Ha! I see it now. She fled him. Out here, as far from Tulas as she could manage. Oh, how wonderful. Faror Hend – your betrothed has tracked you down! Are you not thrilled? Do you not swoon at the romance of the gesture?
The outpost ahead promised a lively evening. She had thought to stay close to Hunn Raal when he spoke with the commander of the Wardens; when he sought to forge an alliance with Calat Hustain. But, fascinating as that exchange might prove to be, her interest had now shifted to the drama, or even melodrama, of this fated meeting of the intended.
Poor Faror Hend. She would be left reeling. Made to feel … vulnerable.
Sharenas would be quick, then, to offer comfort. Wise, understanding, ready to listen without judgement – and in that lonely outpost, to whom else could Faror dare turn? Tell me your secrets, sister, and together we will find a way out of this nightmare. Even if it means ruining your reputation – you will thank me for it in a century or two, I am sure.
Show me the path of your longing, and I will take your hand and guide you down it. As true friends do.
* * *
Directly ahead of Ilgast Rend rode Captain Hunn Raal and Osserc, the son of Lord Urusander. Neither man inspired Ilgast. The captain was vain and arrogant. The would-be prince was the palest reflection of his father, thin-skinned and prone to malice. It was, frankly, astonishing that Lord Urusander had produced such an heir to the House. But then, Ilgast well remembered Osserc’s mother and her grasping ways. If not for the physical similarities between father and son, he could well have believed that Osserc was the spawn of some other man’s seed. Abyss knew, this was an age of frenzied spilling among the Tiste. Wives cheated, husbands wandered, and now even Mother Dark had taken for herself a lover.
Whelps were falling to the floor like sour fruit these days. Ilgast was not impressed with who his Tiste had become. The peace they had won was now stained with indolence and a distinct withering of probity.
His thoughts led to Urusander. The Lord had proved a fine leader of soldiers, but an end to the wars had not served the man well. He too had stumbled off the trail, losing himself in arcane indulgences better suited to wizened clerics with ink-smeared hands.
Urusander would make an indifferent king, and his disinclination to grant favour – his unassailable belief in justice – would soon turn his supporters. Men like Hunn Raal would find themselves no better off. No gifts of wealth, no grants of land or power, and no tipped scales of court influence. How long before they began plotting against their beloved lord? Ilgast understood these fools all too well. Their only true ambition was the elevation of their own station.
His greatest worry was that the ascension of Urusander would spill blood. Even the immensely satisfying ousting of Draconus and his outlander ilk was not enough to salve Ilgast’s fear. The Houseblades of the majority of the Greater Houses would resist the elevation of Lord Urusander and his followers. There was more to that position than simply protecting the power they possessed. He knew his own people. The political machinations by soldiers such as Hunn Raal would offend them to the core: they would see all too clearly the brutal ambition behind such efforts. They would be affronted, and then indignant, and then furious. Decorum was a fragile thing. It would not take much to see it shattered. In a world of blood, everyone drowns.
Yet here he rode in the company of these soldiers, sickened by the pathetic air of mischief surrounding Hunn Raal and his three vapid cousins; the febrile self-importance of Osserc as he continued to delude himself that he was leading this party; and behind Ilgast there was Kagamandra Tulas, who still faced the past war and would likely continue to do so until his dying day; and Sharenas Ankhadu – granted, the least objectionable of the trio of Legion captains who proclaimed themselves sisters of the spirit – yet he was disappointed that she was here. He’d thought her wiser, too sharp to fall into this wake of fools and be swept along like so much detritus. What then of his purpose in such dire company?
He knew that Hunn Raal counted his presence as a conquest of sorts, and no doubt the captain envisaged Ilgast’s alliance in persuading Calat Hustain and the Wardens to their cause. But the truth was, Ilgast knew he had isolated himself, too content with his retirement. Yet the world did not stand still for his seeming indifference. Though none had sought his counsel, he now saw himself as firmly between the two sides. With the blood of a Greater House in his veins, and his history as a cohort commander in Urusander’s Legion, he stood astride the chasm. Neither side had yet pulled with a force he could not resist, so he remained standing firm – a position that invited righteousness in his more careless moments.
