The Crippled God

  He stared instead southward, to the old caravan camps marked only by low stone foundations and pens for sheep and goats. Never again would the desert traders travel to this place; never again would merchants from distant cities come seeking the famous Redworm Silks of Shikimesh.

  ‘I thought, friend,’ Mappo said, and then he shook his head. ‘Only yesterday you spoke of journeying. Northeast, you said, to the coast.’

  Icarium looked up, frowned. ‘I did?’

  ‘Seeking the Tanno, the Spiritwalkers. They are said to have collected ancient records from as far back as the First Empire.’

  ‘Yes.’ Icarium nodded. ‘I have heard that said, too. Think of all that secret knowledge! Tell me, do you think the priests will permit me entry to their libraries? There is so much I need to learn – why would they stop me? Do you think they will be kind, friend? Kind to me?’

  Mappo studied the shards on the road. ‘The Tanno are said to be very wise, Icarium. I do not imagine they would bar their doors to you.’

  ‘Good. That’s good.’

  The Trell scratched at the bristle on his jaw. ‘So, it shall be Icarium and Mappo, walking across the wastes, all the way to the coast, there to take ship to the island, to the home of the Spiritwalkers.’

  ‘Icarium and Mappo,’ the Jhag repeated, and then he smiled. ‘Mappo, my friend, this seems a most promising day, does it not?’

  ‘I shall draw water from the caravan wells, and then we can be on our way.’

  ‘Water,’ said Icarium. ‘Yes, so I can wash this mud off – I seem to have bathed in it.’

  ‘You slid down a bank yesterday evening.’

  ‘Just so, Mappo. Clumsy of me.’ He slowly straightened, cupped in his hands a score of fragments. ‘See the beautiful blue glaze? Like the sky itself – they must have been beautiful, these vessels. It is such a loss, when precious things break, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Icarium, a terrible loss.’

  ‘Mappo?’ He lifted eyes sharp with anguish. ‘In the city, I think, something happened. Thousands have died – thousands lie dead in that city – it’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Icarium, a most tragic end.’

  ‘What awful curse was visited upon it, do you think?’

  Mappo shook his head.

  Icarium studied the shards in his hands. ‘If I could put it all back together, I would. You know that, don’t you? You understand that – please, say that you understand.’

  ‘I do, friend.’

  ‘To take what’s broken. To mend it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mappo whispered.

  ‘Must everything break in the end?’

  ‘No, Icarium, not everything.’

  ‘Not everything? What will not break in the end? Tell me, Mappo.’

  ‘Why,’ and the Trell forced a smile, ‘you need not look far. Are we not friends, Icarium? Have we not always been friends?’

  A sudden light in the Jhag’s grey eyes. ‘Shall I help you with the water?’

  ‘I would like that.’

  Icarium stared at the shards in his hands and hesitated.

  Mappo dragged his satchel over. ‘In here, if you like. We can try to put them together later.’

  ‘But there’s more on the road, all about – I would need—’

  ‘Leave the water to me, then, Icarium. Fill the satchel, if you like, as many as you can gather.’

  ‘But the weight – no, I think it would prove too heavy a burden, friend, this obsession of mine.’

  ‘Don’t worry on that account, friend. Go on. I will be back shortly.’

  ‘You are certain?’

  ‘Go on.’

  With a smile, Icarium knelt once again. His gaze caught on his sword, lying on the verge a few paces to his right, and Mappo saw him frown.

  ‘I cleaned the mud from it last night,’ Mappo said.

  ‘Ah. That was kind of you, friend.’

  Shikimesh and the Redworm Silks. An age ago, a thousand lies ago, and the biggest lie of all. A friendship that could never break. He sat in the gloom, encircled by a ring of stones he had rolled together – an old Trell ritual – with the gap opening to the east, to where the sun would rise. In his hands a dozen or so dusty, pale blue potsherds.

  We never got round to putting them back together. He’d forgotten by the afternoon, and I made no effort to remind him – and was that not my task? To feed him only those memories I judged useful, to starve all the others until they vanished.

