The woman had sought a place of hiding, perhaps intending ambush, but the skein of dogwood she had crawled into was more dead than alive, partially caught by the past season’s fire. Twigs that should have bent broke instead. Even so, if Sharenas had not been relatively near by, and had the timing been otherwise, she might well have stumbled into the trap.
Instead, she approached the crouching scout from a flank, keeping what she could between her and the woman, until one footfall made a thin creaking sound. As the scout turned, Sharenas was already rushing forward, thrusting her sword through the lattice of twigs and branches.
With a faint squeal, the woman lunged back, seeking to avoid the thrust. But the branches behind her caught her motion, bowed, and then propelled her forward again, and the sword’s point punched into her chest.
The tip sliced through wool, and then leather and skin, but rebounded off the scout’s sternum. The blow was enough to knock the woman off her feet, and she flailed in the thicket as she fell.
Sharenas advanced, slashing against the outside of the woman’s right thigh, cutting flesh down to the bone. Blood sprayed and the scout screamed.
Now they will converge in earnest. Sharenas shifted her sword’s angle and chopped down again. This blow severed a major artery in the woman’s right leg, and cut deep enough to nearly sever the limb, although the thigh bone remained in place to grip the meat. Yanking her blade free, she met the frightened, shocked eyes of the young woman, and then, shaking blood from her sword, retreated into the forest once more.
I should have killed her – but her death is assured, too much and too quick her loss of blood. Still, she might have strength remaining to point her friends after me.
Oh, Sharenas, think it through! My tracks are now plain enough!
Behind her, voices converged, and the forest awakened to discordant sounds, and once again Sharenas fled the loss of control, cursing the place in which she found herself. I succumb to the criminal’s mind, stumble from one wrong to the next, and the stupidities mount higher. This fool’s legacy is now mine.
Swearing under her breath, she quickened her pace.
* * *
‘Nothing must impugn the glory of the faith,’ Syntara told the scholar who now sat at the desk. ‘Father Light has revealed his worthiness by the reluctance he displays. He speaks only for his soldiers, his followers, and thinks naught of himself. This is the proper manner of both a god and a king.’
Sagander’s hand, gripping the stylus, was yet to move from where it hovered over the parchment. His eyes were in the habit of watering profusely in this preternatural light, and often he would reach down as if to adjust or knead the leg that was not there. On occasion, she had heard the words hidden by his muttering, as he spoke to demons of pain, begging an end to their torment. At times, she believed he prayed to those demons. The man’s usefulness, she considered as she studied him from her chair upon the dais, might well be coming to an end.
‘Do my instructions confuse you?’
Scowling, Sagander half turned away. ‘She mocked the very thing you would now have me do. This is the flaw among our people against which I have battled for most of my life. The lowborn must not be raised above their capacity.’ He shot her a dark glance. ‘Urusander’s common soldiers. Even the officers. They all seek to uproot rightful order—’
Syntara felt a smirk come to her lips. ‘You elected the wrong side, scholar. Reveal such thoughts unwisely and your head will roll.’
‘Draconus is the enemy, High Priestess!’
‘So you keep telling me. But he will stand alone when we are done. There will be no Consort at the court of Father Light and Mother Dark.’
‘You do not yet grasp the danger he presents, High Priestess. It is my fate to go unheeded. He journeyed to the lands of the Azathanai. He spoke with the Lord of Hate. He holds congress with unknown powers. Consider his gifts to Mother Dark! Whence came such things? A sceptre to command darkness. A mere pattern carved by sorcery upon a floor – that opens a gate into a nether realm!’
‘Cease your shouting, old man. I am not blind to the threat posed by Lord Draconus. Yes, there is mystery about him. I believe he has indeed conspired with the Azathanai, and we as yet know nothing of the bargain’s cost. But consider the one named T’riss, and the gift she in turn gave to me. Without her, there would be no Light.’
‘Then,’ muttered Sagander, ‘the Azathanai but play both sides, seeking discord. Seeking the ruin of Kurald Galain.’
