No, Icarium, you are not perfect.
'I calculate that ninety-four thousand years have passed since I last stood here, Mappo. Ninety-four thousand. There must be some error in that. No city ruin could survive that long, could it?'
Mappo found himself shrugging. How could we know one way or the other?
'The investiture of sorcery, perhaps…' Perhaps.
'Who destroyed this city, I wonder?'
You did, Icarium, yet even in your rage a part of you recognized what you yourself had built, and left it intact.
'They had great power, whoever they were,' the Jhag continued. 'T'lan Imass arrived here, sought to drive the enemy back—an old alliance between the denizens of this city and the Silent Host. Their shattered bones lie buried in the sand beneath us. In their thousands. What force was there that could do such a thing, Mappo? Not Jaghut, even in their preeminence a thousand millennia past. And the K'Chain Che'Malle have been extinct for even longer. I do not understand this, friend…'
A callused hand fell on Mappo's shoulder, offered a solid grip briefly, then withdrew as Fiddler stepped past the Trell.
'The answer seems clear enough to me, Icarium,' the soldier said, halting at the Jhag's side. 'An Ascendant power. The fury of a god or goddess unleashed this devastation. How many tales have you heard of ancient empires reaching too high in their pride? Who were the Seven Holies to begin with? Whoever they were, they were honoured here, in this city and no doubt its sister cities throughout Raraku. Seven thrones, look at the rage that assailed each of them. Looks… personal, to me. A god's or a goddess's hand slapped down here, Icarium—but whoever it was has since drifted away from mortal minds, for I, at least, cannot think of any known Ascendant able to unleash such power on the mortal plain as we see here—
'Oh, they could,' Icarium said, a hint of renewed vigour in his voice, 'but they have since learned the greater value of subtlety when interfering in the activities of mortals—the old way was too dangerous in every respect. I suspect you have answered my question, Fiddler…"
The sapper shrugged.
Mappo found his heart slowing. Just do not again think of that lone, surviving artefact, Icarium. Sweat dripping in an uneven patter on the sand, he shivered, drew a deep breath. He glanced back at Crokus. The lad's attention was elsewhere in such a studied pose of casual indifference that the Trell was left wondering at his state of mind.
'Ninety-four thousand years—that must be an error,' Icarium said. He turned from the structure, offering the Trell a weak smile.
The scene blurred in Mappo's eyes. He nodded and looked away to fight back a renewed surge of sorrow.
'Well,' Fiddler said, 'shall we resume our pursuit of Apsalar and her father?"
Icarium shook himself, then murmured, 'Aye. We are close… to many things, it seems.'
A perilous journey indeed.
The night of his leavetaking all those centuries ago, in the hours when the last of his old loyalties was ritually shriven from him, Mappo had knelt before the tribe's eldest shoulder-woman in the smoky confines of her yurt. 'I must know more,' he'd whispered. 'More of these Nameless Ones, who would so demand this of me. Are they sworn to a god?'
'Once, but no more,' the old woman had replied, unable or unwilling to meet his eye. 'Cast out, cast down. In the time of the First Empire which was not, in truth, the first—for the T'lan Imass claimed that title long before. They were the left hand, another sect the right hand—both guiding, meant to be clasped. Instead, those who would come to be Unnamed, in their journeys into mysteries—' She chopped with one hand, a gesture Mappo had not seen before among the tribe's elders. A gesture, he realized with a start, of a Jhag. 'Mysteries of another led them astray. They bowed to a new master. That is all there is to say.'
'Who was this new master?'
The woman shook her head, turned away.
'Whose power resides in those staves they carry?'
She would not answer.
In the passage of time, Mappo believed he had found the answer to that question, but it was a knowledge devoid of comfort.
They left the ancient island behind and struck out across the clay plain as the day's light slowly faded from the sky. The horses were suffering, needing water that even Icarium and Mappo's desert craft could not find. The Trell had no idea how Apsalar and her father fared, yet they'd managed to stay ahead, day after day.
This trail and its goal has naught to do with Sha'ik. We have been led far from the places of such activity, far from where Sha'ik was killed, far from the oasis. Fiddler knows our destination. He has divined the knowledge from whatever secrets he holds within him. Indeed, we all suspect, though we speak nothing of it—perhaps Crokus alone remains ignorant, but I may well be underestimating the young man. He's grown within himself… Mappo glanced across to Fiddler. We go to the place you sought all along, soldier.
