Surrender to the Will of the Night

by Glen Cook

  SURRENDER to the WILL of the NIGHT

  Book Three of the Instrumentalities of the Night

  GLEN COOK

  Piper Hecht's first and greatest secret is that he knows how to kill gods. What's not a secret is that he knows how to win wars

  Piper Hecht's secrets make him dangerous, but his skill and his reputation put him in danger--from his enemies, who fear what he might do, or who want revenge for what he has already done; and from his friends, who want to use his military gifts for their own purposes. His sister Heris and his living ancestor Cloven Februaren, the Ninth Unknown, have made Hecht part of their fight against the return of the dark god Kharoulke the Windwalker. At the same time, the half-mad Empress Katrin wants him to lead the armies of the Grail Empire eastward on a crusade against his old coreligionists the Praman.

  Meanwhile, all around them, the world is changing. The winters are growing longer and harder every year, and the seas are getting shallower. The far north and the high mountain ranges are going under the ice, and fast. The Wells of Power, everywhere, keep getting weaker. And the old evils, the Instrumentalities from the Time Before Time, have begun to ooze back into the world. As ever, the genius of Glen Cook's storytelling lies in his common touch: in soldiers who are like real soldiers, in men and women who love and laugh and sweat, with real hopes and real fears, united only in their determination to face the oncoming night.

  Tor Books by Glen Cook

  THE INSTRUMENTALITIES OF THE NIGHT

  The Tyranny of the Night

  Lord of the Silent Kingdom

  Surrender to the Will of the Night

  An Ill Fate Marshalling

  Reap the East Wind

  The Swordbearer

  The Tower of Fear

  THE BLACK COMPANY

  The Black Company (The First Chronicle)

  Shadows Linger (The Second Chronicle)

  The White Rose (The Third Chronicle)

  Shadow Games (The First Book of the South)

  Dreams of Steel (The Second Book of the South)

  Chronicles of the Black Company

  (comprising The Black Company, Shadows Linger, and The White Rose)

  The Books of the South

  (comprising Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel, and The Silver Spike)

  Return of the Black Company

  (comprising Bleak Seasons and She Is the Darkness)

  The Silver Spike

  Bleak Seasons (Book One of Glittering Stone)

  She Is the Darkness (Book Two of Glittering Stone)

  Water Sleeps (Book Three of Glittering Stone)

  Soldiers Live (Book Four of Glittering Stone)

  SURRENDER TO THE WILL OF THE NIGHT

  Copyright © 2010 by Glen Cook

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor ® eBook

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor ® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  First ToreBook Edition: November 2010

  First Edition: November 2010

  ISBN 978-0-7653-0686-9

  eISBN 978-1-4299-4514-1

  This ePub edition v1.0 by Dead^Man Jan, 2011

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  For the good folks who put on the wonderful

  Austin World Fantasy Convention — thank you!

  Prologue

  The ice is coming. It might mean the end of the world. But mortal men harken only to their hunger of the moment.

  1. The Grail Empire: Forest of Night

  Eighteen remained of the seventy Chosen who had departed chill Sparmargen, holy hunters headed south. Most had been injured or were wounded. Five had to be kept tied into their saddles. Once they stopped outside the gateway they discovered that Drengtin Skyre had been dead so long his corpse was cold. His pony was in a state of supernatural angst.

  There was nothing remarkable about the gateway. It was an opening in a rail fence. On this side there was ice and a frosting of hard snowflakes. A manic wind hurled dead leaves about aimlessly. The world beyond the fence might be warmer. The leaves there were sodden. The wind could not pick them up.

  The ragged, pale pilgrims with the bones and small skulls in their hair stared at the wintered wood. Something built of gray stone could just be discerned through the skeletal trees. Each sacred assassin hoped their quarry was there, so this harsh quest could be brought to an end.

  From among them came Krepnight, the Elect. He wore somewhat human form. He was a divine artifact. His left hand had seven fingers. His right bore six. His toes matched that pattern. He had no hair on him anywhere. His skin seemed impossibly taut and shiny and shone a sickly snot green with irregular patches of deep reddish brown. His cheekbones were exaggerated. His eyes were those of a great cat. His teeth were sharp and numerous and serrated at their back edges.

