Forge of Darkness

SIXTEEN

‘Belief,’ said Draconus, ‘never feels strange to the believer. Like an iron stake driven deep into the ground, it is an anchor to a host of convictions. No winds can tear it free so long as the ground remains firm.’

Riding beside his father, Arathan said nothing. The land ahead was flat, marked only by clusters of low cairns made from piled stones, as if signifying crossroads. But Arathan could see no crossroads; he could barely make out the path they travelled. The sky overhead was a dull blue, like burnished tin, through which vast but distant flocks of birds could be seen, scudding like clouds on high winds.

Draconus sighed. ‘It is the failure of every father to impart wisdom to his child. No paint adheres to sweating stone. You are too eager, too impatient and too quick to dismiss the rewards of someone else’s experience. I am hardly blind to the surge of youth, Arathan.’

‘I have no beliefs,’ said Arathan, shrugging. ‘No anchor, no convictions. If winds take me, then I will drift.’

‘I believe,’ said Draconus, ‘that you seek your mother.’

‘How can I seek what I do not know?’

‘You can and you will, with a need that overwhelms. And should you one day find that which you seek, you no doubt imagine an end to your need. I can warn you that disappointment lies ahead, that life’s most precious gifts always come from unexpected sources, but you will not waver from your desire. Thus, from me you learn nothing.’

Arathan scowled, realizing that he could not hide anything from his father. Deceit was an easy path, but the moment it failed only a fool would stay upon it. ‘You sent her away,’ he said.

‘Out of love.’

They rode past another heap of stones, and Arathan saw a scatter of finger bones along its nearer edge, bleached white by the sun. They made rows like teeth. ‘That makes no sense. Did she not love you in return? Was it in the name of love that you chose to break her heart? No, sir, I see no wisdom from you.’

‘Is this how you baited Tutor Sagander?’

‘I never baited him-’

‘Behind your innocent guise you make every word a weapon, Arathan. This may have worked with Sagander, since he refused to see you as anything but a small child. Among men, however, you will be known as dissembling and treacherous.’

‘I do not dissemble, Father.’

‘When you feign ignorance of the wounds your words deliver, you dissemble.’

‘Do you always send away the ones you love? Must we always journey through the ruins of your past? Olar Ethil-’

‘I was speaking of belief,’ Draconus replied, with iron in his tone. ‘It will make your path, Arathan, and I say that with certainty, because it is belief that guides each and every one of us. You may imagine it as a host and you may well feel the wayward tug of every conviction, and convince yourself that they each summon with purpose. But this is not a mindful journey, and the notion of progress is an illusion. Do not trust the goals awaiting you: they are chimeras, and their promise salves the very belief that invented them, and by this deception you ever end where you began, but in that end you find yourself not young, not filled with zeal as you once were, but old and exhausted.’

‘What you describe is not a worthy ambition. If this is your wisdom’s gift then it is a bitter one.’

‘I am trying to warn you. Strife awaits us, Arathan. I fear it shall reach far beyond the borders of Kurald Galain. I did what I could for Mother Dark, but like you she was young when first I gave my gift to her. Every step she has taken since then she believes to be purposeful and forward. This is one anchor we all share.’ He fell silent, as if made despondent by his own words.

‘Is that how you view love, Father? As a gift you bestow upon others, only to then stand back to watch and see if they are worthy of it? And when they fail, as they must, you discard them and set out in search of the next victim?’

His face darkened. ‘There is a fine line between fearless and foolish, Arathan, and you now stride it precariously. The gift of which I spoke was not love. It was power.’

‘Power should never be a gift,’ Arathan said.

‘An interesting assertion, from one so powerless. But I will listen. Go on.’

‘Gifts are rarely appreciated,’ Arathan said, and in his mind he was remembering his first night with Feren. ‘And the one who receives knows only confusion. At first. And then hunger… for more. And in that hunger, there is expectation, and so the gift ceases being a gift, and becomes payment, and to give itself becomes a privilege and to receive it a right. By this all sentiment sours.’

Draconus drew up. Arathan did the same a moment later and swung Besra around to face him. The wind seemed to slide between them.

His father’s gaze was narrow, searching. ‘Arathan, I think now that you heard Grizzin Farl’s warning to me.’

‘I don’t recall, sir, if I did. I don’t remember much of that evening.’

Draconus studied him a moment longer and then looked away. ‘It seems,’ he said, ‘that every gift I give is carved from my own flesh, and by every wound and every scar upon my body, I map the passage of my loves. Did you know, son, that I rarely sleep? I but weather the night, amidst aches and sore repose.’

If this confession sought sympathy from Arathan, he judged himself a failure. ‘I would evade that fate for myself, sir. The wisdom you have offered me is not the one you intended, so I cannot but view it as a most precious gift.’

The smile Draconus then swung to him was wry. ‘You have reawakened my pity for Sagander, and I do not refer to an amputated leg.’

‘Sagander’s iron stakes pinned him to the ground long ago, sir. Legs or not, he does not move and never will.’

‘You are quick to judge. What you describe makes him no less dangerous.’

Arathan shrugged. ‘Only if we walk too close. He is in my past now, sir. I do not expect to see him again.’

‘I would think not,’ Draconus agreed. ‘But I wonder if I have not wronged him. You are far from easy company, Arathan. Now, a house awaits us.’

Following his father’s gesture, Arathan looked ahead. Plain in sight, as if conjured from the ground less than a hundred paces distant, was a low structure. Its long roof sagged in the middle and a few gaps were visible as black holes amidst the lichen-covered slate tiles. Beneath the projecting eaves, the stone walls were roughly hewn and streaked with red stains. The yard around the house was devoid of grass and looked beaten down.

‘Is it conjured?’ Arathan asked.

‘Suggested is the better word,’ Draconus replied.

They set off towards it. The house appeared to be abandoned, but Arathan was certain that it was not. He squinted at the black patches made by the windows to either side of the solid door — which seemed to have been hacked from a single slab of grey stone — but could make out no movement in the shadows within. ‘Are we expected?’

‘More than expected, Arathan. Necessary.’

‘Necessary for this house to be?’

‘Just so.’

‘Then surely, Father, belief has more power than you credit it.’

‘I never discredited the power of belief, Arathan. I but warned you that it can offer dubious charms, and rarely does it invite self-analysis, much less reproach.’

‘Then sorcery must never be examined too closely? Lest it lose its power?’

‘Lest it cease to exist, Arathan. What is it to be a god, if not to hold the unfettered willingness to believe?’

‘Now you grant belief omnipotence. I can see how that would charm anyone, even a god.’

‘With each day, son, I see you grow more formidable.’

The observation startled Arathan. He already regretted his brutal words to his father. As if I can speak of love. The only game I knew to play was one of possession. It does ill to treat love as would a child a toy. Feren, I am sorry for all that I did, for all that I was, and was not. ‘I am anything but formidable, Father. I but flail with weapons too large to hold.’

Draconus grunted. ‘As do we all.’

There was motion from one window as they drew closer, and a moment later a figure clambered out from it. A man: not much older than Arathan himself. He was dressed in bloodstained clothing, loose and made from silks. A half-cape of deep green wool covered his shoulders, its collar turned up. He was dark-haired, clean-shaven, not unhandsome, although his face bore a frown as he worked free of the window and found his feet.

At the edge of the barren yard, Draconus reined in and Arathan did the same. His father dismounted. ‘Join me, Arathan,’ he said, and there was a strange timbre to his voice, as if awakened to excitement or, perhaps, relief.

A flock of the unknown birds was drawing closer, swarming the sky behind the house. Their flight was strange and the sight of them made Arathan uneasy. He slipped down from Besra.

The stranger — another Azathanai, no doubt — had walked halfway across the yard and now stood, eyes upon Draconus, and in place of the frown there was a mocking smile that stole the grace from his visage. Arathan imagined his fist driving into that smile, obliterating it. Satisfaction warmed his thoughts.

The stranger’s gaze snapped to Arathan’s and that unctuous smile broadened. ‘Would you rather not kiss it from me?’ he asked.

Beside Arathan, his father said, ‘Yield nothing to this one’s baiting, son. The soil ever shifts beneath him.’

The stranger’s brows lifted. ‘Now, Draconus, no need to be cruel in your judgement. My artistry is what binds the two of us, after all.’

‘For scarce a breath longer, Errastas. The gift is made, by you it seems, and I will have it.’

‘Gladly,’ Errastas replied, but he made no move; nor, Arathan noted, was the man carrying anything that might contain a gift. Perhaps he gives as I will give.

‘You wear blood, Errastas,’ Draconus observed. ‘What grim passage is behind you?’

Errastas looked down at the stains on his silks. ‘Oh, it’s not mine, Suzerain. Well, most of it isn’t, that is. The journey you set upon me proved fraught. I have never before bound power to an object where in its making I give nothing of myself. It proved most… enlightening.’

‘Night is not unwelcome, Errastas, and chaos needs nothing of blood, nor can it be made to spill it.’

Arathan sensed a growing tension in the air. The flock of birds was rushing closer, and with it came a seething sound, not of wings but of voices, uncannily high-pitched. He still could not make out their breed. His body was tensing and his mouth had gone dry. He did not like Errastas.

To his father’s words, Errastas had but shrugged. Then he cocked his head. ‘Scarce a breath, Draconus? You cannot imagine the discoveries I have made. My journey was eventful, as Sechul Lath would attest, since he accompanied me, and you might imagine its reward is now awaiting your hand this day. For you, surely it is. But for me, why, I have just begun.’ He held out an angular black disc, barely larger than the palm of his hand. ‘Behold, Suzerain, the folding of Night.’

‘I will have it.’

Smiling once more, Errastas strode closer. ‘Have you even considered the precedent set in the making of this, Draconus? I doubt it. You’re too old. All acuteness has dulled in your mind, and by love alone you are blind as these hunting bats.’

‘They hunt you, Errastas? Then you had best flee here.’ So saying, Draconus reached out and took up the object.

‘This is consecrated ground, O Lord. They wheel, sensing me near, but they cannot find me. These things I am now able to do, and much more besides. Will you understand this at least? What we have done — you by your demand and me by the answering of it — will see the death of the old ways. The death of wandering itself.’ He gestured with his now empty hand. ‘Our kin who kneel before the Azath, and so make deities of insensate stone, will find new assurance in what they worship, because like it or not, we have made true their faith. Power will find those places now, Draconus, and though the worshippers will remain ignorant of its source, it is all by our hands.’ He laughed. ‘Is that not amusing?’

‘This gift is singular, Errastas.’

The young man shrugged again. ‘Indeed it is.’

‘You have made none other?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Where is Sechul Lath?’

‘Near, but he has no wish to speak with you.’

‘If I find that you deceive me here, Errastas, I shall hunt you down, and with far greater efficacy than these helpless trackers.’

‘No doubt. But I tell you the truth. I have made no rivals, neither of Night’s aspect, nor of any other’s.’

