Reaper's Gale

  She had in turn been raped. Drunk in a port city tearing itself apart as the armies of the Tiste Edur swept in amidst smoke, flames and ashes. Her flesh made weapon, her soul made victim. There could be no surprise, no blank astonishment, to answer her subsequent attempt to kill herself. Except among those who could not understand, who would never understand.

  Seren killed what she loved. She had done it to Hull, and if the day ever arrived when that deadly flower opened in her heart once more, she would kill again. Fears could not be swept away. Fears returned in drowning tides, dragging her down into darkness. I am poison.

  Stay away. All of you, stay away.

  She sat, the shaft of the Imass spear athwart her knees, but it was the weight of the sword belted to her left hip that threatened to pull her down, as if that blade was not a hammered length of iron, but links in a chain. He meant nothing by it. You meant nothing, Trull. I know that. Besides, like Hull, you are dead. You had the mercy of not dying in my arms. Be thankful for that.

  Nostalgia or no, the child still within her was creeping forward, in timid increments. It was safe, wasn’t it, safe to cup her small unscarred hands and to show, in private oh-so-secret display, that old dream shining anew. Safe, because Trull was dead. No harm, none at all.

  Loose the twist deep in her stomach – no, further down. She was now, after all, a grown woman. Loose it, yes, why not? For one who is poison, there is great pleasure in anguish. In wild longing. In the meaningless explorations of delighted surrender, subjugation – well, subjugation that was in truth domination – no point in being coy here. I surrender in order to demand. Relinquish in order to rule. I invite the rape because the rapist is me and this body here is my weapon and you, my love, are my victim.

  Because heroes die. As Udinaas says, it is their fate.

  The voice that was Mockra, that was the Warren of the Mind, had not spoken to her since that first time, as if, somehow, nothing more needed to be said. The discipline of control was hers to achieve, the lures of domination hers to resist. And she was managing both. Just.

  In this the echoes of the past served to distract her, lull her into moments of sensual longing for a man now dead, a love that could never be. In this, even the past could become a weapon, which she wielded to fend off the present and indeed the future. But there were dangers here, too. Revisiting that moment when Trull Sengar had drawn his sword, had then set it into her hands. He wished me safe. That is all. Dare I create in that something more? Even to drip honey onto desire?

  Seren Pedac glanced up. The fell gathering – her companions – were neither gathered nor companionable. Udinaas was down by the stream, upending rocks in search of crayfish – anything to add variety to their meals – and the icy water had turned his hands first red, then blue, and it seemed he did not care. Kettle sat near a boulder, hunched down to fend off the bitter wind racing up the valley. She had succumbed to an uncharacteristic silence these past few days, and would not meet anyone’s eyes. Silchas Ruin stood thirty paces away, at the edge of an overhang of layered rock, and he seemed to be studying the white sky – a sky the same hue as his skin. ‘The world is his mirror,’ Udinaas had said earlier, with a hard laugh, before walking down to the stream. Clip sat on a flat rock about halfway between Silchas Ruin and everyone else. He had laid out his assortment of weapons for yet another intense examination, as if obsession was a virtue. Seren Pedac’s glance found them all in passing, before her gaze settled on Fear Sengar.

  Brother of the man she loved. Ah, was that an easy thing to say? Easy, perhaps, in its falsehood. Or in its simple truth. Fear believed that Trull’s gift was more than it seemed; that even Trull hadn’t been entirely aware of his own motivations. That the sad-faced Edur warrior had found in her, in Seren Pedac, Acquitor, a Letherii, something he had not found before in anyone. Not one of the countless beautiful Tiste Edur women he must have known. Young women, their faces unlined by years of harsh weather and harsher grief. Women who were not strangers. Women with still-pure visions of love.

  This realm they now found themselves in, was it truly that of Darkness? Kurald Galain? Then why was the sky white? Why could she see with almost painful clarity every detail for such distances as left her mind reeling? The Gate itself had been inky, impenetrable – she had stumbled blindly, cursing the uneven, stony ground underfoot – twenty, thirty strides, and then there had been light. A rock-strewn vista, here and there a dead tree rising crooked into the pearlescent sky.

