Fall of Light

EIGHTEEN

There had been an age, perhaps a century back, when artists had turned their talents to working in stone and bronze. As if stung by the prodigious masterpieces raised up by the Azathanai, and in particular the High Mason Caladan Brood, these Tiste artists had pursued techniques to match, if not surpass, the efforts of their neighbours. In the pursuit of realism, and then the conjuration of natural forms elevated into a kind of aesthetic perfection, the use of plaster casting – upon living, breathing models – had been perfected. The art form had burgeoned in a spectacular, albeit brief, flurry of statuary that saw works proliferating throughout the public spaces of Kharkanas, and in the gardens, grand halls and courtyards of the nobility.

But any civilization that saw art as a kind of cultural competition was, to Rise Herat’s mind, well down the road to disillusion, and the collapse of statuary as a form of artistic expression came on the day that a Tiste merchant returned from the lands of the Azathanai, transporting in her train a new work by some unknown Azathanai sculptor.

If the Azathanai had been paying attention to the Tiste sculptors, they had been unmoved. The idealization of the Tiste form, the body transformed into marble or bronze and thereby stripped of its mortality, was a kind of conceit, possibly defiant, probably diffident. The work that had been brought into Kharkanas was massive, wrought in rough bronze. It bore sharp, jagged edges. It writhed with panic and fury. Upon a broad, flat pedestal, a dozen hounds surrounded a single hound, and that beast, in the centre of the storm, was dying. Its companions tore into its flanks, sank fangs into its hide, pulling, stretching, tearing.

Gallan told the tale of a score or so of Kharkanas’s finest sculptors, all gathering in the private courtyard where stood the Azathanai bronze. Some had railed, filling the air with spiteful condemnation, or voicing their sniffing contempt for the raw hand that had sculpted this monstrosity. A few others had fallen silent, their gazes fixed upon the work. Only one, a master artist considered by most to be the finest sculptor in Kurald Galain, had wept.

Among the Tiste, art had given shape to an ideal. But stone never betrayed. Bronze could not deceive. The ideal, made to kneel to political assertions of superiority, had, almost overnight, descended into mockery.

‘By this,’ Gallan had said, ‘perfection is made mortal once again. By this, our conceit dulls.’

The Azathanai bronze, deemed offensive, had been removed from public display. Eventually, it had found its way into a crypt beneath the Citadel, a broad, low-ceilinged room, now home to scores of other works, that Gallan had named the Tarnished Chamber.

The historian had set three lanterns down, casting sharp light upon three sides of the Azathanai bronze, which someone had rather uninspiringly called ‘The Savaging of the Hound’. He had then circled the work, studying it from varying heights and angles. He had made a window with his hands to block out all but the details. He had drawn close to smell the metal and its patina of greasy dust, and had set fingertips against the verdigris where it coated the beasts like mange.

Despite the steady, unwavering light, the animals seemed to blur with motion, spinning round their snarling victim. He had read from some treatise that, if seen from above, it was clear that the circling hounds actually formed an inward spiral of flesh and rending canines; and the scholar had gone on to suggest – to a subsequent chorus of disbelief – that the animal in the centre, by virtue of its own writhing, twisted form, was itself spiralling inward. The man’s final outrage was to wonder if the sculpture depicted, not many beasts, but one: an animal destroying itself, turning round and round and ever inward into a vortex of self-annihilation.

For the historian, the only appalling thing about the scholar’s interpretation was its plausibility. After all, had the artist not sought to convey a hidden meaning with this scene, the beast in the centre of this violent storm would have been a stag, perhaps, or a bull.

Though he heard the door to the chamber squeal with motion, Rise Herat did not turn round until the newcomer spoke.

‘Here, historian? In the name of Dark, why?’

Rise Herat shrugged. ‘It is private enough.’

Cedorpul grunted. ‘The only spies in the Citadel are our own.’

‘Yes, curious, that. After all, isn’t the purpose of spying the protection of our own people? Have we descended into insouciance so far, priest, as to claim, with a straight face, that we are protecting our people from themselves?’

The round-faced man pursed his lips, and then waved dismissively.

Rise Herat smiled. ‘“Oh deadly language, how so you offend me!”’

Scowling, Cedorpul said, ‘Remind me not of that wretched man, our court coward, our sneering seneschal of high mages! His elevation was shortlived. I will stand in his stead.’

The historian turned back to ‘The Savaging of the Hound’. ‘Do you recall this, priest?’

‘Before my time. It is ghastly. No wonder it hides here. Only in darkness could you now bless this. Douse the lights – we’ve no need of them.’

‘It is Azathanai.’

‘Is it now? Well, then yes, I can see why you’d be curious.’

‘All the others in here, however, are Tiste.’

Cedorpul waved dismissively. ‘Every fad fades in time, historian. If you would be the purveyor of hoary frenzies from before the age of modern enlightenment, then make a study of this chamber. Line the statues into a library of stone and mouldy bronze. Drag up a desk, light a candle, and pen your treatise.’

‘And what treatise would that be, priest?’

Cedorpul shrugged, glancing around. ‘The past is a litany of naїve expectations.’

‘But at last, we are now much wiser.’

‘Just so.’

‘Well, there are indeed some, even other scholars, who find comfort in the belief that past ages in history can be seen as phases of our childhood, thus absolving them of knowing any better, and thus absolving us, in the present, of any lingering sense that maybe, once, long ago, life was better than it is now.’

‘Is this the reason for summoning me? I’d rather a rough draught on a tattered scroll set upon my desk, where I can get to it a few decades from now, when at last I have the time.’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Rise Herat replied, still studying the Azathanai bronze. ‘But things are not better, are they?’ He turned, waved a hand in a broad sweep. ‘See here, in our Tarnished Chamber, our surrendered ideals. Such childish optimism!’

Cedorpul began turning away. ‘If that is all-’

‘Speak to me of sorcery.’

The priest paused, twisted to regard him. ‘What do you wish to know?’

‘The reach of your power. Your control over it.’

‘And in this, you are taking an academic interest?’

‘No. In this, I work at the bidding of the High Priestess.’

A faint shadow seemed to crease Cedorpul’s cherubic features, as if showing, in an unguarded instant, his old man’s face belonging to some distant future. ‘She has cause to doubt me now?’

‘Perhaps it is our newfound need, priest, to protect us from ourselves. Cast me in the cloak of a spy. Familiar ground to ease your discomfort.’

‘As court seneschal, I will not embarrass her.’

‘Then you claim to some prowess.’

‘I claim sufficient confidence.’

‘I think, Cedorpul, that both prowess and confidence have swept away the young, cheerful man that I once knew.’

‘Is there more you would ask me?’

‘Who is your enemy?’

‘My enemy?’

‘If you are gathering power – those streams of sorcery – against whom will you unleash it?’

‘I am a servant of Mother Dark.’

‘That kind of servant she has not asked for, Cedorpul.’

The priest suddenly bared his teeth. ‘Ah, yes, I recall now. Your mysterious audience with Mother Dark, in the company of Lanear and that Azathanai. But the details of that meeting? Why, none of you deigned to inform me, or anyone else for that matter. I hear that you earned Lord Silchas Ruin’s ire, and even this did not sway you. Thus, a well of secret knowing that you can draw from at will, as it suits your moment of need.’

‘You already know enough. She refused Lord Anomander’s desire to march on Urusander. She commanded him to keep sheathed his sword.’

‘Am I to be commanded to do nothing as well? If so, then let her speak such words to me.’

‘And if I told you that we did not speak with Mother Dark? That our journey ended abruptly, and that we were guided out from that realm by Lord Draconus?’

‘Then you further undermine your authority to advise me on her behalf.’

A surge of anger silenced Rise Herat. He turned back to study the Azathanai bronze, breathing deeply as he mastered his emotions. ‘Authority? Oh how we all strain to see into the darkness, pleading for its heavy but sure hand. Settled well upon one shoulder, guiding us on to the true path.’

‘I will be the seneschal,’ said Cedorpul. ‘I will be the authority when it comes to the collective sorcerous capabilities of the Citadel, of the Tiste Andii.’

‘And whose authority supersedes your own?’

‘Mother Dark’s, of course. I but await her guidance-’

‘Knowing that it will not come. Cedorpul, am I witness to a usurpation of power?’

‘When Lord Anomander returns to Kharkanas, historian, I will announce to him that I stand at his side, and that it is the express wish of the seneschal that he draw his blade. That he fight in the name of Mother Dark. And upon the field of battle, why, there I will stand, with my cadre, to lend magic to his might.’

Rise Herat focused anew on ‘The Savaging of the Hound’. He could almost hear its howls. Not many, but one. And no end to this violence but death’s sure promise. That merchant. She said that she’d paid nothing for it. That the unknown sculptor among the Azathanai offered it as a gift to the Tiste.

Ideals are like a bitch hound. What she spawns might prove vicious. What she spawns might, in time, turn upon her. Is this what this work announces? No, but I will read into it what I choose, and by that choice, the language of art can never die. All it takes is a little effort.

But then, whenever has that exhortation convinced anyone?

After a long moment, Cedorpul said, ‘Report back to the High Priestess. Ensure that she understands.’

‘Of course.’

He listened to the man walk away, the echoes of his footfalls filling the unlit spaces between marble and bronze.

Chambers that came to house forgotten works of art, Rise Herat reflected, were little more than repositories of sorrow, and all the more heartbreaking if this was where innocence was lost. He decided that he would not return.

* * *

The door had been left ajar and the boy had followed the dog into the room, surprising Emral Lanear where she sat behind veils of smoke, the huge filigreed bowl of the water-pipe on the table at her side, heavy and gravid with its sly promise. Lids low, playing the mouthpiece across her lips, she observed her unexpected guests.

The dog collected a small pillow that had slipped down from a divan. With the pillow clamped possessively in its mouth, the animal spun round, dropping down and holding its head close to the polished floor, its eyes bright and fixed on the boy.

He edged forward.

Claws clattering, the dog bolted, dodging first to one side and then to the other, deftly evading the boy’s reach, and then the animal was past, out through the door with its prize.

