Fall of Light

ELEVEN

Hunched and gaunt, the old man with one leg worked his crutches with jarring intensity, as if, at any moment, what held him up could pull loose from his grip, twisting to make a cruciform upon which the fates would nail him. The lines of his face made for hard angles, matching the harsh resentment in his eyes. His thin, pale lips moved to a voiceless litany of curses as his eyes tracked the floor ahead of him. And yet, for all of that, he trailed High Priestess Syntara as if he was her shadow, bound to her by laws that could not be sundered by any mortal hand.

Renarr watched their approach with detached amusement. For her, religion was a wasteland, a place only the broken would choose to stumble on to, their hands outstretched to grasp whatever came within reach. She recalled her own thoughts from some weeks past: the conflation in her mind of whore’s tent and temple, and the squalid surrender that fused into one these seemingly disparate settings. The need was the same, and for many the satiation achieved by both proved shortlived and ephemeral.

The High Priestess was bedecked in flavours of white and gold. An ethereal illumination clung to her like smoke. Her heart-shaped face glistened as if brushed with pearl-dust, and the colour of her eyes seemed to shift hues in a soft stream of blues, magenta and lilac. She was indeed a creature of stunning beauty.

‘Blessings upon you,’ said Syntara when at last she halted a few paces away from Lord Urusander, who had turned to face the new arrivals from his position by the tall, narrow window overlooking the courtyard.

Eyeing her adoptive father, Renarr sought to gauge his mood, seeking some hint as to the stance he would take with the High Priestess, but as ever, Urusander was closed to her. There was, she supposed, something to admire, and perhaps even emulate, in her lord’s ability to contain his emotions. If, however, she might have expected the man to be affected by Syntara’s radiance, his first words dispelled the notion utterly.

‘This light hurts my eyes,’ Urusander said. ‘I would rather the very stones of this keep not glow day and night. Your blessing,’ he continued, ‘has made me raw with exhaustion. Now, since you have sought me out, dispense with the incidentals and speak your mind.’

Smiling in answer, Syntara said, ‘You are witness to a power born to deny darkness, Lord Urusander. Here, we find ourselves in a holy sanctum, the very heart of that power. Light exists to be answered, and that answer will soon come. Mother Dark but awaits you.’

Urusander studied the High Priestess for a moment, and then said, ‘I am told that Hunn Raal proclaims himself an archmage. He has invented for himself the title of Mortal Sword to Light. He has, for all I know, a dozen more titles beyond those, to add to that of captain in my legion. Like you, he delights in inventing appellations, as if they would add legitimacy to his ambitions.’

It was, these days, almost impossible to discern a paling of visage among the Children of Light, but Renarr imagined she detected it nonetheless in the lovely, perfect face of Syntara. But the insult’s sting did not last long, for Syntara then resumed her smile and added a sigh. ‘Hunn Raal invents titles to affirm his place in this new religion, milord. “Mortal Sword” marks him as the first and foremost servant to Father Light.’

‘He would claim for himself a martial role in this cult, then.’

If anything, this cut deeper, and again it was a moment before Syntara recovered. ‘Milord, this is no mere cult, I assure you.’ She gestured, almost helplessly. ‘See this burnish of Holy Light? See how the air itself is suffused with Light’s essence?’

‘With eyes closed and yearning for sleep,’ Urusander growled, ‘I see it still.’

‘Milord, you are named Father Light.’

‘Syntara, I am named Vatha Urusander, and the only title I hold is that of commander to my legion. What makes you believe I desire a union with Mother Dark? What,’ he continued, his tone growing harsher, ‘in my history, invites you – and Hunn Raal – into the belief that I desire her as my wife?’

‘Nothing,’ Syntara replied, ‘except your legacy of honouring duty.’

‘Duty? And who proclaims it so? Not Mother Dark. Nor the highborn, for that matter. You crowd me with your expectations, High Priestess, but the voices that roar through my skull deafen but one ear. From the other, why, blessed silence.’

‘No longer,’ Syntara replied, and at last Renarr noted a glimmer of something like triumph in her mien. ‘I am now engaged in conversation with High Priestess Emral Lanear, and no, it was not I who initiated the contact. Milord, she acknowledges the necessity of balance, a redress in the name of justice. She recognizes, indeed, that there must be a union between Father Light and Mother Dark. Milord, if she does not speak on behalf of her goddess, then she can hardly lay claim to her title of High Priestess, can she? This,’ she said, taking a step closer, ‘is the overture we were seeking.’

‘By marriage arranged,’ Urusander said with a bitter smile, ‘the state wins peace. By choices removed, we are to be content with one path.’

‘Mother Dark concedes,’ Syntara said. ‘Is this not victory?’

‘And yet the Hust Legion readies for war.’

The High Priestess made a dismissive gesture. ‘It but restores itself, milord. How could it do otherwise?’

‘Better to bury those cursed weapons,’ Urusander said. ‘Or melt them down. Hust Henarald took his arts too far, into mysteries better left untouched. I decry Hunn Raal’s treachery, while a part of me understands his reason. But do inform this Mortal Sword, Syntara, that holy title or not, he will be made to answer for his crimes.’

Her brows lifted. ‘Milord, he does not acknowledge my authority over him, despite my overtures. When I first heard of the title he had invented for himself I sought out the Old Language, seeking an alternative that would properly belong within the temple hierarchy. I found the title of “Destriant”, signifying the position of Chosen Priest – yet a priest belonging to no temple. Rather, a destriant’s demesne is all that lies beyond sacred ground.’ She paused, and then shrugged. ‘He refused it. If Hunn Raal is to answer for his crimes, it must be Father Light who will stand in judgement.’

‘Not his commander?’

There was a sardonic hint to Syntara’s reply. ‘I await your endeavour’s account, milord. I believe he has since dispensed with the rank of captain.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Returned to the Legion camp, I understand. There is the matter of the companies out tracking Sharenas Ankhadu.’

The mention of Sharenas’s name elicited a frown from Urusander, and he turned away to face the window again, and this was to Renarr the only sign of his dismay.

Syntara stood as if awaiting his regard once more. He had, after all, voiced no dismissal. After a moment, her gaze slipped to Renarr, who was seated on a chair near the lord’s desk. The High Priestess cleared her throat. ‘Blessings upon you, Renarr – I apologize for not taking note of your presence earlier. Are you well?’

Inconsequential enough to escape notice? Hardly. ‘Discomfited, to be honest,’ Renarr replied, ‘as I ponder just how your pet historian will alter the portents of this meeting in whatever account he records for posterity. I assume his presence is deemed necessary, given the need for a Holy Writ of some sort, a recounting of Light’s glorious birth, or some such thing.’ She smiled. ‘If I could be bothered, I might match him with a scroll or two. How odd the birth of a new religion if it does not quickly fracture into sects. Is it not a proper task to plant the seeds of schism as early on as possible? The Book of Sagander, and the contrary Book of Renarr, Adopted Daughter to Father Light. Imagine the holy wars to come of that, with the tree so eagerly shaken before its roots even set.’

Syntara’s blink was languid. ‘Cynicism, Renarr, is a stain upon a soul. Its reflection is bitter, even to you, I imagine. Come to the Chamber of Light. With prayer and service, you can be cleansed of what troubles you.’

My troubles? Oh, woman, what you call a stain is my coat of arms. It lies emblazoned upon my soul, and the promise of redress belongs not to you, nor Light, nor any temple of your making. ‘Thank you for the offer, High Priestess, and do not doubt that I appreciate the sentiment behind your desire.’

Sagander pointed at Renarr and said, in a half-snarl, ‘You are no daughter by blood, whore. Beware your presumption!’

At that, Urusander swung round. ‘Get that wretched scholar from my chamber, Syntara. As for recording this meeting, why, my hand does not tremble at the prospect. Sagander, your writings are well known to me, inasmuch as they mangle every notion of justice imaginable. Your mind was never equal to the task of your heart’s desire, and clearly nothing has accrued to you in the years since, barring layers of spite. Both of you, get out.’

