She circled once, high above the city, and even her preternatural sight struggled against the eternal darkness below. Kurald Galain was a most alien warren, even in this diffused, weakened state. Passing directly over the slumbering mass of Silanah, Crone cackled out an ironic greeting. Of course there was no visible response from the crimson dragon, yet the Great Raven well knew that Silanah sensed her wheeling overhead. And no doubt permitted, in a flash of imagery, the vision of jaws snapping, bones and feathers crunching as delicious fluids spurted — Crone cackled again, louder this time, and was rewarded with a twitch of that long, serpentine tail.
She slid on to an updraught from the cliff’s edge, then angled down through it on a steep dive towards the low-walled balcony of the keep.
He stood alone, something she had come to expect of late. The Son of Darkness was closing in, like an onyx flower as the bells of midnight rang on, chime by chime to the twelfth and last, and then there would be naught but echoes, until even these faded, leaving silence. She crooked her wings to slow her plummet, the keep still rushing up to meet her. A flurry of beating wings and she settled atop the stone wall, talons crunching into the granite.
‘And does the view ever change?’ Crone asked.
Anomander Rake looked down, regarded her for a time.
She opened her beak to laugh in silence for a few heartbeats. ‘The Tiste Andii are not a people prone to sudden attacks of joy, are they? Dancing into darkness? The wild cheerful cavort into the future? Do you imagine that our flight from his rotting flesh was not one of rapturous glee? Pleasure at being born, delight at being alive? Oh, I have run out of questions for you — it is indeed now a sad time.’
‘Does Baruk understand, Crone?’
‘He does. More or less. Perhaps. We’ll see.’
‘Something is happening to the south.’
She bobbed her head in agreement. ‘Something, oh yes, something all right. Are the priestesses in a wild orgy yet? The plunge that answers
‘Travel has soured your mood, Crone.’
‘It is not in my nature to grieve. I despise it, in fact. I rail against it! My sphincter explodes upon it! And yet, what is it you force upon me, your old companion, your beloved servant?’
‘I have no such intention,’ he replied. ‘Clearly, you fear the worst. Tell me, what have your kin seen?’
‘Oh, they are scattered about, here and there, ever high above the petty machinations of the surface crawlers. We watch as they crawl this way and that. We watch, we laugh, we sing their tales to our sisters, our brothers.’
‘And?’
She ducked her head, fixed one eye upon the tumultuous black seas below. ‘This darkness of yours, Master, breeds fierce storms.’
‘So it does.’
‘I will fly high above the twisting clouds, into air clear and cold.’
‘And so you shall, Crone, so you shall.’
‘I dislike it when you are generous, Master. When that soft regard steals into your eyes. It is not for you to reveal compassion. Stand here, yes, unseen, unknowable, that I might hold this in my mind. Let me think of the ice of true justice, the kind that never shatters — listen, I hear the bells below! How sure that music, how true the cry of iron.’
‘You are most poetic this day, Crone.’
‘It is how Great Ravens rail at grief, Master. Now, what would you have me do?’
‘Endest Silann is at the deep river.’
‘Hardly alone, I should think.’
‘He must return.’
She was silent for a moment, head cocked. Then she said, ‘Ten bells have sounded.’
‘Ten.’
‘I shall be on my way, then.’
‘Fly true, Crone.’
‘I pray you tell your beloved the same, Master, when the time is nigh.’
He smiled. ‘There is no need for that.’
