Reaper's Gale

  ‘Karos Invictad’s thugs, aye. His private police, the ones who kick in doors at the middle of night. The ones who take mothers from babes, fathers from sons. The ones who, in the righteous glory that comes with unchallenged power, then loot the homes of the arrested, not to mention raping the daughters—’

  Bugg was thrown a second time against the wall, the back of his head crunching hard on the pitted brick.

  ‘For that, bastard,’ the man snarled, ‘you’ll Drown.’

  Bugg blinked sweat from his eyes, then, as the thug’s words penetrated, he laughed. ‘Drown? Oh, that’s priceless. Now, take your hands off me or I will lose my temper.’

  Instead, the man tightened his hold on the front of Bugg’s tunic, while the other said, ‘You were right, Kanorsos, he needs beating.’

  ‘The bully’s greatest terror,’ Bugg said, ‘comes when he meets someone bigger and meaner—’

  ‘And is that you?’

  Both men laughed.

  Bugg twisted his head, looked round. People were hurrying past – it was never wise to witness such events, not when the murderers of the Patriotists were involved. ‘So be it,’ he said under his breath. ‘Gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you someone bigger and meaner, or, to be more accurate, something.’

  A moment later Bugg was alone. He adjusted his tunic, glanced about, then set off once more for his master’s abode.

  It was inevitable, he knew, that someone had witnessed the sudden vanishing of two armed and amoured men. But no-one cried out in his wake, for which he was relieved, since he was not inclined to discuss much with anyone right at that moment.

  Did I just lose my temper? It’s possible, but then, you were distracted. Perturbed, even. These things happen.

  Feather Witch wasted little time. Off the cursed ships and their countless, endlessly miserable crowds, the eyes always upon her, the expressions of suspicion or contempt and the stench of suffering that came of hundreds of prisoners – the fallen Edur of Sepik, mixed-blood one and all, worse in the eyes of the tribes than Letherii slaves; the scores of foreigners who possessed knowledge deemed useful – at least for now; the Nemil fisher folk; the four copper-skinned Shal-Morzinn warriors dragged from a floundering carrack; denizens of Seven Cities, hailing from Ehrlitan, the Karang Isles, Pur Atrii and other places; Quon sailors who claimed to be citizens of an empire called Malaz; dwellers of Lamatath and Callows . . .

  Among them there were warriors considered worthy enough to be treated as challengers. An axeman from the ruined Meckros City the fleet had descended upon, a Cabalhii monk and a silent woman wearing a porcelain mask the brow of which was marked with eleven arcane glyphs – she had been found near dead in a storm-battered scow south of Callows.

  There were others, chained in the holds of other ships in other fleets, but where they came from and what they were was mostly irrelevant. The only detail that had come to fascinate Feather Witch – among all these pathetic creatures – was the bewildering array of gods, goddesses, spirits and ascendants they worshipped. Prayers in a dozen languages, voices reaching out into vast silences – all these forlorn fools and all the unanswered calls for salvation.

  No end, in that huge, chaotic world, to the delusions of those who believed they were chosen. Unique among their kind, basking beneath the gaze of gods that gave a damn – as if they would, when the truth was, each immortal visage, for all its peculiar traits, was but a facet of one, and that one had long since turned away, only to fight an eternal battle against itself. From the heavens, only indifference rained down, like ash, stinging the eyes, scratching raw the throat. There was no sustenance in that blinding deluge.

  Chosen – now there was a conceit of appalling proportions. Either we all are, or none of us are. And if the former, then we will all face the same judge, the same hand of justice – the wealthy, the Indebted, the master, the slave, the murderer and the victim, the raper and the raped, all of us, so pray hard, everyone – if that helps – and look well to your own shadow. More likely, in her mind, no-one was chosen, and there was no day of judgement awaiting every soul. Each and every mortal faced a singular end, and that was oblivion.

  Oh, indeed, the gods existed, but not one cared a whit for the fate of a mortal’s soul, unless they could bend that soul to their will, to serve as but one more soldier in their pointless, self-destructive wars.

  For herself, she was past such thinking. She had found her own freedom, basking beneath that blessed rain of indifference. She would do as she willed, and not even the gods could stop her. It would be the gods themselves, she vowed, who would come to her. Beseeching, on their knees, snared in their own game.