Bridling, Syntara drew herself taller. ‘Milord, Mother Dark expects a formal reply from us.’

‘Mother Dark, or Emral Lanear?’

‘Would you have Mother Dark address you in person? She speaks through her High Priestess. No other interpretation is possible.’

‘Truly? None? And do you speak for me? Or is it Hunn Raal who claims that right? How many voices shall I possess? How many faces in my visage can this precious Light behold?’

‘Hunn Raal is indeed an archmage,’ Syntara snapped, making the title one of derision. ‘He makes mockery of the sorcery he now explores. Even so, it is born of Light. The power we now possess cannot be denied, milord.’

‘I argued against our irrelevance,’ Urusander retorted. ‘That and nothing more.’ Now there was anger visible in the commander, reverberating through his entire body. ‘An utterance of bitterness, a plea for something like a just reward for all that we sacrificed for our realm. I voiced it to the highborn, seeking the release of land as recompense, and was rebuffed. This, High Priestess, was the seed of my complaint. And now, as you and countless others ride the back of my dismay, we find ourselves charging into death and destruction. Where, in all of this, is my justice?’

Renarr had to credit Syntara’s self-possession, in that she neither stepped back nor flinched from Urusander’s anger. ‘You will find it meted out, milord, by your hand, from a position of equality – from the Throne of Light, which will stand beside the Throne of Dark. This is why the highborn will gather against you. It is why they will fight your ascension. But you, Urusander, and Mother Dark – only the two of you, bound together, can stop this. From that throne, you will force from the highborn every concession you desire-’

‘It is not for me that I desire anything!’

‘For your soldiers, then. Your loyal soldiers who, as you have said, deserve to be rewarded.’

A few moments passed, in which no one spoke or moved. Then Urusander waved dismissively. ‘Bring to me this note from High Priestess Emral Lanear. I will read it for myself.’

‘Milord, I can recount it for you word for word-’

‘My reading skills will suffice, Syntara, unless you also desire the title of my secretary?’

Renarr snorted.

‘Very well, then,’ Syntara said. ‘As you wish, milord.’

Their departure was marked by the hollow thumps of the historian’s crutches. As the doors closed, Renarr said, ‘You’ll never see it, you know.’

He shot her a searching look.

‘It will have been transcribed,’ Renarr went on. ‘There will be a notation from Syntara attached, explaining that the original was in High Script, or some arcane temple code. They are not done with playing you, Father. But now, after today, there will be a new diligence to their scheming.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it seems that you have awakened to this moment, and your place in it.’

He sighed. ‘I miss Sharenas Ankhadu.’

‘The one who set about murdering your captains?’

‘I gave her cause. No. They gave her cause. Slayers of innocents, leaders of a misguided pogrom. She was the sword in my hand.’

‘The true instigator of that pogrom still lives,’ Renarr said. ‘He bears the new title of Mortal Sword. And now he wields sorcery. Would that Sharenas had begun with him.’

He was now studying her. ‘Will you now stand in her place, Renarr? Are you to be my confidante?’

The question arrived somewhere between hope and a plea. ‘Father, when I last departed this keep, you sent a squad to escort me back. Now, here I am, no longer a plaything for your soldiers. Required to remain in your presence or, by your leave, in an adjoining room. Will you now make me your reluctant conscience? If so, best not chain me.’

‘I need no conscience but my own, Renarr. But … you saw through the subterfuge of this meeting. You swiftly and truly gleaned the purpose of that miserable scholar. You grasp – instinctively, I believe – the needs of this new religion, its raw hunger and brutal pragmatism. And she accused you of cynicism! In any case, Syntara had not planned for you. She left her flank exposed, and Sagander served as a poor excuse in its defence.’

Renarr rose from the chair. ‘Forgive me, Father. Best not rely upon me to ward your flank. I am far too capricious in my own amusements. Sagander’s well-known disgust for the common-born and the fallen was the only invitation I required. I baited him out of boredom.’

He said nothing as she made her way from the chamber.

Oh, Sagander. Old man, mediocre scholar, an historian rocking on crutches from one scene to the next. Even the blessing of Light but underscores your flaws. Such clarity of vision, as promised by this burgeoning faith, yields no shades to truth, or justice.

Do you grasp that, Urusander?

Your High Priestess fears your Mortal Sword. Your historian is maimed by his own bigotry, and feeds fires of hatred behind his eyes. Your first captain dreams of his bloodline restored. And your adopted daughter must turn away from this dance no matter how honest its meaning, or how honourable its desire.

I see this light, Father, in all that comes. But I will not blink.

Still, the echo of those crutches lingered in Renarr, reminder of woundings that took away more than limbs or flesh. Scaffolds assembled to take the nails of pain and torment need not be visible to any mortal eye, and if the figure writhing upon the frame remained unseen, still the blood dripped.

Coat of arms. My banner. My perfect, perfected stain.

* * *

Captain Hallyd Bahann slid a hand down from Tathe Lorat’s bared shoulder, brushing the length of her upper arm, and then smiled across at Hunn Raal. ‘I know the risks in leading my company upon her trail, Mortal Sword.’

Hunn Raal tilted his head to one side. ‘Indeed? Are three hundred soldiers insufficient to guard you from the wrath of Sharenas Ankhadu?’

The man’s smile broadened. ‘The risk lies not in what I hunt, but in what I leave behind me, here in Neret Sorr.’ He flicked a glance at the woman beside him, but if she took note she showed no sign, content instead with playing with the unsheathed dagger she held in her hands.

Hunn Raal pondered the man for a moment, bemused by the fragility of his arrogance and narcissism. Then he shrugged. ‘You suggest a most frail union, captain, if in the moment of your absence you imagine Tathe Lorat quickened to infidelity.’

At that, Tathe Lorat managed a languid smile, though her gaze did not lift. She said, ‘Appetites sing their own song, Mortal Sword, against which I often prove helpless.’

Grunting, Hunn Raal reached for his goblet of wine. ‘Weakness is a common indulgence. Control, on the other hand, requires strength.’ He studied her as he drank, and then said, ‘But you’ll walk no knife’s edge, will you, Tathe Lorat, with pleasures at hand upon either side?’

‘Just my point,’ Hallyd said, struggling to pull the conversation back to him, and only now could Hunn Raal see the brittle need in the man for Raal’s attention, especially at this moment. It would not do, after all, to be dismissed before he even departed the tent. But his next words belied Raal’s suppositions. ‘And so I must ask you, Mortal Sword, will you keep her occupied? Too many young soldiers will catch her eye, weakening the authority of command, but if she shares the furs of the Mortal Sword’s bed, well …’

Disgust was too kind a word for the antics of these two captains. It was a wonder Urusander had indulged them for as long as he had. But of course the matter was more complex, now. Hunn Raal had lost some vital allies among the captains of the Legion. ‘As you wish. But captain, what of Tathe Lorat’s own desires?’

‘You are challenged,’ Tathe Lorat murmured to her husband, still playing with her knife.

In response to Raal’s question, Hallyd Bahann shrugged.

Sighing, Hunn Raal looked away. ‘Very well. Tell me, Hallyd, what have your scouts determined?’

‘She somehow acquired an extra horse. Avoiding all settlements, she rode westward, into the forest.’

‘Where, presumably, she intends to hide.’

‘She has little choice. We have all routes south blockaded or patrolled. If Kharkanas was her intent, we will deny it to her. Thus, where else might she seek sanctuary?’

‘Dracons Keep.’

‘Across the Dorssan Ryl? The ice is notoriously treacherous. We might well drive her to such desperation. Once we reach the forest edge, I intend to advance my company in a pronged formation. We will sweep her up and force her ever westward, until her back is to the river. Mayhap she attempts it, and drowns.’

