A livid scar was all that remained of the sword slash across the youth's belly, apart from splashes of drying blood. L'oric still stood beside him, hands motionless on the chest. After a moment, he opened his eyes, stepping back. 'It's a strong heart... we'll see. Where's the other one?'
'Over there. Shoulder wound. It's been seared, but I can guarantee sepsis will set in and probably end up killing her, unless you do something.
L'oric nodded. 'She is named Scillara. The young man I do not know.' He frowned. 'Heboric Ghost Hands—' he rubbed at his face — 'I would not have thought...' He glanced over at Barathol. 'When Treach chose him to be his Destriant, well, there was so much... power. T'lan Imass? Five broken T'lan Imass?'
Barathol shrugged. 'I myself did not see the ambush. The Imass first showed up months past, then it seemed that they'd left. After all, there was nothing here that they wanted. Not even me.'
'Servants of the Crippled God,' L'oric said. 'The Unbound, of High House of Chains.' He headed towards the woman he'd named Scillara. 'The gods are indeed at war...'
Barathol stared after him. He downed half the rum in the tankard, then joined the High Mage once more. 'The gods, you say.'
'Fever already whispers within her — this will not do.' He closed his eyes and began muttering something under his breath. After a moment, he stepped back, met Barathol's eyes. 'This is what comes. The blood of mortals spilled. Innocent lives... destroyed. Even here, in this rotted hole of a village, you cannot hide from the torment — it will find you, it will find us all.''
Barathol finished the rum. 'Will you now hunt for the girl?'
'And singlehanded wrest her from the Unbound? No. Even if I knew where to look, it is impossible. The Queen of Dreams' gambit has failed — likely she already knows that.' He drew a deep, ragged breath, and Barathol only now noticed how exhausted the man was. 'No,' he said again, with a vague, then wretched look. 'I have lost my familiar... yet...' he shook his head, 'yet, there is no pain — with the severing there should be pain — I do not understand...'
'High Mage,' Barathol said, 'there are spare rooms here. Rest. I'll get Hayrith to find you some food, and Filiad can stable your horse. Wait here until I return.'
The blacksmith spoke to Hayrith, then left the hostelry, returning once more to the west road. He saw Chaur, Fenar and Urdan stripping saddles and tack from the dead horses. 'Chaur!' he called, 'step away from that one — no, this way, there, stand still, damn you. There. Don't move.' The girl's horse. Reaching it, he moved round carefully, seeking tracks.
Chaur fidgeted — a big man, he had the mind of a child, although the sight of blood had never bothered him.
Ignoring him, Barathol continued reading the scrapes, furrows and dislodged stones, and finally found a small footprint, planted but once, and strangely twisting on the ball of the foot. To either side, larger prints, skeletal yet bound here and there by leather strips or fragments of hide.
So. She had leapt clear of the fatally wounded horse, yet, even as her lead foot contacted the ground, the T'lan Imass snared her, lifting her — no doubt she struggled, but against such inhuman, implacable strength, she had been helpless.
And then, the T'lan Imass had vanished. Fallen to dust. Somehow taking her with them. He did not think that was possible. Yet... no tracks moved away from the area.
Frustrated, Barathol started back to the hostelry.
At a whining sound behind him he turned. 'It's all right, Chaur. You can go back to what you were doing.'
A bright smile answered him.
****
As he entered, Barathol sensed that something had changed. The locals were backed to the wall behind the bar. L'oric stood in the centre of the chamber, facing the blacksmith who halted just inside the doorway. The High Mage had drawn his sword, a blade of gleaming white.
L'oric, his eyes hard on Barathol, spoke: 'I have but just heard your name.'
The blacksmith shrugged.
A sneer twisted L'oric's pale face. 'I imagine all that rum loosened their tongues, or they just plain forgot your commands to keep such details secret.'
'I've made no commands,' Barathol replied. 'These people here know nothing of the outside world, and care even less. Speaking of rum...' He slid his gaze to the crowd behind the bar. 'Nulliss, any of it left?'
Mute, she nodded.
'On the counter then, if you please,' Barathol said. 'Beside my axe will do.'
'I would be foolish to let you near that weapon,' L'oric said, raising the sword in his hand.
