There was a long pause, and then Telorast hissed. ‘The Gates of Sorcery!’
‘My Warrens, yes. In return, you can feed upon your chosen aspect.’
‘Warrens,’ said Telorast. ‘Well named, Azathanai.’
‘But you are not to resist those mortals who would draw upon my sorcery,’ added K’rul.
‘Then against whom do we guard?’
‘Azathanai, for one. Your fellow Eleint, for another.’
Ardata suddenly cut in, ‘These two will defy you, K’rul. They seek the Throne of Shadow, upon the rise of the Grey Shore. It is their singular obsession.’
K’rul shrugged. ‘They need only convey my offer to their kin. What will come of the Grey Shore is not yet known.’ He returned his attention upon the Tiste women. ‘Well?’
Curdle scowled. ‘It seems too generous. All in the manner of gifts. Where is the loss for us? The sacrifice? K’rul is devious, the most devious of all the Azathanai. I am suspicious.’
‘I am indeed being overly generous,’ K’rul replied. ‘And this is my reason: another Azathanai seeks to usurp my Warrens, to corrupt them utterly. Should he succeed, even the Eleint of this realm will suffer a harsh fate. Control over the gates of my Warrens is essential, and so I turn to the only beings capable of becoming guardians – indeed, wards – of my sorcery.’
‘Now he flatters us,’ Telorast said.
‘He asks only that we voice the offer to our kin,’ Curdle pointed out. ‘You and me, love, we yield nothing.’
‘True.’
K’rul shrugged. ‘The only thing you two yield is your choice of Warrens. In fact, given your obsession, it seems that you will surrender them entirely in favour of a throne that may never appear. That of course is your choice.’
Telorast turned to her companion. ‘I see no reason to remain here, Curdle. Do you?’
‘None at all!’ Curdle replied. ‘K’rul, we accept your bargain! Where then are these unclaimed gates?’
‘Here and there. Follow the scent of magic and you will find them.’
Scabandari gasped as the two Tiste women seemed to blur, vanishing inside twin burgeoning clouds that moments later manifested as a pair of dragons. Wings hammering the air, scattering sparks from the bonfire, they lunged upward into the darkness.
In their sudden absence, no one spoke.
Then Scabandari gestured with his sword. ‘Who is this giant?’
As attention fixed upon the huge stranger, the man straightened, leaning against a column. ‘I am Kanyn Thrall. Fever has taken me and I shall soon be dead. Yet within, I feel the power of my soul. Sufficient, I should think, for one last service to you, Ardata—’
He got no further, as Skillen Droe leapt forward, wings wide, one clawed hand reaching out to grasp him. The bones of the wings seemed to crackle as the assassin carried Kanyn Thrall upward.
Ardata shrieked.
The winged assassin plunged into the maw of the gate of Starvald Demelain. Both vanished. An instant later, so too did the gate itself, like an iris closing until swallowed by the night.
Uncomprehending, Scabandari stared first at K’rul, and then at Ardata. ‘What just happened?’ he asked.
‘The gate is sealed,’ replied K’rul.
Ardata turned on him. ‘Deceit! You planned this!’
‘Don’t be a fool!’ snapped K’rul. ‘We knew nothing about that Thel Akai!’
‘And Skillen?’
‘Has a mind of his own. And really, should that surprise either of us, Ardata?’
‘Then – he has gone into the Draconean realm? Has he lost his mind! They will tear him to pieces!’
‘Well, they tried that last time, didn’t they?’
Ardata turned on Scabandari. ‘Look what you’ve done, Tiste!’
‘I merely pointed at the man, milady!’
Snarling, Ardata made to march off, towards the temple, but K’rul stepped into her path. ‘A moment,’ he begged. ‘I need your help.’
Her look of stunned incredulity was almost comical to Scabandari’s eyes, and yet she halted.
‘The gates of my Warrens, Ardata, the ones the dragons will now seek out.’
‘What of them?’
A brief look of intense frustration twisted K’rul’s face. ‘What value guardians, Ardata,’ he said in a painfully slow voice, ‘if they can leave whenever they please?’
She crossed her arms. ‘Go on.’
‘I need your talent … with webs. Or, in this case, chains.’
‘You … devious … bastard. Anything else you would ask of me?’
