‘Taralack Veed,’ she said in a harsh tone, ‘the lieutenant and I leave this city in two days. We ride north. Between then and now, Varat Taun is under my care. No-one else’s.’
‘None but me, that is.’
‘If you insist.’
The lieutenant between them, the Gral studied her. ‘You know, don’t you. He told you-’
‘Yes.’.
‘And you mean to say nothing, to no-one. No warning-’
‘That is correct.’
‘Who else might suspect-your ancient histories of the First Empire. Your scholars-’
‘I don’t know about that. There is one, and if I am able lie will be coming with us.’ That damned monk. It should be simple enough. The Cabal priests misunderstood. Sent us an ambassador, not a champion. No value in killing him-the poor fool cannot fight-imagine Rhulad’s rage at wasting his time… yes, that should do it.
‘No scholars…’
She grimaced and said, ‘Dead, or in prison.’ She glared accross at the Gral. ‘What of you? Will you flee with us?’
You know I cannot-I am to share Icarium’s fate. More than any of them realize. No, Atri-Preda, I will not leave this city.’
‘Was this your task, Taralack Veed? To deliver Icarium here?’
He would not meet her eyes.
‘Who sent you?’ she demanded.
‘Does it matter? We are here. Listen to me, Twilight, your I • mperor is being sorely used. There is war among the gods, and we are as nothing-not you, not me, not Rhulad Sengar. So ride, yes, as far away as you can. And take this brave warrior with you. Do this, and I will die empty of sorrow-’
‘And what of regrets?’
He spat on the floor. His only answer, but she understoo him well enough.
Sealed by a massive, thick wall of cut limestone at the end of a long-abandoned corridor in a forgotten passage of the Old Palace, the ancient Temple of the Errant no longer existed in the collective memory of the citizens of Letheras. Its beehive-domed central chamber would have remained unlit, its air still and motionless, for over four centuries, and the spoked branches leading off to lesser rooms would have last echoed to footfalls almost a hundred years earlier.
The Errant had walked out into the world, after all. The altar stood cold and dead and probably destroyed. The last priests and priestesses-titles held in secret against the plague of pogroms-had taken their gnostic traditions to their graves, with no followers left to replace them.
The Master of the Holds has walked out into the world. He is now among us. There can he no worship now-no priests, no temples. The only blood the Errant will taste from now on is his own. He has betrayed us.
Betrayed us all.
And yet the whispers never went away. They echoed like ghost-winds in the god’s mind. With each utterance of his name, as prayer, as curse, he could feel that tremble of power-mocking all that he had once held in his hands, mocking the raging fires of blood sacrifice, of fervent fearful faith. There were times, he admitted, that he knew regret. For all that he had so willingly surrendered.
Master of the Tiles, the Walker Among the Holds. But the Holds have waned, their power forgotten, buried by the pass-ing of age upon age. And I too have faded, trapped in this fragment of land, this pathetic empire in a corner of a continent. I walked into the world… but the world has grown old.
He stood now facing the stone wall at the end of the corridor. Another half-dozen heartbeats of indecision, then he stepped through.
And found himself in darkness, the air stale and dry in his throat. Once, long ago, he had needed tiles to manage such a thing as walking through a solid stone wall. Once, his powers had seemed new, brimming with possibilities; once, it had seemed he could shape and reshape the world. Such arrogance. It had defied every assault of reality-for a time.
He still persisted in his conceit, he well knew-a curse among all gods. And he would amuse himself, a nudge here, a tug there, to then stand back and see how the skein of fates reconfigured itself, each strand humming with his intrusion. But it was getting harder. The world resisted him. Because I am the last, 1 am myself the last thread reaching back to the Holds. And if that thread was severed, the tension suddenly snapping, flinging him loose, stumbling forward into the day’s light… what then?
The Errant gestured, and flames rose once more from the clamshell niches low on the dome’s ring-wall, casting wavering shadows across the mosaic floor. A sledgehammer had been taken to the altar on its raised dais. The shattered stones seemed to bleed recrimination still in the Errant’s eyes. Who served whom, damn you? I went out, among you, to make a difference-so that 1 could deliver wisdom, whatever wisdom I possessed. I thought-I thought you would be grateful.
But you preferred shedding blood in my name. My words just got in your way, my cries for mercy for your fellow citizens-oh, how that enraged you.
His thoughts fell silent. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. What is this? I am not alone.
A soft laugh from one of the passageways. He slowly turned.
The man crouched there was more ogre than human, broad shoulders covered in bristly black hair, a bullet head thrust forward on a short neck. The bottom half of the face was strangely pronounced beneath long, curling moustache and beard, and large yellowed tusks jutted from the lower jaw, pushing clear of lip and thick, ringleted hair. Stubby, battered hands hung down from long arms, the knuckles on the floor.
From the apparition came a bestial, rank stench.
The Errant squinted, seeking to pierce the gloom beneath the heavy brows, where small narrow-set eyes glittered dull as rough garnets. ‘This is my temple,’ he said. ‘I do not recall an open invitation to… guests.’
Another low laugh, but there was no humour in it, the Errant realized. Bitterness, as thick and pungent as the smell stinging the god’s nostrils.
‘I remember you,’ came the creature’s voice, low and rumbling. ‘And I knew this place. 1 knew what it had been. It was… safe. Who recalls the Holds, after all? Who knew enough to suspect? Oh, they can hunt me down all they want-yes, they will find me in the end-I know this. Soon, maybe. Sooner, now that you have found me, Master of the Tiles. He might have returned me, you know, along with other… gifts. But he has failed.’ Another laugh, this time harsh. ‘A common demise among mortals.’
Though he spoke, no words emerged from the ogre’s mouth. That heavy, awkward voice was in the Errant’s head, which was all for the best-those tusks would have brutalized every utterance into near incomprehensibility. ‘You are a god.’
More laughter. ‘I am.’
‘You walked into the world.’
‘Not by choice, Master of the Tiles. Not like you.’
Ah.’
‘And so my followers died-oh, how they have died. Across half the world, their blood soaked the earth. And I could do nothing. I can do nothing.’
‘It is something,’ the Errant observed, ‘to hold yourself to such a modest form. But how much longer will that control last? How soon before you burst the confines of this temple of mine? How long before you heave yourself into the view of all, shouldering aside the clouds, shaking mountains to dust-’
‘I will be long from here before then, Master of the Tiles.’
The Errant’s smile was wry. ‘That is a relief, god.’
‘You have survived,’ the god now said. ‘For so long. How?’
‘Alas,’ said the Errant, ‘my advice to you would be useless. My power quickly dissipated. It had already been terribly wounded-the Forkrul Assail’s pogroms against my faithful saw to that. The thought of another failure like that one was too much… so I willingly relinquished most of what remained to me. It made me ineffectual, beyond, perhaps, this city and a modest stretch of river. And so not a threat to anyone.’ Not even you, tusked one. ‘You, however, cannot make a similar choice. They will want the raw power within you-in your blood-and they will need it spilled before they can drink, before they can bathe in what’s left of you.’