Fall of Light (72 page)

‘I don’t see how, but never mind. I don’t want that argument again, Korya. There are people I want to find, and they’re probably dead. I have things that I need to say to them. Not only that, but I expect there will be many, many warriors beyond the Veil. I want to ask them: was it worth it?’

‘Was what worth it?’

‘The fighting. The killing.’

‘I doubt they’d tell you. But even more, I doubt they’d have anything worth saying. Being dead, they failed, right? You’re headed for miserable company, Arathan. Not that they’d welcome you, and not that you’ll ever get close anyway. It seems that you are to be my keeper.’

‘What?’

‘Haut needs to hand me over to someone else. You’re of House Dracons, right? Well, you have to deliver me to your father, but in the meantime, I’m now your hostage.’

‘You can’t be. I won’t accept you.’

‘Are you not your father’s son?’

‘Bastard son.’

‘But he acknowledged you. You are now of House Dracons. You have responsibilities. You can’t be a child any longer, Arathan.’

‘So that’s how you all worked it out, is it? I sense Gothos behind this.’

She shrugged. ‘I’m your hostage. You have to return me to Kurald Galain, to your father’s estate.’

‘He doesn’t want to see me. He brought me here to keep me away.’

‘So take me back and then leave again. What you do after you’ve discharged your responsibility is up to you.’

‘This is … underhanded.’

‘And don’t think we’ll be lingering, either. I want to leave. Soon.’

‘If you’re now my hostage, we’ll leave when I decide it, not you.’ He thought for a moment, and then frowned. ‘I’ve not done the translating yet—’

‘You idiot. You’ll never be done with that, because Gothos won’t ever stop. I would have thought you’d worked that out by now.’

‘But I was just getting to the interesting stuff.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, it’s more or less an autobiography, but his story begins now – or, that is, he began it the day he killed civilization and became the Lord of Hate, and from there it goes back in time, day by day, year by year, decade by decade, century by—’

‘Yes, I get it.’ She paused, and then said, ‘But that’s stupid.’

‘The point is,’ said Arathan, ‘it means that there must be an end to it. When at last he finds his earliest memory.’

‘So how far back have you managed to transcribe?’

‘About six years.’

She stopped, stared at him.

His frown deepened. ‘What? What’s wrong?’

‘How far has he gone back? In his writing?’

‘A couple of centuries, I think.’

‘And how old is Gothos?’

Arathan shrugged. I’m not sure. Two or three, I think.’

‘Centuries?’

‘Millennia.’

She made a fist as if to strike him, and then subsided. Sighing, she shook her head. ‘Gothos’s Folly indeed.’

‘There are dead people I need to see.’

‘See the living ones instead, Arathan. At least they might, on occasion, tell you something worth hearing.’ She set off once more, and Arathan followed.

‘It would be irresponsible of me,’ he said, ‘to take you back to a civil war.’

‘Oh, just fuck off, will you?’ She angled away. ‘I’m off to see a man with freckles on his arms.’

FOURTEEN

Y
EDAN NARAD STOOD FACING THE FOREST WITH HIS BACK
to the grove. The snow upon branches and the ground blackened the boles of the trees, and the crazed scrawl of twigs against the white sky ran like cracks in the face of the world. It was no difficult thing to see the future’s end, looming like the breaking of winter.

Each night his dreams tore apart the shrouds of time. He walked a shoreline in a past he had never lived, into a future that was not his. He spoke with queens who called him brother, yet offered him the rotting, skeletal visage of a young woman in the attire of a bride. He felt sweet breath upon his cheek that assaulted his senses like the stain of gangrene.

During each day, as the hunters of the Shake gathered, as the makeshift army of Glyph of the Shore grew, Narad found himself less able to distinguish the real from the imagined, the moment ahead from the moment just past. At times, he would glance up and see the surrounding forest transformed into walls of raging fire, into a ceaseless cascade of silver, mercurial light. From wounds in the air, he saw the lunging bulk of dragons clawing through, the image rushing towards him as if he was, somehow, flying into the face of horror.

