Calat scowled. ‘Forgive me, Lord, but in that I am frustrated. Where are the legends of the Vitr? Not among us. Perhaps among the Azathanai there are old tales referring to it, but I know nothing of them. The Jaghut, in all their written histories, might well have made note of the Vitr; indeed, the entirety of its reason might have been plainly writ in their works—’
‘But those works have all been destroyed, by their own hands—’
‘By the Lord of Hate, you mean. It was his arguments that mined unto crumbling the foundations of the Jaghut, until they could not trust all they stood upon. The losses to us all, of that vast knowledge, are immeasurable.’
Ilgast Rend grunted. ‘I never shared your respect for the Jaghut, commander. They remind me of the Deniers in the manner in which they turned away from the future – as if to wash their hands of it. But we must all face our days and nights, for they are what await us. Not even a Jaghut can walk back into his or her past. No matter how directionless a step seems when taken, it is always forward.’
‘The Lord of Hate would not disagree with you, Lord. Which is why he has chosen to stand still. To take no step at all.’
‘Yet time bends not to his deep root,’ Ilgast retorted in a growl. ‘It but flows around and past. He vows to forget and so is forgotten.’
‘He has slain their civilization,’ Calat Hustain said, ‘and in so doing, proclaimed all knowledge to be dust. And so I am made to feel, Lord, gaping pits awaiting us ahead, that need not have been, if not for the Lord of Hate.’
‘The loss is only in what was written, commander. Might it serve us, in the matter of the Vitr, to seek out the counsel of a Jaghut? All have not dispersed, I understand. Some still reside in their old keeps and holds. I am of a mind to seek one out.’
‘Yet now the Jheleck have laid claim to the abandoned lands.’
Ilgast shrugged. ‘They could claim the heavens, for all it matters. A Jaghut choosing to remain in a tower cannot be moved, and those Soletaken fools should know better.’ He snorted. ‘Like any dog that’s been whipped, it is never humble for long. Stupidity returns triumphant.’
‘Hunn Raal carries word to Kharkanas in the morning,’ Calat Hustain said.
Ilgast regarded the commander with level eyes.
* * *
Trailing the woman she had named T’riss, Faror Hend saw the last of the high grasses dwindle a short distance ahead, and beyond it, worn and rotted, the range of denuded hills lying to the west of Neret Sorr. The sun was past zenith and heat shimmered in the still air. They rode clear and Faror called out to halt.
Their journey through Glimmer Fate had been uneventful, and in her exhaustion Faror had begun to believe that they wandered lost, despite her reading of the night sky, and that they might never find a way through the endless cobwebs and rustling blades. But now, at last, the Fate was behind them. She dismounted, legs weak beneath her. ‘We must rest for a time,’ she said. ‘I wager your horse is tireless, but mine is not.’
The woman slipped down from the grass-bound beast, stepped away. The simulacrum stood motionless, a woven sculpture too robust, too raw to be elegant. The faint wind against its angular form made a soft chorus of whistles. Red and black ants swarmed its neck, emerging from some hidden root-nest.
Faror Hend drew free the heavy water bag for her horse, loosened the leather mouth and set it down for the beast to drink. She drank from her own waterskin and then offered it to T’riss.
The woman approached. ‘Vitr?’
Startled, Faror Hend shook her head. ‘Water. Against the thirst.’
‘I will try it, then.’
Faror watched the woman drink, tentatively at first, and then eagerly. ‘Not too much too quickly, else you sicken.’
T’riss lowered the skin, her eyes suddenly bright. ‘The ache in my throat is eased.’
‘I imagine Vitr did not manage the same.’
The woman frowned, glanced back at the forest of high grass. ‘An excess of vitality,’ she said, ‘can burn the soul.’ She looked again to Faror. ‘But this water, it pleases me. I imagine it in full coolness, about my limbs. Tell me, is there water in abundance?’
‘In places, yes. In others, no. The hills to the south were once green, but when the last of the trees were cut down the soil died. There remains a single spring, which we must now ride to. It is, however, a risk. There are outlaws – they first became a problem during the wars. Men and women who refused to join the legions and saw opportunity once the soldiers departed. Such militias as a town or village mustered were too small to extend patrols beyond the settlement’s outskirts.’