  Krepnight, the Elect, had sprung forth full-grown from the imagination of Kharoulke the Windwalker. He existed for one purpose. Its target lay just a bit more than an arrow’s flight ahead.

  Krepnight, the Elect, urged his frightened mount forward. He ignored the sign beside the gateway, BEWARE THE WOLVES AND WERE, in faded Brothen capitals. He could not read, anyway.

  Nor could many of his companions. None, the language of this land.

  Krepnight, the Elect, paused after a four-hundred-yard advance. He faced a small castle from barely a hundred feet. Its drawbridge was down, spanning a wet moat eight feet wide.

  Krepnight, the Elect, could not cross running water without help. The water in the moat was in motion.

  Water was not relevant.

  An arrow slammed into the artifact’s chest. It drove through till fourteen inches protruded from his back. The shaft was thick, oak, tipped with armor-piercing iron. Krepnight, the Elect, rocked back after the impact, then just sat petrified in his saddle.

  Brittle cold air swirled round him. He felt every breath.

  He could do nothing.

  Two old men came across the drawbridge. One carried an iron shovel, the other a rusty bill. Shovel man took the reins of the divine artifact’s mount and led him away, the horse quaking in terror. A hundred yards on, at the brink of a gully, the bill man used his tool to unseat the rider, who tumbled into the little ravine.

  Both old men shoveled and dragged dirt, sticks, stones, and fallen leaves onto the immobile body.

  The light went away. A long time passed. Ravens watched quietly from the trees. Wolves came to consider the fallen artifact and be amused by his misfortune.

  In time, the pilgrim’s companions found the divine artifact. They dug him out. One broke the heavy arrow and drew the shaft. Krepnight, the Elect, shook off the dirt and leaves and got his feet under him. The crows above chattered eloquently about this grand practical joke. The wolves kept their distance but their body language bespoke cruel contempt.

  There were shamans among the Chosen. They stayed close as Krepnight, the Elect, resumed his advance on the castle. They suppressed the power of the water. A dozen men were within touching distance as Krepnight, the Elect, crossed that drawbridge and carried his god’s will into the rustic citadel.

  A blinding flash. A vast roar. A thousand needles of agony. An irrevocable death for Krepnight, the Elect, and all who walked with him.

  While the corpses still shook and twitched wolves hit every man who had passed the warning sign.

  Three younger riders, left outside by their captain, flew off to report the disaster.

  R
avens followed. Mocking.

  The Night knows no special love for those who consider themselves its own. Of the three, two fell victim to ruthless minor Instrumentalities. The last was too mad to report anything useful when he did win through.

  His return was information enough.

  His god rewarded him as gods do. It devoured him.

  2. Lucidia: In the Eye of Gherig and the Shadow of the Idiam

  The wind had an edge like a rusted saw. No man living remembered such cold in the Lucidian desert. For sure not when full winter had not yet arrived. Some had seen snow before — in the distance, on peaks in the highest of the high ranges.

  The stone tower atop Tel Moussa offered an outstanding view for leagues around. Built by crusaders to watch for invaders from Qasr al-Zed, the watchtower had been captured by Indala al-Sul Halaladin, Wielder of the Sword of God, after he crushed the crusaders at the Well of Days. Now it was home to desperate fugitives from Dreanger who had taken service with Muqtaba Ashef al-Fartebi ed-Din, the Kaif of Qasr al-Zed.

  The cruel wind plucked at the graying hair and beard of Nassim Alizarin. They called him the Mountain. He was a man so large only western destriers could carry him. And he required a string of those when he traveled. He wore them out quickly.

  Nassim turned slowly. The Unbelievers had chosen the site well, though they built on foundations set down ages past. A hundred armies had traveled the road below, headed one direction or the other, since men learned to make war. Nassim thought more would come and go before long.

