His guest was nearly of matching bulk and girth. A cloak of silver fur rode his broad shoulders, shimmering in the starlight. ‘I have come from a place of tribulation and dire portent.’
‘In leaving did you, by chance, raid a wine cupboard?’
‘The Tiste do well by wine, it’s true. So much, then, for gifts carried a great distance.’ With that he drew out from a satchel a fired jug.
Grizzin Farl smiled. ‘Caladan Brood, I would kiss you if I were blind and only a smidgen more desperate than I am.’
‘Hold the sentiment until you are well and truly drunk, but think not of me.’
‘Who, then?’
‘Why, your wife, of course. This wine was meant for her.’
‘Thief of her heart! I should have known not to trust you! Her sloven’d gratitude, which I easily envision here in my skull, has the rank stench of a distillery. Truly you know the secret path to her bed!’
‘Not so secret, Grizzin, but I shall say no more and thus protect your innocence.’
‘By title I was named Protector and in said cause I now stopper my ears and shut my eyes. Come then, pass me this bottle and let’s know the sting of portent.’
‘My freedom,’ Brood said, ‘has been wrested away from me.’
Grizzin swallowed down three quick mouthfuls, and then gasped. ‘You fool – how much did you pay for this? Your firstborn? Never have I tasted better! Upon my wife’s tongue the shock of quality – she’ll know not what to make of it.’
‘So confesses her husband of centuries. Besides, I wager none of the three jugs I carry will last this night, so quality evades her yet again. My sympathy is unbounded, especially as I sit here looking upon you.’
‘Well said, since it is a night for sordid confession. Freedom is nothing more than life stripped of responsibility. Oh, we yearn for it with reckless lust, but the shudders are short-lived, and besides, in sotted state she’s a poor game in bed, and this I well know, since it’s the only way by which she relents to my bluff pawing.’
‘I grieve for your memories, Grizzin Farl. But more, I grieve in the hearing of them.’
‘Let us not weep just yet. Here, numb thy throat and so steal pain from every word we utter.’
Caladan drank, handed the jug back. ‘The First Son of Darkness has bound me to an oath, as I did to him in the making of a marriage stone for his brother.’
‘It will never last.’
‘What, the marriage?’
‘The oath.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, I thought the lie would relieve you. Otherwise, could I even claim to be your friend? I think not. This bottle is done. Find us another, will you?’
‘You’ve run far for this hare, Grizzin.’
‘It was that or plucking weeds from around the house. Under critical eye, baleful and jaded. But now curiosity has me and I would see this dark woman’s dark garden, weeds or no.’
‘Think you not Draconus will stand in your way?’
‘Ah, but he is well behind me, and well ahead of you, even as we speak.’
‘He travels among the Azathanai? This surprises me, given the tensions in Kharkanas.’
‘He goes to hide a bastard son, I think.’
‘And for other reasons.’
Grizzin Farl raised his thick brows. ‘You surmise from hidden knowledge. Here, drink more.’
‘The Tiste put much in gestures,’ Caladan said, taking back the jug. ‘They would make of every deed a symbol, until the world carries benighted weight. By this means many walls are raised, many doors barred, and in meaning the realm becomes a maze to all who dwell in it.’
‘No maze frightens me. I have run with hares.’
‘You would weed her garden, then? Has she no decision to make on the offer?’
‘Hah! Look upon me, friend, in the manner that would a true-blooded woman! See this golden hair? These bright dancing eyes? The grave assurance in my comportment? I am a mystery, a lure of well-hidden depths. To touch me is to brush jewels and gems; to stand too close is to swoon in heady spice – into my very arms. These gifts I have, friend, are not made of breadth or height; neither of weight nor robust presence. I could be a squirrel of a man and still women would fall in like bugs on a cup rim!’
‘A fine speech, Grizzin.’
Grizzin nodded. ‘Much practised,’ he said, ‘but yet to convince. I would change my tack, were I not certain the course is true.’
‘I think it is time for the third jug.’
