Arathan thought about that, but found no words for those thoughts.
His father continued, ‘What falls under our hand, Arathan, we bend to our will. The horses we ride worship us, as if we were gods. But you and I, we can taste the bitterness of that, because if we are gods then we are unreliable gods. Imperfect gods. Cruel gods. Yet the horse is helpless in the face of all that and can only yearn for our blessing. Should its master beat it, still it yearns, seeking what all living things seek: the grace of being. Still, its god ever turns away. You may pity that horse,’ Draconus continued after a moment, ‘but not its desire.’
The grace of being. ‘Then what god would break us?’ Arathan asked.
Draconus grunted a second time, but it seemed to be a pleased grunt. He nodded to the figure in the doorway. ‘Not this one, Arathan.’
But Arathan’s thoughts had marched on, relentless upon a fraught path. Do gods break those they would have as worshippers? Do they set upon their children terrible ordeals, so that those children must kneel in surrender, opening their souls to helplessness? Is this what Mother Dark will do to her children? To us?
‘Most Azathanai,’ Draconus continued, ‘have no desire to be worshipped, to be made into gods. The confession of the helpless is written in spilled blood. The surrender that is sacrifice. It can taste … bitter.’
He and his father were now alone, facing the house and its dweller. Dusk fell around them like dark rain, devouring everything else, until the rest of the village took on the texture of worn, fading tapestries.
The figure then stepped out from the doorway, and a light came with him. It was not a warm light, not a light to drive back the gloom, and it hovered over the man’s left shoulder, a pallid disc or ball, larger than a man’s head, and if the man reached up, it would have remained beyond his touch, just past his fingertips.
That globe followed the man as he approached.
‘Cold and airless is his aspect,’ muttered Draconus. ‘Stay close to me, Arathan. A step away from my power and the blood will freeze and then boil in your flesh. Your eyes will burst. You will die in great pain. I trust such details impress upon you the importance of remaining close?’
Arathan nodded.
‘He has not yet decided on a name,’ Draconus added. ‘Which is a rather irritating affectation.’
The man was surprisingly young, perhaps only a handful of years older than Arathan himself. Here and there, in almost random fashion, ring-like tattoos adorned his skin, like the scars from some pox. His narrow, nondescript face bore no marks, however, and the eyes were dark and calm. When he spoke, his voice made Arathan think – incongruously – of pond water beneath a thin sheet of ice. ‘Draconus, it has been how many years since we last met? On the eve of the Thel Akai’s disavowal—’
‘We’ll not speak of time,’ Draconus said, and the words rang like a command.
The man’s brows lifted slightly, and then he shrugged. ‘But one way, surely, this refusal? After all, the future is the only field still to be sowed, and if we are to stay our hands here, what point this meeting? Shall we throw our seeds, Draconus, or make blunt fists?’
‘I did not think it would be you delivering the gift,’ Draconus replied.
‘Oh, that gift. You surmise correctly. Not me.’ And with that he smiled.
Arathan’s father answered with a scowl.
The stranger’s laugh was low. ‘Indeed. Impatience besets you, to no avail. You must trek farther still. The next village at the very least.’
‘The next, or do you but mock me?’
‘The next, I think. There has been much talk of your … request. And the answering thereof.’
‘Already I have been away from the court for too long,’ Draconus said in a frustrated growl.
‘Such gestures fill the imagination of the bearer,’ the man said, ‘but the same cannot be certain of the recipient. I fear a great disappointment awaiting you, Draconus. Perhaps even a hurt, a deep wound—’
‘I am not interested in your prophecies, Old Man.’
Arathan frowned at that strange name, so contrary to this figure facing them.
‘Not a prophecy, Draconus. I would not risk that in your presence. Rather, I fear the value you have imbued in this gift of yours – it is, perhaps, dangerous in its extremity.’
‘Who awaits me in the next village?’
‘I cannot even guess,’ Old Man replied. ‘But a few will gather. Curious. This usage of Night, Draconus, was without precedent, and the fury of the believers is something to behold.’