‘Not good enough,’ Hunn Raal snapped. ‘I want her captured. Brought back to Neret Sorr. If she drowns in the Dorssan Ryl, she will have won a victory over me. Unacceptable, captain. More to the point, what if she manages to cross?’

‘Then I will besiege Dracons Keep.’

‘You will do nothing of the sort.’

‘We are not Borderswords, sir. We are Legion soldiers.’

Hunn Raal rubbed at his eyes, and then levelled a hard look upon the man before him. ‘You will not offer up to Ivis the prospect of wiping out one of my companies, Hallyd. Are we clear on this? If Sharenas makes it to Dracons Keep, you are to withdraw. Return here. Her accounting will have to wait.’

For an instant it seemed that Hallyd would challenge him, but then he shrugged and said, ‘Very well, sir. In any case, I intend to run her down long before she reaches the road, much less the river.’

‘That would be preferable, captain.’

After a moment, Hallyd Bahann cleared his throat and then rose from his seat, adjusting his armour and winter cloak. ‘We depart now, Mortal Sword.’

‘Do not take too long,’ Hunn Raal said. ‘I intend to see us on the march in a month’s time.’

‘Understood.’

The captain exited the tent. Leaning back, Hunn Raal studied Tathe Lorat. Eventually, she sheathed her knife and looked up to meet his gaze. ‘Does the challenge in keeping me satisfied excite you, Mortal Sword?’

‘Stand up.’

‘If you insist.’

‘Tell me. Do you wish to remain a captain in Urusander’s Legion, Tathe Lorat?’

She blinked. ‘Of course.’

‘Excellent. Now hearken well, captain. You are not among my indulgences. Not now, and at no time in the future.’

‘I see.’

‘Not quite, as I am not yet finished. In your mate’s absence, fuck whom you will. I will of course know about it, no matter how carefully you arrange your trysts. And when the news reaches me, and should your lover be found within the Legion ranks, I will see you stripped and thrown to the dogs. If Hallyd chooses to retrieve you upon his return, well, that is his business. Am I understood, captain?’

Tathe Lorat stared down at Hunn Raal, expressionless. Then she smiled. ‘Oh dear. The Mortal Sword defines a new opprobrium against which we must now contend, does he? If Mother Dark’s temple whores make a virtue of carnal indulgences, are we to seek the opposite? Abstinence, sir, will yield your faith few followers.’

‘You misunderstand, Tathe Lorat. The Legion is frail enough since Captain Sharenas’s betrayal. It will not do to have you invite favours, jealousy, and unbound lust among my soldiers. It is bad enough you pimp out your own daughter – and speaking of which, that must end as well. Immediately. Win your alliances by less despicable means.’

‘The ways of my kin are not for you to determine, Mortal Sword.’

He’d finally stung her awake, he observed, and this led him to consider the hidden fires of Tathe Lorat’s hatred for her own child. The simple fact was, together, Tathe Lorat and Hallyd Bahann posed a potential problem that could present to him, at some future point, an outright rivalry to his ambitions. Although they were for the moment sworn to him, he would be a fool to believe that things wouldn’t change once Kharkanas was in the Legion’s hands.

‘You are a Child of Light now, Tathe Lorat,’ he said. ‘But it appears that the significance of that transformation still eludes you. Very well. Consider this.’

The sorcery that erupted from him flung her from her feet. She struck the tent wall, bowing the canvas and bending the poles on that side. She slid down amidst broken stools and a crumpled cot. From outside came a shout and the rattle of weapons being drawn. In answer to that, Hunn Raal extended his power, creating an impenetrable dome of light around his command tent. Even the soldiers’ cries of alarm could not pierce the barrier.

Imagining Syntara, in her temple, struck so suddenly by this distant conflagration of power made Hunn Raal smile as he watched Tathe Lorat climb weakly to her knees, her hair hanging in disarray and drifting to unseen currents of energy. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘In matters of kin, why, you are mine. We are all Children of Light now, after all. Our family has grown, but your protector remains one man – the man you see before you. Thus, Tathe Lorat, the title of Mortal Sword. And a sword, as you know, cuts both ways.’

She staggered to her feet, fear undisguised in her expression now as she regarded him.

Hunn Raal nodded. ‘Send Sheltatha Lore to the keep. Assuming we get past Syntara and her temple cronies, we shall make this a poignant charge, in setting the child’s care at the feet of Lord Urusander’s adopted daughter.’

‘As you command, Mortal Sword.’

‘Now,’ he continued as he relented his magic, the dome of light beyond the tent immediately vanishing, ‘be on your way. Inform the guards beyond that all is well, but that my tent is in need of repair.’

Saluting, Tathe Lorat departed.

A short time later, Hunn Raal drained his goblet of wine and rose, pleased at the grace that accompanied the effort. The sorcery within him flowed easily through the alcohol, lending an acuity that defied his habit. There were times, of course, when the clarity frustrated him. Particularly in the depths of night, when the longing for oblivion commanded his soul. But like the Holy Light’s refusal of night’s gift of darkness, Hunn Raal was denied his escape.

It was folly to expect that such blessings of magic would not come with a toll. He was already learning to hide his sobriety when it suited him. He was well served by the assumptions of others, as they watched him dip into his cups and believed his wits dulled.

Hunn Raal departed the command tent.

Outside, he saw a work crew approaching with new poles, guides, and a mallet to aid any new placement of stakes that might be required. To the ruined furniture within the tent, Hunn Raal was indifferent. Better, in some ways, if the reminders of his power remained. If fear added to his authority, bolstering his new title, then it was all to the good.

He walked through the camp, unmindful of the soldiers, their cookfires and their muted conversations. The bitter cold of the air barely reached him. There was enough power within him, at this moment, to thaw the ground beneath the entire camp. Yielding to a kind of laziness, he let the sorcery bleed into his vision, altering the landscape around him. Refulgent light devoured details on all sides, while the cookfires seethed like knotted fists of flame. Figures in the avenues between tents revealed a preternatural ambience, sometimes flickering, sometimes fiercely bright. Nearby, a soldier sat with his sword bared in his lap, working a stone along its edge. Seeing the iron blade feeding upon the ethereal light made Hunn Raal pause, frowning.

The iron’s thirst seemed unquenchable. Bemused, but insufficiently so to pursue his own unease, Hunn Raal continued on.

A few moments later he was drawn to a cookfire, sensing from its virulent flames something like defiance. As he approached, the soldiers who had been gathered round the firepit rose and then backed away. Ignoring them, the Mortal Sword stared down into the hearth.

There is something … something there. I …

He could not pull his gaze from the flames as that unknown force reached out, plucking at his will, mocking the sorcery within him.

What is that? A face? A woman’s face?

He heard laughter not his own, rustling in his skull like autumn leaves. And then a woman’s voice spoke in his mind, and its power was such that he felt like a newborn pup, helpless on the ground as something vast reached out to prod and poke it. The realization further weakened him, and he felt his soul suddenly cowering.

‘Thyrllan itha setarallan. New child, born to the flames, I see your helplessness. Bethok t’ralan Draconus, does he even comprehend? See these measures of love, every span meted in desperation. She strides the Eternal Expanse of Essential Night, seeking what? Power is not born of love, except among the wise, for whom surrender is strength. Alas, wisdom is the rarest wine, and even among those who partake of it, there are few who will know its flavour. But you, O Mortal Sword of Light, walking preened with pride and drunk on nothing but self-satisfaction – your ignorance makes your power deadly, untempered. I felt you, was drawn to you.

‘Discipline your subjects as you will, but understand this: power draws power, extremity invites extremity. Indulge in foolish displays, and there are those, more than your equal in strength, but wiser in its use, who will crush you into dust. Dislike of temerity is commonplace. Affront at misuse rarer, but potent nonetheless.’

‘Who – who speaks? Name yourself!’

