The Crippled God Read online

  ‘If you win and I survive,’ resumed Paran, ‘you get what you want from me, whatever that is, and assuming it’s in my power to grant. If I win, I get what I want from you.’

  ‘If it’s in my power—’

  ‘It is.’

  Shadowthrone muttered something under his breath, and then hissed. ‘Very well, tell me what you want.’

  And so Paran told him.

  The god cackled. ‘And you think that’s in my power? You think Cotillion has no say in the matter?’

  ‘If he does, best you go and ask him, then. Unless,’ Paran added, ‘it turns out that, as I suspect, you have no idea where your ally has got to. In which case, Lord of Shadows, you will do as I ask, and answer to him later.’

  ‘I answer to no one!’ Another shriek, the echoes racing.

  Paran smiled. ‘Why, Shadowthrone, I know precisely how you feel. Now, what is it you seek from me?’

  ‘I seek the source of your faith.’ The cane waggled. ‘That she’s out there. That she seeks what you seek. That, upon the Plain of Blood and Chains, you will find her, and stand facing her – as if you two had planned this all along, when I damned well know you haven’t! You don’t even like each other!’

  ‘Shadowthrone, I cannot sell you faith.’

  ‘So lie, damn you, just do it convincingly!’

  He could hear silk wings flapping, the sound a shredding of the wind itself. A boy with a kite. Dragon Master. Ruler over all that cannot be ruled. Ride the howling chaos and call it mastery – who are you fooling? Lad, let go now. It’s too much. But he would not, he didn’t know how.

  The man with the greying beard watches, and can say nothing.

  Distress.

  He glanced to his left, but the shadow was gone.

  A crash from the courtyard below drew him round. The throne, a mass of flames, had broken through the mound beneath it. And the smoke leapt skyward, like a beast unchained.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I look around at the living

  Still and bound

  Hands and knees to stone

  By what we found

  Was a night as wearying

  As any just past?

  Was a dawn any crueller

  To find us this aghast?

  By your hand you are staying

  And this is fair

  But your words of blood

  Are too bitter to bear

  Song of Sorrows Unwitnessed

  Napan Blight

  FROM HERE ONWARDS, HE COULD NOT TRUST THE SKY. THE ALTERNATIVE, he observed as he examined the desiccated, rotted state of his limbs, invited despondency. Tulas Shorn looked round, noting with faint dismay the truncated lines of sight, an affliction cursing all who must walk the land’s battered surface. Scars he had looked down upon from a great height only a short time earlier now posed daunting obstacles, a host of furrowed trenches carving deep, jagged gouges across his intended path.

  She is wounded but does not bleed. Not yet, at any rate. No, I see now. This flesh is dead. Yet I am drawn to this place. Why? He walked, haltingly, up to the edge of the closest crevasse. Peered down. Darkness, a breath cool and slightly sour with decay. And … something else.

  Tulas Shorn paused for a moment, and then stepped out into space, and plunged downward.

  Threadbare clothing tore loose, whipped wild as his body struck rough walls, skidded and rebounded in a knock of withered limbs, tumbling amidst hissing grit and sand, the feathery brush and then snag of grass roots, and now stones spilling to follow him down.

  Bones snapped when he struck the boulder-studded floor of the fissure. More sand poured down on all sides with the sound of serpents.

  He did not move for a time. The dust, billowing in the gloom, slowly settled. Eventually, he sat up. One leg had broken just above the knee. The lower part of the limb remained attached by little more than a few stretches of skin and sinew. He set the break and waited while the two ragged ends slowly fused. The four ribs that now thrust broken tips out from the right side of his chest were not particularly debilitating, so he left them, conserving his power.

  A short while later he managed to stand, his shoulders scraping walls. He could make out the usual assortment of splintered bones littering the uneven floor, but these were only of mild interest, the fragments of bestial souls clinging to them writhing like ghostly worms, disturbed by the new currents in the air.

  He began walking, following the odd scent he had detected from above. It was stronger down here, of course, and with each awkward step along the winding channel there arose within him a certain anticipation, bordering on excitement. Close, now.

