House of Chains

gait. ‘You have no idea how old, my young friend. No idea. I dare not reveal to you the truth of its antiquity. Have you seen its like before? I think not. Perhaps reminiscent of the guldindha, such as can be found here and there across the odhan. Reminiscent, as a ranag is reminiscent of a goat. More than simply a question of stature. No, it is in truth a question of antiquity. An Elder species, this tree. A sapling when an inland sea hissed salty sighs over this land. Tens of thousands of years, you wonder? No. Hundreds of thousands. Once, Karsa Orlong, these were the dominant trees across most of the world. All things know their time, and when that time is past, they vanish-’

‘But this one hasn’t.’

‘No sharper an observance could be made. And why, you ask?’

‘I do not bother, for I know you will tell me in any case.’

‘Of course I shall, for I am of a helpful sort, a natural proclivity. The reason, my young friend, shall soon be made evident.’

They clambered over the last of the rise and came to the flat ground, eternally shadowed beneath the canopy and so free of grasses. The tree and all its branches, Karsa now saw, were wrapped in spiders’ webs that somehow remained entirely translucent no matter how thickly woven, revealed only by a faint flickering reflection. And beneath that glittering shroud, the face of a Jaghut stared back at him.

‘Phyrlis,’ Cynnigig said, ‘this is the one Aramala spoke of, the one seeking a worthy horse.’

The Jaghut woman’s body remained visible here and there, revealing that the tree had indeed grown around her. Yet a single shaft of wood emerged from just behind her right collarbone, rejoining the main trunk along the side of her head.

‘Shall I tell him your story, Phyrlis? Of course, I must, if only for its remarkability.’

Her voice did not come from her mouth, but sounded, fluid and soft, inside Karsa’s head. ‘Of course you must, Cynnigig. It is your nature to leave no word unsaid.’

Karsa smiled, for there was too much affection in the tone to lend the words any edge.

‘My Thelomen Toblakai friend, a most extraordinary tale, for which true explanations remain beyond us all,’ Cynnigig began, settling down cross-legged on the stony ground. ‘Dear Phyrlis was a child-no, a babe, still suckling from her mother’s breast-when a band of T’lan Imass ran them down. The usual fate ensued. The mother was slain, and Phyrlis was dealt with also in the usual fashion-spitted on a spear, the spear anchored into the earth. None could have predicted what then followed, neither Jaghut nor T’lan Imass, for it was unprecedented. That spear, wrought of native wood, took what it could of Phyrlis’s life-spirit and so was reborn. Roots reached down to grip the bedrock, branches and leaves sprang anew, and in return the wood’s own life-spirit rewarded the child. Together, then, they grew, escaping their relative fates. Phyrlis renews the tree, the tree renews Phyrlis.’

Karsa set his sword’s point down and leaned on it. ‘Yet she was the maker of the Jhag horses.’

‘A small role, Karsa Orlong. From my blood came their longevity. The Jhag horses breed infrequently, insufficient to increase, or even maintain, their numbers, were they not so long- lived.’

‘I know, for the Teblor-my own people, who dwell in the mountains of north Genabackis-maintain herds of what must be Jhag horses.’

‘If so, then I am pleased. They are being hunted to extinction here on the Jhag Odhan.’

‘Hunted? By whom?’

‘By distant kin of yours, Thelomen Toblakai. Trell.’

Karsa was silent for a moment, then he scowled. ‘Such as the one known as Mappo?’

‘Yes indeed. Mappo Runt, who travels with Icarium. Icarium, who carries arrows made from my branches. Who, each time he visits me, remembers naught of the previous encounter. Who asks, again and again, for my heartwood, so that he may fashion from it a mechanism to measure time, for my heartwood alone can outlive all other constructs.’

‘And do you oblige him?’ Karsa asked.

‘No, for it would kill me. Instead, I bargain. A strong shaft for a bow. Branches for arrows.’

