She stared. ‘I’m going to kill that little bastard.’
‘No, you’re not. He’s taken care of. We’ve got a new problem.’
At that moment a small figure stepped into the corridor, stared at them.
Stonny frowned. ‘Mew? Where’s your ma and da? Where’s Hinty?’
Mew started crying, and then rushed towards Stonny who had no choice but to take the child into her arms.
‘They’ve gone missing,’ said Bellam. ‘I was taking care of them, waiting, but they never showed up. Stonny, I don’t know what to do with them. I need to get home – my own parents must be going crazy with worry.’
She spun round, still holding Mew, and her face was savage. ‘I need to get Harllo! Take them to your home!’
‘No. Enough of this. Take responsibility for them, Stonny. Once I let my parents know I’m all right, I’ll go and find Murillio. Take responsibility. You owe it to Myrla and Bedek – they did it for you. For years.’
He thought she would strike him, saw the fury warring in her eyes. He stepped back. ‘Hinty’s in the warm-up, probably sleeping – she does that a lot. Oh, and they’re hungry.’
He left them then.
It took the words of a young man – no, a boy – to do what Gruntle could not do. It took a barrage of blunt, honest words, smashing through, against which she had no real defence.
She stood, Mew in her arms, feeling as if her soul had been blasted open, and all that was left was a hollow shell, slowly refilling. Refilling with . . . something. ‘Oh,’ she whispered, ‘Harllo.’
Shardan Lim was waiting for Challice when she returned home. He rose from the ornate bench but did not approach, instead standing, watching her with an odd expression.
‘This,’ she said, ‘is unexpected.’
‘No doubt. Forgive me for intruding on your . . . busy schedule.’
There was no genuine remorse to back his apology, however, and she felt a trembling of her nerves. ‘What do you want, Councillor?’
‘Are we not past titles, Challice?’
‘That depends.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. Even so, after we’re done here there’ll be no need for formalities between us.’
Should she call for the guard? What would he do? Why, he’d laugh.
Shardan Lim walked closer. ‘Pour yourself some wine.
Pour yourself a lot of wine, if you like. I must tell you, I am not at all pleased at having been so unceremoniously discarded. It seems you find adultery to your taste, and your appetite has grown. Out of control? I think, yes, out of control.’
‘You forced open the door,’ she said, ‘and now complain that I’ve left the room?’
His thin colourless lips curved in a smile. ‘Something like that. I’m not ready for you to leave just yet.’
‘And I am to have no say in the matter?’
His brows lifted. ‘Dear Challice. You surrendered such privileges long ago. You let your husband use you – not in any normal way, but still, you let him use you. You let me do the same, and now some lowborn thief, and who knows how many others. Make no protest now – it will sound hollow even to you, I’m sure.’
‘It’s still my life.’ But the words sounded thin, too brittle to stretch very far over the misshapen, ugly truth.
He did not bother with a response, but looked across to a divan.
‘You’ll have to drag me,’ she said, ‘so the reality will be plain, so plain you won’t be able to pretend this is anything but the rape it is.’
He looked disappointed. ‘Wrong again, Challice. You are going to walk over there and undress. You are going to lie back and spread your legs. It should be easy now; you’ve done it often enough. Your lowborn lover is going to have to share you, I’m afraid. Before long, I expect you’ll not even be able to tell the difference.’
How could he force her to do such things? She did not understand, although – without doubt – he did. Yes, Shardan Lim understood things far too well.
She walked to the divan.
She was still sore, achy, from the morning’s lovemaking. Before long, that ache would be deeper, more raw than it was now. Pain and pleasure, yes, entwined like lovers. She could feed them both again and again, for ever and again.
And so she would. Until the time came when she . . . awakened.
Crokus, never mind my husband. There is no point. I will tell you that the next time. I promise.
I promise.
Shardan Lim used her then, but in the end it was he who did not understand. And when she thanked him afterwards, he seemed taken aback. As he hurried to dress and depart, she remained lying on the divan, amused at his confusion, at peace with the way of things now.
And she thought of her glass globe with its trapped moon, that gift of a youth long lost, and she smiled.
