Nimander knew just how deceptive that look could be. Of them all — these pal shy;try few left — she saw the clearest, with acuity so sharp it intimidated almost everyone subject to it. The emptiness — if the one being watched finally turned to meet those eyes — would slowly fade, and something hard, unyielding and im shy;mune to obfuscation would slowly rise in its place. Unwavering, ever sharpening until it seemed to pierce the victim like nails being hammered into wood. And then she’d casually look away, unmindful of the thumping heart, the pale face and the beads of sweat on the brow, and the one so assailed was left with but one of two choices: to fear this woman, or to love her with such savage, demanding desire that it could crush the heart.
Nimander feared Kedeviss. And loved her as well. He was never good with choices.
If Kallor sensed that regard — and Nimander was certain he did — he was indif shy;ferent to it, preferring to divide his attention between the empty sky and the empty landscape surrounding them. When he wasn’t sleeping or eating. An un shy;pleasant guest, peremptory and imperious. He would not cook, nor bother cleans shy;ing his plate afterwards. He was a man with six servants.
Nenanda was all for banishing the old man, driving him away with stones and pieces of dung, but Nimander found something incongruous in that image, as if it was such an absurd impossibility that it had no place even in his imagination.
‘He’s weakening,’ Desra said at his side.
‘We’re soon there, I think,’ Nimander replied. They were just south of Sarn, which had once been a sizeable city. The road leading to it had been settled all along its length, ribbon farms behind stalls, shops and taverns. The few residents left were an impoverished lot, skittish as whipped dogs, hacking at hard ground that had been fallow too long — at least until they saw the travellers on the main road, whereupon they dropped their hoes and hurried away.
The supplies left at the T-intersection had been meticulously packed into wooden crates, the entire pile covered in a tarp with its corners staked. Ripe fruits, candied sugar-rock dusted in salt, heavy loads of dark bread, strips of dried eel, watered wine and three kinds of cheese — where, all this had come from, given the wretched state of the forms they’d passed, was a mystery.
‘He would kill us as soon as look at us,’ Desra said, her eyes now on Kallor.
‘Skintick agrees.’
‘What manner of man is he?’
Nimander shrugged. ‘An unhappy one. We should get going.’
‘Wait,’ said Desra. ‘I think we should get Aranatha to look at Clip.’
‘Aranatha?’ He looked round, found the woman sitting, legs folded under her like a fawn’s, plucking flowers from the sloped bank of the road. ‘Why? What can she do?’
Desra shook her head, as if unable to give her reasons. Or unwilling.
Sighing, Nimander said, ‘Go ahead, ask her, then.’
‘It needs to come from you.’
Why? ‘Very well.’ He set out, a dozen strides taking him to where Aranatha sat. As his shadow slipped over her she glanced up and smiled.
Smiles so lacking in caution, in diffidence or wry reluctance, always struck him as a sign of madness. But the eyes above it, this time, were not at all vacuous. ‘Do you feel me, Nimander?’
‘I don’t know what you mean by that, Aranatha. Desra would like you to ex shy;amine Clip. I don’t know why,’ he added, ‘since I don’t recall you possessing any specific skills in healing.’
‘Perhaps she wants company,’ Aranatha said, rising gracefully to her feet.
And he was struck, as if slapped across the face, by her beauty. Standing now so close, her breath so warm and so strangely dark. What is happening to me? Kedeviss and now Aranatha.
‘Are you all right, Nimander?’
‘Yes.’ No. ‘I’m fine.’ What awakens in me? To deliver both anguish and exal shy;tation?
She placed a half-dozen white flowers in his hand, smiled again, then walked over to the wagon. A soft laugh from Skintick brought him round.
‘There’s more of that these days,’ his brother said, gazing after Aranatha. ‘If we are to be an incongruous lot, and it seems we are, then it follows that we con shy;found each other at every turn.’
‘You are speaking nonsense, Skintick.’
‘That is my task, isn’t it? I have no sense of where it is we’re heading — no, I don’t mean Bastion, nor even the confrontation that I think is coming. I mean us, Nimander. Especially you. The less control you have, the greater your talent for leadership seems to become, the qualities demanded of such a person — like those flowers in your hand, petals unfolding.’
Nimander grimaced at this and scowled down at the blossoms. ‘They’ll be dead shortly.’
‘So may we all,’ Skintick responded. ‘But. . pretty while it lasts.’
Kallor joined them as they prepared to resume the journey. His weathered face was strangely colourless, as if drained of blood by the incessant wind. Or whatever memories haunted him. The flatness in his eyes suggested to Nimander that the man was without humour, that the notion was as alien to him as mending the rips in his own clothes. ‘Are you all finally done with your rest?’ Kallor asked, noting the flowers still in Nimander’s hand with a faint sneer.
‘The horses needed it,’ Nimander said. ‘Are you in a hurry? If so, you could al shy;ways go ahead of us. When you stop for the night we’ll either catch up with you or we won’t.’
‘Who would feed me, then?’
‘You could always feed yourself,’ Skintick said. ‘Presumably you’ve had to do that on occasion.’
Kallor shrugged. ‘I will ride the wagon,’ he said, heading off.
Nenanda had collected the horses and now led them over. ‘They all need re-shoeing,’ he said, ‘and this damned road isn’t helping any.’
A sudden commotion at the wagon brought them all round, in time to see Kallor flung backward from the side rail, crashing heavily on the cobbles, the look on his face one of stunned surprise. Above him, standing on the bed, was Aranatha, and even at that distance they could see something dark and savage blazing from her eyes.
Desra stood near her, mouth hanging open.
On the road, lying on his back, Kallor began to laugh. A rasping, breathy kind of laugh.
With a bemused glance at Skintick and Nenanda, Nimander walked over.
Aranatha had turned away, resuming her ministrations with Clip, trickling water between the unconscious man’s lips. Tucking the flowers under his belt, Nimander pulled himself on to the wagon and met Desra’s eyes. ‘What hap shy;pened?’
‘He helped himself to a handful,’ Desra replied tonelessly, nodding towards Aranatha. ‘She, er, pushed him away.’
‘He was balanced on a wheel spoke?’ Skintick asked from behind Nimander.
Desra shook her head. ‘One hand on the rail. She just. . sent him flying.’
The old man, his laughter fading away, was climbing to his feet. ‘You damned Tiste Andii,’ he said, ‘no sense of adventure.’
But Nimander could see that, despite Kallor’s seeming mirth, the grizzled war shy;rior was somewhat shaken. Drawing a deep breath and wincing at some pain in his ribs, he moved round to the back of the wagon and once more climbed aboard, this time keeping his distance from Aranatha.
Nimander leaned on the rail, close to Aranatha. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
Glancing up, she gave him another one of those appallingly innocent smiles. ‘Can you feel me now, Nimander?’
Was the idea of water enough to create an illusion so perfect that every sense was deceived? The serpent curl of the One River, known as Dorssan Ryl, encircled half the First City of Kharkanas. Before the coming of light there was no reflec shy;tion from its midnight surface, and to settle one’s hand in its ceaseless flow was to feel naught but a cooler breath against the skin as the current sighed round the intrusion. ‘Water in Darkness, dreams in sleep’ — or so wrote one of the Mad Poets of the ninety-third century, during the stylistic trend in poetry characterized by brevity, a style that crashed in the following century during the period of art and oratory known as the Flowering Bright.