The Crippled God

  Gods and mortals, twisting truths, had in a host of deeds stained what once had been pure.

  Well, the end was coming. The end, dear ones, is coming. There would be no more children, rising from the bones and rubble, to build anew all that had been lost. Was there even one among them, after all, who had not suckled at the teat of corruption? Oh, they fed their inner fires, yet they hoarded the light, the warmth, as if justice belonged to them alone.

  She was appalled. She seethed with contempt. Justice was incandescent within her, and it was a fire growing day by day, as the wretched heart of the Chained One leaked out its endless streams of blood. Twelve Pures remained, feeding. Twelve. Perhaps there were others, lost in far-flung places, but she knew nothing of them. No, these twelve, they would be the faces of the final storm, and, pre-eminent among them all, she would stand at that storm’s centre.

  She had been given her name for this very purpose, long ago now. The Forkrul Assail were nothing if not patient. But patience itself was yet one more lost virtue.

  Chains of bone trailing, Calm walked across the plain, as the day’s light died behind her.

  ‘God failed us.’

  Trembling, sick to his stomach as something cold, foreign, coursed through his veins, Aparal Forge clenched his jaw to stifle a retort. This vengeance is older than any cause you care to invent, and no matter how often you utter those words, Son of Light, the lies and madness open like flowers beneath the sun. And before me I see nothing but lurid fields of red, stretching out on all sides.

  This wasn’t their battle, not their war. Who fashioned this law that said the child must pick up the father’s sword? And dear Father, did you really mean this to be? Did she not abandon her consort and take you for her own? Did you not command us to peace? Did you not say to us that we children must be as one beneath the newborn sky of your union?

  What crime awoke us to this?

  I can’t even remember.

  ‘Do you feel it, Aparal? The power?’

  ‘I feel it, Kadagar.’ They’d moved away from the others, but not so far as to escape the agonized cries, the growl of the Hounds, or, drifting out over the broken rocks in ghostly streams, the blistering breath of cold upon their backs. Before them rose the infernal barrier. A wall of imprisoned souls. An eternally crashing wave of despair. He stared at the gaping faces through the mottled veil, studied the pitted horror in their eyes. You were no different, were you? Awkward with your inheritance, the heavy blade turning this way and that in your hand.

  Why should we pay for someone else’s hatred?

  ‘What so troubles you, Aparal?’

  ‘We cannot know the reason for our god’s absence, Lord. I fear it is presumptuous of us to speak of his failure.’

  Kadagar Fant was silent.

  Aparal closed his eyes. He should never have spoken. I do not learn. He walked a bloody path to rule and the pools in the mud still gleam red. The air about Kadagar remains brittle. This flower shivers to secret winds. He is dangerous, so very dangerous.

  ‘The Priests spoke of impostors and tricksters, Aparal.’ Kadagar’s tone was even, devoid of inflection. It was the voice he used when furious. ‘What god would permit that? We are abandoned. The path before us now belongs to no one else – it is ours to choose.’

  Ours. Yes, you speak for us all, even as we cringe at our own confessions. ‘Forgive my words, Lord. I am made ill – the taste—’

  ‘We had no choice in that, Aparal. What sickens you is the bitter flavour of its pain. It passes.’ Kadagar smiled and clapped him on the back. ‘I understand your momentary weakness. We shall forget your doubts, yes? And never again speak of them. We are friends, after all, and I would be most distressed to be forced to brand you a traitor. Set upon the White Wall … I would kneel and weep, my friend. I would.’

  A spasm of alien fury hissed through Aparal and he shivered. Abyss! Mane of Chaos, I feel you! ‘My life is yours to command, Lord.’

  ‘Lord of Light!’

  Aparal turned, as did Kadagar.

  Blood streaming from his mouth, Iparth Erule staggered closer, eyes wide and fixed upon Kadagar. ‘My lord, Uhandahl, who was last to drink, has just died. He – he tore out his own throat!’

  ‘Then it is done,’ Kadagar replied. ‘How many?’

  Iparth licked his lips, visibly flinched at the taste, and then said, ‘You are the First of Thirteen, Lord.’

  Smiling, Kadagar stepped past Iparth. ‘Kessobahn still breathes?’

