Fall of Light (129 page)

Ivis spoke, finding his own voice harsh and jarring, ‘Then meet Lord Urusander on the field, milord. Keep your sword sheathed and ask the same of him.’

‘Hunn Raal will defy you both,’ Gripp Galas said in a harsh tone. ‘He wants this. I suspect the High Priestess does as well. They will see the black waters of Dorssan Ryl turn red, to announce their ascension.’

‘But downstream of the city, surely,’ Anomander said in a mutter, once more facing Kharkanas. Crowds were assembling, lining the sides of the Forest Track Road where it plunged like an arrow to the city’s heart. Faces were fixed upon the Son of Darkness and his ambiguous retinue. Others among the citizenry had climbed the bank to appear on the wall.

Ivis turned about and nodded Gate Sergeant Yalad forward. ‘Prepare a camp, among the trees. See to the needs of our hostage and the household staff – it may be we have one last night to spend under the cold stars.’

‘Yes, sir. Captain?’

‘What?’

‘The Houseblades, sir. They’re ready for this fight.’

Abyss knows, so am I.
‘Temper their zeal, Yalad. We serve the wishes of Lord Draconus.’

‘Yes sir. But … should he remain absent …’

‘We will deal with that when the time comes. Go on now, gate sergeant.’

When Ivis returned his attention to Anomander, Caladan Brood was speaking.

‘… on the day I am needed, Anomander Rake.’

‘And until then?’

Brood gestured to the forest. ‘This close to the city … there are many wounds in the earth. I will heal what I can.’

‘Why?’

The question seemed to surprise the Azathanai, and then he shrugged and said, ‘Anomander, ours remains a strained friendship. For all that we have travelled together, we know little of each other. Our minds, the paths our thoughts take. Yet you continue to intrigue me. I know your question was not meant to convey your indifference to such wounding. Rather, you but reveal a hint of your growing despair.’

‘You offered me peace.’

‘Peace, yes, but no peaceful path was promised.’

‘If I stand aside, sword not drawn, will you seek to convince me that none of the blood to be spilled will stain my hands? I should hope not. If I choose peace for myself, Brood, stolid as a stone in a stream, will I not make the currents part? How minor this perturbation – my paltry will? Or will the stream divide, split asunder, to seek different seas?’

Caladan Brood cocked his head. ‘Does it matter? Does what you choose make any difference?’

‘This is what I am asking you, Azathanai.’ Anomander waved back at the forest edge. ‘Does your healing?’

Brood considered for a moment. ‘I appease the ego. The goodness that comes of it is incidental to a dying forest, a fatally wounded earth. Nothing talks back to me. Nothing voices its gratitude. Though I would have it otherwise, if only to make myself feel—’

‘Better?’

‘Useful.’

The distinction seemed to have some impact on Anomander, for he flinched. ‘Off you go, then, until you are … needed.’

With a faint bow, Caladan Brood swung round and made his way towards the spindly treeline where even now the Houseblades were preparing camp.

At that moment, two riders emerged from the city, horses cantering up the Forest Track Road. Eyes narrowing, Ivis identified Lord Silchas Ruin – astride a white mount – and an officer of Anomander’s own Houseblades.

Now, there would be words. The notion – its obviousness – struck him as nonetheless ominous.
This is the madness of it all. Mundane conversations, fragments of meaning and dubious import. All the things left unsaid. If we could assemble our words, merge those inside and out, we would be startled to find that we speak but a tenth of what we think. And yet, each of us presumes to expect that the other understands – indeed, hears both the spoken and the unspoken.

Mad presumption!

‘Milord?’

‘Ivis?’

‘Pray you free the words, let them tumble, with not one left unspoken.’

Anomander’s gaze narrowed as he studied Ivis. ‘My brother approaches, along with my captain, Kellaras.’

‘Just so,’ Ivis replied, nodding. He saw Gripp Galas studying him. Pelk, too. He wondered what they saw, what they thought they saw. He wondered at his own log-jam of unuttered words, and his reluctance to kick it loose.

My own courage in this matter fails me. Yet I ask of it him. Lord Anomander, you are the First Son of Darkness. The time has come to show it. I beg you, sir, make us all braver than we are.

