Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1) Read online

  He heard scrabbling from the stairs and turned to see Cedorpul climbing into view. The young priest was out of breath, his round face and round body seeming to bob loosely, as if filled with air. Behind him, as he stepped on to the platform, another figure loomed into view.

  Cedorpul looked round. ‘She’s not here? Where is she?’

  ‘In her room. Playing.’

  ‘Abdication of responsibilities!’

  Rise Herat tilted his head to one side. ‘My very thoughts when you left her with me, Cedorpul.’

  The priest waved a hand and then spent a moment straightening his stained tunic. ‘These matters are beneath argument. Her whereabouts are known: that is all that is relevant here.’

  The other priest edged past Cedorpul and stood looking out over the city.

  ‘Endest Silann,’ Rise said to him, ‘tell me what you see?’

  ‘It is less what I see than what I feel, historian.’

  ‘And what do you feel?’

  ‘Up here, it is as if the world’s weight falls from my shoulders. While in the corridors beneath us …’ He shrugged.

  ‘You are young,’ said Rise. ‘There is much for you to bear, but the gift of youth means you scarcely feel its weight. It distresses me to think that you are growing old before your time.’

  Cedorpul said, ‘You’ve not yet heard. A rider has come in from one of the monasteries. Warlock Resh leads a party of Shake. They are escorting a guest, who will meet Mother Dark herself.’

  ‘Indeed? It is already known that she will grant an audience? This guest must be of considerable importance.’

  ‘From the Vitr.’

  Rise turned to Cedorpul, studied the flushed face and bright blue eyes, wondering again at the lack of eyebrows or any other facial hair – did the man simply shave it all off, as he did from his pate? It seemed an odd affectation. ‘Nothing comes from the Vitr,’ he said.

  ‘We make bold claims at our peril,’ Endest muttered from where he leaned over the wall.

  Rise considered for a moment, and then said, ‘It is said the Azathanai have fashioned stone vessels capable of holding Vitr. Perhaps entire ships can be constructed of the same material.’

  ‘No ships,’ said Cedorpul. ‘Beyond that, we know little. A woman, but not Tiste.’

  ‘Azathanai?’

  ‘It would seem so,’ Endest confirmed.

  ‘They should approach the edge of the forest soon, I would judge,’ Cedorpul announced, moving to position himself beside his fellow priest. ‘We thought to witness their arrival from here.’

  So much for a period of restful contemplation. ‘I trust all is being made ready below.’

  ‘Nothing grand,’ Cedorpul said. ‘This is not a formal visit, after all.’

  ‘No polishing of buckles?’ Rise asked. ‘No buffing of silver?’

  Endest snorted.

  Puffing out his fleshy cheeks, Cedorpul slowly shook his head. ‘Ill-chosen my company this day. I am assailed by irreverence. An historian who derides historical occasions. An acolyte who mocks decorum.’

  ‘Decorum?’ Endest twisted round on one elbow to regard Cedorpul. ‘How readily you forget, that before dawn this morning I dragged you out from under three priestess candidates. Smelling like a sack of stale wine, and as for the stains upon your robes, well, I remain most decorous in not looking too closely!’ To Rise Herat he added, ‘Cedorpul finds the candidates when they’re still waiting in the chaperon’s antechamber, and informs them that their prowess in bed must be tested—’

  ‘I avail myself of their natural eagerness,’ Cedorpul explained.

  ‘He’s found an unused room and now has the key for it. Swears the candidates to secrecy—’

  ‘Dear me,’ said Rise. ‘Cedorpul, you risk a future of scorn and righteous vengeance. I hope I live to witness it in all its glory.’

  ‘Endest, you have failed me in every measure of friendship of which I can conceive. Into the ears of the court historian, no less! It will be the two of you who curse me to the fate the historian so ominously describes!’

  ‘Hardly,’ countered Endest. ‘I envision a night of confessions – no, whom do I deceive? Dozens of nights and confessions by the hundred. Yours is a fate I do not envy—’

  ‘You seemed thankful enough for my cast-offs last night, honourable acolyte. And every other night at that. Who was it who said that hypocrisy has no place in a temple of worship?’

  ‘No one,’ replied Rise Herat, ‘as far as I know.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Cedorpul asked. ‘Truth?’

