The Lord of Lies: Strange Threads: Book 2 (19 page)

Perhaps she should not be so pessimistic. There
was
hope for her to be happy. She allowed herself to peer into a potential future – the Unwoven dealt with, the world restored, and she a mortal woman once again. It was with mixed feelings that she viewed this eventuality. Certainly she had power to lose, not to mention everlasting youth … but she knew that, when it came down to it, she would do what was required. She would journey to the Spire and relinquish the threads that should not have been hers in the first place.

Once everything
else was put to rights.

Painfully, that included Mergan. Yalenna understood with growing heaviness that she must give up the notion that she could talk him around, bring him back from the brink. Her responsibility was to end the threat he posed to the world, and his suffering. Although maybe there was the slight chance that, if she could bring him to the Spire without killing him, he too could be restored.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Enter.’

It was Jandryn. He seemed stiff and unfriendly, and left the door ajar as if to make plain that he was not staying. She set down her tea and gestured at the armchair opposite, hoping it would ease whatever tension held him, but he remained at awkward attention.

‘There is important news this morning,’ he said. ‘First, the Unwoven are beginning to assemble on the Ilduin. It looks like they will soon set forth.’

Yalenna grimaced. Had Mergan encouraged them, set them to task? Was he impatient to begin whatever strange end he sought, if indeed there was one?

‘Secondly, Tallahow has marched on Ander in great numbers. It seems likely the city will fall.’

Two momentous
bits of news.

‘I shall leave you to ruminate,’ Jandryn said. ‘No doubt you wish to consider our best course of action.’

He turned to leave.

‘Jandryn,’ she said. ‘Wait.’

‘Something else, Priestess?’

I wish you’d stop being so petulant
, she thought, but perhaps that was best not said.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘about Rostigan –’

‘No explanation required, my lady. You have chosen your champion, that is clear.’

She sighed. ‘Won’t you please sit down?’

He glanced at the seat dubiously, and his shoulders slumped a little. As if it was a great effort, he lowered himself into the chair.

‘Would you like some tea?’

‘No thank you, Priestess.’

‘I thought you were going to call me Yalenna in private.’

He did not seem to know what to say, and in truth neither did she. She needed to explain about Rostigan, somehow – but how could she, without betraying his confidence?

‘You are Captain of the Guard,’ she tried lamely. ‘Your place is here. It would be selfish of me to risk your life elsewhere.’

‘I am sworn to protect the people of Althala. If that means going to the Peaks to end the silkjaw threat against them, that is what I’ll gladly do. Besides, you deem me too highly valued. I am hardly the commander of the army. I designate patrol routes in the castle, and make sure guards shine their armour adequately. By the Spell, Althala would not miss me.’

‘I am sure
there’s more to you than that. The worms, for a start! It doesn’t sound like they were on any usual patrol route.’

If only she could think up some convincing lie for why she always chose Rostigan to accompany her.

‘I thought you might visit me last night,’ she said.

He went red. ‘Well, yes … I thought about it.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘I was not sure … that is …’ He grew visibly annoyed. ‘It’s become obvious you do not esteem me very highly. I am not some harlot to be summoned when you want me, cast aside when you do not!’

Yalenna was shocked. ‘Is that really what you think?’

‘Have I reason not to?’

Could she not just tell him the truth? Swear him to secrecy, count on him not to say anything about Rostigan’s true past?

‘Listen,’ she said.

She could not.
Blood and fire
.

It was then she noticed something odd about him, and let her vision slide to the realm of patterns. There, in the tapestry that made him up, were little grey dots, clinging to his threads like dust.

‘Oh dear,’ she said.

‘What?’

She reached
out a hand and sent her influence questing forth.

‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.

‘Something from the worms lingers on you. Over time it will probably drop away by itself, but here, let me help …’

She smoothed his pattern down with an ethereal stroke, brushing the greyness to the floor, while Jandryn looked quite startled.

‘Is it … was it much?’ he asked.

‘Do you feel better now?’

‘I …’ His eyes shone. ‘Ah … but I have let dark thoughts overpower me.’ He averted his gaze. ‘I have been weak.’

She slid off her chair to her knees, gathered up his hands in hers. ‘It’s all right.’

‘Yalenna,’ he said, his voice strained, ‘you should not be down there. Our positions should be reversed. It is I who must ask for forgiveness.’

‘It is not needed. I just wish I had noticed yesterday.’

‘I can’t deny I have been jealous,’ he said, ‘but ever since the worms it has grown consuming.’

She got up, went to the window to stare out as she collected her thoughts. ‘We have never discussed your blessing,’ she said eventually. ‘You must know, of course, that you have one, yet you have never asked about it.’

‘No. It did not seem courteous. I mean, you must get asked about that kind of thing all the time. Endlessly, I imagine.’

‘It’s true.’

‘I did not
want to be another person bothering you.’

She chuckled. ‘Ah, you are a strange man. But perhaps I should tell you what it is, for what it may be worth.’

He didn’t reply. She turned around, and almost did not believe what she saw. His eyes were fixed a little to the left of where she now stood, his expression frozen in place.

‘Grief,’ she muttered.

