The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (31 page)

‘Possible futures?’ Nish sniffed. ‘Like the charlatans’
scrying bowls we used to read about in the Great Tales?’

‘Not at all. Scrying bowls need not tell you any truth, but
the futures you see in the Pit of Possibilities
must
include the true one, and once you discover which it is, a
wise man will know how to make it come true.’

‘Just like that?’ Nish said sceptically. All prophecies had
an out and here it was in the words ‘a wise man’, which could mean anything or
exclude anyone.

‘The future is never easy, not even with a map,’ said
Monkshart as if he were lecturing a stupid child. ‘And even if the path to
success becomes clear, it doesn’t mean you can follow it. That depends on your
strength, your resolution, your courage and your skill – not least in
swaying others to do your bidding.’

‘Then assuming you saw your own future in the Pit of
Possibilities, how have your plans gone so wrong?’

‘I saw where success lay, and failure, even to the loss of
the other Defiance outposts. I took steps to protect them but I failed. I was
distracted at the critical moment, and perhaps the enemy had a hand in that.’

‘But surely, if you saw how to make your desired future come
true, you would have seen all the ways that it could fail, and overcome them?’

‘The Pit just gives glimpses of the future. It can’t reveal
every single obstacle on your road, else it would take as long to show it as it
would to live through that future. Besides, the reactions of others in response
to your decisions can wreak great changes. I’m a fallible man, I admit it. I
allowed myself to be distracted and overlooked a minor event that later became
critical. But all is not lost. In every second of time, new possible futures
are created. It’s up to us to make ours true – if it is within our power.
It may not be. We may fail; I haven’t tried to hide that. Will you look into
the possibilities of the pit?’

Nish shook his head. ‘I see no difference to other forms of
fortune-telling, all of which prey on the gullible.’

‘What have you got to lose, Cryl-Nish? Just look, and
examine what you see.’

It was tempting, despite his mistrust of Monkshart. ‘How
will I identify my real future?’

‘You’ll know when you see it, I promise.’

‘What if I can only believe in the future I want the most?’

‘That’s why
I’m
here, Cryl-Nish. I discovered the Pit of Possibilities eight years ago, when I
still served your father –’

‘But you didn’t tell him about it, even though you were his
sworn servant?’ It was another chink in Monkshart’s battered moral armour.

‘I was never his
servant
,’
Monkshart said loftily, ‘though I did serve. I’ve spent much of my effort and
my Arts since that time, working out how to use the Pit of Possibilities.
Enough talk. I’ll wait up here, where I can wield my Art without being
influenced by the possibilities, and make sure that you can tell the false
futures from the true ones.’

Nish couldn’t decide whether Monkshart was a charismatic
charlatan, a scheming scoundrel or a dangerous fanatic, though it was clear he
only wished to use Nish for his own ends, not for any higher cause. Nish had
been used so often in his brief career that he could tell a villain on sight.

Yet that didn’t mean Monkshart was a liar, or the Pit of
Possibilities a trick. The most successful schemers were those who manipulated
the truth as little as possible, and always retained a kernel of it in even
their most outlandish tales. Perhaps the Pit of Possibilities did enable people
to see the future, and there was an awful lot of future Nish wanted to see.

‘How do I use it?’

‘Its vapours are already working on you. Haven’t you
noticed?’

‘I’ve seen a few images, as if from the corner of my eye,
though they weren’t very clear. But the harder I looked, the more they faded.’

‘They’ll become clear once I employ my Art and you allow
your tension to drain away. You can’t seek out the possibilities, Cryl-Nish.
You have to abandon yourself to them and allow them to come in their own time.
Are you ready?’

‘I’m ready.’ He wasn’t.

‘Sit down there, between the outer wall and the Mistmurk
–’

‘The what?’ said Nish.

‘That blur of nothingness with the green vapours above it.
Careful! Don’t allow any part of yourself to touch it, or even pass above it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Just don’t!’ Monkshart snapped. ‘Lean against the wall,
close your eyes and surrender yourself to the possibilities. I’ll be by the top
of the ladder.’