‘These outlaws command the spring?’
‘Like us, they depend upon it. When a troop of Wardens or a well-armed caravan arrive to make use of the water, they hide. We are but two, and they will see in that an invitation to make trouble.’
‘Do they wish to rob us, Faror Hend?’
The Warden looked back at the grass horse. ‘They may have cause to hesitate. Otherwise, we must fight to protect ourselves.’
‘I will see this spring, this place of abundant water. Are you rested, Faror Hend?’
‘No. Feed for the horse, and then for us.’
‘Very well.’
Faror Hend regarded her. ‘T’riss, you seem new to your … your form. This body you wear and its needs. Water. Food. Do you know what you were before?’
‘Tonight,’ T’riss said, ‘I will dream of water.’
‘Do you not understand my meaning?’
‘Dreams in the Vitr are … unpleasant. Faror Hend, I begin to understand this world. To make, one must first destroy. The grasses I made use of are even now losing their life, in this my mount, and in these my clothes. We dwell in the midst of destruction. This is the nature of this world.’
‘You are indeed a stranger,’ Faror observed. ‘A visitor. Do you come with a purpose?’
‘Do you?’ T’riss asked. ‘Have you its knowing upon your birth? This purpose you speak of?’
‘One comes to discover the things that one must do in a life,’ Faror replied.
‘Then what you do is your purpose for being, Faror Hend?’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘Not always. Forgive me, but I saw you as a harbinger. Created by someone or something unknown, for a cause – and come among us for a reason. But your challenge shames me. None of us knows our own purpose – why we were born, the reason that sets us here. There are many meanings to each life, but none serve to ease the coldest question of all, which is why? We ask it of the Abyss, and no answer arrives but the echo of our own cry.’
‘I meant no challenge, Faror Hend. Your words give me much to think about. I have no memories of the time before.’
‘Yet you recognize Azathanai.’
But T’riss frowned. ‘What is Azathanai?’
Faror Hend blinked, and then her eyes narrowed. ‘There is knowledge hidden within you, T’riss. Hidden with intent. It pushes your thoughts away. It needs you unknowing.’
‘Why would it do that?’
I can think of but one reason. You are dangerous. ‘I don’t know, T’riss. For now, I am taking you to Kharkanas. The problem you pose is well beyond me.’
‘The Vitr is your enemy.’
Faror had turned to feed her horse; now she shot T’riss a sharp look over a shoulder. ‘Is it?’
But the strange woman’s face was blank, her eyes wide and innocent. ‘I believe I am hungry.’
‘We will eat, and then ride on.’
T’riss was as enamoured of food as she had been of water, and would have devoured all that remained of their supplies if not for a word from Faror Hend. The Warden thought to question her guest further, but did not know where to start. The child-like innocence in her seemed to exist like islands, and the seas surrounding them were deep, fathomless. And each island proved barren once reached, while between them, amidst dark tumultuous waves, Faror floundered. But one thing seemed clear: T’riss was losing knowledge, as if afflicte
d by a disease of the mind, a Loss of Iron; or perhaps the new body she had taken – this woman’s form with its boyish proportions – was imposing its own youthful ignorance. And in the absence of what she had been, something new was emerging, something avid in its appetites.
They mounted up and resumed the journey. The landscape around them was level, dotted here and there by thorny brush, the soil cracked and shrivelled by drought – as it had been since Faror had first joined the Wardens. She sometimes wondered if Glimmer Fate was feeding on the lands surrounding it, drawing away its sustenance as would a river-leech snuggling warm flesh; and indeed, might not this sea of black grasses mark the shallows of the Vitr itself, evidence of the poison seeping out?
Faror Hend’s gaze fell upon her companion, who still rode ahead, the beast beneath T’riss creaking and still leaking dust, dirt and insects. Is she the truth of the Vitr? Is this the message we are meant to take from her? Ignorant of us and indifferent to our destruction? Is she to be the voice of nature: that speaks without meaning; that acts without reason?
