The Dark Defiles

by Richard K. Morgan

  A longish pause.

  “When we were summoned from the void,” the Helmsman said coldly, “there was a reason the Kiriath encased us in iron. I don’t think you’d like me outside of this containment vessel.”

  “I don’t like you much inside it. And it’s a long swim back to the surface, so you know what—I think I’ll take my chances.” Ringil dug out his bradawl. “I have some questions for you, Helmsman. You’re going to answer them for me as helpfully as you can, or you’re going to be taking a very close look at the seabed. And just so we know we’re all on the same page …”

  He knelt and put a steadying hand on the rim of the carapace. Commenced gouging the most powerful of the Compulsion glyphs into the metal.

  “What do you think …” Anasharal’s voice dropped away in midsentence, something Gil had never heard it do before. There was a peculiarly human quality to the way it sounded, something he hoped he could count as weakness. He got the first glyph finished—it was hard going; the carapace barely admitted the faintest of scratches, even from the bradawl’s Kiriath steel point—and started on the second.

  Felt the metal under his hand beginning to get warm.

  “That sting a bit, does it?” he asked, with a levity he didn’t feel. Hjel had told him he’d need at least a five-character string for this to work on an entity that wasn’t human, and he wasn’t sure Anasharal was going to give him the chance to get that much down.

  “You are making a grave mistake, Ringil.”

  Third glyph done. The Helmsman’s carapace was hot now, hot enough that it took an effort of will to keep his hand in place. He breathed through the pain, sank himself in concentration on the tracery of the glyphs, kept on gouging. Fourth … glyph … done. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rakan leaning toward him like a frantic hound on a leash, heard his shout only faintly. His hand was scorching, blistering across palm and fingertips, but no matter, it’s a wound like any other, Gil. Stay on your feet, you win the fight. Still on your feet when it’s done, then all wounds heal well enough in time. The fifth glyph was the closer, simple enough, no intricacies. Get it done. He made the primary stroke—the first cross—caught the faintest whiff of something suspiciously like crisping pork—the second cross, the curlicue tail …

  And finished.

  He snatched back his hand. Came to his feet as Rakan rushed in, voice tortured, my lord, my lord, your hand! Gil glanced incuriously at the damage—he’d had worse from the splash of dragon venom in the war—and lifted it to his face. He blew gently on the blistered flesh, glanced sideways at Rakan, allowed the tiniest crimped corner of an acknowledging smile.

  “It’s fine, Captain. Thank you. Just bring me some salve and a bandage.”

  Rakan hung wordless for a second, staring into his face, then hurried away. Ringil looked bleakly past his splayed and scorched fingers at the Helmsman.

  Here we go, then. Moment of truth.

  “Cut out the heat, Anasharal. Now.”

  And across the curve of the carapace, the glyphs lit in lines of bluish fire, brighter and clearer than the scratches he’d made. The Helmsman gave out a strangled sound.

  Ringil gave it a few moments, then stooped, cupped his injured hand, and risked the back of his curled fingers against the carapace.

  It was cooling fast.

  “Right yourself, if you can.”

  A clicking, fingering motion from the Helmsman’s limbs as they flexed out of their recesses. The mushroom-top carapace rocked barely back and forth, less than he’d moved it himself with his boot. He nodded.

  “Fine, you can stop trying now. Do you begin to grasp the new relationship we have?”

  Sullen silence.

  “An answer, please.”

  “Yes, then.” It shocked through him. The avuncular accents were gone, stripped away from the underlying tautness of tone. If there’d been any volume to the Helmsman’s voice, it would have been a shriek. As it was, the watching men flinched back from the sound it made. “I understand what you’ve done.”

  “Then stop trying to fight it. You’re wasting your time anyway, it can’t be done.” He tossed the lie off casually. Truth was, he had no idea what the limits of his new powers might be. You never fucking did with the ikinri ‘ska, until said limitation came and tripped you up, dumped you on your black mage arse. “Talk to me normally, Anasharal. Show me you’ve stopped wriggling.”

