‘Should another of the Order have intercepted you.’
A nod. ‘Can you wait for the maelstrom your arrival will bring, Silchas Ruin? I can’t.’
‘Thus, your greeting earlier should have been qualified. The Order does not welcome us. Rather, this Ordant Brid does.’
‘They all choose to speak for the Order,’ Clip said, his eyes glittering, ‘when it will most confound the others. Now, I can see how eager you all are.’ From his right hand the chain whipped out, the silver ring round his index finger, and at the snap of the chain’s full length, a gate into Darkness appeared to the warrior’s right. ‘Call the others here,’ Clip said, ‘at haste. Even now, bound wraiths serving the Tiste Edur are converging. Of course, they all dream of escape – alas, that we cannot give them. But their Edur masters watch through their eyes, and that won’t do.’
Seren Pedac turned about and summoned the others.
Clip stepped to one side and bowed low. ‘Silchas Ruin, I invite you to walk through first, and know once more the welcome embrace of true Darkness. Besides,’ he added, straightening as Ruin strode towards the gate, ‘you will make for us a bright beacon—’
One of Silchas Ruin’s swords hissed out, a gleaming blur, the edge slashing across the space where Clip’s neck had been, but the young warrior had leaned back . . . just enough, and the weapon sang through air.
A soft laugh from the youth, appallingly relaxed. ‘He said you’d be angry.’
Silchas Ruin stared across at Clip for a long moment, then he turned and walked through the gate.
Drawing a deep breath to slow her heart, Seren Pedac glared at Clip. ‘You have no idea—’
‘Don’t I?’
The others appeared, leading their horses. Udinaas, with Kettle tucked into one arm, barely glanced over at Clip before he tugged his horse into the rent.
‘You wish to cross swords with a god, Clip?’
‘He gave himself away – oh, he’s fast all right, and with two weapons he’d be hard to handle, I’ll grant you—’
‘And will the Reve Master who sent you be pleased with your immature behaviour?’
Clip laughed. ‘Ordant could have selected any of a hundred warriors at hand for this mission, Letherii.’
‘Yet he chose you, meaning he is either profoundly stupid or he anticipated your irreverence.’
‘You waste your time, Acquitor,’ Fear Sengar said, coming up alongside her and eyeing Clip. ‘He is Tiste Andii. His mind is naught but darkness, in which ignorance and foolishness thrive.’
To Fear the young warrior bowed again. ‘Edur, please, proceed. Darkness awaits you.’ And he waved at the gate.
As Fear Sengar led his horse into the gate, the chain on Clip’s right index finger spun out once more, ending with a clash of rings.
‘Why do you do that?’ Seren demanded, irritated.
Brows lifted. ‘Do what?’
Swearing under her breath, the Acquitor walked through the gate.
BOOK TWO - LAYERS OF THE DEAD
Who now strides on my trail
devouring the distance between
no matter how I flee, the wasted
breath of my haste cast into the wind
and these dogs will prevail
dragging me down with howling glee
for the beasts were born fated,
trained in bold vengeance
by my own switch and hand
and no god will stand in my stead,
nor provide me sanctuary, even
should I plead for absolution—
the hounds of my deeds belong
only to me, and they have long hunted
and now the hunt ends.
Songs of Guilt
Bet’netrask
CHAPTER SEVEN
Twice as far as you think
Half the distance you fear
Too thin to hold you
and well over your head
So much cleverer by far
yet witless beyond measure
will you hear my story now?
Tales of the Drunken Bard
Fisher
Standing at the rail, Atri-Preda Yan Tovis, known to her soldiers as Twilight, watched the sloping shoreline of the Lether River track past. Gulls rode the waves in the shallows. Fisher boats sculled among the reeds, the net-casters pausing to watch the battered fleet work its way towards the harbour. Along the bank birds crowded the leafless branches of trees that had succumbed to the last season’s flood. Beyond the dead trees, riders were on the coast road, cantering towards the city to report to various officials, although Yan Tovis was certain that the palace had already been informed that the first of the fleets now approached, with another a bare half-day behind.
