Dust of Dreams

And something like a long, drawn breath slowly filled the chamber. It echoed wretched as a sob.

***

Brevity followed Pithy to the mouth of the alley. They carried lanterns, shadows rocking on walls as they made their way down half the narrow thoroughfare’s length.

She halted beside her friend and together they stared down at the bodies.

‘Dead?’ Brevity asked.

‘No, sweetie. In the realm of dreams, the both of them.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘Couldn’t a been too long ago,’ Pithy replied. ‘I seen the two wander in here to do that ritual or whatever. Little later I chanced to peek in and saw their torches had gone out. So I come for a look.’

Brevity settled into a crouch and set the lantern to one side. She grasped the witch nearest her and pulled the woman over, peering down at the face. ‘Pully, I think. They look like twins as it is.’

‘Gettin’ more so, too,’ Pithy noted, ‘or so I noticed.’

‘Eyelids fluttering like mad.’

‘Realm of dreams, didn’t I say so?’

Brevity pushed back an eyelid. ‘Rolled right up. Maybe the ritual turned on ’em.’

‘Could be. What should we do?’

‘I’m tempted to bury them.’

‘But they ain’t dead.’

‘I know. But opportunities like this don’t come every day.’

‘What’s broken cannot be mended. You broke us, but that is not all-see what you have done.’

Gallan had been horrified. He could not abide this new world. He wanted a return to darkness and, when he’d done gouging out his own eyes, he found it. Sandalath, her son’s tiny hand held tight within her solid grip, stood looking down on the madman, seeing but not registering all the blood on his face and smeared across the floor-the impossibility of it here at the very threshold to the Terondai. He wept, choking on something again and again-yet whatever was in his mouth he would not spit out-and his lips were glistening crimson, his teeth red as cedar chips.

‘Mother,’ said her son, ‘what’s happened?’

The world changes. Gallan, you fool. What you’ve done does not change it back. ‘An accident,’ she replied. ‘We must find someone to help-’

‘But why is he eating his eyes?’

‘Go now, find a priestess-quickly, Orfantal!’

Gallan choked, trying to swallow his eyeballs only to hack them back into his mouth. The holes in his head wept bloody tears.

Ever the poetic statement, Gallan. The grandiose symbol, artfully positioned at the temple door. You will lie here until someone important comes, and then you’ll swallow those damned things down. Even the masterpiece is servant to timing.

Will Mother Dark be struck in the heart by this, Gallan? Or simply disgusted? ‘It’s done, old man,’ she said. ‘No going back.’

He clearly misunderstood her, as he began laughing.

She saw one of the eyes in his mouth roll into view, and for one insane moment it seemed to look up at her.

‘What’s broken cannot be mended. You broke us, but that is not all-see what you have done.’

Sandalath hissed as that echo intruded a second time into her memories. It didn’t belong in the scene she had resurrected. It belonged somewhere else, with someone else. With someone else, not to. Of course that was the horrid thing about it. She heard those words spoken and they indeed came from her, arriving in her own voice, and that voice was from a woman who truly understood what it was to be broken.

And that is the bitter truth. I have not mended. After all this time…

‘You asleep?’ Withal asked from where he lay behind her.

She contemplated the merits of a response, decided against them and remained silent.

‘Talking in your sleep again,’ he muttered, shifting beneath the furs. ‘But what I want to know is, what broke?’

She sat up as if stung by a scorpion. ‘What?’

‘Awake after all-’

‘What did you just say?’

‘Whatever it was, it’s put my heart in my throat and you poised to tear it out. I suppose you could beat me senseless-’

Snarling, she flung the furs back and rose to her feet. The three Venath demons were, inexplicably, digging a huge hole a short distance down from the road. Mape was in the bottom, heaving enormous boulders into Rind’s arms where the demon crouched at the edge. Rind then swung round to transfer the rock to Pule, who pitched it away. What in Hood’s name are they doing? Never mind. She rubbed at her face.

