Forge of Darkness

  Ahead, T’riss did not so much as turn round, instead pushing open the heavy door and striding into the chamber. The door, left open, reflected flashes of yellow light, and Emral could feel the Azathanai’s power pushing through the darkness.

  Anomander was speaking to Caplo. ‘No blood to be spilled within, do you understand me?’

  ‘Un-unnecessary, Lord,’ Caplo said in a gasp.

  Releasing the man to sag against the wall, Anomander faced Warlock Resh. ‘Inform Sheccanto that we have no interest in sharing her panic. And should she ever again send her prized assassin into audience with Mother Dark, I will see his head spiked to the Citadel’s wall, with hers to follow.’

  ‘I will convey your message, Lord,’ Resh replied, but his tone was distracted.

  From the doorway, the light suddenly vanished. A moment later, High Priestess Syntara staggered into view. Her skin was the hue of alabaster, her dark eyes like pools of ink. When Emral moved to assist her, Syntara threw up a staying hand, and her face twisted into a mask of spite and venom. ‘Do not touch me, you wretched hag! I chose my gift! I chose it!’

  Pushing past the others, she rushed down the corridor.

  Groaning, Warlock Resh set his back to the wall as would a man with too much drink in him. Eyes squeezing shut, he said, ‘She’s gone.’

  Emral did not need him to elaborate. Bitter cold air was rushing into the corridor from the sanctum. The audience was at an end, and T’riss had vanished. The aftermath of the power unveiled in the last few moments made the air fiercely bitter, almost caustic.

  Anomander faced the warlock. ‘She was banished?’

  Resh’s eyes started open. ‘Does she give you nothing? This precious new goddess of yours?’

  ‘She may well give,’ Anomander replied. ‘But I do not ask.’

  ‘Not banished. Time twisted in the sanctum – in there, they might well have spoken for days. There is no way of knowing. She brought the blood – I felt it – she brought vitr into that chamber. Lord, I did not know – it must have been within her.’

  Anomander half turned to the yawning doorway. ‘A weapon?’

  ‘No, Lord. A gift.’

  ‘Shake,’ Anomander commanded. ‘Await us here. High Priestess Emral, accompany me.’ He strode into the sanctum.

  Emral followed.

  As the door was shut behind them, Emral noticed at once that something had changed. The darkness remained, yet somehow lacked its oppressive weight, and before her eyes it seemed almost pellucid. In growing astonishment, she realized that she could make out details of the chamber.

  Before them, motionless on the Throne of Night, sat Mother Dark, black-clothed in loose silks, black-haired, and now black-skinned. The transformation left Emral stunned, her thoughts plucked loose from all that she saw, as if she beheld a dubious world with the eyes of a drunk, and could make no sense of it.

  As if nothing could rattle him, Anomander faced the throne, and something in his demeanour hinted at the defiance T’riss had seen within him. ‘Are you harmed, Mother?’

  Her voice was soft, pitched low as if in weariness. ‘I am not.’

  ‘You sent her away?’

  ‘Beloved Emral,’ said Mother Dark, ‘you now stand alone as my High Priestess. Syntara has chosen, and from this a schism now threatens us all. In matters of faith, waters will part. This cannot be undone.’

  But Anomander was not easily set aside. ‘Mother, the Azathanai resurrected an ancient god—’

  ‘There is peace between us. You see too many enemies, First Son. We are not threatened from without; only from within.’

  ‘Then we shall deal with it,’ he replied. ‘But I must understand what has happened here. I will defend what I believe in, Mother.’

  ‘But what is worthy of your belief, Anomander? This is ever the question, isn’t it?’

  ‘What has T’riss done here? The darkness itself is changed.’

  Again, Mother Dark made no answer to him, instead addressing Emral. ‘Inform your sisters and brothers, High Priestess. This temple is sanctified.’

  This was the Azathanai’s gift? Sanctified by vitr? ‘Mother Dark, what has driven Syntara from us? Her faith was unassailable—’

  ‘Easily assailed,’ countered Mother Dark. ‘By ambition and vanity. The Azathanai can see deep into a mortal soul, yet she understands nothing of tact, nor the value of withholding truths.’

  ‘And her gift?’ Emral asked. ‘She is made bloodless, white as bone.’

