by Tanith Lee
After the first bout in the arena eleven days back, they still fought, but now two against two, since Heppa had been allocated another group. Swanswine fought Kuul. Yorrin’s death had necessitated this. For Yorrin had died when Swanswine cut him down, and afterwards they had seen the corpse dragged away, as others had been. Where the bodies went none knew. The indigenous population could or would not say – neither the phantasmal, brainless crowds and the automatons of snake-head guards, nor the pleasure servants. Perhaps the stadium dead went to the same graveyard as had the cadavers off the battlefield, for no stench of decay had blown up from the plain.
‘Why are you here, Heppa, you blown-in snot-rag? You no longer fight with them.’ Kuul was trying to keep the front united.
Heppa shook his head. He did not know, it seemed. He was a big, shaggy lout, a Vorm, though he did not much talk in their way, from the outer isles of the world, and dropped in the formative years on his brain, Kuul deduced.
Swanswine meanwhile was lumbering back up the hall, his braids clinking with tiny skulls, gathering speed to run at Vashdran. Vashdran shot him one withering glance, never shifted.
It was Curjai who shouted, ‘Ginngow! Put your anger up your arse and come and sit down, for the love of Attajos.’
Kuul sniffed in disdain – Attajos, some foreign, unimportant god.
But Swanswine shook off his rage with an oath, then sat placidly down by Curjai.
‘Let us talk,’ said Curjai, ‘like civilized men.’
‘Where on the face of the world do you hail from that you think yourself civilized?’ burst out Kuul.
‘A beautiful upland, flowing with pretty snow and ice and galloping with herds of edible animals. I’ve remembered it all. You?’
Kuul shrugged. ‘Similar. But you’re brown-skinned. Where did you get that?’
‘From my gods.’ He nodded idly at Vashdran. ‘As did he. And like you,’ he added, now looking directly up into Vashdran’s face, ‘I dream of my real death. And wake up yelling for my mother, as you do.’
Vashdran bristled, grew expressionless again. ‘Well. I imagine we’ll meet tomorrow as usual. We can debate it then.’
‘Let’s meet now.’ Curjai rose. He held out his right hand for Vashdran to clasp. And Vashdran recollected how he himself had taken men’s hands, and seen the current of his power course into them, seductive and total. There had been one who refused, as if guessing what would happen. He had been a king, but only a mortal one.
Smiling, Vashdran copied the words of Bhorth, the Rukarian king who refused. ‘I will not.’
‘Ah,’ said Curjai softly, exactly as had Vashdran on that occasion, ‘I must take your hand, then.’
Curjai’s grip was not familiar, despite every various contact they had had when fighting – killing – each other. It was strong, nearly calming, full of a steady pulse. But what did Curjai feel? His eyes widened slightly, that was all. They were lighter in shade than Vashdran had thought, or perhaps that was only because Curjai, now, was not in combat.
And Curjai said, ‘Blue eyes,’ to Vashdran. ‘It’s the berserker scarlet I usually see on you.’
‘What’s this,’ said Vashdran, ‘a handfasting?’
‘Surely. Don’t warriors make that where you come from?’
‘Blood-brotherhood.’
‘Then certainly you and I already created that. Have we tasted enough of each other’s blood, do you think?’
‘The last man I swore the bond with I tricked and defeated and sent to his real death. A bad one.’
‘Time then to polish the bond up again with another.’
‘Not with you.’
‘It’s done. Too late.’
Vashdran said, in a low angry drumming voice, ‘I’m royal by birth and supernatural otherwise. My father was a god.’
‘Fine as sunny days,’ said Curjai. ‘Mine too.’
‘You lie.’
Curjai laughed. He still gripped Vashdran’s hand, and Vashdran had not yet pushed him off. The other three squinted at the phenomenon lamely, Kuul with his knife drawn, Heppa scratching, Swanswine wearing an uncomfortable sneer.
‘How to prove my birth-line,’ said Curjai. ‘Tell me. I’ll convince you.’
‘This is the Death Place. Nothing can convince here. Or if it does, I’d be as great a fool as you.’
‘There are none of my countrymen with me that I’ve seen,’ said Curjai. ‘I lost them all on the way. But maybe even they wouldn’t have sworn to what I am – or was. Not here.’
‘Curjai, I have no concern as to what you were, or are. I bother to fight you every day because, as yet, I can think of no better activity.’
‘Let me suggest one.’
Vashdran dropped Curjai’s hand – or it loosed itself. They stood there, still looking eye to eye.
‘Well?’
‘We tell them, our supposed masters here, we will no longer fight. We’re matched. We can destroy each other over and over and nothing can come of it.’
‘That will be the idea,’ whispered Kuul. ‘We’re in Hell.’
‘Then let’s invent another idea,’ replied Curjai, not taking his eyes off Vashdran. ‘This one grows too boring.’
It was Swanswine who chuckled. Then Heppa, only taking his lead, perhaps.
Vashdran said, ‘Presumably then we’ll earn some punishment.’
‘So what? Whatever they do can’t harm us. And it might make a change.’
Startlingly maybe, Swanswine pronounced, ‘They could exile us to some new spot. I heard that, in the halls: exile if you won’t fight.’
‘From who?’
‘It just – mutters about. Haven’t you heard that? Fragments of talk and music, moans, sighs – like ghosts. It comes out of the walls.’ Each of the other men, even Vashdran, nodded. Yes, they had all caught these snatches of sound. The walls spoke to them, or to nothing. They trapped bits of song and vocal sorrow, and subsequently let them go, to waft through the maze of the palace. The walls were not alive, precisely, but it seemed that something in them was.