Hissing in frustration, the boy tensed as if to set off in pursuit, but after a moment his shoulders dropped, and he straightened.

‘The dog chooses the game,’ Lanear said.

The boy glanced over, and then shrugged. ‘I like playing, too. Only he’s so fast.’

‘You are the hostage Orfantal.’

‘I know I’m supposed to be with a tutor. But Cedorpul decided he won’t teach me any more.’

‘Oh? Why is that? Were you unmindful? Rude?’

Orfantal nodded. ‘He was showing me a conj … conjuration. Magic, I mean.’

‘I know the word, yes,’ said Lanear, gesturing with the mouthpiece. ‘Do continue.’

‘It was making sounds. I didn’t like them. So I dispelled it – the conjuration.’

‘You dispelled it?’

‘It wasn’t hard.’

Lanear drew on the mouthpiece, briefly wondering when she had grown so careless with propriety. But the sharpness blossoming in her lungs swept away the moment’s disquiet. ‘Do you rival his power, then?’

‘Oh no. He’s not very good.’

She laughed out a cloud of smoke. ‘Oh, dear. Careful, Orfantal. Cedorpul is a certain kind of man one finds on occasion. Round of form, soft to the eye, with a childish modesty still held on to, until the gift of his youth assumes the pose of affectation, sufficient to irritate his more mature fellows, even as it seduces weak-minded women. That said, such a man has the capacity for venality and spite.’

‘I shouldn’t make him angry at me?’

‘Yes, as I said. Not wise.’

Orfantal approached, settling down rather close to her knees on a padded footstool she had moved aside earlier in order to give room to her folded legs. The boy’s eyes were dark, liquid, and perhaps not as innocent as they should have been. ‘Are you a priestess?’

‘I am the High Priestess, Orfantal. Emral Lanear.’

‘Do you have any children?’

‘From my womb? No. But of the realm? Perhaps it could be said, all of the Tiste Andii.’

‘Why is it that no one gets to know their mothers?’

‘What do you mean?’

His gaze slipped away. ‘This is a nice room. The smoke smells like incense. It shows me the currents.’

‘What currents? Ah, the draughts-’

‘Not those currents. The other ones. The ones of power. Dark. Kurald Galain. What bleeds from that pattern in the floor in the outer room by the front doors.’ He lifted a small hand towards the mouthpiece she held, and delicately prised it from her grip. Angling the end upward, he watched as smoke curled free.

She waited for him to try it. She waited for his expression of shock, and then his coughing. She waited, she realized with a faint shock, for some company.

Instead, Lanear’s eyes widened as the swirl of smoke thickened, stretched out, making a sinuous dance as it found a serpentine form. The smoke then swung a viper’s head towards her, hovering opposite her face. She saw darkness where its eyes should have been, as liquid as Orfantal’s own.

‘Who,’ she asked in a faint gasp, ‘who stares at me from those eyes, Orfantal?’

‘Just me.’

The snake of smoke then withdrew, as if drawn back through the mouthpiece. In moments it was gone.

Smiling, Orfantal handed the mouthpiece back to her. ‘Cedorpul is collecting mages.’

Blinking, she focused on him once again. ‘Is he?’

‘He wants everyone to work on sorcery that breaks things, or hurts people. He says we need that, because the Liosan have it, and to stop them using it on us, we have to use it on them first.’

Lanear leaned back. She drew again on the pipe, but this time the smoke felt almost solid as it slithered down into her lungs. Startled, she looked down at Orfantal, but the boy was staring at something at the side of the chamber. She sent a stream of white towards the ceiling, and then said, ‘Orfantal, what do you think of Cedorpul’s reasoning?’

The boy frowned. ‘Is that what it is?’

‘He anticipates a battle, doesn’t he? Between magicks.’

‘Gallan says that darkness can only retreat. But then he says that retreating is the only way to win, because sooner or later the light passes, and what flows in behind it? Darkness. Gallan says Light’s victory is mortal, but Dark’s victory is eternal.’

‘I did not think,’ ventured Lanear as she studied this strange young boy, ‘Gallan had much time for children.’

‘No, but he liked my pet.’

‘Your dog?’

Orfantal rose. ‘No, not Ribs. My other pet. Ribs isn’t mine, but maybe,’ he added, moving towards a side door – the one he had been looking at earlier, ‘I’m his.’

He opened the door, and she saw now the dog, Ribs, lying as if about to pounce in the side passage, the pillow still in its mouth.

Orfantal rushed forward.

Spinning round, Ribs fled up the passage.

The boy followed, his bare feet light upon the floor, as if borne on feathers.

She heard the chase, dwindling away, until all was silent once more.

Careful, boy. Now you’re playing Gallan’s game.

Rustleaf offered none of the escape that came with d’bayang. Instead, it but enlivened the brain. For this moment’s repast, she’d chosen wrongly. And the loss of … company … left her feeling bereft.

* * *

Endest Silann set out from the Citadel, in search of decency. Crossing the two bridges, he made his way into the city, where the cold had drawn most people indoors. The snow had retreated to places less travelled, up against walls and in alleys where the white smears were dusted with grey soot. He moved between high estate walls, passing barred gates of iron and wood. Where the street ascended the bank, away from the river and above the floodplain, the estates burgeoned in size, and many of the long walls bore niches in which stood old statues, the marble figures painted in lifelike colours, with oversized eyes in each face offering a dispassionate regard to the cloaked man shuffling past.

In more ways than he deemed healthy, Endest preferred their blank stares over the intensity that plagued him in the Citadel. Followers stalked him now, fixing upon his every gesture with febrile attention, leaning into his every word, his every passing comment. He had met the need for a prophet with denial, and, when that failed, with silence. But this did little more than intensify their regard, crowding with imagined significance all that he did.

Any catalogue of mortal deeds could only assemble a list of flaws. Perfection belonged to the dead, where in the act of passing from what the senses could observe to what the memory reinvented, any fool could ascend into legend. But Endest Silann was not yet dead, not yet freed from mortal constraints. Sooner or later, prophets returned to their god, only to slip beyond and away, sliding their cold flesh into apocrypha – holy texts and blessed scrolls – and this was an impatient passage for the would-be witnesses waiting in the wings. He felt that he was already outliving his usefulness, and those who would pontificate and interpret his life would rather that life ended soon, if only to get him out of the way.

He walked towards the Winter Market grounds, and thirty paces behind him, as they had done since the Citadel, a score or more priests tracked him. They would do better with Cedorpul, but for all the manifestations of magic his old friend now commanded, there was nothing sacred in curious games with smoke and shadows, and even darkness made to flow like blood left no trail on the stones.

That gift, it seemed, belonged to Endest Silann alone.

His hands were wrapped in gauze that needed changing a dozen times a day. Mother Dark’s eyes saw through red tears and blotted linen, or, as was increasingly the case, they saw nothing at all, as he had taken to sliding his hands into the thick sleeves of his woollen robe, a habit the other priests now copied.

Behind him, in the Citadel, a plague had come, a kind of fever. In a body with nothing to do, the mind will dance. But that was the least of it. Some dances mapped steps into madness, with ferocious momentum. He was weary of the spies, the small groups huddled whispering in corners, the strange glances and guarded expressions. Even more tiring, beneath all that he was witness to roiled an undercurrent of fear, and that was difficult to swim against.

The future was a place of uncertain promise in the best of times, where hope and optimism warred with doubt and despair, and there were those who fought such battles in the streets, or in the home, with the enemy no longer the shadow in one’s own soul, but someone else – a neighbour, a wife or a husband, a liege or a peasant. Doubt is the enemy. Despair a weakness, and hope becomes not something to strive for, but a virtue eager to draw blood from every sceptic.

‘Turn me away from the unsightly!’ the optimists cry. ‘Yield this dream to joy, to revelry and laughter. Enough confabulation and noise to drown the distant cries of the suffering, to blind me to the world’s woes! What care I for tragedies not of my own making? Such things are beyond my control, anyway, and indeed beyond my ability to change.’

In many ways, Endest had no argument with such views. The heart’s capacity was finite. So people explained, again and again, to justify all that had grown cold and lifeless within them. If imagination had no limits, surely the soul did.

And yet, what thing of certain limit can in turn create something limitless? This seems a breaking of some fundamental law. The unbound from the bound, the infinite from the finite. How can such things be?

Eyes in his hands, to make witness to all that he did. He had set out in search of decency, and now, striding into the Winter Market, his own eyes watering to the sudden heat beneath the cloth roof, the redolent odours of myriad people, foodstuffs and animals. The first thing his gaze found was a wall of tiny wooden cages, stacked high, each cage home to a songbird.

There was no song in their voices. Instead, a cacophony of terrible stress and fear assailed him. As if of their own accord, his hands slid out from his sleeves.

A young man sat on a stool in front of the cages, grease on his lips and his fingers as he ate from a skewer of meat and vegetables. Seeing Endest Silann, he nodded. ‘Half to the temple, for the young women, but I was not expecting you for weeks yet.’ He indicated the cages behind him with a tilt of his head. ‘They save their songs for spring. Who would want these shrieks, hey?’

Endest Silann felt her then, his goddess, stealing into him, suddenly attentive, curious. ‘Where are they from?’ he asked.

The man shrugged. ‘The countryside, and to the south. Caught in fine nets during their migrations.’ He then made a face. ‘Getting fewer every year, though.’

‘And this is your living?’

The man shrugged. ‘It serves me well enough, priest.’

Endest’s followers had arrived by now, and others were drawing close, as if tasting something new in the air.

‘You make a living from the imprisonment of wild creatures.’

The man suddenly scowled, and stood up, tossing the skewer to the ground and wiping at his hands. ‘Not just me. Trappers, too. But it is not my coin that buys them, is it? If not for your own temple, priest, I might be a different man from the one you see here.’

‘And where is your own cage? The one in your skull.’

The scowl grew dark, menacing.

‘The one,’ Endest continued, ‘that traps your conscience?’

‘Look to your own for that!’

Other merchants and hawkers pushed closer now.

Endest held out his hands, watching as the bandages sagged, unfurled sodden to dangle and then slip down on to his wrists. He felt the blood welling, trickling down his palms.

