father ruled everyone, and to rule meant to use. Everywhere he turned he saw his father’s heavy hand. Pushing away, dragging along, holding down — where it struck there were bruises, aching wounds. This was the meaning of power.

He wanted to flee. Come the morning he could be gone. But Rint would track him down. Besides, some things he could not escape.

He edged past his bedroll, came to the weights stacked in their perfect measures. One by one, he threw them out into the night.

A day’s travel west of Abara Delack, Grizzin Farl sat by the small fire he had made to roast the hare he had killed earlier that day. True hunters used slingstones, or arrows. Perhaps even a spear such as he carried in abundance. But Grizzin Farl was no hunter. He had run the creature down. Dogged it into panting submission. Even then, as he held the trembling thing in his arms, he had spent an inordinate amount of time stroking its soft fur, to calm its fear, and he had winced when he snapped its neck.

Death was terrible power. The delivering of suffering never quite washed off. He had seen, among hunters and herders, an undeniable coldness of spirit that made of necessity a virtue. Grief did not touch them in the slaying of creatures, whether those creatures walked upon two legs or ran upon four; whether they possessed wings or slid smooth through water. Need was its own answer. One needs to eat, be it flesh or plant, and death was the currency.

He did not like that truth and this night, as he gnawed on small bones, his title of Protector felt mocking and hollow.

Earlier in the day he had seen two riders off to the north: the Borderswords who had taken the tutor to Abara Delack, presumably, now hastening to catch up with their companions. If they had in turn spied the Azathanai, they’d chewed and spat out their curiosity. The minds of some were shuttered things, singular of focus and thus narrow in their interests. They thrived as impediments to wonder. One day, he imagined, every place in every land might be filled with such men and women, each one busy draining colour from the world. He had no intention of living to see it. Rue the realm where bold laughter was met with disapproving frowns and sullen agitation! Serious people never stopped waging their war on joy and pleasure, and they were both relentless and tireless. In the making of his life he stood against them, and saw in his steadfastness a most worthy virtue. Protector indeed!

The thought brought a low rumble of laughter to him.

Alas, the hare had no reason to join in the amusement.

Before dusk descended into night, he had seen a lone figure walking up from the east. While it was true that chance could not be measured, this meeting to come was by no means accidental, and so in his mind he measured it out most carefully. Well to the west, a Thel Akai queen had been stirred from her eternal slumber, and her mood was still foul, no matter the efforts at placation.

The old so disliked the young, and at the extremes of both, why, the dislike stretched into genuine distaste. Regard as foul the fresh-born; see as creped the laggard ancients, with disgust the mutual regard and well earned, too.

And now here, from the east, heavy footsteps drawing ever closer, came an old friend who would kneel to a child. These details did not so much balance out as wink at one another.

‘So much to muse on,’ he now said, loud enough to be heard by the one who approached. ‘Yet all the ale is gone. I was never one to ration my gifts, poor me.’

‘In words alone, Grizzin Farl, you could fill casks.’

‘Ah, but mine own fill never tastes as sweet. Join me, old friend. I would wring from you a thousand confessions this night, till I nod drunk on wisdom. If not yours, then mine.’

His guest was nearly of matching bulk and girth. A cloak of silver fur rode his broad shoulders, shimmering in the starlight. ‘I have come from a place of tribulation and dire portent.’

‘In leaving did you, by chance, raid a wine cupboard?’

‘The Tiste do well by wine, it’s true. So much, then, for gifts carried a great distance.’ With that he drew out from a satchel a fired jug.

Grizzin Farl smiled. ‘Caladan Brood, I would kiss you if I were blind and only a smidgen more desperate than I am.’

‘Hold the sentiment until you are well and truly drunk, but think not of me.’

‘Who, then?’

‘Why, your wife, of course. This wine was meant for her.’

‘Thief of her heart! I should have known not to trust you! Her sloven’d gratitude, which I easily envision here in my skull, has the rank stench of a distillery. Truly you know the secret path to her bed!’

‘Not so secret, Grizzin, but I shall say no more and thus protect your innocence.’

‘By title I was named Protector and in said cause I now stopper my ears and shut my eyes. Come then, pass me this bottle and let’s know the sting of portent.’

‘My freedom,’ Brood said, ‘has been wrested away from me.’

Grizzin swallowed down three quick mouthfuls, and then gasped. ‘You fool — how much did you pay for this? Your firstborn? Never have I tasted better! Upon my wife’s tongue the shock of quality — she’ll know not what to make of it.’

