Yet, for all of that, Hish Tulla vowed a refusal of such indulgences; she would weather this storm, because, at last, she was no longer alone.
With luck, Orfantal would find a new friend, even here in the Citadel, and so cease his longing for death. Still, she wondered at this stable boy, this Wreneck, and what had happened to make him turn away from Orfantal. Oh, woman, turn sharp to observe your own thoughts, in what will come of your love for Gripp Galas. The boy voiced no pain at the death of his grandmother. You can well guess who drove the knife into that friendship.
Wreneck, if your spirit now haunts House Korlas, pray you find a stern regard when meeting the eyes of Nerys Drukorlat. In death you are made equal, and so, dear boy, you are at last free of her. Speak to her then, of every horror her fear inflicted, upon living and dead.
Tell her her grandson does not mourn her passing.
A dozen spacious rooms along the south side of the Citadel were now the demesne of Lord Anomander and his brothers. The chambers were poorly lit, and upon the walls hung the oldest of the tapestries, many dating from the founding age of Kharkanas. Time had faded the scenes to add mystery to their obscurity, and though Emral Lanear more than once leaned close in an effort to make out what she was seeing on her way to Lord Anomander’s quarters, the High Priestess was left with a strange disquiet, as if the past was selfish with its secrets, and would make of the unknown something malign and threatening.
The end of beauty was never so coy. Each morning, every sign of ageing shouted its details to her unblinking regard in the mirror. She was left with no hope of fading into frayed threads, and as she walked past this succession of mocking tapestries she longed to slip into their insubstantial, colourless worlds, and so become a creature frozen and forgotten. In that world she need never reach her destination; nor open her mouth to speak. Most of all, she would be but one more figure in those pallid scenes who never had to explain themselves, to anyone.
See how I envy the past, and long for all that it so willingly surrendered in its retreat from the present. These strident defences and pathetic justifications will fall to silence. Each breath is left half drawn. A word begun remains unfinished. The past wore recrimination with indifference. Welcoming dissolution, it looked upon every cause with blank eyes, and cared not who stirred the dust. It was a conceit to imagine that the past spoke anything at all, not to the present, nor to the unknown future. By its very nature, it was turned away from both.
She found Lord Anomander seated in a deep, high-backed chair, legs stretched out as if he but took his leisure, unmindful of the chaos into which the world was descending. His brother, Silchas, paced along the far wall, passing in front of three floor-to-ceiling tapestries with scenes too worn to discern. The white-skinned man’s expression was troubled. The glance he shot at the High Priestess was fraught.
Emral stood before Lord Anomander, although he’d yet to lift his gaze from the floor. ‘First Son,’ she said, ‘Mother Dark will speak with you now.’
‘That is kind of her,’ Anomander replied.
Silchas made a sound of frustration. ‘Still he sits like a thing carved from stone. Andarist is gone from us. Our brother walks the burning forest, and in that infernal realm waits no salvation. But still Anomander sits, offering nothing.’
‘Lord Silchas,’ asked Emral, ‘do you fear that Andarist will take his own life?’
‘No, High Priestess. His guilt seeks no quick end. It is said ash makes fertile soil and I wager he has sown his seeds and now tends a burgeoning bounty. It will make a bitter harvest indeed, but he means to grow fat on it.’
‘Everyone seeks an answer to the crimes committed,’ Emral said. ‘Everyone speaks of war but no army assembles.’
‘We await the Hust Legion,’ said Silchas, still pacing. ‘In the meantime my hands are worn bloody beating against my brother’s obstinacy, and with each stride I take, this room seems smaller, and with it the Citadel and indeed, all of Kharkanas. In my mind’s eye, High Priestess, even Kurald Galain huddles in a shallow embrace.’
‘We must find our resilience,’ she replied.
Anomander grunted, and then said, ‘You will search an eternity for that, High Priestess, in the smoke of darkness.’ Finally he looked up at her, his eyes hooded. ‘She will see me now? Does she finally offer the bones of this faith, and if so, what substance has she employed in the fashioning? Will this frame show us iron or flimsy reeds? And what of the flesh you offer in raiment, Emral Lanear? For ever soft and for ever yielding to suit the cushions and silks of your beds, but in an act stripped of love we are all diminished.’