‘Petty demands from a petty mind. Listen well, as I do not often offer advice unbidden, unpaid for. His first gift to her was a sceptre. Bloodwood and Hust iron. You must forge an answer. Find your most trusted blacksmith, an artisan of metals. The crowns can wait, while the orbs … destined for another place, another time. This night, build for me a fire, out beyond your civil strictures. Make it large, and feed it well. I will return to the flames then, and guide you and your blacksmith to the First Forge.

‘Balance, Mortal Sword. Each gesture answered. Each deed matched.’

‘If no payment is asked,’ Hunn Raal said, ‘then why do this for me?’

‘You? Do you think arrogance charms? I am a woman, not a half-grown girl with fresh blood on the grass. I do nothing for you, Hunn Raal. But you will learn temperance. That cannot be helped and so I make no claim to its gift. Light must face Dark as an equal-’

‘It is no equal,’ Hunn Raal snapped. ‘Darkness kneels to Light. It falters, fails, retreats.’

Her rattling laughter returned. ‘You heed too few of my words. Kneels? Falters? Look to the night sky, foolish man, and gauge the victor in the contest between Dark and Light. Drink yourself insensate, and discover whether oblivion greets you with light or darkness. In eternity’s span, Light must ever fail. Waning, flickering, dying. But Dark abides, upon either side of life.

‘Tell all this to your High Priestess. Puncture her bloated presumption, Mortal Sword. If you seek domination in your absurd war, you will fail.’

‘Mother Dark has already yielded to our demands. If a battle awaits us, our enemy will fall, and there will be no one to oppose our march into Kharkanas. In that, woman, I care nothing for Light or Dark. I will win for the Legion the justice they have earned, and if this makes the highborn kneel, then I will attend their humiliation with pleasure.’

‘Build me a fire.’

Scowling, Hunn Raal said, ‘I will think on it.’

‘Build me a fire.’

‘Did you not hear me? I will think on it.’

‘Thyrllan itha setarallan.’ She seemed to reach into him then, grasping not his heart, nor his throat, but his cock. Sudden heat engorged it, and an instant later he spurted savagely, saw his seed devoured by flames. She laughed. ‘Build me a fire.’

She released him. He staggered back, blinking awake to the mundane surroundings of the camp, the abandoned hearth before him, the dozen or so soldiers gathered round to witness.

Hunn Raal looked down. He had been standing amidst the flames during his conversation with the demon. His boots had burned away, his leather riding trousers were blackened and curled, revealing his burnished white, now hairless, legs. His cock hung out from what remained of his breeches, still dripping.

Ah, Abyss take me …

Still. Her grip had been sure. He wanted to feel it again.

* * *

Infayen Menand sat up on her cot, pushing hair from her eyes, and squinted across at her lieutenant. ‘He did what?’

‘Masturbated, sir. As his clothes burned away.’

‘And the flames did not harm him?’

‘No sir.’

‘Hmm. I want some of that magic, I think.’ Glancing up, she noted a glint of hilarity in the soldier standing before her, and scowled. ‘Against the flames, fool, not the rest. Get out.’

When the man was gone, Infayen remained sitting for a time, and then she rose, collected her cloak, and left her tent.

She walked through the encampment, and then took the high track that skirted Neret Sorr’s main street, remaining on the back-slope of the ridge as she traversed the length of the village until the trail intersected the cobbled ascent to the keep, whereupon she began the climb to the inner gatehouse.

A short time later she reached the courtyard, crossed it and entered the estate itself. The emanation from the stones washed walls and floors, streamed down from vaulted ceilings, until every high window appeared, not as a portal of sunlight, but as a dulled stain marring the refulgence. The intensity of the ethereal aura deepened as she approached the now sanctified east wing of the keep, the newly named Temple of Light.

The architecture ill suited the name’s implied glory, as most of the rooms were cramped, with low ceilings, and the tiled floors bore scrapes and gouges from careless shifting of heavy furniture. The central Chamber of Light, now home to its eponymous throne, was the ground floor of the tower. The floors above had been removed, permitting the golden light to rise skyward with such vehemence at the top that the conical roof was no longer visible – instead, it seemed that a newborn sun commanded the tower’s loftiest reach.

None of this impressed Infayen much, and in that regard it was in keeping with her life’s experiences thus far. She understood the paucity of her own imagination, and the absence of wonder that accompanied it, but considered neither to be egregious flaws. In place of such dubious virtues, she held to an unassailable capacity for severity, and this trait made her the most respected and feared captain in Urusander’s Legion. She knew this and felt no pride, nor sense of accomplishment. It was, after all, the legacy of the Menand bloodline, the last remnant of a heroic family that had seen its prestige battered, stained and finally dragged down into disrepute – all through no particular fault of kin, present or past. Rather, the qualities of command which Infayen had inherited had, time and again during the wars, driven her ancestors to the forefront of every battle, every dire extremity, every desperate and forlorn last stand. The implacable rules of attrition did the rest. The Menand name was now synonymous with failure.

Infayen possessed a bastard daughter, Menandore, fostered with another family in some pallid mockery of the tradition of hostages among the highborn, but it was an arrangement yielding no gain, supplying the simple expediency of keeping the wretched child out of Infayen’s way, which further served to drive the unwanted daughter from her thoughts as well.

Imagination was necessary in contemplating an offspring’s future, and with it all the presentiments and potentials revealed by that child. Infayen saw Menandore, in those rare times that she considered the question, as serving as nothing more than a flawed replacement to herself, come the day when Infayen fell in her own battle, her own forlorn stand. As such, the bastard daughter marked a natural step in her family line’s inevitable descent.

New blood stood no chance against the House of Menand’s fate. Necessity, after all, possessed a bloodless quality, for all the blood it might have spilled, or would spill in the days to come. Families rarely fell in sudden collapse. More common, she knew, was the slow decrepitude of generation following generation, like the turgid swirling of a muddy pond as the season dried, and dried.

In such straits, imagination was useless, and she saw herself as well adapted to her diminishing world. Leave it to the others, with their emboldened ambitions and awkward avarice, to reap the glories of this civil war. Infayen expected to die in the victory. Her lifeblood, draining away, would fill a bowl, to be delivered to her daughter, and from that coagulated failure Menandore was welcome to sip, as her mother had done before her.

Welcome, the taste would say, to the family.

Once she announced herself, she did not have to wait long before being granted an audience with the High Priestess.

The Chamber of Light was bright enough to blind her to its details, barring that of Syntara who stood awaiting her. This was satisfactory. She had no interest in the trappings of this new faith.

‘Hunn Raal fucked a cookfire,’ she said.

Syntara’s perfect brows lifted.

In a monotone, Infayen explained what had been witnessed.

* * *

Betrayal was not something Sharenas Ankhadu had contemplated when mapping out the course of her life. Perhaps, on occasion, she might find herself a victim to it. But the blood on her own hands was unexpected, and the righteous cause driving those who now pursued her gnawed at her resolve. Her list of reasons for doing what she had done held a taint of selfishness. Indignation and affront were all very well, sufficient to justify harsh words or, in extremity, a slap. Modest answers, in other words, to match the personal scale of the moment. But a sword through the neck, at a tavern table, with the head rolling, bouncing upon the ale-spilled wood … when did I begin this new habit of losing control?

Vatha Urusander was a man with blunted needs. She had supped on his frustration, and had walked down into Neret Sorr, and then into the Legion camp, bloated by its fury. Each face she had confronted had seemed transformed, its every detail born anew in her searing focus. These are the enemies of peace. The face of Serap. The faces of Esthala and her husband. Of Hallyd Bahann, Tathe Lorat, Infayen. Hunn Raal.

Some of those faces are now still, enlivened no more. Frozen in their moments of culpability. The others … they bear lively masks of rage, and yearn for my death.

If betrayal has a known visage in this, it is mine.