But then, if this were true, why the need for a messenger at all? The Sea of Vitr delivered its truth well enough, day after day, year upon year. What had changed? Faror’s eyes narrowed on T’riss. Only her. Up from the depths, cast upon this shore. Newborn and yet not. Alone, but Finarra spoke of others – demons.
The hills drew nearer as the afternoon waned. They met no other riders; saw no signs of life beyond the stunted shrubs and the aimless pursuits of winged insects. The sky was cloudless, the heat oppressive.
The rough ground ahead slowly resolved itself in deepening shadows, the clawed tracks of desiccated, sundered hillsides, the gullies where runoff had once thundered down but now only dust sifted, stirred by dry winds.
Faror’s eyes felt raw with lack of sleep. The mystery posed by T’riss had folded up her mind like a tattered sheet of vellum. Hidden now, all the forbidden words of desire; and even her concern for the fate of the captain – as well as that of Spinnock Durav – was creased and obscured, tucked away and left in darkness.
Closer now, she made out a trail cutting into the ridgeline. It was clear that T’riss had seen it as well, for she guided her mount towards it.
‘Be wary now,’ Faror Hend said.
The woman glanced back. ‘Shall I raise us an army?’
‘What?’
T’riss gestured. ‘Clay and rock, the dead roots beneath. Armed with slivers of stone. Below the deep clays there are bones, as well, and the husks of enormous insects all wonderfully hued.’
‘Can you make anything from the land surrounding you?’
‘If it had occurred to me,’ she replied, reining in, ‘I could have made guardians from the grasses, but in shape only that which I have seen. A horse, or one such as you and me.’
‘Yet you fashioned a sword with which to defend yourself, before we met.’
‘This is true. I cannot explain that, unless I have perhaps seen such a weapon before, only to have since forgotten. It seems my memory is flawed, is it not?’
‘I believe so, yes.’
‘If we are many, the outlaws will avoid us. So you said.’
‘I did.’ Faror hesitated, and then said, ‘What power do you draw upon, T’riss, in the fashioning of such creatures? Does it come from the Vitr?’
‘No. The Vitr does not create, it destroys.’
‘Yet you came from it.’
‘I was not welcome there.’
This was new. ‘Are you certain of that?’
T’riss was still for a moment, and then she nodded. ‘It assailed me. Age upon age, I fought. There was no thought but the struggle itself, and this struggle, I think, consumed all that I once was.’
‘Yet something returns to you.’
‘The questions you would not ask have given me much to think about – no, I do not read your mind. I can only guess them, Faror Hend, but I see well the battles they wage upon your countenance. Even exhaustion cannot dull your unease. I remember the pain of the Vitr: it remains, like a ghost that would swallow me whole.’
‘Whence comes your power, then?’
‘I do not know, but it delivers pain upon this world. I dislike this, but if necessity demands, I will use it.’
‘Then I would rather you did not, T’riss. The world knows enough pain as it is.’
To that T’riss nodded.
‘I suspect now,’ Faror resumed, ‘that you are Azathanai. That you sought to war against the Vitr, or, perhaps, that you set out seeking its source, its purpose. In the battle you waged, much of yourself was lost.’
‘If this is true, Faror Hend, then my only purpose is my own – none other seeks to guide me, or indeed use me. Are you relieved? I am. Do you think that I will return to myself?’
‘I don’t know. It is a worthy hope.’
T’riss turned back and nudged her mount forward.
Faror Hend followed.
The trail was well used, and not long ago a score of shod horses had travelled it, coming round from the west along the range’s edge, the most recent hoofprints heading in the same direction as the two riders.
‘I think we shall find company at the spring,’ said Faror Hend, moving up alongside T’riss. ‘But not outlaws.’
‘Friends?’
Faror’s nod was cautious. ‘A troop, I think. Perhaps a militia, out from Neret Sorr, or Yan Shake to the south.’
‘Let us see.’
They rode on.
The path twisted between crags, climbing steeply in places before levelling out across the spine of the first line of hills. Ahead, a short distance away, the ruins of a gate marked the pass. Off to one side was a lone blockhouse collapsed on two sides, revealing a gut crowded with broken masonry, tiles and withered timbers from the roof. The scatter of shattered tiles crunched under the hoofs of Faror’s plodding horse as they rode past. She saw her mount’s nostrils flare, followed by a pricking of its ears. ‘Not far now,’ she said quietly.
