‘Well, even that’s not easy to answer, lass. It’s a path of magic. The forces that govern all existence are aspected. Which means—’
‘Aspected. In the way the Holds are aspected?’
‘The Holds.’ He shook his head. ‘Sitting in a wagon with square wheels and complimenting each other on the smooth ride. That’s the
Holds, Acquitor. They were created in a world long gone, a world where the forces were rougher, wilder, messier. The warrens, well, those are wheels without corners.’
‘You’re not helping much here, Corlo.’
He scratched at his beard. ‘Damned fleas. All right. Paths of aspected magic. Like forces and unlike forces. Right? Unlike forces repel, and like forces hold together, you see. Same as water in a river, all flowing the same way. Sure, there’s eddies, draws and such, but it all heads down eventually. I’ll talk about those eddies later. So, the warrens are those rivers, only you can’t see them. The current is invisible, and what you can see is only the effect. Watch a mob in a square, the way the minds of every person in it seem to melt into one. Riots and public executions, or battles, for that matter, they’re all hints of Mockra, they’re what you can see. But a mage who’s found a way into the warren of Mockra, well, that mage can reach deeper, down into that water. In fact, that mage can jump right in and swim with the current. Find an eddy and step back out, in a different place from where he started.’
‘So when you say “path” you mean it in a physical sense.’
‘Only if you choose to use it that way. Mockra’s not a good example; the eddies take you nowhere, mostly. Because it’s sorcery of the mind, and the mind’s a lot more limited than we’d care to think. Take Meanas – that’s another warren. It’s aspected to shadows and illusion, a child of Thyr, the warren of Light. Separate but related. Open the warren of Meanas, and you can travel through shadows. Unseen, and fast as thought itself, nearly. And illusions, well, that reveals the sisterhood to Mockra, for it is a kind of manipulation of the mind, or, at least, of perception, via the cunning reshaping of light and shadow and dark.’
‘Do the Tiste Edur employ this Meanas?’ Seren asked.
‘Uh, no. Not really. Theirs is a warren not normally accessible to humans. Kurald Emurlahn. It’s Shadow, but Shadow more as a Hold than a warren. Besides, Kurald Emurlahn is shattered. In pieces. The Tiste Edur can access but one fragment and that’s all.’
‘All right. Mockra and Meanas and Thyr. There are others?’
‘Plenty, lass. Rashan, Ruse, Tennes, Hood—’
‘Hood. You use that word when you curse, don’t you?’
‘Aye, it’s the warren of Death. It’s the name of the god himself. But that’s the other thing about warrens. They can be realms, entire worlds. Step through and you can find yourself in a land with ten moons overhead, and stars in constellations you’ve never seen before. Places with two suns. Or places filled with the spirits of the dead – although if you step through the gates in Hood’s Realm you don’t come back. Or, rather, you shouldn’t. Anyway, a mage finds a warren suited to his or her nature, a natural affinity if you like. And through enough study and discipline you find ways of reaching into it, making use of the forces within it. Some people, of course, are born with natural talent, meaning they don’t have to work as hard.’
‘So, you reach into this Mockra, and that gets you into the minds of other people.’
‘Sort of, lass. I make use of proclivities. I make the water cloudy, or fill it with frightening shadows. The victim’s body does the rest.’
‘Their body? What do you mean?’
‘Say you take two cows to slaughter. One of them you kill quick, without it even knowing what’s about to happen. The other, well, you push it down a track, in some place filled with the stench of death, with screams of other dying animals on all sides. Until, stupid as that cow is, it knows what’s coming. And is filled with terror. Then you kill it. Cut a haunch from each beast, do they taste identical?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘They don’t. Because the frightened cow’s blood was filled with bitter fluids. That’s what fear does. Bitter, noxious fluids. Makes the meat itself unhealthy to eat. My point is, you trick the mind to respond to invisible fears, unfounded beliefs, and the blood goes foul, and that foulness makes the fear worse, turns the belief into certainty.’