‘So confesses her husband of centuries. Besides, I wager none of the three jugs I carry will last this night, so quality evades her yet again. My sympathy is unbounded, especially as I sit here looking upon you.’

‘Well said, since it is a night for sordid confession. Freedom is nothing more than life stripped of responsibility. Oh, we yearn for it with reckless lust, but the shudders are short-lived, and besides, in sotted state she’s a poor game in bed, and this I well know, since it’s the only way by which she relents to my bluff pawing.’

‘I grieve for your memories, Grizzin Farl. But more, I grieve in the hearing of them.’

‘Let us not weep just yet. Here, numb thy throat and so steal pain from every word we utter.’

Caladan drank, handed the jug back. ‘The First Son of Darkness has bound me to an oath, as I did to him in the making of a marriage stone for his brother.’

‘It will never last.’

‘What, the marriage?’

‘The oath.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, I thought the lie would relieve you. Otherwise, could I even claim to be your friend? I think not. This bottle is done. Find us another, will you?’

‘You’ve run far for this hare, Grizzin.’

‘It was that or plucking weeds from around the house. Under critical eye, baleful and jaded. But now curiosity has me and I would see this dark woman’s dark garden, weeds or no.’

‘Think you not Draconus will stand in your way?’

‘Ah, but he is well behind me, and well ahead of you, even as we speak.’

‘He travels among the Azathanai? This surprises me, given the tensions in Kharkanas.’

‘He goes to hide a bastard son, I think.’

‘And for other reasons.’

Grizzin Farl raised his thick brows. ‘You surmise from hidden knowledge. Here, drink more.’

‘The Tiste put much in gestures,’ Caladan said, taking back the jug. ‘They would make of every deed a symbol, until the world carries benighted weight. By this means many walls are raised, many doors barred, and in meaning the realm becomes a maze to all who dwell in it.’

‘No maze frightens me. I have run with hares.’

‘You would weed her garden, then? Has she no decision to make on the offer?’

‘Hah! Look upon me, friend, in the manner that would a true-blooded woman! See this golden hair? These bright dancing eyes? The grave assurance in my comportment? I am a mystery, a lure of well-hidden depths. To touch me is to brush jewels and gems; to stand too close is to swoon in heady spice — into my very arms. These gifts I have, friend, are not made of breadth or height; neither of weight nor robust presence. I could be a squirrel of a man and still women would fall in like bugs on a cup rim!’

‘A fine speech, Grizzin.’

Grizzin nodded. ‘Much practised,’ he said, ‘but yet to convince. I would change my tack, were I not certain the course is true.’

‘I think it is time for the third jug.’

‘Yes. Despondency was beckoned and lo, herein it slides. So morose, so knowing. If my vision were clearer, if my thoughts sharper, if my wit truly honed, I might find cause to drink and forget.’

‘I know little of this Anomander Rake.’

‘Then I shall bestir him for you. All that is to be known, and so you will find out who stands at the other end of your chain, and if the links be few in number, or beyond count, this too I will discover.’

‘There is a surety about him, that much was clear,’ said Brood. ‘Beyond the gift of the title given him; and his closeness to Mother Dark. He possesses something deliberate and yet of great depth. He is, I think, a violent man, yet is not at ease with the violence in him.’

‘A flagellant, then. I see before me the demise of my enthusiasm.’

‘He avowed he would not drag me into their civil war.’

‘That war is certain?’

Caladan Brood shrugged. ‘They are a generation that has tasted blood, and where horror fades, nostalgia seeps in. In war all is simple, and there is appeal in this. Who among us is comforted by confusion, uncertainty?’

Grizzin Farl mulled on this for a time, and then shook his head. ‘Is it as the Jaghut assert, then? In society we find the seeds of its own destruction?’

‘Perhaps, but they miss the point. It is the absence of society that leads to destruction. When concord is lost, when arguments cease and in opposition neither side sees the other as kin, as brother and sister, then all manner of atrocity is possible.’

‘You strew sharp stones upon my path of thought, old friend. Does Mother Dark will this dissolution?’

‘I should think not, but in darkness she dwells.’

‘The wine is gone. Only sour fumes remain. Drunkenness pretends to resolution. I would sigh and revel in lazy pondering. Do you return home, Caladan? Ah, I thought not. K’rul has begotten a child and the earth itself holds the memory of its birth-cry. Will you drink of K’rul’s blood?’