  Rise nodded.

  ‘Oh my,’ Cedorpul said, and then he sighed. ‘These matters are beneath argument. Let us ignore, for the time being, the unfortunate circumstances driving the three of us into each other’s company, and enjoy the view.’

  ‘And what of young Legyl Behust?’ Rise asked him.

  ‘Surely there is a sound argument to be made regarding the educational value of play. Besides, that chamber beneath us is the traditional sanctuary of the Citadel’s succession of hostages. May she bar the door in all assurance of privacy. Until the noon bell at the very least.’

  It occurred to Rise Herat, somewhat ungraciously, that he would have preferred the company of Legyl Behust.

  Cedorpul pointed. ‘I see them!’

  * * *

  Sister Emral Lanear examined herself in the full-length silvered mirror. The faintly blurred woman staring back at her promised great beauty, and Emral longed for them to exchange places. With such a prayer answered, none could pierce the veil, and she need not guard herself at every moment, lest someone glimpse the tortured truths roiling behind her eyes; and in expression she would give nothing away.

  The world held up its illusions. No one could see for ever, beyond horizons, through the thickest of forests and the solid mountains of rock, or into the depths of dark rivers, and so there were promises out there as well, inviting the longing reach, offering up vistas of grandeur. The illusions were borne by all who witnessed them in the name of sanity, perhaps, or hope. And so too could others see her: a High Priestess taking her station in the altar room, with the other High Priestess at her side, both standing as representatives of Mother Dark, whose own veil of darkness none could pierce – they could indeed see this and so find whatever illusions of comfort they desired.

  There was no cause to resent their expectations. Yet, for all that, she wished the image before her to step out from the mirror, leaving a space into which Emral could then plunge. Illusions held up the world, and she was so tired of holding up her own.

  Behind her the lesser priestesses fretted, and the sound alone was sufficient to irritate her. They had fled their beds and the men lying in them as soon as the news reached them. In her mind she imagined them transformed, bright silks shed and in their place dark, oily feathers. Mouths twisting into beaks. Breathless, excited words dissolving into senseless cawing. And the musty heat of their bodies now filled the chamber, and the long-toed feet clacked and kicked through the white shit of their agitation, and in a moment Emral Lanear would turn from the mirror and look upon them, and smile at the death of illusions.

  ‘A woman!’ someone hissed.

  ‘Azathanai! It is said they can take any form they wish.’

  ‘Nonsense. They are bound by the same laws as the rest of us – you might well dream of escaping that ugly countenance of yours, Vygilla, but not even an Azathanai’s power could help you.’

  High-pitched laughter.

  Emral stared at the blurred reflection, wondering what it was thinking, wondering what it was seeing. There must be a secret dialogue, she told herself, between thinking and seeing, where every conclusion was hidden away. But to look upon oneself in this mirror-world was to witness every truth; and find nowhere to hide. Mirrors, I fear, are an invitation to suicide.

  ‘Sister Emral.’

  At the familiar voice she felt something quail inside her. But the blurry reflection showed no sign of that, and Emral felt a flash
of unreasoning jealousy. Yet she held that placid gaze and did not turn at the call. ‘Sister Syntara, is it time?’

  High Priestess Syntara’s arrival in the chamber had, Emral realized, announced itself a few moments earlier, in the sudden hush among the priestesses. Such was the force of the young woman’s power, a thing of polished gold and dripping blood. Emral could see her now, almost formless in the mirror, neither beautiful nor imposing. She suppressed an urge to reach up and wipe through the shape, smearing it from existence.

  There was no need for two High Priestesses. The temple was ancient, once consecrated to a spirit of the river. The god’s very name had been obliterated from all records. Pictorial representations had been effaced from the walls, but she knew the Dorssan Ryl had been named after the spirit that once dwelt in its depths. In that ancient dawn, when the first stones of Kharkanas were set down, a single priest led the processions, the rituals of worship, and conducted the necessary sacrifices.

  The Yan and Yedan cults were survivors of that time, but Emral saw them as little more than hollow effigies, where ascetics invented rules of self-abnegation in the mistaken belief that suffering and faith were one and the same.

