Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1) (87 page)

‘As it is, now that we have a solution here, I can leave my soldiers to oversee the pups until Kagamandra’s arrival. Once I have penned a worthy note to him, I shall ride north to those of my company I left in the forest. From there, we shall return to our garrison.’

Silchas studied his friend for a moment. ‘You have heard of the other companies stirring about?’

The query elicited a scowl. ‘I even argued with Hunn Raal, before he departed here. Silchas, I tell you this: I want none of this. I see how this persecution of the Deniers is but an excuse to recall Urusander’s Legion. The cause is unworthy.’

‘The Deniers are not the cause being sought, Scara.’

‘I well know that, friend. And I will not lie in saying to you that there are rightful grievances at work here. But such matters cannot be addressed by the sword, and I believe that Lord Urusander agrees with me.’

‘Be most cautious, then,’ Silchas said, his hand once more upon Scara’s back. ‘I fear Urusander is like a blind man led upon an unknown path, and the one who leads has ill ambition in his heart.’

‘They’ll not follow Hunn Raal,’ Scara said.

‘Not knowingly, no.’

The captain shot him a quizzical look then, and a moment later his
eyes
narrowed. ‘I had best write that letter. Mayhap we shall meet on the north road beyond the gates.’

‘That would delight me, friend.’

Two of the pups fell into a scrap just then, teeth flashing and fur flying.

* * *

Lady Hish Tulla sat in the study of her Kharkanas residence, contemplating the missive in her hands. She thought back to the last time she had met the three brothers, and the unease surrounding her imposition upon their grief at their father’s tomb. There had been rain that day and she had sheltered beneath a tree until the clouds had passed. She recalled Anomander’s face, a hardened visage when compared to the one she had known when sharing his bed. Youth was pliable and skin smooth and angles soft as befitted a memory of happier times, but on that day, with the rain still upon his unguarded features, he had seemed older than her.

She was not one for self-regard. Her own reflection always struck her to strange superstition and she was wont to avoid instances when she might catch herself in a mirror or blurred upon contemplative waters: a ghostly shadow of someone just like her, the image seemed, living a life in parallel wherein secrets played out unseen, and all the scenes of her imagination found fruition. Her fear was to discover in herself an unworthy envy for that other life. Most disturbing of all, to her mind, was to meet the gaze of that mysterious woman, and see in those ageing, haunted eyes, her private host of losses.

The missive trembled in her hands. Men such as Anomander deserved to be unchanging, or so she had always believed, and she would hold to that belief as if it could protect the past they had shared. His rumoured transformation within the influence of Mother Dark’s mystical power frightened her. Was there not darkness enough within the body? But it was only the memory that did not change, of the time before the wars, and if these days were spent assailing it, she knew enough to blame none other than herself.

How would she see him this time? What might she say in answering this personal invitation from an old lover, to attend his arm upon the wedding of his brother? His face had hardened, defying even the soft promise of the rain; and now he would appear before her like a man inverted, with no loss of edges, and no yielding of the distance between them.

She feared pity in his gesture and was shamed by her own weakness before it.

Servants were busy downstairs, cleaning the last of the silts and refuse from the flood. The missive she held was days old, and she had not yet
responded
to it, and this in itself was impolite, and no rising water could excuse her silence. Perhaps, however, he had already forgotten his offer. There had been tumultuous events in the Citadel. As First Son it was likely that he felt besieged by circumstance, sufficient to distract him from even his brother’s wedding. It was not impossible, in fact, to imagine him late upon attendance and seeking naught but forgiveness in Andarist’s eyes. A woman upon Anomander’s arm at such a moment promised embarrassment and little else.

The appointed time was drawing near. She had things to do here in the house. The cellar stores had all been ruined and the sunken room was now a quagmire of bloated, rotting foodstuffs and the small furred bodies of mice that had drowned or died mired in the mud. Furthermore, on the day of the flood her handmaid’s elderly grandmother had died, perhaps of panic, before the rush of the dark waters into her bedchamber, and so there was grief in the damp air of the rooms below, and a distraught maid deserving of consolation.

Instead of attending to all this, however, she sat in her study, dressed not in the habit of the mistress of the house, nor in the regalia of feminine elegance proper to attending a wedding. Instead, she was girded for war. Her armour was clean, the leather supple and burnished lustrous with oil. All bronze rivets were in place and each shone like a polished gem; every buckle and clasp was in working order. The weapon at her side was a fine Iralltan blade, four centuries old and venerated for its honest service. It wore a scabbard of lacquered blackwood banded at the girdle in silver, with a point guard, also of silver, polished on the inside by constant brushing against her calf.

A cloak awaited her on the back of a nearby chair, midnight blue with a high cream-hued collar. The gauntlets on the desk before her were new, black leather banded with iron strips that shifted to scales at the wrists. The cuffs remained stiff but servants had worked the fingers and hands until both were supple.

In the courtyard below, a groom holding the reins of her warhorse awaited her arrival.

There could be insult in this, and she saw once again the hard face of Anomander, and behind it Andarist’s fury. Sighing, she set the invitation down on the desk and then straightened, walking to her cloak. She shrugged it over her shoulders and fixed the clasp at her throat, and then collected the gauntlets and strode into the adjoining room.

The old man standing before her was favouring a leg, but he had refused her offers of a chair. The boy behind him was fast asleep on a divan, still in his rags and wearing filth like a second skin. She contemplated the child for a moment longer, before settling her gaze on Gripp Galas.

‘On occasion,’ she said, ‘I wondered what had happened to you. Anomander gives loyalty as it is given him, and yours was above reproach. You did well to ensure your master and I had privacy in our times together, even unto distracting his father when needed.’

