Reaper's Gale

  ‘You misunderstand me, Trull Sengar. My wonder is in your willingness to risk your life, again. This time for a people who are nothing to you. For a realm not your own.’

  ‘They are your kin, Onrack.’

  ‘Distant. Bentract.’

  ‘If it had been, say, the Den-Ratha tribe of the Edur to gain supremacy among our tribes, Onrack, instead of my own Hiroth, would I not give my life to defend them? They are still my people. For you it is the same, yes? Logros, Bentract – just tribes – but the same people.’

  ‘There is too much within you, Trull Sengar. You humble me.’

  ‘Perhaps there lies your own misunderstanding, friend.

  Perhaps all you see here is my search for a cause, for something to fight for, to die for.’

  ‘You will not die here.’

  ‘Oh, Onrack—’

  ‘I may well fight to protect the Bentract and this realm, but they are not why I am here. You are.’

  Trull could not meet his friend’s eyes, and in his heart there was pain. Deep, old, awakened.

  ‘The son,’ Onrack said after a moment, ‘seems . . . very young.’

  ‘Well, so am I.’

  ‘Not when I look into your eyes. It is not the same with this Soletaken,’ he continued, seemingly unmindful of the wound he had just delivered. ‘No, those yellow eyes are young.’

  ‘Innocent?’

  A nod. ‘Trusting, as a child is trusting.’

  ‘A gentle mother, then.’

  ‘She did not raise him,’ Onrack said.

  Ah, the Imass, then. And now I begin to see, to understand. ‘We will be vigilant, Onrack.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Rud Elalle led them into a split between two upthrust knobs of layered rock, a trail that then wound between huge boulders before opening out into the Imass village.

  Rock shelters along a cliff. Tusk-framed huts, the spindly frames of drying racks on which were stretched hides. Children running like squat imps in the midst of a gathering of perhaps thirty Imass. Men, women, elders. One warrior stood before all the others, while off to one side stood three more Imass, their garb rotted and subtly different in cut and style from that of the Bentract – the strangers, Trull realized – guests yet remaining apart.

  Upon seeing them, Onrack’s benign expression hardened. ‘Friend,’ he murmured to Trull, ‘ ‘ware those three.’

  ‘I decided the same myself,’ Trull replied under his breath.

  Rud Elalle moved to stand at the Bentract leader’s side. ‘This is Ulshun Pral,’ he said, setting a hand on the man’s thick shoulder – a gesture of open affection that seemed blissfully unmindful of the growing tension at the edge of this village.

  Onrack moved forward. ‘I am Onrack the Broken, once of the Logros T’lan Imass, child of the Ritual. I ask that we be made guests among your tribe, Ulshun Pral.’

  The honey-skinned warrior frowned over at Rud Elalle, then said something in his own language.

  Rud nodded and faced Onrack. ‘Ulshun Pral asks that you speak in the First Language.’

  ‘He asked,’ Onrack said, ‘why I chose not to.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My friends do not share the knowing of that language. I cannot ask for guesting on their behalf without their understanding, for to be guest is to be bound to the rules of the tribe, and this they must know, before I would venture a promise of peace on their behalf.’

  ‘Can you not simply translate?’ Rud Elalle asked.

  ‘Of course, yet I choose to leave that to you, Rud Elalle, for Ulshun Pral knows and trusts you, while he does not know me.’

  ‘Very well, I shall do so.’

  ‘Enough with all this,’ Hedge called out, gingerly setting down his pack. ‘We’ll all be good boys, so long as no-one tries to kill us or worse, like making us eat some horrible vegetable rightly extinct on every other realm in the universe.’

  Rud Elalle was displaying impressive skill and translating Hedge’s words almost as fast as the sapper spoke them.

  Ulshun Pral’s brows lifted in seeming astonishment, then he turned and with a savage gesture yelled at a small crowd of elderly women at one side of the crowd.

  Hedge scowled at Onrack, ‘Now what did I say?’ he demanded.

  But Trull saw his friend smiling. ‘Ulshun Pral has just directed the cooks to fish the baektar from the stew they have prepared for us.’

  ‘The baek-what?’

  ‘A vegetable, Hedge, that will be found nowhere but here.’