‘I care not. Let them worship stone if it pleases them. Unless,’ he added, ‘they would challenge me?’
‘Not you, nor the hand with which you wielded your desire. Instead, Draconus, they weep and seek redress.’
‘As I expected.’
Old Man was silent for a long moment, and then he said, ‘Draconus, be careful – no, we must all be careful now. In the healing they seek, they reach deeply into the Vitr. We do not know what will come of this.’
‘The Vitr? Then they are fools.’
‘The enemy is not foolishness, Draconus, but desperation.’
‘Who so reaches?’
‘I have heard Ardata’s name mentioned. And the Sister of Dreams.’
Draconus looked away, his expression unreadable. ‘One thing at a time,’ he muttered.
‘Much to make right, Draconus,’ Old Man said, smiling once more. ‘In the meantime, my child approaches.’
‘So you ever say.’
‘So I shall say until I need say it no more.’
‘I never understood why you were content with mere reflection, Old Man.’
The smile broadened. ‘I know.’
He turned round then and walked back to his house, the globe following and taking with it the bitter cold, the empty promise of dead air.
Halfway back, Old Man paused and looked back. ‘Oh, Draconus, I almost forgot. There is news.’
‘What news?’
‘The High King has built a ship.’
Arathan felt a sudden pressure, coming from his father, an invisible force that pushed him away, one step, and then another. He gagged, began to crumple—
And then a hand pulled him close. ‘Sorry,’ Draconus said. ‘Careless of me.’
Half bent over, Arathan nodded, accepting the apology. Old Man had vanished within his strange house, taking the light with him.
‘I’m never good,’ said Draconus, ‘with displeasing news.’
* * *
The noses of the horses found the spring readily enough, and Rint leaned forward over the saddle horn to study the stone-lined pond. As Draconus had predicted, there were swifts wheeling and darting above the still waters, and now bats as well. Beside him, Feren grunted and said, ‘What do you make of that?’
A statue commanded the centre of the pool. A huge figure, sunk to its thighs, roughly hacked from serpentine as if in defiance of that stone’s potential, for it was well known that serpentine wore well the finest polish – not that Rint had ever seen a solid block anything near the size of this monstrosity, more familiar with small game pieces and the like. None the less, this seemed a most artless effort. The torso and every limb were twisted, the stone seeming to shout its pain. The scum of dried algae stained its thighs, evidence of the spring’s slow failing perhaps. The face, tilted skyward atop a thick, angular neck, offered the heavens a grimace, and this face alone bore signs of a skilled hand. Rint stared up at it, mesmerized.
Raskan moved past the two Borderswords, leading the horses to the pond’s roughly tiled edge.
Sighing, Feren slipped down from the saddle, dropping the reins of her mount so that it could join the other beasts in drinking from the pool.
‘I think it’s meant to be a Thel Akai,’ Rint finally said.
‘Of course it’s a Thel Akai,’ Feren snapped. ‘All that pain.’ She held in one hand three waterskins and now moved to crouch down at the edge, and began filling them.
Feeling foolish, Rint pulled his gaze away from the giant’s tormented face and dismounted. He collected more waterskins from where they hung flaccid from his saddle.
‘What I meant was,’ Feren resumed, ‘why raise a statue in the middle of a watering hole? It’s not even on a pedestal or anything.’
‘Unless it sank in the mud.’
‘And what monuments do you build on mud, brother?’
The water was cool and clear. Beyond the ledge, the pool seemed to drop away to unknown depths, but that was due to the failing light, Rint suspected. ‘I don’t trust magic,’ he said. ‘And this village reeks of it.’
Raskan grunted at that. ‘I feel the same as you, Rint. It makes the skin crawl. If this is what waits this side of Bareth Solitude, well, it’s little wonder we rarely visit these lands. Or the people who choose to live like this.’
Feren straightened and turned round. ‘Someone comes,’ she said.
