Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

‘I don’t understand — what is this I’m feeling?’

‘Her blessing, child. What greater or more precious gift could you give her, but laughter? Breath of the Sleeping Goddess, you have healed her, Sukul Ankhadu.’

She started as the huge man knelt in front of her, and somehow — though still her eyes remained shut — she saw the glitter of tears on his cheeks. ‘The roots no longer bleed,’ he said gruffly. ‘I thank you, milady, with all my heart.’

‘For this learning,’ she heard herself say, ‘I make payment with pleasure.’

She felt his wry smile and smiled in return.

He rose and together they headed into the passage ahead.

When he took her hand again she welcomed it, though both knew she no longer needed any guidance from him. No, this was more like friendship, and the notion startled Sukul, so that she almost laughed again. Instead, she sent her delight back down the tunnel, back into that wondrous chamber, where flesh and wood were one, and eyes grown shut could see all there was to see.

As they clambered back towards the surface — where dawn’s pale light made a plate of silver-blue above and ahead of them — Sukul said, ‘Rancept, the Deniers who remain must be told of this temple. They deserve that much.’

‘There is no need,’ he replied. ‘I shared her dreams below — yes, it is plain now and I will not dissemble. I am a Denier — though I deeply dislike that name. No matter. In sharing those dreams, I saw a truth, newborn and wondrous.’

‘What did you see?’

They rose into the light of dawn and he looked back at her with a half-smile transforming his twisted features — an expression she had never before seen on him and one that she thought would stop the hearts of the castellan’s guard should they ever witness it — and he said, ‘Burn dreams of a river, milady. She dreams of a river.’

Gloved hands gripping the rope, Risp made her way down the crevasse. Unfamiliar twinges assailed her shoulders and back. Climbing was not a common activity among the Tiste — a better excuse than her general unfitness, she decided. Below her the lantern anchored the rope, resting on broken rock. The air was dusty and chilled by eternal shadow, and she felt a kind of belligerence in this place, as if the stone walls resented her intrusion.

Just nerves, she told herself. And anxiety. The light had revealed no obvious body on the floor below, but it was clear that the crack extended to either side for unknown distances. Risp was certain that no cold corpse awaited her; the clenching of her gut was proof of her conviction. Men like Gripp Galas possessed that infuriating luck that seemed to ride the shoulders of old soldiers. He’d never fall in battle. When death took him he would probably be lying on a woman in some rank bordello.

She worked her way over a sloping bulge in the stone wall that showed signs of scraping, a few spots of blood now dried and black as ink, and two body-lengths below that she reached the bottom, boots scrabbling for purchase on the loose stones. More blood, spattered amidst dislodged rubble.

Looking back up the crevasse, Risp wondered how Gripp had ever managed to climb back out. She then turned and crouched, untying the lantern and taking the handle in hand. The smell of scorched leather came from her glove and she could feel the handle’s heat. Ignoring the faint discomfort she straightened and set out to explore.

No body, but she’d already guessed as much. The fissure narrowed quickly at one end. In the other direction — eastward, she judged — the crevasse continued on, down a sloping, choked floor littered with dry branches, and the remnants of bird nests built from twigs, mud and snarls of goat hair.

She made her way forward. A dozen paces along, the walls leaned inward, tightening the passage so that she had to angle sideways to go further. Feeling the stone pressing in on her front and back triggered a momentary panic, but she fought it down and pushed ahead. The crevasse widened again and here the fallen rocks formed a slope leading upward. She made out a bloody handprint on a stone halfway up it.

Risp followed the obvious trail. The crevasse broadened out still more, and now huge broken boulders filled the space. Dust was scraped clear here and there, on obvious hand- and footholds. Dawn’s light revealed the surface only a dozen paces onward. Moments later she scrambled into the clear. The road was thirty paces to her left, the span in between a wash of sand on which Gripp’s bootprints were visible. One leg had been dragging.

Dousing the lantern, she walked to the road, scrambled up the bank and swung left. Just beyond the bend waited her troop, the soldiers dismounted and still busy building cairns over a row of bodies on the far side of the road. Her sergeant, she saw, was still at the crevasse, squatting and peering down. At a word from a nearby soldier he twisted round to see her approaching on the road.

‘Alive,’ she said upon re-joining them. ‘But bleeding and with a bad leg. Looks like he came back here after Silann left. Where he went after that is the question, isn’t it?’

‘He went after the boy,’ the sergeant replied.

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Maybe he wasn’t just guarding goat and sheep skins, sir.’

‘You think the boy was important?’

The veteran shrugged. ‘Laskan was going through what the fire didn’t burn. There was a soldier’s trunk. Korlas crest, solid blackwood, which was why it mostly shrugged off the fire. But the lock melted. Boy’s clothing inside, and what looked like lead soldiers all melted down into slag.’ He paused, eyes on her. ‘Korlas, sir. That would make the boy of that bloodline. There was a Korlas Houseblade who served as a captain in Urusander’s Legion.’

‘Can this get any worse?’

‘If Gripp collects up the boy and they get out of these hills, yes, sir, it can get much worse.’

‘A highborn child on his way to Kharkanas…’

‘Yes sir, a hostage. To the Citadel. Captain, that boy was under Lord Anomander’s protection, the moment he left the estate. That’s why Gripp Galas was with that caravan of skin-sellers.’

Risp felt sick inside, a strange quavering that rose into her throat. If she gave sound to the feeling it would emerge as a moan. Her sergeant was staring at her, expressionless, and she felt the attention of the other soldiers in her troop — even the burial detail had drawn close. She was tempted to voice regrets that she’d ever volunteered to clean up this disaster. It was Silann’s mess, after all. If that fool were at her side right now, she would kill him. She thought it unlikely that his wife would even object. She’d probably hand me the knife. ‘There were a few highborn serving in Urusander’s Legion,’ she said.

The sergeant nodded. ‘Greater Houses without enough wealth to assemble a decent cadre of Houseblades. If there were a chance, they’d end up with the Houseblades of other Houses. But Korlas was a proud man, as I recall.’

‘You knew him?’

‘Captain, I served under him. Same for Laskan, Helrot and Bishim. He was a good man. Died a hero.’

All at once a new fear took hold of Risp: the loyalty of this man standing before her. ‘You said that Gripp and this hostage cannot be allowed to get out of these hills alive, sergeant.’

‘No sir. I said things would get even worse if they did.’

‘I see. Then what do you suggest?’ So much for exercising the power of command. My first test and I fail.

‘We need to find them, sir. And make it right.’

‘How do we do that?’

‘We let Silann hang, sir.’

‘He just up and decided to become an outlaw? You can’t be serious, sergeant. He still holds a rank in the Legion, and so do half his soldiers.’