Fall of Light

SIX

The nails on Gothos’s hand, where it rested on the stained tabletop, were amber-hued and long, more like talons, and as they tapped a slow syncopation, one falling after the other, Arathan was reminded of stones in the heat. The vast table had been dragged in from some other now abandoned abode. Devoid of accoutrements, it stretched out like a weathered plain, with the sunlight that played out across its surface making a slow crawl to day’s end.

Arathan stood near the entrance, leaning against the doorway’s warped frame, to gather as much of the courtyard’s chill air as he could. Within the chamber, braziers had been laid out, four in all, emanating a dry heat, caustic and enervating. Against one side of his body, he could feel winter’s breath, while upon the other, the brittle heat of a forge.

Gothos had said nothing. Beyond the clicking of his nails, and the almost mechanical rise and fall of his fingers as they tapped, he yielded nothing. Arathan was certain that Gothos was aware of his arrival, and by indifference alone offered invitation to join the Jaghut at one of the misshapen chairs crowding the table. But Arathan knew that no conversation would be forthcoming; this was not so much a mood afflicting Gothos, as yet another of those times characterized by obstinate silence, a belligerent refusal to engage with anyone.

One could, unfettering the imagination, conjure up a chorus of bridling emotions to fill such silences. Condescension, arrogance, contempt. In its company, it was easy to wince to the bloom of shame, with the sting of irrelevance at its heart. Arathan suspected that the Jaghut’s bitter title – Lord of Hate – was derived from these spells, as in frustration fellow Jaghut threw up walls of indignation, pocked with murder-holes from which they might let loose their own missiles, and make of the whole thing a clattering war, a feud raised up against a multiplying nest of imagined insults.

But whatever barriers the silence posed, there was nothing personal to them. They stood not in answer to any particular threat. They faced out upon every imaginable quarter, standing fast against both presence and absence. This was, Arathan had come to believe, not the silence of an embittered man. It accused no one, acknowledged not a single enemy, and because of this, it infuriated all.

A month had passed since Lord Draconus, his father, had left Arathan in the keeping of the Lord of Hate. A month spent struggling with the endless, impossible nuances in the Jaghut language – its written form, at least. A month spent in the strange, baffling dance he’d found himself in, with the hostage Korya Delath.

And what of this army camped beyond the ruined city, the gadflies to Hood, as Gothos called them? Each night, it seemed, another few figures marched in – Thel Akai from the north, Dog-Runners and Jheck from the south. Upon the strand of desolate beach two days to the west, long wooden boats had pulled up, disgorging blue-skinned strangers from some offshore strew of islands. There was a war among those islands, and the ships – Arathan had been told – were battered, fire-scarred, the wooden decks stained black with old blood. The men and women wading ashore were, many of them, wounded, flateyed and too exhausted to be wary. Their leather armour showed damage; their weapons were notched and blunted, and they walked like people who had forgotten the stolid certainty of unmoving earth beneath their feet.

A dozen Forulkan numbered among the thousand or so now crowding the camp, and here and there – startling to Arathan’s eyes – could be found Tiste. He had made no effort towards any of them and so knew nothing of their tale. Only one among them bore the inky stains of a Sworn Child to Mother Dark. The rest, he surmised, were Deniers, dwellers from the forests, or the hills bordering the realm.

Sorcery seethed through that sprawling camp. Foodstuffs were conjured from earth and clay. Boulders leaked sweet water without surcease. Fires burned without fuel. In the cold night, voices rose in song, bone pipes made hollow music and taut skins were drummed to raise up a surly chorus beneath the glittering stars. From atop the lord’s tower, in the lee of the looming Tower of Hate, Arathan could look out upon that glittering, red-hazed camp. An island of life, its inhabitants eager to sail out from its safe shore. Dead is the sea they seek, its depth beyond comprehension.

The songs were dirges, the drumbeats the last thumps of a dying heart. The bone pipes gave voice to skulls and hollow ribcages.

‘They attend their own funeral,’ Korya had said, venting her frustration at Hood’s benighted gesture. ‘They whet their swords and spear-points. Make new straps and stitches in armour. They game in their tents and take lovers to their furs, or just use one another as a herder his sheep. Look on them, Arathan, and divest yourself of all admiration. If this is all that life can offer in defiance of death, then we deserve the brevity of our fates.’

It was clear that she did not see what Arathan saw. All deeds could be seen as sordid, in the flipping of a stone, or the stripping away of hides. The proudest candle vanishes unseen into a raging house-fire, with none to recount the beauty of its delicate glow, or the dignity of its desire. This was nothing but one’s own bitter cast of mind, the well-set frown with every muscle bent to its will, to make a face eternal in its disapproval. Arathan wondered if he would one day see that twisted pattern upon Korya’s visage – when youth surrendered to decades of sour misery.

She saw nothing of the glory that, in the contemplation of Hood and his heartbreaking vow, so easily took away Arathan’s breath, and left him feeling humbled with wonder.

‘Madness. Pointless. The railing of a fool. The myths are not literal. There is no river to cross, no whirlpool to make a hole in a lake, or the sea. There are no thrones to mark the threshold of imaginary realms. It is all ignorance, Arathan! The superstitions of the Deniers, the dirt-eating of the Dog-Runners, the grinning rock-faces of the Thel Akai. Even the Jaghut – with all their talk of thrones, sceptres, crowns and orbs – allegory! Metaphor! The poet speaks what the imagination paints, but the language belongs to dreams, and every scene conjured up is but a chimera. You cannot declare war upon death!’

And yet he did. With hand made into fist, Hood hammered words from stone. Mountains were pounded into rubble. Dreams burned like cordwood in the forge, each one cast in like an offering. Warriors and soldiers collected up their gear, left behind their petty squabbles and the fools who would order them about, and set off on what all knew would be their final march.

Sacrifice, Korya. Dismantle the word, and see the sacred in giving. The blessing that is surrender. Hood’s army assembles. One after another, the warriors arrive, and pledge allegiance not in the name of victory, but in the name of surrender. Sacrifice. To win its war, this army must begin defeated.

He would not speak his thoughts on this, not to anyone. The details of his life thus far were his own to keep, and the scars they left in him were written in a secret language. His life was accidental, a discarded tailing to a few moments of desire. Unwanted, he’d been left to obsess over an endless and growing list of wants.

He met my eye and called me son. A want appeased, yes, only to be answered with abandonment. You gain by losing everything. Family, the love of a woman, the fathering of a child. The fashioning of a home, the mapping of private rooms in measured pace. The understanding of love itself, here with the Lord of Hate.

There is nothing confusing about Hood and his vow. Or this grim army yielding up songs every night. Loss is a gift. Surrender is victory. You will see, Korya, if you stay with me in this. You will see and at last, perhaps, you will understand.

The scuff of boots from across the square – Arathan glanced over to see Haut, Varandas, and another Jaghut approaching. They were heavy in their arcane armour, iron painted with frost. It was unusual to not see Korya at her master’s side, but something in Haut’s demeanour spoke of a bitter argument just left behind, and Arathan felt a pang of sympathy for the old warrior the others named captain.

Shifting round, Arathan fixed his gaze on Gothos, but nothing had changed there. The clawed fingers tapped, the sun’s light crawled, and the dull gleam of the lord’s eyes remained motionless, like dusted glass.

‘For Abyss’s sake, boy,’ Haut said as they drew nearer, ‘hunt her down, throw her into the hay, and put us all out of our misery.’

Arathan smiled. ‘I have seen her future, Haut, and surrender does not dwell there.’