‘Yes. You need to sew up the carcass of a dragon upon the south shore of the Vitr Sea.’
‘Why?’
‘I need it.’
‘Why?’
‘It once belonged to Korabas, forever shunned by her kin, because she is—’
‘The Devourer of Magic. Abyss below, K’rul! But … a carcass?’
He rubbed at his face. ‘Yes, well. It’s complicated, but someone is at this very moment about to complete a ritual, opening a gate into the Warren of Death.’
‘Take note, K’rul, of my extraordinary self-control in that I am not at this moment strangling you.’
‘My faith in you is, as ever, well founded.’
‘And in return for all this?’
‘Your lover escaped the Vitr in the belly of Korabas, Ardata. She walked into the halls of Kharkanas, and took upon herself the Tiste name T’riss. Ardata, my power manifests across this entire realm. She may well seek to hide herself from other Azathanai, but from me that is not possible. Accordingly, when we are done, I will take you to her.’
‘A Warren of Death? You are truly mad, K’rul. Who rules it?’
He smiled. ‘As of yet, no one. Do we have a deal?’
‘Yes, although I am sure I will come to regret it. Every gate a snare, then? I admit, that part pleases me.’
‘I thought it might.’
They walked into the temple.
Scabandari returned now to Osserc, who had regained something of himself and now stood near the dying embers of the bonfire. ‘Milord, we have a fraught journey ahead of us.’
‘We’ll not survive it. Not without horses.’
‘I will make a request of K’rul, then.’
Osserc spat into the embers. ‘Bargain with the Azathanai and they will own your life, Scara. No, we will find another way, and if we die upon the trail, so be it. I have this night won nothing but the truth of my own pathetic soul. My friend, I stand here, shamed before you.’
Glancing away, Scabandari found himself studying the pallid gleam of the distant Vitr Sea. ‘We have the trail ahead, then, to forge in you a new soul.’
Osserc’s abrupt laugh was harsh, filled with self-contempt. ‘You have little to work with, I’m afraid.’
‘Regret is a worthy temper,’ Scabandari said. ‘It shall be where we begin.’
‘Your faith may prove misplaced, Scara.’
He smiled. ‘I am hardly immune to lessons still to learn, Osserc. Very well then, let us test the measure of each other, and the day we stand before the Wise City, open ourselves one more time to the other, and see all there is to be seen.’
After a long moment, Osserc nodded. ‘In a back chamber of the temple there are supplies. Water and food. I’ve not seen the Azathanai eat, or drink for other than simple pleasure.’
‘Then we’ll take what we can carry, and be on our way.’
‘Scara, it’s the middle of the night and I’m exhausted!’
‘As am I, but damned if I’ll camp in their company. Who knows what new need they might find for us?’
TWENTY-THREE
‘SHALL WE FIND AMOROUS BLISS ONLY AMONG THE DEAD?’ LASA Rook asked. ‘Rolling among the flopping limbs so cadaverous and cold, our heat of passion a thing stolen by insensate flesh, to be wasted in the manner of the sun’s heat on a stone?’ The Thel Akai raised her ample arms. ‘The day’s death is but prelude, Hanako of the Scars, a reminder repeated all t
oo often – each night, in fact, as if our souls needed such ominous stirring!’ Her gaze, settling upon him where he sat by the ring of rocks that encircled their modest cookfire, turned suddenly sly. ‘I see your flitting regard, eager cub, upon these breasts of mine, and the lure of my cocked hip with its inviting swell. Death’s threshold awaits us, closer now. On the morrow we shall see for ourselves this modest encampment of the desolate and the despondent, and if you’d an audience to our inaugural rutting, why, a more embittered mob you could not find.’
Sighing, Hanako glanced across to where Erelan Kreed crouched, his unending mutter of words rising and falling to unknown passions, a mélange of languages most of which were utterly foreign to both Hanako and Lasa Rook. He had awakened two nights past, fretful and distracted. Erelan Kreed was, as the Jaghut Raest had predicted, now a stranger, a warrior lost to hidden worlds and memories not his own.
Kreed was turned away from them and the fire, his broad back like a wall blocking the light from his hooded eyes, his tortured face. He rhythmically worked one hand through his beard, pausing every now and then to loose a low, chilling laugh.