  The skull was set on a spear shaft of corroded bronze, rising to chest height and blocking the path. In a heap at the shaft’s base was the rest of the skeleton, every bone systematically shattered.

  Tulas Shorn halted two paces from the skull. ‘Tartheno?’

  The voice rumbling through his head spoke, however, in the language of the Imass. ‘Bentract. Skan Ahl greets you, Revenant.’

  ‘Your bones are too large for a T’lan Imass.’

  ‘Yes, but no salvation came of that.’

  ‘Who did this to you, Skan Ahl?’

  ‘Her body lies a few paces behind me, Revenant.’

  ‘If you so wounded her in your battle that she died, how was it that she could destroy your body with such vigour?’

  ‘I did not say she was dead.’

  Tulas Shorn hesitated, and then snorted. ‘No, nothing lives here. Either she is dead or she is gone.’

  ‘I can hardly argue with you, Revenant. Now then, do this one thing: look behind you.’

  Bemused, he did so. Sunlight fighting its way down through dust. ‘I see nothing.’

  ‘That is your privilege.’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘I saw her step past me. I heard her slide to the ground. I heard her cry out in pain, and then weep, and when the weeping was done, all that remained was her breathing, until that too slowed. But … I can still hear it. The lift and fall of her chest, with each rise of the moon – when its faint light reaches down – how many times? Many. I have lost count. Why does she remain? What does she want? She will not answer. She never answers.’

  Saying nothing, Tulas Shorn edged past the stake and its dusty skull. Five strides further on, he halted, stared down.

  ‘Does she sleep, Revenant?’

  Tulas slowly crouched. He reached down and touched the delicate rib cage lying in a shallow depression at his feet. A newborn’s fossilized bones, glued to the ground by calcified limestone. Born to the tide of the moon, were you, little one? Did you draw even a single breath? I think not. ‘T’lan Imass, was this the end of your chase?’

  ‘She was formidable.’

  ‘A Jaghut. A woman.’

  ‘I was the last on her trail. I failed.’

  ‘And is it that failure that torments you, Skan Ahl? Or that she now haunts you, here behind you, for ever hidden from your sight?’

  ‘Awaken her! Or better still, slay her, Revenant. Destroy her. For all we know, she is the very last Jaghut. Kill her and the war will be over, and I will know peace.’

  ‘There is little peace in death, T’lan Imass.’ Ah, child, the wind at night moans through you, does it? Night’s very own breath, to haunt him for all eternity.

  ‘Revenant, turn my skull. I would see her again.’

  Tulas Shorn straightened. ‘I will not step between you in this war.’

  ‘But it is a war you can end!’

  ‘I cannot. Nor, it is clear, can you. Skan Ahl, I must leave you now.’ He looked down at the tiny bones. ‘Both of you.’

  ‘Since my failure, Revenant, I have entertained not a single visitor. You are the first to find me. Are you of such cruelty as to condemn me to an eternity in this state? She defeated me. I accept this. But I beg of you, grant me the dignity of facing my slayer.’

  ‘You pose a dilemma,’ Tulas Shorn said after a moment’s consid
eration. ‘What you imagine to be mercy may not prove any such thing, should I acquiesce. And then there is this: I am not particularly inclined to mercy, Skan Ahl. Not with respect to you. Do you begin to comprehend my difficulty? I could indeed reach out and swing your skull round, and you may curse me for all time. Or I could elect to do nothing, to leave everything as I have found it – as if I was never here – and so earn your darkest resentment. In either case, you will see me as cruel. Now, this does not offend me overmuch. As I said, I am not stirred to kindness. The matter I face is: how cruel do I wish to be?’

  ‘Think on that privilege I spoke of earlier, Revenant. Your simple gift of being able to turn yourself round, to see what hides behind you. We both understand that what is seen may not be welcome.’

  Tulas Shorn grunted. ‘T’lan Imass, I know all about looking over my shoulder.’ He walked back to the skull. ‘Shall I be the brush of wind, then? A single turn, a new world to unfold.’

  ‘Will she awaken?’

  ‘I think not,’ he replied, reaching out and settling one withered fingertip against the huge skull. ‘But you can try.’ A slow increase in pressure, and with a grating squeal the skull swung round.

