Dust of Dreams

  Errastas reached up to probe his eye socket, and he managed a faint smile. ‘Well answered, Kilmandaros.’ He turned to Sechul Lath. ‘Arm yourself, friend. The Holds have grown feral.’

  ‘Which one will you seek first?’

  ‘The one under a Jaghut stone, of course.’

  She watched as blurry darkness swallowed them. With the Errant’s departure, the ephemeral fragility of the ancient shrine slowly dissolved, revealing the stolid ruins of its abandonment. A slew of toppled, shattered stones, pecked facings hacked and chipped—the images obliterated. She walked closer to the altar stone. It had been deliberately chiselled, cut in two. Harsh breaths and sweat-slick muscles, a serious determination to despoil this place.

  She knew all about desecration. It was her hobby, after all, an obsessive lure that tugged her again and again, with all the senseless power of a lodestone.

  A few thousand years ago, people had gathered to build their shrine. Someone had achieved the glorious rank of tyrant, able to threaten life and soul, and so was able to compel hundreds to his or her bidding. To quarry enormous stones, drag them to this place, tilt them upright like so many damned penises. And who among those followers truly believed that tyrant’s calling? Voice of the gods in the sky, the groaning bitches in the earth, the horses of the heavens racing the seasons, the mythologies of identity—all those conceits, all those delusions. People of ancient times were no more fools than those of the present, and ignorance was never a comfortable state of being.

  So they had built this temple, work-gangs of clear-eyed cynics sacrificing their labour to the glory of the gods but it wasn’t gods basking in that glory—it was the damned tyrant, who needed to show off his power to coerce, who sought to symbolize his power for all eternity.

  Kilmandaros could comprehend the collective rage that had destroyed this place. Every tyrant reaches the same cliff-edge, aged into infirmity, or eyeing the strutting of heirs and recognizing the hungry looks in their regard. That edge was death, and with it all glory fell to dust. Even stone cannot withstand the fury of mortals when fuelled by abnegation.

  Nature was indifferent to temples, to sacred sites. It did not withhold its gnawing winds and dissolute rains. It devoured such places with the same remorseless will that annihilated palaces and city walls, squalid huts and vast aqueducts. But carve a face into stone and someone is bound to destroy it long before nature works its measured erosion.

  She understood that compulsion, the bitter necessity of refuting monumental achievements, whether they be dressed in stone or in the raiment of poetry. Power possessed a thousand faces and one would be hard pressed to find a beautiful one among them. No, they were ugly one and all, and if they managed to create something wondrous, then the memory of its maker must be made to suffer all the more for it.

  ‘For every soul sweeping away the dust,’ said a voice behind her, ‘there are a thousand scattering it by the handful.’

  Kilmandaros did not turn round, but bared her teeth nonetheless. ‘I was growing impatient.’

  ‘It’s not rained here for some time. Only the roots of the stones still hold moisture. I have followed your journey in the morning mists, in the damp breaths of the beasts.’ After a moment, Mael moved up to stand beside her, his eyes settling on the desecrated altar stone. ‘Not your handiwork, I see. Feeling cheated?’

  ‘I despise conceit,’ she said.

  ‘And so every mortal creation is to be crushed by your fists. Yes, the presumption of all those fools.’

  ‘Do you know where they have gone, Mael?’

  He sighed. ‘The Holds are not as they once were. Have you considered, they may not return?’

  ‘Errastas is their Master—’

  ‘Was, actually. The Holds have not had a master for tens of thousands of years, Kilmandaros. Do you know, you forced the Errant’s retreat from the Holds. He feared you were coming for him, to destroy him and his precious creations.’

  ‘He was right. I was.’

  ‘See how things have turned out. His summoning compelled none of us—you must realize that.’

  ‘That is no matter—’

  ‘Because deceiving him continues to serve your purposes. And now Knuckles walks at his side. Or, more accurately, a step behind. When will the knife strike?’

  ‘My son understands the art of subtlety.’

  ‘It’s not an art, Kilmandaros, it’s just one among many tactics to get what you want. The best subtlety is when no one even notices what you’ve done, ever. Can Sechul Lath achieve that?’