Dusk closed in on the barren landscape, but enough light remained to reveal a chilling convergence of tracks. Soletaken and D'ivers by the score, the number frightening to contemplate, closing to join the twin footsteps of Apsalar and her father.
Crokus fell back a dozen paces as they walked their horses. Mappo took little note of the detail until, a short while later, he whirled at a shout from the Daru. Crokus was on the ground, grappling with a man in the dusty gloom. Shadows flitted across the cracked clay. The lad managed to pin the man down, gripping his wrists.
'I knew you were lurking about, you weasel!' Crokus snarled. 'For hours and hours, since before the island! All I had to do was wait and now I've got you!'
The others backtracked to where Crokus straddled Iskaral Pust. The High Priest had ceased his writhing efforts to escape. 'Another thousand paces!' he hissed. 'And the deceit is complete! Have you seen the signs of my glorious success? Any of you? Are you all dimwits? Oh, so unkind in my nefarious thoughts! But see me respond to their accusations with manly silence, hah!'
'You might let him up,' Icarium said to Crokus. 'He'll not run now.'
'Let him up? How about stringing him up?'
'The next tree we come to, lad,' Fiddler said, grinning, 'and that's a promise.'
The Daru released the High Priest. Iskaral scrambled to his feet, crouching like a rat deciding which way to dart. 'Deadly proliferation! Do I dare accompany them? Do I risk the glory of witnessing with my own eyes the fullest yield of my brilliant efforts? Well disguised, this uncertainty, they know nothing!'
'You're coming with us,' Crokus growled, hands on the two daggers jutting from his belt. 'No matter what happens.'
'Why, of course, lad!' Iskaral spun to face the Daru, his head bobbing. 'I was but hastening to catch up!' He ducked his head. 'He believes me, I can see it in his face. The soft-brained dolt! Who is a match for Iskaral Pust? No-one! I must remain quietly triumphant, so very quietly. The key to understanding lies in the unknown nature of warrens. Can they be torn into fragments? Oh yes, oh, yes indeed. And that is the secret of Raraku! They wander more than one world, all unknowing… and before us, ah, the slumbering giant that is the heart! The true heart, not Sha'ik's grubby oasis, oh, such fools abound!' He paused, looked up at the others. 'Why do you stare so? We should be walking. A thousand paces, no more, to your heart's desire, hee hee!' He broke into a dance, knees jerking high as he jumped in place.
'Oh, for Hood's sake!' Crokus grasped the High Priest's collar, flung him stumbling forward. 'Let's go.'
'The cajoling good-humoured jostling of youth,' Iskaral murmured. 'Such warm comradely gestures, oh, I am softened, am I not?'
Mappo glanced at Icarium and found the Jhag staring at him. Their gazes locked. A fragmented warren. What on earth has happened to this land? The question was shared in silence, though in the Trell's mind a further thought ensued. The legends claim that Icarium emerged from this place, strode out from Raraku. A warren torn to pieces—Raraku changes all who stride its broken soil—gods, have we indeed come to the place where Icarium's living nightmare was born?
They continued on. Overhead, the sky's faded bronze deepened to impenetrable black, a starless void that seemed to be slowly sinking, lowering itself around them. Iskaral Fust's muttering dwindled as if swallowed up by the night. Mappo could see that both Fiddler and Crokus were having difficulty, though both continued walking, hands held out like blind men.
A dozen strides in front of the others, Icarium halted, turned.
Mappo tilted his head, acknowledging that he too had spied the two figures standing fifty paces further on. Apsalar and Servant—the only name by which I know that old man, a simple but ominous title.
The Jhag strode over to take one of Crokus's outstretched hands. 'We have found them,' he said in a low tone that nevertheless carried, bringing everyone to a stop. 'They await us, it seems,' Icarium continued, 'before a threshold.'
'Threshold?' Fiddler snapped. 'Quick Ben never mentioned anything like that. Threshold to what?'