‘Have you no means to defend yourself, then?’

‘Against Icarium, no-one has, Karsa Orlong.’

The Teblor warrior grunted. ‘I had an argument with Icarium, which neither of us won.’ He tapped his stone sword. ‘My weapon was of wood, but now I wield this one. The next time we meet, even Mappo Trell’s treachery shall not save Icarium.’

Both Jaghut were silent for a long moment, and Karsa realized that Phyrlis was speaking to Cynnigig, for he saw his expression twist with alarm. Ochre eyes flicked momentarily up to the Teblor, then away again.

Finally, Cynnigig loosed a long sigh and said, ‘Karsa Orlong, she now calls upon the nearest herd-the lone herd she knows has come close to this area in answer to her first summons. She had hoped for more-evidence, perhaps, of how few Jhag horses remain.’

‘How many head in this herd?’

‘I cannot say, Karsa Orlong. They usually number no more than a dozen. Those that now approach are perhaps the last left in the Jhag Odhan.’

Karsa lifted his gaze suddenly as the noise of hoofs sounded, rumbling through the ground underfoot. ‘More than a dozen, I think,’ he murmured.

Cynnigig clambered upright, wincing with the effort. Movement in the valley below. Karsa swung around. The ground was shaking, the roar of thunder on all sides now. The tree behind him shook as if struck by a sudden gale. In his mind, the Teblor heard Phyrlis cry out.

The horses came in their hundreds. Grey as iron, larger even than those Karsa’s tribe had bred. Streaming, tossing manes of black. Stallions, flinging their heads back and bucking to clear a space around them. Broad-backed mares, foals racing at their flanks. Hundreds into thousands.

The air filled with dust, lifting on the wind and corkscrewing skyward as if to challenge the Whirlwind itself.

More of the wild horses topped the hill above them, and the thunder suddenly fell away as every beast halted, forming a vast iron ring facing inward. Silence, the dust cloud rolling, tumbling away on the wind.

Karsa faced the tree once more. ‘It seems you need not worry that they near extinction, Phyrlis. I have never seen so many foals and yearlings in a herd. Nor have I ever before seen a herd of this size. There must ten, fifteen thousand head-and we cannot even see all of them.’

Phyrlis seemed incapable of replying. The tree’s branches still shook, the branches rattling in the hot air.

‘You speak true, Karsa Orlong,’ Cynnigig rasped, his gaze eerily intent on the Thelomen Toblakai. ‘The herds have come together-and some have come far indeed in answer to the summons. But not that of Phyrlis. No, not in answer to her call. But in answer to yours, Karsa Orlong. And to this, we have no answer. But now, you must choose.’ Nodding, he turned to study the horses.

‘Karsa Orlong, you spoke earlier of a wooden weapon. What kind of wood?’

‘Ironwood, the only choice remaining to me. In my homeland, we use bloodwood.’

‘And blood-oil?’

‘Yes.’

‘Rubbed into the wood. Blood-oil, staining your hands. They can smell it, Karsa Orlong-’

‘But I have none.’

‘Not on you. In you. It courses in your veins, Karsa Orlong. Bloodwood has not existed in the Jhag Odhan for tens of thousands of years. Yet these horses remember. Now, you must choose.’

‘Bloodwood and blood-oil,’ Cynnigig said. ‘This is an insufficient explanation, Phyrlis.’

‘Yes, it is. But it is all I have.’

Karsa left them to their argument and, leaving his sword thrust upright in the ground, walked down to the waiting horses. Stallions tossed their heads at his approach and the Teblor smiled-careful not to show his teeth, knowing that they saw him as predator, and themselves as his prey. Though they could easily kill me. Among such numbers I would have no chance. He saw one stallion that was clearly dominant among all others, given the wide space around it and its stamping, challenging demeanour, and walked past it, murmuring, ‘Not you, proud one. The herd needs you more than I do.’ He spied another stallion, this one just entering