Forge of Darkness

  He thought of that room again, and tried to imagine it blackened by smoke, the stone walls cracked, the bed in which he had slept nothing but a heap of ashes. Every thought of his past now came to him with a stench of burning, and the faint echo of screams.

  ‘Are you unwell?’

  Orfantal shook his head.

  The dog was still with them and now, having completed its exploratory circuit of the chamber, went to lie down beside a thickly padded chair in one corner. In moments, it was fast asleep, legs twitching.

  There came a knock upon the door and a moment later a round-faced young man entered, dressed in stained robes. ‘Lord Silchas, I received your message. Ah, here then is young Orfantal, and already settled in. Excellent. Are you hungry? Thirsty? The first task is to show you the dining hall – not the one in the main chamber, but the lesser one where by weight of masonry alone we are not intimidated. Now then—’

  ‘A moment,’ interrupted Silchas. He turned to Orfantal. ‘I will take my leave now,’ he said. ‘As you can see, I yield to a good keeper. You are comfortable with this?’

  Orfantal nodded. ‘Thank you, Lord Silchas.’

  ‘Cedorpul,’ said Silchas, ‘will it be you in charge of Orfantal?’

  ‘The historian has elected for himself that privilege, milord, and will be here shortly.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Silchas said, smiling down at Orfantal. ‘Expect an education in confusion, hostage, but one that I am sure will achieve for you admirable resilience against the eternal chaos afflicting the Citadel.’

  Orfantal smiled without quite understanding what the Lord meant, and then he went to the trunk to examine the toy soldiers.

  Silchas grunted behind him and said, ‘I foresee an impressive knowledge of historical battles to come.’

  ‘Glory belongs to every boy’s dreams,’ said Cedorpul. ‘I am sure, however, that the historian will offer his share of unheeded wisdom in such matters.’

  ‘By this we ever trek familiar paths,’ said Silchas. ‘Goodbye, then, Orfantal.’

  ‘Goodbye, milord.’

  After he had left, Cedorpul cleared his throat. ‘Now then, the dining room. I will not be so negligent as to let you starve. Also, I expect, given the bell that just sounded, that your fellow hostage, Legyl Behust, is even now haranguing the servers.’

  With a longing glance at the soldiers in the trunk, Orfantal straightened and followed Cedorpul out of the room. Moments later the dog joined them, tail wagging and tongue lolling.

  Glancing down at it, Cedorpul made a disgusted sound. ‘Worms. We’ll have to do something about that, I think.’

  * * *

  In the absence of light and in the death of every colour, draining his imagination and the scenes it desperately conjured, Kadaspala sat alone in the room he had been given. It was not a large room. With hands groping and feet shuffling he had explored its confines, and in his mind he painted its details in shades of black and grey: the cot where he lay down at night, which creaked with his restless turning, the rope netting of its mattress stretched and sagging beneath him; the quaint writing desk with its angled surface, ink wells and footpad; the water closet with its narrow, flimsy door and the latch that rattled loose in its fittings; the long side table that ran the length of one wall, where rested jugs and goblets of copper that stung the tongue harsher than the wine filling his mouth; the wardrobe with its weathered surface. They seemed, one and all, the leavings of a past life, and he thought of this room as a tomb, artfully arrayed to honour the memory of living, but shrouded in eternal darkness, in air that tasted dead.

  There were few memories of the journey down to Kharkanas. They had taken his knife, and since leaving him here, after a cadre of healers arrived to fret and sigh, his only visitors were servants coming with food and later departing with the servings barely touched. One, a young woman by her voice, had offered to bathe him, and he had laughed at that, too empty to regret the cruelty of the sound, and the fleeing pad of her feet to the door had simply made him laugh all the harder.

  In a world without tears, an artist was left with nothing to do and no purpose to hold on to. Anguish was a satisfying torment to feed creative impulses, but he felt no anguish. Longing that spoke no known language offered up an endless palette, but he longed for nothing. Wonder made the brush tremble, but all wonder was dead within him. He had been betrayed by every talent sewn into his sinews, scratched into his bones, and now that he had severed the threads to vision, he shared this darkness with lifeless gods, and this room was indeed a tomb, as befitted its occupant.