‘He’s within?’ asked the huge Jaghut whom Arathan did not know. This warrior’s visage was flat, seamed with scars. He wore his dark hair in long, knotted braids, his tusks silver-tipped but otherwise stained deep amber.

Arathan shrugged. ‘For all the good it will do you.’

‘He calls us to join him,’ the stranger continued, scowling. ‘I see us freezing in chilled company … again.’

‘Now now, Burrugast,’ said Varandas, ‘he unmanned me long ago, so I will suffer no more in the frigidity of his obstinacy. Indeed, I find myself looking forward to the fury to come.’

‘Varandas claims a woman’s forbearance,’ said Haut, ‘so let us yield a moment of pity for the fool who tweaks his nipples.’ He raised a jug into view. ‘I have wine to thaw the lord’s surly repose.’

‘Beware the drunkard’s wisdom,’ Burrugast said in a growl.

Arathan edged back into the room to allow the three Jaghut ingress. The heat swirled against them all, eliciting a grunt from Varandas. At once, their armour glistened as if with sweat. Haut moved forward to set the clay jug on the tabletop, and then dragged out a chair and sat. Varandas walked to a shelf and collected a host of pewter cups.

Gothos gave no indication of recognition that company had arrived. Arathan found a chair and pulled it back to a wall close to the entrance, hopeful for a cooling draught.

With the three guests now seated, Haut rubbed at his narrow face and then began pouring out the wine. ‘The great tome that is the Folly goes poorly, I assume. Even reasons for suicide can grow long in the tusk at times, one concludes. Meanwhile, death waits on the Throne of Ice.’

‘Ice,’ snorted Burrugast. ‘It has the patience of winter, and in our host’s bleak soul, that is a season without end.’

‘We are called here,’ said Varandas as he examined his ragged nails, ‘so that we might be disavowed of Hood’s madness. The arguments will be assembled, every blade honed sharp by wit and whatnot. Steel your shoulders to the weight of contempt, my friends. To the assault of derision, the salvos of ridicule. We invite the siege, like fools atop our hoard.’

‘The hoard means nothing to Gothos,’ said Burrugast, drinking deep from his tankard. ‘The Lord of Hate is known to shit coins and gems, and piss rivers of gold. There is no honest blood coursing through his veins. We are in the liar’s lair …’

Haut leaned forward, one hairless brow lifting to arch a mass of wrinkles on his forehead. ‘Oh dear,’ he muttered. ‘Leave off the allusions, Burrugast. Of all accusations one can level upon Gothos, and there are many to be sure, dishonesty is not one of them.’

Burrugast shook his head. ‘I’ll not divest myself of this chain, buckle and greaves. There are two armies assembled here. The one we have just left, and the one lounging at this table’s head. I am girded for war and will remain so.’

‘And will it serve you well on this day?’ Varandas asked. ‘Already you drip, Burrugast, to the drumming of his ink-stained fingers. We have locked our shields and await his reason, knowing well how it cut through us the day he slew civilization. With wine I assemble myself – praying that the grape serves me better today than armour and shield did yesterday.’

‘The drunk answers every assault with smirking equanimity,’ observed Haut, pouring his cup full again. ‘All reasoned words thud like pebbles in the sand. Made immune, I imbibe the nectar of the gods.’

‘Death is at the heart of this scene,’ Varandas said, punctuating his assertion with a belch. ‘There is no road to its border, he will tell us. No high walls to hammer against. The raids are always done by the time we arrive, the looters long gone, the rapists’ gift of pain and horror fled the sightless eyes of every victim. We pursue a wake we can never hope to catch, much less breach, the echo of riders leaving only dust, fires only charcoal and ash.’

‘Hood seeks a direction,’ Burrugast said, ‘but none offers itself with a righteous claim. Might as well war against the night sky, Gothos will tell us. Or the rising sun.’

‘We are chained to time,’ added Haut, ‘and yet, death lies beyond time. The running sands are all stopped in that unknown place. Nothing moves, neither to advance nor retreat, and the absence shows us no face, no enemy arrayed before us. Are we to carve blades through indifferent waves? Cursing the seas so deftly defying our pretensions? He will say this to us, knowing we have no answer.’

‘It is cause for fury!’ Burrugast shouted, a fist thumping the tabletop. ‘We have faced reason, and have stared it down! We have withstood every argument and seen it off! This lord here spoke against all progress, all hope, all ambition – I now accuse him as death’s own agent! Seeking to turn us away, fugged by defeat, despondent and bemused and thoroughly disarmed before we march a single step! He is Hood’s sworn enemy! Love’s scarred foe! The face of misery cursing every claim to delight! I will not yield to this despiser!’ And with that, he thrust out his cup and Haut refilled it from the jug that never seemed to empty.

Arathan leaned his chair back, tilted against the beaded stone wall. His eyes were half closed as he regarded Gothos, who sat as if still alone, still waiting – or not waiting at all, despite those tapping talons on the old wood. Tension made the hot air brittle.

A sound to his right made him twist round slightly, to see a blue-skinned woman standing in the threshold. She was squatter than a Tiste, her limbs solid, her face round, with eyes of brown so deep as to be almost black. A curved knife was tucked into her thin leather belt, over which bulged a belly that had known plenty of ale. Her accent strange, she said, ‘There was word of a gathering. Hood’s officers, I am told.’

‘His officers?’ Haut looked around, frowning. ‘Why, of course. Here we sit, chosen and select, if only in our own minds. Yet observe this master of his own demise – and ours, too, if his will prevails. Friend from the sea, allow me to introduce the Lord of Hate, Gothos, who defies Hood in all things, and sets before us a fierce challenge against our solemn vow. Come in, friend; we fools will grasp with desperation your alliance in the face of this withering flood.’

Uncertainly, she ventured inside, and took a chair on the other side of the table, almost directly opposite Arathan. Her dark eyes fixed on him and she nodded a faint greeting.

‘Yes,’ said Varandas, as he offered the woman a cup of wine, ‘he is the child who will march with us. So young to challenge death. So bold and so careless with the long life promised him – the promise that belongs only to the young, of course. The rest of us, naturally, have since choked on its dregs and done our share of spitting out. Should we not talk him out of this? Well, if Gothos himself has failed in achieving that, what hope have we?’

‘If we tremble here,’ said Burrugast to the woman, ‘do add your shield to our line, but tell us your name and what of your story you would offer strangers.’

She looked down at her cup as she drank, and then said, ‘I see no value in my name, as I am already surrendered to my fate. I ask not to be remembered.’ Her eyes shifted to the Jaghut at the table’s head. ‘I never thought I would find myself in the company of the Lord of Hate. I am honoured, and more to the point, I welcome his indifference.’ She paused and looked round at the others, ending once more on Arathan. ‘You have already lost this battle against Gothos, and every reason he flings at you, to give proof to your madness. This sentiment is one you would do well getting used to, don’t you think? After all, death will answer us likewise.’

Haut sighed. ‘Pray someone step outside and intercept the Seregahl, and what agents of the Dog-Runners might be on their way to this assembly. Snare the Forulkan’s speaker, too, with knotted cords about her ankles, and leave her lying on the cold stones. Whip the Jheck into yelping retreat. I for one do not know how much more I can take. Here, Varandas, I will have the jug back.’

They drank. They said nothing, the silence stretching. The clawed fingers made notches in the time that passed.

‘He exhausts me,’ Varandas finally muttered. ‘Defeat has made me stupid, too stupid to heed his wisdom.’

‘It is the same for all of us here,’ said Haut. ‘Gothos has failed. Everyone, rejoice.’ He looked down at the tabletop, and added, ‘As you will.’