Flakes of snow drifted down silent as ash. The sky above was bright but colourless, as white as the layers of snow now clinging to leafless branches and carpeting the forest floor. Winter’s gift was stillness, the muting of life into something like somnolence. The blinding shock of blood did not belong. Disquieted by what felt to her like an act of iniquity, if not desecration, Sharenas crouched and ran the length of her sword blade across the wool of the soldier’s tunic, wiping clean the gore from one side. She reversed the flat of the weapon and repeated the task, and then, with a final regretful glance at the pallid, lifeless face of the man who had been tracking her – seeing how the snowflakes still melted as they alighted upon his brow, cheeks, and beard, and swam like shallow tears upon his staring but sightless eyes – she straightened and slid the sword back into its scabbard.

Flames had devoured the forest here and there, leaving scorched patches and elongated runs of blackened ruin. The stench remained, making acrid the cold air. She had found tracks nonetheless: the spalled punctures of deer hoofs, the clawed punches of hunting creatures, and here and there, already vanishing beneath the new snowfall, the pattered prints of small birds and scampering mice.

She had abandoned the horses, stripping them of saddle, bridle and bit, knowing that the animals would find habitation when the needs for food and shelter overwhelmed whatever elation attended their sudden freedom. It was in the nature of domesticated beasts to welcome the company of their masters, or so she had always believed. Generation upon generation of dependency could transform familiarity into need.

And so it may be for us Tiste as well. I have known too much solitude of late. And yet, when I found myself among my own kind, what did I do? How often are we compelled to destroy what we need, as if driven towards misery as a stream finds a sea?

Dismayed by her thoughts, she set out, plunging deeper into the forest. She had passed through burned-out camps, walked among bones still bearing remnants of gristle. She had found, beneath a thin tatter of blanket, the corpse of an orphaned child.

Outrage was a powerful emotion, but all too often it drowned in helplessness, and all its flailing amounted to little. Still, Sharenas found she could feed upon it, when need arose to demand from her the necessary violence. Such virtues remained hollow, however, when she found herself simply fighting for her own survival.

Kagamandra, where are you now? Why do I long to feel your arms around me, hard as bent branches, with loss written in your every caress? As if you offer nothing more than winter’s embrace, while my own season wallows in indecision. Still I hunger for you.

I know I cannot have you. No point in imagining impossible scenarios. Your path is plain, and holds still to its honour. By that alone we are driven apart. I must and will ever remain a stranger to your destiny, and you cannot but answer mine in kind.

Sound carried in this forest. She was not alone, and the shouts in the distance were harsh, eager and deliberate. They would herd her now, drive her to some place of their choosing, where her fate would stumble into their hands – within the reach of their weapons. Already they had refused her way southward. For the moment, however, her hunters were mere scouts, and the advantage remained hers. They were too few in number, and the cordon they sought to impose could be broken through, particularly behind her, back towards the open eastlands.

But the scouts represented the leading elements. Half a company of regular Legion soldiers might well have already set out from Neret Sorr, under the command of a lieutenant, if not a captain. The scouts were intended to harry and force her to keep moving. The regulars were there to take her down. She would find no safety to the east.

Kagamandra, see what I have done. See where it has taken me. I have begun my own war against Urusander’s Legion. Will I find allies among the Legion’s enemies? I cannot say. Why would they welcome a betrayer, a murderer, into their camp? How fragile this banner of righteous retribution, and dare I raise it before me to defend what I have done?

She worked her way westward, keeping to the deer trails, praying for the snowfall to thicken. But the sky slumbered still, and the flakes drifted down like the unmindful shedding of remnant dreams. I know. You frown at this mention of outrage – you know enough to distrust it, in yourself, in others. Is that disapproval in your eyes? Dispense with this hunger for judgement. When you are married, it will ill suit you, inviting as it does rightful retort.

I will keep you here, for the company. Stay silent. This is the season you wear best, Kagamandra.

She caught the snap of branches ahead and to her right. Drawing her sword, she hunched down and continued forward, her moccasins making little sound upon the snow-softened trail.

The woman had sought a place of hiding, perhaps intending ambush, but the skein of dogwood she had crawled into was more dead than alive, partially caught by the past season’s fire. Twigs that should have bent broke instead. Even so, if Sharenas had not been relatively near by, and had the timing been otherwise, she might well have stumbled into the trap.

Instead, she approached the crouching scout from a flank, keeping what she could between her and the woman, until one footfall made a thin creaking sound. As the scout turned, Sharenas was already rushing forward, thrusting her sword through the lattice of twigs and branches.

With a faint squeal, the woman lunged back, seeking to avoid the thrust. But the branches behind her caught her motion, bowed, and then propelled her forward again, and the sword’s point punched into her chest.

The tip sliced through wool, and then leather and skin, but rebounded off the scout’s sternum. The blow was enough to knock the woman off her feet, and she flailed in the thicket as she fell.

Sharenas advanced, slashing against the outside of the woman’s right thigh, cutting flesh down to the bone. Blood sprayed and the scout screamed.

Now they will converge in earnest. Sharenas shifted her sword’s angle and chopped down again. This blow severed a major artery in the woman’s right leg, and cut deep enough to nearly sever the limb, although the thigh bone remained in place to grip the meat. Yanking her blade free, she met the frightened, shocked eyes of the young woman, and then, shaking blood from her sword, retreated into the forest once more.

I should have killed her – but her death is assured, too much and too quick her loss of blood. Still, she might have strength remaining to point her friends after me.

Oh, Sharenas, think it through! My tracks are now plain enough!

Behind her, voices converged, and the forest awakened to discordant sounds, and once again Sharenas fled the loss of control, cursing the place in which she found herself. I succumb to the criminal’s mind, stumble from one wrong to the next, and the stupidities mount higher. This fool’s legacy is now mine.

Swearing under her breath, she quickened her pace.

* * *

‘Nothing must impugn the glory of the faith,’ Syntara told the scholar who now sat at the desk. ‘Father Light has revealed his worthiness by the reluctance he displays. He speaks only for his soldiers, his followers, and thinks naught of himself. This is the proper manner of both a god and a king.’

Sagander’s hand, gripping the stylus, was yet to move from where it hovered over the parchment. His eyes were in the habit of watering profusely in this preternatural light, and often he would reach down as if to adjust or knead the leg that was not there. On occasion, she had heard the words hidden by his muttering, as he spoke to demons of pain, begging an end to their torment. At times, she believed he prayed to those demons. The man’s usefulness, she considered as she studied him from her chair upon the dais, might well be coming to an end.

‘Do my instructions confuse you?’

Scowling, Sagander half turned away. ‘She mocked the very thing you would now have me do. This is the flaw among our people against which I have battled for most of my life. The lowborn must not be raised above their capacity.’ He shot her a dark glance. ‘Urusander’s common soldiers. Even the officers. They all seek to uproot rightful order-’

Syntara felt a smirk come to her lips. ‘You elected the wrong side, scholar. Reveal such thoughts unwisely and your head will roll.’

‘Draconus is the enemy, High Priestess!’

‘So you keep telling me. But he will stand alone when we are done. There will be no Consort at the court of Father Light and Mother Dark.’

‘You do not yet grasp the danger he presents, High Priestess. It is my fate to go unheeded. He journeyed to the lands of the Azathanai. He spoke with the Lord of Hate. He holds congress with unknown powers. Consider his gifts to Mother Dark! Whence came such things? A sceptre to command darkness. A mere pattern carved by sorcery upon a floor – that opens a gate into a nether realm!’

‘Cease your shouting, old man. I am not blind to the threat posed by Lord Draconus. Yes, there is mystery about him. I believe he has indeed conspired with the Azathanai, and we as yet know nothing of the bargain’s cost. But consider the one named T’riss, and the gift she in turn gave to me. Without her, there would be no Light.’

‘Then,’ muttered Sagander, ‘the Azathanai but play both sides, seeking discord. Seeking the ruin of Kurald Galain.’

‘Too bad,’ Syntara murmured, ‘that you were unable to accompany Draconus into the west.’

‘He sought no witness to his deeds there. They all worked against me. In all innocence, I fell into their trap.’

Syntara affected a bemused frown. ‘I thought it was a falling horse that broke your leg.’

