The Crippled God

  Crawling away, feeling broken inside, as if he was still there and would always be there, as if she had nothing of herself, nothing pure or untouched by someone else.

  Then, much later, an assassin’s face, a night of caves and demons and murder. She’d been dreaming of poison, yes, and there had been bloated bodies, but nothing cleaned her out, no matter what she tried.

  Outside a city, watching the flames ever rising. Soldiers were dying. The world was a trap and they all seemed surprised by that, even though it was something she’d always known. The fire wanted her and it so wanted her, why, she let it inside. To burn her empty.

  She’d wanted to believe that it had worked. That she was at last clean. But before too long she could feel that boy return, deep, deep inside her. She needed more. More fire, because fire delivered death. And in the midst of conflagration, time and again, a voice whispered to her.

  ‘You are my child. The Virgin of Death is never what they think it is. What dies is the virgin herself, the purity of her soul. Or his. Why always assume the Virgin is a girl? So I show you what you were, but now I show you what you are. Feel my heat – it is the pleasure you have for ever lost. Feel my kiss upon your lips: this is the love you will never know. See my hunger, it is your yearning for a peace you will never find.

  ‘You are my child. You killed him before he left you. You crushed his brain to pulp. The rest was just for show. He was still inside you, a dead boy, and this was Hood’s path to your soul, and the Lord of Death’s touch steals life. You killed the boy, but the boy killed you, too, Sinn. What do you feel deep in you? Give it any shape you want, any name, it doesn’t matter. What matters is this: it is dead, and it waits for you, and will wait for you until your last breath leaves your body.

  ‘When your death is already inside you, there is nowhere to run, no escape possible. When your death is already inside you, Sinn, you have nothing to lose.’

  She had nothing to lose. This was true. About everything. No family, no brother, no one at all. Even Grub, her sweet Virgin, well, he would never reach her, just as she would never, ever, reach inside him, to dirty what was pure. My precious possession, dear Grub, and him I will keep safe from harm. No one will ever touch him. No slap of bared feet, no harsh breaths. I am your fire, Grub, and I will burn to ash anything and anyone who dares gets close to you.

  That is why I rode the lizard’s lightning, that brilliant fire. I rode it straight for Keneb. I didn’t guide it, I didn’t choose it, but I understood the necessity of it, the rightness of taking away the one person left who loved you.

  Do not grieve. You have me, Grub. We have each other, and what could be more perfect than that?

  Familiar faces in the distant haze. Her mind wandered the desert, as the night drew in, and somewhere down on the flats small fires lit awake, and she smiled. We are the dead thing in the womb of the world, and we and we alone light the darkness with fire. By that you will know us. By those flames alone, the earth shall tremble.

  What is it to be raped? I am silent as the world and we will say nothing. What is it to be the rapist?

  The desert at night was a cold place, except for the fires. Dark too, except for the fires.

  ‘It plagues the young, this need to find reasons for things.’

  Rud Elalle huddled, robes drawn tight around him, and edged closer to the fire. The wind up in these crags was fierce, the air thin and icy. Far below, low on the slopes of the mountainsides, the edge of the tree line was visible as a black mass, thinning at the highest reaches – which seemed very far away. He shivered. ‘Couldn’t we at least find a cave or something?’

  Silchas Ruin stood facing the high passes to the north, seemingly immune to the cold. ‘Very well, come the morrow, we shall do that. Had we remained Eleint, of course—’

  ‘I would be comfortable, yes. I know.’ Rud stared at the feeble flames as they devoured the last of the wood he had carried up from below. In draconic form, the raging chaos within him would have kept him warm, inured to the elements. But his thoughts twisted wild when he was veered, when the blood of the Eleint coursed dominant in his veins. He began to lose his sense of himself as a creature of reasoning, of rational thought and clear purpose. Not that he had a clear purpose, of course. Not yet. But it wasn’t healthy to be a dragon – he knew that much.

  Mother, how could you have lived with this? For so long? No wonder you went mad. No wonder you all did. He glanced over at Silchas Ruin, but the figure had not moved. How much longer? he wanted to ask. Still … the Tiste Andii needed no further invitation to view him as little more than a child. A child of terrible power, true, but still a child.

