While arrayed against us, a general who would rather not lead, a commander who follows only his own drunken whims, and a high priestess still awaiting her god.
We are, all of us, nothing but impostors to our cause, because the cause we espouse is nothing more than the blind we raise to hide our own ambitions. This, I now believe, is the secret behind every war, every clash that sees blood spill to the ground.
The ritual of smoke could, on occasion, offer cruel insights.
Faintly, she heard the chime of the bell cord. Again? Am I to be afforded no rest, no luxury of escape? Senses blunted, her body leaden, she forced herself from the divan, found a cloak to hide all that felt exposed, and made her way from the bedroom into the outer chamber.
‘Enter.’
The historian’s appearance was no surprise, but the presence of Grizzin Farl was. Searching his expression, she found little given away. The Azathanai made a profession of secrets. Even so, she did not detect his usual façade of bluff amusement.
‘What brings you here?’ she asked them.
Rise Herat cleared his throat. ‘High Priestess. The Protector has agreed to guide us into the presence of Mother Dark.’
To what end? These words almost spilled from her, but she managed to hold them back. She would not give them the raw extremity of her own despair, or that of her fears. ‘I see. Are we to fling ourselves against her indifference one more time? Very well. Lead us, Grizzin Farl.’
The Azathanai bowed and then retreated into the corridor. Emral and Rise followed.
After a moment, as they walked, the historian spoke to her with atypical formality. ‘High Priestess, it is time to inform Mother Dark of the events occurring in her realm – yes, I well understand her usage of Endest Silann, but even there, we cannot know the fullest reach of her knowledge, or her awareness. More to the point, Endest resides here in the Citadel, and concerns himself little with what goes on beyond its walls. Is it not time for a full accounting?’
The question was doubly edged, and Emral understood that the historian was not unaware of this. He was, after all, one who chose his words carefully. ‘Your desires are ambitious, historian. But we will see. As you say, the effort is timely.’
Before long, they reached the ancient corridor that led to the Chamber of Night. The damage left behind by the Azathanai T’riss was still visible, in cracks and fissures latticing the stonework, in the slumped, uneven flooring. The passage was unoccupied, in itself a bleak statement of affairs. Approaching the door, Grizzin Farl hesitated, glancing back to his companions.
‘There has been a burgeoning within,’ he said. ‘A deeper and more profound manifestation of Dark. No doubt the effects of the Terondai, the Gate’s proximity.’ He shrugged. ‘I sense the changes, but can discern little else. Nevertheless, I hereby warn you both: what lies beyond this door is changed.’
‘Then,’ answered Emral Lanear, ‘it behoves the High Priestess to comprehend such a transformation, don’t you think?’
The Azathanai studied her, and something in his expression hinted of irony. ‘High Priestess, as it turns out, that which cloaks your mind may prove a benison.’
She frowned, but was given no chance to reply, as Grizzin Farl turned to the door, reached out to the latch, and swung wide the portal to the Chamber of Night.
The cold that flowed out was redolent with fecundity, and this alone shocked Emral Lanear.
She heard a grunt from Grizzin Farl, as if in acknowledgement of her own shock, as the darkness within was, from where they stood upon the threshold, absolute.
‘What awaits us?’ Rise Herat asked. ‘My eyes, though gift-given, cannot pierce this shroud. Grizzin Farl, what can you discern?’
‘Nothing,’ the Azathanai replied. ‘We must enter in order to see.’
‘Even the floor is lost to us,’ the historian retorted. ‘We could find ourselves plunging into an abyss. This chamber is negation, a realm devoid of all substance.’ He faced Emral Lanear, his eyes wide with alarm. ‘I now counsel against this.’
But Emral Lanear found herself shrugging, and then she stepped past the historian and, without giving Grizzin Farl a glance, continued on into the Chamber of Night.
She felt compacted earth beneath her feet, damp and cool through the thin soles of her slippers. The smell of deep decay and verdant life swarmed around her, as if the air itself was alive. We are no longer within the Citadel.
Grizzin Farl joined her, standing close upon her left, a presence more felt than seen. ‘He has taken this too far,’ the Azathanai said in a low rumble. ‘Gates possess two sides. By presence alone they divide worlds. The Terondai, High Priestess, issues into this place.’
