‘My god is mad.’
‘As you would have me, so I am.’
‘I want my throne.’
‘You always want.’
‘Why won’t you give it to me?’
‘I answer as a god: if I give you what you want, we all die. Hah, I know-you don’t care! Oh, you humans, you are something else. You make my every breath agony. And my every convulsion is your ecstasy. Very well, mortal, I will answer your prayers. I promise. Just do not ever say I didn’t warn you. Do not. Ever.’
Janall laughed, spraying spit. ‘We are mad,’ she whispered. ‘Oh yes, quite mad. And we’re climbing into the light…’
For all the scurrying servants and the motionless, helmed guards at various entrances, Nisall found the more populated areas of the Eternal Domicile in some ways more depressing than the abandoned corridors she’d left behind a third of a bell past. Suspicion soured the air, fear stalked like shadows underfoot between the stanchions of torchlight. The palace’s name had acquired a taint of irony, rife as the Eternal Domicile was with paranoia, intrigue and incipient betrayal. As if humans could manage no better, and were doomed to such sordid existence for all time.
Clearly, there was nothing satisfying in peace, beyond the freedom it provided to get up to no good. She had been shaken by her visit to the supposedly insane once-empress, Janall. This Crippled God indeed lurked in the woman’s eyes-Nisall had seen it, felt that chilling, unhuman attention fixing on her, calculating, pondering her potential use. She did not want to be part of a god’s plans, especially that god’s. Even more frightening, Janall’s ambitions remained, engorged with visions of supreme power, her tortured, brutalized body notwithstanding. The god was using her as well.
There were rumours of war hissing like wind in the palace, tales of a belligerent conspiracy of border kingdoms and tribes to the east. The Chancellor’s reports to Rhulad had been anything but simple in their exhortations to raise the stakes. A formal declaration of war, the marching of massed troops over the borders in a pre-emptive campaign of conquest. Far better to spill blood on their lands than on Letherii soil, after all. ‘If the Bolhmdo-led alliance wants war, we should give it to them.’’ The Chancellor’s glittering eyes belied the cool, almost toneless enunciation of those words.
Rhulad had fidgeted on his throne, muttering his unease the Edur were too spread out, the K’risnan were overworked. Why did the Bolkandans so dislike him? There had been no list of grievances. He had done nothing to spark this fire to life.
Triban Gnol had pointed out, quietly, that four agents of the conspiracy had been captured entering Letheras only the other day. Disguised as merchants seeking ivory. Karos Invictad had sent by courier their confessions and would the Emperor like to see them?
Shaking his head in denial, Rhulad had said nothing, his pain-racked eyes fixed on the tiles of the dais beyond his slippered feet.
So lost, this terrible Emperor.
As she turned onto the corridor leading to her private chambers, she saw a tall figure standing near her door. A Tiste Edur, one of the few who were resident in the palace. She vaguely recalled the warrior’s having something to do with security.
He tilted his head in greeting as she approached. ‘First Concubine Nisall.’
‘Has the Emperor sent you?’ she asked, stepping past and waving him behind her into the chambers. Few men could intimidate her-she knew too well their minds. She was less at ease in the company of women, and the virtually neutered men such as Triban Gnol.
‘Alas,’ the warrior said, ‘I am not permitted to speak to my Emperor.’
She paused and glanced back at him. ‘Are you out of favour?’
‘I have no idea.’
Intrigued now, Nisall regarded the Edur for a moment, then asked, ‘Would you like some wine?’
‘No, thank you. Were you aware that a directive has been issued by Invigilator Karos Invictad to compile evidence leading to your arrest for sedition?’
She grew very still. Sudden heat flashed through her, then she felt cold, beads of sweat like ice against her skin. ‘Are you here,’ she whispered, ‘to arrest me?’
His brows rose. ‘No, nothing of the sort. The very opposite, in fact.’
‘You wish, then, to join in my treason?’
