Dark Heart (38 page)

‘Our choices are stark,’ said Duon. ‘Flight, keeping away from centres of population, hoping to remain hidden from the hole. Or to walk boldly towards it, hoping to destroy it, and those behind it, somehow, before it destroys us.’

‘Why can’t we just stop talking to it?’ asked Conal.

‘Do you really think you can keep the voice out of your mind? Given what your companions said about you, the voice has taken you over completely at least twice: once to save your companion—Stella, was that her name? Or Bandy? Nevertheless, once to save her and once to kill her.’

‘They told you that? All of it? So…you know about her and Heredrew?’

‘Know what? How can we know whether we have heard everything?’ Duon leaned forward, his face close to that of the priest. The faint starlight revealed a sheen of sweat on the man’s cheeks. ‘What do we need to know about Bandy and Heredrew, aside from the fact that Bandy goes by another name?’

The priest paused a moment, then lifted his head and smiled at them. ‘If I tell you, you must promise not to do anything rash.’

He’s either a fool or a very clever man,
Duon thought—
or possibly both.
‘No promises. Just tell us.’

Conal smiled slyly. ‘I called her Stella, a slip of the tongue, but that is her real name, a name she does not want known. Do either of you children know the name of the Falthan queen?’

Arathé exchanged a blank look with her brother.

‘Ah, then perhaps you know the name of the Undying Man’s one-time consort?’

Arathé made a series of hand gestures to her brother, accompanied by moaning and grunting noises, the sort a simpleton would make. Though Duon knew the woman was intelligent and articulate in her own fashion, his cultural conditioning screamed ‘lackwit’. With difficulty he put his prejudice to one side and instead marvelled at the siblings’ ability to communicate, particularly given the darkness.

‘Stella Pellwen,’ said Anomer at once. ‘Well known to anyone conscripted to learn magic in Andratan.’

More signals from his sister, this time frantic.

‘Are you suggesting the young woman with Heredrew is the Dark Consort? Arathé says if the woman was still alive she would be ancient. Nearly a hundred years old.’

‘I merely asked a question,’ Conal said. ‘You understand, if I am asked whether I have kept Bandy’s secret, I wish to say with honesty I have told no one.’

Duon scratched his head. ‘So, if she is the Dark Consort, then the man Heredrew—’

Anomer chimed in. ‘The self-confessed powerful sorcerer—’

‘Is the Undying Man himself,’ Duon finished. ‘But Heredrew looks nothing like the man I met in Andratan.’

‘And sorcerers are bound always to present their true appearance to the world?’ Conal asked. ‘Did you see the Destroyer’s true form in Andratan, I wonder?’

‘The Destroyer?’ Duon could not remember hearing the term.

‘Falthan name for him,’ Conal said, a defensive note in his voice. ‘Understandable, surely, given the history, that Falthans see him as a tyrant. But I’ve been surprised since coming here how benign his influence appears to be.’ This last seemed an unwilling confession.

‘Lenares did say Heredrew was hiding something,’ Anomer observed. Arathé signalled, and her brother nodded his head. ‘We wish she was still alive,’ he continued. ‘Lenares’ gifts would be of great use to us now.’

All of a sudden the magician’s voice reverberated in Duon’s head.
What are you doing? I leave you alone for a moment and you share our secrets?
Duon could feel the man’s anger building: the back of his head began to warm with it.

You threaten me?
he asked.

Indeed. I could burn your brain from the inside out. Make you throw yourself from somewhere high, or walk into a fire. Eat poisoned berries. Anything. I repeat: what are you doing?

By now the other three had turned to him.

‘His voice is spilling over,’ Conal whispered, his face white. ‘We can hear every word.’

Duon was almost certain the magician knew nothing of the proximity-induced spillover between his three tools, but it took everything he had to avoid consciously thinking of it, or to speculate on how he might use the knowledge, as he conversed with his unwanted parasite.

And if his parasite could pick the underlying thoughts from his mind, he was already doomed.

Trying to find out what your other two hosts know,
he mind-voiced.

Oh, so you’ve worked that out? Clever.

So hard, so very hard, not to articulate the conclusions he could draw from this one statement. We three are the only ones. He knows less than we think. And he doesn’t always hear what we say or even what we think. Blurs of knowledge, not proper thoughts.

We have some questions for you.

No doubt. But do you really think I will answer them? Certainly I will give no information to anyone not sworn to my allegiance.

Then you will answer some of my questions?

When I have proof of your fidelity. I have a task for you to complete. We will speak again when I give you that task, and questions and answers may follow, if you satisfy me.

