They climbed slowly. The silent winds clutched at their bodies, threatening to throw them to the bottom of the pit, and pieces of ice occasionally crumbled under their hands and feet. Once, only Quentin-Andrew's hand, reaching down abruptly, kept the Commander from sliding down the pit wall. Quentin-Andrew wondered then what their fate would be if they fell – an eternity enduring the pain of a broken back, perhaps? In this place, they would not receive the mercy of oblivion.
The ice continued to burn under Quentin-Andrew's hands. Each breath he took caused his chest to ache from air filled with slivers of ice. Quentin-Andrew began to feel his legs shake, and he hugged the wall closer as he tilted his head. Though no stars filled the sky, he could see the glow around the edge of the pit, as he had seen it in the moments before they began to climb. It appeared no nearer than it had been when they had started climbing an hour before.
The Commander, a body's length further down than Quentin-Andrew, asked breathlessly, "How far have we to go?"
"Not far, sir," said Quentin-Andrew, trying fruitlessly to sight the bottom of the pit. "We'll be there soon."
His voice, the other torturers of the Three Lands had often noted with envy, was capable of conveying the blackest deceit without effort. The Commander, though, was silent a moment before saying, "We're no closer than before, are we?"
Quentin-Andrew leaned his head back to look again at the elusive lip of the pit. "No, sir. We don't seem to be making any progress."
The Commander's sigh was so heavy that it seemed to drop immediately to the bottom of the pit. "I feared as much. Lieutenant, you must go on without me. I'm sure that my presence alone is preventing you from leaving this prison."
Feeling his raw hands scream as he placed them into new positions, Quentin-Andrew carefully climbed down until he was beside the Commander once more. "Sir, close your eyes."
The Commander stared at him for a long minute from under frost-laden lashes, and then followed the instruction.
"Sir, above us is the place where the gods gather." Quentin-Andrew paused, probing his memory for his faint knowledge of the Marcadian religion, then added, "It is the place where all names are known, all silence is spoken, and all that is hidden revealed. In that place is Dolan. He is waiting for you."
He spoke the words firmly, having no doubt that what he stated was true. The Commander's breath quickened. In a shaking voice, he said, "That cannot be. I placed Dolan in your hands; I ordered his execution—"
"Sir, I speak of Dolan."
A pause while Quentin-Andrew's hands continued to scream as though they had been flayed open. And then the Commander said, with pure simplicity, "Yes, of course. Dolan is waiting for me."
"Open your eyes, sir."
The Commander did so, and Quentin-Andrew heard the small shock as the Commander's breath hissed in. "Yes," said the Commander slowly, his head tilted back to look upward. "Yes, of course." Then, in the firm voice he had always used before battles: "Follow me, Lieutenant. It is not far now."
His words were of strict truth: the remaining journey was not far, at least not for a man being tugged forward by visions of what awaited him. For Quentin-Andrew, who had no love drawing him upward, it was like the time he had found himself caught alone in a blizzard on the mainland and had been forced to crawl through the flesh-cutting ice missiles for several hours until he reached his destination. On that occasion, his incentive for continuing was knowledge of an unfulfilled work contract. Now he found his gaze dropping downward, to the still chill of the ground below.
The jagged ice was beginning to cut into his hands, slicing deep toward the bone. He closed his eyes and clung to the rock, shuddering. Then a hand took his, pulling at him, and all of a moment he was on flat ground again, with the ice replaced by burning heat.
It stunned his eyes open. He was standing where he had begun, on the lip of the pit, but the cool air above the pits seemed like fire compared to what he had felt during the time he had been away. Instinctively, like a prisoner facing the brand, he wrapped his arms around himself. Then he turned his head, wondering how his northern-born Commander was enduring the change.
The Commander seemed unaware of any pain he was experiencing. His gaze was raised high, up the slope of the steep mount they faced, toward the edge of the plateau above, where the Jackal stood, glowing brightly like a hearth-fire.
"Commander . . ." Quentin-Andrew murmured.
"Yes, I see." The Commander's voice was as matter-of-fact as it had always been when his Lieutenant issued warnings of grave danger, but there was a note of awe in his voice that Quentin-Andrew had never heard before. "That is one of the gods, nameless except in the place where names are known, shapeless except to the eyes of those who have received her mercy."
Quentin-Andrew stared at the Commander, whose gaze had not broken from the figure standing above them, and then he felt the fiery warmth broken by a shiver through his body as he wondered what the Marcadian was seeing that Quentin-Andrew himself could not see.
He did not receive the opportunity to ask. Without looking his way, the Commander said, "I must go forward alone from this point, Lieutenant."
Quentin-Andrew looked up at the figure. All around the god, the air wavered, as on a summer's day. "It may be difficult, sir," he said. "I believe it is warmer up there—"
"I cannot wait." And with that, the Commander slipped away, taking his first step onto the hill.