‘Yes. Despondency was beckoned and lo, herein it slides. So morose, so knowing. If my vision were clearer, if my thoughts sharper, if my wit truly honed, I might find cause to drink and forget.’
‘I know little of this Anomander Rake.’
‘Then I shall bestir him for you. All that is to be known, and so you will find out who stands at the other end of your chain, and if the links be few in number, or beyond count, this too I will discover.’
‘There is a surety about him, that much was clear,’ said Brood. ‘Beyond the gift of the title given him; and his closeness to Mother Dark. He possesses something deliberate and yet of great depth. He is, I think, a violent man, yet is not at ease with the violence in him.’
‘A flagellant, then. I see before me the demise of my enthusiasm.’
‘He avowed he would not drag me into their civil war.’
‘That war is certain?’
Caladan Brood shrugged. ‘They are a generation that has tasted blood, and where horror fades, nostalgia seeps in. In war all is simple, and there is appeal in this. Who among us is comforted by confusion, uncertainty?’
Grizzin Farl mulled on this for a time, and then shook his head. ‘Is it as the Jaghut assert, then? In society we find the seeds of its own destruction?’
‘Perhaps, but they miss the point. It is the absence of society that leads to destruction. When concord is lost, when arguments cease and in opposition neither side sees the other as kin, as brother and sister, then all manner of atrocity is possible.’
‘You strew sharp stones upon my path of thought, old friend. Does Mother Dark will this dissolution?’
‘I should think not, but in darkness she dwells.’
‘The wine is gone. Only sour fumes remain. Drunkenness pretends to resolution. I would sigh and revel in lazy pondering. Do you return home, Caladan? Ah, I thought not. K’rul has begotten a child and the earth itself holds the memory of its birth-cry. Will you drink of K’rul’s blood?’
Brood grunted, eyes on the failing fire. ‘There is no need for that. As you say, the child is born, and will in turn beget many others before too long.’
‘Did you not judge him precipitous?’
‘That judgement is no longer relevant, Grizzin. It is done.’
‘It was a thought of mine,’ Grizzin Farl said, ‘that Draconus journeyed in fevered rage.’
Brood looked up, eyes sharp. ‘And?’
‘Bloodied my feet for a time on that path. But in our night of meeting, which I revisit from all angles, I now conclude that my fears are unfounded. He is indifferent to K’rul. What drives him now is far more desperate.’
Brood nodded. ‘Love will do that.’
‘It may seem to you, by your comment and all its sharp edges, that I am fleeing from my beloved wife and our wastrel of a son. This gives great offence and I am of a mind to draw weapons and have at you.’
‘Then you are even drunker than I had thought.’
‘I am, and am also most hateful of truths that rear up ugly of countenance.’
‘Most truths have that face, friend. But I was speaking of Draconus.’
Grizzin sighed. ‘Guilt shouts loud at the most inopportune moment. Drunk and a fool – already the wine knocks about inside my skull, and I curse how you plied me with that Tiste poison.’
‘Better you than your wife.’
‘All my friends say that. I will be hungry come the dawn – have you spare food?’
‘You brought none with you, Grizzin Farl?’ Caladan Brood sighed.
‘I have a pot,’ Grizzin countered.
‘Followed you out of the house, did it?’
‘Eager to replace the head on my shoulders, yes. Long ago she swore to carry no blade, no cudgel, no iron-tipped spear. Yet made of her hands the deadliest of weapons, second only to her temper, but on occasion even they will deign to reach for something that will serve the instant. I have learned her ways, you see, and so was appropriately wary in my retreat.’
‘And the argument this time?’
Grizzin sank his head into his hands. ‘I went too far. I threw the boy out.’
‘I am sure he gave cause.’
‘He has fallen under the influence of my first progeny, Errastas.’
‘There was always something of the follower in Sechul Lath,’ said Brood. ‘Errastas is ambitious and would be the master of the litter.’
‘Setch is weak, is what he is. To have them both come from my loins shrinks my sack with shame.’
‘Amend that defect before you stand naked before Mother Dark.’