'That depends,' replied Barathol, 'whether you intend fighting me, doesn't it?'
'I can think of a hundred names of those who, in my place right now, would not hesitate.'
Barathol's brows rose. 'A hundred names, you say. And how many of those names still belong to the living?'
L'oric's mouth thinned into a straight line.
'Do you believe,' Barathol went on, 'that I simply walked from Aren all those years ago? I was not the only survivor, High Mage. They came after me. It was damned near one long running battle from Aren Way to Karashimesh. Before I left the last one bleeding out his life in a ditch. You may know my name, and you may believe you know my crime... but you were not there. Those that were are all dead. Now, are you really interested in picking up this gauntlet?'
'They say you opened the gates—'
Barathol snorted, walked over towards, the jug of rum Nulliss had set on the bar. 'Ridiculous. T'lan Imass don't need gates.' The Semk witch found an empty tankard and thunked it on the counter. 'Oh, I opened them all right — on my way out, on the fastest horse I could find. By that time, the slaughter had already begun.'
'Yet you did not stay, did you? You did not fight, Barathol Mekhar! Hood take you, man, they rebelled in your name!'
'Too bad they didn't think to ask me first,' he replied in a growl, filling the tankard. 'Now, put that damned sword away, High Mage.'
L'oric hesitated, then he sagged where he stood and slowly resheathed the weapon. 'You are right. I am too tired for this. Too old.' He frowned, then straightened again. 'You thought those T'lan Imass were here for you, didn't you?'
Barathol studied the man over the battered rim of the tankard, and said nothing.
L'oric ran a hand through his hair, looked round as if he'd forgotten where he was.
'Hood's bones, Nulliss,' Barathol said in a sigh, 'find the poor bastard a chair, will you?'
****
The grey haze and its blinding motes of silver slowly faded, and all at once Felisin Younger could feel her own body again, sharp stones digging into her knees, the smell of dust, sweat and fear in the air. Visions of chaos and slaughter filled her mind. She felt numbed, and it was all she could do to see, to register the shape of things about her. Before her, sunlight flung sharp-edged shafts against a rock wall rent through with stress fractures. Heaps of windblown sand banked what used to be broad, shallow stone steps that seemed to lead up into the wall itself. Closer, the large knuckles, pale beneath thin, weathered skin, of the hand that clutched her right arm above the elbow, the exposed ligaments of the wrist stretching, making faint sounds like twisting leather. A grip she could not break — she had exhausted herself trying. Close and fetid, the reek of ancient decay, and visible — every now and then — a blood-smeared, rippled blade, broad near its hooked point, narrowing down at the leather-wrapped handle. Black, glassy stone, thinned into translucence along the edge.
Others stood around her, more of the dread T'lan Imass. Spattered with blood, some with missing or mangled limbs, and one with half its face smashed away — but this was old damage, she realized. Their most recent battle, no more than a skirmish, had cost them nothing.
The wind moaned mournfully along the rock wall. Felisin pushed herself to her feet, scraped the embedded stones from her knees. They're dead. They're all dead. She told herself this again and again, as if the words were newly discovered — not yet meaningful to her, not yet a language she could understand. My
friends are all dead. What was the point of saying them? Yet they returned again and again, as if desperate to elicit a response — any response.
A new sound reached her. Scrabbling, seeming to come from the cliff-face in front of them. Blinking the stinging sweat from her eyes, she saw that one of the fissures looked to have been widened, the sides chipped away as if by a pick, and it was from this that a bent figure emerged. An old man, wearing little more than rags, covered in dust. Suppurating sores wept runny liquid on his forearms and the backs of his hands.
Seeing her, he fell to his knees. 'You have come! They promised — but why would they lie?' Amidst the words issuing from his mouth were odd clicking sounds. 'I will take you, now — you'll see. Everything is fine. You are safe, child, for you have been chosen.'
'What are you talking about?' Felisin demanded, once again trying to tug her arm free — and this time she succeeded, as the deathly hand unclenched. She staggered.
The old man leapt to his feet and steadied her. 'You are exhausted — no surprise. So many rules were broken to bring you here—'
She stepped away from him and set a hand against the sun-warmed stone wall. 'Where is here?'