'A knotted, torn piece of warren!' Iskaral Pust hissed. 'Oh, see how the Path of Hands has led into it—the fools followed, one and all! The High Priest of Shadow was tasked to set a false trail, and look, oh, look how he has done so!'
Crokus turned to the sound of Iskaral Pust's voice. 'But why did her father lead us here? So that we may all be set upon and slaughtered by a horde of Soletaken and D'ivers?'
'Servant journeys home, you withered mole carcass!' The High Priest danced in place again. 'If the convergence does not kill him first, of course! Hee hee! And takes her, and the sapper, too—and you, lad. You! Ask the Jhag what waits within the warren! Waits like a clenched hand holding down this fragment of realm!'
Apsalar and her father approached side by side.
Mappo had wondered at this reunion, but no expectations he'd envisioned would match the reality. Crokus had yet to notice them, and was instead drawing his daggers and preparing to close in on the sound of the High Priest's voice. Icarium stood behind the Daru, a moment from disarming him. The scene was almost comic, for Crokus could see nothing, and Iskaral Pust began throwing his voice so that it emerged from a dozen places at once, while he continued his capering dance.
Fiddler, cursing under his breath, had removed a battered lantern from his pack and was now hunting for a flint.
'Do you dare tread the path?' Iskaral Pust sang out. 'Do you dare? Do you dare?'
Apsalar halted before Mappo. 'I knew you would win through,' she said. She swung her head. 'Crokus! I am here—'
He whirled, sheathed his daggers and closed.
Sparks flashed and bounced from where Fiddler crouched.
The Trell watched as the Daru's reaching arms were captured by Apsalar and guided around her in a tight embrace.
Oh, lad, you do not know how poignant your blindness is…
An aura that was an echo of a god clung to her, yet it had become wholly her own. The Trell's sense of it did not leave him at ease.
Icarium came close to Mappo. 'Tremorlor,' he said. 'Aye.'
'There are some who claim the Azath are in truth benign, a force to keep power in check, that they arise where and when there is need. My friend, I am beginning to see much truth in those claims.'
The Trell nodded. This torn Warren possesses such pain. If it could wander, drift, it would deliver horror and chaos. Tremorlor holds it here—Iskaral Pust speaks the truth—but even so, how Raraku has twisted on all sides…
'I sense Soletaken and D'ivers within,' Icarium said. 'Closing, seeking to find the House—'
'Believing it to be a gate.'
The lantern glowed into light, a lurid yellow that reached no more than a few paces in any direction. Fiddler rose from his crouch, eyes on Mappo. 'There is a gate there, just not the one the shapeshifters seek. Nor will they get to it—the grounds of the Azath will take them.'
'As it might all of us,' spoke a new voice. They turned to see Apsalar's father standing nearby, 'Now,' he grated, 'I'd be obliged if you could bend your efforts into talkin' my daughter out of going any farther—we can't try the gate, 'cause it's inside the House…'
'Yet you led her here,' Fiddler said. 'Granted, we were looking for Tremorlor in any case, but whatever reasons you have are Iskaral Pust's, aren't they?'
Mappo spoke, 'Do you have a name, Servant?' The old man grimaced. 'Rellock.' Glancing back to Fiddler, he shook his head. 'I can't guess the High Priest's motives. I only did what I was told. A final task for the High Priest, one to clear the debt and I always clears my debt, even to gods.'
'They gave you back the arm you'd lost,' the sapper said. 'And spared me and the life of my daughter, the day the Hounds came. No-one else survived, you know…' Fiddler grunted. 'It was their Hounds, Rellock.'
'Even so, even so. It's the false trail, you see, the one that leads the shapeshifters astray, leads them—'
'Away from the true gate,' Icarium said, nodding. 'The one beneath Pust's temple.'
Rellock nodded. 'We had to finish the false trail, is all, me and my daughter. Plantin' signs, leaving trails and the like. Now that's done. We hid in shadow while the shapeshifters rushed in. If I'm fated to die in bed in my village in Itko Kan, then it don't matter how long's the walk.'
'Rellock wants to go back to fishing, hee hee!' Iskaral Pust sang. 'But the place you left is not what you return to, oh no. From one day to the next, never mind years. Rellock's done work guided by the hands of gods, yet he dreams of dragging nets, with the sun on his face and lines between his toes! He is the heart of the Empire—Laseen should take note! Take note!'