  Kneeling that day, he had been like a child, with all his games in waiting before him – waiting for someone like me to come along. Before that, he was content with the company of his own toys and nothing more. Is that not a precious gift? Is that not the wonder of a child? The way they have of building their own worlds, of living in them, and finding joy in the living itself?

  Who would break that? Who would crush and destroy such a wondrous thing?

  Will I find you kneeling in the dust, Icarium? Will I find you puzzling over the wreckage surrounding you? Will we speak of holy libraries and secret histories?

  Shall we sit and build us a pot?

  With gentle care, Mappo returned the shards to his satchel. He lay down, set his back to the gap in the ring of stones, and tried to sleep.

  Faint scanned the area. ‘They split here,’ she announced. ‘One army went due east, but it’s the narrower trail.’ She pointed southeast. ‘Two, maybe three forces – big ones – went that way. So, we have us a choice to make.’ She faced her companions, gaze settling on Precious Thimble.

  The young woman seemed to have aged decades since Jula’s death. She stood in obvious pain, the soles of her feet probably blistered, cracked and weeping. Just like mine. ‘Well? You said there was power … out here, somewhere. Tell us, which army do we follow?’

  Precious Thimble hugged herself. ‘If they’re armies, there must be a war.’

  Faint said, ‘Well, there was a battle, yes. We found what was left. But maybe that battle was the only one. Maybe the war’s over and everyone’s going home.’

  ‘I meant, why do we have to follow any of them?’

  ‘Because we’re starving and dying of thirst—’

  The young woman’s eyes flashed. ‘I’m doing the best I can!’

  Faint said, ‘I know, but it’s not enough, Precious. If we don’t catch up with somebody, we’re all going to die.’

  ‘East, then – no, wait.’ She hesitated.

  ‘Out with it,’ growled Faint.

  ‘There’s something terrible that way. I – I don’t want to get close. I reach out, and then I flee – I don’t know why. I don’t know anything!’

  Amby was staring at her as if studying a strange piece of wood, or a broken idol. He seemed moments from spitting at its feet.

  Faint ran her hands through her greasy hair – it was getting long but she welcomed that. Anything to fend off the infernal heat. Her chest ached and the pain was a constant companion now. She dreamed of getting drunk. Falling insensate in some alley, or some squalid room in an inn. Disappearing from herself, for one night, just one night. And let me wake up to a new body, a new world. With Sweetest Sufferance alive and sitting beside me. With no warring gods and swords through foreheads. ‘What about to the southeast, Sorceress? Any bad feelings in that direction?’

  Precious Thimble shook her head, and then shrugged.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Faint hissed in exasperation. ‘Is it as nasty as what’s east of us, or isn’t it?’

  ‘No – but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘It tastes of blood! There! How’s that, then? It all tastes of blood!’

  ‘Are they spilling it or drinking it?’

  Precious Thimble stared at Faint as if she’d gone mad. Gods, maybe I have, asking a question like that. ‘Which way will kill us quickest?’

  A deep, shuddering breath. ‘East. That army – they’re all going to die.’

  ‘Of what?’ Faint demanded.

  ‘I don’t
know – thirst, maybe. Yes, thirst.’ Her eyes widened. ‘There’s no water, no water at all – I see ground, glittering ground, blinding, sharp as daggers. And bones – endless fields of bones. I see men and women driven mad by the heat. I see children – oh gods – they come walking up like nightmares, like proof of all the crimes we have ever committed.’ Abruptly, horrifyingly, she howled, her hands to her face, and then staggered back and would have fallen if not for Amby, who stepped close to take her weight. She twisted round and buried herself in his embrace. Over her head, he stared at Faint, and gave her a jarring smile.

  Madness? Too late, Precious Thimble – and thank the gods you can’t see what we’re seeing. Shivering, Faint turned to the southeast. ‘That way, then.’ Children. Don’t remind me. Some crimes cut close to the bone, too close. No, don’t remind me.