  ‘Yes. It is said it can bleed for centuries—’

  ‘But the blood is now poison,’ Kadagar said, nodding. ‘The wounding must be fresh, the power clean. Thirteen, you say. Excellent.’

  Aparal stared at the dragon staked to the slope behind Iparth Erule. The enormous spears pinning it to the ground were black with gore and dried blood. He could feel the Eleint’s pain, pouring from it in waves. Again and again it tried to lift its head, eyes blazing, jaws snapping, but the vast trap held. The four surviving Hounds of Light circled at a distance, hackles raised as they eyed the dragon. Seeing them, Aparal hugged himself. Another mad gamble. Another bitter failure. Lord of Light, Kadagar Fant, you have not done well in the world beyond.

  Beyond this terrible vista, and facing the vertical ocean of deathless souls as if in mocking madness, rose the White Wall, which hid the decrepit remnants of the Liosan city of Saranas. The faint elongated dark streaks lining it, descending just beneath the crenellated battlements, were all he could make out of the brothers and sisters who had been condemned as traitors to the cause. Below their withered corpses ran the stains from everything their bodies had drained down the alabaster facing. You would kneel and weep, would you, my friend?

  Iparth asked, ‘My lord, do we leave the Eleint as it is?’

  ‘No. I propose something far more fitting. Assemble the others. We shall veer.’

  Aparal started but did not turn. ‘Lord—’

  ‘We are Kessobahn’s children now, Aparal. A new father, to replace the one who abandoned us. Osserc is dead in our eyes and shall remain so. Even Father Light kneels broken, useless and blind.’

  Aparal’s eyes held on Kessobahn. Utter such blasphemies often enough and they become banal, and all shock fades. The gods lose their power, and we rise to stand in their stead. The ancient dragon wept blood, and in those vast, alien eyes there was nothing but rage. Our father. Your pain, your blood, our gift to you. Alas, it is the only gift we understand. ‘And once we have veered?’

  ‘Why, Aparal, we shall tear the Eleint apart.’

  He’d known what the answer would be and he nodded. Our father.

  Your pain, your blood, our gift. Celebrate our rebirth, O Father Kessobahn, with your death. And for you, there shall be no return.

  ‘I have nothing with which to bargain. What brings you to me? No, I see that. My broken servant cannot travel far, even in his dreams. Crippled, yes, my precious flesh and bones upon this wretched world. Have you seen his flock? What blessing can he bestow? Why, naught but misery and suffering, and still they gather, the mobs, the clamouring, beseeching mobs. Oh, I once looked upon them with contempt. I once revelled in their pathos, their ill choices and their sorry luck. Their stupidity.

  ‘But no one chooses their span of wits. They are each and all born with what they have, that and nothing more. Through my servant I see into their eyes – when I so dare – and they give me a look, a strange look, one that for a long time I could not understand. Hungry, of course, so brimming with need. But I am the Foreign God. The Chained One. The Fallen One, and my holy word is Pain.

  ‘Yet those eyes implored.

  ‘I now comprehend. What do they ask of me? Those dull fools glittering with fears, those horrid expressions to make a witness cringe. What do they want? I will answer you. They want my pity.

  ‘They understand, you see, their own paltry scant coins in their bag of wits. They know they lack intelligence, and that this has cursed them and their lives. They have struggled a
nd lashed out, from the very beginning. No, do not look at me that way, you of smooth and subtle thought, you give your sympathy too quickly and therein hide your belief in your own superiority. I do not deny your cleverness, but I question your compassion.

  ‘They wanted my pity. They have it. I am the god that answers prayers – can you or any other god make that claim? See how I have changed. My pain, which I held on to so selfishly, now reaches out like a broken hand. We touch in understanding, we flinch at the touch. I am one with them all, now.

  ‘You surprise me. I had not believed this to be a thing of value. What worth compassion? How many columns of coins balance the scales? My servant once dreamed of wealth. A buried treasure in the hills. Sitting on his withered legs, he pleaded with passers-by in the street. Now you look at me here, too broken to move, deep in the fumes, and the wind slaps these tent walls without rest. No need to bargain. My servant and I have both lost the desire to beg. You want my pity? I give it. Freely.

  ‘Need I tell you of my pain? I look in your eyes and find the answer.

  ‘It is my last play, but you understand that. My last. Should I fail …

  ‘Very well. There is no secret to this. I will gather the poison, then. In the thunder of my pain, yes. Where else?