‘As if the slaughterhouse for the second cow was only an illusion, when in truth it was crossing pasture.’
‘Exactly.’
Seren studied the back of Iron Bars where he rode ahead, and was silent.
‘All right,’ Corlo said after a time, ‘now tell me what you’re really on about, lass.’
She hesitated, then asked, ‘Corlo, can you do anything about memories?’ She looked across at him. ‘Can you take them away?’
In front of them, Iron Bars half turned in his saddle, regarded Seren a moment, then swung back round.
‘Ah,’ Corlo said under his breath. ‘You sure you want that?’
‘Can you?’
‘I can make you blind and senseless to them, but it’ll be in your nature to fret about that strange emptiness. As if you’re always on the edge of realization, but never able to reach it. It could drive you to distraction, Acquitor. Besides, the body remembers. You’ll react to things you see, smell, taste, and you won’t know why. It’ll gnaw away at you. Your whole personality will change.’
‘You’ve done it before, haven’t you?’
He nodded. Then hesitantly ventured, ‘There’s another option, lass.’
‘What?’
‘It’s not the memories that are hurting, Acquitor. It’s how you feel about them. It’s the you, now, warring with the you, then. Can’t explain it any better—’
‘No, I understand you.’
‘Well, I can make you feel, uh, differently about it.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘End the war, lass.’
‘What would I feel, Corlo?’
‘I could make you cry it out. All out, Seren.’ He met her eyes. ‘And when that was done, you’d feel better. Not much better, but some. You release it all, but only once, I promise. There’s a risk with crying it all out, mind you. Could be as traumatic as the rape itself. But you won’t fall into the trap of cycling through it over and over again. Release gets addictive, you see. It becomes a fixed behaviour, as destructive as any other. Keep repeating the exercise of grief and it loses meaning, it becomes rote, false, a game of self-delusion, self-indulgence. A way of never getting over anything, ever.’
‘This sounds complicated, Corlo.’
‘It is. You stop the war all in one shot, and afterwards the memory leaves you feeling… nothing. A little remorse, maybe. The same as you feel for all the mistakes you left behind you during your whole life. Regrets, but no self-recrimination, because that’s your real enemy. Isn’t it? A part of you feeling like you somehow deserved it.’
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
‘Making you want to punish yourself.’
Another nod.
Corlo raised his voice. ‘Avowed, we might—’
‘Aye,’ he said, lifting a gauntleted hand.
The troop halted.
Corlo’s hands were there, helping her down from the horse. She glared at him. ‘You’ve started, haven’t you?’
‘No, lass. You did. Remember what I said about natural talent? You’ve got it by the bucketful.’
‘I never cry,’ she said as he led her off the trail into the adjacent forest.
‘Of course not,’ he replied. ‘You’ve got the warren right there in your head, and you’ve spent most of your life manipulating it like a High Mage. Anything to keep going, right?’
She pulled up, looked behind them.
Iron Bars was just visible at the trail’s edge, watching.
Don’t mind him, he’s just worried, lass. He won’t be there when you—’
‘No,’ she said. ‘He comes with us.’
‘Acquitor?’
‘If I start beating on your chest, Corlo, I’m liable to break a rib or two. He’s tougher.’
The mage’s eyes widened, then he smiled. ‘Avowed! Stop hovering, if you please.’
****
Warrens. It occurred to Seren Pedac, much later, that they were a thing not easily defined, yet simply understood. Forces of nature, proclivities and patterns. Corlo’s explanations had worked to illuminate for her those mostly hidden forces, somewhat, but in the end it was the knowledge already within her that offered revelation.
In a simplistic world, four elements are commonly identified, and things are left at that. As if the universe could be confined to four observable, apposite manifestations. But Corlo had mentioned others, and once that notion was accepted, then it was as if the world opened out, as if new colours rose sudden and startling in their terrible beauty.
Time was such an element, she now believed. The stretch of existence between events, consisting of countless other events, all strung together in complex patterns of cause and effect, all laid out like images sewn onto a tapestry, creating a sequence of scenes that, once one stood back, was revealed to be co-existing. Present all at once.