Nish felt a vague unease, but dismissed it. If Monkshart
wished to do him harm he’d had any number of opportunities. He went to the
wall, carefully avoiding the roiling Mistmurk, and settled back against the
stone. Closing his eyes, he followed the creaking of the rope ladder until
Monkshart reached the top and silence fell.

Utter silence, so complete that it made him uneasy; he
realised that he’d reduced his breathing so it wouldn’t make a sound. His
thumping heart slowed; he relaxed his muscles one by one, gradually slumping
against the wall, and waited.

Something green and shadowy appeared in the corner of his eye
but as he tried to focus on it, it flicked back out of sight. Fool! Just let it
come. He relaxed further, trying to remove all expectations from his mind, all
hopes, even all dreams. Just let come what will come, though he couldn’t rid
himself of every vestige of unease, no matter how hard he tried. Something felt
wrong; he really needed his lost clearsight now.

No possibilities came to him. Rather, Nish felt so
unburdened and free of his father that he slipped into sleep, only to wake
suddenly with tears streaming down his face, for he’d been dreaming about his
beloved. Irisis was alive; the horror of her execution had never happened and
they were going to be together for as long as they both lived.

He didn’t open his eyes, wanting to maintain the dream for
as long as possible. Now Irisis was striding away from him, moving with odd
stiffness, and he was hurrying after her, beseeching her to wait, but she broke
into a run. He bolted after her, caught her by the arm and whirled her around,
but she hid her face from him, and when he looked below her hands he saw the
thread-like seam around her throat. He tried to pull her hands away, to tell
her that it didn’t matter, but she beat him off.

And as she did, one of her cheeks was uncovered and he saw a
patch of corruption growing there. Nish recoiled in horror. He couldn’t help
himself, and a look of the most terrible regret crossed her face.

‘I told you, Nish,’ she said sadly. ‘It can never be.’

She began to walk away and this time he didn’t go after her.
He couldn’t bear it.

‘Let her go, Cryl-Nish,’ said Monkshart from above. ‘By
seeking an impossible possibility, you close yourself to the futures that could
come true.’

‘I didn’t seek her out. She came in my dream –’

‘Never allow yourself to dream in the Pit of Possibilities.
Empty your mind, but you must stay awake.’

Nish slumped against the wall again, but could feel himself
slipping towards sleep and yearning for what it could bring him, so he stood
and tried to rid himself of the dream memories. It didn’t work; unlike normal
dreams they remained perfectly clear. The ache was too great, and in the end he
had to forcefully purge the memories.

At once the futures began, so vividly that even the most
absurd seemed as real as life. The first was mercifully short, for it showed
him being torn apart on a great wheel, and Maelys burned alive while an angry
mob danced around a bonfire and his father looked down, unmoved, from the back
of a gigantic flappeter soaring through the rising sparks.

In the second he was a bald, bearded, toothless wreck,
gibbering and dribbling in the cell where he’d spent the past forty years. This
future was worse than the first but he steeled himself to neither reach for it
nor shy away, but allow it to fade so the next one could come.

The third future showed that icy wasteland he’d seen
earlier, though there was no tower in it this time. He was alone by a dismal
shack, dressed in rags, exhaustedly wielding a wooden pick as he tried to break
the iron-hard ground. A body lay on the earth floor inside the doorway of the
hut, though Nish couldn’t make out whose it was.

Death, madness or exile – he didn’t need the Pit of
Possibilities to tell him that those were his most likely futures, and little
to choose between them. Was the imprisoned madman happy now, or had he suffered
so grievously before going insane that he would sooner have died on the wheel?
Had the exile found freedom, or was he as much a prisoner as the madman in his
cell? Was the Nish being torn apart on the wheel the happiest of them all
because it would soon be over?

Other futures came and went, some as clear as diamond, the
others mere suggestions in the corner of his mind, but the alternatives always
remained the same – exile, madness or death. He looked in vain for any other
fate, including the option he’d been dreading for so long – the one where
his father took him back.