  All at once the tension was gone. There were smiles, shouts of apparent welcome from other Imass, and many came forward to close, first on Onrack, and then – with expressions of delight and wonder, on Trull Sengar – no, he realized, not on him – on the emlava cubs. Who began purring deep in their throats, as thick, short-fingered hands reached out to stroke fur and scratch behind the small, tufted ears.

  ‘Look at that, Quick!’ Hedge was staring in disbelief.

  ‘Now is that fair?’

  The wizard slapped the sapper on the back. ‘It’s true, Hedge, the dead stink.’

  ‘You’re hurting my feelings again!’

  Sighing, Trull released the leather leashes and stepped back. He smiled across at Hedge. ‘I smell nothing untoward,’ he said.

  But the soldier’s scowl only deepened. ‘Maybe I like you now, Trull Sengar, but you keep being nice and that’ll change, I swear it.’

  ‘Have I offended you—’

  ‘Ignore Hedge,’ Quick Ben cut in, ‘at least when he’s talking. Trust me, it was the only way the rest of us in the squad stayed sane. Ignore him . . . until he reaches into that damned sack of his.’

  ‘And then?’ Trull asked in complete bewilderment.

  ‘Then run like Hood himself was on your heels.’

  Onrack had separated himself from his welcomers and was now walking towards the strangers.

  ‘Yes,’ Quick Ben said in a low voice. ‘They’re trouble indeed.’

  ‘Because they were like Onrack? T’lan Imass?’

  ‘Of the Ritual, aye. The question is, why are they here?’

  ‘I would imagine that whatever mission brought them to this place, Quick Ben, the transformation they experienced has shaken them – perhaps, as with Onrack, their spirits have reawakened.’

  ‘Well, they look unbalanced enough.’

  Their conversation with Onrack was short, and Trull watched as his old friend approached.

  ‘Well?’ the wizard demanded.

  Onrack was frowning. ‘They are Bentract, after all. But from those who joined the Ritual. Ulshun Pral’s clan were among the very few who did not, who were swayed by the arguments set forth by Kilava Onass – this is why,’ Onrack added, ‘they greet the emlava as if they were Kilava’s very own children. Thus, there are ancient wounds between the two groups. Ulshun Pral was not a clan chief back then – indeed, the T’lan Bentract do not even know him.’

  ‘And that is a problem?’

  ‘It is, because one of the strangers is a chosen chief – chosen by Bentract himself. Hostille Rator.’

  ‘And the other two?’ Quick Ben asked.

  ‘Yes, even more difficult. Ulshun Pral’s Bonecaster is gone. Til’aras Benok and Gr’istanas Ish’ilm, who stand to either side of Hostille Rator, are Bonecasters.’

  Trull Sengar drew a deep breath. ‘They contemplate usurpation, then.’

  Onrack the Broken nodded.

  ‘Then what had stopped them?’ Quick Ben asked.

  ‘Rud Elalle, wizard. The son of Menandore terrifies them.’

  The rain thundered down, every moment another hundred thousand iron-tipped lances crashing down out of the dark onto slate rooftops, exploding on the cobbled streets where streams now rushed down, racing for the harbour.

  The ice north of the island had not died quietly. Sundered by the magic of a wilful child, the white and blue mountains had lifted skyward in pillars of steam that roiled into massive stormclouds, which had then marched south f
reed from the strictures of refusal, and those clouds now erupted over the beleaguered city with rage and vengeance. Late afternoon had become midnight and now, as the half-drowned chimes of midnight’s bells sounded, it seemed as if this night would never end.

  On the morrow – if it ever came – the Adjunct would set sail with her motley fleet. Thrones of War, a score of well-armed fast escorts, the last of the transports holding the rest of the Fourteenth Army, and one sleek black dromon propelled by the tireless oars manned by headless Tiste Andii. Oh, and of course, in the lead would be a local pirate’s ship, captained by a dead woman – but never mind her. Return, yes, to that black-hulled nightmare.