  The T’lan Imass began howling in Tulas Shorn’s wake as he walked back up the channel.

  Gifts are never what they seem. And the punishing hand? It, too, is not what it seems. Yes, these two thoughts are worthy of long echoes, stretching into this wretched future.

  As if anyone will listen.

  Vengeance, held tight like an iron-shod spear in her hand, and how it burned. Ralata could feel its searing heat, and the pain was now a gift, something she could feed upon, like a hunter crouched over a fresh kill. She’d lost her horse. She’d lost her people. Everything had been taken away from her, everything except this final gift.

  The broken moon was a blurred smear almost lost in the green glow of the Strangers in the Sky. The Skincut Barghast stood facing east, her back to the smouldering coals from the hearth, and looked out upon a plain that seemed to seethe in the jade and silver light.

  Behind her the black-haired warrior named Draconus spoke in low tones with the Teblor giant. They talked often in some foreign tongue – Letherii, she supposed, not that she’d ever cared to learn it. Even the simpler trader’s language made her head ache, but on occasion she caught some Letherii word that had made its way into the pidgin cant, so she knew they were speaking of the journey ahead.

  East. It was, for the moment, convenient for her to travel in their company, despite having to constantly fend off the Teblor’s clumsy advances. Draconus was able to find game where none seemed to exist. He could call water up from cracked bedrock. More than just a warrior. A shaman. And in a scabbard of midnight wood strapped to his back there was a sword of magic.

  She wanted it. She meant to have it. A weapon suited to the vengeance she desired. With such a sword, she could kill the winged slayer of her sisters.

  In her mind she worked through scenarios. A knife across the man’s throat when he slept, and then a stab through an eye for the Teblor. Simple, quick, and she would have what she wanted. If not for the emptiness of this land. If not for the thirst and starvation that would follow – no, for the time being Draconus must live. For Ublala, however, if she could arrange a terrible accident, then she would not have him to worry about on the night she went for the sword. The dilemma of finding for the oaf a fatal demise here on this featureless plain still defeated her. But she had time.

  ‘Come back to the fire, beloved,’ the Teblor called, ‘and drink some tea. It has real leaves in it and stuff that smells nice.’

  Ralata massaged her temples for a moment, and then turned about. ‘I am not your beloved. I belong to no one. I never will.’

  At seeing the half-smile on the face of Draconus as he tossed another dung chip on to the fire, Ralata scowled. ‘It is rude,’ she pronounced as she walked over, squatted down and took the cup Ublala proffered, ‘to talk in a language I don’t understand. You could be plotting my rape and murder for all I know.’

  The warrior’s brows arched. ‘Now, why would we want to do that, Barghast? Besides,’ he added, ‘Ublala is courting you.’

  ‘He might as well give up now. I don’t want him.’

  Draconus shrugged. ‘I have explained to him that most of what we call courting boils down to just being there. Every time you turn, you see him, until his company feels perfectly natural to you. “Courting is the art of growing like mould on the one you want.”’ He paused, scratched at the stubble on his jaw. ‘I can’t lay claim to that observation, but I don’t recall who said it first.’

  Ralata spat into the fire to announce her disgust. ‘We’re not all like Hetan, you know. She used to say she gauged the attractiveness of a man by imagining how he looked when she was staring up at his red face and bulging eyes.’ She spat again. ‘I am a Skincut, a slayer, a collector of scalps. When I look upon a man, I imagine what he’ll look like with the skin of his face sliced away.’

  ‘She’s not very nice, is she?’ Ublala asked Draconus.

  ‘Trying hard, you mean,’ Draconus replied.

  ‘Makes me want to sex her even more than before.’

  ‘That’s how these things work.’

  ‘It’s torture. I don’t like it. No, I do. No, I don’t. I do. Oh, I’m going to polish my hammer.’

  Ralata stared at Ublala as he surged to his feet and thumped off.

  Low and in the language of the White Faces, Draconus murmured, ‘He means that literally, by the way.’

  She shot him a look, and snorted. ‘I knew that. He has no wits for anything else.’ She hesitated, and then said, ‘His armour looks expensive.’

