He is unseen, one in a crowd whom none call
Do not slip past that forgettable face
Crawl not inside to find the unbidden rill
As it flows in dark horror from place to place
He is a common thing, in no way singular
Who lets no one inside the uneven steps
Down those eyes that drown the solitary star
We boldly share in these human depths
Not your brother, not anyone’s saviour
He will loom only closer to search your clothes
Push aside the feeble hand that seeks to stir
Compassion’s glow (the damp, dying rose)
He has plucked his garden down to bone
And picked every last bit of warm flesh
With fear like claws and nervous teeth when alone
He wanders this wasteland of cinder and ash
I watch in terror as he ascends our blessed throne
To lay down his cloak of shame like a shroud
And beckons us the illusion of a warm home
A sanctuary beneath his notice, one in a crowd
He finds his power in our indifference
Shredding the common to dispense with congress
No conjoined will to set against him in defiance
And one by one by one, he kills us
– A King Takes the Throne (carved on the Poet’s Wall, Royal Dungeons, Unta)
With a twist and a snarl, Shan turned on Lock. The huge white-coated beast did not flinch or scurry, hut simply loped away, tongue lolling as if in laughter. A short distance off, Pallid watched. Fangs still bared, Shan slipped off into the high grasses once more.
Baran, Blind, Rood and Gear had not slowed during this exchange-it had happened many times before, after all-and they continued on, in a vaguely crescent formation, Rood and Gear on the flanks. Antelope observed them from a rise off to the southwest-the barest tilt of a head from any of the Hounds and they would be off, fast as their bounding legs could take them, their hearts a frenzied drum-roll of bleak terror.
But the Hounds of Shadow were not hunting this day. Not antelope, not bhed-erin, nor mule deer nor ground sloth. A host of animals that lived either in states of blessed anonymity or states of fear had no need to lurch from the former into the latter-at least not because of the monstrous Hounds. As for the wolves of the plains, the lumbering snub-nosed bears and the tawny cats of the high grasses, there were none within ten leagues-the faintest wisp of scent had sent them fleeing one and all.
Great Ravens sailed high above the Hounds, minute specks in the vaulted blue.
Shan was displeased with the two new companions, these blots of dirty white with the lifeless eyes. Lock in particular irritated her, as it seemed this one wanted to travel as she did, close by her side, sliding unseen, ghostly and silent. Most annoying of all, Lock was Shan’s able match in such skill.
But she had no interest in surrendering her solitude. Ambush and murder were best served alone, as far as she was concerned. Lock complicated things, and Shan despised complications.
Somewhere, far behind them, creatures pursued. In the profoundly long history of the Hounds of Shadow, they had been hunted many times. More often than not, the hunters came to regret the decision, whether a momentary impulse or an instinctive need; whether at the behest of some master or by the hatred in their souls, their desire usually proved fatal.
Occasionally, however, being hunted was such exquisite pleasure that the Hounds never turned the game. Let the chase go on, and on. Dance from the path of that rage, all that blind need.
All things will cast a shadow. If light blazes infernal, a shadow can grow solid, outlines sharp, motion rippling within. Shape is a reflection, but not all reflec-tions are true. Some shadows lie. Deception born of imagination and imagination born of fear, or perhaps it is the other way round and fear ignites imagination-regardless, shadows will thrive.
In the dark conjurings of a sentient mind, all that is imagined can be made real. The beast, and the shadow it casts. The beast’s shadow, and the light from which it is born. Each torn away, made distinct, made into things of nightmare.
Philosophers and fools might claim that light is without shape, that it finds its existence in painting the shape of other things, as wayward as the opening of aneye. That, in the absence of such things, it slants unseen, indeed, invisible. With-out other things to strike upon, it does not cavort, does not bounce, does not paint and reflect. Rather, it flows eternal. If this is so, then light is unique in the uni-verse.
But the universe holds to one law above all others: nothing is unique.
Fools and philosophers have not, alas, seen the light.
Conjure the shape of beasts, of Hounds and monsters, fiends and nightmares. Of light, of dark, and of shadow. A handful of clay, a gifted breath of life, and forces will seethe in the conflicts inscribed upon their souls.
The Deragoth are the dark, and in their savage solidity would claim ownership of the shadows they cast. Lock and Pallid, however, are the light that gave the Deragoth shape, without whom neither the Deragoth nor the Hounds of Shadow would exist. If the hunters and the hunted so will, one day the beasts shall come together, baleful in mutual regard, perhaps even eager to annihilate one another, and then, in a single instant of dumbfounded astonishment, vanish one and all. Ha hah.
Not all instincts guide one to behaviours of survival. Life is mired in stupidity, after all, and the smarter the life, the stupider it can be. The Hounds of Shadow were neither brilliant nor brainless. They were, in fact, rather clever.
Salutations to this triparate universe, so mutually insistent. And why not? It doesn’t even exist, except in the caged mind that so needs simplification.
A mind, mused Cotillion, like mine.
He glanced across at his companion. But not his. When you stand at the centre of the game, no questions arise. How can that be? What is it like, to he the storm’s eye? What happens, dear Shadowthrone, when you blink?
‘This,’ muttered Shadowthrone, ‘was unexpected.’
‘A damned complication,’ Cotillion agreed. ‘We need the Hounds there, just to ensure nothing goes awry.’
Shadowthrone snorted. ‘It always goes awry. Gods below, I’ve had to use that mad High Priest again.’
‘Iskaral Pust.’ After a moment, Cotillion realized he was smiling. He quickly cast away that expression, since if Shadowthrone saw it he might well go apoplectic. ‘Lovely as she is, Sordiko Qualm is not insurance enough, not for this, anyway.’
‘Nor is Pust!’ snapped Shadowthrone.
They watched the Hounds drawing closer, sensed the beasts’ collective curiosity at this unplanned intercession. Their task now, after all, was simple. Straightforward, even.
