Fall of Light

NINE

Beneath the floor of their father’s private room there was a hypocaust, through which lead pipes ran, the hot water in them serving to heat the chamber above. There was height enough to crawl, and to kneel, if one was careful to avoid the scalding pipes.

Envy and Spite sat cross-legged, facing each other. They were rank and scrawny, their clothes and skin smeared with soot, grease and dust. Of late, their meals had consisted of rats, mice and spiders, and the occasional pigeon that lingered too long on a ledge within reach. Both girls had become adept at hunting since the new kitchen staff had arrived, and with them a host of other strangers, replenishing the household. Raiding the pantry was no longer possible, and guards now paced the corridors at night.

The taste of misery could be sweeter with company, but the two daughters of Lord Draconus looked upon one another with venom rather than camaraderie. For all that, circumstances were what they were, and both understood the necessity of their continued alliance. For now.

When they spoke, it was in hushed whispers, despite the gurgle of the pipes.

‘Again,’ hissed Spite, her eyes wide and glittering.

Envy nodded. Heavy footsteps paced above them, from a sealed chamber forbidden to all but Draconus himself. Each time Spite and Envy had ventured into this heady passage, seeking warmth as the winter bit deeper into the stones of the estate, they had heard these same muffled strides, pacing as would a prisoner, circling the confines, spiralling inward to the room’s centre, only to begin again, reversing the pattern.

Their father was still in Kharkanas. Had he returned, freedom would have quickly come to a messy and most final end for Envy and Spite. In the wake of murder, the loyalty of blood was a thread that could snap.

‘I miss Malice,’ Spite said, in a near whimper.

Envy snorted. ‘Yes, dear, we should have kept her around, flesh rotting off, hair falling out, and those horrible dead eyes that never blinked. Worse, she stank. That’s what happens when you break her neck and she comes back anyway.’

‘It was an accident. Father would see that. He’d understand that, Envy. Power, he told us, has its limits, and they need testing.’

‘He also told us that we were probably insane,’ Envy retorted. ‘Our mother’s curse.’

‘His curse, you mean, in falling for mad women.’

Envy settled on to her back and stretched out on the hot tiles. She was sick of staring at her sister’s ugly face. ‘Their fault, the both of them. For us. We didn’t ask to be like this, did we? They never gave us a chance to be innocent. We’ve been … neglected. Abused by indifference. It was watching the maids playing with themselves at night that twisted our minds. Blame the maids.’

Spite slipped on to her side and pulled herself alongside her sister. They stared up at the raw underside of the floor tiles and the black wood that held them in place. ‘He won’t kill us for Malice. He’ll kill us for all the rest of them. For Atran and Hilith and Hidast, and Dirty Rilt and the other maids.’

Envy sighed. ‘That was the best night ever, wasn’t it? Maybe we should do it again.’

‘They know we’re here.’

‘No they don’t. They suspect, but that’s all.’

‘They know it, Envy.’

‘Maybe, since you ruined that hound’s brain, the one they brought in to sniff us out. It howled all night before they had to cut its throat. They can’t find us, and we’ve never been seen. They’re just guessing. It was you ruining that dog that got them suspicious.’

Spite laughed, but softly, making the sound a dry rattle. ‘The sorcery – it’s everywhere. You feel it, don’t you? All those wild energies, all within reach. You know,’ she rolled to face Envy, ‘we probably could do it again, like you said. Only not with knives this time, but with magic. Just kill them all, with fire and acid, with melting bones and rotting faces, and blood black as ink. Why, we could redecorate, in time for our father’s return – won’t he be surprised!’

Her voice had grown a little too loud, and the footsteps above them stopped suddenly.

The girls looked at each other in terror.

Something was up there, something demonic. A guardian, perhaps, conjured into being by Draconus.

After a moment, the steps resumed.

Envy reached out and dug her fingernails into Spite’s left cheek, hard enough to start tears in her sister’s eyes. She edged close and hissed, ‘Don’t ever do that again!’

Glaring, Spite clawed and gouged the back of Envy’s hand, until Envy let go.

They pushed away from each other, feet lashing out in savage kicks until beyond range. The effort left them breathless.

‘I want a bottle of wine,’ Envy said, after a time. ‘I want to get drunk, the way the new surgeon does. What is it with surgeons, anyway? Staring at walls for half a day. Hands shaking and all the rest. Clearly, dealing with sick people is bad for the health.’ She turned over on to her belly and began inscribing patterns with a fingernail in the rough stone beneath her. ‘Drunk, all my words slurring. Staggering around, pissing on the floor. Then, I’ll turn myself into a demon of fire, and anyone who comes near me will burn to ashes, even you. And if you run, I’ll track you down. I’ll make you kneel and beg for mercy.’

Spite scratched at a flea-bite under her tunic. ‘I’ll be a demon of ice. Your fires will wink out, making you useless. Then I’ll freeze you solid, and break pieces off whenever I get bored. And I won’t kill everybody here. I’ll make them my slaves, and make them do things to each other that they’d never do, but they’d have no choice.’

The pattern Envy had scratched into the stone was giving off a faint, amber glow. She cut a nail’s line across it and the light flickered and then died. ‘Ooh, I like that. The slaves thing, I mean. I want the maids – you can have the rest, but I want the new maids. They don’t believe any of the stories. They laugh and squeal and try to frighten each other. They’re all fat and soft. After I’m done with them, they’ll never laugh again.’

A faint blue penumbra now rose from Spite. ‘You can have them. I want the rest. Setyl and Venth and Ivis and Yalad. And especially Sandalath – oh, I want her more than any of the others. That’s how we do it, Envy. With magic. Ice and fire.’

Envy crawled close to her sister. ‘Let’s plan, then.’

Above them, the footsteps paused once more. An instant later the hot air filling the crawlspace seemed to flinch, as bitter cold poured down from between the tiles. Fiercer than winter’s breath, the air burned what it touched.

Whimpering, Envy scrabbled for the chute in the wall, Spite clambering behind her.

They did not know what hid in their father’s secret chamber. But they knew enough to fear it.

* * *

Master-at-arms Ivis walked out beyond the gate, drawing his cloak tighter about him as the north wind cut across the clearing. If he swung left, he would come to the killing ground, where it was impossible to not see the signs of the battle that had taken place there, only a season past. In his previous visits, wandering over the chewed-up ground with its spear-points darkening with rust, its stained shafts of splintered wood, its rotting cloth and leather straps curled like burned fingers, he could hear the echoes still. Faint shouts hanging in the dead air, weapons clashing, horse hoofs thundering and the cries of beast and Tiste.

Only a fool could feel nothing in such a place, no matter how ancient the actual battle. A fool whose spirit was deadened, or just plain dead. Brutality was a stain upon the world, and it seeped deep into the earth. It tainted the air and made each breath lifeless and stale. It clung to time, entwined in the tatters and shreds trailing in its wake. Time … Standing in that place, Ivis believed he could almost see that ethereal, haunted figure, a lord of grisly progression. The strides devoured the ground, and yet the Lord of Time never left. Perhaps it too was made a prisoner, chained with shock. Or, just as likely, that wretched lord but wandered lost, blinded by something like sorrow. Upon a field of battle, no path led out. None that a mortal could see, at any rate.

It was behind him now, that tragic battle, and yet still he walked through its bitter cloud. In step with the lost Lord of Time. It is not only the dead who return as ghosts. Sometimes, the living make ghosts of their own, and leave them in places where they have been. Will I turn left here on this trail, then, to meet my own gaze, with but a span of ruined earth between us?

He had done it often enough. But not, he decided, today. Instead, he struck out straight ahead, towards the ragged fringe of the forest on the other side of the wagon track.

Into the realm of skewered goddesses. Sharpened stakes. The forest was now a place to be feared – when had that loss come upon Ivis and his kind? The first village? The first city? That first stretch of torn, cleared ground? There would have been a moment, a cusp, when the Tiste changed, when they left behind their sense of being prey, and in its place became the hunter. Forests were refuges for quarry. They offered camouflage, hidden trails and secret escape routes. Trees to climb, branches to venture out upon. They beguiled with ceaseless motion, or deep shadows. In a single flash, they could confound lines of sight. ‘Into the deep wood the prey flee, and into the deep wood we follow/and in the knowledge of our seeing, we make it shallow.’ Even in his youth, the poet Gallan had seen clearly enough. He had grown up in an age of trophies, of antlered skulls, fanged jaws, and dappled, tanned skins that mocked the pretence of the unseen.

We both saw the forests emptied, made shallow with our knowing. And yet, for all that, the slaughter could not defeat our abiding fear.

Fighting the chill, he strode into the forest, boots silent upon the thick, wet leaves.

Another battlefield, this one, with the scars of slaughter upon all sides.

He yearned for the return of Lord Draconus. Or even a simple word – a missive sent from the Citadel. He had fashioned a report of the battle with the Borderswords, dispatching it to Kharkanas. It had elicited no response. He had reported in detail the murders within the house. Even this was met with silence.

Milord, what would you have me do? Two daughters are left to you, their hands red. We found the charred remains of the third – Malice, we think – in an oven. Envy and Spite, milord, hide in the bones of the house. But it’s a flimsy refuge. With a word the walls can be breached. With a word, Lord Draconus, I can have the horrid creatures in chains.

But this led Ivis into a realm in which he did not belong, and responsibilities he would rather do without. Was this cowardice? Was there not the necessity of justice in the matter of slain men and women? But milord, they are your daughters. Your charge. For you to deal with, not me, not a master-at-arms, who by every law imaginable would see the two of them skinned alive.

Return to us, I beg you, and make right this crime. Their blood protects them from me. But not from you.

