Behind them, Karpolan Demesand emerged and, the Jaghut at his side and Hedge trailing, they slowly approached.
Paran turned, studied the pale, expressionless visage of the High Mage. ‘Do you recognize this particular carriage, Karpolan?’
A nod. ‘Trade Mistress Darpareth Vayd. Missing, with all her shareholders, for two years. Ganoes Paran, I must think on this, for she was my superior in the sorcerous arts. I am deeply saddened by this discovery, for she was my friend. Saddened, and alarmed.’
‘Do you recall the details of her last mission?’
‘Ah, a prescient question. Generally,’ he paused, folding his hands on his lap, ‘such details remain the property of the Trygalle Trade Guild, for as you must realize, confidentiality is a quality our clients pay for, in fullest trust that we reveal nothing. In this instance, however, two things are clear that mitigate such secrecy. One: it seems, if we continue on, we shall face what Darpareth faced. Two: in this, her last mission, she failed. And presumably, we do not wish to share her fate. Accordingly, we shall here and now pool our talents, first, to determine what destroyed her mission, and secondly, to effect a reasonable defence against the enemy responsible.’
The other Pardu clambered once more into view. Seeing Karpolan she paused, then shook her head.
‘No bodies,’ Paran said. ‘Of course, those hungry beasts we ran into may well have cleaned up afterwards—’
‘I think not,’ said Ganath. ‘I suspect they too fear what lies ahead, and would not venture this far along the bridge. In any case, the damage on that carriage came from something far larger, stronger. If this bridge has a true guardian, then I suspect these poor travellers met it.’
Paran frowned. ‘Guardian. Why would there be a guardian? That kind of stuff belongs to fairy tales. How often does someone or something try to cross this bridge? It’s got to be rare, meaning there’s some guardian with a lot of spare time on its hands. Why not just wander off? Unless the thing has no brain at all, such a geas would drive it mad—’
‘Mad enough to tear apart whatever shows up,’ Hedge said.
‘More like desperate for a scratch behind the ear,’ Paran retorted. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Creatures need to eat, need company—’
‘And if the guardian has a master?’ Ganath asked.
‘This isn’t a Hold,’ Paran said. ‘It has no ruler, no master.’
Karpolan grunted, then said, ‘You are sure of this, Ganoes Paran?’
‘I am. More or less. This realm is buried, forgotten.’
‘It may be, then,’ Karpolan mused, ‘that someone needs to inform the guardian that such is the case – that its task is no longer relevant. In other words, we must release it from its geas.’
‘Assuming such a guardian exists,’ Paran said, ‘rather than some chance meeting of two forces, both heading the same way.’
The Trygalle master’s small eyes narrowed. ‘You know more of this, Ganoes Paran?’
‘What was Darpareth Vayd’s mission here?’
‘Ah, we are to exchange secrets, then. Very well. As I recall, the client was from Darujhistan. Specifically, the House of Orr. The contact was a woman, niece of the late Turban Orr. Lady Sedara.’
‘And the mission?’
‘It seems this realm is home to numerous entities, powers long forgotten, buried in antiquity. The mission involved an assay of such creatures. Since Lady Sedara was accompanying the mission, no other details were available. Presumably, she knew what she was looking for. Now, Ganoes Paran, it is your turn.’
His frown deepening, Paran walked closer to the destroyed carriage. He studied the tears and gouges in the copper sheathing on the roof. ‘I’d always wondered where they went,’ he said, ‘and, eventually, I realized where they were going.’ He faced Karpolan Demesand. ‘I don’t think there’s a guardian here. I think the travellers met on this bridge, all headed the same way, and the misfortune was with Darpareth and Sedara Orr. This carriage was destroyed by two Hounds of Shadow.’
‘You are certain?’
I am. I can smell them. My… kin. ‘We’ll need to get this moved to one side, over the edge, I suppose.’
‘One question,’ Karpolan Demesand said. ‘What happened to the bodies?’