Cotillion glanced back over his shoulder, eyes narrowing on the gaunt figure walking towards them. Well, not precisely-the stranger was on his way to a damned reunion, and what would come of that?
‘Too many histories, too many half-truths and outright lies.’ Shadowthrone snarled every word of that statement. ‘Pups of the Tiste Edur-any one will do, it seems, if they know the old commands. But now…’
‘According to my, er, research, its name is Tulas Shorn, and no, I do not knowthe gender and what seems to be left of it doesn’t look as if it will provide enough detail to decide either way.’
Shadowthrone grunted, and then said, ‘At least it’s sembled-oh, how I hate dragons! If vermin had a throne, they’d he on it.’
‘Everywhere there’s a mess, they’re in the middle of it, all right. Eleint, Soletaken-hardly a difference, when it comes to trouble.’
‘The chaos of their blood, Cotillion. Imagine how dull it would be without them… and I so cherish dullness.’
// you say so.
‘So,’ Shadowthrone resumed, ‘how does all this fit with your ridiculously convoluted theories?’
‘They’re only convoluted because they are without substance-if you’ll kindly excuse that inadvertent pun. Light, Dark, Shadow. Hounds of this and that and that. These beasts may exist only because of semantics.’
Shadowthrone snorted. ‘You don’t have to clean up after them-the only possible excuse for such an idiotic suggestion. They smell, they slaver and slobber, they scratch and they lick, Cotillion. Oh, and they tear things to pieces. When it suits them.’
‘Because we expect them to.’
‘Really now.’
‘Listen-what was the mess behind the origin of the Deragoth? Wild beasts from the dusty aeons of past ages, seven left in all the world, and the First Emperor-who was anything but-chooses them as the repositories of his divided soul. All very well, but then we have the Hounds of Shadow, and, presumably, the Hounds of Light-’
‘They’re just damned albinos, Cotillion, a detail probably irrelevant, and besides, there’re only two of them-’
‘That we know of, and we know of them only because they wandered into our realm-why? What or who summoned them?’
‘I did, of course.’
‘How?’
Shadowthrone shrugged. ‘I mused out loud on the need for… replacements.’
‘And that constitutes summoning? I believe I have also heard you musing on the “need” for a breathlessly beautiful Queen of Shadow, a slave to your every desire-’
‘You were hiding behind the curtain! I knew it!’
‘The point is, where is she?’
The question was left unanswered, as Tulas Shorn had arrived, halting ten paces before them. ‘It seems,’ the undead Tiste Edur said, ‘my Hounds have found new… pets.’
‘Saw his head off, Cotillion,’ Shadowthrone said. ‘I hate him already.’
Shan slid up beside Cotillion, eyes fixed on Tulas Shorn. A moment later Baran, Rood, Blind and Gear arrived, padding round the rulers of the Realm of Shadow, and onward to encircle the Tiste Edur. /
Who held out his hands, as if inviting the beasts to draw close.
None did.
‘They preferred you living, I think,’ Cotillion observed. ‘The dead surrender so much.’
‘If only my sentiments were dead,’ Tulas Shorn said, then sighed as it lowered its hands to its sides once more. ‘Still, it pleases me to see them. But two are missing.’
At that Cotillion glanced round. ‘Well, you’re right.’
‘Killed?’
‘Killed,’ confirmed Shadowthrone.
‘Who?’
‘Anomander Rake.’
At the name Tulas Shorn started.
‘Still around,’ said Shadowthrone, ‘yes. Hee hee. Houndslayer.’
‘And neither of you strong enough to avenge the slayings, it seems. I am astonished that my Hounds have accepted such feeble masters.’
‘I thought it was pets. No matter. Ganrod and Doan died because they were precipitate. Blame poor training. I do.’
‘I am of a mind to test you,’ said Tulas Shorn after a moment.
‘You want the Throne of Shadow, do you?’
‘My first rule was cut short. I have learned since-’
‘Hardly. You died.’ Shadowthrone waved one ephemeral hand. ‘Whatever you learned, you did not learn well enough. Obviously.’
‘You seem certain of that.’
‘He is,’ said Cotillion.
‘Is it simply megalomania, then, that so afflicts him?’
‘Well, yes, but that’s beside the point.’
‘And what is the point?’
‘That you clearly have not learned anything worthwhile.’
‘And why do you say that?’
‘Because you’ve just said that you were of a mind to test us.’
Tulas Shorn cocked its head. ‘Do you imagine the Hounds will defend you?’
‘These ones? Probably not.’
‘Then-’ But the rest of his statement was left unfinished, as Lock and Pallid arrived, heads low, hackles upright like spines, to flank Shadowthrone and Cotillion. Upon seeing them, Tulas Shorn stepped back. ‘By the Abyss,’ it whispered, ‘have you two lost your minds? They cannot be here-they must not be among you-’
‘Why?’ Cotillion demanded, leaning forward in sudden interest.
But the Tiste Edur simply shook its head.
The two bone-white Hounds looked barely restrained, moments from exploding into a deadly charge. The hate was avid in their eyes.
‘Why?’ Cotillion asked again.
‘The… implacability of forces-we think to tame, but the wildness remains. Control is a delusion in the mind of self-proclaimed masters.’ And that last word dripped with contempt. ‘The leash, you fools, is frayed-don’t you understand anything at all?’’Perhaps-’
Tulas Shorn lifted both hands again, but this time in a warding gesture. ‘We’d thought the same, once. We’d deceived ourselves into thinking we were the mas-ters, that every force bowed to our command. And what happened? They destroyed everything!’
‘I don’t-’
‘Understand! / see that! They are conjurations-manifestations-they exist to warn you. They are the proof that all that you think to enslave will turn on you.’ And it backed away. ‘The end begins again, it begins again.’