The mongers before him backed away.

‘If only,’ Endest Silann said, ‘you gave her reason to fight.’ He glanced back over a shoulder and met the eyes of the nearest acolyte. ‘Take these cages back to the Citadel. All of them.’ Facing the hawker, he shook his head. ‘This is your last day here. You will be paid for these birds, but no more, and never again. In the name of Mother Dark, the capturing and selling of wild creatures is now forbidden.’

Voices rose in outrage.

The hawker bared his teeth. ‘Will you send soldiers after me, then? Because I will defy you-’

‘No, you will not. I understand you, sir, the pleasure you take from what you do, you hoarder of all you can never feel, or hope to feel.’

‘Mother Dark has no power – we all know as much! And your soldiers – Urusander will deal with them soon enough!’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Endest Silann, and as he said this, he realized that Mother Dark did not understand either. ‘I set out today, into this city, looking for decency. But I could not find it. It was all hidden away, behind walls, perhaps, withdrawn into intimate moments and the like.’ He shook his head. ‘In any case, I was mistaken in my search. The decency I was seeking was not the kind a mortal can see, but only feel.’

A figure had pushed through the belligerent crowd facing Endest Silann, and the priest saw sorcery curling round it.

The seller of songbirds saw the newcomer and smiled. ‘Cryba! Have you heard? I am condemned by my finest customer! Forbidden from selling ever again these wretched creatures! Why, if not for these eager followers of his, I would kill every bird here just to spite him!’

Cryba nodded a warning at Endest. ‘Get out of here, fool. This is commerce, not faith. Different laws here, different codes.’

‘No doubt,’ said Endest Silann. ‘Yield your magic, sir. I have found my own power, in the name of decency. You would be unwise to challenge it.’

The man sighed and shook his head. ‘So be it.’ He flung out his right hand. An arc of actinic light erupted, stabbed into Endest Silann’s chest.

He felt it tear through him, racing along his limbs, swirling in his chest, and then vanishing inward as if swallowed by a whirlpool.

Cryba stared in disbelief.

‘Why, sir, did you think anger, aggression and pride would have any power over decency?’

Cryba raised both hands-

The hundreds of cages sprang open. The birds rushed out in a whirling mass and converged on Cryba, whose scream was quickly muffled beneath swarming wings.

The acolytes behind Endest Silann had one and all fallen to their knees. The crowd before him had retreated before the raging tumult of freed creatures, each bird an affront to their belief in mastery. The seller of songbirds was huddled on the ground, arms hiding his face.

Moments later, the flock swirled out from beneath the canvas awning, winging up into the sky above the city. Endest felt them leave, racing southward – bright sparks of joy.

Where Cryba had been there was now nothing, not even a scrap of clothing.

The hawker lifted his head. ‘Where’s Cryba?’

‘Given another chance,’ Endest replied. ‘An unexpected gift. It seems that my sorcery, such as it is, hides unanticipated depths of forgiveness. They carry his soul now, I believe. Well, tatters of it, perhaps.’

‘Murdered!’

‘To be honest,’ Endest said, ‘I am most surprised that they did not kill you instead.’

Staggering, the seller of songbirds – his skin suddenly seeming more grey than black – turned and fled, deeper into the maze of tunnels beneath the awnings.

Endest Silann glanced back at his followers. ‘What you will make of this,’ he said to the still kneeling figures, ‘is of no consequence. The sorcery within reach defies your compass, and mine. It may well usher forth from the Citadel’s Terondai, or rise from the earth itself. It may ride the currents of winter’s breath, or swirl beneath the ice on the river. Perhaps it bridges the stars themselves, and straddles the chasm between the living and the dead.’ He shrugged. ‘It arrives bereft of flavour, as open to abuse as to uses guided by moral considerations. It arrives raw as clay from a pit. Awaiting the grit of our imperfections, the throwing hands and the spinning wheel, the glaze of our conceit and the rage of the kilns. Today, I do not act in the name of Mother Dark. I act in the name of decency.’ He paused again, and then said, ‘So, rise you all, and attend to me. I have only begun.’

Endest Silann swung round to face the bowels of the Winter Market, with its masses, and all the private needs, the hidden fears and worries, the stresses of livings barely maintained, seemed to rise in ferment before him. And through this heady mix, he saw as well the pain of captivity, belonging to animals destined for slaughter; even the tubers, lying naked and arrayed for the taking, exuded a faint yearning for sweet earth.

Cages for our lives. Just another prison of necessity, wildly walled with every justification imaginable – these bars truncating what we believe to be possible. So many traps of thought.

Mother Dark, is this not what we all ask of you? Where is your promise of relief? For the joys we cling to are but islands in a sea of torment, and every moment of contentment is becalmed peace, edged with exhaustion.

Watch then, Mother Dark, as I deliver a day of release.

He felt her recoil.

But not retreat, and her gaze remained, and saw all there was to see, as he set forth, reaching out with his power to deliver the blessing of peace, from which none escaped. His followers wailed in his wake, while before him hardened men and women – with their wary but hungry faces, their knife-sharp eyes and their scars of toil – flinched before falling to their knees, before covering their visages as every struggle, every inner turmoil, was, for a short time, eased. For many, Endest saw as he moved down the aisles, such release loosed tears – not of sorrow, nor even of something like happiness, but of simple relief.

He moved among them like a drug, delivering a gift of the insensate, delivering to each person, in their turn, the benison of inner silence.

Tethered goats, hens in crates, tiny Eleint in their tall, net-walled prisons. Bats scrambling against the insides of wooden boxes, hares bound by one ankle – tearing the ligaments in their own legs as they bolted again and again, flinging themselves into the air – bawling myrid, tender dog pups, yet more songbirds, and squealing monkeys from the south – Endest Silann opened every door, severed every tether, and then, whispering home, sent the creatures away. Home to your mothers. To your flocks, your herds, your forests or jungles. Home, in the name of some simpler justice, some simpler promise.

Figures loomed before him, charging in fury, only to halt as their rage vanished, as his blessing devoured them and made of each wounded soul a small thing that could, if one so chose, be cupped in loving hands.

Even death was open to refusal, as he came upon long tables crowded with dead fish that suddenly began flapping, gills working, eyes shining. And with a gesture he sent them away. Go then, to your rivers and lakes. Today, the world returns to an untouched state. Today, I freeze all of time, and free you all to linger in the instant, this thing between breaths. This mote of peace.

Mother Dark watched as he strode through the chaos, as he unravelled the market, stole away food, denied to all the press of hunger. She watched, because she could do nothing else, for her eyes were inside wounds in his hands, and wounds did not blink.

Sorcery proved a thief of many things. Endest Silann found himself standing facing the centre of a square. Behind him was a portal that led back into the Winter Market, and from that canvas-lined throat drifted wailing and grief, only now dwindling as the day’s muted light hastened its surrender to dusk.

In the square before him crouched a dragon so vast and so close as to make his mind reel. Its scales were crimson edged in ochre or gold, deepening to bronze beneath its jaw and down the length of its throat. Black talons had punched deep into the cobbled ground. Its wings were folded behind humped shoulders, and the creature had lowered its massive, wedge-shaped head, fixing gold, lambent eyes upon the priest.

The dragon spoke into his mind with a woman’s voice. ‘Are you returned to us, mortal?’

He struggled to find his voice. Looking down, he saw that he held his hands upturned, the palms with their weeping wounds facing the dragon. She was witness. She was present.

‘You gave her the same peace, mortal. The same curse, and, with all those behind you, she now suffers its loss.’ The huge head tilted slightly. ‘But this did not occur to you, did it? The gift’s … other side. In your wake, mortal, a thousand Tiste now lie stricken with despair. I was drawn here – your effulgence was a beacon, your sorcery a terrible flowering in a dark, and dangerous, forest.

‘You were lost in it, mortal. You would not have stopped. You would have taken the entire city, and indeed, perhaps your entire land.’

‘What if I had?’ Endest voiced the question quietly, in no way defiant, but honest with wonder and horror.

‘Your gift of peace, mortal, was not what you imagined it to be. Their moment of bliss was not bliss. An end to life’s torment has but one name and that name is death. An end to torment and, alas, also an end to joy, and love, and the sweet taste of being.’

‘It was not death! I brought creatures back!’

‘In surfeit of power, there is the instinct to redress the imbalance. For each instant of death that you delivered, mortal, you reawakened a life. But the sorcery seduces, yes? Beware its assurances. Too often in magic, the blessing proves a curse.’

Struck silent, numbed by the implications of the dragon’s hard words, Endest Silann stared into the creature’s eyes. After a long moment, he said, ‘Then I thank you, Eleint. But still I wonder, why did you bother?’

‘I am made curious by acts of love, no matter the path they take – after all, in such a state, you are blind, and can but stumble unwittingly. You Tiste interest me. Raw, unbridled, as if Draconean blood lingered in your own.

‘If indeed it does,’ the dragon continued, slowly spreading its wings, ‘then your civil war is no surprise.’

‘Wait!’ cried Endest Silann. ‘Is this all you will give us? Where do you go? What is your name?’

‘Questions! I will not travel far, but do not look to me for succour. Love is but a flavour, no more and no less enticing than bitter anguish, or sour regret. Still, it … entices.’ The dragon’s wings were now fully spread, belling to unfelt winds, and the claws plucked free of their grip upon the cobbled expanse, as if they alone had been holding the creature bound to the earth. ‘I yield to you, Endest Silann – whose heart is too vast, whose soul begins to comprehend its own infinite capacity – my love. This time, to stay your ecstasy, I set finger to your lips. Next time, it may fall to you to offer me the same.

‘I am named Silanah. Should you choose to seek me out, find me before passion’s gate, where I am known to abide. Curious and … as ever … enticed.’

The dragon rose effortlessly, and the air buffeting the priest with each snap of the enormous wings was thick with sorcery, sharp as spice on the tongue.