Draconus was silent, studying Errastas.

‘I swear it!’ the Azathanai laughed. ‘Look at me! Do you think I would willingly repeat the ordeal I have suffered in the making of this Teron? How do you imagine I bound so much power to those crushed leaves? You above all others will comprehend the limits of wood, the atrocious absence of subtlety in stone, and the infuriating elusiveness of water and air. Did you truly think Night would readily yield to such binding? And by what coin could I make such purchase?’ He stepped back and essayed a grand bow. ‘See how I wear my wealth, O Lord?’

All at once Draconus staggered as if struck.

Before them Errastas, still in his bowing pose, was fading, like a ghostly apparition. Behind him the roof of the house suddenly slumped, collapsing inward in a dusty crash.

Bats thundered in, a chaotic maelstrom descending upon the site. Ducking, buffeted by wings, Arathan moved to the shelter of Besra’s side — but the beast was tossing its head in fright, dragging him across the ground in its panic. The warhorse Hellar, however, stood fast, and though Besra could with ease drag Arathan, it was drawn up short when the lead between it and Hellar snapped taut. Sheltering between the two beasts, Arathan covered his head, crouching low.

A sudden concussion erupted.

Moments later the air was clear — entirely empty, as if the bats had simply vanished.

Shaken, Arathan looked up, and then across to where stood Draconus.

His father had the bearing of a wounded man. His broad shoulders were hunched, his head lowered. For all his girth and height, he suddenly seemed frail. Then Arathan heard Draconus whisper a single word, a name that he had heard before.

‘ Karish.’

All at once Arathan remembered the scene between his father and Olar Ethil: the sudden sheathing of verbal knives, the dismissal of threats. ‘ An Azathanai has committed murder.’ A woman among the Jaghut. Her name was Karish and Father knew her, enough to be shocked by the news, enough to grieve and seek comfort from his old lover.

‘Your gift to Mother Dark,’ said Arathan, ‘is soaked in blood.’

When his father said nothing to that, he continued, ‘Errastas needed it, he said. To achieve what you wanted. Now he wears his raiment plainly, and in that boldness he reveals his thirst for more… more blood, and the power that comes from it.’

‘She will make this gift pure,’ Draconus said, without turning. ‘When Night unfolds once more, it will scour clean the binding — it will purge this poison.’

‘And so hide the crime from her eyes. You will not tell her, will you, Father?’

‘Nothing stays broken for ever.’ These whispered words were like a promise. He turned to face Arathan. ‘You think to hold this secret over me?’

Arathan shook his head. He felt suddenly exhausted and wanted only to turn away from all this. ‘Kurald Galain,’ he said, ‘is not for me. Neither is Mother Dark, nor you, Father. None of it is for me. Offer her your flawed gift if you must. I care not. I wish I could spit out this secret we now share, and if Errastas were here to read my thoughts at this moment, he might have cause to fear.’

Draconus snorted. ‘Most creatures of this world understand that fear can be a virtue. Errastas does not. If you seek him, he will wait for you and know your every thought. It is not a worthy path, Arathan. You are not ready to challenge Errastas.’

‘Who hunts him, Father?’

‘I don’t know.’

Distrusting that reply, Arathan shifted his attention back to the ruined house, where the dust was slow to settle. ‘Who once lived there?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Errastas used it. I would know the workings of his mind.’

Draconus strode back to Calaras. ‘Leave it, Arathan.’

‘You told Olar Ethil that you would seek the Lord of Hate. Will you still do so, Father?’

‘Yes.’ Draconus pulled himself into the saddle.

‘Will you lie to him as well?’

To that Draconus said nothing. Instead, he kicked his warhorse into motion.

Arathan chose Hellar instead of Besra and mounted up, and then set off after his father.

Draconus had grown so large in Arathan’s eyes. Now he grew small again. His father broke the women he loved, and yet feared that Mother Dark would break him. He was but a Consort; resented by the highborn and feared in the Citadel. He had forged an army out of his Houseblades and so earned the suspicions of Urusander’s Legion. He stood as a man beset on all sides.

Yet he leaves her, seeking out not a gift of love, but one of power. He thinks love is a toy. He thinks it shines like a bauble, and he makes every gesture a demand seeking love in return. Therefore, each and every thing that he does must be a thing of many meanings.

But he does not understand that this is his private language, this game of bargaining and the amassing of debts no one else comprehends.

I begin to understand the many lives of my father, and in each guise new flaws are revealed. I once vowed to hurt him if I could. A foolish conceit. Draconus knows nothing but hurts.

Did you love Karish once? Tell me, Father, will the blood of one lover feed the next? Is this the precedent Errastas spoke of? Or did he speak as a god, flush with the lifeblood of a mortal?

Arathan fixed his eyes on his father, who still rode ahead. In days past he would have spurred his mount until he was at his side, and they would converse like a father and son in search of each other, and every wound would be small and every truth would weave its way into the skein between them. He would think this both precious and natural, and value the moments all the more for their unfamiliarity.

Now he chose to remain alone, riding in a reluctant wake, on a path he no longer desired. His thoughts reached back to his memories of Feren — not the bitterness of their departure, but those times when he had shared her warmth. He wished he could surrender to her again. Night after night, if only to show his father a love that worked.

In the months to come, she would swell with the child they had made, and in her village she would fend off the questions and turn away from all the cruel comments stalking her. Her brother would come to blows defending her honour. And all of this would play out in Arathan’s absence, and he would be judged accordingly. Such venom never lost its virulence.

If he had been older, he would have fought for her. If he’d had any other father — not Lord Draconus, Consort and Suzerain of Night — he would have found the courage to defy him. Instead, the father made himself anew in his son. And I bow to it. Again and again, I bow to it.

None of this armour he wore made him strong. It but revealed the weakness of flesh.

Feren. One day I will come for you. He would weather the scorn of her neighbours, and they would ride away. They would find a world for their child.

A world that did not feed on blood.

Korya and Haut walked. Low square stone towers studded the landscape, crouched against hillsides, rising from ridges and crowding hilltops. They filled the floodplain to either side of the old river, their bulky shapes shouldering free of the tree-line where the forest had grown back, or hunched low on sunken flats where marsh grasses flowed like waves in the breeze that swept down the length of the valley.

As they passed among them, skirting the high edge of the valley’s north side, Korya saw that most were abandoned, and those few that showed signs of habitation were distant, and it seemed that Haut’s route deeper into the now dead Jaghut city deftly avoided drawing too near any of them.

She saw no evidence of industry, or farming, or manufacture. There were no outbuildings to be seen, either for storing food or stabling animals. For sustenance, these Jaghut must have supped on air.

Her thighs and calves ached from all the walking. The silence from Haut was oppressive and there was a steady pain behind her eyes and blood had soaked through the pad of moss between her legs. She awaited a word from him, something to snap at and so feel better, but he strode ahead without pause, until she felt as if he’d bound an invisible leash round her neck and was simply pulling her along like a reluctant pet. She wanted him to tug on that leash, draw her too close and so come within reach of her claws.

Not that she had any. Nights of cooking over campfires had made scorched and smudged bludgeons of her hands. And for all her vehemence, her strength was gone, withered away by this seemingly endless trek. Her clothes and hair were filthy and stank of smoke.

Another square tower was just ahead, and this one Haut was making no effort to avoid and so she assumed that it too was abandoned. Another monument to failure. How I long for Kurald Galain!

When her master reached it, he halted and turned to Korya. ‘Prepare camp,’ he said. ‘Tonight we will sleep within, since there will be rain.’

She glared up at the cloudless sky, and then at the Jaghut.

‘Will the child doubt the adult in all things?’ he asked.

‘I trust,’ she said as she dropped the pack from her shoulders, ‘that was rhetorical.’

Haut pointed at a stunted tree outside the gaping entrance to the tower. ‘That shrub is called ilbarea.’

‘It’s dead.’

‘It does appear that way, yes. Collect a bag full of its leaves.’

‘Why?’

‘I see that you are in discomfort and ill-humour and so would remedy that. Not as much for your sake as for mine, since I have no desire to dodge barbs all night.’

‘I have questions, not barbs.’

‘And to grasp each one is to behold thorns. Collect the driest of the dead leaves and know that I do this for both of us.’

‘You just said-’

‘Bait to test your mood. The trap is sprung yet you still profess to a backbone and raised hackles. I will see you calmed and no longer so sickly-looking.’

‘Well, we can’t have your sensibilities so offended, can we?’ She rummaged in her pack and found a small sack that had once held tubers — ghastly tasting things even when boiled to a mush: she had thrown the rest away after the first night.

‘It is better,’ said Haut, ‘when you cook with enthusiasm.’

‘I thought we were hunting murderers,’ she said as she walked over to the shrub. ‘Instead we just walk and walk and get nowhere.’ She began plucking the dry, leathery leaves. ‘This will make wretched tea.’

‘I’m sure it would,’ he replied behind her. ‘Once you have filled the bag, we shall need a fire. There should be a wood pile behind the tower, in the yard. I have held on to a single bottle of wine and for that you will thank me, once you rediscover a thankful mood.’

‘I suggest you hold your breath while awaiting its arrival,’ she said, tugging at the leaves.

He grunted. ‘I have failed you with too much shelter, I now see. You are resilient in civil settings, yet frail in the wilds.’

‘You call this wild, master?’

‘You would deem it civilization, hostage?’

‘Civilization on its knees — if that roof proves dry to the nonexistent rain. I am far from enamoured, master, exploring this legacy of surrender. But this is only the wildness of neglect, and that is ever sordid for the tale it tells.’

‘True enough, there is nothing more sordid than civil failure, in particular its way of creeping up on one, in such minute increments as to pass unnoticed. If we are to deem civilization a form of progress, then how should it be measured?’

She sighed. Still more lessons. ‘You would engage an ill-tempered woman in debate, master?’

‘Hmm, true. Woman you are. Child no longer. Well, as I am bored, I will gird my armour and march into the perilous ferment of a woman’s fury.’

She so wanted to dislike him, but again and again it proved impossible. ‘The progress of civilization is measured in its gifts to labour and service. We are eased by the coalescing of intent, willingness and capability.’

‘Then how does one measure the stalling of said progress? Or indeed, its decline?’

‘Intent remains. Willingness fades and capability is called into question. Accord dissolves but blame is impossible to assign, leading to malaise, confusion and a vacuous resentment.’ The bag was stuffed full. Eyeing the shrub she was startled to see that upon every branch she had stripped bare new shoots had appeared, just as brown as the leaves they replaced. ‘What a ridiculous tree,’ she said.

‘Its disguise is death,’ said Haut. He had removed his gauntlets and was shrugging out from his surcoat of mail. ‘Give me the ilbarea, thus freeing your hands to collect wood.’

‘That is kind of you, master. But I wonder, if I am to be a mahybe, a vessel to be filled, why fill it with mundane tasks and seething frustration?’

