Godless World 3 - Fall of Thanes

by Brian Ruckley

  "Or if not ale, a seat at least?"

  Kanin nodded at the bench opposite his own. He took another mouthful of tasteless stew.

  "No ale, though," he said through it.

  Cannek wrinkled his nose in disappointment as he shrugged the cloak from his shoulders. He spread it to dry on the floor in front of the fire.

  "I looked for you down by the city." He sat at the table, facing Kanin. "You wearied of the siege, it seems."

  Kanin glared at the Inkallim from under a creased brow, and then returned his attention to the bowl of stew. But his appetite, meagre at the best of times, was gone.

  "If so, I sympathise," Cannek said. He unbuckled the knives that were always strapped to his forearms and laid them down on the uneven tabletop. Their dark wooden handles, Kanin noticed for the first time, had tiny ravens carved into them. Cannek rolled his shoulders and flexed his arms back. It was a lazy movement, like a wolf stretching.

  "It's unpleasant down there," the Inkallim said. "A shortage of food, an excess of foul tempers and ready blades. The dead go unburied and unburned. Some of the Gyre levies have taken to Tarbain customs, by all accounts: making cups from the skulls of dead Kilkry farmers and suchlike. I am not surprised you took your leave."

  "There's a sickness abroad. Everything is falling into ruin. I want no part of it. Anyway, nothing will come of the siege."

  Cannek nodded. "Kolkyre can't be starved into submission, since we've not got the ships to close their harbour. And it can't be stormed. Not unless Shraeve recalled every spear that's gone off south beyond Donnish."

  "Would they come?" Kanin asked darkly, pushing aside his plate. "If Shraeve summoned them?"

  Cannek scratched the side of his nose. "Probably. The issue of command remains a little... unclear. There are plenty of companies from Gyre and the other Bloods milling about now, trying to assert themselves. Not wanting to miss out on all the glory to be won. But the Battle dominates, on the whole; and Shraeve is their Banner-captain. So yes, the armies might come and go at her call. Or that of Aeglyss, which amounts to the same thing. The masses seem willing to put a good deal of trust in him."

  "You are remarkably at ease with the thought."

  "I find our faith a great comfort in troubled times." Cannek smiled again, sharp and fleeting. "Things are as they are. If there's one thing the creed teaches us, it's that a man gains nothing by worrying about it. Not even when he hopes to be the agent of change." The Inkallim looked pointedly around the empty room. "I'd heard you'd developed a liking for solitude. Are we truly alone? No prying ears?"

  "None," said Kanin. He insisted that his meals and his rest were undisturbed these days. Barring immediate need, not even his Shield were permitted to attend him. He and his thoughts occupied a world that every day seemed more distant from that inhabited by others; the two domains, he found, did not mix well.

  Cannek nodded, satisfied. "There's a council called at Hommen. The Battle, the Lore, some of the Captains from the Bloods. Aeglyss is coming down from Kan Avor."

  Kanin grimaced in surprise. "I'd not heard."

  "You were not invited, Thane. You're thought to have... what's the phrase? Retired from the fray, I suppose. You've shown no great interest in the broad course of events. And it's Shraeve who is calling us together; she--or the halfbreed, I suppose we should say--is no great admirer of your talents. Or your preoccupations."

  "You're going?" Kanin asked.

  "I, and one or two of my fellows."

  "You'll kill him?" said Kanin. The excitement he felt was not an elevating sentiment; there was nothing bright or warming about it.

  "The opportunity may arise. It seems likely." Cannek shrugged. "What the outcome will be, I cannot say. That's for forces greater than you or I to determine."

  "How will you do it?" Kanin asked.

  "Oh, best not to enquire too deeply into such things for now. We must preserve your innocence in these matters as far as we can, don't you think? Half the point of this is to protect you, and your Blood, from the consequences of what is happening. Comfort yourself with the thought that our reach was long enough to put an end to a Thane in his own feasting hall. Aeglyss is a good deal nearer at hand than Lheanor ever was."

  There was a dull thump from outside one of the shuttered windows. Cannek's eyes were drawn by the sound. His hand went to one of his knives, and had it halfway out of its sheath before Kanin could even draw breath.

