It had nothing to do with them.
In the common room, Sulty eyed the table with its steaming plates and skewers and wondered — hadn’t there been five?
The clerk posted at the gate to the Way of Justice heard the marching echoing up the walls enclosing the Way. Puzzled, he picked up his scrolls and stepped outside. No notice of procession had been filed for this day. Who were these fools?
A double file of men and women came jogging round a corner and the clerk stared, squinting. Great Fanderay … were they … Before he could complete his thought they sped past to either side, leather jerkins stained wet with sweat, limbs glistening, eyes hidden behind masks riveted straight ahead.
One by one the scrolls slid from the clerk’s hands. Kicked and trampled, they flew, wind-caught, to flutter over the wall of the Second Tier, wafting towards the glimmering waters of Lake Azur.
After the last had passed the clerk quickly finished his sums and came to an astounding number that kept him from discovering his empty hands. Five hundred. Great Ancient Mother of the Hearth! Surely they cannot be real!
He crossed to one of the city Wardens who guarded the Way. The man was staring off up the rising cobbled path, a gourd of water half-raised to his mouth. ‘Do something,’ the clerk demanded.
The man swallowed, his face as pale as the finest vellum. ‘Do what?’
‘Warn them! Warn the Council!’
The man slammed the wooden stopper home. ‘I’ll just trot along behind, shall I?’
The clerk raised his hands to shake a finger, then realized. He started, gaping. ‘Great Mother of Pain!’ He threw himself to the stone lip of the wall to peer over and down. ‘I’m ruined!’
‘You’re ruined?’ The guard flicked the truncheon at his side and snorted. ‘I think we’re all fucking ruined.’
*
The journey had been a strange experience in double vision for Jan. All the landmarks, major features and place names remained as handed down through the ancient lays and stories of his people. And yet all was different. Gone were the orchards, groves and fields of the verdant Dwelling Plain. All was dust and desolation. The great network of irrigation canals and the artificial lakes sand-choked and buried; the many brick towers, the leagues of urban dwelling, all gnawed to the barest foundations and scatterings of eroded sun-dried brick. A population collapse — just as described in the catastrophe of their exile.
And the city itself, fair white-walled Darujhistan. White-walled no more. Oh, it appeared large and wealthy enough. But gone were the soaring towers of translucent white stone so clear one could see the sun through their walls. Gone the great Orb of the King, the Circle of Pure Justice. All destroyed in the Great Shattering and Fall.
Many of the inhabitants carried weapons, as well. There appeared to have been a proliferation of those willing to place themselves under the judgement of the sword. But that could wait. Ahead lay the Throne and the one who sent out the call. What would it be? The fulfilment of the long-held dream of his people? It seemed unreal that this should be achieved, now, in his lifetime. The last First had never spoken of it, had always deflected Jan’s probes. It was this uncharacteristic reluctance that troubled him now as he jogged up the Way of Justice. Such guardedness had all been too much for one Second, the one whose name had been stricken. Slaves to tradition, he had denounced them, as he threw away his sword.
And it was said the man had subsequently taken up a sword in the service of true slavery. But such were tales outside the testing circle and thus beneath attending.
In any case, they would soon know. Jan led the way. He hardly noticed the figures he brushed aside as he entered the Hall of Majesty. The body of their handed-down songs and stories contained many descriptions of the approach to the Throne, although it took a moment to sort through the subsequent alterations and additions to the rambling complex. That done, Jan directed those of the Fiftieth to guard the path, then walked up to the tall panelled doors — not even noting the two guards who stood ashen-faced to either side — and pushed them open.
It was dusk now, and the golden light of the sunset shone almost straight across the Great Hall, illuminating the gathered crowd in flames of argent. Jan paused, disconcerted to find a sea of plain golden masks directed his way. Though not all, he noted, wore them. And among those who did some now fell limp to crash to the floor.
He ignored them all as beneath his direct attention and strode for the Throne. His escort, the Twenty, followed him in. The crowd parted like torn cloth. Two of those insensate were dragged across the floor to clear the way.
The one on the throne rose to meet him.
He wore the template upon which all these others were obviously patterned. Jan recognized the power and authority radiating from it as if from the sun itself — but it was not the mask he had come all this way to meet. Halting, he met the man with his own masked head slightly inclined, eyes a shade downcast: the posture of uncertainty regarding rank.
The masked figure gestured, arms open, his thick burgundy robes wide.
‘Greetings, loyal children.’ A voice spoke from one side, quavering and breathless, almost choking. ‘You have answered the call of your master. Soon all shall be restored to what it was. The Circle of Perfect Rulership is near completion.’
The golden Father? First guide me! Was this the source of your silence? Ancestors forgive me … which do I choose? The knee or the blade? Which will it be? All now are watching, waiting upon me, the Second, to show the way. And yet … there it is. For am I not Second? And did not the last First ever instruct — the Second has but one task.
The Second follows.
And so he knelt before their ancient master reborn, his mask bent to the floor. And, leathers shifting and hissing, all the Twenty knelt in turn.
In the crowd yet another of those assembled crashed to the floor.
CHAPTER XIII
And the truth is not yet revealed
With the fall of the first gossamer veil
Nor does the second drifting shroud
Sent curling to the gold-dusted tiles
Bring the unthinking one step closer
To the necessary awareness of how
Close wafts the third clinging cowl
Troubling those fascinated as pure
White flashes yet promise and allure
Distracting the unwary from the
Fourth sheet unwound enlightening
All too late that only Death could
Dance so seductively
Antsy awoke to a hammering on the wall of their room. ‘Up and on your feet,’ someone growled. ‘Let’s go.’ The feeble yellow light of a lamp glowed through the burlap hanging. He sat up, stretched, and set to pulling on his gear. He and Corien stepped out first to give Orchid more privacy to squat over the chamber pot.
The motley crew in their mismatched armour, men mostly, all chuckled at the loud hiss of the liquid stream against metal that came echoing out from behind the hanging. In charge of this detachment was the fellow boasting the huge thick beard tied off in tails and the tattered dirty jupon over the banded iron hauberk, its heraldry rendered murky and indistinguishable. When Orchid stepped out he gestured impatiently. ‘This way.’
They were led through narrower and narrower private passages — what might have once been a large private dwelling — to a guarded room where tables stood crowded by scrolls and vellum sheets held down by countless statues of animals real and fantastic, some carved from semi-precious stone, others cast in silver and gold. Light was provided by a large candelabra so low it threatened to ignite the many sheets. A fat man sat with his boots up on one of the tables, leaning back, studying a document.