He was still studying her. ‘And so you have come here.’
She nodded.
‘You didn’t expect that from him, did you?’
‘No. Your father – he had no reason for regret.’
He rose then, walked over to the table and poured himself a goblet of wine. He stood with the cup in hand, staring down at it. ‘You know,’ he muttered, ‘I don’t even want this. The need … to do something.’ He snorted. ‘“No reason for regret”, well …’
‘They look for him – in you. Don’t they?’
He grunted. ‘Even in my name you will find him. Nimander. No, I’m not his only son. Not even his favoured one – I don’t think he had any of those, come to think of it. Yet,’ and he gestured with the goblet, ‘there I sit, in his chair, before his fire. This palace feels like … feels like—’
‘His bones?’
Nimander flinched, looked away. ‘Too many empty rooms, that’s all.’
‘I need some clothes,’ she said.
He nodded distractedly. ‘I noticed.’
‘Furs. Skins.’
‘You intend to stay, Apsal’ara?’
‘At your side, yes.’
He turned at that, eyes searching her face.
‘But,’ she added, ‘I will not be his burden.’
A wry smile. ‘Mine, then?’
‘Name your closest advisers, Lord.’
He swallowed half the wine, and then set the goblet down on the table. ‘The High Priestess. Chaste now, and I fear that does not serve her well. Skintick, a brother. Desra, a sister. Korlat, Spinnock, my father’s most trusted servants.’
‘Tiste Andii.’
‘Of course.’
‘And the one below?’
‘The one?’
‘Did he once advise you, Lord? Do you stand at the bars in the door’s window, to watch him mutter and pace? Do you torment him? I wish to know the man I will serve.’
She saw clear anger in his face. ‘Are you to be my jester now? I have heard of such roles in human courts. Will you cut the sinews of my legs and laugh as I stumble and fall?’ He bared his teeth. ‘If yours is to be my face of conscience, Apsal’ara, should you not be prettier?’
She cocked her head, made no reply.
Abruptly his fury collapsed, and his eyes fell away. ‘It is the exile he has chosen. Did you test the lock on that door? It is barred from within. But then,
we
have no problem forgiving him. Advise me, then. I am a lord and it is in my power to do such things. To pardon the condemned. Yet you have seen the crypts below us. How many prisoners cringe beneath my iron hand?’
‘One.’
‘And I cannot free him. Surely that is worth a joke or two.’
‘Is he mad?’
‘Clip? Possibly.’
‘Then no, not even you can free him. Your father took scores for the chains of Dragnipur, scores just like this Clip.’
‘I dare say he did not call it freedom.’
‘Nor mercy,’ she replied. ‘They are beyond a lord’s reach, even that of a god.’
‘Then we fail them all. Both lords and gods – we fail them, our broken children.’
This, she realized, would not be an easy man to serve. ‘He drew others to him – your father. Others who were not Tiste Andii. I remember, in his court, in Moon’s Spawn.’
Nimander’s eyes narrowed.
She hesitated, unsure, and then resumed. ‘Your kind are blind to many things. You need others close to you, Lord. Servants who are not Tiste Andii. I am not one of these … jesters you speak of. Nor, it seems, can I be your conscience, ugly as I am to your eyes—’
He held up a hand. ‘Forgive me for that, I beg you. I sought to wound and so spoke an untruth, just to see it sting.’
‘I believe I stung you first, my lord.’
He reached again for the wine, and then stood looking into the hearth’s flames. ‘Apsal’ara, Mistress of Thieves. Will you now abandon that life, to become an adviser to a Tiste Andii lord? All because my father, at the very end, showed you mercy?’
‘I never blamed him for what he did. I gave him no choice. He did not free me out of mercy, Nimander.’
‘Then why?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. But I mean to find out.’
‘And this pursuit – for an answer – has brought you here, to Black Coral. To … me.’
‘Yes.’
‘And how long will you stand at my side, Apsal’ara, whilst I govern a city, sign writs, debate policies? Whilst I slowly rot in the shadow of a father I barely knew and a legacy I cannot hope to fill?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Lord, that is not your fate.’
He wheeled to her. ‘Really? Why not? Please,
advise
me.’
She cocked her head a second time, studied the tall warrior with the bitter, helpless eyes. ‘For so long you Tiste Andii prayed for Mother Dark’s loving regard. For so long you yearned to be reborn to purpose, to life itself. He gave it all back to you. All of it. He did what he knew had to be done, for your sake. You, Nimander, and all the rest. And now you sit here, in his chair, in his city, among his children. And her holy breath, it embraces you all. Shall I give you what I possess of wisdom? Very well. Lord, even Mother Dark cannot hold her breath for ever.’
‘She does not—’
‘When a child is born it must cry.’
‘You—’
‘With its voice, it enters the world, and it
must
enter the world. Now,’ she crossed her arms, ‘will you continue hiding here in this city? I am the Mistress of Thieves, Lord. I know every path. I have walked them all. And I have seen what there is to be seen. If you and your people hide here, Lord, you will all die. And so will Mother Dark. Be her breath. Be
cast out
.’
‘But we are
in this world
, Apsal’ara!’
‘One world is not enough.’
‘Then what must we do?’
‘What your father wanted.’
‘And what is that?’
She smiled. ‘Shall we find out?’
‘You have some nerve, Dragon Master.’
A child shrieked from somewhere down the walkway.
Without turning, Ganoes Paran sighed and said, ‘You’re frightening the young ones again.’
‘Not nearly enough.’ The iron-shod heel of a cane cracked hard on the stone. ‘Isn’t that always the way, hee hee!’
‘I don’t think I appreciate the new title you’re giving me, Shadowthrone.’
