Belief in destiny delivered its own imperatives.
But here, now, the savages had arrived and a new order had been asserted, proving that destiny was an illusion. The city was in shock, with only a few malleable merchants venturing forth in the faith that the new ways to come were but the old ways, that the natural order in fact superseded any particular people. At the same time, they believed that none could match the Letherii in this game of riches, and so in the end they would win – the savages would find themselves civilized. Proof that destiny was anything but illusory.
Udinaas wondered if they were right. There were mitigating factors, after all. Tiste Edur lifespans were profoundly long. Their culture was both resilient and embedded. Conservative. Or, so it was. Until Rhulad. Until the sword claimed him .
A short time later he strode through the inland gate and approached the Edur encampment. There seemed to be little organization to the vast array of tents. This was not simply an army, but an entire people on the move – a way of life to which they were not accustomed. Wraiths patrolled the outskirts.
They ignored him as he passed the pickets. He had not heard from Wither, his own companion shade, in a long time, but he knew it had not gone away. Lying low with its secrets. Sometimes he caught its laughter, as if from a great distance, the timing always perverse.
Rhulad’s tent was at the centre of the encampment, the entrance flanked by demons in boiled leather armour stained black, long-handled maces resting heads to the ground before them. Full helms hid their faces.
‘How many bodies have they dragged out today?’ Udinaas asked as he walked between them.
Neither replied.
There were four compartments within, divided by thick-clothed walls fixed to free-standing bronze frames. The foremost chamber was shallow but ran the breadth of the tent. Benches had been placed along the sides. The area to the right was crowded with supplies of various sorts, casks and crates and earthen jars. Passage into the main room beyond was between two dividers.
He entered to see the emperor standing before his raised throne. Mayen lounged on a looted couch to the left of the wooden dais, her expression strangely dulled. Feather Witch stood in the shadows against the wall behind the empress, her face swollen and bruised almost beyond recognition. Hannan Mosag and Hull Beddict were facing the emperor, their backs to Udinaas. The Warlock King’s wraith bodyguard was not present.
Hannan Mosag was speaking. ‘… of that there is no doubt, sire.’
Coins had fallen from Rhulad’s forehead, where the soldier’s palm had struck when it broke his neck. The skin revealed was naught but scar tissue, creased where the skull’s frontal bone had caved inward – that internal damage had healed, since the dent was now gone. The emperor’s eyes were so bloodshot they seemed nothing but murky red pools. He studied Hannan Mosag for a moment, apparently unaware of the spasms crossing his ravaged features, then said, ‘Lost kin? What does that mean?’
‘Tiste Edur,’ Hannan Mosag replied in his smooth voice. ‘Survivors, from when our kind were scattered, following the loss of Scabandari Bloodeye.’
‘How are you certain of this?’
‘I have dreamed them, Emperor. In my mind I have been led into other realms, other worlds that lie alongside this one-’
‘Kurald Emurlahn.’
‘That realm is broken in pieces,’ Hannan Mosag said, ‘but yes, I have seen fragment-worlds. In one such world dwell the Kenyll’rah, the demons we have bound to us. In another, there are ghosts from our past battles.’
Hull Beddict cleared his throat. ‘Warlock King, are these realms the Holds of my people?’
‘Perhaps, but I think not.’
‘That is not relevant,’ Rhulad said to Hull as he began pacing. ‘Hannan Mosag, how fare these lost kin?’
‘Poorly, sire. Some have lost all memory of past greatness. Others are subjugated-’
The emperor’s head swung round. ‘Subjugated?’
‘Yes.’
‘We must deliver them,’ Rhulad said, resuming his pacing, the macabre clicking sounds of coin edges snapping together the only sound to follow his pronouncement.
Udinaas moved unobtrusively to stand behind the throne. There was something pathetic, to his mind, about the ease with which the Warlock King manipulated Rhulad. Beneath all those coins and behind that mottled sword was a marred and fragile Edur youth. Hannan Mosag might have surrendered the throne in the face of Rhulad’s power, but he would not relinquish his ambition to rule.
‘We will build ships,’ the emperor resumed after a time. ‘In the Letherii style, I think. Large, seaworthy. You said there were Tiste Andii enclaves as well? We will conquer them, use them as slaves to crew our ships. We shall undertake these journeys once Lether has fallen, once our empire is won.’