‘And what place is this?’ Rise Herat asked from directly behind Emral.
‘Eternal Night, historian. Elemental Night. Name it as you will, but know that it is pure. It is essence.’
Emral could hear something like wind soughing through trees in the distance, but she felt no breath upon her chilled face. A moment later the Azathanai’s huge hand closed about her upper arm, and Grizzin whispered, ‘With me, then. I sense a presence ahead.’
They began walking, with Rise close behind them – he might have been gripping the Azathanai by belt or clothing. ‘How far?’ Emral asked.
‘Uncertain.’
‘Where sits Mother Dark’s throne?’ the historian demanded, his voice taut. ‘Have we lost her utterly now?’
‘Such questions will have to await answers,’ Grizzin Farl replied. ‘This realm sets itself against me. I do not belong, and now, more than ever before, I feel unwelcome.’
‘Can we return?’ Emral asked the Azathanai.
‘Unknown,’ came his disturbing response.
The feel of the earth beneath her was unchanging. There was not a single stone or pebble, nor a plant or any other protuberance rising from the level clay. Yet the redolence was cloying and thick, as if they walked a rain-drenched forest.
‘We have made an error,’ said Rise Herat, ‘entering this place. High Priestess, forgive me.’
Still they could see nothing, not even the ground upon which they walked. Yet, when the heavy sound of footsteps approached from directly ahead, it was but moments before Emral Lanear could distinguish the figure in growing detail.
It was monstrous, hunched and towering over even Grizzin Farl. Its hands hung down past its knees, the arms massive in their musculature. Its head was disproportionately small, the pate hairless, the eyes sunken deep.
Striding closer, and closer still. Moments before reaching them, it said, ‘Food.’
One heavy hand swung up, struck Grizzin Farl in the chest. The Azathanai was flung back, spinning in the air.
Another hand then reached out for Emral Lanear.
But Rise Herat was quicker, dragging her back by the cloak she wore, out beyond the demon’s grasping fingers.
She stumbled as the historian continued pulling her, tugging until she was turned round, and then they were running, blind, lost.
Behind them, the demon gave chase, each step a thump of thunder upon the ground. Distinctly, it said again, ‘Food.’
Warring against her benumbed senses, terror clawed its way free, making a hammer of her heart. She ran as she had not run since she was a child – but those memories were not ones of fear. Now, she felt herself overwhelmed, too vulnerable to comprehend. The way ahead was emptiness, and in that absence there was only the desolation that came with the realization that there was nowhere to hide.
Beside her, Rise Herat’s breaths were harsh and straining. For a moment, Emral Lanear almost laughed. The indolence of their lives in the Citadel had ill prepared them for this. Lying languid. Lungs full of smoke. Dreaming of chants and solemn processions. The poisons in betrayal’s gilded cup. Already, the muscles of her legs were losing strength, and it seemed the weight of her own body was growing too burdensome to bear.
Lithe child, where have you gone? Do you hide there still, beneath layers of adulthood
?
Rise Herat stumbled, and suddenly he was gone from her side. Crying out, Emral Lanear slowed, twisting round—
She saw the demon lumber to where the historian had fallen. Its hands reached down to take hold of him.
Then there was blurred motion, a succession of meaty thuds, and it seemed that the darkness itself had coalesced into something solid, immensely powerful. It swarmed over the demon, and with each blow blood spurted. The demon reeled back from the assault, voicing a child’s bawl of frustration, shock and pain. Then it wheeled round and ran away.
Rise Herat remained on the ground, as if broken by some unseen wound, and when he propped himself up on one elbow, the effort clearly cost him dearly. Emral stumbled towards him, and then halted as their saviour lost the swirling darkness enwreathing it, and she found herself facing Lord Draconus.
‘High Priestess,’ the Consort said, ‘have you not yet understood how unwise it is to accept Grizzin Farl’s protection?’
Rise Herat coughed from where he now sat. ‘Milord, you saved our lives.’
