Fall of Light (135 page)

Wreneck shrugged, and then, when that did not seem enough, he shook his head.

‘We use what we don’t understand,’ the lord explained, scowling. ‘It’s a simple message, a simple metaphor. We use what we don’t understand. To invent rules and make charts and lists is to forget the meaning of the metaphor. Such a mind is locked into its rational cage, a most limited realm, a realm of self-delusion and presumption, a narcissistic stance, and the rules and logic only serve to reflect the brilliance of the one using them, as if, indeed, that is the singular purpose of the entire pointless exercise!’ He wagged a finger at Wreneck. ‘The poet cocks a leg and pisses on them all! It’s meat and the meat bleeds, and the blood is warm and the blood fills the cup of the hand and to use it is to kill it and to kill it is a crime.’ He set down the soldier he’d collected, positioned further down the bank of the ditch. ‘My idiot champion of ignorance. Now you – wait, what is your name?’

‘Wreneck.’

‘Now, good Wreneck, select your champion.’

Wreneck picked up one of his soldiers and moved to place it opposite the lord’s lone figure. ‘Like this, milord?’

The old man frowned. ‘I must add another.’

‘Two against one?’

‘No matter. One of mine is going to die.’

‘How do we fight with magic, milord?’

‘Why, I’ll roll the bones, of course.’

‘Then how do you know one of yours is going to die?’

‘Because magic demands meat, Wreneck. Blood in the hand, fading heat, something broken, something dying, a crime unforgivable.’

Wreneck looked down at all the soldiers. ‘Milord, are we gods?’

The old man snorted. ‘Less than that, less than who we are, in fact. Toy soldiers and dolls, puppets and deeds writ small, we’re the venal manipulators of the unpleasant. With secret purpose, we lay waste to lives we ourselves have invented. With hopeless despair, we hammer home lessons no one pays any attention to.’ He laughed again, a bitter, caustic sound. ‘All a waste, my young friend, all a waste.’

The old man began weeping then, and after a time, Wreneck reached down to the lord’s second mage, and tipped the figure over until it was flat upon the ground.

  *   *   *

‘Soon,’ said Lord Vatha Urusander as they rode towards the valley, ‘the thaw will come. There is a will to water, never as wayward as it might seem. It finds certain paths in its hunt for the lowest land, for the places where it can rest. When the flood takes the streams, the streams flow into the river, and the flood rises yet higher. It spills out and finds refuge in hollows and sinkholes, in pits and trenches. When I was a child, the thaw was the season I loved the best. Those pools of cold, cold water – water beetles would appear in them, from where I knew not, and yet their glory would be brief, as the pools slowly dried up.’

Renarr rode at Urusander’s side. They were not part of the Legion’s vanguard. Well ahead, Hunn Raal and his captains commanded the army’s bristling point, and behind them trundled the heavy carriage bearing High Priestess Syntara, Sagander the one-legged scholar, and young Sheltatha Lore. Riding alongside the carriage was Infayen Menand. Renarr and the commander had only each other for company, with the first company of soldiers marching a dozen paces behind.

‘I had a clay jar,’ Urusander resumed. ‘I spent my days capturing the beetles, and then releasing them into the streams. Nothing mattered more to me than saving their small lives. Unlike those bugs, you see, I knew what was coming. This incurred in me a responsibility, young as I was, and from that an obligation. I could not stand to one side, yielding to cruel nature.’

‘The water beetles,’ said Renarr, ‘probably bred in the mud left behind by the pools, and there the eggs remained until the next season of flood.’

Urusander was silent for a time then.

Renarr twisted slightly round to observe the soldiers marching behind them. After the midday’s break, they had donned their armour and readied their weapons. Scouts had reported the enemy massing on the south side of the valley. It seemed that no one was much interested in delaying the battle. The following dawn offered no gift of light – not this close to Kharkanas. And yet it seemed precipitous nonetheless, at least to Renarr’s mind. The soldiers would be weary after the day’s march, after all.

‘Did I kill in my misplaced mercy?’ Urusander suddenly asked.

