‘They will fail,’ K’rul agreed, ‘because I am unknowable.’
‘Yes. And your gesture, K’rul, was an act of love, yielding unending wonder. What you have done will infuriate the world.’
K’rul shrugged. ‘That will … suffice.’
They resumed their journey.
* * *
A broad, flat stone, ten paces across, squatted above the tideline, at the very edge of the caustic miasma that drifted from the Vitr. Long before the unnatural sea’s birth, in the age when the Builders were content working with raw rock, earth and trees, this massive stone had been worked into an altar, its surface roughly flattened by antler picks, with the spiralling grooves left to the elements to soften through seasons of rain, snow, heat and cold.
But none of this had prepared the altar for the acidic bite of the Vitr’s roiling breath. The patterns upon its surface were mostly gone, and the grooves that remained were brittle to the touch. Just as faith died with a people’s death, so too this obelisk and the worship it embodied.
The Thel Akai, Kanyn Thrall, crouched upon the flat surface, leaning on his short-handled, double-bladed axe. The weapon had once belonged to a Thelomen chieftain. Its forger had pronounced it cursed, unsurprisingly, after Thrall had killed the chief in single combat. Such trophies could only be claimed with a touch of irony, an acknowledgement that edges cut both ways. Kanyn Thrall had smiled when he discarded his broken spear, its famed point blunted and barely recognizable beneath a welter of gore, and collected up the cursed axe.
Some weapons possessed only a single moment of triumph within them. Clearly, the axe he now held was biding its time.
With that thought foremost in his mind, lingering in an idle way, he tilted his head slightly as he regarded the dragon drawn up upon the Vitr’s strand, directly opposite him and interceding itself between him and the hovering, crackling gate of Starvald Demelain. The gate had been born, in rupturing fury, far to the south, where it had spilled out a broken storm of dragons, but it had since migrated here, sung close by his mistress’s siren call, and day after day she strengthened the anchors now holding the gate in place.
Songs like the silky strands of a spider, a web very nearly complete. All that remained, he reminded himself, was some sorry bastard’s soul torn loose and stuffed into the gaping wound that was Starvald Demelain. A soul to seal the maw, and pray it’s a mighty soul, a stubborn soul, a soul made to suffer.
Not mine, then.
The dragon had clearly split away from the broken storm – as, he suspected, had most of the others – and circled round, possibly to flee back through the gate. But then, what was stopping it?
Not me. Not my mistress. Not our guest, still half starved, still entirely lost. No, this dragon seems determined to stand in my stead. But I need no help guarding this gate.
And still it refuses to speak.
He reached one hand up to rub at his face, shocked yet again at the deep lines that furrowed it. Shifting slightly – even a Thel Akai born to crouch and squat could know aches in the posture, eventually – he turned his gaze back over his right shoulder, to where the Second Temple stood in tilted disregard amidst lifeless sand dunes. Second Temple. So she calls it, with that mocking smile. ‘While you, Kanyn Thrall, you claim the first one. That flat stone, that eroded failure soon to dissolve beneath the waters of the Vitr. Not that my abode will last much longer, of course. Still, I am optimistic. Its Chamber of Dreaming remains empty, but still, on late nights, I enter it, listening for her whisper.’
Foolish woman. Your lover drowned, and you’ll not again lie with your queen. Just as I will never again lie with my king, since no two men can ever shit out an heir. This is how things are, Ardata. Let’s make use of our guest’s soul, swollen as it is with self-pity, and stopper the gate shut, and then let us leave, seeking some other worthy cause.
He couldn’t see her. Somewhere inside the Second Temple, he surmised, drifting from empty room to empty room, fingers making patterns in the air that lingered like floating webs in her wake.
Come the night she’d take his cock, the lesser pleasure being the only pleasure, and he’d take her wet hole, for much the same reason. It was, all things considered, comical.
A Thel Akai tale to be sure, a long joke’s sudden punchline. I see the host rocking back in delighted laughter, enough to drown the sting to be sure. Though my king’s eyes would look on, veiled behind the fixed smile. Old men should never linger.
