If this was among the gifts of standing in a god’s presence, then Galar Baras at last understood the rewards of faith. In those heady words so laden with meanings; in the confessions and frustrations, the mysteries and the furies, there had been frightening power. In such moments, he realized, worlds could be changed, broken down, reshaped and twisted anew.
He could not imagine the state of Lord Anomander now, the proclaimed protector and First Son of Mother Dark, who for all his status and power had been unable to prevent the massacre. And now, it was rumoured, he had broken with his brother Andarist, and this was a breach beyond imagining only a month ago.
When Galar arrived at the encampment, he would stand before Commander Toras Redone, and voice Lord Henarald’s call to war. The Hust Legion would march northward, to Kharkanas. Once there, Toras Redone would kneel before Lord Anomander and pledge the legion to his service, in the name of Mother Dark. And then, perhaps at winter’s end, the weapons would unleash their voice of horror against Urusander’s Legion.
Galar Baras knew the outcome of such a clash, but he wondered at how the victory would taste. This future I see is too bitter to bear. Mother Dark, your First Son asks of you but one thing. By your word, you can command Urusander to kneel before you, and so end this war before it truly begins. Together, Urusander and Anomander can hunt down the murderers and see justice done. We can name them criminals and so keep the world we know.
Yet a part of him wondered, in a voice venal in its clarity, if the world they all knew was in fact worth it.
She will meet my eyes, and again I will see the truth in them. Sober or drunken, her desire overwhelms me. I yield, weakened into deceit, into betrayal. I make of vows a mockery, even as I long to utter them for myself, and find their honest answer returned to me, in this uneven woman with her uneven love. There are many fools in the world and I must count myself among them.
Who could be righteous in this midst of failings, these seething flaws hiding behind every familiar mask? And what of this delusion, that the mind of the nefarious, the criminal, was a stranger’s mind, with sensibilities alien and malign? We are cheaters one and all. I see the proof of that in myself. Even as I long for and, indeed, demand virtues among others – in the name of reason and propriety – I am hunted by my own vices, and would elude the bite of reason and make of propriety nothing more than a public front.
And now I fear that I am not unusual, not cursed into some special maze of my own making. I fear that we are all the same, eager to make strangers of the worst that is in each of us, and by this stance lift up the banners of good against some foreign evil.
But see how they rest against one another, and by opposition alone are left to stand. This is flimsy construction indeed. And so I make masks of the worst in me and fling them upon the faces of my enemies, and would commit slaughter on all that I despise in myself. Yet, with this blood soaking the ground before me, see my flaws thrive in this fertile soil.
Ahead, where the way sloped upward to cut through the crest line of a ridge, Galar Baras saw the picket towers flanking the road. But no guards stood on those elevated platforms. Have they decamped? Did someone else bring the news to them? Toras Redone, will we slip past one another yet again, to ever stretch the torment of our love? He would welcome that bitter denial, and if by surfeit alone could drown every desire, would have them never meet again.
Kicking his horse into a canter, he rode up the slope.
The banners remained on the watch towers, announcing the Legion’s presence. The absence of guards marked an uncommon breach in discipline. It was possible that the commander’s drinking had become terminal, ruining the morale of every soldier serving her. But even that notion rang false. What soldier of the Hust Legion did not know their commander’s weakness? And did they not by every conceivable measure strive to ensure the isolation of such failing? Nor would she lose such control: by it alone she found her necessary arrogance, as was common to the cleverest drunks.
He longed to see her again, but the threshold of this meeting was troubling, and as he pushed his mount to the rise his mouth was dry and his nerves were stretched. Passing between the towers, across the level span and then to where the road began its gentle descent into the shallow valley floor, Galar Baras came within sight of the encampment. He saw the rows of tents. He saw – with vast relief – a few figures moving slowly along the avenues and tracks between the company squares.
But something was wrong. Soldiers should have been gathering to the evening meal, forming queues at the cook tents. The avenues should have been crowded. He saw the other picket stations and none were occupied. A strange stillness gripped the camp.
