He stepped back, scowling. ‘That threat’s getting as old as you, hag.’ He took Absi’s hand and led him slowly to where his horse waited. ‘And we need food – remember what that is, Olar Ethil? And water.’
He looked round but could see no sign of Telorast and Curdle – when had he last seen them? He could not recall. Sighing, he beckoned to the twins. Stavi and Storii leapt to their feet and joined him. ‘Can you walk for a time?’ he asked them. ‘Later, you can ride, a little longer than you did yesterday. I don’t mind walking.’
‘Did you hear that thunder?’ Stavi asked.
‘Just thunder.’
‘Is our father still alive?’ Storii asked. ‘Is he really?’
‘I won’t lie,’ Torrent said. ‘If his spirit walks the land again, he is the same as Olar Ethil. A T’lan Imass. I fear there will be little that you will recognize—’
‘Except what’s inside him,’ said Storii. ‘That won’t have changed.’
Torrent glanced away. ‘I hope you’re right, for all our sakes.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘After all, if anyone can stand up to this Bonecaster, it will be your father.’
‘He’ll take us back,’ said Stavi. ‘All three of us. You’ll see.’
He nodded. ‘Ready, then?’
No, he wouldn’t lie to them, not about their father. But some suspicions he would keep to himself. He did not expect Olar Ethil to take them to Onos T’oolan. Absi, and perhaps even the twins, had become her currency when forcing the First Sword’s hand, and she would not permit a situation where he could directly challenge her over possession of them. No, these coins of flesh she would keep well hidden.
Torrent collected up Absi, his heart clenching as the boy’s arms went round his neck. The young were quick to adapt, he knew, but even then there were hurts that slipped through awareness leaving not a ripple, and they sank deep. And many years later, why, they’d shaped an entire life. Abandon the child and all the man’s tethers will be weak. Take away the child’s love and the woman will be a leaf on every stream. So the older ones said. Always full of warnings, telling us all that life was a treacherous journey. That a path once begun could not easily be evaded, or twisted anew by wish or will .
With a grinning Absi settled on the saddle, his small hands gripping the horn, Torrent collected the reins. The twins falling in beside him, he set off after Olar Ethil.
The thunder had stopped as quickly as it had begun, and the cloudless sky was unchanged. Terrible forces were in play in these Wastelands, enough to shake even the deathless witch striding so purposefully ahead of them. ‘ Call upon no gods in this place .’ A curious warning. Had someone prayed? He snorted. When did praying achieve anything but silence? Anything but the pathetic absence filling the air, building like a bubble of nothingness in the soul? Since when didn’t a prayer leave only empty yearning, where wishes burned and longing was a knife twisting in the chest?
Call upon no gods in this place. Summon not Toc Anaster, my one-eyed guardian who can ride through the veil, who can speak with the voice of death itself. Why do you so fear him, Olar Ethil? What can he do to you?
But I know the answer to that, don’t I?
Ahead, the Bonecaster hesitated, turning to stare at Torrent.
When he smiled, she faced forward again and resumed her walk.
Yes, Olar Ethil. These Wastelands are very crowded indeed. Step lightly, hag, as if that will do any good .
Absi made a strange grunting sound, and then sang, ‘Tollallallallalla! Tollallallalla!’
Every word from a child is itself a prayer. A blessing. Dare we answer? Beware little Absi, Olar Ethil. There are hurts that slip through. You killed his dog .
You killed his dog .
* * *
The fabric between the warrens was shredded. Gaping holes yawned on all sides. As befitted his veered form, Gruntle moved in the shadows, a creature of stealth, muscles rolling beneath his barbed hide, eyes flaring like embers in the night. But purchase under his padded paws was uncertain. Vistas shifted wildly before his fixed gaze. Only desperation – and perhaps madness – had taken him on these paths.
One moment flowing down a bitter cold scree of moss-backed boulders, the next moving like a ghost through a cathedral forest cloaked in fetid gloom. In yet another, the air was foul with poisons, and he found himself forced to swim a river, the waters thick and crusted with brown foam. Up on to the bank and into a village of cut stone crowded with carriages, passing through a graveyard, a fox pitching an eerie cry upon catching his scent.
