‘When you are judgemental, all the paint in the world cannot hide the ugliness of your face. The viciousness inside pushes through and twists every feature.’
‘I – I am sorry, Hanavat. I was thinking of you—’
‘And you would take what you imagine to be my feelings and speak them back to me. You proclaim yourself the warrior at my side, the line standing firm, to give comfort to me – I understand all that, Shelemasa. Yet what I hear from you – what I see in the eyes of the others – has nothing to do with me. Have I asked for pity? Have I asked for allies in this hidden war? Is there even any war at all? You presume much.’
‘She will not speak to you—’
‘And how brave would you be in her stead? Her father-in-law has seduced her, taken her to his bed. Or she him, either way makes no difference. Do you think I do not know my own husband? He is difficult to resist in the best of times, and now in his pain and his need … well, not a woman or man here could defeat his will. But you see, you are all safe. From him. Freeing you to cast judgement upon the one woman now in his snare. Not upon my husband, however – for what might that say about me? Do not speak to me of sides in this. There are none. There are but people. People of all sorts, each doing what they can to get by.’
‘And if what they do hurts others? Hanavat, will you martyr yourself? Will you weep for Jastara, too, who hides every day in his arms?’
‘Ah, see how I have stung you? You in your cruel judgement. My husband in his need. Jastara in her weakness. They are one and all acts of selfishness. Acts of pushing away.’
‘How can you say that? I despise what they’ve done to you!’
‘And it tastes sweet, yes? Listen to me. I too am a widow, now. And a mother who has lost her children. Have I need for an embrace? A stolen moment of love? Should I feel hatred for Gall and Jastara, for finding what I cannot?’
Shelemasa’s expression was appalled. Tears streaked down through the white paint on her face. ‘Is it not your husband you should look to for that?’
‘While he still faces away from me, I cannot.’
‘Then he’s the coward!’
‘To look into my eyes,’ Hanavat said, ‘is to see all that we once shared, and have now lost. It is too much to bear, and not just for my husband. Yes,’ she added, ‘I carry his last child, and if that child is not his, well, that is for me to know, in my heart, but never to be spoken. For now, I have that much – I have what I need to hold on, Shelemasa. And now, so does Gall.’
The younger woman shook her head. ‘Then you stand alone, Mother. He has taken his son’s widow. That is unforgivable.’
‘Better, Shelemasa. Much better. You see, Jastara does not deserve your hate. Not those looks, those whispers behind her back. No, instead, to be true sisters to her, you must go to her. Comfort her. And when you have done that – when all of you have done that – then I shall go to her, and take her into my arms.’
Henar Vygulf remembered the day he acquired his first horse. His father, whose shattered hip five years earlier had ended his riding days, had limped at his side, using his cane, as they made their way out to the pasture. A new herd had been culled from the wild herds of the high mountain plateaus, and twenty-three of the magnificent beasts now moved restlessly about in the enclosure.
The sun was high, shrinking shadows underfoot, and the wind swept steady down the slopes, combing the high grasses, warm and sweet with the flavours of early autumn. Henar was nine years old.
‘Will one see me?’ he’d asked his father. ‘Will one choose me?’
The tall Bluerose horse-breeder looked down, dark brows rising. ‘It’s that new maid, isn’t it? The one with the watermelon tits and wide eyes. From the coast, yes? Filling your head with all sorts of rubbish.’
‘But—’
‘There’s not a horse in the wide world, Henar, happy to choose a rider. Not one beast eager to serve. Not one is delighted at being broken, its will beaten down. Are they any different from you, or me?’
‘But dogs—’
‘By the Black-Winged Lord, Henar, dogs are bred to be four-legged slaves. Ever seen a wolf smile? Trust me, you don’t want to. Ever. They smile right before they lunge for your throat. Never mind dogs.’ He pointed with his cane. ‘Those animals are wild. They have lived in utter freedom. So, see one you like?’
‘That piebald one, off to the left on its own.’