‘Never mind him,’ said Lasa Rook. ‘I grow irritated at your lack of attention, Hanako of the Scars. Must I peel away all constraint?’ She began untying the strings of her shirt. ‘So readily exposed in mute invitation’ – the shirt slipped from her shoulders to fall to the ground – ‘these swollen needs, the appurtenances of sensual appetites—’
‘Lady of the Fire, Lasa! Your husbands—’
‘My husbands! Mouldering in the rock-pile! Torn limb from limb from limb! Decayed of countenance, never more to weakly smile or flinch or cringe! From crow-picked tongues, never again a mewled whimper or pathetic beseechment! Ah, the empty echo in my ears! And you, bold young warrior! See how I lick my lips – no, not those lips, fool – and come closer, before death sweeps down upon us with all the senseless weight of boulders and gritty dust!’
Hanako clutched the sides of his head. ‘Enough! What glory is there in such ready surrender?’ As soon as the words left him, he bit down, but too late.
Lasa Rook’s gasp trailed away, leaving nothing but silence, although as he glared at the fire he heard her collecting up her shirt. Then she spoke. ‘This path of mine proves in error, then. Oh, my foolish ways now turn about to let loose the most vicious snarl. The pup at bay, cock limp and awaiting the tree, modest claws readied for scratching the earth, a scent piddled here, a proud strut there. Foolish Lasa Rook, were you blind? This one seeks to do the seducing! Not for him the come hither! No! As the Lord of Temper told you plain as day, this one requires the conquest!’
Hanako moaned and said nothing.
The laugh that came from Erelan Kreed at that moment was appalling in its cruelty, and then the warrior spoke to them both for the first time since consciousness returned. ‘My sister hunts me. There is no refuge. We must traverse the night, children of Kilmandaros. The bitch wants my seed and will take it from this Thel Akai corpse if necessary. Into the timeless realm for us, then, and best we be quick about it.’
Straightening, Hanako took a step towards Erelan Kreed. ‘Who speaks with your tongue, Erelan?’
‘Blood is memory, child. Need is immortal. Above all, vengeance never dies, never fades and never grows cold. In my heart there burns refusal, a fire nothing can quench. Refusal and defiance, such wildness in these two sentiments, such pure … horror.’ He bared his teeth at them. ‘Only among the Jaghut will she hesitate.’
When it was clear that he would say nothing more, Hanako turned to Lasa Rook, met her flat, sober eyes. ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘we should hurry.’
She tilted her head back to regard him with level eyes. ‘To you, Hanako of the Scars, I am now closed. Sting at my indifference, see me turn away again and again. A wall around me I shall raise, even in the realm of the dead, with corpses stacked high. I am the widow’s trap, forever closed, forever sealed away—’
‘Lasa Rook, I was speaking of resuming our journey.’
‘—and your hunger for me shall grow, a poison in your soul—’
‘There is a dragon hunting us! ’
She blinked. ‘I heard him,’ she said in a low tone. ‘His sister wants his seed. How peculiar! What sister would ever desire a brother’s seed? Lifelong proximity alone would incite such levels of revulsion as to spew out a veritable ocean of disgust and derision! Why, if I think of my own brothers in such light, all that lives within me curdles and puckers, a flinching retreat so sour I feel the need to spit.’ She looked over at Erelan Kreed. ‘On your feet then, bold warrior, dragon-blooded. Lasa Rook and Hanako of the Scars shall stand in defence of your dignity!’
‘Lasa, a dragon!’
She waved dismissively. ‘They die too, pup, as we well know.’
‘Let us simply hasten, Lasa Rook,’ Hanako said, collecting up his gear. ‘Into the protection of the Jaghut.’
‘I shall lead,’ she pronounced. ‘You may watch me from behind, Hanako, pining for all that you shall never possess. Draw not too near, either! I have claws and fangs at the ready!’ She set out then, and a moment later Erelan Kreed straightened and fell in behind her.
Hanako looked down at the fire. It took only a few moments to stamp out its flames, and then he set off after them.
Twenty paces in, Lasa Rook glanced back over her shoulder and winked. ‘Alas, the truth wins free! I shall crumble at your first touch, young pup!’
Hanako hesitated, and then with a half-snarl he threw down his pack. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Erelan Kreed, do go on and mayhap the dragon will find us first, if only to feed. We will catch up with you anon.’
