‘Oh, we should draw close when the clash comes. The black-skinned army bears odd weapons. Tiste iron quenched in Vitr.’
At that, Ardata stepped back, her breath hissing. Even Curdle flinched.
‘Madness!’ Curdle cried, reaching up to bury her hands in her thick black hair. Frowning suddenly, she began running her fingers through that hair. ‘Oh, I like this, though.’
‘A worthy mane indeed,’ Telorast observed, sidling closer to her lover.
Ardata hissed again, in frustration, and then said, ‘Telorast! About those weapons—’
‘Oh, never mind. They’re
not killing dragons, are they?’
Kanyn Thrall settled his head back. The pain was building in waves, as if his broken leg now rested on the brazier the damned guest kept feeding, a wild grin on the fool’s face. Blood sizzled and melted fat popped and hissed on the embers. Eyes closed, he grimaced.
A moment later Ardata’s cool hand settled on his brow. ‘Sleep now, friend. I can at least give you that.’
And so the world went away for a time.
* * *
Two uneventful days had passed since the Jhelarkan encampment. K’rul stood with Skillen Droe on a natural berm on which tufts of dead grasses made rows of tangled, brittle humps. The two Azathanai looked out over the pellucid, silvered sea of the Vitr as the sun died at their backs.
‘This leaks from somewhere,’ K’rul said after a time. ‘A fissure, some wellspring, a broken gate. It doesn’t bode well.’
‘When the Builders take notice they will do something about it.’
K’rul grunted. ‘Builders. They confound me.’
‘They answer to no one. They rarely speak at all. They are guided by forces too old for words. Too old, perhaps, for language itself. I see in them elemental nature, a knotting of implacable laws and principles beyond challenge. They are what all life struggles against, made manifest and so eternally unknowable.’
‘Living symbols? Animated metaphors?’ K’rul made a face. ‘I think not, unless termites and ants also serve your description. I believe the Builders to be essentially mindless.’
‘Then we do not disagree.’
‘You concern yourself with meaning. I suggest that they are without meaning.’ He nodded at the Vitr. ‘No different from this chaotic brew. Forces of nature indeed, but also possessing the same absence of will. Nature destroys and nature builds. Build up, tear down, begin again.’
‘They are the makers of worlds then.’
‘Worlds are born from the cinders of dead stars, Skillen Droe. No fire burns true. Something is always left behind.’ He glanced at his companion. ‘Or are you without such uninvited visions? The violent births, realm upon realm, age after age?’
Skillen Droe shrugged his sharp, angled shoulders. ‘I know them, yet deem them nothing more than our own birth memories, the eruption of light, the shock of cold air, the sudden comprehension of our innate helplessness. We enter the world unprepared and, if we will indeed prove to be mortal, we stumble to its end, also unprepared.’
‘And the Builders?’
‘The forces of nature will take note of us, on occasion, as if we were no more than flies buzzing before the face. Mortality is but a brief iteration, an enunciation of the ineffable; worthy of an instant’s wonder, until the after-image dims and fades before the eye, and then, aptly, forgotten.’ Skillen Droe spread his wings. ‘This air is foul. But you were right.’
‘About what?’
‘Dragons have passed this way. You said that one or two would be drawn back to the gate. And the gate has indeed wandered and now awaits us to the north. And yes, Ardata remains.’ He turned to eye K’rul. ‘Just as you said. Tell me, does this ever-flowing blood of yours lend you a new sensitivity? Does your awareness now encompass this entire realm? In loosing your blood, K’rul, have you perhaps deceived us all, and now make claim to unimagined power and influence? You create a new realm with this magic. It seeps out and stains all within reach, and that reach spreads. And who stands at its heart? Why, only modest K’rul, dripping generosity. So, I must ask: have you usurped us?’
K’rul scratched at the stubble of his beard. ‘Oh, I suppose so, Skillen Droe. But temper your indignation, my friend, for the one who stands at the heart stands there in weakness, not strength.’ He grimaced. ‘I am not Ardata, with her webs and hunger. The centre of my empire, such as it is, demands no sacrifice. I am that sacrifice.’
‘To worship is to lap at your blood, then, where it drips from the dais.’
‘Errastas and Sechul Lath discovered a more brutal way of feeding on blood, couched in the language of violence and death. Their path opposes mine, but that makes it no less powerful. Indeed, perhaps, given its seductive qualities appealing to the worst in us, it shall overpower me in time.’ He paused, and then sighed. ‘I do fear that, and yet, what moves I make against them, I cannot do alone.’
‘Me, your ignorant, naïve ally.’