‘Hounds are in the habit of dragging and throwing their victims. Occasionally, they feed, but for the most part they take pleasure in the killing – and they would, at that time, have been both enraged and exuberant. For they had just been freed from Dragnipur, the sword of Anomander Rake.’
‘Impossible,’ the High Mage snapped.
‘No, just exceedingly difficult.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Karpolan demanded.
‘Because I freed them.’
‘Then… you are responsible for this.’
Paran faced the huge man, his now hard, dangerous eyes. ‘Much to my regret. You see, they should never have been there in the first place. In Dragnipur. I shouldn’t have been, either. And, at the time, I didn’t know where they would escape to, or even that they would escape at all. It looked, in fact, as though I’d sent them to oblivion – to the Abyss itself. As it turned out,’ he added as he faced the wreckage once more, ‘I needed them to do precisely this – I needed them to blaze the trail. Of course, it would have been better if they’d met no-one on the way. It’s easy to forget just how nasty they are…
Karpolan Demesand turned to his shareholders. ‘Down, all of you! We must clear the road!’
‘Captain,’ Hedge muttered, ‘you’re really starting to make me nervous.’
The wreckage groaned, then slid over the edge, vanishing into the mists. The shareholders, gathered at the side of the bridge, all waited for a sound from below, but there was none. At a command from Karpolan, they returned to their positions on the Trygalle carriage.
It seemed the High Mage was in no mood to conduct idle conversation with Paran, and he caught the Jaghut sorceress eyeing him sidelong a moment before she climbed into the carriage. He sighed. Delivering unpleasant news usually did this – he suspected if trouble arrived there wouldn’t be many helping hands reaching down for him. He climbed into the saddle once more and gathered the reins.
They resumed their journey. Eventually, they began on the downslope – the bridge was at least a league long. There was no way to tell, unless one sought to climb beneath the span, whether pillars or buttressing held up this massive edifice; or if it simply hung, suspended and unanchored, above a vast expanse of nothing.
Ahead, something took shape in the mists, and as they drew closer, they could make out a vast gateway that marked the bridge’s end, the flanking uprights thick at the base and tapering as they angled inward to take – precariously, it seemed – the weight of a huge lintel stone. The entire structure was covered with moss.
Karpolan halted the carriage in front of it and, as was his custom, sent the two Pardu shareholders through that gateway. When nothing untoward happened to them and they returned to report that the way beyond was clear – as much as they could make out, anyway – the carriage was driven through.
Only to halt just beyond, as the lead horses splashed into the silty water of a lake or sea.
Paran rode his horse down to the water’s edge. Frowning, he looked right, then left, eyes tracking the shoreline.
From the carriage, Hedge spoke: ‘Something wrong, Captain?’
‘Yes. This lake is what’s wrong.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s not supposed to be here.’
‘How do you know?’
Dismounting, Paran crouched by the water. No waves – perfect calm. He cupped his hand and dipped it into the cool, silty liquid. Raised it up, sniffed. ‘Smells like rot. This is flood water—’
He was interrupted by an eerie, wailing cry, coming from somewhere downshore.
‘Hood’s breath!’ Hedge hissed. ‘The lungs that punched that out are huge.’
Straightening, Paran squinted into the vague mists where it seemed the
sound had come from. Then he pulled himself into the saddle once more. ‘I think I was wrong about there being no guardian,’ he said.
Dull thunder, rising up from the ground beneath them. Whatever it was was on its way. ‘Let’s get going,’ Paran said. ‘Up the shoreline, and fast.’
Chapter Eleven
My faith in the gods is this: they are indifferent to my suffering.
Tomlos, Destriant of Fener
?827 Burn’s Sleep
*
His hands reached into another world. In, then out, in, then out again. Taking, giving – Heboric could not tell which, if either. Perhaps nothing more than the way a tongue worried a loose tooth, the unceasing probing that triggered stabs of confirmation that things still weren’t quite right. He reached in, and touched something, the impulsive gesture bitter as benediction, as if he could not help but repeat, endlessly, a mocking healer’s touch.