Brood grunted, eyes on the failing fire. ‘There is no need for that. As you say, the child is born, and will in turn beget many others before too long.’

‘Did you not judge him precipitous?’

‘That judgement is no longer relevant, Grizzin. It is done.’

‘It was a thought of mine,’ Grizzin Farl said, ‘that Draconus journeyed in fevered rage.’

Brood looked up, eyes sharp. ‘And?’

‘Bloodied my feet for a time on that path. But in our night of meeting, which I revisit from all angles, I now conclude that my fears are unfounded. He is indifferent to K’rul. What drives him now is far more desperate.’

Brood nodded. ‘Love will do that.’

‘It may seem to you, by your comment and all its sharp edges, that I am fleeing from my beloved wife and our wastrel of a son. This gives great offence and I am of a mind to draw weapons and have at you.’

‘Then you are even drunker than I had thought.’

‘I am, and am also most hateful of truths that rear up ugly of countenance.’

‘Most truths have that face, friend. But I was speaking of Draconus.’

Grizzin sighed. ‘Guilt shouts loud at the most inopportune moment. Drunk and a fool — already the wine knocks about inside my skull, and I curse how you plied me with that Tiste poison.’

‘Better you than your wife.’

‘All my friends say that. I will be hungry come the dawn — have you spare food?’

‘You brought none with you, Grizzin Farl?’ Caladan Brood sighed.

‘I have a pot,’ Grizzin countered.

‘Followed you out of the house, did it?’

‘Eager to replace the head on my shoulders, yes. Long ago she swore to carry no blade, no cudgel, no iron-tipped spear. Yet made of her hands the deadliest of weapons, second only to her temper, but on occasion even they will deign to reach for something that will serve the instant. I have learned her ways, you see, and so was appropriately wary in my retreat.’

‘And the argument this time?’

Grizzin sank his head into his hands. ‘I went too far. I threw the boy out.’

‘I am sure he gave cause.’

‘He has fallen under the influence of my first progeny, Errastas.’

‘There was always something of the follower in Sechul Lath,’ said Brood. ‘Errastas is ambitious and would be the master of the litter.’

‘Setch is weak, is what he is. To have them both come from my loins shrinks my sack with shame.’

‘Amend that defect before you stand naked before Mother Dark.’

‘In so many ways I will give thanks to the darkness surrounding her. Now, my words remain bold as weapons, but my thoughts shy from reason. I am drunk and unmanned and the only retreat awaiting me is senseless slumber. Good night to you, old friend. When next we meet, it shall be Thel Akai ale and the gifting shall be from my hand to yours.’

‘Already you dream of vengeance.’

‘I do, and with pleasure.’

‘That nearly killed us,’ gasped Sechul Lath, his right arm hanging useless and broken in at least two places. He leaned forward as far as he could and spat out blood and mucus, which was better than swallowing it, as he had been doing since the stubborn woman’s death. The taste in his mouth belonged to violence and savage fear, and now it sat heavy in his stomach. ‘And I am still of two minds.’

Errastas, kneeling nearby, finished binding the deep wound on his thigh and then looked away, back down the glittering trail. ‘I was right,’ he said. ‘They’re coming. Her Tiste blood flows true.’

‘How will this work, Errastas? I am still uncertain…’ Sechul Lath looked down at the corpse. ‘Abyss below, but she was hard to kill!’

‘They are at that,’ Errastas agreed. ‘But this blood — see it flow down the path? See how it swallows gems, diamonds and gold, all of our stolen loot? There is power in this.’

‘But not Azathanai power.’

Errastas snorted, and then wiped blood from his nose. ‘We are not the only elemental forces in creation, Setch. I sense, however, that the power we spilled out here comes as much from outrage as anything else. No matter. It is puissant.’

‘I feel,’ said Sechul Lath, looking round, ‘that this place is not for us.’

‘Mother Dark dares to claim it,’ Errastas said, sneering. ‘Darkness — as if she could claim the domain as entirely her own! What arrogance! Look below, Setch — what do you see?’

‘I see Chaos, Errastas. An endless storm.’

‘We make this place a trap. Let its Tiste name stand. Spar of Andii it shall remain — it hardly confers a right to ownership. By our deeds we undermine its purity. K’rul is not the only one who understands the efficacy of blood.’

‘So you keep saying, but I wonder if we truly know what we’re doing.’