  *   *   *

Wreneck climbed down from the carriage, almost slipping on the ice coating the slatted step. He turned about quickly and drew his small knife, to begin hacking away the sheath of ice. ‘Beware, milady,’ he called up as Sandalath prepared to dismount, her bundled daughter crooked in one arm.

‘I see, child,’ she said, evincing once more the new haughtiness that had come to her.

Wreneck chipped away, eager to finish and turn about – eager to set his eyes at last upon the great city of Wise Kharkanas. But that glory would have to wait. The last flat sheet of white ice broke free, slipped away. ‘There, milady,’ he said, returning the knife to his belt and reaching up to offer her his arm.

She took it delicately, and then settled much of her weight upon it, making Wreneck come near to staggering as he adjusted his footing. A moment later she stood beside him, her gaze bright upon the city behind him. ‘Ah, I can see my tower. The Citadel beckons. I wonder, is Orfantal at a window? Can he see his mother at last? I am sure that he can – I feel his gaze upon me, his wonder at what I carry. My present to him.’

Korlat looked three years old now, though she voiced no sounds, sought nothing that might be words in that mysterious language of babies. Yet her eyes never rested, and even now she peered out from the folded blanket, like a thing feeding on all that it saw.

Surgeon Prok stood nearby, watching both the mother and the daughter. He had resumed drinking wine, growing drunker the closer they had come to Kharkanas, and the journey’s end. A clay jug hung loosely from his right hand, and he was swaying slightly. ‘Milady, the child needs to walk.’

Frowning, Sandalath glanced across at the man, and it seemed a moment before she recognized him. ‘She walks already,’ she replied. ‘In realms not seen by you. Realms you cannot even imagine. Her spirit explores the night, the place of all endings, the place moments from rebirth. She walks in the world that exists before the first breath is drawn, and the one that comes when the last breath falls away. They are one and the same. Did you know that? A single world.’ Sandalath straightened, adjusting her cradling arm, and smiled at Prok. ‘She will be ready.’

Wreneck now looked to the city. He saw its low wall, the crowds lining it. He saw the wide street awaiting them, the broad double gate with its massive blackwood doors swung open and tied in place. He saw more people than he’d thought existed, and all were facing him.
They see Lord Anomander. They wonder at his hesitation.

But now comes the white-skinned brother with the eyes of blood – that must be him. He looks … terrifying.

Retrieving his spear and his small bundle of possessions from a side-rack on the carriage, Wreneck moved forward. He wanted to be close enough to hear the brothers greet one another. He wanted to know when the battle would start, so he could take up his spear and be ready for it. He saw Captain Ivis approaching. ‘Sir? When do we ride into the city? I must visit the Citadel and speak to Orfantal. It is important.’

Distracted, Ivis moved past, but then said, ‘Tomorrow, perhaps.’

Wreneck stared after the man, and saw now that the Houseblades were making up an encampment.

No, I cannot wait that long. I need to talk to Orfantal before his mother does. I need to explain things.

Wreneck continued forward, in time to arrive close to Lord Anomander even as Silchas Ruin and another man reined in.

To one side, Gripp Galas turned to Pelk and Wreneck heard him say, ‘Lady Hish Tulla is in the city. Find her, Pelk—’

‘In a moment,’ Pelk replied, her gaze fixed on the man beside Silchas Ruin, and Wreneck saw that he studied her in return.

As Pelk moved forward, the man dismounted, and an instant later they were in each other’s arms.

All this before either brother had spoken, and both lords now looked on, startled perhaps, while Pelk and the man embraced.

From where Wreneck stood, he saw the man’s eyes shut, his lips moving as he whispered to her, and she held him all the tighter.

Silchas Ruin broke the moment. ‘Brother, did you find Andarist?’

‘I have set that aside, Silchas,’ replied Anomander. ‘The sword at my hip retains its name, forged in the heat of my outrage. And yet, had I imagined our Mother’s staying hand, I might have set Vengeance upon the blade of my dagger instead. Of all the myriad scenes in the tumult of possibility awaiting us, I would not shy from striking from darkness and shadow. A blow between the shoulder blades no longer seems so crass.’

