‘Darkness,’ he said. ‘The cave. The womb.’
‘But…how?’ She looked round. The landscape of broken rock, the pallid lichen and mosses and the very dead trees. The sky.
‘Gift, or curse,’ Udinaas said, straightening. ‘She took a husband, didn’t she?’
She watched him walking back to the stream, watched him tenderly returning the blind minnow to the rushing water. A gesture Seren would not have expected from him. She? Who took a husband?
‘Gift or curse,’ said Udinaas as he approached her once again. ‘The debate rages on.’
‘Mother Dark…and Father Light.’
He grinned his usual cold grin. ‘At last, Seren Pedac stirs from her pit. I’ve been wondering about those three brothers.’
Three brothers?
He went on as if she knew of whom he was speaking. ‘Spawn of Mother Dark, yes, but then, there were plenty of those, weren’t there? Was there something that set those three apart? Andarist, Anomander, Silchas. What did Clip tell us? Oh, right, nothing. But we saw the tapestries, didn’t we? Andarist, like midnight itself. Anomander, with hair of blazing white. And here, Silchas, our walking bloodless abomination, whiter than any corpse but just as friendly. So what caused the great rift between sons and mother? Maybe it wasn’t her spreading her legs to Light like a stepfather none of them wanted. Maybe that’s all a lie, one of those sweetly convenient ones. Maybe, Seren Pedac, it was finding out who their father was.’
She could not help but follow his gaze to where stood Silchas Ruin. Then she snorted and turned away. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Does it matter? Not right now,’ Udinaas said. ‘But it will.’
‘Why? Every family has its secrets.’
He laughed. ‘I have my own question. If Silchas Ruin is all Light on the outside, what must he be on the inside?’
‘The world is his mirror.’
But the world we now look upon is a lie.
‘Udinaas, I thought the Tiste Edur were the children of Mother Dark and Father Light.’
‘Successive generations, probably. Not in any obvious way connected to those three brothers.’
‘Scabandari.’
‘Yes, I imagine so. Father Shadow, right? Ah, what a family that was! Let’s not forget the sisters! Menandore with her raging fire of dawn, Sheltatha Lore the loving dusk, and Sukul Ankhadu, treacherous bitch of night. Were there others? There must have been, but they’ve since fallen by the wayside. Myths prefer manageable numbers, after all, and three always works best. Three of this, three of that.’
‘But Scabandari would be the fourth—’
‘Andarist is dead.’
Oh. ‘Andarist is dead.’ And how does he know such things? Who speaks to you, Udinaas, in your nightly fevers?
She could find out, she suddenly realized. She could slide in, like a ghost. She could, with the sorcery of Mockra, steal knowledge. I could rape someone else’s mind, is what I mean. Without his ever knowing.
There was necessity, wasn’t there? Something terrible was coming. Udinaas knew what it would be. What it might be, anyway. And Fear Sengar – he had just vowed to protect her, as if he too suspected some awful confrontation was close at hand. I remain the only one to know nothing.
She could change that. She could use the power she had found within her. It was nothing more than self-protection. To remain ignorant was to justly suffer whatever fate awaited her; yes, in lacking ruthlessness she would surely deserve whatever befell her. For ignoring what Mockra offered, for ignoring this gift.
No wonder it had said nothing since that first conversation. She had been in her pit, stirring old sand to see what seeds might spring to life, but there was no light reaching that pit, and no life among the chill grains. An indulgent game and nothing more.
I have a right to protect myself. Defend myself.
Clip and Silchas Ruin were walking back. Udinaas was studying them with the avidness he had displayed when examining the blind minnow.
I will have your secrets, slave. I will have those, and perhaps much, much more.
Udinaas could not help but see Silchas Ruin differently. In a new light, ha ha. The aggrieved son. One of them, anyway. Aggrieved sons, daughters, grandchildren, their children, on and on until the race of Shadow wars against that of Darkness. All on a careless word, an insult, the wrong look a hundred thousand years ago.
But, then, where are the children of Light?
Well, a good thing, maybe, that they weren’t around. Enough trouble brewing as it was, with Silchas Ruin and Clip on one side and Fear Sengar and – possibly – Scabandari on the other. But of course Fear Sengar is no Mortal Sword of Shadow. Although he probably wants to be, even believes himself to be. Oh, this will play badly indeed, won’t it?
