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‘Its power has diminished. Shame, my friend, is but a ghost now, haunting every city, every town and village. It has less substance than woodsmoke, and but rubs the throat with little more than an itch.’
‘I shall make it a wildfire.’
‘In such a conflagration, First Son, guard your standard well.’
‘Wreneck.’
‘Milord?’
‘When your time comes … for vengeance. Find me.’
‘I don’t need any help. They stuck a sword in me and I didn’t die. They can try it again and I still won’t die. My promise keeps me alive. When you become a man, you learn to do what you say you will do. That’s what makes you a man.’
‘Alas, there are far fewer men in the world than you might think, Wreneck.’
‘But I’m one.’
‘I believe you,’ Lord Anomander replied. ‘But understand my offer before you reject it. When you find those rapists and murderers, they will be in a cohort, in Urusander’s Legion. There may well be a thousand soldiers between you and them. I will clear your path, Wreneck.’
Wreneck stared at the First Son. ‘But, milord, I am going to do it at night, when they’re sleeping.’
Caladan Brood grunted a laugh, and then spat into the fire. ‘It is a clever man who thinks hard on how to achieve his promise.’
‘I am loath to risk you, Wreneck. Find me in any case, and we can discuss the necessary tactics.’
‘You have no time for me, milord.’
‘You are a citizen of Kurald Galain. Of course I have time for you.’
Wreneck didn’t understand that; he was not sure what the word ‘citizen’ meant. The bowl was empty. He set it down and pulled the furs closer about him again.
‘It nears dusk,’ said Lord Anomander. ‘Sleep, Wreneck. Tomorrow, we take you to Dracons Keep.’
‘And I will see again my promise to Draconus,’ Caladan Brood said.
‘Your meaning?’
‘Oh, nothing of import, First Son.’
Wreneck settled back, warm inside and out, with only the occasional cramp from his stomach. He thought about Dark, and Light, and Creation, and Chaos. They struck him as big things, ideas that men such as Lord Anomander and Caladan Brood would speak of when they thought no one else was listening. He tried to imagine himself talking about such matters, when he was older, when the life he had lived had been set aside and a new life had taken its place. In that new life, he would think about serious things, but not, he suspected, things like Dark and Light and Creation and Chaos, because with those things, it sounded too easy to push them away, far enough away to keep them from hurting. No, the serious things he would think about, he decided as he closed his eyes, would be ones that mattered. Ones that worked to make him a better man, a man not afraid of feelings.
He remembered his wail for his ma, after all the killing was over with and he was still alive and Jinia was hurt. That cry seemed to have come from a child, from Wreneck the child, but it hadn’t. Instead, it had been the birth-cry of a man, the man that Wreneck had become, and the man that he now was.
The notion sent a shiver through him, though he wasn’t sure why. But it didn’t feel made up. It felt true, even if he wasn’t sure what made it true. But one thing I now know. I made it through all of childhood, and not once did I learn about surrendering.
I swam across the icy stream without even knowing it, and now I am safe again, for a time. Here with Lord Anomander, who is the First Son of Mother Dark. And with the Azathanai, who even if he’s not good for anything else can at least make a fine bowl of broth.
He closed his eyes, and moments later was fast asleep.
In his dreams, the dying gods awaited him. They seemed without number. He stood in their midst, confused and wondering. They were, one and all, kneeling to him.
* * *
There was an old memory, but it was the kind that never went away, and ever seemed closer than one would expect, given the span of years that had passed since. There had been a column, filled with families, their livestock, and wagons heaped with everything that would be needed to break land and build homes. Ivis was young, just one more dust-covered child with more energy than sense. They had been journeying into the north, beyond the forest, and the horizon was far away. Ivis remembered his wonder at that, as if the world had simply unfolded.
They had passed old cairns and tracks worn into battered swaths by wild herds. There had been stones and boulders in rows, not parallel as might line a road, but converging, often on the southern slope of a rise. Some of the cairns had sprouted dead saplings, many of them toppled after the past winter, when the winds had been fierce. These saplings had no roots. They had been hacked at the base into rough points, and driven into the heaps of stone. The mystery of such a thing was more enticing to Ivis than whatever truth he might have discovered, with a few questions to any of the adults – in particular the hunters. Instead of runs and blinds and kill-sites, he had chosen reasons more ethereal for all the strange formations they had found on the vast plain.
Gods stood tall, and with hands spread could command the sky. At night, the gleam of their eyes burned through the darkness with a cold light. And in looking down, they made clear their message: they were far away, and from that distance was born indifference. Still, once, long ago, these gods had not been far away. Indeed, they had sat with their mortal children, sharing the same fires. This was the age before the gods left the world, Ivis had told himself, before mortals had broken their hearts.
