With that, she walked away.
Cred returned his attention to the dying fire. ‘The sorcery within me is no weaker for this loss. How is such a thing possible?’
Shrugging, Stark unrolled her bedding and prepared for sleep, even though the day was barely half done. ‘Perhaps something feeds on what you offer.’
Cred frowned at the woman, and then nodded. ‘Yes, as I said earlier.’
‘No, not your magic, Cred. Just the fire, nothing else. Each day we lose more heat – where is the season of thaw? I see the sea flocks flying into the north. Crabs march the shallows, awaiting the next full moon. All around us, the world prepares its time of breeding and renewal. But not here, not in this camp.’
She settled down, drawing up the heavy furs until they covered her entirely.
Fixing his attention once more on the dying fire, Cred considered Stark’s words. If indeed the season was turning around them, then they had drifted inward. Stark had the truth of that. Curling down a spoke to settle on the hub, and at the very heart of that hub … Hood. He straightened. It has begun.
* * *
Varandas squatted opposite Hood. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I am ending time.’
‘No wonder it’s taking so long.’ Varandas glanced away, seeing the approach of the lone Azathanai who had elected to join this hoary legion. ‘One comes,’ he said to Hood. ‘She has circled for days. Only now are her perambulations revealed as a spiral. Mayhap she will challenge you.’
‘I am proof against challenges,’ Hood replied.
‘Most dullards are. Let reason bludgeon you about the head and then, like a dazed fly, retreat in wobbling flight. The witless are known to defy, with piggy eyes and pressed lips. Making a knuckled fist of their face, they proclaim the stars no more than studs of quartz upon the night sky’s velvet cloak, or the beasts of the wild as simple fodder serving our appetites. They carve every asinine opinion in the stone of their obstinacy and take pride in their own stupidity. Why is it that there comes a time in every civilization when the idiots rise to dominate all discourse, with beetled brows and reams of spite? Who are such fools, and how long did they lurk mostly unseen, simply awaiting their day in the benighted light?’
‘Are you done, Varandas?’ Hood asked.
‘The witless have no comprehension of the rhetorical. They misapprehend unanswerable questions, since in their puny worlds of comprehension they possess none. Only answers, solid as lumps of shit, and just as foul.’ Varandas looked up then, at the arrival of the Azathanai. He nodded, but her attention was on Hood.
She spoke. ‘The dead are marching, Hood. Clever, I suppose. When all wondered how we would march into that realm, instead you bring that realm to us.’
‘Spingalle, I did not think you fled too far.’
‘I never fled at all,’ the Azathanai replied.
‘Where, then?’
‘The Tower of Hate. Penance.’
Varandas frowned up at her. ‘You know, if you truly sought to hide among us Jaghut, you should not have elected the form of a woman of such beauty as to take our breath away.’
She glanced at him. ‘Unintended, Varandas. But if my appearance still delights you, I can oblige you in kind.’
‘Make me a woman? I think not, and shall remain content with occasional misapprehension. Oh, and if you will indulge me, sidelong admiration of the impostor in our company.’
Jaghut tended towards the lean and bony, but Spingalle had defied that common form, and in the contrast that was her fullness she elicited universal wonder among the Jaghut, men and women both. Varandas studied her for a moment longer, and then with a sigh he returned his attention to Hood. ‘She is right. That was clever.’
‘Even the witless will shed a spark every now and then,’ Hood said. ‘Spingalle, I was under the impression that the Tower of Hate was solid.’
‘No fault of mine if you believe everything Caladan Brood tells you. But then, you were always a credulous lot, prone to the literal, inured to the figurative. But this molestation of time, Hood, it seems … unwise.’
‘Wisdom is overrated,’ Hood said. ‘Now then, Spingalle, will you indeed join us when the day comes?’
‘I will. Death is a curiosity. Even, perhaps, a hobby of mine. I confess to some fascination, admittedly lurid. This notion of flesh that passes, soft shells that decay once the spirit has fled, and how such an affliction haunts you all.’
