He was at the stern, sitting hunched, his head bowed. Everyone, it seemed, was bewitched. ‘K’azz,’ she urged. ‘Wake up. K’azz? What has happened to you?’
‘He dreams.’
Shimmer spun to find the Jacuruku witch, Rutana, uncomfortably close behind. This near, she could see that the whites of the woman’s eyes were not white at all, but a sickly yellow. And the pupils now appeared different, as if slit vertically. ‘What have you done?’ she breathed, and she slid back a step, a hand going to the knife at her belt.
‘I? Nothing. I do not have such power. My mistress, now. Well … that is a different matter.’ Her familiar sneering smile twitched her lips. ‘What you experience now is merely a side effect of her presence. Imagine, then, if she were to actively raise her might …’ She lifted her bony shoulders. ‘Well, there are none who could withstand her.’
‘Not even Skinner?’
Hate raged in those sallow eyes and things seemed to writhe beneath the flesh of the woman’s neck and arms. Grimacing, she clamped a hand to the amulets and charms tied to her arm and squeezed there, the hand whitening with effort. She lurched away a short distance and then stopped, turning to glare. ‘
Him
she permitted to leave. Permitted! Remember that, Avowed.’ She stormed off.
‘Must you bait the woman?’
Shimmer looked to see that K’azz was now gazing up at her. ‘She insists upon baiting me.’ She extended a hand to him and pulled him upright.
‘I dreamed,’ he murmured, his gaze narrowed on the glimmering waters of the river.
‘So do we all.’
‘I have read philosophers who posit that life itself is a dream.’
‘Life bleeds,’ Shimmer answered, full of contempt for such a claim.
The man’s slit gaze shifted to her and she felt its weight. ‘You may just have something there, Shimmer. Though even the basest animals bleed.’
Sighing, she leaned her weight on the cracked, sun-faded wood of the ship’s side. ‘Then we are animals, K’azz. And we are base.’
He joined her, peering at her while she steadfastly regarded the light glimmering from the murky blood-red waters. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘You have come to the preferred response in the philosophical
dialogue
. And so I ask – what sets us apart then, if anything, from the animal?’
She felt so tired. It seemed as if she’d slept all these last weeks, yet she felt unaccountably exhausted. Worn out, or ground down. As if her will was under some sort of relentless crushing pressure. She rubbed her eyes, bruised as they were by the stabbing scintillating reflections. What was he going on about? Surely he must have some point – he was no fool. Perhaps it merely eluded her. She was not tutored in philosophy as he was. ‘I don’t know, K’azz,’ she whispered – or believed she did. ‘We have each other.’
‘Yes. Exactly, Shimmer. Each other. Society. That is what sets us apart.’
She’d heard this argument before, in many shapes and versions. The critique came to her at once. ‘The herd. The group. So – we are sheep.’ Still she refused to meet his gaze.
He snorted as if mildly amused by the rebuttal. ‘That old line. Sheep and wolves. People who push that analogy haven’t spent much time with either animal. Truth is, the wolves’ society is
more
sophisticated. Wolves have a hierarchy. And the worst fate for any wolf is to be cast out of the pack. If a sheep becomes lost it just wanders around until something eats it. If a wolf is cast out, it dies of loneliness. Human society shares much more with the wolf than the sheep. So that comparison isn’t valid.’
Frustrated now, Shimmer turned on her commander. This close, his sickness, or condition, made her almost wince. Parchment-like skin stretched taut over high cheekbones, the skull’s orbits of the eyes clearly visible. His hair was a thin white mat flattened now by sweat and grime. Reading her reaction, he turned his face away.
That in her thoughtlessness she had hurt him stabbed her and she cursed her stupidity.
I am not the one who is ill. Or dying
. Yet she had to believe he still spoke with a purpose. ‘What are you trying to say, K’azz?’
