Sidilack, it was said, could feel then the deepest stain settling upon his soul. One that no cleansing ritual could eradicate. He saw, in that moment, the grim fate of his destiny, a descent into the madness of inconsolable grief. The god would take the last child, but it was most certainly the last. The blood of the others was on Sidilack’s hands, a curse, a haunting that only death could relieve.
Yet he was Gral. Forbidden from taking his own life.
Another legend followed, that one recounting the long journey to Snaketongue’s final end, his pursuit of questions that could not be answered, the pathos of his staggering walk into the Dead Man’s Desert – realm of the fallen Gral – where even the noble spirits refused him, his soul, the hollow defence of his own crime.
Taralack Veed did not want to think of these things.
Echoes of the child, that hissing, less-than-human creature who had been drawn into the shadows by a god – to what end? A mystery within the legend that would never be solved. But he did not believe there had been mercy in that god’s heart. He did not want to think of young females with small hands and feet, with sloped chins and large canines, with luminous eyes the hue of savanna grasses.
He did not want to think of Sidilack and the endless night of his doom. The warrior with slaughter’s blood staining his hands and his soul. That tragic fool was nothing like Taralack Veed, he told himself again and again. Truths did not hide in vague similarities, after all; only in the specific details, and he shared none of those with old Snaketongue.
‘You speak rarely these days, Taralack Veed.’
The Gral glanced up at Icarium. ‘I am frightened for you,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I see nothing of the hardness in your eyes, friend, the hardness that perhaps none but a longtime companion would be able to detect. The hardness that bespeaks your rage. It seems to sleep, and I do not know if even Rhulad can awaken it. If he cannot, then you will die. Quickly.’
‘If all you say of me is true,’ the Jhag replied, ‘then my death would be welcome. And justified in every sense of the word.’
‘No other can defeat the Emperor—’
‘Why are you so certain I can? I do not wield a magical sword. I do not return to life should I fall. These are the rumours regarding the Tiste Edur named Rhulad, yes?’
‘When your anger is unleashed, Icarium, you cannot be stopped.’
‘Ah, but it seems I can.’
Taralack Veed’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is this the change that has come to you, Icarium? Have your memories returned to you?’
‘I believe if they had, I would not now be here,’ the Jhag replied, pausing before one stall offering cord-wrapped pottery. ‘Look upon these items here, Taralack Veed, and tell me what you see. Empty vessels? Or endless possibilities?’
‘They are naught but pots.’
Icarium smiled.
It was, the Gral decided, a far too easy smile. ‘Do you mock me, Icarium?’
‘Something awaits me. I do not mean this mad Emperor.
Something else. Answer me this. How does one measure time?’
‘By the course of the sun, the phases of the moon, the wheel of the stars. And, of course, in cities such as this one, the sounding of a bell at fixed intervals – a wholly absurd conceit and, indeed, one that is spiritually debilitating.’
‘The Gral speaks.’
‘Now you truly mock me. This is unlike you, Icarium.’
‘The sounding of bells, their increments established by the passing of sand or water through a narrowed vessel. As you say, a conceit. An arbitrary assertion of constancy. Can we truly say, however, that time is constant?’
‘As any Gral would tell you, it is not. Else our senses lie.’
‘Perhaps they do.’
‘Then we are lost.’
‘I appreciate your intellectual belligerence today, Taralack Veed.’
They moved on, wandering slowly alongside the canal.
‘I understand your obsession with time,’ the Gral said.
‘You, who have passed through age after age, unchanging, unknowing.’
‘Unknowing, yes. That is the problem, isn’t it?’
‘I do not agree. It is our salvation.’
They were silent for a few more strides. Many were the curious – at times pitying – glances cast their way.
The champions were also the condemned, after all. Yet was there hope, buried deep behind those shying eyes? There must be. For an end to the nightmare that was Rhulad Sengar, the Edur Emperor of Lether.
‘Without an understanding of time, history means nothing. Do you follow, Taralack Veed?’