‘Us mortals, you mean?’ Varandas asked. ‘I’ll have you know, Azathanai, that those Jaghut who by chance escape premature death invariably welcome an end when at last it arrives. The flesh is a weary vessel, and that which crumbles soon becomes a prison to the soul. Death, accordingly, is a relief. Indeed, an escape.’
She frowned. ‘But why confound a soul with the uncertainty of its immortality?’
‘Perhaps,’ ventured Hood, ‘to awaken in us the value of faith.’
‘And what value has faith, Hood?’
‘Belief exists in order to humble the mundane world of proofs. If mortal flesh is a prison, so too is a world too well known. Within and without, we desire – and perhaps need – a means of escape.’
‘An escape you name faith. Thank you, Hood. You have enlightened me.’
‘Not too much, one hopes,’ Varandas said in a growl. ‘Lest all wonder die in your lavender eyes.’
‘Beauty desires admiration, Varandas, until it tires of it.’
‘And does it now pall in your regard, Spingalle?’
‘Probably. Besides, too much flattery and the subject begins to doubt its veracity, or at the very least, its worth. And besides, what worth is it, Varandas, to be the object of aesthetic admiration? I but give shape to your imagination.’
‘A rare gift,’ Varandas replied.
‘Not as rare as you think.’
‘Your Jaghut guise has soured you, Azathanai. Our misery is infectious.’
‘This too is probable. Hood, the Azath House in your abandoned city has won a reprieve. Even the guardian ghost knows invigoration. Still, that was a risky endeavour.’
Hood shrugged where he sat before his cold flames. ‘Do me a favour, Spingalle, and spread the word. It will be very soon now.’
‘Very well. Varandas, I should never have slept with you.’
‘True, as I remain eternally smitten.’
‘Somewhat pathetic of you, and therefore decidedly unattractive.’
‘Such is the curse of one who loses. But seed this ground between us with hope, and see me flower anew, bearing the sweet scent of delight and anticipation.’
‘Varandas, we are about to war with the dead.’
‘Yes, well, bad timing is another curse of mine, one not so easily discarded.’
She nodded to them both, and walked away.
Varandas stared after her, and then sighed again. A moment later he said, ‘More guests are imminent, Hood. Led by none other than Gothos’s brother.’
‘Don’t be ridic— Ah, well, that was a possibility, wasn’t it? What does he want with me, I wonder?’
‘A fist to your nose, I should expect.’
Hood grunted. ‘Beats a long conversation. In any case, it wasn’t really my fault.’
‘Yes,’ nodded Varandas, ‘be sure to tell him that.’
* * *
Arathan found himself glancing sidelong at the Thel Akai woman again and again, as she prowled about the low wall enclosing the yard of the Azath House. Her sword was still wet with the blood of a slain Seregahl, and she moved with a grace belying her martial girth. He could not decide if he admired warriors. They had been part of his life for as long as he could remember. As a child he had at first sought to shy away from them, with their clunking weapons and rustling armour. The world never seemed so dangerous as to demand such accoutrements, but that was, of course, naught but the naivety of a child. He had long since learned otherwise.
Korya was arguing with Haut, but they had pulled away, to keep the exchange more or less
private. The surviving Seregahl had marched off, limping and battered and, possibly, humbled. Death had a way of divesting the arrogant of their pretences. Even so, he did not expect the humility to last long.
The air was strangely still, yet it seemed to hold an echo of the chaos and carnage that had ripped through the yard not so long ago. The dust hanging in the air was reluctant to settle, or even drift away. If a breath could be held by inanimate nature, then surely it was being held now, and Arathan wondered why.
Snarling something, Korya wheeled from Haut and approached Arathan. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Go? Where?’
‘Anywhere, just away from here!’
They set out, leaving behind Haut, the Thel Akai and a Jaghut woman who now closed in on the captain, carrying in one hand a jug of wine.
‘And that,’ said Arathan as he fell in beside a swiftly striding Korya, ‘is what never makes sense.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘This dead civilization. This Omtose Phellack, the abandoned city. Look at that Jaghut woman now with your Haut. Sharing that jug. Wine? Where from? Who made it? Have you seen any vineyards?’
