In the broken grounds surrounding the lifeless Azath of Letheras, many of those long-extinct creatures had crawled back through the gate, as insidious as any vermin. True, it was not a gate as such, just… rents, fissures, as if some terrible demon had slashed from both sides, talons the size of two-handed swords tearing through the fabric between the warrens. There had been battles here, the spilling of ascendant blood, the uttering of vows that could not be kept. She could still smell the death of the Tarthenal gods, could almost hear their outrage and disbelief, as one fell, then another, and another… until all were gone, delivered unto Festal’rythan. She did not pity them. It was too easy to be arrogant upon arriving in this world, to think that none could challenge the unleashing of ancient power.
She had long since discovered a host of truths in time’s irresistible progression. Raw became refined, and with refinement, power grew ever deadlier. All that was simple would, in time and under sufficient pressure-and if random chance proved benign rather than malignant-
acquire greater complexity. And yet, at some point, a threshold was crossed, and complexity crumbled into dissolution. There was nothing fixed in this; some forms rose and fell with astonishing rapidity, while others could persist for extraordinarily long periods in seeming stasis.
Thus, she believed she comprehended more than most, yet found that she could do little with that knowledge. Standing in the overgrown, battered yard, her cold un-human eyes fixed on the malformed shape squatting at the edge of the largest sundered barrow, she could see through to the chaos inside him, could see how it urged dissolution within that complex matrix of flesh, blood and bone. Pain radiated from his hunched, twisted back as she continued studying him.
He had grown aware of her presence, and fear whispered through him, the sorcery of the Crippled God building. Yet he was uncertain if she presented a threat. In the mean-time, ambition rose and fell like crashing waves around the island of his soul.
She could, she decided, make use of this one.
‘I am Hannan Mosag,’ the figure said without turning. ‘You… you are Soletaken. The cruellest of the Sisters, accursed among the Edur pantheon. Your heart is betrayal. I greet you, Sukul Ankhadu.’
She approached. ‘Betrayal belongs to the one buried beneath, Hannan Mosag, to the Sister you once worshipped. How much, Edur, did that shape your destiny, I wonder? Any betrayals plaguing your people of late? Ah, I saw that flinch. Well, then, neither of us should be surprised.’
You work to free her.’
‘I always worked better with Sheltatha Lore than I did with Menandore… although that may not be the case now. The buried one has her… obsessions.’
The Tiste Edur grunted. ‘Don’t we all.’
‘How long have you known your most cherished protectress was entombed here?’
‘Suspicions. For years. I had thought-hoped-that I would discover what remained of Scabandari Bloodeye here as well.’
‘Wrong ascendant,’ Sukul Ankhadu said, her tone droll. ‘Had you got it right as to who betrayed whom back then, you would have known that.’
‘I hear the contempt in your voice.’
‘Why are you here? So impatient as to add your power to the rituals I unleashed below?’
‘It may be,’ Hannan Mosag said, ‘that we could work together… for a time.’
‘What would be the value in that?’
The Tiste Edur shifted to look up at her. ‘It seems obvious. Even now, Silchas Ruin hunts for the one I’d thought here. I doubt that either you or Sheltatha Lore would be pleased should he succeed. I can guide you onto his trail. I can also lend you… support, at the moment of confrontation.’
‘And in return?’
‘For one, we can see an end to your killing and eating citizens in the city. For another, we can destroy Silchas Ruin.’
She grunted. ‘I have heard that determination voiced before, Hannan Mosag. Is the Crippled God truly prepared to challenge him?’
‘With allies… yes.’
She considered his proposal. There would be treachery, but it would probably not occur until after Ruin was disposed of-the game would turn over the disposition of the Finnest. She well knew that Scabandari Bloodeye’s power was not as it once was, and what remained would be profoundly vulnerable. ‘Tell me, does Silchas Ruin travel alone?’
‘No. He has a handful of followers, but of them, only one is cause for concern. A Tiste Edur, the eldest brother of the Sengar, once commander of the Edur Warriors.’
‘A surprising alliance.’
‘Shaky is a better way of describing it. He too seeks the Finnest, and will, I believe, do all he can to prevent its falling into Ruin’s hands.’
‘Ah, expedience plagues us all.’ Sukul Ankhadu smiled. ‘Very well, Hannan Mosag. We are agreed, but tell your Crippled God this: fleeing at the moment of attack, abandoning Sheltatha Lore and myself to Silchas Ruin and, say, making off with the Finnest during the fight, will prove a fatal error. With our dying breaths, we will tell Silchas Ruin all he needs to know, and he will come after the Crippled God, and he will not relent.’
‘You will hot be abandoned, Sukul Ankhadu. As for the Finnest itself, do you wish to claim it for yourselves?’
She laughed. ‘To fight over it between us? No, we’d rather see it destroyed.’
‘I see. Would you object, then, to the Crippled God’s making use of its power?’
‘Will such use achieve eventual destruction?’
‘Oh yes, Sukul Ankhadu.’
She shrugged. As you like.’ You must truly think me a fool, Hannan Mosag. ‘Your god marches to war-he will need all the help he can get.’
Hannan Mosag managed his own smile, a twisted, feral thing. ‘He is incapable of marching. He does not even crawl. The war comes to him, Sister.’
If there was hidden significance to that distinction, Sukul Ankhadu was unable to discern it. Her gaze lifted, fixed on the river to the south. Wheeling gulls, strange islands of sticks and grasses spinning on the currents. And, she could sense, beneath the swirling surface, enormous, belligerent leviathans, using the islands as bait. Whatever came close enough…
She was drawn to a rumble of power from the broken barrow and looked down once more. ‘She’s coming, Hannan Mosag.’
‘Shall I leave? Or will she be amenable to our arrangement?’
‘On that, Edur, I cannot speak for her. Best you depart-she will, after all, be very hungry. Besides, she and I have much to discuss… old wounds to mend between us.’
She watched as the malformed warlock dragged himself away. After all, you are much more her child than you are mine, and I’d rather she was, for the moment, without allies.
It was all Menandore’s doing, anyway.
Chapter Six
The argument was this: a civilization shackled to the strictures of excessive control on its populace, from choice of religion through to the production of goods, will sap the will and the ingenuity of its people-for whom such qualities are no longer given sufficient incentive or reward. At face value, this is accurate enough. Trouble arrives when the opponents to such a system institute its extreme opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal (including community) is possible. In such a system rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore, a kind of intransigence as fierce and nonsensical as its maternalistic counterpart.