Cotillion stepped forward. ‘Light, Dark and Shadow-these three-are you saying-’
‘Three?’ Tulas Shorn laughed with savage bitterness. ‘What then of Life? Fire and Stone and Wind? What, you fools, of the Hounds of Death? Manifestations, I said. They will turn-they are telling you that! That is why they exist! The fangs, the fury-all that is implacable in nature-each aspect but a variation, a hue in the maelstrom of destruction!’
Tulas Shorn was far enough away now, and the Tiste Edur began veering into a dragon.
As one, all seven Hounds surged forward-but they were too late, as the enormous winged creature launched skyward, rising on a wave of appalling power that sent Cotillion staggering back; that blew through Shadowthrone until he seemed half shredded.
The Soletaken dragon rose higher, as if riding on a column of pure panic, or horror. Or dismay. A pillar reaching for the heavens. Far above, the Great Ravens scattered.
Recovering, Cotillion turned on Shadowthrone. ‘Are we in trouble?’
The ruler of High House Shadow slowly collected himself back into a vaguely human shape. ‘I can’t be sure,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘Why, because I blinked.’
Up ahead, the Hounds had resumed their journey. Lock loped a tad too close alongside Shan and she snarled the beast off.
Tongue lolled, jaw hanging in silent laughter.
So much for lessons in hubris.
There were times, Kallor reflected, when he despised his own company. The day gloried in its indifference, the sun a blinding blaze tracking the turgid crawl of the landscape. The grasses clung to the hard earth the way they always did, seeds drifting on the wind as if on sighs of hope. Tawny rodents stood sentinel above warren holes and barked warnings as he marched past. The shadows of circling hawks rippled across his path every now and then.
Despising himself was, oddly enough, a comforting sensation, for he knew he was not alone in his hate. He could recall times, sitting on a throne as if he and it had merged into one, as immovable and inviolate as one of the matching statuesHillside the palace (any one of his innumerable palaces), when he would feel the oceanic surge of hate’s tide. His subjects, tens, hundreds of thousands, each and every one wishing him dead, cast down, torn to pieces. Yet what had he been but the perfect, singular representative of all that they despised within themselves? Who among them would not eagerly take his place? Casting down foul judgements upon all whose very existence offended?
He had been, after all, the very paragon of acquisitiveness. Managing to grasp what others could only reach for, to gather into his power a world’s arsenal of weapons, and reshape that world in hard cuts, to make of it what he willed-not one would refuse to take his place. Yes, they could hate him; indeed, they must hate him, for he embodied the perfection of success, and his very existence mocked their own failures. And the violence he delivered? Well, watch how it played out in smaller scenes everywhere-the husband who cannot satisfy his wife, so he beats her down with his fists. The streetwise adolescent bully, pinning his victim to the cobbles and twisting the hapless creature’s arm. The noble walking past the starving beggar. The thief with the avaricious eye-no, none of these are any different, not in their fundamental essence.
So, hate Kallor even as he hates himself. Even in that, he will do it better. Innate superiority expressed in all manner of ways. See the world gnash its teeth-he answers with a most knowing smile.
He walked, the place where he had begun far, far behind him now, and the place to where he was going drawing ever closer, step by step, as inexorable as this crawling landscape. Let the sentinels bark, let the hawks muse with wary eye. Seeds ride his legs, seeking out new worlds. He walked, and in his mind memories unfolded like worn packets of parchment, seamed and creased, scurried up from the bottom of some burlap sack routed as rats, crackling as they opened up in a rain of flattened moths and insect carcasses.
Striding white-faced and blood-streaked down a jewel-studded hallway, dragging by an ankle the corpse of his wife-just one in a countless succession-her arms trailing behind her limp as dead snakes, their throats slashed open. There had been no warning, no patina of dust covering her eyes when she fixed him with their regard that morning, as he sat ordering the Century Candles in a row on the table between them. As he invited her into a life stretched out, the promise of devouring for ever-no end to the feast awaiting them, no need to ever exercise anything like restraint. They would speak and live the language of excess. They would mark out the maps of interminable expansion, etching the ambitions they could now entertain. Nothing could stop them, not even death itself.
Some madness had afflicted her, like the spurt and gush of a nicked artery-there could be no other cause. Madness it had been. Insanity, to have flung away so much. Of what he offered her. So much, yes, of him. Or so he had told himself at the time, and for decades thereafter. It had been easier that way.
He knew now why she had taken her own life. To be offered everything was to be shown what she herself was capable of-the depthless reach of her potential depravity, the horrors she would entertain, the plucking away of every last filament at sensitivity, leaving her conscience smooth, cool to the touch, a thing maybe alive, maybe not, a thing nothing could prod awake. She had seen, yes, just how far she might take herself… and had then said no.
Another sweet packet, unfolding with the scent of flowers. He knelt beside Vaderon, his war horse, as the animal bled out red foam, its one visible eye fixed on him, as if wanting to know: was it all worth this? What has my life purchased you, my blood, the end of my days?
A battlefield spread out on all sides. Heaps of the dead and the dying, human and beast, Jheck and Tartheno Toblakai, a scattering of Forkrul Assail each one surrounded by hundreds of the fallen, the ones protecting their warleaders, the ones who failed in taking the demons down. And there was no dry ground, the blood was a shallow sea thickening in the heat, and more eyes looked upon nothing than scanned the nightmare seeking friends and kin.
Voices cried, but they seemed distant-leagues away from Kallor where he knelt beside Vaderon, unable to pull his gaze from that one fixating eye. Promises of brotherhood, flung into the crimson mud. Silent vows of honour, courage, service and reward, all streaming down the broken spear shaft jutting from the animal’s massive, broad chest. And yes, Vaderon had reared to take that thrust, a thrust aimed at Kallor himself, because this horse was too stupid to understand anything.
