‘I don’t think we need you,’ she murmured, intimate and low. ‘And I know one way to kill you.’ She drew a wide scimitar blade from her side and pressed its finely honed edge to his neck. ‘Stories are this is one sure way. Want to find out?’
He edged his head in a sideways negative. She nodded. ‘For now. Remember, I’ll be behind you all the way …’ She pushed him with the point to start him walking. ‘Let’s go.’
Pon-lor cooperated, falling into line among the ‘bandits’ as they started off. At first he’d been astounded that Jak had let him live, but now he thought he had an idea of the Bandit Lord’s plans. No doubt he intended to collect a rich ransom for handing over a living Thaumaturg to the Queen of the Witches. This on top of the reward he expected for the yakshaka, should he manage to intercept the witch escorting it now, and present it as his own prize.
Good, then, that the cretin should lead him to his own goal. He’d thought little of his own chances of tracking her down; all his hopes had rested on Toru and Lo-sen. Many would perhaps not believe that a powerful theurgist mage should find himself lost in the jungle. But this was far from their training and expertise, as the ease of his capture had shown. The common villagers would never have dared the attempt, such was the dread of the Thaumaturg name. Yet Pon-lor did not think that these dregs and misfits — bandits! — understood this at all. They’d merely acted out of an assured confidence in their own mastery of this environment — an obviously justified assumption. And in his own concomitant helplessness — an unjustified assumption. Just as misguided as their quaint belief that merely by binding his hands and gagging him they’d rendered him powerless.
For the moment he saw no reason to demonstrate the error of their thinking. Especially when they were leading him to the suborned yakshaka and its captor. Once they had accomplished that unintended service he would regain control of the yakshaka, or, failing that, destroy it, and deal with this Night-Queen’s spy. Then he would allow himself the indulgence of meting out punishment for the loss of his command. In that strict order.
Until then, he would endure these indignities and petty insults. But later these bandits would all writhe in indescribable agony. He would see to it.
* * *
Osserc did not sleep. But he did dream. Waking dreams they were. Almost indistinguishable from mundane seated reality. They came and went like flitting scraps of shadow or idle thoughts passing before his gaze to disappear as if mere blurs against the rippled glazing of this murky window here in the Azath construct on Malaz Isle, which the locals named the Dead House.
Across the table of rough-hewn wooden slats covered in wax dribbles and cluttered by bottles and dusty glasses of all styles and fashions, the Jaghut Gothos was, in contrast, solid and unrelentingly permanent. The soft glow of his golden irises varied faintly as the entity blinked, occasionally. His head was sunk leaving his long iron-grey hair to hang as a ragged curtain. Gnarled hands, all swollen joints and misaligned fingers ending in yellowed talon-like nails, rested motionless upon the table’s slats. Even his breathing barely registered as the slightest rise and fall of his solid wide shoulders. Osserc vaguely wondered if breathing were even necessary for such a one as this.
Clamping his jaws tighter, he now reluctantly slid his gaze to the third party at their table. Its head was of roughly the same size and hairiness as a coconut. A Nacht it was, a strange monkey-like creature said to have once been native to this island. It sat so short its chin barely cleared the height of the table. It was asleep, or pretending to be, its coconut head nested in its arms. Yet this was only its appearance; the thing was far from any sort of natural animal. He suspected it to be a demon, though of what sort he had no idea. Clearly, it served this house — that is, was a chosen servant of the Azath. Similar to the guardians who sometimes manifested to defend the houses.
The creature’s knobby head popped up as if it were preternaturally aware of his quiet regard. Its tiny black eyes blinked sleepily then sharpened. It raised a hand to brush the hairs over its wide mouth as if in profound thoughtfulness.
Osserc let out a loud grating exhalation.
The creature nodded as if in agreement and then switched to pulling on the scraggly hairs of its chin as if stroking a goatee.
He dragged his gaze away to rest upon the grimed and leaded window glazing. Why did the Azath always torment him so? Was this merely a symptom of its alien character? But all that was mere distraction — and perhaps that was all it was in truth. Distraction.
Through the filthy rippled glazing it was impossible to tell if it were day or night over the modest port city of Malaz.
Was this perhaps a comment on how the Azath saw the world? Through a distorting lens?
Osserc sensed beyond the isle, to the south, the potent wintry heartbeat of power that was the brooding presence of the entities known as the Stormriders. Entities of utter frigid ice and rime. His gaze shifted to study anew the Jaghut opposite. A connection? Many postulated as much.
And truly alien. Not unlike the Azath as well. Anastomotic? Perhaps.
Yet none of these lines of inquiry tugged at him. Distraction. It was all mere distraction from the path he ought to be pursuing. He shut his eyes to rest them for a moment and when he opened them once more he found his gaze had returned to the warped opaque glass of the window.
So. Eyes looking outward are blind.
‘What are you thinking?’ came the dry croaked voice of Gothos. It startled Osserc, so long had it been since either of them had spoken. Steeling himself, he turned to meet the bright amber churning of the Jaghut’s eyes. He could not help but flinch slightly from the unyielding demands of that gaze.
‘I am thinking that you are irrelevant. That this creature is irrelevant. Even this construct. All are mere irrelevancies and distraction from where I ought to be looking.’
Gothos raised a jagged fragment of blue glass from the table and held it to one eye. ‘Memories are not the truth of the past. We sculpt them to suit our images of our present selves. And, in any case, the truth of then is not the truth of now.’
Osserc snorted his scorn, but within he felt something he had not known for ages untold — a profound unnerving, as if something he’d thought utterly unshakable had just revealed an empty gulf beneath. ‘You surprise me, Gothos. I thought you of all beings would argue for timeless enduring truths. Bedrock absolutes.’
‘Exactly. You thought.’
He made a conscious effort to move his gaze away as if disinterested. ‘You will hear no admissions from me. No confessions.’
The Jaghut scowled his profound distaste. ‘Of course not. I would be the last to want such mush and mawkishness. Which is perhaps precisely why I am here. As you say — I am irrelevant.’
As none other possibly could be.
So be it. Osserc closed his eyes. The memory of a flash of an indescribable brilliance seemed to blind him then. Ancient ones, such power! Such astounding potency. A young man’s voice echoed in his thoughts. A scream of anguish. Father!
His eyes fluttered open and for an instant his heart and limbs trembled in memory of that fright. He clenched his jaws and shifted in his seat. ‘I have guarded the wellspring of Thyrllan from all who sought to exploit it. Kept it apart. Walled it off at costs few could imagine.’
He turned his gaze on Gothos as if accusing, attempting to lance into those pits of argent. ‘Who would dare ask more of me?’ Yet he found within those pits no opponent, no challenge or quarrel. The flat steady gaze seemed to deflect his accusation upon himself.