She would welcome solid ground beneath her boots again. And the presence of unfamiliar faces within range of her vision, rather than these tired features behind and to either side that she had come to know all too well, and at times, she had to admit, despise.
The last ocean they had crossed was far in their wake now, and for that she was profoundly relieved. The world had proved . . . immense. Even the ancient Letherii charts mapping the great migration route from the land of the First Empire had revealed but a fraction of the vast expanse that was this mortal realm. The scale had left them all belittled, as if their grand dramas were without consequence, as if true meaning was too thinly spread, too elusive for a single mind to grasp. And there had been a devastating toll paid for these fated journeys. Scores of ships lost, thousands of hands dead – there were belligerent and all too capable empires and peoples out there, few of whom were reluctant to test the prowess and determination of foreign invaders. If not for the formidable sorceries of the Edur and the new cadres of Letherii mages, there would have been more defeats than victories recorded in the ledgers, and yet fewer soldiers and sailors to rest eyes once more upon their homeland.
Hanradi Khalag, Uruth and Tomad Sengar would have dire news to deliver to the Emperor, sufficient to overwhelm their meagre successes, and Yan Tovis was thankful that she would not be present at that debriefing. She would have more than enough to deal with in her own capacity, besides. The Letherii Marines had been decimated – families would need to be informed, death-pensions distributed, lost equipment charged and debts transferred to heirs and kin. Depressing and tedious work and she already longed for the last scroll to be sealed and signed.
As the stands of trees and undergrowth dwindled, replaced by fisher shacks, jetties and then the walled estates of the elite, she stepped back from the rail and looked round the deck. Seeing Taralack Veed positioned near the stern, she walked over.
‘We are very close now,’ she said. ‘Letheras, seat of the Emperor, the largest and richest city on this continent. And still your champion will not come on deck.’
‘I see bridges ahead,’ the barbarian observed, looking back up the length of the ship.
‘Yes. The Tiers. There are canals in the city. Did I not tell you of the Drownings?’
The man grimaced, then swung about once more and spat over the stern rail. ‘They die without honour and this entertains you. What is it you would wish Icarium to see, Twilight?’
‘He shall need his anger,’ she replied in a low voice.
Taralack Veed ran both hands over his scalp, flattening back his hair. ‘When he is next awakened, matters of resolve will mean nothing. Your Emperor shall be annihilated, and likely most of this sparkling city with him. If you choose to witness, then you too will die. As will Tomad Sengar and Hanradi Khalag.’
‘Alas,’ she said after a moment, ‘I will not be present to witness the clash. My duties will take me back north, back to Fent Reach.’ She glanced across at him. ‘A journey of over a month by horseback, Taralack Veed. Will that be distant enough?’
He shrugged. ‘I make no promises.’
‘But one,’ she pointed out.
‘Oh?’
‘That he will fight.’
‘You do not know Icarium as I do. H
e may remain below, but there is an excitement about him. Anticipation, now, unlike any I have ever seen before. Twilight, he has come to accept his curse; indeed, to embrace it. He sharpens his sword, again and again. Oils his bow. Examines his armour for flaws with every dawn. He has no more questions for me, and that is the most ominous detail of all.’
‘He has failed us once,’ she said.
‘There was . . . intervention. That shall not occur again, unless your carelessness permits it.’
At a gentle bend in the river, Letheras revealed itself, sprawling up and back from the north shore, magnificent bridges arching over garishly painted buildings and the haze of innumerable cookfires. Domes and terraces, towers and platforms loomed, edges blurred in the gold-lit smoke. The imperial quays were directly ahead, just beyond a mole, and the first dromons of the fleet were shipping oars and swinging in towards berths. Scores of figures were gathering along the waterfront, including a bristling procession coming down from the Eternal Domicile, pennons and standards wavering overhead – the official delegation, although Yan Tovis noted that there were no Edur among them.