‘Perhaps you don’t, though Abyss take me I’ve tried explaining it to you often enough. I know, Setch, and so you’ll just have to trust me. K’rul would simply give power away, freely, to any who might want it. By this, he undermines its value. He dislodges the proper order of things. We will best him, Setch. I will best him.’ He pushed himself up against a boulder. ‘We haven’t long. They’re coming, that Jaghut and his Tiste hostage. Listen to me. Mother Dark understands the exclusivity of power, though she reaches too far, revealing outrageous greed. We must draw her into this fray. We must awaken her to the threat these new Warrens pose — to us all. It’s important that she resist him, and so occupy all of K’rul’s attention. So distracted, he will not see us, and most certainly not comprehend our intentions, until it is too late.’ He looked up at Sechul Lath. ‘There, I have explained it yet again. Yet I see disappointment in your eyes — what now?’

‘It felt blunt. Crass, even, the way you said it. It lacked subtlety.’

‘I yield the meaningless secrets, Setch, to better hold hidden the important ones. Think of prod and pull, if you like. Explore the concepts in your mind, and muse on the pleasures of misdirection.’

Sechul Lath studied Errastas, lying there propped up against a boulder, beaten half to death. ‘Are you truly as clever as you think you are?’

Errastas laughed. ‘Oh, Setch, it hardly matters. The suspicion is enough, making fecund the soil of imagination. Let others fill the gaps in my cleverness, and make of me in their eyes a genius.’

‘I doubt the veracity of your words.’

‘Well you should. Now, help me up. We must leave here.’

‘Exploiting the very freedom K’rul offers us.’

‘I delight in the irony.’

Sechul Lath turned and looked down at the corpse of the Jaghut, lying so near the edge of the spar. It was a fell thing, to murder someone. Errastas was right: outrage swirled in the air, thick as smoke. It felt heady enough to make his head spin.

‘I never knew,’ said Errastas as Sechul, with only one working arm, awkwardly helped him to stand, ‘that killing could be so much fun.’

Sechul shuddered. ‘Errastas, look at what we have done. Invited her here under false pretences, and then set upon her like wild beasts. We have awakened the wrath of the Jaghut. Nothing good will come of that.’

‘Night comes to the Jaghut, Setch. Their fury is as nothing now.’

‘Too easy your dismissal, Errastas. We have just murdered his wife.’

‘And Hood will weep — what of it? Now, let us go, before they draw close enough to hear us. Besides, it is not Hood who approaches, is it?’

‘No,’ Sechul Lath muttered, ‘only his brother.’

Haut paused on the trail, squinting upward.

Behind him, Korya sagged down in exhaustion. Circling the top of a tower did not make for much exercise. Three strides from edge to edge; such was her realm, the span of faith for her godly aspirations. It seemed paltry, small, and she had begun to suspect that the world ever delivered lessons in humility, even to gods and goddesses.

‘It is not far now,’ said Haut. ‘I should have selected the sword; this axe grows heavy. Bold my pride; feeble my aged muscles.’ He glanced back at her. ‘Have you given more thought to this scattered treasure?’

‘Was I to have given it more thought?’

‘I await your wisdom.’

She shook her head. ‘Of wisdom I have little, master. But I see it as a deliberate mockery of worth.’

‘Yes, but why?’

‘Maybe we are being told that only what awaits us at the end of this trail holds true worth.’

‘Possibly. The Azathanai are curious creatures. They are not acquisitive. In fact, there is one among them who bears the title of Protector, yet protects nothing. The Jheleck came to their villages and stole all they could carry, and he but smiled.’

‘Perhaps he protects what cannot be seen.’

‘And what might that be?’

She considered, taking her time as it gave her further respite. ‘There are many virtues that cannot be measured in a material manner.’

‘Indeed? Name one.’

‘Love.’

‘Torcs and rings of gold, brooches and diadems; expensive gifts, a solid home and a roof that does not leak. A child.’

‘From all those love can be stripped away, yet still they remain.’

‘Excellent. Go on.’

‘Trust.’

‘Guard my wealth and I will pay you in return.’

‘That is a transaction.’

‘One that purchases trust.’

‘Such material exchanges as you describe are meant to symbolize the virtues I mentioned. They are not the virtues in and of themselves.’

‘But is this not the meaning of all wealth, hostage?’

‘I think not. After all, greed is not a virtue.’

‘Greed is the language of power, the hoarding of symbols.’

She shook her head. ‘Virtues cannot be claimed; they are but shown.’

‘Shown. How are they shown?’

Korya scowled. ‘By the gifts you describe.’

