Clamping his jaws tighter, he now reluctantly slid his gaze to the third party at their table. Its head was of roughly the same size and hairiness as a coconut. A Nacht it was, a strange monkey-like creature said to have once been native to this island. It sat so short its chin barely cleared the height of the table. It was asleep,
or
pretending to be, its coconut head nested in its arms. Yet this was only its appearance; the thing was far from any sort of natural animal. He suspected it to be a demon, though of what sort he had no idea. Clearly, it served this house – that is, was a chosen servant of the Azath. Similar to the guardians who sometimes manifested to defend the houses.
The creature’s knobby head popped up as if it were preternaturally aware of his quiet regard. Its tiny black eyes blinked sleepily then sharpened. It raised a hand to brush the hairs over its wide mouth as if in profound thoughtfulness.
Osserc let out a loud grating exhalation.
The creature nodded as if in agreement and then switched to pulling on the scraggly hairs of its chin as if stroking a goatee.
He dragged his gaze away to rest upon the grimed and leaded window glazing. Why did the Azath always torment him so? Was this merely a symptom of its alien character? But all that was mere distraction – and perhaps that was all it was in truth. Distraction.
Through the filthy rippled glazing it was impossible to tell if it were day or night over the modest port city of Malaz.
Was this perhaps a comment on how the Azath saw the world? Through a distorting lens?
Osserc sensed beyond the isle, to the south, the potent wintry heartbeat of power that was the brooding presence of the entities known as the Stormriders. Entities of utter frigid ice and rime. His gaze shifted to study anew the Jaghut opposite. A connection? Many postulated as much.
And truly alien. Not unlike the Azath as well. Anastomotic? Perhaps.
Yet none of these lines of inquiry tugged at him. Distraction. It was all mere distraction from the path he ought to be pursuing. He shut his eyes to rest them for a moment and when he opened them once more he found his gaze had returned to the warped opaque glass of the window.
So. Eyes looking outward are blind
.
‘What are you thinking?’ came the dry croaked voice of Gothos. It startled Osserc, so long had it been since either of them had spoken. Steeling himself, he turned to meet the bright amber churning of the Jaghut’s eyes. He could not help but flinch slightly from the unyielding demands of that gaze.
‘I am thinking that you are irrelevant. That this creature is irrelevant. Even this construct. All are mere irrelevancies and distraction from where I ought to be looking.’
Gothos raised a jagged fragment of blue glass from the table and held it to one eye. ‘Memories are not the truth of the past. We sculpt them to suit our images of our present selves. And, in any case, the truth of then is not the truth of now.’
Osserc snorted his scorn, but within he felt something he had not known for ages untold – a profound unnerving, as if something he’d thought utterly unshakable had just revealed an empty gulf beneath. ‘You surprise me, Gothos. I thought you of all beings would argue for timeless enduring truths. Bedrock absolutes.’
‘Exactly. You thought.’
He made a conscious effort to move his gaze away as if disinterested. ‘You will hear no admissions from me. No confessions.’
The Jaghut scowled his profound distaste. ‘Of course not. I would be the last to want such mush and mawkishness. Which is perhaps precisely why I am here. As you say – I am irrelevant.’
As none other possibly could be
.
So be it
. Osserc closed his eyes. The memory of a flash of an indescribable brilliance seemed to blind him then.
Ancient ones, such power! Such astounding potency
. A young man’s voice echoed in his thoughts. A scream of anguish.
Father!
His eyes fluttered open and for an instant his heart and limbs trembled in memory of that fright. He clenched his jaws and shifted in his seat. ‘I have guarded the wellspring of Thyrllan from all who sought to exploit it. Kept it apart. Walled it off at costs few could imagine.’
He turned his gaze on Gothos as if accusing, attempting to lance into those pits of argent. ‘Who would dare ask more of me?’ Yet he found within those pits no opponent, no challenge or quarrel. The flat steady gaze seemed to deflect his accusation upon himself.
‘Who indeed,’ the Jaghut said, a lip curling from one thrusting tusk.
