With growing unease, Finarra followed Resh and Caplo through the portico and emerged into the main chamber. Though no torches flared and not a single lantern remained lit, she found she could easily pierce the gloom. As Caplo had described, a score or more priests were gathered in a circle around one of their own – a man lying prone, splashed in blood. Priestesses moved about the periphery of this rough circle, agitated and frightened. Few took notice of the new arrivals.
Warlock Resh stepped forward. ‘Make way,’ he said. ‘If none among you has the skill to heal, I will see to the wounded man—’
‘There is nothing to heal,’ said one priest, but he and the others moved apart nonetheless, and Resh reached the figure. Crouching, he stared down for a time, saying nothing.
Finarra moved up behind him. ‘His hands are pierced,’ she said. ‘The wounds do not close.’
Resh grunted.
The same priest who’d spoken earlier now said, ‘None of this is for you – any of you. This is Endest Silann, chosen among all the priests. Mother Dark has blessed him, raised him above the rest of us. He has just performed a miracle. We were witness to dead creatures returned to life. To hundreds of citizens kneeling before him.’ The man hesitated, and Finarra saw something wild and loose in his gaze. ‘He banished a dragon.’
‘Banished?’ Caplo snorted.
‘The priest is right,’ Resh said, straightening. ‘I cannot heal these wounds. Sorcery bleeds from them.’ He shook his head, passing one hand before his eyes as if making an obscure sacred gesture. ‘Our reasoned and rightful world is askew.’
The warlock’s last words rippled through Finarra, their passage leaving her chilled, trembling.
‘I once worshipped both reason and right,’ Caplo said. ‘Until I was made witness to their frailty. Now, neither yields faith worthy of the name. Leave them their moment, my brother. I see the Terondai before us, unattended, a scrawl of godly graffiti. Let us peruse it.’
Nodding, Resh pulled back, out of the crowd that now struck Finarra as somehow sordid. Miracles demand a price, it seems. There is nothing more bloodless than a gathering of gawkers. She followed Resh and Caplo.
Moments later they stood before the Terondai, the magical gift of Lord Draconus to his beloved Mother Dark.
Carved in black upon dulled, grey flagstones, the vast pattern gleamed as if wet. Something about it confounded Finarra, as if the meaning of the design – even unto its precise lines – eluded her. She was frightened by a sudden yearning to step upon it, to place herself in the centre.
‘I can make nothing of this,’ Resh said. ‘Not while I stand outside it.’ He glanced across at Finarra. ‘Captain, will you attend me?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, but the word came out dry, fragile.
Caplo hissed out a breath. ‘It warns me away,’ he said. ‘Not for me, this wretched power. Forgive me, brother. I cannot join you.’
Resh nodded as if unsurprised.
‘What will you do?’ Finarra asked the assassin.
‘I will take the mundane path to this power,’ he replied, drawing his furs closer. ‘I will walk to the Chamber of Night.’
Her brows lifted. ‘You seek an audience with Mother Dark?’
‘No. With Lord Draconus.’
‘To what end?’
He gestured a long-fingered hand at the Terondai. ‘This was not made by a Tiste. I will find his scent. I will pierce the veil of his eyes, and look upon his soul. Such gifts are untoward, as is he who bequeathed it.’ He faced them both and drew back his hood, revealing feral eyes. ‘I have a suspicion.’
‘And if it proves accurate?’ Resh asked. ‘What then, my friend?’
‘There is a truth here, well disguised. I mean to tear it loose. I mean to reveal the game. Only then will we know the stance we must take.’
‘You will decide this for the Shake?’ Resh asked in soft tones.
Caplo Dreem smiled with tender sorrow. ‘Ah, friend, it seems a worthy sacrifice.’
Finarra’s breath caught. She glanced back at the priests and priestesses, but none paid them any attention. The man on the floor had begun stirring. She looked back at the assassin. ‘You expect to die, Caplo?’
He shrugged.
It seemed that there was nothing more to say. Facing the Terondai once more, Resh gathered himself, and then strode on to the pattern. Finarra followed an instant later.
They stood then, close to the centre, studying the strange scars beneath their feet.
