No demon, then, but a Toblakai of true blood, a detail that sent pangs of regret and pain through Traveller, for reasons he kept to himself — and though she had seen something of that anguish in his face it appeared she would respect his pri shy;vacy. Or perhaps feared its surrender, for Samar Dev was a woman, he suspected, prone to plunging into vast depths of emotion.
She had, after all, travelled through warrens to find the trail of the one ahead of them on this plain, and such an undertaking was not embraced on a whim. All to deliver a horse. He knew enough to leave it at that, poor as it might be as justifi shy;cation for such extremity. The Kindaru had accepted the reason with sage nods, seeing nothing at all unusual in any of it — the horse was a sacred beast, after all, a Jhag, brother to their cherished horses-of-the-rock. They possessed legends with similar themes, and indeed they had spent half the night recounting many of them — and now they had found themselves a new one. Master of the Wolf-Horses met a woman so driven as to be his own reflection, and together they rode into the north, having drawn their threads through the last camp of the Kindaru, and were now entwined each with the other and both with the Kindaru, and though this was a tale not yet done it would nevertheless live on, for as long as lived the Kindaru themselves.
He had noted the grief in Samar Dev’s weary, weathered face, as the many wounds delivered — in all innocence — by the Kindaru slowly sank deeper, piercing her heart, and now compassion swirled dark and raw in her eyes, although the Kindaru were far behind them now. It was clear, brutally so, that both she and Traveller had collected a new thread to twist into their lives.
‘How far ahead?’ she asked.
‘Two days at the most.’
‘Then he might have found them by now, or they him.’
‘Yes, it’s possible. If this Skathandi Captain has an army, well; even a Toblakai can die.’
‘I know that,’ she replied. Then added, ‘Maybe.’
‘And there are but two of us, Samar Dev.’
‘If you’d rather cut away from this trail, Traveller, I will not question your de shy;cision. But I need to find him.’
He glanced away. ‘His horse, yes.’
‘And other things.’
Traveller considered for a time. He studied the broad, churned-up track. A thou shy;sand or five thousand; when people were moving in column it was always difficult to tell. The carriage itself would be a thing worth seeing, however, and the direction just happened to be the one he needed to take. The prospect of being forced into a detour was unacceptable. ‘If your friend is smart, he won’t do anything overt. He’ll hide, as best one can on these plains, until he sees an advantage — though what that advantage might be, against so many, I can’t imagine.’
‘So you will stay with me for a while longer?’
He nodded.
‘Then I should tell you some things, I think.’
They guided their horses on to the track and rode at the trot.
Traveller waited for her to continue.
The sun’s heat reminded him of his homeland, the savannahs of Dal Hon, although in this landscape there were fewer flies, and of the enormous herds of countless kinds of beasts — and the ones that hunted them — there was little sign. Here on the Lamatath there were bhederin, a lone breed of antelope, hares, wolves, coyotes, bears and not much else. Plenty of hawks and falcons overhead, of course — but this place did not teem as one might expect and he wondered about that.
Had the conflagration at Morn wiped everything out? Left a blasted landscape slow to recover, into which only a few species drifted down from the north? Or were the K’Chain Che’Malle rabid hunters, indulging in a slaughterfest that did not end until they themselves were extinct?
‘What do you know of the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths?’
He glanced across at her. ‘Not much. Only that he cannot be killed.’
‘Right.’
He waited.
Locusts crawled across the dusty track amidst shredded blades of grass, as if wondering who had beaten them to it. Somewhere high above a raptor loosed a piercing cry, the kind intended to panic a bird in flight.
‘His sword was forged by the power of the Crippled God. Possessing levels of sorcery to which the wielder can reach, each time, only by dying — fighting and dying with that weapon in his hands. The Emperor, a poor ravaged creature, a Tiste Edur, knew that death was but an illusion. He knew, I am certain of it, that he was cursed, so terribly cursed. That sword had driven him mad.’
Traveller imagined that such a weapon would indeed drive its wielder insane. He could feel sweat on the palms of his hands and shifted the reins into his right hand, settling the other on his thigh. His mouth felt unaccountably dry.
‘He needed champions. Challengers. Sometimes they would kill him. Some shy;times more than once. But as he came back again and again, ever stronger, in the end the challenger would fall. And so it went.’
‘A terrible fate,’ Traveller muttered.
‘Until one day some ships arrived. On board, yet more champions from distant lands. Among them, Karsa Orlong, the Toblakai. I happened to be with him, then.’
‘I would hear the story behind such a partnership.’
‘Maybe later. There was someone else, another champion. His name was Icarium.’
Traveller slowly twisted in his saddle, studied the woman across from him, Some unconscious message told the gelding to halt.
Samar’s Jhag horse continued on for a few steps, then she reined it in and turned to meet Traveller’s eyes. ‘I believe, if Icarium had met the Emperor, well, the dying would still be going on, spreading like a wildfire. An entire continent. . pretty much incinerated. Who knows, perhaps the entire world.’
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
‘Instead,’ Samar Dev said, ‘Karsa was sent for first.’
‘What happened?’
Her smile was sad. ‘They fought.’
‘Samar Dev,’ Traveller said, ‘that makes no sense. The Toblakai still lives.’
‘Karsa killed the Emperor. With finality.’
‘How?’
‘I have some suspicions. I believe that, somewhere, somehow, Karsa Orlong spoke with the Crippled God — not a pleasant conversation, I’m sure. Karsa rarely has those.’
‘Then the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths-’
‘Gone, delivered unto a final death. I like to believe Rhulad thanked Karsa with his last breath.’
If there was need for such a thought she was welcome to it. ‘And the sword? Does the Toblakai now carry it as his own?’
She collected her reins and nudged her mount onward. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Another reason why I have to find him.’
You are not alone in that, woman. ‘He bargained with the Crippled God. He replaced the Emperor.’
‘Did he?’
He urged his horse forward, came up alongside her once more. ‘What other possibility is there?’
And to that she grinned. ‘Ah, but that is where I know something you don’t, Traveller. I know Karsa Orlong.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s his favourite game, you see, pretending to be so. . obvious. Blunt, lacking all subtlety, all decorum. Just a savage, after all. The only possibility is the obvi shy;ous one, isn’t it? That’s why I don’t believe that’s what he’s done.’
‘You don’t wish to believe, you mean. Now I will speak plain, Samar Dev. If your Toblakai wields the sword of the Crippled God, he shall have to either yield it or draw it against me. Such a weapon must be destroyed.’
‘You set yourself as an enemy of the Crippled God? Well, you’re hardly alone in that, are you?’
He frowned. ‘I did not then,’ he said, ‘nor do I desire to do so now. But he goes too far.’
‘Who are you, Traveller?’
‘I played the game of civilization once, Samar Dev. But in the end I remain as I am, a savage.’
‘Too many have put themselves into Karsa Orlong’s path,’ she said. ‘They do not stand there long.’ A pause, and then, ‘Civilized or barbarian — those are but words — the cruel killer can wear all the costumes he wants, can pretend to great causes and hard necessities. God’s below, it all sickens me, the way you fools carry on. Over the whole damned world it’s ever the same.’