‘Cease your tirade!’ snarled Tathe Lorat. ‘There will only be justice for Urusander’s Legion when we stand unopposed. We needed to strike first, Scara, and in a manner to divide our enemies that remain.’
He turned on her a sneer. ‘Divide? Did anyone truly believe that scattering a few corpses of Deniers among the slain would win a false trail? Lord Jaen was a master with the blade, but even he could not match Cryl Durav. That man slain by Deniers? He fell to multiple thrusts, killed by trained soldiers who knew how to fight a blademaster. Do you all take Lord Anomander for a fool?’
‘He is but one man,’ said Hallyd Bahann, who had made use of the momentary inattention to regain his bluster. ‘The plan was ill-conceived, but we all know how propriety is surrendered in the midst of bloodlust, Scara. It was regrettable, but there will be other crimes committed before this is done, by both sides, and you are a fool if you think otherwise.’
‘Oh, I am a fool to be sure,’ Scara replied. He returned to his horse and swung into the saddle. ‘I am done with this,’ he said. Twisting in his seat, he looked upon those soldiers who had accompanied him from Kharkanas. ‘Stay here and fight with your comrades, if you will. I yield command and reject my commission in Urusander’s Legion.’
Tathe Lorat laughed. ‘Flee back to Sedis Hold, then, and take whatever cowards would ride with you. Did I not warn you, Scara, against your friendship with Anomander’s brother? Be sure that white-skinned freak is upon your trail now, with vengeance in his heart.’ She shook her head. ‘Stand aside, will you? That choice no longer exists, Scara. Not for anyone, and especially not for you.’
Narad saw a few of his companions gathering their gear, clearly intent on joining their now outlawed captain. He hesitated, and then began collecting his own kit.
Tathe Lorat then went on, raising her voice. ‘And should Silchas Ruin not find you, then one day Urusander’s Legion will. That I promise, and you all know what Commander Urusander does to deserters.’
More than half of the soldiers readying their gear stopped then, and Narad saw many setting their packs back down.
Scara Bandaris led his troop away from the camp, riding west to return to the river road. A thin line of additional soldiers fell in behind it. Narad was among them, and he saw, just ahead, Corporal Bursa. Sergeant Radas had remained behind, but he still had her face in his memory. It was dead, and never again would those lips twist, or make the shape of words. Never again would she say ‘Still hanging limp, Waft?’ and never again would she rant on in the smoke and fire about all the wrongs done to her and her comrades in the Legion.
It was a dead face he saw, there in his mind, and when he drew back, to hover over her as would a gleeful ghost, he saw how she was sprawled on the stones, her legs spread wide, and blood pooling down there.
The vision should have made him recoil, but instead he felt nothing.
Not by my hand, sergeant.
Scara Bandaris’s words in the camp reverberated through him still. Their scorn comforted him. Their indignation carried the echoes of rightful condemnation, and if Narad himself stung to the lash, well, did he not deserve it?
A short time later, the captain drew up and he and his fellow riders waited for the newcomers. The road was at their backs, the river just beyond.
Scara said, ‘We will rest here for a time. But not as long as I’d like. It may be best if you simply scattered, finding for yourself remote places in which to hide. I will wait in Sedis Hold, and if Silchas Ruin finds me, I will not fight him. I will, in truth, bow to one knee and await his sword upon my neck. By these words I have given you, I trust that you understand that it will not be safe for any of you, should you remain in my company.’
At that, a number of riders swung round to retrace their route.
The scene felt sordid, pathetic.
Then the captain’s eyes fell upon Narad and the man frowned. ‘You I do not know.’
‘This then,’ said Narad, ‘is my only reason for hope.’
Corporal Bursa cleared his throat. ‘We collected him up in the forest, sir.’
‘You vouch for him, corporal?’
Narad felt his spirits plummet. He felt once more that woman lying under him, and heard the laughter making a ring around his clumsy motions, and how it rained down like stinging sleet.
Bursa said, ‘He obeyed orders, sir, and was accepted as one of us.’
