But hysteria was a complicated place in which a young mind might find itself. It could be deafening with screams, shrieks, the endless bursts of horror again and again and again-a tide surging without end. Or it could be quiet-silent in that awful way of some silences-like that of gaping mouths, desperate but unable to draw breath, the eyes above bulging, the veins standing prominent in their need, but no breath would come, nothing to slide life into the lungs. This was the hysteria of drowning. Drowning inside oneself, inside horror. The hysteria of a child, blank-eyed, drool smearing the chin.
Some secrets were impossible to keep. The truth of that ship, for one. The Silanda’s lines were known, were profoundly familiar. The ship that had taken their parents o-
a pathetic journey in search of the one whom every Tiste Andii of Drift Avalii called Father. Anomander Rake. Anomander of the silver hair, the dragon’s eyes. Didn’t find him, alas. Never the chance to plead for help, to ask all the questions that needed asking, to stab fingers in accusation, condemnation, damnation. All that, yes yes.
Take to your oars, brave parents, there is more sea to cross. Can you see the shore? Of course not. You see the sunlight when there is sunlight through canvas weave, and in your heads you feel the ache of your bodies, the strain in your shoulders, the bunch and loose, bunch and loose of every draw on the sweeps. You feel the blood welling up to pool in the neck as if it was a gilded cup, only to sink back down again. Row, damn you! Row for the shore!
Aye, the shore. Other side of this ocean, and this ocean, dear parents, is endless.
So row! Row!
He might have giggled, but that would be a dangerous thing, to break the silence of his hysteria, which he had held on to for so long now it had become warm as a mother’s embrace.
Best to carry on, working to push away, shut away, all thought of the Silanda. Easier on land, in this inn, in this room.
But, on the morrow, they would sail. Again. Onto the ships, oh the spray and wind enlivens so!
And this was why, on this horrid night of vengeful rain, Nimander was awake. For he knew Phaed. He knew Phaed’s own stain of hysteria, and what it might lead her to do. Tonight, in the sodden ashes of midnight’s bell.
She could make her footfalls very quiet, as she crept out of her bed and padded barefoot to the door. Blessed sister blessed daughter blessed mother blessed aunt, niece, grandmother-blessed kin, blood of my blood, spit of my spit, gall of my gall. 1 hear you.
For I know your mind, Phaed. The ever-surging bursts in your soul-yes, 1 see your bared teeth, the smear of intent. You imagine yourself unseen, yes, unwitnessed, and so you reveal your raw self. There in that blessed slash of grey-white, so poetically echoed by the gleam of the knife in your hand.
To the door, darling Phaed. Lift the latch, and out you go, to slide down the corridor all slithering limbs as the rain lashes the roof above and water trickles down the walls in dirty tears. Cold enough to see your breath, Phaed, remind-ing you not just that you are alive, but that you are sexually awakened; that this journey is the sweetest indulgence of under’the-cover secrets, fingers ever playful on the knife, and on the rocking ship in the harbour eyes stare at blackness beneath drenched canvas, water trickling down…
She worries, yes, about Withal. Who might awaken. Before or after. Who might smell the blood, the iron stench, the death riding out on Sandalath Drukorlat’s last breath. Who might witness when all that Phaed was, truly was, could never be witnessed-because such things were not allowed, never allowed, and so she might have to kill him, too.
Vipers strike more than once.
Now at the door, the last barrier-row you fools-the shore lies just beyond!-and of course there is no lock binding the latch. No reason for it. Save one murderous child whose mother’s head stares at canvas on a pitching deck. The one child who went to see that for herself. And we are drawn to pilgrimage. Because to live is to hunt for echoes. Echoes of what? No-one knows. But the pilgrimage is taken, yes, ever taken, and every now and then those echoes are caught-just a whisper-creaking oars, the slap and chop of waves like fists against the hull, clamouring to get in, and the burbling blood, the spitting suck as it sinks back down. And we hear, in those echoes, some master’s voice: Row! Row for the shore! Row for your lives!
He remembered a story, the story he always remembered, would ever remember. An old man alone in a small fisher boat. Rowing into the face of a mountain of ice. Oh, he did love that story. The pointless glory of it, the mindless magic-he would grow chilled at the thought, at the vision he conjured of that wondrous, profound and profoundly useless scene. Old man, what do you think you are doing? Old man-the ice!
Inside, a shadow among shadows, gloom in the gloom, teeth hidden now, but the knife is a lurid gleam, catching reflections of rain from the window’s pitted rainbow glass. And a shudder takes her then, pulling her down into a crouch as sensations flood up through her belly, lancing upward into her brain and her breath catches-oh, Phaed, don’t scream now. Don’t even moan.
They have drawn their cots together-on this night, then, the man and the bitch have shared the spit of their loins, isn’t that sweet. She edges closer, eyes searching. Finding Sandalath’s form on the left, closest to her. Convenient.
Phaed raises the knife.
In her mind, flashes, scene after scene, the sordid list of this old woman’s constant slights, each one belittling Phaed, each one revealing to all nearby too many of Phaed’s secret terrors-no-one has the right to do that, no-one has the right to then laugh-laugh in the eyes if not out loud. All those insults, well, the time has come to pay them back. Here, with one hard thrust of the knife.
She lifts the knife still higher, draws in her breath and holds it.
And stabs down.
Nimander’s hand snaps out, catches her wrist, hard, tightening as she twists round, lips peeled back, eyes blazing with rage and fear. Her wrist is a tiny thing, like a bony snake, caught, frenzied, seeking to turn the knife, to set the edge against Nimander’s hand. He twists again and bones break, an awful crunching, grinding sound.
The knife clunks on the wooden floor.
Nimander bears down on her, using his weight to crumple Phaed onto the floor beside the bed. She tries to scratch at his eyes and he releases the broken limb to grasp the other one. He breaks that one too.
She has not screamed. Amazing, that. Not a sound but her panting breath.
Nimander pins her down and takes her neck in his hands. He begins to squeeze.
No more, Phaed. I now do as would Anomander Rake. As would Silchas Ruin. As would Sandalath herself were she awake. I do this, because I know you-yes, even now, there, in your bulging eyes where all your awareness now gathers in a flood, I can see the truth of you.
The emptiness inside.
Your mother stares in horror. At what she has spawned. She stares, disbelieving, clinging desperately to the possibility that she has got it wrong, that we all have, that you are not as you are. But that is no help. Not to her. Not to you.
Yes, stare up into my eyes, Phaed, and know that I see you.
I see you-
He was being dragged away. Off Phaed. His hands were being pried loose, twisted painfully to break his grip-and he falls back, muscled arms wrapped about him now, and is dragged from Phaed, from her bloated face and the dreadful gasping-poor Phaed’s throat hurts, maybe is torn, even. To breathe is to know agony.