A vague dark smear, the god moved up alongside Paran. The cane’s gleaming head swung its silver snarl out over the valley. ‘Master of the Deck of Dragons. Too much of a mouthful. It’s your … abuses. I so dislike unpredictable people.’ He giggled again. ‘People. Ascendants. Gods. Thick-skulled dogs. Children.’
‘Where is Cotillion, Shadowthrone?’
‘You should be tired of that question by now.’
‘I am tired of waiting for an answer.’
‘
Then stop asking it!
’ The god’s manic shriek echoed through the fortress, rattled wild along corridors and through hallways before echoing back to where they stood atop the wall.
‘That has certainly caught their attention,’ Paran observed, nodding to a distant barrow where two tall, almost skeletal figures now stood.
Shadowthrone sniffed. ‘They see nothing.’ He hissed a laugh. ‘Blinded by justice.’
Ganoes Paran scratched at his beard. ‘What do you want?’
‘Whence comes your faith?’
‘Excuse me?’
The cane rapped and skittered on the stone. ‘You sit with the Host
in Aren, defying every imperial summons. And then you assault the Warrens with
this
.’ He suddenly cackled. ‘You should have seen the Emperor’s face! And the names he called you, my, even the court scribers cringed!’ He paused. ‘Where was I? Yes, I was berating you, Dragon Master. Are you a genius? I doubt it. Leaving me no choice but to conclude that you’re an idiot.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Is she out there?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Do you?’
Paran slowly nodded. ‘Now I understand. It’s all about faith. A notion unfamiliar to you, I take it.’
‘This siege is meaningless!’
‘Is it?’
Shadowthrone hissed, one ethereal hand reaching out, as if to claw at Paran’s face. Instead, it hovered, twisted and then shrank into something vaguely fist-shaped. ‘You don’t understand anything!’
‘I understand this,’ Paran replied. ‘Dragons are creatures of chaos. There can be no Dragon Master, making the title meaningless.’
‘Exactly.’ Shadowthrone reached out to gather up a tangled snarl of spider’s web from beneath the wall’s casing. He held it up, apparently studying the cocooned remnant of a desiccated insect.
Miserable turd
. ‘Here is what I know, Shadowthrone. The end begins here. Do you deny it? No, you can’t, else you wouldn’t be haunting me—’
‘Not even you can breach the power surrounding this keep,’ the god said. ‘You have blinded yourself. Open your gate again, Ganoes Paran, find somewhere else to lodge your army. This is pointless.’ He flung the web away and gestured with the head of his cane. ‘You cannot defeat those two, we both know that.’
‘But they don’t, do they?’
‘They will test you. Sooner or later.’
‘I’m still waiting.’
‘Perhaps even today.’
‘Will you wager on that, Shadowthrone?’
The god snorted. ‘You have nothing I want.’
‘Liar.’
‘Then I have nothing you want.’
‘Actually, as it happens …’
‘Do you see me holding a leash? He’s not here. He’s off doing other things. We’re allies, do you understand? An alliance. Not a damned marriage!’
Paran grinned. ‘Oddly enough, I wasn’t even thinking of Cotillion.’
‘A pointless wager in any case. If you lose you die. Or abandon your army to die, which I can’t see you doing. Besides, you’re nowhere near as devious as I am. You want this wager? Truly? Even when I lose, I win. Even when I lose …
I win!
’
Paran nodded. ‘And that has ever been your game, Shadowthrone. You see, I know you better than you think. Yes, I would wager with you. They shall not try me this day. We shall repulse their assault … again. And more Shriven and Watered will die. We shall remain the itch they cannot scratch.’
‘All because you have faith? Fool!’
‘Those are the conditions of this wager. Agreed?’
The god’s form seemed to shift about, almost vanishing entirely at one moment before reappearing, and the cane head struck chips from the merlon’s worn edge. ‘Agreed!’
‘If you win and I survive,’ resumed Paran, ‘you get what you want from me, whatever that is, and assuming it’s in my power to grant. If I win, I get what I want from you.’
‘If it’s in my power—’
‘It is.’
Shadowthrone muttered something under his breath, and then hissed. ‘Very well, tell me what you want.’
And so Paran told him.
The god cackled. ‘And you think that’s in my power? You think Cotillion has no say in the matter?’
‘If he does, best you go and ask him, then. Unless,’ Paran added, ‘it turns out that, as I suspect, you have no idea where your ally has got to. In which case, Lord of Shadows, you will do as I ask, and answer to him later.’
‘I answer to no one!’ Another shriek, the echoes racing.
Paran smiled. ‘Why, Shadowthrone, I know precisely how you feel. Now, what is it you seek from me?’
‘I seek the source of your faith.’ The cane waggled. ‘That she’s out there. That she seeks what you seek. That, upon the Plain of Blood and Chains, you will find her, and stand facing her – as if you two had planned this all along, when I damned well know you haven’t! You don’t even like each other!’
‘Shadowthrone, I cannot sell you faith.’
‘So lie, damn you, just do it convincingly!’
He could hear silk wings flapping, the sound a shredding of the wind itself.
A boy with a kite. Dragon Master. Ruler over all that cannot be ruled. Ride the howling chaos and call it mastery – who are you fooling? Lad, let go now. It’s too much
. But he would not, he didn’t know how.
The man with the greying beard watches, and can say nothing
.
Distress
.
He glanced to his left, but the shadow was gone.
A crash from the courtyard below drew him round. The throne, a mass of flames, had broken through the mound beneath it. And the smoke leapt skyward, like a beast unchained.
I look around at the living
Still and bound
Hands and knees to stone
By what we found
Was a night as wearying
As any just past?
Was a dawn any crueller
To find us this aghast?
By your hand you are staying
And this is fair
But your words of blood
Are too bitter to bear
Song of Sorrows Unwitnessed
Napan Blight