  “Very well.” Anasharal’s voice regained some of its previous disdainful poise. “So you’ve been back to the wounds between the worlds, then, like the feeding maggot you are. Burrowed deep this time, did you?”

  “We’re not talking about me, Helmsman.”

  But the levered chunks of memory came crashing down on him all the same.

  BACK FOR MORE, I SEE, RASPS THE HUSK OF A VOICE OVERHEAD, AND A shadow moves through the miserly ration of light sifting down from above. No end to your appetite for suffering, it seems. But then what else should we expect from a hero?

  He freezes where he is, Ravensfriend at a useless guard. Hears the swift scuttle of limbs down the sides of the limestone defile he’s in, senses the bulk of a body hanging suspended at his back. Something sharp touches him on the nape of the neck and then the lower spine. There’s a sound somewhere between a snigger and a sigh, and along the worn smooth walls all the glyphs light up in traceries of blue.

  Am I intruding? he asks, as steadily as he can manage.

  A clawed limb creeps up over his shoulder like some living, insectile thing. The claw-tip chucks him under the chin, tilts his head back as if for a knife. He gets the sense that the thing’s own head is snuggled up close behind his other shoulder.

  At least he does not deny his title any longer, the voice whispers in his ear. A learning curve of sorts, I suppose. But as to intruding, Ringil Eskiath, you’ve been doing that since well before we last met. As I am sure you’re already well aware, so let’s not pretend to a contrition you do not feel, eh?

  I’m, he swallows against the lift of the thing’s clawed finger, told that I owe you some thanks for my passage through the Dark Gate.

  Ah. The little moon-murderers, dabbling again. And what else did they choose to share with you on this occasion?

  They said the Talons of the Sun are back in play.

  There’s a long pause. The clawed finger stays at his throat. He hears water trickle and drip on the limestone walls, echoing in the narrow confines of the defile.

  And you’ve come here to gather force against the day of Reckoning, the Creature from the Crossroads muses. As heroes must. Well, it’s certainly not original, but then I suppose the permutations available are somewhat limited. We could not have mended the world otherwise. Not with humans still in it, anyway. So then—let us see how this writes itself out.

  The clawed finger eases out from under his chin. The glow in the lines of glyph script fades. Ringil lets his neck relax, lets the point of the Ravensfriend droop and rest on the gently rising slope of the passage floor. He hears a scratch and rustle behind him, like heavy vellum pages turning. The rattle of a throat clearing.

  There were times he dreamed that the cage had taken him after all, the husking voice recites in his ear. That he made some impassioned speech confessing guilt and repentance on the floor of the Hearings Chamber, and offered himself up for the sentence instead. That the Chancellery law-lords in their enthroning chairs and finery murmured behind their hands, deliberated among themselves for a space, and finally nodded with stern paternal wisdom. That the manacles were unlocked and his wife and children—

  My apologies. That is someone else.

  Ringil swallows, hard. Yeah, sounds like it.

  Another hero, another betrayal. The pages scrape and turn. It’s sometimes hard to tell them apart.

  If you say so.

  The echoes and borrowings, you see, the endless piled-up repetition in both truth and tale, the sheer bloody cannibalism of it all. We were learning your myth base as we worked trying to understand w
ho you were as a species even as we stitched your world back into something we thought you might recognize and warm to. Ah—here we are, this is you:

  He sits on a dark oak throne, facing the ocean.

  No bindings anymore, he’s loose and comfortable in his seat, the wood is worn and scooped from long use, and the scalloped curves fit him perfectly. No serpent-tanged sword trying to gouge its way inside him, no standing stones, no dwenda. The sea is calm, small waves rolling gently in and breaking knee deep. A loose breeze ruffles his hair.

  Very nice, Gil says hoarsely. I could settle for that.

  Ah, yes, well … Something suddenly oddly evasive in the Creature’s tones. Moving swiftly along, though … let’s see …

  The pages turn again. He hears them crackle at his ear.

  It’s as if he’s suddenly standing in freezing fog, the voice husks at him. Vague, tentacular stripes of darkness reach up around him like riverbed weed caught in a current, or bend away in all directions like leather straps tied tight. Through the mist, he sees the figures of dwenda, locked into postures that he only slowly recognizes as glyph casts, frozen in time. There’s a shivering tension through the air, like lightning undischarged, and he understands that—

  The Creature jolts to another abrupt halt.

