Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

‘I cannot even guess,’ Old Man replied. ‘But a few will gather. Curious. This usage of Night, Draconus, was without precedent, and the fury of the believers is something to behold.’

‘I care not. Let them worship stone if it pleases them. Unless,’ he added, ‘they would challenge me?’

‘Not you, nor the hand with which you wielded your desire. Instead, Draconus, they weep and seek redress.’

‘As I expected.’

Old Man was silent for a long moment, and then he said, ‘Draconus, be careful — no, we must all be careful now. In the healing they seek, they reach deeply into the Vitr. We do not know what will come of this.’

‘The Vitr? Then they are fools.’

‘The enemy is not foolishness, Draconus, but desperation.’

‘Who so reaches?’

‘I have heard Ardata’s name mentioned. And the Sister of Dreams.’

Draconus looked away, his expression unreadable. ‘One thing at a time,’ he muttered.

‘Much to make right, Draconus,’ Old Man said, smiling once more. ‘In the meantime, my child approaches.’

‘So you ever say.’

‘So I shall say until I need say it no more.’

‘I never understood why you were content with mere reflection, Old Man.’

The smile broadened. ‘I know.’

He turned round then and walked back to his house, the globe following and taking with it the bitter cold, the empty promise of dead air.

Halfway back, Old Man paused and looked back. ‘Oh, Draconus, I almost forgot. There is news.’

‘What news?’

‘The High King has built a ship.’

Arathan felt a sudden pressure, coming from his father, an invisible force that pushed him away, one step, and then another. He gagged, began to crumple And then a hand pulled him close. ‘Sorry,’ Draconus said. ‘Careless of me.’

Half bent over, Arathan nodded, accepting the apology. Old Man had vanished within his strange house, taking the light with him.

‘I’m never good,’ said Draconus, ‘with displeasing news.’

The noses of the horses found the spring readily enough, and Rint leaned forward over the saddle horn to study the stone-lined pond. As Draconus had predicted, there were swifts wheeling and darting above the still waters, and now bats as well. Beside him, Feren grunted and said, ‘What do you make of that?’

A statue commanded the centre of the pool. A huge figure, sunk to its thighs, roughly hacked from serpentine as if in defiance of that stone’s potential, for it was well known that serpentine wore well the finest polish — not that Rint had ever seen a solid block anything near the size of this monstrosity, more familiar with small game pieces and the like. None the less, this seemed a most artless effort. The torso and every limb were twisted, the stone seeming to shout its pain. The scum of dried algae stained its thighs, evidence of the spring’s slow failing perhaps. The face, tilted skyward atop a thick, angular neck, offered the heavens a grimace, and this face alone bore signs of a skilled hand. Rint stared up at it, mesmerized.

Raskan moved past the two Borderswords, leading the horses to the pond’s roughly tiled edge.

Sighing, Feren slipped down from the saddle, dropping the reins of her mount so that it could join the other beasts in drinking from the pool.

‘I think it’s meant to be a Thel Akai,’ Rint finally said.

‘Of course it’s a Thel Akai,’ Feren snapped. ‘All that pain.’ She held in one hand three waterskins and now moved to crouch down at the edge, and began filling them.

Feeling foolish, Rint pulled his gaze away from the giant’s tormented face and dismounted. He collected more waterskins from where they hung flaccid from his saddle.

‘What I meant was,’ Feren resumed, ‘why raise a statue in the middle of a watering hole? It’s not even on a pedestal or anything.’

‘Unless it sank in the mud.’

‘And what monuments do you build on mud, brother?’

The water was cool and clear. Beyond the ledge, the pool seemed to drop away to unknown depths, but that was due to the failing light, Rint suspected. ‘I don’t trust magic,’ he said. ‘And this village reeks of it.’

Raskan grunted at that. ‘I feel the same as you, Rint. It makes the skin crawl. If this is what waits this side of Bareth Solitude, well, it’s little wonder we rarely visit these lands. Or the people who choose to live like this.’

Feren straightened and turned round. ‘Someone comes,’ she said.

Rint thought about spitting into the water and decided against it. He imagined Raskan was regretting his words, since it was likely that they had been heard by the Azathanai who now approached. Still crouching, he twisted to regard the newcomer. A woman of middle years, overweight but not grossly so; still, it seemed she sagged from every appendage, and the roll of fat overwhelming her belt had pushed away the front of her hide shirt and so hung exposed, the skin white as snow and creased with stretch marks. She had, Rint decided, once been much fatter.

The woman halted a few paces away, scowling. ‘You do not know me,’ she said in the Tiste language, but with a thick, muted accent.

Feren cleared her throat. ‘Forgive us, Azathanai. We do not.’

‘The Dog-Runners know me. I am found among them, on winter nights. They see me in the fires they light. I am worshipped and I see the worship in their eyes, the reflected flames of their eyes.’

‘Then,’ said Rint, ‘you have travelled a long way to come here.’

The scowl faded and the woman shrugged. ‘I would choose a shape of beauty. Instead, they feed me until I can barely move.’ With these words she reached to her belly, pushed her hand inside, and Rint realized, in horror, that what he had taken to be stretch marks were in fact scars — now wounds, one of them splitting open as she pushed her hand deeper. When she withdrew it, slimed with blood and ichor, she held in her hand a small clay figurine, bulbous in form. She tossed it at the feet of Feren, who involuntarily stepped back.

Rint stared as the wound closed, and the blood ran from the skin watery as rain, until once more the belly was alabaster white.

Feren was looking down at the clay figurine and after a moment she bent down and picked it up.

Glancing over at what his sister held, Rint saw that it was female, with a nub of a head — barely shaped — above huge breasts and a round belly. The legs were pressed together below an exaggerated vulva.

‘They feed the fire,’ the woman said. ‘And I grow fat.’

Raskan was mute and pale; he stood like a man who wanted to flee. The woman walked over to him. ‘Do I frighten you? Do you not want to feel my weight upon you? The wetness of my gift?’

Rint saw that Raskan was trembling.

‘I could make you kneel to me,’ continued the woman. ‘Such is my power. You think you understand beauty. You dream of women thin as children, and see nothing perverse in that. But when one such as I comes to stand before you, I sense your hunger for worship, even as that hunger shames you. Lie upon the ground, Tiste, and let me teach you all about power-’

‘Enough!’

The command rang in the air. Rint was spun round by it. Draconus had appeared, Arathan a step behind him.

The Azathanai woman edged back, her scowl returning, and with it a spasm of venom that just as quickly vanished. ‘I was but amusing myself, Draconus. No harm.’

‘Begone, Olar Ethil. Skulk your way back to the Dog-Runners. These people are under my protection.’

She snorted. ‘They need it. Tiste.’

That word dripped with contempt, and dropping the figurine Feren reached for her sword, but Rint stepped close and stayed her hand.

Raskan staggered away, his hands covering his face. He almost collided with Draconus who moved aside just in time, and then fled onward. Now Rint could see the Lord’s fury.