He twisted in his saddle and studied the cloudless sky. ‘The ones Silchas Ruin spoke of? I see nothing-’
‘They come.’
‘To fight?’
‘No. They were fools once, but one must assume that dying has taught them a lesson.’ She paused, and then added, ‘Or not.’
Motion in the wiry grasses caught his eye. A lizard-no-‘Witch, what is that?’
Two skeletal creatures-birds?-edged into view, heads ducking, long tails flicking. They stood on their hind legs, barely taller than the grasses. Leather and gut bindings held the bones in place.
When the first one spoke, the voice formed words in his head. ‘Great One, we are abject. We grovel in servitude-’
The other cut in, ‘Does she believe all that? Keep trying!’
‘Be quiet, Telorast! How can I concentrate on lying with you barging in all the time! Now shhh! Oh, never mind, it’s too late-look at them, they can both hear us. You, especially.’
The creature named Telorast had crept closer to Olar Ethil, almost on all fours. ‘Servitude! As my sister said. Not a real lie. Just a… a… a temporary truth! Allegiance of convenience, so long as it’s convenient. What could be more honest?’
Olar Ethil grunted and then said, ‘I have no need of allies among the Eleint.’
‘Not true!’ cried Telorast.
‘Calm down,’ hissed the other one. ‘This is called bargaining. She says we’re useless. We say we don’t really need her help. She says-well, something. Let’s wait to hear what she says, and then we say something back. Eventually, we strike a deal. You see? It’s simple.’
‘I can’t think!’ complained Telorast. ‘I’m too terrified! Curdle, take over-before my bones fall apart!’
The one named Curdle snapped its head back and forth, as if seeking somewhere to hide.
‘You don’t fool me,’ said Olar Ethil. ‘You two almost won the Throne of Shadow. You killed a dozen of your kin to get there. Who stopped you? Was it Anomander Rake? Edgewalker? Kilmandaros?’
At each name the two skeletons cringed.
‘What is it you seek now?’ the bonecaster asked.
‘Power,’ said Telorast.
‘Wealth,’ said Curdle.
‘Survival,’ said Telorast.
Curdle nodded, head bobbing. ‘Terrible times. Things will die.’
‘Lots of things,’ added Telorast. ‘But it will be safe in your shadow, Great One.’
‘Yes,’ said Curdle. ‘Safe!’
‘In turn, we will guard your back.’
‘Yes! That’s it exactly!’
‘Until,’ said Olar Ethil, ‘you find it expedient to betray me. You see my dilemma. You guard my back from other threats, but who will guard my back from you two?’
‘Curdle can’t be trusted,’ said Telorast. ‘I’ll protect you from her, I swear it!’
‘As will I from my sister!’ Curdle spun to face Telorast and snapped her tiny jaws. Clack clack clack!
Telorast hissed in reply.
Olar Ethil turned to Torrent. ‘Eleint,’ she said.
Eleint? Dragons? These two? ‘I always imagined they’d be bigger.’
‘Soletaken,’ said Olar Ethil, and then she regarded the two creatures once more. ‘Or, I think, D’ivers, yes? Born as Tiste Andii, one woman, but two dragons.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘Insane!’
‘Ridiculous!’
‘Impossible!’
‘Impossible,’ conceded Olar Ethil, ‘for most-even among the Andii. Yet, you found a way, didn’t you? How? The blood of the Eleint resists the fever of D’ivers. A ritual would have been necessary. But what kind? Not Kurald Galain, nor Kurald Emurlahn. No, you have made me curious. I will have the answer-this is the bargain I offer. Tell me your secret, and you shall have my protection. Betray me, and I will destroy you both.’
Curdle turned to her companion. ‘If we tell her, we are undone!’
‘We’re already undone, you idiot. We were never meant to be Soletaken. It just happened that way!’
‘But we were true Eleint-’
‘Be quiet!’