He would have fallen to his knees, but somehow Mother Dark prevented the gesture. Instead, he stood facing skyward, watching the dragon vanish into the low clouds as his crowd of followers rushed to join him, their questions a deafening chorus he ignored. Limbs shaking, he closed his eyes. Blood streamed from his hands, as Mother Dark wept within him, like a woman with a broken heart.

* * *

There was little mercy in the dusk, as the last light failed to hide the huge reptilian creature rising from the heart of Kharkanas. As one, the three travellers reined in, their mounts suddenly tossing heads and stamping on the frozen track.

Finarra Stone reached for her sword, then let her hand retreat back to the reins.

Winging southward, the dragon vanished into the heavy clouds.

Beside her, Caplo Dreem softly snorted. ‘Your sword, captain? As futile gestures go …’

‘And by the scent clinging to you,’ Warlock Resh retorted in her defence, ‘you were an instant away from scattering into the wilds of the wood upon either side of us. Grant the captain a more gentle regard, Caplo, lest you reveal the need to elevate yourself at the expense of others.’

‘Quickly stung, old friend. I meant nothing cruel by it.’

‘Naught but the intimation of your superiority, you mean.’

The assassin shrugged. ‘This ween is without pride, warlock. In any case, the beast is gone. Shall we resume this journey and so undertake our unremarked arrival in the Wise City?’

They set out once more, the horses nervous and reluctant.

‘I would think guards attend the city’s gate, assassin,’ said Finarra. ‘Thus, we will not escape remark, and word will precede us to the Citadel by way of signal from the tower.’

Caplo shrugged. ‘Even my tilt into modesty cannot go unchallenged.’

‘We are frayed,’ said Resh in a low growl. ‘Witness to a dragon rising from Kharkanas.’

‘Enough to humble us, yes?’ Caplo asked.

Finarra sighed. ‘Then forgive my pedantry, assassin.’

‘I anticipate we will be but an afterthought, given the events in the city on this day, but as you say, captain, the Citadel will indeed prepare for us.’

‘If I knew what either of you intended,’ Finarra said, ‘I’d be rather less fraught. We are to enter the Citadel, and stand before a painted pattern upon a floor. Is that all? A few moments of frowning regard, as if we were invited to peruse a portrait of uncertain talent.’

‘Uncertain talent, captain, or uncertain of our ability to comprehend said talent?’

‘What value discussing that distinction?’

‘Only to pass the time, captain.’

‘I would rather know your intentions. You and Resh both.’

‘Nothing untoward, I’m sure,’ answered Caplo in a murmur. ‘If the pattern tells a tale, we would read it. If it presents a conundrum, we shall ponder it. If a riddle, we shall play in it.’

‘And if it offers you nothing?’

‘Then we shall take upon ourselves the pose of fools.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Resh. ‘I intend to step into that Terondai’s pattern, to see the path it offers and, if I can, to take it.’

‘What if you’re not welcome?’ Finarra asked him.

Resh smiled across at her, a flash of white teeth in dark beard. ‘I shall have a sword-wielder at my side.’

She stared. ‘You expect me to accompany you? Into some unknown magical realm?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what appals me more, your assumption, or your faith that my sword can defend you.’

‘I am not as inclined,’ said Caplo, ‘to risk such a journey. But if you ask it of me, friend, I will guard your other flank.’

She turned on the assassin. ‘Then what do you seek, Caplo Dreem? You had such bold words earlier, as I recall.’

‘I cannot answer you, captain,’ Caplo replied. ‘You see bravado, but I assure you, I am lost.’

The admission sharpened her regard, but the assassin’s face remained hidden within his coarse woollen hood. Glancing across at Resh, she noted his frown. ‘Warlock, is it not time for the Shake to choose? Your god is dead. You assert your neutrality and the truth of your desire makes grey your very skin. But even if you will not kneel to Mother Dark, surely Lord Urusander has named you and your kind an enemy of the realm – should the Liosan win this war, there will be no place for the Shake.’

Caplo snorted. ‘Let Urusander face the monks in battle if he will.’

‘Then why not assemble them and ally with Lord Anomander and the Andii?’

‘And place ourselves in the shadow of the highborn?’ Caplo retorted. ‘What blessings have they ever given us? Tell me of the Houseblades who rode out from the keeps to help defend the Deniers of the forest! No, they were content enough with that slaughter-’

‘As were you and your monks!’

‘To our shame,’ Resh confessed. ‘We are bound to the commands given us by the Higher Graces. Nor does it seem likely that they will change their minds, even should Anomander come calling at Yannis.’

Finarra cursed under her breath. All fools. No greater betrayer of reason than wanton pride!

Ahead waited the city’s main gate. A single guard stood to one side of the open passageway.

Resh edged his mount slightly forward as they reached the entrance. He leaned over the saddle horn as if in anticipation of the guard’s accosting them, or at the very least enquiring as to their intent, but the young man simply waved them through.

Finarra Stone drew breath, preparing a tongue-lashing, but Caplo reached out to grip her arm just beneath the shoulder. A warning squeeze held her mute until they filed into the passage, past the guard, and then the assassin released his hold on her.

The hooded face turned her way. ‘I doubt he had occasion to challenge the dragon’s arrival, captain. To ready a spear, or reach for a belted sword.’ He lifted a hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘Events can make us all small, humbled into ourselves. Besides, two of us are priests, come to a city of priests and priestesses. And, lastly, our skins are not white.’

‘It is the laxity that so offended me,’ she said, angling her mount to ensure that he could not reach her a second time. There had been something uncanny in his touch even through the coarse fabric of her uniform.

They rode out on to the concourse. Dusk was deepening to night, and everywhere lanterns were being extinguished, inviting darkness into the city. From one of the Citadel towers, a bell tolled sonorously, dull and slow, as if announcing a dirge.

Resh grunted. ‘At last, some ritual attends this faith.’

The streets before them were mostly empty. Finarra wondered if some kind of exodus had already started. Perhaps Urusander’s Legion was already on the way. She knew too little of the present state of affairs, and the ignorance she had once welcomed now stung her. ‘Let us waste no time in this,’ she said, ‘and ride straight to the Citadel. If anything, the day’s end should have enlivened the Terondai.’

‘An astute observation,’ Resh said.

A short time later they reached the first guard post upon the north shore of the Dorssan Ryl, and once again were waved onward on to the bridge. Upon the other side, the Citadel’s massive doors stood ajar, and from within there was a commotion, and the hint of many people gathered.

‘Something has occurred,’ Caplo observed. ‘Priests and priestesses mill within-’

‘Do they attend the Terondai?’ Resh demanded.

‘No,’ the assassin replied. ‘A fallen comrade, I think.’

The three newcomers dismounted at the arched entrance, left the reins of the horses to hang untethered. There was no one to collect them.

With growing unease, Finarra followed Resh and Caplo through the portico and emerged into the main chamber. Though no torches flared and not a single lantern remained lit, she found she could easily pierce the gloom. As Caplo had described, a score or more priests were gathered in a circle around one of their own – a man lying prone, splashed in blood. Priestesses moved about the periphery of this rough circle, agitated and frightened. Few took notice of the new arrivals.

Warlock Resh stepped forward. ‘Make way,’ he said. ‘If none among you has the skill to heal, I will see to the wounded man-’

‘There is nothing to heal,’ said one priest, but he and the others moved apart nonetheless, and Resh reached the figure. Crouching, he stared down for a time, saying nothing.

Finarra moved up behind him. ‘His hands are pierced,’ she said. ‘The wounds do not close.’

Resh grunted.

The same priest who’d spoken earlier now said, ‘None of this is for you – any of you. This is Endest Silann, chosen among all the priests. Mother Dark has blessed him, raised him above the rest of us. He has just performed a miracle. We were witness to dead creatures returned to life. To hundreds of citizens kneeling before him.’ The man hesitated, and Finarra saw something wild and loose in his gaze. ‘He banished a dragon.’

‘Banished?’ Caplo snorted.

‘The priest is right,’ Resh said, straightening. ‘I cannot heal these wounds. Sorcery bleeds from them.’ He shook his head, passing one hand before his eyes as if making an obscure sacred gesture. ‘Our reasoned and rightful world is askew.’

The warlock’s last words rippled through Finarra, their passage leaving her chilled, trembling.

‘I once worshipped both reason and right,’ Caplo said. ‘Until I was made witness to their frailty. Now, neither yields faith worthy of the name. Leave them their moment, my brother. I see the Terondai before us, unattended, a scrawl of godly graffiti. Let us peruse it.’

Nodding, Resh pulled back, out of the crowd that now struck Finarra as somehow sordid. Miracles demand a price, it seems. There is nothing more bloodless than a gathering of gawkers. She followed Resh and Caplo.

Moments later they stood before the Terondai, the magical gift of Lord Draconus to his beloved Mother Dark.

Carved in black upon dulled, grey flagstones, the vast pattern gleamed as if wet. Something about it confounded Finarra, as if the meaning of the design – even unto its precise lines – eluded her. She was frightened by a sudden yearning to step upon it, to place herself in the centre.

‘I can make nothing of this,’ Resh said. ‘Not while I stand outside it.’ He glanced across at Finarra. ‘Captain, will you attend me?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, but the word came out dry, fragile.

Caplo hissed out a breath. ‘It warns me away,’ he said. ‘Not for me, this wretched power. Forgive me, brother. I cannot join you.’

Resh nodded as if unsurprised.

‘What will you do?’ Finarra asked the assassin.

‘I will take the mundane path to this power,’ he replied, drawing his furs closer. ‘I will walk to the Chamber of Night.’

Her brows lifted. ‘You seek an audience with Mother Dark?’

‘No. With Lord Draconus.’

‘To what end?’

He gestured a long-fingered hand at the Terondai. ‘This was not made by a Tiste. I will find his scent. I will pierce the veil of his eyes, and look upon his soul. Such gifts are untoward, as is he who bequeathed it.’ He faced them both and drew back his hood, revealing feral eyes. ‘I have a suspicion.’

‘And if it proves accurate?’ Resh asked. ‘What then, my friend?’

‘There is a truth here, well disguised. I mean to tear it loose. I mean to reveal the game. Only then will we know the stance we must take.’

‘You will decide this for the Shake?’ Resh asked in soft tones.

