The Dark Defiles

by Richard K. Morgan

  “It was not treachery, no. But we differed over how to end the Aldrain threat.” Near as Egar could tell, the screech-edged amiability in the demon’s voice hadn’t changed. If it had ever been pissed off about what ’Nam had supposedly done to it, the passing of a few thousand years certainly seemed to have taken the edge off. “More precisely, kir-Flaradnam believed that the threat was ended, and I did not. He did not like my plans for further action, and he knew I would not obey him when he told me to stand down.”

  “But it was ended,” Archeth blurted. “You drove out the dwenda. The Aldrain. It was over, the Indirath M’nal says so. You ended the threat.”

  Egar sniffed. “Till now, anyway.”

  “Ah, so it begins.”

  “Begins?” The Dragonbane looked suspiciously around. “What begins?”

  “The Aldrain reconquest, I imagine. I did wonder about the seismics. I have wondered every time, in fact. They fit so well into the model, each time it was hard to believe that the Aldrain would not see their opportunity and seize it. Though apparently not until now.” Tharalanangharst had seemed for a moment to be drifting away. Now, its voice came back tighter. “A pity your father is not here to see this, kir-Archeth—he was adamant that it would not occur. Could not occur, in fact. He was a tower of rhetorical passion on the subject. It was the kind of conviction one only sees in a man when he knows beyond any doubt, beneath all speech and emotion, that he is utterly wrong.”

  “What seismics?” Archeth asked the ceiling rigidly.

  “Yeah, what is a size-mix anyway?” He liked to think his Tethanne was pretty good, but it wasn’t a word he’d heard before.

  “I have detected vibrations from the south, consistent with a significant earthquake event. My these days somewhat limited senses tell me its origin is in the Hanliagh fault.”

  “Fucking earthquake?” Egar blinked. “What, wait a minute—you talking about the Drowned Daughters?”

  One tavern night in Yhelteth, not long arrived in the city, he’d felt the floor lift and sway beneath his feet and thought it was just the drink—until a serving maid shrieked at his elbow, and things started toppling off shelves and tables around him. He rode the shaking with a—drunken—horse breaker’s calm, watching faintly bemused as his hardened mercenary colleagues grabbed at the talismans they wore or made forking wards in the air. It was a solid few minutes before everything calmed down and he could grab someone, with bruising, inebriated force, and ask what the fuck just happened here, brother?

  The Drowned Daughters twist and yearn in their sleep. They dream of waking and rising from their ocean bed in memory of their great father.

  There’d been other tremors on and off in the years that followed, mostly of lesser force, nothing you didn’t get used to with time. They were far from the weirdest thing a Majak lad might experience, living in the imperial city But some of the local tales on the subject were pretty dark. They told of a cataclysmic ruin visited upon Yhelteth in earlier times, and the tellers could point you easily enough to cracked and slumped buildings amid the older architecture to vouch for the truth of the account. It was said that out to sea, the ocean had boiled, and the Drowned Daughters of Hanliagh had risen from it vomiting fire to scorch the sky.

  “Well?” Archeth, looking slightly sick now. “Is he right? Have the Daughters risen?”

  “The nature and intensity of the tremors suggests not, at least not yet. But if these vibrations are only a precursor, then it is not impossible that the submarine caldera at the heart of the Hanliagh scatter could vent again.”

  Archeth twitched about, then just as abruptly seemed not to know what to do with her sudden will to motion. She stood irresolute on the stark black carpet, glaring through the Dragonbane at something he had no way to see.

  “If there are earthquakes in Yhelteth,” she said tightly, “then those assholes up at the Citadel are going to be touting it for evidence that God’s angry with the Empire, and that means angry with the Emperor, too. This is going to be their wet-dream comeback moment, Eg. They can march right up to the palace gates at the head of a mob ten thousand strong, demand audience, and ask for pretty much anything they like. Prophet’s prick! No wonder Jhiral’s taken us to war.”

  Egar nodded. “Looks like he’s taking a leaf out of Daddy’s campaign manual.”