Haut nodded. ‘Listen well. You are right to not conflate the symbol with the meaning; but you are wrong in thinking that to do so is uncommon.’

‘Then I would say, the Protector defends the distinction, and so to make his point, he must stand aside when thieves take away the material symbols of the virtues whose sanctity and purity he defends.’

Haut grunted. ‘A fine theory. I will consider-’

His abrupt stop made her look up. Haut was staring down at his feet. After a long moment he drew free his axe and then faced upslope once more.

‘Master?’

‘By what measure then, Azathanai wealth?’

‘Master? What is-’ Faint motion caught her eye, something glittering, and she looked down on the path. A thin, crooked stream was wending its way down through the twisted rings and cut gems. In the strange, colourless light it looked black as ink.

Haut set out, climbing once more with the axe readied in his hands.

Pushing herself upright and taking care to avoid the rivulet, Korya followed.

Another half-dozen strides upward and it became impossible to step around the draining liquid. Is this blood I see? She thought of gods and goddesses, the notions of sacrifice — so long ago abandoned by the Tiste — and this place at once seemed colder, crueller.

No more questions to ask Haut; this was not the time. She remained silent, but her mouth was dry and her heart beat fast in her chest.

The ascent ended just ahead in a broken tumble of stones that seemed to flatten, as if by weight alone they could force the trail level, but something was lying upon the verge — a corpse, sprawled and half naked, the limbs stretched as if the body had been dragged to the edge of the descent. From this contorted perch, blood ran down in thick ropes, drowning the last few scattered gems.

A Jaghut woman.

She could see the point of a long knife jutting from her chest, and her back was arched in a manner to suggest the handle protruding from between her shoulder blades.

‘Karish.’

The word, coming from Haut who now stood before the body, was half prayer, half plea. A moment later he wavered, as if about to fall — and she drew up close, thinking to take his weight though, of course, she could never manage that. Haut staggered ahead, stumbled past the body, lifting the axe.

‘ Karish! ’

Korya reached the corpse. She stared down at it — the first dead person she had ever seen. A proud-looking woman, her features even, perhaps beautiful by Jaghut standards, she seemed to be frowning at the formless sky. The tusks were white as goat’s milk. The mouth was slightly open, crusted with froth and blood. The eyes bore a strange look, as if in seeing everything they found nothing worthy of regard. Above all, it was their stillness that shook Korya. This is death. Death is stillness. And stillness does not belong among the living.

A pinnacle beyond the tumbled boulders marked the end of the ascent — a span of level rock five, perhaps six strides across. A godly realm, but upon it stood only Haut. He was studying the ground, as if seeking to read the past.

Not long past. She died only moments ago. The blood only now begins to slow.

Now at last she found the need to speak. ‘Where could they have gone? We passed no one.’ When Haut made no answer, she walked to the edge and looked down. A seething storm swirled far below, argent yet sickly. Waves of nausea struck her and she backed away a step, almost toppling.

Haut’s hand met her back, solid as stone. ‘Unwise, hostage. To look upon Chaos is to yield to its invitation. For that, I am most sorely tempted. It is said,’ he went on, the axe-head crunching on the bedrock as he let the weapon down, ‘that Mother Dark did not hesitate. She leapt into that wild realm. And returned, but not the same woman she had been before. Now, she would turn her back upon Chaos, a champion of all that it is not.’

She wondered at his words, their rambling nature; their looseness in this moment.

‘I wager it unwise,’ Haut went on, ‘to make of oneself a symbol, and if she be coveted, why is it a surprise to any?’

‘Master. Who was she? The Jaghut woman? Who could have done this?’

‘My brother’s wife,’ Haut replied. ‘Karish. The greatest scholar among the Jaghut. She was lured here and then murdered.’

‘By the Azathanai?’

‘By one or more among them, yes.’

‘Will there now be war, master? Between the Jaghut and the Azathanai?’

He turned at that, studied her for a moment, only to look away again. ‘A war?’ He voiced that word as if he had never heard it before, and only now comprehended its meaning.

‘Master. When we began this journey, you said that we were invited. Was it to see this? If so, why?’

‘She named it the Spar of Andii — your Mother Dark. And made of it a fist of Darkness. Hostage, what awaits us now is the challenge of making sense of these symbols. For this, your cleverness surpasses mine. It was ever my belief that you needed us. Now it seems that it is we who need you.’ His face twisted and seemed to crumple before her. ‘Korya Delath, will you help us?’