what would that have achieved? A triumph in solitude makes a hollow sound, and to every glory proclaimed the heavens make no answer.’
‘My master requests a sword.’
‘Pure and plain iron.’
‘Just so.’
‘To take the blood of Darkness.’
The captain’s brows rose. ‘Lord, her sorcery is not Azathanai.’
‘Isn’t it? She feeds her power, but how?’
‘Not by blood!’
Henarald studied Kellaras for a moment longer, and then he sat once more in his heavy, high-backed chair. He drained the goblet in his hand and set it down on the table. ‘I have breathed poison for so long, only riktal can burn through the scars on my throat. Age numbs us to feeling. We are dulled as black bedrock on a crag. Waiting for yet one more season of frost. Now that the First Son has discovered the secret of the Hust, will he barter his knowledge to suit his political ambitions?’
‘My master states as his sole ambition the desire never to yield to ignorance, Lord. Knowledge is all the reward he seeks, and its possession is the measure of his own wealth.’
‘Does he hoard it then?’
‘He understands that others would use such knowledge, in unseemly ways. I have known my master since we were both children, Lord, and I can tell you, no secrets pass through his hands.’
Henarald’s shrug was loose, careless, his eyes fixed on the floor somewhere to his right. ‘The secret of the Hust swords is in itself a thing without power. I held it close for… other reasons.’
‘To protect those who wield such weapons, yes, Lord. My master well understands that.’
The hooded gaze flicked over at Kellaras for a moment, and then away again. ‘I will make Anomander a sword,’ Henarald said. ‘But in the moment of its final quenching, I will attend. I will see for myself this sorcery. And if it is blood, then,’ he sighed, ‘then I will know.’
‘She dwells in Darkness,’ said Kellaras.
‘Then I shall see nothing?’
‘I believe, Lord, you shall see nothing.’
‘I think,’ said Henarald, ‘I begin to understand the nature of her power.’
Outside the chamber, Kellaras found that he was trembling. In the fraught exchange just past, it had been Henarald’s promise of a return to childhood that most disturbed the captain. He could make no sense of it, and yet he suspected some dreadful secret hid within that confession.
Muttering under his breath he pushed the unease away, and set out for the main hall at the corridor’s far end, where a hundred or more residents and guests of the house now dined, in a riotous clamour of voices and laughter, and the heat from the great hearth roiled in the chamber, filling the air with the heady smells of roasting pork. He would lose himself in that festive atmosphere, and should moments of doubt stir awake, he need only remind himself that he had won Henarald’s promise to forge a sword for his master, and then reach for another tankard of ale.
Striding into the main hall, Kellaras paused for a moment. New, unfamiliar faces swirled on all sides, dust- grimed and weary. A troop of Hust soldiers had arrived, returned from some patrol, and voices were loud as kin called greetings across the room. He scanned the crowd, seeking out Galar Baras, and moments later found the man, standing close to a side passage and leaning against the smoke-stained stone wall. Kellaras began making his way over, and then drew up when he finally noted his friend’s intent gaze, which was fixed upon one of the newcomers, a woman of rank who seemed to be the centre of much of the attention. She was smiling, listening to a bent old man too drunk to stay upright without the aid of a high-backed chair. When her gaze finally slipped past him, Kellaras saw her stiffen slightly upon meeting Galar’s eyes.
An instant later she was looking away again, and with one hand affectionately settling on the drunk’s shoulder, she eased past the old man and made her way towards another table, where her fellow soldiers were now settling in.
A harried servant was edging through the crowd, drawing close to where Kellaras stood, and the captain accosted the young man. ‘A word, please. Who is that woman? The officer?’
The servant’s brows lifted. ‘Toras Redone, sir, commander of the Hust Legion.’
‘Ah, of course. Thank you.’
He was certain he had seen her before, but always from a distance — upon a field of battle — and of course helmed and girded for war. She was not one for attending formal events in the Citadel, preferring instead to remain with her legion. It was said that she had arrived to kneel before Mother Dark in sweat-stained leathers, with dust upon her face — he’d thought that tale apocryphal, but now he was not so sure.
She sat now amongst her soldiers, a tankard in one hand, and for all the grime of hard travel upon her, he could see that she was beautiful, yet in a dissolute way, and when Kellaras watched her drain the flagon of ale and then reach for another, he was not surprised.
He considered paying his respects, then decided that this was not the time, and so he continued making his way towards Galar Baras.
‘You look rattled, captain,’ Galar said when he drew close.
Not half as much as you, friend. ‘I have just come from my audience with your lord.’
‘And did he speak to you of childhood?’
‘He did, though I admit to my failing to make sense of it.’
‘And the other matter?’
‘My master will be most pleased. I see you have no drink in hand — I feel bold enough to assail the ale bench-’
‘Not on my account, captain. I cannot stomach it, I’m afraid. I see your surprise — what veteran cannot drink, you wonder? Why, I will answer you: a sober one.’
‘Does this prevent you from sharing in the festivities? I see you standing apart, as if outcast. Come, let us find somewhere to sit.’
Galar’s smile was faint, with a hint of sadness in his eyes. ‘If you insist.’
They made their way to a table, Kellaras choosing one close to the servants’ entrance where a score of used flagons crowded the surface. As they sat he said, ‘Can you explain, then, your lord’s obsession with becoming a child once more?’
Galar Baras seemed to hesitate, and then he leaned close, one forearm pushing the flagons to one side. ‘It is troubling to us all, captain-’
‘Please, call me Kellaras.’
‘Very well. Kellaras. Something afflicts Henarald, at least in his own mind. He claims he is losing his memories, not of distant times, but of the day just past, or indeed the morning just done. Yet we do not see it, not yet in any case. There is an illness that takes smiths. Some believe it resides in the fumes from the forge, in the steam from quenching, or the molten drops of ore that burn the skin. It is called the Loss of Iron-’
‘I have indeed heard of this,’ Kellaras replied. ‘Yet I tell you, after my audience with your lord, I saw nothing afflicting his intellect. Rather, he speaks in abstractions, in the language of poets. When the subject demands precision, his wit sharpens quickly. This requires a facility, a definite acuity of the mind.’
Galar Baras shrugged. ‘I reveal no secrets here, Kellaras. The rumour is long out — our lord feels afflicted, and the keenness of his intelligence, that you so surely describe, is to him evidence of the war he wages with himself, with the failings he senses besieging him. He strikes out with precision to battle the blunting of memories.’
‘I had first thought that he feared this return to childhood,’ Kellaras said, frowning. ‘But I began to suspect that he will welcome it, should it come to him. A release from all the fraught things of the adult world.’
‘You may well be right,’ Galar admitted. ‘Will you report to your master on this matter?’
‘He has promised Anomander a sword — do his skills fail him?’
‘No, we have seen nothing like that.’
‘Then Lord Henarald’s fears for his own health have no bearing on the commission.’
‘I thank you, Kellaras.’
