Arathan fought a desire to slip still further back, to lose sight of his father. The strangeness of this city offered an invitation to explore, while the rain promised the mystery of all that remained unseen and, perhaps, unknowable. He felt moments from cutting a tether and drifting away.
Ahead, Draconus drew up before a tower and dismounted. Taking the reins in one hand, he led Calaras in through the gaping doorway.
Arathan arrived. He slipped down from Hellar, intending to follow his father into the tower, but instead he hesitated, feeling a presence nearby. His warhorse’s ears flicked as she caught a sound off to the right – the splash of heavy feet thumping through the mud. Moments later, a huge form appeared: a woman, yet far more massive in girth and height than even Grizzin Farl. Her arms seemed over-long and the hands at the ends of them were huge and battered. Her long hair hung in thick braids, clotted with mud, as if she had fallen only moments earlier. She wore bedraggled furs black as pitch, also mud-stained. As she edged closer, seeming to squint at Arathan, he beheld a broad, flat face, the mouth wide and full-lipped, the eyes buried in puffy slits.
He saw no weapons on her. Nor was she wearing armour. She walked up and reached out, snaring thick fingers under the strap of his helm, and then dragged him close. He strained as she lifted him from the ground to peer into his face. Then, before he began choking, she lowered him down and released him. Saying nothing, she stepped past and made her way into the tower.
Arathan still felt her hard knuckles under his jaw. The muscles of his neck and back throbbed with pain. Fumbling, he unstrapped the helm and dragged it from his head, and then pulled off his leather cap. The rain pelting his head was like ice. He turned and looked out into the city, until Hellar nudged him.
Collecting up the reins, he led his mounts through the doorway.
Within was a single room, at least fifteen paces across. Calaras stood near the wall opposite, and his father had been emptying a bag of feed in front of him. Draconus had turned and straightened with the strange woman’s arrival.
She was divesting herself of her furs near the centre of the room, dropping them to the stone floor around her feet. Beneath them she was naked. ‘Of all your spawn, Suzerain,’ she said in a thin voice, ‘I sensed no madness in this one.’ She looked up with an almost shy glance and added, ‘I trust you killed all the others. A big stone to crush their skulls, and then you wrenched free their heads from their bodies. Dismembered and fed into the fires of the hottest forge. Until nothing but ashes remained.’
‘Kilmandaros,’ said Draconus. ‘You are far from your home.’
She grunted. ‘No one ever visits. For long.’ Her attention swung to Arathan as he edged his horses past her. ‘Is he awakened?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Draconus replied. ‘And yes.’
‘Then you did not save him for me.’
‘Kilmandaros, we met your husband upon the trail.’
‘And my son, too, I expect. With that wretched friend of his, who did what you asked of him.’
To that Draconus said nothing, turning instead to his son. ‘Arathan, ready us a small fire when you are done with your horses. There is fuel against the wall to your left.’
Discomforted, struggling to keep his eyes from the woman’s nakedness, Arathan set down his helm and concentrated on unsaddling Hellar and Besra.
‘We also met your sister in spirit, if not blood,’ Draconus said.
Kilmandaros made a hissing sound. ‘I leave her to grow fat on superstitions. One day the Forulkan will hunger for Dog-Runner land, and we will resume our war and, perchance, end it.’
‘You would make weapons of your followers?’
‘What other good are they, Suzerain? Besides, the Forulkan do not worship me. They have made illimitable law their god, even as they suffer its ceaseless corruption at their own hands. At some point,’ she said, moving close to stand directly behind Arathan, ‘they will deem manifest their right to all that the Dog-Runners own, and make of this law a zealotry to justify genocide.’
‘Foolish,’ Draconus pronounced. ‘I am told that there are Jaghut among the Dog-Runners now, assuming thrones of godhood and tyranny. Did the Forulkan not suffer sufficient humiliation against the Tiste, that they would now make bold claims against both Dog-Runner and Jaghut?’
‘That depends,’ she said, ‘on what I whisper in their ears.’
Feeling the breath of her words on the back of his neck, Arathan quickly went to the other horse and began removing the tack.
