The Wolf's Call
Page 36
Scholars and their students, I repeated inwardly, finding it easy to discern Kehlbrand’s reasoning. Those with knowledge and wisdom are not so easily swayed by the Darkblade.
We pressed on, traversing more horrors until we came to the broad square where the Temple of Heaven resided. I was surprised to find it unscathed, the central three-storey building of slanted roofs unmarked by fire or arrow, the surrounding park of shrines and statuary intact and almost serene in the smoke drifting from the streets. But, whilst the temple itself had been spared, I discovered as I ventured inside that its inhabitants had not.
The monks lay around the largest shrine in a jumble of bloody faces and limbs, the blood stark against their pale robes of grey and white. An exact count of the dead was impossible, but it appeared that the entire order of this temple had perished, save two.
The old monk stood facing the shrine, head bowed and lips moving as he recited his cantos to Heaven, hands clasped together and a string of black beads entwined about his wrists. He paid no heed at all to my brother, who stood nearby, nor to the youthful monk who knelt to his left. Obvar stood behind the boy, a meaty hand under his chin and a knife pressed to his throat.
“One left,” Kehlbrand told the old monk, then gave an amused, slightly exasperated snort when he received no response. The monk’s chanting continued uninterrupted, his bearing never wavering.
“I know this is all mummery,” Kehlbrand said. He moved closer, speaking softly into the old man’s ear. “I feel your fear, your hatred, your despair. There is no serenity in you. And this”—he cast a hand at the shrine—“is just old stone carved into meaningless abstraction. Heaven is a lie, and I need you to say it.”
No response, just the same unchanging pose and murmured prayers.
“As you wish.” Kehlbrand nodded at Obvar, who promptly opened the young monk’s throat with a swift flick of his knife.
Much as I would like to nourish any admiration you may harbour towards me, honoured reader, I will offer no lies as to my actions at that moment. I did not call out to stay Obvar’s hand. Nor did I rush to my brother, eyes streaming tears and heart riven, demanding answers and cursing him for his cruelty. No. I simply stood and watched as Obvar cut the boy’s throat whilst Kehlbrand drew his sabre and hacked the old monk’s head from his shoulders. I didn’t need to ask why, for in that moment I knew. Kehlbrand was no longer playing the role of a god. Now he was a god, a living god who would tolerate no worship of any other. He had become the Darkblade, and so was no longer my brother.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
The monks were not the only servants of Heaven to die that day. Nuns from the nearby convent also met the same fate, as did any townsfolk who refused to renounce what was now termed “the great lie.” When the killing was done, Kehlbrand ordered the Tuhla to leave the town and set the artisans to work cleaning up the mess and tending to the wounded. “The Darkblade does not come as a conqueror,” they would say as they repaired roofs and stitched cuts. “He comes as a redeemer. He comes to break your chains. No longer will you suffer under the greed of the Merchant King.”
Perhaps as a consequence of the death toll, fully one-fifth of the town’s population by my reckoning, I recruited only one soul with the Divine Blood in Leshun-Kho. Having reported a futile search to Kehlbrand, he suggested I try the magistrate’s dungeon. I found her chained in a cell, clad in rags and covered in dirt that failed to conceal her beauty. The gaoler, somehow spared the slaughter that had claimed the lives of the other civic servants, called the woman “the vilest of witches,” and refused to go near her even when threatened with execution.
As I approached the bars the woman slowly raised her dirt-covered face, blinking eyes that were both rich in understanding and bright with madness. You think your brother is not truly a god, her voice said in my mind, causing me to stagger back in alarm. The woman rose and approached the bars, standing expectantly at the lock and smiling as she effortlessly pushed another thought into my head. You are wrong.
I never discovered her true origins, though she told many tales of noble birth and exile due to her gift. These stories changed on a whim; one day she would be the daughter of a general, the next a merchant. Her mother was a famed courtesan to the Merchant King of the Enlightened Kingdom or a warrior maiden from the Opal Isles. These cannot be considered lies, for I suspect she believed them as they escaped her lips, but every story she told would inevitably trail off into confused mumbling and be forgotten soon after. Consequently, her true name would be lost to the ages, but Kehlbrand named her Dishona, which means Grass Snake in the older tongue. She never seemed to see it as an insult, however, for she hung on my brother’s every word with all the devotion of a newly whelped pup to its mother. I believe Dishona was the first to worship the Darkblade out of love rather than fear.
“She’s mad,” I told him some days later. We had ridden south with a small escort, Kehlbrand being keen to scout the approaches to the hill country that marked the borderlands. “And her gift is . . . extremely unnerving.”
“But she uses it only sparingly, you notice?” he replied. “Her mind may be broken but some measure of caution remains, not to mention cunning. All useful traits wouldn’t you say?”
We reined to a halt atop a hillock that afforded a view of a broad winding river that traced through plain and hill to a misted, jagged cone on the horizon.
“Keshin-Kho,” Kehlbrand said. “The key to unlocking the Venerable Kingdom and all that lies beyond.”
“Our next target?” I asked, trying to quell the roiling unease the notion provoked in me. Kehlbrand, however, either failed to sense it or thought it of little account.
