The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (121 page)

Quentin-Andrew could not be sure how much time passed as he remained where he was, watching the quivering rock and listening to the sounds it made. He did not move forward; all of his training told him not to. Yet he felt oddly empty, watching the gradual splitting of the rock's spirit. This moment, which had always brought him great warmth, seemed cold and hard and lifeless.
The sounds stopped finally; only the quivering continued. Quentin-Andrew was shivering as well. He could barely feel his own hands and arms, which were wrapped tight against his chest. It was becoming hard to remember now why he had come here, and the temptation to lie down on the ground was overwhelming. Then his head lifted, sensing a change; and a moment later the rock unfolded and became a man again.
Under the dim light of where he half-crouched, the Commander's face shone like the moon; it was encased with ice. His eyes, dark like winter leaves, stared blankly forward. His lips opened a small gap as he whispered, "Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir." Quentin-Andrew did not move from where he stood. "I am still here."
The Commander shuffled forward, weighted down by the chains and by the frozen mask upon his face. His body glimmered with frigid moisture. In a hollow voice, the Commander asked, "Why did you betray me, Lieutenant?"
"I didn't betray you, sir." Quentin-Andrew spoke in a flat voice. "I died rather than betray you."
"You—"
The Commander stopped. He tilted his head, looking up at the unending blackness above him, and then down at Quentin-Andrew, standing unarmed and glowing softly, like a shining fish in the dark sea. The pit was utterly silent, but for the sound of the two men breathing. Even the wind scything their skin made no noise.
"You are saying that you are dead," said the Commander in a changed voice.
"Yes, sir."
The Commander raised his hands and looked down at them. The ice on them was nearly as thick as the manacles now, but it was clear, and through them it could be seen that the Commander's skin was smooth and unscarred.
"You are saying that we are both dead." The Commander's voice was once more even and quiet. "I was not captured by the enemy; I died in battle."
This time Quentin-Andrew did not bother to reply. The Commander turned slowly in a circle, his gaze taking in the dark ice that shadowed him. He reached out and touched the wall of the pit tentatively, then snatched his hand back.
"And this . . ." he said slowly. "This is one of the ice prisons at the end of the world, where the enemies of the silent gods are punished."
Again Quentin-Andrew did not speak. He could feel the ice beginning to encase his body, and he wondered how long it would be before he was bound in the pit by the coldness, unable to move or think but still able to feel the heavy ice cutting through his skin. He resisted the impulse to take a step backwards. One of the few virtues Quentin-Andrew possessed, as his employers could have attested, was that he had never left a job unfinished, no matter what the cost to him.
"This makes no sense." The Commander's voice wavered. "How could the gods punish me? What I did in the war, I did for their sake, to bring peace. War is evil – I always said that – but I had no choice in my methods. My enemies forced me—"
"Come to the window, sir." For the first time, Quentin-Andrew's voice sharpened. He had reached the stage he knew well, where time was all-important. Not waiting for the Commander to respond, he reached forward, grasped the Commander's icy arm, and thrust him toward the window.
Time, it seemed, was going backward. Quentin-Andrew could now see the scenes he had witnessed before – the wide arc of destruction growing narrow and yet more narrow, until it began to center on its origins: particular places, particular acts, particular men. The Great Peninsula no longer held any trade routes; this was due to the greediness of the Commander's troops, who plundered the goods of merchants. The Great Peninsula no longer possessed ambassadors or peace treaties; this was due to a peace oath that had been broken long ago by one of the Commander's emissaries. The Great Peninsula no longer contained mighty men and women, capable of upholding the law; their graves could be seen, or in some cases simply their bodies, when the Commander had not bothered to order their burial.
For one brief moment, a corpse flashed by: a young man, his head crushed and bloody, his eyes wide and unblinking. Quentin-Andrew felt his breath jerk in. A flame of pain pass through his whole body that melted the ice forming upon his skin. At the same moment, the wind shattered the scene before him, and the pit was once more dark except for the light from Quentin-Andrew's body.
Quentin-Andrew looked over at the Commander. He was on his knees, hiding his eyes; he had not witnessed the final scene. "I had no choice," he whispered.
"No choice, sir?" Quentin-Andrew allowed his voice to take on a note of scorn. "You had no choice but to do what you did – is that what you are saying?"