It seemed that Triban Gnol’s quiet usurpation was all but complete. She was not surprised. The Chancellor had probably begun his plans long before King Ezgara Diskanar downed the fatal draught in the throne room. Ensuring a smooth transition, is how he would have defended himself. The empire is greater than its ruler, and that is where lies the Chancellor’s loyalty. Always and for ever more. Laudable sentiments, no doubt, but the truth was never so clear. The lust for power was a strong current, roiling with clouds that obscured all to everyone, barring, perhaps, Triban Gnol himself, who was at the very centre of the maelstrom. His delusion of control had never been challenged, but Yan Tovis believed that it would not last.
After all, the Tiste Edur had returned. Tomad Sengar, Hanradi Khalag and three other former war chiefs of the tribes, as well as over four thousand seasoned warriors who’d long ago left their naivety behind, lost in Callows, in Sepik, Nemil, the Perish Coast, Shal-Morzinn and Drift Avalii, in a host of foreign waters, among the Meckros – the journey had been long. Fraught—
‘The nest is about to be kicked awake,’ Taralack Veed said, a rather ugly grin twisting his features.
Yan Tovis shrugged. ‘To be expected. We have been absent a long time.’
‘Maybe your Emperor is already dead. I see no Tiste Edur in that contingent.’
‘I do not think that likely. Our K’risnan would have known.’
‘Informed by their god? Yan Tovis, no gift from a god comes for free. More, if it sees fit, it will tell its followers nothing. Or, indeed, it will lie. The Edur do not understand any of this, but you surprise me. Is it not the very nature of your deity, this Errant, to deceive you at every turn?’
‘The Emperor is not dead, Taralack Veed.’
‘Then it is only a matter of time.’
‘So you continually promise.’
But he shook his head. ‘I do not speak of Icarium now. I speak of when a god’s chosen one fails. And they always do, Twilight. We are never enough in their eyes. Never faithful enough, never fearful enough, never abject enough. Sooner or later we betray them, in weakness or in overwrought ambition. We see before us a city of bridges yet what I see and what you see are two different things. Do not let your eyes deceive you – the bridges awaiting us are all too narrow for mortals.’
Their ship slowly angled in towards the central imperial dock like a weary beast of burden, and a handful of Edur officers were now on deck, whilst sailors readied the lines along the port rail. The stench of effluent from the murky waters rose thick enough to sting the eyes.
Taralack Veed spat onto his hands and smoothed back his hair yet again. ‘Almost time. I go to collect my champion.’
Noticed by no-one, Turudal Brizad, the Errant, stood with his back to a quayside warehouse thirty or so paces from the main pier. His gaze noted the disembarking of Tomad Sengar – the venerable warrior looking worn and aged – and his expression, as he observed the absence of Tiste Edur among the delegation from the palace, seemed to grow darker by the moment. But neither he nor any of the other Edur held the god’s attention for long. His attention sharpened as the Atri-Preda in command of this fleet’s Letherii Marines strode the length of the gangway, followed by a half-dozen aides and officers, for he sensed, all at once, that there was something fated about the woman. Yet the details eluded him.
The god frowned, frustrated by his diminishing percipience. He should have sensed immediately what awaited Yan Tovis. Five years ago he would have, thinking nothing of the gift, the sheer privilege of such ascendant power. Not since those final tumultuous days of the First Empire – the succession of ghastly events that led to the intercession of the T’lan Imass to quell the fatal throes of Dessimbelackis’s empire – had the Errant felt so disconnected. Chaos was rolling towards Letheras with the force of a cataclysmic wave, an ocean surge that simply engulfed this river’s currents – yes, it comes from the sea. That much I know, that much I can feel. From the sea, just like this woman, this Twilight.
Another figure appeared on the plank. A foreigner, the skin of his forearms a swirl of arcane tattoos, the rest of his upper body wrapped in a roughly woven cape, the hood hiding his features. Barbaric, wary, the glitter of eyes taking it all in, pausing halfway down to hawk and spit over the side, a gesture that startled the Errant and, it seemed, most of those standing on the dock.
A moment later another foreigner rose into view, pausing at the top of the gangway. The Errant’s breath caught, a sudden chill flowing through him, as if Hood himself had arrived, his cold breath whispering across the back of the god’s neck.
