Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

There’s a gauzy wrap of cobwebs spun down from the top and outward like some diaphanous triangle of sail run up the signpost’s mast. Marsh spiders hang in the gray midst of it, fist-sized and smaller, motionless, tending the strands with long poised forelegs. Ringil feels a sympathetic stab in his belly where the wound is…

It won’t kill you, hero .

Clicking, crow-rasp, indrawn breath of a voice.

Another stab in the belly as he realizes that what he’s taken for a mound is in fact something sat at the base of the signpost, something cowled and swathed in dark rags and so hunched and bent over that he can’t believe it just spoke.

Then it lifts its head and looks at him.

Later, he will be unable to remember exactly what it looked like under the cowl. He’ll recall only the way he steels up and looks back into the —what color were they? what shape? how many of them ?—unblinking eyes.

Who told you I’m a hero?

The thing in the rags grunts. Nothing but heroes in this dump. The whole place stinks of them. Like fish heads on a midden heap .

That doesn’t make me one of them .

Does it not? Some rattling sound that might be a chuckle, might equally be a sigh. The rags move, as if at the rearranging of lengthy, arthritic limbs beneath. Let’s see, shall we. Face scarred in betrayal, broadsword gifted by a race now gone from the world, a trail of corpses and dark eddies behind you like bread crumbs off a baker’s wagon. Who do you think you’re kidding, sunshine?

Very good . Aristo disdain cloaking his unease at the sensation that there are far more than two arms working beneath the restless shift of those rags. Am I supposed to be impressed? I’ve seen better readings than that from the crones at Strov market. Will you scry a hero’s future for me now as well?

As you wish .

And out of the rags, suddenly, there’s a big leather-bound tome cracked open, and clawed, bony fingers—or maybe just claws?—turning the vellum sheets within. The cowl dips, the gaze pores over pages, the taloned fingers leaf.

Here you are . The voice grows mockingly sonorous. Ringil of the cursed blade Ravensfriend, exiled and troubled scion of the northern house Eskiath, reached out and made the clasp with the Rightful Emperor of All Lands. There was blood on the exile’s face and in his hair, the marks of battle all over his body, but his grip was still strong and the Emperor grinned to feel that strength. My royal brother, he laughed. Well met. Well—

Ringil must have snorted. The beady gaze flickers up at him. No?

Doesn’t sound very likely .

Very well . The parched scratch of a page turning. Try this, then. Ringil Angel Eyes rode in sunlit triumph under the high arch of the eastern gate, where he had caused the punishment cages to be cast down and broken apart. At his back marched a double file of the Vanishing Folk, wondrous to behold, and the people of Trelayne fell to their knees in—

The Vanishing Folk? In sunlight?

The cowled head cocked. You’re right. That’s a transcription error. Ringil Angel Eyes rode in band lit triumph under—

That’s enough . Voice harsh now, because a sudden unlooked-for ache has crept up into his throat.

It is a happy ending .

I don’t fucking care. The Vanishing Folk wouldn’t follow me anywhere except to slit my throat. I betrayed them, I betrayed—

He shuts his mouth with a snap.

Silence.

The cold sift of the wind, stirring his hair. He finds, abruptly, that it hurts him to swallow. The creature at the base of the signpost makes a throat-clearing sound. Turns the page.

All right. Ringil Angel Eyes, the farmboy who had now risen to become both master mage and king—

Farmboy? Fucking farmboy?

Ringil finds his anger and the hilt of the dragon-tooth dagger simultaneously. Or maybe it’s not rage, maybe it’s just a vast impatience, finally, with this place and all it implies. He drops into a crouch before the ragged figure, jabs the yellowed blade in under what might—or might not—be a chin.

Suppose you turn the page and just tell me the fastest way I can get out of here .

The mound of rags shifts, writhes, and here come the arms, oh yes, another six of them besides the two that hold the book, taloned at the ends, flexing up and out like some obscene unfolding puppetry, he feels two of them settle on his back just below the shoulder blades, pressing in and up like hooks. Another two, tickling in under the ribs at the meat of his waist. One of the remaining spares pats him companionably on the shoulder. The other creeps around under his chin and lifts it slightly on one cold, hooked talon.

I should hate to tear you asunder , the voice says sibilantly. You show a lot of promise .

The stone circle flickers into existence, but it will not serve—the creature he’s crouched eye-to-eye with is already well inside that space. Ringil can smell it now, a mingling of odors like damp stone and parchment and thick, fresh ink. An odor that might belong to the book as much as the taloned thing that holds it.

Ringil purses his lips, mouth dry. He considers the dragon-tooth blade for a moment.

Lowers it.

The hooks at his shoulder blades ease their touch; the ticklish pressure at his waist withdraws. Limbs folding down, and away. But the talon at his chin remains.

Ringil Eskiath , the voice resumes. Came down the gangplank of the Famous Victory None Foresaw and joined the bright, brawling chaos on the wharf. Sunlight shattered across the water, slammed glints into his narrowed eyes. The Black Folk Span held the sky to the south like a massive slice of shadow dropped across the estuary. It was better than a mile upriver from where he’d disembarked, but you could sense the cool of its shade from here, beckoning you on .

Does that suffice?

Ringil nods gingerly. His voice comes hoarse and dry. Sounds good, yeah .

The talon comes out from under his jaw, trails lightly up his cheek, and then lifts away. Ringil tries to rise from his crouch, but another swift tap on his shoulder stops him. He waits again. The creature makes another throat-clearing sound, though from what Ringil has now seen, he’s not convinced it has a throat to clear.

Well, the merroigai speak highly of you. And I should not like you, at this crossroads, to think ill of me. It is that way .

One bone-pale arm scissors out across his vision, gestures to the right.

What is?

What you seek, hero. Brief comfort, and a way out .

HE’S FORGOTTEN THE FIRELIGHT FLICKER ON THE SKY.

Now, as if freshly unveiled, it shows up as a solid glow along the path to his right. He’d swear it was not that close before. Or maybe the sky, for cycles and reasons of weather he cannot begin to fathom, is actually darkening now toward some kind of night.

He walks an increasingly defined road, paving broad enough for a farmer’s cart, and he can see the ancient runnels where generations of such traffic have worn their mark. His boot heels tock solidly, send odd echoes scurrying away across the marsh, and he feels a faint prickling at his nape, as if at any moment he’ll hear other, stilted-scuttling steps mingled with his own, the creature at the crossroads rushing to catch up, to rise behind him, mouthparts splitting apart, talons unfolding once more, suddenly unforgiving of Ringil’s prior discourtesy and dragon-knife nerves…

Instead, the broad path takes him in amid the ruins of a city; windswept terraces of broken stone, the snapped stumps of pillars, huge tilted mausoleum blocks carved with rows of symbols he can’t read but whose chiseled march makes him shiver more than spider-bite fever and the gray marsh weather would rightly explain. And now there are steps on the left, broad, shallow ledges of them, worn wax-smooth and uneven with age, dripping down to the level of the road he’s on. He looks up their sweep and the fireglow jumps and gutters at the top, strong against a sky now undoubtedly darkening. He hears the pluck of a stringed instrument, human voices raised in laughter and undisciplined efforts at song.