Godless World 3 - Fall of Thanes

by Brian Ruckley

  "It won't be enough," Roaric said darkly. "But you see to it, if you think it worth your time. I'd sooner fight for our freedom than creep about like cowed outlaws. We're alone now. Black Road on one side, Haig on the other. Both wanting to tear us down, break us down. Well, I won't permit it! Yes, I'm Thane, if that's what you want to hear. And I'll be a Thane, a Thane with a sword in his hand and fire in his belly."

  He brushed past Jaen without acknowledging her presence. Ilessa stared after him. She looked to Jaen like a woman grown accustomed to desperate sadness; still burdened by it, but used to it.

  "He turns all his grief into anger," Ilessa said quietly.

  "He has a lot to grieve over. A lot to be angry about."

  "He does." Ilessa gestured towards a bench in the bay window. It was overlaid with a beautifully woven carpet. "Sit with me."

  Jaen did as she was bid. She had come here, as she did almost every day now, to talk with Ilessa about the needs of the hundreds of Lannis folk caged within Kolkyre's walls alongside its natives. But that seemed a matter for another time.

  "I didn't know about the ships," she said. "I can hardly believe Haig would abandon us. Not even abandon us; worse, turn against us. Offer us up to the Black Road."

  Ilessa shook her head in sorrowful astonishment.

  "Nor I. Yet here we are. The world's forgotten whatever sense it once possessed. It's all like a bad dream from which we can't wake. Every hand against us. Our own hands against us." She cocked her head towards the window. "Sometimes, when the wind's right, you can hear screaming, shouting, even from up here. Our own people, losing their minds, down in the city."

  "It's not good. I was thinking... perhaps it is time--past time--my daughter and I came into the Tower. If there's still room for us."

  "Of course." Ilessa smiled. "I should have insisted upon it before now."

  She pushed back her hair with a slow hand. It smoothed the creases from her brow, just for a moment.

  "You must be worried about your husband," she said.

  Worried, thought Jaen. No, that is not the word. There is no word for what I feel. To be at once terrified, stalked by impotent panic, and at the same time calmed by that very impotence. There is nothing I can do for Taim. Wherever he is, he will live or die by his own strength, his own capabilities. And I will be either made whole again, or broken for ever.

  "My husband has a habit of surviving," she murmured. "Of coming back to me."

  "I hope you are right."

  "Hope is all we have, my lady. It fades a little every day, but I cling to whatever shreds of it remain."

  "I wish my men had learned the same habits your husband did," Ilessa said. The sadness in her words was distant, thoughtful. Cavernous loss and sorrow were there, though, an echoing chamber in the background. Jaen could not bring herself to feel fortunate, but she could recognise her own suffering as that of someone who feared what might happen; Ilessa's was that of someone assailed by what had already happened, and could never be changed. Which was worse, she could not say.

  "Roaric is being consumed, slowly," Ilessa continued. Still quiet. Still treading a precarious path over a chasm. "Death seems to rule the world now. It walks among us, feeding off the madness. It's too much for my son. I fear for him. And for all of us. Though I love him with all my heart, I fear where he might lead us."

  Jaen saw then which was worse, for no matter how much had already been lost, how much darkness had already come, there was always more to fear. And once the texture of loss had been learned, it was much easier to imagine its return.

  Chapter

  4

  ____

  He Who Waits

  In the twilight of the First Age, when the One Race was drifting towards its final, fatal war against the Gods, they sent an envoy into the high Tan Dihrin. His name was Martanan, and he climbed through storm and snow to the peak of peaks, where the turning sky struck fire from the utmost pinnacle.

  There he found, cut into the rock of that summit, the great stone throne he sought, and he knelt before it and called out to the God whose place it was to appear before him. The God came, and filled the throne with his dark form. And his raven companions came, and settled upon his shoulders. Martanan bowed his head at first, for he was afraid to look upon the fell countenance he had called forth. But he was the emissary of his people, and he owed them courage, so he lifted his eyes and spoke.