  She moved silently, now, deep in the crypts beneath the Old Palace. I was a slave, once – many believe I still am, yet look at me – I rule this buried realm. I alone know where the hidden chambers reside, I know what awaits me within them. I walk this most fated path, and, when the time is right, I will take the throne.

  The Throne of Oblivion.

  Uruth might well be looking for her right now, the old hag with all her airs, the smugness of a thousand imagined secrets, but Feather Witch knew all those secrets. There was nothing to fear from Uruth Sengar – she had been usurped by events. By her youngest son, by the other sons who then betrayed Rhulad. By the conquest itself. The society of Edur women was now scattered, torn apart; they went where their husbands were despatched; they had surrounded themselves in Letherii slaves, fawners and Indebted. They had ceased to care. In any case, Feather Witch had had enough of all that. She was in Letheras once more and like that fool, Udinaas, she was fleeing her bondage; and here, in the catacombs of the Old Palace, none would find her.

  Old storage rooms were already well supplied, equipped a morsel at a time in the days before the long journey across the oceans. She had fresh water, wine and beer, dried fish and beef, fired clay jugs with preserved fruits. Bedding, spare clothes, and over a hundred scrolls stolen from the Imperial Library. Histories of the Nerek, the Tarthenal, the Fent and a host of even more obscure peoples the Letherii had devoured in the last seven or eight centuries – the Bratha, the Katter, the Dresh and the Shake.

  And here, beneath the Old Palace, Feather Witch had discovered chambers lined with shelves on which sat thousands of mouldering scrolls, crumbling clay tablets and worm-gnawed bound books. Of those she had examined, the faded script in most of them was written in an arcane style of Letherii that proved difficult to decipher, but she was learning, albeit slowly. A handful of old tomes, however, were penned in a language she had never seen before.

  The First Empire, whence this colony originally came all those centuries ago, seemed to be a complicated place, home to countless peoples each with their own languages and gods. For all the imperial claims to being the birth of human civilization, it was clear to Feather Witch that no such claim could be taken seriously. Perhaps the First Empire marked the initial nation consisting of more than a single city, probably born out of conquest, one city-state after another swallowed up by the rampaging founders. Yet even then, the fabled Seven Cities was an empire bordered by independent tribes and peoples, and there had been wars and then treaties. Some were broken, most were not. Imperial ambitions had been stymied, and it was this fact that triggered the age of colonization to distant lands.

  The First Empire had met foes who would not bend a knee. This was, for Feather Witch, the most important truth of all, one that had been conveniently and deliberately forgotten. She had gained strength from that, but such details were themselves but confirmation of discoveries she had already made – out in the vast world beyond. There had been clashes, fierce seafarers who took exception to a foreign fleet’s invading their waters. Letherii and Edur ships had gone down, figures amidst flotsam-filled waves, arms raised in hopeless supplication – the heave and swirl of sharks, dhenrabi and other mysterious predators of the deep – screams, piteous screams, they still echoed in her head, writhing at the pit of her stomach. Revulsion and glee both.
/>
  The storms that had battered the fleet, especially west of the Draconean Sea, had revealed the true immensity of natural power, its fickle thrashings that swallowed entire ships – there was delight in being so humbled, coming upon her with the weight of revelation. The Lether Empire was puny – like Uruth Sengar, it held to airs of greatness when it was but one more pathetic hovel of cowering mortals.

  She would not regret destroying it.

  Huddled now in her favoured chamber, the ceiling overhead a cracked dome, its plaster paintings obscured by stains and mould, Feather Witch sat herself down cross-legged and drew out a small leather pouch. Within, her most precious possession. She could feel its modest length through the thin hide, the protuberances, the slightly ragged end, and, opposite, the curl of a nail that had continued growing. She wanted to draw it out, to touch once again its burnished skin—

  ‘Foolish little girl.’

  Hissing, Feather Witch flinched back from the doorway. A twisted, malformed figure occupied the threshold – she had not seen it in a long time, had almost forgotten – ‘Hannan Mosag. I do not answer to you. And if you think me weak—’

  ‘Oh no,’ wheezed the Warlock King, ‘not that. I chose my word carefully when I said “foolish”. I know you have delved deep into your Letherii magic. You have gone far beyond casting those old, chipped tiles of long ago, haven’t you? Even Uruth has no inkling of your Cedance – you did well to disguise your learning. Yet, for all that, you are still a fool, dreaming of all that you might achieve – when in truth you are alone.’