More to the point, milord, what if they seek to strike again? We have our hostage to think of, the sanctity of her life – Abyss take me, the sanctity of what remains of her innocence!

I will defend her, milord, even against your daughters.

He was among black spruce now, passing between boles that had bled sap now frozen into obsidian-hued beads, as if the trees were bleeding black glass. It was said that in the far north, such trees could explode in the depth of winter. When the air grew cold enough to pain the lungs with each breath drawn. It would not surprise him: this wood made for a foul fire, and its habit of growing up from sunken and rotted ground gave the trees a deathly feel.

At least they reared straight, and seemed to know a youthful span before their sudden death, when all life fled them in a seeming instant. Then, straight or not, they would become skeletal, home to spiders and not much else.

He paused at a faint smell upon the cold wind. Woodsmoke. Shallow, and shallow again. Even you, smoke, now taint my memory. It is fire’s light that is brittle, not its heat. Quench one and still flinch from the other. I’ll take the glow as a promise and leave it be. Deniers, if indeed you have returned to this forest, play out your rituals in private, and know well my aversion. The stench suffices.

He swung about, set off back to the keep. It seemed that no matter which direction he chose, it was not a day for wandering.

Winter had cooled Kurald Galain’s rage, surely. The civil war slept restless as a hungry bear in its cave, but he would with relief call it sleep nonetheless. Swords sipped the oil in their scabbards, whilst other weapons were plied, to keep banked what the season’s turn promised.

He would lead the Houseblades out then, Ivis believed. Into the new warmth and lengthening days. Even in the absence of his lord, he would fight on behalf of the Great Houses. As the beast shook itself awake, lumbering into the bright spring air, he would wield Draconus’s soldiers like a sharp talon in the First Son’s reach. We’ll take to the blood as well as any other, and make of Urusander’s Legion a field of meat. Lord Anomander, do set us where you will, but pray it is in the heart of the fight. I have deceits to answer, in the name of the Borderswords.

The stolid, grey walls of the keep stretched out before him, beyond the track’s single ditch. He carried with him that tendril of woodsmoke. No, Ivis, say it plain. Stay where you are, Draconus. Leave it to me to fold us into Anomander’s army. By this single act, your enemies are plucked. If instead you take the vanguard … ah, forgive me, I see us standing alone on that fell day. At our backs, not the host of noble allies, but bared teeth and rank indignation.

Stay, milord, and make your Houseblades a gift to the Son of Darkness. In the name of the woman you love, make us a gift.

A few paces clear of the trees, as he crossed the wagon trail, a sound behind him made him turn, to see three figures at the edge of the treeline. They wore skins, two of them wearing the ragged heads of ektral. For an instant, riding a thrill of fear, Ivis had thought them demonic – some blend of Tiste and beast – but of course, he then realized, the antlered ektral were but headdresses.

Deniers. Torturers of goddesses. The night before the summoning, you sat together, sharpening stakes at the edge of the glade. You invented a ritual, and filled it with power, and then you did something terrible.

Teeth bared, Ivis drew out his sword.

The three drew back, beneath the shadows.

Ivis saw that they were unarmed. Even so, the gloom of the forest behind them could be hiding any number of warriors. I’ll not take a step. If you would speak to me, come forward. But such boldness belonged to his mind, the words left unspoken. The truth was, fear gripped his throat. The thought of sorcery had unmanned him.

After a moment, one of the shamans stepped forward. As the figure drew closer, he saw that it was a woman, her face ritually scarred to make ragged streaks running down her cheeks. Unlike the two who wore ektral headdresses, the hood covering her head was furred, the fur black but silver-tipped. It hung down to cover her shoulders and was drawn together at the front by a single toggle. Her pale eyes were bleak as they fixed upon his face, and then the sword he held in his hand.

Ivis hesitated, and after a moment he slowly returned the weapon to its scabbard.

She drew nearer.

At last he found his voice. ‘What do you want? I saw her. The goddess in the glade. Nothing you can say will wash the blood from your hands.’

She received his harsh words without expression, and when she spoke her tone was flat. ‘We have come to tell you, Keep-Soldier, what has birthed this war.’

Ivis scowled. ‘You would not bow before Mother Dark-’

‘She never asked us to.’

‘And if she had?’

After a moment, the woman shrugged. ‘When the animals are gone. When hunting ends, and the ways of living change. When one must look to tamed animals, and the planting of crops. When all the old ways of bravery and prowess are done away with, the hunters will turn upon one another. Honour becomes a weapon, but it pursues no wild beast. Instead, it pursues your neighbour.’ She pointed to the keep behind him. ‘The birth of walls.’

Ivis shook his head. ‘There was war, with the Forulkan. We were forced to create an army. When the war was done, witch, only then did that army turn upon us. Honour was well served in the instant, but its flavour quickly fades, and now the taste is bitter.’

‘What drove the Forulkan into our lands? For them, too, the old ways were dead.’

‘Is this all you wanted to say? Why bother? We could argue causes until the last sunset; it avails us nothing.’

‘The Shake will leave their fortresses,’ the woman said. ‘They will come to us, in the forests. You will try to find us, but we will not be found. Not by you, not by Father Light. We are no longer in your war.’

Ivis snorted. ‘You think to usurp Higher Grace Skelenal?’

The witch was silent for a long moment, and then she said, ‘The goddess you saw chose the manner in which she manifested. When we found her … we fled. If others set upon her, they belonged to the forest. Spirits of wood. Spirits of old bones and blood-hungry earth and roots. For us, there was no need to hear her words. We well knew what she would say to us.’ The witch raised both hands, out from under the skins she was wearing, and Ivis recoiled upon seeing the stakes driven through both. ‘It is our fate to slay the old ways of living. We take too much joy in the slaughter, in the proof of our skills with spear and arrow. Longing gave power to our summoning. We must now suffer the proof of our regret.’

‘Then … send her back.’

‘Seen or unseen, flesh or ghost, she suffers still. You and I, we have murdered the old ways, and all that we will come to, it is of our own making.’ She hesitated, and then cocked her head. ‘You can always blame your neighbour.’

She bowed before him, and turned away.

Ivis watched her re-join the others, and the three shamans slipped back into the forest. In moments they vanished from sight.

Blame the neighbours. Yes, we’ll do that. When we can, if only to make living easier.

He resumed walking, his scowl deepening as he looked upon the wall before him. The Deniers would do as they must. If indeed they chose to disappear, rejecting the vengeance they had every right to seek, well, regrets had a way of breeding, and the swarming spawn could drown a soul in an instant.

Passing through the gate, his steps slowed as he studied the keep before him. Ah, milord. Your daughters? Well now, there was a fire in the house … we saw naught the telltale flickers of light, and all too late felt its murderous heat.

Come the spring, milord, I see a sky made grey with smoke.

* * *

Sandalath Drukorlat sat near the fire in the common room, away from the others. The new surgeon, Prok, was singing a ballad, words slurring and the brightness of his gaze an alcoholic sheen through which he blinked regretfully at the world. Whatever sorrow existed in the song lost its truths in the maudlin self-pity of the man’s voice.

Seated near the surgeon, in poses of faint attention or outright uninterest, were arranged the other newcomers to the household, as well as Armourer Setyl and Horse Master Venth Direll. The new keeper of records, a woman named Sorca, hid her face behind the bowl of a pipe. Her complexion, oddly smooth and unlined, was the same hue as the smoke she sent out in long, tumbling streams from her somewhat overly generous mouth. Her hair was cut short as if to undermine her femininity, but her broad features were soft and peculiarly welcoming. For all that, the woman rarely spoke, and when she did, it was in a low mutter, as if all conversation was in truth a private one, she with herself. Sandalath had yet to see her smile.

Sitting close to the new keeper was the woman who had replaced Hilith as head of the house-servants. Bidishan was wiry, nervous, carrying herself with an air of impatience, as if some vital task yet awaited her for which she needed all her energy, but, Sandalath had come to realize, there was no such task, and each day and evening was consumed by the same headlong rush. Perhaps it was sleep that Bidishan hurried towards, as if oblivion was the only island to take her exhausted self, flung insensate upon the strand at day’s end, and in the realm of dreams the woman unleashed all that was in her soul.

Musing on the notion, Sandalath felt a pang of sympathy for Bidishan. Within the mind, after all, was a world of unchecked dramas, where loves were unveiled and made so bright, so fierce, as to sting the eyes, and every gesture could make the earth groan, and every glance could awaken unfettered flames of passion.

In that world, Bidishan was beautiful, young, filled with vivacity. And others who came upon her, why, they saw her truly, and in the face of such encounters they avowed their hearts, and made every labour bent to her service an act of worship.

Sandalath knew her own such world, also clothed in sleep. And often, she found herself longing for its embrace, for in this cold, wintry place, with its stone walls hiding secret passageways, her waking moments were filled with anxiety, fear and longing. In her thoughts and in her body, she lived with nervous fires flickering without end. When she could, she fled them all, huddling beneath furs in her bed, and, as sleep took her, slipping back to the life that existed before House Dracons, before the murderous spawn of Draconus and the blood splashing floor and walls, before the bodies carried out into the bleak light of the courtyard and the small white bones in the bread oven. Before the terrible battle that had been fought outside the keep’s walls.

A secret lover, the pleasure of his touch, his weight upon her in the high grasses far beyond the sight of her mother. A son, free to play out his games of war amidst the scorched embers of the old stables. Children were visible shouts of life, a crowing delight in possibility and promise.

He was taken from me, taken from my sight. Where he once lived, in my life, there is nothing. An emptiness, empty of life and love. Empty, I fear, of hope.