Beyond the gate, they traversed the remnants of a cobbled road, the surface buckled in places; in others the cobbles buried under white dirt made silver in the dying light. Shortly later, they came within sight of the spring, a green-fringed pond half encircled by pale-trunked trees. Figures moved about and horses could be seen, tethered to a long rope strung between two ironwood boles.
T’riss reined in. ‘I smell blood.’
The words chilled Faror. The men she could see were all dressed in light grey robes, hitched up round their legs to reveal supple sheaths of leather armour cladding their thighs, knees and shins. The bulk of their upper bodies hinted at more of the same beneath the thin wool. Single-bladed axes hung from rope belts at their hips. The men were bareheaded, their hair shaggy, wild.
A dozen or so were busy digging graves, while others slowly converged upon that impromptu burial ground, dragging corpses splashed in blood.
T’riss pointed at one of the dead bodies. ‘Outlaws?’
Faror Hend nodded. Two robed figures were approaching. The larger of the two by far was thick-limbed, the muscles of his shoulders slung down as if by their own weight. His nose, twisted and flattened, dominated his weathered face, but the blue eyes were bright as they fixed on T’riss’s mount. Lying across this man’s broad back was a two-handed axe, single-bladed and spiked, over which he rested his hands.
His companion was almost effete in comparison, his skin pale and his features watery in the manner of the oft-ill. The short axe tucked behind his belt bore a shattered haft, and the man’s forearms were almost black with blood up to the elbows.
‘Death rides their breath,’ T’riss said in a cool voice. ‘Are these your kin?’
‘Monks of the Yannis Monastery,’ Faror replied. ‘We are within the demesne of Mother Dark. This is Kurald Galain.’
‘They took no prisoners.’
Close to thirty slain outlaws – men, women and children – now lay beside the gravediggers. Off to one side of the pond, a makeshift vill
age pushed through the trees, shacks like open sores, doorways gaping, possessions abandoned. Woodsmoke drifted.
The smaller of the two monks spoke to Faror, ‘Warden, your arrival is well timed. Had you come here yesterday, you’d be the sport of little boys by now. I am Lieutenant Caplo Dreem, commanding this troop of Yan Shake. And this drooling fool at my side is Warlock Resh.’
Resh addressed T’riss, his voice melodious, like water on stone. ‘Welcome, Azathanai. That is a fine horse you’ve made, but I wonder, can you hear its screams?’
T’riss turned to Faror Hend and her expression was grave. ‘It seems that I shall be delayed somewhat in my journey to Kharkanas.’
‘Not too long I should imagine,’ the warlock said. ‘Yan Shake is on the way to the Wise City, after all.’
Faror Hend straightened. ‘Excuse me, but this woman is in my charge. I will deliver her to Kharkanas, and without delay.’
Caplo cleared his throat, as if embarrassed. ‘Your pardon, but you must be Faror Hend. Calat has fifty Wardens out looking for you, not to mention Kagamandra Tulas, who happened to be visiting your commander’s camp. Your presence is required by your commander, at once. To any who might come upon you, such was the message you were to receive.’
‘This guest,’ said Resh, with little in the way of welcome in his eyes as they held unwavering upon T’riss, ‘is now under the protection of the Yan Shake.’
‘I will convey my protest to Calat Hustain,’ said Faror Hend, furious – but it was the best she could manage, so confounded were her thoughts. Kagamandra Tulas? Has he come for me? How dare he! I am a Warden of the Outer Reaches, not some wayward child!
T’riss spoke to her. ‘My friend, it seems that we must part. For your company, I thank you.’
‘This sits well with you?’ Faror asked her, hands tight on the saddle horn to still their tremble.
‘If I tire of their company, I will continue on to Kharkanas, to meet Mother Dark. With respect to my person, I am safe enough. This warlock thinks much of himself, but he poses no threat to me.’
Caplo coughed. ‘Excuse me, but please, there is no threat in any of this. We are returning south, and without question Mother Sheccanto Derran will wish to meet this Azathanai, thus requiring a brief stay in Yan Shake. It is but a courtesy, I assure you.’
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