He sat on a stone near the old firepit and then glanced up at her. ‘Have you ever held a stoppered bottle under water? No? Yes, why should you? No matter. Pull the stopper and what happens?’

‘If the bottle held air, then the air bubbles out and is replaced with water. If it held liquid, then I imagine a certain slow admixture with the water. These are the experiments suited to a child in a tub. But, master, as you can see, I am not under water, nor am I as empty as you would think me.’

‘These disciplines, hostage, are for your own good in that they bring ease and comfort to my being. I have been too long in civilization to understand the mundane cogitations of its basic requirements.’

‘You are intent without capability and entirely lacking in will.’

‘Just so, and I would not be a teacher of worth, if in neglect I led you into a life similarly devoid of useful knowledge.’

She eyed him for a long moment and then made her way to the back of the tower. Instead of an overgrown garden, she found a massive hole in the ground. It was four or five paces across and when she ventured to its edge and peered down, she saw only blackness. Collecting up a rock, she held it out and dropped it. The stone struck something after a few heartbeats, and then bounced and clattered until the sounds faded away.

The wood was stacked up against the wall, enough for a dozen nights at the campfire. That thought left her despondent. She collected an armful and returned to where Haut sat expectantly. He had set his last remaining wine bottle on the ground beside him. Eyes on the bottle, Korya contemplated smashing it over Haut’s hairless pate. Instead, she crouched and set down the wood beside the firepit, and then went off in search of kindling.

A short time later, she had the fire lit and sat waiting for a decent bed of embers. The cookpot sat waiting, filled with water and a handful of dubious vegetables.

Haut rummaged in his pack and removed three goblets, which he set to polishing with a silk handkerchief she had never seen before. He lined up the goblets in a perfect row in front of the bottle.

A sound from the tower made her turn. A Jaghut was standing in the doorway. He was taller than Haut by more than a hand, broad across the shoulders and long-limbed. His tusks were stained almost black, except at the upthrust tips, where they faded to red-tinted amber. An old but savage scar seamed a ragged path diagonally across his face. He wore nothing but a colourless loincloth that failed to hide the lower half of his manhood. The vertical pupils of his eyes were thin as slits.

‘I kill trespassers,’ he said.

Haut nodded. ‘We shall warn any who come near. Korya Delath, this is Varandas. I thought he was dead.’

‘Hoped, I’m sure,’ said Varandas, stepping forward. ‘A wondrous fire,’ he observed. ‘I need only glance upon it to see the path to our demise. Well lit every stride we take, until sudden darkness falls. But then, to live is to stumble, and to stumble is to plunge headlong and ever forward. Is it any wonder death takes so many of us?’

‘But not you,’ Haut said. ‘Not yet, in any case. Sit then, if you must intrude upon our peace, and pour out the wine.’

‘She is too young to drink-’

‘She has known wine from her mother’s tit.’

‘-too young to drink to, I was going to say. As for broaching the bottle, are you still so useless with your hands, Haut, that you need help with so simple a task?’

Korya snorted.

Varandas glanced at her, as if judging her anew. ‘That’s a woman’s laugh.’

‘She is Tiste,’ explained Haut. ‘She might be a thousand years old and you’d know it not.’

‘Surely she isn’t.’

‘No, but that was not my point. Useless with my hands I might be, but I note the persistent inefficacy of your wits, Varandas, telling me that your affliction of stupidity is indeed eternal.’

‘I do claim stupidity as an illness,’ Varandas said with a nod, ‘and have written a fine treatise arguing my point. Badly, of course.’

‘I’ve not read it.’

‘No one has. I am satisfied to think of writing as a desire worth having, whereas its practical exercise is a turgid ordeal I leave to lesser folk, since I have better things to do with the sentient fragments of my brain.’

‘Thus the argument of a thousand useless geniuses, each one quick to venture an opinion, particularly a negative one, since by their own negativity they can justify doing nothing but complain.’

‘Good company one and all,’ said Varandas, taking up the bottle and inspecting its unmarked clay body. ‘I pronounce this singular in quality.’

‘So it is,’ agreed Haut.

‘Have you anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Oh well.’ He plucked free the stopper and poured, filling each of the goblets to the brim.

‘You would have us spill upon our hands?’

Varandas sat back. ‘No, I would have us simply observe them and so appreciate the perfection of my measure.’

‘I fear Korya was able to gauge that some time ago.’

‘Oh?’

‘Your diaper is too small, Varandas.’

‘That is a matter of opinion, Haut. I will not apologize for the prodigiousness of my famous prowess. Now, let us embark on sticky hands and the smacking of lips and such. Tiste, do precede us.’

‘As far as I know,’ said Korya, reaching for the first goblet, ‘my mother’s tit was not full of wine. I refuse to be responsible for my master’s opinions.’

Varandas regarded her. ‘Her mood is foul, Haut. How do you put up with it?’

‘Mostly I hide, but as you can see, this is presently difficult to achieve. I have a solution, of course.’

‘Speak on, O spiteful one.’

Haut pulled out a clay pipe. ‘Ilbarea leaves, from your own tree, Varandas.’

‘Oh? I thought it was dead.’

‘That,’ said Varandas a short time later, ‘is an expression I will never forget.’

Haut frowned, reached out and picked up the pipe from where it had fallen from Korya’s senseless hand. He sniffed at the smoke still drifting up from the bowl, and his head snapped back. ‘Oh dear, this would challenge the constitution of a Thel Akai. How long have those leaves ripened on the vine?’

‘I can’t say for certain, since I never picked them off. Decades, I would think. Or perhaps centuries — why do you ask me such challenging questions? You delight in making obvious the symptoms of my stupidity and this makes me cross and prone to belligerence.’

‘Well, one hopes she will awaken on the morrow refreshed and full of vigour.’

‘Or perhaps the following day, or the next one after that. That was a lungful to melt iron ore. See how she still exudes white tendrils with each breath? But I will say this, her ill-disposition no longer offends us and so I judge this a pleasing outcome.’

‘The bottle is empty,’ Haut observed, ‘and I am no longer hungry, which is good since my cook lies supine.’

‘Then we must walk to the back of the tower, Haut.’

‘Very well, if you insist.’

‘We have things to discuss.’

They rose and left the motionless form of Korya, although Haut paused to fling a blanket over her as he passed by.

Varandas led the way to the edge of the vast hole in the yard. Haut joined him. They stared down into the pitch black and said nothing for a time.

Then Haut grunted and said, ‘I fear for Hood.’

‘I fear the precedent,’ Varandas replied. ‘An Azathanai now truly stands apart, and would make a bold claim to godhood.’

‘What is to be done?’

‘This question is asked by everyone, Haut. Barring Hood himself, who speaks not a word and languishes still in chains.’

‘In chains?’

‘The Lord of Hate has the care of him.’

‘In chains?’

‘This was deemed a mercy. An act of compassion. We await Hood, I now believe — all of us who choose to care. We await his word.’

‘And you?’

Varandas shrugged. ‘It has been a long time since I took up the sword, and now I view the gesture as one of bluster. What do I recall of war? What do I know of fighting? I will listen to Hood, however, and give him the openness of my judgement until I can weigh his words.’

Haut nodded. ‘That is honourable, Varandas. How many others will join you on that day, I wonder?’

‘A handful, I would think. We keep small gardens and pluck weeds with uncommon vigour. After all, the Lord of Hate only spoke the truth, and by this made infernal argument none could oppose.’

They were silent then for a long time, until Varandas turned to Haut and asked, ‘And you?’

‘Mahybe Korya.’

Varandas’s brows lifted. ‘Indeed? A Tiste mahybe? Unprecedented and bold.’

‘I am otherwise helpless,’ said Haut.

Varandas gestured to the hole. ‘What do you think of this?’

‘I have been thinking of it, I admit,’ confessed Haut. ‘How did you come by it?’

‘No idea,’ Varandas answered.

They studied it some more.

‘The worship of stone,’ said Errastas, ‘is a plea to longevity, but that’s a secret stone never yields.’

Sechul Lath continued pulling rocks from the rubble, swearing as his fingers brushed the occasional stone that was still blistering hot. Steaming earth sifted down as the mound continued to settle. The air was rank with a smell he could not identify, but which he imagined to be outrage.

Nearby, Errastas crouched at a heap of broken slate tiles, rummaging through them and setting aside certain ones, arranging even stacks as if counting coins. ‘They claim,’ he went on, ‘that the buildings simply grew from the ground. At first they were little more than piles of rock, but still they rose from the earth, and soon new ones found the shape of hovels. Here and there, a wall or line. Others made circles. And then, as if all these pathetic efforts somehow merged and found each other, houses were born. Well, not just houses as we now know. But towers to match those of the Jaghut. And others that bore the semblance of wood, as you might imagine a Tiste would make. While yet others took to earth itself, in Thel Akai fashion, or hides like the huts of the Dog-Runners.’

Sechul adjusted his grip on a particularly large boulder and pulled on it. It came away with a grinding lurch. He rolled it to one side and studied the hole where the stone had been. And then twisted round to look at his companion.

‘But this is the struggle towards order,’ Errastas continued, frowning at a shattered tile. ‘The imperative of organization, which is both laudable and pathetic. We have all resisted dissolution, in our own ways, and thus make of our lives bold assertions to purpose and meaning.’ He flung the tile away, and then picked up another one. ‘This pose we insist upon, Setch, is substance constructed as argument. Our flesh, our blood, our bone, our selves. I for one am not impressed.’

Sechul returned to the mound of rubble. He tugged loose rocks and swept up handfuls of earth. He made the hole bigger.

‘You can argue with nature and of course you will lose. You can argue with someone else and unless the wager is one of life or death, then the exercise is meaningless. Nature awaits us all, with emphatic solidity. All that is won is an illusion. All that is lost, you were doomed to lose anyway, eventually. They call the houses the Azath, and from this the Tiste name us, but we are not all worshippers of stone, are we, Setch?’

‘It seems,’ said Sechul, leaning back and wiping dirt from his battered hands, ‘that you have won this particular argument, Errastas.’

Grunting as he rose, Errastas made his way over. ‘I knew as much,’ he said. ‘Not even a Jaghut tower could withstand half a hill of earth and rock descending on it.’

Sechul Lath thought back to the power of his companion’s conjuration. The sorcery was brutal, and the sound it had made — like a clap of thunder inside the skull — still reverberated through his bones. ‘This could begin a war,’ he said.

‘I have purpose,’ Errastas replied, dropping into a crouch to peer into the small cave dug into the mound. ‘This may seem madness — murder often does. But this table I set will see multitudes gathering to the feast, dear brother of mine.’

‘Half-brother,’ corrected Sechul Lath, feeling the need to assert the distinction. ‘Will they thank you?’

Errastas shrugged. ‘They will gorge, friend, and grow fat and think not once upon the farmer, or the herder, or the one crushing the grapes. Nor will they muse on the maker of the utensils they wield, or the hand that hammered out their pewter plates. They will sit upon chairs that creak to their weight, and give no thought to the carpenter, or indeed the tree. They will listen to the rain upon the roof, and give no thanks to the mason. I do not seek notoriety, friend. I do not yearn for adulation. But I will remain the bringer of feasts.’

