Brys did so, and a strange sound reverberated from the Blue Style sword. A cry, that went on, and on.
‘Depending on where on the blade you strike, the note is unique, although each will eventually descend or ascend to the core’s own voice. The effect is cumulative, and persistent.’
‘Sounds like a dying goat.’
‘There is a name etched into the base of the blade, Finadd. Arcane script. Can you read it?’
Brys squinted, struggled a moment with the awkward lettering, then smiled. ‘Glory Goat. Well, it seems a mostly harmless curse. Is there any other sorcery invested in it?’
‘The edges self-sharpen, I believe. Nicks and notches heal, although some material is always lost. Some laws cannot be cheated.’ The Ceda drew out another sword. ‘This one is somewhat oversized, I’ll grant you—’
‘No, that’s good. The stranger was very tall.’
‘He was now, was he?’
Brys nodded, shifting the first sword to his left hand and taking the one Kuru Qan held in his right. ‘Errant, this would be hard to wield. For me, that is.’
‘Sarat Wept,’ the Ceda said. ‘About four generations old. One of the last in the Blue Style. It belonged to the King’s Champion of that time.’
Brys frowned. ‘Urudat?’
‘Very good.’
‘I’ve seen images of him in frescos and tapestries. A big man—’
‘Oh, yes, but reputedly very quick.’
‘Remarkable, given the weight of this sword.’ He held it out. ‘The blade pulls. The line is a hair’s breadth outward. This is a left-handed weapon.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ Brys considered, ‘the stranger fights with both hands, and he specified two full swords, suggesting—’
‘A certain measure of ambidexterity. Yes.’
‘Investment?’
‘To make it shatter upon its wielder’s death.’
‘But—’
‘Yes, another incompetent effort. Thus, two formidable weapons in the Blue Style of Letherii steel. Acceptable?’
Brys studied both weapons, the play of aquamarine in the lantern-light. ‘Both beautiful and exquisitely crafted. Yes, I think these will do.’
‘When will you deliver them?’
‘Tomorrow. I have no desire to enter those grounds at night.’ He thought of Kettle, and felt once more the clasp of her cold hand. It did not occur to him then that he had not informed the Ceda of one particular detail from his encounter at the tower. It was a matter that, outwardly at least, seemed of little relevance.
Kettle was more than just a child.
She was also dead.
Thanks to this careless omission, the Ceda’s measure of fear was not as great as it should have been. Indeed, as it needed to be. Thanks to this omission, and in the last moments before the Finadd parted company with Kuru Qan, a crossroads was reached, and then, inexorably, a path was taken.
The night air was pleasant, a warm wind stirring the rubbish in the gutters as Tehol and Bugg paused at the foot of the steps to Scale House.
‘That was exhausting,’ Tehol said. ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’
‘Don’t you want to eat first, master?’
‘You scrounged something?’
‘No.’
‘So we have nothing to eat.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then why did you ask me if I wanted to eat?’
‘I was curious.’
Tehol anchored his fists on his hips and glared at his manservant. ‘Look, it wasn’t me who nearly got us investigated in there!’
‘It wasn’t?’
‘Well, not all me. It was you, too. Poking eyes and all that.’
‘Master, it was you who sent me there. You who had the idea of offering a contract.’
‘Poking eyes!’
‘All right, all right. Believe me, master, I regret my actions deeply!’
‘You regret deeply?’
‘Fine, deeply regret.’
‘That’s it, I’m going to bed. Look at this street. It’s a mess!’
‘I’ll get around to it, master, if I find the time.’
‘Well, that should be no problem, Bugg. After all, what have you done today?’
‘Scant little, it’s true.’
‘As I thought.’ Tehol cinched up his trousers. ‘Never mind. Let’s go, before something terrible happens.’
