Endest Silann found Cedorpul on the road, leading his horse by the reins. As he slowed his mount to a walk and drew up alongside the priest, Cedorpul cast him a dark glare. ‘Damned beast threw a shoe. I had hoped to catch Silchas Ruin.’
‘You hope for many things,’ Endest said.
‘You were of little use back there. I once knew you as a friend. Now, I know not what you are.’
‘Apparently, an acolyte once more. Punished for my walk in the market. And now, it seems, distrusted. But I wonder, is it me the High Priestess would see excluded from council, or Mother Dark?’
Cedorpul kicked at a stone on the path, watched it roll into the shallow ditch. ‘Elemental Night. It did not take me long to find it. She does not command that realm, Endest. I assure you of that. It is vast. There are rivers, pools of power, of which she knows nothing.’ He glanced up at Endest. ‘What do you make of it? Is our goddess an impostor?’
‘If she does not rule that realm, Cedorpul, then who does?’
‘I wish I knew. Perhaps,’ he added, ‘the throne remains unclaimed.’
‘Ambition unbridled, Cedorpul, can make ugly even the most benign and placid visage.’
The man scowled, and then spat. ‘I am a wizard now. The world bends to my will.’
‘In a small way, to be sure.’
‘Do you mock me?’
Endest Silann shook his head. ‘I advise caution, knowing it will be unheeded. You say there are sources of power within the realm of night, many of them unclaimed. You are right.’
Cedorpul’s small eyes narrowed. ‘What do you know? What has she told you?’
‘She tells me nothing.’
‘You have always been too coy for my liking, Endest Silann.’
Endest could make out the walls of Kharkanas ahead, a grim black line rising from the horizon. The horses’ slow walk on the frozen road made a solemn beat. ‘Wizardry, magery, sorcery, alchemy, thaumaturgy. Myriad arts, each one wondrous in what it can create, and wholly destructive in what it means.’
‘Explain that.’
Endest Silann smiled. ‘You sound like Silchas Ruin. Simplify, reduce, divide and decide. Very well. This power you now possess, it is a way of circumvention. It slips to one side of mundane reality. It draws on unseen energies to twist nature. It imposes a flawed will upon the shape of the world, upon its laws, its rules and its propensities. It is, in short, a cheat.’
Cedorpul was silent for a few steps, and then he nodded. ‘I will allow all of that. Go on.’
‘One cheats to escape the rules, howsoever those rules are expressed. A winter wind casting a chill upon your bones? A simple cantrip warms you through and through. That, or the mere expedient of donning a cloak. You choose the former as it requires less effort. You choose out of convenience.’ He paused, and then continued. ‘A thousand enemies marching upon you. Draw your sword and prepare for a day of brutal fighting. Or, with a wave of one hand, incinerate them all. As you see, each time, we fall upon the side of convenience. But how cold, how cruel, is that measure of worth? Consider again that line of soldiers. Consider each of their lives, wagered there on the field, and consider as well a day’s hard battle, the wounded, the many slain, the wills bent and then broken. Consider, most of all, the survivors. Each one blessing his or her fortune. Each one returning home, at last, to drop the bundled armour and weapon-belts to the floor, to then embrace a weeping loved one, with, perhaps, children gathering round, their eyes alight with the joy only a child can feel.’ Squinting, he could now make out the Citadel’s bulky towers. ‘But wave the hand. Much simpler, much quicker, and call it mercy, against all the suffering and pain. Deliver death sudden and absolute, and to walk a field of ashes invites an easy dismissal – far easier indeed than to stumble across a field of corpses, hounded by the chorus of the dying.’
‘A wave of the hand,’ Cedorpul said in a growl. ‘Hunn Raal will delight in that simple gesture.’
‘And will you match him with destruction of your own? Why not, then, set the two of you upon the other, alone on the field, our champions of magic, there to duel to the death?’
‘In that, our function is no different from that of armies, is it?’
Endest nodded. ‘True. But with armies, a higher body count, a more profoundly disturbing cost for those who fight, and for those who did not fight. We are all damaged by war. Even those who command. Those who insisted upon the necessity whilst remaining safe in their keeps and palaces. Even they pay a price, though few of that ilk have the courage to admit it.’
