This is not my sister.
‘I think,’ Kisswhere resumed, ‘tomorrow will be our last march. And you know, it’s all right. It was worth the try. Someone should tell her that. It was worth the try.’
‘No spiders,’ said Hellian, settling her head back on the bedroll. ‘This is the best there is. This desert, it’s paradise. Let the flies and capemoths take my corpse. Even those damned meat-eating locusts. You won’t find a spider making a nest in my skull’s eye sockets – what could be better than that?’
‘What got you so scared of ’em, Sergeant?’
She thought about that. But then her mind wandered away, and she saw heaps of skulls, all of them smiling. And why not? Oh, yes, no spiders. ‘My father tells a story, especially when he’s drunk. He thinks it’s damned funny, that story. Oh, wait, is that my father? Could be my uncle. Or even my stepfather. Might even be my brother’s father, who lives down the lane. Anyway, it was a story and how he laughed. You got to know Kartool, Maybe. Spiders big enough to eat gulls, right?’
‘Been there once, aye, Sergeant. Creepy place.’
‘The redbacks are the worst. Not big, not much poisonous by themselves. One at a time, I mean. Thing is, when they hatch, there’s thousands, and they stick together for days, so they can kill big prey and all of them feed on it, right? And the egg-sacs, why, they can be hidden anywhere.
‘So, I was maybe two. Spent all day in a crib, every day, since my mother had another baby on the way only she kept getting fevers and eventually she went and lost it, which was stupid, since we had a good healer down the street, but Father drank up all the coin he made. Anyway. I had this doll—’
‘Oh gods, Sergeant—’
‘Aye, they came out of its head. Ate right through the stuffing, and then out through the eyes and the mouth and everywhere else. And there I was: food. It was my half-brother who came in and found me. My head was swollen to twice its size – couldn’t even see my eyes – and I was choking. Counted two hundred bites, maybe more, since they were mostly in my hair. Now, as far as prey goes, I was too big even for a thousand redback babies. But they tried damned hard.’
‘And that story made him laugh? What kind of fucked-up—’
‘Watch it, that’s my father you’re talking about there. Or uncle, or stepfather, or the guy down the lane.’
‘Now I see it, Sergeant,’ said Touchy. ‘It’s all right. I see it. That’d scar anyone for life.’
‘The story ain’t finished, Corporal. I ain’t got to the whole point of it. Y’see, I was eating them damned spiders. Eating ’em like candy. They said my belly was more swollen than my head, and that’s why I was choking so bad – they were biting me all the way down.
‘So they brought in the healer, and she conjured up big chunks of ice. Into my mouth. Back of the throat. And all around my neck, too. Story goes that I had a stroke, from all that ice. Killed the part of my brain that knows when it’s time to stop.’ She stared up at the brightening sky. ‘They say I stole my first jug from my father’s stash when I was six. Got so drunk they needed to bring the healer back a second time. And that’s when she scried me inside and said I was in for a life of trouble.’
A hand brushed her upper arm. ‘That’s a heartbreaking tale, Sergeant.’
‘Is it?’ I suppose it is. Of course, I just made it up. Tug those heartstrings, see all that sweet sympathy in their sweet little faces. They’ll forgive me anything now.
Why do I hate spiders? Gods, who doesn’t? What a stupid question.
‘Faces in the Rock,’ said Urugal the Woven, crouching to scrape patterns in the hard ground. ‘Seven of the Dying Fires. The Unbound. These are our titles – we T’lan Imass cast out from our clans. We who failed in the wars. We who were cursed to witness.’
Nom Kala shifted to look back upon the human camp – a dissolute column forming a jagged line across the hardpan. All motion was dying away there, the growing heat stealing all that was left. The humps of prostrate bodies stretched long shadows.
‘We chose a Knight of Chains,’ Urugal went on, ‘and by his will we were freed from our prison, and by his will the chains shall one day shatter. Then we awaited the sanctification of the House of Chains.’
‘This knight,’ rumbled Kalt Urmanal, ‘is he among us now?’
‘No, but he awaits us,’ replied Urugal. ‘Long has been his journey, and soon the fate of us all will fall at his feet. But, alas, the Fallen One does not command him, and the King in Chains has turned his back on our cause – for the King of the House is cursed, and his chains will never break. It is our belief that he will not sit long upon that throne. Thus, we discard him.’
Beroke Soft Voice said, ‘The Knight is a despiser of chains, but understanding eludes him still. Many are the chains that cut cruel, that enslave with malice. Yet other chains also exist, and these are the ones we each choose to wear – not out of fear, or ignorance. These are the noblest of chains. Honour. Virtue. Loyalty. Many will approach the House of Chains, only to falter upon its threshold, for it demands within us strengths rarely used. When suffering awaits, it takes great courage to stride forward, to enter this unrelenting, unforgiving realm.’
Urugal had scraped seven symbols on the ground. He now pointed to each in turn and said, ‘The Consort. She who is known to us. The Reaver – there are two faces. One man. One woman. Knight, we have spoken of. The Seven of the Dead Fires, the Unbound – we T’lan Imass, for now, but that will change. Cripple, he whose mind must crawl to serve the sacred life within him. Leper, that which is both living and dead. Fool, the threat from within. All, then, but the Knight walk among the mortals in our keeping. Here. Now.’
Nom Kala studied the symbols. ‘But Urugal, they are all dying.’
‘And there is no wind to carry us,’ Beroke said. ‘We cannot travel to what lies ahead.’
‘Thus, we cannot give them hope.’
Kalt Urmanal grunted at Urugal’s conclusion. ‘We are T’lan Imass, what know we of hope?’
‘Are we then lost?’ Nom Kala asked.
The others were silent.
‘I have a thought,’ she said. ‘It is as Kalt says – we are not creatures of hope. We cannot give them what we surrendered so long ago. These mortal humans will die, if we cannot save them. Do any of you dispute that?’
‘We do not,’ said Urugal.
‘And so’ – Nom Kala stepped forward and with one skeletal foot broke the patterns in the dirt – ‘the House of Chains will die.’
‘In another age, it will awaken once more.’
‘If it must be us – and we do wish it to be us, do we not? If it must be us, Unbound, then we have no choice. We must go to the Adjunct.’
‘And say what?’ Urugal demanded.
‘Why, we must lie to her.’
None spoke for a time.
Nom Kala studied the camp, the stretched shadows. ‘Let us seek to steal one more day.’
‘To what end is one more day?’
‘I cannot say, Urugal the Woven. Sometimes, hope is born from a lie. So be it. To her, we shall lie.’
Ruthan Gudd’s eyes tracked Lostara Yil as she approached the Adjunct. The two women stood studying the east as if to defy the savage dawn. He wondered what kept Tavore on her feet. Each night she set out, marching without rest, and by her will alone she dragged an entire army in her wake. If she would not stumble, then neither would the soldiers behind her. It had become a battle, a silent war. And she’s winning it. Every body left behind is testament to that.
But how much longer can she keep this up? Look at that rising run, Adjunct, and the emptiness beneath it. Sometimes, when people speak of forbidding, deadly places, it’s not just a story. Sometimes, it’s all true, and the warnings are honest warnings. There are places that will kill you. And we have found one.