Ричард Морган: The Dark Defiles

Taking a risk coming back then, aren’t you?

A modest gesture. Nothing I can’t handle. Could use the exercise, to be honest.

Ringil thumbs the krin into his mouth and chews it down to mulch. He nods at the dwenda waiting below.

What about them?

The Salt Lord considers. Oh, some among them maybe. The very strongest might find a way back if they’re quick about it. But wherever they finally wash up, it won’t be in your world. They’re broken there as a force.

All according to plan, eh? He can’t quite keep the bitterness from his voice.

According to one plan, yes. Though the truth is you could equally have ended up their glorious leader.

I nearly fucking did.

Dakovash smiles again beneath the hat. No, I mean you, Ringil Eskiath— you could have ended up leading the dwenda to victory against the south. It was one possible outcome we foresaw. Or equally, you saved the Empire and sat on its throne, but with a shadow guard of dwenda to watch over you by night and strike terror in the hearts of your subjects. You used them to tear the Citadel apart, and in the gap left by the Revelation, we entered back in.

There were so many plans, so many possibilities, so many endings. You gave us this one. In the end, the Book-Keeper saw you more clearly than we gave her credit for.

You don’t look too upset about it.

A divine shrug. The game plays out. Some you win, some you lose. No god could take a more precious attitude and survive.

The others seemed pretty pissed off.

Yeah, they’ll get over it.

Ringil rubs the last grainy traces of the krin into his gums with a finger. The drug’s icy fire is already kindling in his head. Why are you helping me? Why come back like this?

Why? Did you not know that among the Majak, I am thought the most wildly capricious and impulsive of the Sky Dwellers?

Yeah, and your reputation in the Dark Court isn’t very much better. That’s not an answer.

Well. Dakovash’s smile is back, and this time Gil thinks he sees a sadness in it. Let’s just say you remind me of … someone I knew, a very long time ago.

Wildly capricious and nostalgic, then.

The god inclines his head. If you like.

Do me a favor out of nostalgia, would you?

A favor? Dakovash coughs on a laugh. It’s a little late in the day for that, my lord Fuck-all-you-Gods. I can’t get you out of this one, I already told you that.

That’s not what I’m asking for. He hesitates a moment, thinking it through. How it might be done. Outside Hinerion, you gave me a shadow guard of your own. A cold command, the Book-Keeper called them—

Yes, the boy, the smith, the swordsman. Quite a neat little symbolic bundle, I thought. Nice resonances. So what of them?

They’ve served me well. Saved my life more than once.

Yes, that was the idea.

They’ve done enough. Can you release them now?

Release them? And now, in the rising, incredulous tone, he thinks he hears something of the old Dakovash leaking back through, the bad-tempered, impatient god he’s dealt with before. What do you think this is, a fucking fairy tale? No, I can’t release them, they’re already fucking dead. They’re ghosts. They’re haunting you, precisely because they have nowhere else to go. You want them released, as you put it, then get on down this hill and get yourself killed. When you cease, so will they.

Right. Guess it was stupid, thinking a lord of the Dark Court could do anything useful for me.

Don’t you fucking start with that.

Quarter of cheap krin—that’s about as far as your demonic powers stretch, is it?

I said—

What are you, a god or a fucking drug dealer?

That is enough! An arm swings up, one gnarled, pointing finger inches from his face. You locked yourself in here, not me. You made the big gesture. Told us all to go fuck ourselves. Don’t come whining to me about the consequences.

That old nostalgia not what it used to be, eh?

ASK ME FOR SOMETHING IN THE REAL WORLD AND I WILL DELIVER IT!

Black lightning forks through the air around them. The ground shivers. Beneath the god’s hat brim, the eyes kindle like the fire in the pit at An-Monal.

Ringil grins into it. Excellent. Then I ask you to watch over Archeth Indamaninarmal and Egar Dragonbane, wherever they are. Keep them both safe from harm.

The pointing arm drops as if severed. What?

You heard me. And try to keep your shit a little tighter than you did with Gerin Trickfinger.

Dakovash makes a noise in his throat like rocks coming apart. He swings away from Gil, and the same black lightning shimmers suppressed in the air around him. His shoulders seem to hunch under the battered and patched leather coat, far more than a human frame would allow. Ringil thinks he hears bones, cracking. The voice comes out a gritted whisper.

You think you’ll … trick me like this? You think you’re going to stand here on the precipice of your own mortality and drive slick bargains with the gods?

I think I already have, Ringil tells him soberly. What’s a god’s word worth these days?

The Salt Lord comes back around, and for just a moment Gil thinks he sees something unhuman writhing for escape under the hat brim. Then it’s gone and only the burning bright eyes are left to show he’s facing anything other than a man.

Dakovash stalks a tight circle around him. Leans in at his shoulder.

I am the most wildly capricious of the Sky Dwellers. His voice is a serpent hiss. What’s to say I am bound to the promises I make?

You shouted it loud enough for us all to hear.

And who else do you think is here to listen? The Salt Lord prowls around him again, gestures at the dimmed earth and sky, the locked moment they stand within. What power do you think there is that will force me to honor this?

Ringil summons a shrug. The Book-Keepers, perhaps? In the end, it doesn’t matter. You and I both heard it. You and I both know.

Yes, well you’ll be dead shortly. And I’ve been known to keep secrets.

From yourself?

Oh, you’d be surprised what a god can manage to forget.

Haven’t forgotten that old friend I remind you of, though. Have you?

A long pause. I didn’t say he was a friend.

Ringil says nothing. The god continues to circle him, like some wolf around a treed quarry.

You’re wasting your time asking favors for the Dragonbane. A cruel smile glimmers up in the hat brim shadow. He’s dead. Eaten down to the bone by dragon venom in the Kiriath Wastes.

It’s a pike-butt blow to the sternum, for all he already sensed the truth. Gil tenses his whole body against it and still he feels himself staggered. He reaches for the krin-fire in his head and belly, lets it bear him up. One day or another, Gil, it comes to us all. Dragonbane just beat you to it. Like the death blow on that dragon down in Demlarashan. He just got there first, is all.

He looks up at the Salt Lord. Meets the burning eyes and puts on a killing smile.

Hey, Dakovash—fuck you, too.

Oh, I’m sorry. Did I upset you? Guess you forgot, I’m not your fairy fucking godmother. I’m a demon god, a lord of the Dark Court.

Down at his side, Gil thinks he feels the Ravensfriend shiver impatiently. He glances at the glimmering blade and keeps his smile.