  And, Rud allowed, he would not be far wrong, would he? There was no sense to what they intended to do. So much was out of their hands. They hovered like swords, but whose gauntleted grasp would close on them when the time came? There didn’t seem to be an answer to that question, at least not one Silchas Ruin was willing to share.

  And what of this Tiste Andii, standing there as if carved from alabaster, rubies for eyes, moaning blades crossing his back? He had lost his last surviving brother. He was utterly alone, bereft. Olar Ethil had broken him for no purpose Rud could see, barring that of spite. But Silchas Ruin had finally straightened, biting on that wound in the manner of a speared wolf, and he’d been limping ever since – at least in his sembled state. It was quite possible – and indeed likely – that Silchas Ruin preferred to remain in an Eleint form, if only to cauterize the pain with the soulfire of chaos. Yet there he stood. Because I am too weak to resist. Draconean ambitions taste bitter as poison. They want my surrender, they want to hear me howl with desire.

  ‘Once we find a cave,’ resumed Silchas Ruin, ‘I will leave you for a time. Those stone weapons of yours are insufficient for what comes. While it is true that we may have no need for swords and the like, I believe it is time for you to take to hand a proper blade.’

  ‘You want to go and find me a sword.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And where do you look for something like that?’ Rud asked. ‘A weaponsmith’s in Letheras? A trader’s camp near a recent battlefield?’

  ‘None of those,’ he replied. ‘For you, I have something more ambitious in mind.’

  Rud’s gaze returned to the flames. ‘How long will you be gone?’

  ‘Not long, I should think.’

  ‘Well then,’ Rud snapped, ‘what are you waiting for? I can find my own cave.’

  He felt Silchas Ruin’s regard upon him, and then it was gone and when he turned, so was the Tiste Andii – he had plummeted from the ledge. Moments later a buffet of wind struck him, and he saw the dragon lifting skyward, up above the ravaged peaks, blotting out stars.

  ‘Ah, Silchas, I am sorry.’

  Despondent, he held his hands out over the coals. He missed his father. Udinaas would have a wry grin for this moment, a few cutting words – not too deep, of course, but enough to awaken in Rud a measure of self-regard, something he suspected he needed. Spirits of the stream, it’s just that I’m lonely. I miss home. The sweet songs of the Imass, the fiery lure of Kilava – oh, Onrack, do you know how lucky you are?

  And where is my love? Where does she hide? He glared around, at the bare rock, the flight of sparks, the frail shelter in this crook of stone. Not here, that’s for sure.

  Well, if any man needed a woman more than he did, it was his father. In a way, he is as alone among the Imass as I am here. He was a slave. A sailor. A Letherii. His home was civilized. Crowded with so many conveniences one could go mad trying to choose among them. And now he lives in a hut of hide and tenag bones. With winter closing in – oh, the Imass knew a harsh world. No, none of that was fair on Udinaas, who saw himself as so unexceptional he was beneath notice. Unexceptional? Will it take a woman to convince you otherwise? You can’t find one there – you need to go home, Father.

  He could try a sending. A conjuration of will and power – was it possible to reach that far? ‘Worth a try,’ he m
uttered. ‘Tomorrow morning.’ For now, Rud Elalle would try to sleep. If that failed, well, there was the blood of the Eleint, and its deadly, sultry call.

  He lifted his head, looked south. At the far side of the range, he knew, there was a vast green valley, slopes ribboned with terraces verdant with growth. There were towns and villages and forts and high towers guarding the bridges spanning the rivers. There were tens of thousands working those narrow fields.

  They had flown so high above all of this, to a human eye they would have been virtually invisible. When they drew nearer to the rearing range north of the valley, close to its westernmost end, they had seen an encamped army, laying siege to a fastness carved into the first of the mountains. Rud had wondered at that. Civil war? But Silchas Ruin had shown no curiosity. ‘Humans can do whatever they please, and they will. Count on it, Ryadd.’

  Still, he imagined it was warm inside that keep right now.