That Kallor had begun this war, had welcomed the slaughter, the mayhem.
That Kallor, this master now kneeling at its side, was in truth a brutal, despicable man, a bag of skin filled with venom and spite, with envy and a child’s selfish snarl that in losing took the same from everyone else.
Vaderon, dying. Kallor, dry-eyed and damning himself for his inability to weep. To feel regret, to sow self-recrimination, to make promises to do better the next time round.
I am as humankind, he often told himself. Impervious to lessons. Pitiful in loss and defeat, vengeful in victory. With every possible virtue vulnerable to exploitation and abuse by others, could they claim dominion, until such virtues became hollow things, sweating beads of poison. I hold forth goodness and see it made vile, and do nothing, voice no complaint, utter no disavowal. The world I make I have made for one single purpose-to chew me up, me and everyone else. Do not believe this bewildered expression. I am bemused only through stupidity, but the clever among me know better, oh, yes they do, even as they lie through my teeth, to you and to themselves.
Kallor walked, over one shoulder a burlap sack ten thousand leagues long and bulging with folded packets. So different from everyone else. Ghost horses run at his side. Wrist-slashed women show bloodless smiles, dancing round the rim of deadened lips. And where dying men cry, see his shadow slide past.
‘I want things plain,’ said Nenanda. ‘I don’t want to have to work.’ And then he looked up, belligerent, quick to take affront.
Skintick was bending twigs to make a stick figure. ‘But things aren’t plain, Nenanda. They never are.’’I know that, just say it straight, that’s all.’
‘You don’t want your confusion all stirred up, you mean.’
Nimander roused himself. ‘Skin-’
But Nenanda had taken the bait-and it was indeed bait, since for all that Skintick had seemed intent on his twigs, he had slyly noted Nenanda’s diffidence. ‘Liars like confusion. Liars and thieves, because they can slip in and slip out, when there’s confusion. They want your uncertainty, but there’s nothing uncertain in what they want, is there? That’s how they use you-you’re like that yourself sometimes, Skintick, with your clever words.’
‘Wait, how can they use me if I am them?’
Desra snorted.
Nenanda’s expression filled with fury and he would have risen, if not for Aranatha’s gentle hand settling on his arm, magically dispelling his rage.
Skintick twisted the arms of the tiny figure until they were above the knotted head with its lone green leaf, and held it up over the fire so that it faced Nenanda. ‘Look/ he said, ‘he surrenders.’
‘Do not mock me, Skintick.’
‘On the contrary, I applaud your desire to have things simple. After all, either you can cut it with your sword or you can’t.’
‘There you go again.’
The bickering would go on half the night, Nimander knew. And as it went on it would unravel, and Skintick would increasingly make Nenanda into a thick-witted fool, when he was not anything of the sort. But words were indeed ephemeral, able to sleet past all manner of defences, quick to cut, eager to draw blood. They were the perfect weapons of deceit, but they could also be, he well knew, the solid pave-stones of a path leading to comprehension-or what passed for comprehension in this murky, impossible world.
There were so many ways to live, one for every single sentient being-and perhaps for the non-sentient ones too-that it was a true miracle whenever two could meet in mutual understanding, or even passive acceptance. Proof, Skintick had once said, of life’s extraordinary flexibility. But then, he had added, it is our curse to be social creatures, so we’ve little choice but to try to get along.
They were camped on a broad terrace above the last of the strange ruins-the day’s climb had been long, dusty and exhausting. Virtually every stone in the rough gravel filling the old drainage channels proved to be some sort of fossil-pieces of what had once been bone, wood, tooth or tusk-all in fragments, pieces. The entire mountainside seemed to be some sort of midden, countless centuries old, and to imagine the lives needed to create so vast a mound was to feel bewildered, weakened with awe. Were the mountains behind this one the same? Was such a thing even possible?
Can’t you see, Nenanda, how nothing is simple? Not even the ground we walk upon. How is this created? Is what we come from and where we end up any different? No, that was badly put. Make it simpler. What is this existence?
As Nenanda might answer, it does a warrior no good to ask such questions. Leave us this headlong plunge, leave to the moment to come that next step, even if it’s over an abyss. There’s no point in all these questions.
And how might Skintick respond to that? Show a bhederin fear and watch it run off a cliff. What killed it! The jagged rocks below, or the terror that made it both blind and stupid! And Nenanda would shrug. Who cares! Let’s just eat the damned thing,
This was not the grand conflict of sensibilities one might think it was. Just two heads on the same coin, one facing right on this side, the other facing left on the other side. Both winking.
And Desra would snort and say, Keep your stupid words, I’ll take the cock in my hand over words any time.
Holding on for dear life, Skintick would mutter under his breath, and Desra’s answering smile fooled no one. Nimander well remembered every conversation among his followers, his siblings, his family, and remembered too how they could repeat themselves, with scant variation, if all the cues were triggered in the right sequence.
He wondered where Clip had gone to-somewhere out beyond this pool of fire-light, perhaps listening, perhaps not. Would he hear anything he’d not heard before? Would anything said this night alter his opinion of them? It did not seem likely. They bickered, they rapped against personalities and spun off either laugh-ing or infuriated. Prodding, skipping away, ever seeking where the skin was thinnest above all the old bruises. All just fighting without swords, and no one ever died, did they?
Nimander watched Kedeviss-who had been unusually quiet thus far-rise and draw her cloak tighter about her shoulders. After a moment, she set off into the dark.
Somewhere in the crags far away, wolves began howling.
Something huge loomed just outside the flickering orange light, and Samar Dev saw both Karsa and Traveller twist round to face it, and then they rose, reaching for their weapons. The shape shifted, seemed to wag from side to side, and then-at the witch’s eye level had she been standing-a glittering, twisting snout, a broad flattened halo of fur, the smear of fire in two small eyes.