And should I refuse?

Then we both will have learned something. But, in your case, the lesson will be your last.

The exchange took a bare moment, but Duon still missed Anomer’s next question. The others, however, would not have missed the exchange. More explaining to do, more risk of being found out.

‘What do we do with what we know?’ Anomer repeated.

Clever lad. Sufficiently vague that the listening magician would be able to make little of it, but necessary to ask so the magician didn’t realise he was being overheard.

‘We return to our billets and think about it,’ Duon said, signalling them with his eyes. A waste of time: he doubted they could see the gesture. ‘We must not prolong the risk of discovery by remaining here. We do not want anyone else to put the three of us together, or they may come to the obvious conclusion and dispose of us.’

The voice in Duon’s mind hissed, and Duon wondered what he had said; but at that moment he became aware of another presence. Someone stood on the ridge above them.

Of the four of them, Conal sat in the darkest shadows; without prompting he eased himself backwards until hidden.
Clever man,
Duon thought.
Or a voice in his mind gave him instructions.
Then, a moment later, he realised such a conversation would have spilled over.

Two figures descended the ridge towards them, resolving into the Omeran slave and his master, Dryman the mercenary. The second grave complication in Duon’s life.

‘Couldn’t sleep either?’ Dryman asked.

The question rang false on many levels: overly hearty for a man who normally wouldn’t enquire about anyone else’s wellbeing; designed to offer an explanation for the man’s own presence in a woodland path after dark.

Ask him where he’s been and what he’s been doing.

Oh, Duon intended to.

‘Where have you been, Dryman? What business draws you out night after night? You might think you are unobserved, but I see you and your thrall creep out of the camp again and again. What do you get up to?’

The voice in Duon’s mind cried for him to exercise caution, but Duon was having none of it.

Dryman gave no answer. His deep eyes were shadowed, and Duon shivered at the unseen menace. Nevertheless.

‘Then what about you, Torve? You are a man of integrity. Yes, a man, no matter what we Amaqi say about Omerans. So why don’t you tell us what you’ve been doing?’

‘No,’ Torve said.

‘No you will not, or no you cannot?’ Duon pressed on, aware of the risk he was taking. The mercenary could cut him down—unless his personal magician strengthened him. Emboldened by the thought, he pressed Torve.

‘Cannot? The clear implication is you are protecting your master, which means you and he are up to no good. Remind me, Torve, why this man commands you? I thought you were the Emperor’s personal pet?’

‘He commands me because he is the true leader of our expedition,’ Torve responded, his voice guarded, his eyes sorrowful. ‘He carries forward the will of the Emperor. As he has said, you would have led us home. Therefore I must obey him.’

‘Besides, we are not the only ones who have been out wandering at night,’ Dryman said, taking a step forward. ‘Here you are with as little justification as Torve and myself. But not so long ago you left everyone behind one night and returned to Raceme, consulting no one, to offer support in the slaughter of defenceless courtiers.’ He leaned forward. ‘I don’t answer to hypocrites.’

‘You always have an answer,’ Duon replied. ‘But none of them satisfy me. I intend to make it my business to find out who you are and why you are destroying the Emperor’s expedition.’

His words sounded faintly ridiculous in his own ears. Destroying it? The expedition had been destroyed when the Alliances had usurped Duon’s leadership and marched their army into an ambush. Nothing to do with Dryman.

The mercenary tilted back his head and laughed. Some startled animal, a squirrel or possum perhaps, fled between he and Duon. It took some time for the echoes to die away.

Once again the brave explorer crushes himself,
said the sardonic voice in his mind.
Even a fool learns eventually. Will you one day learn enough to be considered merely a fool?

Duon slunk back to his host’s house, aware of the eyes on him. Why could he never give answer to Dryman? And what thoughts were forming in the other two magician-cursed minds? Thoughts reflecting on his betrayal of them? His foolishness?

How soon would someone decide his continued existence was unnecessary?

In all his previous adventures he had never failed to find at least some sleep during the night, no matter how difficult the situation. During their time in Nomansland he’d slept; he had even found rest amid the terrible cries from the Valley of the Damned. But this night he lay awake on his cot through the hours until dawn, reflecting on his failures.

Allowing the Emperor to appoint him titular head of an unmanageable expedition. Almost as though he was set up to fail.

Failing to ride the political winds of the Alliances, resulting in his removal as leader at precisely the time when it did the most damage.

Acquiescing to Dryman’s leadership out of some misguided feeling of worthlessness. Allowing a man with no past and no standing to overrule his better judgment.