  Instead of answering Emral’s soft query, Syntara spent a few moments sending all the others from the chamber. Now she turned to Emral once more. ‘Will you gaze upon yourself until All Darkness comes?’

  ‘I was examining the tarnish,’ Emral replied.

  ‘Set the candidates to polishing it, then.’ Syntara’s tone betrayed the first hint of annoyance. ‘We have matters to discuss.’

  ‘Yes,’ Emral said, finally turning to Syntara, ‘that does seem to be our principal task these days. The discussion of … matters.’

  ‘Changes are coming, Sister. We must be positioned to take advantage of them.’

  Emral studied the younger woman, the fullness of her features, the unnecessary paint round her elongated, seductive eyes, the perfect moulding of her lips; and she thought of the cruel portrait Kadaspala had painted of Syntara – although it seemed that only Emral saw it as cruel, and indeed the portrait’s subject had uttered more than once her admiration of the rendition. But then Emral could not be certain that Syntara’s admiration was not for the woman depicted, rather than the genius of Kadaspala. ‘We must be positioned to survive, Sister Syntara. Seeking advantages is somewhat premature.’

  ‘That you are old is not my fault, Sister Emral. Mother Dark kept you elevated out of pity, I suspect, but that too is her decision to make. We are creating a religion here, but instead of glorying in the possibilities, you resist at every turn.’

  ‘From resistance comes truth,’ Emral replied.

  ‘What truth?’

  ‘Are we now discussing matters, Sister Syntara?’

  ‘An Azathanai has come from the Vitr. She even now approaches, as much as raised aloft by the Shake.’

  Emral lifted her brows. ‘To challenge Mother Dark? I should think not.’

  ‘Did you know that Hunn Raal is in Kharkanas?’

  ‘I have observed his petition for an audience, yes.’

  ‘You should not have denied him,’ Syntara replied. ‘Fortunately, he sought me out and we have spoken. The Azathanai was found by a troop of Wardens of the Outer Reach, and it was a Warden who was escorting the woman here – before the monks intervened. The Azathanai was brought directly into audience with Sheccanto, and was a guest of the monastery for two nights. Do you begin to understand?’

  ‘I did not deny Hunn Raal. Rather, I saw no need for haste. He has brought you this tale? And what, do you imagine, might be his reasons for so eagerly filling your ear, Sister Syntara? Allow me to guess. He wishes to enliven the notion of this Azathanai woman posing a threat, and so receive from Mother Dark the command to once more muster unto arms Urusander’s Legion.’

  Syntara was scowling. ‘She came from the Vitr.’

  ‘She is Azathanai. Perhaps she did indeed come from the Vitr, but she is not of it. Since when have the Azathanai posed a threat to us? If Hunn Raal gets his way, how will the highborn react to the resurrection of Urusander’s Legion at full strength? Particularly at this time when all of Kharkanas is talking about a holy marriage?’

  ‘Holy marriage? I assure you, Sister Emral, the talk on the streets is all about Draconus, and what he might do should such a union be announced.’

  ‘Only because they’ve thought further along this path than, it seems, you have, Sister. Draconus indeed – will it be his head on the plate offered to the highborn in appeasement? And how long will the pleasure of that last when a score or so of Urusander’s lowborn cohort commanders tramp mud into the Citadel’s Grand Hall? The banishing of Draconus from her bed is poor balance to the diluting of highborn power. The return of Urusander’s Legion will be a drawn blade, held high over our heads. And you would dance for them?’

  At these last words, Syntara’s face darkened. The rumours of her childhood spent as an alley dancer – mouth round the cocks of drunken old men – never quite went away. Emral and her agents had done nothing to dispel them, of course. But then, Syntara’s own talespinners never rested in assailing Emral’s own reputation. Accordingly, there are always matters to discuss.

  ‘It would appear,’ said Syntara after a moment, ‘that you’ve become well acquainted with alley rumours of late, Sister Emral.’

  ‘Enough to know that the hatred of Draconus stems from jealousy—’

  ‘And his growing power!’

  Emral stared at Syntara. ‘Are you now as deluded as the rest? He has no power. He is her lover, that and nothing more. A Consort.’

  ‘Who has doubled the number of his Houseblades over the past three months.’