Chapter Thirteen
Out of the white
Out of the sun’s brittle dismay
We are the grim shapes
Who haunt all fate
Out of the white
Out of the wind’s hoarse bray
We are the dark ghosts
Who haunt all fate
Out of the white
Out of the snow’s worldly fray
We are the sword’s wolves
Who haunt all fate
JHECK MARCHING CHANT
Fifteen paces, no more than that. Between emperor and slave. A stretch of Letherii rugs, booty from some raid a century or more past, on which paths were worn deep, a pattern of stolen colour mapping stunted roads across heroic scenes. Kings crowned. Champions triumphant. Images of history the Edur had walked on, indifferent and intent on their small journeys in this chamber.
Udinaas wasn’t prepared to ascribe any significance to these details. He had come to his own pattern, a gaze unwavering and precise, the mind behind it disconnected, its surface devoid of ripples and its depths motionless.
It was safer that way. He could stand here, equidistant between two torch sconces and so bathed by the light of neither, and in this indeterminate centre he looked on, silently watching as Rhulad discarded his bearskin, to stand naked before his new wife.
Udinaas might have been amused, had he permitted the emotion, to see the coins burned into the emperor’s penis pop off, one, two, two more, then four, as Rhulad’s desire became apparent. Coins thumping to the rug-strewn floor, a few bouncing and managing modest rolls before settling. He might have been horrified at the look in the emperor’s red-rimmed eyes as he reached out, beckoning Mayen closer. Waves of sympathy for the hapless young woman were possible, but only in the abstract.
Witnessing this macabre, strangely comic moment, the slave remained motionless, without and within, and the bizarre reality of this world played itself out without comment.
Her self-control was, at first, absolute. He took her hand and drew it down, pulling her closer. ‘Mayen,’ the emperor said in a rasp, in a voice that reached for tenderness and achieved little more than rough lust. ‘Should I reveal to you that I have dreamed of this moment?’ A harsh laugh. ‘Not quite. Not like this. Not…in so much…detail.’
‘You made your desires known, Rhulad. Before…this.’
‘Yes, call me Rhulad. As you did before. Between us, nothing need change.’
‘Yet I am your empress.’
‘My wife.’
‘We cannot speak as if nothing has changed.’
‘I will teach you, Mayen. I am still Rhulad.’
He embraced her then, an awkward, child-like encirclement in gold. ‘You need not think of Fear,’ he said. ‘Mayen, you are his gift to me. His proof of loyalty. He did as a brother should.’
‘I was betrothed—’
‘And I am emperor! I can break the rules that would bind the Edur. The past is dead, Mayen, and it is I who shall forge the future! With you at my side. I saw you looking upon me, day after day, and I could see the desire in your eyes. Oh, we both knew that Fear would have you in the end. What could we do? Nothing. But I have changed all that.’ He drew back a step, although she still held him with one hand. ‘Mayen, my wife.’ He began undressing her.
Realities. Moments one by one, stumbling forward. Clumsy necessities. Rhulad’s dreams of this scene, whatever they had been in detail, were translated into a series of mundane impracticalities. Clothes were not easily discarded, unless designed with that in mind, and these were not. Her passivity
under his ministrations added to the faltering, until this became an event bereft of romance.
Udinaas could see his lust fading. Of course it would revive. Rhulad was young, after all. The feelings of the object of his hunger were irrelevant, for an object Mayen had become. His trophy.
That the emperor sensed the slipping away of any chance of interlocking desires became evident as he began speaking once more. ‘I saw in your eyes how you wanted me. Now, Mayen, no-one stands between us.’
But he does, Rhulad. Moreover, your monstrosity has become something you now wear on your flesh. And now what had to arrive. Letherii gold yields to its natural inclination. Now, Letherii gold rapes this Tiste Edur. Ha.
The emperor’s lust had returned. His own statements had convinced him.
He pulled her towards the bed at the far wall. It had belonged to Hannan Mosag, and so was crafted for a single occupant. There was no room for lying side by side, which proved no obstacle for Rhulad’s intentions. He pushed her onto her back. Looked down at her for a moment, then said, ‘No, I would crush you. Get up, my love. You will descend upon me. I will give you children. I promise. Many children, whom you will adore. There will be heirs. Many heirs.’