  Their hosts had worked hard to keep the dread truth of that Quon dromon from Nimander Golit and his kin. The severed heads on the deck, mounded around the mainmast, well, they had kept them covered. No point in encouraging hysteria, should their living Tiste Andii guests see the faces of their kin, their true kin, for were they not of Drift Avalii? Oh yes, they were indeed. Uncles, fathers, mothers, oh, a play on words now would well serve the notion – they were, yes, heads of families, cut away before their time, before their children had grown old enough, wise enough, hard enough to survive in this world. Cut away, ha ha. Now, death would have been one thing. Dying was one thing. Just one and there were other things, always, and you didn’t need any special wisdom to know that. But those heads had not died, not stiffened then softened with rot. The faces had not fallen away to leave just bone, just the recognition that came with a sharing of what-is, what-was and what-would-be. No, the eyes stared on, the eyes blinked because some memory told them that blinking was necessary. The mouths moved, resuming interrupted conversations, the sharing of jests, the gossip of parents, yet not a single word could claw free.

  But hysteria was a complicated place in which a young mind might find itself. It could be deafening with screams, shrieks, the endless bursts of horror again and again and again – a tide surging without end. Or it could be quiet – silent in that awful way of some silences – like that of gaping mouths, desperate but unable to draw breath, the eyes above bulging, the veins standing prominent in their need, but no breath would come, nothing to slide life into the lungs. This was the hysteria of drowning. Drowning inside oneself, inside horror. The hysteria of a child, blank-eyed, drool smearing the chin.

  Some secrets were impossible to keep. The truth of that ship, for one. The Silanda’s lines were known, were profoundly familiar. The ship that had taken their parents on a pathetic journey in search of the one whom every Tiste Andii of Drift Avalii called Father. Anomander Rake. Anomander of the silver hair, the dragon’s eyes. Didn’t find him, alas. Never the chance to plead for help, to ask all the questions that needed asking, to stab fingers in accusation, condemnation, damnation. All that, yes yes.

  Take to your oars, brave parents, there is more sea to cross. Can you see the shore? Of course not. You see the sunlight when there is sunlight through canvas weave, and in your heads you feel the ache of your bodies, the strain in your shoulders, the bunch and loose, bunch and loose of every draw on the sweeps. You feel the blood welling up to pool in the neck as if it was a gilded cup, only to sink back down again. Row, damn you! Row for the shore!

  Aye, the shore. Other side of this ocean, and this ocean, dear parents, is endless.

  So row! Row!

  He might have giggled, but that would be a dangerous thing, to break the silence of his hysteria, which he had held on to for so long now it had become warm as a mother’s embrace.

  Best to carry on, working to push away, shut away, all thought of the Silanda. Easier on land, in this inn, in this room.

  But, on the morrow, they would sail. Again. Onto the ships, oh the spray and wind enlivens so!

  And this was why, on this horrid night of vengeful rain, Nimander was awake. For he knew Phaed. He knew Phaed’s own stain of hysteria, and what it might lead her to do. Tonight, in the sodden ashes of midnight’s bell.

  She could make her footfalls very quiet, as she crept out of her bed and padded barefoot to the door. Blessed sister blessed daughter blessed mother blessed aunt, niece, grandmother – blessed kin, blood of my blood, spit of my spit, gall of my gall. I hear you.

  For I know your mind, Phaed. The ever-surging bursts in your soul – yes, I see your bared teeth, the smear of intent. You imagine yourself unseen, yes, unwitnessed, and so you reveal your raw self. There in that blessed slash of grey-white, so poetically echoed by the gleam of the knife in your hand.

  To the door, darling Phaed. Lift the latch, and out you go, to slide down the corridor all slithering limbs as the rain lashes the roof above and water trickles down the walls in dirty tears. Cold enough to see your breath, Phaed, reminding you not just that you are alive, but that you are sexually awakened; that this journey is the sweetest indulgence of under-the-cover secrets, fingers ever playful on the knife, and on the rocking ship in the harbour eyes stare at blackness beneath drenched canvas, water trickling down . . .

  She worries, yes, about Withal. Who might awaken. Before or after. Who might smell the blood, the iron stench, the death riding out on Sandalath Drukorlat’s last breath. Who might witness when all that Phaed was, truly was, could never be witnessed – because such things were not allowed, never allowed, and so she might have to kill him, too.

  Vipers strike more than once.