Burrugast was the first to rise, wobbling slightly. ‘I will return to Hood,’ he said, ‘and report his rival’s surrender. We have, my friends, withstood our first assault.’ He raised his empty cup. ‘See. I collect a trophy, this war’s spoil.’

Weaving, he made his way outside, clutching the pewter cup as if it was gold and studded with gems. A moment later, Varandas stood and followed him out.

Rubbing at his lined face, Haut nodded, as if to some unspoken thought, and then stood. ‘Gothos, once again you are too formidable to withstand. And so I retreat. No doubt Korya waits in ambush – is it any wonder I would run to death?’

As Haut strode from the chamber, the blue-skinned woman – who had been staring at Arathan with disconcerting intensity – now rose. She bowed towards Gothos, and then said to Arathan, ‘This last war should not be your first, boy. You miss the point.’

He shook his head, but said nothing. The surrender in his soul would remain private. Of all the vows breeding in this place, it was to his mind the only one worth keeping.

Scowling, she departed.

Alone with Gothos again, Arathan finally spoke. ‘I expected at least one Azathanai,’ he said. ‘They are in the camp, I’m told. A few. Keeping to themselves.’

The fingers drummed.

‘I thought I would hear your final arguments,’ Arathan said, squinting across at the Lord of Hate.

Abruptly, Gothos stood and turned back to face his desk close to the lead-paned window with its burst webs of frost. ‘Let it not be said,’ he muttered, ‘that I did not try my best. Now, Arathan, I need more ink, and another stack awaits you.’

Arathan bowed his head in seeming acknowledgement, but mostly to hide his smile.

* * *

The three blue-skinned warriors flung their gear to the ground close to the natural wall made by the huge boulder atop which Korya was perched. Peering down, wondering if they knew of her presence, she studied their long shadows in sinewy play over the frozen ground, flowing from and following the two women and one man as they set about preparing their camp.

The shadows betray will. Ignore the flesh and see only how the will flows like water, like ink. Enough to fill a thousand empty vessels. A thousand Mahybes. But no shadow can push a pebble, bend a twig or flutter a leaf. And a vessel thus filled remains empty. This then is the lesson of will.

The man below had been carrying a small open stove of iron with four splayed legs, which he set down close to the wall. He now spilled coals from a lidded cup into its basin, and then began feeding in chunks of stone that looked like pumice. Green flames lifted into view, edges flickering yellow and blue. The rising heat startled Korya with its intensity.

The rhythm of their speech was odd but the words were understandable. This was a detail that had lodged in her mind, as something unusual, and perhaps worthy of examination. For the moment, however, she was content to slip through the army’s encampment, to perch and listen in, to make of herself something less than a shadow.

One of the women now said, ‘A mob to make a city.’

The other woman, younger, smaller, was laying out the makings of a meal – mostly dried fish and seaweed. She shrugged and said, ‘Does it matter where we washed up? I saw Hyras floating in the bilge with an eel in his mouth. Fat like a black tongue. Hyras had no eyes to see, but that tongue never stopped wiggling.’

‘Someone said there were officers,’ the first woman said. ‘Command tent, or even a building.’ She shook her head. ‘Our self-proclaimed captain’s not saying anything, but that was a short briefing up at that tower.’

‘Makes no matter,’ said the man, as he moved back from the heavy heat cast off by the pumice stones. ‘Defeat rides a failing wind, once you get far enough away from the red waters. I saw nothing of what happened to us on the strand we found.’ He paused, and then added, ‘We’re safe.’

‘Left the ships to roll,’ said the younger woman.

‘The tide’ll take them out,’ the man said. ‘The sands reach out a league or more, not a reef in sight, not a killer stone to mark.’ He seemed to glare across at both women. ‘Fit for tombs and nothing else now, anyway.’

The younger woman snorted. ‘You were quick to take the flame away, Cred, and with it the Living Claim.’

‘Quick and clear-eyed, Stark,’ Cred replied, with an easy nod.

The older woman dragged a cask close. She twisted the dowel loose and tapped her finger against the water that splashed free. Stoppering it again, she sighed and said, ‘Salt needs sucking out. It’s a problem.’

‘Why?’ Stark demanded. ‘Make blood and be done with it.’

‘We’re inland,’ the older woman replied. ‘There are faces to the magic here, more even than what’s out at sea. Most of them I don’t know.’ She looked around, spread her hands and said, ‘We’re poor offerings to make us a bargain.’

‘Stop being so afraid,’ Stark retorted. ‘We need fresh water.’

The older woman twisted to regard Cred. ‘What do you think?’

Cred shrugged. ‘We need the water, and a handful of salt wouldn’t hurt us, neither. Something to trade. Dog-Runners from inland will take it, for good red meat in exchange. Me, Brella, I kept the coals alive – I’ve not had to face any of these strange spirits yet.’

‘But if you needed to?’

‘Can’t argue with need, Brella. Drip some blood, see who comes.’

This was the magic now roiling through this camp. A thousand paths, countless arcane rituals. It seemed rules grew up fast, making intricate patterns, proscriptions, and not one warlock or witch seemed to agree on any of them. Korya suspected that none of those rituals mattered in the least. The power was a dark promise, and the darkness promised mystery. It’s all writing in the sand.

Until that sand turns to stone.

Haut had explained about the blood, the unseen torrents that now flowed through all the realms. The madness of a lone Azathanai named K’rul. The sacrifice of a foolish god. Hood’s grief and torment was nothing compared to what K’rul had unleashed upon the world, and yet here in this absurd camp, with its thousands of strangers now crowding close, Korya had begun to sense the collision now under way.

Death is the world’s back turned on the wonder of living. No magic flows into that realm. And yet, sorcery gathers here, and readies to march on the place where it cannot dwell. The enemy is absence, but this means nothing to Hood.

Haut is right. No war is impossible. No victory is unattainable. No enemy is invincible. Name your foe, and your foe can fall. Call it out, and it must answer. There is sorcery here, too much, too wild, too undefined. What might it yield, when guided by Hood? By a Jaghut poisoned by grief?

She watched Brella take a knife-tip to the thumb-pad of her left hand. A trickle of black. Peculiar draughts slipped past where Korya crouched, sweeping down to crowd invisibly around the sea-witch. Something farther away, huge and ancient, groaned awake.

Oh, that’s not good.

Korya straightened, standing tall atop the boulder. She faced in the direction of the awakener. What was it? Barely sentient, remembering some ancient sensation, an itch, a thirst. Heaving itself into motion, it approached.

* * *

Using one of the braziers, Arathan brewed tea. Gothos sat at his desk, but had turned the chair to one side in order to stretch out his legs. His hands rested now on his thighs. The tapping was done, and the fingers were curled as if waiting for something to grasp. His face was a clash of shadows. The sun outside was sinking, the light withdrawing as if inhaled, to mark the fiery orb’s dying gasp, and shadows flowed out from between abandoned buildings, spilling in through the doorway.

Readying two cups, Arathan rose and brought one over to the Lord of Hate.

‘On the desk, if you will,’ Gothos said in a low rumble.

‘You eschewed the wine,’ Arathan said, setting the cup down and returning to his place beside the brazier. He thought to add something more, but nothing came to mind. Instead, he said, ‘I feel filled with words, lord, and still, I can think only of my father. And the Azathanai blood within me.’

Gothos made a gesture of dismissal. ‘Blood is not an honorific. You cannot choose your family, Arathan. When the moment comes, and by honour and by love you must face the choice, meet his eye and call him friend.’