Sechul Lath rose, arching to work out the aches in his body, and then stepped back as Errastas crawled partway into the hole. His companion emerged dragging out the crushed corpse of the unknown Jaghut who had lived in the tower. The splintered ends of bones jutted from bruised and bloody flesh, making the broken body and its limbs look like shredded sacks. Some falling chunk of masonry had crushed the skull almost flat.

Errastas pulled the corpse into full view and then straightened, anchoring his hands on his hips. ‘I felt his death,’ he said, face flushed, ‘like a hand on my cock.’

Turning, half in disgust, Sechul Lath scanned the sky. It looked wrong to his eyes, but in a way he could not fathom. ‘I see no searchers,’ he said.

‘We have time,’ Errastas agreed. ‘K’rul gropes. He has not yet seen our faces. He does not yet know his quarry.’

‘This is his gift you abuse,’ Sechul observed. ‘I will not welcome his ire when he discovers what we are about.’

‘I will be ready for him. Don’t worry. A man bled out is a man left weak and helpless.’

‘I am already weary of running.’

Errastas laughed. ‘Our flight is about to become frenzied and desperate, Setch. Draconus comprehended — there, at the very end, I am sure of it. And even now he travels to the Lord of Hate. Will he confess his role in that first murder? I wonder.’

‘If he chooses silence,’ said Sechul, ‘then he will make the Lord of Hate his enemy.’

‘Do you not relish the thought of those two locked in battle? Mountains would break asunder, and seas rise to inundate half the world.’ Errastas took hold of two broken limbs and resumed dragging the corpse towards the heap of tiles.

‘Just as likely,’ said Sechul, ‘they join in alliance, and seek out K’rul as well, and then all set themselves upon our trail!’

‘I doubt that,’ Errastas said. ‘Why would you even think the Lord of Hate feels any affinity for his murdered kin? I see him sitting across from Draconus, weathering the Suzerain’s furious tirade, only to then invite the fool to a cup of tea. Besides, Draconus must return to his precious woman, bearing his precious gift, and in exquisite ignorance will he give it to her.’ With the body now beside the stacks of tiles he had singled out, Errastas knelt. He selected the tile from the top of the stack nearest him and, finding a large enough wound on the body, pushed it inside. ‘There is no ritual beyond repetition and a chosen sequence, yet we deem ritual to be a vital component to sorcery. Well, this new sorcery, that is. Of course, ritual does not create magic — all we do with ritual is comfort ourselves.’

‘It is the habit that comforts,’ Sechul Lath said.

‘And from habit is order found. Just so. I see a future full of fools-’

‘No different from the past, then. Or the present.’

‘Untrue, brother. The fools of the past were ignorant, and those of the present are wilfully obtuse. But the future promises a delightful rush into breathtaking idiocy. I charge you to become a prophet in our times, Setch. Be consistent in your predictions of folly and you will grow rich beyond avarice.’

‘A fine prediction, Errastas.’

Errastas was busy covering tile fragments in gore, studding the torn corpse with the flat stones. ‘Nature mocks all certainty but the one it embraces.’

‘Can you keep hiding us, Errastas?’

‘I doubt it. We must truly flee the lands of the Azathanai and the Jaghut.’

‘Then do we travel to the Jheck? The Dog-Runners? Surely not the Thel Akai!’

‘None of those, for the borders they share with the Azathanai. No, we must cross the sea, I think.’

Sechul Lath started, and then scowled. ‘Whither fled Mael? He will not welcome us.’

‘Indeed not,’ Errastas agreed. ‘I think… beyond his realm, even.’

‘The High Kingdom? Those borders are closed to the Azathanai.’

‘Then we must bargain our way into the demesne, friend. There must be good reason why the King is so beloved among his people. Let us make this our next adventure, and discover all the hidden truths of the High Kingdom and its perfect liege.’

Sechul Lath looked down at his friend. Blood painted red the man’s hands, but upon the soaked tiles the same blood had etched arcane symbols. No two tiles were alike. The rank smell of outrage was thick in the air. ‘Errastas, I was wondering, where did all that earth and rock come from?’

Errastas shrugged. ‘No idea. Why?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose.’

Korya could hear rain rushing down stone in a steady torrent. She opened her eyes. It was dark. She was lying on a floor of cold pavestones that felt greasy to the touch. There was a heavy animal smell to the air, reminding her of the Jheleck. Bewildered, struggling to find her memory, she sat up.

Varandas was seated at a table, hunched over something he was working on. The tower’s interior was a single chamber, with an old wooden ladder rising from the centre of the room, leading to the roof. Haut was nowhere to be seen.

She coughed, and then coughed again, and all at once she recalled sitting at the fire, setting an ember to the pipe bowl as Haut had instructed, and then drawing hot smoke into her mouth, and then down into her lungs. Beyond that moment, there was a void. She glared over at Varandas. ‘Where is he?’

The Jaghut glanced over. ‘Out. Why?’

‘I will kill him.’

‘There is a queue for that, mahybe. But he meant you little harm and the cause was just and indeed agreeable to all present-’

‘Not to me!’

‘Well, you excused yourself forthwith, as I recall. We had a passably benign evening. I even boiled up that pot of wrinkled things you imagined to be vegetables. While we did not partake of the broth, the exercise made work for my restless hands.’

She felt rested, virulently awake. ‘I will allow,’ she said, ‘it was a good night’s sleep.’

‘And a day,’ said Varandas. ‘In oblivion, time is stolen, never to be returned. Imagine, some people actually welcome the losses. They measure them out as victories against what, boredom? The banal consideration of their own mental paucity? The wretched uselessness of their lives? The sheer pall of their dyspeptic thoughts? I am considering a thesis. On the Seduction of Oblivion. My arguments will be senseless, as befits the subject.’

‘I did not think it possible,’ Korya said.

‘What?’

‘I now believe Haut to be exceptional among you Jaghut.’

Varandas seemed to consider the observation for a moment, and then he grunted. ‘I do not disagree, although I find the notion disagreeable. Tell me, has he explained why the Lord of Hate is so called?’

She picked herself up from the filthy stone floor. ‘No. I need to pee.’

‘There is a hole out back, but beware the crumbling edge.’

‘I’m not a man, you fool.’

‘Fret not. It is large enough to mean that you do not have to aim, dear.’

Moving near the table as she made for the doorway, she paused, eyes fixing on the objects arrayed in front of the Jaghut. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Playing with dolls. Why?’

‘I recognize those,’ she whispered.

‘Of course you do. Your master bought a dozen for you the week you came into his care. I make them.’

She found it impossible to speak, but tears filled her eyes, and then she rushed outside.

Standing in the rain, Korya lifted her face to the sky. Oh, goddess, they were not your children after all.

From the doorway behind her, Varandas said, ‘He deems you his last hope.’

She shook her head. In the valley below, lightning was flashing and she heard the mutter of thunder through the rain.

‘The slayer of Karish,’ continued the Jaghut, ‘set you upon a trail. There was purpose in that. The killer wishes to stir us to life, or so Haut believes. But I wonder if that path was not made for you instead.’

‘That makes no sense,’ she retorted, angered by the thought. ‘No one knows anything about me.’

‘Untrue. You are the only Tiste to ever live among the Jaghut. Your arrival awakened debate and conjecture, not just among the Jaghut, but also among the Azathanai.’

She faced him. ‘Why?’

‘He has made a sorcery for you-’

‘Who? Haut? He’s done nothing of the sort. I am his maid, his cook, his slave.’

‘Lessons in humility. But no, I was not speaking of Haut. I was speaking of Draconus.’

‘The Consort? I have never even met him!’

‘Ah. By “you” I meant the Tiste. Draconus has given the Tiste the sorcery of Darkness. He has walked the Forest of Night, and the very shores of Chaos itself. It is within you, mahybe, and your progress has been observed by many.’

‘That makes no sense. There is no sorcery in me.’

‘Unfortunately,’ Varandas went on, ‘some of those observers possessed inimical thoughts, and unpleasant ambitions. They saw the precedent of the Suzerain’s manipulation of power. By the path you were set upon, there at the Spar, you were mocked. Draconus was too patient. Mother Dark is lost within his gift to her. The Tiste are blind to their own power.’

‘I did not know that cooking and washing floors could awaken sorcery, Jaghut.’

‘The greatest gift of education, Korya, is the years of shelter provided when learning. Do not think to reduce that learning to facts and the utterances of presumed sages. Much of what one learns in that time is in the sphere of concord, the ways of society, the proprieties of behaviour and thought. Haut would tell you that this is another hard-won achievement of civilization: the time and safe environment in which to learn how to live. When this is destroyed, undermined or discounted, then that civilization is in trouble.’

‘You Jaghut are obsessed with this, aren’t you? Yet you threw it all away!’

‘We were convinced of the inherent madness of codified inequity. All cooperation involves some measure of surrender. And coercion. But the alternative, being anarchy, is itself no worthy virtue. It is but an excuse for selfish aggression, and all that seeks justification from taking that stance is, each and every time, cold-hearted. Anarchists live in fear and long for death, because they despair of seeing in others the very virtues they lack in themselves. In this manner, they take pleasure in sowing destruction, if only to match their inner landscape of ruin.’ He moved out to stand beside her, huge and almost formless in the close gloom of the downpour. ‘We rejected civilization, but so too we rejected anarchy for its petty belligerence and the weakness of thought it announced. By these decisions, we made ourselves lost and bereft of purpose.’

‘I would think,’ she said, ‘that despair must stalk every Jaghut.’

‘It should have,’ Varandas said. ‘It would have, if not for the Lord of Hate.’

‘It seems that he was the cause of it all!’

‘He was, and so in return he took upon himself our despair, and called it his penance. He bears our hate for him and our self-hate, too. He holds fast to our despair, and laughs in our faces, and so we hate him all the more.’

‘I do not understand you Jaghut,’ Korya said.

‘Because you seek complexity where none exists.’

‘Where has Haut gone?’

‘He is upon the roof of my tower.’

‘Why?’

‘He watches the battle in the valley below.’

‘Battle? What battle? Who is fighting?’

‘We’re not sure. It is difficult to see in this rain. But come tomorrow, he will take you to the Lord of Hate.’

‘What for? Another lesson in humility?’

‘Oh, an interesting thought. Do you think it is possible?’

Korya frowned.

Lightning flashed again, and this time the sound of thunder rumbled through the ground beneath her feet, and she heard things rattling in the tower behind her. She was soaked through, and she still needed to pee. ‘Do you think he can see anything from up there?’

‘Of course not. I am afraid I am to blame, as I bored him witless talking about my new series of dolls. They please me immensely, you see, and soon I will set them free to find their own way in the world.’

‘I locked mine in a box,’ she told him.

