Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

But he hasn’t.

And Hjel is gone.

Only the towering edifice of the ikinri ’ska remains.

In the temple at Afa’marag, Risgillen bent over the young boy and placed a calming hand on his brow. The panic in his eyes soaked away at her touch. She leaned close, whispered in his ear, the old, old forms.

She knew he wouldn’t understand, none of them did in this cursed modern age they were fighting to claw back. But it was the best she could do. Honor the rituals, honor the blood, honor the living past. She knew no other way to live. She hoped that at least something in the boy, some thin thread of heritage brought down the long years, would find its way to the old significances and understand the service he rendered, the honor she bestowed.

“Blood of my blood, ties of mine,” she murmured. “Know your worth, and give us the strength, of ancestors shared and stored away.”

She slid her sharpened thumb talon down the length of his arm, opened the artery from elbow crook to wrist. He made a soft, hopeless noise as the blood rushed out. She hushed him and moved to the other arm. Found the artery, saw it through the flesh and sliced it open.

“Blood of my blood, ties of mine. Know your worth, and open the way for us now.”

The second blood vessel gave up its contents. The boy moved a little on the altar, whimpering as he bled out, but she kept a firm hand pressed on his chest, lending him her calm. The blood pooled and snaked about on the worn stone where he lay. Risgillen watched the patterns it made with a critical eye, compared them with the old stains already marking the stone. She glanced down the hallway at the gathered glirsht statues, reached in among them, reached past them at angles the eye could not see. She frowned.

“Well?”

Atalmire, from up in the gallery, flanked by two of his honor guard and that idiot priest. Like most storm-callers, he was impatient at the best of times. She supposed it went with mastery of the Talons of the Sun, the glitter-swift elemental forces you had to command. Bound to make you twitchy, something like that.

She shook her head.

“Something’s not right,” she called up to them.

“Well —what? ”

“If I knew that, it wouldn’t be a problem.” She gave her attention back to the dying boy, smiled absently at him. Stroked his face. “There’s something blocking the flow of force here. Sacrifice goes unrecognized.”

Atalmire kicked at the gallery rail in frustration. “Is this the fucking Ahn Foi backing up on us again?”

“That was many thousand years ago, Atalmire. I think it’s fair to say they learned their lesson back then. In any case, this is not them, it doesn’t taste of them. This is something—”

—else .

Like a whisper in the dusty gloom.

Her eyes flickered back to the glirsht statues and the space they stood around. She frowned. A small wind had sprung out of nowhere, lifting dust and detritus in a low spiral for a moment, then letting them fall. She stared at the dust, puzzled. It was not her doing, and she didn’t think any of the invoked powers were—

“Just a moment.”

Atalmire grunted and turned to speak to Menkarak, who was gibbering at him in Tethanne. Risgillen had no idea what they were talking about, and cared less. Bad enough she’d had to master the bastardized remnants of the Old Tongue they spoke in the north, she wasn’t going to learn this arid pigshit rattle as well. Let Atalmire govern the cat’s-paw down here, let Atalmire call down the Talons of the Sun on this sun-seared desert hell, take credit for it and rule what was left if he liked. Her place was in the north, preparing her brother’s dream of return.

She placed one hand in the puddling blood on the altar at the boy’s side, kept the other in place on his shivering chest. Felt for the shape of the blockage.

“Haste will not serve here,” she called up to Atalmire, breaking up his conversation with the priest. “This cousin’s blood points away from acting now, and so did the last three. Unless we discover why, we risk destroying everything you’ve worked for.”

Atalmire raised a hand to silence Menkarak and leaned down on the gallery rail. “If we wait much longer, my lady, we risk the palace coming down on Afa’marag, and we will lose our gateway.”

“They won’t do that until Ringil’s three days are up.” Risgillen grimaced, reaching again. She could pull no clarity from the mess of resonances the blood offering sent echoing out into the Gray Places. In the last several thousand years of scrying, she could not recall seeing anything like this. “And they may not even act then. The Emperor is cautious in his dealings with the Citadel, he has affairs of state to balance.”

“Our sources say he is convinced of what the Dragonbane has said.”

Risgillen shook her head in irritation. “Our sources say he will not risk all-out war with the Citadel until all other avenues have been explored. That gives us time. At worst, it gives us time to abandon Afa’marag, withdraw, and find another location.”

“That would be a disastrous setback.”

“Oh, don’t be so histrionic.” Risgillen lowered her head to the boy’s chest, listened to the sagging beat of his heart. She frowned again. “It may cost us a year or two. Your pet priest up there is not the only pry-point we have. The Citadel is replete with useful idiots like him. But I’ll tell you this much for certain, Atalmire—you bring the Talons of the Sun through here without the correct opening rituals, you risk the wrath of the Origin. And that may set us back another thousand years or more.”

“Some of us would take that risk,” Atalmire growled.

“Yes.” Her attention jerked back up to the balcony, she stared at the other dwenda with open disdain. “And that alone demonstrates how far we have fallen. Now shut up and let me—”

Smashed bright, lightning flash glimpse —it stormed her behind the eyes —a wind howls across the marsh plain, tearing out the roots of the exemplars, tossing them about, closing their sentinel eyes. Something gathers them in…

Something whose form she’s touched before .

She snatched her hand out of the blood, spun about. The small winding dust devil was back, turning in the space between the statues. Rising now, lifting dust and spider corpse husks, holding it all up, knee height, waist height, chest height and—

Atalmire, for all his impatience, was attuned as any Aldrain noble. His eyes snapped to the dust devil, then back to her. He gestured. “What the fuck is that supposed to be?”

“Something’s coming,” she whispered.

The boy thrashed suddenly under her hand. Her hold on him slipped—he tried to sit up. Eyes ripped wide with knowledge of what she’d done to him. Mouth writhing to form words, a protest, a plea, a curse.

Something howled. Something roared. Something tore the air apart. “Something’s coming!” She yelled it now, into the teeth of the gale pouring out of the rent the tornado had made. “Get your men down h—”

Her voice died.

At the heart of the rising coil of dust, a black-clad figure. Black Scourge steel in hand.

No, that’s not possible . It screamed in her head. It cannot be. He, the blade, we sank it, he is gone, he is not—

The figure lifted its head. Grinned at her. Raised the sword.

“Risgillen! Your brother calls for you!”

Chill shivered through her. Her own blade was on her back, bound in threads of blue light and her own will. She snatched it free and stormed down the hall toward him. Faintly, she was aware of Atalmire’s honor guard leaping down from the gallery, joining her on the temple floor. Only two, but it should be enough. A fierce rage pulsed in her chest, put talons on every finger and drew her fangs down into her swelling mouth.