Ричард Морган: The Dark Defiles

I, uhm—I think I’ve been sent to set you free.

Something gusts to life in the chilly air. Yes … so it seems …

And if confirmation were needed, here it is; at base, the voice is a match for the hoarse whisper of the Creature at the Crossroads. But there’s something else woven into the tone of it, a limping pain that stings tears into his eyes and a weariness that echoes the voice of the Codes and the Binding Forces, as if somehow, over immense stretches of time the two entities, prisoner and jailer, have somehow interchanged and merged at the edges.

My sister’s mark is on you, the Source whispers. Overhead, the slow weaving of tentacles seems to yearn towards the sky. She has stitched you through at levels that should have destroyed you. Such a doubtful, patchwork scheme. Such delicate abuse of the limits and laws that govern it all. Such … fragility.

Yeah, well, he says sourly. Seems to have worked out though, doesn’t it. You want these chains off or not?

I would be indebted to you for the eternity you must spend trapped here.

That’s what I— Ringil blinks. What?

Was this not made clear to you?

Nothing—no fucking thing—has been made clear to me. Apparently that’s not how things get done around here. I’m just the hero.

Well then—it is simple enough, hero. Like the Creature at the Crossroads, the Source seems able to mock and take the title seriously at one and the same time. Its tone is almost kindly. The only reason that the wounds of the world remain unhealed is that my sisters could not bear to abandon me. They could not, by the laws of their own work, intervene in the repaired scheme of things for me, but they left their repairs unfinished, in the hope that through some small gap or other an escape might become possible.

The entire remaining world is stitched and stained through with that single forlorn, enduring hope of escape.

Ringil grunts. That explains a lot.

But the gaps are all levered trapdoors, set to fall as soon as that purpose is fulfilled. I would escape to the void and my sisters’ embrace, swept there by the act of releasing my bonds. But all else would be trapped in the Grey Space for eternity.

And you’re telling me this … why?

Because it is the truth.

You see, Ringil. There’s a smile licking around Firfirdar’s mouth like the flames that lick at her body. The Book-Keeper is not what she seems, despite her gifts. She has manipulated you as much as any other power, betrayed you, sent you to your doom without warning.

So I should trust you lot instead, right?

We at least want you alive. You should trust that—or at least value it over this offered extinction. Take charge of the Talons of the Sun, Ringil. Leave its power leashed in place to serve your ends. Reach out for the throne of Yhelteth. Become the Dark King, if you will.

It is all we ask. We will take you home.

He nods slowly. Glances up at the slow writhing of the tentacles overhead. The tiny, imprisoned pocket of light and coiling darkness floating in front of his face.

And you. What do you ask?

I am weary, says the voice. A hundred thousand years of wars I wanted no part in, of acting the linchpin for a fantasy of ancient rights and ascendancy based in ornate lies and arrant self-deception. I am weary of it all.

Ringil grimaces. Yeah, you and me both.

He looks down the slope at the waiting dwenda horde. At the expectant Dark Court personages and their eager, welcoming smiles. The silent stones that ring him, the bleak rushing sky overhead.

Could be worse.

Fuck all of you gods, he says tiredly. I’m done with you. Codes—dissolve the bonds, turn the Source loose.

He sees the shock rip across their faces. Firfirdar’s dark queen calm dissolved, Hoiran’s lips peeling back from his tusked and fanged mouth in snarling rage. Kwelgrish, dropping the blood-soaked towel from her skull and he sees the wound, sees how deep it really goes. Morakin’s snakes hissing in unified disbelief with the flicker-tongued gape of his own handsome mouth…

It’s worth it, everything that’s coming now, just to see that look on those faces.

I piss on you all, he calls, against a steadily rising wind. I piss on your smug schemes and destinies and storied lies. Go on—fuck off back to the real world and play your hollow games if you must. Some of us have grown out of this shit.

The Source is released, the Codes and the Binding Force says, and he thinks there might be a hint of relief in its voice. Dissolution will follow. All coherent beings should exit the wounded spaces while there is still time …

What do you think you’re doing? Firfirdar, screaming desperately across the wind. This is insane, this serves no one well. You cannot do this!

It’s done, he tells her somberly. I’d get out of here while you still can, if I were you.

It’s a conclusion the rest of the Dark Court seems already to have reached. They are turning and dissolving away as he watches, Kwelgrish reaching into the wound in her head and tugging irritably at something within, Astinhahn draining his tankard and tossing it away in disgust, Dakovash—does he, for just one moment, incline his brim-shaded face in salute?—Hoiran, Morakin, all of them, even, finally, the Mistress of Dice and Death herself. Twisting, fading, while above them all the sound of the wind is rising to a scream, and something writhing huge and tentacular and impossible to look directly at scrabbles and lunges for the hurrying sky—

And is gone.

Silence slams down across the horizon. The Talons of the Sun wisp away to fragments and then to nothing at all. If the storm-callers of Clan Talonreach were still in there somewhere, then whatever happened to their weapon seems to have happened to them as well. The departing Source has dragged them away in its wake.

The clouds shred apart overhead, the wind drops once more to a keening lament.

Ringil sniffs and looks down the slope to where the dwenda are waiting for him. He takes a couple of steps down toward them, and the standing stones refuse to move with him. They bulk as immovable and impassive as they were the night Seethlaw first brought him inside their scope. Whatever power he borrowed from them is gone now, like everything and everyone else around here.

Oh, well. He isn’t much surprised.

How now, yells the dwenda commander. See, the stones themselves turn against you! What will you do for protection now, mortal? How will you evade the vengeance of the Shining Folk?

Quarter ounce of krin would have been nice, he thinks vaguely.

The sky dims again.

BETWEEN HIM AND THE DWENDA HORDE—A TALL, PATCH-CLOAKED FIGURE, face cast in hat-brim shadow. Dakovash the Salt Lord, back for some kind of smart-arse last word, no doubt.

Ringil raises a brow. Forget something?

Too much, over the millennia. Far too much. The god’s voice is weary, but his habitual irritation seems to have faded into something more considered. But never mind. You asked for this.

He holds out his hand, open. Cupped in the palm sits a dark, gold-grained pellet of krinzanz.

Gil stares at him for a long moment. Then he reaches out and takes the offering, rolls and presses it between finger and thumb until it’s warm and pliant.

I’m not changing my mind, he warns the Salt Lord.

You could not now, even if you wished to. A thin smile in the shadow of the hat brim, as if Dakovash can feel the tiny spike of chill through his heart at the words. The Source was not lying. The gaps the Book-Keepers left are closing fast. Already, they are whorled too tight to permit mortal passage.