Hissing under his breath, he pushed himself from the wall and walked the length of the compound, through waves of heat, to stand at the Jhag’s side. ‘If you leave your weapons,’ Taralack said, ‘you are free to wander the city.’
‘Free to change my mind?’ Icarium asked with a faint smile.
‘That would achieve little-except perhaps our immediate execution.’
‘There might be mercy in that.’
‘You do not believe your own words, Icarium. Instead, you speak to mock me.’
‘That may be true, Taralack Veed. As for this city,’ he shook his head, ‘I am not yet ready.’
‘The Emperor could decide at any moment-’
‘He will not. There is time.’
The Gral scowled up at the Jhag. ‘How are you certain?’
‘Because, Taralack Veed,’ Icarium said, quiet and measured as he turned to walk back, ‘he is afraid.’
Staring after him, the Gral was silent. Of you? What does he know? Seven Holies, who would know of this land’s history? Its legends? Are they forewarned of Icarium and all that waits within him?
Icarium vanished in the shadow beneath the building entranceway. After a dozen rapid heartbeats, Taralack followed, not to reclaim the Jhag’s dour companionship, but to find one who might give him the answers to the host of questions now assailing him.
Varat Taun, once second in command to Atri-Preda Yan Tovis, huddled in a corner of the unfurnished room. His only reaction to Yan Tovis’s arrival was a flinch. Curling yet lighter in that corner, he did not lift his head to look upon her. This man had, alone, led Taralack Veed and Icarium back through the warrens-a tunnel torn open by unknown magic, through every realm the expedition had traversed on their outward journey. The Atri-Preda herself had seen the blistering wound that had been the exit gate; she had heard its shrieking howl, a voice that seemed to reach into her chest and grip her heart; she had stared in disbelieving wonder at the three figures emerging from it, one dragged between two…
No other survivors. Not one. Neither Edur nor Letherii.
Varat Taun’s mind had already snapped. Incapable of coherent explanations, he had babbled, shrieking at anyone who drew too close to his person, yet unable or unwilling to tear his wide eyes from the unconscious form of Icarium.
Taralack Veed’s rasping words, then: All dead. Everyone. The First Throne is destroyed, every defender slaughtered-Icarium alone was left standing, and even he was grievously wounded. He is… he is worthy of your Emperor.
But so the Gral had been saying since the beginning. The truth was, no-one knew for certain. What had happened in the subterranean sepulchre where stood the First Throne?
The terrible claims did not end there. The Throne of Shadow had also been destroyed. Yan Tovis remembere the dismay and horror upon the features of the Tiste Edur when they comprehended Taralack Veed’s badly accented words.
Another expedition was necessary. That much had been obvious. To see the truth of such claims.
The gate had closed shortly after spitting out the survivors, the healing almost as violent and fraught as the first wounding, with a cacophony of screams-like the lost souls of the damned-erupting from that portal at the last moment, leaving witnesses with the terrible conviction that others had been racing to get out.
Swift into the wake of that suspicion came the news of failures-on ship after ship of the fleet-by the warlocks of the Edur when they sought to carve new paths into the warrens. The trauma created by that chaotic rent had somehow sealed every possible path to the place of the Throne of Shadow, and that of the T’lan Imass First Throne. Was this permanent? No-one knew. Even to reach out, as the warlocks had done, was to then recoil in savage pain. Hot, they said; the very flesh of existence rages like fire.
Yet in truth Yan Tovis had little interest in such matters. She had lost soldiers, and none stung more than her second in command, Varat Taun.
She stared now upon his huddled form. Is this what I will deliver to his wife and child in Bluerose? Letherii healers had tended to him, unsuccessfully-the wounds on his mind were beyond their powers to mend.
The sounds of boots in the corridor behind her. She stepped to one side as the guard arrived with his barefooted charge. Another ‘guest’. A monk from the archipelago theocracy of Cabal who had, oddly enough, volunteered to join the Edur fleet, following, it turned out, a tradition of delivering hostages to fend off potential enemies. The Edur fleet had been too damaged to pose much threat at that time, still licking its wounds after clashing with the denizens of Perish, but that had not seemed to matter much-the tradition announcing first contact with strangers was an official policy.