  "Snow," the Thane said. "It falls from the roof."

  "Of course." Cannek relaxed a trifle, though his hand remained on the knife.

  Kanin pushed back the bench on which he sat from the table, and rose. He began to stride back and forth. A rare vigour, such as he seldom felt now except when in battle, had taken hold of him.

  "It's as well you came to tell me. I could not have waited much longer, whatever promises you dangled before me. It's eating me from the inside out. What must be done, must be done."

  "Patience is a virtue often rewarded by fate, Thane. Your restraint has been commendable, I'm sure. Still, I told you the Hunt would take this burden from you, and so we will, if fortune permits us. The Hunt does not make empty promises."

  "Does it not?" growled Kanin. He could think of more than one occasion when the Hunt Inkall had failed in its avowed intent--not least when the children of Kennet nan Lannis-Haig had slipped through its grasp in the Car Criagar--but now was not the time to pick fights with the one ally he had against Aeglyss. And there was as clear a sign as there could be of how misshapen everything had become: that he should look to the ranks of the Hunt for allies.

  He sat heavily on a three-legged stool close by the fire. His limbs would not rest, though, and he was back on his feet in a moment.

  "Does Goedellin concur in this?" he demanded. "Does the Lore give its backing?"

  Cannek sighed expressively. "The Lore deals in fine judgements. The intricacies of the creed, teasing out the complexities of any case or cause: these are things we can leave to Goedellin. You and I, we can deal in more... direct explorations of fate's intent."

  "No, then," said Kanin. "The Lore will not take your side. Our side."

  "The Lore--or Goedellin, who is the Lore here and now--reserves its judgement," said Cannek, spreading his arms. "Let us leave it at that."

  "Can't he see?" cried Kanin in exasperation. "Is he so slack-eyed he can't see an enemy when one stands before him?"

  "It is possible to see too much, sometimes." Cannek said. "Too many possibilities, too many potential explanations. Success easily overturns old rules, old ways of thinking. Such are the victories we have gained, it is no surprise that some--many--see the glimmer of still greater, perhaps even final, glories on the horizon. For such a prize, they are willing to keep the most surprising company.

  "But in any case, I do not think of Aeglyss as my enemy, Thane. I will try to kill him, but not out of malice. I simply mistrust the notion that he is fated to play so central a role in our affairs. I mistrust the notion that a halfbreed, and one whose adherence to the creed is at best questionable, should be the one to usher in the final triumph of our faith. Others find those notions more plausible than I. There is error, somewhere. My only intent is to remove any uncertainty over whose it is. Fate already knows the answer. Soon, we will too."

  And that is where our ways must part, thought Kanin. The vengeful, unambiguous passion that burned in him was something Cannek would never share. The Inkallim still framed everything in terms of the faith, of fate. Once Kanin might have thought in the same patterns, but such habits had flaked away from his mind like dead skin, day by day.

  The door creaked open, caught by the cold wind. A flurry of snowflakes tumbled in and Kanin saw, sitting outside, one of Cannek's great dark, jowly hounds. As if sensing an invitation, the beast rose and took a couple of heavy paces towards the light and warmth. Cannek rose and went to the door, giving an animal hiss. The dog sank back onto its haunches as the Inkallim closed it out.

  "I will come
to Hommen," Kanin said.

  "Indeed," said Cannek, going to stand by the fire, taking its heat into his back. "Even uninvited, your presence could hardly be challenged. You are a Thane, after all."

  "I want to see him die."

  "I assumed you would."

  "We'll leave in the morning."

  "You do as you wish. I will be travelling through the night." The Inkallim scooped his knives up from the table and began strapping them back onto his arms. "It would be best if we did not arrive together. Our intimacies must remain secret, Thane, like any pair of illicit lovers."

  Kanin grimaced. "It's not love we cultivate."

  V

  A host of crows came raucously in under the clouds, like black fish shoaling in the shallow sky. They jostled and tumbled and rolled their way down into the naked trees on the edge of town, where they roosted. Orisian watched their tumultuous descent through the dusk, and in their voices heard the sound of Highfast, where he had watched their like playing violent games with the mountain wind. Highfast, of which neither Yvane nor Eshenna would willingly speak now, fearful of its meaning, of what they had felt happening there.