His father grunted. ‘A young stallion. Not yet strong enough to contest the ranks. Not bad, Henar. But I’m … well, surprised. Even from here, one animal stands out. Really stands out. You’re old enough, have been around me enough, too. I would’ve thought you’d see straight off—’
‘I did, Father.’
‘What is it, then? Do you feel you do not deserve the best out there?’
‘Not if it means breaking them.’
His father’s head had rocked back then, and he’d laughed. Loud enough to startle the herd.
Recalling that moment of his youth, the huge warrior smiled. Remember that day, Father? I bet you do. And if you could see me now. See the woman walking at my side. Why, I can almost hear that beautiful roar of your laughter.
One day, Father, I will bring her to you. This wild, free woman. We’ll step on to that long white road, walk between the trees – they must be big by now – and up through the estate gate.
I’ll see you standing by the front entrance, like a statue commanding the stone itself. New lines on your face, but that hooked grin still there, in a beard now gone grey. You’re leaning on your cane, and I can smell horses – like a flower’s heady scent on the air, and that scent will tell me that I’ve come home.
I’ll see you studying her, noting her height, her lithe confidence, the boldness in her eyes. And you’ll wonder if she’s broken me – not the other way round – you can see that. Not the other way round. But then you’ll look into my eyes, and your smile will broaden.
And you’ll tilt back that majestic head. And laugh to the heavens.
It will be the sweetest sound in the world. It will be the voice of our triumph. All of us. You, me, her.
Father, I do miss you.
Lostara’s calloused hand found his own, and he took some of her weight as she leaned one shoulder against him. ‘Bless Brys Beddict,’ she said under her breath.
Henar nodded. ‘I suspect a streak of the sentimental in my commander.’
‘Be glad of it. I am.’
‘It was … unexpected.’
‘Why? I fought for you, Henar. Not the Adjunct. You. He understood—’
‘No, not all that, beloved. All … this. Where we have found ourselves. And how we have found each other, for that matter.’
She looked up at the Strangers in the night sky. ‘So, he gives us what time there’s left to us. Less sentimental, then, more … pity. You’ve a dour streak, Henar – I think I prefer Brys’s sentimental one. Maybe I’ll get rid of you and ride back to him.’
‘You’d have to fight Aranict for him, I should think.’
‘Oh, you’re right, and I couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t. I like her far too much. Well then, seems I’m saddled with you.’
He smiled. Saddled. Hah.
‘Henar.’
‘Yes?’
‘I fear we won’t be coming back from this journey.’
He nodded, not because he agreed with her, but because he knew what she feared.
‘We’re going to die,’ she said. ‘In fact, we may not even make it across this desert.’
‘There is that risk.’
‘It’s hardly fair.’
‘I had a maid, once, at the country estate. Watermelon tits and big eyes—’
‘What?’
‘My father is terrible with names. So he came up with, er, memorable descriptions. Anyway, she used to tell me stories at night. Long, rambling tales of heroes. Loves lost, loves won. She’d make every ending sweet. To make the night’s dreams the same, you see?’
‘Just what a c
hild needs.’
‘I suppose. But those stories weren’t for me. They were for her. She was from the coast, and she’d left behind a man she loved – this was Lether, don’t forget, and her whole community was trapped in the Indebted way of life. It’s why she came to work for our family. As for the young man, well, he was sent to sea.’ He was silent for a moment, remembering, and then he said, ‘Every night, she told me how she wanted her life to turn out – though of course I didn’t realize that at the time. But the truth of it was, she wanted that happy ending. She needed to believe in it. For her, and for everyone else.’
Lostara sighed. ‘What happened to her?’
‘As far as I know, she’s still there, at the country estate.’
‘Are you trying to break my heart, Henar?’
He shook his head. ‘My father worked the system as best he could, and he was not unkind with his Indebted. About a year before I left to train with the Lancers, watermelon tits with big eyes married the son of one of our horse-trainers. My last vision of her, her belly was out to here and those tits were even bigger.’
‘She’d given up on her man from the sea, then. Well, probably wise, I suppose. Part of growing up.’
