Mark Lawrence - Emperor of Thorns

‘The Silent Sister is the one,’ Taproot hissed. ‘Watch her! She slips the mind.’

And true enough, I had forgotten her already, as if it had been just the two of them, Luntar and his queen, approaching. With an effort, the kind you use when confronting an unpleasant duty, I forced myself to see her. An old woman, truly old, like the wood of the Gilden Gate, a grey cloak rippling around her, almost fog, the cowl hiding most of her face: just wrinkles and a gleam of eyes, one pearly blind.

‘King Jorg,’ the Queen of Red said once more as she stood before me, my equal in height. She rolled my name on her tongue — unsettling. ‘And a princess I’m thinking. A Teuton from the look of her.’ She glanced at the Silent Sister, the briefest flicker. ‘But her name can’t be taken. Mind-sworn? A dream-smith perhaps.’

‘Katherine Ap Scorron,’ Katherine said. ‘My father is Isen Ap Scorron, Lord of the Eisenschlo?.’

‘And Dr Taproot. Why are you cowering back there, Elias? Is that any way to greet an old friend?’

‘Elias?’ I stepped aside to expose Taproot.

‘Alica.’ Taproot made a deep bow.

‘Had you been hoping to slip through the gate without seeing me, Elias?’ The queen smiled at his discomfort.

‘Why no, I …’ Taproot lost for words. That was a new one.

‘And you’ll be staying outside with us, Katherine dear.’ The queen left Taproot searching for his reply. ‘With the “tainted” as the Lord Commander likes to call us.’

I caught myself thinking ‘us’ was the two of them, slipping into the conviction then jerking back as you do when sleep is trying to snare you. Focusing on the Silent Sister was hard, but I fixed my eyes on her and set a wall about my thoughts, remembering Corion and the power of his will.

‘I’ve heard of you, Sister,’ I told her. ‘Sageous spoke of you. Corion and Chella knew of you. Jane too. All of them wondering when you would show your hand. Are you showing it now perhaps?’

No reply, just a small, tight smile on those dry old lips.

‘I guess the clue is in the name?’

Again the smile. Those eyes had a draw on them, like a rip-tide. ‘Keep at it old woman and I’ll let you pull me in — then we’ll see what happens, won’t we?’

She didn’t like that. Looked away sharpish, smile gone.

‘And Luntar. I don’t remember you. And that seems to me to be your fault, no? Perhaps you did me a favour with your little box, perhaps you didn’t. I’m not decided yet.’

His face cracked as he opened his mouth to speak, clear fluid leaking over burn-skin. The echoes of old agony rang in my cheek, just as the Gilden Gate had woken them years ago when I first tried it. The fire still scared me, no two ways about that.

‘Would you like to remember me, Jorg?’ Luntar asked.

I really didn’t want to. Would I like to burn again? ‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Take my hand.’ He held it out, wet and weeping.

I had to bite down, to swallow back bile, but I met his grip, closed my fingers around the hurt of his, felt the broken skin shift.

And there it was, a glittering string of recollection, the madness, the long journey tied to Brath’s saddle, raving whilst Makin led us south into the scarred land they call Thar.

Schnick. I’m staring at a box, a copper box, thorn-patterned. It has just closed and the hand that closed it is burned.

‘What?’ I say. Not the most intelligent query but it seems to cover all bases.

‘My name is Luntar. You’ve been sick.’ A smack of lips after each word.

I lift my head from the box, my hair falls to either side and I see him, a horror of a man, a mass of open sores so dense that it is one sore.

‘How do you stand the pain?’ I ask.

‘It’s just pain.’ He shrugs. His white cloak, smeared with dust, sticks to him as though he is wet beneath it.

‘Who are you?’ I ask, although he has said his name.

‘A man who sees the future.’

‘I knew a girl like that once,’ I say, glancing around for my brothers. There’s only dust and sand.

‘Jane,’ he says. ‘She didn’t see far. Her own light blinded her. To see in the dark you need to be dark.’

‘And how far can you see?’ I ask.

‘All the way,’ he says. ‘Until we meet again. Years off. That’s all that ever stops me. When I see myself on the path ahead.’

‘What’s in the box?’ Something about that box makes it seem more important than all the years ahead.

‘A bad deed you did,’ he says.

‘I’ve done lots of bad things.’

‘This one is worse,’ he says. ‘At least in your eyes. And it’s mixed with Sageous’s venom. It needs to ferment in there a while, lose a little of its sting, before it’s safe to come out.’

‘Safe?’

‘Safer,’ he says.

‘So tell me about the future,’ I say.

‘Well here’s the thing.’ He smacks those burned lips, strings of melted flesh between them. ‘Telling someone about their future can change their future.’

‘Can?’

‘Choose a number between one and ten,’ he says.

‘You know what I’ll choose?’

‘Yes,’ he says.

‘But you can’t prove it.’

‘Today I can, but not always. You’re going to choose three. Go on, choose.’

‘Three,’ I say, and smile.

I take the box from him. It’s much heavier than I thought it would be.

‘You put my memory in here?’

‘Yes,’ he says. Patient. Like Tutor Lundist.

‘And you see my future all the way until we meet again in many years time?’

‘Six years.’

‘But if you tell me then it won’t be my future any more, and if you tell me that new future, that too will change?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’

‘So tell me anyway. Then take that memory too. And when we meet, give it back. And then I’ll know that the man who stands before me truly can see across the years.’

‘An interesting suggestion, Jorg,’ he says.

‘You knew I was going to suggest it, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But if you’d told me then I might not have.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what did you see yourself saying to the suggestion?’

‘Yes.’

So I nod. And he tells me. Everything that would happen. All of it.

‘Jorg?’ Katherine pulled at my shoulder. ‘Jorg!’

I looked down at my empty hand, wet, pieces of burned skin adhering to mine. Lifting my gaze I met Luntar’s stare. ‘You were right,’ I said. ‘About all of it.’ Even Chella. I had laughed at that and cursed him for a liar.

‘So now you know a man who sees the future,’ he said.

‘So now you know a man who sees the future,’ Luntar said.

‘A man who looked too far and got burned,’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘And how do we stop that future in which we all burn?’ I asked.

‘It’s unlikely that we can,’ Luntar said. ‘But if it can be done, then this is the best chance we have.’ He handed me a folded piece of parchment, stained by the wetness of his fingers. ‘Four words. Don’t read them until the right moment.’

‘And how will I know what the right moment is?’

‘You just will.’

‘Because you’ve seen it,’ I said.

‘Even so.’

‘And does it work?’ I asked.

A quick shake. ‘Try anyway,’ he said. ‘Not every ending can be seen.’