  Only the vaguest of rumours had reached Ive regarding that remote stronghold's fate, but Orisian had access to other truths, ones he thought more reliable than the wild stories of terrified villagers. He believed what Yvane had told him before she fell into grim reticence on the subject: na'kyrim minds snuffed out like crushed candle flames, a torrent of death and destruction running through the Shared. Aeglyss. Aeglyss, the question to which he could find no answer. Perhaps there was none to be had, but he could not bring himself to stop looking.

  Torcaill and a handful of his warriors walked at Orisian's back. They had been shadowing him for much of the day, disturbed by the violence visited upon Ive's sentries in the night, and upon the Haig messengers. Every raised voice, every figure moving in an alley or doorway, seemed a possible threat. A formless dread, an anticipation of imminent catastrophe, was in the air.

  When they reached the house where Eshenna and Yvane sheltered, Orisian defied Torcaill's protests and left his escort on the street. It was not only that he found the poorly concealed unease of the warriors when in the company of na'kyrim distracting; there was also a deeper-rooted instinct to keep some portion of whatever incomplete and vague truths might emerge here hidden. There was too much in K'rina's plight, and in the things Yvane and Eshenna spoke of, that could point the way to despair.

  Yvane and Eshenna were seated by the crackling fire. They had flatbreads spread on slates and propped up to cook in front of the flames.

  "You heard what happened this morning?" Orisian asked as he entered. "To Aewult's emissaries?"

  Yvane nodded. "We could hardly miss it. Noisier than rutting stags."

  "Every time we get word of what's going on out in the countryside, it's of some horror worse than the last," Orisian said. "Everything's falling apart. Everyone's going mad."

  "There's a fever in the world. The weak, the angry, the fearful, the bitter; they'll lose themselves to it first. And there's never been a shortage of those sentiments in the world, has there? But we could all follow. Every one of us, pure-blooded or not, knowing it or not, is touched by the Shared. Aeglyss will rot us all from the inside out. He may not even mean to." She shrugged. "I don't know. Whether by choice or not, he's potent enough to make his own sickness into everyone's. Or bring the sickness that's already there to the surface."

  She sounded tired, defeated, to Orisian. That was not the Yvane he needed.

  "You talk like one of the Black Roaders. A sick world, ready to rot from the inside?"

  Yvane sighed. "Centuries of Huanin killing Kyrinin, True Blood killing Black Road. Sons killing fathers killing sons. Aeglyss is making nothing new; he's only releasing what's always there, under the surface."

  Orisian flicked a hand at her in irritation. "There's more than that. We haven't lost yet."

  "Of course there's more than that," Yvane said. "But the Shared remembers all things. It makes memories of every sentiment, every thought, every desire. Believe me, a great many of them are dark."

  "Not all, though," Orisian said stubbornly.

  Yvane looked up at him. She had weary eyes.

  "What do you want to do?" she asked him.

  "That's what I have to decide. It's why I'm here."

  "We've told you all we can."

  "There's no time left, Yvane. The Black Road is winning. We'll be cut off, or worse, any day now. We can't remain here. But where we should go, what we should do... You can't tell me, but perhaps she can." He pointed at the wall, and beyond it the yard and the shed and the mute, damaged na'kyrim within.

  "We don't even know if she's got any secrets to reveal," Yvane muttered stubbornly.

  "I need to find out." He could hear his voice rising, his frustration stretching it. "Inurian could reach inside anyone and tell truth from lie, read the temper of their heart. You can find another na'kyrim wherever they are, and speak with them. I've seen you do it. Eshenna can find minds in the Shared. She led us to K'rina in the first place. I don't believe there's nothing more we can know. I need you to help me find an answer, in the Shared, in K'rina. Anywhere. Somehow. Please."

  Orisian felt guiltily as though he were accusing these two na'kyrim of something. That was not what he intended, but Yvane's intransigence bred a certain reckless desperation in him.