Henar eyed her, and then away, out over the rocky landscape. ‘I think about her, every now and then.’ He grinned. ‘I even used to fantasize about her, yes, in the way young men will do.’ The grin faded. ‘But mostly I see her sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands flying and her eyes getting wider, and in that bed is her own child. A boy. Who will dream sweet dreams. And when the lantern is turned down, when she’s standing by the door to his room, that’s when the tears will run down her cheeks. And she’ll remember a young man on the edge of the sea.’ Lostara’s breathing had changed, somehow, and her face was hidden from his view. ‘My love?’
Her reply was muffled. ‘It’s all right. Henar, you keep surprising me. That’s all.’
‘We’ll survive this, Lostara Yil,’ he said. ‘And one day I will lead you by the hand up to my father’s house. And we’ll see him, standing there, waiting for us. And he will laugh.’
She looked up, wiping at her cheeks. ‘Laugh?’
‘There are pleasures in the world, Lostara Yil, that go beyond words.’ I heard one of those pleasures once. And I will hear it again. I will.
‘Before I reached the lofty position of inexhaustible masturbation that is Demidrek Septarch of the Great Temple,’ Banaschar was saying, ‘I had to follow the same rituals as everyone else. And one of those rituals was to counsel commoners – who knows why they’d ever seek out a priest of the Autumn Worm, but then, the truth of it is, the real and true function of priests of all colours is simply that of listening to a litany of moans, fears and confessions, all for the betterment of someone’s soul – never could figure out whose, but no matter.’ He paused. ‘Are you actually listening, Adjunct?’
‘It appears that I have little choice,’ she replied.
The Glass Desert stretched ahead of them. A small flanking troop, scouts, he assumed, were slightly ahead and to the left – north – of the vanguard, moving on foot as was everyone else. But directly before Banaschar and the Adjunct there stretched nothing but a broken plain studded with crystals, beneath a ghoulish sky.
The ex-priest shrugged. ‘Now isn’t this an interesting turn. Blessed woman, will you hear my tales of mortal woe? Will you give counsel?’
The look she cast at him was unreadable and it occurred to him, an instant later, that it was just as well.
He cleared his throat. ‘Occasionally, one of them would complain. About me. Or, rather, about us sanctimonious shits in these ridiculous robes and whatnot. You know what they’d be so irritated about? I’ll tell you. Love. That’s what.’
A second glance, even briefer than the first one.
He nodded. ‘Precisely. They asked: “You, priest – you, with that hand beneath the vestments – what in Hood’s name do you know about love? More to the point, what do you know about romance?” You see, most people end up moaning about relationships. More than being poor, or lame or sick, more than any other topic you could imagine. Lovers, husbands, wives, strangers, sisters – endless confessions and desires and betrayals and all the rest. That’s why the question would eventually come round – being priests we’d excused ourselves from the whole mess. Hardly a strong position from which to dispense inane truisms passing as advice. Do you follow me so far, Adjunct?’
‘Have you nothing to drink, Banaschar?’
He kicked at a cluster of crystals, expecting them to break. They didn’t. Cursing in pain under his breath, he hobbled for a few strides. ‘What did I know about romance? Nothing. But, after enough years of listening to every possible iteration on the subject, ah, eventually things start getting clearer.’
‘Do they now?’
‘They do, Adjunct. Shall I expound on love and romance?’
‘I’d rather you—’
‘It’s actually a mathematical exercise,’ he said. ‘Romance is the negotiation of possibilities, towards that elusive prize called love. There, you see? I wager you expected me to go on and on, didn’t you? But I’m done. Done discussing love and romance.’
‘Your description lacks something, Banaschar.’
‘It lacks everything, Adjunct. All that confuses and clouds, that makes murky what is in fact both simple and stupidly elegant. Or elegantly stupid, depending on your attitude to the subject.’
They continued on, neither speaking, for some time. The clatter and groan of the column behind them was incessant, but apart from a lone burst of laughter a while back there was none of the ribald songs and chants, the running jests or arguments. While it was true that the Adjunct had set a stiff pace, Banaschar knew that these soldiers were hardened enough to think little of it. The quiet was unnerving.