Was that child not the mother’s gift? Children were where things could start over, be made different, where wounds could be avoided, evaded. Where dreams could live again, passed on in the clasp of her hand to his. Youth sent echoes into the world, echoes that could rush over a mother and sweep her back into her own past, and the swirling sorrow of such moments, so bittersweet, could become a kind of strength, a protectiveness both savage and undying. As if, in protecting the child, the mother was also protecting what remained of the child she had once been.

Bridges such as these should never be dismantled.

And yet, when Sandalath thought of her own mother, she felt nothing. No bridge there. She sold off the stones, one by one, until she had us all perched upon a single block, a tottering foundation stone, the height of which she held to be more vital than anything else, even love.

Nerys Drukorlat, was it Father who stole everything from you? His war? His wounding? His death? But Orfantal wasn’t your child with which to begin again, to make right.

He was mine.

Prok’s song stuttered and then fell away as the surgeon lost his memory of the words. From near the kitchen door, Yalad – now the gate sergeant – rose to collect wood for the fire. She watched him approach and answered his weary smile with one of her own.

Houseblades were stationed in every common room now, and at the doors to the private ones. It was, in some ways, absurd. The girls hid in their hidden places. Ivis himself had said they could root them out at any time. Instead, such a moment would have to await the return of Lord Draconus. And in the meantime, we live in terror of two wretched children.

After stoking the fire, Yalad drew a chair close to Sandalath and sat, leaning back and stretching out his legs. ‘This is welcome warmth, yes?’

Prok found another ballad, beginning the song loud and stentorian, rocking in his chair to some unheard musical accompaniment, the hand holding its tankard of wine lifting up and down to set the beat.

Wincing, Yalad sighed. ‘Do you ever wonder, milady, why so many of our songs do little more than moan over things lost or never owned in the first place?’

No. Not really. ‘Our good surgeon, sir, knows better than to choose the more raucous ones, lest Commander Ivis arrive again at the most inopportune instant, with us witness to the rise of startling colour to his face.’

‘He was mordant on your behalf, milady. Surely you understand that.’

‘Of course, and by such willingness he charms me, gate sergeant.’

Yalad smiled. ‘That admission would see him crimson.’ He slowly shook his head. ‘And Ivis as old as he is, I’d never thought to see him on such uncertain footing. The charm, milady, is yours, and makes him young again … but in a most unsettling way for us who serve under him.’

‘I would not see his authority undermined, sir,’ Sandalath said, frowning. ‘Advise me, if you will, on how best to blunt what charms I may possess.’

‘I cannot, milady,’ Yalad said, ‘as no man here would even think of withering such gifts, natural as they are.’

She regarded him beneath veiled lids. ‘Sir, you learn well the language of the court. Or is there more of the courting in it than is seemly?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I know well my station, milady, and more to the point, yours. It is an otherwise grim season we suffer here, and so we take such pleasures as we can find.’

She continued studying him. ‘I envy the cleverness in you, gate sergeant. If I possess charms, they are sadly childlike. A sheltered life shrinks the world for the one who suffers in it. All too often, innocence yields naivety, and when pushed from the small world into the vaster one beyond, the creature finds herself both unknowing and lost.’

‘Your confession humbles me, milady.’

She waved a hand. ‘It is nothing. I stood atop a tower, witnessing the death of too many men and women. I never thought that war would come so close, no longer a thing in the distance, beyond some border. Now, it strides across familiar ground, and makes that ground newly estranged.’ She started as a log abruptly shifted in the hearth, sending up a flurry of sparks. ‘It does little good,’ she added, ‘when the walls breathe, and, I fear, blink.’

‘You are safe, milady,’ Yalad said. ‘Failing any other option, we’ll starve them out.’

Further conversation between the two was interrupted by the arrival of Surgeon Prok, his song done. Clumsily, he dragged a third chair up, and then slumped down in it with a heavy sigh. ‘You can strip the bark from a tree and think nothing of it,’ he said, nodding to himself. ‘But peel back a man’s skin and, ah, entire worlds are jarred askew. We shiver and are made vulnerable.’ He smiled across at Yalad. ‘I make my war with ruined flesh, gate sergeant. To make it right again. But you, with that blade at your side, you make the trees bleed.’

Yalad frowned. ‘It’s said the priests have found a sorcery that heals, Prok. They name it Denul. Perhaps what ails you is your impending obsolescence.’

Prok’s florid face broadened in a smile. ‘No risk of that to the soldier, though. Obsolescence.’ He stretched the word out, tasted it, and seemed to find it foul. After a moment, he leaned back, raising the tankard before him. ‘I have imbibed of that sorcery, Yalad. You wonder at with whom you bargain, with such sudden power in your hands. Imagine, if you will, a future in which healing is possible for everything, every ailment, every wound. Should a remnant of life linger in the flesh, why, we can save the fool. The question then is: should we?’

Sandalath glanced at Yalad, and then said, ‘But why would you not, surgeon? I would think, in such a future, you would find an answer to your desire – to make things right again, to mend the broken, to heal the diseased, or the wounded.’

He tilted the tankard in her direction. ‘To the crowded future, then.’

She watched him drink, and then said, ‘Even magic cannot refuse death.’

‘True enough,’ he allowed. ‘We but prolong the moment of its arrival. Denul becomes a cheat, milady, to delight in the instant but dismay in the distance. It is more than life that is extended, it is also the agony of failure, for fail we will, and fail we must. Yalad’s war has its victories and its losses. It surges ahead, and then yields ground. It can even end, for a time. But the healer knows only retreat, and each step yielded is bitter, the ground soaked in blood.’

‘Then the sorcery is a boon,’ she replied. ‘Indeed, it is a godly gift.’

He met her eyes, and she saw through their reddened gleam to a sudden, raw pain. ‘Then why, milady, does it taste so sour?’

‘That would be the wine, Prok,’ Yalad said, with a faint smile.

He shifted his gaze to the gate sergeant. ‘Yes, of course.’

A few moments later, Commander Ivis entered the chamber, pulling off his heavy cloak. He paused for a moment to study the occupants of the room, and then, with the briefest of glances at Sandalath, made his way across to the kitchen.

Ivis was a rare presence at the dinner table these evenings. His habit of walking the grounds beyond the keep walls often devoured half the night. Once, in her room and readying for sleep, Sandalath had paused at the window, and, looking down, saw the commander standing at the graves of those household staff who had been murdered by the daughters of Draconus. She could not be sure, but she thought that the mound he faced belonged to the old surgeon, Atran. When she was alive, he had affected distracted ignorance of her desire, as if taking pleasure was a notion he had no business entertaining, given his duties. Sandalath suspected that he now regretted his aloofness.

‘I wonder,’ mused Prok once Ivis had gone, ‘if it takes a surgeon’s eye to see what ails a man, or woman, when that person has made disguise a profession.’

‘Keep such thoughts to yourself,’ Yalad snapped.

‘Forgive me, gate sergeant. You are most correct. But understand: I describe no blessing on my part. This gift pains the recipient, who would rather return it than accept the burden. But then, into whose hands?’

‘Is Denul truly godless?’ Sandalath asked.

Prok seemed to flinch. ‘Imagine that: the power of life and death in my hands arrives as a godless thing. How eager we are to turn about miracles, and make them as mundane as, oh, binding the laces on your moccasin. Yet with each wonder we tread underfoot, the world gets just a little more … pale.’

‘Why not brighter, surgeon?’ Sandalath suggested. ‘What need for gods, should the future bring us all such powers?’

He blinked at her. ‘You think gods offer nothing more than the delusion of bargaining, milady? With every moment, we speak with the world, and in its own way it speaks back – should we choose to hear it. But now, cut out its tongue. Excise its participation in this dialogue. Indeed, do that and to continue speaking will feel most foolish, yes? The prayer unanswered makes for a bleak echo.’ He leaned forward and carefully set the tankard down on the stone dais surrounding the hearth. ‘Or worse, the returning whisper will arrive filled with utter nonsense. It is my belief, milady, that cults and religions often find their shape out of the necessity to fill the silence of a world made godless, and it was made godless precisely because we stopped listening. In place of honest humility, then, are set rules and prohibitions, inquisitions and the violent silencing of a host of avowed or imagined enemies. Do this and not that. Why? Because the god said so, that’s why. But was that really the god speaking, or just some twisted echo of mortal flaws and frailties, each one adding to the list of holy pronouncements?’

‘Dangerous words this night,’ Yalad said. ‘Best you go to your room, Prok, and sleep.’

‘With the dinner bell not yet sounded, gate sergeant? Would you have me starve?’

‘Mother Dark is not-’

‘Ah, Mother Dark, yes, who hides unseen and has nothing to say, so the priestesses open wide their legs seeking mundane ecstasy, or at the very least, satiation.’ Prok waved a hand to cut off Yalad’s retort. ‘Yes, yes, I understand, and in her absence and in her silence she in truth informs us of something profound. But truly, Yalad, how many are capable of appreciating that level of subtlety? The cult that makes its rules simple will thrive. Reduced to a phrase or two should suffice. It will be interesting to see what the followers of Father Light will make of their faith – but whatever it is, no matter how simple or complex, you can be sure that Mother Dark will issue faint reply.’

Sandalath chanced to glance towards the kitchen door, and saw Ivis standing there. There was no doubt that he had heard the surgeon’s words, but she could read nothing from his expression. An instant later the bell sounded.

Sighing, Prok worked himself upright. ‘A chair to take me, a table to lean against – what more does a man need? Come, Yalad, join me in fighting off starvation’s dogs one more night, yes?’

The gate sergeant rose and faced Sandalath. ‘Milady?’

She took the hand he offered her, but let his grip slip away once she was on her feet. Turning, she met the eyes of Ivis, and smiled.

