‘That is true. Icarium, I witness.’
The Jhag bowed a second time.
‘Keep your hands away from that sword!’
This shout brought them all round, to see a half-dozen Letherii guards edging closer, their weapons unsheathed.
Karsa sneered at them. ‘I am returning to the compound, children. Get out of my way.’
They parted like reeds before a canoe’s prow as the Toblakai marched forward, then moved into his wake, hurrying to keep up with Karsa’s long strides.
Samar Dev stared after them, then loosed a sudden yelp, before clapping her hands to her mouth.
‘You remind me of Senior Assessor, doing that,’ Icarium observed with another smile. His gaze lifted past her. ‘And yes, there he remains, my very own personal vulture. If 1 gesture him to us, do you think he will come, witch?’
She shook her head, still struggling with an overwhelming flood of relief and the aftermath of terror’s cold clutch that even now made her hands tremble. ‘No, he prefers to worship from a distance.’
‘Worship? The man is deluded. Samar Dev, will you inform him of that?’
‘As you like, but it won’t matter, Icarium. His people, you see, they remember you.’
‘Do they now.’ Icarium’s eyes narrowed slightly on the Senior Assessor, who had begun to cringe from the singular attention of his god.
Spirits below, why was 1 interested in this monk in the first place? There is no lure to the glow of fanatical worship. There is only smug intransigence and the hidden knives of sharp judgement.
‘Perhaps,’ said Icarium, ‘I must speak to him after all.’
‘He’ll run away.’
‘In the compound, then-’
‘Where you can corner him?’
The Jhag smiled. ‘Proof of my omnipotence.’
Sirryn Kanar’s exultation was like a cauldron on the boil, the heavy lid moments from stuttering loose, yet he had held himself down on the long walk into the crypts of the Fifth Wing, where the air was wet enough to taste, where mould skidded beneath their boots and the dank chill reached tendrils to their very bones.
This, then, would be the home of Tomad and Uruth Sengar for the next two months, and Sirryn could not be more pleased. In the light of the lanterns the guards carried he saw, with immense satisfaction, that certain look on the Edur faces, the one that settled upon the expression of every prisoner: the numbed disbelief, the shock and fear stirring in the eyes every now and then, until they were once more overwhelmed by that stupid refusal to accept reality.
He would take sexual pleasure this night, he knew, as if this moment now was but one half of desire’s dialogue. He would sleep satiated, content with the world. His world.
They walked the length of the lowest corridor until reaching the very end. Sirryn gestured that Tomad be taken to the cell on the left; Uruth into the one opposite. He watched as the Edur woman, with a last glance back at her husband, turned and accompanied her three Letherii guards. A moment later Sirryn followed.
‘I know that you are the more dangerous,’ he said to her as one of his guards bent to fix the shackle onto her right ankle. ‘There are shadows here, so long as we remain.’
‘I leave your fate to others,’ she replied.
He studied her for a moment. ‘You shall be forbidden visitors.’
‘Yes.’
‘The shock goes away.’
She looked at him, and he saw in her eyes raw contempt.
‘In its place,’ he continued, ‘comes despair.’
‘Begone, you wretched man.’
Sirryn smiled. ‘Take her cloak. Why should Tomad be the only one to suffer the chill?’
She pushed the guard’s hand away and unlocked the clasp herself.
‘You were foolish enough to refuse the Edur Gift,’ he said, ‘so now you receive’-he waved at the tiny cell with its dripping ceiling, its streaming walls-‘the Letherii gift. Granted with pleasure.’
When she made no reply, Sirryn turned about. ‘Come,’ he said to his guards, ‘let us leave them to their darkness.’
As the last echoes of their footfalls faded, Feather Witch moved out from the cell in which she had been hiding. Guests had arrived in her private world. Unwelcome. These were her corridors; the uneven stones beneath her feet, the slick, slimy walls within her reach, the sodden air, the reek of rot, the very darkness itself-these all belonged to her.
Tomad and Uruth Sengar. Uruth, who had once owned Feather Witch. Well, there was justice in that. Feather Witch was Letherii, after all, and who could now doubt that the grey tide had turned?
She crept out into the corridor, her moccasin-clad feet noiseless on the slumped floor, then hesitated. Did she wish to look upon them? To voice her mockery of their plight? The temptation was strong. But no, better to remain unseen, unknown to them.
And they were now speaking to each other. She drew closer to listen.
‘… not long,’ Tomad was saying. ‘This, more than anything else, wife, forces our hand. Hannan Mosag will approach the women and an alliance will be forged-’
‘Do not be so sure of that,’ Uruth replied. ‘We have not forgotten the truth of the Warlock King’s ambition. This is of his making-’
‘Move past that-there is no choice.’
‘Perhaps. But concessions will be necessary and that will be difficult, for we do not trust him. Oh, he will give his word, no doubt. As you say, there is no choice. But what value Hannan Mosag’s word? His soul is poisoned. He still lusts for that sword, for the power it holds. And that we will not give him. Never within his reach. Never!’
There was a rustle of chains, then Tomad spoke: ‘He did not sound mad, Uruth.’
‘No,’ she replied in a low voice. ‘He did not.’
‘He Was right in his outrage.’
‘Yes.’
‘As were we, on Sepik, when we saw how far our kin had fallen. Their misery, their surrender of all will, all pride, all identity. They were once Tiste Edur! Had we known that from the first-’
‘We would have left them, husband?’
Silence, then: ‘No. Vengeance against the Malazans was necessary. But for our sake, not that of our kin. Rhulad misunderstood that.’
‘He did not. Tomad, those kin suffered the holds of the fleet. They suffered the pits. Rhulad did not misunderstand. We were punishing them for their failure. That, too, was vengeance. Against our very own blood.’
Bitterness now in Tomad’s voice: ‘You said nothing when judgement was cast, wife. Please yourself with this false wisdom if you like. If it is what I must hear from you, then I’d rather silence.’
‘Then, husband, you shall have it.’
Feather Witch eased back. Yes, Hannan Mosag would be told. And what would he then do? Seek out the Edur women? She hoped not. If Feather Witch possessed a true enemy, it was they. Was the Warlock King their match? In deceit, most certainly. But in power? Not any more. Unless, of course, he had hidden allies.
She would need to speak with the Errant. With her god.
She would need to force some… concessions.
Smiling, Feather Witch slipped her way up the corridor.
The fate of Tomad and Uruth Sengar drifted through her mind, then passed on, leaving scarce a ripple.
One subterranean tunnel of the Old Palace stretched inland almost to the junction of the Main Canal and Creeper Canal. This passage had been bricked in at three separate locations, and these barriers Hannan Mosag had left in place, twisting reality with Kurald Emurlahn in order to pass through them, as he had done this time with Bruthen Trana in tow.
The Warlock King’s followers had kept the warrior hidden for some time now, whilst Hannan Mosag worked his preparations, and this had not been an easy task. It was not as if the palace was astir with search parties and the like-the fever of confusion and fear was endemic these days, after all. People vanished with disturbing regularity, especially among the Tiste Edur. No, the difficulty resided with Bruthen Trana himself.
A strong-willed man. But this will do us well, provided 1 can pound into his skull the fact that impatience is a weakness. A warrior needed resolve, true enough, but there was a time and there was a place, and both had yet to arrive.