  ‘She is beyond my reach now, beloved Emral. That is all.’

  ‘But … where will she go?’

  ‘That remains to be seen. I have thoughts … but not now. You both stand in the presence of Night. You are no longer blinded by darkness, and all who come to me will receive this blessing. Even now,’ she observed, ‘I see Night comes to your skin.’

  When Emral looked to Anomander, however, she gasped upon seeing not the ebon hue of his skin, but the silver sheen of his hair.

  Mother Dark sighed. ‘You ever trouble me, First Son. One day I shall tell you of your mother.’

  ‘I have no interest in her,’ said Anomander. ‘Love cannot survive the absence of memories, and for that woman we have none.’

  ‘And has that not made you curious?’

  The question seemed to startle him and he made no reply.

  Emral wanted to weep, but her eyes remained dry, as if lined with sand. She struggled not to step back, to wheel and leave them to their bitter exchange. But she would not flee as had Syntara. Of vanity she had little, but ambition was another matter, twisted though its path might be.

  Mother Dark’s eyes were upon her, she now saw, but the goddess said nothing.

  Anomander finally spoke, ‘Mother, will you speak with the Shake?’

  ‘Not yet. But I warn you this, First Son, do not oppose the gathering of believers. The Deniers were never without faith – they but denied a faith in me. So be it. I do not compel. The Shake will insist upon their neutrality in matters of the state.’

  ‘Then name your enemy!’ Anomander’s shout echoed in the chamber, and behind it was exasperation and fury.

  ‘I have none,’ she replied in a calm voice. ‘Anomander. Win this peace for me; that is all I ask.’

  Breath hissed from him in frustration. ‘I am a warrior and I know only blood, Mother. I cannot win what I must first destroy.’

  ‘Then, above all, First Son, do not draw a sword.’

  ‘How is it Syntara poses a threat?’ he demanded. ‘What manner of schism could she create? Her cadre is small – priestesses and a half-dozen spies among the servants. The Shake will not have her.’

  ‘It is the gift she now carries,’ Mother Dark replied, ‘that will draw adherents.’

  ‘Then let us arrest her, throw her and her lot into a cell.’

  ‘The gift cannot be chained, First Son. I see how you both struggle to understand, but the schism is necessary. The wound must be made, so that it can be healed.’

  ‘And what of Draconus?’

  At Anomander’s question Mother Dark grew very still, and the air in the sanctum suddenly crackled with cold. ‘Leave me now, First Son.’

  ‘Without him,’ Anomander persisted, ‘you set before me an impossible task.’

  ‘Go.’

  The way before him was indeed impossible and Emral could see that bleak knowledge in Anomander’s dark eyes. He wheeled and marched from the chamber.

  Emral’s head spun. The air bit at her throat and lungs.

  Mother Dark spoke. ‘Beloved Emral … I once asked Kadaspala a question. I saw in his eyes that he knew this question, as if, long ago, it had been seared into his very soul. But for all that, he could give me no answer.’

  ‘Mother Dark, what was the question?’

  ‘One to be asked of an artist, a creator of portraits, whose talent is found not in the hands but in the eyes. I asked him: how does one paint love?’

  He knew the question. He asked it of himself.
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  But he had no answer.

  ‘Do you know,’ Mother Dark went on, ‘when you can see in darkness, nothing is hidden.’

  If she wept now, the tears would freeze upon her cheeks, and burn leaving scars. For all to see.

  ‘Nothing,’ Mother Dark then added, ‘but darkness itself.’

  * * *

  Half drunk, Hunn Raal stared at the white-skinned woman who had come stumbling into his room. He saw the fear and fury warring in her eyes, but it was the alabaster bleaching of her visage that held him enthralled. Not even Silchas Ruin possessed such purity. He struggled to speak. ‘H-High Priestess, what has become of you? You are glamoured – what new gift of sorcery has Mother Dark discovered?’

  ‘I am cast out, you fool! Banished from Night! This was not her doing – the Azathanai said she could see into my soul. She said terrible things—’ Syntara turned away, and he could see how she trembled. ‘She reached out to me. There was light. Blinding light.’

