‘In the cage of your imagination, blissfully immune to all that was real — the cruel indifferences, yes — you make so much of so little, Nimander. A chance smile. A look. In your cage she lies in your arms, and this is the purest love, isn’t it? Unsullied, eternal-’
Stop, Phaed. You know nothing. You were too young, too self-obsessed, to see anything of anyone else, unless it threatened you.
‘And she was not a threat?’
You never wanted me that way — don’t be absurd, ghost. Don’t invent-
‘I invent nothing! You were just too blinded to see what was right in front of you! And did she die at the spear of a Tiste Edur? Did she truly? Where was I at that moment, Nimander? Do you recall seeing me at all?’
No, this was too much.
But she would not relent. ‘Why do you think the idea of killing Sandalath was so easy for me? My hands were already stained-’
Stop!
Laughter, ringing through his head.
He willed himself to say nothing, waited for those chilling peals of mirth to dwindle, grow ever fainter.
When she spoke again in his mind there was no humour at all in her tone. ‘Nenanda wants to replace you. He wants the command you possess, the respect the others hold for you. He will take it, when he sees his chance. Do not trust him, Nimander. Strike first. A knife in the back — just as you acted to stop me, so you must do again, and this time you cannot fail. There will be no Withal there to finish the task. You will have to do it yourself.’
Nimander lifted his gaze, looked upon Nenanda, the straight back, the hand resting on pommel. No, you are lying.
‘Delude yourself if you must — but not for much longer. The luxury must be shortlived. You will need to show your. . decisiveness, and soon.’
And how many more kin do you want to see dead. Phaed?
‘My games are done with. You ended them once and for all. You and the swordsmith. Hate me if you will, but I have talents, and I gift them to you. Nimander — you were the only one to ever listen to me, the only one to whom I opened my heart-’
Heart? That vile pool of spite you so loved to swim in — that was your heart?
‘You need me. I give strength where you are weakest. Oh, make the bitch murmur of love, fill her mouth with all the right words. If it helps. But she cannot help you with the hard choices a leader must make. Nenanda believes he can do better — see it in his eyes, so quick to challenge.’
‘It’s growing light,’ Desra said from the window. She turned. ‘I think we should go out. To the tavern. It may be he is wounded. It may be he needs our help.’
‘I recall him not asking for it,’ growled Nenanda.
‘He is not all-powerful,’ said Desra, ‘though he might affect such — it comes with being so young.’
Nimander stared across at her. Where did that insight come from?
‘Clip is vulnerable?’ Kedeviss asked in mock surprise. ‘Be quick to take advantage of that, Desra.’
‘The endless siege that is your envy grows wearisome, Kedeviss.’
Kedeviss paled at that and said nothing.
Oh, we are a vicious bunch, are we not? Nimander rubbed at his face, then said, ‘Let’s go, then, and see for ourselves what has become of him.’
Desra was first through the door.
Out into pale silvery light, a cerulean sky devoid of clouds, looking somehow speckled with grit. The harvested plants drooped in their racks, sodden with dew, the bulbs like swollen heads lined up in rows above the latticework. Nimander saw, as he paused out on the street, that the temple’s doors were ajar.
Clip was lying on the wooden sidewalk in front of the tavern, curled up, so covered in dried blood that he might have been a figure moulded in black mud.
They set out towards him.
Clip’s eyes were open, staring — Nimander wondered, if he was dead, until he saw the slow rise and fall of his chest — but showing no awareness of anything, even as they closed round him, even as Nimander knelt in front of him.
Skintick moved up to the tavern doors, pushed them open and stepped inside. He staggered out a moment later, both hands covering his face as he stumbled out into the middle of the street and stood there, back to the others.
Slaughter. He slaughtered them all. Clip’s sword was lying nearby, thick with gore, as if the entire weapon had been dragged through some enormous beast.
‘They took something from him,’ Aranatha said. ‘Gone. Gone away.’
Nenanda broke into a jog, straight for the temple opposite.
‘Gone for good?’ Nimander asked Aranatha.
‘I don’t know.’
‘How long can he live this way?’
She shook her head. ‘Force food and water into him, keep his wounds clean. .’
Long moments when no one spoke, when it seemed not a single question could be found, could be cleaned off and uttered in the name of normality.
Nenanda returned, ‘They’ve fled, the priests, all fled. Where was the Dying Cod supposed to be?’
‘A place named Bastion,’ said Kedeviss. ‘West of here, I think.’
‘We need to go there,’ Nimander said, straightening to face the others.
Nenanda bared his teeth. ‘To avenge him.’
‘To get him back,’ Nimander retorted. ‘To get back to him whatever they took.’
Aranatha sighed. ‘Nimander. .’
‘No, we go to Bastion. Nenanda, see if there’re any horses, or better yet, an ox and wagon — there was a large stable behind the inn.’ He looked down at Clip. ‘I don’t think we have the time to walk.’
As the three women set out to collect the party’s gear, followed for the moment by Nenanda, Nimander turned to study the tavern’s entrance. He hesitated — even from here he could see something: dark sprawled shapes, toppled chairs; and now the buzz of flies spun out from the gloom within.
‘Don’t,’ said Skintick behind him. ‘Nimander. Don’t.’
‘I have seen dead people before.’
‘Not like these.’
‘Why?’
‘They are all smiling.’
Nimander faced his closest friend, studied his ravaged face, and then nodded. After a moment he asked, ‘What made the priests flee?’
‘Aranatha, I think,’ answered Skintick.
Nimander nodded, believing the same. They had taken Clip — even with all the dead villagers, the priests had taken Clip, perhaps his very soul, as a gift to the Dying God. But they could do nothing against the rest of them — not while Aranatha resisted. Fearing retribution, they fled in the night — away, probably to Bastion, to the protection of their god.
‘Nimander,’ said Skintick in a low, hollow voice, ‘we are forced.’
‘Yes.’
‘Awakened once more.’
‘Yes.’
‘I had hoped. . never again.’
I know, Skintick. You would rather smile and jest, as befits your blessed nature. Instead, the face you will turn towards what is to come. . it will be no different from ours, and have we not all looked upon one another in those times? Have we not seen the mirrors we became to each other? Have we not recoiled?
Awakened.
What lay in the tavern was only the beginning. Merely Clip and his momentary, failing frenzy.
From this point on, what comes belongs to us.
To that, even Phaed was silent. While somewhere in the mists of his mind, so faint as to be almost lost, a woman wept.
It was a quirk of blind optimism that held that someone broken could, in time, heal, could reassemble all the pieces and emerge whole, perhaps even stronger for the ordeal. Certainly wiser, for what else could be the reward for suffering? The notion that did not sit well, with anyone, was that one so broken might remain that way — neither dying (and so removing the egregious example of failure from all mortal eyes) nor improving. A ruined soul should not be stubborn, should not cling to what was clearly a miserable existence.