She had been repeating scenes. A grim realization. Repeating scenes for most of her life. She had imposed her own pattern, bereft of nuance, and had viewed her despair as a legitimate response, perhaps the only legitimate response. A conceit of being intelligent, almost preter-naturally aware of the multitude of perspectives that was possible in all things. And that had been the trap, all along, the sorcerous incantation called grief, her invitation to the demons of self-recrimination, reappearing again and again on that tapestry – different scenes, the same leering faces.
Unravelling the ritual had proved frighteningly easy, like pulling a single thread. If it had been Corlo’s work, then he had been subtle beyond belief, for it had seemed that the effort was entirely her own. He had sat across from her, there in the glade they’d found thirty paces from the trail, his expression both relaxed and watchful, and, oddly enough, she had felt no shame weeping in front of him.
Iron Bars had begun by pacing restlessly, but his motion stilled when her first tears arrived, and eventually she found herself in the half-embrace of one of his arms, her face pressed against his neck.
It might have been sordid, under other circumstances. The critical part of herself could well have sneered at the contrivance, as if the only genuine gestures were the small ones, the ones devoid of an audience. As if true honesty belonged to solitude, since to be witnessed was to perform, and performance was inherently false since it invited expectation.
In the exhausted aftermath of a surprisingly short period of release, when it seemed in truth that she was empty inside, hollowed-out calm, she could explore what was left, without the fetters of emotion. She had chosen to have faith in Buruk the Pale, believed – because it was easy – that he would not give up on life. She never did, after all. She had refused the evidence of his sudden ease, the strange freedom in his words to her during those last few days. When he’d already made up his mind. He’d seen the war coming, after all, and wanted to excise his own role in its making. Cut himself from this particular tapestry. But there had been sorcery in her own self-deceit, the path to grief and guilt, and there had been a comforting familiarity to the ritual.
From her failure sprang the requirement to be punished.
She had not invited the rape. No sane person would do that. But she had woven the scene and all its potential horror.
Not all things about oneself were likeable.
So she had wept for her flaws, for her weaknesses and for her humanity. Before two witnesses who no doubt had their own stories, their own reasons to grieve.
But now it was done. There was no value in repeating this particular ritual. Exhaustion gave way to sleep, and when she awoke it was dawn. The squad had camped in the glade, and all were still asleep with the exception of Iron Bars, who was sitting before a small hearth, intent on stirring the flames to life once more.
A blanket had been thrown over her. The morning air was cool and damp. Seren sat up, drawing the wool about her shoulders, then rose and joined the Avowed at the smouldering fire.
He did not glance up. ‘Acquitor. You are rested?’
‘Yes, thank you. I don’t know if I should apologize—’
‘For what? I’ve been hearing horses, south of here.’
‘That would be Brous. There’s a garrison there, a small one.’
‘Brous is a city?’
‘A village, set in the midst of stone ruins. It was once a holy site for the Tarthenal, although they didn’t build it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The scale is all wrong for Tarthenal.’
‘Too small?’
‘No, too big.’
He looked up, squinted, then rose. ‘Time to prepare a meal, I think.’
‘You’re a strange officer, Iron Bars,’ Seren said, smiling. ‘Cooking every breakfast for your soldiers.’
‘I always wake up first,’ he replied, dragging close a food pack.
She watched him working, wondering how often he had done this. How many glades like this one, how many mornings the first to rise among snoring soldiers. So far from anything resembling home. In a way, she understood him in that regard. There were two manifestations in the Empty Hold that spoke to that nature. Walker and Wanderer, the distinction between them a subtle one of motivation.
The Avowed, she realized, was an easy man to watch.
Coughing, the mage Corlo clawed free of his blanket and stumbled over. ‘Where’s that tea?’
‘Almost ready,’ Iron Bars replied.
‘Got a headache,’ Corlo said. ‘Something’s up.’
‘Heard horses earlier,’ the Avowed said. ‘Screaming.’
‘That’s brewed enough for me.’