Only slowly did he come to comprehend his solitude, and the other risks entailed in his stance. He had been fending off the occasional pull, particularly from the side of Legion, but events were progressing at an ever swifter pace, and now he no longer feared being pulled. He feared being pushed.
There were many others like him, he knew. There was, in his mind, no truer measure of stupidity than to imagine that the world could be reduced to two sides, one facing the other with fangs bared, brandishing weapons and hurling hate at the enemy. Things were never so simple. Ilgast disliked the immorality of a Consort to Mother Dark – if indeed she loved Draconus, she should damned well marry him. In the growing power of Mother Dark’s cult, there was a burgeoning strain of sexual excess. He did not lack his own appetites but he sensed a hedonistic undercurrent swirling beneath the extravagant displays, a rot at the core.
If religious ecstasy were no different from a cock in a cunt, then make a temple of every whorehouse and be done with it. If the bliss of salvation were a mindless shudder, well, who was left to clean up the mess? Yet Mother Dark seemed to be inviting this sordid surrender. Any faith that encouraged the mind to set aside its greatest gifts – of reason, of scepticism – in favour of empty platitudes and the glory of an end to thinking … well, he would have none of it. He would not blind himself, would not stop up his ears, would not close his mouth nor cut off his hands. He was not a beast to be yoked to someone else’s idea of truth. He would find his own or die trying.
The Consort needed to go. Mother Dark needed a proper marriage or none at all. The licentiousness of the court had to end. But these statements did not drag him into Urusander’s shadow, just as they did not insist he stand with his nobleborn kin. They were opinions, not fortifications.
He knew Calat Hustain. The man’s loyalty was absolute – to his own House. Hunn Raal would fail, and in failing, carve into his list of enemies the name of Calat Hustain.
Ilgast Rend meant to speak with his old friend. Late in the night, at the Rising of the Watch, long after the fools had drunk themselves into a belligerent stupor down in the main hall. They would discuss the new, deadly currents, and perhaps, before dawn, they would find a way of navigating these savage waters.
Such was his hope.
One night, someone might well slit Hunn Raal’s throat, and he’d not be missed. Leave Urusander to his intellectual masturbations – he did no harm and besides, he had earned his last years of pleasure, no matter how dubious that pleasure might seem. Mother Dark would tire of Draconus eventually. Indeed, she might travel so far inside the sorcery of Endless Night – or whatever it was that the cult worshipped – that such physical desires were left behind. Was it not already said that she was enwreathed in bitter cold darkness day and night now?
When the Consort vanished into that darkness, what did he find?
Ilgast remembered when Mother Dark was known by her birth name; when she was simply a woman: beautiful, vivacious, possessor of unimaginable strengths and unexpected frailties – a woman like any other, then. Until the day she found the Gate. Darkness was many things; most of all, it was selfish.
Dusk was fast closing, and directly ahead Ilgast Rend could see the midnight line of the grasses of Glimmer Fate, and there, crouching at its edge, stood a stone gate that marked the North Road. Down that road, in a short time, they would come to the outpo
st where Calat had established his headquarters this season.
The Wardens were an odd lot, a loose rabble of misfits. This was what made them so important. In a decent society, there must be a place for misfits, a place free of prejudice and torment. In a decent society, such people were not left to the alleys, the shadows beneath bridges, the gutters and the slums. They were not thrown out into the wilderness, and not throat-cut either.
Misfits had a place in the world, and must be cherished, for one day, they might be needed.
Torches flared at the gate. Guards were at their post.
Ahead, Hunn Raal twisted in his saddle and glanced back, though it was too dark to see where his eyes fixed. Facing forward again, he muttered something, to which Osserc shot a look over a shoulder. Then, turning back, he laughed.
