Nimander, ever generous of heart, bit on the hook. ‘Which is?’
‘Why, the evil wind, of course, ever desperate to get dressed in something warm, but nothing ever fits so the wind throws the garments away in a fit of fury.’
‘You were a child,’ Kedeviss said, ‘determined to explain everything, weren’t you? I don’t really recall, since I stopped listening to you long ago.’
‘She stabs deeps, Nimander, this woman.’
Nenanda had drawn up the cart and now climbed down, stretching out the kinks in his back. ‘I’m glad I’m done with that,’ he said.
Moments later Aranatha and Desra joined them.
Yes, here we are again. With luck, Clip will fall into a crevasse and never return.
Nimander looked older, like a man whose youth has been beaten out of him, ‘Well,’ he said with a sigh, ‘we should search these huts and find whatever there is to find.’
At his command the others set out to explore. Kedeviss remained behind, her eyes still on Nimander, until he turned about and regarded her quizzically.
‘He’s hiding something,’ she said.
He did not ask whom she meant, but simply nodded.
‘I’m not sure why he feels the need for us, ’Mander. Did he want worshippers? Servants? Are we to be his cadre in some political struggle to come?’
A faint smile from Nimander. ‘You don’t think, then, he collected us out of fellowship, a sense of responsibility — to take us back. . to our “Black-Winged Lord”?’
‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘he alone among us has never met Anomander Rake. In a sense, he’s not taking us to Anomander Rake. We’re taking him.’
‘Careful, Kedeviss. If he hears you you will have offended his self-importance.’
‘I may end up offending more than that,’ she said.
Nimander’s gaze sharpened on her.
‘I mean to confront him,’ she said. ‘I mean to demand some answers.’
‘Perhaps we should all-’
‘No. Not unless I fail.’ She hoped he wouldn’t ask for her reasons on this, and suspected, as she saw his smile turn wry, that he understood. A challenge by all of them, with Nimander at the forefront, could force into the open the power struggle that had been brewing between Clip and Nimander, one that was now played out in gestures of indifference and even contempt — on Clip’s part, at any rate, since Nimander more or less maintained his pleasant, if slightly morbid, passivity, fending off Clip’s none too subtle attacks as would a man used to being under siege. Salvos could come from any direction, after all. So carry a big shield, and keep smiling.
She wondered if Nimander even knew the strength within him. He could have become a man such as Andarist had been — after all, Andarist had been more of a father to him than Anomander Rake had ever been — and yet Nimander had grown into a true heir to Rake, his only failing being that he didn’t know it. And perhaps that was for the best, at least for the time being.
‘When?’ he asked now.
She shrugged. ‘Soon, I think.’
A thousand paces above the village, Clip settled on one of the low bridging walls and looked down at the quaintly sordid village below. He could see his miserable little army wandering about at the edges of the round, into and out of huts.
They were, he decided, next to useless. If not for concern over them, he would never have challenged the Dying God. Naturally, they were too ignorant to comprehend that detail. They’d even got it into their heads that they’d saved his life. Well, such delusions had their uses, although the endless glances his way — so rank with hopeful expectation — were starting to grate.
He spun the rings. Clack-clack. . clack-clack. .
Oh. I sense your power, O Black-Winged Lord. Holding me at bay. Tell me, what do you fear? Why force me into this interminable walk?
The Liosan of old had it right. Justice was unequivocal. Explanations revealed the cowardice at the core of every criminal, the whining expostulations, the succession of masks each one tried on and discarded in desperate succession. The not-my-fault mask. The it-was-a-mistake mask. You-don’t-understand and see-me-so-helpless and have-pity-I’m-weak — he could see each expression, perfectly arranged round eyes equally perfect in their depthless pit of self-pity (come in there’s room for everyone). Mercy was a flaw, a sudden moment of doubt to undermine the vast, implacable structure that was true justice. The masks were meant to stir awake that doubt, the last chance of the guilty to squirm free of proper retribution.
Clip had no interest in pity. Acknowledged no flaws within his own sense of justice. The criminal depends upon the compassion of the righteous and would use that compassion to evade precisely everything that criminal deserved. Why would any sane, righteous person fall into such a trap? It permitted criminals to thrive (since they played by different rules and would hold no pity or compassion for those who might wrong them). No, justice must be pure. Punishment left sacrosanct, immune to compromise.
He would make it so. For his modest army, for the much larger army to come. His people. The Tiste Andii of Black Coral. We shall rot no longer. No more dwindling fires, drifting ashes, lives wasted century on century — do you hear me, O Lord? I will take your people, and I will deliver justice.
Upon this world.
Upon every god and ascendant who ever wronged us, betrayed us, scorned us.
Watch them reel, faces bloodied, masks awry, the self-pity in their eyes dissolving — and in its place the horror of recognition. That there is no escape this time. That the end has arrived, for every damned one of them.
Yes, Clip had read his histories. He knew the Liosan, the Edur, he knew all the mistakes that had been made, the errors in judgement, the flaws of compassion. He knew, too, the true extent of the Black-Winged Lord’s betrayal. Of Mother Dark, of all the Tiste Andii. Of those you left in the Andara. Of Nimander and his kin.
Your betrayal, Anomander Rake, of me.
The sun was going down. The rings clacked and clacked, and clacked. Below, the salt pan was cast in golden light, the hovels crouched on the near shoreline blessed picturesque by distance and lack of detail. Smoke from a cookfire now rose from their midst. Signs of life. Flames to beat back the coming darkness. But it would not last. It never lasted.
The High Priestess pushed the plate away. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Any more and I will burst.’ A first level acolyte ducked in to take the plate, scurrying off with such haste that she almost spilled the towering heap of cracked crayfish shells.
Leaning back, the High Priestess wiped the melted butter from her fingers, ‘It’s typical,’ she said to the half-dozen sisters seated at the table, ‘the nets drag up a sudden, unexpected bounty, and what do we do? Devour it entire.’
‘Kurald Galain continues to yield surprises,’ said the Third Sister; ‘why not ex shy;pect more to come?’
‘Because, dearest, nothing lasts for ever. Surrounding Kharkanas, there once stood forests. Until we chopped them down.’
‘We were young-’
‘And that would be a worthy defence,’ the High Priestess cut in, ‘if we have not, here in our old age, just repeated the stupidity. Look at us. Come the morrow all our clothes will cease to fit. We will discover, to our horror, bulges where none existed before. We see pleasure as an excuse for all manner of excess, but it is a most undisciplined trait. Now, sermon ended. Someone pour the tea.’