'An ancient city, Chosen One. Once buried, but soon to live once more. I am but the first who has been called upon to serve you. Others will come — are coming even now, for they too have heard the Whispers. You see, it is the weak who hear them, and oh there are very many, very many of the weak.' More clicking sounds — there were pebbles in his mouth.
Turning, Felisin faced away from the cliff wall, studied the stretch of broken, wasted land beyond. Signs of an old road, signs of tillage... 'We walked this — weeks ago!' She glared at the old man. 'You've taken me back!'
He smiled, revealing worn, chipped teeth. 'This city belongs to you, now, Chosen One—'
'Stop calling me that!'
'Please — you have been delivered and blood has been spilled in that deliverance — it falls to you to give such sacrifice meaning—'
'Sacrifice? That was murder! They killed my friends!'
'I will help you grieve, for that is my weakness, you see? I grieve always — for myself — because of drink, and the thirst always within me. Weakness. Kneel before it, child. Make of it a thing to worship. There is no point in fighting — the world's sadness is far more powerful than you can ever hope to be, and that is what you must come to understand.'
'I want to leave.'
'Impossible. The Unbound have delivered you. Where could you go even if you might? We are leagues upon leagues from anywhere.' He sucked on the pebbles, swallowed spit, then continued, 'You would have no food. No water. Please, Chosen One, a temple awaits you within this buried city — I have worked so long, so hard to ready it for you. There is food, and water. And soon there will be more servants, all desperate to answer your every desire —once you accept what you have become.' He paused to smile again, and she saw the stones — black, polished, at least three, each the size of a knuckle bone. 'Soon, you shall realize what you have become — leader of the greatest cult of Seven Cities, and it will sweep beyond, across every sea and every ocean — it shall claim the world—'
'You are mad,' Felisin said.
'The Whispers do not lie.' He reached for her and she recoiled at that glistening, pustuled hand. 'Ah, there was plague, you see. Poliel, the goddess herself, she bowed before the Chained One — as must we all, even you — and only then shall you come into your rightful power. Plague — it claimed many, it left entire cities filled with blackened bodies — but others survived, because of the Whispers, and so were marked — by sores and twisted limbs, by blindness. For some it was their tongues. Rotting and falling off, thus leaving them mute. Among others, their ears bled and all sound has left their world. Do you understand? They had weakness, and the Chained One — he has shown how weakness becomes strength. I can sense them, for I am the first. Your seneschal. I sense them. They are coming.'
She continued staring down at his sickly hand, and after a moment he returned it to his side.
Clicking. 'Please, follow me. Let me show you all that I have done.'
Felisin lifted her hands to her face. She did not understand. None of this made any sense. 'What,' she asked, 'is your name?'
'Kulat.'
'And what,' she said in a whisper, 'is mine?'
He bowed. 'They did not understand — none of them did. The Apocalyptic — it is not just war, not just rebellion. It is devastation. Not just of the land — that is but what follows — do you see? The Apocalypse, it is of the spirit. Crushed, broken, slave to its own weaknesses. Only from such a tormented soul can ruin be delivered to the land and to all who dwell upon it. We must die inside to kill all that lies outside. Only then, once death takes us all, only then shall we find salvation.' He bowed lower. 'You are Sha'ik Reborn, Chosen as the Hand of the Apocalypse.'
****
'Change of plans,' muttered Iskaral Pust as he scurried about, seemingly at random, moving into and out of the campfire's light. 'Look!' he hissed. 'She's gone, the mangy cow! A few monstrous shadows in the night and poof! Nothing but spiders, hiding in every crack and cranny. Bah! Snivelling coward. I was thinking, Trell, that we should run. Yes, run. You go that way and I'll go this way — I mean, I'll be right behind you, of course, why would I abandon you now? Even with those things on the way...' He paused, pulled at his hair, then resumed his frantic motion. 'But why should I worry? Have I not been loyal? Effective? Brilliant as ever? So, why are they here?'
Mappo drew out a mace from his sack. 'I see nothing,' he said, 'and all I can hear is you, High Priest. Who has come?'
'Did I say anything was coming?'