  A solitary horseman approached from the south, bent over his saddle, miserable. That would be the old man, Bone, back from a circuit of Sha-lug outposts along the far borders of the Crusader states. Behind Bone, crouched like an evil sphinx on the horizon, loomed the dark silhouette of Gherig, the Crusader stronghold no mere mortal could hope to capture. The Brotherhood of War manned Gherig. Sometimes those hardy warrior-priests approached Tel Moussa, hoping to draw out the fugitive Sha-lug. The Mountain would not play. In the best times he had fewer than four hundred followers scattered across the Realm of Peace. His war with his onetime friend, Gordimer the Lion, Marshal of the Sha-lug, was not going well. Most Sha-lug agreed that the murder of Nassim’s son Hagid was an abomination. Yet they did not see that as an excuse adequate to justify bloodshed between brother warriors.

  The essence of al-Prama was submission. The essence of being Sha-lug was discipline.

  The Master of Ghosts, al-Azer er-Selim, joined Nassim. He cursed the bone-biting wind. Softly. The Mountain tolerated neither blasphemy nor the invocation of demons. Az asked, “Is that Bone?” His eyes were no match for those of the General.

  “Yes. And bringing no good news.”

  “Uhm?” Az looked northward and slightly to the east, toward the Idiam, that harshest of deserts. Az dreaded bad news. If it turned bad enough — so bad that Muqtaba al-Fartebi no longer saw any value in supporting a Sha-lug splinter faction against the Kaif of al-Minphet — then the only safety might lie in Andesqueluz. The haunted city.

  The Mountain read his stare. “We’ll never be that desperate. The Lucidians need every blade. The Hu’n-tai At threaten in the north and east. Once Tsistimed the Golden finishes devouring the Ghargarlicean Empire he’ll turn on Lucidia.”

  Below, the weary rider began the climb to the tower. Would he make it? Did he have strength enough left?

  Bone was old but those who knew him never bet against him.

  “How does he stay alive?” Nassim asked.

  “Uhm?” The Master of Ghosts now stared a couple of points south of the line that would bisect the Idiam. Toward the Abhar River and the northern end of the freshwater lake the locals called the Sea of Zebala. Scarcely a day’s walk away. It could be seen glistening on a sunny day. Beside that lake, to the south, lay the village Chaldar, birthplace of the Chaldarean religious error. One of the Wells of Ihrian lay near Chaldar. Az could not recall its name.

  He had begun to have memory problems.

  “Tsistimed, Ghost Master. How can he still be alive? He’s been the King of Kings of the Hu’n-tai At for two hundred years.” And was still fathering princes who grew up to rebel against him.

  Az shrugged. “Sorcery.” The all-purpose answer. “Let’s go greet Bone beside a fire.”

  “In a moment.” Nassim stared toward Gherig, now. And slightly north of that fastness, toward the Well of Days, where the crusaders had suffered their worst disaster ever. He pointed quickly, here, there, yon, naming the Wells of Ihrian. “The Well of Remembrance. The Well of Atonement,” and so forth. “If you connect them all with lines, those lines almost perfectly define the Plain of Judgment.” Where a hundred battles had been fought across the ages. Where the final conflict between God and the Adversary would take place, according to all four religions with roots in the Holy Lands.

  “Really?” Az replied. He was learned but no more religious than he had to be to survive amongst the fiercely religious. “Could there be a connection with the weakening of the wells? Would we be better off if Indala had slaughtered the crusaders on the Plain instead of in the wastes overlooking the Well of Days?”

  “It’s a thought. For someone more connected to the Night than I.” Nassim headed downstairs.

  ***

  Bone fit his nickname. There was little flesh on him and his skin was sickly pale. Az feared the old company would shrink again soon. Only a handful were left. And their captain was far away, being someone else. Given no choice by Heaven or Earth.

  Someone brought broth for Bone, Az, and Nassim. The Mountain’s lieutenants gathered. Bone was nearest the fire but could not stop shaking. The Mountain called for more fuel. Bone squeezed his mug with blue fingers and sipped. He began to thaw, to peep out into the world, to be relieved to see Az close by.