Urging his horse into a fast canter, Galar Baras rode down the road. He saw Toras Redone. She walked alone across the parade compound, a jug swinging loosely from one hand. A scattering of Hust soldiers stood near, but none drew close to her, even as all eyes were fixed upon her.
As he rode in between the first line of tents, Galar saw that many were still occupied – where flaps had been left open and he could see, in quick glance, the bulks of figures beneath blankets, or sprawled on cots – but no one emerged at his approach, or lifted head to his passing. An illness has struck. Vapours from the latrine trench, a shifting of wind, or beneath the ground – a deadly flow into the wells. But then, where is the vile smell? Where are the thrashing shapes voicing dread moans?
When he rode hard into the parade compound, he saw Toras Redone once more. If she heard his approach, she made no sign of it. Her steps were slow, wooden. The ear of the jug seemed to be tangled in the fingers of her left hand. It swung as if full of wine, and he saw that it remained stoppered.
There was a soldier nearby. Galar Baras reined in sharply. ‘You there!’
The man turned, stared, and said nothing.
‘What has happened? What illness is this among you? Why aren’t the plague-flags flying?’
Abruptly the man laughed. ‘I was on picket, sir! On the lookout for enemies!’ He waved a hand. ‘Our relief never showed. I almost fell asleep – but I saw them, you know. They rode out, to the east. Gathered there, and then went on. The sun was not even up, sir. Not even up.’
‘Who? Who did you see riding away? Your relief? Why would they do that?’
‘Like ghosts, sir. In that gloom. Like ghosts.’ He laughed again, and now Galar Baras saw tears tracking down from the man’s eyes. ‘Corporal Ranyd came running in. He drew his sword. He should never have done that. Never, and never again.’
His mind is unhinged. Galar swung his mount round and rode for the commander.
She had stopped now, and stood in the centre of the compound, a ring of her soldiers facing her but keeping their distance.
He rode through that ring and reined in before her. ‘Sir!’
When she looked up at him, it seemed that she struggled to recognize him.
‘It’s Galar,’ he said, dismounting. ‘Commander, I was bringing word from Lord Henarald—’
‘Too late,’ she said, and then lifted the jug. ‘He left it. A parting gift. I did not think he could be so … understanding. Galar, my husband isn’t here, but you are, black skin and all, and you’ll have to do.’ Abruptly she sat down, worked free the stopper and held the jug up. ‘Join me, dear lover. I’ve been sober since the dawn and so it’s been a long day.’
He drew nearer, and then paused and looked across to the soldiers. They watched, silent. One turned away suddenly and fell to her knees, bringing her hands up to cover her face.
‘Galar,’ said Toras Redone. ‘Join me in this drink, will you? Let’s celebrate peace.’
‘Peace, sir? I bring news of war.’
‘Ah, well, I fear it’s over. Can you not hear how peaceful we are? No clamour, no blathering voices from fools who can’t stop talking, even though they have nothing of worth to say. Have you not ever noticed that? The mouths that run too fast make dead seeds of every word, flung to barren ground in their wake, yet on they rush ??
? and you see in their eyes a kind of desperation, I think, as they long for a gardener’s touch, but no talent finds them, and never will, and surely they know it.’
‘Commander, what has happened here?’
Her brows lifted. ‘Oh, a night of revelry. Ale and wine, but you know how the sleep that follows gives little rest. Why is it, I wonder, that the gods of the world made of every pleasurable habit a poison? These gods, I think, have no understanding of joy. They make feeling good a thing of evil. Don’t ask me to worship such miserable shits, Galar Baras. Their paradise is a desert. In such a place we must bless the sun, eschew the begging for water, and call friend the infernal heat. I see those sands, crowded with scorched remnants of souls, but at least they were pure, yes?’ The smile she offered then was terrible to behold. ‘Join me, sit down at my side, lover. Let us drink to peace.’
Uncomprehending, but feeling so bereft he was not even capable of shame or guilt each time she called him lover, he stepped close.
