herself round until she could push forward once again. Cold salty water rising over her face. Bright, sunlit, silty water, washing sight from her eyes. Water biting at scabbed wounds, stinging her broken lips, water filling her mouth and begging to be drawn inside.
Hands grasped her, pulled her back. She fought, but could not break loose.
Her face swept by cold wind, eyes blinking in painful light. Coughing, weeping, she struggled, but the hands dragged her remorselessly onto the beach, flung her onto the sand. Then, as she tried to claw free, arms wrapped tight about her, pinning her own arms, and a voice gasped close to her ear, ‘I know, lass. I know what it’s about. But it ain’t the way.’
Heaving, helpless sobs, now.
And he held her still.
‘Heal her, Corlo.’
‘I’m damn near done-’
‘Now. And sleep. Make her sleep-’
So many layers, pressing down upon these indurative remnants, a moment of vast pressure, the thick, so thick skin tracing innumerable small deaths. And life was voice, not words, but sound, motion. Where all else was still, silent. Oblivion waited when the last echo faded.
Dying the first time should have been enough. This world was foreign, after all. The gate sealed, swept away. Her husband – if he still lived – was long past his grief. Her daughter, perhaps a mother herself by now, a grandmother. She had fed on draconic blood, there in the wake of Anomander. Somewhere, she persisted, and lived free of sorrow.
It had been important to think that way. Her only weapon against insanity.
No gifts in death but one.
But something held her back.
Something with a voice.
These remnants, suddenly in motion, grating motion. Fragments, particles too small to see, drawing together. As if remembering to what they had once belonged. And, within the sea, within the silts, waited all that was needed. For flesh, for bone and blood. All these echoes, resurrected, finding shape. She looked on in horror.
Watched, as the body – so familiar, so strange – clawed its way upward through the silts. Silts that lightened, thinned, then burst into a plume that swirled in the currents. Arms reaching upward, a body heaving into view.
She hovered near, compelled to close, to enter, but knowing it was too soon.
Her body, which she had left so long ago. It was not right. Not fair.
Scrambling mindlessly along the sea bottom. Finned creatures darting in and out of sight, drawn to the stirred-up sediments, frightened away by the flailing figure. Multi-legged shapes scrabbling from its path.
A strange blurring, passed through, and then sunlight glittered close overhead. Hands broke the surface, firm sand underfoot, sloping upward.
Face in the air.
And she swept forward, plunged into the body, raced like fire within muscle and bone.
Sensations. Cold, a wind, the smell of salt and a shoreline’s decay.
The voice of return came not in laughter, but in screams.
All had gathered as word of the emperor’s death spread. The city was taken, but Rhulad Sengar had been killed. Neck snapped like a sapling. His body lay where it fell, with the slave Udinaas standing guard, a macabre sentinel who did not acknowledge anyone, but simply stared down at the coin-clad corpse.
Hannan Mosag. Mayen with Feather Witch trailing. Midik Buhn, now blooded and a warrior in truth. Hundreds of Edur warriors, blood-spattered with glory and slaughter. Silent, pale citizens, terrified of the taut expectancy in the smoky air.
All witness to the body’s sudden convulsions, its piercing screams. For a ghastly moment, Rhulad’s neck remained broken, rocking his head in impossible angles as he staggered to his feet. Then the bone mended, and the head righted itself, sudden light in the hooded eyes.
More screams, from Letherii now. Figures fleeing.
Rhulad’s ragged shrieks died and he stood, wavering, the sword trembling in his hands.
Udinaas spoke. ‘Emperor, Trate is yours.’
A sudden spasm, then Rhulad seemed to see the others for the first time. ‘Hannan Mosag, settle the garrison. The rest of the army shall camp outside the city. Send word to your K’risnan with the fleet: they are to make for Old Katter.’
The Warlock King stepped close and said in a low voice, ‘It is true, then. You cannot die.’
Rhulad flinched. ‘I die, Hannan Mosag. It is all I know, dying. Leave me now. Udinaas.’
‘Emperor.’
‘I need – find – I am…’
‘Your tent awaits you and Mayen,’ the slave said.
‘Yes.’
Midik Buhn spoke, ‘Emperor, I shall lead your escort.’
His expression confused, Rhulad looked down at his body, the smeared, crusted coins, the spattered furs. ‘Yes, brother Midik. An escort.’
‘And we shall find the one who… did this, sire… to you.’ Rhulad’s eyes flashed. ‘He cannot be defeated. We are helpless before him. He lies…’
Midik was frowning. He glanced at Udinaas.
‘Emperor,’ the slave said, ‘he meant the one who killed you and your kin. Here in this street.’
Clawing at his face, Rhulad turned away. ‘Of course. He wore… crimson.’
Udinaas said to Midik, ‘I will give you a detailed description.’
A sharp nod. ‘Yes. The city will be searched.’
‘Udinaas!’ A desperate gasp.
‘I am here, Emperor.’
It was known, now, and soon the Ceda would learn of it. But would he understand? How could he? It was impossible, insane.
The warrior in gold trailed the slave, step by step, through the fallen city, Mayen and Feather Witch in their wake. Midik Buhn and a dozen warriors flanked them all, weapons at the ready. The passage was uncontested.
Withal sat on a bench in his smithy. Plain walls, stone and plaster, the forge cold and filled with ash. Paved floor, the small workshop three-walled, the open side facing onto a fenced compound where stood a cut-stone- rimmed well, a quenching trough, firewood and a heap of tailings and slag. A hut on the opposite side housed his cot and nothing else. The extent of his world. Mocking reminder of his profession, the purpose behind living.
The Crippled God’s voice whispered in his mind,
He slowly rose, bemused.
And heard the Nachts, chattering excitedly down on the strand.
Withal walked to the verge, and stood, looking down.
A woman was staggering from the water. Tall, black-skinned, naked, long red hair.