‘To what end?’

Korya shrugged. ‘Perhaps to keep guard over my childhood.’

Varandas grunted. ‘That is a worthy post, I think. Well done. But not too long, I hope? We must all earn our freedom eventually, after all.’

She wondered if the Jaghut standing beside her, this maker of dolls, was perhaps mad. ‘So,’ she asked, ‘when will you set your new creations free?’

‘Well,’ he replied, ‘they need to wake up first.’

I was right. He’s mad. Completely mad.

‘Skin and flesh, blood and bone,’ Varandas said, ‘sticks and twine, leather and straw are all but traps for a wandering soul. The skill lies in the delicacy of the snare, but every doll is temporary. My art, mahybe, is one of soul-shifting. My latest dolls will seek out a rare, winged rock ape native to the old crags of a desert far to the south. I name this series Nacht.’

‘And what did you name the series you gave to me?’

‘ Bolead. But I fear I made too many of them, especially given their flaws.’ He paused, and then said, ‘Creation involves risks, of course, but what is done is done, and by these words one can dismiss all manner of idiocy and atrocity. I utter the epigraph of tyrants without irony, are you not impressed?’

‘Very.’ She set out towards the side of the tower, out of the Jaghut’s sight.

Almost directly below, a tower erupted in a blinding concussion, staggering her. As she stumbled against the stone wall she felt it trembling against her. From the doorway Varandas called, ‘Not too far, mahybe! The argument below grows fierce.’

Korya shivered, but the rain was suddenly warm. She decided that she had gone far enough and crouched down to empty her bladder.

Thunder shook the hillside again.

‘Make haste,’ Varandas said. ‘The argument approaches.’

‘Frightening me doesn’t help!’ she retorted.

The hillside was thumping, as if to giant footsteps.

She straightened and quickly made her way back to the doorway.

Haut had joined Varandas, and Korya saw that he was in his armour and helm again, and in his gauntleted hands he held his axe, all of him glistening as if oiled. A massive shape was clambering up the slope, straight for them.

‘Ware!’ Haut bellowed.

The figure halted, looked up.

Varandas raised his voice to be heard over the rain, ‘I dwell here, Azathanai, and I have guests. But you do not count among them in your agitated state. Begone, unless you would see Captain Haut displeased unto violence.’

The huge figure remained motionless, and silent.

But no, not entirely silent: Korya thought she heard sniffling sounds drifting up the slope.

‘You are driven from the valley,’ Varandas continued, ‘and you bear wounds and so would unleash your temper. There are plenty of towers about that are unoccupied, and they will suffer your fury with poetic indifference. Alter your path, Azathanai, and recall the lessons in the valley below.’

The creature sidled sideways along the hillside, seeming to use its hands as much as it did its feet to move across the ground. Every now and then one of those hands reared back and punched the earth, sending thunder through the hill. The tower swayed to each impact with an ominous grinding of stone.

Slowly, the rain obscured the Azathanai’s form, and then stole it away, although the thumping punches continued, diminishing with distance.

Glancing across at Haut, Korya saw him leaning on the axe. Water ran like a curtain from the rim of his helm, parting round the upthrust tusks but otherwise obscuring his face. She advanced on him.

‘Your name alone scared off a giant who’s been knocking down towers with his fists,’ she said.

Varandas grunted. ‘She accuses you, Haut, of notoriety. What say you in defence?’

‘Her,’ he replied. ‘ Her fists.’

‘Very good,’ nodded Varandas, who then turned to Korya. ‘Thus, you have your master’s answer. I would continue to arbitrate this debate, but alas, I am getting wet. I go to light a fire in the hearth within-’

‘You don’t have a hearth within,’ said Korya.

‘Oh. Then I shall have to make space for one, of course. In the meantime, I suggest you thank your master for fending off the wrath of Kilmandaros. Why, I hear even her husband, Grizzin Farl, flees her temper. And now I see why.’ He then went inside.

Korya glared at Haut. ‘Who drove her from the valley?’ she demanded.

‘You should thank me indeed,’ he replied, ‘and be mindful of my courage these past few days. Twice now I have stood fast before the perilous ferment of a woman’s fury.’ He shouldered the axe. ‘As to your query, I suppose we shall find out soon.’

Something small and bedraggled darted out from the tower, scampered like a hare down the slope and was quickly lost from sight.

‘What was that?’

Haut sighed. ‘Varandas has been playing with dolls again, hasn’t he?’

With Arathan trailing his father, they rode among abandoned towers. The ground grew more uneven, the flatlands giving way to rounded hills. After a time, as the square edifices became more numerous, it occurred to Arathan that they were entering what passed for a city. There were no streets as such, nor was there any particular order to the layout of dwellings, but it was easy to imagine thousands of Jaghut moving to and fro between the towers.

The sky, a dull grey, was descending over them, and as they travelled onward the first drops of rain began falling. In moments, a deluge engulfed the scene. Arathan felt the water soaking through, defeating with ease the armour he wore, and a chill gripped him. He could barely make out his father ahead, the faded once-black cape like a patch of mist, Calaras like a standing stone that refused to draw nearer. The ground grew slick and treacherous and Hellar slowed her trot to a plodding walk.

Arathan fought a desire to slip still further back, to lose sight of his father. The strangeness of this city offered an invitation to explore, while the rain promised the mystery of all that remained unseen and, perhaps, unknowable. He felt moments from cutting a tether and drifting away.

Ahead, Draconus drew up before a tower and dismounted. Taking the reins in one hand, he led Calaras in through the gaping doorway.

Arathan arrived. He slipped down from Hellar, intending to follow his father into the tower, but instead he hesitated, feeling a presence nearby. His warhorse’s ears flicked as she caught a sound off to the right — the splash of heavy feet thumping through the mud. Moments later, a huge form appeared: a woman, yet far more massive in girth and height than even Grizzin Farl. Her arms seemed over-long and the hands at the ends of them were huge and battered. Her long hair hung in thick braids, clotted with mud, as if she had fallen only moments earlier. She wore bedraggled furs black as pitch, also mud-stained. As she edged closer, seeming to squint at Arathan, he beheld a broad, flat face, the mouth wide and full-lipped, the eyes buried in puffy slits.

He saw no weapons on her. Nor was she wearing armour. She walked up and reached out, snaring thick fingers under the strap of his helm, and then dragged him close. He strained as she lifted him from the ground to peer into his face. Then, before he began choking, she lowered him down and released him. Saying nothing, she stepped past and made her way into the tower.

Arathan still felt her hard knuckles under his jaw. The muscles of his neck and back throbbed with pain. Fumbling, he unstrapped the helm and dragged it from his head, and then pulled off his leather cap. The rain pelting his head was like ice. He turned and looked out into the city, until Hellar nudged him.

Collecting up the reins, he led his mounts through the doorway.

Within was a single room, at least fifteen paces across. Calaras stood near the wall opposite, and his father had been emptying a bag of feed in front of him. Draconus had turned and straightened with the strange woman’s arrival.

She was divesting herself of her furs near the centre of the room, dropping them to the stone floor around her feet. Beneath them she was naked. ‘Of all your spawn, Suzerain,’ she said in a thin voice, ‘I sensed no madness in this one.’ She looked up with an almost shy glance and added, ‘I trust you killed all the others. A big stone to crush their skulls, and then you wrenched free their heads from their bodies. Dismembered and fed into the fires of the hottest forge. Until nothing but ashes remained.’

‘Kilmandaros,’ said Draconus. ‘You are far from your home.’

She grunted. ‘No one ever visits. For long.’ Her attention swung to Arathan as he edged his horses past her. ‘Is he awakened?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Draconus replied. ‘And yes.’

‘Then you did not save him for me.’

‘Kilmandaros, we met your husband upon the trail.’

‘And my son, too, I expect. With that wretched friend of his, who did what you asked of him.’

To that Draconus said nothing, turning instead to his son. ‘Arathan, ready us a small fire when you are done with your horses. There is fuel against the wall to your left.’

Discomforted, struggling to keep his eyes from the woman’s nakedness, Arathan set down his helm and concentrated on unsaddling Hellar and Besra.

‘We also met your sister in spirit, if not blood,’ Draconus said.

Kilmandaros made a hissing sound. ‘I leave her to grow fat on superstitions. One day the Forulkan will hunger for Dog-Runner land, and we will resume our war and, perchance, end it.’

‘You would make weapons of your followers?’

‘What other good are they, Suzerain? Besides, the Forulkan do not worship me. They have made illimitable law their god, even as they suffer its ceaseless corruption at their own hands. At some point,’ she said, moving close to stand directly behind Arathan, ‘they will deem manifest their right to all that the Dog-Runners own, and make of this law a zealotry to justify genocide.’

‘Foolish,’ Draconus pronounced. ‘I am told that there are Jaghut among the Dog-Runners now, assuming thrones of godhood and tyranny. Did the Forulkan not suffer sufficient humiliation against the Tiste, that they would now make bold claims against both Dog-Runner and Jaghut?’

‘That depends,’ she said, ‘on what I whisper in their ears.’

Feeling the breath of her words on the back of his neck, Arathan quickly went to the other horse and began removing the tack.

She came close again.

‘Tyranny breeds,’ Draconus said from across the room, ‘when by every worthy measure it should starve.’

‘Scarcity begets strife, Suzerain, is what you meant. It was hunger that sent my children against the Tiste-’

‘Hunger for iron. The need was manufactured, the justification invented. But this is a stale argument between us. I have forgiven you, but only because you failed.’

‘And so I weigh your magnanimity, Suzerain, and find it light on the scales. But as you say, this is behind us now.’

When her hand slipped round, over Arathan’s left hip, and slid down to his crotch, Draconus said, ‘Leave off, Kilmandaros.’

The hand withdrew and Kilmandaros moved away. ‘The night is young,’ she said, sighing. ‘I know his desires and would satisfy them. This is between him and me, not you, Suzerain.’

‘I have words that will drive you away,’ Draconus said.

‘You would do that to me? And to him?’

‘Arathan will cease to concern you, I’m afraid. But that is a consequence of what I must tell you, not its purpose.’

‘Then leave it until the morning.’

‘I cannot.’

‘You never did understand pleasure, Draconus. You make love fraught when it should be easy, and fill need with intensity when it should be gentle. Perhaps one day I shall proclaim myself the goddess of love — what do you think of that, O Suzerain? Would not this aspect welcome you, as love welcomes the night and as a caress welcomes the darkness?’

Finished with the horses for the moment, Arathan carried the cook-pack to the centre of the chamber. Here he lit a lantern and set out a pot, utensils and food. Sometime in the past four pavestones had been removed to make a firepit. Lifting the lantern, Arathan looked up, but the light could not reach high enough for him to see the ceiling. Still, he could feel an upward draught. He made his way over to the supply of fuel his father had indicated, and found a few dozen large, seasoned dung chips.

Through all of this, and even when he returned to the firepit, he felt her eyes tracking him.