His face was twisted with pain from the moment he touched the dark slope. Quentin-Andrew, shading his eyes against the brightness above, watched the Commander struggle his way upward, as though he were fighting through a fierce wind. At one point, the Commander slipped on the slope and slid nearly to the foot of the mount. He lay sprawled for a moment, his back heaving as he gasped in air. Then, before Quentin-Andrew could decide whether to move forward, he heard the Commander whisper, "Dolan," and the Commander was on his feet again, battling his way through the haze of the heat.
The light had increased by the time he reached the plateau. Quentin-Andrew, squinting, could not look directly upon the figure awaiting the Commander, but even so, he was nearly blinded in the next moment as a blast of light travelled forth, like a wave of hard earth from where a catapult-flung stone has fallen. It cut through all of Quentin-Andrew's senses, causing him to cry out as he squeezed his eyes shut.
When finally he looked again, the whole of the landscape had changed. It was covered now with a dim, pre-dawn glow, so that Quentin-Andrew could see the faint outline of grass upon the slope, dancing slightly in the warmth's haze.
The glowing figure still stood on the ledge above, but it was alone now, and as Quentin-Andrew raised his eyes, he realized that it was not the god he saw.
The figure smiled down at him. He was as Quentin-Andrew had seen him only once during their years together: when the Lieutenant, unannounced, walked in upon the Commander while the Marcadian was immersed in conversation with Dolan. Here once more were the eyes of love, drinking deeply, but the gaze had spread beyond the young Koretian to a wider horizon.
In a voice deep and soft, which carried over the landscape to the horizon, the Commander said, "Thank you, Quentin-Andrew."
And then he was gone, but the light remained, glowing from some object on the plateau that was beyond Quentin-Andrew's sight.
o—o—o
Quentin-Andrew stared at the mount before him. It looked familiar, though he could not pin to the ground the memory of where he had seen it. It remained too dark as yet for him to gain any more impression of the hill than its massive shape looming above him. Nor could he see the surrounding landscape, though he was beginning to realize that it was not as flat as he had thought. To the west of him . . .
He frowned. Why was he so sure that the land to the left of him was the west? Perhaps it was due to the shining light he sensed to the right of him. He turned his head.
The Jackal sat beside him. He had dimmed since Quentin-Andrew had last seen him, which meant that he was no bri
ghter than the sun. His coat was burnished gold and his face was black, but for the gold and silver that picked out his features. He was sitting on his haunches. He turned his head, and Quentin-Andrew saw once more the sharp teeth, smiling at him.
The Jackal said nothing. He simply sat there, grinning wolf-like, as his fur burned in the grey darkness.
Quentin-Andrew said, "Dolan . . . and the Commander . . . and against them, all the others who have fallen into my hands . . ." He stopped, unable to put into words his question.
The god's smile did not waver. Sitting with his clawed paws digging into the ground, the Jackal was as tall as Quentin-Andrew was standing; the god's gaze was level with his own. The words he spoke, when they came, were not delivered from the mouth of a wild dog. Rather, they entered into Quentin-Andrew's spirit by some secret gate.
"You wish to know whether the tales are true," the Jackal said. "You wish to know whether you must suffer for what you have been."
Quentin-Andrew did not speak. The land around him was utterly still, but for the waving of the grass under the silent wind. Even the cries of the people in the pits had faded from his consciousness.
"The tales are true," the god said softly. "For men who are truly evil, the fire is long and the pain beyond that which the greatest torturer in the world could produce. That is the fire you must endure to be purged of your darkness. Do you wish it?"
He continued to glow like a furnace. Quentin-Andrew could now see that what he had thought were strands of fur were in fact licks of flame, reaching outward. They danced like the grass.
He turned his head slowly. Behind him, as before, were the dark pits. He could see the ice on the lip of the nearest pit, and he remembered the coolness there. His time in the pit had seemed bitterly cold, but surely, after a few thousand years, one would grow numb to it. Better the ice than the fire; better that he should remain alone—
And then he felt the shock enter him, as though lightning had attacked his body. Alone. Figuratively, he had been alone nearly all his life, but that had only been an image. How could a man such as himself ply his trade if he were truly alone?
His thoughts skittered suddenly, sliding on ice. Ply his trade in a place like this? And yet he had done so once already. He thought back to the pits, dark and frigid. Places of imprisonment, as the Blue Tent had once been. Places of imprisonment and breaking. . . .
He saw it then, as though the image had been within him all along. A Commander who broke prisoners, not through his own skills, but through the skills of those he sent out to do his work. From the warmth of the Commander's hut, a Lieutenant departed, set upon the task of going to the frigid outskirts of the camp in order to break a prisoner and hear that prisoner speak with sincerity the words of healing that the Commander wished him to say. . . .
But the Lieutenant could not do this, if he himself were a prisoner.
He turned his head back to the god, yet more slowly, the fire filling his gaze once again. The god was smiling with mouth and eyes, as he had on the day when Quentin-Andrew had stood in his royal bedchamber and spoken the words that would allow the Jackal to break him.
"I am skilled at my work," Quentin-Andrew repeated now. And then, "I will not give up my work." And then, answering the Jackal's final question: "Yes."
In that instant, his knees gave way, and he felt the ground bite his shins.