‘You were a child, as you say. At that age, we are easy playing at gods and goddesses. Carve a trough at the pool’s edge, watch it drain away. Stir up the silts and mud, scattering whatever had been hidden there. We become fickle chance to the life that knows nothing of us. The life we victimize, the life buckling to our misguided will.’ She paused, and then shrugged. ‘The thaw offers up a world of pools. Year after year. All that you altered eventually returned to what it had been before. You but passed through, hastening as always into an older body, older interests, older desires.’

‘You speak with the voice of a crone, Renarr, not a woman half my age. In your company, I am belittled. How then was this wisdom of yours earned? In the whores’ tent? I should think not.’

Perhaps, Urusander, beneath the eager weight of your son. Now there was a self-proclaimed god, far past the age when he should have abandoned the conceit. He settled his body on mine, pushed himself inside to my small cry of pain, and looked into my eyes seeking the twin reflections of his own face. Just as every woman he takes finds herself gazing up into his frantically searching eyes. A boy desperate to find the man he should have been. And no amount of thrusting cock can grant him that one benediction.

To your son, Urusander, every woman is a whore.

‘You confuse age with wisdom,’ she said. ‘The whores’ tent was my temple. I paid in years for the blessing of moments. While the men and women who used me bled out worthless coin, and thought themselves absolved of the bargain’s sad and sordid truth. Consider, sir, the abject failure that is sex without love. The act denigrates both flesh and soul, and all the gasps and moans that cut through the night cannot replace what was so willingly surrendered.’

‘And what, Renarr, did you and your men and women surrender?’

‘Why, dignity, I should imagine.’

‘Just that?’

‘No. If intimacy is a virtue.’

‘And is it?’

She turned her head away from his regard, as if hearing a strange sound to one side, and this was sufficient to hide her unbidden and unwelcome smile. ‘A fragile one, of course. Too fragile, perhaps, for this world.’ The smile lingered, a thing of unbearable pain and grief, and then faded. A moment later and she was able to look ahead once more, offering the man at her side an untroubled profile.

‘You confound me, Renarr.’

‘There is an unexpected gift to my years of unrelieved education. But you know it as well. See us here, two dispassionate orphans. Uprooted before a flood of foreign ideas, unexpected discoveries and terrible realizations. Your eternal hunt for justice, sir, but circles a host of simple truths. We are all believers in justice as applied to others, but never to ourselves. And this is how we make virtue a weapon, and delight in seeing it make people bleed.’

‘The imposition of law is civilization’s only recourse, Renarr.’

‘And in its inevitable exceptions lies civilization’s downfall.’ She shook her head. ‘But we have argued this before, and again I say to you, make every law subservient to dignity. By that rule and that rule alone, sir. Dignity to and for each and every citizen, each and every enslaved beast of burden, each and every animal led to slaughter – we cannot deny our needs, but in serving those needs, we need not lose sight of the tragedy of those who in turn serve us with their lives.’

‘The people are never so enlightened, Renarr, as to comprehend such a thing.’

‘A judgement inviting your contempt.’

‘Perhaps. But sometimes, contempt is all many of them deserve.’

Renarr nodded, her gaze on the army’s vanguard. ‘Yes. Too many gods and goddesses in this world, this world and every other.’

‘I am a figurehead,’ said Lord Urusander.

She felt no need to respond to that. Some things were too obvious for words.

‘I fear Hunn Raal,’ he added.

‘So do we all.’

  *   *   *

Sagander fidgeted, his watery gaze darting again and again to the leg that was not there. He licked his lips, sipping constantly from a flask of water he carried in a pocket on the inside of his robe. The carriage rocked its occupants, sliding at times on slick ice covering one or two cobbles, crunching down with a jolt that rattled the shutters and made the dozen bright lanterns swing wildly on their hooks. Each jarring motion made the old man wince.

From beneath veiled lids, High Priestess Syntara watched the self-proclaimed official historian of the Liosan. Here in this sanctified temple on wheels, she could read his innermost thoughts and with idle ease she plundered them. Each one was bright with outrage and venom, swirling madly around a vortex of betrayal, for betrayal was at the core of everything for poor Sagander. He blamed Lord Draconus. He blamed now dead Borderswords. He blamed Draconus’s bastard son Arathan. But she saw for herself the blow he sent to Arathan’s head, the boy reeling in his saddle, stunned into witlessness. She saw Arathan’s horse attack, saw its hoofs stabbing savagely down, heard the snapping of bones.