‘What think you, son of Draconus?’ she asked him. ‘Would I make you a good goddess of love?’

He concentrated on lighting the fire, and then said, ‘You would offer a vastness of longing none could satisfy, milady, and so look down upon an unhappy world.’

Her breath caught.

‘Come to that,’ he said, watching smoke rise from the tinder, ‘you may already be the goddess of love.’

‘Suzerain, I will have your son this night.’

‘I fear not. His is the longing that afflicts the young. You offer too much and he yearns to be lost.’

Arathan felt his face grow hot. His father could track every thought in his mind, with a depth of percipience that horrified him. I am too easily known. My thoughts walk well-worn paths, my every desire poorly disguised. I am written plainly for all to see. My father. This Azathanai woman. Feren and Rint. Even Raskan found no mystery in my tale.

One day, I will make myself unknown to all.

Except Feren, and our child.

‘By your words,’ said Kilmandaros, ‘you reveal the weakness of the Consort. You are found in love, Draconus, yet fear its humiliation. Indeed, I am this fell goddess, if in looking into your eyes I see a man made naked by dread.’

‘In the company of Errastas, your son has committed murder,’ said Draconus.

Arathan closed his eyes. The flames of the small fire he crouched over reached through his lids with light and heat, but neither offered solace. He could hear her breathing, close by, and it was a desperate sound to his ears.

‘By what right do you make this accusation?’ she demanded.

‘He and his half-brother are the slayers of Karish. They found power in her blood, and in her death. They now walk the lands stained with her blood, and as my son noted to me earlier, they bear it proudly. Perhaps your son less proudly, since he would not show himself to us. No matter. That which Errastas made for me was forged in blood.’

‘Sechul,’ Kilmandaros whispered.

‘You are too wise to doubt my words,’ said Draconus. ‘If there is dread in my eyes, then it now matches your own.’

‘Why do you not flee, Suzerain?’ she asked. ‘Hood will not turn from your complicity in the slaying of his wife!’

‘I will face him,’ said Draconus. ‘He is chained in the Tower of Hate.’

‘Then you had best hope those chains hold!’

Hearing her thump towards his father, Arathan opened his eyes and turned to watch her. He saw her hands close into fists and wondered if she might strike Draconus. Instead, she halted. ‘Suzerain, will you ever be a child in this world? You rush to every breach and would fling your body into the gap. You offer up your own skin to mend the wounds of others. But there are things not even you can repair. Do you not understand that?’

‘What will you do?’ he asked her.

She looked away. ‘I must find my son. I must turn him from this path.’

‘You will fail then, Kilmandaros. He is as good as wedded to his half-brother, and even now Errastas weaves a web around K’rul, and the sorcery once given freely to all who would reach for it is now bound in blood.’

‘He is poisoned, my son,’ she said, hands uncurling as she turned away. ‘The same for Errastas. By their father’s uselessness, they are poisoned unto their very souls.’

‘If you find them,’ Draconus said, ‘kill them. Kill them both, Kilmandaros.’

She put her hands to her face. A shudder rolled through her.

‘You’d best leave us now,’ said his father, his tone gentle. ‘No walls of stone can withstand your grief, much less soft flesh. For what it is worth, Kilmandaros, I regret the necessity of my words. Even more, I regret my complicity in this crime.’

To that she shook her head, though her face remained hidden behind her hands. ‘If not you,’ she mumbled, ‘then someone else. I know them, you see.’

‘They will seek to twist you with their words,’ Draconus said. ‘Be wary of their sharp wits.’

‘I know them,’ she repeated. Then she straightened and shook herself. Facing Arathan she said, ‘Son of Draconus, let not your longing blind you to what you own.’ She gathered up her sodden furs and turned to the doorway, and was motionless for a moment, staring out into the hissing torrent of rain. Her hands became fists. ‘Like the rain, I will weep my way across the valley,’ she said. ‘Grief and rage will guide my fists with thunder, with lightning, as befits the goddess of love. All must flee before my path.’

‘Be careful,’ said Draconus. ‘Not every tower is empty.’

She looked back at him. ‘Suzerain, forgive my harsh words. Your path ahead is no less treacherous.’

He shrugged. ‘We are ever wounded by truths, Kilmandaros.’

She sighed. ‘Easier to fend off lies. But none comfort me now.’

‘Nor me,’ Draconus replied.

She slung her furs about her, and then set out into the gloom beyond.

‘I wish,’ said Arathan into the heavy silence that followed the fading thud of her footsteps, ‘that you had left me at home.’

‘Grief is a powerful weapon, Arathan, but all too often it breaks the wielder.’

‘Is it better, then, to armour oneself in regrets?’ He glanced up to see his father’s dark eyes studying him intently. ‘Perhaps I am easily understood,’ Arathan continued, ‘and to you I can offer no advice. But your words of caution which you offered her, well, I think she gave them in return. You can’t fix everything, Father. Is it enough to be seen to try? I don’t know how you would answer that question. I wish I did.’

From somewhere in the distance sounded the rumble of thunder.

Arathan began preparing their evening meal.

Moments later a thought struck him, and it left him cold. He glanced over to see his father standing in the doorway, staring out into the rain. ‘Father? Have Azathanai moved and lived among the Tiste?’

Draconus turned.

‘And if so,’ Arathan continued, ‘are they somehow able to disguise themselves?’

‘Azathanai,’ said his father, ‘dwell wherever they choose, in any guise they wish.’

‘Is Mother Dark an Azathanai?’

‘No. She is Tiste, Arathan.’

He returned to his cooking, adding more chips to the fire, but the chill would not leave him. If a goddess of love had cruel children, he wondered, by what names would they be known?

The morning broke clear. Still wearing his armour and shouldering his axe, Haut led Korya down into the valley, and the Abandoned City of the Jaghut. Varandas had departed in the night, whilst Korya slept and dreamed of dolls clawing the insides of the wooden trunk, as she wept and told them again and again that she would not bury them alive — but for all her cries she could find no means of opening the trunk, and her fingers bled at the nails, and when she lifted her head she discovered that she too was trapped inside a box. Panic had then startled her awake, to see her master sitting beside the makeshift hearth Varandas had made in the night.

‘The wood is wet,’ he had told her as she sat up, as if she had been responsible for the rain.

Trembling in the aftermath of the dream, she had set about preparing a cold breakfast. The chamber stank of the smoke that had filled the tower the night before, since there had been no aperture to draw it away except for the entrance, where the rain had formed a seemingly impenetrable wall. As they chewed the dried meat and hard bread, Korya had glared across at her master and said, ‘I have no desire to visit anyone known as the Lord of Hate.’

‘I share the sentiment, hostage, but visit him we must.’

‘Why?’

Haut flung the crust of the bread he had been gnawing on into the hearth, but as there was no fire the crust simply fell among the wet sticks and soaked logs. The Jaghut frowned. ‘With your vicious and incessant assault upon my natural equanimity, you force upon me the necessity of a tale, and I so dislike telling a tale. Now, hostage, why should that be so?’

‘I thought I was the one asking questions.’

Haut waved a hand in dismissal. ‘If that conceit comforts you, so be it. I am not altered in my resolve. Now tell me, why do I dislike tales?’

‘Because they imply a unity that does not exist. Only rarely does a life have a theme, and even then such themes exist in confusion and uncertainty, and are only described by others once that life has come to an end. A tale is the binding of themes to a past, because no tale can be told as it is happening.’

‘Just so,’ Haut nodded. ‘Yet what I would speak of this morning is but the beginning of a tale. It is without borders, and its players are far from dead, and the story is far from finished. To make matters even worse, word by word I weave truths and untruths. I posit a goal to events, when such goals were not understood at the time, nor even considered. I am expected to offer a resolution, to ease the conscience of the listener, or earn a moment or two of false comfort, with the belief that proper sense is to be made of living. Just as in a tale.’

Korya shrugged. ‘By this you mean to tell me that you are a poor teller of tales. Fine, now please get on with it.’

‘It may surprise you, but your impertinence pleases me. To an extent. The young seek quick appeasement and would flit like hummingbirds from one gaudy flower to the next, and so long as the pace remains torrid, why, they deem theirs a worthy life. Adventure and excitement, yes? But I have seen raindrops rush down a pane of glass with similar wit and zeal. And I accord their crooked adventure a value to match.’

She nodded. ‘The young are eager for experience, yes, and seek it in mindless escapade. I grasp your point. Only a fool would bemoan an audience with someone called the Lord of Hate, if only to boldly survive the enticement of his regard.’

‘I pity all the future victims in your path, hostage. Now then, the tale, which I will endeavour to make succinct. What are the Azathanai? Observe the brevity of my answer: none know. Whence did they come? Even they cannot make answer. What is their purpose? Must they have one? Do we, after all? Do you see how the seduction of the tale invites such simplistic notions? Purpose — bah! Never mind. These things you must know: the Azathanai are powerful, in ways not even the Jaghut understand. They are contrary and ill-inclined to society. They are subtle in their proclamations, so that often what they claim to be is in fact the antithesis of what they are. Or seem to be, or not.’

Korya rubbed at her face. ‘A moment, master. Is this the tale?’

‘It is, wretched girl. I seek to give you knowledge.’

‘Useful knowledge?’

‘That depends.’

‘Oh.’

‘Now. The Azathanai. Even that name is in error, as it implies a culture, a unity of form if not purpose. But the Azathanai do not wear flesh as we do, trapped as we are within what was given us and what we can make of it. No, they can choose any form they wish.’

‘Master, you describe gods, or demons, or spirits.’

Haut nodded. ‘All of your descriptions are apt.’

‘Can they be killed?’

‘I do not know. Some are known to have disappeared, but that is all that can be said of that.’

‘Go on, master. I am intrigued in spite of myself.’

‘Yes, the hint of power is always seductive. So. Among the Azathanai there was one who now names himself K’rul.’

‘Now? By what name was he known before?’

‘Keruli. The transformation lies at the heart of this tale. Among the Dog-Runners, the name of Keruli is understood to be living, of the present, as it were. But in passing, in turning about and striding into the past, Keruli must become K’rul.’

‘Keruli died and so became K’rul? Then the Azathanai can die after all.’

‘No. Rather, yes. This is difficult enough without your questions! I’d rather you threw some more wood on the fire.’

‘What for?’

‘Yes, I am aware that it is not burning. But fire marks the passage of time in that it demonstrably offers us the transition of one thing into another. It is like the music that accompanies a bard’s voice. Without the damned flames between us it seems the tale must stall, like a word half uttered, a breath half drawn.’

‘You were telling me about an Azathanai named K’rul.’

‘Not even his fellow Azathanai understand what he did, or even why. Perhaps he but tests his own immortality. Or perhaps ennui drove him to it. Here we skirt the chasm of intentions. He gives no answer to entreaty.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He bled, and from the wounds he opened upon himself, in the blood itself, he gave birth to mysterious power. Sorcery. Magic in many currents and flavours. They are young still, vague in aspect, only barely sensed. Those who do sense them might choose to flee, or venture closer. In exploration, these currents find definition.’