His hands were over his eyes before that happened, but his palms could not shield him from sight of the blaze. He could feel the warmth of the fire as well, pricking at his body, and he smelt the thick smoke. He waited, tense, as the sweat swam upon his skin, uselessly trying to hold back the heat.
No sharper bite entered him, and after a while it occurred to him that he had not reached out to touch the Jackal, as custom required. He opened his eyes cautiously—
—and saw that the fire was not next to him. It was below him.
It danced in a ring several spear-lengths below where he knelt; it surrounded two figures. The older of the two, who was standing, was in mid-youth. He held a cup in his hand, which he was heating over a tiny fire. The flame leapt up to meet the cup, which was bejewelled and made of gold. Pure as the gold was, it was unmarked by the flames touching it, but within the cup – Quentin-Andrew could see from where he knelt – was blood-red liquid that was beginning to boil.
The boy holding the cup had his hand wrapped in a cloth to protect himself from the heat. He had been bending over to look at the bubbling wine, but now he raised the cup, apparently to admire the sight of the wine-bubbles springing over the rim. He was smiling.
He did not seem to notice the ring of fire around him, nor did he look at the boy beside him. This younger boy was lying upon the stone table that held the flame. Near his head was a bowl that had once held water but had been tipped over. He was gagged, and was bound in a ball. His eyes, filled with tears and terror, were watching the progress of the cup.
The older boy, still smiling, looked over at his prisoner and laughed lightly. It was a joyful laugh, bubbling like the wine. With deliberate slowness, he brought the cup over until it was above the younger boy. He began to tilt it.
At that moment, Quentin-Andrew, whose body had been beating with blood all this while, saw something happen that made him rub his eyes, in case his vision had been damaged. The older boy, in the instant of the tilting, split in two.
The split was not entire: the dark boy, standing smiling, remained where he was, attached to a version of the boy whose brown-black skin glowed like coal-fire. The glowing version of the boy had turned away and was trying desperately to break free, but at the moment upon which it seemed that he would either free himself or drag the dark boy away with him, he sighted the ring of fire dancing silently before him. He stood motionless for a moment, staring at the fire eating the air, and that motionlessness was his undoing: in the next second, he was pulled back into the dark boy. The boiling wine began to spill—
—and then the scene was gone, and in place of it was another, with an imprisoned young man and an older man standing beside him. The torturer this time was not smiling. It was the young man who smiled, and his smile was for the torturer.
Beside the torturer, kneeling and sobbing, was the glowing figure that Quentin-Andrew had seen before. It had pulled itself far enough away that it was now touching the surrounding ring of fire. The flames ate at the glowing figure, racking its body. With a final sob, the glowing version of the older man allowed himself to be pulled back into the darkness.
And then came a series of images, so rapid that Quentin-Andrew could only follow the summation of them: more attempts at separation, more torture, and each time the tortured figure returned to the cool of the darkness, but each time the torture was longer and more painful. The dark version of the torturer continued his work, oblivious to how closely the fire was approaching.
The fire finally reached him. He lay stretched upon a table, united in his two parts, as the fire of his self-selected torment filled his body. Amidst the flames, he cried out a name, calling upon the fire to enter him.
At the sound of the god's name, a young man standing nearby turned his head, shock written upon his face at the words he had been sure his mentor would never speak. The fire crept closer to the torturer—
—and in the same moment, the prisoner reached out his hand and entered into the heart of the harsh fire.
"No," Quentin-Andrew heard himself say aloud. "No, it wasn't like that. When I touched you, there was no fire. I felt no pain, only light . . ."
In the cell he had left behind, the fire was gone. All that remained was a broken figure on a table, covered with a dark cloak, and beside it the young man, his fists tight as he stared down at the fruits of his work. The young man's chest was heaving. He turned away abruptly and started toward the door of the cell. Then he seemed to become aware that he was holding something. He stared down blankly at the thin blade, and his finger touched a drop of blood that had dried near the hilt. His face contorting in fur
y, he flung the thigh-dagger away and left the cell, unarmed.
The dagger, spinning through the air, soared over the corpse and landed in the dying coals. Flames sprung up at once, invading the cell, chasing after the figure that had left. The fire filled the air like flood-waters, and Quentin-Andrew heard himself cry out—
And then it was gone. Everything he had seen was gone, but for the dark landscape, which was now filled with light.
He knew this landscape.
From where he stood, under the shadow of a cloud, he could see spring-green fields and black mountains beyond them. At the feet of the mountains were dark shapes that he might have taken for tiny villages if he had not known better. All of the land before him was dancing in the heat of the risen sun, blurring and stretching, as fabric does when pulled.
But this tugging – this foreshadowing of a rending – was not due to the heat. Looking down from the top of the mount upon the landscape of his childhood, Quentin-Andrew knew that every image he had experienced since his death had been an illusion. The gods had taken images from his childhood vision of what the Land of the Dead would be like, and had used those images as a way to reveal the truth. As far as they went, the images had been true. But now Quentin-Andrew was about to be shown the deeper truth that lay within the vision.
The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) Page 102