‘Very well,’ said Scara Bandaris, his gaze shifting away. ‘The ascent to Sedis Gate is a long climb, and any who approach will be seen from half a day away, thus giving all of you time to flee into the north, on the Jheleck Trail. I am content to meet my fate alone.’
A soldier spoke. ‘We would ride with you, sir.’
‘Until Sedis Hold?’
‘Yes sir.’
Scara Bandaris offered them all a wry, bitter smile. ‘Fools delight in company, my friends.’
* * *
‘High Priestess, make of your worship an unflinching recognition of the unknown, and indeed, the unknowable. By devotion and acceptance of mystery, the chaos that haunts us all is made calm, until the sea itself becomes a mirror content with a placid reflection.’
As the words of her goddess they marked scant scripture, and Emral Lanear felt lost as she sat in her private chamber. She had sent the priestesses away, and was alone with her blurred reflection, sitting so motionless in the mirror. As befitted any adherent, she had pledged her devotion in the frail hope of gifts in return, and while this notion, so crassly expressed, laid bare the one-sided bargaining that was faith, she was no longer in any mood for dissembling. All that was indistinct and imprecise could well remain in the mirror, where every smudge was a blessing, and she would leave it at that.
Still, this face she saw before her was no placid reflection.
There was no end to the irony, if what Anomander had said about Syntara was true. Youthful beauty could bear the revelation of light, while its ageing loss welcomed the darkness; and so these two High Priestesses were indeed well positioned, and if Emral knew bitterness at finding which side she inhabited, there was nothing to be done for it. At least the darkness was eternal in its disguising gifts. In the centuries to come, Syntara might well come to curse what her light revealed.
But now they stood opposite one another, poised to attend a clash neither side could truly win. In the death of one, the meaning of the other is lost. Shall I add this truth to our modest scripture? Perhaps as a note upon the margin, less elegantly inscribed, a thing made in haste, or perhaps regret.
If holy words could not offer up an answer to despair, then what good were they? If the truths so revealed did not invite restitution, then their utterance was no more than a curse. And if the restitution is found not in the mortal realm, then we are invited to inaction, and indifference. Will you promise to a soul a reward buried in supposition? Are we to reach throughout our lives but never touch? Are we to dream and to hope, but never know?
‘High Priestess, make of your worship an unflinching recognition of the unknown, and indeed, the unknowable.’
Such devotion promised no reward. It made every stance abject and solitary. Revelation proclaimed a vacuum, where faith was doomed to flounder. Then again, perhaps she intends by her prescription just such a revelation: that while we are light inside, there is nothing but darkness upon the outside.
Syntara, we face one another as enemies. But I wonder if even that is a profane conceit.
Frowning, she drew out her writing materials. It was time, she decided, for overtures.
The sound of rushing feet and then a rapid knocking upon the door startled her. She rose and adjusted her robes. ‘Enter.’
To her surprise, it was not a priestess who appeared, but the historian, Rise Herat.
‘High Priestess, I beg you, accompany me.’
‘Where?’
‘To the courtyard,’ he replied. ‘A conjuration is under way.’
‘A what?’
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Emr
al, there is darkness there, impenetrable darkness, and …’ he hesitated, ‘High Priestess, this darkness bleeds.’
* * *
As they strode towards the front doors, Emral could hear faint screams, through which cut shouts as some sought to quell the panic in the courtyard. ‘Historian,’ she said, ‘this may well be Mother Dark’s sorcery, and so nothing anyone need fear.’
‘Your arrival and subsequent comportment might well invite that thought, High Priestess,’ Rise replied, ‘which is why I sought you out.’
‘But you do not believe it belongs to Mother Dark, do you?’
He glanced at her, his lined face pale. ‘As I arrived at your door, I admit, I longed for a calming response from you at the news I delivered.’
‘But in its absence?’
He shook his head.