  He sat upon the cot, painting the air with one finger, brushing lines of black knotted with touches of grey to give shape to the creaking of the ropes under him. There was little talent in perfect rendition. Setting banal reality upon a board or canvas made sordid the modest virtue of craft; as if perfect brush-strokes and obsessive detail could exist as something beyond technical prowess, and could in fact announce profundity. He knew otherwise and it was this contempt that sat like swirling ripples marking the surface of his dissolution, turgid but hinting of life.

  In the world he had left behind, an artist needed to tie contempt down and make the bindings tight, and take damp cloth to where it bled through. To let it loose was to attack both artist and audience, and he had neither the strength nor the will for such a thing: even the sentiment left him exhausted.

  He had descended into madness, there in the chamber of the house his memory dared not revisit. He was not yet certain that it had departed. Blindness made a mystery of everything just out of reach. He had decided to wait, and upon the only canvas left to him paint sounds upon the ephemeral walls of this crypt: the creaks and faint echoes; the muted slap from people passing by the door, those footsteps so urgent and so pathetic; the dull repetition of his own breath and the sullen thump of his heart; the languid surge and ebb of the blood in his veins.

  All in shades of black and grey, upon the insubstantial but exquisitely absolute walls of his blindness.

  Once he was done, perfectly rendering this chamber, he would reach outside, to wander the corridors, recording everything. There is a new history coming, my friends. History as seen by a blind man. I will find Rise Herat, who gives us his delicious version as told by a man who says nothing. I will find Gallan, who sings unheard and walks unseen by any. Together, we will set out to find our audience, who heeds us not. And by this, we perfect the world and raise for posterity every grand monument to stupidity.

  I see towers and spires. I see bold bridges and the palaces of the privileged. I see forests where the highborn hunt, and where poachers are hanged by their necks beneath trees. I see jewels and stacked coins inside guarded fortresses and upon the walls stand earnest orators, crying down the paucity of all. I see their lies catch up to them, in flames and vengeance. I see a future laden with ash and soot-coated pools, and gibbets groaning. And all that I see, I will paint.

  And all the historian would not say, keeps him mute.

  And the weeping poet will walk away, to hide his absence of tears.

  And everything ends.

  He heard himself laugh, a low cackling sound, and quickly etched its wavy, juddering lines with his finger. The streaks hung there in the darkness, slowly fading as the echoes dwindled.

  The blind man paints history. The voiceless historian mimes the tale. The poet dispenses with music, dancing in discord. There is no rhythm to these brush-strokes. There is no beginning and no end to this tale. There is no beauty in the song.

  And this is how it is.

  My friends, this is how it is.

  * * *

  At the Citadel gate Hish Tulla and Gripp Galas found three of Anomander’s officers awaiting their lord. Kellaras, Dathenar and Prazek were girded as for battle, and as Gripp went to collect Anomander’s horse from the stables Hish Tulla waited a few paces away from the Houseblades.

  There was no conversation under way. Of the three, only Kellaras bore the ebon hues that were a legacy of hi
s time in the Chamber of Night, and it seemed that this had made a tension among the three, as if loyalty itself was perhaps no thicker than skin.

  Gripp returned with Anomander’s mount and his own. ‘Both had been left saddled,’ he said to her in explanation.

  ‘Distress is a flavour,’ Hish said, ‘that none welcome but none can avoid.’

  At her comment, Dathenar grunted in amusement. ‘Wail for the world’s end, milady, when even the grooms lose sleep.’ He gestured grandly. ‘Observe our befuddled state in this courtyard, and imagine the same throughout Kurald Galain. I have had many thoughts on civil war in the times leading to this, but not once did I imagine it so shrouded in confusion.’

  ‘It is the failure of certainty that has you reaching for the sword at your side,’ Hish replied. ‘We all strike out from a place of fear.’

  Before Dathenar could answer, Lord Anomander appeared in the doorway of the Citadel and strode towards them, unconsciously cleaving a path through the disordered ranks in the compound. Arriving, he reached for the reins of his horse.