  Assuming it still held against the enemy. For some reason, he was sure that it did. Aye, humans will do whatever they please, Silchas Ruin, and they’ll be damned stubborn about it, too.

  He settled down against the cold night.

  His thoughts were earth, and the blood moved slowly through it, seeping like a summer’s rain. He saw how the others looked at him, when they’d thought his attention elsewhere. So much larger than any of them was he, bedecked in the armour of Dalk’s hide, his Ethilian mace showing a face to each of the cardinal directions, as befitted the Witch’s gift from the sky.

  Listening to them readying their weapons, adjusting the straps of their armour, locking the grilled cheek-guards in place on their blackened helms, he knew that, in the past weeks, he had become the mountain they huddled against, the stone at their backs, on their flanks, at the point of the spear – wherever he was needed most, there he would be.

  How many of the foe had he killed? He had no idea. Scores. Hundreds. They were the Fangs of Death, their numbers were endless and that, he well knew, was no exaggeration.

  His fellow invaders, who once numbered in their tens of thousands, had dwindled now. It might be that other fragments still pushed on, somewhere to the south or north, but then they did not have a Thel Akai warrior in their company. They did not have a dragon-killer. They do not have me.

  Earth was slow in dying. The soil was a black realm of countless mouths, ceaseless hungers. In a single handful raged a million wars. Death was ever the enemy, yet death was also the source of sustenance. It took a ferocious will to murder earth.

  One by one, his companions – barely a score left now – announced themselves ready, in rising to their feet, in testing their gauntleted grips on their notched, battered weapons. And such weapons! Each one worth a dozen epic songs of glory and pain, triumph and loss. If he looked up from the ground at this moment, he would see faces swallowed in the barred shadows of their cheek-guards; he would see these proud warriors standing, eyes fixed eastward, and, slowly, those grimly set mouths and the thin, tattered lips would twist with wry amusement.

  A war they could not win.

  An epic march from which not one great hero would ever return.

  The earth within him surged with sudden fire, and he rose, the mace lifting in his huge hands. We shall have lived as none other has lived. We shall die as no other has died. Can you taste this moment? By the Witch but I can!

  He faced his companions, and gave them his own grin.

  Tusked mouths opened like split flesh, and cold laughter filled the air.

  Groaning, Ublala Pung opened his eyes. More dreams! More terrible visions! He rolled on to his side and blinked across the makeshift camp at the huddled form of the Barghast woman. His love. His adored one. It wasn’t fair that she hated him. He reached out and drew close the strange mace with its four blue-iron heads. It looked as if it should be heavy, and perhaps to some people it was. And it had a name, its very own name. But he’d forgotten it. A dozen and four epic songs. Songs of glore and painty, turnips and lust.

  Perhaps she was just pretending to sleep. And she’d try to kill him again. The last time Draconus had stopped her, appearing as if out of nowhere to grasp her wrist, staying the dagger’s point a finger’s breadth from Ublala’s right eye. He’d then slapped the woman, hard enough to send her sprawling.

  ‘Best we kill her now, Ublala.’

  Rubbing the sleep from his face. ‘No, please, don’t do that. I love her. It’s just a spat of some sort, Draconus, and as soon as I figure out what we’re arguing about I’ll fix it, I swear.’

  ‘Ublala—’

  ‘Please! We’re just disagreeing about something.’

  ‘She means to kill and then rob us.’

  ‘She had cruel parents, and was bullied as a child, Draconus. Other girls pulled her braids and spat in her ears. It’s all a misunderstanding!’

  ‘One more chance, then. My advice is to beat her senseless, Ublala. It’s likely that’s how Barghast men treat murderous women, as necessity demands.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Draconus. But I’ll comb her hair.’

  Which was what he had been doing when she’d finally come round. Lacking a comb, he’d been using a thorny twig, which probably wasn’t ideal, especially on her fine eyebrows, but they’d since taken care of the infections and she was looking almost normal again.

  So maybe she really was asleep, and now that she had no weapons left, why, she was as harmless as a twill-mouse, except for the big rocks she kept close at hand every night.