Anomander’s words drew round all who stood near enough to hear them. When Pelk and Kellaras pulled apart, Pelk stepped back and then, with a nod towards Gripp Galas, set off for the city gate. Wreneck watched her go with an ache in his chest.
Jinia sent me away, because of all the broken things inside her. But one day I will return to her, and my love will mend every broken thing inside both of us. Even the stables that caught fire, which is when everything awful first began. Milady said that I was to blame. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was my fault after all. I can’t remember. Could be I killed all those horses. I need to fix that hurt – because it still hurts, if I was the one who did it, and if it wasn’t Sandalath who met her man there and the lantern they’d lit so they could see each other getting drunk on the wine he’d brought with his one arm. If it wasn’t that after all, but me, spying on them and watching what they did when they put their hips together and moved like dancing on the straw, and the horses shuffled and nickered and the lantern light was steady, but the straw stalks were pushed up against the lantern by their feet, up against the hot glaze. I should have seen that, instead of watching them.

It began there, all the hurts. Began with the screams of dying horses, and two shadowy figures running out before the flames got them, and there was Lady Nerys with her cane and she shrieked at me since I was standing right there, watching the fire and listening to the horses, and those blows came down and they hurt so bad but then I got hit on the head and things went numb and strange and that’s why I don’t remember anything any more about that night.

Except what I maybe made up. Her and that one-armed man.

But it was you who cared for me after that, Jinia. And I didn’t forget. I can’t forget. And that’s why I’ll fix everything. Soon. I just need to kill some people first.

‘A dagger from the shadows. You describe betrayal, my brother.’

‘Array before me all manner of obstacles, vengeance finds its own path.’

With a grunt, Gripp Galas said, ‘Just ask Hunn Raal. About betrayal. See how he weighs it in his own mind, Lord Silchas. If need be, I will be the hand and the knife both—’

At that Anomander swung to face his old friend. ‘No. I forbid it, Gripp Galas. Too often have you struck in my stead. Your time as my quiet justice is done. Have we not spoken? Return to your wife. I am past all need for you.’

The harsh words seemed to batter at Gripp Galas, and all the fire of his own rage died in his old man’s eyes. With a single bow, he turned away and walked, unsteadily to Wreneck’s eyes, towards Kharkanas, trailing in Pelk’s wake.

‘We await word on the disposition of the Hust Legion,’ Silchas said to Anomander.

The First Son spoke to Kellaras. ‘Captain, are our Houseblades assembled?’

‘Yes, milord. And the highborn have indeed answered the call. The Greater Houses are all here.’

Silchas Ruin made to speak then, but his brother spoke first. ‘Silchas, I thank you for all that you have done. I know you were reluctant, and yet you indulged me in my efforts to reconcile with Andarist.’ He hesitated, and then continued. ‘It may be that the blood of family, so quick to turn sour on the tongue, had misguided me. In the name of one family, I neglected the other. We three brothers matter less than the Tiste Andii – is this not the burden of command?’

Silchas Ruin’s voice was flat. ‘There have been developments, Anomander. Of those, in a moment. What do you now intend?’

‘I must defy our Mother, in the name of her sons and daughters. Silchas, I will draw my sword. I will take command.’

Silchas was silent for a long moment, and then he nodded. ‘I thank you for that, brother. Give me command of our Houseblades and I will be more than content. Of the more grave demands awaiting us, I leave them to you.’

Anomander sighed and nodded. ‘And these developments?’

Silchas made a gesture for patience before turning to Kellaras. ‘Captain, return to our company. I will be inspecting them shortly.’

Kellaras glanced at Anomander, who remained expressionless, and then the captain saluted Lord Silchas Ruin, wheeled his horse, and set off.

To Wreneck’s eyes, the world seemed to acquire a glow, as of golden light trembling on water. He could smell the old gods of the forest, closing in, crowding around him. But they said nothing, as if they were, one and all, holding their breath.

Silchas Ruin resumed. ‘We have sorcery at our disposal. The priest, Cedorpul, who will stand against Hunn Raal. By this, we may indeed negate the threat of magic. Accordingly, we return to the privilege of mere flesh and the will behind it. To the blade, brother, the clash that drowns all words.’

Wreneck studied Silchas Ruin, wondering what the lord had been wanting to say, instead of what he did say. It was strange to him, as the moment passed unremarked, that Anomander had not seen what he had seen. And, of those figures lining the berm, now numbering thousands, he saw how many of them looked peculiar, almost ghostly. He had no idea so many people lived in Kharkanas. But then, as he watched, he saw yet more appearing, rising from the earth of the berm.