Talking in my sleep? Not those words. Please, not those words.

She walked some way up the Road, eager to be off. But Withal needed some sleep. Humans were absurdly frail. Their every achievement proved similarly fragile. If there weren’t so damned many of them, and if they didn’t display the occasional ant-nest frenzy of creativity, why, they’d have died out long ago. More to the point, if the rest of us hadn’t sneered in our idle witnessing of their pathetic efforts-if we’d wised up, in fact, one or all of us would have wiped them out long ago. Tiste Andii, Jaghut, K’Chain Che’Malle, Forkrul Assail. Gods, Tiste Edur, even. Scabandari, you slaughtered the wrong enemy. Even you, Anomander-you play with them as if they’re pets. But these pets will turn on you. Sooner or later.

She knew she was avoiding the scaly beast gnawing at the roots of her mind. Urging her thoughts to wander away, away from the place where kindred blood still glistened. But it was no use. Words had been spoken. Violence had given answer, and the rise and fall of chests faded into eternal stillness. And that beast, well, it had the sharpest teeth.

Sandalath sighed. Kharkanas. The city awaited her. Not so far away now, her ancient home, her own private crypt, its confines crammed solid with the worthless keepsakes of a young woman’s life.

Watch me chase my dreams

In the transit of dust

Snorting, she swung round, retracing her path to where her husband slept. The demons-Venath, who’d once been allies of the Jaghut. Who gave of their blood to the Trell-and what a fell mix that turned out to be-the demons had all vanished into the hole they’d dug. Why had the damned things attached themselves to Withal? He said he’d found them on the island where he’d been imprisoned by the Crippled God. Which suggested that the Crippled God had summoned and bound the demons. But later, the Nachts had abetted Withal’s escape and seemed instead to be in league with Mael. And now… they’re digging a hole.

‘Never mind,’ said Withal, rolling over and sitting up. ‘You’re worse than a mosquito in a room. If you’re in such a hurry, let’s just go until we get there. I can rest then.’

‘You’re exhausted.’

He eyed her. ‘It ain’t the walking that’s exhausting me, beloved.’

‘You’d better explain that.’

‘I will. But not right now.’

She saw the defiance in his eyes. I could make him talk. But that look in his eyes… it’s cute. ‘Gather up your gear then, husband. And while you do, I will explain something to you. We are following the road that leads to the city where I was born. Now, that’s stressful enough. But it’s something I can handle. Not happily, mind you, but even so. No, there is something else.’

He’d tied up his bedroll and had it tucked under an arm. ‘Go on.’

‘Imagine a pool of black water. Depthless, hidden within a cave where no air stirs and nothing drips. The pool’s surface has not known a single ripple in tens of thousands of years. You’ve come to kneel beside it-all your life-but what you see never changes.’

‘All right.’

‘I still see nothing to change that, Withal. But… somewhere far below the surface, in depths unimaginable… something moves.’

‘Sounds like we should be running the other way.’

‘You’re probably right, but I can’t.’

‘This old life of yours, Sand-you’ve said you were not a fighter-you knew nothing of weapons or warfare. So, what were you in this city home of yours?’

‘There were factions-a power struggle.’ She looked away, up the Road. ‘It went on for generations-yes, that may be hard to believe. Generations among the Tiste Andii. You’d think that after the centuries they’d be entrenched, and maybe they were, for a time. Even a long time. But then everything changed-in my life, I knew nothing but turmoil. Alliances, betrayals, war pacts, treacheries. You cannot imagine how such things twisted our civilization, our culture.’

‘Sand.’

‘I was a hostage, Withal. Valued but expendable.’

‘But that’s a not a life! That’s an interruption in a life!’

‘Everything was breaking down.’ We were supposed to be sacrosanct. Precious. ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she added. ‘It’s not a career I can pick up again, is it?’

He was staring at her. ‘Would you? If you could?’