The two men had thrown themselves to the ground and now hesitantly rose to peer down into the darkness of the well. A weak groan sounded from below. They jumped to the handles and started rewinding the winch.
‘Y’know,’ began Scorch, ‘maybe one of us should go down first and the other lower ’im down to him.’
‘Sounds good,’ Leff grunted, heaving on the handle. ‘You go.’
‘No — you.’
‘Should be you.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Your idea.’
For a time Scorch chewed on that as he worked. Finally he grunted a curse under his breath. ‘I hate bein’ the idea man.’
The Seguleh established a camp on the coast just outside the city of Callows. The curious and the just plain gawkers from the city were so many that the mayor was forced to post guards at a respectful distance around the camp simply to keep the hordes away. The mayor was just thankful that so far no one had been killed and he hoped the vessels would be readied soon, for the disruption of the Seguleh’s presence to the city’s daily trade and business had been crippling.
On the third day Sall approached his father, Lo, where he stood facing the calm waters of the sheltered inlet. He bowed, requesting permission to speak.
‘Yes?’
‘Father … I have questions about what happened in the Great Hall …’
Lo slowly turned to face him more directly. ‘Oh?’
‘Yes.’ Sall drew a breath to steel himself. ‘Would you really have led us on a charge through the Moranth and on through the city — as you claimed?’
The tall slim man, extraordinarily slim even for the Seguleh, nodded his masked head as he considered the question. Seven hatch marks still marred the pale oval of that mask, as the First had judged that all challenges must wait until they were once more on the testing grounds at Cant. ‘It was a valid option. We would have finished the Moranth then passed on unharmed through the city, avoiding their fliers. Then we could have scattered into parties of two or three. Travelling only at night we would have reached the coast relatively unharmed. There was merit there.’
‘It was only chance, then, that it was the very option the First least wished to pursue. And because of that the mask did not come to you …’
Lo nodded again. ‘I merely presented the choice. Choices surround us every day, son. The test is in the choosing.’
Sall’s breath caught. ‘He passed your test.’
‘Yes. Sall, the truth of it is that once you are competent enough in your technique, or your speed is as great as it can be — then what differentiates those at the highest levels? The truth is that unquantifiable ability to read others. To enter into their skin. To be able to understand them so completely that you know what they will do before they do it themselves. A sort of complete empathy. Jan possessed that. We could not help but love him for it. Gall worshipped him. But Gall was a traditionalist and would not have followed the road Jan had chosen. And so Jan did what he had to do to ensure that the mask would not come to him. And Palla? Well, those two might as well have been husband and wife. She may never recover.’
‘And so it came to you — but you never challenged him!’
Lo’s voice took on an edge. ‘His entire life has been his test, Sall. That is my judgement.’
‘Yes, Father.’
Each was silent for a time, facing the shore where an honour guard surrounded a canopy over a wrapped body on its stretcher. They were taking the Second home for burial at Cant. Burial in the soil of their new homeland. With the body was the Unmarred, the new First. The man stood with head bowed, his mask pure and shining in whatever light touched it. And it seemed to Lo that Jan had chosen well.
Lo tilted his mask aside, to where Yusek trained now with a group of the lesser ranks. ‘As for you … She has demonstrated endurance, spirit, speed with her blade.’ He pressed a hand to Sall’s shoulder. ‘Good choice, son. You have my approval.’ And the Eighth, perhaps soon to be the next Third, walked away.
Sall watched Yusek practising and mused, I’m sorry to say this, Father, but I don’t think I know who made the choice — which, I suppose, is perhaps the way it ought to be.
On a hill of black stone on the shore of the glimmering Vitr sea, Leoman sat with the hulking soot-black figure of Maker.
‘… and so after Lammala was Seuthess — or was it Cora? I’m not certain. In any case, Seuthess … now there was a beauty. And didn’t she know it. Full of herself, she was. We fought like cat and dog.’
And Maker nodded his boulder-like head, a hand on his chin. ‘So — these many women — this is how things work among you humans …’
‘No, no, no!’ Leoman waved his hands. ‘That’s what I’m tryin’ to make you understand. It’s very unusual. Why, I’m one in a thousand, I am. They just can’t stay away from me. Like a curse, it is. They just can’t help it.’
Maker turned his head and gestured. ‘Indeed. You speak the truth, Leoman …’
Leoman leaned back to see a familiar figure all in dark clothes walking up. Her long black hair blew lightly in the thin wind off the Vitr sea and she strode with her hands tucked into her belt behind her back, her head cocked slightly as if to say: well, well … look who’s here.
‘By the Seven Holies …’ He climbed to his feet, dusted off his grimed robes. He set a hand on Maker’s shoulder and gave him a wink and a grin. ‘You see? It’s all in the moustache, friend. All in the moustache.’ He went to meet Kiska.
In his dream the short rotund man was drawn where he’d hoped he’d never need be drawn again. Out of the shaken, but recovering city. Out past the shacks leaning as they did against its too-short walls, to the road that curved southwards leading to endless plain upon endless beckoning plain. And here to be waylaid into the stuttering light of a small fire in the dark next to a river where a single figure awaited.
And this figure! Dire and dark. Hooded and hunched. Oh dear!
Kruppe sat to pull on his thin rat-tail beard. ‘Kruppe admits to some trepidation. He believed himself free of mysterious lurkers at fires. To what does he owe this visitation?’
The figure waved a hand — and a youthful fit-looking hand at that. ‘Merely a social call, friend Kruppe. If I may call you that. No need for alarm.’
‘Kruppe is reassured, he assures you. It is not in the least alarming that his social calls should now take the form of hooded figures in his dreams. He is positively cheered.’
‘You should be. I am here to thank you — and to introduce myself.’ The figure pulled back the hood to reveal a tanned sharp-featured face, a long blade of a nose, and hanging silvered dark hair.
Kruppe’s brows rose. ‘Fearsome High Mage Tayschrenn! I am … surprised. Are my dreams privy to everyone?’
Tayschrenn shook his head. ‘You need no longer play the innocent with me.’
‘Nay! Kruppe must be Kruppe! But what of … the other … may Kruppe ask?’
‘Still with me. I have much to learn yet. These things can take centuries.’
‘Ah … Why, of course! Kruppe is no stranger to such things!’
The man warmed his hands at the fire. Yet a man no longer. Near force of nature now! ‘And that name,’ he began after a time. ‘Old names must pass away.’
‘Absolutely — was about to suggest that selfsame thing. How then, pray, shall you be called upon?’
The figure studied the fire, thinking. In his dark eyes the twinned flames danced just as brightly. Reaching a decision he crooked an amused smile and shifted those eyes to Kruppe. ‘You may call me T’renn.’