Silent, they walked on. Across this blasted, lifeless landscape. But not quite! There are…minnows.
The quest was drawing to a close. Just as well. Nothing worse, as far as he was concerned, than those legends of old when the stalwart, noble adventurers simply went on and on, through one absurd episode after another, with each one serving some arcane function for at least one of the wide-eyed fools, as befitted the shining serrated back of morality that ran the length of the story, from head to tip of that long, sinuous tail. Legends that bite. Yes, they all do. That’s the point of them.
But not this one, not this glorious quest of ours. No thunderous message driving home like a spike of lightning between the eyes. No tumbling cascade of fraught scenes ascending like some damned stairs to the magical tower perched on the mountain’s summit, where all truths were forged into the simple contest of hero against villain.
Look at us! What heroes? We’re all villains, and that tower doesn’t even exist.
Yet.
I see blood dripping between the stones. Blood in its making. So much blood. You want that tower, Silchas Ruin? Fear Sengar? Clip? You want it that much? You will have to make it, and so you shall.
Fevers every night. Whatever sickness whispered in his veins preferred the darkness of the mind that was sleep. Revelations arrived in torn fragments, pieces hinting of some greater truth, something vast. But he did not trust any of that – those revelations, they were all lies. Someone’s lies. The Errant’s? Menandore’s? The fingers poking into his brain were legion. Too many contradictions, each vision warring with the next.
What do you all want of me?
Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to give it. He’d been a slave but he was a slave no longer.
This realm had not been lived in for a long, long time. At least nowhere in this particular region. The trees were so long dead they had turned to brittle stone, right down to the thinnest twigs with their eternally frozen buds awaiting a season of life that never came. And that sun up there, somewhere behind the white veil, well, it too was a lie. Somehow. After all, Darkness should be dark, shouldn’t it?
He thought to find ruins or something. Proof that the Tiste Andii had once thrived here, but he had not seen a single thing that had been shaped by an intelligent hand, guided by a sentient mind. No roads, no trails of any kind.
When the hidden sun began its fade of light, Clip called a halt. Since arriving in this place, he had not once drawn out the chain and its two rings, the sole blessing to mark this part of their grand journey. There was nothing to feed a fire, so the dried remnants of smoked deer meat found no succulence in a stew and lent no warmth to their desultory repast.
What passed for conversation was no better.
Seren Pedac spoke. ‘Clip, why is there light here?’
‘We walk a road,’ the young Tiste Andii replied. ‘Kurald Liosan, Father Light’s gift of long, long ago. As you can see, his proud garden didn’t last very long.’ He shrugged. ‘Silchas Ruin and myself, well, naturally we don’t need this, but leading you all by hand…’ His smile was cold.
‘Thought you were doing that anyway,’ Udinaas said. The gloom was deepening, but he found that there was little effect on his vision
, a detail he kept to himself.
‘I was being kind in not stating the obvious, Letherii. Alas, you lack such tact.’
‘Tact? Fuck tact, Clip.’
The smile grew harder. ‘You are not needed, Udinaas. I trust you know that.’
A wince tightened Seren Pedac’s face. ‘There’s no point in—’
‘It’s all right, Acquitor,’ Udinaas said. ‘I was getting rather tired of the dissembling bullshit anyway. Clip, where does this road lead? When we step off it, where will we find ourselves?’
‘I’m surprised you haven’t guessed.’
‘Well, I have.’
Seren Pedac frowned across at Udinaas and asked, ‘Will you tell me, then?’
‘I can’t. It’s a secret – and yes, I know what I said about dissembling, but this way maybe you stay alive. Right now, and with what’s to come, you have a chance of walking away, when all’s said and done.’
‘Generous of you,’ she said wearily, glancing away.
‘He is a slave,’ Fear Sengar said. ‘He knows nothing, Acquitor. How could he? He mended nets. He swept damp sheaves from the floor and scattered new ones. He shelled oysters.’
‘And on the shore, one night,’ Udinaas said, ‘I saw a white crow.’
Sudden silence.