  At what passed for dusk in this place that sky assumed a strange, pink tinge, before deepening to layers of purple and blue and finally black. So thus, a normal passage of day and night. Somewhere behind this cloak of white, then, a sun.

  A sun in the Realm of Dark? She did not understand.

  Fear Sengar had been studying the distant figure of Silchas Ruin. Now he turned and approached the Acquitor. ‘Not long, now,’ he said.

  She frowned up at him. ‘Until what?’

  He shrugged, his eyes fixing on the Imass spear. ‘Trull would have appreciated that weapon, I think. More than you appreciated his sword.’

  Anger flared within her. ‘He told me, Fear. He gave me his sword, not his heart.’

  ‘He was distracted. His mind was filled with returning to Rhulad – to what would be his final audience with his brother. He could not afford to think of . . . other things. Yet those other things claimed his hands and the gesture was made. In that ritual, my brother’s soul spoke.’

  She looked away. ‘It no longer matters, Fear.’

  ‘It does to me.’ His tone was hard, bitter. ‘I do not care what you make of it, what you tell yourself now to avoid feeling anything. Once, a brother of mine demanded the woman I loved. I did not refuse him, and now she is dead. Everywhere I look, Acquitor, I see her blood, flowing down in streams. It will drown me in the end, but that is no matter. While I live, while I hold madness at bay, Seren Pedac, I will protect and defend you, for a brother of mine set his sword into your hands.’

  He walked away then, and still she could not look at him. Fear Sengar, you fool. A fool, like any other man, like every other man. What is it with your gestures? Your eagerness to sacrifice? Why do you all give yourselves to us? We are not pure vessels. We are not innocent. We will not handle your soul like a precious, fragile jewel. No, you fool, we’ll abuse it as if it was our own, or, indeed, of lesser value than that – if that is possible.

  The crunch of stones, and suddenly Udinaas was crouching before her. In his cupped hands, a minnow. Writhing trapped in a tiny, diminishing pool of water.

  ‘Plan on splitting it six ways, Udinaas?’

  ‘It’s not that, Acquitor. Look at it. Closely now. Do you see? It has no eyes. It is blind.’

  ‘And is that significant?’ But it was, she realized. She frowned up at him, saw the sharp glitter in his gaze. ‘We are not seeing what is truly here, are we?’

  ‘Darkness,’ he said. ‘The cave. The womb.’

  ‘But . . . how?’ She looked round. The landscape of broken rock, the pallid lichen and mosses and the very dead trees. The sky.

  ‘Gift, or curse,’ Udinaas said, straightening. ‘She took a husband, didn’t she?’

  She watched him walking back to the stream, watched him tenderly returning the blind minnow to the rushing water. A gesture Seren would not have expected from him. She? Who took a husband?

  ‘Gift or curse,’ said Udinaas as he approached her once again. ‘The debate rages on.’

  ‘Mother Dark . . . and Father Light.’

  He grinned his usual cold grin. ‘At last, Seren Pedac stirs from her pit. I’ve been wondering about those three brothers.’

  Three brothers?

  He went on as if she knew of whom he was speaking. ‘Spawn of Mother Dark, yes, but then, there were plenty of those, weren’t there? Was there something that set those three apart? Andarist, Anomander, Silchas. What did Clip tell us? Oh, right, nothing. But we saw the tapestries, didn’t we? Andarist, like midnight itse
lf. Anomander, with hair of blazing white. And here, Silchas, our walking bloodless abomination, whiter than any corpse but just as friendly. So what caused the great rift between sons and mother? Maybe it wasn’t her spreading her legs to Light like a stepfather none of them wanted. Maybe that’s all a lie, one of those sweetly convenient ones. Maybe, Seren Pedac, it was finding out who their father was.’

  She could not help but follow his gaze to where stood Silchas Ruin. Then she snorted and turned away. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Does it matter? Not right now,’ Udinaas said. ‘But it will.’

  ‘Why? Every family has its secrets.’

  He laughed. ‘I have my own question. If Silchas Ruin is all Light on the outside, what must he be on the inside?’

  ‘The world is his mirror.’

  But the world we now look upon is a lie.

  ‘Udinaas, I thought the Tiste Edur were the children of Mother Dark and Father Light.’

  ‘Successive generations, probably. Not in any obvious way connected to those three brothers.’