Brows lifting, Lasa Rook walked back towards Hanako. ‘Truly? Oh, now I am come over all shy!’
He stared at her, wanting to scream.
* * *
Korya Delath found Haut gathered with a dozen or so of his compatriots, Varandas, Senad and Burrugast among them. The Jaghut had been laughing but their amusement fell away, quickly hidden like a private thing, when she strode among them.
Seeing her, Haut straightened. He muttered something low to the Jaghut woman, Senad, and then gestured. ‘Mahybe, we must talk. There are tasks awaiting you—’
‘Why should any of that matter to you, Haut?’ Korya asked, her glare shifting to encompass all the Jaghut present. ‘You’re all about to die. What do the dead care for the woes of the living?’ She pointed at her old master. ‘You once told me that there were things we were going to do. The two of us, to answer for the Azathanai’s murder of Hood’s wife. What has come of that?’
Haut’s expression twisted slightly, and it seemed to Korya that he almost ducked to unseen blows. Seated beside him, Senad laughed low and knowingly, meeting Korya’s cold regard with weary amusement.
Burrugast growled under his breath and then said, ‘So much to atone, so little time.’
Snorting, Varandas moved to Haut’s side and settled a hand on the captain’s shoulder. ‘Out of the mouth of babes, a veritable torrent of nonsense. Grief is a fist, but to hold it too long is to feel all strength drain from it. So brutally aged by loss and despair, you would shake it still, with palsied fury. Drag her aside, friend, and make quick and clean the cut.’
Korya fixed her attention on Varandas, studied his lean, scarred face. ‘You tell yourselves that I don’t understand. But I do. You’re all giving up. Clothe it in silks if you like, or, more accurately, a jester’s mocking attire. It doesn’t matter.’
Varandas’s nod was solemn. ‘Well enough, Korya. I am a fool but not a blind one. We are indeed a legion of despair, and here we stand with a gaping chasm between us and you. Age is a siege you have not yet experienced. Your bones remain strong, your foundations not yet undermined. The towers of belief you have raised in yourself still stand tall and proud. Certainty’s armour remains untarnished, undented.’
Burrugast added, ‘Haut spoke from a place of wounding. It was but the last of many.’
After a lon
g moment, Haut sighed and then gestured for Korya to follow him.
They walked to the encampment’s edge, looked out eastward over the deep night’s level plain, where the stars pricked the darkness with a strange, dull light. The moon had crept into the sky just before sunset and though half the night had passed, still it clung to the horizon, swollen and the hue of copper.
‘What is happening?’ she whispered. ‘The stars …’
‘In the last days of life,’ Haut said, ‘there comes to the dying soul a single, long night. For most, it passes locked in step with the world, and come the dawn, the sleeping face is preternaturally still. Rarely does such a night impose itself on others. It is a private thing, a stretched expanse, a realm of dying wind and laboured breath.’ He faced her in sorrow. ‘Hood has invoked the Long Night, to open to our souls the passage into death. Now, this night, the stars do not sparkle, the moon does not rise. Tell me, when did you last draw breath? Blink? Whence the next beat of your heart?’
She stared at him in growing horror. ‘The gate has opened.’
‘Yes. How long shall this night be? None knows, perhaps not even Hood.’
‘This is monstrous …’
Haut rubbed at his lined face, looking old and worn out. ‘He has stopped time. Stolen life’s necessary rush, the rolling needs that burn with defiance. In all realms, life wills itself into being, plunging ever forward in the name of order, outracing the chaos of dissolution.’
She shook her head, half in disbelief, half in terror. ‘But … how vast is this … this end of time?’
‘For now, the encampment,’ Haut replied. ‘But there are ripples, unseen by us mortals, and they spread far and wide. Stirring, agitating, awakening. I would imagine,’ he mused, ‘the dead themselves now hearken to this challenge.’ He settled a hand on the old sword at his belt. ‘It seems we shall have our war after all.’
‘All this, Haut? For the grief of one slain woman?’ She stepped back from him, and then faced the plains once more. Stared at the motionless, lifeless night sky. He speaks true. No breath to draw barring those needed for words. My heart … I hear nothing, not even the swish of blood in the veins. ‘Hood used the magic,’ she suddenly announced. ‘All that the one you name K’rul has given to the world. He’s taken it all inside.’
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