  ‘What do you want? If the Emperor were to learn that you’re skulking around down here—’

  ‘He will learn nothing. You and I, Letherii, we can work together. We can destroy that abomination—’

  ‘With yet another in his place – you.’

  ‘Do you truly think I would have let it come to this? Rhulad is mad, as is the god who controls him. They must be expunged.’

  ‘I know your hunger, Hannan Mosag—’

  ‘You do not!’ the Edur snapped, a shudder taking him. He edged closer into the chamber, then held up a mangled hand. ‘Look carefully upon me, woman. See what the Chained One’s sorcery does to the flesh – oh, we are bound now to the power of chaos, to its taste, its seductive flavour. It should never have come to this—’

  ‘So you keep saying,’ she cut in with a sneer. ‘And how would the great empire of Hannan Mosag have looked? A rain of flowers onto every street, every citizen freed of debt, with the benign Tiste Edur overseeing it all?’ She leaned forward. ‘You forget, I was born among your people, in your very tribe, Warlock King. I remember going hungry during the unification wars. I remember the cruelty you heaped upon us slaves – when we got too old, you used us as bait for beskra crabs – threw our old ones into a cage and dropped it over the side of your knarri. Oh, yes, drowning was a mercy, but the ones you didn’t like you kept their heads above the tide line, you let the crabs devour them alive, and laughed at the screams. We were muscle and when that muscle was used up, we were meat.’

  ‘And is Indebtedness any better—’

  ‘No, for that is a plague that spreads to every family member, every generation.’

  Hannan Mosag shook his misshapen head. ‘I would not have succumbed to the Chained One. He believed he was using me, but I was using him. Feather Witch, there would have been no war. No conquest. The tribes were joined as one – I made certain of that. Prosperity and freedom from fear awaited us, and in that world the lives of the slaves would have changed. Perhaps, indeed, the lives of Letherii among the Tiste Edur would have proved a lure to the Indebted in the southlands, enough to shatter the spine of this empire, for we would have offered freedom.’

  She turned away, deftly hiding the small leather bag. ‘What is the point of this, Hannan Mosag?’

  ‘You wish to bring down Rhulad—’

  ‘I will bring you all down.’

  ‘But it must begin with Rhulad – you can see that. Unless he is destroyed, and that sword with him, you can achieve nothing.’

  ‘If you could have killed him, Warlock King, you would have done so long ago.’

  ‘Oh, but I will kill him.’

  She glared across at him. ‘How?’

  ‘Why, with his own family.’

  Feather Witch was silent for a dozen heartbeats. ‘His father cowers in fear. His mother cannot meet his eyes. Binadas and Trull are dead, and Fear has fled.’

  ‘Binadas?’ The breath hissed slowly from Hannan Mosag. ‘I did not know that.’

  ‘Tomad dreamed of his son’s death, and Hanradi Khalag quested for his soul – and failed.’

  The Warlock King regarded her with hooded eyes. ‘And did my K’risnan attempt the same of Trull Sengar?’

  ‘No, why would he? Rhulad himself murdered Trull. Chained him in the Nascent. If that was meant to be secret, it failed. We heard – we slaves hear everything—’

  ‘Yes, you do, and that is why we can help each other. Feather Witch, you wish to see this cursed empire collapse – so do I. And when that occurs, know this: I intend to take my Edur home. Back to our northlands. If the south is in flames, that is of no concern to me – I leave the Letherii to the Letherii, for no surer recipe for obliteration do any of us require. I knew that from the very start. Lether cannot sustain itself. Its appetite is an addiction, and that appetite exceeds the resources it needs to survive. Your people had already crossed that threshold, although they knew it not. It was my dream, Feather Witch, to raise a wall of power and so ensure the immunity of the Tiste Edur. Tell me, what do you know of the impending war in the east?’

  ‘What war?’

  Hannan Mosag smiled. ‘The unravelling begins. Let us each grasp a thread, you at one end, me at the other. Behind you, the slaves. Behind me, all the K’risnan.’

  ‘Does Trull Sengar live?’

