Yedan studied her in earnest now. ‘And why would you do that, Pithy Islander?’
‘Because it’s the right thing to do, Yedan Derryg.’
Rightness. The word was lodged in Yan Tovis’s throat like shards of glass. She could taste blood in her mouth, and all that had seeped down into her stomach seemed to have solidified into something fist-sized, heavy as stone.
The Shore invited her, reached out and clawed at her with its need. A need it yearned to share with her. You stand with me, Queen. As you once did, as you shall do again. You are the Shake and the Shake are of the Shore, and I have tasted your blood all my life.
Queen, I thirst again. Against this enemy, there shall be Rightness upon the Shore, and you will stand, and you will yield not a step.
But there was betrayal, long ago. How could the Liosan forget? How could they set it aside? Judgement, the coarse, thorn-studded brambles of retribution, they could snag an entire people, and as the blood streamed down each body was lifted higher, lifted from the ground. The vicious snare carried them into the righteous sky.
Reason could not reach that high, and in the heavens madness spun untamed.
Rightness rages on both sides of the wall. Who can hope to halt what is coming? Not the Queen of Darkness, not the queen of the Shake. Not Yedan Derryg – oh no, my brother strains for that moment. He draws his wretched sword again and again. He smiles at the Lightfall’s lurid play on the blade. He stands before the silent shrieking insanity of hatred made manifest, and he does not flinch.
But, and this was the impossible contradiction, her brother had not once in his life felt a single spasm of hatred – his soul was implacably incapable of such an emotion. He could stand in the fire and not burn. He could stand before those deformed faces, those grasping hands, and … and … nothing.
Oh, Yedan, what waits within you? Have you surrendered completely to the need of the Shore? Are you one with it? Do you know a single moment of doubt? Does it? She could understand the seductive lure of that invitation. Absolution through surrender, the utter abjection of the self. She understood it, yes, but she did not trust it.
When that which offers blessing predicates such on the absolute obeisance of the supplicant … demands, in fact, the soul’s willing enslavement – no, how could such a force stand tall in moral probity?
The Shore demands our surrender to it. Demands our enslavement in the glory of its love, the sweet purity of its eternal blessing.
There is something wrong with that. Something … monstrous. You offer us the freedom of choice, yet avow that to turn away is to lose all hope of glory, of salvation. What sort of freedom is that?
She had held that her faith in the Shore set her above other worshippers, those quivering mortals kneeling before fickle carnate gods. The Shore was without a face. The Shore was not a god, but an idea, the eternal conversation of elemental forces. Changeable, yet for ever unchangeable, the binding of life and death itself. Not something to be bargained with, not a thing with personality, mercurial and prone to spite. The Shore, she had believed, made no demands.
But now here she was, feeling the desiccated wind rising up from the bone strand, watching her brother speaking to Pithy, seeing her brother less than a stride away from Lightfall’s terrible fury, drawing his sword again and again. And the First Shore howled in her soul.
Here! Blessed Daughter, I am here and with me you belong! See this wound. You and I shall close it. My bones, your blood. The death underfoot, the life with sword in hand. You shall be my flesh. I shall be your bone. Together we will stand. Changeable and unchangeable.
Free and enslaved.
A figure edged up on her right, and then another on her left. She looked to neither.
The one on the right crooned something melodic and wordless, and then said, ‘Ween decided, Queen. Skwish to stand with the Watch, an mine to stand with you.’
‘An the Shore an the day,’ added Skwish. ‘Lissen to it sing!’
Pully moaned again. ‘Y’ain knelled afore the Shore, Highness. Y’ain done it yet. An be sure y’need to, afore the breach comes.’
‘Een the queen’s got to srender,’ said Skwish. ‘T’the Shore.’
Crumbled bones into chains. Freedom into slavery. Why did we ever agree to this bargain? It was never equal. The blood was ours, not the Shore’s. Errant fend, even the bones came from us!
Empty Throne, my certainty is … gone. My faith … crumbles.
‘Don’t my people deserve better?’
Pully snorted. ‘Single droppa Shake inem, they hear the song. They yearn t’come, t’stand—’
‘To fight,’ finished Skwish.
‘But …’ they deserve better.
‘Go down t’the Shore, Highness. Een you tain’t above the First Shore.’
Yan Tovis grimaced. ‘You think to force me, Pully? Skwish?’
‘If yer brother—’
‘Hadn’t killed all your allies,’ Yan Tovis said, nodding. ‘Yes. Oddly enough, I don’t think he fully comprehended the consequences. Did he? A hundred and more witches and warlocks … yes, they could compel me, perhaps. But you two? No.’
‘Is a mistake, Highness.’
‘Didn’t stop you feeding on my blood, did it? Made young again, and now you roll like sluts in every man’s tent.’
‘Een Witchslayer says—’
‘Yes, you all say. “Kneel, O Queen.” “Surrender to the Shore, sister.” You know, the only person here who comes close to understanding me isn’t even human. And what did I do? I destroyed the friendship growing between us by forcing her on to the Throne of Dark. I fear she will never forgive me.’ Yan Tovis gestured suddenly. ‘Both of you, leave me now.’
‘As witches we got to warn yee—’
‘And so you have, Pully. Now go, before I call Yedan up here to finish what he started all those months ago.’
She listened to their footfalls in the sand, and then through the grasses.
Below, on the Shore, Captain Pithy was departing, moving off to the left, probably making her way to the Letherii encampment. Her brother remained, though now he began walking the length of the strand. Like a caged cat.
But remember, dear brother. The Hust sword broke.
She lifted her gaze, studied the hissing storm of light, high above the blurred shapes of Liosan warriors. She was not sure, but at times lately she’d thought she’d seen vast shapes wheeling up there.
Clouds. Thunderheads.
Rightness was a vicious word. Is it right to demand this of us? Is it right to invite us in one breath and threaten us in the next? Am I not queen of the Shake? Are these not my subjects? You would I simply give them to you? Their blood, their lives?
Errant’s nudge, how I envy Sandalath Drukorlat, the Queen with no subjects.
The liquid sky of Lightfall was a thick, opaque swirl. No thunder-heads today. Seeing that should have relieved her, but it didn’t.
Upon the Great Spire overlooking Kolanse Bay, five Pures ascended the steep stairs carved into the crater’s ravaged flank. To their right, as they climbed towards the Altar of Judgement, the slope fell away to a sheer cliff, and far below the seas thrashed, the waters raging into foaming spume the colour of mare’s milk. Centuries of pounding fury had gnawed into the Spire, down to its very roots, apart from a narrow, treacherous isthmus on the inland side.
From above, foul winds bled down, pulled towards the waves in endless streams. At times Shriven had been poisoned in their pilgrimage, here on the weathered pumice steps, but the Pures could withstand such vicissitudes, and when they passed the shrivelled corpses huddled against the stairs they simply stepped over them.