‘In so many ways I will give thanks to the darkness surrounding her. Now, my words remain bold as weapons, but my thoughts shy from reason. I am drunk and unmanned and the only retreat awaiting me is senseless slumber. Good night to you, old friend. When next we meet, it shall be Thel Akai ale and the gifting shall be from my hand to yours.’
‘Already you dream of vengeance.’
‘I do, and with pleasure.’
* * *
‘That nearly killed us,’ gasped Sechul Lath, his right arm hanging useless and broken in at least two places. He leaned forward as far as he could and spat out blood and mucus, which was better than swallowing it, as he had been doing since the stubborn woman’s death. The taste in his mouth belonged to violence and savage fear, and now it sat heavy in his stomach. ‘And I am still of two minds.’
Errastas, kneeling nearby, finished binding the deep wound on his thigh and then looked away, back down the glittering trail. ‘I was right,’ he said. ‘They’re coming. Her Tiste blood flows true.’
‘How will this work, Errastas? I am still uncertain …’ Sechul Lath looked down at the corpse. ‘Abyss below, but she was hard to kill!’
‘They are at that,’ Errastas agreed. ‘But this blood – see it flow down
the
path? See how it swallows gems, diamonds and gold, all of our stolen loot? There is power in this.’
‘But not Azathanai power.’
Errastas snorted, and then wiped blood from his nose. ‘We are not the only elemental forces in creation, Setch. I sense, however, that the power we spilled out here comes as much from outrage as anything else. No matter. It is puissant.’
‘I feel,’ said Sechul Lath, looking round, ‘that this place is not for us.’
‘Mother Dark dares to claim it,’ Errastas said, sneering. ‘Darkness – as if she could claim the domain as entirely her own! What arrogance! Look below, Setch – what do you see?’
‘I see Chaos, Errastas. An endless storm.’
‘We make this place a trap. Let its Tiste name stand. Spar of Andii it shall remain – it hardly confers a right to ownership. By our deeds we undermine its purity. K’rul is not the only one who understands the efficacy of blood.’
‘So you keep saying, but I wonder if we truly know what we’re doing.’
‘Perhaps you don’t, though Abyss take me I’ve tried explaining it to you often enough.
I
know, Setch, and so you’ll just have to trust me. K’rul would simply give power away, freely, to any who might want it. By this, he undermines its value. He dislodges the proper order of things. We will best him, Setch.
I
will best him.’ He pushed himself up against a boulder. ‘We haven’t long. They’re coming, that Jaghut and his Tiste hostage. Listen to me. Mother Dark understands the exclusivity of power, though she reaches too far, revealing outrageous greed. We must draw her into this fray. We must awaken her to the threat these new Warrens pose – to us all. It’s important that she resist him, and so occupy all of K’rul’s attention. So distracted, he will not see us, and most certainly not comprehend our intentions, until it is too late.’ He looked up at Sechul Lath. ‘There, I have explained it yet again. Yet I see disappointment in your eyes – what now?’
‘It felt blunt. Crass, even, the way you said it. It lacked subtlety.’
‘I yield the meaningless secrets, Setch, to better hold hidden the important ones. Think of prod and pull, if you like. Explore the concepts in your mind, and muse on the pleasures of misdirection.’
Sechul Lath studied Errastas, lying there propped up against a boulder, beaten half to death. ‘Are you truly as clever as you think you are?’
Errastas laughed. ‘Oh, Setch, it hardly matters. The suspicion is enough, making fecund the soil of imagination. Let others fill the gaps in my cleverness, and make of me in their eyes a genius.’
‘I doubt the veracity of your words.’
‘Well you should. Now, help me up. We must leave here.’
‘Exploiting the very freedom K’rul offers us.’
‘I delight in the irony.’
Sechul Lath turned and looked down at the corpse of the Jaghut, lying so near the edge of the spar. It was a fell thing, to murder someone. Errastas was right: outrage swirled in the air, thick as smoke. It felt heady enough to make his head spin.