A faint wind brushed her face, smelling of dust. She lifted her gaze and gasped.
The Grand Hall was gone. Instead, they occupied a flagstoned clearing, surrounded by tall trees, beneath a sky dull as stained pewter. ‘Warlock …’
Resh was now studying the forest encircling them. His sigh was uneven. ‘I did not think we would be invited.’
‘What makes you so certain that we were?’
He shot her a glance, and then frowned.
‘Is it not more probable,’ she persisted, ‘that we have slipped through? Had we been blessed by Light, we would have been blunted, perhaps even destroyed. But, in turn, we are not her children. Not any more. Evading commitment, even the realm finds itself undecided about us.’
‘An interesting possibility,’ he admitted after a moment.
‘Something in our nature has placed us between worlds,’ she continued. ‘I wonder … is this even Dark?’
‘It must be. The Terondai is aspected.’
‘Aspected?’
‘Magic comes in many flavours,’ he replied. ‘The Terondai is a gate, a portal. It can take us nowhere but into the heart of its power, and that power is Dark.’
‘Then … where is she?’
‘Imagine a realm virtually without limit, captain.’
‘I see little value in a gate that leaves people lost, unable to take their bearings.’ She gestured. ‘Where is her precious Chamber of Night?’
‘Upon our own world,’ Resh said, ‘there may be but one gate, one egress. But what if there are infinite worlds? What if the Terondai leads to countless other gates, each affixed to its own world?’
‘Then we are truly lost, warlock.’
‘But is Mother Dark?’
She scowled. ‘Is this the source of her power? Is this how Draconus made her into a goddess?’
‘I don’t know. Possibly.’
‘Have you learned what you needed to, Resh? Can we now attempt to return to our world? Assuming that is even possible. I am sorely unbalanced by this.’
He studied her in the gloom. ‘Is each aspect of sorcery truly closed from all the others? Does that even make sense? What if those aspects of magic are themselves realms of a sort? Should there not be more gates? Gates that pass between them? From Dark to Light, perhaps, or into Denul, even? If so, then who fashioned these portals? And what of Draconus, who had the power to create such a gate in the Citadel itself? Whence came such knowledge?’
She shook her head, knowing that he expected no answers from her.
‘Captain,’ Resh continued, ‘where is the gate for the Shake?’
‘What?’
‘Or perhaps it does not yet exist. Perhaps it will fall to me to conjure it into being. Or indeed, to both of us.’
‘Me? Better you had brought Caplo! I am a stranger to such magicks!’
‘We are far from done here,’ Resh said. ‘We have taken but the first step on this journey. It falls to us, Finarra Stone, to find the gate of our aspect.’
‘Our aspect? We don’t have an aspect!’
‘I believe that we do. Neither extreme suits us, only that which dwells between the two.’ He shrugged. ‘Name it Shadow … to match the cast of our skin, yes?’
‘And you believe we will find our new gate from here? From Dark?’
He shrugged. ‘Or from Light. Does it matter which? Both realms bear edges. Borderlands. Places of transition. We must simply find such a place and claim it as our own.’
‘And how will you
create this gate?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘We are not returning to the Citadel, are we?’
‘I think not, captain.’
‘Our camp gear and food remains with our horses – will you have us consume ether for sustenance?’
He eyed her with an odd, inquisitive expression. ‘Perhaps,’ he replied, ‘faith will provide.’
* * *
The morning air had been damp and cloying on the day that Captain Kellaras parted company with both Gripp Galas and Hish Tulla, just north of Kharkanas. Flakes of snow drifted down and the night’s fall had settled upon the rutted track, filling the deep imprints left by horses and oxen, and to Kellaras it seemed as if the world struggled to erase what had been, seeking a cleaner promise for what was to come.
The delusion was momentary. War was coming, he reminded himself as he checked the girth-straps of his horse. Impatient and heartless, it would crawl across the season, out from its familiar nest of thaw and heat, and in his mind’s eye he saw a vision of frozen corpses and lurid gashes of red, arrayed upon the white ground. Whatever was pure soon leaves. Even eyes can soil a scene.