‘You reach for abstraction again, Silann, as is your predilection. Now is the time to be pragmatic. Even you must see that. But we are astray in this dialogue. You spoke of mysteries gleaned.’
‘Only this, then. I have my own cheats, Cedorpul. But they are without malice. Their strength, such as I understand it, lies in sustainment. Protection. Defence.’
‘Then you will attend the battle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you defend us against Hunn Raal?’
‘I believe that I can.’
‘Abyss take them, then! We shall win this war!’
‘Understand, Cedorpul, just as Hunn Raal’s sorcery can be negated, so too can yours.’
‘If so, then we’re back to swords and shields!’
Endest Silann nodded. ‘Yes. Most … inconvenient. But I see, upon both sides, no matter the outcome, a host of thankful husbands and wives, a multitude of delighted children. I see tears of joy and relief, and a welling of such love as to sear the sky above us.’
Cedorpul halted then, dropping the reins to bring his hands up to his face, and all at once he was weeping.
Endest Silann reined in his horse and clumsily dismounted. He strode up to his old friend and took him into an embrace. ‘Understand me,’ he whispered as the man in his arms sobbed, ‘I have confidence. But not certainty. I may be able to blunt him only, to save some, but not others. And so I beg you, brother, wring the malice from your power. Twist until the last venal drop falls away. Defend us. That and no more. Be the wall against the fury. Hate finds an easy path with this sorcery. We have reason to fear this new world of ours.’
Face pressed into Endest Silann’s shoulder, Cedorpul managed a nod.
They stood thus, in the dim afternoon light, while the two horses wandered down to crop the brittle grasses at the road’s edge.
* * *
Kellaras stood, girded for war. Around him the Houseblades of Lord Anomander’s company were readying their gear, the arms room crowded with silent men and women while the metal and leather murmured its wholly natural discord, blessedly senseless, yet no less ominous.
Word had come. Urusander’s Legion was but half a day away.
The Houseblades of other highborn families were arriving in Kharkanas, most of them taking up temporary residence in the city’s open squares and rounds, or in the walled compounds surrounding the many private estates.
In his youth, Kellaras had commanded his own fear, on the days leading up to a battle, and in the battle itself. Indeed, he had found a kind of joy in the simplicity of fighting, as if some arguments could only be waged when the last word was spoken, its echo long fading away, and all uncertainty could cleave to the edge of a sword. But rumours had reached them all of sorceries awaiting this clash, against which no shield or armour could defend. Surrounding him now, these Houseblades readied themselves, and their silence was thick with dread. That each of us should be now made obsolete, as useless as sticks against iron blades. Shall we line up only to be cut down from afar? Will Hunn Raal dispense with all honour, even as he calls the rally in that virtue’s name? Can one man kill us all?
A house steward entered the chamber and approached Kellaras. ‘Sir, Lord Silchas Ruin is returning to the Citadel.’
‘Alone?’
‘It seems so, sir.’
Kellaras adjusted his sword-belt, recalling the last time he met Silchas in a hallway of the Citadel while wearing his armour. The
man’s fury had been fierce. ‘Its display whispers of panic.’ This time, alas, he did not expect a reprimand. It seemed long ago, now. A thousand excuses uttered with each step they took, now lying discarded in their wake. Time, chewing up the future and spitting out the past. And each moment, trapped in its eternal and instantaneous present, stands helpless and aghast.
Silchas arrives alone. Historian, you dare not return to see all this? Then stand at a distance. We will be your players in this narrative, anonymous as pawns. Oh, do at the very least summarize us as the multitudes. Assign us our ancillary roles, and leave to us, if you will, the shadows.
Pelk, how I miss you now.
He followed the steward into the main chamber, with its vast inky Terondai on the floor and motes of dull dust drifting in the air. He could hear the outer gates being thrown open, their clank and squeal muted by the hall’s thick wooden doors. Silchas Ruin was moments from arriving. Fitted to bursting with commands, you come like a flung torch, scattering shadows everywhere with every lash of your flame.