  That a mistake too? Ringil asks hopefully.

  No, it’s definitely you. But, well … it is a Heroic Reckoning, after all. We’d be ill-advised to preempt too much.

  There’s a brief, awkward pause, in which neither of them seems to know what to say next.

  I don’t know anything about a reckoning, Ringil lies, experimentally, to see if he can get away with it. I’m here because I need to free my friends.

  Well, well—what resonance! Perhaps we can do something with that.

  I’m sorry?

  Don’t be. Though I warn you—you’ll need to smarten up your act if you hope to prevail against the Talons of the Sun. I once handed you as much power as I thought you could bear at the time, Ringil Eskiath, and you still managed to drop most of it. I found your enemies for you, opened a path and delivered you to a final confrontation with them, but you were apparently still not able to finish the job. Despite the merroigai’s good opinion, I find you fragile, hero. Very fragile.

  Ringil begins to turn around in the narrow space. A clawed limb grabs his shoulder with biting force, deftly turns him back and holds him there.

  It’s really better if you don’t look at me, husks the voice. I am not cloaked as I was at the crossroads, and I should hate to shatter your sanity.

  You were at my back, that first time at the cliffs?

  Ah. Clarity at last. What, did you think you commanded the cold legions at thousandfold strength the way you trail that truncated little trio around behind you? You think you defeated Risgillen of Illwrack alone?

  A shiver runs through him—the memories are puddles, distorted and shattered apart with every fresh drip of recall that adds to them. He’s still not really clear what happened in the temple at Afa’marag—only that he won, and left blood and ruin in his wake.

  You sent Hjel to find me, to bring me out, away from Seethlaw’s … He swallows. To bring me out.

  I sent the dispossessed prince on an errand. He did not know it was you he was looking for. He had, I think, begun to forget you by then. To let your memory go, at least.

  Ringil grimaces. Ignores the cold chill that walks along his spine with those words and all they imply. He grabs after more solid, immediate stuff.

  You sent me to Hjel, that first time. You brought us together. A sudden, flaring ember of intuition. Was it your presence in the Grey Places, then, that twisted time so badly out of joint? Are you an intruder here, too?

  The quiet again, the stealthy trickle of water, and a click and scrape as limbs rearrange themselves on the walls of the defile behind him. A sound like the sighing of a giant, somewhere a long way off. Cool air comes pushing down the passage at his back, coats his neck with a touch like ice.

  You, don’t, listen, says the Creature from the Crossroads. I am a builder here, and to the considerable benefit of your whole species. Perhaps you might afford me a little respect on that account.

  The Dark Queen called you a Book-Keeper.

  Before a book can be kept, it must be written. Look around you, little hero, and see what my kind have written in this place.

  The glyphs flare fierce blue again, then blinding white, too bright to look at directly. The whole dark defile lights up with their fire, drowns him in violent light. Ringil lifts a shielding hand to his eyes.

  Then why—he starts.

  Why? Why what? The voice seems to have flared up with the glyphs. It’s hoarse and grating still, but there’s a loaded force to it like a cold wind blowing. Why did we mend the world? Why bother to repair the damage done? Why stitch the wounds closed with the ikinri ‘ska? As well ask why your mother raised you, why your father sired you. Why an oak spreads branches against the sun and thrusts roots down into the—

  No. It comes out a strained yelp—the glyph light is too much for him. He’s having to screw his eyes shut against the glare. Not that. Why did you bring me together with Hjel?

  Let us just say I perceived a symmetry. A sudden, cold amusement in the Creature’s tones. Do you find the arrangement with the dispossessed prince … unpleasant?

