weary of the solitude and now sought company.
There are those from whom pleasure exudes, heady as ale fumes, inviting as the warmth of a fire on a cold night. They encourage amusement with but a glance, as if jests fill the world and the company they share cannot help but fall into that welcoming embrace.
The Azathanai named himself Grizzin Farl, and he did not wait for Draconus to introduce him to the others; instead walking to each in turn. Raskan, Rint, and then Arathan, and when his hand clasped Arathan’s wrist the nest of wrinkles bracketing the giant’s eyes sharpened and he said, ‘A sword-wielder’s forearm, that. Your father has not been careless in preparing you for the life ahead. You are Arathan, inconvenient son of Draconus, lost child to a grieving mother. Will it be this hand I now hold that sends the knife into your father’s back? So he fears, and what father wouldn’t?’
Arathan stared up into those grey eyes. ‘I have no ambitions,’ he said.
‘Well you may not, but others have.’
‘They will never find me.’
Gnarled eyebrows lifted at that. ‘Will you live a life in hiding, then?’
Arathan nodded. The others were standing close, listening, but he could not pull his gaze from that of Grizzin Farl.
‘That is not much of a life,’ the giant said.
‘I am not much of a life, sir. Therefore it well suits me.’
Grizzin Farl finally released his grip on Arathan’s arm and turned to Draconus. ‘It is said Darkness has become a weapon. Against whom is it intended to strike? This is the question, and I go to hear its answer. Tell me, Draconus, will Kharkanas reel to my fated arrival?’
‘Towers will topple,’ Draconus replied. ‘Women will swoon.’
‘Ha! As well they should!’ But then he frowned. ‘Those observations, old friend, do not sit well together.’ And with that he turned to Feren and lowered himself to one knee. ‘Who could expect such beauty here on the very edge of Bareth Solitude? It is ever in my nature to save the best for last. I am Grizzin Farl, known among the Azathanai as the Protector, known among the Jheleck as the warrior who misses every fight, sleeps through every battle, and but smiles at every challenge. Known, too, by those Jaghut who remain as the Stone that Sleeps, which is their poetic way of describing my infamous lethargy. Now, I would have you speak your own name, so that I may cherish it and hold the memory of your voice for ever in my heart.’
Through all of this, Feren seemed unimpressed, though the colour was high on her cheeks. ‘I am Feren,’ she said. ‘A Bordersword and sister to Rint.’
‘Too young,’ Grizzin Farl said after a moment, ‘to lose hope. Your voice has told me a tragic tale, though the details remain obscured, but in loss there is pain, and pain will become a sting that ever reminds of that loss.’
She backed away at his words. ‘I reveal no such thing!’ she said in a rasp.
Grizzin Farl slowly straightened, then spread his arms out as if to encompass them all. ‘Tonight we will drink ourselves into wild joy, until the fire has dimmed and the stars flee the dawn, whereupon we will all grow maudlin and each swear everlasting fealty to one another, before passing out.’ He lifted his sack. ‘Ale from the Thel Akai, who are masters, if not of brewing, most certainly of drinking.’ He paused, and then added, ‘I trust you have food. In my haste to meet you, I fear I left home without any.’
Arathan was startled to hear his father’s sigh.
Then Grizzin Farl smiled, and once more all was right in the world.
The ale was strong and went immediately to Arathan’s head. Shortly after the evening meal, and in the midst of a bawdy song about a Thel Akai maiden and an old Jaghut with an aching tusk, sung with great melodrama by the Azathanai, Arathan fell asleep. Raskan awoke him the next morning with a cup of strong herbs and willow bark, and it was while he sat, sipping the hot drink, that he saw that Grizzin Farl was no longer among them.
Even now it seemed like a dream, blurred and raucous, almost fevered. Head aching, Arathan kept his eyes on the ground before him, as the others began breaking camp. He wondered what other matters were spoken of in the night just past, and he felt his own absence as if it mocked whatever claims he might make to having become a man. He had fallen unconscious like a boy at his first cups, a tankard stolen from the table and hastily gulped down behind a chair.
He had wanted to hear more about Darkness as a sword, a weapon. And it was clear that Grizzin Farl knew Arathan’s father — in ways no one else did, perhaps not even Mother Dark herself. What strange history did they share? What mysterious tales bound their past? A few covert glances to Raskan, Rint and Feren suggested that nothing momentous had been revealed; if anything, everyone seemed at greater ease than they had shown in the time before Grizzin Farl’s arrival, as if barriers had been pushed down after a night of ale and laughter.
After a moment of consideration, Arathan looked again at Feren, and saw that something had changed. There was a looseness about her, and then he caught a smile she sent her brother’s way at some muttered comment, and suddenly it seemed as if everything had changed. Tensions had vanished. The oppressive weight that had been Sagander’s accident had disappeared. Grizzin Farl came among us, and then he left, but when he left, he took something with him.
He saw his father watching him, and after a moment Draconus strode over. ‘I should have warned you about Thel Akai ale.’
Arathan shrugged.
‘And you barely recovered from a concussion,’ his father continued. ‘It must have hit you like a sleeping draught. I am sorry, Arathan, that you missed most of an enjoyable evening.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘You have had too few of those.’
‘He called you his friend,’ Arathan said, his tone painfully accusing.
A flatness came to his father’s eyes. ‘He calls everyone “friend”, Arathan. Give it no further thought.’
Arathan glared after him as he walked away.
From a lone, diseased tree upriver drifted the morning cry of a bird and he looked over but could not see the creature among the crooked branches and sullen leaves.
It hides, and it is free.
Free to fly away from all of this.
A short time later they ascended the slope and came out upon the Bareth Solitude, and the way ahead stretched on in ribboned rows beneath a clear sky, and Arathan was reminded of Sagander’s lessons recounting the death of a great inland sea.
As he rode, he thought of water, and freedom.
And prisons.
To the west was the land of the Azathanai, where dwelt protectors who protected nothing, and wise sages who never spoke, and Thel Akai came down from the mountains to share drunken nights no one remembered the next day. It was a world of mysteries, and he would soon see it for himself. With the thought, he felt light in the saddle, as if moments from transforming into a bird, from taking wing in search of a diseased tree.
But the thin sea ahead was bereft of trees, and the beach ridges with their bleached cobbles edged basins of grass and little else.
He wasn’t interested in stabbing his father in the back — that broad back just ahead, beneath that worn cloak. No one would ever wield him like a knife.
Grizzin Farl had told him: his mother still lived. She lived, tormented by grief, which meant that she loved him still. He would find her and steal her away.
In a world of mysteries, there were plenty of places in which to hide.
For both of us.
And we will love each other, and from that love, there will be peace.
PART TWO