The guest, however, was there, seated upon a toppled column below the shattered steps, whetstone motionless in one hand, sword-blade resting across his thighs. He was staring out at the Vitr, his mouth somewhat open, somewhat hanging. A man not yet old enough to take stock of his orifices, snapping them shut to all worlds but the intimate one. No, instead he gawks, and gawps. He works at something and then that mouth hinges open, to show the heavy drama of his deed. Pant pant pant, each breath almost but not quite silent. Irritating as all the hells Ardata claims to have survived. Whatever ‘hells’ are.
He had stumbled into them some time back, this stranger, this guest. Walking, he told them, from a dead horse – the fool had carried the saddle to prove it – up from the south, a dying wanderer, or perhaps a refugee, or even a criminal. Choose the title you like, just add ‘dying’ to it and that’ll do.
Kanyn was of no mind to lend aid. His days of offering salvation were far behind him. But the Mistress had insisted, and it was only much later that the Thel Akai warrior had divined her unspoken motivation.
He eyed the swollen, swirling wound that was the gate of Starvald Demelain. Extraordinary that a single soul could seal it shut. But not mine. Not hers, either.
The dragon was staring at him, as it had been staring at him ever since he took his station opposite it, the very morning of its confounding arrival. As far as staring contests went, not even a Thel Akai could match a dragon’s baleful, unblinking regard. Instead, Kanyn would periodically meet those reptilian eyes and offer up a twisted expression, slowly shutting one eye while screwing up the other, perhaps, or dangling his tongue, or sending its glistening tip upward to touch his own nose. A finger to savage the itch in one ear, another to explore the caverns of his nose. A sudden farting sound, or coughing out a hidden handful of dirt and dust. Occasionally, he’d reach to his own genitals, as if about to begin playing with himself.
But that never went further. Besides the indignity of such a thing, the damned dragon’s eyes never even narrowed.
He contemplated walking up to it and pissing on its snout. ‘What would you say to that?’ he called out suddenly. ‘Bladder’s full, after all. Give a man who needs to piss a target and he’s happy. Shall we make me happy?’
The guest had looked over, and now he slipped down from the column and walked towards Kanyn Thrall. ‘Thel Akai, why do you bother?’
Kanyn squinted. ‘Already feigning banal uninterest in our winged interloper? That did not take long. I wonder, is that the secret gift of those low in intelligence, that makes them so well armoured against amazement? The cynic’s shallow wit, yes? I almost admire you. No, honestly. What bliss would I know had I half the wit! Tell me, at least, that you ate the horse.’
The guest halted. ‘Served me too well, sir, for such ignominy!’
‘So you hollowed your stomach instead. Horses are as quick to serve a master when dead as when living, you fool. That’s what blind servitude is all about.’
‘There are other kinds of service, Thel Akai.’
‘Such as?’
The man drew himself up slightly and Kanyn groaned inwardly, bracing himself for another grave pronouncement. ‘I left my brave mount where it fell, and in so doing, I served the honour I held for it.’
‘You honoured it by wasting it? Ah, I see. Naturally. Why didn’t I think of that? Now kindly strut back to that column, will you? You’re sucking up all the hot air.’
‘I do not know why you dislike me so.’
‘That’s right,’ Kanyn
replied, looking back to the dragon and settling once more, ‘you don’t.’
‘Should I take offence?’
‘Why not? I daily leave a heap of it in that latrine pit behind the temple. Help yourself.’
After a moment, the guest turned away, and Kanyn heard the soft clack of the man’s mouth finally closing. Ah, see that? He’s learning. He studied the dragon again. Not beasts he was familiar with. This was the first one he had ever seen. Wheeling down from the skies of legend, fierce and massive, unknowable and – to anyone other than a Thel Akai – frightening.
But the Old Goddess had spewed out enough contempt on the matter of dragons, raising her huge fists before her to tell her children of skulls crushed flat, blood spraying from slitted nostrils, and all the rest. Tales to stain all wonder from her brood, a soaking of disdain.
Even so, it was a formidable beast.
‘Finally!’
The voice hissed deafeningly inside Kanyn Thrall’s head, startling him so much that he bit his own tongue. Cursing, he spat red and then straightened, hefting the axe into both hands. ‘Finally what, lizard?’
