The Crippled God (23 page)

Spax reached up and made a clawing gesture beneath his eyes. ‘What are they doing, Atri-Ceda? Spirits below, they are being human.’

Well enough she faces away
Walking past these dripping thrones
No one knows where the next foot
Falls
When we stumble in the shadows
Our standards bow to wizened winds
I saw that look beneath the rim
Of blistered iron
And it howled to the men kneeling
In the square and the dogs sleep on
In the cool foot of the wall, no fools there
She was ever looking elsewhere
Like a disenchanted damsel
A shift of her shoulder
Sprawls corpses into her wake
No matter
There was a child dream once
You remember well
Was she the mother or did that tit
Seep seduction?
All these thrones I built with my own
Hands
Labours of love thin over ragged nails
I wanted benediction, or the slip away
Of clothes, whichever bends my way
Behind her back
Oh we were guards then, stern sentinels,
And these grilled masks smelling of blood
Now sweat something old
We never knew what we were guarding
We never do and never will
But I swear to you all:
I will die at its feet before I take a step inside
Call me duty and be done with it
Or roll from your tongue that sweet curl
That is valour
While the dogs twitch in dream
Like children left lying
Underfoot

Adjunct
Hare Ravage

She was dying but we carried her down to the shore. There was light stretched like skin over her pain, but it was thin and fast fraying. None of us dared note in any whisper of irony, how she who was named Awakening Dawn was now fading in this morning’s wretched rise.

Her weak gestures had brought her down here, where the silver waves fell like rain and the froth at the curling foot was flecked crimson. Bodies bloated and pale fanned limbs in the shallows, and we wondered at the fitness of her last command.

Is it suit to face your slayer? Soon enough I will answer that for myself. We can hear the legions mustering again behind the flowing wall, and the others are drawing back to ready their rough line. So few left. Perhaps this is what she came to see, before the killing light dried her eyes.

Shake fragment, Kharkanas, Author unknown

THE BLACK LACQUERED AMPHORA EMERGED FROM THE SIDE DOOR AND
skidded, rather than rolled, diagonally across the corridor. It struck the base of the marble banister at the top of the stairs, and the crack echoed sharp as a split skull before the huge vessel tilted and pitched down the steps. Shattering, it flung its shards in a glistening spray down the stone flight all the way to the main floor. Sparkling dust spun and twisted for a time, before settling like flecks of frost.

Withal walked over to the edge of the steps and looked down. ‘That,’ he said under his breath, ‘was rather spectacular.’ He turned at a sound behind him.

Captain Brevity was leaning out from the doorway, glancing round until she spotted Withal. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said.

‘I was doing just that,’ he replied. ‘Five strides closer and she’d be a widow.’

Brevity made a face he couldn’t quite read, and then edged to one side to let him pass.

The throne room was still a chamber of ghosts. Black stone and black wood, the crimson and onyx mosaic of the floor dulled with dust and dried leaves that had wandered in from some high window. It seemed to hold nothing of the now brimming power of the Teronderai, the holy sepulchre of Mother Dark, yet for all that Withal felt diminished as he stepped through the side entrance and edged out towards the centre of the room.

The throne was on his right, raised on a knee-high dais that was, he realized, the vast stump of a blackwood tree. Roots snaked down to sink into the surrounding floor. The throne itself had been carved from the bole, a simple, almost ascetic chair. Perhaps it had once been plush, padded and bold in rich fabrics, but not even the tacks remained.

His wife stood just to the other side of the throne, her arms crossed, now dragging her glare from Yan Tovis – who stood facing the throne as would a supplicant – to Withal. ‘Finally,’ she snapped, ‘my escort. Take me out of here, husband.’

Yan Tovis, queen of the Shake, cleared her throat. ‘Leaving solves nothing—’

‘Wrong. It solves
everything
.’

The woman facing her sighed. ‘This is the throne of the Tiste Andii, and Kharkanas is the capital of the Hold of Darkness. You are home, Highness—’

‘Stop calling me that!’

‘But I must, for you are of royal blood—’

‘We were all of
royal
blood in this infernal city!’ Sandalath Drukorlat pointed a finger at Yan Tovis. ‘As were the Shake!’

‘But our realm was and is the Shore, Highness, whereas Kharkanas is yours. But if it must be that there be only one queen, then I freely abdicate—’

‘You will not. They are
your
people! You led them here, Yan Tovis. You are their queen.’

‘Upon this throne, Highness, only one of royal Tiste Andii blood can make a true claim. And, as we both well know, there is only one Tiste Andii in this entire realm, and that is you.’

‘Fine, and over whom do I rule? Heaps of dust? Mouldy bones? Blood stains on the floor? And where is my High Priestess, in whose eyes Mother Dark shines? Where is my Blind Gallan, my brilliant, tortured court fool? Where are my rivals, my hostages, my servants and soldiers? Handmaidens and— Oh, never mind. This is pointless. I don’t want that throne.’

‘Nonetheless,’ said Yan Tovis.

‘Very well, I accept it, and my first act is to abdicate and yield the throne and all of Wise Kharkanas to you, Queen Yan Tovis. Captain Brevity, find us a royal seal – there must be one lying around here somewhere – and parchment and ink and wax.’

The queen of the Shake was smiling, but it was a sad smile. ‘“Wise Kharkanas.” I had forgotten that honorific. Queen Sandalath Drukorlat, I respectfully decline your offer. My duties are upon the Shore.’ She nodded to Brevity. ‘Until such time that other Tiste Andii return to Kharkanas, I humbly submit Captain Brevity here to act as your Chancellor, Palace Guard Commander, and whatever other duties of organization as are required to return this palace to its former glory.’

