Fall of Light (The Kharkanas Trilogy 2)

The lines of boulders, the cairns upon the summits, the huge wheels – all of these had come in the wake of the gods’ leaving. The desperate mortals had looked up at the sky, witness to the dwindling fires of all that was now lost.

It well suited a child’s mind to believe that the ones left behind, abandoned, would seek a new language, written in stone upon the plain, with which to call upon the gods. And, at least in the beginning of these notions, there had been little recognition of the desperation behind such efforts. The stars were far away, but not so far as to lose sight of the world below.

The day had been bright, clear, when the Jhelarkan attacked the column. Invisible borders had been crossed by the homesteaders, although, as Ivis later understood, the Tiste were hardly ignorant of their transgression. Sometimes, among a people, there existed a certain arrogance. It had been built up, that arrogance, in a multitude of layers, making it strangely impregnable to the weaker virtues of fairness and respect. It spoke with deceit, and when that failed, with slaughter.

But arrogance had a way of misunderstanding things. If the first Jhelarkan had seemed confused by notions of ownership; if they had not quite understood what it was that the Tiste expeditions were demanding, nor the claims they subsequently made – none of this was synonymous with weakness. In retrospect, Ivis now understood, the Jhelarkan had proved rather adept in grasping the new language thrust upon them, with its forts and outposts, its timber harvests and slaughtered beasts.

A few shouts upon the other side of the column, and then screams, and Ivis, running back to the wagon where sat his mother and grandmother, his much younger cousins huddled in the protective clutch of arms that had, until that moment, done such a good job of holding off the cruelties of the world … Ivis, confused, frightened, seeing a horrifying shape lunge into the midst of his family, making the wagon rock, and another one, its huge jaws closing round the head of the ox in its traces, dragging the bellowing beast down on to its fetlocks.

The blood that erupted from Ivis’s kin was like a sheet thrown out on the wind. The enormous wolf – soletaken – slaughtered everyone in the wagon. Then it was scrambling down, snarling and flinching at a spearthrust from a hunter Ivis could not see, and the refuge towards which the young boy had been running was but a heap of torn bodies.

In his terror, he had run under the wagon, where he huddled. From above, the blood of his family drained down like rain between the slats, covering him.

His memories of the rest of that attack were blurred, too vague to parse. The Jhelarkan had been a hunting pack turned war-band. They could easily have butchered everyone in the column. Instead, they had struck once, and then retreated. They had sought to deliver a message, in language most plain. Only years later, when the war had begun in earnest, did the Jhelarkan come to understand

that warnings never worked. Arrogance, after all, met such warnings with words like infamy. Arrogance responded with indignation. And this was the fuel for vengeance and retribution, the birth-cries of war, and the Tiste made it so, in ways wholly predictable and, he now understood, utterly contemptible.

In the mind, death plays with the dead, to breed more death. The stronger death’s hold, the more foolish the mind. Why, I wonder, does history seem to be little more than a list of belligerent stupidities?

How rare was it, he asked himself, that virtues changed the world? How brief and flitting such bright moments? But then, since when did love bend to reason? And how much vengeance is fed by the loss of someone dearly loved?

The Jhelarkan lost the war. They lost their land. Righteousness was demonstrated with blood and battle. Justice was won with triumph, making a lie of both.

In all of this was proved the indifference of the gods, and the language of stone boulders upon the plain was a language too simple to manage the complexities of the new world. His memory of that day, beyond even the murder of his family, belonged to the futility of the old ways. Those boulders no doubt still remained, serving now as monuments to failure. The Tiste claimed the land, and in a few short years the wild herds were all gone, and with the ground too poor for crops and too cold for livestock, the settlers eventually left their winnings, returning south.

The servants had cleared the last of the plates and bowls from the table and jugs were brought to fill tankards with heady, steaming mulled wine. Ivis had said little during the meal, rebuffing efforts directed his way. His concentration had wavered from the conversations until his sense of them was lost, and in the fugue that followed, he let lassitude take hold. Some nights, words proved too much of an effort.

He was, nevertheless, all too aware of Sandalath, seated upon his right. Impropriety was seductive. Unease and the notion of the forbidden proved spices to his desire. Still, he knew that he would do nothing, break no covenant. Barring the slaying of my lord’s daughters. The notion startled him, the truth of it shocking enough to sweep aside his lassitude.

Yalad was speaking. ‘… and so a chilly week ahead is likely. The outer walls will be bitter cold, and that makes the timing propitious. It will force them closer to the heart of the house.’

Ivis surprised everyone by speaking. ‘Your point, gate sergeant?’

‘Ah. Well, I was suggesting, sir, the closing off of the outer passages at that time, further reducing their avenues of escape.’

‘And why would that be a good thing?’

Yalad’s brow clouded. ‘To better effect their capture, sir.’

‘They may be children, Yalad,’ said Ivis, ‘but they are also witches. What manner of chains do you think will hold them?’

Surgeon Prok cleared his throat and said, ‘Falt, the herb-woman from the forest, could not stay long her last visit to me. The power of those two hellions proved too inimical. It infests the entire house. Sorcery abounds these days, gate sergeant, and it is as unruly as the season.’ He tilted his tankard towards Ivis. ‘The commander has the right of it. We have no means of containing them, barring immediate execution, which the commander will not sanction.’

Leaning back, Yalad held up both hands. ‘Very well. It was but an idea.’

‘The situation is indeed trying,’ Prok offered by way of mollification. ‘At times, in my station, I catch a scuffle or drawn breath, and find myself fixing gaze upon this wall or that. I believe I have found a secret door, and have chocked it secure. But magic … well, it is difficult feeling entirely safe.’

Ivis gestured to a servant. ‘Build up that fire again, will you?’

Although unsettled by the discussion thus far, with its ponderings on witchery and murder, Sandalath was unaccountably relieved when Ivis stirred awake enough to engage in the conversation. He had been a distant, remote presence during the meal, seemingly unmindful of the company.

There were ghosts in this house now, and no doubt in the courtyard and beyond, out upon the battlefield. There was a restlessness to the air that had little to do with the chill draughts as the winter wind fought its way through cracks and beneath doors.

Upon her left, Sorca was refilling her pipe. The rustleaf was mixed with something, perhaps sage, that made for a pungent but not unpleasant scent.

Sandalath noted, across from them, Surgeon Prok eyeing the woman. ‘Sweet Sorca,’ he said, ‘it is held by some of my profession that rustleaf is an inimical habit.’

For a time it did not seem that Sorca thought the comment worthy of a response, but then she stirred slightly, reaching out to collect her tankard. ‘Surgeon Prok,’ she said, her voice so quiet as to make the man opposite her lean closer to hear, ‘it is a scribe’s fate to end the day with a blackened tongue.’