  ‘Can you?’ she retorted.

  Mael smiled. ‘I know of only a few capable of such a thing. One is mortal and my closest friend. The other wasn’t mortal, but is now dead. And then, of course, there is Draconus.’

  She fixed a glare upon him. ‘Him? You must be mad!’

  Mael shrugged. ‘Try this for a consideration. Draconus needed to get something done. And, it now seems, he achieved it. Without lifting a hand. Without anyone even noticing his involvement. Only one man ever defeated him. Only one man could possess Dragnipur but never kneel before it. Only one man could oversee the weapon’s destruction—no matter the cost. Only one man could force an end to Mother Dark’s denial. And only one man could stand in the face of chaos and not blink.’

  Breath gusted from her in a growl. ‘And now that man is dead.’

  ‘And Draconus walks free. Draconus has broken Kallor’s curse on him. He holds Darkness in a blade of annihilation. No longer chained, no longer on the run, no longer haunted by the terrible error in judgement that was Dragnipur.’

  ‘All this by his hand? I do not believe it, Mael.’

  ‘But that is precisely my point, Kilmandaros. About true subtlety. Will we ever know if what I have just described was all by the Consort’s hand? No.’

  ‘Unless he admits it.’

  ‘But who wouldn’t?’

  ‘I hate your words, Mael. They gnaw like the waves you love so much.’

  ‘We are all vulnerable, Kilmandaros. Don’t think Draconus is about to build a little farm in some mountain valley and spend the rest of his days whittling whistles while birds nest in his hair. He knows we’re here. He knows we’re up to something. Either he’s already figured it out, in which case he will come to find us, or he is even now setting out to pull loose all our secret ambitions.’

  ‘Who killed Anomander Rake?’

  ‘Dessembrae, wielding a sword forged by Rake’s own hand.’

  She was rocked by that. Her mind raced. ‘Vengeance?’

  ‘None other.’

  ‘That weapon always terrified me,’ she said. ‘I could never understand why he set it aside.’

  ‘Really? The hand that holds it must be pure in its desire. Kilmandaros, Rake yielded it to his brother because his heart was already broken, while Andarist . . . well, we know that tale.’

  As the significance of Mael’s words struck home, Kilmandaros found she was trembling. ‘Andarist,’ she whispered. ‘That . . . that . . .’ but she had no words to describe her feeling. Instead, her hands rose to her face again. ‘He is gone,’ she said, voice catching in a sob. ‘Anomander Rake is gone!’

  Mael spoke, his tone suddenly harsh. ‘Leave Dessembrae alone. He was as much a victim as anyone else involved. Worse, he has been cheated, and used, and now his suffering is immeasurable.’

  She shook her head, the muscles of her jaws creaking. ‘I was not thinking of Dessembrae.’

  ‘Kilmandaros, listen well. My thoughts on Draconus—my musings on his possible culpability—they are unproven. Speculations, nothing more. If you seek a confrontation with Draconus—if you seek vengeance—you will die. And it may well be for naught, for perhaps Draconus is innocent of all charges.’

  ‘You do not believe that.’

  ‘I was but reminding you of the danger he presents to us. How long was he trapped within Dragnipur? What did that do to him? To his mind? Is he even sane any more? One other thing, and think on this carefully,
Kilmandaros. Would Rake have willingly freed a mad Draconus? Has he ever shown a thoughtless side to his decisions? Ever?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘He had a purpose.’

  Mael’s smile was wry. ‘Even though he is dead, we find ourselves holding to faith in him. Extraordinary, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mother Dark—’

  ‘No longer faces away, and as with Darkness, so too it is with—’

  ‘Light. Gods below, Mael. What has he forced upon us?’

  ‘A final accounting, I’d wager. An end to the stupid games. He might as well have locked us all in one room—and no one leaves until we settle things once and for all.’

  ‘Bastard!’

  ‘Your grief was rather shortlived, Kilmandaros.’

  ‘Because what you say rings true—yes! Rake would think that way, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Else he could not permit his own death—his removal from the stage. More than just ending Mother Dark’s obstreperous pique, he now forces our hands—we are all stirred awake, Elders and children both, mortal and immortal.’

