She gestured for Hanu to drop the man. He did so, retaining a handful of broken laces and charms that he threw down upon him. One of the objects caught Saeng’s eye: a stone disc inscribed with the many-pointed star, a sign of the old cult of the Sun. She picked it up while the old man scrambled to his feet. ‘Where did you get this?’ she demanded.
He eyed her while clearly considering saying nothing. Then he shrugged, gesturing vaguely. ‘From one of the old ruins. A place of great power-’
‘Stop pretending to be a warlock, or whatever it is. You are no practitioner.’
He glared his enraged impotent hatred. ‘I sensed it,’ he finally ground out. ‘Anyone would. Terrible things have been done there.’
‘How do I get there? Tell me the way.’
He gaped, astonished, then laughed. ‘You would travel there? By all means, do so. Go to your deaths.’
She raised a hand to Hanu. ‘Perhaps you should lead us …’
The man hunched, obviously terrified. ‘There is no need. Follow the lines of power.’
‘Lines? What lines?’
‘The channels. Lines. Carved in the ground! They lead to the centre. The loci.’
Saeng stared without seeing the cringing man. Lines! What a fool I’ve been. All this time clambering over mounds and channels, searching for tall structures, when I should have been looking down. They lead to the temple. Converge there. Lines of power.
She nodded to Hanu then waved her dismissal of Chinawa. ‘Very well. For that I shall allow you to live. But if I hear through the shades of the dead that you have done any wrong I will curse you to eternal pain. Do you understand?’ He merely stared, as if remorse or guilt was something utterly beyond him. Saeng pointed to the circle of villagers that had gathered. ‘And if I were you I would run before these people tore me to pieces.’
He jerked and hunched even more, turning this way and that.
Saeng started off, ignoring him. She studied the flat stone disc in her hand. Hanu followed.
When they entered the jungle Hanu called to her: ‘Saeng …’
‘Yes?’
‘We should’ve killed him.’
She sighed. ‘I know … I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Besides, if those people can’t organize themselves enough to get rid of him, then they deserve him.’
* * *
Osserc did not think himself a vain man. One trait he did pride himself upon was his patience. He thought himself far more forbearing than the run of most. However, even his stone-like endurance was nearing its end. He felt it fraying; less like stone than the cheapest calico. And he did not know what would happen when it finally tore.
All was as usuaclass="underline" Gothos remained seated opposite, immobile. His gnarled hands remained poised upon the table, long yellowed nails dug into the wood, as if ready should Osserc suddenly snap and take a swing at him. The monkey creature came and went on its constant housecleaning errands, dusting, sweeping and knocking down cobwebs. Yet for all its efforts — sometimes striking Osserc in the back of his head with its broom — the dust and grime only seemed to mount ever deeper.
Outside, through the milky opaque windowpane, light and dark came and went. However, with each cycle of brightening and adumbration, Osserc believed he was coming to discern a disturbing pattern. The wavering jade glow shafting from above was brightening significantly.
Eventually, when the darkness through the patinated and rippled glass was at its deepest, he rose and crossed to the window. Squinting, he could make out the Visitor glowing above and he was shocked by how large it loomed.
He turned to regard Gothos. ‘I have never seen one come this close before.’
‘One did, before,’ came a low breathless observation from among the hanging strings of filthy hair.
‘One has? Before? You mean …’ Osserc’s gaze snapped up to the hanging threat. ‘You cannot mean to suggest that they would actually do it again.’
‘I do.’
‘That would be utter madness. They learned that from the first, surely.’
Gothos snorted his scorn as only a Jaghut could. ‘Learned?’ he scoffed.
‘Someone should do something.’
‘I suppose someone ought,’ Gothos sighed. ‘But in any case you will be safe hiding in here.’
‘Hiding? I am not hiding.’
‘No? Then you are doing a very good imitation of it.’
Rage clawed up Osserc’s chest, almost choking him, and his gaze darkened. All that leashed it was the knowledge that this Jaghut was merely doing his job in goading and mocking him. Breathing heavily, he growled through clenched teeth: ‘And you are doing a very good job of being a prick, Gothos.’
The Jaghut inclined his head in a false bow.
Osserc sat once again. He crossed his arms. ‘So we just sit here while fools undo all that we have striven to build and protect.’
‘Build? I have striven to build nothing. Quite the opposite, in fact.’
Osserc shook his head in remonstration. ‘Do not dissemble. You strove as mightily as any. It was just that your efforts were not in stone or iron. They resided in another field entirely. The battlefield of ideas and the mind.’
The Jaghut inclined his head once more.
Yet instead of a sense of having won a point, Osserc could not shake the feeling that he had in fact once more been manoeuvred to where the Jaghut wanted him. Once more dwelling upon ideas and the mind.
The Nacht came shambling into the room again. This time he dragged a long pole at the end of which had been tied a dirty rag. The creature made a great show of lifting the pole to brush the cobwebs from the murky corners of the ceiling. Dust drifted down in clouds upon Osserc and Gothos. Neither moved throughout, though Osserc did grind his teeth.
He decided a retreat and reordering was called for. What he knew from Gothos’ rebounding of questions with questions was that the Azath were insisting that the answer must come from within. An obvious path in retrospect, given that the Azath themselves were by definition notoriously inward. It made sense that they would applaud such an approach. That aside, this did not necessarily undermine any potential insight. Any such revelation would be his to accept or dismiss.
Insights from self-reflection were beyond the capability of many — perhaps himself included. Rationalization, denial, self-justification, delusion, all made it nearly impossible for any true insight to penetrate into the depths of one’s being. And Osserc was ruthless enough in his thinking not to consider himself above such equivocations. Therefore, as he had seen in his reflections, one measure of progress was discomfort and pain.
If this were the case then the Azath were demanding a high price indeed.
It struck him that all this hinged upon one plain and simple thing. He faced a choice: whether to remain or to step out. No one forbade either option. Gothos had made this clear — he was no gatekeeper. The choice was entirely Osserc’s. Any choice represented a future action. Therefore, the Azath were more concerned with his future than with his past. The choice represented an acceptance of that future.
Osserc’s unfocused gaze drifted down to settle upon the obscured features of the Jaghut opposite. ‘I am being asked to face something I find personally distasteful. I never accepted the mythopoeia I see accreting around the Liosan. It all means nothing to me.’
‘Whether it means anything to you in fact means nothing.’ Gothos sounded particularly pleased in saying that. ‘I’m sorry, but I suspect it is all very much larger than you.’ He sounded in no way apologetic at all.
Osserc found himself gritting his teeth once again. ‘It would seem that stepping outside would be an endorsement of a future I have no interest in, and do not support.’