When he turned he found Gripp Galas seated astride his horse. Behind the man, already some distance down the western track of the crossroads, Hish Tulla rode on. Whatever parting she had shared with her husband had been brief and quiet. Kellaras cleared his throat. ‘I would still rather you permitted me to accompany you, Gripp.’
‘Pelk is the only company I require,’ the old man replied. The shrug he then offered was apologetic. ‘I will see her off to Kharkanas as soon as we are done.’
Kellaras glanced at Pelk, but her expression was closed where she sat astride her mount. The night just past had been one of fierce, if virtually silent, lovemaking. The woman to whom he had given his heart had a way of disappearing in front of his eyes. ‘If that is her wish,’ he said.
Gripp smiled. ‘Pelk?’
‘It is,’ she replied, twisting in her saddle to squint at the north track awaiting her and Galas. ‘If the captain will be found there.’
Kellaras shook his head in wonder. ‘I shall, unless our forces have been assembled upon a field of battle.’
‘If that should be the case,’ Gripp Galas said, his smile falling away, ‘then our efforts will have been in vain.’
‘Best hurry then,’ Kellaras said.
Nodding, Gripp had collected up the reins. With Pelk at his side, he rode on to the north track, plunging into the scorched forest. Kellaras had waited until he lost sight of them before swinging his mount southward.
It was now a week later. Kellaras haunted the Citadel, watching the rise of new rituals appearing among the priesthood, the processions at dusk and midnight, while at dawn the robed figures knelt with heads bowed, as if greeting with sorrow the unseen sun. He had witnessed the solemn snuffing of candles, the guttering of lanterns left to burn out the last of the oil. He had seen High Priestess Emral Lanear overseeing the daily obeisance and prostrations with glassy eyes.
And in the midst of all this, a growing paranoia suffused the Citadel, until the old royal keep acquired the habiliments of a prison. It was pathetic, as far as Kellaras was concerned. Particularly when faith was so simply and undeniably announced by a stain upon the skin. The endless spying could not even skirt the notion of potential blasphemies among the believers. Instead, it was raw in its politics, a secular jostling of power and influence around an indifferent centre. And through it all there was the reek of impending panic.
But today, word had come of a miracle in the city’s Winter Market, an unofficial procession led by Endest Silann – whose hands were purported to bleed without surcease. And then, providing proof to the tales told by surviving Wardens, a dragon had descended upon a square in the city, only to be sent away by the selfsame prophet of darkness.
Kellaras wished he was drunk, if only to weaken whatever credence such tales were worth. Instead, in answer to a summons, he stood in the ancestral family chamber of the Purake waiting for Silchas Ruin to take notice of his arrival. The white-skinned warrior was at a table, leaning over a large, ornately illustrated vellum map, one detailed enough to note elevations, with scrawled observations pertaining to ease of passage among various trails and tracks. The work was Kadaspala’s, devised in the wake of the wars against the Forulkan and the Jhelarkan, a belated gift the value of which had been questionable, at least until this moment.
Finally, Silchas Ruin stepped back, and slumped into a high-backed chair. He eyed Kellaras for a moment before speaking. ‘A dragon to mock our walls. A season to mock our rest. Have you seen Grizzin Farl?’
‘No, milord, not for many days.’
Sighing, Silchas gestured at the map. ‘We will meet the Legion at the Valley of Tarns. It is shallow and broad, the old riverbed wide and not too stony. There are defiles to the east of it, the tangled wreckage of a burned forest to the west. Tell me, do you think Lord Urusander will oblige us?’
‘He is reputed to be confident, milord.’ Kellaras hesitated, and then added, ‘The valley is known to him, since it is where he first mustered the Legion, before marching south to meet the Forulkan.’
‘Will he appreciate the irony?’
‘I do not know him well enough to answer you, milord.’
‘Hunn Raal will delight in it,’ Silchas Ruin predicted. ‘I have received a missive from Captain Prazek—’
‘Captain, milord?’
‘Field promotion, one presumes. The Hust Legion will soon depart the training grounds.’
‘Prazek judges them ready, then?’
‘Of course not! Don’t be foolish, Kellaras. No,’ Silchas rose, suddenly impatient, ‘we have simply run out of time.’
A bell rang in the outer room.