He bowed slightly in her direction.

Accompanied by Keeper Sorca, Matron Bidishan, Setyl and Venth, they set off for the dining room. For this evening at least, Ivis would join them.

* * *

Wreneck’s long hunt for the soldiers who had hurt Jinia had not begun well. Winter was a world made gaunt with starvation. But, it now seemed, even endings didn’t quite end.

The warmth of the palm resting upon his brow seemed to hover at a vast distance from the place in which Wreneck had found himself. And where he had found himself, he was not alone. A figure sat beside him, not close enough to reach out and touch – meaning the hand upon Wreneck’s forehead did not belong to this stranger. But the figure was speaking, often in a language he could not understand, and at times the voice was a woman’s, while at other times it belonged to a man. The times when the stranger spoke in Wreneck’s own language, the words were confusing, as if Wreneck was nothing more than a witness, as if the words were not meant for him at all.

But the hand upon his brow was different, because it felt real. Still, it was far away. What lay between was dark, but the darkness roiled, like soot-filled water, and that water was icy cold. He had no desire to set out across it, and so come closer to the warmth, though he understood that such feelings seemed wrong.

‘Besides,’ muttered the stranger at his side in a man’s voice, ‘desire itself is a cruel parent, when the child knows no strength.’

There was some comfort here, anyway, in the midst of his companion’s grown-up words, even when they weren’t meant for him.

‘Men,’ said the stranger, ‘suffer many things. Some they give voice to, all too often, and make of them a dirge that drains the interest from any within hearing. But other sufferings are quiet things, held tight with a hand clamped over the mouth. That hand can silence or suffocate, or both; and there is no proof that the man sought one but not the other. But the idea of choice is unimportant. These kinds of suffering are reluctant to die, and if murder is the desire, strength is the betrayer.’

Wreneck nodded, thinking he understood. It was part of being a man, he told himself, that made the secret suffering so powerful.

As if the stranger had heard his thoughts, he said, ‘Hidden deep inside, it grows fat on what morsels of sweet, deadly imagination the man offers it, and this is a butcher’s tally of fears and dreads.’

Still, the hand upon Wreneck’s brow felt dry, not blood-soaked. Despite the comfort of this unknown companion, it might be worth the journey back, to where lived winter’s pale light. He had been so cold, on those nights, with the forest yielding him little. The world, he now knew, promised nothing.

His friend spoke again, this time in a woman’s voice. ‘If the world was a parent – to all that lived upon it – then love died long ago, after too many ages of mutual cruelty. Burning forests. Dying trees. A child trapped by the flames. The shaking of earth and rock-falls, or houses falling down killing everyone inside. A beautiful baby, dying for no good reason. No, we have lots of reasons to hate the world, and the world has lots of reasons to hate us. It goes on and on, now, and still we keep being cruel to each other.

‘And we pretend we’re winning. Until we lose again. This is how things rise and fall, and how things once strong can end up burned out and in ruin, with weeds growing up from the cracked flagging. This is how proud old women end up dying in the dirt, or just burning up like a straw doll. Things rise and fall, the way the chest does when you’re breathing. And, dear child, you’re still breathing. Shall we count this a victory?’

There were gravestones, and crypts. I walked over mounds. It was cold, everything was cold. The stones, the sky. I found a pit and sank into it. Like a dead man. Until the cold went away.

It is as my friend says. Men twist to what they suffer inside. Jinia, I will find them and kill them. They won’t be able to hide, because what they did will be right there, on their faces.

‘The life of a child finds strength,’ said his friend, now a man again, ‘in its potential. That potential is stubborn. It doesn’t understand surrender … until it does, and with that understanding, the child withers and dies. You, Wreneck, don’t comprehend the notion of surrender. This is what draws us to you. You have the will of tender shoots, as they emerge from cracks in stone, or between the flagstones. Victory is far away, but inevitable. In this manner, the child is closest to nature, when the adult has long since fled the cost of ambition, and must live, day upon day, with the price of an entire language built around notions of surrender.’

Who are you? Wreneck asked.

‘We are dying gods.’

Why are you dying?

‘To make way for our children.’

But they need you!

‘They think not. Lessons, Wreneck, are not easily won. We see a future filled with blood. But you, child, we were drawn to you. Even so near death, you shine bright. We will leave you now. Do not ask our blessing. It has become a curse. Nature is an eternal child. Thus we, the eternal children of the world, now understand the notion of surrender. It is time, alas, to go away.’

Some memories returned to Wreneck, and with them, his friend vanished.

He had felt them lift his body from the grave. He was light in their hands, almost floating, and the rags he wore were stiff with frost. He thought he heard them speaking and there were two voices thus far. Just the two, and then the smell of woodsmoke and maybe heat, and now he was swaddled in furs. Beneath his back was a thick, tanned hide, and beneath that there were hot stones lifted out from the fire. Still, the hand upon his brow was the warmest thing he felt, and yet it remained impossibly far away.

Dying gods, I miss you.

The world beyond the farm and the town of Abara Delack was bigger than he had imagined. It just went on and on, like someone repeating the words of creation over and over again. Trees, hills, rocks, river, ditch, trees, trees, track and trail, road and ditch, hills, trees, stream, trees. Sky and sky and sky and sky … and the further it sprawled, the colder it got, as if the words had lost their love of themselves, as if the creator of the world was just getting tired of the whole thing, the over-and-over-again of it. Trees and sky and trees and glade and graves and pit and down here, yes, just down here, is what you need. See how small it is? Perfect.

‘Some never awaken,’ said a voice, and this one was real.

‘He will,’ replied the other, closer, belonging to the one whose hand was upon his brow. ‘You ever underestimate the strength of the Tiste.’

‘Perhaps I do at that.’

‘And he’s young, but not too young. A tough boy, I should say. See the burn scars and whip marks? And that one I’d wager was a sword-thrust. Should have killed him. It is difficult to claim that this child knows nothing of survival.’

‘What will you do with him?’

‘Dracons Keep is nearest us.’

‘Ah, I see. But Lord Draconus is not in residence, is he?’

‘Probably not, as you say, Azathanai.’

‘Mother Dark still holds him close.’

‘It may be that, yes.’

‘What else?’

There was a pause, and then came the reply, ‘He steps away from things. He chooses to remain in darkness, unseeing and unseen. By deliberate absence from all affairs, he wishes to be forgotten.’ The voice sighed and then continued. ‘Hopeless, yes. Events will drag him out before too long.’

‘As they will drag you back. To Kharkanas.’

‘Will you accompany me, then?’

‘To the Citadel? I think not. Walls and stone overhead makes me uncomfortable. No, I will simply await you, nearby.’

The hand slipped away, and Wreneck felt its sudden absence with a pang. But he heard the soft laugh, and then, ‘The High Mason cringes from walls and stone roof.’

A few moments passed, and then the other man said, ‘Every monument I raise from the earth is a prison, First Son. In being made, it is contained. In its shape, it displaces emptiness. In its conceit, it seeks to defy time.’

‘Well tended, such a monument can withstand ages, Caladan.’

‘Even as its meaning weathers away. Tend to the stone or bronze, yes, and keep it pristine. But, I wonder, who tends to the truth of it? It would be better, I sometimes think, if I simply sank my works into bogs, to dwell in darkness and mud.’

‘An altogether different kind of monument,’ said the nearer man, as he brought his hand once again to rest upon Wreneck’s brow. ‘A different meaning, too.’

‘Intention, First Son, yields no echoes. All who come afterwards, to gaze upon my art, can only wonder at my mind, even as they note every chisel scar, and ponder the sure hand that dealt it. They will, of course, make a feast of the morsels, and assert their pronouncements to be a certain truth.’

The hand slipped away again and Wreneck heard the man beside him rise to stand, and his voice now drifted down as if coming from a cave, or the ledge of some tower or cliff. ‘Your angst is not unfamiliar, Caladan Brood. I’ve heard the poet Gallan snarling when in his cups. Still, there is little artistry in my life. My mind works in plain ways, my meaning plainer still.’

The one named Caladan Brood, whose voice was strangely heavy, now made a sound that might have been laughter. ‘And your swordplay knows no subtlety, Rake? The machinations of court? You fail to convince me with your claims.’

‘The issue is simple enough,’ Rake replied. ‘Urusander and his legion will quit Neret Sorr before the break of winter’s hold. Together, they will march upon Kharkanas, with the intention of setting Urusander upon a throne, at Mother Dark’s side.’

‘And what in such a scenario so offends you, First Son? Tell me, if you will, what sets the common soldier so far beneath those of noble blood? By what means do you measure worth?’

‘Ask the common soldier, Caladan, and the words are direct enough. Coin and land, standing and prestige. A freedom with indulgences, a certain pomp. The very things they curse in their enemies are what they seek for themselves. The argument, friend, is held low, and in that modesty, iron will shout in the manner of bullies. It is a pathetic language, this argument, with mutual stupidity setting the limits of the exchange.’

‘Yet you must march to meet him, with swords and spears to speak for you.’

The First Son – Wreneck knew that title, as he had heard Lady Nerys utter it often enough, in tones of awe – was slow in replying, and when he did, his voice was cold. ‘The pretensions of the nobles are little better, Caladan. They see their perch as crowded enough. I have an angry child to either side of me, and I like it not – is this my sole task? My singular service to Mother Dark? To stand between two self-serving brats? No. If I am to march against Urusander, I need better reason than that.’

‘And have you one?’

‘I take offence at the presumption.’

‘Whose?’

‘Well, all of them. But mostly Urusander’s – or perhaps it is Hunn Raal’s, but I have doubts as to the importance of the distinction.’