  In her mind she saw Sweetest Sufferance, a face splitting into a smile. ‘Finally,’ she muttered, ‘a decision. Get on with it, Faint.’

  Faint nodded for Amby to follow with the sorceress, and then she set out with her hobbling, wincing gait. If they’ve gone too far, we won’t make it. If we get much worse … blood. We’ll either spill it or drink it.

  She wondered at the armies ahead. Who in Hood’s name were they, and why go this deep into the Wastelands just to fight a stupid battle? And why then split up? And you poor fools marching east. Just a glimpse of where you’re headed tears at her sanity. I pray you turn back before you leave too many lying lifeless on the ground.

  Wherever you’re going, it can’t be worth it. Nothing in this world is worth it, and you’d be hard pressed to convince me otherwise.

  She heard a grunt and glanced back.

  Amby was carrying Precious Thimble in his arms, the smile on his face stretched into a rictus travesty of satisfaction, as if in finding his heart’s desire he was forcing himself to take its fullest pleasure. Precious Thimble’s head lolled against his upper arm, her eyes closed, her mouth half open.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  Amby said, ‘Fainted … Faint.’

  ‘Oh, sod off, you lump of lard.’

  Ten thousand furred backs, black, silver and grey, the bodies lean and long. Like iron swords, ten thousand iron swords. They seethed before Setoc’s eyes, they blurred like the honed edges of waves on an angry sea. She was carried along, driven to rearing cliffs, to up-thrust fangs of rotted rock.

  The wind roared in her ears, roared in and through her, trembling like thunder through every bone of her being. She felt the beasts crashing ashore, felt their fury assailing insensate stone and all the brutal laws that held it in place. They bared teeth at the sky, they bit and chewed shafts of sunlight as if speared through. They howled against the coming of night and in the hunt they stalked their own senseless savagery.

  We are what we are, and facing this enemy what we are is helpless.

  Who will fight for us? Who will peel lips back to reveal swords of sharp iron?

  The cliffs ahead reverberated to the onslaught – she drew ever closer. Wolves of Winter, do you see me? Blessed Lord, Proud Lady, is this your summons? Does there await a cave in that ravaged wall? And inside, a Hold of Thrones?

  There is a smell to the wild, a smell that makes the hairs stand on end, that rushes like ice through human veins. There are trails crossing the path, secret passages beneath the canopy. Mice dance on the beaten floor in the instant before we arrive, and we are blind to it all.

  And all the spaces carved out by our fires and our weapons and our axes and our ploughs, we must then fill with that sweating, bitter flood that is pride. In the wastelands of our making we will ourselves to stand as would one exalted and triumphant.

  Thrones of the Wild, thrones of bones and hides and lifeless eyes. Tall as mountains, these Beast Thrones.

  Who assails us? Who hunts us? Who slays us?

  Everyone.

  She raced for the jagged rocks. Annihilation, if it came, would arrive as a blessing. The heat of the beasts carrying her was sweet as a loving kiss, a safe embrace, a promise of salvation. I am the Destriant of the Wolves. I hold in my chest the souls of the all the slain beasts, of this and every other world.

  But I cannot hold them for ever.

  I need a sword. I need absolution.

  Absolution, yes, and a sword. Ten thousand iron swords. In the name of the Wolves of Winter, in the name of the Wild.

  Sister Equity walked across lifeless sand, far to the south of the Spire, far away from the eyes of everyone. She had once dreamed of peace. She had lived in a world where questions were rare, and there had been comfort in that. If there was a cause worthy enough to which she could devote her life, it was to journey from birth to death without confrontation. Nothing to stir her unease, nothing to deliver pain or to receive it. Although the Forkrul Assail had long ago lost their god, had long ago suffered the terrible grief of that god’s violent end – the murder for which no penance was possible – she had come to harbour in her own soul a childish hope that a new god could be made. Assembled like the setting of bones, the moulded clay of muscles, the smooth caress of a face given form, given life by her own loving hands. And this god she would call Harmony.