“We don’t have the strength yet,” he said. “Other towns along the border offer easier pickings, not to mention fresh adherents.”
“They have to be alive to worship you.”
“And they will remain so, for the most part. For our mission to succeed, dearest sister, I require an army of believers, not mere soldiers, an army of those redeemed in the sight of the Darkblade.”
But for that maddening knowledge in his gaze, I would have thought this the old Kehlbrand, letting the godly mask slip to share a confidence with the only soul he could truly trust. This is the mask now, I realised, matching his sardonic grin with a forced smile.
“Did you know,” Kehlbrand went on, fixing his gaze on the distant city, “that our agents tell me the governor of Keshin-Kho has two principal traits, great ambition and desperate loneliness. I believe, with Dishona’s help, we can unburden him of both.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
That night, for the first time since childhood, I wept. I had pitched my tent apart from my Gifted family, telling them I needed to be alone. They assumed I intended to delve into the True Dream, but instead I felt an overwhelming need to surrender to my sorrow, at least for just one night. The tears fell freely and I choked my sobs with the wolf-pelt hem of my cloak, fearing they might draw Kehlbrand’s attention.
Does he know? I asked myself over and over. Does he know that I see him, see what the others do not? It seemed incredible that he had failed to sense my despair, which raised the question of why he hadn’t sent me away, or . . . killed me.
He will never do that. I knew this with as much certainty as I knew Kehlbrand was no longer my brother. Whatever changes had been wrought upon him when he touched the stone, the ability to murder his sister was not amongst them. The kernel of our love remained whole, but would it survive all that awaited us?
Eventually the tears faded and I lay on my mats, exhausted and mind churning endless unanswerable questions. Usually the black veil will descend only when my mind is at its calmest, but that night it fell when it had reached the pinnacle of despair. The world disappeared and the True Dream unfolded, my skin prickling with the unfamiliar sensation of a chill breeze accompanied by warm sunlight. I bl
inked and immediately swayed on my feet, stomach lurching at the sight confronting me.
Mountains, so many, so tall. A lifetime on the Iron Steppe had provided scant familiarity with high places, although I had glimpsed the western coastal peaks from a distance. But never had I seen mountains so close, nor from above.
Looking down, my stomach lurched with greater urgency, summoning a dizziness that threatened to tip me over.
“Careful,” a soft, pleasant voice advised, small but firm hands grasping my arms until I steadied. I found myself confronted by a diminutive woman with as perfectly fashioned a face as I ever expected to see. She wore fine robes of bright, intricately embroidered silks, her hair arranged in an elegant but complex display of combs and pins.
“Thank you for coming,” she said. “I thought it was time we talked.”
“Talked about what?” I grimaced in confusion, my gaze flicking from her face to the mountains, then the balcony on which we stood, clearly part of some far larger structure. “Who are you?”
“My mother gave me a name a very long time ago,” she said. “But it will have no meaning now. These days they call me the Jade Princess. And we have a great many things to talk about. Principally your brother, and a man I believe he refers to as the Thief of Names.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dying, Vaelin knew, was not akin to falling into a gentle slumber. The onset of death inevitably summons pain and terror, stripping away the self-deceits of courage and resolve to leave only the instinct of survival, the need to clutch to life.
This was easier the last time, he concluded as a fresh wave of agony swept through him. His vision was an alternating haze of shifting black clouds parting occasionally to reveal barely comprehensible glimpses of the living world. A blue expanse of sky, speckled in cloud. The sparse grass of the Steppe as he felt himself being lifted and carried. Then more drifting clouds, more pain. Time stretched and contracted in concert with the various agonies that wracked him, each respite a brief precious moment until the long hours of pain returned.
He could hear voices through the fog that enveloped him, speaking in Chu-Shin, which his distressed mind lacked the ability to translate. But he could hear the conflict in those voices, one rich in caution, the other in implacable purpose. It was the purposeful voice he recognised, along with the face that swam into view when the clouds parted one last time, the same face he had called to mind after Obvar’s cut left him bleeding his life away.
Sherin didn’t say anything. Nor did she offer a smile of reassurance. Her expression was one of grim determination, diminished only slightly by the glimmer of fear he saw in her eyes. Then the clouds closed in again, leaving only the pain until that too faded to a small angry flame.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
He awoke to Derka’s breath on his face, a hot and unpleasant blast that left him coughing. For a second he wondered why his vision was full of a slowly passing tract of earth and grass before realising he lay across Derka’s back, secured to the saddle by ropes about his wrists and ankles. The stallion came to a halt, continuing to twist his head round to nibble at Vaelin’s face, either in an expression of affection or, more likely, because he somehow divined how annoying it was.
“Get off, you bloody nag,” Vaelin groaned, moving his face clear of the stallion’s muzzle.
“Hold, he’s awake!”
Vaelin craned his neck to see Sherin cantering towards him on her pony. She dismounted and quickly moved to sever his bonds with a small knife, Vaelin sliding clear of the saddle. To his surprise he didn’t stagger as his boots met the ground, his legs apparently free of the expected weakness. Also, he felt no pain. If anything he found himself possessed of a refreshing vigour. He laughed at the feel of the Steppe wind on his skin, and raised his face to smile as the sunlight bathed it. His smile faded, however, when he lowered his head and caught sight of Sherin’s guarded gaze. There was a sunken look to her eyes that hadn’t been there before, a tension and paleness in her features that put him in mind of one recovered from a recent illness.
