‘The ritual cannot be denied,’ he replied, stroking her cut-short, midnight-black hair. ‘Besides, did you think I would refuse such a request from you?’
‘I grow tired of the priests. Their ennui is such that most of them must imbibe foul herbs to awaken them to life. More often, of late, we have them simply service us, while they lie there, limp as rotting bananas.’
He laughed, stepping away to find his own clothes. ‘Bananas, yes, a most wondrous fruit to reward us in this strange world. That and kelyk. In any case, the image you describe is unfairly unappetizing.’
‘I agree, and so, thank you again, Spinnock Durav.’
‘No more gratitude, please. Unless you would have me voice my own and so overwhelm you with the pathos of my plight.’
To that, she but smiled, ‘Stay miked, Spin, until I leave.’ Another part of the ritual?’ he asked. ‘Would I have so humbly asked if it was?’
When she was gone, Spinnock Durav drew on his clothing once more, thinking back to his own ritual, servicing his sword with a lover’s touch, as if to remind the weapon that the woman he had just made love to was but a diversion, a temporary distraction, and that there was place for but one love in his heart, as befitted a warrior.
True, an absurd ritual, a conceit that was indeed pathetic. But with so little to hold on to, well, Tiste Andii clung tight and fierce to anything with meaning, no matter how dubious or ultimately nonsensical.
Dressed once more, he set out.
The game awaited him. The haunted gaze of Seerdomin, there across from him, with artfully carved but essentially inert lumps of wood, antler and bone on the table between them. Ghostly, irrelevant players to each side.
And when it was done, when victory and defeat had been played out, they would sit for a time, drinking from the pitcher, and Seerdomin might again speak of something without quite saying what it was, might slide round what bothered him with every word, with every ambiguous comment and observation. And all Spinnock would glean was that it had something to do with the Great Barrow north of Black Coral. With his recent refusal to journey out there, ending his own pilgrimage, leaving Spinnock to wonder at the man’s crisis of faith, to dread the arrival of true despair, when all that Spinnock needed from his friend might wither, even die.
And where then would he find hope?
He walked the gloomy streets, closing in on the tavern, and wondered if there was something he could do for Seerdomin. The thought slowed his steps and made him alter his course. Down an alley, out on to another street, this one the side of a modest hill, with the buildings stepping down level by level on each side, a cascade of once brightly painted doors-but who bothered with such things now in this eternal Night? ‘
He came to one door on his left, its flaked surface gouged with a rough sigil, the outline of the Great Barrow in profile, beneath it the ragged imprint of an open hand.
Where worship was born, priests and priestesses appeared with the spontaneity of mould on bread.
Spinnock pounded on the door.
After a moment it opened a crack and he looked down to see a single eye peering up at him.
‘I would speak to her,’ he said.
The door creaked back. A young girl in a threadbare tunic stood in the narrow hallway, now curtseying repeatedly. ‘L-lord,’ she stammered, ‘she is up the stairs-it is late-’
‘Is it? And I am not a “lord”, is she awake?’
A hesitant nod,
‘I will not take much of her time Tell her it is the Tiste Andii warrior she once met in the ruins. She was collecting wood. I was… doing very little. Go, I will wait,’
Uptt he stairs the girl raced, two steps at a time, the dirty soles of her feet flashing with each upward leap.
He heard a door open, close, then open again, and the girl reappeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Come!’ she hissed.
The wood creaked beneath him as he climbed to the next level.
The priestess-ancient, immensely obese-had positioned herself on a once plush chair before an altar of heaped trinkets. Braziers bled orange light to either side, shedding tendrils of smoke that hung thick and acrid beneath the ceiling. The old woman’s eyes reflected that muted glow, murky with cataracts.
As soon as Spinnock entered the small room, the girl left, closing the door behind her.
‘You do not come,’ said the priestess, ‘to embrace the new faith, Spinnock Durav.’
‘I don’t recall ever giving you my name, Priestess.’
‘We all know the one who alone among all the Tiste Andii consorts with us lowly humans. Beyond the old one who bargains for goods in the markets and you are not Endest Silann, who would have struggled on the stairs, and bowed each one near to breaking with his weight.’