Each day, as they rode across the barren land, she longed for the night to come, for the boy’s helpless eagerness, for the shudders of his body against hers, for the waves that seemed to steal away his life — so much of it, rushing into her. She meant to use that life.
Children died. But a woman could make more children. Sons were born and sometimes they died, but there were many sons. And even dreams of the future held in hands, places of darkness.
Riding at his sister’s side, trapped in the silence between them, Rint studied the lie of the land, wishing that monuments might rise before them, erupting from the hard ground, halting them in their tracks. All forward progress denied: nothing to do but turn round and return to Kurald Galain.
When she took with child, she would flee, like a thief down a street, into hidden alleys, secret courses that none could follow. A prize in her womb, she would draw knife and hiss at any who drew near. Even her brother.
He cursed Draconus, cursed this entire venture; he felt his body weaken with anguish at the sight of young Arathan, riding so proud at his father’s side. He’d thought better of his sister. The world, crowding close round this meagre party, had grown sordid.
The day was drawing to a close, shadows stretched into their path from the lead riders, ephemeral and misshapen. To either side the plain rolled out, rippled like a dislodged rug, threadbare on the rises where the winter winds cut like knives for months on end. The deeper basins were bleached white, made lifeless by leaching salts.
They had passed some ruins just after noon. Foundation stones of pitted granite formed a rectangle on a level span just above a broad, shallow basin. The scale of the structure seemed oversized for Azathanai, and Rint saw little sign of their legendary stone-working skills in the roughly hewn granite. The walls had long since tumbled, forming a scree down the slope on the basin side and lying in heaps upon the opposite side. There was no evidence that anyone had ever harvested the rubble. Apart from the lone building, Rint saw no other signs of habitation — no pen walls, no field enclosures, and the ground bore no evidence of ploughing. He wondered at it as they rode by.
Only ignorance emptied the past. Fools built the world from nothing — the whim of a god, some bold acclamation of existence in the Abyss. None of these visions of creation did more than serve the vanity of those holding them. As if all was made for them; for their eyes to witness, for their wonder to behold. Rint did not believe it. The past had no beginning. Something always existed before, no matter how far back one reached. It was the conceit of a mortal life, which began and so must end, to then imagine all of existence following suit, as if cowed into obedience. In myriad forms all that existed had always existed.
His sister had made herself the lover of a bastard son who was of an age to match that of the son she had lost. Things twisted in thinking about that. Things peeled back, exposing ugly secrets in lurid half-light. The past had a face and it was a face she would make alive once more. Arathan deserved better and there was no cause to wonder at his innocence, his naivete in these matters: he was in his age of foolishness, as came upon all young men. Dreams raged like fires of the sun, but high as those flames might carry him, the fall promised an endless plunge into despair. Subtlety was lost — these were Arathan’s years of stumbling, awkward his limbs and overborne his mind, and the depthless love he now felt for Feren would soon turn to wounded hatred.
Such were Rint’s fears and he felt helpless before them. Twisting in his saddle he looked back the way they had come, seeking sign of Ville and Galak, but the plain stretched unbroken into the eastern gloom. Even under the best of circumstances they were still a day or two away.
Somewhere ahead of them were the first settlements of the Azathanai. He imagined imposing keeps, castles and palaces. Gardens where water flowed up from the ground in ceaseless servitude. And upon walls and around solid doors there would be scorch marks, from fires set by Jheleck raiders; and within the airy chambers, where the furniture was poor and worthless, there would be a faint hint of old smoke — not the smoke of woodfires, but that of cloth and bedding, acrid and bitter. These would not be welcoming places, and he knew he would long to be quit of them as soon as possible.
Why would the Azathanai feel any need, beyond simple hospitality, to entertain Lord Draconus? There was a mystery here. Grizzin Farl had looked upon Draconus as he would an old friend, and the familiarity between them in that night of revelry was no false performance. But as far as Rint knew, the Lord had dwelt within Kurald Galain all his life, and his years away from the House had been spent fighting in the wars. The Protector of the Azathanai had never visited the realm of the Tiste, as far as Rint could recall. How then did they meet?
There were hidden currents here. Draconus was not simply taking his bastard son away, even for reasons of blunting the ambitions of his enemies in the court. Something else was in play.
The day’s heat was slow to fade. They arrived upon another set of ruins similar to the last ones, although here there was evidence of at least three buildings, all massive and each one seemingly constructed without account of the others. Angles were discordant, lines clashing, and yet from what Rint could determine, the three buildings had all been raised at once. The remains of the walls were chest high at the corners, half that height along the walls. Stones seemed to have fallen randomly, inside and outside the structures, and there were no visible remnants of roofing in any of the buildings.
Sergeant Raskan turned back to Rint and Feren. ‘We will camp here,’ he said.
Rint rose in his stirrups, looked about. ‘I see no well, no source of water, sergeant.’
‘Only what we carry this night, I’m afraid.’
Displeased with this information, Rint dismounted. He slapped dust from his leather leggings. ‘Had you told us this in the morning, sergeant, we could have filled a few more skins.’
‘My error,’ said Draconus from a few paces ahead. The Lord still sat astride his horse, a figure in black mail and weathered leather, the ruins stark behind him. ‘My memory was that this settlement was occupied.’
Startled, Rint looked round again. ‘Not for centuries, I would say, Lord. Not for centuries.’
Grimacing, Draconus dismounted. ‘We shall have to make do.’
‘And on the morrow, Lord?’ Rint asked.
Raskan shot him a sharp look at the question, but Draconus was easy in his reply, ‘By midday, we should reach Herelech River which, unlike most in these lands, flows year round.’
‘Very good, Lord,’ Rint said.
Feren was removing the saddle from her horse, as if unmindful of the challenges facing them this night. The horses needed most of the water they carried. There would be little left for cooking and none for washing away the day’s sweat and grime. Yet his sister seemed eager to yield to all these inconveniences.
He realized he was scowling as he watched her, and so turned away.
Arathan had slipped down from his gelding, standing with a little less of the unsteadiness he had shown before. He was finding himself on this journey. More than he imagined, no doubt. But be wary, Arathan, that by this journey’s end you do not lose far more than what you gained.
Raskan watched the Borderswords readying the camp. Lord Draconus had walked up to wander in the ruins, while Arathan brushed down his horses, beginning with the gelding — though the young man’s eyes strayed over to Feren again and again.
Now that Arathan rode at his father’s side these days — ever since the night of Grizzin Farl’s visit — the sergeant had found himself more or less alone, riding between Draconus and his son to the fore, and the two Borderswords behind him, yet he felt himself a bridge to neither. Rint and Feren were at odds, but in the silent manner of siblings wishing to hide their mutual enmity from outsiders, lest family secrets spill forth. And of the conversations the Lord held with his bastard son, well, it seemed that there were few of those, and when they did occur, Raskan could not make out the words exchanged between them.