Fall of Light (123 page)

‘This is monstrous …’

Haut rubbed at his lined face, looking old and worn out. ‘He has stopped time. Stolen life’s necessary rush, the rolling needs that burn with defiance. In all realms, life wills itself into being, plunging ever forward in the name of order, outracing the chaos of dissolution.’

She shook her head, half in disbelief, half in terror. ‘But … how vast is this … this end of time?’

‘For now, the encampment,’ Haut replied. ‘But there are ripples, unseen by us mortals, and they spread far and wide. Stirring, agitating, awakening. I would imagine,’ he mused, ‘the dead themselves now hearken to this challenge.’ He settled a hand on the old sword at his belt. ‘It seems we shall have our war after all.’

‘All this, Haut? For the grief of one slain woman?’ She stepped back from him, and then faced the plains once more. Stared at the motionless, lifeless night sky.
He speaks true. No breath to draw barring those needed for words. My heart … I hear nothing, not even the swish of blood in the veins.
‘Hood used the magic,’ she suddenly announced. ‘All that the one you name K’rul has given to the world. He’s taken it all inside.’

‘Stilled every fire,’ Haut said. ‘Nothing burns. The exhalation of heat, the very vigour of life, all stopped. As within, so without. But then, is this not what death is? Stepping out from time’s incessant flow? Slipping from sight?’ He sighed, and then shrugged. ‘We are in the Long Night, we who choose to follow him. But you, Korya, here you do not belong.’

‘And I’m to knock Arathan unconscious and drag him away from here?’

‘Gothos holds at bay Hood’s … imposition. He creates a refuge, signified by his Folly, his unending tome, his eternal narrative. To defy the death of time, he would tell a story.’

‘His story.’

‘It may be his,’ Haut agreed. ‘Indeed, it may be precisely what he says it is. A suicide note, a confessional to failure. And yet, do you see this subtle defiance? While the tale continues, there can be no surrender to despair.’

‘No,’ she snapped, ‘of course not. The lord has his hate, after all.’

‘Burning hot as the sun, yes.’

‘Does his hate include Hood?’

‘Hood? Abyss take me, no. He loves the man as only a brother can.’

‘Yet, a brother not.’

Haut shrugged. ‘And now Gethol, returned from something worse than death. A prison we all thought was eternal. Sometimes the deeds of the past, Korya, lead to a place where no words are possible. And yet, does not the love remain? Thus, the three of them, one the spark of hate, one the sigh of grief, and one – well, one stands between the two.’

‘Will Gethol join Hood, then?’

‘I would think not, but all of that is between them. When I spoke of Gothos’s refuge, I meant to say that Arathan is protected.’

‘What of me?’

‘You are a Mahybe, Korya, a vessel formed to contain. By this alone, death cannot reach you.’

She grunted. ‘Oh, you’ve made me immortal, have you?’ When he said nothing, she slowly turned from the dead night sky above the plain. ‘Haut?’

‘Hold on to your potential,’ he said, ‘for as long as you can. There’s enough room inside you for a dozen lifetimes, maybe more. That’s down to your resilience and your cleverness.’

‘To what end?’

‘One day, the Azathanai Errastas will seek domination over the sorcery now suffusing this realm. And he will make it a thing of spilled blood, and should he succeed, magic will prove the cruellest gift of all.’

‘You would set me against an Azathanai?’

Haut offered her a wry smile. ‘Already I pity him.’

  *   *   *

‘What took so long?’ Lasa Rook moaned plaintively, pulling sweaty strands of blonde hair from her face. ‘Look upon the beasts, O Lord of Duration, and see how the quick and the fierce suffices. By the tumbled rock-pile, Hanako, you have worn me out!’

He sat up, blinking, his twin hearts only now slowing their savage syncopation. He squinted into the north.

Lasa Rook continued, ‘Was it worth the wait? Does my bruised flower answer? No. Instead, the mumble below continues, tremors of the flesh and the spirit trembling like a startled fawn in the night. Oh, dear pup, you have dragged the moon to the ground! You have spun the stars with such abandon as to shatter the wheel! The body reels, the earth shudders. Now look upon me in the days to come and see the knowing glint in my eye, the sly knowledge of our terrible secret—’

‘Not so secret,’ Hanako said.

She sat up, her hair full of twigs and grass blades, and twisted round. ‘Hanako! We are attended by three hoary ghosts! Aaii! They stagger in the manner of revenants, with crumpled visages and eyes withered like dusty dates!’