To the souls lost in the shattered pieces of jade giants, Heboric offered only lies. Oh, his touch told them of his presence, his attention, and they in turn were reminded of the true lives they once possessed, but what sort of gift could such knowledge provide? He voiced no promises, yet they believed in him nonetheless, and this was worse than torture, for both him and them.
The dead city was two days behind them now, yet its ignorant complacency haunted him still, the ghosts and their insensate, repetitive lives measured out stride by stride again and again. Too many truths were revealed in that travail, and when it came to futility Heboric needed no reminders.
Unseasonal clouds painted silver the sky, behind which the sun slid in its rut virtually unseen. Biting insects swarmed in the cooler air, danced in the muted light on the old traders’ road on which Heboric and his comrades travelled, rising up in clouds before them.
The horses snorted to clear their nostrils, rippled the skin of their necks and flanks. Scillara worked through her impressive list of curses, fending off the insects with clouds of rustleaf smoke swirling about her head. Felisin Younger did much the same, but without the blue tirade. Cutter rode ahead, and so, Heboric realized, was both responsible for stirring the hordes and blessed by quickly passing through them.
It seemed that Scillara too had noticed the same thing. ‘Why isn’t he back here? Then the bloodflies and chigger fleas would be chasing all of us, instead of this – this nightmare!’
Heboric said nothing. Greyfrog was bounding along on the south side of the road, keeping pace. Unbroken scrubland stretched out beyond the demon, whilst to the north ran a ridge of hills – the tail end of the ancient mountain range that held the long-dead city.
Icarium’s legacy. Like a god loosed and walking the land, Icarium left bloody footprints. Such creatures should be killed. Such creatures are an abomination. Whereas Fener – Fener had simply disappeared. Dragged as the Boar God had been into this realm, most of its power had been stripped away. To reveal itself would be to invite annihilation. There were hunters out there. I need to find a way, a way to send Fener back. And if Treach didn’t like it, too bad. The Boar and the Wolf could share the Throne of War. In fact, it made sense. There were always two sides in a war. Us and them, and neither can rightly be denied their faith. Yes, there was symmetry in such a notion. ‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘I have never believed in single answers, never believed in this… this divisive clash of singularity. Power may have ten thousand faces, but the look in the eyes of every one of them is the same.’ He glanced over to see Scillara and Felisin staring at him. ‘There’s no difference,’ he said, ‘between speaking aloud or in one’s own head – either way, no-one listens.’
‘Hard to listen,’ Scillara said, ‘when what you say makes no sense.’
‘Sense takes effort.’
‘Oh, I’ll tell you what makes sense, old man. Children are a woman’s curse. They start with weighing you down from the inside, then they weigh you down from the outside. For how long? No, not days, not months, not even years. Decades. Babies, better they were born with tails and four legs and eager to run away and crawl into some hole in the ground. Better they could fend for themselves the moment they scuttle free. Now, that would make sense.’
‘If that was the way it was,’ Felisin said, ‘then there’d be no need for families, for villages, for towns and cities. We’d all be living in the wilderness.’
‘Instead,’ Scillara said, ‘we live in a prison. Us women, anyway.’
‘It can’t be as bad as that,’ Felisin insisted.
‘Nothing can be done,’ Heboric said. ‘We each fall into our lives and that’s that. Some choices we make, but most are made for us.’
‘Well,’ Scillara retorted, ‘you would think that, wouldn’t you? But look at this stupid journey here, Heboric. True, at first we were just fleeing Raraku, that damned sea rising up out of the sands. Then it was that idiot priest of Shadow, and Cutter there, and suddenly we were following you – where? The island of Otataral. Why? Who knows, but it has something to do with those ghost hands of yours, something to do with you righting a wrong. And now I’m pregnant.’
‘How does that last detail fit?’ Felisin demanded, clearly exasperated.