Toras Redone rocked back slightly, waving the jug. ‘Come all, my friends! One last drink for the Hust Legion! Then we will be done, and we can walk into that desert and greet those sour-faced gods! We’ll make of their puritanical misery a virtue, and set upon it the holiest of words! And what word might that be? Why, it is suffering.’
She raised the jug to drink.
Someone shouted a warning. Galar Baras drew his sword and the weapon shrieked. The blade lashed out, struck the jug. Clay shards exploded. Wine erupted like blood from a broken skull.
On all sides, the Hust weapons awoke. From every tent, from every scabbard, the swords howled.
Galar Baras staggered beneath the assault, dropping his weapon and clapping hands over his ears. But the sound was inside him, wailing through his bones, clawing through his mind. He felt himself torn free, severed from his body and flung skyward, buffeted by the cries, the ever-rising screams. Through tears, he saw wooden scabbards burst apart at the belts of the surrounding soldiers as the men and women fell or staggered, as they opened their mouths to add to the howls.
Poison. They’re all dead.
Toras—
She was on her hands and knees, gouging up clumps of wine-soaked clay, pushing them into her mouth, coughing, choking – Galar saw himself spinning high above her. He saw how the first of the wagons had reached the descent, but the oxen were collapsing in their yokes, thrashing, legs kicking, and the lead wagon’s front wheels cut sharply to one side, and then the wagon toppled, spilling out the wooden crates on the bed.
He saw those crates burst apart, revealing Hust Henarald’s last gift to the Hust Legion – chain hauberks of the same iron, and helms and greaves and vambraces. The armour was answering the cry of the weapons in the valley below. The drovers were upon the ground, bleeding from their noses, their ears and eyes.
And still the howling built. It rent the canvas of the tents in the camp, snapped guide ropes. In the distant corrals to the west, the horses broke down the fences and fled in terror.
Galar was a battered kite in the rising storm of those terrible voices.
‘Corporal Ranyd came running in. He drew his sword. He should never have done that.’
Abruptly, the howling stopped. Galar plunged earthward, and in the moment he struck the ground, blackness engulfed him.
‘Never, and never again.’
TWENTY
ENDEST SILANN LOOKED old, as if his youth had been torn away, revealing something aged with grief. Many times Rise Herat had seen a face stripped back by the onslaught of loss, and each time he wondered if suffering but waited under the skin, shielded by a mask donned in hope, or with that superstitious desperation that imagined a smile to be a worthy shield against the world’s travails. These things, worn daily in an array of practised expressions insisting on civility, ever proved poor defenders of the soul, and to be witness to their cracking, their pathetic surrender to a barrage of emotion, was both humbling and terrible.
The young priest had come to his door like a beggar, fingers entwined on his lap and twisting ceaselessly, as if he held newborn snakes in his fists; and in his eyes there was a wretched pleading; but even this was of the kind that expected no largesse. How could one help a beggar who saw no salvation in a coin, or a meal, or a warm bed at night?
Rise had stepped back in invitation and Endest had shuffled past, moving like one afflicted by a host of mysterious ailments, proof against any medicine. He selected a chair near the fire and sat, not yet ready to speak, and studied his writhing hands. And there he remained.
After a time, the historian cleared his throat. ‘I have mulled wine, priest.’
Endest shook his head. ‘I close my eyes to sleep,’ he said, ‘and meet the same horrid dream, as if it but awaits me.’
‘Ah, that sounds unpleasant. Perhaps a draught to make you senseless would help.’
He glanced up with red-shot eyes, and then looked down again. ‘I have no certainty of this world, historian. This is the dream’s legacy, its curse upon my wakefulness – even now I am haunted and so in need of reassurance.’
‘Set hand upon stone, priest. Feel wood’s familiar grain, or the cool flank of a clay vessel. None of these things are uncertain. But if you would look to us soft creatures who move through this world, then I fear you will find us ephemeral indeed.’