‘Your husbands,’ Hanako said, ‘drawn to us, no doubt, by your shrieks.’ He lumbered to his feet. ‘Apologies dry upon my tongue. Shame and remorse chill my hearts, and in the face of righteous challenge, I shall raise no blade to defend myself.’

‘Oh,’ Lasa Rook said, squinting. ‘They are not dead then?’

‘No, only exhausted, it seems. Worn out by this deadly pursuit, and now here, their worst fears realized.’

She climbed to her feet, still naked, and brushed the dust from her arms, and then her breasts. ‘You have licked off all my sweet scents, Hanako. This puts me at a disadvantage. Say nothing. Leave this to me. They are my husbands, after all.’

Groaning under his breath, Hanako swung round to the south. The night sky above that horizon looked peculiar. ‘You promised that we would defend Erelan Kreed, and yet here we are. My lust, Lasa Rook, has broken our vow. Now he walks alone. For all we know, the dragon has already found him.’

‘Oh, enough of that nonsense, Hanako! See these dejected, broken men, my pets all bedraggled and forlorn. Are these the faces lighting with love and delight? Halt the world, my husbands have found me! Caught naked and lathered, flushed and sated beyond all measure! By my crime I have belittled them all! What recompense is possible? What price forgiveness?’

The three men drew closer and then stopped with a dozen paces between them and Lasa Rook, who stood facing them, brazen and tall.

After a long, tense moment, the eldest of them pointed at Hanako though his gaze remained fixed on his wife. His mouth worked soundlessly for a time, and then, in a strangled voice, he said, ‘You never once slashed any of
us
to bloody ribbons!’

Lasa Rook shot a look at Hanako, her brows raised. ‘Oh,’ she said as she turned back to her husbands, ‘that.’ She shrugged. ‘Many are the beasts lying in the grasses, each a habit unto itself. Some will ambush. Others yawn and doze till comes the night, when all manner of savagery is unleashed. Yet others flick their tails, watchful and opportunistic. I am a woman of appetites and curiosity, Garelko.’

‘But … another husband? How many do you need?’ Garelko pulled at his thin hair. ‘Oh, it’s never enough with you, Lasa Rook! No, you need to hunt down the finest warrior of all the mountain tribes! Slayer of more Thelomen than any of us can count!’ He pointed a shaking finger at Hanako. ‘And … you! You!’

‘Oh, be quiet – and you, Tathenal, not a word! Same for you, Ravast! I thought you all dead! Dragon-slain! Devoured, digested, shat out!’ Hands now on her hips, she shook her head and continued in a lower tone, ‘I grew doubtful of the three of you. How deep your love for me? In our home, ah, I caught a sniff of complacency.’

‘Complacency?’

‘Yes, Garelko! Was it mere contentment? Or love’s sordid decay? A challenge was needed. So I set out, on the slithery tail of a Jaghut’s raging grief. Would my husbands dare follow? Would they even notice my absence?’

Garelko pointed again at Hanako. ‘And this one? Was he too a test?’

‘Oh, who knows what set him on this trail. Such a young brave already weary of mundane challenges! But against that which cannot be defeated, ah, now there is a fate worthy of legend! Or,’ she added with a sigh, ‘some such thing.’

‘We heard your screams!’ Ravast suddenly blurted.

‘As you were meant to, were you indeed still alive – and what surer siren could I devise to bring you running?’ She waved a careless hand back towards Hanako. ‘Oh, he was fun I’ll grant you, a beast indeed, to now challenge your inventiveness in all the years of delight still to come!’

‘You’ll not stay with him?’ Garelko asked. ‘You’ll not claim him as another husband?’

‘Three are chore enough,’ she replied. ‘Besides, heed his destination! Do I seem a woman tired of life? Still, was not this journey an exciting one?’

Sourly, Tathenal said, ‘Dams have broken, wife, and now unseen rivers of wild thought devour the ground beneath us all. None are as we once were. Not even you. I see in Hanako’s eyes a renewed resolve. He will indeed march with that dread legion, and I will walk at his side. We have new enemies within each of us now, challenges to our sense of who we truly are, and these, my love, must be answered.’

When Tathenal moved forward to take his position at Hanako’s side, Lasa Rook’s eyes followed with raw dismay.

‘Oh my,’ she breathed. And her gaze snapped back round when Ravast spoke.

‘Beloved wife,’ the young warrior said, ‘I will take the measure of this grieving Jaghut, and upon the threshold of a choice that cannot be unmade, only then will I decide my path.’

Garelko’s expression was suddenly ravaged. ‘Now, Lasa Rook,’ he said in a broken rasp, ‘see what you have done?’