Caplo Dreem smiled with tender sorrow. ‘Ah, friend, it seems a worthy sacrifice.’

Finarra’s breath caught. She glanced back at the priests and priestesses, but none paid them any attention. The man on the floor had begun stirring. She looked back at the assassin. ‘You expect to die, Caplo?’

He shrugged.

It seemed that there was nothing more to say. Facing the Terondai once more, Resh gathered himself, and then strode on to the pattern. Finarra followed an instant later.

They stood then, close to the centre, studying the strange scars beneath their feet.

A faint wind brushed her face, smelling of dust. She lifted her gaze and gasped.

The Grand Hall was gone. Instead, they occupied a flagstoned clearing, surrounded by tall trees, beneath a sky dull as stained pewter. ‘Warlock …’

Resh was now studying the forest encircling them. His sigh was uneven. ‘I did not think we would be invited.’

‘What makes you so certain that we were?’

He shot her a glance, and then frowned.

‘Is it not more probable,’ she persisted, ‘that we have slipped through? Had we been blessed by Light, we would have been blunted, perhaps even destroyed. But, in turn, we are not her children. Not any more. Evading commitment, even the realm finds itself undecided about us.’

‘An interesting possibility,’ he admitted after a moment.

‘Something in our nature has placed us between worlds,’ she continued. ‘I wonder … is this even Dark?’

‘It must be. The Terondai is aspected.’

‘Aspected?’

‘Magic comes in many flavours,’ he replied. ‘The Terondai is a gate, a portal. It can take us nowhere but into the heart of its power, and that power is Dark.’

‘Then … where is she?’

‘Imagine a realm virtually without limit, captain.’

‘I see little value in a gate that leaves people lost, unable to take their bearings.’ She gestured. ‘Where is her precious Chamber of Night?’

‘Upon our own world,’ Resh said, ‘there may be but one gate, one egress. But what if there are infinite worlds? What if the Terondai leads to countless other gates, each affixed to its own world?’

‘Then we are truly lost, warlock.’

‘But is Mother Dark?’

She scowled. ‘Is this the source of her power? Is this how Draconus made her into a goddess?’

‘I don’t know. Possibly.’

‘Have you learned what you needed to, Resh? Can we now attempt to return to our world? Assuming that is even possible. I am sorely unbalanced by this.’

He studied her in the gloom. ‘Is each aspect of sorcery truly closed from all the others? Does that even make sense? What if those aspects of magic are themselves realms of a sort? Should there not be more gates? Gates that pass between them? From Dark to Light, perhaps, or into Denul, even? If so, then who fashioned these portals? And what of Draconus, who had the power to create such a gate in the Citadel itself? Whence came such knowledge?’

She shook her head, knowing that he expected no answers from her.

‘Captain,’ Resh continued, ‘where is the gate for the Shake?’

‘What?’

‘Or perhaps it does not yet exist. Perhaps it will fall to me to conjure it into being. Or indeed, to both of us.’

‘Me? Better you had brought Caplo! I am a stranger to such magicks!’

‘We are far from done here,’ Resh said. ‘We have taken but the first step on this journey. It falls to us, Finarra Stone, to find the gate of our aspect.’

‘Our aspect? We don’t have an aspect!’

‘I believe that we do. Neither extreme suits us, only that which dwells between the two.’ He shrugged. ‘Name it Shadow … to match the cast of our skin, yes?’

‘And you believe we will find our new gate from here? From Dark?’

He shrugged. ‘Or from Light. Does it matter which? Both realms bear edges. Borderlands. Places of transition. We must simply find such a place and claim it as our own.’

‘And how will you create this gate?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘We are not returning to the Citadel, are we?’

‘I think not, captain.’

‘Our camp gear and food remains with our horses – will you have us consume ether for sustenance?’

He eyed her with an odd, inquisitive expression. ‘Perhaps,’ he replied, ‘faith will provide.’

* * *

The morning air had been damp and cloying on the day that Captain Kellaras parted company with both Gripp Galas and Hish Tulla, just north of Kharkanas. Flakes of snow drifted down and the night’s fall had settled upon the rutted track, filling the deep imprints left by horses and oxen, and to Kellaras it seemed as if the world struggled to erase what had been, seeking a cleaner promise for what was to come.

The delusion was momentary. War was coming, he reminded himself as he checked the girth-straps of his horse. Impatient and heartless, it would crawl across the season, out from its familiar nest of thaw and heat, and in his mind’s eye he saw a vision of frozen corpses and lurid gashes of red, arrayed upon the white ground. Whatever was pure soon leaves. Even eyes can soil a scene.

When he turned he found Gripp Galas seated astride his horse. Behind the man, already some distance down the western track of the crossroads, Hish Tulla rode on. Whatever parting she had shared with her husband had been brief and quiet. Kellaras cleared his throat. ‘I would still rather you permitted me to accompany you, Gripp.’

‘Pelk is the only company I require,’ the old man replied. The shrug he then offered was apologetic. ‘I will see her off to Kharkanas as soon as we are done.’

Kellaras glanced at Pelk, but her expression was closed where she sat astride her mount. The night just past had been one of fierce, if virtually silent, lovemaking. The woman to whom he had given his heart had a way of disappearing in front of his eyes. ‘If that is her wish,’ he said.

Gripp smiled. ‘Pelk?’

‘It is,’ she replied, twisting in her saddle to squint at the north track awaiting her and Galas. ‘If the captain will be found there.’

Kellaras shook his head in wonder. ‘I shall, unless our forces have been assembled upon a field of battle.’

‘If that should be the case,’ Gripp Galas said, his smile falling away, ‘then our efforts will have been in vain.’

‘Best hurry then,’ Kellaras said.

Nodding, Gripp had collected up the reins. With Pelk at his side, he rode on to the north track, plunging into the scorched forest. Kellaras had waited until he lost sight of them before swinging his mount southward.

It was now a week later. Kellaras haunted the Citadel, watching the rise of new rituals appearing among the priesthood, the processions at dusk and midnight, while at dawn the robed figures knelt with heads bowed, as if greeting with sorrow the unseen sun. He had witnessed the solemn snuffing of candles, the guttering of lanterns left to burn out the last of the oil. He had seen High Priestess Emral Lanear overseeing the daily obeisance and prostrations with glassy eyes.

And in the midst of all this, a growing paranoia suffused the Citadel, until the old royal keep acquired the habiliments of a prison. It was pathetic, as far as Kellaras was concerned. Particularly when faith was so simply and undeniably announced by a stain upon the skin. The endless spying could not even skirt the notion of potential blasphemies among the believers. Instead, it was raw in its politics, a secular jostling of power and influence around an indifferent centre. And through it all there was the reek of impending panic.

But today, word had come of a miracle in the city’s Winter Market, an unofficial procession led by Endest Silann – whose hands were purported to bleed without surcease. And then, providing proof to the tales told by surviving Wardens, a dragon had descended upon a square in the city, only to be sent away by the selfsame prophet of darkness.

Kellaras wished he was drunk, if only to weaken whatever credence such tales were worth. Instead, in answer to a summons, he stood in the ancestral family chamber of the Purake waiting for Silchas Ruin to take notice of his arrival. The white-skinned warrior was at a table, leaning over a large, ornately illustrated vellum map, one detailed enough to note elevations, with scrawled observations pertaining to ease of passage among various trails and tracks. The work was Kadaspala’s, devised in the wake of the wars against the Forulkan and the Jhelarkan, a belated gift the value of which had been questionable, at least until this moment.

Finally, Silchas Ruin stepped back, and slumped into a high-backed chair. He eyed Kellaras for a moment before speaking. ‘A dragon to mock our walls. A season to mock our rest. Have you seen Grizzin Farl?’

‘No, milord, not for many days.’

Sighing, Silchas gestured at the map. ‘We will meet the Legion at the Valley of Tarns. It is shallow and broad, the old riverbed wide and not too stony. There are defiles to the east of it, the tangled wreckage of a burned forest to the west. Tell me, do you think Lord Urusander will oblige us?’

‘He is reputed to be confident, milord.’ Kellaras hesitated, and then added, ‘The valley is known to him, since it is where he first mustered the Legion, before marching south to meet the Forulkan.’

‘Will he appreciate the irony?’

‘I do not know him well enough to answer you, milord.’

‘Hunn Raal will delight in it,’ Silchas Ruin predicted. ‘I have received a missive from Captain Prazek-’

‘Captain, milord?’

‘Field promotion, one presumes. The Hust Legion will soon depart the training grounds.’

‘Prazek judges them ready, then?’

‘Of course not! Don’t be foolish, Kellaras. No,’ Silchas rose, suddenly impatient, ‘we have simply run out of time.’

A bell rang in the outer room.

With a flash of irritation twisting his features, Silchas snapped, ‘Enter!’

The Houseblade who stepped into the chamber saluted both men and said, ‘Lord Silchas, there has been an … occurrence, at the Terondai. A monk of the Shake and a Warden were seen to be taken.’

‘Taken where?’

‘Milord, they strode on to the pattern, and then simply vanished. Another monk is even now approaching the Chamber of Night-’

‘Unchallenged?’

The young woman before them blinked. ‘The High Priestess dismissed the guards upon the approach some time ago, milord. It seems … there is nothing to defend.’

‘This monk,’ said Kellaras. ‘Is he known?’

‘No, sir. Hooded to hide his face. But the one who vanished in the Terondai was Warlock Resh.’

There was a moment when none moved, and then Silchas reached for his sword-belt. ‘Both of you, ready weapons and attend me.’

The three set out in haste.

Caplo Dreem. Sheccanto’s favourite assassin. And this time, Anomander does not stand in his path.

* * *

A single Houseblade had followed Caplo Dreem, accosting him at the entrance to the corridor leading to the Chamber of Night’s door. Irritated and mostly unmindful, the assassin left the man’s corpse sprawled across the cracked flagstones and continued on until he faced the sweating blackwood barrier. The polished wood was now crowded with carved runes that framed illustrated panels. Caplo paused, frowning at the images for a moment. Scenes of gift giving. That one must be Draconus, and that faintest of outlines … Mother Dark. Or what’s left of her. Odd, isn’t it, how it is the goddess who receives gifts? What shall we make of him who bears them?