  Now at the door, the last barrier – row you fools – the shore lies just beyond! – and of course there is no lock binding the latch. No reason for it. Save one murderous child whose mother’s head stares at canvas on a pitching deck. The one child who went to see that for herself. And we are drawn to pilgrimage. Because to live is to hunt for echoes. Echoes of what? No-one knows. But the pilgrimage is taken, yes, ever taken, and every now and then those echoes are caught – just a whisper – creaking oars, the slap and chop of waves like fists against the hull, clamouring to get in, and the burbling blood, the spitting suck as it sinks back down. And we hear, in those echoes, some master’s voice: Row! Row for the shore! Row for your lives!

  He remembered a story, the story he always remembered, would ever remember. An old man alone in a small fisher boat. Rowing into the face of a mountain of ice. Oh, he did love that story. The pointless glory of it, the mindless magic – he would grow chilled at the thought, at the vision he conjured of that wondrous, profound and profoundly useless scene. Old man, what do you think you are doing? Old man – the ice!

  Inside, a shadow among shadows, gloom in the gloom, teeth hidden now, but the knife is a lurid gleam, catching reflections of rain from the window’s pitted rainbow glass. And a shudder takes her then, pulling her down into a crouch as sensations flood up through her belly, lancing upward into her brain and her breath catches – oh, Phaed, don’t scream now. Don’t even moan.

  They have drawn their cots together – on this night, then, the man and the bitch have shared the spit of their loins, isn’t that sweet. She edges closer, eyes searching. Finding Sandalath’s form on the left, closest to her. Convenient.

  Phaed raises the knife.

  In her mind, flashes, scene after scene, the sordid list of this old woman’s constant slights, each one belittling Phaed, each one revealing to all nearby too many of Phaed’s secret terrors – no-one has the right to do that, no-one has the right to then laugh – laugh in the eyes if not out loud. All those insults, well, the time has come to pay them back. Here, with one hard thrust of the knife.

  She lifts the knife still higher, draws in her breath and holds it.

  And stabs down.

  Nimander’s hand snaps out, catches her wrist, hard, tightening as she twists round, lips peeled back, eyes blazing with rage and fear. Her wrist is a tiny thing, like a bony snake, caught, frenzied, seeking to turn the knife, to set the edge against Nimander’s hand. He twists again and bones break, an awful crunching, grinding sound.

  The knife clunks on the wooden floor.

  Nimander bears down on her, using his weight to c
rumple Phaed onto the floor beside the bed. She tries to scratch at his eyes and he releases the broken limb to grasp the other one. He breaks that one too.

  She has not screamed. Amazing, that. Not a sound but her panting breath.

  Nimander pins her down and takes her neck in his hands. He begins to squeeze.

  No more, Phaed. I now do as would Anomander Rake. As would Silchas Ruin. As would Sandalath herself were she awake. I do this, because I know you – yes, even now, there, in your bulging eyes where all your awareness now gathers in a flood, I can see the truth of you.

  The emptiness inside.

  Your mother stares in horror. At what she has spawned. She stares, disbelieving, clinging desperately to the possibility that she has got it wrong, that we all have, that you are not as you are. But that is no help. Not to her. Not to you.

  Yes, stare up into my eyes, Phaed, and know that I see you.

  I see you—

  He was being dragged away. Off Phaed. His hands were being pried loose, twisted painfully to break his grip – and he falls back, muscled arms wrapped about him now, and is dragged from Phaed, from her bloated face and the dreadful gasping – poor Phaed’s throat hurts, maybe is torn, even. To breathe is to know agony.

  But she lives. He has lost his chance, and now they will kill him.

  Sandalath screams at him – she has been screaming at him for some time, he realizes. She first screamed when he broke Phaed’s second wrist – awakened by Phaed’s own screams – oh, of course she had not stayed quiet. Snapping bones would never permit that, not even from a soulless creature as was Phaed. She had screamed, and he’d heard nothing, not even echoes – hands on the oar and squeeze!

  Now what would happen? Now what would they do?

  ‘Nimander! ‘

  He started, stared across at Sandalath, studied her face as if it were a stranger’s.

  Withal held him, arms trapped against his sides, but Nimander was not interested in struggling. It was too late for that.

  Phaed had thrown up and the stink of her vomit was thick in the air.

  Someone was pounding on the door – which in his wisdom Nimander had locked behind him after following Phaed into the room.