  ‘Death? Since when is death failure?

  ‘Forgive the cough. It was meant to be laughter. Go then, wring your promises with those upstarts.

  ‘That is all faith is, you know. Pity for our souls. Ask my servant and he will tell you. God looks into your eyes, and God cringes.’

  Three dragons chained for their sins. At the thought Cotillion sighed, suddenly morose. He stood twenty paces away, ankle deep in soft ash. Ascendancy, he reflected, was not quite as long a stride from the mundane as he would have liked. His throat felt tight, as if his air passages were constricted. The muscles of his shoulders ached and dull thunder pounded behind his eyes. He stared at the imprisoned Eleint lying so gaunt and deathly amidst drifts of dust, feeling … mortal. Abyss take me, but I’m tired.

  Edgewalker moved up alongside him, silent and spectral.

  ‘Bones and not much else,’ Cotillion muttered.

  ‘Do not be fooled,’ Edgewalker warned. ‘Flesh, skin, they are raiment. Worn or cast off as suits them. See the chains? They have been tested. Heads lifting … the scent of freedom.’

  ‘How did you feel, Edgewalker, when everything you held fell to pieces in your hands? Did failure arrive like a wall of fire?’ He turned to regard the apparition. ‘Those tatters have the look of scorching, come to think of it. Do you remember that moment, when you lost everything? Did the world echo to your howl?’

  ‘If you seek to torment me, Cotillion—’

  ‘No, I would not do that. Forgive me.’

  ‘If these are your fears, however …’

  ‘No, not my fears. Not at all. They are my weapons.’

  Edgewalker seemed to shiver, or perhaps some shift of the ash beneath his rotted moccasins sent a tremble through him, a brief moment of imbalance. Settling once more, the Elder fixed Cotillion with the withered dark of its eyes. ‘You, Lord of Assassins, are no healer.’

  No. Someone cut out my unease, please. Make clean the incision, take out what’s ill and leave me free of it. We are sickened by the unknown, but knowledge can prove poisonous. And drifting lost between the two is no better. ‘There is more than one path to salvation.’

  ‘It is curious.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Your words … in another voice, coming from … someone else, would leave a listener calmed, reassured. From you, alas, they could chill a mortal soul to its very core.’

  ‘This is what I am,’ Cotillion said.

  Edgewalker nodded. ‘It is what you are, yes.’

  Cotillion advanced another six paces, eyes on the nearest dragon, the gleaming bones of the skull visible between strips of rotted hide. ‘Eloth,’ he said, ‘I would hear your voice.’

  ‘Shall we bargain again, Usurper?’

  The voice was male, but such details were in the habit of changing on a whim. Still, he frowned, trying to recall the last time. ‘Kalse, Ampelas, you will each have your turn. Do I now speak with Eloth?’

  ‘I am Eloth. What is it about my voice that so troubles you, Usurper? I sense your suspicion.’

  ‘I needed to be certain,’ Cotillion replied. ‘And now I am. You are indeed Mockra.’

  A new draconic voice rumbled laughter through Cotillion’s skull, and then said, ‘Be careful, Assassin, she is the mistress of deceit.’

  Cotillion’s brows lifted. ‘Deceit? Pray not, I beg you. I am too innocent to know much about such things. Eloth, I see you here in chains, and yet in mortal realms your voice has been heard. It seems you are not quite the prisoner you once were.’

  ‘Sleep slips the cruellest chains, Usurper. My dreams rise on wings and I am free. Do you now tell me that such freedom was more than delusion? I am shocked unto disbelief.’

  Cotillion grimaced. ‘Kalse, what do you dream of?’

  ‘Ice.’

  Does that surprise me? ‘Ampelas?’

  ‘The rain that burns, Lord of Assassins, deep in shadow. And such a grisly shadow. Shall we three whisper divinations now? All my truths are chained here, it is only the lies that fly free. Yet there was one dream, one that still burns fresh in my mind. Will you hear my confession?’

  ‘My rope is not quite as frayed as you think, Ampelas. You would do better to describe your dream to Kalse. Consider that advice my gift.’ He paused, glanced back at Edgewalker for a moment, and then faced the dragons once more. ‘Now then, let us bargain for real.’