Rint thought about spitting into the water and decided against it. He imagined Raskan was regretting his words, since it was likely that they had been heard by the Azathanai who now approached. Still crouching, he twisted to regard the newcomer. A woman of middle years, overweight but not grossly so; still, it seemed she sagged from every appendage, and the roll of fat overwhelming her belt had pushed away the front of her hide shirt and so hung exposed, the skin white as snow and creased with stretch marks. She had, Rint decided, once been much fatter.
The woman halted a few paces away, scowling. ‘You do not know me,’ she said in the Tiste language, but with a thick, muted accent.
Feren cleared her throat. ‘Forgive us, Azathanai. We do not.’
‘The Dog-Runners know me. I am found among them, on winter nights. They see me in the fires they light. I am worshipped and I see the worship in their eyes, the reflected flames of their eyes.’
‘Then,’ said Rint, ‘you have travelled a long way to come here.’
The scowl faded and the woman shrugged. ‘I would choose a shape of beauty. Instead, they feed me until I can barely move.’ With these words she reached to her belly, pushed her hand inside, and Rint realized, in horror, that what he had taken to be stretch marks were in fact scars – now wounds, one of them splitting open as she pushed her hand deeper. When she withdrew it, slimed with blood and ichor, she held in her hand a small clay figurine, bulbous in form. She tossed it at the feet of Feren, who involuntarily stepped back.
Rint stared as the wound closed, and the blood ran from the skin watery as rain, until once more the belly was alabaster white.
Feren was looking down at the clay figurine and after a moment she bent down and picked it up.
Glancing over at what his sister held, Rint saw that it was female, with a nub of a head – barely shaped – above huge breasts and a round belly. The legs were pressed together below an exaggerated vulva.
‘They feed the fire,’ the woman said. ‘And I grow fat.’
Raskan was mute and pale; he stood like a man who wanted to flee. The woman walked over to him. ‘Do I frighten you? Do you not want to feel my weight upon you? The wetness of my gift?’
Rint saw that Raskan was trembling.
‘I could make you kneel to me,’ continued the woman. ‘Such is my power. You think you understand beauty. You dream of women thin as children, and see nothing perverse in that. But when one such as I comes to stand before you, I sense your hunger for worship, even as that hunger shames you. Lie upon the ground, Tiste, and let me teach you all about power—’
‘Enough!’
The command rang in the air. Rint was spun round by it. Draconus had appeared, Arathan a step behind him.
The Azathanai woman edged back, her scowl returning, and with it a spasm of venom that just as quickly vanished. ‘I was but amusing myself, Draconus. No harm.’
‘Begone, Olar Ethil. Skulk your way back to the Dog-Runners. These people are under my protection.’
She snorted. ‘They need it. Tiste.’
That word dripped with contempt, and dropping the figurine Feren reached for her sword, but Rint stepped close and stayed her hand.
Raskan staggered away, his hands covering his face. He almost collided with Draconus who moved aside just in time, and then fled onward. Now Rint could see the Lord’s fury.
The woman named Olar Ethil studied Draconus, unperturbed. ‘I could take them all,’ she said. ‘Even the woman. And you would not be able to stop me.’
‘When last we crossed paths, Olar Ethil, that might have been true. I invite you to quest deeper.’
‘Oh, no need, Draconus. Night rides your breath. I see where you have gone and what you have done and you are a fool. All for love, was it? Or am I being too … romantic. More like ambition, which, since we are not fools, you could not appease among us.’ She made a faint gesture with her blood-stained hand.
The clay figurine exploded with a sharp crack.
Feren cursed, reaching a hand up to her cheek and drawing it back smeared in blood. ‘You fat hag!’
Olar Ethil laughed. ‘Touched by the goddess! You carry a child, woman, yes? A girl … and oh, the hue of her blood is most unusual!’
Draconus stepped closer and Olar Ethil faced him again. ‘You wanted a grandson?’ she asked. ‘How disappointing for you. Come no closer, Draconus! You have my attention now. Gaze into the flames at night for too long, and I will steal your soul – you all have felt it. Your words die and the fire fills your mind. Draconus, I will look out from the flames. I will watch you, and listen, and discover your secrets. Although, granted, I already know most of them. Shall I utter your truths, O Suzerain of Night?’
