Fall of Light (94 page)

Uskan bared his teeth in a smile. ‘They are, but as you can see, it wasn’t easy. It’s a damned good thing, sir, that the rest of those monks went up in flames.’

‘Who killed Sheccanto? Was it you, Uskan?’

‘No. Truth is, sir, no one killed her. She was dead when my soldiers finally broke down the door to her room. Cutter Hisk says the body’s long past stiff, too.’

‘Meaning?’

Uskan laughed. ‘Meaning, sir, she probably died yesterday afternoon.’

‘You find that amusing, do you, lieutenant?’

Uskan leaned his head to one side and spat blood. ‘Those poor monks were defending a corpse. They killed eighteen soldiers. And all of it was for nothing. Amusing, sir? No. Fucking hilarious.’ He paused, a frown settling on his pale brow. ‘Did I say eighteen? Wrong. Make that … nineteen …’

Hallyd Bahann glared at him, until he realized that Uskan couldn’t see anything, because the man was dead.

The commander stepped back, eyed the two corpses facing each other in their plush chairs.

Telra appeared at his side. ‘Sir, we should collect his body—’

‘No,’ Bahann replied. ‘Leave him where he is. For all we know, he and that old man are swapping stories right now. Move our other dead back into the hall. We’re going to burn it all down.’

‘We have prisoners, sir—’

‘Prisoners?’

‘Servants. Children, mostly.’

‘Find them a wagon. Send them down to Yedan monastery.’

‘We’re not going to attack it, sir?’

‘No. They’ve lost both their leaders and that monastery is now full of widows. Let them grieve.’

‘And us, sir?’

With some effort, Hallyd Bahann dragged his gaze away from the two corpses in their chairs. He eyed Telra. ‘We’re heading into the forest. We’ve dealt with the Shake. Now we’ll deal with the Deniers.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I’m field promoting you to lieutenant.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

After a moment, he shook his head. ‘Uskan never really seemed to be the kind of soldier to die in battle. Not like this.’

Telra shrugged. ‘Perhaps, sir, he got careless.’

Bahann squinted at her, wondering, but her face was expressionless, and stayed that way.

EIGHTEEN

T
HERE HAD BEEN AN AGE, PERHAPS A CENTURY BACK, WHEN
artists had turned their talents to working in stone and bronze. As if stung by the prodigious masterpieces raised up by the Azathanai, and in particular the High Mason Caladan Brood, these Tiste artists had pursued techniques to match, if not surpass, the efforts of their neighbours. In the pursuit of realism, and then the conjuration of natural forms elevated into a kind of aesthetic perfection, the use of plaster casting – upon living, breathing models – had been perfected. The art form had burgeoned in a spectacular, albeit brief, flurry of statuary that saw works proliferating throughout the public spaces of Kharkanas, and in the gardens, grand halls and courtyards of the nobility.

But any civilization that saw art as a kind of cultural competition was, to Rise Herat’s mind, well down the road to disillusion, and the collapse of statuary as a form of artistic expression came on the day that a Tiste merchant returned from the lands of the Azathanai, transporting in her train a new work by some unknown Azathanai sculptor.

If the Azathanai had been paying attention to the Tiste sculptors, they had been unmoved. The idealization of the Tiste form, the body transformed into marble or bronze and thereby stripped of its mortality, was a kind of conceit, possibly defiant, probably diffident. The work that had been brought into Kharkanas was massive, wrought in rough bronze. It bore sharp, jagged edges. It writhed with panic and fury. Upon a broad, flat pedestal, a dozen hounds surrounded a single hound, and that beast, in the centre of the storm, was dying. Its companions tore into its flanks, sank fangs into its hide, pulling, stretching, tearing.

Gallan told the tale of a score or so of Kharkanas’s finest sculptors, all gathering in the private courtyard where stood the Azathanai bronze. Some had railed, filling the air with spiteful condemnation, or voicing their sniffing contempt for the raw hand that had sculpted this monstrosity. A few others had fallen silent, their gazes fixed upon the work. Only one, a master artist considered by most to be the finest sculptor in Kurald Galain, had wept.