‘Old Goddess, is it? That would be Kilmandaros. Some Azathanai are too stupid to be gods, unless, of course, they breed even stupider children. In which case, why, paradise beckons!’
‘You speak in my head with the voice of a woman. What name do you claim?’
The dragon lifted her snout, and then stretched her jaws wide in the manner of a yawning cat. A mangled knot of wet armour was lodged between two jagged molars. The jaws closed again, with a faint squeal. ‘Are you worthy of knowing my name? The bitch of spiders calls you Kanyn Thrall. Thus, you have nothing to give me in return. I only bargain, Thel Akai. Gifts are for fools.’
‘I can give you something in return, dragon. My axe blade between your eyes. A name, if you please, to etch on to the iron, alongside the many others I have slain.’
‘Others? Other dragons? I think not, and let us be clear here, Kanyn Thrall, your other victories have all the bravado of rats crunched underfoot. I make breakfast of mortal heroes and shit out pitted iron at day’s end. I make morsels of Tiste champions, snacks of Thel Akai hunters, paltry meals of Jhelarkan, Dog-Runners, Thelomen and Jheck.’
Kanyn Thrall tilted his head back and laughed. ‘You’ve been listening in! Enough to harvest the names of many of those who dwell in this realm! But we well know the path of your passage, from the gate’s first manifestation on the south shore of the Vitr to here, and now. If you found a snack or two on the way, unsurprising. But champions and heroes? Thel Akai and Thelomen? You, dragon, are full of shit.’
After a long moment, the dragon subsided. ‘Disrespect is ill advised.’
‘A threat to make me quake! Do try another!’
‘I could take you in my talons, Kanyn Thrall of the Thel Akai, and stretch your soul across the wound.’
‘Come close and you will rue it.’
‘Look into my eyes, Kanyn Thrall. In them you may see … a warning.’
‘I see nothing but witless—’ In the last moment, he caught the reflection in those massive, reptilian orbs. Bellowing, he wheeled, but not in time, as a second dragon, skimming low over the Second Temple, lunged upon him, snapping down its talons to close about the Thel Akai.
The creature flung Kanyn Thrall into the air, and crooked wings lifting like sails to buffet the air, caught him a second time, talons punching through his scale armour to bite into his flesh. The axe spun away.
Kanyn was thrown to the ground, the impact breaking his right leg beneath the knee. He howled in pain, rolling on to his side, glaring down at the two glistening, snapped ends of the bones jutting through the skin.
The second dragon landed with a heavy thump beside the huge stone, its tail flicking from side to side. ‘Curdle, my love! I’ve told you about taunting Thel Akai!’
A new voice spoke from behind Kanyn. ‘And I told your lover about injuring my companions.’
The new dragon twisted its head round. ‘Ardata! Speaking of lovers, where is yours? She was a reluctant soul to be sure. Resisting the snare we made for her. Mayhap she escaped, but into what? Why, the Vitr, and that is a most forgetful sea! No matter, enough of us made use of her.’
Swathed in animal skins so old that patches of hair were missing, Ardata sedately approached with all the grace of an empress, until she stood over Kanyn Thrall. Glancing down, she frowned. ‘That’s an evil break. Lie still. We’ll have to deal with it and the rest of your wounds in a mundane way, since I’ve yet to explore this Denul Warren.’ Her thin face bore the deep lines of all who chose to dwell too close to the Vitr, although she had assured him that such details quickly faded with distance. ‘Youth is restored, my friend,’ she had told him, ‘although your old man complaints are another matter.’
Funny woman, ha ha. The Thel Akai studied her plain-featured face through the haze of pain, even as she spoke once more to the second dragon.
‘Telorast, you and Curdle were banished once from this realm. Do not expect to linger long this time around, either. You are still the biting fleas on the hide of this world.’
‘Hear that, love? The dog is of a mind to scratch. Are we frightened?’
‘Where have you been?’ Curdle demanded.
‘South of the Vitr, beyond the stubborn plain. I visited a modest fort, occupied by quaking Tiste, now as black as that plain’s grasses. Most curious.’
