Dust of Dreams

‘You’re from there, aren’t you? Kalyth?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Elan. But the Elan are no more. I am the last. Mortal Sword, you must not choose that direction. You will die-all of you.’ She pointed at Grub and Sinn. ‘Even them.’

The Matron said, ‘Then we see the path before us. We shall guard you all. Ve’Gath. K’ell. J’an. Gu’Rull who still lives, still serves. We shall be your guardians. It is the new way our mother foresaw. The path of our rebirth.

‘Humans, welcome us. The K’Chain Che’Malle have returned to the world.’

Sulkit heard her words and something stirred within her. She had been a J’an Sentinel in the time of her master’s need, but her master was gone, and now she was a Matron in her own right.

The time had not yet come when she would make herself known. Old seeds grew within her: the first born would be weak, but that could not be helped. In time, vigour would return.

Her master was gone. The throne was empty, barring a lone eye, embedded in the headrest. She was alone within Kalse.

Life was bleeding into the Rooted’s stone. Strange, alien life. Its flesh and bone was rock. Its mind and soul was the singular imposition of belief. But then, what else are any of us? She would think on this matter.

He was gone. She was alone. But all was well.

‘I have lost him. Again. We were so close, but now… gone.’

With these words the trek staggered to a halt, as if in Mappo’s private loss all other desires had withered, blown away.

The twins had closed on the undead wolf. Faint had a fear that death had somehow addicted them to its hoary promise. They spoke of Toc. They closed small fingers tight in the ratty fur of Baaljagg. The boy slept in Gruntle’s arms-now who could have predicted that bond? No matter, there was something in that huge man that made her think he should have been a father a hundred times by now-to the world’s regret, since he was not anything of the sort.

No, Gruntle had broken loves behind him. Hardly unique, of course, but in that man the loss belonged to everyone.

Ah, I think I just yearn for his shadow. Me and half the lasses here. Oh well. Silly Faint.

Setoc, who had been conversing with Cartographer, now walked over.

‘The storm to the south’s not getting any closer-we have that, at least.’

Faint rubbed the back of her neck and winced at the pressure. ‘Could have done with the rain.’

‘If there was rain.’

She glanced at the girl. ‘Saw you meet Gruntle’s eyes a while back. A look passed between you when we were talking about that storm. So, out with it.’

‘It was a battle, not a storm. Sorcery, and worse. But now it’s over.’

‘Who was fighting, Setoc?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s far away. We don’t have to go there.’

‘Seems like we’re not going anywhere right now.’

‘We will. For now, let’s leave him be,’ she said, eyes on Mappo, who stood a short distance away, motionless as a statue-as he had been for some time.

Amby had been walking alongside the horse-drawn travois carrying his brother-Jula was still close to death. Precious Thimble’s healing was a paltry thing. The Wastelands could not feed her magic, she said. There was still the chance that Jula would die. Amby knelt, shading his brother’s face with one hand. He suddenly looked very young.

Setoc walked back to the horse.

Sighing, Faint looked around.

And saw a rider approaching. ‘Company,’ she said, loud enough to catch everyone’s attention. All but Mappo reacted, turning or rising and following her gaze.

From Setoc: ‘I know him! That’s Torrent!’

More lost souls to this pathetic party. Welcome.

A single flickering fire marked the camp, and occasionally a figure passed in front of it. The wind carried no sound from those gathered there. Among the travellers, sorrow and joy, grief and the soft warmth of newborn love. So few mortals, and yet all of life was there, ringing the fire.

Faint jade light limned the broken ground, as if darkness itself could be painted into a mockery of life. The rider who sat upon a motionless, unbreathing horse, was silent, feeling like a creature too vast to approach any shore-he could look on with one dead eye or the other dead eye. He could remember what it was like to be a living thing among other living things.

The heat, the promise, the uncertainties and all the hopes to sweeten the bitterest seas.

But that shore was for ever beyond him now.

They could feel the warmth of that fire. He could not. And never again.

The figure that rose from the dust beside him said nothing for a time, and when she spoke it was in the spirit language-her voice beyond the ears of the living. ‘We all do as we must, Herald.’

‘What you have done, Olar Ethil…’

‘It is too easy to forget.’

‘Forget what?’

‘The truth of the T’lan Imass. Did you know, a fool once wept for them?’

‘I was there. I saw the man’s barrow-the gifts…’

‘The most horrid of creatures-human and otherwise-are so easily, so carelessly recast. Mad murderers become heroes. The insane wear the crown of geniuses. Fools flower in endless fields, Herald, where history once walked.’

‘What is your point, bonecaster?’

‘The T’lan Imass. Slayers of Children from the very beginning. Too easy to forget. Even the Imass themselves, the First Sword himself, needed reminding. You all needed reminding.’

‘To what end?’

‘Why do you not go to them, Toc the Younger?’

‘I cannot.’

‘No,’ she nodded, ‘you cannot. The pain is too great. The loss you feel.’

‘Yes,’ he whispered.

‘Nor should they yield love to you, should they? Any of them. The children…’

‘They should not, no.’

‘Because, Toc the Younger, you are the brother of Onos T’oolan. His true brother now. And for all the mercy that once dwelt in your mortal heart, only ghosts remain. They must not love you. They must not believe in you. For you are not the man you once were.’

‘Did you think I needed reminding, too, Olar Ethil?’

‘I think… yes.’

She was right. He felt inside for the pain he’d thought-he’d believed-he had lived with for so long. As if lived was even the right word. When he found it, he saw at last its terrible truth. A ghost. A memory. I but wore its guise.

The dead have found me.

I have found the dead.

And we are the same.

‘Where will you go now, Toc the Younger?’

He gathered the reins of his horse and looked back at the distant fire. It was a spark. It would not last the night. ‘Away.’

Snow drifted down, the sky was at peace.

The figure on the throne had been frozen, lifeless, for a long, long time.

A fine shedding of dust from the corpse marked that something had changed. Ice then crackled. Steam rose from flesh slowly thickening with life. The hands, gripping the arms of the throne, suddenly twitched, fingers uncurling.

Light flickered in its pitted eyes.

And, looking out from mortal flesh once more, Hood, who had once been the Lord of Death, found arrayed before him fourteen Jaghut warriors. They stood in the midst of frozen corpses, weapons out but lowered or resting across shoulders.

One spoke. ‘What was that war again?’

The others laughed.

The first one continued, ‘Who was that enemy?’

The laughter this time was louder, longer.

‘Who was our commander?’

Heads rocked back and the thirteen roared with mirth.

The first speaker shouted, ‘Does he live? Do we?’

Hood slowly rose from the throne, melted ice streaming down his blackened hide. He stood, and eventually the laughter fell away. He took one step forward, and then another.

The fourteen warriors did not move.

Hood lowered to one knee, head bowing. ‘I seek… penance.’