‘I am beset by dreams – nightmares – of that meeting. I confess, Ivis, that in my visions I come to the certitude that the wounds upon that man’s hands, with their tears of blood, are the eyes of a god. Or goddess. The priest raises them between us, his hands, the wounds, and my stare – which I cannot break – fixes upon those crimson eyes. What they leak arrives like a promise. In these dreams, I flee as would a soul broken.’
‘A place not holy then, milord, but cursed.’
Anomander shrugged. ‘We come upon circles of stones, the ancient holy sites of the Dog-Runners, and proclaim them cursed. What future beings, I wonder, will find the ruins of our own sacred sites, and name them the same?’ The breath hissed from him. ‘I am cold to these notions of faith, Ivis. I cannot but distrust the ease of our proclamations, so ephemeral their arrival, so facile their dismissal. Look at the war now upon us. Look to the fate of the Deniers. Look now to the birth of the Liosan. Faith stalks our land like a reaper of souls.’
At last, Anomander’s thoughts had brought Ivis to the place he desired. ‘Milord, I have heard nothing from Lord Draconus. He responds to not a sing
le missive. In such absence, I must be bold. Upon the day of battle, milord, I will lead the Houseblades of Draconus to you, and submit to your command.’
Anomander said nothing. His gaze held upon the lowering clouds in the north, even as the first flakes of snow spun down to join the sleet.
‘Milord—’
‘Lord Draconus will return, Ivis. I am done with this pointless hunt. If Andarist and I are to become estranged, then I will bear the wound. I intend to leave for Kharkanas in the next day or so. Grief may well dress itself in the hair shirt of wounded pride, but vengeance matches its indulgence.’
‘Milord,’ said Ivis, ‘it would be better if you did not. Return to Kharkanas, I mean. Leave Draconus to … to the place he has chosen for himself. I cannot explain this seduction of darkness, except that it is, somehow, the essence of his gift to the woman he loves. His decision seems beyond sanction, does it not? As well, there are the nobles to consider – your allies upon the field of battle.’
‘They will fight for me, Ivis.’
‘If Lord Draconus—’
‘They will fight for me,’ Anomander insisted.
‘And if they do not?’
‘Then they will learn to rue their failing.’
The threat chilled Ivis. He studied the heavy clouds weaving their wind-tangled skeins of snow and sleet. In the kitchen below, dinner was being prepared, a feast to honour their unexpected guests. In the main hall, the Azathanai, Caladan Brood, sat like a half-tamed bear in the only chair that could take his bulk – Lord Draconus’s own. The surgeon, Prok, had taken to sitting with the High Mason.
In her private chambers, Lady Sandalath lavished attention upon Wreneck, as if he could stand in place of her own son – the son no one was permitted to acknowledge. The boy was mostly recovered from his ordeals, but he wore solemnity with the natural grace of a veteran of too many wars, and already he had begun to chafe under her obsessive ministrations. It was well enough that Wreneck had been a friend of Sandalath’s son, but years spanned the two children, with Wreneck the elder, and nothing in his life thus far belonged to a pampered nobleborn child. Ivis saw his strained patience when in the lady’s company.
Elsewhere in the keep, house-guards patrolled the corridors, walked the rooms and hallways, stamped up and down tower stairs.
‘Milord,’ ventured Ivis. ‘You said you would speak with your Azathanai companion, regarding the daughters of Draconus.’
Grunting, Anomander nodded. ‘I shall, this evening, Ivis. He is not entirely unaware of something amiss in this keep. For myself, even the mention of sorcery makes me uneasy. That said, they are the children of Draconus, and as to his relationship with them, you know better than do I. How would he respond to such horrors?’
‘As of yet, milord, he has made no response at all.’
‘You cannot be sure of his seeming indifference,’ Anomander replied. ‘It is quite possible that no messages or reports have reached him.’
‘Milord? But I dispatched urgent—’
‘All such missives are set just beyond the door to the Chamber of Night, upon a low table the servants can barely see. Has it yet occurred to Draconus that messages await his attention? Possibly not. So again, I ask: how would he respond to the news of one of his daughters dying at the hands of the remaining two? Or the slaughter of his servants in the keep?’
Ivis hesitated. ‘Milord, I have pondered such questions unto exhaustion, and am no closer to any sure reply. He took away his bastard son, Arathan, into the west lands. A natural boy of seventeen at the time. Eighteen now. But his daughters … they remained children. Their younger half-brother had grown past them all. It is uncanny, sir.’
‘Did he hold them close?’
‘The daughters?’ Ivis thought about the notion, and then eventually shook his head. ‘He tolerated them. The names he gave the three tells its own tale, I wager. Envy, Spite and Malice. Malice was the one murdered and then burned in a bread oven.’
Anomander blinked. ‘Such details still shock me, my friend.’
‘Not a night easily forgotten,’ Ivis said. ‘We could have smoked them out long ago, milord, if not for our fear of the sorcery they possess.’
‘Perhaps, with Caladan Brood in our company, now might be the time, Ivis.’
‘But you are both soon to leave us, milord. Can mere shackles hold them?’