‘Friend?’ Arathan considered that for a moment, and then shook his head. ‘I see nothing between us to suggest friendship.’

‘Because you are incomplete, Arathan. Oh, very well, a lesson then, long overdue. I am rarely loquacious, so pay attention. I do not challenge the acuity of your observations, or your thoughts, such as you reveal to any of us. Among kin, we are one in a most familiar crowd, defined by how each family member sees us, and the manner in which they see us was carved out long ago, in childhood. Theirs, yours. These are strictures, confining, resisting change. True, you may find friends among siblings, or even think of an aunt, or an uncle, in such a manner. But they are all simulacra. A family is a gathering of blood-kin wielding fists. Attacking, defending, or simply determined to make space amidst the tumult.’

Arathan thought back on what little he knew of his own kin. The half-sisters who seemed chained to childhood, who had flitted through his life like vicious afterthoughts. The father who had ignored him for most of Arathan’s existence, only to drag him to the forefront of a journey undertaken in the name of gifts, and who in the end made of Arathan himself a gift.

Had Raskan been a friend? Rind? Feren?

After a time, he grunted and said, ‘My horses proved loyal.’

Gothos snorted a laugh, and then reached for the cup. He sniffed at it, sipped, and then said, ‘This, then, is friendship. A family you choose. What you give to it, you give freely. What you withhold from it, measures its depth. There are those who know only distant relations – associates, if you will. Then there are those who would embrace even a stranger, should that stranger venture a smile or nod. In each instance described, we see facets of fear. The dog that growls should anyone come near. The dog that lies on its back and exposes its throat, surrendering to anyone, with begging eyes and a demeanour made helpless.’

‘You describe extremes, lord. There must be other kinds, healthier kinds.’

‘I would first describe the ones that damage, Arathan, so that you may begin to eliminate past experiences, insofar as friendship is concerned.’

Sighing, Arathan said, ‘I have but few experiences as it stands, lord, and would rather not see them savaged.’

‘Better to defend your delusions, then?’

‘Comforts are rare enough.’

‘You will come upon those who exude life, who burn bright. In their company, how are you to be? Proud to name them friend? Pleased to bask in their fire? Or, in the name of need, will you simply devour all that they offer, like a force of darkness swallowing light, warmth, life itself? Will you make yourself a rocky island, black and gnarled, a place of cold caves and littered bones? The bright waves do not soothe your shores, but crash instead, explode in a fury of foam and spray. And you drink in every swirl, sucked down into your caves, your bottomless caverns.

‘I do not describe a transitory mood. Not a temporary disposition, brought on by external woes. What I describe, in fashioning this island soul, so bleak and forbidding, is a place made too precious to be surrendered, too stolid to be dismantled. This island I give you, this soul in particular, is a fortress of need, a maw that knows only how to ease its eternal hunger. Within its twisted self, no true friend is acknowledged and no love is honest in its exchange. The self stands alone, inviolate as a god, but a besieged god … forever besieged.’ Gothos leaned forward, studied Arathan with glittering eyes. ‘Oddly, those who burn bright are often drawn to such islands, such souls. As friends. As lovers. They imagine they can offer salvation, a sharing of warmth, of love, even. And in contrast, they see in themselves something to offer their forlorn companion, who huddles and hides, who gives occasion to rail and loose venom. The life within them feels so vast! So welcoming! Surely there is enough to share! And so, by giving – and giving – they are themselves appeased, and made to feel worthwhile. For a time.

‘But this is no healthy exchange, though it might at first seem so – after all, the act of giving will itself yield a kind of euphoria, a drunkenness of generosity, not to mention the salve of protectiveness, of paternal regard.’ Gothos leaned back again, drank more from the cup in his hands, and closed his eyes. ‘The island is unchanging. Bones and corpses lie upon its wrack on all sides.’

Arathan licked dry lips. ‘She was not like that,’ he whispered.

Shrugging, Gothos turned his head, to study the dull frozen fog on the window above the desk. ‘I do not know whom you mean, Arathan. When you find a true friend, you will know it. There may be challenges in that relationship, but for all that, it thrives on mutual respect, and honours the virtues exchanged. You need no fists to make a space for yourself. No one clings to your shadow – even as they grow to despise that shadow, and the one who so boldly casts it. Your feelings are not objects to be manipulated, with cold intent or emotion’s blind, unreasoning heat. You are heard. You are heeded. You are challenged, and so made better. This is not a tie that exhausts, nor one that forces your senses to unnatural extremes of acuity. You are not to be tugged or prodded, and your gifts – of wit and charm – are not to be denigrated for the attentions they earn. Arathan, one day you may come to call your father a friend. But I tell you this, I believe he already sees you as one.’

‘What gives you reason to so defend him, lord?’

‘I do not defend Draconus, Arathan. I speak in defence of his son’s future. As does a friend, when the necessity arises.’

The admission silenced Arathan. And yet, is he not the Lord of Hate? From where, then, this loving gift?

Gothos reached out and ran his fingers, splayed out, down the icerimed glass of the window. ‘The notion of hatred,’ he said as if catching Arathan’s thoughts, ‘is easily misapplied. One must ask: what is it that this man hates? Is it joy? Hope? Love? Or is it, perhaps, the cruelty by which so many of us live, the unworthy thoughts, the revel of base emotions, the sheer stupidity that sends a civilization lurching onward, step by step into self-destruction? Arathan, you are here, far away from the Tiste civil war, and I am glad for that. So too, I suspect, is your father.’

The shadows stole into the chamber, barring the strange bars of the sun’s last light, streaming in through the streaks the lord’s fingers had left behind on the glass.

Arathan drank the tea and found it surprisingly sweet.

* * *

‘It’s done,’ Brella said dully.

‘But the bleeding does not stop,’ Cred observed, edging closer.

‘I know,’ she mumbled, head dipping. ‘Too many here. Too many … drinking deep.’

‘See the boulder!’ Stark hissed. ‘It bleeds water!’

The stove’s heat made the rock’s face sizzle as the streams whispered down. ‘Brella!’ cried Cred, pulling her close in a rough embrace. ‘Stark, tear some cloth – make bandages! It pours from her!’

Korya stared down upon them. She could feel the spirits, swirling round the three figures below. They flowed into the water trickling down the stone, raced to sudden death in the fierce heat of the stove. Their death-cries were childlike. Others crowded about Brella, an eager mob. Twisting round, Korya glanced back across the fire-studded encampment. The monstrous emanation was drawing closer – she saw small fires dim in a broad swath marking its passing. She heard distant shouts as the sensitive among the army – the adepts – recoiled from its passage.

Brella was doomed. So too the fire-spirits bound to the pumice stones in the stove, and possibly Cred himself. The spirit reaching for them held the memory of global floods, of cold, unlit depths and crushing pressure. Of seas that boiled, and ice that cracked and shattered. Mountains reduced to rubble filled its throat. It crawled. It heaved itself forward, desperate for the taste of mortal blood.

K’rul. You damned fool. We stumble into this sorcery in ignorance. We imagine a world for the taking, filled with small powers eager to answer our needs. We are drunk on wonder, seeking satiation with no thought of the founts we find – or who guards them.

The camp seethed with motion now. A panic seemingly without source tightened throats, constricted chests, bringing pain to every breath drawn, every gasp loosed. She saw figures fall to their knees, hands at their faces. Fires winked out, snuffed by the growing pressure that it seemed only she could see.

‘Oh, enough.’ Korya spread out her arms. See this vessel, old one! Come to me, as a crab finds its perfect shell! I can hold you. I am your Mahybe, your home. Refuge. Lair. Whatever.