  Emral shrugged, turning back to the mirror. ‘In his place I would do no less. Hated by the Legion and the lowborn, feared by the highborn. To steal the threat from this, she would do no better than to marry him instead of Urusander.’

  ‘It is well then,’ snapped Syntara, ‘that Mother Dark does not seek our counsel.’

  ‘Upon that we agree,’ replied Emral.

  ‘But even that will change, Sister Emral. What then? Are we to stand before her snarling and spitting at each other?’

  ‘With luck, you will have aged by then, and so found for yourself some wisdom.’

  ‘Is that how you interpret the lines upon your face? Since you stare endlessly into that mirror, you must know those flaws well by now.’

  ‘But Sister Syntara,’ said Emral to the vague form standing behind her own reflection, ‘it is not me that I am looking at.’

  * * *

  Caplo Dreem and Warlock Resh rode at the forefront of the train. Behind them, unflanked and trailed by a half-dozen Shake, rode T’riss, astride her horse of bound and twisted grass. The black of the grass blades had faded in death; the simulacrum was now grey and brown, and in drying the entire creature had tightened in form, until the grasses bore the appearance of muscle and raw bone, like an animal stripped of its hide. The holes of its eyes were now spanned by the webs of funnel spiders. Caplo repressed an urge for yet one more glance back to the Azathanai and her ghastly mount.

  His hands were sweaty inside their leather gloves. Up ahead, the forest’s edge was visible in a swath of dulled sunlight, as if the shadow of clouds resided in his own eyes, and he found himself fighting a shiver.

  Beside him Warlock Resh was uncharacteristically silent.

  As promised they had delivered T’riss to the Yan Monastery, riding into a courtyard filled with brothers called in from the fields and assembled to make formal greeting to the Azathanai. Many among the crowd had recoiled upon seeing the horse of grass – or perhaps it was its rider’s growing power, which Resh said roiled about her in invisible yet palpable currents – or the blankness of her expression, the flatness of her eyes.

  Little had been said on the journey back to the monastery. None knew what they were bringing into the community; none knew what threat this Azathanai posed to Mother Sheccanto. Born of
the Vitr was a fearful notion. Caplo regretted the enmity of the Warden, Faror Hend – he would have liked to question her more about T’riss: the first moments of their meeting; the details of their journey through Glimmer Fate.

  Politics was worn like a second skin, smooth as silk when stroked but bristling when rubbed the wrong way. Caplo was as quick to make enemies as friends, and he had chosen wrongly with Faror Hend. Now that she was upon the other side, he would have to give thought to diminishing her reputation. But he would need his talent for subtlety, since she was betrothed to a hero of the realm. It was all very unfortunate, but a spy was the repository of many unpleasant necessities. The profession was not all daring and romance, and at times even the mask of seduction could turn ugly.

  His thoughts returned to that fateful meeting between Mother Sheccanto and T’riss. There had been no delay in ushering himself, Resh and the Azathanai into the chamber of the Mother, known as the Rekillid – the old tongue word for womb. The candles of gold wax lining the walls had all been lit, bathing the round room in soft yellow light that seemed to lift towards the domed, gilt ceiling. The vast woven rug, rich with earth tones, was thick enough to swallow the sounds of their march across it to where waited Mother Sheccanto, seated in the high-backed chair of her office.

  With Warlock Resh upon the Azathanai’s right and Caplo Dreem upon her left, they walked without speaking until halting five paces from the dais.

  Caplo saluted. ‘Mother, the bandits have been eradicated. In sorrow I must report that no children were saved.’

  Sheccanto waved one wrinkled hand in dismissal, her watery eyes fixed upon T’riss, who seemed to be studying the rug underfoot. ‘Warlock Resh,’ Mother then said, making a command of the name.

  Bowing, Resh said, ‘Mother, the report of the Warden is that this woman emerged from the Vitr. Her escort named her T’riss.’

  ‘A Warden versed in the old tongue, then.’

  ‘Faror Hend, of the Durav, Mother.’

  ‘She had wise and knowledgeable parents,’ Sheccanto said, nodding. She’d drawn her hands into her lap and there they fidgeted, gripping one another as if to still an unseen tremble, but her gaze had yet to shift away from T’riss. After a moment, she lifted her chin and raised her voice, ‘Will you be a guest among us, T’riss?’