Overhead, the stars appeared, a swirling whirlpool spanning the entire sky.
FIVE
BARETH SOLITUDE WAS a vast plain crossed by ancient beach ridges of water-worn limestone cobbles; these ridges ran for leagues but they were relatively shallow, evidence, explained Tutor Sagander months ago, of an inland sea that had taken thousands of years to die. If he let his mind wander, Arathan could imagine that they were now riding through the thinnest water, the water of the past, the water of dim memory, and the seabed under the horses’ hoofs, with its ribbons of wild-blown sand and its blooms of yellow grasses, was far beneath the surface of another world.
If he let his mind wander, he could almost feel himself rising up, lifting clear of this hard, brutal saddle; he could ride his thoughts instead, as they floated out of his battered, weary body, ever upward. Thoughts alone, thoughts unfettered, could find a thousand worlds in which to wander. And none here, riding with him across the plain, would know; his body would give nothing away. There were many kinds of freedom, and the most precious ones were secret.
Sagander would not have understood such musings. Just as there were many kinds of freedom, so too were there many kinds of prison. It came as something of a shock when Arathan first comprehended this truth. The stone walls were everywhere, and no hard grey tower was needed as proof of their existence. They could hide behind eyes, or form barriers in the throat leaving no escape for words. They could rise suddenly around thoughts in the skull, suffocating them. They could block the arrival of other thoughts – foreign thoughts, frightening thoughts, challenging thoughts. And in each case, there was one thing they all shared – all these vicious walls: they were enemies to freedom.
Arathan had known hard grey walls all his life.
Yet now he rode, under an open sky, a sky too vast and too empty. His skull throbbed; his back was sore; he was blistered along the inside of his thighs. The helm he had been made to wear made his neck ache with its clunky weight. The supposedly light armour, banded bronze strips sewn on to leather, dragged at his shoulders. The vambraces covering his wrists and the thick metal-strapped gauntlets on his hands were hot and heavy. Even the plain sword belted at his side pulled at his hip.
He rode in the company of exhaustion, but still the air felt sweet as water on his face, and even the huge figure of his father, riding ahead at the side of Sergeant Raskan, seemed to hold no power over him. There were, he told himself again, many kinds of freedom.
On the day of leaving he had been filled with fear, and it had shamed him. Dawn had broken cold and sleep was still grainy in his eyes when he stood shivering in the courtyard, watching the frenzied activity as mounts were readied and various supplies were strapped on the saddles. Servants rushed about, mostly in response to the shrill demands of Sagander. The tutor’s two travel chests, packed with precision, had been flung open, the contents frantically rummaged through – there would be no packhorses for this journey, and this left Sagander in a state of such agitation that he had begun shouting abuse at all the servants, the stable-boys and anyone else who ventured near.
Excepting Raskan, of course, and the four Borderswords who looked on with flat expressions from where they stood near the gate.
Lord Draconus had yet to appear, although his two horses stood ready, a lone groom clutching the reins of Calaras; the huge warhorse seemed immune to the panic surrounding him, standing virtually motionless beside the mounting block. The other horses looked nervous to Arathan’s eye; his gaze caught another groom who was leading out from the stables his own mounts. The mare, Hellar, tossed her head as she emerged from the shade, and behind her was Besra, the gelding on which Arathan decided he would begin this ride – a solid-looking roan with a scarred neck. Both animals seemed enormous, as if they had grown overnight, and Arathan struggled to recall the confidence he had found by the end of the riding lessons.
‘Arathan! Come here, quickly!’
Startled by the command, he looked over to see Sagander on his knees beside one of the trunks. The old man gestured frantically, his visage darkening.
‘Come here, I said! Student you were and student you remain! Attend to me!’