Sandalath snorted. ‘Oh, clever. And I suppose a few hundred of your Shake are waiting outside with mops and buckets.’

‘Letherii, actually. Islanders and other refugees. They have known great privation, Highness, and will view the privilege of palace employment with humility and gratitude.’

‘And if I turn them all away? Oh yes, I see the traps you’ve set around me, Yan Tovis. You intend to guilt me on to that accursed throne. But what if I am a harder woman than you?’

‘The burden of rule hardens us both, Highness.’

Sandalath cast Withal a beseeching look. ‘Talk her out of this, husband.’

‘I would if I thought I had any chance of swaying her, beloved.’ He strode to the base of the dais, eyeing the throne. ‘Needs a cushion or two, I should think, before you could hope to sit there for any length of time.’

‘And you as my consort? Gods, don’t you think I could do better?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ he replied. ‘For the moment, however, you are stuck with me, and,’ he added with a wave at the throne, ‘with this. So sit down and make it official, Sand, so Yan Tovis can kneel or curtsey or whatever it is she has to do, and Brevity can get on with scrubbing the floors and beating the tapestries.’

The Tiste Andii woman cast about, as if seeking another amphora, but the nearest one stood perched on a stone cup near the side door – now an orphan, Withal saw, noting the unoccupied stone base on the entrance’s other side. He waited to see if she’d make the fierce march to repeat her gesture of frustration and anger, but all at once his wife seemed to subside.
Thank Mael. That would have made her look ridiculous. Decorum, beloved, as befits the Queen of Darkness. Aye, some things you can’t run from
.

‘There will be two queens in this realm,’ Sandalath said, coming round to slump down in the throne. ‘Don’t even think of curtseying,
Tovis.’ She eyed the Shake woman with something close to a glower. ‘Other Tiste Andii, you said.’

‘Surely they have sensed Mother Dark’s return,’ Yan Tovis replied. ‘Surely, they too understand that the diaspora is at last at an end.’

‘Just how many Tiste Andii do you imagine are left?’

‘I don’t know. But I do know this: those who live shall return here. Just as the Shake have done. Just as you have done.’

‘Good. First one gets here can have this throne and all that goes with it. Husband, start building us a cottage in the woods. Make it remote. No, make it impossible to reach. And tell none but me where it is.’

‘A cottage.’

‘Yes. With a drawbridge and a moat, and pitfalls and sprawl-traps.’

‘I’ll start drawing up plans.’

Yan Tovis said, ‘Queen Sandalath, I beg your leave.’

‘Yes. Sooner the better.’

The ex-Letherii officer tilted her head, wheeled and strode from the chamber.

Captain Brevity stepped forward to face the throne and settled on one knee. ‘Highness, shall I summon the palace staff?’

‘In here? Abyss take me, no. Start with all the other rooms. Go on. You are, er, dismissed. Husband! Don’t even think of leaving.’

‘The thought had not even occurred to me.’ And he managed to hold his neutral expression against her withering scepticism.

As soon as they were alone, Sandalath sprang from the throne as if she’d just found one of those ancient tacks. ‘That bitch!’

Withal flinched. ‘Yan—’

‘No, not her – she’s right, the cow. I’m stuck with this, for the moment. Besides, why should she be the only one to suffer the burden of rule, as she so quaintly put it?’

‘Well, put it that way, and I can see how she might be in need of a friend.’

‘An equal of sorts, yes. The problem is, I don’t fit. I’m not her equal. I didn’t lead ten thousand people to this realm. I barely got
you
here.’

He shrugged. ‘But here we are.’

‘And she knew.’

‘Who?’

‘That bitch Tavore. Somehow, she knew this would happen—’

‘There’s no proof of that, Sand,’ Withal replied. ‘It was Fiddler’s reading, not hers.’

She made a dismissive gesture. ‘Technicalities, Withal. She trapped me is what she did. I should never have been there. No, she knew there was a card waiting for me. There’s no other explanation.’

‘But that’s no explanation at all, Sand.’

The look she threw him was miserable. ‘You think I don’t know that?’

Withal hesitated. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘your kin are coming. Are you really certain you want me standing there at your side when they do?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘What you’re really saying is: do I want to be standing at her side when they arrive? A mere human, a shortlived plaything to the Queen of Darkness. That’s how you think they’ll see you, isn’t it?’

‘Well …’

‘You’re wrong. It will be the opposite and that might be just as bad. They’ll see you for what you are: a threat.’

‘A
what
?’

She regarded him archly. ‘Your kind are the inheritors – of everything. And here you are, along with all those Letherii and blood-thin Shake, squatting in Kharkanas. Is there anywhere you damned bastards don’t end up sooner or later? That’s what they’ll be thinking.’

‘Mael knows, they’ve got a point,’ he said, looking away, down the length of the throne room, imagining a score or more regal Tiste Andii standing there, eyes hard, faces like stone. ‘I’d better leave.’

‘No you won’t. Mother Dark—’ Abruptly she shut her mouth.

He turned his head, studied her. ‘Your goddess is whispering in your ear, Sand? About me?’

‘You’ll be needed,’ she said, once more eyeing the lone amphora. ‘All of you. The Letherii refugees. The Shake. And it’s not fair.
It’s not fair!
’

He took her arm as she moved to assault the crockery. Pulled her round until she was in his arms. Startled, terrified, he held her as she wept.
Mael! What awaits us here?