‘Good. I am named Cynnigig, and now you are even less ignorant.’
Karsa shrugged. ‘The name means nothing to me.’
‘Of course not, it’s mine. Was I infamous? No, though once I aspired to be. Well, for a moment or two. But then I changed my mind. You, Karsa Orlong, you are destined for infamy. Perhaps indeed you have already achieved it, back in your homeland.’
‘I think not. No doubt I am believed dead, and nothing of what I did is known to my family or my tribe.’
Cynnigig cut off a haunch and threw it on the flames. A cloud of smoke rose from the hissing, spitting fire. ‘So you might think, but I would hazard otherwise. Word travels, no matter what the barriers. The day you return, you will see.’
‘I care not for fame,’ Karsa said. ‘I did once…’
‘And then?’
‘I changed my mind.’
Cynnigig laughed once again, louder this time. ‘I have brought wine, my young friend. In yonder chest, yes, there.’
Karsa straightened and walked over. The chest was massive, iron-bounded and thick-planked, robust enough to challenge even Karsa, should he choose to lift it. ‘This should have wheels and a train of oxen,’ the Teblor muttered as he crouched before it. ‘How did you bring it with you?’
‘I didn’t. It brought me.’
Games with words. Scowling, Karsa lifted the lid.
A single carafe of crystal stood in its centre, flanked by a pair of chipped clay beakers. The wine’s deep red colour gleamed through the transparent crystal, bathing the otherwise empty interior of the chest with a warm, sunset hue. Karsa stared down into it for a moment, then grunted. ‘Aye, I can see that it would fit you, provided you curled up. You and the wine and the brazier-’
‘The brazier! That would be a hot journey!’
The Teblor’s scowl deepened. ‘Unlit, of course.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. Cease your gawking, then, and pour us some wine. I’m about to turn the meat here.’
Karsa reached down, then snatched his hand back. ‘It’s cold in there!’
‘I prefer my wine chilled, even the red. I prefer everything chilled, in fact.’
Grimacing, the Teblor picked up the carafe and the two beakers. ‘Then someone must have carried you here.’
‘Only if you believe all that I tell you. And all that you see, Karsa Orlong. A T’lan Imass army marched by here, not so long ago. Did they find me? No. Why? I was hidden in my chest, of course. Did they find the chest? No, because it was a rock. Did they note the rock? Perhaps. But then, it was only a rock. Now, I know what you’re thinking, and you would be precisely correct. The sorcery I speak of is not Omtose Phellack. But why would I seek to employ Omtose Phellack, when that is the very scent the T’lan Imass hunted? Oh no. Is there some cosmic law that Jaghut can only use Omtose Phellack? I’ve read a hundred thousand night skies and have yet to see it written there-oh, plenty of other laws, but nothing approaching that one, neither in detail nor intent. Thus saving us the bloody recourse of finding a Forkrul Assail to adjudicate, and believe me, such adjudication is invariably bloody. Rarely indeed is anyone satisfied. Rarer still that anyone is left alive. Is there justice in such a thing, I ask you? Oh yes, perhaps the purest justice of all. On any given day, the aggrieved and the aggriever could stand in each other’s clothes. Never a question of right and wrong, in truth, simply one of deciding who is least wrong. Do you grasp-’
‘What I grasp,’ Karsa cut in, ‘is the smell of burning meat.’
‘Ah, yes. Rare are my moments of discourse-’
‘I had no idea.’
‘-which cannot be said for this meat. Of course you wouldn’t, since we have just met. But I assure you, I have little opportunity to talk-’
‘There in your chest.’
Cynnigig grinned. ‘Precisely. You have the gist of it. Precisely. Thelomen Toblakai indeed.’
Karsa handed the Jaghut a beaker filled with wine. ‘Alas, my hand has warmed it some.’
‘I’ll suffer the degradation, thank you. Here, help yourself to the deer. Charcoal is good for you, did you know that? Cleanses the digestive tract, confounds the worms, turns your excrement black. Black as a forest bear’s. Recommended if you are being pursued, for it will fool most, barring those who have made a study of excrement, of course.’
‘And do such people exist?’
‘I have no idea. I rarely get out. What preening empires have risen only to then fall beyond the Jhag Odhan? Pomposity choking on dust, these are cycles unending among short-lived creatures. I do not grieve for my own ignorance. Why should I? Not knowing what I have missed means I do not miss what I do not know. How could I? Do you see? Aramala was ever questing for such pointless knowledge, and look where it got her. Same for Phyrlis, whom you will meet tomorrow. She can never see beyond the leaves in front of her face, though she ceaselessly strives to do so, as if the vast panorama offers something other than time’s insectile crawl. Empires, thrones, tyrants and liberators, a hundred thousand tomes filled with versions of the same questions, asked over and over again. Will answers deliver their promised solace? I think not. Here, cook some more, Karsa Orlong, and drink more wine-you see the carafe never empties. Clever, isn’t it? Now, where was I?’
‘You rarely get out.’
‘Indeed. What preening empires have risen only to then fall beyond the Jhag Odhan? Pomposity choking…’
Karsa’s eyes narrowed on the Jhag Odhan, then he reached for the wine.
A lone tree stood on ground that was the summit of a hill that in turn abutted a larger hill. Sheltered from the prevailing winds, it had grown vast, its bark thin and peeling as if it was skin unable to contain the muscular breadth underneath. Branches as thick around as Karsa’s thigh reached out from the massive, knotted trunk. Its top third was thickly leaved, forming broad, flattened canopies of dusty green.
‘Looks old, doesn’t it?’ Cynnigig said as they climbed towards it, the Jaghut walking with a hooked, sideways gait. ‘You have no idea how old, my young friend. No idea. I dare not reveal to you the truth of its antiquity. Have you seen its like before? I think not. Perhaps reminiscent of the guldindha, such as can be found here and there across the odhan. Reminiscent, as a ranag is reminiscent of a goat. More than simply a question of stature. No, it is in truth a question of antiquity. An Elder species, this tree. A sapling when an inland sea hissed salty sighs over this land. Tens of thousands of years, you wonder? No. Hundreds of thousands. Once, Karsa Orlong, these were the dominant trees across most of the world. All things know their time, and when that time is past, they vanish-’
‘But this one hasn’t.’
‘No sharper an observance could be made. And why, you ask?’
‘I do not bother, for I know you will tell me in any case.’
‘Of course I shall, for I am of a helpful sort, a natural proclivity. The reason, my young friend, shall soon be made evident.’
They clambered over the last of the rise and came to the flat ground, eternally shadowed beneath the canopy and so free of grasses. The tree and all its branches, Karsa now saw, were wrapped in spiders’ webs that somehow remained entirely translucent no matter how thickly woven, revealed only by a faint flickering reflection. And beneath that glittering shroud, the face of a Jaghut stared back at him.
‘Phyrlis,’ Cynnigig said, ‘this is the one Aramala spoke of, the one seeking a worthy horse.’
The Jaghut woman’s body remained visible here and there, revealing that the tree had indeed grown around her. Yet a single shaft of wood emerged from just behind her right collarbone, rejoining the main trunk along the side of her head.
‘Shall I tell him your story, Phyrlis? Of course, I must, if only for its remarkability.’
Her voice did not come from her mouth, but sounded, fluid and soft, inside Karsa’s head. ‘Of course you must, Cynnigig. It is your nature to leave no word unsaid.’