Draconus glanced down to study the historian. ‘If you will wander strange realms, Rise Herat, you must first understand that your own has been made uncommonly sparse of predators – beyond your own kind, that is. Most realms are much … wilder.’ He lifted his gaze and met Emral’s eyes. ‘There are dangers. Tell me, would you as blithely enter a cave mouth in some mountainside?’
Grunting, Rise Herat managed to regain his feet, though he still struggled to find his breath. ‘Tales of old, told to children,’ he said. ‘The heroes plunge into caves and caverns again and again, and each time find peril.’
‘Just so,’ Draconus replied. ‘Yet this is no child’s tale, historian. And there is no story master to twist the fates and deliver unlikely succour. Leave the exploits of heroes upon the breath, where they can do little harm.’
Rise coughed and then said, ‘Hardly, milord. On occasion, fools like us are inspired by their deeds, only to find our own breaths lost.’
‘Lord Draconus,’ said Emral. ‘Can you lead us back to the Citadel?’
‘I can.’
Rise Herat finally straightened. ‘Milord, Grizzin Farl named this place Elemental Night, or Eternal Night. How has this realm come to be, upon the very threshold of the temple’s nave? What has happened to the Chamber of Night and its throne? Where is Mother Dark?’
‘Fraught questions,’ came a voice from one side, and a moment later Grizzin Farl appeared. ‘Draconus, old friend, must you make a map of mystery? By what you have scribed, powers will root to the place of their containment. These gates. You invite vulnerability. Chaos wanders in its hunt. Name me the gate able to flee?’
Seeming to ignore the Protector’s questions, the Consort said, ‘Mother Dark discovers the breadth of her realm—’
To which the Azathanai cut in sharply, ‘You give her this, and expect her to be unchallenged?’
‘Her challengers are no more,’ Draconus replied, finally facing the Azathanai. ‘Do you think I would be so careless in my preparations?’
Something in the Consort’s words clearly appalled Grizzin Farl, but he said nothing.
Draconus turned back to Emral Lanear. ‘She attends her places of faith, High Priestess. But in substance, she is stretched … thin. Thin as, you might say, Night’s own blanket.’
‘Can she be summoned?’ Emral asked. Or are we forsaken?
Draconus hesitated, and then said, ‘Perhaps.’
Rise Herat seemed to choke, and then said, ‘Perhaps? Milord! Her High Priestess asks – no, prays – for the presence of her goddess! Is Mother Dark now indifferent to her chosen children?’
‘I would think not,’ Draconus snapped.
‘Kurald Galain descends into bloody civil war,’ the historian retorted in a half-snarl. ‘Lord Draconus, your very station finds you upon a crumbling pedestal. Urusander means to make himself her husband, and has taken the title of Father Light. And where is Lord Anomander, her First Son? Why, off in the wilderness, tracking a brother who would not be found!’ Rise then whirled to face Grizzin Farl. ‘And you Azathanai! Now in our midst! A deceiver to guide us into this realm, and what of the one accompanying Lord Anomander? T’riss was but the beginning, but now your kind creep into our business. State it plain, Grizzin Farl, what do you here?’
The Protector was slow in responding. Watching the Azathanai, Emral waited to see where his eyes might take his gaze, and a part of her anticipated – with peculiar certainty – that he would find Lord Draconus before answering the historian. But he did not. Instead, Grizzin Farl lowered his head, choosing to study the ground. ‘It is my task, historian, to attend.’
‘Attend? Attend what?’
‘Why,’ the Azathanai looked up, ‘the end of things.’
In the silence that followed, it fell to Lord Draconus to finally speak. ‘High Priestess, historian, I will guide you now to the portal that leads back to the Citadel.’ He then faced Grizzin Farl. ‘You, however, will remain. We will have words.’
‘Of course, old friend.’
‘And I would know of this other Azathanai, who accompanies Lord Anomander.’
The answer to that would be easy enough, but neither Emral nor Rise Herat spoke, and after a moment it was clear that Grizzin Farl had said all he intended to say, at least in their presence.
‘Old friend.’ This Consort bears unseemly gifts, and reveals powers uncanny. How thin, I now wonder, does the Tiste blood run in you, Draconus?