‘Yet you do not understand time, do you?’
‘No, that is true. Yet I believe I have . . . pursued this . . .
again and again. From age to age. In the faith that a revelation on the meaning of time will unlock my own hidden history. I would find its true measure, Taralack Veed. And not just its measure, but its very nature.
Consider this canal, and those linked to it. The water is pushed by current and tide from the river, then traverses the city, only to rejoin the river not far from where it first entered. We may seek to step out from the river and so choose our own path, but no matter how straight it seems, we will, in the end, return to that river.’
‘As with the bells, then,’ the Gral said, ‘water tracks the passage of time.’
‘You misunderstand,’ Icarium replied, but did not elaborate.
Taralack Veed scowled, paused to spit thick phlegm onto his palms, then swept it back through his hair. Somewhere in the crowd a woman screamed, but the sound was not repeated. ‘The canal’s current cannot change the law that binds its direction. The canal is but a detour.’
‘Yes, one that slows the passage of its water. And in turn that water changes, gathering the refuse of the city it passes through, and so, upon returning to the river, it is a different colour. Muddier, more befouled.’
‘The slower your path, the muddier your boots?’
‘Even so,’ Icarium said, nodding.
‘Time is nothing like that.’
‘Are you so certain? When we must wait, our minds fill with sludge, random thoughts like so much refuse. When we are driven to action, our current is swift, the water seemingly clear, cold and sharp.’
‘I’d rather, Icarium, we wait a long time. Here, in the face of what is to come.’
‘The path to Rhulad? As you like. But I tell you, Taralack Veed, that is not the path I am walking.’
Another half-dozen strides.
Then the Gral spoke. ‘They wrap the cord around them, Icarium, to keep them from breaking.’
Senior Assessor’s eyes glittered as he stood amidst a crowd twenty paces from where Icarium and Taralack Veed had paused in front of a potter’s stall. His hands were folded together, the fingers twitching. His breathing was rapid and shallow.
Beside him, Samar Dev rolled her eyes, then asked, ‘Are you about to fall dead on me? If I’d known this walk involved skulking in that Jhag’s shadow, I think I would have stayed in the compound.’
‘The choices you make,’ he replied, ‘must needs be entirely of your own accord, Samar Dev. Reasonably distinct from mine or anyone else’s. It is said that the history of human conflict resides exclusively in the clash of expectations.’
‘Is it now?’
‘Furthermore—’
‘Never mind your “furthermore”, Senior Assessor.
Compromise is the negotiation of expectation. With your wayward notions we do not negotiate, and so all the compromising is mine.’
‘As you choose.’
She thought about hitting him, decided she didn’t want to make a scene. What was it with men and their obsessions? ‘He is in all likelihood going to die, and soon.’
‘I think not. No, most certainly I think not.’
Icarium and the Gral resumed their meander through the crowds, and after a moment Senior Assessor followed, maintaining his dis
tance. Sighing, Samar Dev set off after him. She didn’t like this mob. It felt wrong. Tense, overwrought.
Strain was visible on faces, and the cries of the hawkers sounded strident and half desperate. Few passersby, she noted, were buying.
‘Something’s wrong,’ she said.
‘There is nothing here that cannot be explained by impending financial panic, Samar Dev. Although you may believe I am unaware of anything but him, I assure you that I have assessed the condition of Letheras and, by extension, this entire empire. A crisis looms. Wealth, alas, is not an infinite commodity. Systems such as this are dependent upon the assumption of unlimited resources, however.
These resources range from cheap labour and materials to an insatiable demand. Such demand, in turn, depends on rather more ethereal virtues, such as confidence, will, perceived need and the bliss of short-term thinking, any one of which is vulnerable to mysterious and often inexplicable influences. We are witness, here, to the effects of a complex collusion of factors which are serving to undermine said virtues. Furthermore, it is my belief that the situation has been orchestrated.’
Her mind had begun to drift with Senior Assessor’s diatribe, but this last observation drew her round. ‘Letheras is under economic assault?’