*
In a near tropical city, the dead are quickly dressed. A distraught Coll, half-mad with grief, arrived in a carriage. Meese came down from the room where she had sat with the body, and Coll sent one of his aides to crack open the family crypt. There would be no delays permitted. Grief was transformed into fury when Coll discovered who had been responsible for Murillio’s death.
‘First blood drawn’s never enough for Vidikas. He likes killing – under any other circumstances he’d be on his way to the High Gallows. Damn these antiquated duelling laws. The time’s come to outlaw duels – I will address the Council—’
‘Such a thing will not pass,’ Kruppe said, shaking his head. ‘Coll knows this as well as does Kruppe.’
Coll stood like a man trapped, cornered. ‘Where’s Rallick?’ he asked in a growl.
Sighing, Kruppe poured the second to last goblet full and handed it to Coll. ‘He will be here soon, Kruppe believes. Such is this day, in no hurry to end, and will any of us sleep this night? Kruppe already dreads the impending solitude. Ah, here is Rallick.’
They watched as Irilta stumbled to the assassin, very nearly collapsing into Rallick’s arms. His expression of shock quickly darkened as she spoke, her voice muffled since her face was pressed against his shoulder – but not so muffled that he did not comprehend.
His gaze lifted, met Kruppe’s, and then Coll’s.
There was no one else left in the bar – the poisoned atmosphere had driven away even the most insensate drinkers. Sulty and Chud the new cook stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen, Sulty quietly weeping.
Kruppe poured the last goblet and then sat down, his back to the scene. Coll slumped down beside Kruppe, draining down the wine with the practised ease of an alcoholic reacquainting himself with his deadly passion, but Kruppe had chosen this wine with such risks in mind – its headiness was an illusion, the taste of alcohol a clever combination of spices and nothing more. This was, Kruppe understood, but a temporary solution. He knew Coll well, understood the self-serving cycle of self-pity that now loomed before the man, sauntering in wearing that familiar smirk, like an old, deadly lover. She would open wide her arms, now, to fold Coll in once more – the days and nights ahead would be difficult indeed.
After a long moment Rallick joined them, and although he remained standing he reached down for the goblet. ‘Crokus should be here,’ he said.
‘He was, but he has left.’
Coll started. ‘Left? Did Murillio mean so little to him that he’d just walk away?’
‘He left,’ said Kruppe, ‘to find Gorlas Vidikas.’
Coll swore and rose. ‘The fool – Vidikas will slice him to pieces! Rallick—’
And the assassin was already setting the goblet back down and turning away.
‘Wait!’ snapped Kruppe in a tone that neither man had ever heard before – not from Kruppe, at least. ‘Both of you! Take up that wine again, Rallick.’ And now he too rose. ‘There is the memory of a friend and we will drink to it. Here, now. Rallick, you will not catch Crokus, you will not make it in time. Listen well to Kruppe, both of you. Vengeance need not be rushed—’
‘So Rallick should just let Vidika
s kill yet another friend of ours?’
Kruppe faced the assassin. ‘Do you lack faith as well, Rallick Nom?’
‘That is not the point,’ the man replied.
‘You cannot halt what has already happened. He has already walked this path. You discovered that, did you not? Outside this very inn.’
Coll rubbed at his face, as if waiting to find the numbness a bellyful of wine should have given him. ‘Is Crokus truly—’
‘He has a new name,’ Rallick interrupted, finally nodding. ‘One he has clearly earned the hard way.’
‘Cutter, yes,’ said Kruppe.
Coll looked back and forth between the two of them, and then thumped back down into his chair. All at once he looked a century old, shoulders folding in as he reached for the bottle and refilled his goblet. ‘There will be repercussions. Vidikas is . . . not alone. Hanut Orr, Shardan Lim. Whatever happens is going to ripple outward – gods below, this could get messy.’
Rallick grunted. ‘Hanut Orr and Shardan Lim. I can get in their way when the time comes.’
Coll’s eyes flashed. ‘You’ve got Cutter’s back. Good. We can take care of this – you can, I mean. I’m useless – I always was.’ He sank back, the chair creaking, and looked away. ‘What’s with this wine? It’s doing nothing.’
