Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

“You know”—a studied calm in her voice now, a signal he knew for the warning smolder of staved-off rage—“I am getting a little fucking tired of hearing men explain to me what my real motivations are. If you’re so sure we’re wasting our time, then why did you—”

“I didn’t say that.” He shifted sideways in his saddle to face her better. “I didn’t say we’re wasting our time. Look, maybe An-Kirilnar does exist. And maybe, just maybe , it hasn’t been plundered the way An-Naranash was. The Hironish are tough to get out to, true enough, those are bad waters, so maybe this place has been overlooked. That’s certainly what your merchant pals have got to be hoping. So, sure, I’ll break heads and keep order for you, and I’ll ride along with you when you go. It’s something to do, it’ll keep me busy. But please don’t tell me you really think we’re going to find a bustling little colony of Kiriath custodians up there, keeping an eye on some wet chunk of granite with a tomb on top, cheerfully passing down their mission from father to son for the past four thousand years and acting like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. I mean, is that likely ?”

“It isn’t impossible.”

He sighed again. “No, it isn’t impossible. Very little seems to be impossible in this world. But is it really what you think you’ll find?”

“So, what? You think Anasharal is just making this up?” The evasion was blatant, the scratchy signs of krinzanz denial right behind it in the uneven tone of her voice. “To what fucking purpose , Gil? Answer me that. A cabal of misfit rich fucks, ships built and equipped, men hired and trained, an expedition to a place that doesn’t exist—why would a Helmsman want all that?”

He shrugged. “I think we’ve covered this ground. You’re trying to second-guess something completely inhuman. Why should its motivations make any sense to us?”

They rode on without speaking, a dozen or so clopping horse strides.

“Yeah, well,” Archeth repeated, with evident sour satisfaction. “You’re still going to have to talk to it.”

HE WAS NEVER VERY SURE WHY HE WENT ARMED INTO ITS PRESENCE.

There was a certain dress formality in the League cities for noblemen. War was, after all, their trade, and it seemed appropriate they should represent the fact in public. Before the Scaled Folk came, the tradition had ebbed somewhat. The more mannered among the gentry adopted flimsy court swords with more attention given to their gaudy scabbards and guards than to the plain steel sheathed within. But with the war and the subsequent upheaval, heavy blades were in evidence once more, and Ringil, on his return to Trelayne last year, had found himself unexpectedly fashionable.

But it wasn’t that.

Perhaps, then, it was simply that the Ravensfriend was his link with the world of the Kiriath, his contract of passage and letter of recommendation to everything Anasharal represented. Grashgal forged it in workshops Ringil was never given admission to, out of alloys humans had no names for and containing, Ringil sometimes suspected, mechanisms the Kiriath didn’t like to talk about. If , he reasoned one drunken night on the steppe with Egar, those cryptic fuckers have Helmsmen to help them sail their fireships, why wouldn’t they have something like that to help them fight their wars? Something—I don’t know—something aware?

Egar had cast a glance at the Ravensfriend where it lay on the ground by the fire. He smirked.

Yeah, thought I seen you talking to it a couple of times. Stroking it, like. You want to watch that shit, Gil .

Ringil threw a boot at him.

He put the memory away.

“Talk to the sword all you like,” he told Anasharal evenly. “I’m the one in charge here.”

“Well, if you say so.”

It sat on a low, ornate table, set to one side of the room’s ample hearth. High-angled morning sunlight poured in from the windows in the eastern wall, made odd facets and chinks in its rounded upper surface shine like jewels. Its limbs—if that was what they were—spread out evenly around its body like a marsh spider’s legs, rising to a jointed midpoint, then dipping to sharp ends that dug visibly into the wood of the table top. Archeth had told him it couldn’t move with much speed or competence, but to Ringil’s uneasy eye the thing looked poised to leap or scuttle off somewhere at a moment’s notice.

“Actually, the Lady kir -Archeth Indamaninarmal says so.” He unslung the Ravensfriend and leaned it carefully against one side of the mantelpiece. In the hard, bright light, dust motes seemed to coalesce around the weapon as he let it go. “She’s named me expeditionary commander. And since she has the Emperor’s ear in this matter, I’d say that’s about as final as it’s going to get.”

“And is the Lady kir-Archeth aware of just how popular you are in northern climes at this precise moment?”

Ringil lowered himself into the armchair opposite. “I’d say she has an inkling.”

“And His Imperial Radiance?”

“I could give a back-alley fuck what that asshole thinks.”

“I see. That good old dead-man-walking defiance, too.” Impossible to tell from the tone if the Helmsman was mocking him or not. “Yes, I can see why they chose you.”

“Chose me?” Blurted out, before he could help himself.

“You know what I’m talking about—Dragonbane.”

Breathe. Build a thin smile. “No one calls me that.”

“Shame. It must be upsetting, the lack of proper recognition.”

“Well.” Ringil settled deeper into the chair. Examined the nails of his right hand. “It was a joint effort.”

The quiet stretched. He watched the dust motes dance around the Ravensfriend’s hilt. On the table, one of Anasharal’s limbs twitched. The point lifted fractionally, tapped at the wooden surface like an impatient schoolmaster’s finger.

“The Ahn Foi are not your friends, Ringil Eskiath. You should keep that in mind.”

“I don’t”—despite the cold shiver through him—“recognize that name.”

“Do you not? Try, then, the Immortal Watch. The Murderers of the Muhn . Hoiran’s Band. The Sky Dwellers. The Dark Court. Any of those ring a bell?”

He stared back at the machine, fighting off memories of Dakovash. “I have nothing to do with the Dark Court.”

“Good,” said Anasharal, suddenly brisk. “That’s a healthy attitude. You’ll live longer.”

Ringil glanced toward the hearth, for all that it was cold and ashen at this hour of the day. Fought down a creeping impression that the Helmsman didn’t believe a word he’d just said.

“The Lady kir -Archeth tells me,” he said, “that An-Kirilnar was constructed to guard against the return of an ancient evil. A human ally of the dwenda.”

“Yes.”

“She says you referred to him as the Ilwrack Changeling.”

“Yes.” A certain archness crept into Anasharal’s tone. “Is that name familiar to you?”

Like a blow under the heart, he was back in the Gray Places.

Seethlaw, introducing his sister. Her archaic, mangled Naomic.

I am with name Risgillen of Ilwrack…

“What can you tell me about him?”

“About him?” The Helmsman’s tone was shot through with definite amusement now. “Or about the Aldrain clan that fostered him?”

Ringil manufactured a shrug. “Is there some reason you wouldn’t tell me about both?”

Quiet crept across the room between them. The Ravensfriend stood wreathed in dancing dust and light. The Helmsman tapped the table again—with every appearance, Ringil thought, of pettish ill humor.

“I know what you are, Eskiath,” it said. “Don’t think for a moment that I don’t.”