He waited. With any other man, he would have supplied the answer, but the Commander was capable of doing so on his own.
The Commander's response was a long time in coming. Quentin-Andrew, shivering, wondered how many centuries were passing by. Finally the Commander said in a broken voice, "I could have retreated. I need not have continued the war. But if I had done that – if I had let Koretia exist under rulerless anarchy or if I had let Emor continue under a tyrant . . ."
"They would have been worse off than under your protection."
This time Quentin-Andrew needed do no more than make the statement. No scorn was necessary, nor any hidden irony. For a moment more – how many years the moment encompassed Quentin-Andrew could not tell – the Commander remained motionless.
Then his hands dropped. He stared unseeing at the scene before him, the scales of ice now beginning to travel over his eyes. He whispered, "Dolan."
Quentin-Andrew did not speak. He was waiting for the heat to come that always came at such moments, like a sun warming a ripening field, or a hearth-fire blanketing the room with its light. He waited, and then he realized, with a grief that cut through to his very bones, that the warmth would not come. It was gone forever, the only pleasure that the gods had ever allowed him during his dark life; even that they had taken from him now.
He might have fallen to his knees and joined the Commander in his captivity. What saved him was his professional pride. He had never left a job unfinished, and though the job was finished by his old standards, he knew that his new employer had higher standards. He said in a level voice, as though nothing had passed through his spirit during the past moments, "Sir?"
"I destroyed him," the Commander whispered. Then, rising slowly to his feet, he looked over at Quentin-Andrew with a face like a man who has seen his death-shadow. "I destroyed them all. I destroyed the Three Lands."
"We both did, sir." It was always safest to be sure in these cases that the prisoner had no route of escape left. "We murdered the Three Lands while their people begged for mercy."
It was then that the Commander did what no man in Quentin-Andrew's hands had ever done – and yet what he did was of no surprise to the Lieutenant. The very qualities that had made the Commander hold out so long against Quentin-Andrew were the same qualities that had caused his soldiers to follow him through sixteen years of warfare. It was inevitable that the Commander's strength would break through in the end, no matter what the cost to himself. Though at this stage the Commander should not have been able to think of anything but the inner pain he was undergoing, he instead turned his mind to a greater concern.
The Commander's gaze took in Quentin-Andrew. He said, "You are not chained."
Quentin-Andrew shook his head. The Commander added quietly, "I am glad of that. Your deeds were done under my command – it is right that I should suffer for them rather than you." He let out a breath, and then said steadfastly, "Thank you for visiting me here, Lieutenant. I see that the gods sent you to open my eyes to my crimes, and I truly appreciate your willingness to serve them in that way. Now you must go, however. While I enjoy your company . . ." His voice wavered for only a moment before he regained control of it. "It is not right for you to stay here any longer than you must. I thank you again for coming; farewell."
He tried to turn away immediately. Quentin-Andrew, seeing the shadow of change in his face, knew why, but in any case the Commander's intentions were frustrated by his chains, which wrapped themselves around his body and held him tight. The Commander began to emit a soft plea to the gods and then fell silent as he remembered where he was.
"Allow me, sir." Quentin-Andrew reached out and tried to ignore the piercing pain as he took hold of the Commander's frozen hand. Under the dim light of Quentin-Andrew's body, the ice encasing the Commander's hand melted immediately. The icy manacle around the wrist remained intact a moment more before a crack could be heard, and the shackle fell to the ground, shattered.
"I forgot," said the Commander. "This is your profession."
Quentin-Andrew heard the note in the Commander's voice, glanced at his face, and then turned his attention to the other hand. After a moment, the second manacle fell to the ground, and the Commander's hands were free. Quentin-Andrew knelt by his feet.
"You need not be afraid to tell me, Lieutenant." The Commander's voice was very quiet. "Did the gods send you here to torture me?"
Quentin-Andrew began to speak, and then waited until he had freed both feet, before rising and saying, "The time for breaking is over, Commander; now is the time for mending. I have come to take you from this place."
"No!" The Commander's swift response was filled with passion. "I must remain in this prison. I destroyed the Three Lands; there can be no forgiveness for what I have done—"
"I see." Quentin-Andrew's voice turned dry. "Is that what you wish me to tell the gods, sir?"