But such ponderings were but distractions. A wild fever burned in Caplo Dreem, the hunger to unfold, one into many, as if snapping the chains of his own flesh and bone. He bared his teeth in anticipation, and then kicked against the door to the Chamber of Night.

The strength within him was startling even to his own eyes. The blow proved savage enough to splinter the wood, sending cracks through the delicate carvings. The ancient iron hinges broke with popping sounds, and a second kick sent the portal toppling with a heavy crash upon the threshold.

Bitter cold assailed Caplo and he voiced an animal snarl in answer. Take me then, Old Blood. We have known restraint for too long.

He blurred, burgeoned, and with visceral jolts veered into a dozen lithe, feline forms, each one black as the surrounding darkness. In his wake he left the tatters of his clothing, his worn boots, the leather belts and straps bearing his knives, and the hood and heavy wolf fur cloak, all heaped into a disordered pile.

The earth beneath his many padded feet was frozen clay, slick and unyielding. From twelve pairs of eyes, he studied the way ahead – the stunted, leafless trees rising from the plain, the wayward lines of boulders marking out mysterious patterns upon the vague slopes a short distance before him, and off to the right – those many eyes narrowed – the skeletal frame of a wheeled wagon. Even incomplete, it was massive, almost beyond comprehension. To look upon it was to reel with the jarring impossibility of its scale – and he felt his ears flattening with instinctive fear.

A man stood near one enormous wooden wheel. He had turned upon Caplo’s arrival.

I see you, Draconus! And yet … yet -

Spreading out, the panthers edged forward, tails twitching, twelve pairs of eyes fixing upon the man who now slowly approached. The promise of violence flared within Caplo. Old Blood, why did I deny you for so long?

‘You Shake are a presumptuous lot, aren’t you?’

He is weak. Weaker than I expected. As if some part of his soul is missing. Even more pleasing, he is unarmed.

Draconus shook his head. ‘D’ivers now, as well. The Shake consort with forces they do not understand. Not just the cursed legacy of desperate Eresal eludes that understanding, but so too the one you would now challenge.’

As Caplo drew closer, he saw chains strewn upon the ground, the rough links stretching back towards the wagon, vanishing beneath its vast bed. Scores, perhaps hundreds, they made a web upon the frozen clay, the heavy shackles at their ends gaping and glistening with frost. Seeing them, Caplo felt faint unease rippling through his dozen bodies.

‘You mean to kill her, Caplo Dreem? You will fail. She is well beyond your reach.’

Caplo focused his thoughts, sent them out towards Draconus. ‘Do you hear me, lord?’

Draconus grunted. ‘I’ve listened since the moment of your arrival, D’ivers. My weakness, my incompleteness … these hands’ – he lifted them – ‘you deem less than weapons.’

‘I care nothing for her. The power here is yours and yours alone.’

‘Not any more. Such was my gift to the woman I love.’

‘And who are you to give it?’

Draconus shrugged. ‘Here, I am named the Suzerain of Night.’

‘The Tiste House of Dracons is a deceit. Old scents, known to the Old Blood within me. You are an Azathanai.’

Reaching down, Draconus collected up a length of chain. ‘If it’s me you want, assassin, come along then. You can collect your coin from Urusander later – or is it Hunn Raal? I would not imagine Sheccanto or even Skelenal have given this deed their blessing.’

‘Now you speak plain, Draconus. No highborn poetry to ride your last breaths.’

The Azathanai shrugged. ‘I can’t be bothered.’

The twelve panthers now surrounded Draconus, giving Caplo a view of the huge man from every angle. Somehow, this did not confuse him, and the flood of senses was a delicious roar in his mind, rising like flames.

The Old Blood was not interested in subtlety. Caplo attacked at once, from all sides. Twelve panthers, converging upon a single enemy.

The chain lashed out, wrapping tight upon a leaping form, and Draconus yanked it close even as the remaining beasts slammed into him. Caplo felt his many fangs sink deep into the man’s flesh. He felt his claws score deep furrows upon the muscles of the Azathanai’s broad back – down to scrape along ribs and shoulder blades. More talons plunged into the man’s stomach. The muscles there clenched suddenly to trap those claws, defying every effort at evisceration, but Caplo held on. Jaws from another beast ground tight around the back of Draconus’s thick neck, seeking the windpipe.

Through all of this, somehow the Azathanai remained standing. The panther he had snared with the chain came within reach of his hands, and, releasing the chain, Draconus drove thumbs deep into the beast’s throat. Blood sprayed and the cat screamed.

Caplo felt its sudden death in a wave of agony.

Flinging the carcass away, Draconus reached round to tear loose the animal clinging to his back and neck, and the Azathanai’s strength was appalling. Unmindful of his own torn flesh, he pulled the writhing breast around, and then broke its spine with a savage twist of his wrists.

Caplo howled.

Fangs and claws tore flesh to shreds, ripped through muscles, yet still Draconus remained upright, his wide-legged stance unyielding.

A third panther – the one with its foreclaws sunk deep into the Azathanai’s gut – died beneath the skull-shattering blow of a single fist.

Caplo released his sense of all but one cat – leaving them to fight on by instinct – and flung his strength into that single creature, which had locked its jaws about the man’s left thigh, and now, writhing and spinning round with a surge of unnatural strength, he toppled Draconus. The remaining panthers closed in to finish him.

Another died, neck broken, its head suddenly loose in the grip of the man’s hands.

But the panthers savaged the writhing, kicking, blood-soaked figure.

Caplo shrieked when a lone hand stabbed into the gut of the beast he rode, and in a welter of blood and fluids his guts were pulled out from their cavity. The assassin fled the dying cat, found another.

But Draconus found that one immediately, rolling to pin it beneath him, even as he began punching, each blow of his fist shattering ribs, flensing the lungs beneath them.

The death of so many beasts broke something in Caplo. Howling, he tore himself free of the Azathanai. The six surviving panthers reeled in retreat, flanks heaving, ears flat, fangs bared. They halted a half-dozen paces from the prone man.

Who then laughed from where he lay on his back. ‘Come, let us finish it.’

‘Why won’t you die!’

‘I should have,’ Draconus replied, shifting on to his side to spit out a gout of blood. ‘Or you would have, since I summoned my Finnest.’ He coughed, spat again. ‘But it seems to have gone astray …’ He groaned and pushed himself to his hands and knees. Blood poured from his wounds, making thick puddles beneath him. ‘And that’s not good.’ He glanced over with dull red eyes. ‘Still, I’ll leave one of you. For the chains. Though I doubt you’d deem them a mercy.’

Hissing, Caplo backed away.

‘You all thought me unmindful,’ Draconus said. ‘An impediment to your newfound powers. You, Syntara, Raal, even my beloved. But things have been unleashed. Indeed,’ he paused to cough again, ‘it’s all becoming something of a mess.’ He waved one hand back towards the massive wagon. ‘But I’m working on it. Take some faith in that. Tell your Higher Graces this: I will see it all through, and by that alone, you will one day find a throne awaiting you.’

‘We have no need of a throne! We have no realm to rule!’

Draconus showed red-stained teeth in a cruel grin. ‘Heed your fucking leopard instincts, Caplo, and find some patience. Restraint, even. I’m working as fast as I can.’

Caplo crouched his forms low, studied the ravaged Azathanai. ‘You promise us a realm?’

‘And a throne. Do they seem gifts? Remind yourself of that the day you need to defend them both.’

‘Where will we find these … gifts?’

Draconus grunted a bitter laugh. ‘Not in your precious monasteries.’ He pushed himself to his feet, stood tottering, his dripping hands held out slightly for balance. ‘You have a choice here. Leave, and seek those already upon the shore. Or try me again. But should you prevail against me, ruin will haunt you all – with my blessing.’ And he offered Caplo another crimson smile, this one faintly sad.

The six panthers turned to depart.

Behind them, Draconus raised his voice. ‘That way, Caplo? Are you sure?’

Snarling, the assassin padded to the gate. Moments before passing through the shattered doorway, he sembled into his Tiste form, and then staggered to the massive wounds upon his naked body.

I should have thought of that.

Gasping, blinded by pain, he stumbled through the portal.

* * *

Since seeing High Priestess Emral Lanear, Orfantal had struggled with an overwhelming desire to curl into her lap. She seemed a mother of bad habits, and this intrigued him. He was not interested in making sense of it – thinking too much about things hadn’t done him much good, thus far. There was something clean and pure in his sense of the guardian wolves he had on occasion conjured into being, and what he could feel of their minds told him that there were creatures in the world – in all the worlds – that lived simpler lives. He wanted to emulate such ways of living.

And so he haunted her, keeping his eyes hidden within the wreaths of smoke drifting around her as she sat, unmoving apart from the steady rise and fall of the water-pipe’s mouthpiece in one hand and the swell and ebb of her chest. So many things were possible now. He could drift unseen through the Citadel, wandering its corridors, sliding beneath doors and into chambers that had once been forbidden him. His body, small as it was, could of course achieve none of this. So he had left it behind, in the cell where he slept, with Ribs lying against the door.

He rode the currents of Kurald Galain, but for all their enticements, from the fascinating patterns and sly invitations of the Terondai to the red tears of Mother Dark’s eyes – unable to look away in the palms of the priest, Endest Silann – Orfantal found himself drawn back to the High Priestess, who still sat alone in her chamber, gaze heavy upon the slightly open door, as if awaiting someone.

But for the moment, none in the Citadel had thought to seek her out, despite the two strangers who had unlocked the pattern of passage in the Terondai – one of its many wondrous gifts – and disappeared from sight. The discovery of a murdered guard in the corridor leading to the Chamber of Night had sent alarm winging among the Houseblades and their officers, only to somehow deftly avoid – by choice or chance – the many acolytes of the priesthood.

She sat unknowing, then, her right leg folded over the left, like a queen upon a throne.