Draconus halted his advance. ‘If you come to the flames of our campfires, Olar Ethil, even once, we shall do battle. Until but one of us remains alive.’
The woman’s eyes widened with shock. ‘Well now,’ she murmured, ‘all that armour … for naught. Death, Draconus? Be careful – the word alone is an unholy summons these days.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean an Azathanai has taken a life. Spilled the blood of a very powerful … innocent. Around this deed, chaos now dances like carrion flies – why do you think I returned?’
‘An Azathanai has committed murder?’ The belligerence was gone from Draconus now, and when he stepped closer to Olar Ethil, Rint understood – as well as she evidently did – that no threat was intended.
Her expression was now grave. ‘Not a Tiste, Draconus, which absolves you of vengeance. Nor a Dog-Runner, or so I have since discovered, which absolves me of the same. Nor a Thel Akai – although that would have been interesting. Neither Jheck nor Jheleck. Jaghut, beloved. Karish, mate to Hood, is dead. Slain.’
The sudden anguish in the Lord’s face was terrible to behold. Rint edged back, pulling Feren with him. He saw the boy watching from a dozen or so paces away, but not watching his father; nor was he watching Olar Ethil. Instead, Arathan’s eyes were fixed on Feren.
Abyss take us all. He’s made a child with her. A girl.
Feren had half turned, only to be snared by Arathan’s eyes.
Rint heard her whisper, ‘I’m sorry.’
In a harsh voice Draconus spoke. ‘Olar Ethil, come to my fires.’
The woman nodded, strangely formal. ‘I would never have done so,’ she said, ‘if not invited, Suzerain. Forgive me. I have been too long among the Dog-Runners, who prove so easy to bait that I cannot help myself.’ She cocked her head. ‘It seems that I am a cruel goddess.’
‘Be more mindful, then,’ Draconus replied, but there was no bite in his words; rather, a kind of tenderness. ‘They are vulnerable to deep hurts, Olar Ethil.’
She sighed regretfully. ‘I know. I grow careless in my power. They feed me with such desperation, such yearning! The Bonecasters voice prayers in my name, like biting ants beneath the furs. It drives me mad.’
Draconus settled a hand upon her shoulder, but said nothing.
She sank against him, resting her head against his chest. br />
Rint was dumbfounded. Draconus … who are you?
‘And,’ Olar Ethil continued, her voice muffled, ‘they make me fat.’
With an amused snort Draconus stepped away. ‘Do not blame them for your appetites, woman.’
‘What will you do?’ she asked him.
‘Where is Hood?’
‘I have heard that his grief has driven him mad. Lest he proclaim war upon the Azathanai, he was subdued by kin and is now chained in a cell in the Tower of Hate.’
‘The Jaghut have gathered? To what end?’
‘None can say, Draconus. The last time they gathered they argued themselves into the abandonment of their realm.’
Draconus seemed distracted for a moment, and then he shook his head. ‘I will speak to the Lord of Hate. Tell me, do we know the slayer among the Azathanai?’
‘Not yet, Suzerain. Some are missing, or in hiding.’
Draconus grunted. ‘Nothing new in that.’
‘No.’
As they were speaking, Feren had been pulling at Rint’s grip on her arm. Finally her efforts drew his attention. But she was not interested in leaving his side. Instead, as he released her, she sagged to the ground, leaning hard against his legs. He felt the shudder of her silent weeping.
Rint felt sick inside. He wished they had never agreed to accompany the Consort. He wished that Ville and Galak would finally catch up with them, so they could all leave – break this contract and to the Abyss with the consequences. He wanted no more of this.
Draconus said, ‘Rint, help your sister tend to her wound, and then make camp upon the hill.’
‘Yes, Lord.’
‘Arathan.’
‘Sir?’