‘It is said,’ Korya ventured, ‘that the Jaghut possess their own sorcery. As do the Dog-Runners, and the Thel Akai, and even the Forulkan.’

‘And the Tiste?’ Haut asked.

She shrugged. ‘So Varandas said, but I have never seen anything of that.’

‘You were very young when you left Kurald Galain.’

‘I know. I admit, master, that I am sceptical of Tiste magic.’

‘And what of Mother Dark?’

‘I don’t know, master. Anything can be worshipped and made into a god, or goddess. It just takes collective fear — the desperate kind, the helpless kind, the kind that comes from having no answers to anything.’

‘Then is the absence of belief the same as ignorance?’

‘As much as the presence of belief can be ignorant.’

Haut grunted, and then nodded. ‘The blood leaks from him, in thin trickles, in heavy drops, and so his power passes out into the world and in leaving him becomes a thing left behind, and so Keruli became known as K’rul.’

‘The Dog-Runners expected him to die.’

‘They did. Who does not die when bleeding without surcease?’

‘But he lives on.’

‘He does, and now at last, I suspect, the other Azathanai begin to comprehend consequences of K’rul’s gift, and are alarmed.’

‘Because K’rul offers anyone a share in the power they once held only for themselves.’

‘Very good. What value being a god when each and every one of us can become one?’

She scowled. ‘What value being a god when you bully all those with less power than you? Where is the satisfaction in that? If it exists at all, it must be momentary, and pathetic and venal. Might as well pull the legs off that spider on the wall behind you — it’s hardly worthy of a strut, is it?’

‘Hostage, are not all gods selfish gods? They make their believers cower, if believers they choose to have; and if not, then in the hoarding of their power they become remote and cruel beyond measure. What god offers gifts, and does so freely, without expectation, without an insistence upon forms and proscriptions?’

‘That is K’rul’s precedent?’ Korya asked, and the very notion made her breathless and filled with wonder.

‘Long ago,’ Haut said, groaning as he climbed to his feet, ‘there were Jaghut markets, back when we had need of such things. Imagine the consternation in such a market, should one hawker arrive bearing countless treasures, which he then gave away, asking for nothing in return. Why, civilization could not survive such a thing, could it?’

‘Master, is K’rul the Lord of Hate?’

‘No.’

‘Is your tale at an end?’

‘It is.’

‘But you ended nowhere!’

‘I did warn you, hostage. Now pack up, as we must be off. The day promises an air cleansed of all things behind us, and a bold vista to entice us forward.’

And now they walked, down the tiers of the valley’s side, and in the distance there was a tower, rising above all others. It was white, luminescent as pearl, and it drew her gaze again and again.

Arathan followed Draconus out on to an expanse that in any other city would have been called a square. A high tower rose amidst a cluster of lesser kin directly opposite. Where the others were squat and angular and made of grey granite, the tower before them was faced in what looked like white marble, round-walled, smooth and graceful. The buildings gathered at its foot seemed as crass as hovels.

Draconus reined in before one such lesser tower, and dismounted. He turned to Arathan. ‘Hobble your horses. We have arrived.’

Arathan tilted his head and let his eyes travel the height of the white edifice. ‘I do not understand,’ he said, ‘why such a beautiful thing should be called the Tower of Hate.’

Pausing for a moment beside Calaras, Draconus frowned at his son. Then he gestured to the low doorway of the squat tower. ‘In here,’ he said. The aperture was narrow and low enough to force him to duck when he stepped within.

After hobbling Besra and Hellar, Arathan followed.

The chamber was dark and vaguely rank, its low ceiling bearing smoke-blackened rafters and beams stained with what looked like bird guano. A high-backed chair was positioned in a corner close to three vertical slits in the wall that passed for windows. The light spilling through ran like bars across a small, high desk, on which sat a stack of vellum as tall as the wine goblet that stood beside it. Roughly made feather quills were scattered about on what remained of the desk’s flat top, with more littering the stone floor underneath the wooden legs. In the corner to the left of the chair, a trap door in the floor had been lifted back, and from somewhere below pale light drifted upward like dust.

Draconus drew off his leather gloves and tucked them behind his sword belt. He looked around, and then said, ‘Wait here. I will go and find us some chairs.’

‘Do we seek an audience, Father? Are we in the gatekeeper’s tower?’

‘No,’ he replied, and made his way outside.

There was a scuffing sound from the trap and a moment later a figure climbed into view. Arathan had never before seen a Jaghut, as he knew this creature to be. Tall, gaunt, with skin the hue of olives, bearing creases and seams similar to those on lizard hide. The tusks curled as they swept up from the lower jaw to either side of a wide, slit mouth. Heavy brow ridges hid the eyes. The Jaghut was wearing a frayed robe of wool, unevenly dyed a watery purple. In one hand he held an ink bottle. His fingers were stained black.

Ignoring Arathan, the Jaghut walked to the desk and set the ink bottle down, and then, as if exhausted by the chore, he sat in the cushioned chair and leaned back to rest his head.

A flicker of dull gold marked his eyes as he studied the desktop. When he spoke, his voice was deep but rough. ‘Some write in wine. But others write in blood. As for me, why, I prefer ink. Less painful that way. I invite no excesses but moderation, but some would view even moderation to be a vice. What think you?’

Arathan cleared his throat. ‘We seek audience with the Lord of Hate.’

The Jaghut snorted. ‘That fool? He bleeds ink like a drunk pissing in the alley. His very meat is sodden with the bile of his dubious wit. He chews arguments like broken glass, and he bathes all too infrequently. What business would you have with him? None of any worth, I imagine. They come seeking a sage, and what do they find? Look at that heap of writing there, on the desk. He writes a suicide note, and it is interminable. His audience blinks, too filled with self-importance to choke out a laugh. Death, he tells them, is the gift of silence. One day we will all roll into that crypt, where the painted walls hide in darkness and even the dust will not stir. Tell me, do you long for peace?’

‘My father seeks out some chairs,’ Arathan said. ‘He will be back shortly.’

‘You bear the trappings of a Tiste. No one doubts the power of the Suzerain of Night, yet many doubt his will, but it is not his will that so endangers everyone. It is his temper. Tell them that, Tiste-child, before it is too late.’

Arathan shook his head. ‘I will not return to my people,’ he said. ‘I mean to stay here.’

‘Here?’

‘In the Tower of Hate,’ he answered.

‘And where might that tower be?’

‘The tall one, of white marble, where dwells the Lord of Hate.’

‘Have you visited that tower yet, Tiste-child? No? A secret awaits you, then. A secret most delicious. But I see your impatience. If one must build an edifice of hate, what manner of stone should be selected in its construction?’

‘Something pure?’

‘Very good. And to build a tower for all to see, it should shine bright, yes?’

Arathan nodded.

‘Thus. White marble, or, in the case of the tower you mentioned, opal. Of course, no Jaghut could build such a thing. We’ve not the talent to squeeze opal from rubble and dust. No, for such a miracle, one needs an Azathanai mason. One with an appropriate sense of humour. Why, you ask? Well, because humour is necessary, once the secret is made known. So tell me, how many floors should this tower have? Name for me the levels of Hate.’

‘I cannot, sir,’ said Arathan. ‘Is hatred not a thing that blinds?’

‘Hmm. What make you of a suicide note that never ends?’

‘A joke,’ he replied.

‘Ah, and do you appreciate it?’

Arathan shrugged, wondering where his father had gone to. ‘I appreciate the irony, I suppose.’

‘Just that? Well, you’re young still. Hate will blind, yes. There are no levels to it at all. You spoke of purity, and now we have discussed the matter of singularity. What of windows? What manner of door should be cut into this pure, singular thing?’

‘Windows are not needed, because all that lies outside hate matters not to the one within.’

‘And the door?’

Arathan studied the Jaghut for a moment, and then he sighed. ‘The tower is solid stone, isn’t it? But that’s not right. There must be a way in.’

‘But no way out.’

‘Until you bring it down in… in conflagration. But if it is solid then none can live within it.’

‘None do. Not what any sane person would calling living, anyway.’

Draconus appeared in the doorway. ‘You’ve gone and burned all the furnishings in every home nearby,’ he said, striding into the chamber.

‘The winters are cold, Suzerain. We were just discussing Gothos’s Folly, your son and I. See the trunk beside the doorway? In there you will find wine of passing quality. And Thel Akai ale, if you would invite insensibility.’

‘I would speak with Hood,’ said Draconus, walking over to the trunk. The lid creaked as he lifted it. He peered within for a moment and then withdrew a clay jug.

‘Excellent choice, Suzerain,’ said the Jaghut.

‘It should be, as it was my gift to you, the last time we met.’

‘Saved for your return. The Tiste have some worth in the world after all, given their talents in the making of wine.’

Draconus withdrew a pair of alabaster goblets and studied them. ‘Caladan Brood has a subtle hand, does he not?’

‘He does, when he so chooses. It is curious. Upon the heels of my proclamation, and in the midst of the dissolution that followed, I am showered with gifts. How can one fathom the minds of the Azathanai?’

‘Does Hood remain below?’ Draconus asked as he poured wine into the two goblets.

‘I cannot get rid of him, it’s true.’

His father offered Arathan one of the goblets. Startled, he accepted. Draconus then went to the desk, picked up the goblet there and sniffed at the wine. He flung the contents against the wall and refilled the goblet from the clay jug, then handed it across to the Jaghut.

‘Your son wishes to remain in the keeping of the Lord of Hate.’

Draconus nodded. ‘He would make of himself a gift to you.’

‘As what, a keepsake? An ornament? What function could he possibly serve?’

‘He is trained in letters well enough,’ Draconus mused, sipping at the wine. ‘How many volumes have you compiled thus far, Gothos?’

‘An even dozen stacks to match the one on the desk. Written in an execrable hand, every word, every line.’

Draconus frowned across at their host. ‘Not in Old Jaghut, I trust!’

‘Of course not! That would be… ridiculous. A language for the compilers of lists, a language for tax collectors with close-set eyes and sloping foreheads, a language for the unimaginative and the petty-minded, a language for the unintelligent and the obstinate — and how often do those two traits go hand in hand? Old Jaghut? Why, I would have killed myself after the first three words!’ He paused and then grunted. ‘If only I had. I confess, Suzerain, I have indeed written in Old Jaghut.’

‘Easily taught, that written script.’

‘And you charge me to subject your only son to such an ordeal? To what end?’

‘That he might transcribe your writings into a more suitable language.’

‘Tiste?’

Draconus nodded.

‘He will go blind. His hand will wither and fall off to lie on the floor like a dead bird. He will need more than chains to keep him here. Even the Lord of Hate has limits, Suzerain.’

‘Until such time as he awakens unto himself. This seems as safe a place as any, Gothos, and I trust you to be an even-handed master.’

