Shall it be this foreign army that has, in Triban Gnol’s clever words, proclaimed itself a champion?
Shall it be Icarium, Stealer of Life? The Wanderer through Time?
Or something far more sordid-some perfect ambush by Hannan Mosag; or one final betrayal to annihilate you utterly, as would one committed by your Chancellor?
And why do I believe the answer will be none of those? Not one. Not a single thing so… so direct. So obvious.
And when will this blood stop seeping from this socket? When will these crimson tears end?
The Errant melted into the wall behind him. He’d had enough of Rhulad’s private face. Too much, he suspected, like his own. Imagined unwatched-but am I too being watched? Whose cold gaze is fixed on me, calculating meanings, measuring weaknesses?
Yes, see where I weep, see what I weep.
And yes, this was all by a mortal’s hand.
He moved quickly, unmindful of barriers of mortar and stone, of tapestry and wardrobe, of tiled floors and ceiling beams. Through darkness and light and shadows in all their flavours, into the sunken tunnels, where he walked through ankle-deep water without parting its murky surface.
Into her cherished room.
She had brought stones to build platforms and walkways, creating a series of bridges and islands over the shallow lake that now flooded the chamber. Oil lamps painted ripples and the Errant stood, taking form once more opposite the misshapen altar she had erected, its battered top crowded with bizarre votive offerings, items of binding and investiture, reliquaries assembled to give new shape to the god’s worship. To the worship of me. The gnostic chthonic nightmare might have amused the Errant once, long ago. But now he could feel his face twisting in disdain.
She spoke from the gloomy corner to his left. ‘Everything is perfect, Immortal One.’
Solitude and insanity, most natural bedmates. ‘Nothing is perfect, Feather Witch. Look, all around you in this place-is it not obvious? We are in the throes of dissolution-’
‘The river is high,’ she said dismissively. ‘A third of the tunnels I used to wander are now under water. But I saved all the old books and scrolls and tablets. I saved them all.’
Under water. Something about that disturbed him-not the obvious thing, the dissolution he had spoken of, but… something else.
‘The names,’ she said. ‘To release. To bind. Oh, we shall have many servants, Immortal One. Many.’
‘I have seen,’ the god said, ‘the fissures in the ice. The meltwater. The failing prison of that vast demon of the sea. We cannot hope to enslave such a creature. When it breaks free, there will be devastation. Unless, of course, the Jaghut returns-to effect repairs on her ritual. In any case-and fortunately for everyone-I do not believe that Mael will permit it to get even that far-to escape.’
‘You must stop him!’ Feather Witch said in a hiss.
‘Why?’
‘Because I want that demon!’
‘I told you, we cannot hope to-’
‘I can! I know the names! All of the names!’
He stared across at her. ‘You seek an entire pantheon, Feather Witch? Is one god under your heel not enough?’
She laughed, and he heard something splash in the water near her. ‘The sea remembers. In every wave, every current. The sea, Immortal One, remembers the shore.’
‘What-what does that mean?’
Feather Witch laughed again. ‘Everything is perfect. Tonight, I will visit Udinaas. In his dreams. By morning he will be mine. Ours.’
‘This web you cast,’ the Errant said, ‘it is too thin, too weak. You have stretched it beyond all resilience, and it will snap, Feather Witch.’
‘I know how to use your power,’ she replied. ‘Better than you do. Because us mortals understand certain things far better than you and your kind.’
‘Such as?’ the Errant asked, amused.
‘The fact that worship is a weapon, for one.’
At those dry words, chill seeped through the god.
Ah, poor Udinaas.
‘Now go,’ she said. ‘You know what must be done.’
Did he? Well… yes. A nudge. What I do best.
The sceptre cracked hard against the side of Tanal Yathvanar’s head, exploding stars behind his eyes, and he staggered, then sank down onto one knee, as the blood began flowing. Above him, Karos Invictad said in a conversational tone: ‘I advise you, next time you are tempted to inform on my activities to one of the Chancellor’s agents, to reconsider. Because the next time, Tanal, I will see you killed. In a most unpleasant fashion.’
Tanal watched the blood fall in elongated droplets, spattering on the dusty floor. His temple throbbed, and his probing fingers found a flap of mangled skin hanging down almost to his cheek. His eye on that side ebbed in and out of focus in time with the throbbing. He felt exposed, vulnerable. He felt like a child among cold-faced adults. Invigilator,’ he said in a shaky voice, ‘I have told no-one anything.’
‘Lie again and I will dispense with mercy. Lie again and the breath you use to utter it will be your last.’
Tanal licked his lips. What could he do? ‘I’m sorry, Invigilator. Never again. I swear it.’
‘Get out, and send for a servant to clean up the mess you’ve left in my office.’
Nauseated, his throat tightening against an eager upswell of vomit, Tanal Yathvanar hurried out in a half-crouch.
I’ve done nothing. Nothing to deserve this. Invictad’s paranoia has driven him into the abyss of madness. Even as his power grows. Imagine, threatening to sweep away the Chancellor’s own life, in Trihan Gnol’s own office! Of course, that had been but the Invigilator’s version of what had transpired. But Tanal had seen the bright gleam in Invictad’s eyes, fresh from the glory of his visit to the Eternal Domicile.
It had all gone too far. All of it.
Head spinning, Tanal set out to find a healer. There was much still to do this day. An arrest to be made, and, split-open skull or no, Karos Invictad’s precise schedule had to be kept. This was to be a triumphant day. For the Patriotists. For the great Letherii Empire.
It would ease the pressure, the ever-tightening straits that gripped the people-and not just here in Letheras, but across the entire empire. Too many fraught rumours, of battles and defeats suffered. The strictures of not enough hard coin, the strange disappearance of unskilled labour, the tales of once-secure families falling into Indebtedness. The whisper of huge financial holdings tottering like trees with rotted roots. Heroic victories were needed, and this day would mark one. Karos Invictad had found the greatest traitor ever, and he, Tanal Yathvanar, would make the arrest. And they will hear that detail. My name, central to all that will happen this day. I intend to make certain of it.
Karos Invictad was not the only man skilled at reaping glory.
Ancient cities possessed many secrets. The average citizen was born, lived, and died in the fugue of vast ignorance. The Errant knew he had well learned his contempt for humanity, for the dross of mortal existence that called blindness vision, ignorance comprehension, and delusion faith. He had seen often enough the wilful truncation people undertook upon leaving childhood (and the wonder of its endless possibilities), as if to exist demanded the sacrifice of both unfettered dreams and the fearless ambition needed to achieve them. As if those self-imposed limitations used to justify failure were virtues, to add to those of pious self-righteousness and the condescension of the flagellant.
Oh, but look at himself, here and now, look at what he was about to do. The city’s ancient secrets made into things to be used, and used to achieve cruel ends. Yet was he not a god? Was this not his realm? If all that existed was not open to use and, indeed, abuse, then what was its purpose?