Or so Osserc thought he said. Perhaps he imagined it. He was, after all, still within the Azath House. It, or they, set the rules here.
Irrelevant. Once more I shy away from the gulf. I am like prey caught fascinated by the predator’s gaze. Terrified and circling, yet unable to break away. I could if I wish merely walk out that door – yet what of all that I have struggled to understand, to achieve? Final answers ungrasped? If there are any to grasp. Perhaps there are none
.
Then at least I would possess that knowledge
.
So be it
. He sat at the table as if relaxed, his legs crossed, hands one over the other upon one knee. Yet he felt those hands tighten
to
clamps on his leg. ‘I have asked nothing of others that I have not demanded of myself,’ he began, then immediately wished he hadn’t and clenched his lips.
Too much of a damned justification. Why the urge to explain to this one?
Especially when this entity had nothing but contempt for explanations or justifications. To this one they were all no better than self-serving pleas and apologies.
As they are to me as well
…
Yet Gothos refrained from heaping scorn on that statement. Instead, he edged his head to peer through his ragged curtain of hair and his cracked lips drew back even further from his tusks in a merciless smile as if reading those very thoughts. ‘Exactly, Osserc. You have asked nothing of others. And so … by your own admission …’ Osserc’s hands clenched painfully upon his leg ‘… you have asked nothing of yourself.’
He came as close then to walking away as he ever did. Despite all the risks he had taken. All the costs and cunning it took to gain entry to the Azath. He nearly slammed back the chair and walked out.
How
dare
he! The audacity! No one would dare! Not even … well, perhaps he. And Caladan. And T’riss. Azathanai those two. Yet Gothos is not
.
Odd then that Gothos should bother himself. He does not serve the Azath, surely
.
Osserc crossed his arms. ‘Odd to hear such a charge from one who has spent ages hiding himself away.’
The grimace of bared yellowed teeth that was Gothos’ smile flashed again. ‘Is that what you call what
we
are doing here?’ Before Osserc could answer that a gnarled hand rose to brush the murky air. ‘But no matter. As I am – what was it we both agreed upon … irrelevant?’
Again the deflection. Yet again the prey survives to circle the predator in the night. And if I am the prey and Gothos is not the trap nor the jaws awaiting me – then who? Or what? The Azath themselves?
‘The charge that I have asked nothing of myself is so absurd in the extreme that I would have slain anyone else for suggesting it. I closed Kurald Thyrllan! I have maintained the peace! I have done nothing but watch and ward the boundaries of that realm. I cannot even begin to tell you of the countless efforts to breach Thyrllan that I have crushed. Even my—’ He bit his tongue, so sharply did he cut himself off.
It seemed to him that the Jaghut’s smile took on an even more hungry and satisfied curl. ‘Yes?’ he prompted, though the knowledge lay in his eyes of liquid gold.
No! I will not simper here. Not before this one
. Osserc leaned back to clasp his knee once more. ‘Even those of my own blood have had to be … dissuaded … now and then.’
‘How sad for you. But I was speaking of demands placed upon yourself, not others. Warding Thyrllan is all very well. It has kept you busy, I suppose. I’m sure that it has been most … distracting.’
Distracting?
The word infuriated him – as did everything out of the damned Jaghut’s mouth – but then it began to take on a terrifying weight.
Distracting?
Distracting from what? Was there something …
He pulled his gaze away to find himself once more staring at their audience, the Nacht. Its head lay nestled in its skinny folded arms. Its mouth was open showing tiny sharp teeth. It was snoring quietly. Drool wet the table before it.
Another none-too-veiled comment? Am I trying the patience even of immortal otherworldly entities such as these? Is this a stunning victory or an abject failure? The answer to that question would go far to solving this impasse
.
