‘You insult us both,’ Mother Dark snapped. ‘We bargained peace between us.’
‘And what manner the currency of this exchange?’
‘Nothing of substance.’
‘Then, what manner this peace? Shall I describe it? The forest to the north might burn still, but the huts are surely silent. By that one might assert the blessing of peace, of a sort.’
‘We did not invite death between us!’
Emral saw how the goddess trembled with her rage, but Anomander seemed unaffected. ‘Grizzin Farl, what do you know of this T’riss?’
‘I know of no Azathanai by that name, First Son.’
‘Do you have her description?’
Grizzin Farl shrugged. ‘That signifies nothing. If I so desired, I could hover before you as a bird, or perhaps a butterfly.’ Then he frowned. ‘But you name her born of the Vitr. Two Azathanai set out to explore the mystery of that caustic sea.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps it is one of them.’
‘And the power she unveiled tells you nothing either?’
‘Only that it was uncommonly careless, and so not like an Azathanai at all. There are proscriptions against such blatant interference.’
‘Why?’
‘It is unhealthy for any Azathanai to invite the resentment of other Azathanai.’
‘And this the one named T’riss has done?’
‘So it seems, First Son.’
‘You are rather passive in your resentment, Grizzin Farl.’
‘I am not the one imposed upon, as the Tiste do not fall under my influence.’
Emral gasped as the implications of that comment settled in her mind. She looked to Mother Dark and was stunned to see no expression of surprise in her features.
Anomander stood like a man nailed to a wall, although nothing but empty air surrounded him. All at once, Emral felt her heart wrench for the First Son. He now stared fixedly at Mother Dark. ‘At last,’ he said, ‘I find the bitter truth to my title, Mother. A son you would have, but one swaddled and helpless, thinking only of your tit’s sweet milk.’
‘I cannot hasten your growth, First Son, by any other means.’
‘Yet you recoil at my sour breath.’
‘Only the hurtful words it carries.’
‘Are you then an Azathanai, Mother, deceitfully attired in the body of a Tiste woman we once all knew?’
‘I am that woman,’ she replied, ‘and no other.’
‘Then where stands your guardian, or has it made its flesh darkness itself?’
‘These questions are of no value,’ Mother Dark said. ‘I have summoned you, First Son, to send you to Lord Urusander. We will have the truth of his motives.’ She paused and then said, ‘Is this not what you wished?’
‘I will indeed march on Urusander,’ Anomander answered. ‘With the arrival of the Hust Legion.’
‘Do not wait for them,’ she said. ‘Ride to him now, beloved son. Meet with him.’
‘To stand within reach of him, Mother, I would need to wear chains with the weight of mountains, to keep my hands from the sword at my side. But then, would it be better if I simply disarmed myself outside his command tent, knelt and offered him the back of my neck?’
‘I do not believe he is in any way responsible for the murders of Lord Jaen and his daughter. Look him in the eye as he tells you the same, and together you may turn your ire upon the true slayers.’
‘Renegades from the disbanded units? Or would you have me offer up the pathetic possibility of Deniers with noble blood on their hands?’
‘It seems that I must do nothing but weather your scorn. Perhaps this is every mother’s lament.’
Anomander turned away, ‘My scorn, Mother, is not yet awakened. Indeed, you see before you a sleeping man, still lost to the night and troubling dreams. If I twitch, it but signals my helplessness. If I voice a moan, it is a sound empty of meaning. No brush of fingertips will prod me awake, and so I yearn for the knife’s sharp jab. The only question that remains is: who will wield that knife?’
‘If you imagine Urusander to be so treacherous,’ said Mother Dark, ‘then we are already lost.’
‘He harbours Syntara,’ said Anomander. ‘A new cult rises in Neret Sorr. It faces you as a rising sun challenges the night. And so I wonder, Mother, how many gauntlets do you need thrown down?’
‘Go to him, First Son.’
‘There is no need,’ Anomander replied. ‘He prepares to march on Kharkanas. We need but await his knock on the wood of the Citadel gates.’ He moved to the door. Before reaching for the latch, he glanced back at Mother Dark. ‘I have listened to your counsel, Mother. But what I do now is in defence of Kharkanas.’
The door closed quietly behind the First Son. Emral thought to follow but something held her back. She remained facing Mother Dark, but could think of nothing to say.
Grizzin Farl sighed. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘your adopted son is a formidable man.’
‘If I had another path, less painful for him, I would choose it.’
‘For all of you, I would think.’
But she shook her head. ‘I am prepared to bear what will come.’
‘You invite a lonely existence,’ Grizzin said, with sorrow in his eyes as he regarded Mother Dark.
All at once, to Emral’s eyes, it seemed that Mother Dark transformed into something more solid than stone, and then just as quickly she seemed to fade, until she was almost insubstantial. ‘Azathanai, with what you have told me of the events taking place to the west… by solitude alone can I ensure a long existence, and a role in all that is to come.’ Her gaze shifted from Grizzin Farl and settled upon Emral. ‘High Priestess, make of your worship an unflinching recognition of the unknown, and, indeed, the unknowable. By devotion and acceptance of mystery, the chaos that haunts us all is made calm, until the sea itself becomes a mirror content with a placid reflection.’
Emral glanced at the Azathanai, and then returned her attention to Mother Dark. ‘I see no source of strength, Mother, in such surrender.’
‘It opposes our nature, yes. Do you know why I did not refuse the lusts of the priestesses? In that moment of release, time itself is abandoned, and in its place even the mortal body seems as expansive as the universe. In that moment, Emral, we find utter surrender, and in that surrender a state of bliss.’
Emral shook her head. ‘Until the flesh returns, with its aches and a deep heaviness inside. The bliss you describe, Mother, cannot be sustained. And if somehow it could, why, we would soon wear visages of madness, one and all.’
‘It was, daughter, a flawed dispensation.’
‘And now we are to embrace not flesh, but empty contemplation? I fear the void’s kiss will not seem as sweet.’
Mother Dark leaned her head back, as if exhausted. ‘I will,’ she said in a low mutter, ‘let you know.’
Orfantal stood in the centre of the room, looking round. ‘This is mine?’ he asked.
Silchas nodded.
There were scrolls upon shelves, and books bearing brightly coloured illustrations. At the foot of the bed was an ancient trunk and it was filled with toy soldiers, some made from onyx and others from ivory. Upon one wall, in a horizontal rack of blackwood, rested three practice swords, a buckler and, upon a peg beside them, a boiled leather vest. On the floor beneath it was a helmet with a cage-like visor to protect the eyes. Three lanterns burned bright and the light was harsh to Orfantal’s eyes, used as he was to a lone candle to fight the shadows of his room back in House Korlas.
He thought of that room again, and tried to imagine it blackened by smoke, the stone walls cracked, the bed in which he had slept nothing but a heap of ashes. Every thought of his past now came to him with a stench of burning, and the faint echo of screams.
‘Are you unwell?’
Orfantal shook his head.
The dog was still with them and now, having completed its exploratory circuit of the chamber, went to lie down beside a thickly padded chair in one corner. In moments, it was fast asleep, legs twitching.
There came a knock upon the door and a moment later a round-faced young man entered, dressed in stained