She came close again.
‘Tyranny breeds,’ Draconus said from across the room, ‘when by every worthy measure it should starve.’
‘Scarcity begets strife, Suzerain, is what you meant. It was hunger that sent my children against the Tiste—’
‘Hunger for iron. The need was manufactured, the justification invented. But this is a stale argument between us. I have forgiven you, but only because you failed.’
‘And so I weigh your magnanimity, Suzerain, and find it light on the scales. But as you say, this is behind us now.’
When her hand slipped round, over Arathan’s left hip, and slid down to his crotch, Draconus said, ‘Leave off, Kilmandaros.’
The hand withdrew and Kilmandaros moved away. ‘The night is young,’ she said, sighing. ‘I know his desires and would satisfy them. This is between him and me, not you, Suzerain.’
‘I have words that will drive you away,’ Draconus said.
‘You would do that to me? And to him?’
‘Arathan will cease to concern you, I’m afraid. But that is a consequence of what I must tell you, not its purpose.’
‘Then leave it until the morning.’
‘I cannot.’
‘You never did understand pleasure, Draconus. You make love fraught when it should be easy, and fill need with intensity when it should be gentle. Perhaps one day I shall proclaim myself the goddess of love – what do you think of that, O Suzerain? Would not this aspect welcome you, as love welcomes the night and as a caress welcomes the darkness?’
Finished with the horses for the moment, Arathan carried the cook-pack to the centre of the chamber. Here he lit a lantern and set out a pot, utensils and food. Sometime in the past four pavestones had been removed to make a firepit. Lifting the lantern, Arathan looked up, but the light could not reach high enough for him to see the ceiling. Still, he could feel an upward draught. He made his way over to the supply of fuel his father had indicated, and found a few dozen large, seasoned dung chips.
Through all of this, and even when he returned to the firepit, he felt her eyes tracking him.
‘What think you, son of Draconus?’ she asked him. ‘Would I make you a good goddess of love?’
He concentrated on lighting the fire, and then said, ‘You would offer a vastness of longing none could satisfy, milady, and so look down upon an unhappy world.’
Her breath caught.
‘Come to that,’ he said, watching smoke rise from the tinder, ‘you may already be the goddess of love.’
‘Suzerain, I will have your son this night.’
‘I fear not. His is the longing that afflicts the young. You offer too much and he yearns to be lost.’
Arathan felt his face grow hot. His father could track every thought in his mind, with a depth of percipience that horrified him. I am too easily known. My thoughts walk well-worn paths, my every desire poorly disguised. I am written plainly for all to see. My father. This Azathanai woman. Feren and Rint. Even Raskan found no mystery in my tale.
One day, I will make myself unknown to all.
Except Feren, and our child.
‘By your words,’ said Kilmandaros, ‘you reveal the weakness of the Consort. You are found in love, Draconus, yet fear its humiliation. Indeed, I am this fell goddess, if in looking into your eyes I see a man made naked by dread.’
‘In the company of Errastas, your son has committed murder,’ said Draconus.
Arathan closed his eyes. The flame
s of the small fire he crouched over reached through his lids with light and heat, but neither offered solace. He could hear her breathing, close by, and it was a desperate sound to his ears.
‘By what right do you make this accusation?’ she demanded.
‘He and his half-brother are the slayers of Karish. They found power in her blood, and in her death. They now walk the lands stained with her blood, and as my son noted to me earlier, they bear it proudly. Perhaps your son less proudly, since he would not show himself to us. No matter. That which Errastas made for me was forged in blood.’
‘Sechul,’ Kilmandaros whispered.
‘You are too wise to doubt my words,’ said Draconus. ‘If there is dread in my eyes, then it now matches your own.’
‘Why do you not flee, Suzerain?’ she asked. ‘Hood will not turn from your complicity in the slaying of his wife!’
‘I will face him,’ said Draconus. ‘He is chained in the Tower of Hate.’
‘Then you had best hope those chains hold!’