  In the world of this god life would not demand a death. There would be no need to kill in order to eat. There would be no cruel fate or random tragedy to take one before her time, and the forests and plains would seethe with animals, the skies with birds, the seas, lakes and rivers with fish.

  The wishes of a child were fragile things, and she now knew that none ever survived the hard, jostling indifference that came with the bitter imperatives of adulthood: the stone-eyed rush to find elusive proofs of worth, or to reach at last the swollen satiation that was satisfaction. Virtues changed; the clays found new forms and hardened to stone, and adults took weapons in hand and killed each other over them. And in that new world she had found herself growing into there was no place – no place at all – for peace.

  She recalled walking from the ship into the city, into the midst of these clamouring humans with the frightened eyes. On all sides, she could see how they dwelt in war, each one an exhausted soldier battling demons real and imagined. They fought for status, they fought for dignity, and they fought to wrest both away from their neighbours, their mates, their kin. In fact, the very necessity that held families together, and neighbourhoods, provinces and kingdoms, was fraught with desperation and fear, barricaded against the unknown, the strange and the threatening.

  The Forkrul Assail had been right in shattering it all. There would be peace, but in the making of peace there must be judgement, and retribution. The people of Kolanse and the kingdoms to the south must all be returned to their childlike state, and then built anew. They could not, would not, do it for themselves – too many things got in the way, after all. They always did.

  It was unfortunate that to achieve a sustainable balance many thousands had to die, but when the alternative was the death of everyone, who could argue against the choice made? Populations had been dismantled, selectively culled. Entire regions laid waste, not a single human left, to free the land to heal. Those who were permitted to live were forced into a new way of living, under the implacable guidance of the Forkrul Assail.

  If this had been the extent of the redress, Equity would have been content. Things could be made viable, a balance could be achieved, and perhaps even a new god would arise, born of sober faith in reality and its very real limitations, born of honest humility and the desire for peace. A faith to spread across the world, adjudicated by the Pures and then the Watered.

  If not for the Heart, if not for that fist of torment dredged up from the depths of the bay. All that power, so raw, so alien, so perfect in its denial. Our god was slain, but we had already found a path to vengeance – the Nah’ruk, who had broken their chains and now thirsted for the blood of their masters. So much was already within our reach.

  But for the Heart, so firing Reverence, Serenity and the other elders, so poisoning their sou
ls. No balance could be perfect – we all knew that – but now a new solution burned bright, so bright it blinded them to all else. The Gate, wrested away from the K’Chain Che’Malle, cleansed of that foul, ancient curse. Akhrast Korvalain, returned once more to the Forkrul Assail, and from that gate – from the power of the Heart – we could resurrect our god.

  We could be made children once again.

  Sacrifices? Oh yes, but everything of worth demanded that. Balance? Why, we shall do away with the one force eternally intent on destroying that balance – humanity.

  Our answer is annihilation. Our cull shall be absolute. Our cull shall be the excision of an entire species.

  ‘Raise up the Heart! Hold it high so that its dread beat is heard by all! Against the depredations of humanity, think you not that we shall find allies?’

  Allies. Yes, Reverence, we have found allies.

  And I tell myself that I see peace in the future – the peace of my childhood, the peace of harmony, the peace of a silent world. All we need to reach it, is a little blood. A little blood.

  But, Sister Reverence, then I look into your ancient eyes, and I see how the hunger of our allies has infected you. The Tiste Liosan, the Eleint, the Lord and Lady of the Beast Hold – but all they desire is chaos, anarchy, destruction, the end of the Age of Gods and the Age of Humans. Like you, they thirst for blood, but not a little blood. No. Oceans, oceans of blood.

  Sister Reverence, we shall defy you when the time comes. Calm has found a weapon, a weapon to end your insane ambitions.

  Her footfalls were a whisper in the sand, but in her mind the ground trembled beneath her tread. The sun’s heat was fierce on her white face, but the fire of her thoughts was hotter still. And the voices from the beach, not far ahead now, should fall in futility before her hard intransigence, yet in them she found … hope.