'Yes, you did.'
'Can I help it if you've lost your mind? But why, that's what I want to know, yes, why? It's not like we need the company. Besides, you'd think this was the last place they'd want to be, if what I'm smelling is what I'm smelling, and I wouldn't be smelling what I'm smelling if something wasn't there that didn't smell, right?' He paused, cocked his head. 'What's that smell? Never mind, where was I? Yes, trying to conceive of the inconceivable, the inconceivable being the notion that Shadowthrone is actually quite sane. Preposterous, I know. Anyway, if that, then this, this being he knows what he's doing. He has reasons — actual reasons.'
'Iskaral Pust,' Mappo said, rising from where he had been sitting near the fire. 'Are we in danger?'
'Has Hood seen better days? Of course we're in danger, you oafish fool — oh, I must keep such opinions to myself. How about this? Danger? Haha, my friend, of course not. Haha. Ha. Oh, here they are...'
Massive shapes emerged from the darkness. Red ember eyes to one side, lurid green eyes on another, then other sets, one gold, another coppery. Silent, hulking and deadly.
The Hounds of Shadow.
Somewhere far away in the desert, a wolf or coyote howled as if it had caught a scent from the Abyss itself. Closer to hand, even the crickets had fallen silent.
The hairs on the back of the Trell's neck stiffened. He too could now smell the fell beasts. Acrid, pungent. With that reek came painful memories. 'What do they want with us, High Priest?'
'Be quiet — I need to think.'
'No need to tax yourself,' said a new voice from the darkness, and Mappo turned to see a man step into the fire's light. Grey-cloaked, tallish, and otherwise nondescript. 'They are but... passing through.'
Iskaral's face brightened with false pleasure even as he flinched. 'Ah, Cotillion — can you not see? I have achieved all Shadowthrone asked of me—'
'With that clash you had with Dejim Nebrahl,' Cotillion said, 'you have in fact exceeded expectations — I admit, I had no idea you possessed such prowess, Iskaral Pust. Shadowthrone chose well his Magi.'
'Yes, he's full of surprises, isn't he?' The High Priest crab-walked over to crouch by the fire, then he cocked his head and said, 'Now, what does he want? To put me at ease? He never puts me at ease. To lead the Hounds onto some poor fool's trail? Not for l
ong, I hope. For that fool's sake. No, none of these things. He's here to confound me, but I am a High Priest of Shadow, after all, and so cannot be confounded. Why? Because I serve the most confounding god there is, that's why. Thus, need I worry? Of course, but he'll never know, will he? No, I need only smile up at this killer god and say: Would you like some cactus tea, Cotillion?'
'Thank you,' Cotillion replied, 'I would.'
Mappo set his mace down and resumed his seat as Iskaral poured out the tea. The Trell struggled against the desperation growing within him. Somewhere to the north, Icarium sat before flames likely little different from these ones, haunted as ever by what he could not remember. Yet, he was not alone. No, another has taken my place. That should have been cause for relief, but all Mappo could feel was fear. I cannot trust the Nameless Ones — I learned that a long time ago. No, Icarium was now being led by someone who cared nothing for the Jhag—
'It pleases me, Mappo Runt,' said Cotillion, 'that you are well.'
'The Hounds of Shadow once fought at our sides,' Mappo said, 'on the Path of Hands.'
Cotillion nodded, sipping at the tea. 'Yes, you and Icarium came very close, then.'
'Close? What do you mean?'
The Patron God of Assassins was a long time in replying. Around them, just beyond the camp, the huge Hounds seemed to have settled for the night. 'It is less a curse,' he finally said, 'than a... residue. The death of an Azath House releases all manner of forces, energies — not just those belonging to the denizens in their earthen tombs. There is, burned into Icarium's soul, something like an infection, or, perhaps, a parasite. Its nature is chaos, and the effect is one of discontinuity. It defies progression, of thought, of spirit, of life itself. Mappo, that infection must be expunged, if you would save Icarium.'
The Trell could barely draw breath. In all the centuries at the Jhag's side, among all the words given him by the Nameless Ones, by scholars and sages across half the world, he had never before heard anything like this. 'Are — are you certain?'