‘Too bad,’ Syntara murmured, ‘that you were unable to accompany Draconus into the west.’
‘He sought no witness to his deeds there. They all worked against me. In all innocence, I fell into their trap.’
Syntara affected a bemused frown. ‘I thought it was a falling horse that broke your leg.’
‘Yes,’ he hissed. ‘A broken leg. What of it? When do such minor injuries demand a severing of the limb? But I was unconscious. I could not assay the damage for myself. I was deprived of choosing my treatment. They were … opportunistic.’
‘Have you no words left for the book?’
He flung the stylus down. ‘Not now, High Priestess. The pain has grown worse again. I must seek my draughts.’
Yes, your draughts. Your potions of forgetting. In this way, you pledge fealty to your gods of pain. You kneel to them. You offer up a drunken smile to their dulled retreat. As upon an altar, you wet your throat with libations, and sicken the temple of your flesh. ‘Of course. Be gone, then, scholar. Take your rest.’
‘Renarr needs to be removed,’ Sagander said, reaching for his crutches. ‘She stands too close to Father Light. She whispers words of poison.’
‘Perhaps you are right. I will think on the matter.’
She watched the scholar hobble from the chamber. Her thoughts of Renarr quickly fell away, as she turned her mind to Lord Urusander. At his heart a common soldier. He knows well the artifice of his noble title, the puerile claim of an invented ancestry. In that at least, Sagander has the truth of it. The lowborn suffer the inadequacies of their impure blood, and we see it clearly in Urusander.
Still, I must make him Father Light.
Duty, Urusander. Even the ox knows its demand.
There was something there, then, that indeed echoed Sagander’s assertions. When musing on the notion of duty, it was undeniable that the virtue’s strength waned the higher one climbed through the classes. And yet, was it not the highborn who spoke most often of duty, when demanding the service of the commonalty, upon farms and among the ranks of soldiery? In the building of cobbled roads and the raising of estates and keeps? Duty, they cried, in the name of the realm.
But usurpers do not come from the common folk. No, they are the rivals standing too close to the throne. They are the pledged allies, the advisers, the commanders.
Think on this, Syntara. How will you tread this narrow path ahead? The closer we get to the throne room of the Citadel, the greater the risk of betrayal.
Urusander, you must learn again the meaning of duty. In the name of peace, recall your low origins, and be assured that I will blunt the fawners who would stoke your fires of personal ambition, of unnatural elevation.
I must reconsider my conversation with Emral Lanear. Let our aspects achieve a proper balance, to make the queen temper the king and the king temper the queen. To make the god and goddess exchange fealty, and in time come to need the weaknesses of the other. For should they lock gazes and feed mutual strengths, both faiths will be lost, and Kurald Galain with them.
Emral. We need to work in concert. Mother Dark was a Tiste once, a mortal woman, a widow. Urusander was a commander in a legion. These are their ignoble legacies. It falls to you and me, Lanear, to invest them both with proper humility.
And to watch, with a multitude of spies and assassins, those who would crowd too close to either of them.
Perhaps, in fomenting aloofness, Mother Dark has the right of it. None shall draw too close. In the distance of their st
ation, we can ensure their sanctity. This will need to be perfectly played. We shall be as sisters, you and I, Lanear.
And yet again, Sagander spoke truly. Draconus stands too close to Mother Dark. He holds too many of her secrets. It will not be enough to banish him. A knife in the back, or poison in the cup, or, if luck holds, a pathetic end in the mud of a battlefield.
We High Priestesses, we shall stand between our rulers and everyone else. We must be the raised dais, the guardians of the portal, and the veil through which every word must pass, from below to above, from above to below.
Syntara gestured with her mind, a flare of power, and a moment later a priestess entered the chamber.
‘Analle, attend my words.’
‘High Priestess,’ the young woman said, gaze averted as she ducked her head.
‘Bring to me the missive sent by Emral Lanear. And then summon a messenger. I must write to my sister. Quickly!”
Analle dipped her head again and rushed from the room.