Longing to be in his room, warm beneath the heavy furs, with a day ahead no different from all the other days, Arathan forced himself forward. His limbs felt stiff from cold and his mind was sluggish with lack of sleep, and the dread of leaving the world he had known all of his life left him feeling sick.
‘There shall be no trunks on this journey! I wasted half the night packing them. I was foolish listening to you, and see how I am now beset! You must make room among your own kit.’ He pointed at a heap of materials. ‘For those, do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Be quick about it then, before your father appears!’
Arathan went over to the objects. He studied them for a moment, considering how he might fit into his bedroll the assayer’s scales and the weights and measures. If there had been a small bag to hold the weights, it no longer accompanied them. He counted a dozen gradations of the pure metal, the heaviest feeling solid and filling the palm of his hand when he picked it up. The lightest one was barely the size of a pebble, like a thick coin. He tucked that one into his belt pouch.
At a snapping insult from Sagander, he quickly gathered up the rest of the equipment and made his way over to his horse.
The groom, a boy of about the same age as Arathan, had already strapped the kit to the gelding’s saddle, and upon seeing Arathan’s approach he made an expression of annoyance and turned to drag it free.
‘Set it down,’ said Arathan. ‘I need to fit these in.’
The groom did so, and then backed off, as if unwilling to draw too close to the strange instruments.
‘You can go,’ Arathan said to him. ‘I will do this.’
With a quick nod the boy hurried away, vanishing into the gloom of the stables.
Arathan loosened the careful knots he had tied to secure the bedroll. He’d already packed his change of clothes inside, including a new pair of henen hide boots. As the boots were heavy he had been careful with the balance, since Raskan had told him that horses were easily irritated by such things, especially over a long trek. Pulling the tie-strings clear, he unfurled the bedroll. He laid out the measures and the weights, but the scales were too large to fit. As he knelt, contemplating what to do with the awkward instrument, he became aware of a general silence in the courtyard, apart from the heavy approach of boots. A shadow fell over him and Arathan looked up.
‘Why are you not ready?’ Lord Draconus demanded.
At the question, Arathan felt his throat tightening, choking the words from him. He continued peering upward, silent.
He saw his father’s eyes shift to the scales on the ground beside Arathan, and then he reached down and picked them up. He held them out to one side. A servant appeared to take the instrument from him and hurry off, back towards the house. ‘There is no time for this,’ Draconus said, turning away.
Arathan watched his father walk back to Calaras. The servants in the courtyard all stood with bowed heads. Tutor Sagander was already beside his own mount, glaring across the distance at Arathan.
&
nbsp; He quickly rolled up the bedding, leaving the weights and measures in place. He tied rough knots to bind the kit and lifted it to the back of the saddle. He struggled for a time with the straps; his hands felt clumsy, almost useless, the tips of his fingers too soft and yielding since they lacked most of their nails. Finally, he fumbled his way through and stepped back. Facing round he saw that his father was now astride Calaras, reins in gloved hands. Raskan was pulling himself on to his own mount, while two servants helped Sagander do the same. By the gate, the Borderswords had vanished and no doubt now waited outside.
Arathan took up Besra’s reins, which had been left to dangle. He had to grope to slide his boot into the stirrup, almost losing his balance, and then he pulled himself up and on to the saddle.
Draconus led them out through the gate, followed by Raskan and then Sagander, who curtly waved Arathan into his wake.
Glancing back, a moment before the gate’s shadow fell over him, Arathan saw his half-sisters, atop the steps before the door of the house. They were in their nightclothes: loose and flowing and black as ink. Above this filmy darkness their faces seemed deathly pale. A faint shiver ran through him at the sight, and then he faced forward once more and, trailed by his charger on a long lead, rode out from the courtyard.
The Borderswords were mounted on dun-coloured horses, the beasts lighter-boned yet longer-legged than the stable horses being ridden by those of the Lord’s household. In addition to their riders, the animals carried bundled tents and cookware, as well as packs bulging with dry foods and casks of water.
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