Samar Dev struggled to breathe. She had never before seen such an enormous bear. If it reared, it would tower over even Karsa Orlong. She watched that uplifted head, the flattened nose testing the air. The creature, she realized, clearly relied more on smell than on sight. / thought fire frightened such beasts-not summoned them.
If it attacked, things would happen… fast. Two swords flashing into its lunge, a deafening bellow, talons scything to sweep away the two puny attackers-and then it would come straight for her. She could see that, was certain of it. The bear had come for her.
De nek okral. The words seemed to foam up to the surface of her thoughts, like things belched from the murky depths of instinct. ‘De nek okral,’ she whispered.
The nostrils flared, dripping.
And then, with a snuffling snort, the beast drew back, out of the firelight. A crunch of stones, and the ground trembled as the animal lumbered away.
Karsa and Traveller moved their hands away from their weapons, and then both eased back down, resuming their positions facing the fire.
The Toblakai warrior found a stick and dropped it into the flames. Sparks whirled skyward, bright with liberation, only to wink out. His expression looked thoughtful.
Samar Dev glanced down at her trembling hands, and then slipped them beneath the woollen blanket she had wrapped about herself.
‘Strictly speaking/ said Traveller, ‘not an okral. De nek…’, He raised his brows.’”Short nose?”‘
‘How should I know?’ Samar Dev snapped.
His brows lifted higher.
‘I don’t know where those words came from. They just… arrived.’
‘They were Imass, Samar Dev.’
‘Oh?’
‘Okral is the word for a plains bear, but that was no plains bear-too big, legs too long-’
‘I would not,’ said Karsa, ‘wish to be chased by that beast, even on horseback. That animal was built for running its prey down.’
‘But it was not hunting,’ said Traveller.
‘I don’t know what it was doing,’ Karsa conceded with a loose shrug. ‘But I am glad it changed its mind.’
‘
‘From you two,’ Samar said, ’it would have sensed no fear. That alone would have made it hesitate.’ Her voice was harsh, almost flinging the words out. She was not sure why she was so angry. Perhaps naught but the aftermath of terror-a terror that neither companion had the decency to have shared with her. They made her feel… diminished.
Traveller was still studying her, and she wanted to snarl at him. When he spoke, his tone was calm. ‘The old gods of war are returning.’
‘War? The god of war? That was Fener, wasn’t it? The Boar.’
‘Fener, Togg, Fanderay, Treach, and,’ he shrugged, ‘De nek Okral-who can say how many once existed. They arose, I would imagine, dependent on the environment of the worshippers-whatever beast was supreme predator, was the most savage-’
‘But none were,’ cut in Karsa Orlong. ‘Supreme. That title belonged to us two-legged hunters, us bright-eyed killers.’
Traveller continued to stare at Samar Dev. ‘The savagery of the beasts reflected the savagery in the souls of the worshippers. In war, this is what was shared. Boar, tigers, wolves, the great bears that knew no fear.’
‘Is this what Fener’s fall has done, then?’ Samar Dev asked. ‘All the hoary, for-gotten once clambering back to fight over the spoils? And what has that to do with that bear, anyway?’
‘That bear,’ said Traveller, ‘was a god.’
Karsa spat into the fire. ‘No wonder 1 have never before seen such a beast.’
‘They once existed,’ said Traveller. ‘They once ruled these plains, until all that they hunted was taken from them, and so they vanished, as have so many other proud creatures.’
‘The god should have followed them/ said Karsa. ‘There are too many faces of war as it is.’
Samar Dev grunted. ‘That’s rich coming from you.’
Karsa eyed her over the flames, and then grinned, the crazed tattoos seeming to split wide open on his face. ‘There need be only one.’
Yours. Yes, Toblakai, I understand you well enough. ‘I have one true fear/ she said. ‘And that is, when you are done with civilization, it will turn out that you as master of everything will prove no better than the ones you pulled down. That you will find the last surviving throne and plop yourself down on it, and find it all too much to your liking.’
‘That is an empty fear, Witch,’ said Karsa Orlong. ‘I will leave not one throne to sit on-I will shatter them all. And if, when I am done, I am the last left standing-in all the world-then I will be satisfied.’
‘What of your people?’
‘I have listened too long to the whispers of Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. Our ways are but clumsier versions of all the other ways in which people live-their love of waste, their eagerness to reap every living thing as if belonged to them, as if in order to prove ownership they must destroy it.’ He bared his teeth. ‘We think no differently, just slower. Less… efficiently. You will prattle on about progress, Samar Dev, but progress is not what you think it is. It is not a tool guided by our hands-not yours, not mine, not Traveller’s. It is not something we can rightly claim as our destiny. Why? Because in truth we have no control over it. Not your machines, Witch, not a hundred thousand slaves shackled to it-even as we stand with whips in hand.’
Now Traveller had turned slightly and was studying the Toblakai with that same curious wonder that she had seen before. ‘What then,’ he asked, ’is progress, Karsa Orlong?’
The Toblakai gestured into the night sky. ‘The crawl of the stars, the plunge and rise of the moon. Day, night, birth, death-progress is the passage of reality. We sit astride this horse, but it is a beast we can never tame, and it will run for ever-we will age and wither and fall off, and it cares not. Some other will leap aboard and it cares not. It may run alone, and it cares not. It outran the great bears. The wolves and their worshippers. It outran the Jaghut, and the K’Chain Che’Malle. And still it runs on, and to it we are nothing.’
‘Then why not let us ride it for a time?’ Samar Dev demanded. ‘Why not leave us that damned illusion?’
‘Because, woman, we ride it to hunt, to kill, to destroy. We ride it as if it is our right and our excuse both.’’And yet,’ said Traveller, ’is that not precisely what you intend, Karsa Orlong?’