Fingers tapping on the arm of the chair, Syntara sighed. She would need to devise a new version of the note sent to her by Lanear. Emral was too blunt in her style, too revelatory of the necessary manipulations, even when peace was the ultimate aim. Details might well offend Urusander. No, she would have to indulge what editorial talents she possessed.
Forgive me, Urusander. The note was in a temple cursive form, requiring transcription. I assure you of its accuracy, as I have done the translation myself. You will note the temple seal upon the document, signifying its official recognition.
In a displeasing flash, dark in her mind, she saw Renarr sitting in that infernal chair of hers, and the derisive amusement plain upon her face. Always an error to invite a whore to ascend to a new station. People will settle upon the level that comforts them, and abide by natural laws, as Sagander says, which dictate the limits of their capacity.
And yes, it is this new flexibility, as desired by Hunn Raal and his commoners, which does indeed pose a threat. We risk the anarchy of the undeserving, who must remain forever discontented with their elevation, knowing all too well how it hides their paucity of talent and ability – the lies behind their every claim of worth.
I see bloody days ahead.
Emral Lanear, we must make assassins of our best priestesses. Let lust be the lure, with soft pillows to stifle the cry.
From beyond her room, the slapping of bared feet. The day ahead promised to be a long one.
* * *
As befitting his new station, Sagander now had the use of a cart, and a page to manage the mule, making the journey down into the encampment beyond Neret Sorr far less of an ordeal. His aches dulled by the bitter oils of d’bayang, he lolled in the padded seat he’d had installed in the cart, his lone leg stretched out to match the ghost of the other, and watched the track wend its way behind him.
Atop the hill, the keep was now strangely imbalanced, as its eastern wing blazed blindingly bright, as if the sun had shed a precious tear that still burned upon the stones. The purity of that light stung his eyes, left them reddened and weak. This seemed unfair. Looking upon his hands, he saw their alabaster perfection, inasmuch as one could call such twisted, wrinkled appendages perfect. And when divested of all clothing, the bleached hue of Light’s blessing commanded all of him.
Except, of course, for the leg that no one else sees. That, my friends, remains black as onyx. And so it shall be, until the day my vengeance is satisfied. Draconus, hide your bastard son – one day he will return and I will be waiting for him. As for you, why, I hold to my vow. I will stand over your corpse.
The boy’s quirt snapped upon the rump of the mule, startling Sagander.
That would have served me better than my hand, the day I punished Arathan for his disrespect. A sting upon the cheek, a red welt to remind him, perhaps even a scar. Draconus would not have begrudged me that. A tutor must have discipline. By rule of law, if my hand did not touch him … but no, he’s a bastard whose own father refused him! No meeting of eyes between them! I remained within my rights!
There was a court in his mind, with tiers crowded with scholars – rivals, enemies, backstabbers – and judges arrayed behind a long bench. And in a ring outside all of them, he saw a crowd, packed shoulder to shoulder, and faces he knew well. Many belonged to his childhood, a gathering of tormentors and bullies and friends who had betrayed his trust. He saw the sour visages of bitter tutors still gripping their canes. Before this hate-filled, contemptuous mob, Sagander stood upon the speaker’s platform, and in the realm of his imagination he spoke with stunning eloquence, with the orator’s natural gift. He arrayed his defence of his actions, assembled the damning details of the abuse that then befell him.
And as he neared his final statement, he saw how the faces of the multitude, on all sides, were transformed by his words, their owners made to feel shamed by their past crimes, their cruel dismissals, and the vast catalogue of hurts to which they had each contributed. He saw, too, how the stern regard of the judges slowly, inexorably, swung to Draconus and Arathan, who stood in the cage of the accused.
Their condemnation would prove sweet, but sweeter still would be the judges’ words of awe with which they finally addressed Sagander.
‘You shall be elevated, great scholar, to the highest post in Kurald Galain. Upon a dais one step higher than that of the twin thrones, there to offer your blessed, brilliant insights – to give, in short, proper guidance to our god and goddess …’
The court never left his mind, and so too did it eternally echo with Sagander’s impassioned genius. Innocence could be won from the truth, compensation wrung by the same implacable power. Justice could be carved from a perfection of words, sentences, thoughts made concrete. In such a world, let the bullies and betrayers and tormentors beware.