In his dreams, they named him warrior. Of his exploits, they spoke words of awe from crowds too formless to comprehend even as he walked through their midst. Somehow, he led them all, sustained by virtues and qualities of command he knew he did not possess. Everything seemed borrowed, perhaps even stolen. The expectations had begun to bleed into the real world, as increasingly he was looked to for guidance. It was only a matter of time before someone – Glyph, or, now, hate-filled Lahanis – exposed him for what he was.

Narad, lowborn murderer, rapist, who lied to the First Son of Darkness. Why? Because deceit dwells in his heart, and he will duck every hand of justice. Cowardice hides behind his every desire, and just as he fled retribution, so he created for himself false memories, pillaging all he could.

And yet, it was too late to deny the reality of what was coming. He had promised the Shake to the First Son, but the summons, when it came, would see Lord Anomander – not the Shake – dislodged, made to move in order to achieve the meeting. And in that moment, Narad now knew, he would once more betray the man.

That shore is an unwelcome one to every stranger. But that shore is what we will call home. When you find us, you will answer our need. Fail to do so, and death will find you here. But even if you give honourable answer, beware your back, for there I will be standing. I am not who you think I am. For all my avowals, there is a weakness in me, a flaw in the core of my being. It will reveal itself. It is only a matter of time.

‘Yedan Narad.’

He turned to see that Glyph had approached him from the swollen camp now crowding the glade. Two steps behind the hunter stood Lahanis, the killer who had once been a child of the Borderswords. She had shown up a week past and now accompanied Glyph wherever he went. Her small hands rested upon the grips of the two long-knives slipped through her belt. Her eyes, fixed upon Narad, told him of her suspicions.

‘There are Legion soldiers in the forest,’ Glyph said. ‘They track someone.’

Narad shrugged. ‘A criminal. A deserter.’

‘It makes it difficult for us to remain hidden.’

Narad’s gaze flicked to Lahanis. ‘Then kill the trackers.’ At that, he saw her smile.

But Glyph reacted to the suggestion with a troubled frown. ‘Yedan Narad. Has the time then come to begin our war of vengeance? A thousand and more have gathered here, but many more have yet to reach us. Though we now claim to be warriors, few of us know the ways of soldiering. We remain hunters. Our habits are ill suited—’

‘Was this not what you wanted?’ Narad asked him.

He hesitated. ‘Each hunting party elects its own leader. In the forest, they seek isolation from other bands. Nothing can be coordinated.’

Lahanis spoke. ‘It is simple enough, Glyph, as I have already explained. Call the hunting party a squad, make the leader a sergeant.’

‘These are titles and nothing more,’ Glyph replied. ‘Our habits remain. Yedan Narad, you alone among us understand the soldiering ways. Yet you refuse to guide us.’

‘I told you. I never commanded anyone.’
Least of all myself.

‘He’s useless,’ Lahanis said to Glyph. ‘I have said as much. Leave him to his drunken wandering. If you’ve need of a priest, you have found one, but no priest will ever win anyone a war. I alone possess the knowledge you seek. Grant me command, Glyph, and I will make your people into an army.’

‘You, child,’ Glyph said, ‘have yet to walk the Shore. You remain possessed by hate, and it blinds you to the destiny awaiting us.’

Lahanis sneered in answer to that, and then jabbed a finger at Narad. ‘If this man is witness to your destiny, then it has blinded
him
!’

Already uninterested in this conversation, Narad turned away. ‘Glyph,’ he said wearily, ‘consider your habits when you gathered to hunt the herds. Tell me, did each leader battle the next for command?’

‘No, Yedan. One was chosen.’

‘Upon what basis?’

‘Guile, and prowess.’

‘Take this to your people, then. The Legion is but a herd. Dangerous, yes, but even wild beasts can prove dangerous, so that detail should not alarm you. The enemy will behave just as a herd would, but instead of fleeing the sight of you, they will rush towards you. This is the only difference. Have your chosen leaders apply their guile to that.’