Gripp’s eyes had softened as if in recollection, but the surrender was momentary. ‘Milady, my master found other uses for me, in the wars and thereafter.’

‘Your master risked your life, Gripp, when what you truly deserved was gentle retirement in a fine country house.’

The old man scowled. ‘You’re describing a tomb, milady.’

The boy had not stirred throughout this exchange. She studied him again. ‘You say he bears a note on his person?’

‘He does, milady.’

‘Know you its contents?’

‘He is most protective of it.’

‘I am sure he is, but he sleeps like the dead.’

Gripp seemed to sag before her. ‘We lost the horse in the river. We nearly drowned, the both of us. Milady, he knows it not, but the note he carries in its tin tube is now illegible. The ink has washed and blotted and nothing can be made from it. But the seal impressed upon the parchment has survived, and surely it is from your own estate.’

‘Sukul, I wager,’ mused Hish Tulla. ‘He is of the Korlas bloodline?’

‘So we are to understand, milady.’

‘And is intended for the Citadel?’

‘For the keeping of the Children of Night, milady.’

‘The children,’ said Hish, ‘have all grown up.’

Gripp said nothing to that.

Now and then, as their gazes caught one another, Hish had sensed something odd in Gripp’s regard, appearing in modest flashes, or subtle glints. She wondered at it.

‘Milady, the boy insisted that we find you first.’

‘So I understand.’

‘When I would have gone straight to my master.’

‘Yet you acquiesced.’

‘He is highborn, milady, and it was my service to protect him on the journey. He is brave, this one, and not given to complaint no matter the hardship. But he weeps for dying horses.’

She shot him another searching look, and then smiled. ‘As did a child of Nimander, once, long ago. Your horse, I recall. A broken foreleg, yes?’

‘A jump that child should never have attempted, yes, milady.’

‘At the cost of your mount’s life.’

Gripp glanced away, and then shrugged. ‘He is named Orfantal.’

‘An unwelcome name,’ she replied. Then, catching once more that
odd
expression on Gripp’s lined face, she frowned. ‘Have you something to say to me?’

‘Milady?’

‘I was never so wrathful as to make you shy. Speak your mind.’

His eyes fell from hers. ‘Forgive me, milady, but it’s good to see you again.’

A tightness took her throat and she almost reached out to him, to show that his affection was not unwelcome and that, indeed, it was reciprocated, but something held her back and instead she said, ‘That leg is likely to collapse under you. I insist we summon a healer.’

‘It’s on the mend, milady.’

‘You’re a stubborn old man.’

‘Our time is short if we are to meet them.’

‘You see me standing ready, do you not? Very well, let us bring your unpleasant news to your master, and weather as best we can Andarist’s outrage at our martial intrusion. The boy will be fine here in the meantime.’

Gripp nodded. ‘It was ill luck, I wager, and not an attempt at assassination. The boy has little value after all, to anyone.’

‘Except in death on the road,’ she replied. ‘The unwanted child as proof of unwanted discord in the realm. I would we had for him another name. Come, we will ride for the Citadel gate.’

* * *

Galar Baras was blind, but he sensed Henarald still standing at his side. The darkness within the Chamber of Night was bitter cold and yet strangely thick, almost suffocating. As he stared unseeing, he heard the Lord of Hust draw a sharp breath.

A moment later a woman’s soft voice sounded, almost close enough for Galar to feel its breath upon his face. ‘Beloved First Son, what value my blessing in this?’

Anomander replied, but Galar could not sense from where the words came, or where he stood. ‘Mother, if we are but your children, then our needs remain simple.’

‘But not so easily met,’ she returned.

‘Is clarity not a virtue?’

‘You will now speak of virtue, First Son? The floor beneath your pacing holds firm underfoot, and you would trust in that.’

‘Until I trip, Mother.’

‘And you think this blade will ease your doubts? Or is it my blessing that will serve you thus?’

‘As a blade sliding into a scabbard, Mother, I would have both.’

Mother Dark was silent for a moment, and then she said, ‘Lord of Hust, have you thoughts on virtue?’

‘I know of virtues,’ Henarald answered, ‘but I fear my thoughts are little better than hounds nipping their heels, receiving only a hoof’s kick in reward.’

‘But dogged they remain … those thoughts?’

Henarald’s grunt may have been an appreciative laugh, but Galar could not be certain. ‘Mother Dark, might I suggest now, and here, that the finest virtues are those that flower unseen.’

‘My First Son, alas, paces not through a garden, but on hard stone.’

‘His boots strike expectantly, Mother Dark.’

‘Just so,’ she replied.

There was a frustrated hiss from Anomander. ‘If you have found new strengths, Mother, then I beg to know of them. If not in form then in flavour. In this realm of yours, so like a void desperate to be occupied, we all await the fulfilment of our faith.’

‘I cannot but retreat before your desires, First Son. The more I come to understand this gift of Darkness, the more I comprehend its refusal as necessary. The risk, I now believe, is to be found in the chaining of what must not be chained and the fixing in place of that which must be free to wander. After all, in the measure of every civilization, wandering must one day end; and when it ends, so too ends an unchanging future.’

‘If nothing changes, Mother, then hope must die.’

‘Lord of Hust, would you call peace a virtue?’

Galar felt the old man shift uneasily beside him, and suspected that the sword cradled in Henarald’s arms was growing heavy. ‘My peace is ever an exhausted peace, Mother Dark.’

‘An old man’s answer,’ she murmured, without derision or scorn.

‘I am that,’ Henarald replied.

‘Shall we consider exhaustion a virtue, then?’

‘Ah, forgive me, Mother Dark, this old man’s retort. Exhaustion is no virtue. Exhaustion is failure.’

‘Even if it wins peace?’