Losing thirty thousand people.

Near dawn his thoughts drifted into unfamiliar channels. Seditious pathways. The Emperor
expected
him to fail. The voice in his head had first appeared when he was heralded as leader of the expedition—clearly the magician was in league with the Emperor. His sovereign benefited from the loss of his army…how? Because it destroyed the power of the Alliances. Part of the Emperor’s plan. Yet he survived, along with Torve and Lenares, because of Dryman’s intervention. The Emperor’s will? Yes, yes. Dryman was the Emperor’s tool, a bodyguard whose task it was to keep his master’s three most important assets alive. Lenares for her witchy ways—now lost. Torve for his unquestioning obedience, and Duon for his experience in the northlands. A bodyguard, nothing more. Chosen for his fighting prowess, charged not to reveal the Emperor’s plan. Only a bodyguard. Not a leader.

Not a leader. Why, then, should he continue to follow the man?

For one reason. He’d succeeded in convincing Duon he knew the will of the Emperor, knew the real goal of this expedition. The admission that there was a real goal meant the Emperor had set this up to start with. The army was never intended to survive.

He would walk a way further with this mercenary. But he would demand answers as the price of his continued cooperation. And when he completed the task for which he had been chosen, whatever it was, he would watch his back.

If thirty thousand people could be dispensed with, Duon told himself as the sun rose, so could one.

Torve also did not sleep, but for a different reason from that of his fellow southerner. With a thrill of wonder over his entire body he recalled something his master had said earlier that night, during the revelation that he was god-possessed.

‘The halfwit Lenares can no longer read me,’ he had said. ‘She will never associate me with the mask-wearing Emperor.’

It wasn’t much, but Torve knew his master. He would not have said
can
and
will
if Lenares were truly dead. How the Emperor knew, Torve could only speculate: perhaps the oversight of the god within told him what others did not know.

Lenares had to be alive.

A TUG ON HER MIND jerked Lenares awake.

She liked to wake to one thing at a time, but even before she opened her eyes she was assailed from every direction by sensations and their associated numbers.

Another tug.

The sound of waves crashing. A cold splash.

The heat and ache of pain; the numbness of what she feared might be a serious injury.

Cool wind brushing her face, pulling at her hair, making a hollow booming sound behind her.

An insistent tug.

The arcing cry of a seagull.

The sun beating down on her eyelids, the sting of salt in the corners of her eyes.

The tug, tug of the mathematical line she had secured to the hole in the world. One of the holes. The one exploited by the Daughter.

She opened her eyes.

She lay on rocks below a seaside cliff, but not the same rocks as yesterday. There had been no cave in the cliffs yesterday. She shuddered. The sight of any hole, any void, set her on edge.

Tug. Tug, tug.

She had been shifted since she fell. Perhaps she did it herself. Yes, that was it: an explanation for the abrasions on her body, on her hands and knees, that hadn’t been there yesterday.

The annoying tugging hadn’t been there either.

Something was broken in her chest. Lenares was a little hazy about anatomy, but it wasn’t her heart or lungs; it felt more like the dull ache she imagined would be associated with a broken bone. One of her ribs perhaps. It hurt to breathe, but the pain wasn’t unbearable.

Tug.

Stop tugging me!

She had bled on the rocks yesterday, but these rocks were clean. The tide was almost in, her numbers told her, but she was safe from the waves, though the spray spattered her with stinging drops of salty water.

One of her knees hurt, the left one. She had to sit up to see it; her leg hung down from the rocks and her foot actually trailed in the water. She hissed at the pain in her chest as she moved.

Tug.

Snarling, Lenares snatched at the link between herself and the hole, the one she had spun with her experimental numbers. The link seemed to have no solid anchor in the hole—apart from her unproven notion that the far end was held by Mahudia. Her dead Mahudia.

The link shook, then oscillated like the wave she could make in a skipping rope if the other girls let her play. The wave reached the far end.

Ah, so you are awake, little one.

‘I’m not speaking to you.’

Oh yes, you are. See? You’ve always had trouble with numbers, little Lenares. Particularly zero. You say something isn’t, when clearly it is.

‘That sounds like a lie. I don’t lie.’

No? So when you said you weren’t speaking to me, what did you mean?

The Daughter was right. ‘I will find out how you were able to trick me, and change my thinking. I’m not perfect.’

There are more important things to consider, little one. There is a nexus coming, and you need to be there. Are you ready to travel?

‘I’m not doing anything you tell me to.’

Really? Breathe, Lenares.