Among the Tiste, art had given shape to an ideal. But stone never betrayed. Bronze could not deceive. The ideal, made to kneel to political assertions of superiority, had, almost overnight, descended into mockery.

‘By this
,’ Gallan had said,
‘perfection is made mortal once again. By this, our conceit dulls.’

The Azathanai bronze, deemed offensive, had been removed from public display. Eventually, it had found its way into a crypt beneath the Citadel, a broad, low-ceilinged room, now home to scores of other works, that Gallan had named the Tarnished Chamber.

The historian had set three lanterns down, casting sharp light upon three sides of the Azathanai bronze, which someone had rather uninspiringly called ‘The Savaging of the Hound’. He had then circled the work, studying it from varying heights and angles. He had made a window with his hands to block out all but the details. He had drawn close to smell the metal and its patina of greasy dust, and had set fingertips against the verdigris where it coated the beasts like mange.

Despite the steady, unwavering light, the animals seemed to blur with motion, spinning round their snarling victim. He had read from some treatise that, if seen from above, it was clear that the circling hounds actually formed an inward spiral of flesh and rending canines; and the scholar had gone on to suggest – to a subsequent chorus of disbelief – that the animal in the centre, by virtue of its own writhing, twisted form, was itself spiralling inward. The man’s final outrage was to wonder if the sculpture depicted, not many beasts, but one: an animal destroying itself, turning round and round and ever inward into a vortex of self-annihilation.

For the historian, the only appalling thing about the scholar’s interpretation was its plausibility. After all, had the artist not sought to convey a hidden meaning with this scene, the beast in the centre of this violent storm would have been a stag, perhaps, or a bull.

Though he heard the door to the chamber squeal with motion, Rise Herat did not turn round until the newcomer spoke.

‘Here, historian? In the name of Dark, why?’

Rise Herat shrugged. ‘It is private enough.’

Cedorpul grunted. ‘The only spies in the Citadel are our own.’

‘Yes, curious, that. After all, isn’t the purpose of spying the protection of our own people? Have we descended into insouciance so far, priest, as to claim, with a straight face, that we are protecting our people from themselves?’

The round-faced man pursed his lips, and then waved dismissively.

Rise Herat smiled.
‘“Oh deadly language, how so you offend me
!”’

Scowling, Cedorpul said, ‘Remind me not of that wretched man, our court coward, our sneering seneschal of high mages! His elevation was shortlived. I will stand in his stead.’

The historian turned back to ‘The Savaging of the Hound’. ‘Do you recall this, priest?’

‘Before my time. It is ghastly. No wonder it hides here. Only in darkness could you now bless this. Douse the lights – we’ve no need of them.’

‘It is Azathanai.’

‘Is it now? Well, then yes, I can see why you’d be curious.’

‘All the others in here, however, are Tiste.’

Cedorpul waved dismissively. ‘Every fad fades in time, historian. If you would be the purveyor of hoary frenzies from before the age of modern enlightenment, then make a study of this chamber. Line the statues into a library of stone and mouldy bronze. Drag up a desk, light a candle, and pen your treatise.’

‘And what treatise would that be, priest?’

Cedorpul shrugged, glancing around. ‘The past is a litany of naїve expectations.’

‘But at last, we are now much wiser.’

‘Just so.’

‘Well, there are indeed some, even other scholars, who find comfort in the belief that past ages in history can be seen as phases of our childhood, thus absolving them of knowing any better, and thus absolving us, in the present, of any lingering sense that maybe, once, long ago, life was better than it is now.’

‘Is this the reason for summoning me? I’d rather a rough draught on a tattered scroll set upon my desk, where I can get to it a few decades from now, when at last I have the time.’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Rise Herat replied, still studying the Azathanai bronze. ‘But things are not better, are they?’ He turned, waved a hand in a broad sweep. ‘See here, in our Tarnished Chamber, our surrendered ideals. Such childish optimism!’

Cedorpul began turning away. ‘If that is all—’

‘Speak to me of sorcery.’

