Dust of Dreams

She searched his eyes, was stung by his compassion. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You need to convince Mother Dark to do all those things. For the Shake.’

Oh, husband. I was a hostage, nothing more. And then, and then, I lost even that. ‘Mother Dark has no time for the likes of me.’

‘Tell me, what was the purpose of being a hostage?’

He’d caught her thoughts. She looked away, studied the wreckage-cluttered river sliding under the bridge. Dark waters… ‘The First Families sparred. Power was a wayward tide. We were the coins they exchanged. So long as we were never spent, so long as we’-remained unsullied- ‘remained as we were, the battles saw little blood. We became the currency of power.’ But gold does not feel. Gold does not dream. Gold does not long for a man’s hand closing about it. You can win us, you can lose us, but you can’t eat us. You can hide us away. You can polish us bright and hang us from a chain round your neck. You can bury us, you can even carve a likeness of your face into us, but in the next season of fire all sign of you vanishes.

You can’t eat us, and you can’t fuck us. No, you can’t do that.

‘Sand?’

‘What?’

‘Were hostages ever killed?’

She shook her head. ‘Not until the end. When everything… fell apart. All it needs,’ she said, memories clouding her mind, ‘is the breaking of one rule, one law. A breaking that no one then calls to account. Once that happens, once the shock passes, every law shatters. Every rule of conduct, of proper behaviour, it all vanishes. Then the hounds inside each and every one of us are unleashed. At that moment, Withal’-she met his eyes, defiant against the anguish she saw in them- ‘we all show our true selves. We are not beasts-we are something far worse. There, deep inside us. You see it-the emptiness in the eyes, as horror upon horror is committed, and no one feels-no one feels a thing.’

She was trembling in his arms now and he held her tight-to keep her from sinking to her knees. Sandalath pressed her face into the curve of his shoulder and neck. Her words muffled, she said, ‘She should have stayed turned away. I will tell her-go away-we weren’t worth it then, we’re not worth it now. I will tell you-her-’

‘Sand-’

‘No, I will beg her. Turn away. I’m begging you, my love, turn away.’

‘Sand. The Shake-’

The bridge beneath them seemed to be swaying. She held him as hard as she could.

‘The Shake, my love. They’ve found us.’

Her eyes closed. I know. I know.

‘Well?’

Brevity adjusted her sword belt. ‘Well what?’

‘Should we go and talk to ’em, love?’

‘No, let’s just stand here. Maybe they’ll go away.’

Snorting, Pithy set out. ‘Dark dark dark,’ she muttered, ‘it’s all dark. I’m sick of dark. I’m gonna torch the forest, or maybe a few buildings. Fire, that’s the solution. And lanterns. Giant lanterns. Torches. Oil lamps. White paint.’

‘You going to go on like that all the way to ’em?’ Brevity asked, keeping pace a step behind her.

‘That woman looks like she walked outa one of them wall paintings in the temple.’

‘Maybe she did.’

‘Then what? Got lost? Our lookout watched ’em coming up the road. Nah, the point is, her people built this city. She’s got more claim to it than the Shake. And that’s a problem.’

‘Y’saying she won’t like the new neighbours? Too bad. She’s only got that one man. Besides, she looks sick.’

Their conversation ended as they drew closer to the two strangers.

The man’s eyes were on them, even as he continued to support the woman in his arms. ‘Hello,’ he said.

Trader tongue. Pithy nodded. ‘And the same. Meckros?’

‘Good guess,’ he replied. ‘I am named Withal. You’re Letherii, not Shake.’

‘Good guess,’ Pithy responded. ‘We’re the Queen’s Honour Guard. I’m Captain Pithy, and this is Captain Brevity. Is your mate sick?’

‘She is Tiste Andii,’ he said. ‘She was born in this city.’

‘Oh,’ said Pithy, and she shot her friend a look that asked: Now what?

Brevity cleared her throat. ‘Well then, if it’s a homecoming, we’d best bring her in.’

