Steven Erikson - Fall of Light

‘Draconus has had more congress with Azathanai than any other Tiste.’

‘He surely knows us well,’ Grizzin Farl agreed.

‘Is this some old argument, then? Between Draconus and the High Mason?’

‘They generally avoid one another’s company.’

‘Why?’

‘That is not for me to comment on, my friend. I am sorry.’

Silchas Ruin threw up his hands and leaned back. ‘I begin to question this friendship.’

‘I am aggrieved by your words.’

‘Then we have evened this exchange.’ He rose from his chair. ‘I may join you again. I may not.’

Grizzin watched the nobleborn leave the tavern. He saw how others looked up at the white-skinned brother of Lord Anomander, as if in hope, but if they sought confidence or certainty in Silchas Ruin’s mien, the gloom no doubt defeated that desire. Twisting in his chair, Grizzin caught the eye of the serving woman, and with a broad smile he beckoned her over.

* * *

High Priestess Emral Lanear stepped up on to the platform and looked across to see the historian near the far wall, as if contemplating a leap to the stones far below. She looked round, and then spoke. ‘So this is your refuge.’

He glanced at her, briefly, from over a shoulder, and then said, ‘Not all posts have been abandoned, High Priestess.’

She approached. ‘What is it you guard, Rise Herat, demanding such vigilance?’

Shrugging, he said, ‘Perspective, I suppose.’

‘And what does that win you?’

‘I see a bridge,’ he replied. ‘Undefended, and yet … none dare cross it.’

‘I think,’ she mused, ‘simple patience will see a resolution. This lack of opposition is but temporary.’

His expression betrayed doubt. He said, ‘You assume a resolve among the highborn that I have yet to see. If they stand with hands upon the swords at their sides, they are turned against the man who now shares her dark heart. Their hatred and perhaps envy of Draconus consumes them. Meanwhile, Vatha Urusander methodically eliminates all opposition, and I do not sense much outrage among the nobility.’

‘They will muster under Lord Anomander’s call, historian. When he returns.’

He looked her way once more, but again only for a moment before his gaze skittered away. ‘Anomander’s Houseblades will not be enough.’

‘Lord Silchas Ruin, acting in his brother’s place, is already assembling allies.’

‘Yes, the gratitude of chains.’

She flinched, and then sighed. ‘Rise Herat, lighten my mood, I beg you.’

At that he swung round, leaned his back against the wall and propped his elbows atop it. ‘Seven of your young priestesses trapped Cedorpul in a room. It seems that in boredom they had fallen to comparing experiences at their initiations.’

‘Oh dear. What lure does he offer, do you think?’

‘He is soft, one supposes, like a pillow.’

‘Hmm, yes, that might be it. And the pillow invites, too, a certain angle of repose.’

The historian smiled. ‘If you say so. In any case, he sought to flee, and then, when he found his path to the door barred, he pleaded his weakness for beauty.’

‘Ah, compliments.’

‘But spread out among all seven women, why, their worth was not much.’

‘Does he still live?’

‘It was close, High Priestess, especially when he suggested they continue the conversation with all clothing divested.’

Smiling, she walked to the wall beside the man. ‘Bless Cedorpul. He holds fast to his youth.’

The historian’s amusement fell away. ‘While Endest Silann seems to age with each night that passes. I wonder, indeed, if he is not somehow afflicted.’

‘In some,’ she said, ‘the soul is a hoarder of years, and makes a wealth of burdens unearned.’

‘A flow of blood from Endest Silann’s hands is yet another kind of blessing,’ Rise observed, twisting round to join her in looking out upon the city. ‘At least that is done with, now, but I wonder if some life-force left him through those holy wounds.’

She thought of the mirror in her chamber, that so obsessed her, and there came to her then, following the historian’s words, a sudden fear. Does it steal from me, too? Thief of my youth? Or is time alone my stalker? Mirror, you show me nothing I would want to see, and like a tale of old you curse me with my own regard. She shrugged the notion off. ‘The birth of the sacred in spilled blood – I fear this precedent, Rise. I fear it deeply.’

He nodded. ‘She did not deny it, then.’

‘By that blood,’ said Emral Lanear, ‘Mother Dark was able to see through Endest’s eyes, and from it all manner of power flowed – so much that she fled its touch. This at least she confessed to me, before she sealed the Chamber of Night from all but her Consort.’

‘That is a precious confession,’ Rise said. ‘I note your burgeoning privilege, High Priestess, in the eyes of Mother Dark. What will you do with it?’

She looked away. At last they had come to the reason for her seeking out the historian. She did not welcome it. ‘I see only one path to peace.’

‘I would hear it.’

‘The Consort must be pushed aside,’ she said. ‘There must be a wedding.’

‘Pushed aside? Is that even possible?’

She nodded. ‘In creating the Terondai upon the Citadel floor, he manifested the Gate of Darkness. Whatever arcane powers he had, he surely surrendered them to that gift.’ After a moment she shook her head. ‘There are mysteries to Lord Draconus. The Azathanai name him Suzerain of Night. What consort is worth such an honorific? Even being a highborn among the Tiste is insufficient elevation, and since when did the Azathanai treat our nobility with anything but amused indifference? No. Perhaps, we might conclude, the title is a measure of respect for his proximity to Mother Dark.’

‘But you are not convinced.’

She shrugged. ‘She must set him aside. Oh, give him a secret room that they might share-’

‘High Priestess, you cannot be serious! Do you imagine Urusander will bow to that indulgence? And what of Mother Dark herself? Is she to divide her fidelity? Choosing and denying her favour as suits her whim? Neither man would accept that!’

Emral sighed. ‘Forgive me. You are right. For peace to return to our realm, someone has to lose. It must be Lord Draconus.’

‘Thus, one man is to sacrifice everything, but gain nothing by it.’

‘Untrue. He wins peace, and for a man obsessed with gifts, is that one not worthwhile?’

Rise Herat shook his head. ‘His gifts are meant to be shared. He would look out upon it as if from the wrong side of a prison’s bars. Peace? Not for him, that gift. Not in his heart. Not in his soul. A sacrifice? What man would willingly destroy himself, for any cause?’

‘If she asks him.’

‘A bartering of love, High Priestess? Pity is too weak a word for the fate of Draconus.’

She knew all of this. She had been at war with these thoughts for days and nights, until each became a wheel turning in an ever-deepening rut. The brutality of it exhausted her, as in her mind she set Mother Dark’s love for a man against the fate of the realm. It was one thing to announce the necessity for the only path she saw through this civil war, measuring the mollification of the highborn upon the carcass, figurative or literal, of the Consort, in exchange for a broadening of privilege among the officers of Urusander’s Legion, but none of this yet bore the weight of Mother Dark’s will. And as to that will, the goddess was silent.

She will not choose. She but indulges her lover and his clumsy expressions of love. She is as good as turned away from all of us, while Kurald Galain descends into ruin.