  You know I don’t. He summoned poise, strength. Pours an iron calm into his voice. But I’m sick of being a puppet for every supernatural power through the tavern door. The Dark Court, the Helmsmen, and now you. It’s getting old. If I’m being dealt into this fucking stupid game you all like so much, I want to know what we’re playing for, and I want …

  Sudden scrape of clawed limbs in the narrow space behind him—his voice dies out, sinks back down his throat as he feels the talons grab him roughly under first one arm then the other, then between the legs. Abruptly, he’s hoisted a yard off the floor of the light-blasted passage, held dangling there amid the radiant glyphs.

  You object to being a puppet, eh? The voice is at his ear again, very close. Some sideways moving mouthpart brushes stickily at his neck, and he hears an alarming glottal clicking in three distinct stages. There are worse fates, I assure you.

  RAKAN BROUGHT THE SALVE AND BANDAGES, AND A LOW WOODEN STOOL. He made Gil sit down and then knelt before him to treat the burns himself, something that might have raised some eyebrows if their manpower hadn’t been quite so thinly spread across the three ships. As it was, the gathered men showed little interest in the process; they’d seen wounds dressed often enough, and it didn’t look as if Black Mage flesh was that much different to anyone else’s. They were growing restless now that the show with the Helmsman seemed to be over, so Rakan dismissed them, bridging the authority gap between Throne Eternal and imperial marine command with what Ringil thought was admirable aplomb. The young captain was growing visibly into his responsibilities as need arose; he’d make a fine commander someday.

  Yeah—if you can get him home in one piece, Gil. If you can avoid getting him killed in some Trelayne back alley a couple of weeks hence.

  Oh, shut up. Like any of us have a choice right now.

  Sure you do. Crowd on sail and make a run for it. Swing out wide of the cape, dodge the League pickets or bluff them somehow if you have to, run south till we’re in safe waters. Let Jhiral negotiate to get the others back ransomed and unharmed.

  But he knew he wasn’t going to do any of that, so instead he sat there with hand held docilely out, and watched his young imperial lover smear salve liberally over the burns on his fingers and palm. Enjoyed the soft, slick touch while he could. When Rakan looked up, Ringil caught his eye and dropped the flicker of a wink. Rakan flushed and lowered his gaze.

  Never mind command responsibilities. Wouldn’t mind seeing him grow visibly somewhere else, if we can get six minutes’ privacy between the two of us.

  Pack it in, Gil. Really. Not like the balance here isn’t ticklish enough as it is, without th
e two of you getting caught trading sweet nothings.

  Rakan finished up with the salve, bound Gil’s whole hand from fingertips to wrist, and then muttered a brief prayer over it. Gil didn’t know if this last was out of genuine faith, ingrained custom, or just for show. The Revelation wasn’t an area they’d really touched on. The scant trysts and stolen hours in the bustle of preparing for the expedition had been far too precious to waste on other men’s abstracts, and once they actually set out for the Hironish, opportunities for anything much more significant than a quick fuck had been rare. It all added a poignant spice to their intimacy, it kept the relationship fresh and new, but it also meant—this dawning now on Gil for possibly the first time—that he barely knew the younger man at all.

  Knows how to set a good field dressing. Flexing his hand experimentally in the windings of the bandage. Torso like a god, arse like a peach, legs like a battle marshal’s runner. Sucks cock like there’s no tomorrow. What else you need to know, Gil?

  He stood up and nodded his thanks. Curt and manly, in case anyone was watching. He faced Anasharal again. Paced around the upended iron hull a couple of times.

  “So then, Helmsman,” he said breezily. “You want to tell me what you really dragged us all up here to the arse end of the known world for?”

  Long silence. A couple of the Helmsman’s limbs twitched pettishly at the air.

  “Oh, very well,” it grumbled.

  CHAPTER 33

  attlefield aftermath calm.

  The day’s light was all but gone—Archeth stood in closing gloom amid a quiet laced with the groans and clenched curses of injured men. She shook off the postcombat daze she was sinking into and set about retrieving her knives. Stooped beside the dead warrior caste lizard and worked at pulling first Falling Angel then Quarterless out of its eye sockets. It took some doing; the blades had gone home hard. The wounds in her side stung with the effort of pulling and she spiked her knuckles more than once on the protective spines before she was done. Aware of the Dragonbane coming over to watch, she bit back each yelp as it rose to her lips.