For an instant she considered holding her breath, but that would just be childish. ‘I’m not breathing because you told me to,’ she argued. ‘You could say “live” to me and the only way I could disobey you would be to die. But that doesn’t make you my lord.’

Your problem, Lenares, is that you don’t truly understand numbers.

There are things you don’t understand either, Daughter,
Lenares thought; but, unlike the unwise god, she did not speak her thoughts aloud.

One of the things Lenares felt certain the Daughter didn’t understand was that Lenares had tied a numerical link to the hole the Daughter used. Had the god known, she would surely have taken steps to undo it. The link allowed Lenares to sense with much more clarity not only the Daughter’s numbers, but also her emotions and thoughts.

But the Daughter was right: Lenares didn’t fully understand the numbers she had used. She had puzzled over the mathematical concept of ‘nothing’ for a long time, even before she had become aware of the hole. Perhaps—she couldn’t remember, but it seemed likely—her thinking about how to express ‘nothing’ had led her to the discovery of the hole. Holes. She still wasn’t certain how many.

The cosmographers had a strong tradition of recording and debating concepts, and Lenares had spent many happy days in the vaults reading complex theorems. But none of them did more than touch on the notion of ‘nothing’ as a mathematical concept.

Then one day she had come across the notes of the madman Qarismi of Kutrubul, a small town in the Biyyamid, a fertile area well to the south of Talamaq. He was famous for getting himself arrested every market day for his outrageous and blasphemous statements. Latterly, though, the Emperor had encouraged him, employing a note-taker to record his ramblings. These notes had recently been deposited in the cosmographers’ library, and no one else had seen them. Lenares was certain of that: cosmographers were taught to respect documents, but these were covered with some sort of jam. Mahudia would have lamented the state of the notes, but Lenares hadn’t cared.

The madman had obviously appended new material to his lectures. ‘How many sons do I have?’ the crazy Qarismi asked himself in frenzied jottings in the margins of a discussion about root vegetables. ‘None. My heart is a void, I have no sons. What number is the number of my sons? How can the number of my sons be a number when it is nothing?’ The last line had been crossed out, but Lenares could still read it: ‘How can nothing be something? Is “none” a quantity of something?’

Lenares had read on, fascinated. ‘Let x be the number of brothers I have, and y be the number of sisters. Let x = y. The mathematical difference between x and y is a number, but it is nothing. How can it be a number and a nothing? It must be a number—called 0. Zero after Ahmal’s naming. So, x – y = 0. But what does that mean? Zero is here defined as brothers minus sisters. But what does that mean?’

The marginal notes continued on the next page. ‘Zero is defined by its context. Consider my debts: I and the moneylender Aleb know well it is possible for me to have less than no money. I buy a pastina, I have no money left. I buy another pastina, I owe Aleb. So zero is a placeholder: between the state of owning and owing, reality and its negation.’

These strange words had come back to Lenares’ mind as she considered the hole in the world. She had tied her strange numbers to…to what? Not to nothing. To a mathematical concept that was defined by being between something? Yes. The hole was in the wall of the world, the material worldwall that separated time and space from the realm of the gods. So the hole was defined by the wall, in the same way that having no money was defined by being neither the state of owning nor owing. That was what she had instinctively worked out when she had assigned her own numbers to the hole. She had defined the hole by its context. Now she could track any contact the Daughter might make with the world. It would tug at her.

As it did now.

But she was no nearer knowing whether she had imagined Mahudia’s hand taking her numbers and tying them to the hole. Patience. Understanding would come.

‘No, I don’t truly understand what it is like not to exist,’ she said. ‘You would have to be a god to understand that.’ She smiled, not a nice smile. ‘What’s it like, Daughter? Is it a wonderful thing, not existing?’

I don’t understand you. Of course I exist.
The Daughter’s voice sounded vexed.

‘Then why all this effort to return to the world?’

To help you, fool. Not that you’re proving worthy of it. Get up, girl; there is someone approaching. I have worked hard to bring him here. He, also, is necessary.

‘Poor cold Daughter, wrecking the world in an attempt to get back what you left behind. How much more will you destroy before you admit defeat?’

Silence, little one. Or I will dispose of you and find someone more suited.

‘You can’t kill me,’ Lenares said. Time to test another of her theories. ‘You don’t have the strength. Especially not since you’ve just spent most of it on the wave that smashed the tea house, and the remainder helping me to this place.’

Not all of my strength is spent
, said the Daughter, her voice roughening.
I still have enough to crush you like a bug.

‘And do you want to attract your brother’s attention in your weakened state?’