Finally, Silchas Ruin snorted. ‘Means nothing. Except perhaps a presentiment of my rebirth. Thus, Udinaas, it may be you are a seer of sorts. Or a liar.’
‘More likely both,’ Udinaas said. ‘Yet there was a white crow. Was it flying through darkness, or dusk? I’m not sure, but I think the distinction is, well, important. Might be worth some effort, remembering exactly, I mean. But my days of working hard at anything are done.’ He glanced over at Silchas Ruin. ‘We’ll find out soon enough.’
‘This is pointless,’ Clip announced, settling back until he was supine on the hard ground, hands laced behind his head, staring up at the black, blank sky.
‘So this is a road, is it?’ Udinaas asked – seemingly of no-one in particular. ‘Gift of Father Light. That’s the interesting part. So, the question I’d like to ask is this: are we travelling it alone?’
Clip sat back up.
Udinaas smiled at him. ‘Ah, you’ve sensed it, haven’t you? The downy hair on the back of your neck trying to stand on end. Sensed. Smelled. A whisper of air as from some high wind. Sending odd little chills through you. All that.’
Silchas Ruin rose, anger in his every line. ‘Menandore,’ he said.
‘I would say she has more right to this road than we do,’ Udinaas said. ‘But Clip brought us here out of the goodness of his heart. Such noble intentions.’
‘She tracks us,’ Silchas Ruin muttered, hands finding the grips of his singing swords. Then he glared skyward. ‘From the sky.’
‘For your miserable family feuds are the only things worth living for, right?’
There was alarm in Fear Sengar’s expression. ‘I do not understand. Why is Sister Dawn following us? What cares she for the soul of Scabandari?’
‘The Finnest,’ Clip said under his breath. Then, louder, ‘Bloodeye’s soul, Edur. She seeks to claim it for herself. Its power.’
Udinaas sighed. ‘So, Silchas Ruin, what terrible deed did you commit on your sun-locked sister? Or daughter, or whatever relation she is? Why is she out for your blood? Just what did you all do to each other all those millennia ago? Can’t you kiss and make up? No, I imagine not.’
‘There was no crime,’ Silchas Ruin said. ‘We are enemies in the name of ambition, even when I would not have it so. Alas, to live as long as we have, it seems there is naught else to sustain us. Naught but rage and hunger.’
‘I suggest a huge mutual suicide,’ Udinaas said. ‘You and all your wretched kin, and you, Clip, you could just jump in to appease your ego or something. Vanish from the mortal realms, all of you, and leave the rest of us alone.’
‘Udinaas,’ Clip said with amusement, ‘this is not a mortal realm.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘Not as you think of one, then. This is a place of elemental forces. Unfettered, and beneath every surface, the potential for chaos. This is a realm of the Tiste.’
Seren Pedac seemed startled. ‘Just “Tiste”? Not Andii, Edur—’
‘Acquitor,’ Silchas Ruin said, ‘the Tiste are the first children. The very first. Ours were the first cities, the first civilizations. Rising here, in realms such as this one. As Clip has said, elemental.’
‘Then what of the Elder Gods?’ Seren Pedac demanded.
Neither Clip nor Silchas Ruin replied, and the silence stretched, until Udinaas snorted a laugh. ‘Unwelcome relatives. Pushed into closets. Bar the door, ignore the knocking and let’s hope they move on. It’s ever the problem with all these creation stories. “We’re the first, isn’t it obvious? Those others? Ignore them. Imposters, interlopers, and worse! Look at us, after all! Dark, Light, and the gloom in between! Could anyone be purer, more elemental, than that?” The answer, of course, is yes. Let’s take an example, shall we?’
‘Nothing preceded Darkness,’ said Clip, irritation sharpening his pronouncement.
Udinaas shrugged. ‘That seems a reasonable enough assertion. But then, is it? After all, Darkness is not just absence of light, is it? Can you have a negative definition like that? But maybe Clip wasn’t being nearly so offhand as he sounded just there. “Nothing preceded Darkness.” Nothing indeed. True absence, then, of anything. Even Darkness. But wait, where does chaos fit in? Was that Nothing truly empty, or was it filled with chaos? Was Darkness the imposition of order on chaos? Was it the only imposition of order on chaos? That sounds presumptuous. Would that Feather Witch was here – there’s too much of the Tiles that I’ve forgotten. All that birth of this and birth of that stuff. But chaos also produced Fire. It must have, for without Fire there is no Light. One might also say that without Light there is no Dark, and without both there is no Shadow. But Fire needs fuel to burn, so we would need matter of some kind – solids – born of Earth. And Fire needs air, and so—’
‘I am done listening to all of this nonsense,’ Silchas Ruin said.