An appeal, Udinaas could well hear, to sure instincts, the promise of eventual redemption. Reason to survive the ordeal of the present.
Rhulad settled down on the bed. Arms out to the sides.
She stared down at him.
Then moved to straddle this cruciform-shaped body of gold. Descending over him.
A game of mortality, the act of sex. Reduced so that decades became moments. Awakening, revelling in overwrought sensation, a brief spurt meant to procreate, spent exhaustion, then death. Rhulad was young. He did not last long enough to assuage his ego.
Even so, at the moment before he spasmed beneath her, before his heavy groan that thinned into a whimper, Udinaas saw Mayen’s control begin to crumble. As if she had found a spark within her that she could flame into proper desire, perhaps even pleasure. Then, as he released, that spark flickered, died.
None of which Rhulad witnessed, for his eyes were closed and he was fully inside himself.
He would improve, of course. Or so it was reasonable to expect. She might even gain a measure of control over this act, and so revive and fan into life that spark.
At that moment, Udinaas believed Mayen became the empress, wife to the emperor. At that moment, his faith in her spirit withered—if faith was the right word, that singular war between expectation and hope. Had he compassion to feel, he might have understood, and so softened with empathy. But compassion was engagement, a mindfulness beyond that of mere witness, and he felt none of that.
He heard soft weeping coming from another place of darkness in the chamber, and slowly turned his head to look upon the fourth and last person present. As he had been, a witness to the rape with its hidden, metaphorical violence. But a witness trapped in the horror of feeling.
Among the crisscrossing worn paths of faded colour, one led to her.
Feather Witch huddled, pressed up against the wall, hands covering her face, racked with shudders.
Much more of this and she might end up killed. Rhulad was a man growing ever more intimate with dying. He did not need reminding of what it cost him and everyone around him. Even worse, he was without constraints.
Udinaas considered walking over to her, if only to tell her to be quiet. But his eyes fell on the intervening expanse of rugs and their images, and he realized that the distance was too great.
Mayen had remained straddling Rhulad, her head hanging down.
‘Again,’ the emperor said.
She straightened, began her motions, and Udinaas watched her search for that spark of pleasure. And then find it.
Wanting good, yearning for bad. As simple as that? Was this contradictory, confused map universally impressed upon the minds of men and women? That did not seem a question worth answering, Udinaas decided. He had lost enough already.
‘Shut that bitch up!’
The slave started at the emperor’s hoarse shout.
The weeping had grown louder, probably in answer to Mayen’s audible panting.
Udinaas pushed himself forward, across the rugs to where Feather Witch crouched in the gloom.
‘Get her out of here! Both of you, get out!’
She did not resist as he lifted her to her feet. Udinaas leaned close. ‘Listen, Feather Witch,’ he said under his breath. ‘What did you expect?’
Her head snapped up and he saw hatred in her eyes. ‘From you,’ she said in a snarl, ‘nothing.’
‘From her. Don’t answer—we must leave.’
He guided her to the side door, then through into the servants’ corridor beyond. He closed the door behind them, then pulled her another half-dozen steps down the passage. ‘There’s no cause for crying,’ Udinaas said. ‘Mayen is trapped, just like us, Feather Witch. It is not for you to grieve that she has sought and found pleasure.’
‘I know what you’re getting at, Indebted,’ she said, twisting her arm out of his grip. ‘Is that what you want? My surrender? My finding pleasure when you make use of me?’
‘I am as you say, Feather Witch. Indebted. What I want? My wants mean nothing. They have fallen silent in my mind. You think I still pursue you? I still yearn for your love?’ He shook his head as he studied her face. ‘You were right. What is the point?’
‘I want nothing to do with you, Udinaas.’
‘Yes, I know. But you are Mayen’s handmaiden. And I, it appears, am to be Rhulad’s own slave. Emperor and empress. That is the reality we must face. You and I, we are a conceit. Or we were. Not any more, as far as I am concerned.’