  "You don't understand what you're asking," Yvane said. "The Shared's nothing but storm and misery and horror now. It's a darkness, haunted by beasts. By one beast in particular."

  "As is the world. That's why it matters. I know you never wanted to be a part of this, not any of it. I know that. But you've got to choose sides, Yvane. I can't understand, but still I ask. Who are you trying to protect? K'rina? Yourself?"

  "I will do it."

  Orisian looked in surprise at Eshenna.

  "Do what?" Yvane asked the other na'kyrim sharply.

  "Reach out. Reach for her," Eshenna said quietly, without looking up. "I can't carry on like this. It's grinding me away, inside and out. When I wake, the first thing I feel is fear, as if it's been waiting there at the side of my bed while I slept. Like a black dog, waiting for me to come back to it. Hateful. I'm too tired to carry that weight all day, every day. I can hardly think straight; everything in my head that's mine is getting drowned out."

  "I know," Yvane said. She looked as if she was about to say more, but pursed her lips. There was, Orisian recognised, a certain strain of sympathy and understanding that she could fall back upon--if she chose to--only when dealing with other na'kyrim. It remained, and she could still find it, even when her temper ran hot. It clouded her judgement too, he thought, when it came to K'rina.

  "Perhaps I should never have left Highfast," Eshenna sighed, "but all of this would still have found me there. Perhaps worse. In any case, it won't stop." She glanced up at Yvane, seeking confirmation. "It's not going to stop, is it? Not unless Aeglyss chooses to stop it. Or someone kills him."

  "I doubt he could choose to stop this," Yvane said. "I doubt he can control anything about it, really."

  "Then someone has to kill him."

  "If you reach into the Shared, if you let even the smallest part of it into you... you risk letting him in too." Yvane was sad rather than argumentative. "You know that? It's his territory now. His hunting ground. You might come apart."

  "The first thing I feel when I wake up is fear," Eshenna repeated in a flat voice. "That is already breaking me apart."

  The three of them went together to the shed at the end of the yard, each carrying a candle that they had to shield against the shifting of the cold dusk air. They entered in silence, and set the lights down, and gathered about K'rina. She did not respond to their presence. She just lay there, curled on her bed of straw; perhaps asleep, perhaps not.

  Yvane gently roused K'rina and lifted her onto her knees.

  "Can you hear me?" Yvane asked quietly.

 
; K'rina remained blank. Silent. Yvane backed away and Eshenna took her place, kneeling in front of K'rina.

  "Be careful," Yvane said. She was resigned now. "Go no further, no deeper, than you must."

  "I know," Eshenna replied as she reached up and brushed K'rina's hair away from her eyes. She laid one hand on the na'kyrim's cheek, the other on her hand where it rested in her lap. In another place, between other people, it could have been a loving contact, Orisian thought. A gesture of affection.

  "I'm sorry," he said. The words came of their own accord. He suddenly felt guilty, even ashamed, that he had forced this. Yet it was necessary, his instincts insisted.

  "Keep quiet," Yvane said.

  Eshenna closed her eyes, bowed her head a little. Her breath fluttered out of her. Her shoulders sagged. She might almost have been falling asleep. K'rina remained wholly impassive. The two of them sat thus, linked in their different, unnatural trances, for so long that Orisian's doubts began to reassert themselves.

  "It's not working," he whispered to Yvane. She splayed her hand at him, irritably demanding silence. She was frowning in concentration.

  Somewhere outside, diminished by distance, Orisian thought he could just still hear the harsh calling of the crows. The sound seemed to him to have a hostile edge to it now, as if mocking his hopeless efforts to oppose forces that could not be opposed, or understood. He flailed about like a drowning man in a flood, he thought. Perhaps all he could hope for was that he did not drag too many others down with him. He caught himself before that despair took too firm a hold. Could he even trust it as wholly his own?

  A faint hiss from Yvane brought him back from his dark, distracted reverie. Eshenna was gasping. Her jaw cracked open and shut, the joint creaking as her muscles spasmed. A blush was spreading through her cheeks and brow, brightening and deepening with every desperate breath.