‘Sound tactic,’ said Brother Diligence, with a dry smile.
Calm bowed stiffly. ‘As you wish, Sister Reverence.’
Catching something avid in the younger woman’s eyes, Reverence frowned, suddenly uneasy.
Ah, have I been anticipated here? Have I stepped blind into a trap? You wish to be sent out into the Wastes, Calm. Why? What am I unleashing?
‘Our disposition, Sister Reverence?’
Curious, she nodded. ‘As you desire.’
‘Sister Equity shall take the south lands, then, while I journey into the west.’
Again? And what did you do there the first time out? What did you find?
‘Very well,’ Reverence said. ‘Now, we stand upon the Altar of Judgement, once more united in our endeavours. With humility—’
‘Blessed Pures!’
The shout came from the edge of the stairs, and they turned to see Watered Amiss, his face flame-flashed with exertion. They had left him at the Third Landing, against the eastern flank of the Spire.
Reverence strode towards him. ‘Brother, what word do you bring us with such haste?’
He stumbled on to the altar and pointed to the east. ‘Blessed Pures! In the harbour –
ships
! Many, many ships!’
Reverence noted the alarm and consternation in the faces of her kin, and felt a surge of satisfaction.
Yes, unseen threats assail you all now
. ‘Brother Diligence, assemble the Defenders and awaken our warren in the Watered sub-commanders. Akhrast Korvalain shall be our bristling wall this day.’
And Sister Reverence? Ah, well, perhaps she will be the Gate
.
Calm and Equity had rushed to the eastern edge of the altar. Both stared for a moment before Equity turned round. ‘Ships of war, kin. Grey as wolves upon the water.’
‘Shall we descend and greet them?’ Reverence asked.
Brother Diligence’s smile was cruel and hard.
He knelt in the midst of Chaos. Pressures descended upon him, seeking to crack his bones. Torrid winds clawed at him, hungry to shred his soul. But he had walked here of his own accord. In his heart, such savage challenge as to face down the Abyss itself.
All is not bound to fate. It must not be
.
All is not carved in stone, buried deep and for ever beyond mortal sight
.
There must be more. In all the worlds, the solid laws are a prison – and I will see us freed!
He had met Chaos with fury in his being, a bristling armour of rage proof against all it flung at him. He had walked into the maelstrom seas of madness, and held tight to his own sanity. And then, at last, he had stood, unbowed, alone, and argued against the universe itself. The laws that were lies, the proofs that were false. Stone a hand could pass through. Water that could be breathed. Air as impenetrable as a wall. Fire to quench the deadliest thirst. Light that blinded, darkness that revealed. The beast within that was the heart of dignity, the sentient
self that was purest savagery. In life the secret codes of death. In death the seeds of life.
He had spoken with the elemental forces of nature. Argued without relent. He had defended his right to an existence torn loose from these dread, unknowable horrors.
For his efforts, the blind uncertainty of Chaos had besieged him. How long? Centuries? Millennia? Now he knelt, battered, his armour shattered, wounds bleeding. And still it assailed him, sought to tear him apart.
The fissure that erupted from him first emerged from the centre of his head, a blast of argent fire in which he heard manic laughter. With terrible ripping sounds, the rent worked its way down his body, unfolding his throat, peeling back each side. His breastbone cracked in two, ribs bursting free. His stomach opened, spilling bitter fluids.
Then there was nothing. For how long, he never knew. When cognizance returned to him, he was standing where he had stood before, and before him two naked figures knelt, heads bowed. A man, a woman.
My children, born of anguish and need. My ever facile twins. My wretched faces of freedom. Chaos answers with its most delicious joke. Pull and prod, you godlings, you will never know what I lost in making you, this vicious bargain with uncertainty
.
I will give you worlds. Yet not one shall be your home. You are cursed to wander through them, trapped in your eternal games. Lord and Lady of Chance. In the language of the Azathanai, Oponn
.
My children, you shall never forgive me. Nor do I deserve forgiveness. The laws are not what they seem. Order is an illusion. It hides its lies in your very eyes, deceiving all they see. Because to see is to change that which is seen
.
No, none of us will ever see true. We cannot. It is impossible. I give you a life without answers, my children. Walk the realms, spread the word in your illimitable way, Oponn. Some will welcome you. Others will not. And that, dear ones, is the joke on them. And on us
.
I had a thought
.
Now see what it made
.
‘Is this senility?’
The cavern shed its fluids, an incessant trickle and drizzle. The air stank of pain.
Sechul Lath glanced over. ‘You spoke, Errastas?’
‘You were far away. Memories haunting you, Setch?’
They sat on boulders, the two of them, the plumes of their breaths drifting like smoke. From somewhere in the cavern’s depths came the sound of rushing water.
‘Hardly. After all, as you are ever quick to point out, I am a man of modest achievements.’
‘Not a man. A god. Making your pathetic deeds even more embarrassing.’
‘Yes,’ Sechul Lath agreed, nodding. ‘I have many regrets.’
‘Only fools know regret,’ Errastas said, only to undermine his assertion as he unconsciously reached up towards his gaping eye socket. The brush of his fingers, the flinch of muscles in his cheek.
Hiding a smile, Sechul Lath looked away.
Kilmandaros still sat hunched, almost folded over, in the dripping blood rain of the Otataral Dragon. When exhaustion took her, the period of recovery could be long, interminably so in the eyes of the Errant. Even worse, she was not yet done with this. Lifting his gaze, Sechul Lath studied the dragon, Korabas.
She is the one law amidst the chaos of the Eleint. She is the denial of their power. She is the will set free. It’s not enough to bleed her. She needs to die
.
And not even Kilmandaros can do that. Not with this one. At least, not now, while the gate is still sealed. She needs to die, but she must first be freed
.