Got a desert to cross. It’s cold and it’s not nearly as dark as it should be. And that alien glow whispers down on us. If I listen carefully enough, I can hear words. Drifting down. In all the languages of the world – but not this world, of course. Some other one, where faces lift hopefully to the heavens. ‘Are you there?’ they ask. And the sky answers not.
While here I walk. Here I look up and I ask: ‘Are you there?’ and down come the voices. ‘Yes. We are here. Just … reach.’
‘I was a sober priest back then,’ he said. ‘A serious one. I listened. I counselled.’
Eventually, she looked over, but said nothing.
Fiddler glanced to the right. Southward, forty paces distant, the head of the column. The Adjunct. Beside her the priest. Behind the two of them, a pair of Fists.
Eight Khundryl youths walked with Fiddler, ushered out from under their mother’s skirts. They’d spotted him walking alone and had drawn closer. Curious, maybe. Or wanting to be doing something that might be important. Scouting, guarding the flank.
He didn’t send them away. Too many had that lost, hopeful look in their eyes. Dead fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters. Massive absences through which winds howled. Now they hovered, flanking him as if he was the column itself.
Fiddler was silent – and they’d taken up that silence as if it would make them older – so the only sounds were the stones shifting underfoot, the scuff of moccasins, the thump of his boots. And the grind of the column.
He’d seen the map. He knew what lay ahead. Only the impossible. Without water, we will never leave this desert. Without water, all of her plans die here. And the gods will close like jackals, and then the Elder Gods will show their hand, and blood will spill.
The Crippled God will suffer terribly – all the pain and anguish he has known up to now will be nothing but prelude. They will feed on his agony and they will feed for a long, long time.
On your agony, Fallen One. You are in the Deck of Dragons. Your House is sanctified. If we fail, that decision will prove your gravest error. It will trap you here. It will make suffering your holy writ – oh, many will flock to you. No one likes to suffer in isolation, and
no one likes to suffer for no reason. You will answer both, and make of them an illness. Of body, of spirit. Even as the torturing of your soul goes on, and on.
I never said I’d like you, Fallen One. But then, you never said I had to. Not me, not the Adjunct, not any of us. You just asked us to do what’s right. We said yes. And it’s done. But bear in mind, we’re mortal, and in this war to come, we’re fragile – among all the players, we’re the most vulnerable.
Maybe that fits. Maybe it’s only right that we should be the ones to raise your standard, Fallen One. And ignorant historians will write of us, in the guise of knowledge. They will argue over our purpose – the things we sought to do. They will overturn every boulder, every barrow stone, seeking our motives. Looking for hints of ambition.
They will compose a Book of the Fallen.
And then argue over its significance. In the guise of knowledge – but truly, what will they know? Of each of us? From that distance, from that cold, cold distance – you’d have to squint. You’d have to look hard.
Because we’re thin on the ground.
So very … thin.
Children always made him feel awkward. Choices he’d put aside, futures he’d long ago surrendered. And looking at them left him feeling guilty. They were crimes of necessity, each time I turned away. Each time we all did. Whiskeyjack, remember once when we stood on the ramparts at Mock’s Hold? Laseen had just stepped out from … the shadows. There was a child, some son of some merchant. He was bold. You told him something, Whiskeyjack. Some advice. What was it? I can’t recall. I don’t even know why I’m remembering any of it.
Mothers were looking on from that column – their eyes were on their children, these young legacies, and would grip tight as talons if they could. But spaces now gape, and the children edge ever closer to them, to fill what has been lost. And the mothers tell themselves it will be enough, it must be enough.
Just as I tell you now, Fallen One, whatever we manage to do, it will have to be enough. We will bring this book to an end, one way or another.
And one more thing. Something I only realized today, when I chanced to glance across and see her, standing there, moments from signalling the beginning of this march. From the very first, we have lived the tale of the Adjunct. First it was Lorn, back in Darujhistan. And now it is Tavore Paran.