‘This is strife’s own circle,’ Haut noted, giving Varandas a nod. ‘And that surely deserves a bold van.’ He looked up at the Seregahl and said, ‘Be assured that you will lead the army, sir, come the day we march. With the blessing of not only Hood, but also his chosen officers, such as you see here.’
The lead Seregahl fixed dark eyes upon Haut, and then he said, ‘Captain. I had heard that you were here. We have fought one another, have we not?’
‘A time or two.’
‘We have defeated one another.’
‘A more astute observation, sir, would be to say that we have shared opposing victories.’
The Thel Akai grunted, and then, gesturing, about-faced his troop, and off they marched into the gloom, weapons clanking.
‘You did well to see them off, Hood,’ said Varandas. ‘I now long to witness one more face to face meeting, between you and Gothos. Why, the railing might tear down the stars themselves.’
Haut shook his head. ‘Then you long for nothing, friend. What think you the Lord of Hate need say to the Lord of Grief, or, indeed, the latter to the former? If they do not know each other now, in places beyond crude words, then neither deserves his title.’
Hood surprised them all by rising to his feet. Drawing the cowl more tightly about his worn features, he waved lazily at the hearth. ‘Mind the fire, will you?’
‘Is it time, then?’ Burrugast asked.
Hood paused. ‘Your query is not for me.’
They watched him walk away, southward, towards the ruins of Omtose Phellack.
‘I see no value in minding these flames,’ muttered Varandas.
A moment later, all three started laughing. The sound rang out through the dark camp, and was long in dying.
* * *
While there were in the camp Thel Akai, Forulkan, Jheck and Jhelarkan, blue-skinned peoples from the sea, and even Tiste, by far the most numerous group was that of the Dog-Runners. Korya wandered between their small fires, the low, humped huts that covered pits dug into the hard clays, the flat stones where women worked flint during the day. Not everyone slept beneath the furs. Many were awake to the watch, this time in the night when restlessness opened eyes, when thoughts stirred from the embers of half-forgotten dreams.
She felt their regard as she walked past, but believed that they gave little thought to her. They but observed her, in the manner of animals. The night was a private world, the watch its most hidden refuge. She thought of Kharkanas, and imagined it now as a city transformed. Unrelieved by light, it must hold to some kind of eternal contemplation, each denizen remote, drifting away from mundane concerns.
The poets would stumble on to new questions, unimagined questions. To utter them was to shatter the world, and so none spoke, none challenged the darkness. She thought of musicians, sitting alone, fingers light upon the strings, calloused tips shivering along the taut gut, searching their way forward, seeking a song for the absence all around them. Each note, plucked or sung, would stand alone, inviting no comforting answer, no birth of melody. Asking, forever asking, what next?
In her mind, Kharkanas was a monument to the night’s watch: pensive and withdrawn. She saw towers and estates, terraced dwellings and bridges, all thrown up in miniature, made into a place for the dolls of her youth. Clothes drab, colours washed out, in tired poses; she could look down upon them, and offer each one – all of them – not a moment’s thought.
See the circlet of their mouths, their unblinking eyes. Standing motionless, arranged by an unseen hand. Some drama waits.
If I was their god, I’d leave them that way. For ever.
Oh, this is a cruel span of night, to imagine an uncaring god, an indifferent god. Suffer a father’s dismissal, a mother’s, a brother’s or a sister’s, or even a child’s, but suffer not the same dismissal from a god. A better fate, to be sure, standing frozen, for ever and timeless, with all the modest ambitions a doll might possess. Frozen, like a memory, isolated and going nowhere. A scene to make playwrights tremble. Poses to make sculptors shy away. A breath drawn, forever awaiting the song.
Some questions must never be asked. Lest the moment freeze in eternity, on the edge of an answer that never comes.
Kharkanas the Wise City belonged to the night, now; to darkness. Its poets stumbled on unseen words. Its sculptors collided with shapeless forms. Its singers pursued down every corridor some dwindling voice, and the dancers longed for one last sure step. Its common denizens, then, waited for a dawn that would never come, even as the artists fell away, curled black like rotting leaves.
She realized that someone was padding softly at her side – lost in her thoughts, she had no idea how long she had been accompanied by this stranger. Glancing across, she saw a young Dog-Runner, yellow-haired, wearing a cloak of hides – narrow, vertically sewn strips, multihued and glistening, that left tails dragging in his wake. Red-ochre rimmed his light blue or grey eyes, with a single tear tracking down each cheek, ending in the wisps of golden whiskers on his jaw.
He was handsome enough, in that savage, Dog-Runner way. But it was the soft smile playing across his full mouth that caught her attention. ‘What so amuses you?’ she asked.
In answer, he made a series of gestures.
She shrugged. ‘I do not know that manner of Dog-Runner communication – your silent talk. And please, do not start singing to me either. That, too, means nothing to me, and when two voices come from a single throat, why, it’s unnerving.’
‘I smile at you,’ the youth said, ‘with admiration.’
‘Oh,’ she replied. They continued walking, silent. Damn you, Korya, think of something to say! ‘Why are you here? I mean, why did you come? Are those tears painted on your cheeks? Do you hope to find someone? Someone dead? You long to bring him, or her, back?’
Tentatively, he reached up and ventured a touch upon one of the red-painted tears. ‘Back? There is no “back”. She never left.’
‘Who? Your mate? You seem young for that, even for a Dog-Runner. Did she die in childbirth? So many do. I’m sorry. But Hood is not your salvation here. This army is going nowhere. It’s all pointless.’
‘I have made you nervous,’ he said, edging away.
‘You wouldn’t if you answered a single cursed question!’
His forearms were freckled, a detail that fascinated her, and they moved as if to hold up the words he spoke. ‘Too many questions. I wear my mother’s grief, for a sister she lost. A twin. I follow to take care of her on this journey. Mother’s dead twin speaks to her – even I have heard her, shouting in my ear, waking me in the night.’
‘The dead woman talks, does she? Well, what does she have to say?’
‘The Jaghut and his vow. They must be heeded.’
‘It’s not enough that the living want their dead back – now the dead want to come back, too. How is it souls can get lonely, when their entire existence is alone? Is mortal flesh so precious? Wouldn’t you rather fly free of it, sail off into the sky? Dance around stars, feeling no cold, no pain – is that not a perfect freedom? Who would want to return from that?’
‘Now I have made you angry.’
‘It’s not you. Well, it is, but don’t take it personally. I just can’t make sense of any of you.’
‘You are Tiste.’
Korya nodded. They’d walked to the camp’s very edge, and before them was a plain of scattered stones, shaped but broken or eroded, the city’s dwindling demise. ‘A hostage to the Jaghut, Haut. The Captain. The Old Misery. The Lord of Riddles. Crier of Aches and Imagined Illnesses. He has made me a Mahybe – knock me and I’ll ring hollow.’
The youth’s eyes were wide now, studying her avidly. ‘Lie with me,’ he said.