Fall of Thanes tgw-3

by Brian Ruckley

  “Kill the girl who served me my wine,” Aeglyss said. “And all the rest of the servants. All of them.”

  He looked up at Shraeve and she nodded.

  “You’ve uttered not a word, Thane,” Aeglyss said to Kanin. “I’ve never known such silence from you. Have you nothing to say?”

  “Nothing.” Kanin rose, horrified at the effort it took to turn away from Aeglyss, and at the yearning he felt to love the halfbreed and all that he offered. But his hatred provided the one, thin sheen of armour he needed to resist that call. He spared a lingering moment for a last look at Cannek lying dead on the floor, and walked out. An absurd, half-formed smile had been locked into the Inkallim’s lips by death.

  Kanin waited outside, and the rest came soon after him, emerging blinking into the clear winter light. All were silent; some thoughtful, some shocked and shaken. In some faces he was sickened to see a sort of joy. This, he understood, was how it happened. There were some-many, perhaps-who found the horrors that Aeglyss embodied and offered not repellent but intoxicating. Once they caught their first scent of his corruption they wanted nothing more than to drink deep of it, to drown themselves in it.

  When Goedellin appeared, Kanin stepped in front of the Lore Inkallim, forcing the old, bent man to stop.

  “How many have to die, Goedellin? Before you will open your eyes to this madness?”

  The Inner Servant rapped the heel of his walking stick on the ground but said nothing.

  “My sister was the truest and most loyal follower of the creed, old man. Every beat of her heart was a promise of faith. Is she owed nothing for that lifetime of fidelity? Did it earn her no honour from the Lore?”

  “Such matters are not straightforward, Thane,” Goedellin grumbled. He shuffled sideways, trying to pass.

  Kanin blocked his path. “We had tutors when we were children,” he said quietly, insistently. “Tutors from your Inkall.”

  “I know. Wain told me.”

  “Did she tell you that my father wanted to send them away? After only a couple of seasons, he doubted his decision to bring them to Hakkan. She changed so quickly, you see. She devoured their teachings as if she had been starving until then, without ever knowing it. My father was disturbed by it.”

  The Inner Servant of the Lore angled his head a little, looking up to meet Kanin’s gaze just for a moment.

  “We knew nothing of it until one day the tutors were simply gone. Wain flew into such a rage.” Kanin smiled at the memory, at the thought of that distant childhood, but knew it would bring unbearable pain if he let it take too firm a hold. “She meant to have them back, and she did. A little girl, Goedellin, bending a whole castle, the household of a Thane, to her will. She sulked, and raged, and the tutors were recalled. That was what it meant to her.”

  The Inkallim was shaking his bowed head, though what the gesture meant Kanin did not know.

  “She should not have died,” Kanin whispered. “You know this is not as it should be. You know this is not fate.”

  “What else is there, Thane?” Goedellin snapped. “What else is there?”

  “Corruption! You think the warriors of the creed are fated to fawn over that monstrous little creature in there? You think this is what Tegric’s Hundred died for? For us to submit ourselves to the twisted delusions of that…?”

  “Thane.”

  Kanin turned. Shraeve was standing a few paces away in the doorway, watching him with those dead eyes. Her swords lay once more across her back, their hilts framing her face.

  “Aeglyss would talk with you,” she said.

  In the instant of Kanin’s distraction, Goedellin brushed unsteadily past him, hobbling after all the others.

  “It’s not fate,” Kanin hissed after the old man. “It’s something else.”

  He turned back to Shraeve, his lip curled in contempt. “Let your master talk to those who wish to hear.”

  “You will wish to hear this, Thane.” She was unmoved by his bitter tone, as if what he felt or thought was of less consequence than the dance of a fly on a breeze. “It is for no one else but you. It concerns your sister.”

  And she turned and walked away. Like a hunter who knew her quarry was safely taken, needing and deserving no more of her attention. Kanin followed, heavy-footed, back into the hall, unable to do anything else. He wondered, with little interest, if he might be going to his death.

  Behind him he heard startled, pitiful yelps. They were killing Cannek’s hounds.

