Skintick could not find himself in that future. He did not expect to complete this journey. He was not sure he even wanted to. The same chronicler who painted past scenes would paint the future ones, too. The same damned theme, reworked with all the obsessiveness of a visionary throttling the blind.
One thing was certain. He would permit no one to ever again abuse his virtues — even those few that remained, in their dishevelled state. They were not currency, not things to be measured, weighed against gold, gems, property or power. If the bastards wanted all that, they could sweat their own sweat and bleed their own blood to get it.
‘You are smiling,’ Nimander observed. ‘It pleases me to see that alive and well.’
Skintick glanced at him. The legacy of Bastion remained in the stains of old blood beneath the salt that now caked moccasins and leggings. No one had both shy;ered cleaning their gear, so desperate was the need to leave that city. Something had changed in Nimander, however, beyond the horrors of saemenkelyk and the Dying God’s altar. As if his sense of purpose had taken a fresh beating, like a new seedling trampled underfoot. How many times, Skintick wondered, could Nimander suffer that, before some fundamental poison altered his very nature? The vision he had of Nimander’s final demise was dependent upon a certain sanctity of spirit remaining, something precious and rare that would drive him to that last act of despair. If it was already dead, or twisted malign, then Nimander’s fate would become truly unknown.
They had found a horse for Clip, but retained the wagon, at least for this jour shy;ney northward along the edge of the dying salt lake. Nenanda was seated once more on the raised bench, reins in one hand, switch in the other. Aranatha sat with her legs dangling off the end of the wagon, eyes on the row of broken teeth that was Bastion’s dwindling skyline, hazy and shimmering above the heat waves. Desra lounged in the wagon’s bed, dozing among the casks of water and bundles of dried goods. Kedeviss rode flank off to the right, almost thirty paces away now, her horse picking its way along the old beach with its withered drift shy;wood.
Clip rode far ahead, emphasizing his impatience. He’d not been much inter shy;ested in hearing the tale of their doings since his collapse at the village — a failing on his part (as he evidently saw the suggestion) that he refused to entertain, al shy;though this clearly left a mysterious and no doubt troubling gap in his memory. He was, if anything, even more evasive than he had been before, and more than once Skintick had caught suspicion in the warrior’s eyes when observing the rest of them. As if they had conspired to steal something from him, and had succeeded.
Skintick’s distrust of the bastard was growing. It wasn’t hard to hate Clip — absurdly easy, in fact — and such sentiments could well cloud his sense of the warrior with his endlessly spinning rings. Clip was, he now believed, one of those eager to abuse the virtues of others to achieve whatever private and entirely per shy;sonal victory he sought. And if the effort left a half-dozen contemptible youths dead in his wake, what of it?
He could not but see the bloodstains they now wore; could not but have no shy;ticed the notched and nicked weapons they took files to during rest stops. Their damaged armour. And dazed and groggy as he had been upon awakening in the al shy;tar chamber, he could not have been blind to the scores of dead — the veritable slaughterhouse they had left behind. And yet still Clip saw them as barely worth his regard, beyond that malicious suspicion as it slowly flowered into paranoia, and what might that lead him to do?
‘We will need to find a way through those mountains,’ Nimander said, squinting ahead.
‘God’s Walk, Clip called them. An astounding fount of unexpected knowledge, our grateful friend.’
‘Grateful? Ah, I see. Well, he wasn’t there in spirit, was he?’