‘Do you know, then, Mother Dark’s mind?’

The First Son’s laugh was bitter, and then he said, ‘She has her Consort. Is this not plain enough? But then a kinswoman of yours, Azathanai, flung a burning brand into the haystack. Andii and now Liosan – we are a people divided, and I cannot but believe that was your Azathanai’s intent, to see us weakened. And I must wonder, why?’

‘Look to Draconus for an answer to that, First Son.’

‘Draconus? Why him?’

‘He has brought Dark to the Tiste.’

‘The Terondai on the Citadel’s floor? No. The Azathanai named T’riss had already done her damage by then.’

‘The Gate, which I suppose we must now call Kurald Galain, is an iteration of control,’ Caladan replied, ‘over a force that was and remains pervasive, existing as it does in opposition to Chaos.’

‘To Chaos? Not Light?’

‘Light, if you would consider this, is an absolution of Chaos. In its purity it finds order, with substance and hue. This is how Chaos seeks, in its own fashion, its own obliteration.’

‘I do not understand you, Caladan. You speak of these elemental forces as if they possessed will.’

‘No, only proclivity. Name any force and, with sufficient contemplation, you will discern that it cannot exist alone. Other forces act upon it, make demands of it, and even alter the edges of its own nature. This is Creation’s dialogue, but even then, what seems but opposition, of two forces set against one another, is in truth a multitude of interactions, of voices. Perhaps dialogue is the wrong word. Think more of a tumult, a cacophony. Each force seeks to impose its own rhythm upon all of Creation, and what results may well seem disordered, but I assure you, First Son, this chorus makes music. For those willing or able to hear.’

‘Caladan, return this discussion to Draconus, and T’riss.’

‘A lover’s gift – well, too many gifts, and too generous their span. In his blessing of the woman he loves with the power of Elemental Dark, Draconus imposed an impossible imbalance upon Creation. The world, First Son – any world – can hold only its necessary forces, and these in delicate balance. The Azathanai you have named T’riss had no choice, although in the boldness of her act she displayed nothing of the subtlety of our kind. It may be that the Vitr has damaged her in some way.’

‘I would track her down, Caladan, to learn more of all this.’

‘She may well return,’ Caladan said. ‘But for now, it is unlikely you can find her trail. She walks unseen paths. You must understand, First Son: the Azathanai are skilled at not being found.’

‘Then, you say, the blame is with Draconus.’

‘With the weakness in his heart, but is it right to blame such a thing? In the prelude to war, compassion is the first victim, slain like a child upon the threshold.’

‘Lord Draconus is my friend.’

‘Then sustain it.’

‘But … remaining at her side as he does, he disappoints me.’

‘You have set your expectation against the compassion you claim to possess, and now the child bleeds anew.’

‘Very well, I will seek to withhold judgement on Draconus.’

‘Then, I fear, you will stand alone in the war to come.’

‘The thought,’ the First Son said, ‘of a highborn victory tastes as sour as does the thought of Urusander’s ascension. I am of a mind to see them both humbled.’

‘Ascension is a curious word in this context.’

‘Why?’

‘Mother Dark … Father Light. The titles are not empty, and if you think the powers behind them are but illusions, then you are a fool.’

Wreneck heard a gasp, but it was a moment before he realized that it had come from him. He was back, in a place of warmth. He had crossed the icy river all unknowing. He opened his eyes.

A tall warrior stood above him, studying him with calm eyes. Off to one side, seated on a scorched stump, was a huge figure wearing silver fur upon his broad shoulders, with something bestial in his broad, flat face that made Wreneck shiver.

‘The chill remains deep in your bones,’ the First Son said to Wreneck. ‘But you have returned to us, and that is well.’

Wreneck glared across at Caladan Brood. ‘First Son, why do you not kill him?’ he asked.

‘For what reason would I do that, even if I could?’ Lord Anomander asked.

‘He called you a fool.’

The First Son smiled. ‘He but reminds me of the risk in careless words. Well now, we found you in a grave, yet here you are, resurrected. But this winter has been hard on you – when did you last eat?’

Unable to recall, Wreneck said nothing.

‘I will prepare some broth,’ said Caladan Brood, reaching across to his pack. ‘If you will make this child your conscience, best he know the bliss of a full stomach.’

The First Son grunted. ‘My conscience, Caladan? He just urged vengeance against you.’

‘After riding the back of our conversation, yes.’

‘I doubt he understood much of it.’

The Azathanai shrugged as he withdrew items from the pack.

‘Why,’ Anomander persisted, ‘would I make this foundling my conscience?’

‘Perhaps only to awaken it within you, First Son, given his impulsive bloodlust.’

Lord Anomander looked back down at Wreneck. ‘Are you a Denier orphan, then?’ he asked.

Wreneck shook his head. ‘I was a stabler for House Drukorlat. But she was murdered and everything was burned down. They tried to kill me and Jinia, too, but we lived, only she’s hurt inside. I remember their names. I am going to kill them. The ones who did that to Jinia. I have a spear …’

‘Yes,’ the First Son said, his expression grave, ‘we found that. The shaft seems sound, lovingly tended, I would judge. But it could do with a better-weighted blade. You have their names, you say. What else do you recall of these murderers?’

‘Legion soldiers, sir. They were drunk, but they took orders and things. There was a sergeant. They thought I was dead, but I wasn’t. They were going to burn us all in the house, but I got me and Jinia out.’

‘Lady Nerys is dead, then.’

Wreneck nodded. ‘But Orfantal had already been sent away, and Sandalath, too. There was just the three of us left, but I wasn’t let in the house, and the barn burned down and she didn’t really want me any more anyway.’

Lord Anomander continued studying him. ‘And Sandalath … if I recall, she is now a hostage in Dracons Keep.’

Wreneck couldn’t remember if that was true, but he nodded. ‘And that’s where you’re taking me, isn’t it?’

‘A quiet listener, this one,’ said Caladan as he set a battered pot upon the embers.

‘Good men are,’ said Wreneck. ‘It’s only little boys who are too loud, getting whipped for it as is proper.’

Neither the First Son nor the Azathanai replied to this.

After a time, Wreneck sat up, and Caladan Brood brought to him a bowl of broth. Wreneck held it in both hands and felt how the heat seeped through to his fingers. The sensation was painful, but he welcomed it nonetheless.

Then Lord Anomander spoke. ‘It may comfort you to know that Orfantal is safe, in the Citadel.’

Wreneck glanced over, and then frowned down at the bowl and its steaming broth. ‘She said I sullied him. We had to stop being friends.’

‘Sandalath?’

‘No. Lady Nerys.’

‘Who was free with her cane.’

‘Me and Jinia had to know our place.’

‘Would you rather,’ Lord Anomander said, ‘that I did not deliver you to Dracons Keep? I recall Sandalath, from her time in the Citadel. She was clever, and seemed kindly enough, but time will change people.’

‘She liked it that Orfantal had someone to play with, but it was wrong. Lady Nerys explained it.’ Wreneck sipped at the broth. He had never tasted anything better. ‘I can’t stay long at Dracons Keep, even if Sandalath wants me there. I have bad men to kill.’

‘This,’ said Caladan Brood, ‘proves a most cruel conscience.’

‘Go slowly with that broth,’ Lord Anomander said. ‘Tell me your name.’

‘Wreneck.’

‘Have you brothers or sisters?’

‘No.’

‘Your parents?’

‘Just my ma. The man who made me with her was with the army. He also made horseshoes and other stuff, but he died to a horse-kick. I don’t remember him, but Ma says I’m going to be big, like he was. She sees it in my bones.’

‘You’ll not return to her?’

‘Not until I kill the ones who hurt Jinia. Then I’ll come back. I’ll find Jinia in the village and we’ll get married. She says she can’t have children, not any more, after what they did, but that doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter if Ma doesn’t like her either, because of how she’s been used and all. I’ll marry Jinia, and protect her for ever.’

Lord Anomander was no longer looking down at Wreneck. He was instead looking across at Caladan Brood. He said, ‘And so I now raise my standard, Azathanai, to a deserved future, and a conscience scrubbed clean. If not in the name of love, then what cause suffices?’

‘Draconus would stand with you, First Son, beneath such a standard. And thus the nobles are lost.’

Lord Anomander turned away, studied the barren trees with their scorched trunks that surrounded the glade. ‘Are we then past the age of shame, Caladan? No sting should I ridicule my fellow highborn?’

‘Its power has diminished. Shame, my friend, is but a ghost now, haunting every city, every town and village. It has less substance than woodsmoke, and but rubs the throat with little more than an itch.’

‘I shall make it a wildfire.’

‘In such a conflagration, First Son, guard your standard well.’

‘Wreneck.’

‘Milord?’

‘When your time comes … for vengeance. Find me.’

‘I don’t need any help. They stuck a sword in me and I didn’t die. They can try it again and I still won’t die. My promise keeps me alive. When you become a man, you learn to do what you say you will do. That’s what makes you a man.’

‘Alas, there are far fewer men in the world than you might think, Wreneck.’

‘But I’m one.’

‘I believe you,’ Lord Anomander replied. ‘But understand my offer before you reject it. When you find those rapists and murderers, they will be in a cohort, in Urusander’s Legion. There may well be a thousand soldiers between you and them. I will clear your path, Wreneck.’

Wreneck stared at the First Son. ‘But, milord, I am going to do it at night, when they’re sleeping.’

Caladan Brood grunted a laugh, and then spat into the fire. ‘It is a clever man who thinks hard on how to achieve his promise.’

‘I am loath to risk you, Wreneck. Find me in any case, and we can discuss the necessary tactics.’

‘You have no time for me, milord.’