The big gamble, but her numbers led her to suspect it. There was a simple pattern in the interval between major attacks through the hole(s) in the world that implied a recovery period. Finite strength.

Not much of a risk
, the voice hissed.
Since he helped me with the wave.

Oh. Get up, get up,
Lenares told herself.
I miscalculated.

She grasped the rocks with abraded hands and heaved herself upwards, hissing as her chest tightened painfully.
Hurry,
she told herself,
something is coming.

And something came from out of the sun, a dazzling blaze of light, so bright Lenares had to shield her eyes. When next she looked there were three suns, one on each side of the main sun.

‘Pretty,’ she said, as she scrambled across the rocks and towards the cave. ‘But an illusion.’

I’ve made the air colder so I can manifest myself
, said the Daughter. Then:
Where are you going? Don’t go in the cave, Lenares. Please.

Lenares blinked: her eyes were still dazed by the glare of the sun. The cave mouth was disturbingly circular and, as she focused, she could see nothing within.
But it is open to the sun: light should be illuminating the rear of the cave.

Not a cave, then.

She found herself between gods.

A cold mist emerged from the cave, the barest emanation, but flowing against the onshore breeze. It flailed in the air, writhed, then began to shape itself into a hand. Cruelly sharp talons raked the air above Lenares, searching.

He has awoken
, the Daughter said.
You must flee.

‘I’m already fleeing you!’ Lenares yelled. The talons might be made of mist, but she had no doubt they could hurt her.

Flee. I will keep him at bay.

‘Why should I care? He’s no worse than you.’

You are wrong, Lenares; of all the things you have ever claimed, that is the most wrong. The Son must never be let loose in the world. He will lay waste to it.

A hand of shimmering rainbow light came from out of the sea, a sun-shaped amalgam of sparkle on the waves and reflection from the clouds. It was the most beautiful, fragile thing Lenares had ever seen, and she said so, even as she scrambled for her life.

It is all I can do
, the Daughter admitted,
in my weakened state. Manipulate sunlight and cloud crystals through temperature. Behold the battle of the exhausted gods, fought with weapons without substance.
A bitter laugh rippled across the shore.

The two hands came together, the grey hand of the Son and the shimmering rainbow-hued hand of the Daughter. Clashed, drew apart, and clashed again, looking for a grip. Lenares reached the sand and began to run in earnest. Her rib flamed in agony, but she forced herself to ignore it.

Out of my way, sister,
rumbled a voice so deep it shook the earth. Small rocks were shaken loose from the cliff above and clattered down onto the beach. Lenares had to wait until they stopped falling.

She is mine. I found her, I raised her. Find yourself another tool.

I don’t want her. I need no tool. I simply want to deprive you of her.

The fingers locked together with a ghostly sound. Ethereal digits squirmed above the rocks as the two gods traded spiteful insults.

She’s mine.

I should have killed you before our ascension.

Then you would not have been chosen, you fool.

It would have been worth it. This whole effort to become corporeal again is so I can get my hands around your throat. I want to feel your arteries pumping in vain against my fingers.

So you’ve said, many times. I still don’t believe you. I loved you once, brother, and I know you loved me.

Stop lying. There is no moral high ground to be claimed between you and me. The girl believes you are no better than I am. She is right.

The beach was nearly at an end. Ahead lay a small promontory. If she could just get around the point, she might be able to scale the cliff, or find shelter somewhere. To avoid their gaze long enough to devise some strategy. Eventually to find the others.

To find Torve.

She turned to see the two giant hands wrestling on the beach, scoring deep marks on the sand, knocking rocks from the cliff-face, occasionally splashing in the surf. The Son appeared to be getting the better of his sister. His hand was larger, his talons longer, while hers struggled under his, pale knuckles scraping on the rocks. The rainbow colours had dimmed.

Just then the sun went behind a cloud.

The Daughter’s hand disappeared and the Son roared in triumph. Lenares leapt forward onto the rocks of the headland, spurred on by the bellows behind her, bellows drawing nearer to the accompaniment of crashing and thumping, as though the god dragged the cave along with him.

She did not want to get caught up in that grey hand.

She had underestimated them both. Her numbers were correct, but only in a relative sense. All her calculations of the strength of the gods had to be increased by some constant below which they did not fall. It made sense: they had to have some baseline strength or they would not survive beyond the walls of the world. The strength might come from beyond the world, in which case it could not be enumerated.

Could that be a way to defeat them? Cause them to draw more and more of their strength until they no longer had enough to sustain themselves?