‘Sanad,’ said Korya after glancing back over a shoulder. Her scowl deepened. ‘An old lover of his, I think. They’re getting drunk together. Again. I don’t like Jaghut women.’
‘Why?’
‘They know too much and say too little.’
‘Well, I can see how that might irritate you.’
‘Careful, Arathan, I’m not in the mood. Besides, you have no idea what awaits me. You see before you a young woman, a hostage now orphaned, but I am so much more than that.’
‘So you keep telling me.’
‘You’ll see soon enough.’
‘I don’t see how, but never mind. I don’t want that argument again, Korya. There are people I want to find, and they’re probably dead. I have things that I need to say to them. Not only that, but I expect there will be many, many warriors beyond the Veil. I want to ask them: was it worth it?’
‘Was what worth it?’
‘The fighting. The killing.’
‘I doubt they’d tell you. But even more, I doubt they’d have anything worth saying. Being dead, they failed, right? You’re headed for miserable company, Arathan. Not that they’d welcome you, and not that you’ll ever get close anyway. It seems that you are to be my keeper.’
‘What?’
‘Haut needs to hand me over to someone else. You’re of House Dracons, right? Well, you have to deliver me to your father, but in the meantime, I’m now your hostage.’
‘You can’t be. I won’t accept you.’
‘Are you not your father’s son?’
‘Bastard son.’
‘But he acknowledged you. You are now of House Dracons. You have responsibilities. You can’t be a child any longer, Arathan.’
‘So that’s how you all worked it out, is it? I sense Gothos behind this.’
She shrugged. ‘I’m your hostage. You have to return me to Kurald Galain, to your father’s estate.’
‘He doesn’t want to see me. He brought me here to keep me away.’
‘So take me back and then leave again. What you do after you’ve discharged your responsibility is up to you.’
‘This is … underhanded.’
‘And don’t think we’ll be lingering, either. I want to leave. Soon.’
‘If you’re now my hostage, we’ll leave when I decide it, not you.’ He thought for a moment, and then frowned. ‘I’ve not done the translating yet—’
‘You idiot. You’ll never be done with that, because Gothos won’t ever stop. I would have thought you’d worked that out by now.’
‘But I was just getting to the interesting stuff.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it’s more or less an autobiography, but his story begins now – or, that is, he began it the day he killed civilization and became the Lord of Hate, and from there it goes back in time, day by day, year by year, decade by decade, century by—’
‘Yes, I get it.’ She paused, and then said, ‘But that’s stupid.’
‘The point is,’ said Arathan, ‘it means that there must be an end to it. When at last he finds his earliest memory.’
‘So how far back have you managed to transcribe?’
‘About six years.’
She stopped, stared at him.
His frown deepened. ‘What? What’s wrong?’
‘How far has he gone back? In his writing?’
‘A couple of centuries, I think.’
‘And how old is Gothos?’
Arathan shrugged. I’m not sure. Two or three, I think.’
‘Centuries?’
‘Millennia.’
She made a fist as if to strike him, and then subsided. Sighing, she shook her head. ‘Gothos’s Folly indeed.’
‘There are dead people I need to see.’
‘See the living ones instead, Arathan. At least they might, on occasion, tell you something worth hearing.’ She set off once more, and Arathan followed.
‘It would be irresponsible of me,’ he said, ‘to take you back to a civil war.’
‘Oh, just fuck off, will you?’ She angled away. ‘I’m off to see a man with freckles on his arms.’
FOURTEEN
YEDAN NARAD STOOD FACING THE FOREST WITH HIS BACK to the grove. The snow upon branches and the ground blackened the boles of the trees, and the crazed scrawl of twigs against the white sky ran like cracks in the face of the world. It was no difficult thing to see the future’s end, looming like the breaking of winter.