  Aeglyss was alone in the hall, standing waiting for Kanin. Cannek’s corpse was gone, along with Hothyn and the other woodwights who must have carried it away. So easily do we vanish from the world, Kanin thought. Our every intention and hope disappears in a moment, and counts for nothing.

  Shraeve, at his side, drew Kanin to a halt three swords’ lengths from Aeglyss. Feeling her touch, he turned to rebuke her, but the words died in his throat, smothered by the sound of Aeglyss’ voice.

  “You hate me, Thane. Don’t trouble to deny it. I can taste your hatred of me, and that’s a flavour I know well. It’s been all around me through my whole life, the very air I breathe. There’s nothing more to you than your desire to see me dead. And I understand. I do.”

  The halfbreed’s voice dripped with concern, with affection. A warm, comforting sense of sympathy enfolded Kanin, an almost physical sensation: a kind hand, taking him in its gentle grasp.

  “Terrible things have happened,” Aeglyss whispered. “You know but a fragment of it. I promise you, though, I promise you: I loved your sister just as dearly as you did.”

  The truth of that was an unquestionable certainty, insinuating itself into Kanin’s mind, entangling itself with the instinctive revulsion he felt at the thought. The bitter retorts that came boiling up towards his lips were snared and snuffed out.

  “I can hardly tell any more what I remember, what I imagine, what memories I gather into me from the Shared,” Aeglyss rasped. “But I know I loved her, and she loved me. She loved me as none has before. Only my mother… my mothers. But I was not strong enough to save her. Oh, I longed to. You cannot know…”

  A tear, at the corner of the na’kyrim’s grey eye. Kanin could see nothing else but that perfect bead of moisture, a gleam of torchlight reflected in its smooth surface. It ran free, and Kanin watched its descent, felt his own vast grief carried along with it and growing, bursting up, swelling to merge with the still greater sorrow that filled the hall like a turbid mist. He trembled, overcome by the sense that there was nothing in all the world save loss and impotence.

  “Nothing is as I wanted it to be,” Aeglyss said thickly. “I never asked for all this death. Hers least of all. Don’t you understand? What has happened is… I didn’t choose this. Why can’t you see that? Give me your forgiveness, Thane. Give me her forgiveness.”

  “Forgive?” Kanin murmured. His thoughts were softening, losing their shape.

  “It was my weakness.” Aeglyss hung his head. “I could not sustain her love for me and still take hold of the Shadowhand. I would have done, if I could. Oh, nothing would have been sweeter. But I am too weak, too feeble; and I had to have the Shadowhand.” He looked suddenly at Shraeve, and then to Kanin, beseeching. “We had to have the Shadowhand, did we not? We needed him? I gave up so much-Wain, K’rina-but the sacrifice was necessary, wasn’t it?”

  Kanin pitied the halfbreed in that moment, and could easily have reached out to him in comfort, offered the forgiveness and agreement that he craved. Yet nothing, no bewilderment of his mind, could wholly extinguish the murderous flame that persisted in the deepest, most fortified, refuge of his self. It flickered there still, and through all the fogs that beset him, its light remained a beacon he could follow.

  “No path worth following is without sacrifice,” he heard Shraeve saying beside him.

  “No,” whispered Aeglyss. “No. And she knew that. Wain knew that.” He looked up, and there was a new chill in the gaze he laid upon Kanin. “Others know it. Yet you do
not, Thane. You are like ice, on which none of this can find purchase. There is something in you that resists me. Denies me.

  “Why is it that you cannot share in this understanding? The Battle sees the shape of things, the Lore, and the White Owls. The Bloods fall in at my side, for they understand what it is I offer, what I can give to those who walk with me. All I ask for is loyalty. Trust. If those things had been there from the start-if you had offered them to me, Thane-none of this need have happened. Yet here we are. By choice or not, wondrous events begin to unfold, and I allow even those who have betrayed me to share in them. Why can you not be a part of this?”

  Stubborn contempt rose within Kanin.

  “Do you really not know?” he asked the halfbreed. “Do you really understand so little of people?”

  Aeglyss said nothing, but Kanin could see in his face genuine uncertainty, infantile hurt.