Rise Herat, why this shying? You rode out with him, after all. Are you now too full to witness any more of this? Our leader returns alone to the Citadel, and would stand as an island in this calamitous storm. We are all on history’s churning tide, historian, and in the end – when every blazing torch has guttered out – we walk in shadow, we of the multitude, anonymous in our victimhood, and yet so very necessary.
Now do heed me, historian. Enough bodies in the flow will raise any river beyond its banks. And against this flood, none will be left standing.
The doors swung open and Silchas Ruin strode into the chamber. Eyes alighting on Kellaras, the lord nodded and without pausing his march, said, ‘With me, captain,’ and then was past.
Kellaras fell in behind the tall, white-skinned warrior. The pace was merciless, the man bristling as he strode down the corridor, heading for – Kellaras now knew – the Chamber of Night. He felt somewhat humiliated hastening in the man’s wake, as if tugged along on a leash. Every step was a surrender, a relinquishing of his own will. It made something inside him – grim as a thwarted child, hands closed into fists – yearn to lash out. This was, he realized with a faint shock, true, in all the countless venues of life, the endless tumble of scenes where wills clashed, where hackles lifted and fangs flashed from beneath stretched lips. The cowering dog is the one most likely to bite, isn’t it? They take us at this moment, these unwavering men and women who presume to rule over us, and but point us in the direction of a weaker victim. This is their game, knowing or not, and as ever the assumption is that we’ll never turn on our masters – so long as an enemy remains within reach of our blunted, frustrated fury.
And what, then, did the soldiers of Urusander’s Legion discover, when the last enemy retreated over the horizon? Nowhere left for that angry child within. The game had ended, the leaders told them to go home.
But see us now, see how we make scenes inviting that old humiliation. And see how we rush to that rage, so familiar, so simple. This child within us never grows up. And, Abyss take me, it doesn’t want to.
Along the narrow corridor with its cracked, uneven floor. Reaching the recently repaired door of warped blackwood, Silchas Ruin set his hand upon the latch, and then paused to look at Kellaras. ‘Stay close to me, captain.’
Kellaras nodded, the gesture deepening his humiliation, his thoughts in a turmoil of something edging towards self-hatred. This, Mother forgive me, is the curse of the one who salutes. One wolf leads the pack, the rest of us expose our throats.
Silchas Ruin opened the door and strode into the Chamber of Night. Kellaras followed.
No preternatural gifts of sight could conquer the darkness within. Even the faint gloom from the doorway fell off only a few steps beyond the threshold.
‘Close the door,’ said Silchas Ruin.
Kellaras pulled it shut behind him, the new latch making no sound.
Now, his eyes might as well be closed. His remaining senses quested, and then contracted, reducing his world to the slow beat of his heart, the rasp of his breath, the feel of lifeless air against his skin.
Silchas Ruin spoke, startling him. ‘Lord Draconus! The time has come!’
The echoes fell away.
‘Urusander’s Legion approaches the Valley of Tarns! Tell me, Draconus, where are your Houseblades? Pray you surrender them to my command. Pray you understand the necessity of your absence on the day of battle.’
Silence answered him.
Kellaras heard Silchas Ruin shifting his stance – the soft click of a ring against the pommel of a sword, the scuff of boot heels on the gritty clay. ‘She does not understand,’ he said. ‘We must speak, Draconus, as one man to another.’
A moment later, Lord Draconus emerged, ethereal and limned in fragmented silver light, as if parts of him reflected something unseen, too cold to be born of flame, too brittle to belong to moonlight. ‘Silchas,’ he said with a smile softening his features.
‘Draconus. Thank you for acceding to my request.’ Silchas Ruin paused, and then said, ‘Even here, sir, you must sense the closing of this noose – we are moments from strangling our own realm, moments from seeing the death of far too many Tiste. They will see another throne, Draconus. They will see a Father Light at the side of Mother Dark.’
Draconus seemed to lose interest halfway through Ruin’s warning, his gaze shifting away, glancing briefly over Kellaras before continuing on, as if something off to the right had caught his attention. ‘You said that she does not understand,’ he said when Silchas had finished.