Distant agitations in the sorcerous darkness brushed Orfantal’s awareness, and a moment’s focus made out, in his mind’s eye, the figures of Silchas Ruin, Captain Kellaras, and a woman Houseblade, hurrying towards the Chamber of Night.

Orfantal hesitated. Seeing too much made things complicated all over again. His spirit, wandering in this way, possessed no voice, and what it heard was thin and muted, as if every sound came through walls. He could draw as close as he liked to Emral Lanear, but make nothing known of his presence.

That was probably just as well. Some things had a way of frightening people. Even so, he groped for a means of warning her that things were happening, and that blood had been spilled outside the Chamber of Night.

So intent was his focus upon her now, he was caught unawares by the sudden arrival of Endest Silann.

But she looked up and seemed to sag in her throne. ‘If only we could all find someone else to carry our anguish,’ she said.

The priest, looking ashen and drained, tilted his head slightly. ‘Or send it out and away in white streams of smoke.’

‘If she regrets her lack of success,’ Lanear replied, ‘at last we find common ground.’

‘There has been violence in the Chamber of Night.’

The High Priestess drew hard on the mouthpiece, then spoke with held breath. ‘The realm beyond those doors is a fraught place.’

‘A Shake assassin reached that realm.’

She let out a slow, lengthy sigh of smoke. ‘Caplo Dreem returned, then. To finish whatever he intended the first time.’

‘You seem unconcerned.’

‘Was she?’

‘Lord Draconus defeated the assassin. Apparently. Terribly wounded and naked, Caplo re-emerged, too weak to resist arrest by Lord Silchas Ruin. A few words were exchanged before the assassin fell unconscious. There is talk of summary execution. And a pronouncement of war upon the Shake.’

‘Tell me of her concern.’

Silann’s gaze fell. ‘I cannot. But Lord Draconus did not escape unharmed from the encounter. She attends him with … solicitude.’

‘Where is Cedorpul?’

‘High Priestess, I unleashed magic in the city. I sought to bless the citizens of Kharkanas, in ways she might desire – if only she would tell us. Instead …’ His voice caught then, and it was a moment before he could continue. ‘Anger proves a poor fuel for forgiveness.’

‘Cedorpul?’

‘It fell to an Eleint, descending from the sky, to halt my … my largesse.’

‘All on this day?’ Abruptly, Lanear laughed, only to stifle the sound. ‘Forgive me, Endest. I was, for some time here, musing on the span of a single bowl’s pleasure. The world is a place of many rooms indeed, but in this one, I knew the luxury of peace.’ She slowly set the mouthpiece down on to its silver tray. ‘Where, I ask a third time, is Cedorpul?’

‘I am informed, High Priestess, that with grievous outrage and indignation, Cedorpul has set out upon the trail of Warlock Resh and the Warden officer who accompanied him through the Gate of Darkness.’

‘Alone?’

‘So I understand. I knew a fever following my audience with the dragon. All I can report is what I was subsequently told.’

‘A fever. Yours or hers?’

He shrugged.

‘Will you lead me to where Silchas Ruin has taken the assassin?’

‘Of course, High Priestess. But one other matter awaits us.’

‘And that is?’

‘The child upon your lap,’ Endest replied.

Startled, Orfantal fled the chamber.

* * *

Kellaras had not participated in the rough handling of Caplo Dreem. Instead, he and the other Houseblade had but followed Silchas Ruin as the lord dragged the unconscious assassin by one ankle down stairs and along corridors, to a wing of the old palace where waited scores of empty cells. For all Ruin’s outrage, the traverse had seemed cruel, but cruelty was gathering in this last remaining brother.

Selecting a cell, Silchas pulled Caplo inside, and then ordered the Houseblade to affix shackles to the man’s ankles and wrists. This action stirred Caplo to consciousness and he blinked up at the young woman, watching as the thick iron rings clicked shut one by one. His dark eyes tracked her retreat when she was done.

Silchas Ruin faced the prisoner, and made to speak, but Caplo lifted a hand with a weak gesture that rattled the links, and said, ‘My apologies, milord, for the slain guard. Impatience is a twitching blade and no thought slowed my hand. For what it is worth, it is the only crime for which I accept your purview.’

Silchas grunted. ‘An assault upon the sacred precincts of Mother Dark?’

‘She claims less of it than you think.’

‘And Draconus?’

Caplo glanced away. ‘A hard man to kill. Did I not say as much before passing out? My mumbled … confession. Let it not be said I shied from the truth.’

‘He will not demand your head, assassin?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Why not?’

‘He’s busy.’

Silchas scowled, crossing his arms. After a moment, he cast Kellaras a beleaguered look. ‘Step forward, captain, I beg you. Convince me against persisting in wasting everyone’s time. Better yet, separate this man’s head from the rest of him.’

‘Forgive me, milord, but I don’t understand any of this. Have the Shake declared war? Is this man here at Sheccanto’s behest? True, a god died, but the blame for that must surely belong to the Azathanai, T’riss.’ Kellaras eyed the prisoner. ‘Caplo Dreem, who sent you?’

‘No one.’

Kellaras mused on that reply, and found no falsity in it. ‘Where did Warlock Resh go, when he and that Warden vanished at the Terondai?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then neither had knowledge of your intentions?’

Caplo grinned, moving to sit up with his back against the wall. ‘I had a suspicion. They knew that much.’

‘A suspicion? Regarding what?’

‘Oddly enough, though I found the truth of it, I find myself subsequently reluctant to pronounce it. I have,’ he added, closing his eyes as he rested his head against the wall, ‘made revision.’

‘Please explain what that means,’ Kellaras said.

‘I was in error. Not every truth is a crime. Though,’ he blinked open his eyes and smiled up at Kellaras, ‘too many of them are. Still, not this time. Foolish me, but then, ignorance is a poor excuse for anything, and I’ll not hide behind it.’

‘Do you expect to live, Caplo Dreem?’

The man shrugged, and then winced at his wounds.

Silchas Ruin growled under his breath. ‘A slain Houseblade of House Purake. Confound the rest, but this crime stands unchallenged.’

‘With regret.’

The lord settled one white hand upon his grip of the sword at his side. Iron began sliding from the scabbard, then halted at a sound from the doorway behind them.

‘Belay that, lord,’ said Emral Lanear, stepping into the now crowded cell. Kellaras saw the priest, Endest Silann, edge in behind her, his hands devoid of cloth or bandage, the wounds dripping freely to paint his fingers. His face belonged to that of an aged man.

‘House Purake claims the right of punishment,’ Silchas Ruin said to the High Priestess.

‘No doubt,’ she replied, eyeing Caplo Dreem. ‘But I would question him first.’

‘You waste your time,’ Silchas replied. ‘He is all riddles.’

‘I have no interest in Mother Dark,’ said Caplo Dreem to Lanear. ‘I have never represented a threat to her.’

‘And yet, you trespass.’

‘My argument was with Lord Draconus. We had it out, and now we are done with each other.’

‘With at least one corpse in your wake,’ she pointed out.

‘Release him,’ said Endest Silann.

All turned to face the priest. The command seemed to have momentarily left Silchas Ruin speechless. Emral Lanear glanced back at her companion. ‘By your command, Endest?’

‘No,’ he replied.

‘She makes her wishes known to you? You had led me to believe that Mother Dark’s attendance upon you yielded nothing of her will. Has that changed?’

‘Draconus is wounded, and this angers her,’ Endest replied. ‘Nonetheless, Caplo Dreem is to be banished from Kharkanas. That is all.’

‘What of justice for the House of Purake?’ Silchas Ruin demanded. ‘Is that not a virtue to be defended by our goddess? We, who are sworn to her service? Will she deny us this as well?’

No response came from Endest Silann. He turned to leave, and Kellaras distinctly heard the priest mutter, ‘Come along now, boy, this was not for you.’

Even the High Priestess seemed at a loss. ‘Lord Silchas, I am sorry,’ she said.

He glared at her, and then made a sharp gesture with one hand. ‘No matter.’ He shot her a look and added, ‘How does it sit with you, High Priestess? Being … superfluous?’

Her expression tightened, but she said nothing.

‘Oh, Kellaras,’ sighed Silchas Ruin, ‘free the man.’

* * *

Rise Herat stood in the unlit corridor, staring at a tapestry. The absence of light proved no obstacle to his study of the dragons woven into the scene. He had been atop the tower when the Eleint sank down from the heavy clouds in a spiralling descent that took it into the heart of Kharkanas. It was well, he reflected yet again, that he was not a believer in omens.

Still, even I must lend credence to the notion of harbingers. We are in difficult times to be sure, but our disputes seem petty in the face of such powers loose once again in the world. There are forces at work far beyond our frail borders.

But anger and fear make an enemy of humility, and of all the emotions within reach of a desperate mind, they loom closest.

If only desperation was not a plague among mortals. If only our lives were not spent rushing from one breach to the next.

There had been word of Endest Silann’s blessing of peace in the Winter Market, and the anguish left in its wake. But how many now denied the simple truth of that aftermath, its rattling lesson of despair? Peace haunts us like a dream, an echo half forgotten, but still whispering its perfect promise.

The ancient tapestry offered no lies, no inventions of the imagination. The dragons depicted were accurate. In the scene seven of the creatures whirled above a burning city. There was no attribution to this work of art – even the age that spawned it was lost to memory, and nothing of the city itself was recognizable. Nothing but the river running through it, black as a fissure in bedrock.

If Kharkanas rested upon ruins, they’d yet to be revealed. Only the temple at the heart of the Citadel hinted of a world now vanished.

Then again, the city trapped by thread and dye was burning, dying within a firestorm. In such a storm, even the rocks would shatter, crumbling to dust.

Omens are for fools, but every truth of the future resides in the present, if only we have the will to see.

After a time, he realized that he was no longer alone. Turning, he frowned at the figure standing a step behind him. ‘Grizzin Farl, for all your girth, you move in silence.’

The Azathanai sighed. ‘Humble apologies, historian.’

‘I was thinking of you.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Vast forces at work, making a mockery of our conceits. Was this all begun by the woman we call T’riss? Or, as I suspect, should we look to Lord Draconus? Or you, perhaps, with your curious presence here, or, rather, your persistence?’