  ‘Scabandari.’

  ‘Yes, I imagine so. Father Shadow, right? Ah, what a family that was! Let’s not forget the sisters! Menandore with her raging fire of dawn, Sheltatha Lore the loving dusk, and Sukul Ankhadu, treacherous bitch of night. Were there others? There must have been, but they’ve since fallen by the wayside. Myths prefer manageable numbers, after all, and three always works best. Three of this, three of that.’

  ‘But Scabandari would be the fourth—’

  ‘Andarist is dead.’

  Oh. ‘Andarist is dead.’ And how does he know such things? Who speaks to you, Udinaas, in your nightly fevers?

  She could find out, she suddenly realized. She could slide in, like a ghost. She could, with the sorcery of Mockra, steal knowledge. I could rape someone else’s mind, is what I mean. Without his ever knowing.

  There was necessity, wasn’t there? Something terrible was coming. Udinaas knew what it would be. What it might be, anyway. And Fear Sengar – he had just vowed to protect her, as if he too suspected some awful confrontation was close at hand. I remain the only one to know nothing.

  She could change that. She could use the power she had found within her. It was nothing more than self-protection. To remain ignorant was to justly suffer whatever fate awaited her; yes, in lacking ruthlessness she would surely deserve whatever befell her. For ignoring what Mockra offered, for ignoring this gift.

  No wonder it had said nothing since that first conversation. She had been in her pit, stirring old sand to see what seeds might spring to life, but there was no light reaching that pit, and no life among the chill grains. An indulgent game and nothing more.

  I have a right to protect myself. Defend myself.

  Clip and Silchas Ruin were walking back. Udinaas was studying them with the avidness he had displayed when examining the blind minnow.

  I will have your secrets, slave. I will have those, and perhaps much, much more.

  Udinaas could not help but see Silchas Ruin differently. In a new light, ha ha. The aggrieved son. One of them, anyway. Aggrieved sons, daughters, grandchildren, their children, on and on until the race of Shadow wars against that of Darkness. All on a careless word, an insult, the wrong look a hundred thousand years ago.

  But, then, where are the children of Light?

  Well, a good thing, maybe, that they weren’t around. Enough trouble brewing as it was, with Silchas Ruin and Clip on one side and Fear Sengar and – possibly – Scabandari on the other. But of course Fear Sengar is no Mortal Sword of Shadow. Although he probably wants to be, even believes himself to be. Oh, this will play badly indeed, won’t it?

  Silent, they walked on. Across this blasted, lifeless landscape. But not quite! There are . . . minnows.

  The quest was drawing to a close. Just as well. Nothing worse, as far as he was concerned, than those legends of old when the stalwart, noble adventurers simply went on and on, through one absurd episode after another, with each one serving some arcane function for at least one of the wide-eyed fools, as befitted the shining serrated back of morality that ran the length of the story, from head to tip of that long, sinuous tail. Legends that bite. Yes, they all do. That’s the point of them.

  But not this one, not this glorious quest of ours. No thunderous message driving home like a spike of lightning between the eyes. No tumbling cascade of fraught scenes ascending like some damned stairs to the magical tower perched on the mountain’s summit, where all truths were forged into the simple contest of hero against villain.

  Look at us! What heroes? We’re all villains, and that tower doesn’t even exist.

  Yet.

  I see blood dripping between the stones. Blood in its making. So much blood. You want that tower, Silchas Ruin? Fear Sengar? Clip? You want it that much? You will have to make it, and so you shall.

  Fevers every night. Whatever sickness whispered in his veins preferred the darkness of the mind that was sleep. Revelations arrived in torn fragments, pieces hinting of some greater truth, something vast. But he did not trust any of that – those revelations, they were all lies. Someone’s lies. The Errant’s? Menandore’s? The fingers poking into his brain were legion. Too many contradictions, each vision warring with the next.

  What do you all want of me?

  Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to give it. He’d been a slave but he was a slave no longer.

  This realm had not been lived in for a long, long time. At least nowhere in this particular region. The trees were so long dead they had turned to brittle stone, right down to the thinnest twigs with their eternally frozen buds awaiting a season of life that never came. And that sun up there, somewhere behind the white veil, well, it too was a lie. Somehow. After all, Darkness should be dark, shouldn’t it?