  ‘There is no value in that,’ Ampelas said. ‘You have nothing to give us.’

  ‘But I do.’

  Edgewalker suddenly spoke behind him. ‘Cotillion—’

  ‘Freedom,’ said Cotillion.

  Silence.

  He smiled. ‘A fine start. Eloth, will you dream for me?’

  ‘Kalse and Ampelas have shared your gift. They looked upon one another with faces of stone. There was pain. There was fire. An eye opened and it looked upon the Abyss. Lord of Knives, my kin in chains are … dismayed. Lord, I will dream for you. Speak on.’

  ‘Listen carefully then,’ Cotillion said. ‘This is how it must be.’

  The depths of the canyon were unlit, swallowed in eternal night far beneath the ocean’s surface. Crevasses gaped in darkness, a world’s death and decay streaming down in ceaseless rain, and the currents whipped in fierce torrents that stirred sediments into spinning vortices, lifting like whirlwinds. Flanked by the submerged crags of the canyon’s ravaged cliffs, a flat plain stretched out, and in the centre a lurid red flame flickered to life, solitary, almost lost in the vastness.

  Shifting the almost weightless burden resting on one shoulder, Mael paused to squint at that improbable fire. Then he set out, making straight for it.

  Lifeless rain falling to the depths, savage currents whipping it back up into the light, where living creatures fed on the rich soup, only to eventually die and sink back down. Such an elegant exchange, the living and the dead, the light and the lightless, the world above and the world below. Almost as if someone had planned it.

  He could now make out the hunched figure beside the flames, hands held out to the dubious heat. Tiny sea creatures swarmed in the reddish bloom of light like moths. The fire emerged pulsing from a rent in the floor of the canyon, gases bubbling upward.

  Mael halted before the figure, shrugging off the wrapped corpse that had been balanced on his shoulder. As it rocked down to the silts tiny scavengers rushed towards it, only to spin away without alighting. Faint clouds billowed as the wrapped body settled in the mud.

  The voice of K’rul, Elder God of the Warrens, drifted out from within his hood. ‘If all existence is a dialogue, how is it there is still so much left unsaid?’

  Mael scratched the stubble on his jaw. ‘Me with mine, you with yours, him with his, and yet still we fail to c
onvince the world of its inherent absurdity.’

  K’rul shrugged. ‘Him with his. Yes. Odd that of all the gods, he alone discovered this mad, and maddening, secret. The dawn to come … shall we leave it to him?’

  ‘Well,’ Mael grunted, ‘first we need to survive the night. I have brought the one you sought.’

  ‘I see that. Thank you, old friend. Now tell me, what of the Old Witch?’

  Mael grimaced. ‘The same. She tries again, but the one she has chosen … well, let us say that Onos T’oolan possesses depths Olar Ethil cannot hope to comprehend, and she will, I fear, come to rue her choice.’

  ‘A man rides before him.’

  Mael nodded. ‘A man rides before him. It is … heartbreaking.’

  ‘“Against a broken heart, even absurdity falters.”’

  ‘“Because words fall away.”’

  Fingers fluttered in the glow. ‘“A dialogue of silence.”’

  ‘“That deafens.”’ Mael looked off into the gloomy distance. ‘Blind Gallan and his damnable poems.’ Across the colourless floor armies of sightless crabs were on the march, drawn to the alien light and heat. He squinted at them. ‘Many died.’

  ‘Errastas had his suspicions, and that is all the Errant needs. Terrible mischance, or deadly nudge. They were as she said they would be. Unwitnessed.’ K’rul lifted his head, the empty hood now gaping in Mael’s direction. ‘Has he won, then?’

  Mael’s wiry brows rose. ‘You do not know?’

  ‘That close to Kaminsod’s heart, the warrens are a mass of wounds and violence.’

  Mael glanced down at the wrapped corpse. ‘Brys was there. Through his tears I saw.’ He was silent for a long moment, reliving someone else’s memories. He suddenly hugged himself, released a ragged breath. ‘In the name of the Abyss, those Bonehunters were something to behold!’

  The vague hints of a face seemed to find shape inside the hood’s darkness, a gleam of teeth. ‘Truly? Mael – truly?’

  Emotion growled out in his words. ‘This is not done. Errastas has made a terrible mistake. Gods, they all have!’