  ‘To what end?’ she demanded. ‘More blood? A damned ocean’s worth?’

  ‘Not if there’s a way around it,’ Mael replied. ‘To what end, you ask. This, I think: he wants us to deal with the Crippled God.’

  ‘That pathetic creature? You cannot be serious, Mael.’

  ‘The wound ever festers, the poison spreads. That alien god’s power is anathema. We need to fix it—before we seek anything else. Before we lose K’rul’s gift for ever.’

  ‘Errastas had other ideas.’

  ‘So do you and Setch. So does Olar Ethil. And Ardata.’

  ‘And Draconus too, I would think.’

  ‘We cannot know if Anomander Rake and Draconus spoke—was a bargain reached between them within Dragnipur? “I will free you, Draconus, if . . .”’

  ‘They could not have spoken,’ said Kilmandaros. ‘For Rake was killed by Vengeance. You said so yourself.’

  Mael walked over to sit down on one of the blocks of the altar stone. ‘Ah, well. There is more to say on that. Among other things. Tell me, Kilmandaros, what Hold did Errastas choose?’

  She blinked. ‘Why, the obvious one. Death.’

  ‘Then I will begin with this curious detail—for I wish to know your thoughts on the, uh, implications.’ He looked up and something glinted in his eyes. ‘Before Rake met Dessembrae, he met Hood. Met him, and killed him. With Dragnipur.’

  She stared.

  Mael continued: ‘Two gods were in attendance, that I know of.’

  ‘Who?’ the word came out in a dry rasp.

  ‘Shadowthrone and Cotillion.’

  Oh, how she wished for a tall, imposing standing stone—within her reach—a proud pinnacle of conceit—just there, at the very end of her fist as it swung out its path of ferocious destruction.

  ‘Them!’

  Mael watched her flail and stamp about, watched as she descended on one toppled menhir after another, pounding each one into rubble. He scratched at the bristles on his chin.

  Oh, you are indeed clever, Kilmandaros. It all falls home, doesn’t it?

  It all falls home.

  He’d wanted her to consider the implications. So much for being subtle.

  Suffering could be borne. When the blood was pure, purged of injustices. Brayderal was not like the others, not the same as Rutt, or pernicious Badalle with Saddic ever at her side. She alone possessed the legacy of the Inquisitors, shining bright beneath her almost translucent skin. And among all the others, only Badalle suspected the truth. I am a child of the Quitters. I am here to complete their work.

  She had finally seen her kin on their trail, and now wondered why they did not simply stride into the midst of the Chal Managal, to take up the last of these pathetic lives.

  I want to go home. Back to Estobanse. Please, come and get me, before it’s too late.

  Suffering could be borne. But even her unhuman flesh was failing. Each morning, she looked upon the survivors of yet another night and trembled with disbelief. She watched them drag the corpses close and she watched them pick the bones clean and then split them to greedily suck at the marrow.

  ‘Children are quickest to necessity. They can make any world normal. Be careful, daughter, with these humans. To live, they will do anything.’

  She looked upon Rutt’s world and saw the truth in her father’s words. With Held cradled in his arms, he called the stronger ones to him and examined the floppy bags of human skin they now used to trap Shards whenever a swarm found the ribby snake. These fleshless, de-boned bodies, flung into the air as the locusts descended, drew the creatures as flames drew moths, and when the seething mass struck the ground the children pounced, stuffing locusts into their mouths by the handful. Rutt had found a way to turn the war of attrition, to hunt the hunters of this glass wasteland.

  His followers were hardened now, all angles and flat eyes. Badalle’s poems had turned cruel, savage. Abandonment honed sure edges; sun and heat and crystal horizons had forged a terrible weapon. Brayderal wanted to scream to her kin, there in the blurred haze of their wake. She wanted to warn them. She wanted to say Hurry! See these survivors! Hurry! Before it’s too late!

  But she dared not slink away—not even in the deepest of night beneath the jade spears. They would find out. Badalle had made certain that she was watched. Badalle knew.

  She has to die. I have to kill her. It would be easy. I am so much stronger than them. I could snap her neck. I could unleash my Holy Voice for the first time ever and so force my kin to come to my aid when Rutt and Saddic and all the others close on me. I could end this, all of it.