Head turned away, he said, his voice now rough, ‘Where we are going there is neither sheep nor wolf, Shimmer. I believe the entity awaiting us does not even know what society is. Has never been part of a group, or even a family, such as we know or understand it. She, or it, is unfathomably alien to us. Remember that, Shimmer. In the days to come.’
‘Yes, K’azz. I will.’
Straightening, he cleared his throat. ‘Very good. Shall we go wake the others, then?’
‘Yes.’
CHAPTER VIII
Fortunately for us, our impressed bearers and scouts, of the village we currently occupied, then assured us that the neighbouring village, with whom they had warred for years, were in fact cannibals of the worst sort. Forewarned, we fell upon the village with fire and sword and utterly exterminated the nest of vile monsters.
Infantryman Bakar
Testimony to the Circle of Masters
IN THE END
, Jatal found that the council took very little convincing. The various Adwami family heads were easily steered towards considering further advance into Thaumaturg territory – half-drunk as they were with the heady ease of their victory in crushing and pillaging Isana Pura. He and Andanii took turns guiding the debate, at times staging confrontations and disagreements over this or that minor point in the order of march, or the division of spoils. Such quarrels the minor houses eagerly fixed upon and fanned, pleased to think they were driving a wedge between the Hafinaj and the Vehajarwi. A perception he and Andanii were pleased to allow them.
Eventually each family secured its division of the loot, including slaves, and sent them rearward in one long straggling caravan of guarded wagons and carts. Watching the various men-at-arms securing the accumulated boxes and crates of silver and gold jewellery, fine cloths and the best furniture, Jatal almost laughed aloud at the ridiculousness of it. Somehow, it now struck him as absurd, this squirrel-like fixation upon the accumulation of goods and objects, even though just a short time ago he too would have been among those evaluating the merits of this silver fork versus that.
What had changed, he wondered, as he sat watching, his hands crossed over the pommel of his saddle, his helmet pushed back high upon his head. Was it he? Or perhaps the object that he fought for had changed. Gold, rubies, jewelled daggers, fine robes or engraved leatherwork: none held the appeal they once commanded when compared to a certain bright smile and eager, challenging gaze.
It struck him that the heat of his desire could perhaps be no more than this substitution of one object of possession for another. And perhaps it was. He pressed a sleeve of his robe to his face to wipe away the sweat and the dust. He found that the question troubled him not, although he knew that it should. No matter. They had cast their lots together. Their fates would rise or fall upon the success or failure of this throw. Having up until now lived the careful and considered life of a student and scholar, he found this new audaciousness and daring quite, well, delicious.
Jatal pulled his helmet down and turned Ash to face the column.
Yet could this be nothing more than the oh-so-clichéd exhilaration and allure of the illicit affair?
He gave Ash a sharp knee to urge him on, and, for the first time he could remember, found that he wished he could just turn off his damned mind. Suddenly he saw all his second-guessing, quibbling and differing analyses of any given situation as the weakness his brothers had always mocked him for.
Is this because only now have I found the passion and ambition they were born with?
Oh, shut up
.
He returned to the van of the column. Here, at the very head of the troops, because no family of the concord would now allow any other family the honour, if only symbolic, of leading, rode the Warleader, with a small troop of guards and staff. Then came Jatal and Andanii as co-leaders of the Adwami Elite – the name Andanii had seemingly invented at the first council gathering after the sack of Isana Pura.
And what a stroke that was. Jatal had since found himself besieged by requests to place this son or that within the ranks of the ‘Elite’.
It was a wonder to him that no one else saw how hollow and absurd it all was. Other than Andanii, of course. And perhaps this foreigner warrior. How he had arched one bristling brow at that word,
elite
. He saw it for the shabby vacant trick that it was. He had merely pursed his wrinkled lips and pinned Jatal with that knowing glance.
Yet we all have our secrets, do we not?
Jatal nodded to Andanii who rode surrounded by her honour-guard. She blew out a frustrated breath and waved a hand to call attention to the column’s crawling advance. He nodded his commiseration.