‘Narad Yedan, I will do as you say. Thank you.’

‘You considered that good advice?’ Lahanis demanded.

‘It speaks to our habits, Bordersword. We were not told we must be remade. The Watch gifts us his wisdom. We understand the way of hunting the great herds.’

‘But you will be fighting
here,
in this forest, not upon a plain!’

‘Bordersword, often a herd will break apart, with smaller groups fleeing into woodland. We know to anticipate such a thing. The forest poses no obstacle to our understanding the words of the Watch.’

With a frustrated snarl, Lahanis marched away.

Still behind Narad, Glyph sighed, and then moved to stand alongside him. ‘She bears too many wounds upon her soul.’

Narad grunted, and said, ‘And you do not?’

‘She is young.’

‘The wounds you speak of are indifferent to that.’

‘Our own children were slain. She reminds us of this—’

‘More than you realize, Glyph. Had your children lived, they would be just like Lahanis. Think on that.’

The Denier was silent for a time, and then he sighed again. ‘Yes. You remind me that there is a difference between the wound survived, and the wound that slays. Only in the first is a new hunger born. We speak of vengeance, but even the loss within us is borrowed. So it is and so it shall remain, for as long as we live.’

‘Indulge Lahanis,’ Narad said, closing his eyes upon his own pain, his own borrowed wounds. ‘Her fire will be needed.’

‘I feared as much.’ Glyph paused, and then said, ‘The Legion soldiers in the forest are thinly scattered. Our hunting bands will know how to deal with them.’

‘The habits of the arrow.’

‘Just so. Yedan Narad, do you fear the night to come?’

Narad snorted. ‘Why should this night be any different?’

‘In your dreams, you walk the Shore.’

‘I have told you this, yes.’

‘Will glory be found there, Yedan?’

Narad knew he should open his eyes, shift his gaze to Glyph, and reveal to the man the raw brutality of an honest reply. Instead, he did not move, barring the sudden trembling of his soul, which he was sure none other could see. ‘Glory. Well, if it needs a name … we can call it such.’

‘What other would you choose?’

The death of innocence? The loss of hope? Betrayal?
‘As I said, it will suffice.’

‘Yedan Narad, upon the day of the war’s end, you must lead us. None other will serve. But this day, as we begin the war, you have already served well enough. We see at last the path we must take, to become slayers of men and women.’

‘The same habit of hunting, Glyph. Only the prey has changed. I said little of worth.’

After a time, the Denier slipped away. Eyes still closed, Narad stared out upon a raging shoreline, argent with furious fire. He felt the weight of his sword in his hand, hearing but otherwise ignoring its muted peals of glee, while beside him a woman spoke.

‘My prince, our spine is bent unto breaking. Will you not return to us? We need your strength.’

Narad grimaced. ‘How is it that you make a virtue of my refusal of your lives, my refusing your right to them? For that is what you now ask of me. Stand fast, I will shout. Bend we shall, but break they will.’

‘Sire, you never shout.’

He waved a hand. ‘You know me as a humourless man, and yet you persist. Why dog a beast that never lived?’

The woman – a soldier, not a queen – was silent for a time, and then she said, ‘I took upon myself a family I never had. A daughter. A son, or was it two? I gave them the delusion they desired. They called me Mother. Until their moments of death, I held to the lie. What compelled me to do such a thing? Even now, while my corpse lies rotting beneath the stones the Andii raised about us, the question haunts me like my own ghost. ‘What compels us, Yedan, to so plunder the truth?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing less or more than love, I think. Not for the ones you know and have always held close, but for the ones you may never meet. Or for those who, bearing the face of a stranger, stumble into your arms. In that instant, friend, you draw upon the deepest taproot within you. It has no name. It needs no name.’

‘Then, what do you call it?’

He pondered the question for a moment, wondering at her insistence that some things need be named. Then he said, ‘Why, call it glory.’