‘First Concubine, I do not believe you are engaged in any seditious acts. And if you are, I doubt they are directed against Emperor Rhulad.’
She frowned. ‘If not the Emperor, then whom? And how could it be considered treasonous if they are not aimed at Rhulad? Do you think I resent the Tiste Edur hegemony? Precisely whom am I conspiring against?’
‘If I was forced to hazard a guess… Chancellor Triban Gnol.’
She said nothing for a moment, then, ‘What do you want?’
‘Forgive me. My name is Bruthen Trana. I was appointed to oversee the operations of the Patriotists, although it is likely that the Emperor has since forgotten that detail.’
‘l am not surprised. You’ve yet to report to him.’
He grimaced. ‘True. The Chancellor has made certain of that.’
‘He insists you report to him instead, yes? I’m beginning to understand, Bruthen Trana.’
‘Presumably, Triban Gnol’s assurances that he has conveyed said reports to Rhulad are false.’
‘The only reports the Emperor receives regarding the Patriotists are those from the Invigilator, as vetted through the Chancellor.’
He sighed. ‘As I suspected. First Concubine, it is said your relationship with the Emperor has gone somewhat beyond that of ruler and chosen whore-forgive me for the use of that term. Rhulad is being isolated-from his own people. Daily he receives petitions, but they are all from Letherii, and those are carefully selected by Triban Gnol and his staff. This situation had worsened since the fleets sailed, for with them went Tomad Sengar and Uruth, and many other Hiroth, including Rhulad’s brother, Binadas. All who might have effectively opposed the Chancellor’s machinations were removed from the scene. Even Hanradi Khalag…’ His words fell away and he stared at her, then shrugged. ‘I must speak to the Emperor, Nisall. Privately.’
‘I may not be able to help you, if I am to be arrested,’ she said.
‘Only Rhulad himself can prevent that from occurring,’ Bruthen Trana said. ‘In the meantime, I can afford you some protection.’
She cocked her head. ‘How?’
‘I will assign you two Edur bodyguards.’
‘Ah, so you are not entirely alone, Bruthen.’
‘The only Edur truly alone here is the Emperor. And, perhaps, Hannan Mosag, although he still has his K’risnan-but it is anything but certain that the once-Warlock King is loyal to Rhulad.’
Nisall smiled without much humour. ‘And so it turns out,’ she said, ‘that the Tiste Edur are no different from the Letherii after all. Do you know, Rhulad would have it… otherwise.’
‘Perhaps, then, First Concubine, we can work together to help him realize his vision.’
‘Your bodyguards had best be subtle, Bruthen. The Chancellor’s spies watch me constantly.’
The Edur smiled. ‘Nisall, we are children of Shadow…’
Once, long ago, she had walked for a time through Hood’s Realm. In the language of the Eleint, the warren that was neither new nor Elder was known as Festal’rythan, the Layers of the Dead. She had found proof of that when traversing the winding cut of a gorge, the raw walls of which revealed innumerable strata evincing the truth of extinction. Every species that ever existed was trapped in the sediments of Festal’rythan, not in the same manner of similar formations of geology as could be found in any world; no, in Hood’s Realm, the soul sparks persisted, and what she was witness to was their ‘lives’, abandoned here, crushed into immobility. The stone itself was, in the peculiar oxymoron that plagued the language of death, alive.
In the broken grounds surrounding the lifeless Azath of Letheras, many of those long-extinct creatures had crawled back through the gate, as insidious as any vermin. True, it was not a gate as such, just… rents, fissures, as if some terrible demon had slashed from both sides, talons the size of two-handed swords tearing through the fabric between the warrens. There had been battles here, the spilling of ascendant blood, the uttering of vows that could not be kept. She could still smell the death of the Tarthenal gods, could almost hear their outrage and disbelief, as one fell, then another, and another… until all were gone, delivered unto Festal’rythan. She did not pity them. It was too easy to be arrogant upon arriving in this world, to think that none could challenge the unleashing of ancient power.