‘And then?’ Trull asked in complete bewilderment.
‘Then run like Hood himself was on your heels.’
Onrack had separated himself from his welcomers and was now walking towards the strangers.
‘Yes,’ Quick Ben said in a low voice. ‘They’re trouble indeed.’
‘Because they were like Onrack? T’lan Imass?’
‘Of the Ritual, aye. The question is, why are they here?’
‘I would imagine that whatever mission brought them to this place, Quick Ben, the transformation they experienced has shaken them-perhaps, as with Onrack, their spirits have reawakened.’
‘Well, they look unbalanced enough.’
Their conversation with Onrack was short, and Trull watched as his old friend approached.
‘Well?’ the wizard demanded.
Onrack was frowning. ‘They are Bentract, after all. But from those who joined the Ritual. Ulshun Pral’s clan were among the very few who did not, who were swayed by the arguments set forth by Kilava Onass-this is why,’ Onrack added, ‘they greet the emlava as if they were Kilava’s very own children. Thus, there are ancient wounds between the two groups. Ulshun Pral was not a clan chief back then-indeed, the T’lan Bentract do not even know him.’
‘And that is a problem?’
‘It is, because one of the strangers is a chosen chief-chosen by Bentract himself. Hostille Rator.’
‘And the other two?’ Quick Ben asked.
‘Yes, even more difficult. Ulshun Pral’s Bonecaster is gone. Til’aras Benok and Gr’istanas Ish’ilm, who stand to either side of Hostille Rator, are Bonecasters.’
Trull Sengar drew a deep breath. ‘They contemplate usurpation, then.’
Onrack the Broken nodded.
‘Then what had stopped them?’ Quick Ben asked.
‘Rud Elalle, wizard. The son of Menandore terrifies them.’
The rain thundered down, every moment another hundred thousand iron-tipped lances crashing down out of the dark onto slate rooftops, exploding on the cobbled streets where streams now rushed down, racing for the harbour.
The ice north of the island had not died quietly. Sundered by the magic of a wilful child, the white and blue mountains had lifted skyward in pillars of steam that roiled into massive stormclouds, which had then marched south freed from the strictures of refusal, and those clouds now erupted over the beleaguered city with rage and vengeance. Late afternoon had become midnight and now, as the half-drowned chimes of midnight’s bells sounded, it seemed as if this night would never end.
On the morrow-if it ever came-the Adjunct would set sail with her motley fleet. Thrones of War, a score of well-armed fast escorts, the last of the-transports holding the rest of the Fourteenth Army, and one sleek black dromon propelled by the tireless oars manned by headless Tiste Andii. Oh, and of course, in the lead would be a local pirate’s ship, captained by a dead woman-but never mind her. Return, yes, to that black-hulled nightmare.
Their hosts had worked hard to keep the dread truth of that Quon dromon from Nimander Golit and his kin. The severed heads on the deck, mounded around the mainmast, well, they had kept them covered. No point in encouraging hysteria, should their living Tiste Andii guests see the faces of their kin, their true kin, for were they not of Drift Avalii? Oh yes, they were indeed. Uncles, fathers, mothers, oh, a play on words now would well serve the notion-they were, yes, heads of families, cut away before their time, before their children had grown old enough, wise enough, hard enough to survive in this world. Cut away, ha ha. Now, death would have been one thing. Dying was one thing. Just one and there were other things, always, and you didn’t need any special wisdom to know that. But those heads had not died, not stiffened then softened with rot. The faces had not fallen away to leave just bone, just the recognition that came with a sharing of what-is, what-was and what’ would-be. No, the eyes stared on, the eyes blinked because some memory told them that blinking was necessary. The mouths moved, resuming interrupted conversations, the sharing of jests, the gossip of parents, yet not a single word could claw free.
But hysteria was a complicated place in which a young mind might find itself. It could be deafening with screams, shrieks, the endless bursts of horror again and again and again-a tide surging without end. Or it could be quiet-silent in that awful way of some silences-like that of gaping mouths, desperate but unable to draw breath, the eyes above bulging, the veins standing prominent in their need, but no breath would come, nothing to slide life into the lungs. This was the hysteria of drowning. Drowning inside oneself, inside horror. The hysteria of a child, blank-eyed, drool smearing the chin.