* * *
Shimmer dreamed of the day the Crimson Guard swore the Vow. They’d been on the run for weeks. Hunted by imperial columns. Fleeing a disastrous direct challenge of Kellanved’s forces. K’azz led them ever northward – or was being driven ever northward. They’d been part of a proud field army of fifty thousand, an alliance of contingents from across the continent. But with failure came fragmentation, desertion, and an utter melting away of any hope of alliance. Now they were reduced to little more than a ragged band of some six hundred. The hard unbowed annealed core. The true believers – such as herself. Oh, certainly, some remained because they lusted for battle, or could never admit defeat – Skinner and his followers among their numbers. But most remained for only one overriding motive. For
him
. For K’azz.
Of all the battles K’azz had personally led or marshalled, or the flanks he commanded, he had lost not one. It was an old story: winning the battles but losing the war. Time and again they had been let down, abandoned, or outright betrayed by those they fought beside or for. The Bloorian league of nobles. Cawn switching sides on the day of battle. Tali’s lukewarm support, as if resenting K’azz’s growing lustre as a potential political rival. The number of times the man had succeeded in extracting them from seemingly hopeless
disasters
under the patronage of petty princes and barons across Quon were too many to count.
But now rumours were circulating that the self-styled Emperor of Quon had lost his patience with them. That he had turned his most dreaded weapon upon them. The army of undead that he had raised through his monstrous and unhallowed black arts. The T’lan Imass.
For her part, Shimmer did not believe that only now had Kellanved taken note of them. Rather, it seemed to her that he had probably come to the conclusion that in K’azz lay a figurehead who could possibly unite resistance to his growing hegemony and here was a chance to be rid of him.
That day as they filed through the narrow ravines and passes of the foothills of the Fenn Range it came to her that they were no longer making for what she naturally assumed had been K’azz’s objective all along: the northernmost mountain fastness of his homeland, D’Avore.
Curious, she had kneed her mount forward to draw up beside him. ‘My prince—’
An easy laugh from him had stopped her. ‘Prince?’ he said, still chuckling. As always it was an infectious gently chiding laughter that made her flush, self-conscious. ‘Honorary at best, Shimmer. Those Bloorians do love their titles.’ The smile fell away. ‘At least they used to. I hear Kellanved has ordered all nobles executed. Every family in Bloor must be in the woods now burying their ridiculous fancy coats of arms.’
And he shook his head at the absurdity of it. How sad he looked, it occurred to her. Even this trivial episode had touched his heart. She lowered her attention to one of her mail-backed gloves, adjusted it. ‘We do not make for the Red Keep?’
‘No, Shimmer. Not yet, at least. A side venture first. A visit to an old locale …’ He appeared about to say more but shook his head instead. ‘Indulge me in this, yes?’
‘Of course, my—’ She caught herself.
‘Captain?’ he suggested, his mouth quirking up.
The expression made him appear even more youthful – his unshaven chin hardly dusted in light reddish-blond hairs. Shimmer cleared her throat, feeling her face heating once more. ‘Duke, at least, I should think.’
He inclined his head in acceptance. ‘Very good, Shimmer. Yes. Duke. At the least – and the most.’
Shimmer tilted her helmeted head to excuse herself and fell back. K’azz bent to talk with his old teacher and adviser mounted at his
side
: Stoop, siegemaster to the D’Avore family for nearly half a century.
She found herself between Blues and Smoky. Blues rode easily with a leg negligently curled up around his pommel, Seti-style. His hands free, he practised with two sticks, twisting and flicking them in blurred mesmerizing patterns. Smoky, on the other hand, rode with both hands in a death-grip on his pommel, legs clamped tight. He appeared terrified, as if his mount, desperate to murder him, was about to throw itself off the ledge they walked.
‘What word?’ Blues asked.
‘He wouldn’t say.’
Smoky let out an angry snort. ‘Why am I not surprised?’
Blues eyed the surrounding rocky slopes and the distant peaks. ‘There’s power in these mountains,’ he murmured.
‘I feel it too,’ Smoky growled and he hunched even lower on his mount. It seemed to Shimmer that the horse almost sighed its exasperation. ‘Nothing familiar though. Can’t place it.’