The one-eyed god standing unseen in the throne room was furious. Ignorance was ever the enemy, and the Errant understood that he was under assault. By Chancellor Triban Gnol. By Hannan Mosag. The clash of these two forces of the empire was something that the Emperor on his throne barely sensed-the Errant was sure of that. Rhulad was trapped in his own cage of emotions, terror wielding all its instruments of torture, poking, jabbing, twisting deep. Yet the Errant had witnessed with clear eyes-no, a clear eye-in the fraught audience now past, just how vicious this battle was becoming.
But 1 cannot fathom their secrets. Neither Triban Gnol’s nor Hannan Mosag’s. This is my realm. Mine!
He might renew one old path. The one leading into the Chancellor’s bedroom. But even then, when that relationship had been in fullest bloom, Triban Gnol held to his secrets. Sinking into his various personas of innocent victim and wide-eyed child, he had become little more than a simpleton when with the Errant-with Turudal Brizad, the Consort to the Queen, who never grew old-and would not be moved from the games he so needed. No, that would not work, because it never had.
Was there any other way to the Chancellor?
Even now, Triban Gnol was a godless creature. Not one to bend knee to the Errant. So that path, too, was closed. I could simply follow him. Everywhere. Piece together his scheme by listening to the orders he delivers, by reading the missives he despatches. By hoping he talks in his sleep. Abyss below!
Furious, indeed. At his own growing panic as the convergence drew ever closer. His knowledge was no better when it came to Hannan Mosag, although some details were beyond dissembling. The power of the Crippled God, for one. Yet even there, the Warlock King was no simple servant, no mindless slave to that chaotic promise. He had sought the sword now in Rhulad’s hands, after all. As with any other god, the Fallen One played no favourites. First to arrive at the altar… No, Hannan Mosag would hold to no delusions there.
The Errant glanced once more at Rhulad, this Emperor of a Thousand Deaths. The fool, for all his bulk, now sat on that throne in painful insignificance-so obvious it hurt to just look at him. Alone in this vast domed chamber, the thousand deaths refracted into ten thousand flinches in those glittering eyes.
The Chancellor and his retinue were gone. The Ceda away with his broken handful as well. Not a guard in sight, yet Rhulad remained. Sitting, burnished coins gleaming. And on his face all that had been private, unrevealed, was now loosed in expressive array. All the pathos, the abject hauntings-the Errant had seen, had always seen, in face after face spanning too many years to count, the divide of the soul, the difference between the face that knew it was being watched, and the face that believed in its solitude. Bifurcation. And he had witnessed when inside crawled outside to a seemingly unseeing world.
Divided soul. Yours, Rhulad, has been cut in two. By that sword, by the spilled blood between you and each of your brothers, between you and your parents. Between you and your kind. What would you give me, Rhulad Sengar of the Hiroth Tiste Edur, to be healed?
Assuming I could manage such a thing, of course. Which I cannot.
But it was clear to the Errant now that Rhulad had begun to understand one thing at least. The fast approach of convergence, the dread gathering and inevitable clash of powers. Perhaps the Crippled God had been whispering in his sword-bearer’s ear. Or perhaps Rhulad was not quite the fool most believed him to be. Even me, on occasion-and who am I to sneer in contempt? A damned Letherii witch swallowed one of my eyes!
The growing fear was undisguised in the Emperor’s face. Coins bedded in burnt skin. Mottled pocking where the coins were gone. Brutal wealth and wounded penury, two sides of yet another curse to plague this modern age. Yes, divide humanity’s soul. Into the haves, the have’nots. Rhulad, you are in truth a living symbol. But that is a weight no-one can bear for very long. You see the end coming. Or, many endings, and yes, one of them is yours.
Shall it be this foreign army that has, in Triban Gnol’s clever words, proclaimed itself a champion?
Shall it be Icarium, Stealer of Life? The Wanderer through Time?
Or something far more sordid-some perfect ambush by Hannan Mosag; or one final betrayal to annihilate you utterly, as would one committed by your Chancellor?
And why do I believe the answer will be none of those? Not one. Not a single thing so… so direct. So obvious.
And when will this blood stop seeping from this socket? When will these crimson tears end?
The Errant melted into the wall behind him. He’d had enough of Rhulad’s private face. Too much, he suspected, like his own. Imagined unwatched-but am I too being watched? Whose cold gaze is fixed on me, calculating meanings, measuring weaknesses?
Yes, see where I weep, see what I weep.
And yes, this was all by a mortal’s hand.