  ‘Captains,’ he said, addressing his Houseblades, ‘ride now, south to the Hust Legion. Accompany it on its march to Kharkanas. Request of Commander Toras Redone to make encampment upon the north side of the city, and see to the Legion’s provisioning.’

  Hish watched as the three men mounted up. They departed without another word.

  ‘Now, Gripp—’

  ‘I wish a word with you,’ Hish cut in.

  Anomander hesitated, and then sighed. ‘Very well. I intend no rudeness, Lady Hish, but I seek to find Andarist, and so cannot measure the length of my absence from Kharkanas. This invites impatience.’

  ‘And the fear of being alone, too, it seems, Lord Anomander.’

  He frowned.

  ‘Gripp spoke to you of his desire to be with me, and you refused him. I have never asked anything from you, Lord Anomander, until this moment. Here I stand, pleading. Has he not done enough for you? Has he not given enough of his life in your service?’

  Gripp stepped towards her, his face wretched. ‘My love—’

  But both Anomander and Hish held up a staying hand.

  ‘Lady Hish,’ said the First Son, ‘Gripp Galas made no such request of me.’

  Hish swung on Gripp. ‘Is this true? Did you fail in this one request of your master?’

  ‘Forgive me,’ the man said, bowing his head. ‘My lord said that his need for me was pressing.’

  ‘I did,’ Anomander said. ‘But I see now they were careless words. Lady Hish, your pardon. That you are brought to this, by my insensitivity, shames me. You ask for dispensation, but I ask that you withdraw your request.’

  Hish stared, struck speechless.

  Then Anomander turned to Gripp Galas. ‘Old friend, long have you served me, with valour and with honour. As my most trusted servant I have set my weight upon you, and not once heard from you a word of complaint. You have dressed my wounds on the field of battle. You have mended the damage of my clumsy youth. Did you truly believe that now, on this fraught day, I would once more draw tight this leash? We are all weakened by distress, and indeed it seems every tender emotion lies exposed and trembling to a forest of knives. Gripp Galas, old friend, your service to me ends here and it ends now. You have won the heart of a woman who in all things is nothing less than breathtaking. If love needs permission, I give it. If your future with Lady Hish can be served by any sacrifice within my ability, I give it.’ He set his gaze upon Hish Tulla. ‘Nothing need be asked and nothing need be surrendered by you, my lady. On this, of all days, I will see love made right.’ He swung into the saddle. ‘Go well, my friends. We are done here.’

  As he rode out through the gate, Gripp Galas stared after his ex-master. He reached out one hand to his side, groping.

  Hish stepped close and clasped that hand, and then felt some of his weight as he seemed to sag.

  ‘You damned fool,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I thought you knew him.’

  * * *

  The forest had broken down in this place. It left skeletal trees rising from marsh grasses, and rotting logs blanketed in moss. Black water surrounded every hummock and the smaller islands were made from tufts of grass and reeds. The air smelled of decay and insects swarmed. They were camped upon the verge of this sunken land, brought up in their flight from the south. A dozen fires smouldered, green grasses fed into the flames to fill the air with smoke and so drive back the biting insects. Narad sat near one of them, eyes watering.

  They had been criminals marching in file, and he was the last of that line, the last to despoil this miserable congress of civility. The proclamation of his ugliness was smoke-stained, fly-bitten and filthy, and he felt at home in this place, barring the company he kept.

  Others had joined them. From the west had come a company commanded by Captain Hallyd Bahann, and with him was a beautiful woman named Tathe Lorat and her daughter, Sheltatha Lore. Their soldiers brought tales of slaughter at a monastery and the pillaging of Abara Delack. And now, riding up from the south, another troop approached and with their sighting the squads around Narad stirred, collecting their weapons and donning their helms. At last, he heard, their captain had arrived.

  There were many kinds of curiosity, Narad realized as he stood with the others and fixed his gaze on the riders. To see a face behind a name, if that name was wreathed in tales of heroism, was a clean kind of curiosity. But the face of a monster invited its own fascination, perhaps in the shock of recognition, since every face could be seen in one; or, more to the point, from that one face, it took little imagination to find one’s own. Narad did not know which lure made him strain to see Captain Scara Bandaris, but he knew that a transformation awaited the man.