Vashdran thought, In fact, that is where they come from, those men and women we encounter here – guards, slaves, mobs. Out of the walls …
Curjai said, ‘Exile. If we’re in Hell, where else is there to go or be sent?’
‘Somewhere worse,’ said Vashdran with distaste. ‘Where the twice-dead were damned to – Choy, Yorrin. All the rest.’
But Kuul said softly, ‘Or somewhere better?’
Vashdran stepped away from Curjai, turned and walked off over the floor. As if at a signal, the other men also scattered. And as they did so, a whining roar broke through the black, dull-starred sky above.
A piece of that sky now dashed down on them. It was another of the vast boulders, which every day or night inside the labyrinth they had either heard crash, or occasionally seen thundering into the river in the feasthall.
Now the howling rock hit the floor between them, a direct impact, with a sound that hurt the ears, shook the earth, made the walls sing like a harp-string.
The floor parted. As the river did, the marble received the missile, shimmered with rings and waves, settled, and was once more whole.
‘Ice heals like that,’ said Heppa, gaping at the unmarked ground.
Each man of the five turned as one and moved off alone, across the hall and on, into countless identical others.
Buy Here in Cold Hell Now!
Glossary
Bit – Human chattel: Ranjalla, and southern north-east
Borjiy – Berserker, fearless fighter: Jafn
Chaiord – Clan chieftain/king: Jafn
Concubina – Unmarried royal wife: Ruk Kar Is
Corrit – Demon-sprite: Jafn
Crait – Type of lammergeyer: Rukarian uplands
Crarrow (pl. Crarrowin) – Coven witches of Olchibe and parts of Gech
Crax – Chief witch of Crarrowin coven
Cutch – Fuck
Dilf – One of several forms of dormant g
rain and cereal: general, but found mostly in more fertile areas
Endhlefon – Time period of eleven days and nights: Jafn
Firefex – Phoenix: Rukarian
Fleer-wolf – A kind of wolf-like jackal, known for its lamenting cries: general to the snow-wastes
Flylarch – Pine-like berried plant: general to the continent
Forcutcher – Insulting variation, of obscure exact meaning, deriving from the word cutch
Gargolem – Magically activated metallic non-human servant; the greatest of these creatures guards the kings at Ru Karismi: Rukarian
Gler – Demon-sprite: Jafn
Hirdiy – Nomadic band: northern north Gech
Hnowa – Riding animal: Jafn
Horsaz (pl. Horsazin) – A breed of horse apparently part-bred with fish; scaled and acclimated to land and ocean: Fazion, Kelp and Vorm
Hovor – Wind-spirit: Jafn
Icenvel – Type of weaselish thick-furred rodent: general to the continent
Insularia – Sub-river complex belonging solely to, and solely accessible to, the Magikoy: Ru Karismi
Jalee – Fleet of war vessels, including Mother Ship, usually thirteen in number: Fazion, Kelp and Vorm
Jinan/Jinnan – Magically activated house-spirit: Rukarian – normally Magikoy
Kalfi – Whale calf: general
Kiddle/Kiddling – Baby or child up to twelve years: Olchibe
Lamascep – Sheep of long, thick wool: general to the north
Lashdeer – Fine-bred, highly trained chariot animals used for high-speed travel over snow and ice: Rukarian
Mageia – Female mage: Ruk Kar Is, and elsewhere in the north
Magikoy – Order of magician-scholars, established centuries in the past; possessed of extraordinary and closely guarded powers: Ruk Kar Is
Mera – Mermaid: general to the north
Oculum Magikoy – scrying glass, or magic mirror of incredible scope: Ruk Kar Is
Quintul – Five-towered: Rukarian
Scratchered – Basically, overused: Jafn
Seef – Demon, a type of vampire: Jafn
Sihpp – Similar to seef: Jafn
Slee – Riding ice carriage: Rukarian
Sleekar – Ice chariot: Rukarian
Sluhts – Communal tent/cave/hut dwellings: Olchibe
Sluhtins – Large city groupings of sluhts: Olchibe
Soint – Obscure insult, seeming to have to do with either genital or lavatorial practices (?): Jafn, but also elsewhere in the north and east, including Ruk Kar Is
Subtor – Lowest underground chambers of magician’s house: Magikoy
Tattarope – Snake of corded, rope-like skin: Uaarb and far north
Thaumary – Thaumaturgic or sorcerous chamber attached to main hall, for use mostly by mages of a garth or House – even the chieftain does not enter here uninvited: Jafn
Towery – Complex of towers connected to each other by walkways and/or inner passages: Magikoy, Ruk Kar Is
Vrix – Demon-sprite: Jafn
Weed-of-light – Forest-growing ice plant, having blue flowers: north and east
White-kadi – Type of gull: eastern seaboard
Woman bow – Bow which can fire only one arrow at a time (male bows can fire up to four arrows at a time, depending on the skill of the archer): Olchibe
Acknowledgments
Firstly this book is for Jean Holden – who told me I would write it long before I knew, myself.
Also it is for the wonderful writers Cecilia Dart-Thornton and Liz Williams, whose work has given me such pleasure, and hope for the future of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
And, too, it is, as so often, for my husband and partner, John Kaiine.
Last but not least, a special thank you to Wolfshead and Vixen Morris.
About the Author
Tanith Lee (1947–2015) was born in the United Kingdom. Although she couldn’t read until she was eight, she began writing at nine and never stopped, producing more than ninety novels and three hundred short stories. She also wrote for the BBC television series Blake’s 7 and various BBC radio plays. After winning the 1980 British Fantasy Award for her novel Death’s Master, endless awards followed. She was named a World Horror Grand Master in 2009 and honored with the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2013. Lee was married to artist and writer John Kaiine.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2004 by Tanith Lee
Cover design by Mimi Bark
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5303-0
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10038
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