  "We call you He Who Waits, great one, and live in fear of your attention. We call you Death, and your shadow is long, falling across us even in the midst of life. I am sent to ask you this question: why must it be so? Why have you, the immortal Gods, made us so frail and fragile? Why do you keep the boon of life unending only for yourselves?"

  When Death replied, his voice was deep and terrible, and it sprang from the mouths of his ravens.

  "Because without endings there can be no beginnings. To live for ever is a burden, though you know it not. We choose not to inflict its weight upon you."

  "If burden it is, still my people desire it. The burdens we bear now are no less. Those we love die, and we are beset by grief. We ourselves die, and are forgotten. We die, and all that we have built and laboured for is undone after us."

  "Even so," the God said. "Even so. There must be death in this world, lest all meaning be lost."

  "Yet still we would choose otherwise," Martanan said, and at that the ravens rose into the air and their black wings assailed him.

  "You may choose how you live," the God cried through his birds. "You may choose how you shape meaning out of my shadow. We grant you that freedom. But choice is empty in the absence of consequence. Without it, you and everything you did would mean nothing more than does the aimless motion of a cloud in the sky. There must be consequence, and I am its final measure and its shape and its weight. Every one of you, sooner or later, will come into my embrace."

  From First Tales transcribed by Quenquane the Simple

  I

  The main gates of the Battle Inkall's sprawling compound were closed and barred. Theor of the Lore leaned out from his rocking litter as the bearers stumbled through the snow towards the imposing and entirely unwelcoming facade. The low wall stretching away on either side of the gate was lined with Inkallim: statues of black leather, each with a tall spear held perfectly erect.

  And, outside the gates, a still more numerous host. Seventy or more of Ragnor oc Gyre's warriors. His Shield, in polished chain mail that borrowed a dull gleam from the grey sky; mounted spearmen, whose horses bore metal plates across their brows and cheeks. And the High Thane himself, massive and magnificent in a huge cloak of sable fur that spread back over the haunches of his own great mount.

  Theor's litter-bearers struggled along the front of this martial array, and came to a panting, trembling halt before Ragnor. The High Thane stared down silently as Theor clambered stiffly out. The First's feet crunched into the snow, and he felt its cold pressure even through the down-lined hide of his boots. He straightened, and ground his fingers into the small of his back where the muscles had tightened.

  "What are you doing here, First?" the High Thane asked. Blunt. Confrontational, unless Theor misread him entirely.

  "I heard there was some difficulty," Theor said. "I thought I might be of assistance in resolving any misunderstanding that may have arisen."

  "No misunderstanding."

  A breeze ruffled the High Thane's hair and spun his horse's steaming breath away. Theor winced up at him, narrowing his eyes. It was not easy to see details of his expression, silhouetted as he was against the sun-lightened afternoon clouds. His voice was giving little away now, only a steely determination.

  "Ah." Theor nodded. He glanced towards the Inkallim studding the top of the wall, and then back to Ragnor. "I will confer with those within, High Thane."

  Ragnor said nothing. Theor turned and trudged towards the gates, beckoning his exhausted bearers to follow him with their burden. It was not far from the Lore's Sanctuary, further along t
he slopes above Kan Dredar, but they had covered the distance quickly. Theor had understood the need for haste as soon as word of what was happening reached him. He had not wanted to come. The Sanctuary he had left behind him was in a ferment of dismay and alarm. Two Lore Inkallim had inexplicably died, on successive nights, while dreaming their seerstem dreams. And they had died not peacefully, but screaming, convulsing.

  "I told you what I wanted," he heard Ragnor saying behind him, in measured tones. "And that my patience was at an end."

  Theor paused. He angled his head a fraction towards his shoulder but did not look round. One of the gates creaked open, just wide enough to admit him and his attendants, and he entered the domain of the Battle.

  "I did not know you were here," Theor said to Avenn, First of the Hunt.

