Fall of Light (The Kharkanas Trilogy 2)

‘Yes. Is that not delightful?’

Threadbare saw the boy nearing the northern ridge of the valley. ‘That vengeance of his,’ she said. ‘He did it right, I think.’

‘The dead weep for him.’

‘They do? In pity?’

‘No,’ T’riss replied. ‘In envy.’

Threadbare kicked her mount forward. ‘Fucking ghosts,’ she muttered. I’m of a mind to join them.

* * *

Renarr followed Lord Vatha Urusander into the old throne room. Within the spacious chamber, lightness and darkness waged a belaboured contest, too sombre to be a battle, too desultory to be a war. This was a sullen acceptance, as of two powers recognizing the other’s necessity. Definition, Urusander might say, by opposition.

Candles and a brazier illuminated one of the two thrones that had been set up side by side on the dais. Its wood was white, polished pearlescent, and over the arms gold-threaded silks had been draped. The other throne seemed to emanate negation, making it difficult to discern, as if some lifeless mote stained the eye.

Mother Dark had been seated on that throne, though upon Urusander’s entrance into the chamber she now stood. At the foot of the dais and flanking the approach waited the two High Priestesses, both turning to face Father Light. Syntara was resplendent in her sunburst vestments, her brocade glittering and her braided hair looking like ropes of gold wire. Heavy white makeup disguised the fresh cuts on her face.

High Priestess Emral Lanear – whom Renarr had never seen before – wore a black robe, untouched by ornamentation. Her onyx face looked distraught, with deep lines bracketing her mouth. She was older than Syntara, her features almost too plain in the absence of paint and colour. A woman, concluded Renarr with a mental smile, inviting darkness.

This moment, Renarr understood, belonged to the surface. Nothing here announced depth or solidity. The ceremony would be in the manner of all ceremonies: momentary and ephemeral. A sudden focus, filled with intent, which would ring hollow for ever afterwards.

She thought it fitting.

As Urusander paused a few paces in front of her, Renarr moved off to the right, towards the flanking row of braziers suspended from three-legged iron stands. The warmth was welcome but would soon become oppressive. She found herself drawing closer to where Hunn Raal stood.

The man’s faint smirk was just as welcoming as the heat from the glowing embers: a thing of familiarity, a wry reminder of the occasion’s falsity. Mockery attended the moment, and in this respect Hunn Raal belonged to this scene. He had recovered from the sorcerous battle, if one chose to ignore the ruptured pads of the palms of his hands, the gaping, bloodless fissures streaking his fingers. That, and the incessant low tremble that the destriant fought with sips from his flask. Still, he stood in the manner of a man wholly satisfied.

She considered this scene, caught as it was on the cusp of dawn, when night and day fell into their eternal, exhausted battle, against the backdrop of a bleeding sky, and wondered how it would be seen in posterity. Necessity’s bared teeth, transformed into smiles of joy in the centuries to come. That vast span of wilful forgetfulness we call history. Looking round the chamber, she saw but one other witness who might be asking the same questions. Rise Herat. The historian. I once attended one of his lectures. A night of self-hatred, I recall, uttered in the lifeless tones of an anatomist lecturing surgeons. Only, the body on the slab was his own. He was past even enjoying the pain he inflicted on himself.

When the historian’s love of history dies … alas, there is nowhere to go, no place to which one might flee and then hide.

Unless one chooses to live a life insensate. She glanced again at Hunn Raal, and saw how the man and the historian more or less faced one another, and as she noted this Vatha Urusander stepped forward, moving in between the two men as he approached the dais, and the woman who would become his wife.

He halted at the halfway point when Mother Dark suddenly spoke. ‘A moment, if you will, Lord Urusander.’

The man tilted his head, and then shrugged. ‘As much time as you need,’ he replied.

She seemed to consider that invitation for a breath or two, and then resumed. ‘This will be suitably written, as befits such an occasion. Two wounded halves … conjoined. The High Priestesses will speak, each on behalf of her … her aspect. And what is conjoined will be, one expects, healed.’ She paused, studying each person present, and then continued with an air of impatience. ‘The elaboration can await its writing. What we are witness to here is a bargain sealed in blood. Many have died to see our hands joined, Vatha Urusander, and I am in no mood to celebrate.’

Renarr saw Syntara’s flash of anger, but then Urusander was speaking.

‘Mother Dark. On behalf of my soldiers, I once petitioned the highborn – and you – in the name of justice.’ He waved dismissively. ‘This was not a challenge to my faith in you.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘that challenge came from elsewhere. Tell me then, will you now deny the title of Father Light?’

‘It seems that I cannot.’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It seems that you cannot.’

‘But this was not what I asked for.’

‘Nor is this my answer to your request for justice.’

‘Then, Mother Dark, we are understood?’

‘We are, Vatha, as best we can be.’