‘It just does, and no, I’m not interested in explaining. Gods below, I’m choking on these damned bugs! Cutter! Get back here, you brainless oaf!’
Heboric was amused by the stunned surprise in the young man’s face as he turned round at the shout.
The Daru reined in and waited.
By the time the others arrived, he was cursing and slapping at insects.
‘Now you know how we feel,’ Scillara snapped.
‘Then we should pick up our pace,’ Cutter said. ‘Is everyone all right with that? It’d be good for the horses, besides. They need some stretching out.’
I think we all need that. ‘Set the pace, Cutter. I’m sure Greyfrog can keep up.’
‘He jumps with his mouth open,’ Scillara said.
‘Maybe we should all try that,’ Felisin suggested.
‘Hah! I’m full up enough as it is!’
No god truly deserved its acolytes. It was an unequal relationship in every sense, Heboric told himself. Mortals could sacrifice their entire adult life in the pursuit of communion with their chosen god, and what was paid in return for such devotion? Not much at best; often, nothing at all. Was the faint touch from something, someone, far greater in power – was that enough?
When I touched Fener…
The Boar God would have been better served, he realized, with Heboric’s indifference. The thought cut into him like a saw-bladed, blunt knife – nothing smooth, nothing precise – and, as Cutter led them into a canter down the track, Heboric could only bare his teeth in a hard grimace against the spiritual pain.
From which rose a susurration of voices, all begging him, pleading with him. For what he could not give. Was this how gods felt? Inundated with countless prayers, the seeking of blessing, the gift of redemption sought by myriad lost souls. So many that the god could only reel back, pummelled and stunned, and so answer every beseeching voice with nothing but silence.
But redemption was not a gift. Redemption had to be earned.
And so on we ride…
Scillara drew up alongside Cutter. She studied him until he became aware of the attention and swung his head round.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘Who said anything was wrong?’
‘Well, it’s been a rather long list of complaints from you of late, Scillara.’
‘No, it’s been a short list. I just like repeating myself.’
She watched him sigh, then he shrugged and said, ‘We’re maybe a week from the coast. I’m beginning to wonder if it was a good thing to take this overland route… through completely unpopulated areas. We’re always rationing our food and we’re all suffering from that, excepting maybe you and Greyfrog. And we’re growing increasingly paranoid, fleeing from every dust-trail and journey-house.’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing’s after us. We’re not being hun
ted. Nobody gives a damn what we’re up to or where we’re going.’
‘What if you’re wrong?’ Scillara asked. She looped the reins over the saddle horn and began repacking her pipe. His horse misstepped, momentarily jolting her. She winced. ‘Some advice for you, Cutter. If you ever get pregnant, don’t ride a horse.’
‘I’ll try to remember that,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you’re right. I might be wrong. But I don’t think I am. It’s not like we’ve set a torrid pace, so if hunters were after us, they’d have caught up long ago.’
She had an obvious reply to that, but let it go. ‘Have you been looking around, Cutter? As we’ve travelled? All these weeks in this seeming wasteland?’
‘Only as much as I need to, why?’
‘Heboric’s chosen this path, but it’s not by accident. Sure, it’s a wasteland now, but it wasn’t always one. I’ve started noticing things, and not just the obvious ones like that ruined city we passed near. We’ve been on old roads – loads that were once bigger, level, often raised. Roads from a civilization that’s all gone now. And look at that stretch of ground over there,’ she pointed southward. ‘See the ripples? That’s furrowing, old, almost worn away, but when the light lengthens you can start to make it out. It was all once tilled. Fertile. I’ve been seeing this for weeks, Cutter. Heboric’s track is taking us through the bones of a dead age. Why?’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Well, since he’s right behind us, he’s probably listening right now, Scillara.’
‘I don’t care. I was asking you.’
‘Well, I don’t know why.’
‘I do,’ she said.
‘Oh. All right, then, why?’
‘Heboric likes his nightmares. That’s why.’
Cutter met her eyes, then the Daru twisted in his saddle and looked back at Heboric.
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