The Avowed dipped a ladle into the pot, filled the tin cup Corlo held out.
Seren saw the mage’s hand trembling.
‘May need the diadem today, sir.’
‘Uh, rather not. Let’s try to avoid that if we can.’
‘Aye.’
‘The diadem?’ Seren asked. ‘The one you used to open that path in Trate?’
Corlo shot her a sharp look, then nodded. ‘But not for that. There’s other rituals woven into it. Forty of ’em, in fact. The one we might have to use speeds us up, makes us faster than normal. But we go that way as rarely as we can, since it leaves us with the shakes – and those shakes get worse the more we use it.’
‘Is that why you’re trembling now?’
He glanced down at his hand after taking a sip of the herbal brew. ‘No. That’s something else.’
‘Whatever’s happening right now at Brous.’
‘I guess.’
‘Wake up the others, Corlo,’ Iron Bars said. ‘Acquitor, should we be avoiding Brous?’
‘Hard to do. There’s a ridge of hills to the east of here. No tracks to speak of across them. We’d lose a day, maybe two, if we went that way.’
‘All right.’
‘I’ll see to the horses,’ Seren said after a moment.
The Avowed nodded. ‘Then come back and eat.’
‘Aye, sir.’
She was pleased at the answering smile, slight though it was.
****
They were among the ruins well before the village came into view. Most were half buried, rising in humps from the forest floor. Ancient roots gripped the stone, but had clearly failed in forcing cracks into the strange rock. Causeways that had once been raised now formed a crazed web of roads through the forest, littered in dead leaves but otherwise defying intrusion. Reaching the edge of the wood, they could see a scattering of domed buildings in the clearing ahead, and beyond it the palisade wall of Brous, over which woodsmoke hung in a sullen wreath of grey.
The ancient domed buildings possessed formal entrances, a projecting, arched corridor with doorw
ays as wide as they were tall – three times the height of a man.
‘Hood’s breath,’ Corlo hissed, ‘these dwarf even K’Chain Che’Malle tombs.’
‘Can’t say I’ve ever seen those—’ Seren began.
But the mage interrupted. ‘Then I’m surprised, since there are plenty of remnants in these lands. They were something between lizards and dragons, walking on two legs. Lots of sharp teeth – Trate’s markets had the occasional stall selling the old teeth and bones. K’Chain Che’Malle, lass, ruled this entire continent, once. Long before humans arrived. Anyway, their tombs look something like these ones, only smaller.’
‘Oh. It’s been assumed that those were Tarthenal. Nothing was ever found inside them.’
‘The K’Chain Che’Malle never got the chance to use them, that’s why. Most of them, anyway.’
They fell silent as they rode past the first structure, and saw, on the near side of the village, a hundred or more soldiers and workers gathered. It appeared they were excavating into a small, longish hill. A barrow. Capstones had been dragged from the top of the barrow by teams of horses, and crowds of diggers were attacking the sides.
‘Don’t want to be a part of that, sir,’ Corlo said.
They reined in.
‘What’s in there?’ Iron Bars asked.
‘Nothing that has anything to do with these ruins, I don’t think.’
‘Picking up the dock-rat version of our language doesn’t serve you well, you know,’ Seren said.
‘Fine,’ Corlo rasped. ‘What I meant was, the low barrows belong to something else. And the interment was messy. Lots of wards. There’s a mage in that company, Avowed, who’s been busy dismantling them.’
‘All of them?’
‘Almost. Left a couple in place. I think he means to bind whatever’s in there.’
‘We’ve been noticed,’ Seren said.
A troop of mounted soldiers was riding towards them, an officer in the lead.
‘Recognize him?’ the Avowed asked her.
‘Finadd Arlidas Tullid,’ she replied. ‘He commands the Brous garrison.’
Iron Bars glanced at her. ‘And?’
‘He’s not a nice man.’
The Finadd’s troop comprised sixteen riders. They reined in, and Arlidas nodded at Seren. ‘Acquitor. Thought I recognized you. You come from where?’