Fiddler returned to his horse, drew out the crossbow and set the crank, then locked it. 'The rest of you can choose as you like; I've got to go in.' He paused, glancing back at the horses. 'And we should let the beasts go.' He walked over to his mount and began loosening the girth straps. He sighed, patting the Gral gelding on the neck. 'You've done me proud, but you'll do better out here—lead the others, friend, to Sha'ik's camp…'
After a moment, the others strode to their own mounts.
Icarium turned to the Trell. 'I too must go.'
Mappo closed his eyes, willing a stillness to his inner turmoil. Gods, I am a coward. In all ways imaginable, a coward.
'Friend?'
The Trell nodded.
'Oh, you will all go!' the High Priest of Shadow crooned, still dancing. 'Seeking answers and yet more answers! But in my silent thoughts I snigger and warn you all with words that you will not hear—beware sleight of hand. Compared to the Azath, my immortal lords are but fumbling children!'
Chapter Sixteen
Tremorlor, the Throne of Sand is said to lie within Raraku. A House of the Azath, it stands alone on uprooted soil where all tracks are ghosts and every ghost leads to Tremorlor's door.
Patterns in the Azath
The Nameless Ones
For as far as Duiker could see, stretching west and east, the cedar forest was filled with butterflies. The dusty green of the trees was barely visible through a restless canopy of pale yellow. Along Vathar's gutted verge, bracken rose amidst skeletal branches, forming a solid barrier but for the trader track that carved its way towards the river.
The historian had ridden out from the column and halted his horse on a low hilltop that rose from the studded plain. The Chain of Dogs was stretched, exhaustion straining its links. Dust rode the air above it like a ghostly cape, grasped by the wind and pulled northward.
Duiker drew his eyes from the distant scenes and scanned the hilltop beneath him. Large, angular boulders had been placed in roughly concentric rings: the summit's crown. He had seen such formations before, but could not recall where. A pervasive unease hung in the air over the hilltop.
A rider approached at a trot from the train, showing obvious discomfort with each rise in the stirrups. Duiker scowled. Corporal List was anything but hale. The young man was risking a permanent limp with all this premature activity, but there was no swaying him.
'Historian,' List said as he reined in. 'Corporal, you're a fool.'
'Yes, sir. Word's come
from the rearguard's western flank. Korbolo Dom's lead elements have been sighted.'
'West? He plans to reach the river before us then, as Coltaine predicted.'
List nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. 'Aye. Cavalry, at least thirty companies.'
'If we have to push through thirty companies of soldiers to gain the ford, we'll be held up—'
'And Korbolo's main force will close jaws on our tail, aye. That's why the Fist is sending the Foolish Dog ahead. He asks that you join them. It'll be a hard ride, sir, but your mare's fit—fitter than most, anyway.'
Two notches up on her girth straps, the bones of her shoulders hard against my knees, yet fitter than most. 'Six leagues?'
'Closer to seven, sir.'
An easy afternoon's ride, under normal circumstances. 'We might well arrive only to wheel mounts and meet a charge.'
'They'll be as weary as we will, sir.'
Not by half, Corporal, and we both know it. Worse, we'll be outnumbered by more than three to one. 'Likely to be a memorable ride, then.'
List nodded, his attention drawn to the forest. 'I've never seen so many butterflies in one place.'
'They migrate, like birds.'
'It's said the river is very low.'
'Good.'
'But the crossing's narrow in any case. Most of the river cuts through a gorge.'
'Do you ride in the same fashion, Corporal? Tug one way, tug the other.'
'Just weighing things out, sir.'
'What do your visions reveal of that river?'
List's expression tightened. 'It is a border, sir. Beyond it lies the past.'
'And the rings of stones here on this hill?'
The man started, looking down. 'Hood's breath,' he muttered, then met the historian's eyes.
Duiker crooked a grin, gathered up his reins. 'I see the Foolish Dog's on its way forward. It wouldn't do to have them wait for us.'
A loud yapping bit the air at the vanguard, and as the historian trotted to join the gathered officers he was startled to see, among the cattle-dogs, a small, long-haired lapdog, its once perfectly groomed coat a snarl of tangles and burrs.