‘i shall destroy what I can, but never shall I claim to own what I destroy. I will be the embodiment of progress, but emptied of greed. I shall be like nature’s fist: blind. And I shall prove that ownership is a lie. The land, the seas, the life to be found there. The mountains, the plains, the cities, the farms. Water, air. We own none of it. This is what I will prove, and by proving it will make it so.’
He leaned forward then and gathered up in his hands a heap of dusty earth. The Toblakai rose to his feet, and dropped the soil on to the fire, snuffing out the flames. Darkness took them all, as if but awaiting this moment. Or, she thought with a chill, as if it has always been there. The light blinded me, else I would have seen it.
As I do now.
God of war, what did you want with me?
With an ear-piercing scream the enkaral crashed down on to Pearl, talons slashing through flesh, dagger fangs closing on the back of the demon’s neck. Grunting, he reached up and closed one hand about the winged beast’s throat, the other forcing its way beneath the enkaral’s upper jaw-fingers sliced into shreds as he reached ever farther and then began prising the mouth back open. The fangs of the lower jaw sank deeper into the muscles of Pearl’s neck, and still he pushed. As this was going on, the talons never ceased their frantic rending along the demon’s lower back, seeking to hook round his spine, seeking to tear loose that column-but the chains and shackles snarled its efforts, as did Pearl’s twisting to evade each stabbing search through his muscles.
Finally, as his grip on the beast’s throat tightened, he could hear the desperate squeal of its breath, and the jaws weakened. Something crunched and all at once Pearl was able to rip the jaws free of his neck. He staggered forward, dragging the huge beast round, both hands closing on its scaled throat-and more things collapsed inside that crushing grip.
The enkaral flailed about, legs kicking wildly now, talons scoring furrows on Pearl’s thighs. He forced the beast down on to the ground. The thrashing slowed, and then, with a spasm, the creature went limp.
Pearl slowly rose, flinging to carcass to one side; a thud, the slap and rustle of chains. The demon then glanced over to the figure walking alongside it. ‘Did I anger it somehow, Draconus?’
The man squinted, shifting the weight of his chains over his other shoulder before replying, ‘No, Pearl. Madness took it, that’s all. You just happened to be near.’
‘Oh,’ said Pearl. And then the demon sighed. ‘Then it is good it was me and not something… smaller.’
‘Can you continue, Pearl?’
‘I can, yes. Thank you for asking.’
‘Not much longer, I should think.’
‘No, not much longer,’ agreed Pearl. ‘And then?’
‘We will see, won’t we?’’Yes, that is true. Draconus?
‘Pearl?’
‘I think I will welcome an end-is that a terrible thing for me to say?’
The man shook his head, his expression hinting that he might he in pain. ‘No, my friend, it is not.’
Fully one half of the sky was now a seething argent storm. Thunder rolled from the horizon behind them, as the very ground was ripped up, annihilated-their world had acquired an edge, raw as a cliff, and that cliff was drawing closer as vast sections sheared away, as the raging abyss swallowed the toppling stone columns one by one.
And it occurred to Draconus, then, that each of them here, seemingly alone, each with his or her own shackle, his or her own chain, had finally, at long last, come together.
We are an army. But an army in retreat. See the detritus we leave in our wake, the abandoned comrades. See the glaze of our eyes, this veil of numbed exhaustion-when at last we tear it aside, we will find the despair we have harboured for so long, like a black poisoned fruit under a leaf-all revealed as we look into each other’s eyes.
Was the comfort found in mutual recognition of any true worth? Here, at the last? When the common ground is failure? Like a field of corpses after a battle. Like a sea of skulls rolling in the tide. Is not the brotherhood too bitter to bear?
And now, he wanted to… to what? Yes, to rage, but first, let me close my eyes. Just for a moment. Let me find, again, my will-
‘Draconus?’
‘Yes, Pearl?’
‘Do you hear drums? I hear drums.’
‘The thunder-’ and then he stopped, and turned round, to look back at that fulminating, crazed horizon. ‘Gods below.’
Chaos had found a new way to mock them. With legions in ranks, weapons and armour blazing, with standards spitting lightning into the sky. Emerging in an endless row, an army of something vaguely human, shaped solely by intent, in numbers unimaginable-they did not march so much as flow, like a frothing surge devouring the ground-and no more than a league away. Lances and pike heads flashing, round shields spinning like vortices. Drums like rattling bones, rushing to swarm like maddened wasps.
So close… has the hunger caught fresh our scent-does the hunger now rush to us, faster than ever before? ‘,
Is there something in that storm… that knows what it wants?
‘I do not understand,’ said Pearl. ‘How can chaos take shapes?’
‘Perhaps, friend, what we are seeing is the manifestation of what exists in all of us. Our secret love of destruction, the pleasure of annihilation, our darkest glee. Perhaps when at last they reach us, we shall realize that they are us and we are them.’ That Dragnipur has but cut us in two, and all chaos seeks is to draw us whole once more. Oh, really now, Draconus, have you lost your mind!
‘If they are the evil in our souls, Pearl, then there can be no doubt as to their desire.’
‘Perhaps not just our souls,’ mused Pearl, wiping blood from his eyes. ‘Perhaps every soul, since the beginning of creation. Perhaps, Draconus, when each of us dies, the evil within us is torn free and rushes into the realm of Chaos. Or the evil is that which survives the longest…’
Draconus said nothing. The demon’s suggestions horrified him, and he thought-oh, he was thinking, yes-that Pearl had found a terrible truth. Somewhere among those possibilities.
Somewhere among them… I think… there is a secret. An important secret.
Somewhere…
‘I do not want to meet my evil self,’said Pearl.
Draconus glanced across at him. ‘Who does?’