  Yet, the Inquisitors kept their distance. They must have a reason. Any precipitate act by Brayderal could ruin everything. She needed to be patient.

  Huddled beneath layers of rags, ever careful to stand in the way that humans stood—so limited, so bound by physical imperfections—she watched as Rutt walked out ahead of the snake’s head, the flicking tongue, Badalle would say, before snapping open her mouth and sucking in flies, which she then crunched with obvious relish.

  The city that awaited them did not look real. Every glimmering line and angle seemed to bite Brayderal’s eyes—she could barely look in that direction, so powerful was her sense of wrongness. Was it in ruin? It did not seem so. Was it lifeless? It must be. There were no farms, no trees, no rivers. The sky above it was clear, dustless, smokeless. Why then this horror and dread?

  The humans did not feel as she did. Instead, they eyed the distant towers and open faces of buildings as they would the arrival of a new torment—diamonds and rubies, gems and shards—and she could see the gauging regard in their eyes, as if they silently asked: Will this attack us? Can we eat it? Is its need greater than ours? Is any need greater than ours?

  Sickened, Brayderal watched Rutt walk ever closer to the faintly raised track encircling the unwalled city.

  He has decided. We are going in. And I can do nothing to stop it.

  ‘In knowing,’ Badalle whispered, ‘I am in knowing, always. See her, Saddic? She hates this. She fears this. We are not as weak as she hopes. Saddic, listen, we have a prisoner in the ribby snake. She is chained to us, even as she pretends her freedom under those rags. See how she holds herself. Her control is failing. The Quitter awakens.’

  Kill her then, Saddic pleaded with his eyes.

  But Badalle shook her head. ‘She would take too many of us down. And the others would help her. Remember how the Quitters command? The voice that can drive a man to his knees? No, leave her to the desert—and the city, yes, the city.’ But is this even true? I could—I could . . . She had fled the Quitters, made them a thing of her past, and the past was ever dead. It had no hold, no claim upon her. Yet, none of this had proved true. The past stalked them. The past was fast closing in.

  Torn fragments floated through her mind, island memories surrounded in the depthless seas of fear. Tall gaunt figures, words of slaying, the screams of slau
ghter. Quitters.

  She caught a fly, crunched it down. ‘The secret is in his arms,’ she said. ‘Held. Held is the secret. One day, everyone will understand. Do you think it matters, Saddic? Things will be born, life will catch fire.’

  Badalle could see that he did not understand, not yet. But he was like all the others. Their time was coming. The city called to us. Only those it chooses can find it. Once, giants walked the world. The sun’s rays were snared in their eyes. They found this city and made it a temple. Not a place in which to live. It was made to exist for itself.

  She had learned so much. When she’d had wings and had journeyed across the world. Stealing thoughts, snatching ideas. Madness was a gift. Even as memories were a curse. She needed to find power. But all she could find within herself was a knotted host of words. Poems were not swords. Were they?

  ‘Remember temples?’ she asked the boy beside her. ‘Fathers in robes, the bowls filling with coins no one could eat. And on the walls gems winked like drops of blood. Those temples, they were like giant fists built to batter us down, to take our spirits and chain them to worldly fears. We were supposed to shred the skin from our souls and accept the pain and punishment as just. The temples told us we were flawed and then promised to heal us. All we needed to do was pay and pray. Coin for absolution and calluses on the knees, but remember how splendid those robes were! That’s what we paid for.’

  And the Quitters came among us, down from the north. They walked like the broken, and when they spoke, souls crumpled like eggshells. They came with white hands and left with red hands.

  Words have power.

  She lifted a hand and pointed at the city. ‘But this temple is different. It was not built for adoration. It was built to warn us. Remember the cities, Saddic? Cities exist to gather the suffering beneath the killer’s sword. Swords—more than anyone could even count. So many swords. In the hands of priests and Quitters and merchant houses and noble warriors and slavers and debt-holders and keepers of food and water—so many. Cities are mouths, Saddic, filled with sharp teeth.’ She snapped another fly from the air. Chewed. Swallowed.