She saw a shape taking form, ghostly, ethereal. Wormlike, and yet shouldered behind the blunt, eyeless head. The arms were gnarled and thick, planted on the ground like forelegs, and they were the only limbs visible, as the body snaked out, its distant end vanishing into the earth. The emanation towered over the entire camp, big enough to make a modest meal of the thousand souls cowering there.

Shelter first. And then you can feed.

The head lifted, questing blind, and then somehow Korya felt the old one’s attention fix on her. It surged forward.

Mahybe. A vessel to be filled. Was this to be her task in life? Deadly trap for every ambitious power, every hungry fool?

I will hold you inside. It’s the curse of every woman, after all-

Someone scrabbled up the boulder’s broken side, but she had no time to see who would join her in this fraught moment. The leviathan was coming, and she felt something inside her open up, gaping, widening-

‘Stupid girl,’ a voice beside her said.

Startled, she turned to see Haut. He stretched out one hand, as if to push away the ancient power. Instead, he twisted the hand until it was palm-up, uncurling his fingers.

With a piercing shriek, the leviathan lunged forward, swept down upon them like a toppling tower.

Winds roared in Korya’s skull. She felt the hard, wet stone slam against her knees, but she was blind now, deafened, and whatever had yawned wide inside her was now stoppered shut, ringing like a bell.

Moments later, in a sudden, disorienting shift, she heard the trickling of water, the faint hiss from the heat still bathing the boulder’s opposite side. She opened her eyes, feeling impossibly weak. The roaring was gone, leaving only echoes that drifted through the emptiness within. The leviathan had vanished. ‘W-what?’

Reaching down one-handed, Haut helped her upright. ‘I prepared you for this? Hardly. Here.’ He grasped her right hand and brought it up to set something small, polished and hard into its grip. ‘Don’t break it.’

Then Haut moved away, clambering back down the rocky slope, muttering under his breath and waving both hands, as if fighting off a chorus of unspoken questions.

Korya opened her hand and looked down at what she held.

An acorn? A fucking acorn?

From below, Brella was coughing, but with vigour. And then Stark said, in a faintly wild tone, ‘Can we drink that water now?’

* * *

Varandas stepped in alongside Haut when the captain returned from the outcrop, and they continued on, with Burrugast trailing, towards Hood’s tent.

‘She’s ambitious, this Tiste girl of yours,’ Varandas said.

‘Youth is a thirst that will drink any old thing, once,’ Haut replied. ‘It is that fearlessness we observe with bemusement, and not a little envy. She has grown sensitive, too – I believe she saw the thing, saw the truth of it.’

‘And yet,’ muttered Burrugast behind them, ‘she invited it nonetheless. Foolish. Precipitous. Dangerous. I trust, captain, she’ll not be accompanying us on this march.’

‘I await an Azathanai to take charge of her,’ Haut replied.

‘They care nothing for hostages,’ Varandas said. ‘Nor prodigies. I can think of not one Azathanai who will accede to your wish.’

They were passing among the warriors and their small camps. The sudden, debilitating force that had descended upon everyone had left them shaken, confused, angry. Voices rose in argument, bitter with accusations, as men and women turned on the warlocks and witches in their company. Flushed with firelight, faces swung towards the three Jaghut striding past, but none called out. Overhead, winter’s stars glittered, the sky-spanning band assembled like a belligerent host.

At Varandas’s assertion, Haut shrugged. ‘Then a Dog-Runner, if the Azathanai will not have her.’

‘Send her home,’ said Burrugast. ‘You never did well with pets, Haut. Especially other people’s pets.’

Haut scowled. ‘I warned Raest. Besides, in the end, he could not find dishonour in the tomb I raised for that idiot cat. In any case, this Tiste is not a pet.’

Burrugast grunted. ‘What is she then?’

‘A weapon.’

Varandas sighed. ‘You leave it on the field, and invite anyone to come and collect it. This seems … irresponsible.’

‘Yes,’ Haut agreed, ‘it does, doesn’t it?’

Hood’s tent was small, of a size to suit a single occupant, with that occupant doing little more than sleeping. It had been raised on the floor of what had once been a tower, the walls of which had collapsed long ago. The low foundation stones roughly encircled the camp, with a few scattered blocks drawn up to provide seats around a desultory hearth. Cowled against the chill, Hood sat alone.

‘Hood!’ barked Burrugast as the three arrived. ‘Your self-proclaimed officers are here! Iron of spine and steeled with resolve, our hands twitch in anticipation of sharp salutes and whatnot. What say you to that?’

‘Ah now, Burrugast,’ Varandas pointed out, ‘an unseemly challenge rides your greeting. Beloved Hood, Lord of Grief, pray do not let him sting you to life. The drama alone might kill us all.’

‘They but followed me here,’ said Haut, sitting down opposite Hood. ‘Worse than dogs, these two. Why, just yesterday I found them both upon the western shore, rolling in rotten fish. To hide the scent, no doubt.’

‘Ha,’ said Varandas, ‘and what scent would that be?’

‘A complex odour, to be sure,’ Haut allowed, adjusting himself atop the blockish stone. ‘Hints of derision, mockery. Smudges of contempt. The flavour of rooks on a leafless branch, looking down upon a raving fool. The glitter of sordid patience. Flavours of sorrow, but already turned bitter, as if grief deserves not a face, nor a purpose. And, at the last, wisps of envy-’

‘Envy!’ snorted Burrugast. ‘This fool would elevate his personal pain, and make it a plague to take us all!’

‘This fool would stand for us, in our stead, against a most implacable enemy. That we now join him marks the honesty we have each faced, the thing in our souls that cries out against the void. Envy, I say, in seeing courage not found in ourselves. This is a wake I will walk, and so too will you, Burrugast. And you, Varandas. The same for Gathras, and Sanad. Suvalas and Bolirium, too. We defiant, miserable Jaghut, alone in the futures awaiting us – and yet, here we are.’

Making a vaguely helpless gesture with one hand, Varandas lowered himself into a crouch, close to the fire. ‘Bah, there’s no heat from these flames. Hood, you would have done better with a mundane lantern. Or one of those Fire-Keepers who tend their charge. These flames are cold.’

‘Illusion,’ said Haut. ‘Light has its rival, and so too heat. We fend off darkness as a matter of course, and since when did an icy breath bother us?’

‘They seek a commander for this enterprise,’ said Varandas. ‘Hood offers nothing.’

Haut nodded. ‘Just my point. This hearth and the light it yields – not real. Nor is the station of command – neither real, nor relevant. Hood pronounced his vow. Was it meant to be answered? Do we all gather as if summoned? Not by our Lord of Grief, surely. Rather, by the nature of the enterprise itself. One Jaghut gave voice, but the sentiment was heard by all – well, all of us here.’

Burrugast growled under his breath. ‘How then to command this army? By what means are we to be organized?’

In answer, Haut shrugged. ‘Do you need a banner? An order of march? What discipline, Burrugast, do you imagine necessary, given the nature of our enemy? Shall we send out scouts, seeking the dread border – when in truth it is only found in our minds, between self and oblivion?’

‘Then are we to sit here, rotting, befouling the land around us, until age itself creeps over us, stealing souls one by one? You call this a war?’

‘Call it all a war,’ Haut said.

‘Captain,’ Varandas said, ‘you have led armies, seen fields of battle. In your past, you knew the privations, the brutal games of necessity. You won a throne, only to flee it. Stood triumphant on a mound of the slain, only to kneel in surrender the following dawn. In victory you lost everything, and in defeat you won your freedom. Of all who would join Hood, I did not expect you.’