‘Well put, Samar Dev. Someone is manipulating the situation to achieve a cascading collapse, yes. Such is my humble assessment.’
‘Humble?’
‘Of course not. I view my own brilliance with irony.’
‘To what end?’
‘Why, to make me humble.’
‘Are we going to follow Icarium and his pet Gral all afternoon?’
‘I am the only living native of Cabal, Samar Dev, to have seen with my own eyes our god. Is it any wonder I follow him?’
God? He’s not a god. He’s a damned Jhag from the Odhan west of Seven Cities. Suffering a tragic curse, but then, aren’t they all? A figure well ahead of Icarium and Taralack Veed caught her attention. A figure tall, hulking, with a shattered face and a huge stone sword strapped to its back.
‘Oh no,’ she murmured.
‘What is it?’ Senior Assessor asked.
‘He’s seen him.’
‘Samar Dev?’
But he was behind her now, and she was hurrying forward, roughly pushing past people. Expectations? Most certainly. Compromise? Not a chance.
One of the sconces had a faulty valve and had begun producing thick black tendrils of smoke that coiled like serpents in the air, and Uruth’s coughing echoed like barks in the antechamber. His back to the door leading to the throne room, Sirryn Kanar stood with crossed arms, watching the two Tiste Edur. Tomad Sengar was pacing, walking a path that deftly avoided the other waiting guards even as he made a point of pretending they weren’t there. His wife had drawn her dark grey robe about herself, so tight she reminded Sirryn of a vulture with its wings folded close. Age had made her shoulders slightly hunched, adding to the avian impression, sufficient to draw a half-smile to the guard’s mouth.
‘No doubt this waiting amuses you,’ Tomad said in a growl.
‘So you were watching me after all.’
‘I was watching the door, which you happen to be standing against.’
Contemplating kicking through it, no doubt. Sirryn’s smile broadened. Alas, you’d have to go through me, and that you won’t do, will you? ‘The Emperor is very busy.’
‘With what?’ Tomad demanded. ‘Triban Gnol decides everything, after all. Rhulad just sits with a glazed look and nods every now and then.’
‘You think little of your son.’
That struck a nerve, he saw, as husband and wife both fixed hard eyes on him.
‘We think less of Triban Gnol,’ Uruth said.
There was no need to comment on that observation, for Sirryn well knew their opinions of the Chancellor; indeed, their views on all Letherii. Blind bigotry, of course, all the more hypocritical for the zeal with which the Edur had embraced the Letherii way of living, even as they sneered and proclaimed their disgust and contempt. If you are so disgusted, why do you still suckle at the tit, Edur? You had your chance at destroying all this. Us. And our own whole terrible civilization. No, there was little that was worth saying to these two savages.
He felt more than heard the scratch at the door behind him, and slowly straightened. ‘The Emperor will see you now.’
Tomad wheeled round to face the door, and Sirryn saw in the bastard’s face a sudden strain beneath the haughty façade. Beyond him, Uruth swept her cloak back, freeing her arms. Was that fear in her eyes? He watched her move up to stand beside her husband, yet it seemed all they drew from that proximity was yet another tension.
Stepping to one side, Sirryn Kanar swung open the door.
‘Halt in the tiled circle,’ he said. ‘Step past it and a dozen arrows will find your body. No warning will be voiced. By the Emperor’s own command. Now, proceed. Slowly.’
At this moment, a Tiste Edur and four Letherii soldiers approached the city’s west gate on lathered horses. A shout from the Edur sent pedestrians scattering from the raised road. The five riders were covered in mud and two bore wounds. The swords of the two whose scabbards were not empty were blood-crusted. The Edur was one of those without weapons, and from his back jutted the stub of an arrow, its iron head buried in his right scapula. Blood soaked his cloak where the quarrel had pinned it to his back. This warrior was dying. He had been dying for four days.
Another hoarse shout from the Tiste Edur, as he led his ragged troop beneath the gate’s arch, and into the city of Letheras.