‘Yes,’ he hissed. ‘A broken leg. What of it? When do such minor injuries demand a severing of the limb? But I was unconscious. I could not assay the damage for myself. I was deprived of choosing my treatment. They were … opportunistic.’

‘Have you no words left for the book?’

He flung the stylus down. ‘Not now, High Priestess. The pain has grown worse again. I must seek my draughts.’

Yes, your draughts. Your potions of forgetting. In this way, you pledge fealty to your gods of pain. You kneel to them. You offer up a drunken smile to their dulled retreat. As upon an altar, you wet your throat with libations, and sicken the temple of your flesh. ‘Of course. Be gone, then, scholar. Take your rest.’

‘Renarr needs to be removed,’ Sagander said, reaching for his crutches. ‘She stands too close to Father Light. She whispers words of poison.’

‘Perhaps you are right. I will think on the matter.’

She watched the scholar hobble from the chamber. Her thoughts of Renarr quickly fell away, as she turned her mind to Lord Urusander. At his heart a common soldier. He knows well the artifice of his noble title, the puerile claim of an invented ancestry. In that at least, Sagander has the truth of it. The lowborn suffer the inadequacies of their impure blood, and we see it clearly in Urusander.

Still, I must make him Father Light.

Duty, Urusander. Even the ox knows its demand.

There was something there, then, that indeed echoed Sagander’s assertions. When musing on the notion of duty, it was undeniable that the virtue’s strength waned the higher one climbed through the classes. And yet, was it not the highborn who spoke most often of duty, when demanding the service of the commonalty, upon farms and among the ranks of soldiery? In the building of cobbled roads and the raising of estates and keeps? Duty, they cried, in the name of the realm.

But usurpers do not come from the common folk. No, they are the rivals standing too close to the throne. They are the pledged allies, the advisers, the commanders.

Think on this, Syntara. How will you tread this narrow path ahead? The closer we get to the throne room of the Citadel, the greater the risk of betrayal.

Urusander, you must learn again the meaning of duty. In the name of peace, recall your low origins, and be assured that I will blunt the fawners who would stoke your fires of personal ambition, of unnatural elevation.

I must reconsider my conversation with Emral Lanear. Let our aspects achieve a proper balance, to make the queen temper the king and the king temper the queen. To make the god and goddess exchange fealty, and in time come to need the weaknesses of the other. For should they lock gazes and feed mutual strengths, both faiths will be lost, and Kurald Galain with them.

Emral. We need to work in concert. Mother Dark was a Tiste once, a mortal woman, a widow. Urusander was a commander in a legion. These are their ignoble legacies. It falls to you and me, Lanear, to invest them both with proper humility.

And to watch, with a multitude of spies and assassins, those who would crowd too close to either of them.

Perhaps, in fomenting aloofness, Mother Dark has the right of it. None shall draw too close. In the distance of their station, we can ensure their sanctity. This will need to be perfectly played. We shall be as sisters, you and I, Lanear.

And yet again, Sagander spoke truly. Draconus stands too close to Mother Dark. He holds too many of her secrets. It will not be enough to banish him. A knife in the back, or poison in the cup, or, if luck holds, a pathetic end in the mud of a battlefield.

We High Priestesses, we shall stand between our rulers and everyone else. We must be the raised dais, the guardians of the portal, and the veil through which every word must pass, from below to above, from above to below.

Syntara gestured with her mind, a flare of power, and a moment later a priestess entered the chamber.

‘Analle, attend my words.’

‘High Priestess,’ the young woman said, gaze averted as she ducked her head.

‘Bring to me the missive sent by Emral Lanear. And then summon a messenger. I must write to my sister. Quickly!”

Analle dipped her head again and rushed from the room.

Fingers tapping on the arm of the chair, Syntara sighed. She would need to devise a new version of the note sent to her by Lanear. Emral was too blunt in her style, too revelatory of the necessary manipulations, even when peace was the ultimate aim. Details might well offend Urusander. No, she would have to indulge what editorial talents she possessed.

Forgive me, Urusander. The note was in a temple cursive form, requiring transcription. I assure you of its accuracy, as I have done the translation myself. You will note the temple seal upon the document, signifying its official recognition.

In a displeasing flash, dark in her mind, she saw Renarr sitting in that infernal chair of hers, and the derisive amusement plain upon her face. Always an error to invite a whore to ascend to a new station. People will settle upon the level that comforts them, and abide by natural laws, as Sagander says, which dictate the limits of their capacity.

And yes, it is this new flexibility, as desired by Hunn Raal and his commoners, which does indeed pose a threat. We risk the anarchy of the undeserving, who must remain forever discontented with their elevation, knowing all too well how it hides their paucity of talent and ability – the lies behind their every claim of worth.

I see bloody days ahead.

Emral Lanear, we must make assassins of our best priestesses. Let lust be the lure, with soft pillows to stifle the cry.

From beyond her room, the slapping of bared feet. The day ahead promised to be a long one.

* * *

As befitting his new station, Sagander now had the use of a cart, and a page to manage the mule, making the journey down into the encampment beyond Neret Sorr far less of an ordeal. His aches dulled by the bitter oils of d’bayang, he lolled in the padded seat he’d had installed in the cart, his lone leg stretched out to match the ghost of the other, and watched the track wend its way behind him.

Atop the hill, the keep was now strangely imbalanced, as its eastern wing blazed blindingly bright, as if the sun had shed a precious tear that still burned upon the stones. The purity of that light stung his eyes, left them reddened and weak. This seemed unfair. Looking upon his hands, he saw their alabaster perfection, inasmuch as one could call such twisted, wrinkled appendages perfect. And when divested of all clothing, the bleached hue of Light’s blessing commanded all of him.

Except, of course, for the leg that no one else sees. That, my friends, remains black as onyx. And so it shall be, until the day my vengeance is satisfied. Draconus, hide your bastard son – one day he will return and I will be waiting for him. As for you, why, I hold to my vow. I will stand over your corpse.

The boy’s quirt snapped upon the rump of the mule, startling Sagander.

That would have served me better than my hand, the day I punished Arathan for his disrespect. A sting upon the cheek, a red welt to remind him, perhaps even a scar. Draconus would not have begrudged me that. A tutor must have discipline. By rule of law, if my hand did not touch him … but no, he’s a bastard whose own father refused him! No meeting of eyes between them! I remained within my rights!

There was a court in his mind, with tiers crowded with scholars – rivals, enemies, backstabbers – and judges arrayed behind a long bench. And in a ring outside all of them, he saw a crowd, packed shoulder to shoulder, and faces he knew well. Many belonged to his childhood, a gathering of tormentors and bullies and friends who had betrayed his trust. He saw the sour visages of bitter tutors still gripping their canes. Before this hate-filled, contemptuous mob, Sagander stood upon the speaker’s platform, and in the realm of his imagination he spoke with stunning eloquence, with the orator’s natural gift. He arrayed his defence of his actions, assembled the damning details of the abuse that then befell him.

And as he neared his final statement, he saw how the faces of the multitude, on all sides, were transformed by his words, their owners made to feel shamed by their past crimes, their cruel dismissals, and the vast catalogue of hurts to which they had each contributed. He saw, too, how the stern regard of the judges slowly, inexorably, swung to Draconus and Arathan, who stood in the cage of the accused.

Their condemnation would prove sweet, but sweeter still would be the judges’ words of awe with which they finally addressed Sagander.

‘You shall be elevated, great scholar, to the highest post in Kurald Galain. Upon a dais one step higher than that of the twin thrones, there to offer your blessed, brilliant insights – to give, in short, proper guidance to our god and goddess …’

The court never left his mind, and so too did it eternally echo with Sagander’s impassioned genius. Innocence could be won from the truth, compensation wrung by the same implacable power. Justice could be carved from a perfection of words, sentences, thoughts made concrete. In such a world, let the bullies and betrayers and tormentors beware.