‘The Suzerain.’
‘No doubt. In any case, I chose a sweet form to entice them and so learned much. Light is born anew, Curdle, and the Tiste are divided between it and Dark. There is civil war. Isn’t that quaint?’
Curdle rose slightly, arching her spine as her wings unfolded. ‘And the Grey Shore?’
‘An uglier birth in the offing, beloved. Still in its throes.’
‘It will be ours!’
‘Shhh! The spiders are listening!’
Ardata turned as the Tiste guest joined them. The man held his sword, eyeing the dragons. ‘Put your blade away,’ she said to him. ‘Feed the brazier within the temple. Set two of my thin blades into the flames. Then, fetch water from the well and find something we can use to make splints. Is any of that beyond you?’
The young Tiste scowled. ‘No.’
‘Go, then. We will join you shortly.’ She swung back to the dragons. ‘Your ambitions overreach, again.’ She paused, and her voice hardened as she added, ‘You misused the Queen of Dreams, and that I will not forget.’
‘A threat?’ Telorast laughed, the hissing mirth filling Kanyn’s skull. ‘Feed us another Thel Akai, then.’ A moment later she sembled into the body of a Tiste woman, onyx-skinned, radiant, and naked. ‘Look at me, Curdle! There are pleasures to be found in this modest morsel! Match me in kind, so that we may clasp hands and beam most becomingly! In that smug way of couples no matter what the world. Come, let us preen!’
Curdle blurred as well, drawing inward to coalesce into another Tiste woman, this one taller than her lover, heavier-boned.
‘You’re somewhat fat,’ Telorast observed, pouting.
Curdle smiled. ‘I like it. More weight to throw around. In a crowd of Tiste, others will step from my path. Is that civil war over yet?’
Telorast shrugged. ‘White-skinned and black-skinned, at odds. Armies on the march, blah blah.’
‘Nothing worth our attention, then.’
‘Oh, we should draw close when the clash comes. The black-skinned army bears odd weapons. Tiste iron quenched in Vitr.’
At that, Ardata stepped back, her breath hissing. Even Curdle flinched.
‘Madness!’ Curdle cried, reaching up to bury her hands in her thick black hair. Frowning suddenly, she began running her fingers through that hair. ‘Oh, I like this, though.’
‘A worthy mane indeed,’ Telorast observed, sidling closer to her lover.
Ardata hissed again, in frustration, and then said, ‘Telorast! About those weapons—’
‘Oh, never mind. They’re
not killing dragons, are they?’
Kanyn Thrall settled his head back. The pain was building in waves, as if his broken leg now rested on the brazier the damned guest kept feeding, a wild grin on the fool’s face. Blood sizzled and melted fat popped and hissed on the embers. Eyes closed, he grimaced.
A moment later Ardata’s cool hand settled on his brow. ‘Sleep now, friend. I can at least give you that.’
And so the world went away for a time.
* * *
Two uneventful days had passed since the Jhelarkan encampment. K’rul stood with Skillen Droe on a natural berm on which tufts of dead grasses made rows of tangled, brittle humps. The two Azathanai looked out over the pellucid, silvered sea of the Vitr as the sun died at their backs.
‘This leaks from somewhere,’ K’rul said after a time. ‘A fissure, some wellspring, a broken gate. It doesn’t bode well.’
‘When the Builders take notice they will do something about it.’
K’rul grunted. ‘Builders. They confound me.’
‘They answer to no one. They rarely speak at all. They are guided by forces too old for words. Too old, perhaps, for language itself. I see in them elemental nature, a knotting of implacable laws and principles beyond challenge. They are what all life struggles against, made manifest and so eternally unknowable.’
‘Living symbols? Animated metaphors?’ K’rul made a face. ‘I think not, unless termites and ants also serve your description. I believe the Builders to be essentially mindless.’
‘Then we do not disagree.’
‘You concern yourself with meaning. I suggest that they are without meaning.’ He nodded at the Vitr. ‘No different from this chaotic brew. Forces of nature indeed, but also possessing the same absence of will. Nature destroys and nature builds. Build up, tear down, begin again.’
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