With a flash of irritation twisting his features, Silchas snapped, ‘Enter!’
The Houseblade who stepped into the chamber saluted both men and said, ‘Lord Silchas, there has been an … occurrence, at the Terondai. A monk of the Shake and a Warden were seen to be taken.’
‘Taken where?’
‘Milord, they strode on to the pattern, and then simply vanished. Another monk is even now approaching the Chamber of Night—’
‘Unchallenged?’
The young woman before them blinked. ‘The High Priestess dismissed the guards upon the approach some time ago, milord. It seems … there is nothing to defend.’
‘This monk,’ said Kellaras. ‘Is he known?’
‘No, sir. Hooded to hide his face. But the one who vanished in the Terondai was Warlock Resh.’
There was a moment when none moved, and then Silchas reached for his sword-belt. ‘Both of you, ready weapons and attend me.’
The three set out in haste.
Caplo Dreem. Sheccanto’s favourite assassin. And this time, Anomander does not stand in his path.
* * *
A single Houseblade had followed Caplo Dreem, accosting him at the entrance to the corridor leading to the Chamber of Night’s door. Irritated and mostly unmindful, the assassin left the man’s corpse sprawled across the cracked flagstones and continued on until he faced the sweating blackwood barrier. The polished wood was now crowded with carved runes that framed illustrated panels. Caplo paused, frowning at the images for a moment. Scenes of gift giving. That one must be Draconus, and that faintest of outlines … Mother Dark. Or what’s left of her. Odd, isn’t it, how it is the goddess who receives gifts? What shall we make of him who bears them?
But such ponderings were but distractions. A wild fever burned in Caplo Dreem, the hunger to unfold, one into many, as if snapping the chains of his own flesh and bone. He bared his teeth in anticipation, and then kicked against the door to the Chamber of Night.
The strength within him was startling even to his own eyes. The blow proved savage enough to splinter the wood, sending cracks through the delicate carvings. The ancient iron hinges broke with popping sounds, and a second kick sent the portal toppling with a heavy
crash upon the threshold.
Bitter cold assailed Caplo and he voiced an animal snarl in answer. Take me then, Old Blood. We have known restraint for too long.
He blurred, burgeoned, and with visceral jolts veered into a dozen lithe, feline forms, each one black as the surrounding darkness. In his wake he left the tatters of his clothing, his worn boots, the leather belts and straps bearing his knives, and the hood and heavy wolf fur cloak, all heaped into a disordered pile.
The earth beneath his many padded feet was frozen clay, slick and unyielding. From twelve pairs of eyes, he studied the way ahead – the stunted, leafless trees rising from the plain, the wayward lines of boulders marking out mysterious patterns upon the vague slopes a short distance before him, and off to the right – those many eyes narrowed – the skeletal frame of a wheeled wagon. Even incomplete, it was massive, almost beyond comprehension. To look upon it was to reel with the jarring impossibility of its scale – and he felt his ears flattening with instinctive fear.
A man stood near one enormous wooden wheel. He had turned upon Caplo’s arrival.
I see you, Draconus! And yet … yet –
Spreading out, the panthers edged forward, tails twitching, twelve pairs of eyes fixing upon the man who now slowly approached. The promise of violence flared within Caplo. Old Blood, why did I deny you for so long?
‘You Shake are a presumptuous lot, aren’t you?’
He is weak. Weaker than I expected. As if some part of his soul is missing. Even more pleasing, he is unarmed.
Draconus shook his head. ‘D’ivers now, as well. The Shake consort with forces they do not understand. Not just the cursed legacy of desperate Eresal eludes that understanding, but so too the one you would now challenge.’
As Caplo drew closer, he saw chains strewn upon the ground, the rough links stretching back towards the wagon, vanishing beneath its vast bed. Scores, perhaps hundreds, they made a web upon the frozen clay, the heavy shackles at their ends gaping and glistening with frost. Seeing them, Caplo felt faint unease rippling through his dozen bodies.
‘You mean to kill her, Caplo Dreem? You will fail. She is well beyond your reach.’
Caplo focused his thoughts, sent them out towards Draconus. ‘Do you hear me, lord?’