‘What? No. I didn’t mean – what is your name, by the way?’
‘Ifayle. In our language, it means “falling sky”.’
She frowned at him. ‘Something falling from the sky?’
He nodded. ‘Like that, yes.’
‘On the night you were born, something fell from the sky.’
‘No. I fell from the sky.’
‘No you didn’t. You fell out between your mother’s legs.’
‘Yes, that too.’
She pulled her eyes away from his intense, unambiguous gaze, and studied the plain. Silvered by frost and starlight, it stretched away into the southeast for as far as she could see. ‘You shouldn’t follow the Jaghut,’ she said. ‘They’re not gods. They’re not even wise.’
‘We do not worship Hood,’ Ifayle said. ‘But we kneel to his promise.’
‘He can’t fulfil it,’ Korya said harshly. ‘Death is not something you can close hands around. You can’t … strangle it, much as you’d like to. Hood’s promise was … well, it was metaphorical. Not meant to be taken literally. Oh, listen to me, trying to explain poetic nuances to a Dog-Runner. How long were you following me, anyway?’
He smiled. ‘I did not follow you, Korya.’
‘So, you just popped up from the ground?’
‘No, I fell from the sky.’
When she set about, marching back into the abandoned city of Omtose Phellack, Ifayle did not follow her. Not that she wanted him to – although seeing the look on Arathan’s face would have been a delight – but his abandonment seemed sudden, as if she’d done something to make him lose interest in her. The notion irritated her, fouling her mood.
She drew out the acorn and studied it, seeking to sense the power hidden inside. There was nothing. It was, as far as she could tell, just an acorn. Conjured up on a treeless plain. ‘Don’t break it,’ he said.
She drew nearer the Tower of Hate. Arathan would be asleep. Even the thought of that frustrated her. This is still the watch … almost. He should be awake. At the window, looking out on Hood’s sea of burning stars, wondering where I’ve gone to. Whom I might be with.
Rutting some Dog-Runner with snowy eyes and freckles on his arms. If Ifayle really wanted me, as he said, he would’ve followed. Empty chambers abound in this city. He didn’t even smell bad, all things considered.
The invitation was a tease. Lucky I saw through it and made plain my shock. My disgust. That smile was amused, not admiring. That’s why I bridled. And Arathan’s no better. Gift to Gothos, only now he says he’s leaving. Joining Hood, and why? Nothing but sentiment, the rush of the impossible to take hold of every romantic, deluded soul.
Look at them all!
Death will have to chase me down. Hunt me across, I don’t know, centuries. And even then, I vow to leave it … dissatisfied.
You fell from the sky, did you? With flecks of golden sunlight on your arms, I saw. How quaint.
* * *
Restless but reluctant to leave Gothos’s company and make his way back to the abode he and Korya shared, Arathan sat close to the ebbing heat from one of the braziers, at last thankful for its warmth. She would be lying in wait, he suspected, to assail him once again, to scoff at his foolish romanticism. And he had little with which to fend off her arguments.
Dawn was not too far away, in any case. Winter was a pernicious beast, he decided, to make caves, holes and gloomy chambers so inviting, where musings could huddle and stretch hands out over softly glowing embers. The outer world was bleak enough without the sleeping season’s reminder of what was lost, and what still remained months away. And yet, he thought to walk the camp in the day to come, or perhaps wander once more through the ruins of abandoned Omtose Phellack, to let the musings unfurl in winter’s cold, unyielding light.
The chill and the flat light would give hue to his memories of loss, to the surrendering of his heart that, it had since turned out, was no surrender at all. He could rattle the chains he dragged in his wake, marvelling at the blue of their iron links, or the snaking trails they made through dustings of snow and frost.
He had come, forlornly, to the belief that love was given but once. No doubt, as Gothos had suggested, there was a plethora of feelings that sought the guise of love, but in truth proved to be lesser promises, guarded commitments, alliances of sympathy, and so, when exposed, revealed their fragile illusions. It was likely, in fact, that Feren had held him in such a state, with her love for him nothing more than a thinly disguised need, and in his giving her the child she wanted, she dispensed with the child whose furs she shared. It was a hard admission, to accept his inability to understand what had happened, to know that he had indeed been too young, too naive. And none of that recognition, in his misguided self, did much to ease his resentment of his father.
It was no surprise that Draconus knew Gothos, or that they shared something like friendship. The old would give account to a wisdom mutually shared, like some tattered blanket against the long night’s chill, and offer up a threadbare corner for the young to grasp – if only they would. But that was but one more burden on a young spirit, but one more thing to slip from the grasp, or see torn loose by an unexpected tug. He could not hold on to what he had not yet earned.
These notions did nothing to ease the loss that haunted him. His love for Feren was the only real emotion within him, the chains wrapped tight. It was the only truth he had earned, and every fragment of wisdom, crumbled loose, shedding like rust from the creaking links, was bitter in his heart.
A pewter cup struck his left knee, sharp enough to make him start, and as the cup chimed like a muted bell while it rolled on the floor at his feet, Arathan looked across to glare at Gothos.
‘More tea,’ said the Lord of Hate from his chair at the desk.
Arathan rose.
‘And less angst,’ Gothos added. ‘Make hasty your flight from certainty, Arathan, so you can stumble the sooner into our aged, witless unknowing. I am tempted to curse you as in a child’s tale, giving you a sleep centuries long, during which you gather like dust useful revelations.’
Arathan set the pot back on to the embers. ‘Such as, lord?’
‘The young have little in their satchel, and so would make of each possession something vast. Bulky, heavy, awkward. They end up with a crowded bag indeed – or so they believe, when we look upon it and see little more than a slim purse dangling jauntily from your belt.’
‘You belittle my wounds.’
‘Cherish the sting of my dismissal, won’t you? I’ll see it fiery and swollen, inflamed and then black with rot, until all your limbs fall off. Oh, summon the Abyss, and dare it be vast enough to hold your thousand angry suns. But if mockery wounds so readily-’
‘Forgive me, lord,’ Arathan interrupted, ‘I fear the old leaves in this pot may prove bitter. Shall I sweeten what I serve you?’
‘You imagine your silence does not groan like a host of drunk bards lifting heads to the dawn?’ Gothos waved a hand. ‘The older the leaves the more subtle the flavour. But a nugget of honey wouldn’t hurt.’
‘Was it Haut who said the tusk sweetens with age, lord?’
‘Sounds more like Varandas,’ muttered Gothos. ‘The fool shits coddled babies at the sight of a lone flower sprung from between stones. On his behalf I do invite you to his company on the next maudlin night, which would be any night you choose. But I should warn you, what begins as a gentle passing between you of your sore, broken hearts will soon turn into a hoary contest of tragedies. Gird yourself to the battle of whose past wounds have cut deepest. Come morning, I’ll send someone to clean up the mess.’
Arathan collected up the cup and poured tea. He dropped a nugget of honey into it. ‘There was a stabler, on my father’s estate, who made and ate rock candy. His teeth had all rotted away.’ He strode over to set the cup down on the desktop.