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.
She had long since discovered a host of truths in time’s irresistible progression. Raw became refined, and with refinement, power grew ever deadlier. All that was simple would, in time and under sufficient pressure-and if random chance proved benign rather than malignant-
acquire greater complexity. And yet, at some point, a threshold was crossed, and complexity crumbled into dissolution. There was nothing fixed in this; some forms rose and fell with astonishing rapidity, while others could persist for extraordinarily long periods in seeming stasis.
Thus, she believed she comprehended more than most, yet found that she could do little with that knowledge. Standing in the overgrown, battered yard, her cold un-human eyes fixed on the malformed shape squatting at the edge of the largest sundered barrow, she could see through to the chaos inside him, could see how it urged dissolution within that complex matrix of flesh, blood and bone. Pain radiated from his hunched, twisted back as she continued studying him.
He had grown aware of her presence, and fear whispered through him, the sorcery of the Crippled God building. Yet he was uncertain if she presented a threat. In the mean-time, ambition rose and fell like crashing waves around the island of his soul.
She could, she decided, make use of this one.
‘I am Hannan Mosag,’ the figure said without turning. ‘You… you are Soletaken. The cruellest of the Sisters, accursed among the Edur pantheon. Your heart is betrayal. I greet you, Sukul Ankhadu.’
She approached. ‘Betrayal belongs to the one buried beneath, Hannan Mosag, to the Sister you once worshipped. How much, Edur, did that shape your destiny, I wonder? Any betrayals plaguing your people of late? Ah, I saw that flinch. Well, then, neither of us should be surprised.’
You work to free her.’
‘I always worked better with Sheltatha Lore than I did with Menandore… although that may not be the case now. The buried one has her… obsessions.’
The Tiste Edur grunted. ‘Don’t we all.’
‘How long have you known your most cherished protectress was entombed here?’
‘Suspicions. For years. I had thought-hoped-that I would discover what remained of Scabandari Bloodeye here as well.’
‘Wrong ascendant,’ Sukul Ankhadu said, her tone droll. ‘Had you got it right as to who betrayed whom back then, you would have known that.’