Ditch was dreaming,, for dreaming was his last road to freedom. He could stride, reaching out to the sides, reshaping everything. He could make the world as he wanted it, as it should be, a place of justice, a place where he could be a god and look upon humanity as it truly was: a mob of unruly, faintly ridiculous children. Watch them grasp things when they think no one’s looking. Watch them break things, hurt things, steal. Listen to their expostulations of innocence, their breathless list of excuses, listen to how they repent and repent and repent and then go and do the same damned things all over again. Children.
With all his godly powers, he would teach them about consequences, that most terrible of lessons, the one resisted the longest. He would teach them because he had learned in the only way possible-with scars and broken bones, with sickness in the soul tasting of fear, with all the irreparable damage resulting from all his own thoughtless decisions.
There could be wonder and joy among children, too. Too easy to see naught but gloom, wasn’t it? Wonder and joy. Naive creations of beauty. He was not blind to such things, and, like any god, he understood that such gifts were pleas for mercy. An invitation to indulge that reprehensible host of flaws. Art and genius, compassion and passion, they were as islands assailed on all sides. But no island lived for ever. The black, writhing, worm-filled seas ever rose higher. And sooner or later, the hungry storms ate their fill.
Nature might well struggle for balance. And perhaps the egregious imbalance Ditch thought he perceived in his kind was but an illusion, and redress waited, stretched out to match the extremity. A fall as sudden and ferocious as the rise.
In his state of dreaming, it did not occur to him that his dreams were not his own, that this harsh cant of judgement belonged to a tyrant or even a god, or to one such as himself if madness had taken hold. But he was not mad, and nor was he a tyrant, and for all his natural inclination (natural to almost everyone) to wish for true justice he was, after all, wise enough to know the vulnerability of moralnotion!, the ease with which they were corrupted. Was he dreaming, then, the dreams of a god?
Blind as Kadaspala was, he could sense far too much of Ditch’s visions he could feel the incandescent rage in the flicker of the man’s eyelids, the heat of his breath, the ripples of tautness washing over his face. Oh, this unconscious wizard stalked an unseen world, filled with outrage and fury, with the hunger for retribution.
There were so many paths to godhood. Kadaspala was certain of that. So many paths, so many paths. Refuse to die, refuse to surrender, refuse to die and refuse to surrender and that was one path, stumbled on to without true intent, without even wanting it, and these gods were the bemused ones, the reluctant ones. They were best left alone, for to prod them awake was to risk apocalypse. Reluctant power was the deadliest power of them all, for the anger behind it was long stoked. Long stoked and stoked long and long, so best leave them leave them leave them alone.
Other gods were called into being and the nature of that call took countless forms. A convulsion of natural forces, until the very sludge awakens. Wherever discordant elements clashed, the possibility was born. Life. Intent. Desire and need. But these too were accidental things, in as much as anything could be accidental when all the particles necessary for creation abounded, as they surely did. There were other ways of calling a god into being.
Gather a host of words, a host of words. Gather a host of words. Make them, make them, make them what? Physical, yes, make them physical, from the empty ether to the incision in clay, the stain on stone, the ink on skin. Physical, because the physical created-by its very nature before the eye (or the inner eye)-created and created patterns. And they could be played with played with played with. In numbers and sigils, in astral proportions. They could be coded inside codes inside codes until something is rendered, something both beautiful and absolute. Beautiful in its absoluteness. In its absolution, in its absolved essence, a thing of beauty.
Understand, won’t you, the truth of patterns, how pattern finds truth in the tension of juxtaposition, in the game of meaning meaning the game which is the perfect pattern of language in the guise of imperfection-but what value any of this any of this any of this?
The value is the body of text (hah, the body-the bodies) that in its absoluteness becomes sacred, and in sacredness becomes all that it portrays in its convivial ordering of the essentially meaningless. Patterns where none existed before. Creation from nothing. Awakening from absence of self. And what is the word the beautiful word the precious word and the perfect word that starts the game starts everything everything everything?
Why, the word is birth.
Bodies of text, all these bodies, all this flesh and the ink and the words and the words oh the words. Bodies and bodies, patterns inside patterns, lives and lives and lives all dreaming… all dreaming one dream. One dream. One dream one dream one one one dream. One.
A dream of justice.
‘Let the cosmos quake,’ Kadaspala whispered as he etched sigil inside sigil in-side sigil, as he wove language and meaning, as the ink rode the piercing and (lowed beneath skin pocket by pocket. ‘Quake and quiver, whimper and quaver. A god oh a god yes a god now a god soon a god a god awakens. Lives and lives cut down one and all, cut down, yes, by judgement’s sharp edge-did we deserve it? Did we earn the punishment? Are any of us innocent, any of us at all? Not likely not likely not likely. So, lives and lives and none none none of us did not receive precisely what we deserved.
‘Do you understand? Godling, to you I speak. Listen listen listen well. We are what you come from. The punished, the punished, the victims of justice, the victims of our own stupidity, yes, and who could say that none of us have learned our lesson? Who can say that? Look oh look oh look where we are! Godling, here is your soul, writ in flesh, in flesh, writ here by Kadaspala, who was once blind though he could see and now can see though he is blind. And am I not the very definition of sentience? Blind in life, I can see in death-the definition of mortality, my darling child, heed it and heed it come the moment you must act and decide and stand and sit in judgement. Heed and heed, godling, this eternal flaw.
‘And what, you will wonder, is written upon your soul? What is written here? Here upon the flesh of your soul? Ah, but that is the journey of your life, godling, to learn the language of your soul, to learn it to learn it even as you live it.
‘Soon, birth arrives. Soon, life awakens.
‘Soon, I make a god.’
And even now, the god dreams of justice. For, unlike Ditch, Kadaspala is indeed mad. His code struck to flesh is a code of laws. The laws from which the god shall be born. Consider that, consider that well.