  “If you wanted me to walk at your side,” Kanin said flatly, “you should not have taken my sister from me.”

  A twist of some violent emotion distorted Aeglyss’ features for a moment. He bared his teeth.

  “From you?” he hissed. “You think the loss only yours? You don’t know! What it cost me…”

  He faltered. A tremor ran through his feeble frame, twisting his head to one side, tugging at his eyelids. Spittle bubbled out onto his chin.

  The soft deadening of Kanin’s senses abruptly cleared. He blinked. Aeglyss slumped down onto one knee, coughing. Sudden hope blossomed within Kanin. The halfbreed’s head was bowed, jerking as he spat out phlegm from his lungs. Kanin’s hand went to his sword. The blade began to sigh out of its scabbard. He stepped forward, possessed by a vision of what was about to happen, what he could do in the next moment.

  And Shraeve lashed her forearm across his throat. He staggered, choking. Shraeve stepped in front of him, shielding Aeglyss from his sight, and his intent. She reached up and lightly grasped the hilts of the two swords sheathed across her back.

  “It is my belief, Thane, that this man serves fate, and our creed. I do not know if you could harm him, but I will not permit the attempt.”

  Kanin gasped for air, croaking incoherently, clasping a hand to his throat. He took hold once again of his own sword. Breath came at last, ragged and rough. Aeglyss was only now rising unsteadily to his feet. He was still enfeebled. Vulnerable. But there was Shraeve, quite still and calm.

  “I would regret killing a Thane,” she said softly. “It would be a fell deed. But the end of the world must be a time for fell deeds, if needed, don’t you think?”

  Kanin did not believe he could overcome her. Perhaps if Igris was here, the two of them together might have a chance against this raven, but Kanin knew what would happen if he challenged her alone. She was too fast, too skilled. He could hear, in his memory, the sound of Cannek’s spine breaking. Once he had believed that fate could be generous to those who dared; now he was uncertain whether such laws still governed-had ever governed-the twisted world. Daring felt like recklessness, when the goal he sought was so all-consumingly crucial. He would be permitted only one attempt upon Aeglyss, and to fail in it would be to fail in everything, his entire life.

  He coughed, and folded his arms across his chest.

  “Your master seems unwell,” he said. “Perhaps I should leave the two of you alone.”

  He spun on his heel and walked briskly away, his heart racing, his cheeks burning with the backwash of tension and fear and anger that was now released in him. He could hear Aeglyss groaning, but did not look round. He went out into the light.

  VII

  Nyve’s skin was old, with the hue of worn and faded hide. It had loosened as the years slackened the muscles beneath it and narrowed his shoulders. But still the First of the Battle had an air of resilient strength. There was enough breadth to him, and just enough firmness left in his skin, to give life to the raven tattoo that spread its wings across his shoulder blades. Theor, master of the Lore Inkallim, watched that black bird stir and ripple as a manservant drew a cloth slowly across Nyve’s back.

  The First of the Battle sat naked on a low stool in the centre of the stone wash-house floor. The servant went silently about his duties, pausing occasionally to rinse his cloth in a pail of hot water. Now and again Nyve grunted at the pressure of firm fingers on some sore joint, but he made no other complaint.

  The servant carefully lifted the First’s arm and stretched it out, and ran the cloth down it from shoulder to wrist. Drops of water pattered onto the stone tiles.

  “I cannot undo what fate has decreed,” Nyve said softly.

  “Of course,” said Theor. “I would never ask such a thing. You know how much it pains me to even raise with you matters that are internal to the Battle.”

  “Yet you do.” Theor could not see his friend’s face, but heard the wry smile in Nyve’s voice.

  “I do. It cannot be avoided. Such are the tempestuous times in which we live. Don’t pretend you don’t share my concerns.”

  Nyve lowered his arm. The servant charged the cloth with water and then twisted it into a tight cord above the First’s head. Water splashed across his scalp and shoulders. It ran down over the great welt where his ear had once been.

  “We set this horse running,” Nyve said. He gave his head a single dipping shake, scattering droplets. “Too late to try to rein it in.”