Hearing her thump towards his father, Arathan opened his eyes and turned to watch her. He saw her hands close into fists and wondered if she might strike Draconus. Instead, she halted. ‘Suzerain, will you ever be a child in this world? You rush to every breach and would fling your body into the gap. You offer up your own skin to mend the wounds of others. But there are things not even you can repair. Do you not understand that?’
‘What will you do?’ he asked her.
She looked away. ‘I must find my son. I must turn him from this path.’
‘You will fail then, Kilmandaros. He is as good as wedded to his half-brother, and even now Errastas weaves a web around K’rul, and the sorcery once given freely to all who would reach for it is now bound in blood.’
‘He is poisoned, my son,’ she said, hands uncurling as she turned away. ‘The same for Errastas. By their father’s uselessness, they are poisoned unto their very souls.’
‘If you find them,’ Draconus said, ‘kill them. Kill them both, Kilmandaros.’
She put her hands to her face. A shudder rolled through her.
‘You’d best leave us now,’ said his father, his tone gentle. ‘No walls of stone can withstand your grief, much less soft flesh. For what it is worth, Kilmandaros, I regret the necessity of my words. Even more, I regret my complicity in this crime.’
To that she shook her head, though her face remained hidden behind her hands. ‘If not you,’ she mumbled, ‘then someone else. I know them, you see.’
‘They will seek to twist you with their words,’ Draconus said. ‘Be wary of their sharp wits.’
‘I know them,’ she repeated. Then she straightened and shook herself. Facing Arathan she said, ‘Son of Draconus, let not your longing blind you to what you own.’ She gathered up her sodden furs and turned to the doorway, and was motionless for a moment, staring out into the hissing torrent of rain. Her hands became fists. ‘Like the rain, I will weep my way across the valley,’ she said. ‘Grief and rage will guide my fists with thunder, with lightning, as befits the goddess of love. All must flee before my path.’
‘Be careful,’ said Draconus. ‘Not every tower is empty.’
She looked back at him. ‘Suzerain, forgive my harsh words. Your path ahead is no less treacherous.’
He shrugged. ‘We are ever wounded by truths, Kilmandaros.’
She sighed. ‘Easier to fend off lies. But none comfort me now.’
‘Nor me,’ Draconus replied.
She slung her furs about her, and then set out into the gloom beyond.
‘I wish,’ said Arathan into the heavy silence that followed the fading thud of her footsteps, ‘that you had left me at home.’
‘Grief is a powerful weapon, Arathan, but all too often it breaks the wielder.’
‘Is it better, then, to armour oneself in regrets?’ He glanced up to see his father’s dark eyes studying him intently. ‘Perhaps I am easily understood,’ Arathan continued, ‘and to you I can offer no advice. But your words of caution which you offered her, well, I think she gave them in return. You can’t fix everything, Father. Is it enough to be seen to try? I don’t know how you would answer that question. I wish I did.’
From somewhere in the distance sounded the rumble of thunder.
Arathan began preparing their evening meal.
Moments later a thought struck him, and it left him cold. He glanced over to see his father standing in the doorway, staring out into the rain. ‘Father? Have Azathanai moved and lived among the Tiste?’
Draconus turned.
‘And if so,’ Arathan continued, ‘are they somehow able to disguise themselves?’
‘Azathanai,’ said his father, ‘dwell wherever they choose, in any guise they wish.’
‘Is Mother Dark an Azathanai?’
‘No. She is Tiste, Arathan.’
He returned to his cooking, adding more chips to the fire, but the chill would not leave him. If a goddess of love had cruel children, he wondered, by what names would they be known?
* * *
The morning broke clear. Still wearing his armour and shouldering his axe, Haut led Korya down into the valley, and the Abandoned City of the Jaghut. Varandas had departed in the night, whilst Korya slept and dreamed of dolls clawing the insides of the wooden trunk, as she wept and told them again and again that she would not bury them alive – but for all her cries she could find no means of opening the trunk, and her fingers bled at the nails, and when she lifted her head she discovered that she too was trapped inside a box. Panic had then startled her awake, to see her master sitting beside the makeshift hearth Varandas had made in the night.