‘Murillio,’ said Kruppe, ‘would not be pleased at you standing drunk when his body is carried into the crypt. Honour him, Coll, now and from now on.’
‘Fuck off,’ he replied.
The back of Rallick Nom’s gloved hand snapped hard against Coll’s face, rocking him back. He surged upright, outraged, reaching for the ornate knife at his belt. The two men stood glaring at each other.
‘Stop this!’
A bottle smashed against the floor, the contents spraying the feet of Coll and Rallick, and both turned as Meese snarled, ‘There you go, Coll, lap it up and choke to death! In the meantime, how ‘bout the rest of us pay our respects and walk him to the crypt – the undertaker’s cart’s arrived. It’s time – not for any of you, but for him. For Murillio. You chew up this day and it’ll haunt you for ever. And Hood’s breath, so will I.’
Coll ducked his head and spat blood, and then said, ‘Let’s get this done, then. For Murillio.’
Rallick nodded.
Behind the bar, Irilta was suddenly sick. The sounds of her gagging and coughing silenced everyone else.
Coll looked shamefaced.
Kruppe rested a hand on the man’s shoulder. And all at once the councillor was weeping, so broken that to bear witness was to break deep within oneself. Rallick turned away then, both hands lifting to his face.
Survivors do not mourn together. They each mourn alone, even when in the same place. Grief is the most solitary of all feelings. Grief isolates, and every ritual, every gesture, every embrace, is a hopeless effort to break through that isolation.
None of it works. The forms crumble and dissolve.
To face death is to stand alone.
How far can a lost soul travel? Picker believed she had begun in some distant frozen world, struggling thigh-deep through drifts of snow, a bitter wind howling round her. Again and again she fell, crusted ice scraping her flesh raw – for she was naked, her fingers blackening from the tips as they froze into solid, dead things. Her toes and then her feet did the same, the skin splitting, the ankles swelling.
Two wolves were on her trail. She did not know how she knew this, but she did. Two wolves. God and Goddess of War, the Wolves of Winter. They scented her as they would a rival – but she was no ascendant, and certainly no goddess. She had worn torcs once, sworn to Treach, and this now marked her.
War could not exist without rivals, without enemies, and this was as true in the immortal realm as it was in the mortal one. The pantheon ever reflects the nature of its countless aspects. The facets deliver unerring truths. In winter, war was the lifeless chill of dead flesh. In summer, war rotted in fetid, flyblown clouds. In autumn, the battlefield was strewn with the dead. In spring, war arose anew in the same fields, the seeds well nurtured in rich soil.
She fought through a dark forest of black spruce and firs. Her fingers dropped off one by one. She stumbled on stumps. The winter assailed her, the winter was her enemy, and the wolves drew ever closer.
Through a mountain pass, then; brief flashes of awareness and each time they arrived, lifting her out of oblivion, she found the landscape transformed. Heaped boulders, eskers, ragged peaks towering overhead. A tortured, twisted trail, suddenly pitching sharply downward, stunted pines and oaks to either side. Bestial howls voicing their rage high above, far behind her now.
A valley below, verdant and rank, a jungle nestled impossibly close to the high ranges and the whipping snow-sprayed winds – or perhaps she had traversed continents. Her hands were whole, her bare feet sinking into warm, wet loam. Insects spun and whirred about her.
From the thicket came an animal cough, a cat’s heavy growl.
And another hunter had found her.
She hurried on, as if some other place awaited her, a sanctuary, a cave that she could enter, to emerge upon some other side, reborn. And now she saw, rising haphazardly from the moss and humus and mounds of rotted trunks, swords, blades encrusted, cross-hilts bedecked in moss, pommels green with verdigris. Swords of all styles, all so corroded and rusted that they would be useless as weapons.
She heard the cat’s cough again, closer this time.
Panic flitted through her.
She found a clearing of high swaying grasses, a sea of emerald green that she plunged into, pushing her way across.
Something thrashed into her wake, a swift, deadly rush.
She screamed, fell to the ground.