‘You are a citizen of Kurald Galain. Of course I have time for you.’

Wreneck didn’t understand that; he was not sure what the word ‘citizen’ meant. The bowl was empty. He set it down and pulled the furs closer about him again.

‘It nears dusk,’ said Lord Anomander. ‘Sleep, Wreneck. Tomorrow, we take you to Dracons Keep.’

‘And I will see again my promise to Draconus,’ Caladan Brood said.

‘Your meaning?’

‘Oh, nothing of import, First Son.’

Wreneck settled back, warm inside and out, with only the occasional cramp from his stomach. He thought about Dark, and Light, and Creation, and Chaos. They struck him as big things, ideas that men such as Lord Anomander and Caladan Brood would speak of when they thought no one else was listening. He tried to imagine himself talking about such matters, when he was older, when the life he had lived had been set aside and a new life had taken its place. In that new life, he would think about serious things, but not, he suspected, things like Dark and Light and Creation and Chaos, because with those things, it sounded too easy to push them away, far enough away to keep them from hurting. No, the serious things he would think about, he decided as he closed his eyes, would be ones that mattered. Ones that worked to make him a better man, a man not afraid of feelings.

He remembered his wail for his ma, after all the killing was over with and he was still alive and Jinia was hurt. That cry seemed to have come from a child, from Wreneck the child, but it hadn’t. Instead, it had been the birth-cry of a man, the man that Wreneck had become, and the man that he now was.

The notion sent a shiver through him, though he wasn’t sure why. But it didn’t feel made up. It felt true, even if he wasn’t sure what made it true. But one thing I now know. I made it through all of childhood, and not once did I learn about surrendering.

I swam across the icy stream without even knowing it, and now I am safe again, for a time. Here with Lord Anomander, who is the First Son of Mother Dark. And with the Azathanai, who even if he’s not good for anything else can at least make a fine bowl of broth.

He closed his eyes, and moments later was fast asleep.

In his dreams, the dying gods awaited him. They seemed without number. He stood in their midst, confused and wondering. They were, one and all, kneeling to him.

* * *

There was an old memory, but it was the kind that never went away, and ever seemed closer than one would expect, given the span of years that had passed since. There had been a column, filled with families, their livestock, and wagons heaped with everything that would be needed to break land and build homes. Ivis was young, just one more dust-covered child with more energy than sense. They had been journeying into the north, beyond the forest, and the horizon was far away. Ivis remembered his wonder at that, as if the world had simply unfolded.

They had passed old cairns and tracks worn into battered swaths by wild herds. There had been stones and boulders in rows, not parallel as might line a road, but converging, often on the southern slope of a rise. Some of the cairns had sprouted dead saplings, many of them toppled after the past winter, when the winds had been fierce. These saplings had no roots. They had been hacked at the base into rough points, and driven into the heaps of stone. The mystery of such a thing was more enticing to Ivis than whatever truth he might have discovered, with a few questions to any of the adults – in particular the hunters. Instead of runs and blinds and kill-sites, he had chosen reasons more ethereal for all the strange formations they had found on the vast plain.

Gods stood tall, and with hands spread could command the sky. At night, the gleam of their eyes burned through the darkness with a cold light. And in looking down, they made clear their message: they were far away, and from that distance was born indifference. Still, once, long ago, these gods had not been far away. Indeed, they had sat with their mortal children, sharing the same fires. This was the age before the gods left the world, Ivis had told himself, before mortals had broken their hearts.

The lines of boulders, the cairns upon the summits, the huge wheels – all of these had come in the wake of the gods’ leaving. The desperate mortals had looked up at the sky, witness to the dwindling fires of all that was now lost.

It well suited a child’s mind to believe that the ones left behind, abandoned, would seek a new language, written in stone upon the plain, with which to call upon the gods. And, at least in the beginning of these notions, there had been little recognition of the desperation behind such efforts. The stars were far away, but not so far as to lose sight of the world below.

The day had been bright, clear, when the Jhelarkan attacked the column. Invisible borders had been crossed by the homesteaders, although, as Ivis later understood, the Tiste were hardly ignorant of their transgression. Sometimes, among a people, there existed a certain arrogance. It had been built up, that arrogance, in a multitude of layers, making it strangely impregnable to the weaker virtues of fairness and respect. It spoke with deceit, and when that failed, with slaughter.

But arrogance had a way of misunderstanding things. If the first Jhelarkan had seemed confused by notions of ownership; if they had not quite understood what it was that the Tiste expeditions were demanding, nor the claims they subsequently made – none of this was synonymous with weakness. In retrospect, Ivis now understood, the Jhelarkan had proved rather adept in grasping the new language thrust upon them, with its forts and outposts, its timber harvests and slaughtered beasts.

A few shouts upon the other side of the column, and then screams, and Ivis, running back to the wagon where sat his mother and grandmother, his much younger cousins huddled in the protective clutch of arms that had, until that moment, done such a good job of holding off the cruelties of the world … Ivis, confused, frightened, seeing a horrifying shape lunge into the midst of his family, making the wagon rock, and another one, its huge jaws closing round the head of the ox in its traces, dragging the bellowing beast down on to its fetlocks.

The blood that erupted from Ivis’s kin was like a sheet thrown out on the wind. The enormous wolf – soletaken – slaughtered everyone in the wagon. Then it was scrambling down, snarling and flinching at a spearthrust from a hunter Ivis could not see, and the refuge towards which the young boy had been running was but a heap of torn bodies.

In his terror, he had run under the wagon, where he huddled. From above, the blood of his family drained down like rain between the slats, covering him.

His memories of the rest of that attack were blurred, too vague to parse. The Jhelarkan had been a hunting pack turned war-band. They could easily have butchered everyone in the column. Instead, they had struck once, and then retreated. They had sought to deliver a message, in language most plain. Only years later, when the war had begun in earnest, did the Jhelarkan come to understand that warnings never worked. Arrogance, after all, met such warnings with words like infamy. Arrogance responded with indignation. And this was the fuel for vengeance and retribution, the birth-cries of war, and the Tiste made it so, in ways wholly predictable and, he now understood, utterly contemptible.

In the mind, death plays with the dead, to breed more death. The stronger death’s hold, the more foolish the mind. Why, I wonder, does history seem to be little more than a list of belligerent stupidities?

How rare was it, he asked himself, that virtues changed the world? How brief and flitting such bright moments? But then, since when did love bend to reason? And how much vengeance is fed by the loss of someone dearly loved?

The Jhelarkan lost the war. They lost their land. Righteousness was demonstrated with blood and battle. Justice was won with triumph, making a lie of both.

In all of this was proved the indifference of the gods, and the language of stone boulders upon the plain was a language too simple to manage the complexities of the new world. His memory of that day, beyond even the murder of his family, belonged to the futility of the old ways. Those boulders no doubt still remained, serving now as monuments to failure. The Tiste claimed the land, and in a few short years the wild herds were all gone, and with the ground too poor for crops and too cold for livestock, the settlers eventually left their winnings, returning south.

The servants had cleared the last of the plates and bowls from the table and jugs were brought to fill tankards with heady, steaming mulled wine. Ivis had said little during the meal, rebuffing efforts directed his way. His concentration had wavered from the conversations until his sense of them was lost, and in the fugue that followed, he let lassitude take hold. Some nights, words proved too much of an effort.

He was, nevertheless, all too aware of Sandalath, seated upon his right. Impropriety was seductive. Unease and the notion of the forbidden proved spices to his desire. Still, he knew that he would do nothing, break no covenant. Barring the slaying of my lord’s daughters. The notion startled him, the truth of it shocking enough to sweep aside his lassitude.

Yalad was speaking. ‘… and so a chilly week ahead is likely. The outer walls will be bitter cold, and that makes the timing propitious. It will force them closer to the heart of the house.’

Ivis surprised everyone by speaking. ‘Your point, gate sergeant?’

‘Ah. Well, I was suggesting, sir, the closing off of the outer passages at that time, further reducing their avenues of escape.’

‘And why would that be a good thing?’

Yalad’s brow clouded. ‘To better effect their capture, sir.’

‘They may be children, Yalad,’ said Ivis, ‘but they are also witches. What manner of chains do you think will hold them?’

Surgeon Prok cleared his throat and said, ‘Falt, the herb-woman from the forest, could not stay long her last visit to me. The power of those two hellions proved too inimical. It infests the entire house. Sorcery abounds these days, gate sergeant, and it is as unruly as the season.’ He tilted his tankard towards Ivis. ‘The commander has the right of it. We have no means of containing them, barring immediate execution, which the commander will not sanction.’

Leaning back, Yalad held up both hands. ‘Very well. It was but an idea.’

‘The situation is indeed trying,’ Prok offered by way of mollification. ‘At times, in my station, I catch a scuffle or drawn breath, and find myself fixing gaze upon this wall or that. I believe I have found a secret door, and have chocked it secure. But magic … well, it is difficult feeling entirely safe.’

Ivis gestured to a servant. ‘Build up that fire again, will you?’

Although unsettled by the discussion thus far, with its ponderings on witchery and murder, Sandalath was unaccountably relieved when Ivis stirred awake enough to engage in the conversation. He had been a distant, remote presence during the meal, seemingly unmindful of the company.

There were ghosts in this house now, and no doubt in the courtyard and beyond, out upon the battlefield. There was a restlessness to the air that had little to do with the chill draughts as the winter wind fought its way through cracks and beneath doors.

Upon her left, Sorca was refilling her pipe. The rustleaf was mixed with something, perhaps sage, that made for a pungent but not unpleasant scent.