The priest paused, twisted to regard him. ‘What do you wish to know?’

‘The reach of your power. Your control over it.’

‘And in this, you are taking an academic interest?’

‘No. In this, I work at the bidding of the High Priestess.’

A faint shadow seemed to crease Cedorpul’s cherubic features, as if showing, in an unguarded instant, his old man’s face belonging to some distant future. ‘She has cause to doubt me now?’

‘Perhaps it is our newfound need, priest, to protect us from ourselves. Cast me in the cloak of a spy. Familiar ground to ease your discomfort.’

‘As court seneschal, I will not embarrass her.’

‘Then you claim to some prowess.’

‘I claim sufficient confidence.’

‘I think, Cedorpul, that both prowess and confidence have swept away the young, cheerful man that I once knew.’

‘Is there more you would ask me?’

‘Who is your enemy?’

‘My enemy?’

‘If you are gathering power – those streams of sorcery – against whom will you unleash it?’

‘I am a servant of Mother Dark.’

‘That kind of servant she has not asked for, Cedorpul.’

The priest suddenly bared his teeth. ‘Ah, yes, I recall now. Your mysterious audience with Mother Dark, in the company of Lanear and that Azathanai. But the details of that meeting? Why, none of you deigned to inform me, or anyone else for that matter. I hear that you earned Lord Silchas Ruin’s ire, and even this did not sway you. Thus, a well of secret knowing that you can draw from at will, as it suits your moment of need.’

‘You already know enough. She refused Lord Anomander’s desire to march on Urusander. She commanded him to keep sheathed his sword.’

‘Am I to be commanded to do nothing as well? If so, then let her speak such words to me.’

‘And if I told you that we did not speak with Mother Dark? That our journey ended abruptly, and that we were guided out from that realm by Lord Draconus?’

‘Then you further undermine your authority to advise me on her behalf.’

A surge of anger silenced Rise Herat. He turned back to study the Azathanai bronze, breathing deeply as he mastered his emotions. ‘Authority? Oh how we all strain to see into the darkness, pleading for its heavy but sure hand. Settled well upon one shoulder, guiding us on to the true path.’

‘I will be the seneschal,’ said Cedorpul. ‘I will be the authority when it comes to the collective sorcerous capabilities of the Citadel, of the Tiste Andii.’

‘And whose authority supersedes your own?’

‘Mother Dark’s, of course. I but await her guidance—’

‘Knowing that it will not come. Cedorpul, am I witness to a usurpation of power?’

‘When Lord Anomander returns to Kharkanas, historian, I will announce to him that I stand at his side, and that it is the express wish of the seneschal that he draw his blade. That he fight in the name of Mother Dark. And upon the field of battle, why, there I will stand, with my cadre, to lend magic to his might.’

Rise Herat focused anew on ‘The Savaging of the Hound’. He could almost hear its howls.
Not many, but one. And no end to this violence but death’s sure promise. That merchant. She said that she’d paid nothing for it. That the unknown sculptor among the Azathanai offered it as a gift to the Tiste.

Ideals are like a bitch hound. What she spawns might prove vicious. What she spawns might, in time, turn upon her. Is this what this work announces? No, but I will read into it what I choose, and by that choice, the language of art can never die. All it takes is a little effort.

But then, whenever has that exhortation convinced anyone?

After a long moment, Cedorpul said, ‘Report back to the High Priestess. Ensure that she understands.’

‘Of course.’

He listened to the man walk away, the echoes of his footfalls filling the unlit spaces between marble and bronze.

Chambers that came to house forgotten works of art, Rise Herat reflected, were little more than repositories of sorrow, and all the more heartbreaking if this was where innocence was lost. He decided that he would not return.

  *   *   *

The door had been left ajar and the boy had followed the dog into the room, surprising Emral Lanear where she sat behind veils of smoke, the huge filigreed bowl of the water-pipe on the table at her side, heavy and gravid with its sly promise. Lids low, playing the mouthpiece across her lips, she observed her unexpected guests.