A hand closed on his shoulder and swung him round. Startled, he met Rautos Hivanar’s sharp, glittering eyes. Bugg frowned. ‘Sir?’
‘You-you are inclined to invent stories. Or, perhaps, you are a sage, gifted with unnatural sight. Is this what I am hearing, old man? Tell me, who was this Icarium? Was that the name of the Eres’al? The one who died?’
‘I am sorry, sir.’ He raised the object higher. ‘This artifact-you will find it is identical to the massive object at the inn, barring scale. I believe this is what your servant wanted you to realize-as he himself did when he first looked upon the edifice once we had brought down the walls enclosing it.’
‘Are you certain of all this?’
‘Yes.’ Bugg gestured at the array of items on the table. ‘A central piece is missing, as you suspected, sir. Alas, you will not find it, for it is not physical. The framework that will hold it together is one of energy, not matter. And,’ he added, still in a distracted tone, ‘it has yet to arrive.’
He set the artifact back down and walked from the chamber, back up the corridor, through the dry-rack room, out onto the terrace. Unmindful of the two workers pausing to stare across at him as Rautos Hivanar appeared as if in pursuit-the merchant’s hands were spread, palms up, as if beseeching, although the huge man said not a word, his mouth working in silence, as though he had been struck mute. Bugg’s glance at the large man was momentary. He continued on, along the passage between estate wall and compound wall, to the side postern near the front gate.
He found himself once more on the street, only remotely noticing the passers-by in the cooler shade of afternoon.
It has yet to arrive.
And yet, it comes.
‘Watch where you’re walking, old man!’
‘Leave off him-see how he weeps? It’s an old man’s right to grieve, so leave him be.’
‘Must be blind, the clumsy fool…’
And here, long before this city was bom, there stood a temple, into which Icarium walked-as lost as any son, the child severed from the thread. But the Elder God within could give him nothing. Nothing beyond what he himself was preparing to do.
Could you have imagined, K’rul, how Icarium would, take what you did? Take it into himself as would any child seeking a guiding hand? Where are you, K’rul? Do you sense his return? Do you know what he seeks?
‘Clumsy or not, it’s a question of manners and proper respect.’
Bugg’s threadbare tunic was grasped and he was dragged to one side, then flung up against a wall. He stared at a battered face beneath the rim of a helm. To one side, scowling, another guard.
‘Do you know who we are?’ the man holding him demanded, baring stained teeth.
‘Karos Invictad’s thugs, aye. His private police, the ones who kick in doors at the middle of night. The ones who take mothers from babes, fathers from sons. The ones who, in the righteous glory that comes with unchallenged power, then loot the homes of the arrested, not to mention raping the daughters-’
Bugg was thrown a second time against the wall, the back of his head crunching hard on the pitted brick.
‘For that, bastard,’ the man snarled, ‘you’ll Drown.’
Bugg blinked sweat from his eyes, then, as the thug’s words penetrated, he laughed. ‘Drown? Oh, that’s priceless. Now, take your hands off me or I will lose my temper.’
Instead, the man tightened his hold on the front of Bugg’s tunic, while the other said, ‘You were right, Kanorsos, he needs beating.’
‘The bully’s greatest terror,’ Bugg said, ‘comes when he meets someone bigger and meaner-’
‘And is that you?’
Both men laughed.
Bugg twisted his head, looked round. People were hurrying past-it was never wise to witness such events, not when the murderers of the Patriotists were involved. ‘So be it,’ he said under his breath. ‘Gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you someone bigger and meaner, or, to be more accurate, something:.’
A moment later Bugg was alone. He adjusted his tunic, glanced about, then set off once more for his master’s abode.
It was inevitable, he knew, that someone had witnessed the sudden vanishing of two armed and amoured men. But no-one cried out in his wake, for which he was relieved, since he was not inclined to discuss much with anyone right at that moment.
Did 1 just lose my temper? It’s possible, but then, you were distracted. Perturbed, even. These things happen.
Feather Witch wasted little time. Off the cursed ships and their countless, endlessly miserable crowds, the eyes always upon her, the expressions of suspicion or contempt and the stench of suffering that came of hundreds of prisoners-the fallen Edur of Sepik, mixed-blood one and all, worse in the eyes of the tribes than Letherii slaves; the scores of foreigners who possessed knowledge deemed useful-at least for now; the Nemil fisher folk; the four copper-skinned Shal-Morzinn warriors dragged from a floundering carrack; denizens of Seven Cities, hailing from Ehrlitan, the Karang Isles, Pur Atrii and other places; Quon sailors who claimed to be citizens of an empire called Malaz; dwellers of Lamatath and Callows…
Among them there were warriors considered worthy enough to be treated as challengers. An axeman from the ruined Meckros City the fleet had descended upon, a Cabalhii monk and a silent woman wearing a porcelain mask the brow of which was marked with eleven arcane glyphs-she had been found near dead in a storm-battered scow south of Callows.
There were others, chained in the holds of other ships in other fleets, but where they came from and what they were was mostly irrelevant. The only detail that had come to fascinate Feather Witch-among all these pathetic creatures-was the bewildering array of gods, goddesses, spirits and ascendants they worshipped. Prayers in a dozen languages, voices reaching out into vast silences-all these forlorn fools and all the unanswered calls for salvation.
No end, in that huge, chaotic world, to the delusions of those who believed they were chosen. Unique among their kind, basking beneath the gaze of gods that gave a damn- as if they would, when the truth was, each immortal visage, for all its peculiar traits, was but a facet of one, and that one had long since turned away, only to fight an eternal battle against itself. From the heavens, only indifference rained down, like ash, stinging the eyes, scratching raw the throat. There was no sustenance in that blinding deluge.
Chosen-now there was a conceit of appalling proportions. Either we all are, or none of us are. And if the former, then we will all face the same judge, the same hand of justice-the wealthy, the Indebted, the master, the slave, the murderer and the victim, the raper and the raped, all of us, so pray hard, everyone-if that helps-and look well to your own shadow. More likely, in her mind, no-one was chosen, and there was no day of judgement awaiting every soul. Each and every mortal faced a singular end, and that was oblivion.
Oh, indeed, the gods existed, but not one cared a whit lor the fate of a mortal’s soul, unless they could bend that soul to their will, to serve as but one more soldier in their pointless, self-destructive wars.
For herself, she was past such thinking. She had found her own freedom, basking beneath that blessed rain of indifference. She would do as she willed, and not even the gods could stop her. It would be the gods themselves, she vowed, who would come to her. Beseeching, on their knees, snared in their own game.
She moved silently, now, deep in the crypts beneath the Old Palace. I was a slave, once-many believe 1 still am, yet look at me-1 rule this buried realm. 1 alone know where the hidden chambers reside, I know what awaits me within them. 1 walk this most fated path, and, when the time is right, I will take the throne.