In that court, upon that platform, Sagander stood upon two hale legs. There was new magic in the realm, after all. Who could say what was possible?

They skirted Neret Sorr upon the high track, and then clumped and rolled and rocked down into the Legion camp, the young page straining as the way grew rougher with frozen ruts and greasy stones. A short time later they drew up before the scholar’s tent.

While he had a room in the keep, Sagander maintained this more modest abode, not out of any love of soldiery or the mess cook’s fare, but for reasons of the private company he entertained within. Batting at the helping hands of the boy, he set his crutches down and worked his way off the cart’s edge. ‘Return at dawn.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But first, open the tent flap.’

‘Sir.’

Sagander ducked his way within, feeling a gust of heat from the brazier that he’d ordered maintained at all times. One of Syntara’s failed acolytes was seated nearby, and she looked up with a startled expression.

‘Is this all you do?’ he demanded. ‘Staring at the coals until they burn down? Have you no clothes to mend, no stitchwork or knitting? What of bandages? There’s always the need for weaving those in an army, yes? Keep your hands busy, child, lest your mind rot more than it already has. Now, go. And remember to set the lamp upon the pole at the entrance. Yes, just so, now out with you.’

When she was gone, he hobbled over to the ornate chair he’d had brought down from the keep and settled into it, stretching out the leg none other could see. Glowering down at it, he squinted at the ebon hue. It was a younger man’s leg, well muscled, filled with strength and life. Only rarely, when he’d imbibed too much d’bayang, did the bone break, one splintered end pushing up through the flesh, and the leg then twisted and shrank to proportions to match its companion, before the black hue shifted into shades of green, and the stench of gangrene rose from the limb like smoke.

At times, deep in sleep, he saw his severed leg lying upon bloodied grasses. He saw it nudged by a boot into a latrine trench. He saw it befouled.

I will answer in kind, this I swear, upon your corpses. Upon your faces, I will answer in kind. No act is final. Another inevitably awaits. In his mind, he uttered this promise to every face in the crowd. They were asides, too faint to be heard by the judges, but the face of each enemy who heard his promise, why, how it blanched! How the lip quivered!

Now, my friends, which among you will be the first to beg for mercy?

After a time, the tent flap rustled, and then slipped aside to permit the entrance of Sheltatha Lore.

Sagander smiled. ‘Ah, the lantern was noted. Excellent, my child.’

‘Are you in pain again, tutor?’

At times, there was something in her tone that reminded Sagander of Arathan. A hint of … no, he could not quite grasp it. He could see no insolence in her eyes, only respect and deference. And such an eagerness to serve! There was no sound reason for doubt, and yet … ‘Ah, the pain. If it must be the answer to my good deeds, well, whoever said the world was fair, yes?’

She moved further into the tent, and once again Sagander marvelled at the natural grace that came with the young. ‘But things will be made fair, tutor, and soon. And perhaps, among the new practitioners of Denul, you will find an unexpected salvation.’

He eyed her, silent as she settled herself upon a heap of cushions beside his cot, and then he said, ‘In the meantime, dear innocence, I have need of you.’

The smile she offered him looked genuine enough, but something in it – in the eyes, possibly, which seemed to softly fulminate, as if the surface was slowly melting in the heat – troubled Sagander. Too much like Arathan, this child. But unlike my failures with that bastard, I will make this creature pure again. For all the abuses her mother has inflicted upon her, I have her salvation to achieve, and achieve it I shall. ‘Can you sense it, child? This ghost of mine?’

‘I can,’ she replied. ‘Always. And still I wonder, tutor …’

He tilted his head. ‘You wonder what, beloved?’

‘Why its skin remains so black.’

Sagander held his smile, but with difficulty. It was one thing to indulge her wilful imaginings, to invite from her those strange, but hopeless, efforts at comforting his invisible pain, but this! This is the sorcery at work. It seethes through us all, a plague’s breath of unnatural power.

‘Tutor? Is something wrong? Come, lie here upon your cot, and invite again my caress. Your ghost limb desires it still, yes?’

But I feel nothing. It was a game. It brought you close, within reach of my hand. And I could touch what I dare not desire. It was enough, my own small need, and each night you spend here, with me, is another night away from your whore of a mother, from her endless vengeance upon her own daughter. Nothing cruel in this bargain – but now … ‘It is difficult this night,’ he said, his voice thin and weak, sounding piteous even to his own ears. ‘The ghost is insensate to all but its own pain.’

‘We shall see,’ Sheltatha said.

After a moment, Sagander brought his lone leg under him and used a single crutch to push himself upright. He hobbled the two steps over to his cot, twisted and slumped down upon the canvas, making the legs creak. ‘Well then,’ he gasped. ‘Here I am-’

The tent flap was suddenly yanked aside, and an armoured figure ducked in, straightening with a harsh sigh.

Infayen Menand. Heavy and indolent where Sheltatha was supple and sweet; harsh and cold where Tathe’s daughter was kind and warm.

Sagander scowled. ‘What are you doing here, unannounced, uninvited? Leave us, captain, unless Tathe now owns you as well-’

‘Tathe doesn’t even own herself,’ Infayen said, her eyes flat as they fixed upon Sheltatha Lore, who returned the stare with a closed expression belonging to a much older woman. ‘I have come at the command of Mortal Sword Hunn Raal. The child Sheltatha Lore is to be escorted to the keep. Her care is now the responsibility of the Temple of Light. Get off those cushions, girl.’

‘I am her tutor-’

‘As you please,’ Infayen cut in. ‘If the temple deems lessons proper, they will undertake them from now on. Of course,’ she added, finally levelling her gaze on Sagander, ‘you may well find for yourself a role in that, but you will teach your lessons at the temple, not here in your tent.’

After a moment, Sagander nodded sharply. ‘Yes, of course. In fact, I believe that I approve.’

‘Well, that relieves us all. On your feet, Sheltatha.’

Sagander set a hand upon the girl’s shoulder and said, ‘Go on. It is indeed for the best.’

In silence, Sheltatha Lore stood. At a gesture from Infayen, the girl strode from the tent. As Infayen moved to follow, she paused at the tent entrance and glanced back at Sagander. ‘It may be,’ she said, ‘that you do not number among those who have damaged her. I saw not enough here to decide either way. But I will nonetheless insist upon an end to privacy when it comes to your tutoring the girl.’

‘You impugn my honour!’

‘How often that proclamation from those who have none.’

‘Said the woman who has slaughtered children in the forest!’

She said nothing for a long moment, her flat eyes fixed upon him, and for an instant Sagander believed he saw what those children and elders must have seen, even as the sword swung down to take their lives. Suddenly chilled by terror, he stared up at the captain.

‘In the name of duty,’ Infayen said, ‘one must, at times, set honour aside. Were you not once tutor to a bastard whelp?’

‘The duty of which saw my honour betrayed,’ Sagander replied shakily. He shook his head. ‘I never abused her trust, captain. Ask her. I sought to save her from her mother.’

‘You would have failed.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Even the temple will fail,’ Infayen said.

‘Then you deem this pointless?’

‘It is not the coin in hand that makes the whore, tutor. It is making a commodity of one’s own body that makes a woman a whore. The flaw lies in the spirit. Sheltatha and her mother are the same in this regard, no different from Renarr. If you believe salvation is possible, then why in the next breath speak against the elevation of us soldiers?’

‘By your argument, captain, you oppose Hunn Raal’s desire, and indeed that of Urusander himself.’ Sagander leaned forward. ‘Is that a wise admission?’

‘In the name of duty one must at times set aside honour,’ Infayen repeated.

A moment later she was gone, the flap settling back down. Much of the brazier’s heat had been lost, and Sagander shivered, reaching for his furs. He settled on to the bed. The ghost moaned out its ache. These soldiers, he was coming to understand, were not all alike. Their uniforms deceived with the illusion of conformity, and as time stretched on – as this miserable winter persisted – the inherent weaknesses of the military system began to show.