  “Yeah—a new holy war, against the infidel north. Except when Akal did it, he was expanding the Empire for real. Jhiral’s going to do it just so he can hang on to the throne.”

  “Still—not going too shabbily, if he’s taken Hinerion like Klithren said.”

  Archeth pulled a sour face. “He can lose it again just as fast. That border’s been back and forth like a wanker’s hand as long as I’ve been alive.”

  “Yeah, seen some action there myself, back when I was starting out.” The Dragonbane brooded for a while. “You reckon Anasharal saw this coming, Archidi?”

  “What?”

  “Well, look at it this way—Helmsman gets us all fired up for a three-thousand-mile quest north after things that aren’t there—”

  “An-Kirilnar’s there. Here, I mean.”

  “Archidi, come on. You’re reaching. There’s no Illwrack Changeling, there’s no fucking Ghost Isle. And this place is nowhere near where we were told it was going to be.”

  Archeth looked thoughtful. “Anasharal said south and east of the Ghost Isle. You know, that’s not technically a lie. This coast is east of the Hironish, and the storm did blow us a long way south before we wrecked.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Point is, we were sold a nag and told it was a unicorn. So I’m thinking maybe Anasharal just wanted you out of the city before all this earthquake and war shit broke loose. Maybe this whole thing was just one big fucking excuse to protect you.”

  He watched her digest the idea. Stare at the carpet underfoot, then shake her head. “No. Can’t be, Eg. It’s too elaborate. Helmsmen falling out of the sky? Portents and legends come to life? A quarter million elemental venture, complete with imperial charter, drawing in half the uncrowned heads of Yhelteth commerce? All that to coddle one washed-up, krin-soaked half-breed?”

  He heard the old, tangled damage, the pain and self-loathing in her voice.

  “Well,” he said, very gently. “Got to depend on how much the washed-up, krin-soaked half-breed in question matters to you, I guess. Didn’t you tell me Angfal’s sworn to the single purpose of your protection? Manathan, too, right?”

  “Manathan is sworn to the Kiriath mission, not me. Anyway, that’s not the fucking point. If this is all about protecting me, why didn’t Angfal just tell me to head out to Dhashara for the duration? Or sit things out in the imperial embassy at Shaktur?”

  “Dunno, because you wouldn’t have gone, maybe?” Egar grinned. “I’ve been your bodyguard less than two years, Archidi, and I already know you’re a pain in the arse to keep out of harm’s way. I don’t envy Angfal. You do what’s good for you about as often as a shaman gets a shag.”

  He thought she smiled, just barely. “Thanks.”

  “Just pointing out some obvious truths here. Anasharal sold you the one pony that would get you a thousand miles out of Yhelteth without blinking. And he sold Jhiral a matching saddle to get you there in style.”

  “No.” She shook her head again, emphatically. “I’m not buying this, Eg. You set out a good stall, but there’s too much else that doesn’t fit. There’s the dwenda. Anasharal didn’t make them up. There’s Klithren, and the fact that somebody in Trelayne thought it was worth sending him and a whole fucking flotilla of privateers up to the Hironish isles to detain us. There’s the fact somebody in Ornley was told to dig up that sword and take it back to Trelayne before we arrived. That can’t all be—”

  “What sword?”

  A hard edge on the Warhelm’s voice, unmistakable even to Egar. And he saw how Archeth shot a surprised look at the ceiling.

  “What do you care?” she asked curtly.

  Into the abused air evolved a
twist of light that rapidly became a writhing calligraphic stroke, then some kind of long tool, then—recognition sidling quickly in—a broadsword.

  “If,” said the Warhelm distinctly, “it is this sword, then I care a great deal, and you had better tell me all about it right away.”

  Egar stared at the image floating in the air before him. He’d been a lot of different places in his time under the imperial standard, slaughtered a lot of different peoples, and seen the—usually inferior—weapons they defended themselves with.

  He’d never seen anything like this.