Snapping, barking voices surrounded her, answered by a snarl from somewhere close behind her. Picker rolled on to her back. Human-like figures crowded her, baring their teeth and making stabbing gestures with fire-hardened spears towards a leopard crouched down not three paces from where she was lying. The beast’s ears were flattened back, its eyes blazing. Then, in a flash, it was gone.
Picker pushed herself to her feet, and found that she towered over these people, and yet they were one and all adults – even through the fine pelt of hair covering them she could see that. Five females, four males, and the females were the more robust among them, with wide hips and deep ribcages.
Luminous brown eyes fixed upon her with something like worship, and then the spears were brought round and she was being prodded along, on to a trail cutting across the path she had been taking. So much for worship. Those spears threatened, and she saw something black smeared on the points. I’m a prisoner. Terrific.
They hurried down the trail, a trail never meant for one as tall as Picker, and she found branches scraping across her face again and again. Before long they reached another clearing, this one at the foot of a cliff. A wide, low rock shelf projected over a sloping cave-mouth from which drifted woodsmoke. Two ancients were squatting at the entrance, both women, with a gaggle of children staring out behind them.
There was none of the expected squealing excitement from the children – indeed, no sounds were uttered at all, and Picker felt a sudden suspicion: these creatures were not the masters of their domain. No, they behaved as would prey. She saw stones to either side of the cave, heaped up to be used to make a barricade come the dusk.
Her captors drove her into the cave. She was forced to bend over to keep from scraping her head on the pitched, blackened ceiling. The children fled to either side. Beyond the flickering light from the lone hearth the cave continued on into darkness. Coughing in the smoke, she stumbled forward, round the fire, and into the depths. The shafts of the spears urged her on. The floor of packed earth beneath her feet was free of rubble, but the slope was getting ever steeper and she felt herself sliding, losing purchase.
Suddenly the shafts pressed hard against her and shoved.
Shouting in alarm, Picker pitched forward, slid on the damp floor as if it was layered i
n grease. She fought to grasp hold of something, but nothing touched her flailing hands – and then the floor vanished beneath her, and she was falling.
Harllo’s sudden unexpected plummet ended quickly amidst sharp-edged boulders. Gashes ripped across his back, one thigh and the ankle of the same leg. The impact left him stunned. He vaguely heard something strike the rocks nearby, a terrible snapping, crunching sound.
Eventually, he stirred. The pain from the wounds was fierce, and he could feel blood trickling down, but it seemed he’d broken no bones. He crawled slowly to where he’d heard Bainisk land, and heard ragged breathing.
When his probing hands touched warm flesh, he found it wet, broken. And at the brush of his fingertips it flinched away.
‘Bainisk!’
A low groan, and then a gasp.
‘Bainisk, it’s me. We made it down – we got away.’
‘Harllo?’ The voice was awful in its weakness, its pain.
‘Tell me . . .’
He pulled himself up alongside Bainisk, his eyes making out a rough shape. He found Bainisk’s face, tilted towards him, and Harllo drew himself on to his knees and eased up his friend’s head – feeling strange shards moving under his hands, beneath Bainisk’s blood-matted hair – and then, as gently as he could manage, he settled the head on to his lap.
‘Bainisk.’
The face was crushed along one side. It was a miracle that he could speak at all. ‘I dreamed,’ he whispered. ‘I dreamed of the city. Floating on the lake . . . going wherever the waves go. Tell me, Harllo, tell me about the city.’
‘You’ll see it soon enough—’
‘Tell me.’
Harllo stroked his friend’s brow. ‘In the city . . . Bainisk, oh, in the city, there’s shops and everybody has all the money they need and you can buy whatever you want. There’s gold and silver, beautiful silver, and the people are happy to give it away to anyone they like. No one ever argues about anything – why should they? There’s no hunger, no hurts, no hurts of any kind, Bainisk. In the city every child has a mother and a father . . . and the mother loves her son for ever and ever and the father doesn’t rape her. And you can just pick them for yourself. A beautiful mother, a strong, handsome father – they’d be so happy to take care of you – you’ll see, you’ll see.