A prayer? Aye: ‘May all these two-legged hunters chew straight up their own arses. Give us spears of fire and lightning to turn this battle – just once, we beg you. Just once!
’
He reached out a massive barbed paw and slapped at a small skull, watched it skid and then slowly spin in place.
Got you, I see. Fangs went crunch, dreams went away. Done
. With a low growl, he slipped past the heaps of bones until he found the place where the ancient cats had slept, bellies full, running through the wild grasses of their dream worlds – which were no different from this one.
Imagine dreaming of a paradise no different from the one in which you happen to live. What moral might hide in that?
All these worlds, all these fraught warrens, mocked him with their perfect banality. Patterns without revelation, repetitions without meaning. It was not enough to imagine worlds without humans or other sentient fools; the simple act of imagining placed his all-too-human sensibility upon the scene, his very own eyes to witness the idyllic perfection of his absolute absence. For all that, it was easy to harbour such contradictions –
when I hold on to this humanity within me. When I refuse the sweet bliss of the tiger’s world
.
No wonder you forgot everything, Trake. No wonder you weren’t ready for godhood. In the jungles of ancient days, the tigers were gods. Until the new gods arrived. And they were far thirstier for blood than the tigers ever were, and now the jungle is silent
.
This night, he knew, here in this cave, he would dream of the hunt, the perfect stalking of the perfect prey, and dragging his victim up the trail and into this cave, away from the hyenas and jackals.
As dreams went, it wasn’t that bad. As dreams went.
Black fur, the taste of blood in my mouth
…
He had found him outside the walls of a dead city. Kneeling on a dusty road, collecting the shattered remnants of an old pot, but it was not just one pot that had broken apart, it was hundreds. A panicked flight, smoke and flames rising to blacken the limestone cliffs against which the city had cowered, the blurred passing of wretched faces, like broken husks and flotsam in a river. Things fell, things fell apart.
He was trying to put the pieces back together, and as Mappo drew nearer he looked up, but only briefly, before returning to his task. ‘Good sir,’ he said, with one finger pushing shards back and forth, endlessly rearranging, seeking patterns, ‘Good sir, have you by chance some glue?’
The rage was gone, and with it all memory. Icarium knelt with his back to a city he had destroyed.
Sighing, Mappo set his heavy satchel down, and then crouched. ‘Too many broke here,’ he said, ‘for you to repair. It would take weeks, maybe even months.’
‘But I have time.’
Mappo flinched, looked away – but not at the city, where capemoths crowded window sills in the slope-walled buildings leaning against the cliff walls, where the scorch marks streaked the stone like slashes into night. Not at the city, with its narrow streets filled with rubble and corpses, and the rhizan lizards swarming the cold, rotting flesh, and the bhok’arala clambering down to lick sticky stains for the salt and snatching up bundles of clothing with which to make nests. And not at the gate, the doors blasted apart, the heaps of dead soldiers swelling inside their armour as the day’s heat burgeoned.
He stared instead southward, to the old caravan camps marked only by low stone foundations and pens for sheep and goats. Never again would the desert traders travel to this place; never again would merchants from distant cities come seeking the famous Redworm Silks of Shikimesh.
‘I thought, friend,’ Mappo said, and then he shook his head. ‘Only yesterday you spoke of journeying. Northeast, you said, to the coast.’
Icarium looked up, frowned. ‘I did?’
‘Seeking the Tanno, the Spiritwalkers. They are said to have collected ancient records from as far back as the First Empire.’
‘Yes.’ Icarium nodded. ‘I have heard that said, too. Think of all that secret knowledge! Tell me, do you think the priests will permit me entry to their libraries? There is so much I need to learn – why would they stop me? Do you think they will be kind, friend? Kind to me?’
Mappo studied the shards on the road. ‘The Tanno are said to be
very wise, Icarium. I do not imagine they would bar their doors to you.’
‘Good. That’s good.’