‘This is a matter of a man’s honour.’
Draconus looked back, brows lifting.
‘None will accept you, sir,’ Silchas said. ‘Even should she marry you, you will ever remain a Consort in the eyes of the highborn. Among Urusander’s Legion, you will be the man who humiliated Lord Urusander, at the very gates of Kharkanas. The followers of Liosan will see you as the thief of their Throne of Light. The High Priestess—’
‘And all this,’ Draconus interjected, ‘arrayed against the simple gift of love.’
Silchas Ruin was silent for a moment. ‘Honour, sir, stands before all else. Should it fail you, the gift you speak of will falter. Poisoned, corrupted by weakness—’
‘Weakness?’
‘Love, sir, is surely that.’
‘It has never touched you, then, Silchas Ruin.’
‘Am I the one holding the realm hostage to it?’ Silchas seemed to struggle for a few breaths, and then he said, ‘I said we must speak, you and me. Please hear my words, Draconus. Her love for you is undeniable – not even your enemies question it. How could they? She defies everyone for you – her children, each one estranged, abandoned by her closed heart. This is obstinacy. It is plunging the realm into destruction—’
‘It is simply love, Silchas.’
‘Then why will she not marry you?’
Draconus barked a bitter laugh. ‘That choice was never given us—’
‘You should have done it nonetheless. They would have swallowed it down, eventually. Had you done so, there would be no civil war. Even the birth of the Liosan—’
‘No,’ Draconus cut in. ‘Not that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Father Light was a title born the moment she took hers. The Azathanai T’riss, who came from the Vitr, did not create it. She but sanctified it. More to the point,’ he added, ‘the Liosan are necessary, and not just them.’
‘Then this civil war belongs to Mother Dark?’
His face hardened. ‘Oh, you mort—’ he halted, and then in a calmer voice said, ‘No. It belongs to all of you. To every face in the battle line, every soul with a command upon his or her lips. It belongs to the ones who turned away when they shouldn’t have, who chose expediency over decency, who make their reality a cold winter, too hard and too harsh for sentimental fools. It belongs to the ones without imagination, without courage—’
‘Courage? You who hide
in this – this nothing – you dare challenge our bravery?’
‘Do you claim to be a brave man, Silchas Ruin?’
‘I know what I am!’
‘Then … lay down your sword.’
‘Surrender?’
‘You call it that?’
‘They will take the city! They will raise a second throne! And you, Consort, will be cast out!’
‘These,’ said Draconus wearily, ‘are not revelations.’
Silchas Ruin shook his head. ‘None will sympathize with your plight, Draconus. Not after this. Not after so much blood has already been spilled.’
‘Ah, you lay that at my feet as well?’
‘They will hunt you down—’
‘And in so doing,’ cut in Kellaras, his voice pushing between the two men, ‘break Mother Dark’s heart.’
The words silenced both Draconus and Silchas Ruin, the latter of whom turned helplessly to Kellaras.
‘So,’ said Draconus to Silchas after a long moment, ‘what would you have me do?’
‘Does she listen now, Lord Draconus?’
He shook his head. ‘This is our world here, old friend.’ Then he added, with a slight tilt of his head as he regarded Silchas, ‘I see the hand still upon your sword. None, then, shall surrender.’
‘We cannot,’ snapped Silchas Ruin. ‘We lose too much. We lose it all.’
Draconus slowly nodded, looking thoughtful and then, with narrowing eyes, curious. He waited.
Silchas Ruin hesitated.
Tears filled Kellaras’s eyes, but he could not look away. No, Silchas, don’t do this.
‘The honourable thing, Lord Draconus, is to step aside.’
‘I already have, Silchas, or do you imagine I volunteered this role of Consort?’
‘Then … step again.’
‘Ah, I see. It seems, after all, that at least one man must surrender.’
‘It is—’
‘The honourable thing,’ Draconus finished, nodding, and then looking away once more.
She’ll not forgive you, Draconus. Do not agree to this. I understand you. I have found the love of which you speak, the love that holds and has held you for all this time. Silchas would make honour its enemy, its slayer. He drew breath to speak.
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