  He forced himself from his chair. The room tilted slightly and then righted itself. He drew a deep, steadying breath, and then moved close to her. ‘High Priestess, I will tell you what I see when I now look upon you—’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘I see a woman reborn. Syntara, you among all women do not belong in darkness.’

  She looked up at him. ‘The light is within me. I feel it!’

  He nodded. ‘And I see it shining through, High Priestess. There is nothing to fear – the truth of that is plain to my eyes.’

  ‘Reborn,’ she whispered. And then her eyes flashed. ‘I demand sanctuary.’

  ‘And you have come to me. I understand, High Priestess.’

  ‘Where else could I go? I cannot stay here. I need the protection of the Legion …’

  He straightened, saying nothing. He needed to think this through.

  ‘Hunn Raal—’

  ‘A moment, please. This is a complication—’

  ‘Is that what I am? A complication? Hardly the grovelling stance you took yesterday, babbling how everything is in place!’

  ‘Yesterday you were the High Priestess of Mother Dark,’ he snapped. ‘But now she’ll not have you, Syntara. I must think of my master, and the future I seek for him. I must think of the Legion.’

  She stood, faced him. ‘Save that nonsense for the fools who will believe it. I see your ambition, Hunn Raal. I know your bloodlines. You long to walk these halls again, in your rightful place. Your master is simply the means, not the end.’

  ‘We are not all as base as you, Syntara. Now, cease your raging. Give me time to see a way through this, to the advantage of all of us. Tell me truthfully now, why do you believe you need sanctuary?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Look at me! See what she has done!’

  ‘The Azathanai did this, not Mother Dark. You fled the chamber – why?’

  ‘You were not there,’ she hissed. ‘You did not hear the horrible things the woman said of me.’

  ‘Then,’ he concluded, ‘you fled in shame. Mother Dark did not cast you out.’

  ‘Nor did she defend me! Her own High Priestess!’

  He grunted. ‘Fortunate for her then that she had two High Priestesses.’

  Her slap against the side of his face sent him back a step, not from the weight of the blow, but in the shocked sobriety it delivered. One side of his face stinging, he studied the woman before him, and then sighed. ‘“Anger is the death of beauty.” Who was it said that? Never mind. This has been a fraught day – the city streets flooding to announce the coming of the Azathanai, and I am told there was ice in the passage leading to the Chamber of Night. And now you … what do these things portend, High Priestess?’

  But her gaze had slid past him, to the jug of wine on the table. She strode over, poured full a goblet and drank it down in three quick swallows. ‘Are you too drunk to fuck me, Hunn Raal?’

  Said the woman who just slapped me. ‘Probably.’

  ‘Men are so pathetic.’

  ‘I have other things on my mind.’

  She refilled her goblet and then faced him. ‘Will Urusander take me?’

  ‘As what?’

  Instead of the anger he expected from his careless retort, she laughed. ‘Now that would ruin your plans, wouldn’t it, Hunn Raal? Don’t you think I have had my fill of old soldiers? They are nothing but dumb need and you have no idea how tiring that is. No, Mother Dark is welcome to him.’

  His nod was sharp. ‘So we’re clear on that. Good.’

  ‘A god now stirs the mud of Dorssan Ryl,’ she said, eyes narrowing, watching for his reaction over the rim of the goblet as she drank. ‘It was dead but is dead no longer. What ancient laws have been broken this day?’

  ‘Was this too a gift of the Azathanai woman? Then let us be plain. These were not gifts. A city flooded? Ice in the Citadel? They amount to an assault upon Kurald Galain.’

  She shrugged. ‘Semantics.’

  ‘Hardly. You are speaking to an old soldier, remember? Dumb we may be but us soldiers know the answer to such things.’

  ‘Will you declare war upon the Azathanai?’ She snorted, somewhat drunkenly. ‘Not even Urusander is that foolish. Besides, the woman vanished – as if she opened a door in the very air itself, and then simply stepped through. The power of that made Mother Dark recoil.’

  ‘Then we are indeed threatened, High Priestess.’

  She waved a dismissive hand, turning to refill the goblet. ‘We can do nothing about it. The Deniers will crawl out of the woods now, eager to lay sacrifice upon the banks of the river. Eager to walk the shore.’

  ‘And Mother Dark permits this?’

