Anomander. He had been instructed to deliver it into the hands of Hust Henarald himself, and to await a reply. None of this required an escort, and it seemed to Kellaras that Galar’s insistence on this matter marked a kind of mistrust, even suspicion. It was, in fact, offensive.
Yet the First Son of Darkness was not ill-disposed towards the Hust Legion; in fact, the very opposite, and so Kellaras was not prepared to challenge his companion on this or any other matter. They could ride in silence then — it was not much farther, as he could now see the way open ahead — and pretend to amity.
Galar Baras startled him with a question. ‘Sir, have you any notion of your lord’s message to Lord Henarald?’
Kellaras stared across at the man as they cantered into the light. ‘Even if I knew the details, captain, it is not for us to discuss them, is it?’
‘Forgive me, sir. I did not mean to ask for details. But Lord Hust Henarald is well known for his personal involvement in the workings among his forges, and I fear he will not be in residence at his house. Therefore, I sought to ascertain if there was some urgency to the missive.’
‘I see.’ Kellaras thought for a moment, and then said, ‘I am to wait for the Lord’s response.’
‘Then it may well be sensitive to any delay.’
‘What do you propose, captain?’
‘The Great House to begin with, of course. If, however, Lord Henarald has travelled south to the mines, then I am afraid I must pass you on to a household escort, as I cannot be away from the Citadel for that length of time.’
Ahead of them waited the massive stone walls surrounding the Hust Forge. Kellaras said nothing, forcing himself to admit to having been knocked askew by the captain’s words. He cleared his throat and said, ‘You lead me to wonder, captain, why you insisted on escorting me in the first place. Do you doubt the reception I might receive at the house?’
Brows lifted. ‘Sir? Of course not.’ He then hesitated for a moment, before adding, ‘Very well, sir. I elected to ride with you in order to stretch my legs. I was a Bordersword since I first came of age, yet now I find myself trapped inside stone walls, in a palace where darkness bleeds so thick one cannot stand on a balcony and see a single star in the night sky. I thought, sir, that I might go mad if so confined for much longer.’ He was slowly reining in, eyes suddenly averted. ‘I apologize, sir. Hear the chimes? They have identified you and now prepare your welcome. I need go no further-’
‘But you shall, captain,’ Kellaras said, only now realizing that the young face belonged to a young man. ‘Your horse needs the rest and watering — if indeed I must ride onward, then I expect you to accompany me, for I shall be riding into holdings under the command of the Hust Legion. You will accord me the proper honour of an officer’s escort.’
It was a gamble. Strictly speaking, Kellaras’s rank could not be imposed upon an officer of the Hust Legion. But if this man was wilting inside what he viewed as a prison, chained there by duty, then only a countermand could keep him from returning to his office of misery.
He caught a moment of bright relief on the captain’s flushed visage, only to see it overwhelmed with sudden dread.
What now?
But Galar Baras kicked his horse forward again, resuming the pace alongside Kellaras. ‘As you command, sir, I am at your disposal.’
The enormous bronze gates were swinging open ahead, in a slithering rattle of heavy chains. Kellaras cleared his throat a second time, and said, ‘Besides, captain, have you no interest in seeing Lord Henarald’s expression when he learns that my master seeks to commission a sword?’
Galar Baras’s head snapped round in shock.
And then they were through the gates.
FOUR
The plain of glimmer fate had not seen rain in decades, yet the black grasses were thick as fur on the gently rolling land, rising as high as a horse’s shoulder on the level flats. The thin, spiky blades gathered close the heat of the sun, and to pass through them was akin to plunging into the cauldron of a furnace. Iron accoutrements — buckles, clasps, weapons and armour — burned to the touch. Leather slowly shrivelled and cracked in the course of a day’s travel. Cloth suffocated skin, making it red, hot and irritated.
The Wardens of the Outer Reach, that northernmost region of the plain verging on the silver, mercurial sea of Vitr, wore silks and little else, and even then more than a few days out from their outlier posts they suffered terribly, as did their horses, which were burdened with thick wooden leaves of armour protecting their legs and lower quarters from both the heat and the sharp, serrated blades of the grass. Patrols out to the Vitr Sea were an ordeal, and there were few among the Tiste willing to serve as Wardens.
Which was just as well, Faror Hend reflected: if there were yet more people as mad as they were, then the Tiste would be in trouble. Close to the edge of the Vitr the grasses died away, leaving bare ground studded with rotting stones and brittle boulders. The air sliding in from the tranquil silver sea stung in the lungs, burned raw the inside of the nose, made bitter every tear.
She sat astride her horse, watching her younger cousin draw out his sword and set one edge into a groove in a boulder near the Vitr’s edge. Some poison from the strange liquid dissolved even the hardest rock, and Wardens had taken to fashioning whetstones from select boulders. Her companion’s sword had been forged by the Hust, but long ago and thus mercifully silent. Still, it was new to Spinnock Durav’s hand, a blade the length of which crossed generations in the family. She could see his pride and was pleased.
The third and last rider in this patrol, Finarra Stone, had ridden along the shoreline, westward, and Faror had lost sight of her some time back. It was not unusual to set off unaccompanied when so near to the Vitr — the naked wolves of the plain never ventured this close, and of other beasts only bones remained. Finarra had nothing to fear and would eventually return. They would camp for the night in the shelter of the high crags where past storms had gnawed deep into the shoreline, far enough from the Vitr to escape its more toxic effects, yet still some distance from the verge of the grasses.
With the reassuring sound of Spinnock’s blade rasping as he honed it, Faror twisted in her saddle and stared out over the silver expanse of the sea. Its promise was dissolution, devouring flesh and bone upon contact. But for the moment the surface was calm, yet mottled, as if reflecting an overcast sky. The terrible forces that dwelt in its depths, or somewhere in its distant heart, remained quiescent. Of late, this was unusual. The last three times a patrol had arrived here, they had been driven back by the ferocity of storms, and in the aftermath of each one, more land was lost.
If the mystery of the Vitr could not be solved; if its power could not be blunted, forced back, or destroyed, then there would come a time, perhaps less than a dozen centuries away, when the poison sea devoured all of the Glimmer Fate, and so reached the very borders of Kurald Galain.
None knew with any certainty the source of the Vitr — at least, none among the Tiste. Faror believed that answers might be found among the Azathanai, but then, she had no proof of that and she was but a Warden of middling rank. And the scholars and philosophers of Kharkanas were an inward-looking, xenophobic lot, dismissive of foreigners and their foreign ways. It seemed that they valued ignorance, finding it a virtue when it was their own.
Perhaps among the war-spoils of the Forulkan, now in the possession of Lord Urusander, some revelations might be found; although it seemed that Urusander’s particular obsession, upon laws and justice, made the discovery of such revelations unlikely. Still, in his manic studies he might well stumble upon some ancient musings on the Vitr… but would he even notice?
The threat posed by the Vitr was acknowledged. Its imminence was well recognized. A few millennia were a short span indeed, and there were truths in the world that took centuries to truly understand. This led to a simple fact: they were running out of time.
‘It is said,’ Spinnock spoke, straightening and setting an eye down the length of his sword, ‘that some quality of the Vitr infuses the edge, strengthening it against notching and, indeed, shattering.’