‘You would blame others for your ills?’

‘A feeble deflection, Azathanai. The realm of Eternal Night, or whatever it’s called, is too vast for us Tiste Andii to call home. And do not offend me by suggesting that Mother Dark lays claim to it. She is but an interloper. For all we know, she wanders as one lost, or even in fear, cowering at her Consort’s side.’

‘Neither, I should think,’ Grizzin Farl replied.

‘Dragons,’ said Rise Herat, turning back to look upon the tapestry once more. ‘Will we see more of them? Do they gather like vultures spying a wounded creature? Do they but await our inevitable death?’

Grizzin Farl scratched through his beard, his eyes glittering from some unseen light. ‘Now you describe a deceit in truth, historian. The fate of Kurald Galain barely registers with creatures such as the Eleint, and what they feed upon is nothing so crass as flesh and bone. Though, it must be said, they will indulge from time to time. It is important, Rise Herat, that you understand something of their nature.’

‘Oh? Please, continue.’

Ignoring the ironic invitation, Grizzin Farl stepped up beside the historian and squinted at the tapestry. ‘Inclined to scavenging,’ he said. ‘Less the hunter, then, than the opportunist. They dislike, even fear, each other’s company-’

‘This depiction suggests the opposite.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’

‘Explain.’

‘They become a Storm, sir. A Storm of Dragons, and that is a terrible thing. No single Eleint can resist, once a certain threshold is crossed. Gather enough of the beasts – create a big enough Storm – and they merge. They become one beast, possessing many heads, many limbs, but a single, undeniable identity. Such a Storm has a name among the Azathanai. Tiamatha. Goddess of destruction. Tiam among the Thel Akai. The Fever Queen.’ He paused, and then nodded at the tapestry. ‘Here, merely a Storm. Ill chance that it should gather above a city, but you well see its annihilating force.’

‘The fire – that is incidental?’

Grizzin Farl shrugged. ‘Something drew them all there. There is that, I suppose.’

‘Something? What thing, Azathanai?’

‘Unknown. Perhaps … a wounded gate?’

‘Abyss take you, Farl! How can a gate be wounded?’

‘Careless usage, I imagine. That, or some form of elemental opposition.’

Elemental opposition? ‘Such as Light upon Dark?’

‘Not necessarily, historian. Forgive me if my careless words have alarmed you. You now fear some kind of violence to attend the union of Mother Dark and Father Light, but that is far from incumbent.’

‘I fear the violence leading to that union!’

A flicker of sorrow softened the huge man’s features. ‘Yes, the necessity for a delicate balance awaits you. I see that now. But still, be at ease. Dragons have indeed returned to the world, but they are scattered and would remain so, given the choice. The Storm is an unpleasant manifestation even for the Eleint trapped within it.’

‘Never mind that – what of the gate? What of this damned marriage?’

‘If neither resists, all will be well.’

‘And if one proves … reluctant?’

‘The mere recognition of necessity lends one wisdom, don’t you think? Enough to ease the pain of such reluctance.’ He paused, and then added, ‘At last, something manifest to give breadth to your prayers?’

‘Why, yes,’ Rise Herat snapped. ‘How thoughtful of you.’

‘Does this tapestry possess a name, by any chance?’

‘Threaded upon the back. “The Last Day”.’

‘Ah. Nothing else, then?’

‘No. I would think,’ Rise bitterly added, ‘nothing more was necessary.’

* * *

He felt her touch upon his shoulder, and then she spoke. ‘You heal quickly, my love.’

‘I was once beset in a like manner,’ Draconus said. ‘Back then, it was hounds.’ He hesitated, feeling her essence closing gently around him. ‘Hounds are cleverer than panthers. The assassin was new to his curse. He left too much to their instincts. Cats hunt in the manner of pinning or binding their prey, clinging tight, jaws about the windpipe, until the prey suffocates. But hounds … well, as I said. They are cleverer.’

‘Yet you survived both.’

He said nothing for a long moment, and then sighed heavily. ‘My love, what would you have me do?’

Mother Dark’s embrace was all-consuming, impossibly tender, and in utterly engulfing him she took away the world: the forest and standing stones, the unfinished wagon and its chains, the pools of blood upon the ground. ‘Beloved, my heart is for you. As it was, as it is, and as it shall ever be.’

He nodded. ‘As you will, then.’

‘You tremble. Does my touch hurt you?’

‘No.’

‘Then … what?’

He was thinking of the D’ivers hounds, all those centuries past. Assailing him from all sides. Even with the fullness of his power, they had nearly torn him apart. ‘Nothing of import,’ he said after a moment. ‘Just memories.’

‘Let not the past haunt you, my love. In that realm, we are all ghosts.’

‘As you say.’

She kept the world away for some time, and he was content with that.

* * *

‘They don’t look much like wolves,’ Sergeant Savarro said to her husband.

The huge man tugged at his beard. ‘Surprised they ain’t ate up those little ones we brought along.’

Savarro grunted. ‘No. Seems they like other children just fine. Playing with ’em like they was pups or something.’

Veered into their canine forms, a dozen Jhelarkan hostages tumbled with the children of the refugee families from the Warden’s fort. The new snowfall in the compound was all churned up by their antics, and high-pitched squeals and shouts joined the chorus of mock growls. The scene was appallingly bucolic.

‘It ain’t so bad,’ Savarro continued.

‘You’re trying too hard,’ Ristand said, grimacing. ‘You should’ve let me change my vote. We should’ve stayed a night or two and then got us out of here. They now call this place Howls for a fucking good reason. The mules are so scared they stopped eating.’

She sighed. ‘That’s what makes me so sick of you, you know that? You keep changing what happened to suit what you’re thinking right now. Fucking men.’

‘I ain’t changed nothing! You’re just remembering it wrong, like a typical woman.’

‘I’ve seen you eyeing that Nassaras.’

‘Not that again!’

‘Go on then! Drag her into the barn, tear her clothes off and rut like a damned hare. A fat damned hare! Slap your paws on her big tits. Bite at her neck. Make her groan as you try crawling up inside her-’

‘Abyss take us, woman, let’s go!’

Together they rose and hurried back into the keep.

*

Just inside the entrance, Lord Kagamandra had to quickly step to one side to let the two Wardens past. He paused, watching them rush through the dining hall, and then thump quickly up the stairs.

Trout stepped into view from near the hearth. ‘Not again,’ he muttered.

Kagamandra opened the front door and glanced outside, then shut it again and returned to the dining hall. ‘No blood,’ he said. ‘I mistook those screams.’

‘Numbers went down fast,’ Trout said, shifting where he stood, absently pulling at his stubbly cheeks hard enough to expose the red rims below his dark eyes. ‘Might be they ain’t feeling so crowded any more. It’s been days since we last stumbled on to a chewed-up carcass.’

‘The blind one still survives, and that’s surprising,’ Kagamandra said musingly, as he moved to sit down at the table.

‘More wine, milord?’

‘It’s not even noon.’

‘Aye. More wine?’

Kagamandra eyed the ugly captain. ‘You’d see my mind dulled, made witless, to take the sting from my plans for vengeance. Since when did the fates of Scara Bandaris and Silchas Ruin concern you?’

‘It ain’t them, milord. It’s you. You just got here, and all you been talking about is leaving again. With Silchas in Kharkanas, no doubt, and Scara probably riding with Urusander, you’d end up stuck between two Abyss-damned armies. It’s a simple fact, sir, that they needed to send the hostages somewhere. Remote, out of the way, peaceful even.’

‘Thank you, Trout. You always had a way of reining me in.’

‘Sarcasm ill fits you, milord. Besides, conscience has an ugly face, most times.’ And he smiled to make even more ghastly his visage.

‘Still,’ Kagamandra said, ‘if a war is in the offing, what are we doing here?’

Trout pulled a chair close and slumped down in it. He squinted at the flames of the hearth. From somewhere in the kitchen, there was a shout and pots clanged as Igur Lout’s new assistants once more got underfoot. ‘Aye,’ Trout said. ‘Braphen said as much, too. It’s that damned itch, isn’t it? Takes us all. Riding out, fuck the winter and all that. Just riding out, back into war.’

‘Feeling old, Trout?’ Kagamandra asked quietly.

‘We all are, is my bet, sir. And still …’ He shook his head, half his face twisting into a grin as he glanced at Kagamandra. ‘We could do some damage, hey? I was never much for Urusander’s bleatings, and Hunn Raal’s a pig and I don’t expect that’s changed any. But I wonder, sir, what happens when you find yourself facing Scara Bandaris across that field? Will the pranks continue when it’s life and death on the bloody line?’

‘The notion has occurred to me,’ Kagamandra replied. ‘I cannot say what clout Scara possesses among the high command in the Legion. If I am able, I will speak to him and attempt to dissuade him. This civil war is a bitter legacy of our past triumphs.’

‘Scara’s would be a lone voice,’ Trout said.

‘No. There is another. Captain Sharenas.’

Trout’s gaze narrowed on his lord, and then he nodded, returning his attention to the hearth. ‘Need more wood,’ he said, grunting as he rose. ‘Cold in the bones won’t do, if we’re to ride.’

Kagamandra smiled at his old friend.

Trout paused. ‘What of the Wardens?’

‘I’ll put it to them, but to be honest, Trout, I think the fight’s out of this bunch.’

‘You begin to speak like a soldier again, milord. I’ve missed that. I’ll get some wood.’

Kagamandra watched the man depart.

From almost directly above came a rhythmic thumping, while clanging and Lout’s ongoing harangue continued in the kitchen. Outside, children and beasts frolicked in the snow.

He rubbed at his face. Ah, Sharenas. I cannot stay in one place, it seems. Snapping jaws upon my flanks, I am inclined to bolt.

My betrothed? I cannot say. Together and apart, we travel lost to each other, as the fates demand.

This keep seems paltry and small. Not a place she could call home, and I’ll not insult her with the offer.

A child outside attempted a howl, and moments later the hostages gave answer.

Shivering, Kagamandra looked to the ebbing fire, but found little heat there. Trout had best hurry with that wood.