  Since their flight from the slaughter at the wedding site, Narad had begun, with quick glances, to set upon the features of the soldiers around him the semblance of corpses. In his mind he looked upon his companions as if they were lying on the ground, all life gone, with faces frozen in death. Perhaps it was only a game, or perhaps it was a promise, or even a prayer. He wanted them all dead. He wanted to gaze down on the once-laughing eyes and see the look of men and women who no longer had anything to laugh about. He wanted to see the jest of fate, and would show each face he saw a smile they would never answer, and could never challenge.

  At the head of his troop, Captain Scara Bandaris rode up, harshly reining in his lathered horse. Narad squinted up at the man’s face, eager to set that lifeless mask upon it.

  Instead, he saw nothing but blinding rage.

  ‘By whose command?’

  The soldiers who had begun gathering close to greet their captain suddenly recoiled.

  Something bright, like a fire, ignited in Narad.

  Scara Bandaris dismounted. He strode directly towards Sergeant Radas. ‘Who is your commanding officer, sergeant? Tell me!’

  ‘You are, sir.’

  ‘And what orders did I leave you with?’

  ‘We were to await you in the forest. But sir, Lieutenant Infayen Menand brought us orders from Captain Hunn Raal.’

  Scara’s face displayed incredulity. ‘Hunn Raal ordered the Legion to murder Lord Jaen and his daughter? To take the lives of highborn gathered to celebrate a wedding? Hunn Raal ordered you to unleash your soldiers on Enesdia? To rape her and leave her to die on the hearthstone? The hearthstone that was a gift from Lord Anomander to his brother? May I see these orders, sergeant? May I see for myself the sigil of Hunn Raal?’

  Radas had gone white. ‘Sir, Lieutenant Infayen, who bore the word of Captain Hunn Raal, assumed command. I am a soldier of Urusander’s Legion. I follow the orders of my superiors.’

  ‘Where is Infayen now?’

  ‘East, sir, to join Commander Urusander.’

  Captain Hallyd Bahann approached, Tathe Lorat at his side and trailing behind them an old man with but one leg, who struggled as the sodden ground made uncertain purchase for his crutch. Narad had looked upon Hallyd before, an
d had found it easy to imagine his visage made lifeless, all arrogance stripped away. It had been a delicious vision. Hallyd Bahann was a bully and the proof of that was in his bearing and his swollen features. He was a man who would look his best when dead.

  ‘Scara, old friend, welcome,’ said Hallyd. ‘There have been miscalculations, I think. We are agreed on that, you and me. The challenge before us now is to mitigate the damage to our cause.’

  Scara was studying the man with level eyes. ‘Our cause indeed, Hallyd,’ he said in a suddenly calm voice. ‘Do remind us, Hallyd, of that cause. I find myself in need of this noble list uttered aloud. Be logical in your assembly, and lift us all once more into the realms of virtue. But pray, old friend, begin at the bottom, there in the blood between a dead woman’s legs.’

  Hallyd’s smile vanished.

  Without awaiting a reply, Scara continued. ‘Will you not carry us higher then, ignoring the stains as best you can, to a hostage slain defending that woman, cut down not in honourable contest, but as a wild dog staked to the ground? Then to an old man, a father and hero of the wars against the Forulkan, who died on the threshold of his son-in-law’s house?’ He spoke loudly, with weight, and that voice carried through the camp, pushed harsh against the silent soldiers. ‘But wait. Let us add a new rung in this righteous climb to our cause. A maid, one arm severed and then cut down. A maid, venal benefactor of the inequity we so despise. And the Houseblades, barely armed, who laid for our cause a carpet of split flesh and matted grasses.’ He raised his arms, like an orator set aflame with outrage. ‘But here anew we see more signs of Hunn Raal’s certain path to justice! The burnt corpses of Deniers in the forest! Why, those old wax witches grew fat at our expense, did they not? And the children showed improper pomp in the cut of their rags. Do speak to us, Hallyd Bahann, of our pure purpose. Tell me how a choice of faiths divides the realm we have sworn to defend, and do name your reasons for the side you set us on. Write your list in the columns of smoke behind me and stretch it across the heavens—’