'A worthwhile exchange, then.'
Coll did not ask for another affirmation of his friend's resolve. He knew Murillio too well for that. Aye, it's naught but coin, isn't it? No matter the amount, a fair exchange to ease an old woman's suffering. One way or the other. For at least we will have cared — even if she never again awakens and thus knows nothing of what we do. Indeed, it is perhaps better that way. Cleaner. Simpler.
The howl echoed as if from a vast cavern. Echoed, folded in on itself until the mourning call became a chorus. Bestial voices in countless numbers, voices that stripped away the sense of time itself, that made eternity into a single now.
The voices of winter.
Yet they came from the south, from the place where the tundra could go no further; where the trees were no longer ankle-high, hut rose, still ragged, wind-tom and spindly, over her head, so that she could pass unseen — no longer towering above the landscape.
Kin answered that howl. The pursuing beasts, still on her trail, yet losing her now, as she slipped among the black spruce, the boggy ground sucking hungrily at her bare feet, the black' stained water swirling thick and turgid as she waded chill pools. Huge mosquitoes swarmed her, each easily twice the size of those she knew on the Rhivi Plain. Blackflies crawled in her hair, bit her scalp. Round leeches like black spots covered her limbs.
In her half-blind flight she had stumbled into a spatulate antler, jammed in the crotch of two trees at eye-level. The gouge a tine had made under her right cheek still trickled blood.
It is my death that approaches. That gives me strength. I draw from that final moment, and now they cannot catch me.
They cannot catch me.
The cavern lay directly ahead. She could not yet see it, and there was nothing in the landscape to suggest a geology natural to caves, but the echoing howl was closer.
The beast calls to me. A promise of death, I think, for it gives me this strength. It is my siren call-
Darkness drew down around her, and she knew she had arrived. The cavern was a shaping of a soul, a soul lost within itself.
The air was damp and cool. No insects buzzed or lit on her skin. The stone under the soles of her feet was dry.
She could see nothing, and the howl had fallen silent.
When she stepped forward she knew it was her mind that moved, her mind alone, leaving her body, questing out, seeking that chained beast.
'Who?'
The voice startled her. A man's voice, muffled, taut with pain.
'Who comes?'
She did not know how to answer, and simply spoke the first words that came into her head. 'It is I.'
'I?'
'A — a mother. '
The man's laugh grated harshly. 'Another game, then? You've no words, Mother. You've never had them. You've whimpers and cries, you've warning growls, you've a hundred thousand wordless sounds to describe your need — that is your voice and I know it well.'
'A mother.'
'Leave me. I am beyond taunting. I circle my own chain, here in my mind. This place is not for you. Perhaps, in finding it, you think you've defeated my last line of defence. You think you now know all of me. But you've no power here. Do you know, I imagine seeing my own face, as if in a mirror.
'But it's the wrong eye — the wrong eye staring back at me. And worse, it's not even human. It took me a long time to understand, but now I do.
'You and your kind played with winter. Omtose Phellack. But you never understood it. Not true winter, not the winter that is not sorcery, but born of the cooling earth, the dwindling sun, the shorter days and longer nights. The face I see before me, Seer, it is winter's face. A wolf's. A god's.'
'My child knows wolves,' the Mhybe said.
'He does indeed.'
'Not he. She. I have a daughter-'
'Confusing the rules defeats the game, Seer. Sloppy-'
'I am not who you think I am. I am — I am an old woman. Of the Rhivi. And my daughter wishes to see me dead. But not a simple passage, not for me. No. She's sent wolves after me. To rend my soul. They hunt my dreams — but here, I have escaped them. I've come here to escape.'
The man laughed again. 'The Seer has made this my prison. And I know it to be so. You are the lure of madness, of strangers' voices in my head. I defy you. Had you known of my real mother, you might have succeeded, but your rape of my mind was ever incomplete. There is a god here, Seer, crouched before my secrets. Fangs bared. Not even your dear mother, who holds me so tight, dares challenge him. As for your Omtose Phellack — he would have confronted you at that warren's gate long ago. He would have denied it to you, Jaghut. To all of you. But he was lost. Lost. And know this, I am helping him. I am helping him to find himself. He's growing aware, Seer.'
'I do not understand you,' the Mhybe replied, faltering as despair slowly stole through her. This was not the place she had believed it to be. She had indeed fled to another person's prison, a place of personal madness. 'I came here for death-'
'You'll not find it, not in these leathery arms.'
'I am fleeing my daughter-'
'Flight is an illusion. Even Mother here comprehends that. She knows I am not her child, yet she cannot help herself. She even possesses memories, of a time when she was a true Matron, a mother to a real brood. Children who loved her, and other children — who betrayed her. And left her to suffer for eternity.
'She never anticipated an escape from that. Yet when she found herself free at last, it was to discover that her world had turned to dust. Her children were long dead, entombed in their barrows — for without a mother, they withered and died. She looked to you, then, Seer. Her adopted son. And showed you your power, so that she could use it. To recreate her world. She raised her dead children. She set them to rebuilding the city. But it was all false, the delusion could not deceive her, could only drive her mad.
'And that,' he continued, 'is when you usurped her. Thus, her child has made her a prisoner once more. There is no escaping the paths of our lives, it seems. A truth you're not prepared to face, Seer. Not yet.'
'My child has made me a prisoner as well,' the Mhybe whispered. 'Is this the curse of all mothers?'
'It is the curse of love.'
A faint howl rang through the dark air.
'Hear that?' the man asked. 'That is my mate. She's coming. I looked for so long. For so long. And now, she's coming.'
The voice had acquired a deeper timbre with these words. It seemed to be no longer the man's voice.
And now,' the words continued, 'now, I answer.'
His howl tore through her, flung her mind back. Out of the cavern, out beyond the straggly forests, back onto the tundra's barren plain.
The Mhybe screamed.
Her wolves answered. Triumphantly.
They had found her once again.
A hand touched her cheek. 'Gods, that was bloodcurdling.'
A familiar voice, but she could not yet place it.
Another man spoke, 'There is more to this than we comprehend, Murillio. Look at her cheek.'
