Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1) (32 page)

Art is the language of the tormented, but the world is blind to that, for ever blind
.

Urusander, I see you – I face you now – in the failing light, and you frighten me to the core
.

‘You will not dine with me on this last night?’

Startled, it was a moment before Kadaspala turned in his chair to face Lord Urusander. ‘For an instant, Lord, as you spoke, I thought I saw the mouth of your portrait shaping your words. Most … disconcerting.’

‘I imagine it would be, yes. You have fashioned a true likeness.’

Kadaspala nodded.

‘Will you copy it yourself in the Hall?’

‘No, Lord. The Citadel’s artists will do that. They are chosen especially for their skills at imitation. When they are done, this painting will be returned to you here – or wherever you end up residing.’

To that Urusander said nothing for a time. He walked slowly closer to where sat Kadaspala, his hooded gaze on the portrait. Then he sighed. ‘Where I reside. Do I appear so displeased with my present abode?’

‘I saw nothing of that, Lord.’

‘No, you wouldn’t. Yet,’ and he gestured, ‘you would have me … elsewhere.’

Faint bells chimed to announce dinner, but neither man moved. ‘Lord, it is a portrait of you, by the hand of Kadaspala, who has turned down a hundred commissions.’

‘That many?’

‘Those denied do not announce their failure, Lord.’

‘No, I suppose they wouldn’t. Very well, then, why did you accept this one?’

‘I had a thought.’

‘Indeed, and will you tell me that thought, Kadaspala?’

‘If anyone can prevent civil war’ – and he nodded towards the portrait – ‘it is that man.’

Breath hissed from Urusander and his words were harsh with frustration. ‘This is all madness! If the nobility so resent the Consort, then they should challenge Mother Dark herself!’

‘They dare not, but this does not dull their disapproval – they cut and stab elsewhere, as befits their bold courage.’

‘You reveal little admiration for your kind, Kadaspala.’

‘I have painted the faces of too many of them, Lord, and so invite you to view that rogue’s gallery of venality, malice, and self-regard. My finest works, one and all, the very proof of my genius.’

‘Do you always paint what you see, Kadaspala?’

‘Not always,’ he admitted. ‘Sometimes I paint what I fear. All these faces – all these greats among the Tiste, you here included – you may think they are about each of you. Alas, they are just as much about me.’

‘I would not challenge that,’ Urusander replied. ‘It must be so with all artists.’

Kadaspala shrugged. ‘The artist is usually poorly disguised in his works, revealed in each and every flaw of execution. The self-confession is one of incompetence. But this is not my failing. What I reveal of myself in these works is less easily discerned. And before you enquire, Lord, no, I have no interest in elaborating on that.’

‘I imagine that those imitators in the Citadel will fail in repeating what you have captured here.’

‘I believe you are right, Lord.’

Urusander grunted. ‘Just as well. Come then, join me in one final meal. I believe you are soon to attend a wedding?’

Kadaspala rose from the chair. ‘Yes, Lord, my sister.’

They made their way out of the sitting room.

‘Andarist is a good man, Kadaspala.’

‘None would deny that,’ he replied, pleased at the ease with which those words flowed from his lips.

‘Your sister has become a most beautiful woman, or so I am told.’

‘She is that, Lord …’

* * *

There were people who feared solitude, but Cryl did not count himself among them. He sat astride his horse, the barren hills stretching out on all sides, a warm wind brushing across the grasses like the breath of a contented god. Near a jumble of half-buried stones there was a scatter of white bones, and set upon one of those boulders was the multi-tined rack of a bull eckalla. Slain by a hunter years past, the perched antlers pronounced the triumph of the kill.

It seemed a poignantly hollow triumph in Cryl’s eyes. The ancient tradition of hunting had been held aloft as a standard of virtue, emblazoned with the colours of courage, patience and skill. It was also a hand upon the beating heart of the earth, even if that hand was slick with blood. Challenges and contests of wits between Tiste and beast – when the truth was, it was rarely any contest at all. Unquestionably hunting for food was a sure and necessary instinct, but forms were born of pragmatic needs until such endeavours came to mean more than they once did. Now, hunting was seen as a rite of passage, when necessity had long since ceased.

It was a curiosity to Cryl that so many men and women, well along in their years, still found need to repeat those rites of passages, as if emotionally trapped in the transition from child to adult. He well understood the excitement of the chase, the sweet tension of the stalk, but for him these were not the reasons to hunt, while for many he knew that they had become just that.

Do we hunt to practise for war? The blood, the dying eyes of the slain … our terrible fascination with suffering? What vile core do we dip into in such moments? Why is the taste not too bitter to bear?

He had seen no sign of living eckalla, and he had ridden far from House Enes, far from sad Jaen and his excited daughter, far from the world of weddings, hostages and the ever growing tensions among the highborn, and yet even out here, among these hills beneath this vast sky, his kind found him, with trophies of death.

Years past, when he was still young enough to dream, he imagined setting out to discover a new world, a place without Tiste, without
civilization
, where he could live alone and unencumbered – no, perhaps not alone: he also saw her at his side, a companion in his great adventure. That world had the feel of the past, but a past no Tiste eye had witnessed, which made it innocent. And he would think of himself as prey, not predator, as if shedding the skin of brazen killer, and with this would come a thrill of fear.

In his weaker moments, Cryl still longed for that place, where freedom’s risks were plain to understand, and when he rode out from the estate, as he had done this time, vanishing into as much of the wild as remained, he found himself searching – not for eckalla, or their sign; not for wolves on the horizon or in the valleys; not for the hares and the hawks – but for a past he knew was for ever lost. Worse yet, it was a past he and his people did not belong in, and so could never know.

He had been trained for war just as he had been taught how to hunt and how to slay, and these were deemed necessary skills in preparation for adulthood. How sad was that?