  ‘It cost dearly, aye, Ralata. He wears it well, better than one might have hoped.’ He nodded, mostly to himself, she suspected, and said, ‘He will stand well, I think, when the time comes.’

  She remembered this warrior killing Sekara the Vile, snapping the old woman’s neck. The ease of the gesture, the way he seemed to embrace her to keep her from falling, as if her lifeless body still clung to something like dignity. He was not a man easily understood. ‘What are you two seeking? You walk into the east. Why?’

  ‘There are unfortunate things in the world, Ralata.’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  He sighed, studied the fire. ‘Have you ever stepped on something unintentionally? Out through a doorway, a sudden crunching underfoot. What was it? An insect? A snail? A lizard?’ He lifted his head and fixed her with his dark eyes, the embers gleaming in lurid reflection. ‘Not worth a second thought, was it? Such are the vagaries of life. An ant dreaming of war, a wasp devouring a spider, a lizard stalking the wasp. All these dramas, and crunch – all over with. What to make of it? Nothing, I suppose. If you’ve a heart, you apportion out some small measure of guilt and remorse, and then continue on your way.’

  She shook her head, baffled. ‘You stepped on something?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’ He nudged the embers and watched as sparks spun upward. ‘No matter. A few ants survived. No end to the little bastards, in fact. I could crush a thousand nests under heel and it’d not make a whit of difference. That’s the best way of thinking about it, in fact.’ He met her eyes again. ‘Does that make me cold? What did I leave behind in those chains, I wonder, still shackled there, a host of forlorn virtues … whatever. I am having odd dreams of late.’

  ‘I dream only of vengeance.’

  ‘The more you dream of one particular and pleasing thing, Ralata, the quicker it palls. The edges get worn down, the lustre fades. To leave such obsessions behind, dream of them often.’

  ‘You speak like an old man, a Barghast shaman. Riddles and bad advice, Onos Toolan was right to discount them all.’ She almost looked to the west, past his shoulder, as if she might find her people and the Warleader, all marching straight for them. Instead, she finished the last of the tea in her cup.

  ‘Onos Toolan,’ Dra
conus muttered, ‘an Imass name. A strange warleader for the Barghast to have … will you tell me the tale of that, Ralata?’

  She grunted. ‘I have no skill for tales. Hetan took him for a husband. He was from the Gathering, when all the T’lan Imass answered the summons of Silverfox. She returned to him his life, ending his immortality, and then Hetan found him. After the end of the Pannion War. Hetan’s father was Humbrall Taur, who had united the White Face clans, but he drowned during the landing upon the shores of this continent—’

  ‘A moment, please. Your tribes are not native to this continent?’

  She shrugged. ‘The Barghast gods were awakened to some peril. They filled the brains of the shamans with their panic, like sour piss. We must return here, to our original homeland, to face an ancient enemy. So we were told, but not much else. We thought the enemy was the Tiste Edur. Then the Letherii, and then the Akrynnai. But it wasn’t any of them, and now we are destroyed, and if Sekara spoke truly, then Onos Toolan is dead, and so is Hetan. They’re all dead. I hope the Barghast gods died with them.’

  ‘Can you tell me more about these T’lan Imass?’

  ‘They knelt before a mortal man. In the midst of battle, they turned their backs on the enemy. I will say no more of them.’

  ‘Yet you chose to follow Onos Toolan—’

  ‘He was not among those. He stood alone before Silverfox, a thing of bones, and demanded—’

  But Draconus had leaned forward, almost over the fire. ‘“A thing of bones”? T’lan – Tellann! Abyss below!’ He suddenly rose, startling Ralata further, and she watched as he paced, and it seemed black ink was bleeding out from the scabbard at his back, a stain that hurt her eyes. ‘That bitch,’ he said in a low growl. ‘You selfish, spiteful hag!’

  Ublala heard the outburst and he suddenly loomed into the dull glow of the fire, his huge mace leaning over one shoulder. ‘What’d she do, Draconus?’ He glared at Ralata. ‘Should I kill her? If she’s being spelfish and sightful – what’s rape mean, anyway? It’s got to do with sex? Can I—’