Olar Ethil suddenly stepped forward. ‘True Eleint? But that makes no sense! Two who become one? Soletaken? A Tiste Andii Soletaken? No, you twist every truth-I cannot believe a thing you say!’
‘Look what you did, Curdle! Now we-aagh!’
Telorast’s cry came when Olar Ethil’s bony hand snapped out, snaring the skeleton. It writhed and strained in her grip. She held it close, as if about to bite its head off.
‘Tell her!’ Telorast shrieked. ‘Curdle! Tell her everything!’
‘I will I will! I promise! Elder One! Listen! I will speak the truth!’
‘Go on,’ said Olar Ethil. Telorast now hung limp in her hand, as if lifeless, but Torrent could see the tip of its tail twitching every few moments.
Curdle leapt to a clear patch of dusty earth. With one talon it inscribed a circle round where it stood. ‘We were chained, Elder, terribly, cruelly chained. In a fragment of Emurlahn. Eternal imprisonment stretched before us-you could not imagine the torment, the torture of that. So close! To our precious prize! But then, the three stood before us, between us and the throne. The bitch with her fists. The bastard with his dread sword. Edgewalker gave us a choice. Kilmandaros and the chains, or Anomander and Dragnipur. Dragnipur! We knew what Draconus had done, you see! We knew what that sword’s bite would do. Swallow our souls! No,’ the skeleton visibly shivered, ‘we chose Kilmandaros.’
‘Two Eleint,’ said Olar Ethil.
‘Yes! Sisters-’
‘Or lovers,’ said Telorast, still lying as if dead.
‘Or that, yes. We don’t remember. Too long ago, too many centuries in chains-the madness! Such madness! But then a stranger found us.’
‘Who?’ barked Olar Ethil.
‘Dessimbelackis,’ said Curdle. ‘He held Chaos in his hands. He told us its secret-what he had made of it. He was desperate. His people-humans-were making a mess of things. They stood as if separate from all the animals of the world. They imagined they were the rulers of nature. And cruel their tyranny, so cruel. Slaughtering the animals, making the lands barren deserts, the skies empty but for vultures.’
‘Soletaken,’ said Olar Ethil. ‘D’ivers. He created a ritual out of chaos-to bind humans to the beasts, to force upon them their animal natures. He sought to teach them a lesson. About themselves.’
‘Yes, Elder. Yes to all of that. He brought the ritual to his people-oh, it was an old ritual, much older than Dessimbelackis, much older than this world. He forced it upon his subjects.’
‘This tale I know well,’ said Olar Ethil. ‘I was there, when we gave answer to that. The swords of the T’lan Imass dripped for days. But, there were no dragons, not there, not then.’
‘You’d begun the slaughter,’ said Curdle. ‘He’d fled even before then, taking his D’ivers form-’
‘The Deragoth.’
‘Yes. He knew you were hunting him. He needed allies. But we were chained, and he could not break those chains. So he offered to take our souls-and he brought us a corpse. A woman. Tiste Andii.’
‘Where did he come by it?’ Olar Ethil asked. ‘Who was she?’
‘He never told us. But when he bound our souls to her, we stood-unchained. We thought we were free. We vowed to serve him.’
‘But you did not, did you?’
Curdle hesitated.
‘You betrayed him.’
‘No! It wasn’t like that! Each time we sought to semble into our true selves, the chains returned! Each time, we found ourselves back within Emurlahn! We were useless to him, don’t you see?’
‘Yet,’ said Olar Ethil, ‘now, you can find your true selves-’
‘Not for long. Never for long,’ said Curdle. ‘If we hold to our Eleint selves, the chains find us. They steal us back. These bones you see here-we can do this much. We can take a body, one or two, and exist within them. But that is all. If we could reach the throne, we could break our bindings! We could escape our prison!’
‘You will never win that throne,’ said Olar Ethil. ‘And, as you are, well, that is useless to me.’