‘Oh I see,’ she retorted, crossing her arms. ‘Clever punishment! Listen well, the three of you! I will accompany you to the Jaghut’s silly camp, where you can well contemplate joining the ragged mob that has fallen for his madness! But I shall not cross the threshold, even if you would all leave me a widow in truth! I am young still and the villages are bursting with handsome men, some of whom are even useful!’ She paused, and then resumed, ‘So contemplate well my lively future, husbands, and of troubled waters beneath the ground, consider most soberly their paltry gifts. From beyond the Harrowed Gate, husbands, you might well hear my lustful cries challenge the world itself!’

When she swung round to face Hanako, he saw the fierceness of her gaze, and was shaken. Turning to Tathenal, he said, ‘Go back with her, sir. The three of you, drag this woman home, bound and gagged if you must.’

‘The pup rejects me? After one tussle in the grass?’

He frowned at her. ‘You misunderstand, Lasa Rook. I am come to love you, but you burn too hot for me, and this fire in you is the raging glory of
life,
not death. Should you march down to the Jaghut … I fear a moment of fury, and a choice that cannot be unmade. Not for one such as you the realm of death, and so I beg you – I beg you all – go home.’ He swung his gaze south. ‘If I hurry, I will catch Erelan Kreed, and so guard his flank.’

Lasa Rook hissed, ‘You’re not actually contemplating joining those fools, are you? Was this not simply a lark? A cheerful cavort in the manner of spectators witnessing a mummery of absurdity? Hanako of the Scars, you are too young for the rock-pile!’

He shook his head. ‘I have my reasons, Lasa Rook, and they shall remain mine, forever unspoken, yet no less indurate. And now there is Erelan Kreed, whom I will not abandon. What glory is found in turning aside? What truth can be revealed unless one indeed walks through the gate? No, I will find what I seek.’

She now glared at the four of them. ‘You … you
men
!’

When Hanako set out, the others fell in behind him. He heard a sharp low cry from Garelko and turned to see Lasa Rook gripping his right ear as she hissed, ‘Convince these idiots, old man, or you’ll rue your failure!’

‘I’ll try! I swear it!’

Setting his gaze southward again, Hanako hurried on. ‘Forgive me my pace,’ he called out. ‘Find your own to suit – it matters not.’

‘What do you mean, Hanako?’ Tathenal asked.

In reply, Hanako pointed ahead. ‘See the sky? There, my friends, the world holds its breath.’

He heard their soft exclamations and low muttering, as yet another argument erupted between Lasa Rook and her husbands.

Hanako was glad of the lovemaking. That had been a fire in need of dousing. Now his mind felt clear, his resolve harsh and bold with new resilience.

Death, I will face you at last. Unblinking, I will face that which all who are said to be heroic must face. And I will have my answer.

But I am no fool. Lord of the Rock-Piles, I’ll not deny you. Each time, you win in the end. Indeed, you never lose. And so I will ask you, O Lord of Death, what worth the victory … in such a crooked game?

  *   *   *

Gethol’s mottled face bore an expression of old pain and suffering that Arathan suspected was permanent. Five centuries buried beneath the earth, bound in roots, must have taken such a toll that he wondered how the Jaghut remained sane.
Assuming sanity was ever there in the first place. These are Jaghut, after all.

Gethol was staring at Arathan with a strangely remote contemplation, as if in studying the young black-skinned Tiste Andii, he was in fact looking through to something else. The uncanny regard unnerved Arathan, but he was not prepared to reveal that to this brother of Gothos. He stared back.

After the passage of some time, Gothos glanced up from his desk and said, ‘Is this really necessary?’

Gethol frowned and then, with a shrug, he looked away. ‘This charge of yours. This bastard son of Draconus.’

‘Yes, what of him?’

‘Yes,’ Arathan added, ‘what of me?’

Grunting, Gethol said, ‘Some things are better left unsaid, I suppose.’

Gothos set his stylus down. ‘I imagine you said very little for a rather long time, Gethol.’

‘This is true.’

‘All those useless words.’

‘Spake the writer leaning over his tome.’

‘If I presume in error, brother, do enlighten me.’

Gethol lifted a gnarled hand and eyed it speculatively. ‘My talons need trimming. Still, I am thankful I possessed them, although I expect the Seregahl I dragged into my place might venture a different opinion.’

‘Were your eyes open?’ Gothos asked.

‘No, of course not. That would sting, and besides, there is very little to see. Consider the interred, the buried man, be he in sandy soil or sodden peat. Note the closed eyes, the peaceful expression, the firm set of the mouth.’