Endest’s hands parted and made fists on his lap, the knuckles whitening, but still he would not look up. ‘Do you mock me?’
‘No. I see the weight of a curse upon you, priest, as surely it is upon us all. You close your eyes and dread the waiting dream. While here I pace in my room, longing to open my eyes and so discover all this to have been a dream. So here we face one another, as if to contest wills.’
Abruptly, Endest began thumping his thighs, swinging down upon them hard with his fists, in growing ferocity.
Rise stepped closer, alarmed. ‘Hear me! You are not asleep, friend!’
‘How can I know?’
The cry, so filled with despair, silenced the historian.
Endest ceased punching his thighs, his head shifting as if he was looking for something on the floor, and then he spoke. ‘I step into the hearth chamber. They have been arguing – terrible words, cutting like knives upon kin and loved ones. But she is not right, the woman dying on the hearthstone. I see her in the robes of a High Priestess. Of course,’ he added with a weak, dry laugh, ‘they are women who like to spread their legs. They do not fight, and would make of surrender a gift, even if one of little worth for its easy ubiquity.’
Rise studied the young priest, struggling to understand the scene Endest Silann was describing. Yet the historian dared not ask a question, although this prohibition seemed in itself arbitrary. The man before him had no answers.
‘I walk up to her, numb, unable to stop myself. She is already wed – though how I know this I do not know – but I see her as Andarist’s wife, and a High Priestess, beloved child of Mother Dark. She is not yet dead, and I kneel at her side and take her hand.’ He shook his head as if refusing an unspoken objection. ‘Sometimes her husband is there, sometimes not. She is badly used and dying. I watch the life leave her, and then I hear Lord Anomander. He is saying something, but none of the words make sense – I do not know if he speaks another language, or if I simply can’t hear them distinctly. When I grasp her hand, I am whispering to her, but the voice is not my own – it is Mother Dark’s.’
‘It is but a dream,’ Rise said quietly. ‘Do you recall, there was a banquet, Endest, which we attended. Two years ago. It was before Lord Andarist met Enesdia – before he saw her as a woman, I mean. Scara Bandaris was there, as guest to Silchas. The captain was telling a tale of when he was offered hospitality in House Enes on his way down from the north garrison. He had been amused by Lord Jaen’s daughter, who walked with the airs of a High Priestess. That was the title Scara gave Enesdia, and this memory has twisted its way into your dream. Nor, Endest Silann, were you there in the time of her dying. No one was but her
killers.’
The priest was nodding vigorously. ‘So this world insists, and I bitterly bless its every claim to veracity, each time I awaken, each time I stumble into it. Still, what answer will you offer me, historian, when I find her blood mingled with sweat upon the palms of my hands? I have examined myself, stripped naked before a mirror, and I bear no wounds. What correction will you provide to right my senses when I walk the Hall of Portraits and see her image so perfectly painted upon the wall? High Priestess Enesdia. The label is worn, but I can make it out nevertheless.’
‘There is no such portrait, priest – no, a moment. Ah, you speak of her grandmother, who was indeed a High Priestess, but before the coming of Night. Her name was Enesthila, and she served as the last High Priestess of the river god, before the cult’s reformation. My friend, such is the sorcery of dreams—’
‘And the blood?’
‘You say that you speak in your dream, but that the voice belongs to Mother Dark. Forgive this blasphemy, but if there is blood on anyone’s hands, Endest—’
‘No!’ The priest was on his feet. ‘Have I no will left to me? We beg her for guidance! We plead with her! She has no right!’
‘Forgive me, friend. I reveal only ignorance in speaking on matters of faith. Have you spoken to Cedorpul?’
Endest slumped back down in the chair. ‘I went to him first. Now he flees the sight of me.’
‘But … why?’
The young man’s face twisted. ‘His hands remain clean, his dreams untouched.’
‘Do you imagine that he would welcome what leaves you outraged?’
‘If she demanded his lifeblood he would offer her his throat, and know delight in the bounty of his gift.’