Each night his dreams tore apart the shrouds of time. He walked a shoreline in a past he had never lived, into a future that was not his. He spoke with queens who called him brother, yet offered him the rotting, skeletal visage of a young woman in the attire of a bride. He felt sweet breath upon his cheek that assaulted his senses like the stain of gangrene.
During each day, as the hunters of the Shake gathered, as the makeshift army of Glyph of the Shore grew, Narad found himself less able to distinguish the real from the imagined, the moment ahead from the moment just past. At times, he would glance up and see the surrounding forest transformed into walls of raging fire, into a ceaseless cascade of silver, mercurial light. From wounds in the air, he saw the lunging bulk of dragons clawing through, the image rushing towards him as if he was, somehow, flying into the face of horror.
In his dreams, they named him warrior. Of his exploits, they spoke words of awe from crowds too formless to comprehend even as he walked through their midst. Somehow, he led them all, sustained by virtues and qualities of command he knew he did not possess. Everything seemed borrowed, perhaps even stolen. The expectations had begun to bleed into the real world, as increasingly he was looked to for guidance. It was only a matter of time before someone – Glyph, or, now, hate-filled Lahanis – exposed him for what he was.
Narad, lowborn murderer, rapist, who lied to the First Son of Darkness. Why? Because deceit dwells in his heart, and he will duck every hand of justice. Cowardice hides behind his every desire, and just as he fled retribution, so he created for himself false memories, pillaging all he could.
And yet, it was too late to deny the reality of what was coming. He had promised the Shake to the First Son, but the summons, when it came, would see Lord Anomander – not the Shake – dislodged, made to move in order to achieve the meeting. And in that moment, Narad now knew, he would once more betray the man.
That shore is an unwelcome one to every stranger. But that shore is what we will call home. When you find us, you will answer our need. Fail to do so, and death will find you here. But even if you give honourable answer, beware your back, for there I will be standing. I am not who you think I am. For all my avowals, there is a weakness in me, a flaw in the core of my being. It will reveal itself. It is only a matter of time.
‘Yedan Narad.’
He turned to see that
Glyph had approached him from the swollen camp now crowding the glade. Two steps behind the hunter stood Lahanis, the killer who had once been a child of the Borderswords. She had shown up a week past and now accompanied Glyph wherever he went. Her small hands rested upon the grips of the two long-knives slipped through her belt. Her eyes, fixed upon Narad, told him of her suspicions.
‘There are Legion soldiers in the forest,’ Glyph said. ‘They track someone.’
Narad shrugged. ‘A criminal. A deserter.’
‘It makes it difficult for us to remain hidden.’
Narad’s gaze flicked to Lahanis. ‘Then kill the trackers.’ At that, he saw her smile.
But Glyph reacted to the suggestion with a troubled frown. ‘Yedan Narad. Has the time then come to begin our war of vengeance? A thousand and more have gathered here, but many more have yet to reach us. Though we now claim to be warriors, few of us know the ways of soldiering. We remain hunters. Our habits are ill suited—’
‘Was this not what you wanted?’ Narad asked him.
He hesitated. ‘Each hunting party elects its own leader. In the forest, they seek isolation from other bands. Nothing can be coordinated.’
Lahanis spoke. ‘It is simple enough, Glyph, as I have already explained. Call the hunting party a squad, make the leader a sergeant.’
‘These are titles and nothing more,’ Glyph replied. ‘Our habits remain. Yedan Narad, you alone among us understand the soldiering ways. Yet you refuse to guide us.’
‘I told you. I never commanded anyone.’ Least of all myself.
‘He’s useless,’ Lahanis said to Glyph. ‘I have said as much. Leave him to his drunken wandering. If you’ve need of a priest, you have found one, but no priest will ever win anyone a war. I alone possess the knowledge you seek. Grant me command, Glyph, and I will make your people into an army.’
‘You, child,’ Glyph said, ‘have yet to walk the Shore. You remain possessed by hate, and it blinds you to the destiny awaiting us.’
Lahanis sneered in answer to that, and then jabbed a finger at Narad. ‘If this man is witness to your destiny, then it has blinded him!’
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