Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

“…and in return for which services, I was flung up into the heavens by the grateful king, set among the stars to gleam there in guidance for all travelers of good heart forever after.”

“Yeah?” Archeth, riding alongside the sling and its carriers, slouched back in her saddle. “So what are you doing back down here, then?”

There was more snap in her voice than she’d intended. Relentless desert heat and the constant darting glances from the men that wrapped her in with this burbling chunk of sorcery and iron—it all added to her mounting irritability. But more than any of that was the dawning realization that when Manathan had spoken of messengers, she had assumed—rushed to assume—that he meant the Kiriath themselves, returning somehow, in some fairy-tale improbable fashion, from the veins of the Earth into which they had disappeared.

Instead, she had this.

“I really don’t think, daughter of Flaradnam, that you or any of your, uhm, friends here could remotely comprehend the complexity of decision making involved in letting me fall to Earth at this precise moment. Command decisions, I’m talking about, taken in an arena so cold and empty that it would render your body a block of ice in a heartbeat and boil your blood in your veins.”

“I think you mean freeze.”

Anasharal was silent for a moment, motionless in the sag and jog of the horse-blanket sling. Dry, metronome crunch of marching feet on either side—but even the men carrying the sling looked down, surprised at the sudden quiet from their cargo.

“You did say cold.” Archeth, twisting the knife.

“Think what you will.” Like clockwork wound back up—she couldn’t be sure if the voice had turned sulky or was sneering. “It won’t affect anything that matters. Your perspective is as Earthbound as any mortal. I, on the other hand, have seen the rise and fall of kingdoms across the continents and through the ages, witnessed the passing of the Aldrain and the bloody, midwifed renaissance of Men, watched the brief, multitudinous lives of humans spinning by like dandelion seed on the wind, wrestled with the almost—but actually not quite—incalculable mathematics of it all, and I’m telling you not to bother trying to comprehend any of it or me. Just follow my instructions and try to keep up.”

“We are carrying you,” Archeth pointed out.

“Yes, as your horse carries you—but I doubt you’ve tried to teach the beast basic algebra.”

Seemingly satisfied with this retort, Anasharal lapsed again into silence and stayed that way until they reached the boats. There, it seemed to derive a childish satisfaction from startling the marines who crowded around the sling to see what their comrades had brought back. It called various of them by name, asked after their individual circumstances in perfect Tethanne—Ganch, if the reptile peon bite wound in his shoulder still gave him trouble in winter, Hrandan whether he preferred assignment on the river frigate to his previous duties at Khangset, Shalag how he’d found his time in Demlarashan and if things down there were as bad, in his opinion, as they were all saying. It was the most blatant piece of showing off Archeth could ever recall, even from a Helmsman—and like all such tricks, it was spellbinding.

In the end, Senger Hald had to bellow for order over a drawn blade to get his men back about their tasks and everybody onto the small boats.

The good news, though, was that Lal Nyanar had succeeded in re-floating the Sword of Justice Divine . He met them at the hull door as they embarked the horses, rubbing his hands briskly, clearly pleased with himself. Hard sunlight slanted down through the open hatch, caught dust motes dancing in the damp gloom of the belowdeck. Painted a bright stripe across the satisfaction on Nyanar’s face.

“So then. What did you find?”

“They found me,” said Anasharal. “And it took them long enough.”

Nyanar jumped. He stared at the inert chunk of metal the men were carrying onto his ship in its horse-blanket sling. You could see him struggling to make the connection with the irritable voice that had just spoken into his ear.

“It’s like a Helmsman,” Senger Hald told him, stepping off the bobbing small boat and aboard the frigate. “A Helmsman fallen from the heavens, it says.”

“But—so small?”

Hald spread his arms eloquently. Both men looked at Archeth.

Great—like I know any more about this than you do .

She faked a command confidence. “We have no reason to doubt its word. We’ll find out more when we get it back to Yhelteth.”

“Yeah—just—wait a minute.” Nyanar gestured at the men carrying the sling, and they set it down on the planking with evident relief. “We have no reason to trust it, either, whatever it is. This could be a, a trickster demon. An evil spirit enchained in iron.”

“Oh, charming. ”

“It needed us to carry it here,” Archeth said shortly. “I really don’t think we’re in any danger.”

“No physical danger, perhaps. But what of our souls?”

“Lal Nyanar—if Mahmal Shanta could only hear you now. What would he think of the man he once named his most promising student. His most promising… collaborator?”

Nyanar’s gaze flickered back to the Helmsman. Now the fear was plain to see—the mention of Shanta had only made matters worse. He faced Archeth with features set.

“This is my vessel, my lady. My command. If I invite something demonic aboard, who knows what power I accord it over us all. I will not allow this.”

The dust motes danced. The frigate’s hull creaked softly around them in the sun-barred gloom. Men waited, stood there in the cool or crouched out on the bobbing small boats in the heat. They were all watching her.

As usual.

Archeth sighed. “All right. Where’s Galat? Let’s get an invigilator’s opinion on this, and then maybe we can all go home.”

SHE’D EXPECTED HIM TO INSIST ON A CLOSETED INQUISITION, A CABIN alone with Anasharal, or maybe even—to cleanse the frigate of any potentially demonic taint—a tented retreat somewhere along the arid shoreline.

But Galat was almost careless of the details. He suggested they bring Anasharal up to the rear command deck, where the spread canvas shades would keep the sun off but let the breeze blow through. More comfortable for everyone, really. And this would allow those men not about their duties elsewhere to hear the deliberations and be assured that their leaders, spiritual and military, acted in their interests as well.

Fuck me , Archeth thought behind an impassive mask of acquiescence. A true believer .

The end result was that the Sword of Justice Divine sat at anchor while Anasharal was placed on a small ceremonial carpet in the shade of the canvas on the command deck, facing Hanesh Galat who knelt formally on a similar carpet with a Citadel scribe cross-legged at his side. Some murmured recitation, call-and-answer style, between the two men, and then the scribe took up his pen and scroll. Nyanar, Hald, Archeth, and a couple of the frigate’s senior officers sat on cushions in a semicircle around. And a small gaggle of sailors and marines with nothing better to do loitered on the main deck below, listening for whatever scraps of the proceedings the breeze would carry down.

Galat began his inquisition with formal introductions of all concerned, and then went straight into a series of labyrinthine clerical pronouncements. Archeth, unable to make herself sit for more than a couple of minutes, prowled about at the shoreside rail, trying to kid herself that the scratching impatience she felt to get home was not krinzanz withdrawal. Images of her bedroom at home kept spilling into her mind—a wooden box of rolled twigs beside the bed, fragrant smoke through the cool night air, the icy rising tide in her head, and Ishgrim, perched prettily on the bench by the window casement as she sometimes did, or sprawled naked and voluptuous and pouting on the disordered divan the way she never had, but some day, some fucking day…