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None knew what afflicted the old woman. By years alone, she should still be stalwart and sharp of mind, with sufficient power to temper her husband and his increasingly bizarre pronouncements. Have they both spent years hunched over a forge? This is the iron curse, the stealer of memory, sower of confusion. Something has poisoned them both. Am I witness to the cruellest of assassinations?
From the terrible, wretched news that had finally penetrated the monastery, her suspicions needed to shake off few chains in pursuit of imagined conspiracies, ones where civility was the first victim. This could well be Hunn Raal’s work, aspired to genius. Far better than simply murdering Sheccanto and Skelenal, if one could paralyse the Shake with months, if not years, of ineffective rule.
No far reach for the poisoner of an entire legion, the murderer of Lord Ilgast Rend and the slayer of the Wardens of Glimmer Fate. He had been an unprepossessing man, she recalled, arrogant to be sure, but in the way of many soldiers, for whom that arrogance was a brittle façade hiding a wounded soul. She could forgive that bravado. He had also been a drunkard, the kind for whom the pretence of sobriety was a game, eliciting a smile upon his fleshy features – as if the man believed he was fooling everyone around him, when in truth he himself was the only fool, though even then, a knowing fool. Drunkards such as Hunn R
aal had a way of eating themselves from the inside out, and alcohol simply served to dull the pain of his endless chewing. She had expected from him a simple continuation of his degradation, his body hollowed out, his skull filled with terrors, a trembling, stumbling descent into death.
Instead, it seemed that evil itself had manifested in the man, lending him preternatural energy even as it scoured him clean of compassion. He was, she now believed, capable of anything.
Did he poison them? Has he agents here among the Shake? Spies? Assassins? Would not their loyalty bleach their skin? Look around – we here are unchanged, although, now that I consider it, the amber hue of our skin seems to have lost its gleam, as if dust now settles upon us all.
Are we transformed here, or simply revealing our sense of loss? What else is surrendered, when faith dies?
‘The sands will burn,’ said Sheccanto, her eyes fixed and staring at a vista none other could see. Those eyes were sunk deep in shadowed sockets, surrounded by withered skin the colour of the winter sky. ‘Someone drags me by an ankle, but my flesh is cold. Lifeless. The pain – the pain comes to those who must witness. Ignominy. The fires of outrage. I wonder … I wonder. Only the dead see the clarity of war. They chose to dishonour me, but my body cares not. Only the Watch understands. But he can do nothing. Nothing.’
Finarra shifted weight. The old woman wandered unknown landscapes in her mind. Every word she uttered took her farther away. By an ankle? You will not live that long, Higher Grace. Already they prepare your crypt, beneath this very floor. None shall drag you from it.
‘By royal blood we were born,’ Sheccanto said. ‘It is well to take the title of queen or king. But the day holds meaning, for what plays across its passage? I will tell you. I will tell you …’ Her head dipped again, and this time her eyes closed, and she began drawing the rattling breaths of sleep.
Slowly, Warlock Resh leaned back in his chair. He raised his scarred hands to his face.
Finarra cleared her throat. ‘I believe Caplo Dreem still awaits us in the compound, warlock. If we are to do this today, it must be soon.’
After a moment, the burly man shook himself and rose to his feet. His attention fixed once more upon the Higher Grace, he said, ‘Captain—’
‘That rank no longer applies,’ Finarra cut in.
‘There will be survivors. Must be survivors. They will need you.’
‘They have Calat Hustain.’
‘And he will not find you a blessing to his grief?’
Bitterness opened within her like a wound. ‘Warlock, the war is lost. Urusander has won. Kharkanas will open its gates to him. We Wardens, well, we were never relevant. We patrolled the Vitr. More to the point,’ she continued, ‘we were the ones who brought T’riss into our realm. Let us judge our demise a just reward for our carelessness.’
He turned from his study of Sheccanto and gazed at her. ‘Will you not return to Calat Hustain?’
‘I see no point,’ Finarra replied. ‘The Vitr remains. It will not subside or cease its assault. Calat will begin again. But I will not.’
‘We do not resent your presence,’ Resh said. ‘But you must understand. Caplo is not as he once was. My friend is now unknown to me. He says he will accompany me to Kharkanas, to the Terondai, and, perhaps, to an audience with Mother Dark.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘I fear such a meeting.’
‘Then refuse him,’ she replied. ‘The Terondai can wait. You have other concerns.’
‘Skelenal would summon all the brothers and sisters,’ Resh said. ‘He says we must prepare for war. But we have no cause to defend, no reason to fight beyond the pathos of vengeance.’ He shook his head. ‘The children are dead. The forests have burned. If we possessed any authority over the Deniers, it is now abrogated. We did not defend them. Indeed, we did nothing.’
The arguments were old. Finarra had heard them too many times. ‘And this is the way of things, warlock, the means by which evil thrives, and every terrible deed is justified. The dead are already dead, the fires have long since burned out, and the blood now hides beneath rich soil. Each act, if unanswered, unchallenged, breeds the next, and when it is all done, evil stands triumphant.’
‘Can you not see that we are weakened?’ Resh demanded, wringing his hands as he stood before her. ‘Why fight for the Andii, when by Mother Dark’s hand our god was slain? The transformations upon either side now set us apart. We are neither, and yet we are nothing.’
She looked away, vaguely disgusted. Her frustration was growing talons and the urge to strike out grew day by day. ‘Caplo Dreem may well attempt to kill Mother Dark. And this time, the First Son is not there to stand in your friend’s way.’
‘There is Draconus.’
She shot him a searching look. ‘Not for long, I should think.’
‘At the very end, Mother Dark may defy Urusander. She may refuse everything they demand of her. She is a goddess, after all. How do you envisage the power behind that ascension? Is she now stripped of her will? Her independence? Is she helpless, her mind deafened by an endless roar of prayer, beseeching desire, wishes unending?’
Finarra Stone’s eyes narrowed. ‘You believe your faith emasculated your own god, don’t you? You made your god unable to defend itself. Made it helpless.’