‘The wood is wet,’ he had told her as she sat up, as if she had been responsible for the rain.
Trembling in the aftermath of the dream, she had set about preparing a cold breakfast. The chamber stank of the smoke that had filled the tower the night before, since there had been no aperture to draw it away except for the entrance, where the rain had formed a seemingly impenetrable wall. As they chewed the dried meat and hard bread, Korya had glared across at her master and said, ‘I have no desire to visit anyone known as the Lord of Hate.’
‘I share the sentiment, hostage, but visit him we must.’
‘Why?’
Haut flung the crust of the bread he had been gnawing on into the hearth, but as there was no fire the crust simply fell among the wet sticks and soaked logs. The Jaghut frowned. ‘With your vicious and incessant assault upon my natural equanimity, you force upon me the necessity of a tale, and I so dislike telling a tale. Now, hostage, why should that be so?’
‘I thought I was the one asking questions.’
Haut waved a hand in dismissal. ‘If that conceit comforts you, so be it. I am not altered in my resolve. Now tell me, why do I dislike tales?’
‘Because they imply a unity that does not exist. Only rarely does a life have a theme, and even then such themes exist in confusion and uncertainty, and are only described by others once that life has come to an end. A tale is the binding of themes to a past, because no tale can be told as it is happening.’
‘Just so,’ Haut nodded. ‘Yet what I would speak of this morning is but the beginning of a tale. It is without borders, and its players are far from dead, and the story is far from finished. To make matters even worse, word by word I weave truths and untruths. I posit a goal to events, when such goals were not understood at the time, nor even considered. I am expected to offer a resolution, to ease the conscience of the listener, or earn a moment or two of false comfort, with the belief that proper sense is to be made of living. Just as in a tale.’
Korya shrugged. ‘By this you mean to tell me that you are a poor teller of tales. Fine, now please get on with it.’
‘It may surprise you, but your impertinence pleases me. To an extent. The young seek quick appeasement and would flit like hummingbirds from one gaudy flower to the next, and so long as the pace remains torrid, why, they deem theirs a worthy life
. Adventure and excitement, yes? But I have seen raindrops rush down a pane of glass with similar wit and zeal. And I accord their crooked adventure a value to match.’
She nodded. ‘The young are eager for experience, yes, and seek it in mindless escapade. I grasp your point. Only a fool would bemoan an audience with someone called the Lord of Hate, if only to boldly survive the enticement of his regard.’
‘I pity all the future victims in your path, hostage. Now then, the tale, which I will endeavour to make succinct. What are the Azathanai? Observe the brevity of my answer: none know. Whence did they come? Even they cannot make answer. What is their purpose? Must they have one? Do we, after all? Do you see how the seduction of the tale invites such simplistic notions? Purpose – bah! Never mind. These things you must know: the Azathanai are powerful, in ways not even the Jaghut understand. They are contrary and ill-inclined to society. They are subtle in their proclamations, so that often what they claim to be is in fact the antithesis of what they are. Or seem to be, or not.’
Korya rubbed at her face. ‘A moment, master. Is this the tale?’
‘It is, wretched girl. I seek to give you knowledge.’
‘Useful knowledge?’
‘That depends.’
‘Oh.’
‘Now. The Azathanai. Even that name is in error, as it implies a culture, a unity of form if not purpose. But the Azathanai do not wear flesh as we do, trapped as we are within what was given us and what we can make of it. No, they can choose any form they wish.’
‘Master, you describe gods, or demons, or spirits.’
Haut nodded. ‘All of your descriptions are apt.’
‘Can they be killed?’
‘I do not know. Some are known to have disappeared, but that is all that can be said of that.’
‘Go on, master. I am intrigued in spite of myself.’
‘Yes, the hint of power is always seductive. So. Among the Azathanai there was one who now names himself K’rul.’
‘Now? By what name was he known before?’
‘Keruli. The transformation lies at the heart of this tale. Among the Dog-Runners, the name of Keruli is understood to be living, of the present, as it were. But in passing, in turning about and striding into the past, Keruli must become K’rul.’
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