Midnight tides, p.88
Midnight Tides, page 88
Two Letherii remained, apart from the pathetic wreckages of Queen Janall and Prince Quillas. And already the Chancellor, Triban Gnol, had knelt before Rhulad and proclaimed his eternal service. The other Letherii drew Feather Witch’s attention again and again. Consort to the queen, Turudal Brizad gave the appearance of being almost indifferent to all he was witnessing here in the Eternal Domicile.
And he was handsome, extraordinarily handsome.
More than once, she had met his gaze, and saw in his eyes—even from across the room—a certain avid interest that sent tremors through her.
She remained a step behind Uruth, her new mistress, ever attentive, whilst commanders came and went with their irrelevant reports. Fighting here, an end to fighting there, the docks secured. The first of the emissaries from the protectorates eagerly awaited audience in the ruined hallway beyond.
The empire was born.
And she had witnessed, and more than witnessed. A knife, pushed into the hands of Mayen, and word had come that she had been found. Dead. No more would Feather Witch cower beneath her fury. The whore was dead.
Rhulad’s first command was to begin a hunt. For Udinaas. His adopted brothers were given a company of warriors each and sent out to find the slave. The search would be relentless, she knew, and in the end, Udinaas would be captured. And made to pay for his betrayal.
She did not know what to think about that. But the thought had run through her once—and only once, quickly driven away afterwards—a hope, a fervent prayer to the Errant that Udinaas would escape. That he would never be found. That at least one Letherii would defy this emperor, defeat him. And in defeating him thus, would break Rhulad’s heart yet again.
The world has drawn breath…and now breathes once more. As steady as ever, as unbroken in rhythm as the tides.
She could see, through the cleverly fashioned, slitted windows high in the dome overhead, the deepening of the light, and she knew the sun was setting on this day.
A day in which a kingdom was conquered, and a day in which that which was conquered began its inevitable destruction of the conquerors.
For such was the rhythm of these particular tides. Now, with the coming of night, when the shadows drew long, and what remained of the world turned away.
For that is what the Tiste Edur believe, is it not? Until midnight, all is turned away, silent and motionless. Awaiting the last tide.
On his throne, Rhulad Sengar sat, draped in the gold of Lether, and the dying light gleamed in his hooded eyes. Darkened the stains on the sword held in his right hand, point to the dais.
And Feather Witch, her eyes cast downward once more after that momentary glance, downward as required, saw, lying in the join of the dais, a severed finger. Small, like a child’s. She stared at it, fascinated, filled with a sudden desire. To possess it. There was power in such things, after all. Power a witch could use.
Assuming the person it had belonged to had been important.
Well, I shall find that out soon enough.
Dusk was claiming the throne room. Someone would have to light lanterns, and soon.
She had not left the room. There had been no reason to. She had sat, motionless, empty, numb to the sounds of fighting, to the howling wolves, to the distant screams in the city beyond. And told herself, every now and then, that she waited. The end of one thing brought the birth of another, after all.
Lives and loves, the gamut of existence was marked by such things. A breaking of paths, the ragged, uneven ever-forward stumble. Blood dried, eventually. Turned to dust. The corpses of kings were laid down and sealed in darkness and set away, to be forgotten. Graves were dug for fallen soldiers, vast pits like mouths in the earth, opened in hunger, and all the bodies were tumbled down, each exhaling a last gasp of lime dust. Survivors grieved, for a time, and looked upon empty rooms and empty beds, the scattering of possessions no-one possessed any longer, and wondered what was to come, what would be written anew on the wiped-clean slate. Wondering, how can I go on?
Kingdoms and empires, wars and causes, she was sick of them.
She wanted to be gone. Away, so far away that nothing of her life from before mattered in the least. No memories to drive her steps in this direction or that.
Corlo had warned her. Not to fall into the cycle of weeping. So now she sat dry-eyed, and let the city beyond weep for itself. She was done with such things.
A knock upon the door.