  ‘She is weak, Hunn Raal – why do you think she hides in darkness? Why do you think she draws close the three most feared warriors among the highborn and proclaims them her children? And why’ – she faced him – ‘did she take Lord Draconus to her bed? Sons may be all very well, but a man such as Draconus is another matter entirely. You understand nothing, Hunn Raal. You and your ridiculous plans.’

  He saw the challenge in her eyes, glittering behind the alcohol, and felt something stir in him. She is like me. She is the same as me, exactly the same. ‘You will take this to Urusander, High Priestess,’ he said. ‘You will tell him of the threat now facing Kurald Galain. You will explain to him her weakness, her vulnerability. But more than this, you will show him what must be done. The purity of your skin is now a symbol – the light within you is a power. Above all, High Priestess, tell him this: in darkness there is ignorance. In light there is justice.’ He moved closer to her. ‘Remember those words. This is what you must do.’

  She leaned against the table behind her, a smirk playing on her full lips. ‘I am to be a beacon, then? Still a High Priestess, but now in the name of light?’

  ‘It is within you.’

  She glanced away, still smiling. ‘Liossan. And who, then, are our enemies?’

  ‘All who seek to hurt Mother Dark – we will fight in her name and who could challenge this?’

  ‘And Draconus?’

  ‘He but uses her. Another way of hurting.’ He leaned over to grasp the jug of wine, and in the movement their faces came close, almost touching for a moment before he drew back. But he had smelled the sweet wine on her breath. ‘The old religion is a direct threat. The Deniers. The brothers and sisters of the Monasteries.’

  ‘There are more of them than you might imagine, Hunn Raal.’

  ‘All to the better,’ he said.

  ‘Sheccanto and Skelenal could even make claim to the throne.’

  ‘I wish they would. That would settle the sides quickly enough.’

  She reached out and stroked his cheek, where she had slapped only a short time before. ‘We will plunge Kurald Galain into civil war, Hunn Raal. You and I, and all that we now do.’

  But he shook his head. ‘We prevent one, High Priestess. Even better, once we have purged the realm, the end to all conflict is then offered to Mother Dark. By taking the hand of Lord
Urusander. She will see that she needs such a man at her side. Strength to answer her weakness, resolve to stand firm against her whims. Light and Dark, in balance.’

  ‘I want Emral dead.’

  ‘You cannot have that. She is but your reflection. An imperfect one to be sure, but even then you fare the better between you. No, Syntara, you will be as equals, yet need share nothing but your titles.’

  ‘Then I shall proclaim Urusander as Father Light,’ said Syntara, her hand still upon his cheek. ‘And the light within me shall be my gift to him.’

  ‘If you can give it.’

  ‘I can, Hunn Raal.’

  He was still holding the jug. ‘Now then, High Priestess, do we fuck or do we drink?’

  ‘Which do you prefer?’

  A dangerous question that he shrugged off. ‘Either is fine with me.’

  To his surprise she stepped away, and her stride was suddenly steady. ‘There is not time for either, Hunn Raal,’ she said, her words sharp. ‘I must gather my followers and we will need an escort from the city. Best we do this without fanfare – I shall cloak myself and remain unseen. My return to Kharkanas shall be in triumph.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, setting the jug back down on the table, feeling a fool for having been so easily played. ‘I think I underestimated you, High Priestess.’

  ‘Many do,’ she replied. ‘And you – you must send word to your people, wherever they happen to be hiding in the countryside.’ Seeing the alarm on his face her smile grew cruel. ‘Yes, I know that you are ready to pounce. But they must wait – your enemy is no longer the highborn. Nor the sons and daughters of Mother Dark. Not even Draconus – not yet, in any case. Why so troubled, captain?’

  ‘I fear that it may already be too late.’

  ‘Then sober up, you fool, and make sure that it isn’t!’

  * * *

  The troop of riders came upon the train, meeting at a sharp bend in the road. There had been little sound to betray them, despite the high cliff walls to either side. Orfantal saw, just past the strangers, the road opening out, sunken flats flanking the raised track: the signs of an old, extinct lake.

  Haral was quick to draw up, and he twisted in the saddle and with a shout commanded the wagons to one side, to let the riders past.