  He thought to find ruins or something. Proof that the Tiste Andii had once thrived here, but he had not seen a single thing that had been shaped by an intelligent hand, guided by a sentient mind. No roads, no trails of any kind.

  When the hidden sun began its fade of light, Clip called a halt. Since arriving in this place, he had not once drawn out the chain and its two rings, the sole blessing to mark this part of their grand journey. There was nothing to feed a fire, so the dried remnants of smoked deer meat found no succulence in a stew and lent no warmth to their desultory repast.

  What passed for conversation was no better.

  Seren Pedac spoke. ‘Clip, why is there light here?’

  ‘We walk a road,’ the young Tiste Andii replied. ‘Kurald Liosan, Father Light’s gift of long, long ago. As you can see, his proud garden didn’t last very long.’ He shrugged. ‘Silchas Ruin and myself, well, naturally we don’t need this, but leading you all by hand . . .’ His smile was cold.

  ‘Thought you were doing that anyway,’ Udinaas said. The gloom was deepening, but he found that there was little effect on his vision, a detail he kept to himself.

  ‘I was being kind in not stating the obvious, Letherii. Alas, you lack such tact.’

  ‘Tact? Fuck tact, Clip.’

  The smile grew harder. ‘You are not needed, Udinaas. I trust you know that.’

  A wince tightened Seren Pedac’s face. ‘There’s no point in—’

  ‘It’s all right, Acquitor,’ Udinaas said. ‘I was getting rather tired of the dissembling bullshit anyway. Clip, where does this road lead? When we step off it, where will we find ourselves?’

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t guessed.’

  ‘Well, I have.’

  Seren Pedac frowned across at Udinaas and asked, ‘Will you tell me, then?’

  ‘I can’t. It’s a secret – and yes, I know what I said about dissembling, but this way maybe you stay alive. Right now, and with what’s to come, you have a chance of walking away, when all’s said and done.’

  ‘Generous of you,’ she said wearily, glancing away.

  ‘He is a slave,’ Fear Sengar said. ‘He knows nothing, Acquitor. How could he? He mended net
s. He swept damp sheaves from the floor and scattered new ones. He shelled oysters.’

  ‘And on the shore, one night,’ Udinaas said, ‘I saw a white crow.’

  Sudden silence.

  Finally, Silchas Ruin snorted. ‘Means nothing. Except perhaps a presentiment of my rebirth. Thus, Udinaas, it may be you are a seer of sorts. Or a liar.’

  ‘More likely both,’ Udinaas said. ‘Yet there was a white crow. Was it flying through darkness, or dusk? I’m not sure, but I think the distinction is, well, important. Might be worth some effort, remembering exactly, I mean. But my days of working hard at anything are done.’ He glanced over at Silchas Ruin. ‘We’ll find out soon enough.’

  ‘This is pointless,’ Clip announced, settling back until he was supine on the hard ground, hands laced behind his head, staring up at the black, blank sky.

  ‘So this is a road, is it?’ Udinaas asked – seemingly of no-one in particular. ‘Gift of Father Light. That’s the interesting part. So, the question I’d like to ask is this: are we travelling it alone?’

  Clip sat back up.

  Udinaas smiled at him. ‘Ah, you’ve sensed it, haven’t you? The downy hair on the back of your neck trying to stand on end. Sensed. Smelled. A whisper of air as from some high wind. Sending odd little chills through you. All that.’

  Silchas Ruin rose, anger in his every line. ‘Menandore,’ he said.

  ‘I would say she has more right to this road than we do,’ Udinaas said. ‘But Clip brought us here out of the goodness of his heart. Such noble intentions.’

  ‘She tracks us,’ Silchas Ruin muttered, hands finding the grips of his singing swords. Then he glared skyward. ‘From the sky.’

  ‘For your miserable family feuds are the only things worth living for, right?’

  There was alarm in Fear Sengar’s expression. ‘I do not understand. Why is Sister Dawn following us? What cares she for the soul of Scabandari?’

  ‘The Finnest,’ Clip said under his breath. Then, louder, ‘Bloodeye’s soul, Edur. She seeks to claim it for herself. Its power.’