In the context of, say, mercy…
She was out there, down in the basin, on her knees, head hanging, her torso weaving back and forth to some inner rhythm. After studying her yet again, Seer-domin, with a faint gasp, tore his gaze away-something it was getting ever harder to manage, for she was mesmerizing, this child-woman, this fount of corruption, and the notion that a woman’s fall could be so alluring, so perfectly sexual, left him horrified. By this language of invitation. By his own darkness.
Behind him, the Redeemer murmured, ‘Her power grows. Her power over you, Segda Travos.’
‘I do not want to be where she is.’
‘Don’t you?’
Seerdomin turned and eyed the god. ‘Self-awareness can be a curse.’
‘A necessary one.’
‘I suppose so,’ he conceded.
‘Will you still fight her, Segda Travos?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Why?’
Seerdomin bared his teeth, ‘Don’t you start with me, Redeemer, The enemy never questions motivations-the enemy doesn’’t chew the ground out beneath its own feet.’ He jabbed a finger back at the woman kneeling in the basin. ‘Site has no questions. No doubts. What she has instead is strength. Power.’
‘That is true,’ said the Redeemer. ‘All of it. It is why those haunted by uncer-tainty must ever retreat. They cannot stand before the self-righteous. Instead, they must slink away, they must hide, they must slip behind the enemy’s lines-’
‘Where every damned one of them is hunted down and silenced-no, Redeemer, you forget, I lived in a tyranny. I kicked in doors. I dragged people away. Do you truly believe unbelievers will be tolerated? Scepticism is a criminal act. Wave the standard or someone else will, and they’ll be coming for you. Redeemer, I have looked in the eyes of my enemy, and they are hard, cold, emptied of everything but hate. I have, yes, seen my own reflection-it haunts me still.’
No further words were exchanged then. Seerdomin looked back down to that woman, the High Priestess who had once been Salind. She was naught but a tool, now, a weapon of some greater force’s will, its hunger. The same force, he now suspected, that drove nations to war, that drove husbands to kill wives and wives to kill husbands. That could take even the soul of a god and crush it into subservience.
When will you rise, Salind? When will you come for me?
This was not the afterlife he had imagined. My fighting should be over. My every need made meaningless, the pain of thoughts for ever silenced.
Is not death’s gift indifference? Blissful, perfect indifference?
She swayed back and forth, gathering strength as only the surrendered could do.
Monkrat walked through the pilgrim camp. Dishevelled as it had once been, now it looked as if a tornado had ripped through it. Tents had sagged; shacks leaned perilously close to collapse. There was rubbish everywhere. The few children still alive after being so long abandoned watched him walk past with haunted eyes peering out from filth-streaked faces. Sores ate into their drawn lips. Their bellies were swollen under the rags. There was nothing to be done for them, and even if there was, Monkrat was not the man to do it. In his mind he had left humanity behind long ago. There was no kinship to nip at his heart. Every fool the world over was on his or her own, or they were slaves. These were the only two states of being-every other one was a lie. And Monkrat had no desire to become a slave, as much as Gradithan or Saemenkelyk might want that.
No, he would remain his own world. It was easier that way. Ease was important. Ease was all that mattered.
Soon, he knew, he would have to escape this madness. Gradithan’s ambitions had lost all perspective-the curse of kelyk. He talked now incessantly of the coming of the Dying God, the imminent end of all things and the glorious rebirth to follow. People talking like that disgusted Monkrat. They repeated themselves so often it soon became grossly obvious that their words were wishes and the wish was that their words might prove true. Round and round, all that wasted breath. The mind so liked to go round and round, so liked that familiar track, the familiarity of it. Round and round, and each time round the mind was just that much stupider. Increment by increment, the range of thoughts narrower, the path underfoot more deeply trenched-he had even noted how the vocabulary diminished, as uneasy notions were cast-away and all the words associated with them, too. The circular track became a mantra, the mantra a proclamation of stupid wishes that things could be as they wanted them, that in fact they were as they wanted them.
Fanaticism was so popular. There had to be a reason for that, didn’t there? Some vast reward to the end of thinking, some great bliss to the blessing of idiocy. Well, Monkrat trusted none of that. He knew how to think for himself and that was all he knew so why give it up? He’d yet to hear an argument that could convince him-but of course, fanatics didn’t use arguments, did they? No, just that fixed gaze, the threat, the reason to fear.
Aye, he’d had enough. Gods below, he was actually longing for the city where he had been born. There in the shadow of Mock’s Hold, and that blackwater bay of the harbour where slept a demon, half buried in mud and tumbled ballast stones. And who knew, maybe there was no one left there to recognize him-and why would they in any case? His old name was on the toll of the fallen, after all, and beside it was Blackdog Wood, 1159 Burn’s Sleep. The Bridgeburners were gone, dead, destroyed in Pale with the remnants mopped up here at Black Coral. But he’d been a casualty long before then, and the years since then had been damned hard-no, it wasn’t likely that he’d be recognized.
Yes, Malaz City sounded sweet now, as he walked this wretched camp’s main street, the squalling of gulls loud in his ears.
Gradithan, you’ve lost it.
There won’t be any vengeance on the Tiste Andii. Not for me, not for you. It was a stupid idea and now it’s gone too far.
History wasn’t worth reliving. He understood that now. But people never learned that-they never fucking learned that, did they? Round and round.
A fallen pilgrim stumbled out from between two hovels, brown-smeared chin and murky eyes swimming in some dubious rapture painting its lie behind them. He wanted to kick the brainless idiot between the legs. He wanted to stomp on the fool’s skull and see the shit-coloured sludge spill out. He wanted every child to watch him do it, too, so they’d realize, so they’d run for their lives.
Not that he cared.
‘High Priestess.’
She looked up, then rose from behind her desk, came round with a gathering of her robes, and then bowed. ‘Son of Darkness, welcome. Did we have anything arranged?’