Against the madness of such contradictions, I wagered my very life. I walked into the heart of Chaos to challenge the absurdity of existence. And for that, I was torn in two
.
My modest achievement
.
‘The Forkrul Assail,’ he muttered, glancing back at Errastas. ‘They cannot be permitted to actually succeed in what they seek to do. You must know that. The Assail do not kneel before gods, not even Elder Ones.’
‘Their arrogance is boundless,’ the Errant said, baring his teeth. ‘We will exploit that, dear Knuckles. Mayhap they will slit the throats of the gods. But we are another matter.’
‘We will need K’rul before this ends, I think.’
‘Of us all, he best understands expedience,’ Errastas agreed.
Expedience?
‘And Mael. And Olar—’
‘That hag has her own plans, but she will fail.’
‘With a nudge?’
‘It won’t be hard,’ the Errant replied. ‘A nudge? More like a tap, the gentlest of prods.’
‘Don’t be premature in that. She’ll serve well as a distraction, for as long as possible.’
He was touching his socket again. Seeking benediction?
Unlikely
.
‘Azath,’ said Sechul Lath. ‘That was unexpected. How deep is your wound, Errastas?’
‘More indignation than blood,’ the Errant answered, grimacing. ‘I was sorely used. Someone will pay for that.’
‘Lifestealer?’
‘Ah, Knuckles, do you think me a fool? Challenge that one? No. Besides, there were children involved. Human children.’
‘Easier targets, then.’
Errastas must have caught something in Sechul’s tone, for his face darkened. ‘Don’t you dare think them innocent!’
‘I don’t,’ Sechul replied, thinking of his own unholy spawn. ‘But it was Feather Witch who swallowed your eye, was it not? And you say that you killed her, with your own hands. How then—’
‘Icarium’s stupid gambit in Letheras. It’s why I never found her soul. No, she carried my eye straight to him, the rotting bitch. And now he’s spat out fledgling warrens, and made of my eye a Finnest for an Azath. He remains the single force of true unpredictability in this scheme.’
‘Calm assures us otherwise.’
‘I don’t trust her.’
Finally, friend, you begin to think clearly again
. ‘Just so,’ he said.
Errastas glanced over at Kilmandaros. ‘Can we not feed her or something? Hasten this healing?’
‘No. The wards Rake and the others set were profound. Tearing them down damaged her deeply, in ways no sorcerous healing can reach. Leave her in peace.’
Errastas hissed.
‘Besides,’ Sechul Lath continued, ‘they’re not all in place yet. You know that.’
‘I have waited so long for this. I want us to be ready when the time comes.’
‘And so we shall, Errastas.’
The Errant’s single eye fixed on Sechul Lath. ‘Calm is not the only one I do not trust.’
‘There will be ashes and death, but survivors will emerge. They always do. They will understand the necessity of blood. We shall be unchallenged, Errastas.’
‘Yet you sought to betray me. You and Kilmandaros.’
‘Betray? No.’
We dismissed you
.
‘That is how I see it. How can I not?’
‘What you fail to understand, old friend,’ said Sechul Lath, ‘is that I don’t care about being unchallenged. I don’t care about a new world rising from the wreckage of this one. I am happy enough to wander the ruins. To mock those mortals who would try again.’ He gestured. ‘Leave the world to its wild ignorance – at least life was simple then. I turned my back on worshippers because I was done with them. Disgusted with them. I don’t want what we
had
, Errastas.’
‘But I do, Setch.’
‘And you are welcome to it.’
‘What of your children?’
‘What of them?’
‘Where do you see Oponn in the world to come?’
‘I don’t see them anywhere,’ Sechul Lath said.
Errastas drew a sharp breath. ‘You will kill them?’
‘What I made I can unmake.’
‘Your words please me, Knuckles. Indeed, I am relieved.’
It wasn’t much of a life, my children, was it? I doubt you will object overmuch. Prod and pull, yes, but in the end – after thousands and thousands of years of that pathetic game – what is achieved? Learned? By anyone?
Chance is a miserable bitch, a hard bastard. It shows a smile, but it is a wolf’s smile. What is learned? Only that every ambition must kneel to that which cannot be anticipated. And you can duck and dodge for only so long. It’ll take you down in the end
.
A man slips the noose. A civilization steps from the path of its own hubris. Once. Twice. Thrice even. But what of the twentieth time? The fiftieth? Triumph falters. It always does. There was never a balance
.
After all, common sense will tell you, it’s far easier to push than it is to pull
.
‘How does Kilmandaros feel,’ Errastas asked, ‘about killing her own children?’
Sechul Lath glanced over at his mother, and then back at his companion. ‘Don’t you understand anything, Errastas? She doesn’t feel anything.’
After a moment, the lone eye shied away.
Now I think you understand
.
What does the child want, that you did not have first? What do you own that the child does not want? Badalle had awoken this morning with these questions echoing in her head. The voice was a woman’s, and then a man’s. Both delivered in the same abject tones of despair.
She sat in the sun’s light as it bled in from the window, banishing the chill in her bones as would a lizard or a serpent, and struggled to understand the night’s visions, the dark, disturbing voices of strangers saying such terrible things.
It is what is passed on, I suppose. I think I see that
.
She glanced over to where Saddic sat on the floor, his collection of useless objects arrayed around him, a lost look on his oddly wrinkled face.
Like an old man with his life’s treasure. Only he’s forgotten how to count
.
But what they owned, what they had, was not necessarily a good thing, a thing of virtue. Sometimes, what they had was poison, and the child’s hunger knew no different. How could it? And so the crimes passed on, from one generation to the next.
Until they destroy us. Yes
,
I see that now. My dreams are wise, wiser than me. My dreams sing the songs of the Quitters, clever in argument, subtle in persuasion
.