At that the woman finally looked up.

Pithy’s breath caught, and beside her Brevity started.

‘Thank you,’ said the Tiste Andii. Tears had streaked her face.

‘Need another shoulder to lean on?’ Pithy asked.

‘No.’ And she disengaged herself from Withal’s arms. Straightening, she faced the gate. ‘I’m ready.’

Pithy and Brevity let her and Withal take the lead, at a pace of their choosing. As soon as they’d moved a half-dozen strides ahead, Brevity turned and plucked Pithy’s sleeve.

‘See her face?’ she whispered.

Pithy nodded.

‘She ain’t just like them in the wall paintings, Pithy. She is one of ’em! I’d swear it!’

‘Side room, first one on the left just inside the altar room-the only one without stone beds. She’s in there. Her and maybe ten others. They got manacles on their wrists.’

‘That’s right! One of them!’

No wonder she ain’t happy about coming home. Pithy said, ‘Once we’re in, you go get the witches and bring ’em over. Unless Tovis or Yedan have come back, in which case get them.’

‘That’d be a better choice,’ Brevity replied. ‘Them witches are still drunk-’

‘They ain’t drunk for real.’

‘You know what I mean. Eel-eyed. Horny. The kinda drunk that makes a woman ashamed of being a woman.’

‘They ain’t drunk. I told you. So get ’em, all right?’

‘All right, but we should a buried ’em when we had the chance.’

The deeper shadow of the gate’s arch slipped over them like a shawl. Sandalath slowly released her breath. Mother Dark’s pervasive presence filled the city, and she felt her weariness drain away as the goddess’s power touched her, but the benediction felt… indifferent. The grief was still there, appallingly fresh-a reopened wound, or something else? She could not be sure. So… sorrow does not end. And if you cannot let it go, Mother, what hope do I have?

Something brushed her mind. An acknowledgement, a momentary recognition. Sympathy? She sighed. ‘Withal, will you walk with me?’

‘Of course-as I am doing right now, Sandalath.’

‘No. The temple, the Terondai.’ She met his eyes. ‘Kurald Galain. To the very foot of Mother Dark.’

‘What is it you seek?’ he asked, searching her face.

She turned back to the two Letherii women standing a few paces behind. ‘You spoke of a Queen,’ she said.

‘Twilight,’ said Pithy. ‘Yan Tovis.’

‘And her brother,’ added Brevity. ‘Yedan Derryg, the Watch.’

‘I must go to the temple,’ Sandalath said.

‘We heard.’

‘But I would speak with her.’

‘They left us a while back,’ Pithy said. ‘Went into the forest. When the witches finally come round they said the two of ’em, Tovis and her brother, probably rode to the First Shore. That was after they was in the temple-the Queen and the Prince, I mean. The witches won’t go anywhere near it, the temple, I mean.’

Sandalath cocked her head. ‘Why do I make you so nervous, Captain?’

‘You ain’t changed much,’ blurted Brevity.

‘I-what? Oh. In the Skeral-the Chamber of Hostages.’

Pithy nodded. ‘Only, the witches said this city’s been dead a long, long time.’

‘No,’ said Brevity, ‘a long time.’

‘I said that,’ Pithy retorted, scowling at her companion.

‘You didn’t say it right, is all. Long. Long.’

Sandalath faced her husband again. ‘This world is born anew,’ she said. ‘Mother Dark has returned and now faces us. The Shake have returned as well. Who remains missing? The Tiste Andii. My people. I want to know why.’

‘And do you think she’ll answer you?’ Withal asked, but it was a question without much behind it, and that made Sandalath curious.

‘Husband. Has she spoken to you?’

He grimaced. Then reluctantly nodded.

But not to me. Mother Dark, am I so flawed in your eyes now?

There was no silent reply to that. The presence remained unperturbed, as if deaf to Sandalath, deaf and wilfully blind. Not fair. Not fair!

‘Sand?’