Sandalath noted, across from them, Surgeon Prok eyeing the woman. ‘Sweet Sorca,’ he said, ‘it is held by some of my profession that rustleaf is an inimical habit.’

For a time it did not seem that Sorca thought the comment worthy of a response, but then she stirred slightly, reaching out to collect her tankard. ‘Surgeon Prok,’ she said, her voice so quiet as to make the man opposite her lean closer to hear, ‘it is a scribe’s fate to end the day with a blackened tongue.’

Prok tilted his head to regard her, with a loose smile upon his features. ‘Often noted, yes.’

‘Is ink inimical?’

‘Drink down a bottle and you will surely die.’

‘Just so,’ she replied.

They waited, until Prok’s smile broadened. He leaned back. ‘Let us imagine, if you will indulge me, that future where healing is at hand for all things, or, to be more accurate, most things, for as Lady Sandalath noted earlier, death remains hungry and none can halt its feeding, but merely delay it for a time. Why, amidst such curative boon, should we not expect a society at ease with itself?’ He tipped his tankard towards Sorca. ‘She thinks not.’

‘I heard no such opinion from our keeper of records,’ Yalad said.

‘You didn’t? Then allow me to make it plain. Are we to live our lives in constant fear – present circumstances notwithstanding? Are we to flinch from all that we might touch, or ingest? From that cloud we must pass through should we cross, say, Sorca’s wake down a corridor? Or, in her instance, the ink with which she plies her trade? To what extent, one wonders, does equanimity confer health and well-being? A soul at ease with itself is surely healthier than one stressed with worry and dread. What of the overly judgemental among us? What ill humours are secreted internally by embittered comparisons of moral standing? What poisons attend to self-righteousness?’

‘Perhaps,’ ventured Yalad, ‘with sorcery making redundant the need for gods – with all their necessary configurations of sin and judgement – we will indeed turn to the mundane truths – or seeming truths – of health and well-being, upon which one might rest such notions as justice, blame and righteous punishment. In a way, is it not a simpler way of thinking?’

Prok stared at Yalad with undisguised delight. ‘Gate sergeant, I applaud you. After all, the mind of a god and the manner in which it assays judgement and punishment is by nature beyond our understanding, and in such a wayward world as ours, why yes, that surely serves as perversely comforting. But in contrast, as you say, we in a godless world are invited to judge one another, and by harsh rules indeed. Cast down your judgement! And if Sorca does not kneel to your reasoned distemper, why, pronounce banishment, and by this wetted cloth wash thy hands of her!’

‘In such a world,’ murmured Yalad, ‘I see the powers of healing withheld from those deemed undeserving.’

Prok’s eyes were suddenly keen. ‘Just so. The future, my friend, offers no respite for the unwell, the impure, the flawed and the peculiar. By its habits a society may well be judged, but more sure our assessment, I wager, when we judge its treatment of the habituated and the wilfully non-conforming.’ The surgeon refilled his tankard. ‘You are witness to my vow, then, by what powers Denul invests in me, and by what skills and learning I may possess, that I will heal without judgement. Until my dying day.’

‘Bless you,’ said Sorca, behind a cloud of smoke.

Nodding in acknowledgement, Prok continued. ‘On the field of battle, the surgeon has no regard for the allegiance of the soldier in dire need. It is, in fact, a point of pride among my ilk to dismiss the political world and its ambitions, and seek to heal all who can be healed, and, failing that, to mourn only the tragedy of the argument’s harvest. Few, after all, would appreciate a surgeon’s history of the world, wherein each successive chapter recounts ever the same litany of broken bodies and shallow triumphs.’ He waved dismissively, and then added, ‘But history teaches us nothing new. And should I choose to look ahead, to what is yet to come, why, I see a future made most toxic, born on the day society sets the value of wealth above that of lives.’

Sandalath started. ‘Surely, surgeon, that could never come to pass!’

‘Cruel judgement – the poor deserve to be poor, and in the failing of their spirit, why, illness is only just. Besides, who would want to invite a burgeoning of these un-worthies, who in their poverty fall to endless breeding? As for the misfits, so stubborn in their refusal to conform, let them suffer the consequences of their own misdeeds!’

‘If that awaits us,’ Sandalath said, ‘I’d rather be quit of it than witness such corruption. What you describe, surgeon, is simply horrible.’

‘Yes, it is. While I am content for payment of my services little more than the meeting of my needs, I do fear a time when we measure all services against a stack of coins.’

‘Prok,’ interjected Ivis, ‘do you know the tale of the Lord of Hate?’

The surgeon simply smiled. ‘Commander, tell us, please, for can we not but wonder at the naming of such a lord?’

‘I have it from Lord Draconus himself,’ Ivis began. ‘Told to me when we were on campaign. There was a Jaghut, named Gothos. Cursed with preternatural intelligence and a relentless nature, his eye was too sharp, his wit too keen. In this, Prok, he was perhaps much like you.’

The surgeon smiled and raised his tankard in salute.

Ivis eyed Prok with an expression of faint distaste. After a moment, he continued. ‘Gothos began an argument, and found himself unable to halt his pursuit of it. He spiralled down, and down. Was he seeking truth? Or did he desire something else? A gift of hope, or even redemption? Did he dream of finding, at the very end, a world unfolding with the natural beauty of a rose?’

‘What was the argument?’ Sandalath asked.

Ivis nodded. ‘In a moment, milady. For now, let us examine a more common need, perhaps even a counter-argument, and that is one of balance. In the act of observing, should one not seek its measure, if only to ease the soul? The good with the bad, the glorious with the craven? If only to even the weights upon each scale?’

Prok spoke in a heavy tone. ‘The weights, Ivis, are not equal.’

‘Gothos would agree with you, surgeon. Civilization is a war against injustice. In its steps it might stutter on occasion, or even at times bow to exhaustion, but it holds nevertheless to a certain purpose, and that is, most simply put, a desire to defend the helpless against those who would prey upon them. Rules breed more rules, laws abound. Comfort and safety, lives lived out in peace.’

Prok grunted and Ivis responded with a pointed finger, silencing him. The commander then resumed. ‘Complexity grows ever more complex, but there is a belief that civilization is a natural force, and, by extension, that justice itself is a natural force.’ He paused, and then half smiled, as if at a memory. ‘My lord Draconus was most explicit on this point. That night, he argued as if defending himself, so stern was his regard.’ Then he shook his head. ‘But at some point, civilization forgot its primary purpose: that of protection. The rules and laws twisted round to fashion constraints to dignity, to equality and liberty, and then to the primal needs of security and comfort. The task of living was hard, but civilization was intended to make the task easier, and in many ways it did – and does. But at what cost?’

‘Forgive me, commander,’ said Prok, ‘but you return us to the notion of dignity, yes?’

‘What value this “civilization”, surgeon, if it dispenses with the virtue of being civil?’

Prok grunted. ‘There is nothing more savage than a savage civilization. No single man or woman, no band or tribe, could ever aspire to what a civilization is capable of committing, not just upon its enemies, but upon its own people.’

Ivis nodded. ‘Gothos plunged to the nadir and found those very truths in that dreadful place. How was it possible, he wondered, that justice made for an unjust world? How was it possible that love could breed such hatred? The weights, he saw, were as you said, Prok. No match to the other, not by any conceivable measure. We look to humanity in the face of inhumanity, our only armour frail hope, and how often – in a civilized setting or a barbaric one – does hope fail in protecting the helpless?’

‘The pits are filled with corpses,’ Prok muttered, reaching again for the wine, though it had long since gone cold. ‘Prisoners put to the sword, a conquered city put to the torch, and those who are to die are made to dig their own graves. ’Tis an orderly thing.’

Ivis was studying the surgeon. ‘You attended the sacking of Asatyl, in the far south, didn’t you?’

Prok would meet no one’s eye. ‘I walked away from the Legion on that day, commander.’

There was a long silence that was, perhaps, not as long as it felt for Sandalath, who had seen something pass between Ivis and Prok. She did not know the name of Asatyl, nor the event of its conquest, but the surgeon’s response left her chilled.

Ivis slowly pushed his own tankard away, the gesture strangely deliberate. ‘Gothos walked into the heart of his city, to where the Jaghut who ruled collectively were all gathered. Among them, to be sure, there were great minds, and many who still held to the ideal of civilization. But then Gothos ascended the central speaker’s dais. He began his oration, and when, at last, he was done, he was met with silence. On that day, the Jaghut civilization ended. And in the days that followed, Gothos was named the Lord of Hate.’

‘Then well named,’ commented Yalad.

But Ivis shook his head. ‘Clearly you misunderstand, gate sergeant. The hate was for the truth of Gothos’s words. The title was most bitter, but held no spite for Gothos himself. And even then, Lord Draconus was adamant in insisting that even for Gothos there was no hatred of civilization. It was, instead, a recognition of its doom – the inevitable loss of its original purpose.’

‘“Name it a prison / if only to see the bars,”’ quoted Prok.

Sorca cleared her throat and said, ‘“Then name each bar / and gather them round.”’

‘“In the name of friendship,”’ Prok finished, now meeting Sorca’s gaze.

‘Civilization will grow until it dies,’ Ivis said. ‘Even without purpose, or corrupted from the same, still it grows. And from its burgeoning complexity, Chaos is born, and in Chaos lies the seed of its own destruction.’ He shifted, as if suddenly embarrassed, and then said, ‘So Lord Draconus concluded. Then we stood, to walk the rows of tents, and gaze into the north, the sky of which glowed from the fires of the Jhelarkan horde.’

Shivering, Sandalath rose. ‘It is past late,’ she said apologetically. ‘I am afraid my mind has grown too weary to wrestle with such nuances as this conversation yields.’