After a long while, the Commander said quietly, "You were always skilled at your trade, Lieutenant. I take your meaning; it is not for me to determine the length of my sentence. You are sure that the gods wish this?"
"Yes, sir. I was sent here for that purpose."
The Commander drew a deep breath, allowing the biting air to fill his lungs. He nodded slowly. "Then show me the way from here. I will follow the gods' will."
 
CHAPTER SEVEN
They travelled over the slick ice cautiously, Quentin-Andrew calling upon his patrol senses to tell him when he and the Commander would reach the stairway. Yet even before the soft glow of his body touched the wall, he knew that the stairs were gone. He tilted his head to look up the side of the pit. The wall was jagged, and when he put out his hand to touch the cold blackness, the ice that burned under his hand was unyielding.
The Commander was silent behind him, waiting. Quentin-Andrew said, in the same matter-of-fact tone he used when ordering the flaying of prisoners, "We will have to climb from this point, sir. Do you think you can manage that?"
"I'm from Marcadia, Lieutenant." For the first time, a note of humor appeared in the Commander's voice, as unexpected as a crocus breaking through the snow. "The question is rather whether you can climb from here."
"Yes, sir," said Quentin-Andrew as he shrugged out from his cloak and reached up to take hold of a solid spar of ice. "I spent much of my childhood climbing in the black border mountains." He pulled himself up, but not before he heard the indrawn breath of the Commander. Never before had Quentin-Andrew spoken to the Commander of his past.
They climbed slowly. The silent winds clutched at their bodies, threatening to throw them to the bottom of the pit, and pieces of ice occasionally crumbled under their hands and feet. Once, only Quentin-Andrew's hand, reaching down abruptly, kept the Commander from sliding down the pit wall. Quentin-Andrew wondered then what their fate would be if they fell – an eternity enduring the pain of a broken back, perhaps? In this place, they would not receive the mercy of oblivion.
The ice continued to burn under Quentin-Andrew's hands. Each breath he took caused his chest to ache from air filled with slivers of ice. Quentin-Andrew began to feel his legs shake, and he hugged the wall closer as he tilted his head. Though no stars filled the sky, he could see the glow around the edge of the pit, as he had seen it in the moments before they began to climb. It appeared no nearer than it had been when they had started climbing an hour before.
The Commander, a body's length further down than Quentin-Andrew, asked breathlessly, "How far have we to go?"
"Not far, sir," said Quentin-Andrew, trying fruitlessly to sight the bottom of the pit. "We'll be there soon."
His voice, the other torturers of the Three Lands had often noted with envy, was capable of conveying the blackest deceit without effort. The Commander, though, was silent a moment before saying, "We're no closer than before, are we?"
Quentin-Andrew leaned his head back to look again at the elusive lip of the pit. "No, sir. We don't seem to be making any progress."
The Commander's sigh was so heavy that it seemed to drop immediately to the bottom of the pit. "I feared as much. Lieutenant, you must go on without me. I'm sure that my presence alone is preventing you from leaving this prison."
Feeling his raw hands scream as he placed them into new positions, Quentin-Andrew carefully climbed down until he was beside the Commander once more. "Sir, close your eyes."
The Commander stared at him for a long minute from under frost-laden lashes, and then followed the instruction.
"Sir, above us is the place where the gods gather." Quentin-Andrew paused, probing his memory for his faint knowledge of the Marcadian religion, then added, "It is the place where all names are known, all silence is spoken, and all that is hidden revealed. In that place is Dolan. He is waiting for you."
He spoke the words firmly, having no doubt that what he stated was true. The Commander's breath quickened. In a shaking voice, he said, "That cannot be. I placed Dolan in your hands; I ordered his execution—"
"Sir, I speak of
Dolan
."
A pause while Quentin-Andrew's hands continued to scream as though they had been flayed open. And then the Commander said, with pure simplicity, "Yes, of course. Dolan is waiting for me."
"Open your eyes, sir."
The Commander did so, and Quentin-Andrew heard the small shock as the Commander's breath hissed in. "Yes," said the Commander slowly, his head tilted back to look upward. "Yes, of course." Then, in the firm voice he had always used before battles: "Follow me, Lieutenant. It is not far now."