‘Ah, you old woman, Varandas. It is in that very curse – my most martial past – where hides the answer. To a warrior, war is the drunkard’s drink. We yearn unending, seeking the numbness of past horrors, but each time, the way ahead whispers of paradise. But no soldier is so blind as to believe that. It is the unfeeling that we seek, the immunity to all depravity, all cruelty. The only purity in the paradise into which we would march is the timelessness it promises.’ He shook his head. ‘Beware the lustful ambitions of old warriors – it is our thirst that makes politics, and we will drink of mayhem again and again.’

Burrugast thumped his thigh in frustration and faced Hood. ‘Yield us a single word, I beg you. How long must we wait? I will see this enemy of yours!’

Hood lifted his gaze, studied Burrugast for a long moment, and then Varandas who still crouched, and finally Haut who sat opposite him. ‘If you have come here,’ he said. ‘If you would follow.’

‘I cannot decide,’ said Burrugast. ‘Perhaps none of us can. A war is already being waged, in our minds. Should reason win, you will find yourself alone.’

Hood smiled then, without much humour. ‘If so, Burrugast, then I will still tend to this fire here.’

‘The illusion of fire – the illusion of life itself!’

‘Just so.’

‘Then’ – Burrugast looked to the others – ‘what is it you mean to say? That you are already dead?’

Hood spread his hands out, held them motionless in the flickering flames.

‘Then what is it you await?’

Haut grunted. ‘An end to the battles within us, Burrugast, is what Hood waits for – if indeed he waits for anything. Look inward, my friends, and take up weapons. Begin this night your war on reason. In ashes we will find our triumph. In desolation we will find the place where the march can begin.’

Varandas sat down on the cold ground, leaning back on his hands with legs outstretched, boots at the very edge of the hearthstones. He sighed. ‘I foresee little challenge in the war you describe, Haut. A thousand times a night, I slay reason – but yes, I see it now. We Jaghut must take the lead in this, veterans as we all are. Girded obstinate, armed stubborn, arrayed in bloody-mindedness, we are unmatched.’

In the brief silence that followed, they all heard the sounds of heavy boots, drawing closer. Haut twisted round to see a score or more Thel Akai approaching. ‘Now then, Hood, see what the night brings. It’s the wretched Seregahl.’

Warriors, forsworn of all family ties, defiant of peace, blades unleashed in countless foreign wars, these Thel Akai were, to Haut’s mind, a curse to their people’s name. But the fiercest contempt held for the Seregahl belonged to other Thel Akai. ‘They have slain their own humour, the fools – and see what misery remains!’

The lead Seregahl – none knew their names, and for all Haut knew, those too had been surrendered to whatever secret purpose they held – now halted at the stone wall encircling Hood’s camp. Huge, heavy in battered armour, and taking a pose that involved leaning on the long handle of a massive double-bladed axe, the Seregahl commander scowled through a tangled nest of hair and beard. ‘Hood! The Seregahl will command the van – it is not for us to chew the dust of lesser folk. We shall raise a worthy banner to this noble cause. To slay death! In victory, we shall return all to the realm of the living, and be done with dying for ever more!’

Varandas, squinting up at the Thel Akai, frowned and said, ‘An impressive if well-rehearsed speech, sir. Even so, you describe a crowded world.’

The warrior blinked at Varandas. ‘A welcome future, then, Jaghut! Think of the wars that will be fought, as all battle to claim land, wealth, security!’

‘Fruitless battles, I should think, since no enemy will ever die.’

‘Pointless wealth, too,’ Haut added, ‘as by the accumulation of weight alone, it will surely lose all lustre.’

‘Security naught but an illusion,’ Burrugast added, ‘held but briefly, until the next wave of raging foes.’

‘As for the land,’ Varandas noted, ‘I see an ocean of crimson mud, banners tottering, tilting, sinking. None to die, no room for the living – why, this future life you describe, Seregahl, makes of death a heaven. Who, in that time, will rise up to pronounce a war upon life?’

‘This is strife’s own circle,’ Haut noted, giving Varandas a nod. ‘And that surely deserves a bold van.’ He looked up at the Seregahl and said, ‘Be assured that you will lead the army, sir, come the day we march. With the blessing of not only Hood, but also his chosen officers, such as you see here.’

The lead Seregahl fixed dark eyes upon Haut, and then he said, ‘Captain. I had heard that you were here. We have fought one another, have we not?’

‘A time or two.’

‘We have defeated one another.’

‘A more astute observation, sir, would be to say that we have shared opposing victories.’

The Thel Akai grunted, and then, gesturing, about-faced his troop, and off they marched into the gloom, weapons clanking.

‘You did well to see them off, Hood,’ said Varandas. ‘I now long to witness one more face to face meeting, between you and Gothos. Why, the railing might tear down the stars themselves.’

Haut shook his head. ‘Then you long for nothing, friend. What think you the Lord of Hate need say to the Lord of Grief, or, indeed, the latter to the former? If they do not know each other now, in places beyond crude words, then neither deserves his title.’

Hood surprised them all by rising to his feet. Drawing the cowl more tightly about his worn features, he waved lazily at the hearth. ‘Mind the fire, will you?’

‘Is it time, then?’ Burrugast asked.

Hood paused. ‘Your query is not for me.’

They watched him walk away, southward, towards the ruins of Omtose Phellack.

‘I see no value in minding these flames,’ muttered Varandas.

A moment later, all three started laughing. The sound rang out through the dark camp, and was long in dying.

* * *

While there were in the camp Thel Akai, Forulkan, Jheck and Jhelarkan, blue-skinned peoples from the sea, and even Tiste, by far the most numerous group was that of the Dog-Runners. Korya wandered between their small fires, the low, humped huts that covered pits dug into the hard clays, the flat stones where women worked flint during the day. Not everyone slept beneath the furs. Many were awake to the watch, this time in the night when restlessness opened eyes, when thoughts stirred from the embers of half-forgotten dreams.

She felt their regard as she walked past, but believed that they gave little thought to her. They but observed her, in the manner of animals. The night was a private world, the watch its most hidden refuge. She thought of Kharkanas, and imagined it now as a city transformed. Unrelieved by light, it must hold to some kind of eternal contemplation, each denizen remote, drifting away from mundane concerns.

The poets would stumble on to new questions, unimagined questions. To utter them was to shatter the world, and so none spoke, none challenged the darkness. She thought of musicians, sitting alone, fingers light upon the strings, calloused tips shivering along the taut gut, searching their way forward, seeking a song for the absence all around them. Each note, plucked or sung, would stand alone, inviting no comforting answer, no birth of melody. Asking, forever asking, what next?

In her mind, Kharkanas was a monument to the night’s watch: pensive and withdrawn. She saw towers and estates, terraced dwellings and bridges, all thrown up in miniature, made into a place for the dolls of her youth. Clothes drab, colours washed out, in tired poses; she could look down upon them, and offer each one – all of them – not a moment’s thought.

See the circlet of their mouths, their unblinking eyes. Standing motionless, arranged by an unseen hand. Some drama waits.

If I was their god, I’d leave them that way. For ever.

Oh, this is a cruel span of night, to imagine an uncaring god, an indifferent god. Suffer a father’s dismissal, a mother’s, a brother’s or a sister’s, or even a child’s, but suffer not the same dismissal from a god. A better fate, to be sure, standing frozen, for ever and timeless, with all the modest ambitions a doll might possess. Frozen, like a memory, isolated and going nowhere. A scene to make playwrights tremble. Poses to make sculptors shy away. A breath drawn, forever awaiting the song.