  He strove to disguise his unease but could not hide from himself the bitter twist of suspicion, distrust even, he felt. It was rare for the Firsts to meet; rarer still for the Hunt and Battle to consort without the presence of the Lore. In such febrile, fragile times, it lit an unreasoning flame of resentment in Theor to find Nyve and Avenn together. He should be too old, too secure in his authority, to succumb to such sentiments, yet both security and the wisdom of age were states he felt ever more thoroughly exiled from.

  Avenn smiled thinly. Her long black hair had a lifeless, leaden quality to it. The pinprick scars of a childhood pox that marred her cheeks gave her a faintly aged, damaged look. But there was vigour, almost delight, in her eyes.

  "Interesting times," she said.

  She would, of course, think so, Theor reflected. She had been born for moments such as this: tumult and contest. Opportunity, as she would see it. For whatever reason, the Hunt had always chosen such as she for its leader. A passing thought, like a beam of light glimpsed through scudding cloud: Shraeve should have been of the Hunt not the Battle. Her ferocity, her passion, would have found a better home there. Theor grunted, and let the insight go.

  "Narqan?" Nyve asked.

  The First of the Battle was seated by a roaring fire, a pitcher and cup of the vile liquor on a table by his side.

  "No," muttered Theor. He moistened his stained lips. The dry heat of Nyve's chambers had rendered them brittle.

  "He wants all the children," Nyve said, pouring himself another draught of the fermented milk. "Two hundred or so have reached us, this last day or two. Spoils from the Glas Valley."

  "Has he said what he wants them for?" Theor asked wearily as he sank into a chair opposite Nyve.

  "What does it matter what he says?" said Avenn, but he ignored her.

  Nyve took a thoughtful sip from his cup, lifting it between the knuckles of his crippled hands, and bared his teeth as the liquid burned its way down his throat. Theor knew that feeling well enough, and gave a faint grimace of his own at the memory.

  "He claims he wants them to tend his herds, mine his ores, carry his stones," the First of the Battle said. "All the tasks he says go undone because our war has called so many of the faithful into its embrace. Foolishness, of course. What help would a few score children be? They're the strong ones, true enough. Those who survived the winnowing of the march up through the Stone Vale. But children, still."

  Theor nodded. "He wants them because if he leaves them here, they will become Inkallim one day. Those who live; those who can be brought into the faith. He wants them because in taking them he thinks to prove a point to us, to the people, to himself."

  "Because we will not abase ourselves before him and do as he bids us," muttered Avenn.

  "Indeed," Theor agreed. Still he kept his attention upon Nyve rather than the mistress of the Hunt. His old friend was the crux of things here; he was certain.

  A log slipped from the fire and shed sparking embers across the hearth. Nyve extended a foot and pushed it back into the heart of the flames.

  "How long has he been waiting at your gate?" Theor asked.

  Nyve lifted his eyes towards the ceiling as if in thought.

  "Since midday or thereabouts. His pride, his stubbornness will not permit him to depart just yet, it appears."

  Dread was tightening its icy fingers about Theor's heart. Here, amidst this warmth, in the company of those who should be his most comforting allies, ensconced in this soft and soothing chair, he felt the ground beneath his feet crumbling away, tipping him towards a dizzying chasm. Did neither of these two feel it? No, he knew. Other extremities had mastered their hearts.

  "It serves no purpose to taunt him so," he said. "Give him this small victory."

  "No," said Avenn at once. She pushed herself away from the window frame against which she had been leaning. "He will not be satisfied. He has turned against us, against the creed. Three loyal servants of the Hunt have been executed, on his command, this last week. Now is not the moment to shirk our responsibilities, when the eyes of the Last God are upon us, when the Kall --"

  "Do not dare!" cried Theor, snapping his head around and fixing the rangy woman with a ferocious glare. "Do not claim the authority of the Lore as your own!"

  Avenn inclined her head in submission. It was a thin sheen, though. Theor could see that quite clearly. She was not in the least cowed. How had it come to this? How had everything, every past certainty, become so unclear and unstable? How had fear, and the fury it engendered, become so deeply rooted in him?