Seren Pedac looked down the hallway, her heart lurching.
A heavy sound, now repeated, insistent.
The Acquitor rose from the chair, tottering at the tingling in her legs—she had not moved in a long time—then made her way unevenly forward.
Dusk had arrived. She had not noticed that. Someone has decided. Someone has ended this day. Why would they do that?
Absurd thoughts, pushed into her mind as if from somewhere outside, in tones of faint irony, drawled out like a secret joke.
At the door now. Flinching as the knock sounded again, at a level opposite her face.
Seren opened it.
To find, standing before her, Fear and Trull Sengar.
Trull could not understand it, but it had seemed his steps were being guided, down this alley, along that street, through the vast city with unerring precision until he saw, in the gloom ahead, his brother. Walking with purpose over a minor bridge of the main canal. Turning in surprise at Trull’s hoarse shout. Then waiting until his brother caught up to him.
‘Rhulad is resurrected,’ Trull said.
Fear looked away, squinted into the shadows of the seemingly motionless water of the canal. ‘By your hand, Trull?’
‘No. I…failed in that. Something else. A demon of some sort. It came for the Champion—I don’t know why, but it carried the man’s body away. After killing Rhulad in what it saw as an act of mercy.’ Trull grimaced. ‘A gift of the ignorant. Fear—’
‘No. I will not return.’
Trull stared at him. ‘Listen to me, please. I believe, if we work together, we can guide him back. From madness. For the Sisters’ sake, Fear, we must try. For our people—’
‘No.’
‘You…would leave me to this?’
Sudden pain in Fear’s face, but he refused to meet his brother’s eyes. ‘I must go. I understand something now, you see. This is not of Rhulad’s making. Nor Hannan Mosag’s. It is Father Shadow’s, Trull.’
‘Scabandari Bloodeye is dead—’
‘Not his spirit. It remains…somewhere. I intend to find it.’
‘To what end?’
‘We have been usurped. All of us. By the one behind that sword. No-one else can save us, Trull. I mean to find Scabandari Bloodeye. If he is bound, I mean to free him. His spirit. We shall return together, or not at all.’
Trull knew his brother well enough to cease arguing. Fear had found a new purpose, and with it he intended to flee…from everything, and everyone, else. ‘How will you get out of the city? They will be looking for us—it’s probable they are doing so even now.’
‘Hull once told me that Seren Pedac had her home here.’ Fear shook his head. ‘I don’t know, I don’t understand it myself, but I believe she might help.’
‘Why?’
Fear shook his head.
‘How do you know where she lives?’
‘I don’t. But it’s…this way.’
He began walking. Trull quickly caught up to him and gripped his arm. ‘Listen—no, I don’t mean to prevent you. But listen to me, please.’
‘Very well, but let us walk in the meantime.’
‘All right. Do you not wonder at all this, Fear? How did I find you? It should have been impossible, yet here we are. And now you, and this house—the Acquitor’s house—Fear, something is guiding us. We are being manipulated—’
His brother’s smile was wry. ‘What of it?’
To that, Trull had no answer. Silent, he walked with Fear. Coming upon a score of dead Letherii, he paused to collect a sword and scabbard. He strapped it on, ignoring Fear’s raised brows, not out of some ambivalent emotion, but because he himself did not know why he had picked up the weapon. They walked on.
Until they came to a modest house.
Trull’s chest seemed to clench tight upon seeing her standing in the doorway. He could not understand it—no, he could, but it was impossible. Absurd. He’d only seen Seren Pedac a few times. Had but exchanged a few score words, if that. Yet, as he studied her face, the shock writ there, so at odds with the appalling depth in her eyes, he felt himself falling forward in his mind—
‘What?’ she asked, gaze darting between him and Fear. ‘What are you…’
‘I need your help,’ Fear said.
‘I cannot…I don’t see how…’
Sisters take me, I would give my heart to this woman. This Letherii…
Fear said, ‘I am fleeing. My brother, the emperor. I need a guide to take me through the city unseen. Tonight.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t even know why…why I have this belief that only you can help me.’