  The blade glinted blue along its edges and did not taper, was the same slim width from guard to jagged tip. He’d seen similar in the hands of the dwenda when they came to Ennishmin two years ago, right enough, and again in the musty stone depths of the temple at Afa’marag last year. But at the guard end of the weapon, any further familiarity died. This sword was equipped there with a heavy slope-sided cross-piece, studded on the underside with hooked little teeth that gave it the appearance of iron jaws wrenched open to vomit out grip and pommel. And grip and pommel, well … Egar caught himself shaking his head as he tried to make sense of what was there. No defined place for hands to grip, no pommel counterweight, just a long, snakelike coil of metal that also gleamed blue in the low light and terminated in a sharp, inward-angled spike.

  The whole lower section of the weapon looked more like an instrument of torture than the handling end of a broadsword.

  “Is this the sword?” A hint of impatience in the demon’s voice now.

  “We haven’t seen the fucking sword,” Archeth snapped. “It was taken from a grave in the Hironish isles before we arrived there. How are we supposed to know what it looks like? You want to tell us what this … thing is?”

  “This is Betrayal Becomes You,” said the Warhelm crisply. It is the Illwrack Changeling’s Doom. A synthesis—a Kiriath reverse-engineered simulacrum of the Aldrain weapon Out of Twilight Leaping, which was gifted by the Illwrack clan to their human champion Cormorion Ilusilin Mayne, called Cormorion the Radiant, on his appointment as battle marshal supreme in the until right now, it seems final dwenda war.”

  Archeth prowled around the floating image of the sword, fascinated. “Betrayal Becomes You? Reverse-engineered why? What for?”

  “As its name I would have imagined tends to suggest, the Illwrack Changeling’s Doom was designed to murder Cormorion when he drew it in battle.”

  “Murder him how?” Archeth was still peering at the sword, either oblivious in her absorption to the Warhelm’s sour point-scoring, or just ignoring it.

  “The Illwrack Changeling’s Doom was reverse-engineered to cut the Changeling’s connection with undefined existence and the opportunities for sorcerous strength that it provides, instead of feeding and channeling them as the original weapon was forged to do. It was to then mirror and store Cormorion’s selfhood, oppose that copy to his existing self in his own mind, and let them obliterate each other.”

  Egar frowned. “You what?”

  “To steal his soul,” said the demon more slowly. “All right?”

  “No, it’s not all right,” Archeth interjected. “I’ve read the Indirath M’nal. That’s not science the Kiriath have ever had. There are speculations about the possibility of stealing or mirroring a, whatever you want to call it, a soul. But that’s all they ever were. Speculations.”

  “I did not say, kir-Archeth, that the forces at the heart of the sword’s design were Kiriath. I said only that the Kiriath did the engineering work.”

  “On whose instigation?”

  Another pause. “We knew them as the Ahn Foi—or the Immortal Watch. Humans on both sides of the conflict called them by a variety of names. Judging by the curses and prayers that I have overheard some of your followers utter in the last several hours, it seems they are currently known as the Dark Court.”

  “The fucking Sky Dwellers?” A disbelieving grin on the Dragonbane’s face.

  “That, too.”

  “They’ve been in this fight for that long?” He looked at Archeth, still grinning. “On your side, against the dwenda from the start? Man, they must be pretty fucking pissed off ‘Nam and Grashgal opted for the Revelation.”

  She shrugged, a bit defensively. “We had our reasons. Monotheism’s handy if you want a rational development of … Oh, never mind.” Her voice pitched up again. “So. This assassination plot. Presumably, it worked?”

  “To an incomplete extent, yes. The Changeling’s … soul was obliterated, and he fell in battle. The Aldrain forces were routed, and not long thereafter, the Aldrain themselves were driven entirely back into the undefined planes.”

  “Sounds pretty complete to me.”

  “But?” Archeth prompted.

  “But the mirrored copy of his self remains, stored in the substance of the sword.” More hesitation, hanging in the empty air. To the Dragonbane at least, it sounded like embarrassment. “There were those among both Kiriath and humans who believed this meant the Changeling could one day be brought back to life.”

  Egar traded a glance with Archeth. “Oops.”

  “Yes, oops,” said the Warhelm unexpectedly. “There were solutions to this, but as I explained earlier, kir-Archeth, your father did not want them applied.”