His hands went to his shirt as a suspicion began to build in his mind, drawing the fabric aside to reveal Obvar’s cut, finding only a pale line in otherwise unmarked flesh. Weaver’s gift, he recalled, thinking of the healing he had received all those years ago in the Fallen City. Weaver had been the most powerful Gifted he had ever met, even before draining the power from the Ally and ensuring all the sacrifice of the Liberation War hadn’t been in vain. But Weaver was not here, nor did Vaelin ever expect to see him again.
“What did you do?” he demanded of Sherin.
Her pale features formed a brief, tremulous smile. “What I had to.”
“We can’t linger.”
Vaelin’s gaze snapped to Luralyn, mounted on a white horse. Behind her rode the man and woman he had met on first arriving at the tor along with four others all clad in the garb of the artisans. Glancing around he saw only the empty Steppe with no sign of any Stahlhast.
“Here.”
Vaelin caught his sword as Luralyn tossed it to him, strapping it across his back. “How?” he pressed Sherin, who just shook her head and hurried back to her pony.
“My brother will have a thousand scouts ranging in every direction,” Luralyn said. “We have no time.”
She gathered her reins, preparing to kick her horse into a gallop, but paused as Vaelin reached out to catch hold of the bridle. “I must know,” he said. “How did she do this?”
Luralyn looked at Sherin, now climbing stiffly onto the back of her pony. Luralyn’s face was stern but Vaelin saw the shame in it. “She touched the stone,” she said.
Tugging her reins she jerked the bridle loose from his grip. “We must ride.” Spurring her horse forward she galloped off towards the west, her companions close behind.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Luralyn allowed no rest, only short intervals every few hours during which the horses were walked. They rode into the evening and through the night, finally stopping at noon the following day when it became plain some of the horses were close to collapse, as were most of their riders. Luralyn bore scant signs of fatigue but her companions all slumped from their mounts to stumble into near-instant slumber.
“The advantage of being born to the saddle,” she said, dismounting alongside Vaelin. “Stahlhast will sleep mounted if the need arises.”
Vaelin’s gaze was focused on Sherin. Having lagged behind for several miles, she brought her pony to a halt a dozen feet away and climbed slowly from its back. “Don’t!” Luralyn said when Sherin unfastened a bundle of sticks from her pack and began to build a fire. “The smoke will be seen for miles.”
“Your brother’s gift has already told him where we are,” Vaelin said.
“But not his scouts,” she returned, casting a wary glance at the horizon.
“Assuming he won’t come himself.”
A spasm of worry passed over her features. “That’s certainly a possibility. But still, I’d prefer not to take the risk.”
Vaelin took a blanket from his own pack and walked to where Sherin sat on the ground, settling it on her shoulders. She gave a listless nod of thanks but said nothing.
“You touched it,” he said. “That was not wise.”
“She tried to stop me.” Sherin glanced at Luralyn, now unfurling her bedroll on the ground. “But the Princess told me it would be this way. After all her scheming I had hoped it might be another lie, but as you were . . . dying, I saw it must have been part of her design all along. So I had Luralyn take me to the stone and I touched it. I needed to. As the Princess needed to sing her song and you needed to fight that animal.”
“I lost,” Vaelin pointed out. He wanted to reach out and clasp her hand but restrained himself. Even given what she had risked to save him, he still doubted her current regard would allow for such intimacy.
“What concerns me now is what you lost,” he said. “Gifts always exact a price.”
She raised both hands, turning them and flexing the fingers. “Pain, I suppose. Healing you hurt a great deal and it was not simply a matter of laying my hands upon the wound and watching it mend itself. Your flesh needed to be remade, skin, muscle, nerves and veins all woven back together. Without my knowledge I doubt I could have managed it. It was like I was feeling it as I healed it, like the wound was part of me. It left me . . . drained.”
“I’m sorry. I would never have wished . . .”
She waved him to silence, shaking her head. “The healing wasn’t the worst of it. When I touched the stone, it . . . took me.” Her face clouded in confused remembrance. “It was like being drawn through a door, dragged, in fact. Taken to another place, a place where all is chaos. Like a storm made of screams, each one a different voice. I thought it would drive me mad, but then it changed, found form. I saw . . .”
She fell silent, closing her eyes as a shudder ran through her. Vaelin made no effort to prompt her, finding he feared what she might say next. “Once, years ago when I journeyed to the western coast,” she said, eyes still closed, “I had the luck to glimpse a tiger. I thought it the most beautiful creature I would ever see. White fur striped in black, eyes like opals. We stared at each other for a time, then it bared its teeth at me and bounded off into the forest, and I never forgot it. That’s what I saw, Vaelin. All the swirling chaos and fury of that place formed itself into that tiger and that forest. I believe whatever lurks there plucked it from my head and made it real. For it was real. That place beyond the stone is as real as anything in this world.