She looked then at Trull, and he saw her eyes hold on his for what seemed a long moment, slowly widening. ‘And you, Trull Sengar?’ she asked. ‘Are coming with us?’
With us. She will do this. Why? What need within her does this answer? The pressure in his chest constricted suddenly, even as the fateful words left him. ‘I cannot, Acquitor. I failed Rhulad this day. I must try…again. I must try to save him.’
Something like resignation filled her eyes.
As if he had wounded something that already bore a thousand scars.
And Trull wanted to cry out. Instead, he said, ‘I am sorry. But I will await your return—both of you—’
‘We shall return here?’ she asked, glancing at Fear, ‘Why?’
‘To end this,’ Fear said.
‘To end what?’
‘The tyranny born here tonight, Seren Pedac.’
‘You would kill Rhulad? Your own brother?’
‘Kill him? That would not work, as you know. No. But I shall find another way. I shall.’
Oh, who has grasped hold of my soul this night? He found himself unhitching the sword, heard himself saying, ‘I don’t know if you have a weapon, Acquitor,’ and knew his own disbelief at the absurdity of his own words, the shallowness of his reasoning, ‘so I will give you mine…’ And he was holding the sheathed sword out to her.
At the threshold of her home.
Fear turned, studied him, but Trull could not look away from her, not even to see what must be realization dawning in his face.
Letherii though she was, Seren Pedac clearly understood, her gaze becoming confused, then clearing. ‘Just that, I take it. A weapon…for me to use.’
No. ‘Yes…Acquitor. A weapon…’
She accepted it, but the gesture was without meaning now.
Trull found himself stepping back. ‘I have to go now. I will tell Rhulad I saw you, Fear, down at the docks.’
‘You cannot save him, brother,’ Fear said.
‘I can but try. Go well, Fear.’
And he was walking away. It was best, he decided through sudden tears. They would probably never return. Nor would she have accepted the sword. Which was why she asked him before reaching out for it. A weapon to use. Only that.
He was being a fool. A moment of profound weakness, a love that made no sense, no sense at all. No, better by far the way it had played out. She’d understood, and so she’d made certain. No other meaning. No proclamation. Simply a gesture in the night.
A weapon to use. Only that.
They remained standing at the threshold. Trull was gone, his footsteps swallowed by distance. Fear studied Seren Pedac as she looked down at the sword in her hands. Then, glancing up, she saw his fixed regard and smiled wryly.
‘Your brother…startled me. For a moment, I thought…never mind.’
Then why, Seren Pedac, is there such pain in your eyes? Fear hesitated, was about to speak, when a child’s voice spoke behind him.
‘Are you Seren Pedac?’
He spun round, sword hissing from its scabbard.
The Acquitor stepped past, holding out a hand to stay him. ‘Do I know you?’ she asked the small girl standing at the gate.
‘I am Kettle. Iron Bars said you would help us. We need to leave the city. With no-one seeing.’
‘We?’
The girl walked forward, and behind her came a tall, robed and hooded figure. Then a shadow wraith, dragging a body.
A startled sound from Seren. ‘Errant fend, this is about to get a lot harder.’
Fear said to her, ‘Acquitor, I would berate you for your generosity this night, had it not included me. Can you still manage this?’
She was studying the tall, hooded figure as she replied, ‘Probably. There are tunnels…’
Fear faced the girl and her party once more. His gaze focused on the wraith. ‘You, why are you not serving the emperor this night?’
‘I am unbound, Fear Sengar. You are fleeing? This is…unexpected.’
He disliked the amusement in its voice. ‘And who is that you are pulling behind you?’
‘The slave Udinaas.’
Fear said to Seren, ‘They will be hunting in earnest for these ones, Acquitor. For that slave.’
‘I remember him,’ she said.