The Trell scratched at the bristle on his jaw. ‘So, it shall be Icarium and Mappo, walking across the wastes, all the way to the coast, there to take ship to the island, to the home of the Spiritwalkers.’
‘Icarium and Mappo,’ the Jhag repeated, and then he smiled. ‘Mappo, my friend, this seems a most promising day, does it not?’
‘I shall draw water from the caravan wells, and then we can be on our way.’
‘Water,’ said Icarium. ‘Yes, so I can wash this mud off – I seem to have bathed in it.’
‘You slid down a bank yesterday evening.’
‘Just so, Mappo. Clumsy of me.’ He slowly straightened, cupped in his hands a score of fragments. ‘See the beautiful blue glaze? Like the sky itself – they must have been beautiful, these vessels. It is such a loss, when precious things break, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Icarium, a terrible loss.’
‘Mappo?’ He lifted eyes sharp with anguish. ‘In the city, I think, something happened. Thousands have died – thousands lie dead in that city – it’s true, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Icarium, a most tragic end.’
‘What awful curse was visited upon it, do you think?’
Mappo shook his head.
Icarium studied the shards in his hands. ‘If I could put it all back together, I would. You know that, don’t you? You understand that – please, say that you understand.’
‘I do, friend.’
‘To take what’s broken. To mend it.’
‘Yes,’ Mappo whispered.
‘Must everything break in the end?’
‘No, Icarium, not everything.’
‘Not everything? What will not break in the end? Tell me, Mappo.’
‘Why,’ and the Trell forced a smile, ‘you need not look far. Are we not friends, Icarium? Have we not always been friends?’
A sudden light in the Jhag’s grey eyes. ‘Shall I help you with the water?’
‘I would like that.’
Icarium stared at the shards in his hands and hesitated.
Mappo dragged his satchel over. ‘In here, if you like. We can try to put them together later.’
‘But there’s more on the road, all about – I would need—’
‘Leave the water to me, then, Icarium. Fill the satchel, if you like, as many as you can gather.’
‘But the weight – no, I think it would prove too heavy a burden, friend, this obsession of mine.’
‘Don’t worry on that account, friend. Go on. I will be back shortly.’
‘You are certain?’
‘Go on.’
With a smile, Icarium knelt once again. His gaze caught on his sword, lying on the verge a few paces to his right, and Mappo saw him frown.
‘I cleaned the mud from it last night,’ Mappo said.
‘Ah. That was kind of you, friend.’
Shikimesh and the Redworm Silks. An age ago, a thousand lies ago, and the biggest lie of all. A friendship that could never break
. He sat in the gloom, encircled by a ring of stones he had rolled together – an old Trell ritual – with the gap opening to the east, to where the sun would rise. In his hands a dozen or so dusty, pale blue potsherds.
We never got round to putting them back together. He’d forgotten by the afternoon, and I made no effort to remind him – and was that not my task? To feed him only those memories I judged useful, to starve all the others until they vanished
.
Kneeling that day, he had been like a child, with all his games in waiting before him – waiting for someone like me to come along. Before that, he was content with the company of his own toys and nothing more. Is that not a precious gift? Is that not the wonder of a child? The way they have of building their own worlds, of living in them, and finding joy in the living itself?
Who would break that? Who would crush and destroy such a wondrous thing?
Will I find you kneeling in the dust, Icarium? Will I find you puzzling over the wreckage surrounding you? Will we speak of holy libraries and secret histories?
Shall we sit and build us a pot?
With gentle care, Mappo returned the shards to his satchel. He lay down, set his back to the gap in the ring of stones, and tried to sleep.
Faint scanned the area. ‘They split here,’ she announced. ‘One army went due east, but it’s the narrower trail.’ She pointed southeast. ‘Two, maybe three forces – big ones – went that way. So, we have us a choice to make.’ She faced her companions, gaze settling on Precious Thimble.
The young woman seemed to have aged decades since Jula’s death. She stood in obvious pain, the soles of her feet probably blistered, cracked and weeping.