Some questions must never be asked. Lest the moment freeze in eternity, on the edge of an answer that never comes.

Kharkanas the Wise City belonged to the night, now; to darkness. Its poets stumbled on unseen words. Its sculptors collided with shapeless forms. Its singers pursued down every corridor some dwindling voice, and the dancers longed for one last sure step. Its common denizens, then, waited for a dawn that would never come, even as the artists fell away, curled black like rotting leaves.

She realized that someone was padding softly at her side – lost in her thoughts, she had no idea how long she had been accompanied by this stranger. Glancing across, she saw a young Dog-Runner, yellow-haired, wearing a cloak of hides – narrow, vertically sewn strips, multihued and glistening, that left tails dragging in his wake. Red-ochre rimmed his light blue or grey eyes, with a single tear tracking down each cheek, ending in the wisps of golden whiskers on his jaw.

He was handsome enough, in that savage, Dog-Runner way. But it was the soft smile playing across his full mouth that caught her attention. ‘What so amuses you?’ she asked.

In answer, he made a series of gestures.

She shrugged. ‘I do not know that manner of Dog-Runner communication – your silent talk. And please, do not start singing to me either. That, too, means nothing to me, and when two voices come from a single throat, why, it’s unnerving.’

‘I smile at you,’ the youth said, ‘with admiration.’

‘Oh,’ she replied. They continued walking, silent. Damn you, Korya, think of something to say! ‘Why are you here? I mean, why did you come? Are those tears painted on your cheeks? Do you hope to find someone? Someone dead? You long to bring him, or her, back?’

Tentatively, he reached up and ventured a touch upon one of the red-painted tears. ‘Back? There is no “back”. She never left.’

‘Who? Your mate? You seem young for that, even for a Dog-Runner. Did she die in childbirth? So many do. I’m sorry. But Hood is not your salvation here. This army is going nowhere. It’s all pointless.’

‘I have made you nervous,’ he said, edging away.

‘You wouldn’t if you answered a single cursed question!’

His forearms were freckled, a detail that fascinated her, and they moved as if to hold up the words he spoke. ‘Too many questions. I wear my mother’s grief, for a sister she lost. A twin. I follow to take care of her on this journey. Mother’s dead twin speaks to her – even I have heard her, shouting in my ear, waking me in the night.’

‘The dead woman talks, does she? Well, what does she have to say?’

‘The Jaghut and his vow. They must be heeded.’

‘It’s not enough that the living want their dead back – now the dead want to come back, too. How is it souls can get lonely, when their entire existence is alone? Is mortal flesh so precious? Wouldn’t you rather fly free of it, sail off into the sky? Dance around stars, feeling no cold, no pain – is that not a perfect freedom? Who would want to return from that?’

‘Now I have made you angry.’

‘It’s not you. Well, it is, but don’t take it personally. I just can’t make sense of any of you.’

‘You are Tiste.’

Korya nodded. They’d walked to the camp’s very edge, and before them was a plain of scattered stones, shaped but broken or eroded, the city’s dwindling demise. ‘A hostage to the Jaghut, Haut. The Captain. The Old Misery. The Lord of Riddles. Crier of Aches and Imagined Illnesses. He has made me a Mahybe – knock me and I’ll ring hollow.’

The youth’s eyes were wide now, studying her avidly. ‘Lie with me,’ he said.

‘What? No. I didn’t mean – what is your name, by the way?’

‘Ifayle. In our language, it means “falling sky”.’

She frowned at him. ‘Something falling from the sky?’

He nodded. ‘Like that, yes.’

‘On the night you were born, something fell from the sky.’

‘No. I fell from the sky.’

‘No you didn’t. You fell out between your mother’s legs.’

‘Yes, that too.’

She pulled her eyes away from his intense, unambiguous gaze, and studied the plain. Silvered by frost and starlight, it stretched away into the southeast for as far as she could see. ‘You shouldn’t follow the Jaghut,’ she said. ‘They’re not gods. They’re not even wise.’

‘We do not worship Hood,’ Ifayle said. ‘But we kneel to his promise.’

‘He can’t fulfil it,’ Korya said harshly. ‘Death is not something you can close hands around. You can’t … strangle it, much as you’d like to. Hood’s promise was … well, it was metaphorical. Not meant to be taken literally. Oh, listen to me, trying to explain poetic nuances to a Dog-Runner. How long were you following me, anyway?’

He smiled. ‘I did not follow you, Korya.’

‘So, you just popped up from the ground?’

‘No, I fell from the sky.’

When she set about, marching back into the abandoned city of Omtose Phellack, Ifayle did not follow her. Not that she wanted him to – although seeing the look on Arathan’s face would have been a delight – but his abandonment seemed sudden, as if she’d done something to make him lose interest in her. The notion irritated her, fouling her mood.

She drew out the acorn and studied it, seeking to sense the power hidden inside. There was nothing. It was, as far as she could tell, just an acorn. Conjured up on a treeless plain. ‘Don’t break it,’ he said.

She drew nearer the Tower of Hate. Arathan would be asleep. Even the thought of that frustrated her. This is still the watch … almost. He should be awake. At the window, looking out on Hood’s sea of burning stars, wondering where I’ve gone to. Whom I might be with.

Rutting some Dog-Runner with snowy eyes and freckles on his arms. If Ifayle really wanted me, as he said, he would’ve followed. Empty chambers abound in this city. He didn’t even smell bad, all things considered.

The invitation was a tease. Lucky I saw through it and made plain my shock. My disgust. That smile was amused, not admiring. That’s why I bridled. And Arathan’s no better. Gift to Gothos, only now he says he’s leaving. Joining Hood, and why? Nothing but sentiment, the rush of the impossible to take hold of every romantic, deluded soul.

Look at them all!

Death will have to chase me down. Hunt me across, I don’t know, centuries. And even then, I vow to leave it … dissatisfied.

You fell from the sky, did you? With flecks of golden sunlight on your arms, I saw. How quaint.

* * *

Restless but reluctant to leave Gothos’s company and make his way back to the abode he and Korya shared, Arathan sat close to the ebbing heat from one of the braziers, at last thankful for its warmth. She would be lying in wait, he suspected, to assail him once again, to scoff at his foolish romanticism. And he had little with which to fend off her arguments.

Dawn was not too far away, in any case. Winter was a pernicious beast, he decided, to make caves, holes and gloomy chambers so inviting, where musings could huddle and stretch hands out over softly glowing embers. The outer world was bleak enough without the sleeping season’s reminder of what was lost, and what still remained months away. And yet, he thought to walk the camp in the day to come, or perhaps wander once more through the ruins of abandoned Omtose Phellack, to let the musings unfurl in winter’s cold, unyielding light.

The chill and the flat light would give hue to his memories of loss, to the surrendering of his heart that, it had since turned out, was no surrender at all. He could rattle the chains he dragged in his wake, marvelling at the blue of their iron links, or the snaking trails they made through dustings of snow and frost.

He had come, forlornly, to the belief that love was given but once. No doubt, as Gothos had suggested, there was a plethora of feelings that sought the guise of love, but in truth proved to be lesser promises, guarded commitments, alliances of sympathy, and so, when exposed, revealed their fragile illusions. It was likely, in fact, that Feren had held him in such a state, with her love for him nothing more than a thinly disguised need, and in his giving her the child she wanted, she dispensed with the child whose furs she shared. It was a hard admission, to accept his inability to understand what had happened, to know that he had indeed been too young, too naive. And none of that recognition, in his misguided self, did much to ease his resentment of his father.