Abyss take me, all that waits within him. The foment none other here can see, could even guess at. Dear son of Gothos and that overgrown hag, the stain of Azath blood is about you like a cloud. This was more than a curse – all that afflicted this fell warrior. Deliberate skeins were woven about him, the threads of some elaborate, ancient, and deadly ritual. And he knew their flavour. The Nameless Ones.
Two soldiers from Triban Gnol’s Palace Guard moved to await the Jhag as he slowly walked down to the dock.
The Errant’s heart was thudding hard in his chest. They have delivered a champion, a challenger to the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths—
The Jhag stepped onto solid ground.
From the buildings beyond the harbour front, birds rose suddenly, hundreds, then thousands, voicing a chorus of shrieks, and beneath the Errant’s feet the stones shifted with a heavy, groaning sound. Something large collapsed far into the city, beyond Quillas Canal, and distant screams followed. The Errant stepped out from the wall and saw the bloom of a dust cloud rising behind the caterwauling, panicked pigeons, rooks, gulls and starlings.
The subterranean groaning then ceased and a heavy silence settled.
Icarium’s tusked mouth revealed the faintest of smiles, as if pleased with the earth’s welcome, and the Errant could not be sure – at this distance – if that smile was truly as childlike as it seemed, or if it was in fact ironic or, indeed, bitter. He repressed the urge to draw closer seeking an answer to that question, reminding himself that he did not want Icarium’s attention. Not now, not ever.
Tomad Sengar, what your son will face . . .
It was no wonder, he suddenly realized, that all that was to come was obscured in a maelstrom of chaos. They have brought Icarium . . . into the heart of my power.
Among the delegation and other Letherii nearby, it was clear that no particular connection had been made between Icarium’s first touch on solid ground and the minor earthquake rumbling through Letheras – yet such stirrings were virtually unknown for this region, and while the terror among the birds and the bawling of various beasts of burden continued unabated, already the consternation of those within the Errant’s sight was diminishing. Foolish mortals, so quick to disregard unease.
In the river beyond, the water slowly lost its shivering agitation and t
he gulls further out began to settle once again amidst yet more ships angling towards shore. Yet somewhere in the city, a building had toppled, probably some venerable ancient edifice, its foundations weakened by groundwater, its mortar crumbled and supports rotted through.
There would have been casualties – Icarium’s first, but most assuredly not his last.
And he smiles.
Still cursing, Taralack Veed turned to Yan Tovis. ‘Unsettled lands – Burn does not rest easy here.’
The Atri-Preda shrugged to hide her queasy shock. ‘To the north of here, along the Reach Mountains, the ground shakes often. The same can be said for the north side of the ranges to the far south, the other side of the Draconean Sea.’
She saw the glimmer of bared teeth in the hood’s shadow. ‘But not in Letheras, yes?’
‘I’ve not heard of such before, but that means little,’ she replied. ‘This city is not my home. Not where I was born. Not where I grew up.’
Taralack Veed edged closer, facing away from Icarium, who stood listening to the two palace guards as they instructed him in what was to come. ‘You fool,’ he hissed at her. ‘Burn’s flesh flinched, Twilight. Flinched – because of him.’
She snorted.
The Gral cocked his head, and she could feel his contempt. ‘What happens now?’ he asked.
‘Now? Very little. There are secure residences, for you and your champion. As for when the Emperor chooses to face his challengers, that is up to him. Sometimes, he is impatient and the clash occurs immediately. Other times, he waits, often for weeks. But I will tell you what will begin immediately.’
‘What is that?’
‘The burial urn for Icarium, and his place in the cemetery where resides every challenger Rhulad has faced.’
‘Even that place will not survive,’ Taralack Veed muttered.
The Gral, feeling sick to his stomach, walked over to Icarium. He did not want to think of the destruction to come. He had seen it once, after all. Burn, even in your eternal sleep, you felt the stabbing wound that is Icarium – and none of these people here countenanced it, none was ready for the truth. Their hands are not in the earth, the touch is lost – yet look at them: they would call me the savage.