A distance off, a humped shape revealed another occupant of this otherworld of drifting flakes of falling soot. The man hurried forward. He found a woman, mostly naked, kneeling over a prostrate body in blackened and seared trousers and shirt. The woman straightened and pushed back her unkempt mane of tousled hair. She wore a wrap at her breasts and loins. To one side lay a small chest, like a jewellery case.
Ignoring the woman, the man knelt at the body’s side, pressed a hand to its neck to check for a pulse.
‘Greetings, L’oric, son of Osserc,’ the woman said, backing away.
‘And you, Spite, daughter of Draconus,’ the man answered, and he let out a breath of relief as he kept his hand on the fallen one’s neck. ‘He lives.’
‘Yes,’ Spite answered as she continued to back away. ‘Astonishingly. He lives still. Despite all this. He lives still.’
With some effort, L’oric managed to turn the prostrate figure over, revealing the pale hair and skin of a Tiste Liosan. ‘You are surprised?’ he asked, eyeing the woman.
‘By his survival? Or by his actions?’
‘The latter more,’ L’oric mused. ‘As I am.’
‘Yes.’ She frowned down at the unconscious man. ‘Your father … interceded … took it upon himself.’
‘Yes.’
She raised her puzzled gaze to L’oric. ‘Why?’
‘I do not know at this time. Perhaps he will eventually explain.’ He shook his head. ‘But more likely not.’ He pointed aside. ‘And that?’
Spite grunted a harsh exhalation, muttering beneath. She picked up the small chest and opened the top, tipping it. Black powder spilled forth to disperse in the weak wind. ‘A failed errand. Wishful thinking.’ She cast the box into the distance.
‘Will you aid me in another errand?’ L’oric asked, eyeing the dust as it swirled into nothingness.
‘Which is?’
The tall wiry mage indicated his unconscious father. ‘To put him where he belongs.’
The daughter of Draconus arched one shapely brow. ‘Indeed … that I should like very much.’
‘Very well.’ The mage knelt, and, grunting his effort, arose with his father in his arms. Spite backed away, her face betraying surprise and amazement. The mage commanded through clenched teeth: ‘Open us a way to the border regions of Kurald Thyrllan.’
Spite’s brows rose even higher. ‘But it is closed.’ She pointed to Osserc. ‘By his very hand.’
‘We shall see then,’ L’oric grunted. ‘As close as possible — if you would.’
Spite gave a quick nod and turned, extending her arms. The air tore before her. Blinding golden light burst forth through a jagged rent. The two figures, mere dark silhouettes in the roaring conflagration of brilliance, stepped through and disappeared.
The rent snapped shut.
L’oric and Spite faced a blasted landscape of twisting narrow canyons all shimmering in heat waves. Overhead, energies streamed as rippling auroras of power in banners, curtains and multicoloured scarves. They both hunched beneath the punishing heat and glare. L’oric adjusted his burden, hugging his father tighter to his chest.
‘Now what?’ Spite growled, shielding her eyes with an arm.
L’oric cast about, searching. He lifted his chin to the left. ‘There! You see the tall landmark?’
Spite squinted. Some sort of spire or tower rose atop a butte. ‘Yes.’
‘Get us over there.’
She swept her arms again and they disappeared.
L’oric stumbled as he walked to emerge upon a heap of loose baked shards of talus that shifted beneath his feet. He ended up at the bottom of the slope deep within a narrow canyon of crumbling layers of shale, sandstone and silts. Spite awaited him. She pointed up.
L’oric nodded and hefted his burden once again, wincing. ‘Get us up there,’ he shouted over the roar of energies streaming overhead.
Spite grumbled something under her breath and wiped the sweat now dripping down her face and naked limbs. She cast about, scanning the surroundings. She gestured, pushing and kneading with her hands. The wall of a nearby canyon shuddered. Rocks clattered. Then, with a crack of stone, the entire wall came crashing down in an avalanche of broken rock, raising a cloud of dust that Spite waved from her face. L’oric turned his head away, hunching a shoulder.
The dust dispersed quickly, driven off by the blasting power coursing across the landscape. A slope of shattered dry rock was revealed. Spite started up; she used all fours, pulling and dragging herself along. L’oric followed. ‘Not exactly how I would have handled that,’ he muttered to himself.
At the top, he winced again, turning his face away from the blasting wild energies punishing the landscape. Spite had run ahead to the shadow side of a tower that somehow remained standing against the streaming power. L’oric followed.
He lurched against the brick wall only to flinch away: the stones nearly glowed with heat.
‘Now what?’ Spite shouted into his ear.
He raised his chin to the tower. ‘Go on up.’
She grumbled once more: something about ‘this better be worth it’, and pushed on, dodging ahead. L’oric followed. Within, stairs encircled the outer walls, leading up. The interior was empty but for the rippling heat of a kiln. L’oric staggered up the stairs. He was nearing the end of his strength.
The stairs ended at an open trapdoor into a chamber at the tower’s top. It was enclosed but for a single narrow slit window facing the source of the glaring energies. Spite stood aside, her arms crossed.
‘And now?’ she demanded.
He set his father down and straightened his sweat-soaked shirt. ‘Now we shall see.’ He approached the slit window. A beam of light came in through the slit and crossed the chamber, cutting it in half. L’oric knew that it seemed that this was a world facing a cruel sun that hung at a fraction of the distance of the one most humans knew. But in truth, it was not like that at all. The source of the unleashed brilliance was in fact much smaller, and much closer, than imagined.
He extended a hand into the wall of light then yanked it back as the beam seared his flesh. To Spite’s questioning look he explained: ‘Now we wait.’
‘Who built this?’
‘Jaghut, I believe.’
‘To study Thyrllan?’
‘I believe it may extend back much further than that.’
Spite grunted something non-committal. L’oric eyed her; her limbs seemed to glow as well, gleaming with sweat. He cleared his throat and quickly looked away.
Spite smiled almost cruelly. ‘What are we waiting for?’
‘We’ll know it when we see it,’ he replied, still looking away.
The beam of light rippled and they both flinched backwards. Something appeared to be blocking the slit from the outside, hovering there.
‘Who comes?’ a voice whispered. It somehow penetrated the crackling and snarling energies though it came gently, soft and melodious.
‘Liosan!’ L’oric called.
‘Entreat us no more,’ the thing answered. ‘The way is closed.’
‘He who closed it is come,’ L’oric shouted.
‘For him we have been waiting all this time. Where is he? We sense him not.’
‘He is injured.’
‘We will discern the truth of this.’
The light streaming across the room rippled again, writhing as if something were moving within it. Then a pillar of flame burst to life within the chamber. L’oric and Spite flinched all the way back to press themselves against the walls. The sizzling presence scoured the brick floor leaving a black scar behind as it wavered about. It passed over Osserc’s unconscious body and halted, flickering. L’oric tensed, his Warren raised.
‘It is him!’ came the melodious call, somehow conveying disbelief and joy. ‘Returned as he promised us. Open the way!’