It was no surprise that Draconus knew Gothos, or that they shared something like friendship. The old would give account to a wisdom mutually shared, like some tattered blanket against the long night’s chill, and offer up a threadbare corner for the young to grasp – if only they would. But that was but one more burden on a young spirit, but one more thing to slip from the grasp, or see torn loose by an unexpected tug. He could not hold on to what he had not yet earned.

These notions did nothing to ease the loss that haunted him. His love for Feren was the only real emotion within him, the chains wrapped tight. It was the only truth he had earned, and every fragment of wisdom, crumbled loose, shedding like rust from the creaking links, was bitter in his heart.

A pewter cup struck his left knee, sharp enough to make him start, and as the cup chimed like a muted bell while it rolled on the floor at his feet, Arathan looked across to glare at Gothos.

‘More tea,’ said the Lord of Hate from his chair at the desk.

Arathan rose.

‘And less angst,’ Gothos added. ‘Make hasty your flight from certainty, Arathan, so you can stumble the sooner into our aged, witless unknowing. I am tempted to curse you as in a child’s tale, giving you a sleep centuries long, during which you gather like dust useful revelations.’

Arathan set the pot back on to the embers. ‘Such as, lord?’

‘The young have little in their satchel, and so would make of each possession something vast. Bulky, heavy, awkward. They end up with a crowded bag indeed – or so they believe, when we look upon it and see little more than a slim purse dangling jauntily from your belt.’

‘You belittle my wounds.’

‘Cherish the sting of my dismissal, won’t you? I’ll see it fiery and swollen, inflamed and then black with rot, until all your limbs fall off. Oh, summon the Abyss, and dare it be vast enough to hold your thousand angry suns. But if mockery wounds so readily-’

‘Forgive me, lord,’ Arathan interrupted, ‘I fear the old leaves in this pot may prove bitter. Shall I sweeten what I serve you?’

‘You imagine your silence does not groan like a host of drunk bards lifting heads to the dawn?’ Gothos waved a hand. ‘The older the leaves the more subtle the flavour. But a nugget of honey wouldn’t hurt.’

‘Was it Haut who said the tusk sweetens with age, lord?’

‘Sounds more like Varandas,’ muttered Gothos. ‘The fool shits coddled babies at the sight of a lone flower sprung from between stones. On his behalf I do invite you to his company on the next maudlin night, which would be any night you choose. But I should warn you, what begins as a gentle passing between you of your sore, broken hearts will soon turn into a hoary contest of tragedies. Gird yourself to the battle of whose past wounds have cut deepest. Come morning, I’ll send someone to clean up the mess.’

Arathan collected up the cup and poured tea. He dropped a nugget of honey into it. ‘There was a stabler, on my father’s estate, who made and ate rock candy. His teeth had all rotted away.’ He strode over to set the cup down on the desktop.

Gothos grunted. ‘An affliction when the child is taken too soon from the mother’s tit. Spend the rest of your days sucking on something, anything, everything. There are Dog-Runners who slip in among the herds they hunt, to suckle animal teats in the season. They too have no teeth.’

‘And none of these Dog-Runners are trampled?’

‘Obsession incurs risk, Arathan.’

Arathan stood studying the Lord of Hate. ‘I imagine something like your Folly must incur many risks, lord. How is it you have avoided such dread pitfalls?’

‘In itself, a suicide note involves no particular obsession,’ Gothos replied, collecting up the cup. ‘My haunting is both singular and modest, in that I mean to get it right.’

‘And when you do, lord? When you finally get it right?’

‘Proof against the accusation of obsession,’ the lord answered, ‘since what drives me is simple curiosity. Indeed, what will happen when I finally get it right? Be sure I will find a means of letting you know the day that occurs.’

‘I hesitate to say that I look forward to it, lord, lest you mistake my meaning.’

‘Ah,’ said Gothos after sipping, ‘did I not warn you that old leaves hold a most subtle flavour? You have over-sweetened your offering, Arathan, as the young are wont to do.’

Arathan turned at a sound from the doorway, to see Hood standing in the threshold. The cowled Jaghut studied Arathan for a moment, and then stepped inside. ‘I smell that foul tea you so adore, Gothos.’

‘Properly aged as is appropriate,’ Gothos responded. ‘Arathan, fill him a cup, in which he may drown his sorrows, sweetly.’

‘I despaired,’ Hood said, collecting up a chair.

‘This is your story, yes.’

‘Not that, you gas-bloated goat. Day and night I am assailed. The questions alone invite my hunger for death. Imagine, the fools clamour for organization! Pragmatic necessities! Supply equipage, cooks and meals!’

‘Is it not said that an army travels on its stomach?’

‘An army travels on its griping, Gothos, which surely sustains it beyond all fodder.’

‘I too have been besieged, Hood,’ said the Lord of Hate, ‘for which you are to blame. This day, it was your officers who made a mess of my afternoon, as Arathan is my witness. So, as I feared, you are the cause of sorrows not just your own-’

‘That cause for sorrow not my own,’ Hood growled.

‘No,’ Gothos said. ‘But your answer to tragedy surely is. As for me’ – he paused to hold up his cup, as if he could somehow see through the pewter to admire the hue of the tea – ‘I would have set out hunting Azathanai, the ones with blood on their hands. Tragedy sits still as a frozen pond, upon which no firm footing is possible. Vengeance, on the other hand, can silence any army, in that grim, teeth-grinding way we both know all too well.’

Hood grunted. ‘The offence taken by innocent Azathanai will serve what need there may be for vengeance.’

‘Hardly. They’re almost as useless as we are, Hood. Expect nothing concerted, not even a proclamation of … oh, what would it be? Censure? Decided disapproval? Disagreeable frown?’

‘I am scoured of vengeance,’ Hood said. ‘Made hollow as a bronze urn.’

‘And so I shall think of you from now on, Hood. As a bronze urn.’

‘And when I think of you, Gothos, I shall imagine a book without resolution, a tale without end, an endeavour without purpose. I shall think of pointlessness, in a pointed fashion.’

‘Perhaps,’ Gothos said, leaning back. ‘Of course, that all depends on who outlives the other.’

‘Does it?’

‘Possibly. It was a thought, presumably relevant.’

Hood’s cold eyes fixed on Arathan – who sat once more beside the last surviving brazier – and the Jaghut said, ‘This one, Gothos, I will send back to you. Before we cross a threshold where no return is possible.’

‘I thought as much,’ Gothos said, sighing.

‘Unless you’d rather I didn’t.’

‘No. That is, I’d rather you did. Send him back, if not here, then somewhere else. Just not there.’

Arathan cleared his throat. ‘And I see that neither of you imagines that I might have a say in all this?’

Hood looked to Gothos. ‘Did the pup speak?’

‘Some semblance of speech, yes,’ Gothos said. ‘It does not mark his more admirable trait.’

Arathan said, ‘I will speak my piece, to you, Lord Hood, when the time comes – when we reach that threshold you describe. And you will hear me, sir, and make no argument against my continuing on, in your company.’

‘I will not?’

‘Not, sir, when you hear what I will say.’

‘He knows our minds, you see,’ said Gothos to Hood. ‘Being young and all.’

‘Ah, that. Yes, of course. Forgive me for forgetting.’ With that, Hood leaned back and stretched out his legs, his pose matching that of Gothos.

Arathan stared at them both.

A moment later, Gothos started tapping on the arm of his chair. Glancing over, Arathan saw Hood nodding off to sleep.