Put a sword in every person’s hand, and they discover an edge to their opinions, but such opinions, no matter how inane and ignorant, twist to ambition, until each wielder draws blood upon every side. There can be no congress among the witless and the avaricious. Betrayal waits in the wings, and all that is won must then be carved into pieces, and should inequity appear, the slaying begins anew.

The creation of an army invites poison into the realm. I am well placed to observe this, and I will make it central to the thesis of my last great work. The stations of society are natural creations, governed by natural laws. This civil war, it is nothing but hubris.

Only from the temples will we find salvation. Syntara must be made to understand this. The balance of faiths she espouses must give guidance to the balance of classes in Kurald Galain. A few to rule, and many to follow.

Urusander is useless. But perhaps he will serve as a figurehead. No, we who possess the necessary intelligence, and talents, we shall be the true rulers of this realm. Let the god and goddess drift away into their private worlds. One step down from the dais is where real power is worked, and there is where you will find me.

I must write to Rise Herat. An overture would not be amiss. He surely understands the necessity of our respective roles in what is to come. But I will address him as an equal, to make certain that he understands our new relationship. Meted in wisdom, we shall conspire to save Kurald Galain.

An end to soldiers. The rise of scholars. I see a renaissance in the offing.

The plain woman who fed the brazier now returned, eyes averted, a bucket of dung in each hand.

He watched as she knelt at the iron brazier and began feeding chips into it. An all too modest skill, maintaining such a fire, requiring little more than small measures of brawn, discipline, and a few sparks of wit. It was well that she possessed a task to suit her, he reflected. This is civilization’s gift. Finding a task to match the capability of each and every citizen of the realm. But make it plain that limits exist, for the good of all. And, if necessary, a mailed fist to prove the point.

The highborn have it right. Houseblades to police their holdings. A city constabulary. An army? Disband it, and put an end to its unruly nest, lest the vermin breed discontent.

‘When you’re done there,’ Sagander croaked to the servant, ‘attend me here. The night is cold, and I have need of your warmth.’

‘Yes sir,’ the woman replied, dusting her hands.

Syntara was generous, and generosity among the powerful was truly a virtue.

* * *

‘She would gather the whores into a single room,’ Renarr said, smiling, ‘and name it a temple of disrepute, no doubt.’

Sheltatha Lore stood before her, still heavily cloaked from her march up from the camp. She seemed neither discomfited nor confused by the new arrangements.

‘So, it was Syntara who sent you to me?’

Shrugging, Sheltatha said, ‘Hunn Raal decided this. Infayen delivered me. Syntara thought to interpose her will, but in the end she rejected me for the temple, noting my misused flesh and so on.’ She paused and looked around. ‘Have you the use of an adjoining room? My needs are modest. Presumably, my clothes and the rest will be sent up from the camp, eventually. I assume the food is better here, to make up for the duller company.’

Renarr held her smile. ‘First, you will need to cultivate your contempt, Sheltatha Lore. If your words would cut, sharpen your guile, and above all be selective in choosing your target. I am not one you can wound.’

Sheltatha shrugged off her cloak, leaving it to fall to the floor. ‘The soldiers talked about you,’ she said. ‘You are missed, or, rather, were. A soldier killing himself in your tent has somewhat stained your reputation.’

‘I have high expectations,’ Renarr replied, still seated, still studying the daughter of Tathe Lorat.

Sheltatha’s brows lifted, and then she laughed. ‘This – I know what this is, you know.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes. This is an attack upon my mother. They tell me it’s for my own good, but they never really understood any of it. When she realizes she can no longer abuse me, she will find comfort in my absence. You see, I was better at it than her.’

‘Better at what?’

‘I learned the sensual arts at a very young age. I have not begun to sag, or waste with drink or smoke. My youth was her enemy and she well knew it. She made her own habits her instruments of abuse, and having given them to me, she desired to watch them deliver to me their ruin.’

‘You are perceptive. Do you deem this wisdom? It is not.’

Smiling, Sheltatha Lore raised her hands, and from both white fire suddenly flared into life. ‘The flame purges, as required. My flesh knows no taint. My habits deliver no stain. Well, not for long, anyway.’

‘Clever,’ Renarr said. ‘So, you are now separated from your mother. Tell me, what do you seek for yourself?’

Sheltatha lowered her hands, and the fires dwindled and then vanished. Her eyes scanned the chamber. ‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘I am surrounded by ambition. It makes every visage ugly to behold.’

‘Ah. Then what of my visage?’

Sheltatha glanced over at Renarr, and after a moment she frowned. ‘No, you remain pretty enough.’

‘And is that something to admire, even aspire to? Shall I teach you the art of my own immunity? You see, I have no need to purge anything from me.’

‘I doubt the fires would find you in any case.’

‘I agree. I therefore elect more mundane means, which might serve you should the sorcery one day fail.’

‘Fail? Why should it fail?’

‘Everything,’ Renarr said, ‘comes with a cost. A debt is already begun, although you do not yet know it, or feel its weight upon you. Be assured, it exists.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You see ugliness in the faces of the ambitious. That is their debt, writ plain enough to your eyes. When I look upon you, here, now, I too see what the magic demands of you.’

Sheltatha cocked her head. ‘What, then? What do you see?’

‘The wasteland in your eyes.’

After a moment, Sheltatha blinked, and then turned away. ‘Which room will be mine, then?’

‘Do you invite my instruction?’

‘Do you name yourself wise?’

‘No. Just more experienced.’

Sheltatha sighed. ‘I had a tutor already. He touched me for pleasure – oh, nothing crass or bold. The very opposite, in fact. A hand upon mine, briefly. A brush of a shoulder, or a tap upon my knee. It was charming in its pathos, to be honest. He too wanted to steal me away from my mother and her ways. But his lessons were worthless. Why should yours be any better?’

‘What did he try to teach you?’

‘I have no idea. Perhaps he was working up to it. Oh, and he had me massage the leg he lost. The ghost, he calls it. But I could see it plain enough. Remnant energy would best describe the emanation. The body sees itself as whole, no matter the reality of its state. That’s curious, is it not?’

‘Do you see this energy upon hale limbs and bodies, Sheltatha?’

‘Yes. It shows strong among some, weak in others. It comes in many hues. Yours, at this moment, is the colour of a clear sky, close to dawn. Blue, with something hinting at slate beneath it. Dawn, or on the edge of dusk. This tells me, Renarr, that you hide a secret.’

‘We can then make this your study, to begin with,’ said Renarr.

‘How so, when you reveal no such talent?’

‘Never mind the sorcery itself. Indulge in your own explorations with that. Rather, work with me upon the proper reading of those emanations. Let’s discover what you can glean from those you meet, or are able to see.’

‘High Priestess Syntara was proof against my abilities.’

‘I’m not surprised. What of Infayen?’

‘She can kill without feeling. But that numbness makes her dull and insensitive. She cannot grasp subtlety and so fears it. When sensing its proximity, her energy darkens with suspicion, hate, and the desire to destroy all that she cannot understand.’

Grunting, Renarr stood. ‘Good. Useful. So long as no one else knows about your hidden talents.’

‘None but you.’

‘Then why reveal yourself to me? We hardly know each other.’

‘Your energy did not change in my presence,’ Sheltatha replied. ‘That means you want nothing from me, and mean me no harm. You’re just curious. And,’ she added, ‘my magic didn’t change anything in you. No fear, no wonder, no envy. The secret you hold, Renarr, has nothing to do with me, but it’s the strongest thing I’ve ever seen.’

‘Come, then, and I will show you your room.’

Nodding, Sheltatha followed Renarr.

‘The strongest thing I’ve ever seen.’ Beneath it, the colour of slate.

The High Priestess had been too quick in her dismissal of this girl, and that was fortunate, as far as Renarr was concerned. Secrets are what they are. Is it fear that makes one keep them? Not always. No, for me, there is no fear. For me, there is only patience.

The sky at dusk. Waiting for the night to come.