‘Good. Then we need only deal with each other as necessity demands.’
He nodded.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I do not trust you.’
‘I do not care.’
Uncertainty. Unease. ‘What game are you playing at, Udinaas? Who speaks through your mouth?’ She stepped back. ‘I should tell her. About what hides within you.’
‘If you do that, Feather Witch, you will destroy your only chance.’
‘My only chance? What chance?’
‘Freedom.’
Her face twisted. ‘And with that you would purchase my silence? You are foolish, Indebted. I was born a slave. I have none of your memories to haunt me—’
‘My memories? Feather Witch, my memory of freedom is as an Indebted trapped in a kingdom where even death offers no absolution. My memory is my father’s memory, and would have been my children’s memory. But you misunderstood. I did not speak of my freedom. I spoke only of yours. Not something to be recaptured, but found anew.’
‘And how do you plan on freeing me, Udinaas?’
‘We are going to war, Feather Witch. The Tiste Edur will wage war against Lether.’
She scowled. ‘What of it? There have been wars before—’
‘Not like this one. Rhulad isn’t interested in raids. This will be a war of conquest.’
‘Conquer Lether? They will fail—’
‘Yes, they might. The point is, when the Edur march south, we will be going with them.’
‘Why are you so certain of all this? This war? This conquest?’
‘Because the Emperor has summoned the shadow wraiths. All of them.’
‘You cannot know such a thing.’
He said nothing.
‘You cannot,’ Feather Witch insisted.
Then she spun round and hurried down the passage.
Udinaas returned to the door. To await the summons he knew would come, eventually.
Emperor and slave. A score of paces, a thousand leagues. In the span of intractable command and obedience, the mind did not count distance. For the path was well worn, as it always had been and as it would ever be.
The wraiths gathered, in desultory legions, in the surrounding forest, among them massive demons bound in chains that formed a most poignant armour. Creatures heaving up f
rom the sea to hold the four hundred or more K’orthan raider ships now being readied, eager to carry them south. Among the tribes, in every village, the sorcerors awakening to the new emperor’s demand.
A summons to war.
Across a worn rug.
Heroes triumphant.
From beyond the wooden portal came Mayen’s cry.
He emerged from the forest, his face pallid, his expression haunted, and halted in surprise at seeing the readied wagons, Buruk swearing at the Nerek as they scurried about. Seren Pedac had completed donning her leather armour and was strapping on her sword-belt.
She watched him approach.
‘Dire events, Hull Beddict.’
‘You are leaving?’
‘Buruk has so commanded.’
‘What of the iron he sought to sell?’
‘It goes back with us.’ She looked about, then said, ‘Come, walk with me. I need to speak one last time with the First Eunuch.’
Hull slowly nodded. ‘Good. There is much that I must tell you.’
Her answering smile was wry. ‘It was my intent to accord the same to you.’
They set off for the guest house near the citadel. Once more through the ringed divisions of the Edur city. This time, however, the citizens they passed were silent, sombre. Seren and Hull moved among them like ghosts.
‘I visited the old sites,’ Hull said. ‘And found signs of activity.’
‘What old sites?’ Seren asked.
‘North of the crevasse, the forest cloaks what was once a vast city, stretching on for leagues. It was entirely flagstoned, the stone of a type I’ve never seen before. It does not break, and only the action of roots has succeeded in shifting the slabs about.’
‘Why should there be any activity at such places? Beyond that of the usual ghosts and wraiths?’
Hull glanced at her momentarily, then looked away. ‘There are…kill sites. Piles of bones that have long since turned to stone. Skeletal remains of Tiste. Along with the bones of some kind of reptilian beast—’
‘Yes, I have seen those,’ Seren said. ‘They are collected and ground into medicinal powder by the Nerek.’
‘Just so. Acquitor, these sites have been disturbed, and the tracks I found were most disconcerting. They are, I believe, draconic.’
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 413