.
Bruthen Trana has disappeared. He suspects that Karos Invictad-or the Chancellor-have exacted their revenge. They have murdered Bruthen Trana. A Tiste Edur’s blood is on their hands.’
‘Can your K’risnan prove this?’
‘He has begun on that path, but admits to little optimism. But none of that is, truth be told, what I would tell you.’
‘Ah, so you think me indifferent to the spilling of Edur blood by Letherii hands?’
‘Indifferent? No, husband. Helpless. Will you interrupt me yet again?’
Tomad said nothing, not in acquiescence, but because he had run out of things to say. To her. To anyone.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I would tell you this. I believe the K’risnan was lying.’
‘About what?’
‘I believe he knows what has happened to Bruthen Trana, and that he came to me to reach the women’s council, and to reach you, husband. First, to gauge my reaction to the news at the time of its telling, then to gauge our more measured reaction in the days to come. Second, by voicing his suspicion, false though it is, he sought to encourage our growing hatred for the Letherii. And our hunger for vengeance, thus continuing this feud behind curtains, which, presumably, will distract Karos and Gnol.’
‘And, so distracted, they perchance will miss comprehension of some greater threat-which has to do with wherever Bruthen Trana has gone.’
‘Very good, husband. Coward you may be, but you are not stupid.’ She paused to sip, then said, ‘That is something.’
‘How far will you push me, wife?’
‘As far as is necessary.’
‘We were not here. We were sailing half this damned world. We returned to find the conspiracy triumphant, dominant and well entrenched. We returned, to find that we have lost our last son.’
‘Then we must win him back.’
‘There is no-one left to win, Uruth. Rhulad is mad. Nisall’s betrayal has broken him.’
‘The bitch is better gone than still in our way. Rhulad repeats his errors. With her, so he had already done with that slave, Udinaas. He failed to learn.’
Tomad allowed himself a bitter smile. ‘Failed to learn. So have we all, Uruth. We saw for ourselves the poison that was Lether. We perceived well the threat, and so marched down to conquer, thus annihilating that threat for ever more. Or so we’d thought:’
‘It devoured us.’
He looked again to the wall on the right, where, hanging from an iron hook, there was a bundle of fetishes. Feathers, strips of sealskin, necklaces of strung shells, shark teeth. The bedraggled remnants of three children-all that remained to remind them of their lives.
Some did not belong, for the son who had owned certain of those items had been banished, his life swept away as if it had never been. Had Rhulad seen these, even the binding of filial blood would not spare the lives of Tomad and Uruth. Trull Sengar-the name itself was anathema, a crime, and the punishment of its utterance was death.
Neither cared.
‘A most insipid poison indeed,’ Uruth continued, eyeing her goblet. ‘We grow fat. The warriors get drunk and sleep in the beds of Letherii whores. Or lie unconscious in the durhang dens. Others simply… disappear.’
‘They return home,’ Tomad said, repressing a pang at the thought. Home. Before all this.
‘Are you certain?’
He met her eyes once more. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Karos Invictad and his Patriotists never cease their vigilant tyranny of the people. They make arrests every day. Who is to say they have not arrested Tiste Edur?’
‘He could not hide that, wife.’
‘Why not? Now that Bruthen Trana is gone, Karos Invictad does as he pleases. No-one stands at his shoulder now.’
‘He did as he pleased before.’
‘You cannot know that, husband. Can you? What constraints did Invictad perceive-real or imagined, it matters not-when he knew Bruthen Trana was watching him?’
‘I know what you want,’ Tomad said in a low growl. ‘But who is to blame for all of this?’
‘That no longer matters,’ she replied, watching him carefully-fearing what, he wondered. Another uncontrolled burst of violence? Or the far more insipid display revealing his despair?
‘I don’t know how you can say that,’ he said. ‘He sent our sons to retrieve the sword. That decision doomed them all. Us all. And look, we now sit in the palace of the Lether Empire, rotting in the filth of Letherii excess. We have no defence against indolence and apathy, against greed and decadence. These enemies do not fall to the sword, do not skid away from a raised shield.’
‘Hannan Mosag, husband, is our only hope. You must go to him.’
‘To conspire against our son?’
‘Who is, as you have said, insane. Blood is one thing,’ Uruth said, slowly leaning forward, ‘but we now speak of the survival of the Tiste Edur. Tomad, the women are ready-we have been ready for a long time.’
He stared at her, wondering who this woman was, this cold, cold creature. Perhaps he was a coward, after all. When Rhulad had sent Trull away, he had said nothing. But then, neither had Uruth. And what of his own conspiracy? With Binadas? Find Trull. Please. Find the bravest among us. Recall the Sengar bloodline, son. Our first strides onto this world. Leading a legion onto its stony ground, loyal officers of Scabandari. Who drew the first Andii blood on the day of betrayal? That is our blood. That not this.
So, Tomad had sent Binadas away. Had sent a son to his death. Because I had not the will to do it myself.
Coward.
Watching him still, Uruth carefully refilled her goblet.
Binadas, my son, your slayer awaits Rhulad’s pleasure. Is that enough?
Like any old fool who had once wagered mortal lives, the Errant wandered the corridors of enlivened power, muttering his litany of lost opportunities and bad choices. Exhalation of sorcery averted the eyes of those who strode past, the guards at various doorways and intersections, the scurrying servants who fought their losing battle with the crumbling residence known-now with irony-as the Eternal Domicile. They saw but did not see, and no after-image remained in their minds upon passing.
More than any ghost, the Elder God was forgettable. But not as forgettable as he would have liked. He had worshippers now, at the cost of an eye binding him and his power, warring with his will in the guise of faith. Of course, every god knew of that war-such subversion seemed the primary purpose of every priest. Reduction of the sacred into the mundane world of mortal rivalries, politics and the games of control and manipulation of as many people as there were adherents. Oh, and yes, the acquisition of wealth, be it land or coin, be it the adjudication of fate or the gathering of souls.
With such thoughts haunting him, the Errant stepped into the throne room, moving silently to one side to take his usual place against a wall between two vast tapestries, as unnoticed as the grandiose scenes woven into those frames-images in which could be found some figure in the background very closely resembling the Errant.
The Chancellor Triban Gnol-with whom the Errant had shared a bed when expedience demanded it-stood before Rhulad who slouched like some sated monstrosity, poignant with wealth and madness. One of the Chancellor’s bodyguards hovered a few paces back from Gnol, looking bored as his master recited numbers. Detailing, once more, the growing dissolution of the treasury.
These sessions, the Errant understood, with some admiration, were deliberate travails intended to further exhaust the Emperor. Revenues and losses, expenses and the sudden peak in defaulted debts, piled up in droning cadence like the gathering of forces preparing to lay siege. An assault against which Rhulad had no defence.
He would surrender, as he always did. Relinquishing all management to the Chancellor. A ritual as enervating to witness as it was to withstand, yet the Errant felt no pity. The Edur were barbarians. Like children in the face of civilized sophistication.
Why do 1 come here, day after day? What am 1 waiting to witness here? Rhulad’s final collapse? Will that please me? Entertain me? How sordid have my tastes become?
