‘So we three kill Silchas Ruin,’ Sheltatha Lore said. ‘And then the Imass.’
‘My son chooses to oppose us in that last detail,’ Menandore said. ‘But the Imass have outlived their usefulness. We shall wound Rud if we must, but we do not kill him. Understood? I will have your word on this. Again. Here and now, sisters.’
Agreed,’ Sheltatha Lore said.
‘Yes,’ said Sukul Ankhadu, ‘although it will make matters more difficult.’
‘We must live with that,’ Menandore said, and then turned. ‘It is time.’
Already?’
A few pathetic mortals seek to stand in our way-we must crush them first. And Silchas Ruin has allies. Our day’s work begins now, sisters.’
With that she walked towards the hills, and began veering into her dragon form.
Behind her, Sheltatha Lore and Sukul Ankhadu exchanged a look, and then they moved apart, giving themselves the room they needed.
Veering into dragons.
Dawn, Dusk and the one known as Dapple. A dragon of gold and white. One stained brown and looking half-rotted. The last mottled, neither light nor dark, but the uneasy interplay between the two. Soletaken with the blood of Tiam, the Mother. Sail-winged and serpent-necked, taloned and scaled, the blood of Eleint.
Lifting into the air on gusts of raw sorcery. Menandore leading the wedge formation. Sheltatha Lore on her left. Sukul Ankhadu on her right.
The hills before them, now dropping away as they heaved their massive bulks yet higher.
Clearing the crests, the ancient ridge of an ancient shore, and the sun caught gleaming scales, bloomed through the membranes of wings, while beneath three shadows raced over grass and rock, shadows that sent small mammals scurrying for cover, that launched birds into screeching flight, that made hares freeze in their tracks.
Beasts in the sky were hunting, and nothing on the ground was safe.
A flat landscape studded with humped mounds-dead dragons, ghastly as broken barrows, from which bones jutted, webbed by desiccated skin and sinew. Wings snapped like the wreckage of foundered ships. Necks twisted on the ground, heads from which the skin had contracted, pulled back to reveal gaunt hollows in the eye sockets and beneath the cheekbones. Fangs coated in grey dust were bared as if in eternal defiance.
Seren Pedac had not believed there had once been so many dragons. Had not, in truth, believed that the creatures even existed, barring those who could create such a form from their own bodies, like Silchas Ruin. Were these, she had first wondered, all Soletaken? For some reason, she knew the answer to be no.
True dragons, of which Silchas Ruin, in his dread winged shape, was but a mockery. Devoid of majesty, of purity.
The shattering of bones and wings had come from age, not violence. None of these beasts were sprawled out in death. None revealed gaping wounds. They had each settled into their final postures.
‘Like blue flies on the sill of a window,’ Udinaas had said. ‘Wrongside, trying to get out. But the window stayed closed. To them, maybe to everyone, every thing. Or… maybe not every thing.’ And then he had smiled, as if the thought had amused him.
They had seen the gate that was clearly their destination from a great distance away, and indeed it seemed the dragon mounds were more numerous the closer they came, crowding in on all sides. The flanks of that arch were high as towers, thin to the point of skeletal, while the arch itself seemed twisted, like a vast cobweb wrapped around a dead branch. Enclosed by this structure was a wall smooth and grey, yet vaguely swirling widdershins-the way through, to another world. Where, it was now understood by all, would be found the remnant soul of Scabandari, Father Shadow, the Betrayer. Bloodeye.
The lifeless air tasted foul to Seren Pedac, as if immeasurable grief tainted every breath drawn in this realm, a bleak redolence that would not fade even after countless millennia. It sickened her, sapped the strength from her limbs, from her very spirit. Daunting as that portal was, she longed to claw through the grey, formless barrier. Longed for an end to this. All of it.
There was a way, she was convinced-there had to be a way-of negotiating through the confrontation fast approaching. Was this not her sole talent, the singular skill she would permit herself to acknowledge?
Three strides ahead of her, Udinaas and Kettle walked, her tiny hand nestled in his much larger, much more battered one. The sight-which had preceded her virtually since their arrival in this grim place-was yet another source of anguish and unease. Was he alone capable of setting aside all his nightmares, to comfort this lone, lost child?
Long ago, at the very beginning of this journey, Kettle had held herself close to Silchas Ruin. For he had been the one who had spoken to her through the dying Azath. And he had made vows to protect her and the burgeoning life • that had come to her. And so she had looked upon her benefactor with all the adoration one might expect of a foundling in such a circumstance.
This was no longer true. Oh, Seren Pedac saw enough small gestures to underscore that old allegiance, the threads linking these two so-different beings-their shared place of birth, the precious mutual recognition that was solitude, estrangement from all others. But Silchas Ruin had… revealed more of himself. Had revealed, in his cold disregard, a brutality that could take one’s breath away. Oh, and how different is that from Kettle’s tales of murdering people in Letheras? Of draining their blood, feeding their corpses into the hungry, needy grounds of the Azath?
Still, Kettle expressed none of those desires any more. In returning to life, she had abandoned her old ways, had become, with each passing day, more and more simply a young girl. An orphan.
Witness, again and again, to her adopted family’s endless quarrelling and bickering. To the undeniable threats, the promises of murder. Yes, this is what we have offered her.
And Silchas Ruin is hardly above all of that, is he?
But what of Udinaas? Revealing no great talent, no terrible power. Revealing, in truth, naught but a profound vulnerability.
Ah, and this is what draws her to him. What he gifts back to her in that clasping of hands, the soft smile that reaches even his sad eyes.
Udinaas, Seren Pedac realized with a shock, was the only truly likeable member of their party.
She could in no way include herself as one with even the potential for genuine feelings of warmth from any of the others, not since her rape of Udinaas’s mind. But even before then, she had revealed her paucity of skills in the area of camaraderie. Ever brooding, prone to despondency-these were the legacies of all she had done-and not done-in her life.
Kicking through dust, with Clip and Silchas Ruin well ahead of the others, with the massive humps of dead dragons on all sides, they drew yet closer-to that towering gate. Fear Sengar, who had been walking two strides behind her on her left, now came alongside. His hand was on the grip of his sword.
‘Do not be a fool,’ she hissed at him.
His face was set in stern lines, lips tight.
Ahead, Clip and Silchas reached the gate and there they halted. Both seemed to be looking down at a vague, smallish form on the ground.
Udinaas slowed as the child whose hand he was holding began pulling back. Seren Pedac saw him look down and say something in a very low tone.
If Kettle replied it was in a whisper.
The ex-slave nodded then, and a moment later they carried on, Kettle keeping pace without any seeming reluctance.
What had made her shrink away?
What had he said to so easily draw her onward once more?
They came closer, and Seren Pedac heard a low sigh from Fear Sengar. ‘They look upon a body,’ he said.
Oh, Errant protect us.
‘Acquitor,’ continued the Tiste Edur, so low that only she could hear.
‘Yes?’
‘I must know… how you will choose.’
‘I don’t intend to,’ she snapped in sudden irritation. ‘Do we come all this way together only to kill each other now?’