The Tiste Andii walked off into the night, which wasn’t night at all – at least not in the eyes of Udinaas, and he found he could watch Silchas Ruin as the warrior went on for another forty or so paces, then spun round to face the camp once more. Ah, White Crow, you would listen on, would you? Yet with none to see your face, none to challenge you directly.
My guess is, Silchas Ruin, you are as ignorant as the rest of us when it comes to the birth of all existence. That your notions are as quaint as ours, and just as pathetic, too.
Fear Sengar spoke. ‘Udinaas, the Edur women hold that the Kechra bound all that exists to time itself, thus assuring the annihilation of everything. Their great crime. Yet that death – I have thought hard on this – that death, it does not have the face of chaos. The very opposite, in fact.’
‘Chaos pursues,’ Clip muttered with none of his characteristic arrogance. ‘It is the Devourer. Mother Dark scattered its power, its armies, and it seeks ever to rejoin, to become one again, for when that happens no other power – not even Mother Dark – can defeat it.’
‘Mother Dark must have had allies,’ Udinaas said. ‘Either that, or she ambushed chaos, caught her enemy unawares. Was all existence born of betrayal, Clip? Is that the core of your belief? No wonder you are all at each other’s throats.’ Listen well, Silchas Ruin; I am closer on your trail than you ever imagined. Which, he thought then, might not be wise; might, in fact, prove fatal. ‘In any case, Mother Dark herself had to have been born of something. A conspiracy within chaos. Some unprecedented alliance where all alliances were forbidden. So, yet another betrayal.’
Fear Sengar leaned forward slightly. ‘Udinaas, how did you know we were being followed? By Menandore.’
‘Slaves need to hone their every sense, Fear Sengar. Because our masters are fickle. You might wake up one morning with a toothache, leaving you miserable and short-tempered
, and in consequence an entire family of slaves might suffer devastation before the sun’s at midday. A dead husband or wife, a dead parent, or both. Beaten, maimed for life, blinded, dead – every possibility waits in our shadows.’
He did not think Fear was convinced, and, granted, the argument was thin. True, those heightened senses might be sufficient to raise the hackles, to light the instincts that something was on their trail. But that was not the same as knowing that it was Menandore. I was careless in revealing what I knew. I wanted to knock the fools off balance, but that has just made them more dangerous. To me.
Because now they know – or will know, soon enough – that this useless slave does not walk alone.
For the moment, however, no-one was inclined to challenge him.
Drawing out bedrolls, settling in for a passage of restless sleep. Dark that was not dark. Light that was not light. Slaves who might be masters, and somewhere ahead of them all, a bruised stormcloud overhead, filled with thunder, lightning, and crimson rain.
She waited until the slave’s breathing deepened, lengthened, found the rhythm of slumber. The wars of conscience were past. Udinaas had revealed enough secret knowledge to justify this. He had never left his slavery behind, and now his Mistress was Menandore, a creature by all accounts as treacherous, vicious and cold-blooded as any other in that ancient family of what-might-be-gods.
Mockra whispered into life in her mind, as free as wandering thought, unconstrained by a shell of hard bone, by the well-worn pathways of the mind. A tendril lifting free, hovering in the air above her, she gave it the shape of a serpent, head questing, tongue flicking to find the scent of Udinaas, of the man’s very soul – there, sliding forward to close, a touch—
Hot!
Seren Pedac felt that serpent recoil, felt the ripples sweep back into her in waves of scalding heat.
Fever dreams, the fire of Udinaas’s soul. The man stirred in his blankets.
She would need to be more subtle, would need the essence of the serpent she had chosen. Edging forward once more, finding that raging forge, then burrowing down, through hot sand, beneath it. Oh, there was pain, yes, but it was not, she now realized, some integral furnace of his soul. It was the realm his dream had taken him into, a realm of blistering light—
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 657