Your ‘old friend’ gives nothing away. I should have expected as much.
So, the Azathanai gather to witness the end of us, and this leads me to a truth. Forgive me, Lord Anomander, for what is to come. Nothing here is your fault, and if we crowd round to take strength from your honour, it is because we lack it in ourselves. We will feed and may well grow mighty, even as we cut you down. She met the depthless eyes of Lord Draconus. ‘Please, then,’ she said. ‘Take us home.’
And Grizzin Farl, you have my thanks. For revealing what you could not reveal.
The highborn are right, though they understand it not. Still, they are right.
She studied Lord Draconus, as if seeing him for the first time. The enemy among us now guides us here in this Eternal Night.
If I can, Consort, I will see Lord Anomander turn against you, by every measure. If it lies within my power, I will see the First Son kill you, Draconus.
For what you have done.
The end of things. In this realm, the notion felt all too real.
ELEVEN
HUNCHED AND GAUNT, THE OLD MAN WITH ONE LEG WORKED his crutches with jarring intensity, as if, at any moment, what held him up could pull loose from his grip, twisting to make a cruciform upon which the fates would nail him. The lines of his face made for hard angles, matching the harsh resentment in his eyes. His thin, pale lips moved to a voiceless litany of curses as his eyes tracked the floor ahead of him. And yet, for all of that, he trailed High Priestess Syntara as if he was her shadow, bound to her by laws that could not be sundered by any mortal hand.
Renarr watched their approach with detached amusement. For her, religion was a wasteland, a place only the broken would choose to stumble on to, their hands outstretched to grasp whatever came within reach. She recalled her own thoughts from some weeks past: the conflation in her mind of whore’s tent and temple, and the squalid surrender that fused into one these seemingly disparate settings. The need was the same, and for many the satiation achieved by both proved shortlived and ephemeral.
The High Priestess was bedecked in flavours of white and gold. An ethereal illumination clung to her like smoke. Her heart-shaped face glistened as if brushed with pearl-dust, and the colour of her eyes seemed to shift hues in a soft stream of blues, magenta and lilac. She was indeed a creature of stunning beauty.
‘Blessings upon you,’ said Syntara when at last she halted a few paces away from Lord Urusander, who had turned to face the new arrivals from his position by the t
all, narrow window overlooking the courtyard.
Eyeing her adoptive father, Renarr sought to gauge his mood, seeking some hint as to the stance he would take with the High Priestess, but as ever, Urusander was closed to her. There was, she supposed, something to admire, and perhaps even emulate, in her lord’s ability to contain his emotions. If, however, she might have expected the man to be affected by Syntara’s radiance, his first words dispelled the notion utterly.
‘This light hurts my eyes,’ Urusander said. ‘I would rather the very stones of this keep not glow day and night. Your blessing,’ he continued, ‘has made me raw with exhaustion. Now, since you have sought me out, dispense with the incidentals and speak your mind.’
Smiling in answer, Syntara said, ‘You are witness to a power born to deny darkness, Lord Urusander. Here, we find ourselves in a holy sanctum, the very heart of that power. Light exists to be answered, and that answer will soon come. Mother Dark but awaits you.’
Urusander studied the High Priestess for a moment, and then said, ‘I am told that Hunn Raal proclaims himself an archmage. He has invented for himself the title of Mortal Sword to Light. He has, for all I know, a dozen more titles beyond those, to add to that of captain in my legion. Like you, he delights in inventing appellations, as if they would add legitimacy to his ambitions.’
It was, these days, almost impossible to discern a paling of visage among the Children of Light, but Renarr imagined she detected it nonetheless in the lovely, perfect face of Syntara. But the insult’s sting did not last long, for Syntara then resumed her smile and added a sigh. ‘Hunn Raal invents titles to affirm his place in this new religion, milord. “Mortal Sword” marks him as the first and foremost servant to Father Light.’
‘He would claim for himself a martial role in this cult, then.’
If anything, this cut deeper, and again it was a moment before Syntara recovered. ‘Milord, this is no mere cult, I assure you.’ She gestured, almost helplessly. ‘See this burnish of Holy Light? See how the air itself is suffused with Light’s essence?’