Ian Esslemont - Stonewielder

The man’s lower lip began to tremble. Tears started from his eyes. He wiped his face with a fisted knot of cloth. ‘It’s gone,’ he wailed. ‘Gone!’

The sergeant made a face. ‘Pull yourself together, man. What d’you mean, gone? You can’t have spent it already — have you?’

‘No!’ Estiel leaned forward, lowering his voice. ‘It was stolen. I was robbed!’

‘Robbed?’

‘Yes! He jumped out upon us in the forest-’

‘He? One man? You, with all your guards?’

‘Yes!’

The sergeant crossed his arms, eyed the man as if disappointed. ‘You’ll have to do better than that.’

The one-time Lord Mayor reached out a hand, beseeching. ‘Truly! He overcame the guards, picked up the chest and walked off into the woods

…’ His voice dwindled away into an awed silence as if even now he could not believe what he had seen.

The sergeant snorted his scorn. ‘No one man could overcome all your guards then walk off into the wilds with one of those huge chests — they’re made of iron!’

‘I’m telling you he did!’ Furious, Estiel attempted to push himself up, only to slump back into the chair, on the verge of weeping. ‘The guards took what was left and deserted me — the ungrateful bastards! Now here I am. Stranded. Penniless.’

‘Stranded no longer.’ The sergeant waved his men forward. Two grasped the thick furred shoulders of the cloak and heaved the man up. ‘We’ll find out where you buried all that coin. Don’t fool yourself.’

As the man was dragged off he raged at the sergeant. ‘No! I’m telling you! He stole the chest. He’s the thief! Not me! And he was a giant of a fellow. A giant!’

In the midst of a grassed slope beneath the gleaming snow-topped Iceback range, Ivanr stopped walking. Idly rubbing his chest, he turned to the mule train of followers tagging along behind — the last clinging remnants he could not shake off. They attended the two wagons of their blessed martyrs: the Priestess and Black Queen. ‘Here,’ he told the girl close behind.

‘Here?’ she repeated, uncertain, peering around. ‘But there’s nothing here!’

‘We’ll raise a modest building… a monastery, I guess, is what it’ll have to be.’

‘You would live here, so far from the capital? Please return with us, Deliverer. You must rule.’

Ivanr growled something deep in his throat. Weren’t they through with this? ‘No. Everyone should know their limitations. I’m no ruler. I’m just… a gardener.’

‘We will build the mightiest monastery in the world! Eclipsing even Banith!’

Ivanr waved his hands. ‘No! No… just a small building. With a garden.’

‘And training grounds for weapon practice,’ and she raised the staff she still carried.

Ivanr felt his shoulders falling but he fought against it and smiled his encouragement. ‘Well, think of it more as a kind of meditation…’

Kiska awoke lying on a sand beach. She blinked, staring up at an empty night sky. Completely empty. Not overcast nor occluded by clouds, but clear and open yet pitch dark. A night sky utterly devoid of stars.

Strange. Was she in Kurald Galain, the Warren of Elder Night?

She sat up. Her staff lay nearby in the sand. And what strange sand… it too was black, yet as fine as any sand she’d felt. She stood. A surf broke gently against the charcoal shore. Kiska stared amazed: a sea of white light. Liquid brilliance shimmering and lapping, no different from any other sea. It extended out to a strange horizon that seemed to go on to a dizzying extent.

I’ve gone insane.

To one side a headland of rock extended out into the sea of light. Thankfully, it held a green-grey hue in contrast to the stark black and white all around. A figure was approaching from that headland, arms out, smiling beneath his moustache: Leoman.

She set her hands on her hips. ‘Where in Hood’s Realm are we?’

He gave a maddeningly unconcerned shrug. ‘Not there, I assure you.’

‘Then where?’

He raised his arms, turning full circle. ‘Welcome to what I call… the Shores of Creation.’

Something told her that the man might be right. ‘And what are we going to do here? How do we get out?’

Leoman raised a finger. ‘Ah! I was going to ask a fellow… but I’m having a hard time getting his attention.’ He gestured up high into the sky.

Kiska stared, squinting. ‘Who?’ Then movement — something enormous ponderously shifting above. A giant. And not some Toblakai or Thelomen. A titanic being the size of a mountain straddling the shore. Kiska knew that if she were next to his foot she wouldn’t even be able to see over his toe. And he, or it, was doing something: moving or carrying a huge boulder the size of a fortress…

Kiska found herself sitting once more on the sands.

Leoman was sitting next to her. He nodded. ‘Yes. I did that too.’

She sank her head into her hands. Gods! She was lost! Utterly lost! Her quest to save Tayschrenn a failure! Hadn’t the Queen of Dreams foreseen this? Why did she send her? She was… gods… she was castaway!

To her horror she felt tears burning up within her eyes and she swiped at them, furious. Beside her Leoman sighed with pleasure and lay back. He folded his arms behind his head.

She glared at him, snapping, ‘What are you so pleased about?’

He took a deep calming breath. ‘Kiska, I’ve made a lot of enemies over the course of my life…’

‘I’m sure of that,’ she muttered.

‘… and I feared I’d never be free of them all. Yet,’ and he gestured around, ‘here I am! Finally able to sleep utterly at ease. Completely free of fear! What a blessing!’ And he closed his eyes.

Kiska stared, unbelieving. Now she knew it was worse. It wasn’t that she was castaway. It was that she wasn’t alone. She was with him. This useless, lazy, unmotivated lump.

She pushed herself up. ‘Well I’m not content to do nothing here. I’m going to find a way out.’

He made a noncommittal noise, his eyes closed.

Kiska stalked off. Useless shit! Why should she have to do all the work?

Behind her, lying on the sand, a smile crept up Leoman’s lips.

The Shadow priest, Warran, stood alone on a modest slope watching the Liosan army, battered but victorious, come staggering back to their camp. He saw their leader, the ferocious Tiste Liosan woman, another daughter of the Ascendant Osserc, come limping back, supporting her brother L’oric, his nose, mouth and shirt-front dark with blood.

There. Well. That’s one thing settled, at least!

He held his hand out and a short walking stick appeared. He leaned upon it. His expression was one of satisfied contemplation.

‘Aren’t you done here yet?’ someone asked next to him.

He looked to the empty sky, then glanced to one side. It was a slim man in a loose dark shirt and trousers, with a rope draped round his neck which he held in both hands. ‘It just so happens that yes, I am.’

‘Thank the Ancients — you’ve wasted enough attention here.’

‘The creeping loss of Emurlahn is not to be ignored.’ He raised a finger. ‘No one steals from me. Not even a fish.’

The other furrowed his thin brows, opened his mouth to make a comment, reconsidered. ‘Well, this was never a threat.’

‘You are too sure of yourself.’

‘My confidence has gotten us where we are.’

‘As has my wariness and paranoia!’

Each glared at the other until Warran’s slit gaze slid aside and he murmured, ‘At least I think so…’

The other began fading away. ‘We’re too busy for this…’

Warran let out a tired breath, began thinning into transparency as if wafting away into shreds of shadow. ‘But I was enjoying the unravelling of the Whorl, the desolate landscape, the useless flailing of the Liosan…’