No one else was to blame for the loss of that leg – no one but Sagander himself, and of course that was something he could not – could never – admit. It was pathetic, the raving accusations of an ego blind to its own lies. And the manner in which a thousand exculpatory words could drown out a simple truth was something that made her thoughtful, as they drew ever nearer to the Valley of Tarns.

They were fast approaching the time when the shout of words would give way to the shout of swords. She would finally discover the extent of Hunn Raal’s sorcerous power, and that was the source of some trepidation. No matter how certain her own faith and no matter the vast reach of her own magic, the Mortal Sword of Liosan posed a threat, and with this recognition she discovered a new irony, in that the only obstacle blocking Hunn Raal’s true ambitions was Lord Vatha Urusander.

Our reluctant Father Light, who already moves like a puppet, confounded by a tangle of strings. Still, a throne waits for him, and once Urusander is seated in it, Hunn Raal can reach no higher.

Her secret missives with Emral Lanear made it clear that both High Priestesses understood the politics of what was coming.
This very evening I shall ride into Kharkanas, and in the company of Urusander’s Legion shall cross the bridges and claim the Citadel. And I shall be met by Emral Lanear, and before all we will embrace like old friends.

And in the Chamber of Night, Mother Dark will have to acknowledge us. She will have to face us, and accede to the inevitable.

‘This battle shall be glorious,’ said Sagander suddenly, startling both Syntara and a dozing Sheltatha Lore. Tathe Lorat’s daughter had been injured while on the march, when a slipping horse inadvertently stepped down on her foot, breaking bones. She now sat directly opposite Sagander, her bandaged foot occupying the space where his missing leg would have been, and Syntara knew well that the pose was not accidental.

Venal child. I am of a mind to give her to Emral Lanear, as she’d make a fine temple whore. Her and her new tutor, Renarr. Such women are worthy of contempt and little else. But they have a value nonetheless, as things to be used.

‘I shall witness,’ Sagander went on. ‘And record, as befits a proper historian.’

‘There may be no battle,’ said Syntara.

Sagander frowned, then took another sip from the flask and licked his lips. ‘Winter’s dry air is a curse,’ he muttered, and then shook his head. ‘High Priestess, of course they will fight. Their backs are to the wall – hah, the city’s wall, in fact.’

‘The highborn still hold their lands and their wealth,’ Syntara pointed out. ‘To gamble all that upon a single field … no, they are not all fools, historian. They’ll not make it so easy to dislodge them from their privilege. I would hazard,’ she concluded, ‘they will choose to bide their time. Once we crowd in, and days turn into months, they will begin sowing discord.’

‘The Legion’s loyalty—’

‘Ends when the Legion is dissolved,’ she said. ‘Once that happens, avarice and acquisitiveness will burgeon. Friends will fall out.’

‘We need only pronounce an expansion of our borders,’ Sagander said. ‘This will ensure there is enough land to go round.’

Sheltatha Lore snorted. ‘Historian, look at a map before speaking so foolishly. Our borders are rough things for a reason. We are surrounded by poor land, once home to wild herds that are no more. Wherever settlers tried to break the soil, they failed. To the north are the Jheleck, already pushed as far as they can go – if we renew that war, sir, we will be facing a most desperate enemy and it will be a fight to the death with no quarter possible. But oh, that’s right, we won’t have our legion any more, will we? The east belongs to the Vitr’s foul influence, while the Forulkan are to the south. West? Ah, but you know that path well enough, yes?’

Sagander’s frown was now a scowl. ‘Do not presume to know more than your betters, child. I am well aware of our geographical limits. The push must be south and west. As you say, I do know, firsthand now, the land of the Azathanai, and I tell you: they have yielded it. And to the south, well, the Forulkan are defeated. They live in fear of us.’ He waved a hand. ‘The fighting that may come of that we can leave to the Hust Legion.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Sheltatha smiled. ‘And it will be most informative, I should think, watching them today, these embittered prisoners and cast-offs.’

‘In any case,’ Sagander said, ‘we need only clear the forests to find more arable land.’

‘And the fate of the Deniers?’

‘You have not been paying attention,’ Sagander snapped. ‘Most of the women and children have been slaughtered. No, their time is done, and like so many other forest creatures, they will fade away.’