‘Nostalgia,’ a voice called down.
She halted, looked up to see a white-skinned figure perched atop one of the mounds. Gold hair hanging long, loose, hinting of deep shades of crimson. A white-bladed two-handed sword leaned against one side of his chest, the multifaceted crystal pommel flashing in the brightness. He took many forms, this creature. Some pleasant, others-like this one-like a spit of acid in her eyes.
‘This is your work, isn’t it?’
One of his hands stroked the sword’s enamel blade, the sensuality of the gesture making her shiver. He said, ‘I deplore your messiness, Kilmandaros.’
‘While you make death seem so… tidy.’
He shrugged. ‘Tell me, if on your very last day-day or night, it makes no difference-you find yourself in a room, on a bed, even. Too weak to move, but able to look around-that’s all. Tell me, Kilmandaros, will you not be comforted by the orderliness of all that you see? By the knowledge that it will persist beyond you, unchanged, bound to its own slow, so slow measure of decay?’
‘You ask if I will be what, Osserc? Nostalgic about a room I’m still in?’
‘Is that not the final gift of dying?’
She held up her hands and showed him her fists. ‘Come down here and receive just such a gift, Osserc. I know this body-this face that you show me now. I know the seducer and know him too well. Come down-do you not miss my embrace?’
And in the dread truths of dreams, Osserc then chuckled. The kind of laugh that cut into its victim, that shocked tight the throat. Dismissive, devoid of empathy. A laugh that said: You no longer matter to me. I see your hurt and it amuses me. I see how you cannot let go of the very thing I have so easily flung away: the conceit that we still matter to each other.
So much, yes, in a dream’s laugh.
‘Emurlahn is in pieces,’ he said. ‘And most of them are now as dead as this one. Would you blame me? Anomander? Scabandari?’
‘I’m not interested in your stupid finger-pointing. The one who accuses has nothing to lose and everything to hide.’
‘Yet you joined with Anomander-’
‘He too was not interested in blame. We joined together, yes, to save what we could.’
‘Too bad, then,’ Osserc said, ‘that I got here first.’
‘Where have the people gone, Osserc? Now that you’ve destroyed their city.’
His brows lifted. ‘Why, nowhere.’ He gestured, a broad sweep of one hand, encompassing the rows of mounds around them. ‘I denied them their moment of… nostalgia.’
She found herself trembling. ‘Come down here,’ she said in a rasp, ‘your death is long overdue.’
‘Others concur,’ he admitted. ‘In fact, it’s why I’m, uh, lingering here. Only one portal survives. No, not the one you came through-that one has since crumbled.’
‘And who waits for you there, Osserc?’
‘Edgewalker.’
Kilmandaros bared her massive fangs in a broad smile. And then threw a laugh back at him. She moved on.
His voice sounded surprised as he called out behind her. ‘What are you doing? He is angry. Do you not understand? He is angry !’
‘And this is my dream,’ she whispered. ‘Where all that has been is yet to be.’ And still, she wondered. She had no recollection, after all, of this particular place. Nor of meeting Osserc among the shattered remnants of Kurald Emurlahn.
Sometimes it is true, she told herself, that dreams prove troubling.
‘Clouds on the horizon. Black, advancing in broken lines.’ Stormy knuckled his eyes and then glared across at Gesler from a momentarily reddened face. ‘What kind of stupid dream is that?’
‘How should I know? There are cheats who make fortunes interpreting the dreams of fools. Why not try one of those?’
‘You calling me a fool?’
‘Only if you follow my advice, Stormy.’
‘Anyway, that’s why I howled.’
Gesler leaned forward, clearing tankards and whatnot to make room for his thick, scarred forearms. ‘Falling asleep in the middle of a drinking session is unforgivable enough. Waking up screaming, why, that’s just obnoxious. Had half the idiots in here clutching at their chests.’
‘We shouldn’t’ve skipped out on the war-game, Ges.’
‘Not again. It wasn’t like that. We volunteered to go and find Hellian.’ He nodded to the third occupant of the table, although only the top of her head was visible, the hair sodden along one side where it had soaked up spilled ale. Her snores droned through the wood of the table like a hundred pine beetles devouring a sick tree. ‘And look, we found her, only she was in no shape to lead her squad. In fact, she’s in no shape for anything. She could get mugged, raped, even murdered. We needed to stand guard.’