And in every alternative that involved Maelys, her end was a
bloody one. Was that because of the way Irisis had died? Could he not rid
himself of that curse, no matter what he did? Or had sweet, generous Maelys
been doomed from the beginning?

‘Empty your mind, Cryl-Nish.’

Nish started. He’d been so immersed in analysing the
possibilities that he’d forgotten about Monkshart. Was he sitting up there pulling
the strings like a puppet master?

No more futures came. Surely that couldn’t be all? There had
to be a good future for him somewhere, since he was so bound up in the one
Monkshart was pursuing. Unless … unless Monkshart only needed him as a
figurehead to get the Defiance rolling, then planned to betray him and seize
power.

Another possibility began to form, slowly this time. He was
walking in pitch darkness down what felt like a long corridor, and there was a
loud drumming in the distance, like heavy rain on a shingle roof. As he
continued the sound grew until it drowned out his thoughts, whereupon the
darkness was replaced by brilliant light and he was standing on the steps
outside a magnificent palace or temple, dressed in robes of red silk shot with
gold.

Three steps below him, to his left, Monkshart stood with one
upraised arm pointing towards Nish. The drumming grew again, though this time
he recognised it as a vast crowd roaring in acclamation. Nish bowed, raised his
right hand and they fell silent. And then it struck him with such force that
his knees nearly gave beneath him.

He was the Emperor of Santhenar, beloved by all as he worked
tirelessly to undo the damage of his father’s reign and restore the world to a
paradise where there was freedom, justice and opportunity for all.

Tears formed under his eyelids as Nish gave himself up to
the possibility. He hadn’t sought it; it had simply come to him, but Monkshart
had been right. He
knew
this was his
true future, or could become it. His life wasn’t hopeless. This future might
never happen; it
would
never happen
unless he gave his all for it, and perhaps not then, but he had to try. It was
what he wanted most in all the world, though he’d never before allowed himself
to dream of it.

No more possibilities appeared; he’d seen all he was going
to see. He felt transformed, his previous anguish replaced by a monk-like
serenity. His destiny was clear at last.

‘You saw,’ said Monkshart as Nish bounded up the ladder, so
inspired that his body felt weightless. He felt that he could do anything.

‘I saw,’ said Nish. Then, hastily, ‘But I was not the
God
-Emperor.’

Again that fleeting twist of the mouth. ‘No man may declare
himself a god. It is an abomination. Do you agree to become the Deliverer,
then, and cast down the false god?’

‘On one condition.’

‘Only one?’ said Monkshart.

Nish, thinking that he was being sarcastic, nodded. ‘That
you will never again give way to the rage that burns within you. You will do no
more evil in the Deliverer’s name.’

‘What is evil, anyway? And what if it’s necessary to do a
small evil to prevent a greater one, or to achieve the greater good?’

‘I fail to see how murdering that poor lad could prevent a
greater evil.’

‘If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me, since you’ve already
judged me. But I give you my word – I will meet your condition. And now I
suggest we go up to our beds, for we have much to plan in the morning.’

‘Monkshart?’ Nish said as they were crossing the pavilion,
for something had occurred to him.

‘Yes, Deliverer?’

Nish smiled. For the first time, it sounded right. ‘The Pit
of Possibilities only showed me achieving my goal. It didn’t show me any of the
steps along the way. So how am I to know what to do when it comes to each
choice?’

Monkshart frowned. ‘You must seek the support of your
advisors, then follow your heart or your head, according to the moment.’

It was the most useless piece of advice Nish had ever heard,
but he suddenly felt so weary that he could barely keep his eyes open, so he
merely nodded and turned away to his chamber.

Only as he was drifting off to sleep did Nish realise that
he should have imposed another condition on Monkshart while he had the
bargaining power – that Maelys be placed under his protection until she
could be sent to a place of safety. Was that why she’d died in all his futures?

 
TWENTY-THREE

Two days had passed since Nish’s return from the Pit of
Possibilities, and Monkshart’s attitude had changed towards Maelys. He treated
her with polite deference, but she still didn’t trust him. Even Phrune kept his
distance now and said nothing offensive, though she often noticed his eyes on
her when he thought she wasn’t looking.