  “The Thane of Thanes disagrees,” Theor muttered. He walked round to the stone bench that ran along one wall of the wash house and tested its surface with the palm of his hand. It was warm: hot charcoal could be fed into a hidden compartment. Carefully, he settled himself onto the bench. The seductive warmth spread through his thighs and buttocks. Outside, the snow was knee-deep. Every stream ran beneath a skin of ice. Even down in the valley, in Kan Dredar, there had been no night without a hard frost, no day without at least some snow, for two weeks.

  “When was the last time he agreed with us?” Nyve asked.

  Theor rested his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He truly was getting old, he thought, for how else to explain the intoxicating delight of such a simple thing? Luxuriant warmth in winter had never meant so much to him when he was young. Now, this warm stone bench filled his bones with delight, answering a need in them he had not known existed. Such were the seductions of comfort.

  “If you need to sleep, we can always continue our discussions later,” Nyve said, a little louder this time.

  Theor opened his eyes and winced apologetically at his friend. The old warrior was watching him, but there was no irritation or impatience in his gaze. Nyve would understand as well as anyone what it was to find the body ageing and faltering before the spirit within had prepared itself for the change. Nyve’s hands were all but crippled, bunched into claws that would barely respond to their owner’s command.

  “I like this bench you’ve got here,” Theor observed.

  “So do I.”

  “I might have one made for myself.”

  “Too indulgent for the Lore, surely?” Nyve grunted. “I doubt your people would approve.”

  “Seeking approval does not really accord with the precepts of the creed. In any case, I find myself less and less concerned with the approval of others as the years pass.”

  “Indeed,” Nyve said, and then glanced at the manservant. “Help me up.”

  The First of the Battle rose, only a fraction unsteady, leaning on the servant’s arm. Once he was securely on his feet he dismissed the attendant with a silent flick of his head.

  “Pass me that robe, would you?” he said to Theor once they were alone in the warm, humid stone chamber. Theor hung the robe on his friend’s shoulders and watched as Nyve made his careful way over to the heated bench.

  Nyve settled onto the stone with a satisfied sigh. He stared at Theor. Those eyes, at least, were undimmed, unblunted. It was still the gaze of a fierce and potent warrior for the faith.

  “You’re tired,” Nyve said. “You look sick, in fact.”

  �
��I feel both. The world’s as unsteady beneath my feet as a foundering boat. I am… lost, I suppose.” Theor knew he should feel shame that such words were on his lips. He was the First of the Lore, custodian of the creed. Keeper of the truth. He, of all people, should be resistant to the kind of uncertainty and confusion that assailed him. Yet there was no point in pretending things were other than they were. Not in front of Nyve, at least.

  The First of the Battle grunted. “Whisper such things softly, friend. There’s danger in honesty.”

  “It seems to me we are beset by dangers of many kinds,” Theor murmured. “There are terrible temptations in success. It all too easily breeds pride, or error.”

  “I see you are entirely determined to discuss Shraeve, no matter how it pains you to walk upon the Battle’s ground,” smiled Nyve.

  Theor shrugged regretfully. “I must do as my heart and my faith bid me.”

  “As I say, the horse is running. It is not our hands that guide it, but fate.”

  “That is as it may be, but I fear Ragnor oc Gyre lays the blame for his Captain’s death on our all too mortal shoulders. Temegrin the Eagle may not have been the most valued of the High Thane’s servants, but neither was he entirely inconsequential. Ragnor sees our scheming, rather than fate’s working, in the ascendancy of this halfbreed. In Shraeve’s… accomplishments.”

  “And you?” Nyve asked quietly. “I care less than I should what our High Thane thinks. Tell me what you see.”

  “I see nothing as clearly as I would wish. Fiallic was a good man. Measured. You told me yourself he was the finest Banner-captain the Battle has had in our lifetimes. Shraeve is… more turbulent.” He spread his hands, an almost helpless gesture. “This is not where any of us thought this track might lead. You cannot be as free of doubt as you pretend.”

  Nyve grunted. “Of course. If it was my choice, I’d have Fiallic back. If these bent hands could shape things, he would have killed Shraeve. But he didn’t. No message I’ve had from the south, no rumour even, denies that she won her rank justly, by the will of fate.”