Just like mine
. ‘Well? You said there was power … out here, somewhere. Tell us, which army do we follow?’
Precious Thimble hugged herself. ‘If they’re armies, there must be a war.’
Faint said, ‘Well, there was a battle, yes. We found what was left. But maybe that battle was the only one. Maybe the war’s over and everyone’s going home.’
‘I meant, why do we have to follow any of them?’
‘Because we’re starving and dying of thirst—’
The young woman’s eyes flashed. ‘I’m doing the best I can!’
Faint said, ‘I know, but it’s not enough, Precious. If we don’t catch up with somebody, we’re all going to die.’
‘East, then – no, wait.’ She hesitated.
‘Out with it,’ growled Faint.
‘There’s something terrible that way. I – I don’t want to get close. I reach out, and then I flee – I don’t know why. I don’t know anything!’
Amby was staring at her as if studying a strange piece of wood, or a broken idol. He seemed moments from spitting at its feet.
Faint ran her hands through her greasy hair – it was getting long but she welcomed that. Anything to fend off the infernal heat. Her chest ached and the pain was a constant companion now. She dreamed of getting drunk. Falling insensate in some alley, or some squalid room in an inn. Disappearing from herself, for one night, just one night.
And let me wake up to a new body, a new world. With Sweetest Sufferance alive and sitting beside me. With no warring gods and swords through foreheads
. ‘What about to the southeast, Sorceress? Any bad feelings in that direction?’
Precious Thimble shook her head, and then shrugged.
‘What does that mean?’ Faint hissed in exasperation. ‘Is it as nasty as what’s east of us, or isn’t it?’
‘No – but …’
‘But what?’
‘It tastes of blood! There! How’s that, then? It all tastes of blood!’
‘Are they spilling it or drinking it?’
Precious Thimble stared at Faint as if she’d gone mad.
Gods, maybe I have, asking a question like that
. ‘Which way will kill us quickest?’
A deep, shuddering breath. ‘East. That army – they’re all going to die.’
‘Of what?’ Faint demanded.
‘I don’t know – thirst, maybe. Yes, thirst.’ Her eyes widened. ‘There’s no water, no water at all – I see ground, glittering ground, blinding, sharp as daggers. And bones – endless fields of bones. I see men and women driven mad by the heat. I see children –
oh gods
– they come walking up like nightmares, like proof of all the crimes we have ever committed.’ Abruptly, horrifyingly, she howled, her hands to her face, and then staggered back and would have fallen if not for Amby, who
stepped close to take her weight. She twisted round and buried herself in his embrace. Over her head, he stared at Faint, and gave her a jarring smile.
Madness? Too late, Precious Thimble – and thank the gods you can’t see what we’re seeing
. Shivering, Faint turned to the southeast. ‘That way, then.’
Children. Don’t remind me. Some crimes cut close to the bone, too close. No, don’t remind me
.
In her mind she saw Sweetest Sufferance, a face splitting into a smile. ‘
Finally
,’ she muttered, ‘
a decision. Get on with it, Faint
.’
Faint nodded for Amby to follow with the sorceress, and then she set out with her hobbling, wincing gait.
If they’ve gone too far, we won’t make it. If we get much worse … blood. We’ll either spill it or drink it
.
She wondered at the armies ahead. Who in Hood’s name were they, and why go this deep into the Wastelands just to fight a stupid battle? And why then split up?
And you poor fools marching east. Just a glimpse of where you’re headed tears at her sanity. I pray you turn back before you leave too many lying lifeless on the ground
.
Wherever you’re going, it can’t be worth it. Nothing in this world is worth it, and you’d be hard pressed to convince me otherwise
.
She heard a grunt and glanced back.
Amby was carrying Precious Thimble in his arms, the smile on his face stretched into a rictus travesty of satisfaction, as if in finding his heart’s desire he was forcing himself to take its fullest pleasure. Precious Thimble’s head lolled against his upper arm, her eyes closed, her mouth half open.