  “My father,” bitten emphasis on Archeth’s words, “would not have left the job of liberating this world half done. What solutions are you talking about?”

  “For Cormorion to return would require a fresh human host—a new body for his soul. For that matter, for the Aldrain themselves to return would require human collaboration of some sort. It seems from the detail we were able to glean out of myth and legend belonging to both races that it was human sorcery of some kind that summoned the Aldrain into the world in the first place. And whatever form that initial relationship took, by the time the Kiriath arrived here, Aldrain supremacy was wholly dependent on vassal support from human rulers. There were simply not that many of them, compared to humanity’s numbers. They might easily have been overwhelmed, had humans been able to perceive them as an enemy and to act in concert against them. But humans did not. In fact, it was notable how much of humanity seemed to actively crave their presence, their disruption of the natural order, their magic, if you will. Many actively preferred it to the science the Kiriath brought, and even those who did not could often not tell the difference.”

  Egar grunted. “Tell me about it.”

  “Are you … are you saying humanity didn’t want to be liberated?”

  “You have fallen deep into their ways, daughter of kir-Flaradnam.” Hard to be sure, but the Warhelm seemed amused. “You think as they do, you abandon all rational grasp. Do you think your father would be proud? Here you stand, attributing will and intent to abstractions. Humanity, even then, was a race many tens of millions strong. Do you really believe that such numbers could have a single, unified wish or purpose?”

  “But the Indirath M’nal—”

  “The Indirath M’nal was written seven centuries after the events it relates. It was a document designed to rationalize what had gone before, and to vindicate the new Kiriath mission. You should not expect too much accuracy.”

  “But if humans were happy with Aldrain rule—”

  “Some were, some were not. Most lived with it as they lived with the weather and the shape of local terrain—as an unalterable fact of life. But there were enough malcontents and dreamers, fortunately, for our purposes.”

  “Our purposes? Our purpose was to rid the world of a demonic foe. To liberate humanity from their yoke.” She was almost shouting now, shouting at the impassive roofing over her head. “My father told me that!”

  “Then perhaps by then he believed it.” No irony in the demon’s voice as far as Egar could tell. “Certainly, he worked hard to destroy or make obscure the original records of those times and what was done in them. But the hard truth is, daughter of kir-Flaradnam, that in the early years of the Arrival, the Kiriath purpose was t
o survive. No more, no less. They were few in number, stranded in a world they were struggling to understand, a world that appeared not to fully obey the laws of physics they had believed to be universal, and they were faced with a dominant civilization that wanted them gone. What else could they do but go to war?”

  The Dragonbane watched as Archeth floundered for a hold, for something to fling back at the dispassionate voice from the ceiling. She was drowning, as surely as if she’d just been pitched off Lord of the Salt Wind’s rail once again.

  He cleared his throat ostentatiously.

  “Can’t help remembering,” he rumbled, “that we were talking about your solution to the Aldrain’s return.”

  “Yes. We spoke of this.”

  “So what was it? Your solution?”

  “I thought I had made that obvious, Dragonbane. The relationship between Aldrain and human was tightly woven and symbiotic. Without—”

  “Simi—what?”

  “He means they depended on each other,” said Archeth sickly. “And I see now what my father would not let you do.”

  “Yes, you do appear to have grasped it now.” The Warhelm fell silent, then, as if struck by an afterthought. “Would you like me to explain it to your friend?”

  “That’d be nice,” growled Egar.

  “Very well. Without humans, Dragonbane, the Aldrain would have no hope of a foothold against us, would perhaps not even be interested in a return. Extermination of the human race was the obvious safety measure.”

  “Extermination?” Not that he hadn’t heard the word before—work the imperial borders long enough and you didn’t just hear it, you saw the tactic in action. But that was villages, hill tribes, the odd major town that wouldn’t see sense. This, this was … “You talking about everybody?”

  “There were only forty-seven million of them left at the time,” the Warhelm said modestly. “It would have been a simple matter.”

  CHAPTER 22

  “ou know, I didn’t actually kill your friend Venj.”