His horse’s ears flicked and then tilted. Cryl rose to stand in his stirrups, scanned the horizon in the direction of the horse’s sudden attention.

A troop of riders coming down from the north. Their appearance startled him. He could see that they were Tiste, wearing armour but bareheaded, helms strapped to the saddles.

The only settlement remotely close was Sedis Hold, at least three days to the northwest, and these riders would have had to cross Young Dorssan Ryl, a difficult task at any time of year, when it would have been simpler to remain on the road on the river’s other side, which would take them down past House Dracons and thence onward to Kharkanas. There was no reason for such a risky crossing when solid bridges beckoned to the south.

Cryl’s mind raced, trying to recall who was stationed in Sedis Hold. The keep had been raised at the close of the war against the Jheleck. A garrison was ensconced there permanently, ever since the defeated Jheleck had thought to resume their raiding – as if the war had never happened.

The riders were drawing closer, but not in any haste; indeed, they seemed to be leading a score of individuals on foot.

Nudging his horse round to face the newcomers, Cryl hesitated a moment, and then rode towards them. As he approached, he saw that those figures on foot, trailing the riders, were all children, and, even more astonishing, they were Jheleck.

He could see no chains linking the captives, and each child appeared to be burdened under hide sacks of, presumably, possessions.

The Tiste riders amounted to a score of regular soldiers, a sergeant and, at the forefront of the troop, a captain. This man’s eyes were
intent
, studying Cryl as if looking for something in particular. Evidently failing to find it, he visibly relaxed, and then held up a hand to halt those behind him.

‘You journey far,’ the captain said. ‘Do you seek to deliver a message to Sedis Hold?’

Cryl shook his head. ‘No sir. To do that, I would be upon the other side of the river.’

‘Then what brings a young highborn out wandering these hills?’

It seemed, then, that this captain was determined to ignore the matter of their all being on the wrong side of the river. Cryl shrugged. ‘I am Cryl Durav, hostage to—’

‘House Enes.’ The captain’s lean, weathered face broke into a smile. ‘Is it a rude guess that you fled the frenzied preparations for marriage?’

‘Excuse me?’

The man laughed. ‘I am Captain Scara Bandaris, Cryl. My journey into the south is twofold.’ He gestured at the Jheleck children. ‘One, to find out what to do with this first gaggle of hostages. And here we thought we’d face another war before the Jheleck ever surrendered a single child of theirs. Imagine our surprise.’

‘And the other reason, sir?’

‘Why, to attend the ceremony, of course. It so pleases me to know that Andarist is upon the very cusp of wedded bliss. Now, will you escort us to House Enes? I would hear of Jaen’s lovely daughter, whom you have grown alongside all these years.’

Cryl knew the name of Scara Bandaris, an officer who had fought with distinction in the wars. What he had not known was that he had been posted in Sedis. ‘As hostage to House Enes, sir, it would be my honour to escort you. I have tarried in these wilds long enough, I suppose.’ He brought his mount round as the captain waved his troop forward once more.

Scara Bandaris rode up alongside him. ‘If I were in your place, Cryl Durav, I might well be seeking an empty cave among the hermits of the north crags. A young woman about to be wed – whom you have known for so long now – well, have I guessed wrong as to your motives?’

‘My motives, sir?’

‘Out into the wilds, alone and blissfully at peace – you have been gone some days, I wager.’

Cryl sighed. ‘You see the truth of it, sir.’

‘Then we’ll speak no more of wounded hearts. Nor will I torture you with questions about Enesdia. Tell me, have you seen any eckalla?’

‘None living, sir,’ Cryl replied. He glanced back at the Jheleck children.

Scara Bandaris grunted. ‘Better on two feet than four, I tell you.’

‘Sir?’

‘Twenty-five whelps, Cryl, that no leash can hold. We shall raise wolves in our midst with these ones.’

‘I have heard, not quite wolves …’

‘True enough. Hounds, then. This tradition of hostage taking, so venerated and inviolate, may well come back to bite us.’

Cryl shot the man a look.

Scara Bandaris burst out laughing, forcing up a smile from Cryl.

Perhaps, Cryl reconsidered after a moment, with jests erupting from the soldiers behind them, followed by yet more laughter, his need for solitude was at an end.

* * *

‘
Where is he?
’

The cry made the handmaids flinch back, a detail that savagely pleased Enesdia, if only momentarily. ‘How dare he run away? And Father does nothing! Have we ceased to respect the ancient tradition of hostages, to so let him vanish into the wilds like some half-wild dog?’ The array of blank faces regarding her only frustrated Enesdia the more. Hissing under her breath, she marched from the room, leaving the handmaids to scurry after her. A gesture halted them all. ‘Leave me, all of you.’

After a lengthy, increasingly irritating search, she found her father out behind the stables, observing the breaking of a horse in the corral. ‘Father, are we to lead the way in the rejection of all valued traditions among our people?’

Jaen regarded her with raised brows. ‘That strikes me as somewhat … ambitious, daughter. Best I leave such things to the next generation, yes?’

‘Then why have we abandoned our responsibilities with respect to our hostage?’

‘I was unaware that we had, Enesdia.’

‘Cryl has vanished – for days! For all you know he could be lying at the bottom of a well, legs shattered and dying of thirst.’

‘Dying of thirst in a well?’

She glared at him until he relented and said, ‘I sent him in search of eckalla in the hills.’

‘A hopeless quest!’

‘No doubt, but I imagine he is familiar with those.’

‘What do you mean?’

Jaen shrugged, eyes once more on the horse as it fast-trotted round its handler, hoofs kicking up dust. ‘This is your time, not his. In fact, his sojourn with our family is coming to an end. It well suits him to stretch his lead, as it does every young man at his age.’