They arrived outside. Figures had retreated from the manifestation, which dominated the centre of the courtyard, and from the entrance to the Citadel the gates themselves were no longer visible, blighted by the immense darkness. The stain filled the air, black and roiling, with tendrils spilling down to writhe like tentacles upon the cobbles. As Emral stared, she saw it grow larger, bleeding out to hide the gate’s towers, and the platforms where stood transfixed Houseblades.
The clamour of voices had begun to die away, and Emral’s outwardly calm appearance seemed to seal the silence.
The emanation itself made no sound, but cold drifted out from it – the same cold as was found in the Chamber of Night. Emral stared, wondering if indeed Mother Dark had begun this conjuration. But for what purpose?
In that moment, when doubts crowded her, a mounted figure rode out from the darkness, arriving at a canter. The huge, armoured man drew hard on the reins of his warhorse, and sparks danced out from the beast’s hoofs. He halted directly before Emral Lanear and Rise Herat.
She struggled to breathe for a moment. The emanation was fast dwindling behind the rider.
At her side, the historian bowed. ‘Consort,’ he said, ‘welcome back.’
Lord Draconus dismounted. Cold drifted from his shoulders, and there was frost glistening on his riding boots, and his armour. He drew off his gauntlets. ‘High Priestess,’ he said, ‘I need you.’
‘Consort?’
He gestured to the building behind her. ‘She knows I have returned. I promised her a gift, and for that, you must attend me.’
‘In what manner?’ she asked.
‘As the First Daughter of Night.’
‘I hold no such title.’
He approached. ‘You do now,’ he said, moving past her and entering the Citadel. Emral followed, trailed by Rise Herat.
Lord Draconus strode into the Grand Hall, and halted in the centre of the vast chamber. ‘Clear the hall!’ he commanded.
The quiet, brooding man Emral had known before now stood as if transformed. The power around him was palpable. His heavy gaze found her. ‘High Priestess, seek the emptiness within you. Surrender the will of your eyes to Mother Dark, so that she may witness my gift.’
‘Consort, I know not how to do that.’
‘Only because you have never tried. Look well upon me now, and within your soul, kick open the door of faith.’
All at once, Emral felt a presence flow into her body, shifting as if finding itself in ill-fitting flesh, and as she looked upon Lord Draconus there was a sudden surge of discordant emotions. She felt Mother Dark’s pleasure at seeing her lover again, and her relief, and in the midst of that, there was profound trepidation. Emral struggled to give herself over to her goddess, so that Mother Dark might speak through her, but something defied her efforts. She felt Mother Dark’s desire to address Draconus, blunt and heavy as a fist, pounding upon some inner door – a door that remained locked – and as her goddess pushed against it from one side, so too Emral pulled against it from the other. Their efforts failed, leaving to Mother Dark only the vision of her Consort.
He had thrown off his cloak now, and there was something in his hands, cupped like a precious flower, but all that Emral – and Mother Dark – could see was what looked like a fragment of forest floor, a flattened layer of humus. Draconus looked into Emral Lanear’s eyes, and then spoke. ‘Beloved, in this gift, I offer you the consecration of this Citadel, and so make of it a temple in truth. You have embraced the Night, yet hold but a modest fragment of its power.’ He paused, and then said, ‘There is a war of forces here, waged in the stone walls, the stone floor. It seems my return was timely indeed. By this gift, all challenge is banished from this place. I give to you, and to all the Children of Night, this Terondai.’
With these words, he let fall the object in his hands.
It landed softly, like folded parchment, and for a moment sat motionless upon the tiled floor. And then it began to unfold, sending out angled projections upon the surface of the tiles, and these projections were black as onyx, and the pattern they formed seemed to sink into the worn marble, indelibly staining it.
Emral felt a growing horror within her, coming from Mother Dark.
The pattern continued to unfold, spreading across the entire floor. It bore twenty-eight arms, like the points of a black star. In the centre was a multi-angled circle. Draconus stood within it. The expression on his face was one of pride, yet there was something fragile in his eyes. ‘Beloved,’ he said, ‘from the lands of the Azathanai, I returned to you upon the Road of Night. I rode through the realm of Darkness.’ He gestured to the pattern, which now spanned the entire chamber. ‘You need reach no longer, beloved. I have brought Night here and offer you, once more, its perfect embrace. It is a gift borne on love. By what other means do we consecrate?’