  “I bring no joy,” the old man rasped. “They have forgotten us.” But that was not the message he had come to deliver. “I have that wrong. They haven’t forgotten. They can’t bring themselves to care enough to turn on the Marshal. The Rascal is a different story. They would cut him down if they could lure him out of hiding. The Lion himself would do so. But none yet despair enough of Gordimer’s leadership to turn against him. Our secret friends have begun to fade. They say we’ve offered no alternative, only an end to what stands.”

  The Mountain sighed, sank onto a low divan. It was true. He had gone to war against Gordimer and er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen. Wicked though those two had been, they had been the law in the kaifate of al-Minphet. Gordimer still was. The Sha-lug and the Faith were greater than the sum of any crimes. Before all else, there must be a Marshal. And a law. Else, Dreanger would slide into chaos. The Holy Lands would be lost.

  Lucidia — the kaifate of Qasr al-Zed — could not put an end to the outsiders. Indala al-Sul Halaladin was old. Unlike Gordimer, he was too honorable to seize all power for himself. He bent his neck to the whims of his Kaif. And had to concentrate on the ever-waxing threat of the Hu’n-tai At.

  “It’s true,” said the Mountain. “I am undone by emotion. And have dragged you all with me. We are become Gisela Frakier for Muqtaba al-Fartebi.” Gisela Frakier were those most loathed of Believers, Pramans who served the enemies of the Faith for pay. Gisela Frakier patrolled and enforced the boundaries of Rhûn, backed by the Eastern Emperor’s professional armies.

  Ancient tribal rivalries compelled some Faithful to become Gisela Frakier. In the time before the revelation brought in by the Founding Family, religion had been a critical part of tribal identities. Throughout the range now blessed by the Faith the tribes had been divided equally amongst Devedian, Chaldarean, and animistic devotions.

  In the mouth of Nassim Alizarin “Gisela Frakier” became uglier than “apostate.”

  “If we have a kaif,” Nomun observed. Nomun had turned rebel when the Lion took his daughter into the Palace of the Kings at al-Qarn. Nomun had been a brilliant captain in the field. Further, he was steeped in book lore and had a reputation as a consummate surgeon. It
would be the Nomuns of the Sha-lug, as their numbers increased, who ended the tyranny in al-Qarn.

  “If we have a kaif?” Nassim asked.

  “Al-Fartebi is sick again. Rumors whisper poison.” As always they did when a man of standing became ill. More often with Muqtaba al-Fartebi than others. Muqtaba had poisoned his predecessor. There had been talk of setting him aside because of the threats of the Hu’n-tai At, the resurgent Crusader states, and increased pressure from al-Minphet. And Muqtaba would have gone but for Indala al-Sul Halaladin. All the world feared Indala’s displeasure. Some believed the Hu’n-tai At were withholding their fury only because they did not want to waken the genius of the Battle of the Well of Days.

  “There’s debate about who should replace al-Fartebi. Indala refuses the role. As always. But two of his sons have shown it no disdain.”

  Civil war? Always a possibility where posts were not passed on according to blood. Nassim said, “Indala trained his sons to be warriors. The Kaif should be a holy man.”

  Several men snickered. Native Lucidians all. Few recent kaifs had been truly holy. Some claimed Muqtaba’s frequent illnesses were the result of his dedication to vice. To his fondness for absinthe in particular.

  The Mountain considered Bone. Bone seemed to have shrunk into himself. “All that means nothing to us. Our world is Tel Moussa and the watch on Gherig.”

  Al-Azer er-Selim observed, “There’s always the option of returning to the west.”

  “Not for Nassim Alizarin. I stay. I abide. If I have to flee into the Idiam, I will. I’ll play the trapdoor spider. My hour will come. God delivers the wicked into the hands of the righteous. I’ll be as patient as the mountain.”

  Az and Bone stirred uneasily. They had seen the Idiam. They had visited the haunted city, Andesqueluz. Both knew that “the Mountain” was one translation of the name of the chief god in the pantheon that held sway locally before the rise of the modern religions. And of late madmen had been trying to resurrect fallen gods.