Yalad rose and bowed to her. ‘Milady, I will escort you to your room, and check on the guards stationed there.’

‘Thank you, gate sergeant.’

As the others rose to bow to her, Sandalath caught the eyes of Ivis, and saw in them – unaccountably it seemed – nothing but pain. Dismayed, she left the chamber with Yalad at her side. He’d begun talking, but she barely heard a word.

You loved her that much? It is hopeless, then.

She thought of the bed awaiting her, and the dreams she would seek on this night. I’ll have you find me there, commander. And must take some comfort in that.

Outside, the wind moaned like some beast pinned under stone.

* * *

As the forest opened out, revealing rough hills pocked with the caves of old mine shafts, Wreneck saw two ravens by the side of the track, picking at the carcass of a third one. Their heads tilted round to fix gazes on the new arrivals, and one voiced a screeching caw.

Caladan Brood made a gesture. ‘We are invited to an unholy feast,’ he said.

‘The burning of the forests has left many creatures to starve,’ Lord Anomander replied.

‘Shall we stay the night at Dracons Keep, First Son?’

‘Perhaps. In my few visits, as the lord’s guest, I found it amenable enough … with the exception of the three daughters. Beware meeting their eyes, Caladan. Engage in the regard of a snake and you will find a warmer welcome.’

Caladan Brood glanced back at Wreneck, who trailed behind, already exhausted although barely half the day was done. ‘Children seek their own. Is this a wise choice?’ Then, to Wreneck, he said, ‘Not much further. We are almost there.’

‘They keep to themselves, I recall, holding in contempt even their half-brother, Arathan. In any case, I will be placing Wreneck in the care of Sandalath. And Ivis is a man I would trust with my life.’

‘I have never seen that before,’ Wreneck said as they walked, leaving behind the ravens. ‘Eating their own, I mean.’

‘Nor I,’ the Azathanai replied. ‘They are inclined to grief when one of their kin dies. There is something unpleasant in this air, and its power grows the nearer we get to Dracons Keep. It is possible,’ he continued, but now to Anomander, ‘that something has afflicted our destination.’

The First Son shrugged. ‘All your talk of sorcery reaches me as would words of a storm whose wind I cannot feel, nor hear. What you name mystery I receive with ignorance. You could well be speaking another language.’

‘And yet, First Son, you witnessed its work, when I first came among you, to set the hearthstone for your brother. And on that day, we made vows that bound together our souls.’

‘Ah, I wondered when the chains between us would begin to chafe you, Azathanai.’

‘I feel no strain, I assure you, Anomander Rake. But this journey, in search of Andarist, well, to my sense of things, I see a circle closing. But only for me. If I am to speak here as your shadow, I say we have strayed far from the necessary path.’

‘You counsel my hasty return to Kharkanas.’

‘If Kharkanas will sharpen your focus, First Son, upon your realm’s most pressing needs, then yes.’

Lord Anomander halted and turned to Caladan. ‘She has turned from me, the one she would call her First Son. She has made darkness her wall, her unrelieved keep. Where, then, is her focus? Upon her children? Evidently not. Let her indulge as she will in her lover’s arms – I will not step between them. But when she dares ask me to bring this conflict to an end, yet refuses the call to arms, what is a warrior to do with that charge?’ He swung round, resumed marching. ‘For now, I will serve my own needs, if only to match her reflection.’

‘And will she make note of your gesture, First Son?’

‘When the notion of interest finds her,’ Anomander said in a growl, ‘she might blink to the meaning. It is said,’ he added in a bitter tone, ‘that the darkness does not blind, yet she has made me as blind as Kadaspala.’

‘She speaks the truth,’ said Caladan. ‘The darkness does not blind. And Kadaspala, I fear, is a poor comparison, since he is made blind by his own hands. In the name of grief, he sacrificed beauty. And here you walk, Anomander, in the name of vengeance. If not beauty your sacrifice, then some other thing. In each instance, the wound is self-inflicted.’

‘As you said,’ Anomander snapped, ‘Kadaspala was a poor comparison.’

‘What would you have of Mother Dark?’

‘If she is to be our goddess. If, indeed, she is to be my mother, inasmuch as the station is well-nigh vacant. Must I list the expectations? Set aside worship – I know her too well. I fear even the role of the mother struggles in me – she is not too many years older, after all. Thus, what is left to me to consider?’

‘The throne.’

‘Yes. The throne. The mundane perch upon which we paint prestige and authority like gilt. And from that vantage all faith in order must descend like gentle rain. Knock it askew and the realm totters. Bathe it in blood, and the lands burn. Should one take that seat, the hands must grip tight the arms.’

They were among the hills now, with the raw stone on either side silvered in frost. Wreneck walked in their wake, listening, understanding little. The sky overhead was the hue of sword blades.

‘Assemble for me, then,’ said Caladan Brood, ‘the necessities of proper rule.’

‘You invite this game?’

‘Indulge me.’

Lord Anomander sighed. ‘Virtues cannot be plucked from position, Azathanai. Nor worn like gem-studded robes. Justice does not live in the length of a sceptre, and the mere wood, nails and cloth of a throne invests nothing but the illusion of comfort. Pomp and ritual belabour the argument, and far from stirring a soul can more easily be scorned and given the drip of irony.’

‘You speak, thus far, as preamble. I will hear your list, First Son.’

‘I but voice my dislike of the very notion of rule, Caladan. She has made it too easy to confuse the worship that comes with a god or goddess with that of the honourable choice to serve one who rules, if that rule is worthy of respect.’ Anomander shook his head. ‘Very well. Live as if you believe in the virtues of your people, but rule without delusions, neither of them nor of yourself. Where stands the throne? In a field of poppies, with the boldest and brightest flowers crowding close, eager to numb your every sense. Their whispers will weave about you a poisonous cloud, through which you must strain to pierce the haze, if you can. Ambition has its own nature, and in every measure it proves simple enough to discern. The ruler’s goal is wisdom, but wisdom is as fodder for the ambitious, and given the chance they will pick its bones clean long ere the serving reaches the throne. By such scraps one must raise up a righteous rule. Is it any wonder so many fail?’

Caladan was silent for a moment, and then he grunted and said, ‘You set an impossible table, upon which no mortal can hope to attend.’

‘You think I do not know it?’

‘Describe for me, if you can, the nature of this wisdom.’

Anomander snorted impatiently. ‘Wisdom is surrender.’

‘To what?’

‘Complexity.’

‘To what end?’

‘Swallow it down, spit it out in small measures, to make palatable what many may not otherwise comprehend.’

‘An arrogant pose, First Son.’

‘I do not claim it, Azathanai, just as I refuse for myself the notion of rule. And, in the name of worship, I am lost in doubt, if not outright disbelief.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Power does not confer wisdom, nor rightful authority, nor faith in either of the two. If it offers a caress, so too can it by force make one kneel. The former is by nature suspect, while the latter – well, it can at least be said that it does not disguise its truth.’

‘You yearn for liberty.’

‘If I do, then I am the greater fool, because liberty is not in itself a virtue. It wins nothing but the false belief in one’s own utterly unassailable independence. Even the beasts will not plunge to that depth. No, if I yearn for anything, it is for responsibility. An end to the evasions, the lies spoken in the mind and the lies spoken to others, the endless game of deeds without blame, and all the causes of seeming justice behind which hide venal desires. I yearn for the coward’s confession, and understand me well here, Caladan: we are all cowards.’

For reasons Wreneck could not grasp, Lord Anomander’s reply silenced Caladan Brood. They trudged on, and no further words came from any of them. With the sun a pale white orb high to the southwest and the afternoon on the turn towards dusk, they came within sight of Dracons Keep.

Wreneck studied the high wall and the gate, and then the freshly mounded earth rising here and there in the land surrounding the fortress. Here there were ravens aplenty. With the day’s end, they would rise from those strange hills and make for the forest branches.

Caladan Brood spoke then. ‘Lord Anomander, what will you do if one day you find yourself in the role of a king, or, indeed, a god?’

‘Should such a day ever arrive,’ the First Son replied, ‘I will weep for the world.’

The gates opened upon their approach. One man emerged, old and worn but wearing the garb of a soldier, and Wreneck saw his pleasure and surprise when Anomander embraced him.

As they moved beneath the gate, Wreneck also saw how Caladan Brood hesitated, his eyes raised and fixed upon the unknown words carved into the lintel stone.

Then, a moment later, they were in the courtyard, and he saw Sandalath, who came to him with a cry, as would a mother for her son.

From a slit in the tower, in the room their brother Arathan had once claimed as his own, Envy and Spite stared down on the newcomers in the courtyard.

‘That’s Lord Anomander,’ said Spite.

Envy nodded. ‘I do not know the other. He has the manner of a beast.’

‘The First Son’s found a pet.’

‘One day,’ said Envy, ‘I will marry Lord Anomander. And I will make him kneel before me.’

Spite snorted. ‘If you make him kneel, you will have broken him.’

‘Yes,’ Envy replied. ‘I will.’

‘That’s an ugly boy,’ Spite observed, through her now endless shivering.

Envy studied the scene below. ‘He will be staying here. With Sandalath – he must be from Abara Delack.’

‘I don’t like him. He makes my eyes sting.’

Yes. He shines bright, does that one. After a moment, Envy gasped, even as Spite flinched back from the window.

For an instant, both girls had seen, in the sudden brightening of the aura surrounding Wreneck, a multitude of figures, ghostly, all blending and flowing through one another, and they had then stilled, suddenly, to lift their gazes to the tower.

Gods! He’s brought gods with him! That boy! A thousand gods!

They see us! They know us!

Unwelcome guests had come to House Dracons. The two girls fled for the cracks.