The world will be a richer place if you have overdosed this time.
Takaar ignored his tormentor. He stood tall and breathed deeply, trying to speed the venom around his body. He ran on the spot, pumping his arms, feeling his heart rate increase. Nothing. Nothing while the sun crept around the forest a notch and the rain began to fall from the clouds that moved to cover it.
‘Too slow,’ he said. ‘Too slow.’
The poisonous secretions of the yellow-backed tree frog were far quicker to act on the elven body. Indeed, he’d have been unable to stand already and he’d be fighting to breathe. The taipan’s venom was slow and that was a disappointment. So far, all he could note was a slight blurring of his vision and an unsteadiness in his step. Still, everything had its uses.
Takaar moved towards his hammock. His head felt thick and there was an ache beginning to grow at the back of his skull. He swallowed. Or he tried to. There was difficulty there. Takaar raised his eyebrows.
‘Better.’
Takaar put a hand on the left tree trunk, ready to lever himself into the hammock. He felt hot. Sweat was beading on his brow and under his arms. A pain in his stomach added to that in his head. His eyes misted over and he swayed. The symptoms may be slow to appear but they were comprehensive when they arrived.
Takaar found he had his whole arm wrapped around the tree trunk to keep himself upright. He didn’t remember making the move. He lifted a leg to get himself in- Sildaan was screaming at someone. Words that Silent Priest Sikaant could not make out had disturbed his meditation. The priest broke the seal on the chamber of relics in which he had spent the last three days and pushed open the door. From his left, grief and anger was coming from the worker village set behind the temple. To his right, across the dome and out onto the apron, the air smelled wrong. Sildaan’s voice echoed against the walls of Aryndeneth, ugly and discordant.
Sikaant shivered. There was a deeper chill in the temple than the blessed cool imparted by the ancient stones. He crossed soundlessly beneath the dome, his eyes fixed on the bright square of the open doors. Two priests stared out from the shadow. They stood shoulder to shoulder and just to the left of the opening.
Sildaan’s words began to reach him with a clarity he regretted when he heard them. No longer shouted but strident and terrible. Heretic.
‘How can you look so forlorn? Why can’t you grasp this? I have never agreed with Takaar’s law. And I am very, very far from being alone. You cannot enforce harmony. It grows or it doesn’t. You have been presiding over a veneer, nothing more. And it is about to be shattered into a million fragments and scattered into oblivion.
‘What is desirable about relinquishing our position as the ruling thread? Do you really think that merely by telling a Tuali or a Gyalan that we love them as equals makes it so? They don’t believe it. They retain their hatred of us. Every thread does. And the truth of that is about to be seen. First in Ysundeneth and soon, everywhere. Even here.’
Any confusion in Sikaant’s mind was cleared up the moment he could see the scene on the temple apron. Men defiled it. A few of the thirty stared out into the forest, guarding in vain against an attack that, if it came, they would not see until it was upon them. Most watched Sildaan pacing around three kneeling priests. All had their heads up and proud though their hands were bound. All of them had swords held to their throats by human warriors.
‘You will see, should I let you live, that the price of this false peace has been too high. I agree with those in every thread who consider that Takaar’s actions on Hausolis were the ultimate message of failure of Takaar’s law. And of Takaar himself.’
One of the priests spoke. Ipuuran. Ever a fearless advocate.
‘You think the denouncement will tear the threads apart. You are wrong. A thousand years of peace is too long a time to throw away. Peace that cost nothing.’
‘Nothing?’ Sildaan was screaming again. ‘It cost the Ynissul everything. Our position, our birthright. Our respect. The love of our own god. You’re blind if you cannot see what is coming. You like Myriin and all the TaiGethen and Silent who hide under the canopy have no notion of what simmers beneath the lid of the harmony.’
‘Lorius will-’ began Ipuuran.
‘Lorius. Ha! Lorius is going to do exactly what he has been urged to do. You think he will be able to quell what is coming while standing and denouncing Takaar? Oh dear. He is as stupid as you. He firmly believes in the harmony and that it will endure whatever obstacles he removes from the path of chaos. He thinks his words will give him position among the lesser threads, but they hate him almost as much as they do every living and breathing Ynissul. Barring Jarinn, perhaps.
‘What happens at the Gardaryn is happening at our design, O great temple priest. That is why the humans are here. Because only they can prevent the slaughter of those born to rule. And so we will. When the blood-letting is done, the power of the elves will once again rest with the Ynissul. Just as it should be.’
In the shadows, Sikaant moved again. Up to the shoulders of the priests looking on. He hated what he had to do. Speaking beneath the dome was an affront to his order. But not so great as the words he had just heard. Sikaant was quick. Almost as quick as a TaiGethen. His long-fingered hands, each finger ending in a sharpened nail, slid around the exposed necks of the two priests and rested there. He put his head in between theirs. They dared not move.
‘Those watching from safety are surely won to the cause of heresy,’ he whispered.
‘We had not realised you were here,’ said one whose name escaped Sikaant.
‘Evidently,’ said Sikaant.
His hands closed. His nails bit, dragged and tore. He ripped his hands clear. Blood flooded from ruined throats. Voices gurgled. Legs collapsed beneath dying bodies. Sikaant held them both upright. Their struggles were weak and their resistance minimal. He dragged them both into the light.
Sildaan saw him, her words choking in her mouth. Men began moving towards him.
‘You need more heretics,’ said Sikaant. ‘These two have failed you.’
He turned and fled where no man would dare follow. Back on the ledge. Watching the river. Wishing for a push. Perhaps he could train a monkey to do it. He laughed. Train a monkey. Hardly. All they were good for was stealing his food. Or becoming food themselves.
‘That’s the cycle of life. Tut tut, round and round. Can’t be stopped.’
Yes, it can. For you, anyway.
Takaar waved a hand dismissively. ‘Stupid. One death does not a cycle break. One death adds to the cycle. One death is one more body to be reclaimed. One more to be shared. One more to enrich the forest.’
You make it sound such a positive step. Why don’t you take it?
‘Pfff. So much work to do. Reparations to be made. Every day a little more. Every day to even the score. Were I to lie down, I would be failing all who walk in my footsteps.’
You wrote the book on failure so I won’t challenge you on that one.
‘Do I believe in redemption? I can’t tell. Perhaps not. Not deserved. Not sought. The sentence for my crime is life. And I am immortal.’
Only if you choose it.
‘Can’t repeat myself. Not a choice. Run, run, not again. Death is running. Life is suffering. Life is penance. I can climb a tree and fall. I can leap from this edge and none will mourn me. I don’t want grief; I want hatred and I want anger. These are deserved. Hmm. Deserved and sought.’
You do none of it. You seek nothing but solitude and introversion. Want anger? Ysundeneth has more of it than you can possibly desire.
‘No. Not. People. Gods. Yes.’
I hate you.
‘Then I win today.’
You never win. You merely delay the inevitable while you toy with your death and your immortality.
‘Ah, now I understand you. You hate me because the taipan could not kill me.’
Ah, but it was close
‘Ah, but not close enough.’
Takaar felt himself shudder. His tormentor had no idea just how close, not really. It had not been the swelling at the point of the injection of the venom. That had been excruciating and he would suffer for days from the cuts he had to make to relieve pressure on his flesh. Nasty nasty. Nor was it the strange effects on his blood, thinning it so that when he awoke from the collapse across his hammock, the tiny pinprick in his wrist was still dripping and his nose streamed red.