I see that no ragged shaduwam march with us
.
And which army, I wonder, is the real one?
Andanii, he knew, was emphatic that they discover more about this foreign mercenary commander. And so that is what he would pursue during this march north. The evening meals were far too public for any meaningful discussion. The gathered family heads watched each other like a clutch of baby birds jealously measuring the attention and feeding each one received. Certainly not the place to probe the foreigner regarding the shaduwam and the seeming pact, or understanding, he had somehow managed to strike with them.
Until then, he would maintain his public face and play the game of alliance-building among the various jostling families, together with his outward frostiness towards Princess Andanii and her family allies, however stupid and unnecessary the entire puppet show seemed to him.
That evening, during the interminable dinner in the massive main tent, he waited and watched until the Warleader excused himself early, as was his habit. Shortly afterwards he too begged off listening – yet again – to another of Ganell’s stories, and exited the tent.
The night was quiet and dark, half overcast by high thin clouds. The eerie arc of the Visitor waxed now brighter than ever. It lanced across the sky like a tossed torch. Would it smash upon them in the flame and destruction so many dreaded? Perhaps their unparalleled foray into northern territory was merely the realization of this heavenly portent of apocalypse – for the Thaumaturgs, that was. Jatal wrapped his robes tighter about himself against the chill evening air and made for the Warleader’s tent.
Guards called for him to halt at the entrance and he waited while one enquired as to the Warleader’s disposition. To one side, the hulking Scarza sat against a saddle, his rather stubby legs stretched out before him while he ate. Jatal offered him a brief bow of acknowledgement, to which the half-giant raised the haunch he gnawed upon. Shortly thereafter, Jatal was waved in. A mercenary guard used the haft of his spear to hold aside the heavy cloth flap. Jatal ducked within.
The interior was much darker than the general encampment, with its torches planted between the tents and the Visitor glaring down upon them all. Here, a single lamp on a side table cast a small globe
of
amber light that hardly touched the canvas ceiling and walls. His first impression was that the sparsely furnished tent was empty, and then movement from the shadows revealed the Warleader crossing into the light. He wore now only a long linen shirt over trousers bound by leather swathing, and faded hide moccasins. It might have been a trick of the uncertain light, but it appeared as if the thick canvas of the tent was moving where the Warleader had been. He went to the table and poured himself wine from a tall cut crystal decanter. Peering over his shoulder at Jatal, he hefted the heavy vessel. ‘Spoils of war,’ he observed.
‘A very beautiful prize.’
The Warleader gestured to a leather saddle seat against one wall. ‘Thank you,’ Jatal said.
‘Drink?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
The old man selected another glass. The tent was ripe with the lingering spicy smoke that the man doused himself with, but Jatal thought he could detect another scent amid the heady melange. A familiar one he could not quite place.
The Warleader crossed the tent to hand him a tumbler filled with red wine. ‘You have changed,’ he said as he seated himself. He stretched out his long thin legs and held his glass in his fingertips on his lap.
‘Oh? How so?’
‘When I first saw you, you were an innocent soul.’
Jatal decided it was his turn to arch a brow. ‘And what am I now, pray tell?’
The man cocked his head on one side and studied him anew. Jatal felt as if the inhumanly cold and lazy eyes were dissecting him, laying exposed his every self-doubt, ambition and lie. ‘You are now a political soul. May the gods forgive you.’
Jatal took a sip of the wine while he considered that and grimaced his distaste: the red was as thick and sweet as blood. The Warleader raised a hand. ‘My apologies. I should have warned you. This is a strong fortified wine. It is like the truth … not to everyone’s taste.’
Jatal forced the sip down yet kept hold of the tumbler, if only so as not to offend his host. ‘When I arrived I was nothing more than the youngest of my father’s sons, the least of the brood, with no hopes or prospects. Then I was happy buried in my books and studies.’