‘If you imagine Urusander to be so treacherous,’ said Mother Dark, ‘then we are already lost.’
‘He harbours Syntara,’ said Anomander. ‘A new cult rises in Neret Sorr. It faces you as a rising sun challenges the night. And so I wonder, Mother, how many gauntlets do you need thrown down?’
‘Go to him, First Son.’
‘There is no need,’ Anomander replied. ‘He prepares to march on Kharkanas. We need but await his knock on the wood of the Citadel gates.’ He moved to the door. Before reaching for the latch, he glanced back at Mother Dark. ‘I have listened to your counsel, Mother. But what I do now is in defence of Kharkanas.’
The door closed quietly behind the First Son. Emral thought to follow but something held her back. She remained facing Mother Dark, but could think of nothing to say.
Grizzin Farl sighed. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘your adopted son is a formidable man.’
‘If I had another path, less painful for him, I would choose it.’
‘For all of you, I would think.’
But she shook her head. ‘I am prepared to bear what will come.’
‘You invite a lonely existence,’ Grizzin said, with sorrow in his eyes as he regarded Mother Dark.
All at once, to Emral’s eyes, it seemed that Mother Dark transformed into something more solid than stone, and then just as quickly she seemed to fade, until she was almost insubstantial. ‘Azathanai, with what you have told me of the events taking place to the west… by solitude alone can I ensure a long existence, and a role in all that is to come.’ Her gaze shifted from Grizzin Farl and settled upon Emral. ‘High Priestess, make of your worship an unflinching recognition of the unknown, and, indeed, the unknowable. By devotion and acceptance of mystery, the chaos that haunts us all is made calm, until the sea itself becomes a mirror content with a placid reflection.’
Emral glanced at the Azathanai, and then returned her attention to Mother Dark. ‘I see no source of strength, Mother, in such surrender.’
‘It opposes our nature, yes. Do you know why I did not refuse the lusts of the priestesses? In that moment of release, time itself is abandoned, and in its place even the mortal body seems as expansive as the universe. In that moment, Emral, we find utter surrender, and in that surrender a state of bliss.’
Emral shook her head. ‘Until the flesh returns, with its aches and a deep heaviness inside. The bliss you describe, Mother, cannot be sustained. And if somehow it could, why, we would soon wear visages of madness, one and all.’
‘It was, daughter, a flawed dispensation.’
‘And now we are to embrace not flesh, but empty contemplation? I fear the void’s kiss will not seem as sweet.’
Mother Dark leaned her head back, as if exhausted. ‘I will,’ she said in a low mutter, ‘let you know.’
Orfantal stood in the centre of the room, looking round. ‘This is mine?’ he asked.
Silchas nodded.
There were scrolls upon shelves, and books bearing brightly coloured illustrations. At the foot of the bed was an ancient trunk and it was filled with toy soldiers, some made from onyx and others from ivory. Upon one wall, in a horizontal rack of blackwood, rested three practice swords, a buckler and, upon a peg beside them, a boiled leather vest. On the floor beneath it was a helmet with a cage-like visor to protect the eyes. Three lanterns burned bright and the light was harsh to Orfantal’s eyes, used as he was to a lone candle to fight the shadows of his room back in House Korlas.
He thought of that room again, and tried to imagine it blackened by smoke, the stone walls cracked, the bed in which he had slept nothing but a heap of ashes. Every thought of his past now came to him with a stench of burning, and the faint echo of screams.
‘Are you unwell?’
Orfantal shook his head.
The dog was still with them and now, having completed its exploratory circuit of the chamber, went to lie down beside a thickly padded chair in one corner. In moments, it was fast asleep, legs twitching.
There came a knock upon the door and a moment later a round-faced young man entered, dressed in stained robes. ‘Lord Silchas, I received your message. Ah, here then is young Orfantal, and already settled in. Excellent. Are you hungry? Thirsty? The first task is to show you the dining hall — not the one in the main chamber, but the lesser one where by weight of masonry alone we are not intimidated. Now then-’
‘A moment,’ interrupted Silchas. He turned to Orfantal. ‘I will take my leave now,’ he said. ‘As you can see, I yield to a good keeper. You are comfortable with this?’