‘His betrayal of the emperor has exacted a high price,’ Fear said. ‘More, I believe he killed Mayen—’
‘Believe what you like,’ the wraith said, ‘but you are wrong. You forget, Fear Sengar, this man is a slave. A thing to be used, and used he has been. By me, by the Wyval that even now circles us in the dark overhead. For what befell Rhulad, for Mayen—neither of these tragedies belong to Udinaas.’
As you say.
‘We can argue this later,’ Seren said. ‘Kettle, who is this disguised man?’
She was about to answer when the figure said, ‘I am Selekis, of the Azath tower.’
‘From the Azath tower?’ Seren asked. ‘Amusing. Well, you’re as tall as an Edur, Selekis. Can we not see your face?’
‘I would rather not, Seren Pedac. Not yet, in any case.’ It seemed its hidden gaze was on Fear as it continued, ‘Perhaps later, once we have quitted this city and have the time to discuss our eventual destinations. It may be, indeed, that we will travel together for some time.’
‘I think not,’ Fear said. ‘I go to find Father Shadow.’
‘Indeed? And Scabandari Bloodeye still lives?’
Shocked, Fear said nothing. He must be a Tiste Edur. One of the other tribes, perhaps. Also fleeing. No different from me, then.
‘All of you,’ Seren said, ‘inside. We should scrape together some supplies, although I am certain the Rat Catchers’ Guild will be able to supply us…for a price.’
The wraith softly laughed. ‘It is the Letherii way, of course…’
Shurq Elalle stepped clear of the ladder and onto the roof. The sun was up, and people could be seen on the tiers, a little slower in their walking than was usual. Uncertain, filled perhaps with some trepidation. There were Tiste Edur, after all, patrolling in squads. Whilst yet others, in larger groups, were moving through the city as if looking for someone in particular.
Tehol Beddict and his manservant were standing on the side overlooking the canal, their backs to Shurq as she approached. Tehol glanced over a shoulder and gave her a warm smile. He looked…different.
‘Tehol Beddict,’ she said as she came to stand beside him, ‘one of your eyes is blue.’
‘Is it? Must be some kind of nefarious infection, Shurq, since I can barely see with it besides.’
‘It’ll clear up in time,’ Bugg said.
‘So,’ Shurq said, ‘have you resumed plotting the end of civilization, Tehol?’
‘I have, and a delicious end it will be.’
She grunted. ‘I’ll send you Shand, Hejun and Rissarh, then—’
‘Don’t you dare. Deliver them to the islands. I work better alone.’
‘Alone?’
‘Well, with Bugg here, of course. Every man needs a manservant, after all.’
‘I imagine so. Well, I am here, then, to say goodbye.’
‘Off for some pirating, are we?’
‘Why not? I’m simply elaborating on a well-established career.’
Tehol looked to Bugg, and said, ‘The thief who sank…’
‘…has resurfaced,’ Bugg finished.
The two men smiled at each other.
Shurq Elalle turned away. ‘Well, that’s one thing I won’t miss.’
After she was gone, Tehol and Bugg stared out for a while longer at the reawakening city of Letheras. The city occupied, the throne usurped, strangers in the streets looking rather…lost.
The two-headed insect clung to Tehol’s shoulder and would not move. After a time, Tehol rubbed at his weak eye and sighed. ‘You know, Bugg, I am glad you didn’t do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘Make me forget.’
‘I figured you could handle it.’
‘You’re right. I can. At least, this way, I can grieve.’
‘In your own way.’
‘In my own way, yes. The only way I know how.’
‘I know, master.’
A short while later, Bugg turned about and walked towards the hatch. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’
‘Right. And when you do, clean up down there.’
The manservant paused at the hatch, considered, then said, ‘I think I will find the time to do just that, master.’
‘Excellent. Now I’m going to bed.’
‘Good idea, master.’
‘Well, of course it is, Bugg. It’s mine, isn’t it?’
Epilogue
And it is this moment, my friends,
When you must look away,
As the world unfurls anew
In shapes announced both bright