With Despirrow dead, did that mean Forger was the one using the time-halting power? Maybe in the midst of a raging battle, many leagues away? There was a fear about it now, after the long night she had endured. Forger would not leave it so long as that though, surely? He was just sidestepping a sword or something. As she waited, however, the freeze sustained and she began to worry.

It was lucky in the end that Jandryn had been in such a mood, for he had left the door open wide enough for her to squeeze through.

Rostigan tapped the spoon on the surface of his rock hard oats and cursed quietly. Tarzi, sitting beside him, had thankfully not been touching him when everything had stopped. He sometimes wondered how he would explain it to her if they both wound up in no-time together.

He sat waiting in the silent barracks dining hall, trying not to grow impatient. The freeze was lasting a while and, just as he was wondering whether to get up and move around, and how he would account for his disappearance if time started again, Yalenna walked in.

‘Ah!’ he
said. ‘Your sudden appearance will be preferable to my mysterious departure.’

‘I have just had a report from Jandryn,’ she said, sliding in between two soldiers. ‘The Unwoven are mobilising on mass, and Forger is attacking Ander.’

Rostigan’s expression darkened. He may have avoided his homeland for a long time, but he did not like to think of what Forger might be doing to it.

‘It’s time to act,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘At least we better understand our ultimate goal.’

Going to the Spire – that was what she meant. Was he ready? Rostigan wondered. He did not think so. He glanced sidelong at Tarzi. Was she an obstacle in his search, or, if he became mortal again, would he love her in a way that his current, altered self could not? Perhaps he had already found what he was looking for and did not even realise.

‘If we can kill the others,’ Yalenna said, ‘Forger and … Mergan … we can absorb their threads and return them to the Wound ourselves.’

Rostigan nodded, though internally he balked at the idea. Once he was loaded up with the other Wardens’ corruption, he would have no choice but to return it to the Spell. The way he was he could resist actively using his own power, and Stealer’s too, but if he killed Forger he would also inherit Braston’s and Despirrow’s powers, and Braston’s at least could not be controlled. There would be no more living quietly, playing a patience game with time. He would have to give it all up. Three hundreds years of waiting, for nothing.

‘I am
fearful of trying to slay Forger,’ he said. ‘His strength will be very great by now. In a direct stand-off, I do not favour us.’

‘Braston and I bested him once before.’

‘When you managed to catch him alone. When he had already expended much power in his search for me. Not to mention that Braston was a better threader than I in direct confrontation.’

She nodded dully. ‘The army must march, at least. Perhaps we can deal with the Unwoven first, and with the backing of other threaders, Mergan as well?’

‘Yes, the army must march.’

Perhaps there was another way to deal with Forger? To use him, even? The thought of it worried Rostigan – had worried him ever since he’d started entertaining it, after hearing Salarkis’s message.

Could he journey so far into the deep place without grave consequences to his soul?

‘I have an idea,’ he said.

They argued about it for a while – Yalenna shared Rostigan’s concerns, but eventually she agreed.

‘Bruises
in the sky and the ground quakes,’ she said. ‘I suppose it would be fair to call these desperate times.’

Rostigan nodded. ‘Haste is becoming a factor.’

‘You really think you can do it?’

‘I think I must try.’

She remained uncertain. ‘I can’t help but feel it would be simpler to orchestrate his demise.’

‘And how would we go about that? Go to him while he stands surrounded by his army? Threadwalk into their midst and attack him head on?’

‘We could bide our time, wait until the right moment …’

She trailed off, and he knew what she was thinking. Moments were growing shorter in supply.

He felt a hint of guilt – was he trying to convince her of his plan for selfish reasons, or was it really the best course of action?

‘Do you really want Forger’s threads inside you?’ he asked. ‘What if they make you something like him?’

She paled at that, and bit her lip. ‘You did not become like Stealer,’ she said. ‘And Forger, presumably, has not become like Braston.’

‘I was affected, nonetheless,’ he said, not liking the fact that he had to lie. ‘There are sometimes … urges … that I must control.’

‘What? You’ve never spoken about this before.’

‘I did not want to worry you. The point is, Forger was the most affected, the most changed, of all of us. That bespeaks potency in his threads – who knows what would happen if either of us took them on? There is the potential we could grow even more powerful, more twisted, than he is now.’

That
was
when he got her, he knew, and she looked perfectly miserable for a moment.

‘If you get yourself killed,’ she said, ‘or sink too far … I don’t think I can do it all on my own.’

It was rare to see her look so vulnerable, and he appreciated her worry. Having lost all former friends and allies, it was really only the two of them standing together.

‘I won’t leave you alone,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

‘What are you going to tell Tarzi?’

He glanced at his minstrel, frozen mid-chew, her freckled cheeks full of breakfast. Could he spend the rest of his days with her? Why couldn’t he give up on some whimsical dream befitting a twelve-year-old girl, and settle for reality?

‘I’ll think of something,’ he said.

‘Oh, by the way – there was some worm dust on Jandryn. You might want to check that Tarzi doesn’t carry any.’

‘I did. She doesn’t.’

‘Ah. Well thanks very much for warning me such a thing is possible.’

‘Apologies.’

‘Honestly, I suffer enough for keeping your secrets. You could at least share knowledge when it costs you nothing.’

‘I’m sorry, really. It simply did not occur to me.’