  At least she had stopped complaining.

  Ublala twisted to see if he could find Draconus – the man never seemed to sleep at all, though he’d lie down on occasion, which is what he’d been doing when Ralata had tried knifing Ublala. Wasn’t she surprised!

  The man was standing facing north, something he had been doing a lot of, lately.

  People like him had too many thoughts, Ublala decided. So many he couldn’t even rest from himself, and that had to be a hard thing to live with. No, it was better to have hardly any thoughts at all. Like earth. Yes, that’s it all right. Dirt.

  But those tusks were scary, and that laughing was even worse!

  A new scent on the cool breath drifting in from the west. Perhaps some ancient memories were stirred by it, something that left the pack agitated. She watched the lord stretching and then padding up to the rise. He possessed such power, as did all lords – he could stand on a high place, exposed to all four winds, and feel no fear.

  The others remained in the high grasses of the slope, the young males pacing, the females in the shadow of the trees, where pups crawled and tumbled.

  Bellies were full, but the herds wending up from the plains to the south were smaller this season, and there was a harried air to their long flight from thirst and heat, as if pursued by fire or worse. Hunting the beasts had been easy – the animal they’d brought down had already been exhausted, and the taste of old terror was in its blood.

  The lord stood on the ridge. His ears sharpened and the others quickly rose – even the games of the pups ceased.

  The lord staggered. Three sticks were jutting from it now, and from the slope beyond came strange excited barks. Blood threaded down from the sticks as the lord sank down, head twisting in a vain effort to reach the shafts. Then it fell on its side and stopped moving.

  There was motion on all sides now, and more sticks whipped through foliage and grasses, sinking into flesh. The pack erupted in snarls of pain.

  The figures that rushed in moved on their hind legs. Their skins gleamed with oil and their smell was that of crushed plants over something else. They flung more sticks. There was white around their eyes and they had small mouths from which came their wild barking.

  She gasped as fire tore into her flank. Blood filled her throat, sprayed out from her nostrils and then poured from her jaws. She saw an attacker reach down and grasp a pup by its tail. He swung it and then slammed the little one against the bole of a tree.

  An old scent. They are among us aga
in. There is nowhere to hide. Now we die.

  Vision blurred, Setoc withdrew her hand from the bleached wolf’s skull they’d found in the crotch of the gnarled tree growing from the edge of the dried-up spring. The rough, tortured bark had almost devoured the bleached bone.

  The first tree they’d found in weeks. She wiped at her eyes. And this.

  It wasn’t enough to grieve. She saw that now. Not enough to wallow in the anguish of blood on the hands. It wasn’t enough to fight for mercy, to plead for a new way of walking the world. It wasn’t enough to feel guilt.

  She turned to study the camp. Faint, Precious Thimble, Sweetest Sufferance and Amby Bole, all looking for a way home. A place of comfort, all threats diminished, all dangers locked away. Where patrols kept the streets safe, where the fields ran in rows and so did trees. Or so she imagined – strange scenes that couldn’t be memory, because she had no memory beyond the plains and the wild lands. But in those cities the only animals nearby were slaves or food, and those that weren’t lived in cages, or their skins adorned the shoulders of fine ladies and bold nobles, or their bones waited in heaps for the grinders, to be fed into the planted fields.

  That was their world, the one they wanted back.

  You can have it. There is no place for me in it, is there? Very well. The sorrow within her now seemed infinite. She walked from the camp, out into the darkness. The Bonecaster had taken the children, and Torrent with them. Destinies had taken the Trell and Gruntle. Death had taken the others. But I owe you nothing. In your company, my ghost wolves stay away. They drift like distant desires. I am forgetting what it is to run free.

  I am forgetting why I am here.

  They would not miss her. They had their own haunts, after all. I do not belong with you. I think – I think … I am what you left behind. Long ago. She wondered if she too was in search of a destiny, the same as Mappo and Gruntle, but it seemed they were so much more than her, and that even the idea of a destiny for Setoc was ridiculous. But the ghost wolves – and all the other fallen beasts – they look to me. For something. I just don’t know what it is. And I need to find out.