A familiar voice broke the silence. ‘We will speak of him now, and once we have left this place, he will cease to be our brother.’
‘We will speak of him now,’ the others intoned, then one added, ‘He betrayed you.’
The first voice was cool, revealing nothing of the gloat that Trull Sengar knew would be there. ‘You say he betrayed me.’
‘He did, brother.’
‘What proof do you have?’
‘By his own tongue.’
‘Is it just you who claims to have heard such betrayal spoken?’
‘No, I too heard it, brother.’
‘And I.’
‘And what did our brother say to you all?’
‘He said that you had severed your blood from ours.’
‘That you now served a hidden master.’
‘That your ambition would lead us all to our deaths-’
‘Our entire people.’
‘He spoke against me, then.’
‘He did.’
‘By his own tongue, he accused me of betraying our people.’
‘He did.’
‘And have I? Let us consider this charge. The southlands are aflame. The enemy’s armies have fled. The enemy now kneels before us, and begs to be our slaves. From nothing, was forged an empire. And still our strength grows. Yet. To grow stronger, what must you, my brothers, do?’
‘We must search.’
‘Aye. And when you find what must be sought?’
‘We must deliver. To you, brother.’
‘Do you see the need for this?’
‘We do.’
‘Do you understand the sacrifice I make, for you, for our people, for our future?’
‘We do.’
‘Yet, even as you searched, this man, our once-brother, spoke against me.’
‘He did.’
‘Worse, he spoke to defend the new enemies we had found.’
‘He did. He called them the Pure Kin, and said we should not kill them.’
‘And, had they been in truth Pure Kin, then…’
‘They would not have died so easily.’
‘Thus.’
‘He betrayed you, brother.’
‘He betrayed us all.’
There was silence. Ah, now you would share out this crime of yours. And they hesitate .
‘He betrayed us all, did he not, brothers?’
‘Yes.’ The word arrived rough, beneath the breath, mumbled-a chorus of dubious uncertainty.
No-one spoke for a long moment, then, savage with barely bridled anger: ‘Thus, brothers . And should we not heed this danger? This threat of betrayal, this poison, this plague that seeks to tear our family apart? Will it spread? Will we come here yet again? We must be vigilant, brothers. Within ourselves. With each other. Now, we have spoken of him. And now, he is gone.’
‘He is gone.’
‘He never existed.’
‘He never existed.’
‘Let us leave this place, then.’
‘Yes, let us leave.’
Trull Sengar listened until he could no more hear their boots on the stones, nor feel the tremble of their dwindling steps. He was alone, unable to move, seeing only the mud-smeared stone at the base of the iron ring.
The sea rustled the corpses along the shoreline. Crabs scuttled. Water continued to seep through the mortar, insinuate the Cyclopean wall with the voice of muttering ghosts, and flow down on the other side.
Among his people, it was a long-known truth, perhaps the only truth, that Nature fought but one eternal war. One foe. That, further, to understand this was to understand the world. Every world.
Nature has but one enemy. And that is imbalance.
The wall held the sea.
And there are two meanings to this. My brothers, can you not see the truth of that? Two meanings. The wall holds the sea.
For now.
This was a flood that would not be denied. The deluge had but just begun-something his brothers could not understand, would, perhaps, never understand.
Drowning was common among his people. Drowning was not feared. And so, Trull Sengar would drown. Soon.
And before long, he suspected, his entire people would join him. His brother had shattered the balance.
And Nature shall not abide .
Book One
The slower the river, the redder it runs
Nathii saying
CHAPTER ONE
Children from a dark house choose shadowed paths.
Nathii folk saying
The dog had savaged a woman, an old man and a child before the warriors drove it into an abandoned kiln at the edge of the village. The beast had never before displayed an uncertain loyalty. It had guarded the Uryd lands with fierce zeal, one with its kin in its harsh, but just, duties. There were no wounds on its body that might have festered and so allowed the spirit of madness into its veins. Nor was the dog possessed by the foaming sickness. Its position in the village pack had not been challenged. Indeed, there was nothing, nothing at all, to give cause to the sudden turn.