‘I am to be the vault to your treasure? Dear me, Draconus, but I see hard weather ahead.’

‘The thought was his, not mine,’ Draconus said, and turned to Arathan. ‘If you still mean to stay.’

‘I will, Father.’

‘Why?’ barked Gothos. ‘Speak, Tiste-child!’

‘Because, sir, an unending suicide note cannot but be a proclamation on the worth of living.’

‘Is it, now? I will argue against you, Tiste-child. Night upon night, page upon page, I will attack your belief, your faith, your certainty. I will assail you without pause for breath, and seek to crush you under the heel of my hard-won wisdom. What have you that dares to claim the strength to withstand me?’

‘Lord,’ said Arathan, ‘I have youth.’

Gothos slowly leaned forward, his eyes glittering. ‘You will lose it.’

‘Eventually, yes.’

The Lord of Hate slowly leaned back. ‘Draconus, your son does you proud.’

‘He does,’ his father whispered.

Gothos then held up a large, ornate key. ‘You will need this, Suzerain.’

Nodding, Draconus set down his empty goblet and took up the key. Then he went below.

The Lord of Hate continued eyeing Arathan. ‘Never doubt your father’s courage.’

‘I never have, sir.’

‘How has he named you?’

‘Arathan.’

Gothos grunted. ‘And do you?’

‘What?’

‘Walk on water, for such is the Azathanai meaning of your name.’

‘No sir. Even upon ice, I broke through, and came near to drowning.’

‘Do you now fear it?’

‘Fear what, sir?’

‘Water? Ice?’

Arathan shook his head.

‘Your father means to free Hood. What do you imagine he desires from such a perilous act?’

‘I would think, sir, some form of redemption.’

‘Then it was indeed by Errastas’s hand, the slaying of Karish and now others. Alas, your father does not understand the Jaghut. He imagines that Hood will set out to hunt down the wayward Azathanai. He would see the legendary rage of my people unleashed upon this upstart with blood on his hands. But that shall not come to pass.’

‘Then what will Hood do?’

‘He grieves for the silence she now gives him, Arathan. I fear, in truth, that he will announce a war upon that silence. All to hear her speak again, one more time, one last time. He will, if he is able, shatter the peace of death itself.’

‘How is that even possible?’

Gothos shook his head. ‘Since I am the one who flees death tirelessly, I am not the one to ask.’ The Lord of Hate waved one ink-stained hand. ‘We wage war with our follies, Hood and me, and so are repelled in opposite directions. I chase the dawn and he would chase the dusk. I do not begrudge his resolve, and can only hope that my fellow Jaghut choose to ignore his summons.’

‘Why wouldn’t they? It is impossible. Madness.’

‘Attractive qualities indeed. Impossible and mad, yes, but most worrying of all, it is audacious.’

‘Then in truth, you fear they will answer him.’

Gothos shrugged. ‘Even a few could cause trouble. Now, more wine, please. I believe the bottle bred another in the trunk, somewhere. Do go and look, will you?’

Instead, Arathan glanced at the trap.

Sighing, Gothos said, ‘It bodes ill that you already tire of my company. Go on, then, and appease your curiosity.’

Arathan approached the trap and looked down. The steps were made of wood, warped and worn with age. They were steep. The light coming from below was pale. He made his way down.

After the twelfth step, he reached the earthen floor. It was uneven, with roots snaking across it like a tangled web. He could see no walls. The light was pervasive but without any obvious source. He saw his father standing at the edge of a pool fifteen paces ahead. In the centre of the pool was an island, only a few paces across, where sat a Jaghut. He seemed to have torn away his clothes, and raked claws through his own flesh. Heavy manacles bound his wrists, the chains plunging into the island’s rocky surface. Arathan made his way to stand beside his father.

Draconus was speaking. ‘… I mean to purge the gift, and give it to the Night. I know that this offers no absolution.’ He paused, and then said, ‘K’rul is not alone in seeking justice for the murder, Hood. I can think of no Azathanai who is not outraged by Errastas’s crime.’

Hood was silent, eyes downcast.

‘I would release you,’ Draconus said.

A low laugh came from the imprisoned Jaghut. ‘Ah, Draconus. You sought from Errastas a worthy symbol of your love for Mother Dark. To achieve that, he stole the love of another, and made from blackwood leaves the gift you sought. By this we are all made to bow before your need.’ Hood lifted his head, his eyes catching the strange silver reflection from the pool. ‘And now you stand before me, struggling to constrain your rage, a rage you feel on my behalf. But you see: I do not blame Errastas or his foolish companion, Sechul Lath. Nor do I look upon you with vehemence. Be a sword if you will, but do not expect me to wield it.’

‘My fury remains, Hood, and I will curse Errastas for his deed, and for my own role in it. I will forge a sword and make of it a prison-’

‘Then you are a fool, Draconus. I ask no redemption from you. I seek no compensation and am as unmoved by your sympathy as I am by your rage. Your gestures are your own.’

‘Quenched in Vitr-’

‘Cease this sordid description! What I will do, once I am freed, will unwind all of existence. Your fevered remonstrance is without relevance. Your gestures are reduced to petty exercises bolstering little more than your sense of self-importance, and in this I see you join the chorus of a million voices, but the song is sour and the refrain rings false. Give me the key, then, and begone.’

‘Hood, you cannot defeat death itself.’

‘You would know nothing of that, Draconus. I shall call for companions. My enemy shall be the injustice of mortality. I am certain that I will gather a few to my cause. The grieving, the lost, we shall be a solemn handful — but none will doubt our resolve.’

‘And where then will you find the shores of that unknown sea, Hood? What bridge can you hope to cross without releasing your soul to the very oblivion you seek to destroy?’

‘Heed well the lessons I will bring, Draconus, in my argument with death.’

‘I fear that we will not meet again,’ Arathan’s father said.

‘There are greater fears, Draconus. Make your regret modest and we’ll never have cause to curse one another, and in that may we find peace between us.’

‘You break my heart, Hood.’

‘Voice no such confessions, lest Gothos hear you and be incited to mockery. I never refused his arguments, though he might well choose to believe otherwise. Nothing of what he dismantled with his words was worth keeping. We are never eased for long by the accoutrements of self-delusion. Not that you will heed that.’

Draconus tossed the key across to Hood.

The Jaghut caught it. ‘Gothos chained me out of love,’ he said, eyeing the key he held. ‘And here you seek to free me in its name, but I am dead to such things now. One day, Draconus, I will call upon you, in Death’s name, and I wonder: how will you answer?’

‘When that moment arrives, Hood, we shall both learn what that answer will be.’

Hood nodded. He reached down and unlocked the first manacle.

Draconus turned to Arathan. ‘We are done here.’

But Arathan said to Hood, ‘Sir.’

The Jaghut paused, looked across. ‘What would you tell me, son of Draconus?’

‘Only of my faith,’ he replied.

Hood laughed. ‘Faith? Go on, then, I will hear it.’

‘I believe, sir, that you will prove Gothos wrong.’

The Jaghut grunted. ‘And is that a good thing?’

‘His argument, sir. It is wrong. You all failed to answer him and so ended your civilization. But that argument never ends. It cannot end, and that is what you will prove.’

‘An argument as endless as his confession? Hah! You are bold, son of Draconus. Do you also have faith that I will win my war?’

‘No, sir. I think you will fail. But I will bless you for trying.’

There was silence, and then Arathan saw tears track crooked paths down the Jaghut’s lined cheeks. Draconus set a hand upon his son’s shoulder and drew him back. The hand was heavy, but the grip promised no pain. Reaching the steps they paused and his father said, ‘Arathan, I regret not knowing you better.’

‘Father, from all sides you have been warned away from the path you are taking. Why do you persist?’

‘Because, son, I know no other.’

‘This is what Hood said of his own path,’ Arathan replied. ‘And Gothos. And Kilmandaros and Olar Ethil. It’s what all of you say, even when you don’t say it.’

‘Climb, Arathan. My time with you is almost done. I must return to Kharkanas. I have been gone too long as it is.’

Arathan ascended, his father following.

The Lord of Hate was still seated in his chair and seemed to be dozing, with an empty goblet in one hand.

Ignoring him, Draconus continued on. Outside, he collected up his horse’s reins and swung into the saddle. Looking down at Arathan he said, ‘Select an empty tower nearby to stable your mounts. There is a Jaghut living near. He is named Cynnigig. He is strange but harmless, and has great love for horses. He will ensure that your mounts are well fed and watered, and indeed exercised, but of the latter, do not lose your ties to Hellar.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Find somewhere near to sleep and make the best home you can. Do not unduly isolate yourself, and do not forget that a world exists beyond that of Gothos, and the Jaghut. When you feel ready, depart. You are a far greater gift than Tutor Sagander ever intended.’

‘Father, be careful in Kharkanas. They think they know you, but they don’t.’

Draconus studied him. ‘And you do?’

‘You are an Azathanai.’

His father collected up the reins and swung Calaras around. He rode out into the centre of the clearing, and as he did so the light faded around him, as if night itself had been summoned and now drew close to welcome its suzerain. In the moments before all light vanished, swallowing Draconus and his mount, Arathan saw a transformation come to Calaras. The stallion’s black hide deepened, his form blurring at the edges, his eyes flaring as if suddenly lit with lurid flames.

Then they vanished within impenetrable darkness. A moment later the day’s dying light swept in once more, revealing an empty clearing.

No embrace. No words of love to seal this farewell. He’s gone. My father is gone.

He stood, alone, feeling lost. Feeling free.

Drawing out the clay figurine, he studied it. Olar Ethil’s gift, passing to him through the hands of his father. For all that it comforted him with its roundness and its weight, he wished that he did not have it. But it was all that remained, the only thing left that marked this vast journey, from the moment Sagander had made him halt and look back upon the gate of House Dracons, to this last, solitary instant, in the empty wake of his father’s departure.

Another gift soaked in blood. Hearing a sound, he looked up.

From across the clearing, two figures had appeared. A Jaghut in armour, and beside him a young Tiste woman, thin and sharp-featured. He watched them approach.

When they reached him the Jaghut spoke, ‘Is he within?’

‘He is, sir. Sleeping in his chair.’

The Jaghut snorted, and then strode inside. A moment later his voice echoed loud and harsh: ‘If you’re not yet dead, Gothos, wake up!’

The woman met Arathan’s eyes, and then shrugged apologetically. A moment later she frowned. ‘What are you doing here? Who are you?’

The challenge in her eyes made him recoil a step. ‘I am a guest.’

‘A guest of the Lord of Hate?’

He nodded, putting the clay figurine back into the pouch at his belt.

‘Was that a doll?’

‘In a manner of speaking. A gift.’

‘It’s ugly. I had prettier dolls, once.’

He said nothing, made uncomfortable by the directness of her gaze.

‘Do you always do that?’

‘What?’

‘Chew your nails.’

Arathan dropped his hand and wiped his fingers on his thigh. ‘No,’ he said.