The Crippled God

‘Oh, you’re right, and I couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t. I like her far too much. Well then, seems I’m saddled with you.’

He smiled. Saddled. Hah.

‘Henar.’

‘Yes?’

‘I fear we won’t be coming back from this journey.’

He nodded, not because he agreed with her, but because he knew what she feared.

‘We’re going to die,’ she said. ‘In fact, we may not even make it across this desert.’

‘There is that risk.’

‘It’s hardly fair.’

‘I had a maid, once, at the country estate. Watermelon tits and big eyes-’

‘What?’

‘My father is terrible with names. So he came up with, er, memorable descriptions. Anyway, she used to tell me stories at night. Long, rambling tales of heroes. Loves lost, loves won. She’d make every ending sweet. To make the night’s dreams the same, you see?’

‘Just what a child needs.’

‘I suppose. But those stories weren’t for me. They were for her. She was from the coast, and she’d left behind a man she loved — this was Lether, don’t forget, and her whole community was trapped in the Indebted way of life. It’s why she came to work for our family. As for the young man, well, he was sent to sea.’ He was silent for a moment, remembering, and then he said, ‘Every night, she told me how she wanted her life to turn out — though of course I didn’t realize that at the time. But the truth of it was, she wanted that happy ending. She needed to believe in it. For her, and for everyone else.’

Lostara sighed. ‘What happened to her?’

‘As far as I know, she’s still there, at the country estate.’

‘Are you trying to break my heart, Henar?’

He shook his head. ‘My father worked the system as best he could, and he was not unkind with his Indebted. About a year before I left to train with the Lancers, watermelon tits with big eyes married the son of one of our horse-trainers. My last vision of her, her belly was out to here and those tits were even bigger.’

‘She’d given up on her man from the sea, then. Well, probably wise, I suppose. Part of growing up.’

Henar eyed her, and then away, out over the rocky landscape. ‘I think about her, every now and then.’ He grinned. ‘I even used to fantasize about her, yes, in the way young men will do.’ The grin faded. ‘But mostly I see her sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands flying and her eyes getting wider, and in that bed is her own child. A boy. Who will dream sweet dreams. And when the lantern is turned down, when she’s standing by the door to his room, that’s when the tears will run down her cheeks. And she’ll remember a young man on the edge of the sea.’ Lostara’s breathing had changed, somehow, and her face was hidden from his view. ‘My love?’

Her reply was muffled. ‘It’s all right. Henar, you keep surprising me. That’s all.’

‘We’ll survive this, Lostara Yil,’ he said. ‘And one day I will lead you by the hand up to my father’s house. And we’ll see him, standing there, waiting for us. And he will laugh.’

She looked up, wiping at her cheeks. ‘Laugh?’

‘There are pleasures in the world, Lostara Yil, that go beyond words.’ I heard one of those pleasures once. And I will hear it again. I will.

‘Before I reached the lofty position of inexhaustible masturbation that is Demidrek Septarch of the Great Temple,’ Banaschar was saying, ‘I had to follow the same rituals as everyone else. And one of those rituals was to counsel commoners — who knows why they’d ever seek out a priest of the Autumn Worm, but then, the truth of it is, the real and true function of priests of all colours is simply that of listening to a litany of moans, fears and confessions, all for the betterment of someone’s soul — never could figure out whose, but no matter.’ He paused. ‘Are you actually listening, Adjunct?’

‘It appears that I have little choice,’ she replied.

The Glass Desert stretched ahead of them. A small flanking troop, scouts, he assumed, were slightly ahead and to the left — north — of the vanguard, moving on foot as was everyone else. But directly before Banaschar and the Adjunct there stretched nothing but a broken plain studded with crystals, beneath a ghoulish sky.

The ex-priest shrugged. ‘Now isn’t this an interesting turn. Blessed woman, will you hear my tales of mortal woe? Will you give counsel?’

The look she cast at him was unreadable and it occurred to him, an instant later, that it was just as well.

He cleared his throat. ‘Occasionally, one of them would complain. About me. Or, rather, about us sanctimonious shits in these ridiculous robes and whatnot. You know what they’d be so irritated about? I’ll tell you. Love. That’s what.’

A second glance, even briefer than the first one.

He nodded. ‘Precisely. They asked: “You, priest — you, with that hand beneath the vestments — what in Hood’s name do you know about love? More to the point, what do you know about romance?” You see, most people end up moaning about relationships. More than being poor, or lame or sick, more than any other topic you could imagine. Lovers, husbands, wives, strangers, sisters — endless confessions and desires and betrayals and all the rest. That’s why the question would eventually come round — being priests we’d excused ourselves from the whole mess. Hardly a strong position from which to dispense inane truisms passing as advice. Do you follow me so far, Adjunct?’

‘Have you nothing to drink, Banaschar?’

He kicked at a cluster of crystals, expecting them to break. They didn’t. Cursing in pain under his breath, he hobbled for a few strides. ‘What did I know about romance? Nothing. But, after enough years of listening to every possible iteration on the subject, ah, eventually things start getting clearer.’

‘Do they now?’

‘They do, Adjunct. Shall I expound on love and romance?’

‘I’d rather you-’

‘It’s actually a mathematical exercise,’ he said. ‘Romance is the negotiation of possibilities, towards that elusive prize called love. There, you see? I wager you expected me to go on and on, didn’t you? But I’m done. Done discussing love and romance.’

‘Your description lacks something, Banaschar.’

‘It lacks everything, Adjunct. All that confuses and clouds, that makes murky what is in fact both simple and stupidly elegant. Or elegantly stupid, depending on your attitude to the subject.’

They continued on, neither speaking, for some time. The clatter and groan of the column behind them was incessant, but apart from a lone burst of laughter a while back there was none of the ribald songs and chants, the running jests or arguments. While it was true that the Adjunct had set a stiff pace, Banaschar knew that these soldiers were hardened enough to think little of it. The quiet was unnerving.

Got a desert to cross. It’s cold and it’s not nearly as dark as it should be. And that alien glow whispers down on us. If I listen carefully enough, I can hear words. Drifting down. In all the languages of the world — but not this world, of course. Some other one, where faces lift hopefully to the heavens. ‘Are you there?’ they ask. And the sky answers not.

While here I walk. Here I look up and I ask: ‘Are you there?’ and down come the voices. ‘Yes. We are here. Just … reach.’

‘I was a sober priest back then,’ he said. ‘A serious one. I listened. I counselled.’

Eventually, she looked over, but said nothing.

Fiddler glanced to the right. Southward, forty paces distant, the head of the column. The Adjunct. Beside her the priest. Behind the two of them, a pair of Fists.

Eight Khundryl youths walked with Fiddler, ushered out from under their mother’s skirts. They’d spotted him walking alone and had drawn closer. Curious, maybe. Or wanting to be doing something that might be important. Scouting, guarding the flank.

He didn’t send them away. Too many had that lost, hopeful look in their eyes. Dead fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters. Massive absences through which winds howled. Now they hovered, flanking him as if he was the column itself.