  "I do need the children," Nyve said quietly. "We have lost a great many of the Battle in the south. And here, for that matter. Ten killed in fighting on the border between Gaven and Wyn only two days ago. Time was, our mere presence was enough to quell the most recalcitrant of troublemakers. No longer. Now it requires our blood, our lives. And it has all left me with fewer of my ravens here than for many, many years. I am disinclined to concede our weakness by yielding to his demands."

  Everything about the old Inkallim was calm and composed. His clubbed hands rested on the arms of the chair. His head was cocked at a relaxed, friendly angle. A trace of a smile even passed across his lips. Yet Theor looked at him and almost despaired. He could see it behind those sparkling eyes, he could hear it in the silent corners of the flame-lit room: the beating of the raven's wing. His friend had crossed some inner threshold. And Theor, for reasons he did not entirely understand, could not follow him.

  "Not yet," Theor murmured, and then, more clearly, lifting his chin: "The breach is not irretrievable yet."

  "No?" said Nyve. "We are too far down this road to turn back. I will not recall the Battle from beyond the Vale. Perhaps I could not, even if I wished it. What is happening there is out of our hands. I cannot give Ragnor what he wants. Fate determines all now."

  "As always." It was easy, instinctive, to utter those two words, but Theor wondered if they sounded as hollow to the others as they did to him. Almost certainly not. "But give him this one, small thing, and we create the space for something to change. We allow for the possibility that fate may choose another course. Do not assume that we must part company with the Gyre Blood now. Today. That is all I ask."

  "We cannot ignore what is happening," muttered Avenn. "Better to reach for the inevitable future than turn our backs on it, and enter it blindly."

  But Nyve pursed his lips and thought, staring all the time into Theor's eyes.

  "Very well," he said at length. "He can have his children today. But no more. The Inkalls are nothing if they submit to the will and whim of a Thane. What we serve is greater than Ragnor, than his line. We have always known that. All of us."

  He smiled sadly as he spoke, and in that smile Theor saw their parting. They both knew, in their different ways, that something was ending. And they both saw, he suspected, other, harder endings drawing near, closing upon them from the horizon of the coming days.

  *

  "You're drooling," Torquentine said.

  Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig sucked spittle back from his lips.

  "Untie my hands, if it offends you," the blind Thane growled. He sat hunched upon an upholstered bench. He straightened, pressing
his back against the stone wall. It would not last, Torquentine knew. Twice already Igryn had gathered himself, put some dignity into his spine, and each time something in him--or some absence in him, perhaps--gradually bent his back down again, twisted his mouth into a leer, laced his words with venom and turned his measured breathing into panting, rasping gasps. It was as if there was a beast within him that could be resisted only for so long before it began to reshape him. It put Torquentine in mind of the long dead wolfenkind.

  "I'll keep your hands bounds for the time being, if it's all the same to you," he said. "Or even if it's not, of course. Wipe the man's chin for him, would you, my dear?"

  This last he spoke to Magrayn, and she went at once to gently swipe a cloth over the Thane's bearded chin. She was not the only one of Torquentine's attendants present. This was one of those rare occasions on which he had felt it wise to invite men of violence down into his buried lair. Two of them stood close by Igryn: muscular, their faces battered by a lifetime's rough usage. They were good, both of them, at performing the more brutal kinds of tasks. Between them, they had killed five men by Torquentine's command over the years. And more on their own initiative, no doubt. It was not only to keep a wary watch upon Igryn that Torquentine wanted them close, though. The streets of Ash Pit--and of all Vaymouth--were unpredictably tumultuous; the whole city was turbid with distrust, suspicion, accusation. Mayhem simmered, and burst erratically into the open. These burly clubmen offered some small reassurance that such disturbance would be resisted should it seek to reach down into Torquentine's abode.

  Both of them had been amongst the band that had seized the disgraced Dargannan Thane on the road to In'Vay. And never had Torquentine taken less pleasure from the successful outcome of one of his endeavours. The very presence of Igryn here in his secret sanctuary would have been enough to set him squirming in distress, had his great bulk not argued against such physical expression of his inner turmoil. He settled for tugging absently at loose threads in the seams of the great cushions upon which he reclined.