Emral could feel her goddess, a presence recoiling in fear.
‘Beloved,’ said Draconus, ‘I give you the Gate of Kurald Galain.’
The pattern ignited. Darkness blossomed.
And the goddess fled.
* * *
In the Chamber of Night, Grizzin Farl stood before Mother Dark, watching as she grew ever more insubstantial. The unfolding of Night was fast encompassing the Citadel, pouring out from the Terondai to take every room, spreading like blight down every corridor. It swallowed the light from lamps, candles and lanterns. It stole the brightness from flames and embers in every hearth.
He felt it when the darkness spilled out past the walls of the Citadel, rushed like a flood across the courtyard. When it flowed down to the surface of the river, Grizzin winced at the shock that trembled through the water, and he heard in his mind the wretched howl of the river god as the darkness broke the barrier and rushed down into the depths. That howl became a death-cry, and then it was gone. And the river flowed with Night.
The darkness spread rapidly through all of Kharkanas.
‘You wondered at my presence here,’ he said to the goddess seated on her throne. ‘You wondered at my role. I could not let you speak. The silence needed … protecting. Forgive me.’ He then raised a hand towards her. ‘You will recover,’ he said. ‘You will find the strength to resist its pull. That strength will come from worship, and from love. But most of all, it will come from the balance that awaits us all. Alas, the achievement of such balance, so long overdue, will be difficult.’
‘What balance?’ she asked, her voice left hoarse by the denials she had screamed, the helpless cries against what her lover was doing; against what he had done.
‘All forces are arrayed in opposition, Mother Dark. It is this tension that weaves the threads of existence. Even the Abyss stands, and exists, in answer to something – to us. To you, me, and every other sentient creature upon this and every other realm. Will I speak of gods, then, and their dominion over lesser beings? I will not. Such hierarchy signifies little. We must all stand upon this side of the Abyss, and make what we can of words and dreams, of desires and ambitions. The gods are only elevated in the boldness of their arguments.’
‘The river god is slain.’ She brought her hands up to cover her face.
‘An argument
lost,’ Grizzin Farl replied. ‘And yes, I do grieve.’
Behind her hands she asked, ‘What will come of the Deniers?’
‘I cannot say, Mother. Perhaps they will walk the shore, in eternal longing for the world they have lost.’
Mother Dark visibly trembled, and then slowly lowered her hands. They stole out along the arms of the throne to grip the elegantly curved ends. She drew a deep breath. ‘And now?’
‘Lord Draconus brought to you his gift, his power. He is the first Azathanai to have done this solely for those who dwell in his domain.’ Grizzin Farl hesitated, and then said, ‘I did not know that your children were ignorant of your Consort’s true nature.’
Her eyes went flat. ‘Mothers have secrets.’
After a long moment, he nodded. ‘Do not blame Draconus. All that comes was begun by another Azathanai.’ Then he shook his head. ‘My apologies. I dissemble. We all have had a hand in this. The one you name T’riss, who walked into, and then out of, the Sea of Vitr. My own children … but most of all, this belongs to K’rul, who answered worship with generosity. Who, assailed by prayers written in spilled blood, gave answer to them. But the power he surrendered was not intended only for those who worshipped him. He has given it freely, to everyone. By this, new sorceries are born, Mother Dark. By this, the forces in opposition are given names, and aspects. They are given realms of influence. A storm awaits us all, Mother Dark. To save you … to save your children who worship you, Draconus has done only what was necessary. The Gate of Kurald Galain now belongs to you, and over Night you now have dominion.’
‘And my lover will just step aside?’ There was venom in that question.
‘The giving of gifts is a fraught enterprise, Mother Dark. I am sure I was not alone in warning him. Stem this tide of fury in your heart, I beg you. He has done what he has done out of love.’
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