In that court, upon that platform, Sagander stood upon two hale legs. There was new magic in the realm, after all. Who could say what was possible?
They skirted Neret Sorr upon the high track, and then clumped and rolled and rocked down into the Legion camp, the young page straining as the way grew rougher with frozen ruts and greasy stones. A short time later they drew up before the scholar’s tent.
While he had a room in the keep, Sagander maintained this more modest abode, not out of any love of soldiery or the mess cook’s fare, but for reasons of the private company he entertained within. Batting at the helping hands of the boy, he set his crutches down and worked his way off the cart’s edge. ‘Return at dawn.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But first, open the tent flap.’
‘Sir.’
Sagander ducked his way within, feeling a gust of heat from the brazier that he’d ordered maintained at all times. One of Syntara’s failed acolytes was seated nearby, and she looked up with a startled expression.
‘Is this all you do?’ he demanded. ‘Staring at the coals until they burn down? Have you no clothes to mend, no stitchwork or knitting? What of bandages? There’s always the need for weaving those in an army, yes? Keep your hands busy, child, lest your mind rot more than it already has. Now, go. And remember to set the lamp upon the pole at the entrance. Yes, just so, now out with you.’
When she was gone, he hobbled over to the ornate chair he’d had brought down from the keep and settled into it, stretching out the leg none other could see. Glowering down at it, he squinted at the ebon hue. It was a younger man’s leg, well muscled, filled with strength and life. Only rarely, when he’d imbibed too much d’bayang, did the bone break, one splintered end pushing up through the flesh, and the leg then twisted and shrank to proportions to match its companion, before the black hue shifted into shades of green, and the stench of gangrene rose from the limb like smoke.
At times, deep in sleep, he saw his severed leg lying upon bloodied grasses. He saw it nudged by a boot into a latrine trench. He saw it befouled.
I will answer in kind, this I swear, upon your corpses. Upon your faces, I will answer in kind. No act is final. An
other inevitably awaits. In his mind, he uttered this promise to every face in the crowd. They were asides, too faint to be heard by the judges, but the face of each enemy who heard his promise, why, how it blanched! How the lip quivered!
Now, my friends, which among you will be the first to beg for mercy?
After a time, the tent flap rustled, and then slipped aside to permit the entrance of Sheltatha Lore.
Sagander smiled. ‘Ah, the lantern was noted. Excellent, my child.’
‘Are you in pain again, tutor?’
At times, there was something in her tone that reminded Sagander of Arathan. A hint of … no, he could not quite grasp it. He could see no insolence in her eyes, only respect and deference. And such an eagerness to serve! There was no sound reason for doubt, and yet … ‘Ah, the pain. If it must be the answer to my good deeds, well, whoever said the world was fair, yes?’
She moved further into the tent, and once again Sagander marvelled at the natural grace that came with the young. ‘But things will be made fair, tutor, and soon. And perhaps, among the new practitioners of Denul, you will find an unexpected salvation.’
He eyed her, silent as she settled herself upon a heap of cushions beside his cot, and then he said, ‘In the meantime, dear innocence, I have need of you.’
The smile she offered him looked genuine enough, but something in it – in the eyes, possibly, which seemed to softly fulminate, as if the surface was slowly melting in the heat – troubled Sagander. Too much like Arathan, this child. But unlike my failures with that bastard, I will make this creature pure again. For all the abuses her mother has inflicted upon her, I have her salvation to achieve, and achieve it I shall. ‘Can you sense it, child? This ghost of mine?’
‘I can,’ she replied. ‘Always. And still I wonder, tutor …’
He tilted his head. ‘You wonder what, beloved?’
‘Why its skin remains so black.’
Sagander held his smile, but with difficulty. It was one thing to indulge her wilful imaginings, to invite from her those strange, but hopeless, efforts at comforting his invisible pain, but this! This is the sorcery at work. It seethes through us all, a plague’s breath of unnatural power.