Fall of Light (The Kharkanas Trilogy 2)

‘Looking for Ribs. He comes here a lot. They’re friends, Ribs and Grizzin Farl.’

‘I recall hearing that the Azathanai plucked the beast from the Dorssan Ryl. Saved the dog’s life, in fact. This will forge a bond, I’m sure.’

‘Lord Silchas is Grizzin’s friend, too.’

‘Is he now?’

Orfantal nodded. ‘It’s the helplessness they share.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘That’s what Grizzin says. The white shadow to a brother’s dark power. That skin, he says, will undo Silchas, even though it’s unfair. People are driven to do things, says Grizzin, by what they think is lacking in them.’

‘The Azathanai has many things to say to you, it seems.’

‘It’s because I’m young,’ Orfantal explained. ‘He talks to me because I don’t understand what he’s talking about. That’s what he says. But I understand him better than he thinks. I dreamed once there was a giant hole in the ground behind me, and it kept growing, and I kept running to keep from falling in, and I ran through walls of stone, and mountains, and across the bottom of deep lakes, and then ice and snow. I ran and ran, to keep from falling into the hole. If it wasn’t for that hole, I could never have run through a stone wall, or all the rest.’

‘And so people are driven to do by what’s lacking in them.’

Orfantal nodded. He edged away from the growing flames, but the room beyond was still cold.

‘How proceed your studies?’

Shrugging, Orfantal reached down to stroke Ribs’s flank. ‘Cedorpul’s busy, with all that magic and stuff. I miss my mother.’

‘Your aunt, you mean.’

‘Yes. My aunt.’

‘Orfantal, have you met the other hostage in the Citadel?’

He nodded. ‘She’s young. And shy. She runs away from me, up into the safe room. Then she locks the door so I can’t get in.’

‘You’re chasing her?’

‘No, I’m trying to be nice.’

‘I suggest trying to be somewhat less … direct. Let her come to you, Orfantal.’

‘I miss Sukul Ankhadu, too. She drinks wine and everything. It’s as if she’s already grown up. She knows about all the Great Houses, and the nobles, and who can be trusted and who can’t.’

‘She is not aligned, then, with sister Sharenas.’

‘I don’t know.’ Finally, the heat was too much. Orfantal rose and walked a few paces from the hearth. ‘Cedorpul told me about the sorcery. The Terondai’s gift to all of the Tiste Andii.’

‘Oh? And have you explored the magic for yourself, Orfantal? I should warn you of the risks—’

‘I can do this,’ Orfantal cut in, raising his arms out to the sides. Darkness suddenly billowed, coalesced, making forms that made the historian recoil in his chair. ‘These are my wolves,’ Orfantal said.

From before the hearthstone, Ribs bolted, claws clattering and skidding on the flagstones as he pelted for the doorway.

The conjurations had indeed assumed wolf-like shapes, but tall enough at the shoulder to surpass Orfantal’s own height. Eyes glowed amber.

‘I can go into them,’ Orfantal continued. ‘I can jump right out of my body and go into them, both of them, at the same time – but they have to stay together when I do that. If I go into just one of them, I can still make the other one follow me, or do whatever I tell it to do. It feels strange, historian, to walk on four legs. Is this the same as what the Jheleck can do?’

‘Orfantal, if you would, send them away again.’

Shrugging, Orfantal dropped his arms. The blackness swirled, then dispersed like ink in water.