The Errant studied Rhulad Sengar, who had sat motionless since the Chancellor had returned to announce the imminent arrival of Tomad and Uruth. Was it some faltering of courage that had kept the Emperor from demanding their immediate presence? There was no way to tell. Even the Chancellor’s cautious queries had elicited nothing.
Lanterns burned on. The traditional torches breathed out smoke, their flickering light licking the walls. Triban Gnol stood, hands folded, waiting.
Within Rhulad’s head battles were being waged. Armies of will and desire contested with the raving forces of fear and doubt. The field was sodden with blood and littered with fallen heroes. Or into his skull some blinding fog had rolled in, oppressive as oblivion itself, and Rhulad wandered lost.
He sat as if carved, clothed in stained wealth, the product of a mad artist’s vision. Lacquered eyes and scarred flesh, twisted mouth and black strands of greasy hair.
Sculpted solid to the throne to cajole symbols of permanence and imprisonment, but this madness had lost all subtlety – ever the curse of fascism, the tyranny of gleeful servility that could not abide subversion.
Look upon him, and see what comes when justice is vengeance. When challenge is criminal. When scepticism is treason. Call upon them, Emperor! Your father, your mother. Call them to stand before you in this inverted nightmare of fidelity, and unleash your wrath!
‘Now,’ Rhulad said in a croak.
The Chancellor gestured to a guard near the side door, who turned in a soft rustle of armour and brushed his gauntleted hand upon the ornate panel. A moment later it opened.
All of this was occurring to the Errant’s left, along the same wall he leaned against, so he could not see what occurred then beyond, barring a few indistinct words.
Tomad and Uruth Sengar strode into the throne room, halting in the tiled circle. Both then bowed to their Emperor.
Rhulad licked his broken lips. ‘They are kin,’ he said.
A frown from Tomad.
‘Enslaved by humans. They deserved our liberation, did they not?’
‘From the Isle of Sepik, Emperor?’ asked Uruth. ‘Are these of whom you speak?’
‘They were indeed liberated,’ Tomad said, nodding.
Rhulad leaned forward. ‘Enslaved kin. Liberated. Then why, dear Father, do they now rot in chains?’
Tomad seemed unable to answer, a look of confusion on his lined face.
‘Awa
iting your disposition,’ Uruth said. ‘Emperor, we have sought audience with you many times since our return. Alas,’ she glanced over at Triban Gnol, ‘the Chancellor sends us away. Without fail.’
‘And so,’ Rhulad said in a rasp, ‘you proclaimed them guests of the empire as was their right, then settled them where? Why, not in our many fine residences surrounding the palace. No. You chose the trenches – the pits alongside debtors, traitors and murderers. Is this your notion of the Guest Gift in your household, Tomad? Uruth? Strange, for I do not recall in my youth this most profound betrayal of Tiste Edur custom. Not in the House of my family! ‘
‘Rhulad. Emperor,’ Tomad said, almost stepping back in the face of his son’s rage, ‘have you seen these kin of ours? They are . . . pathetic. To look upon them is to feel stained. Dirtied. Their spirits are crushed. They have been made a mockery of all that is Tiste Edur. This was the crime the humans of Sepik committed against our blood, and for that we answered, Emperor. That island is now dead.’
‘Kin,’ the Emperor whispered. ‘Explain to me, Father, for I do not understand. You perceive the crime and deliver the judgement, yes, in the name of Edur blood. No matter how fouled, no matter how decrepit. Indeed, those details are without relevance – they in no way affect the punishment, except perhaps to make it all the more severe. All of this, Father, is a single thread of thought, and it runs true. Yet there is another, isn’t there? A twisted, knotted thing. One where the victims of those humans are undeserving of our regard, where they must be hidden away, left to rot like filth.
‘What, then, were you avenging?
‘Where – oh where, Father – is the Guest Gift? Where is the honour that binds all Tiste Edur? Where, Tomad Sengar, where, in all this, is my will? I am Emperor and the face of the empire is mine and mine alone! ‘