  ‘It is Fear Sengar who seeks the means of destroying Rhulad. And I mean for him to find it. Decide now, Feather Witch. Are we in league?’

  She permitted herself a small smile. ‘Hannan Mosag, when the moment of obliteration comes . . . you had better crawl fast.’

  ‘I don’t want to see them.’

  With these words the Emperor twisted on his throne, legs drawing up, and seemed to focus on the wall to his left. The sword in his right hand, point resting on the dais, was trembling.

  Standing in an alcove to one side, Nisall wanted to hurry forward, reaching out for the beleaguered, frightened Edur.

  But Triban Gnol stood facing the throne. This audience belonged to him and him alone; nor would the Chancellor countenance any interruption from her. He clearly detested her very presence, but on that detail Rhulad had insisted – Nisall’s only victory thus far.

  ‘Highness, I agree with you. Your father, alas, insisted I convey to you his wishes. He would greet his most cherished son. Further, he brings dire news—’

  ‘His favourite kind,’ Rhulad muttered, eyes flickering as if he was seeking an escape from the chamber. ‘Cherished? His word? No, I thought not. What he cherishes is my power – he wants it for himself. Him and Binadas—’

  ‘Forgive my interruption, Highness,’ Triban Gnol said, bowing his head. ‘There is news of Binadas.’

  The Emperor flinched. Licked dry lips. ‘What has happened?’

  ‘It is now known,’ the Chancellor replied, ‘that Binadas was murdered. He was commanding a section of the fleet. There was a battle with an unknown enemy. Terrible sorcery was exchanged, and the remnants of both fleets were plunged into the Nascent, there to complete their battle in that flooded realm. Yet, this was all prelude. After the remaining enemy ships fled, a demon came upon Binadas’s ship. Such was its ferocity that all the Edur were slaughtered. Binadas himself was pinned to his chair by a spear flung by that demon.’

  ‘How,’ Rhulad croaked, ‘how is all this known?’

  ‘Your father . . . dreamed. In that dream he found himself a silent, ghostly witness, drawn there as if by th
e caprice of a malevolent god.’

  ‘What of that demon? Does it still haunt the Nascent? I shall hunt it down, I shall destroy it. Yes, there must be vengeance. He was my brother. I sent him, my brother, sent him. They all die by my word. All of them, and this is what my father will tell me – oh how he hungers for that moment, but he shall not have it! The demon, yes, the demon who stalks my kin . . .’ His fevered ramble trickled away, and so ravaged was Rhulad’s face that Nisall had to look away, lest she cry out.

  ‘Highness,’ the Chancellor said in a quiet voice.

  Nisall stiffened – this was what Triban Gnol was working towards – all that had come before was for this precise moment.

  ‘Highness, the demon has been delivered. It is here, Emperor.’

  Rhulad seemed to shrink back into himself. He said nothing, though his mouth worked.

  ‘A challenger,’ Triban Gnol continued. ‘Tarthenal blood, yet purer, Hanradi Khalag claims, than any Tarthenal of this continent. Tomad knew him for what he was the moment the giant warrior took his first step onto Edur bloodwood. Knew him, yet could not face him, for Binadas’s soul is in the Tarthenal’s shadow – along with a thousand other fell victims. They clamour, one and all, for both freedom and vengeance. Highness, the truth must now be clear to you. Your god has delivered him. To you, so that you may slay him, so that you may avenge your brother’s death.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rhulad whispered. ‘He laughs – oh, how he laughs. Binadas, are you close? Close to me now? Do you yearn for freedom? Well, if I cannot have it, why should you? No, there is no hurry now, is there? You wanted this throne, and now you learn how it feels – just a hint, yes, of all that haunts me.’

  ‘Highness,’ the Chancellor murmured, ‘are you not eager to avenge Binadas? Tomad—’

  ‘Tomad!’ Rhulad jolted on the throne, glared at Triban Gnol – who visibly rocked back. ‘He saw the demon slay Binadas, and now he thinks it will do the same to me! That is the desire for vengeance at work here, you fish-skinned fool! Tomad wants me to die because I killed Binadas! And Trull! I have killed his children! But whose blood burns in my veins? Whose? Where is Hanradi? Oh, I know why he will not be found in the outer room – he goes to Hannan Mosag! They plunge into Darkness and whisper of betrayal – I am past my patience with them!’