Reaper's Gale
She needed to speak to Triban Gnol. She needed to Blend this bridge. But I will not be his spy.
A most narrow bridge, then, one to be trod with caution.
Rhulad stirred in the gloom.
And then he whispered, ‘I know what you want, brother…
‘So guide me… guide me with your honour…’
Ah, Trull Sengar, wherever your spirit now lurks, does it please you?.’ Does this please you, to know that your Shaming failed?
To so haunt Rhulad.
Guide me,’ Rhulad croaked.
The sword scraped on the floor, rippling over mosaic Hones like cold laughter.
Bruthen Trana studied the Letherii standing before him for a long moment and said nothing.
‘I wish to speak to the Emperor,’ Bruthen said, his tone matching precisely the previous time he had spoken those words.
Triban Gnol sighed. ‘Presumably you wish to make your report regarding Invigilator Karos Invictad and hisl Patriotists in person. I assure you, I do forward said reports.’ He frowned at the Tiste Edur, then nodded and said, ‘Very well. I will convey your wishes to his highness, Bruthen Trana.’
‘If need be, place me among the petitioners.’
‘That will not be necessary.’
The Tiste Edur gazed at the Chancellor for a half-dozen heartbeats, then he turned about and left the office. In the larger room beyond waited a crowd of Letherii. A score of faces turned to regard Bruthen as he threaded his way through-faces nervous, struggling with fear-while others studied the Tiste Edur with eyes that gave away nothing:: the Chancellor’s agents, the ones who, Bruthen suspected, went out each morning to round up the day’s petitioners then coached them in what to say to their Emperor.
Bruthen Trana made his way into the wing of the palace closest to the river, and here the air was clammy, the corridors mostly empty. While the flooding that had occurred during the early stages of construction had been rectified, via an ingenious system of subsurface pylons, it seemed nothing could dispel the damp. Holes had been knocked in outer walls to create a flow of air, to little effect apart from filling the musty gloom with the scent of river mud and decaying plants.
Bruthen walked through one such hole, emerging out onto a mostly broken-up cobble path, with felled trees rotting amidst high grasses off to his left and the foundations of a small building to his right. Abandonment lingered in the still air like suspended pollen, and Bruthen was alone as he ascended the path’s uneven slope to arrive at the edge of a cleared area, at the other end of which rose the ancient tower of the Azath, with the lesser structures of the Jaghut to either side. In this clearing there were grave markers, set out in no discernible order. Half-buried urns, wax-sealed at the mouth, from which emerged weapons. Swords, broken spears, axes, maces-trophies of failure, a stunted forest of iron.
The Fallen Champions, the residents of a most prestigious cemetery. All had killed Rhulad at least once, some more than once-the greatest of these, an almost full-blood Tarthenal, had slain the Emperor seven times, and Bruthen could remember, with absolute clarity, the look of growing rage and terror in that Tarthenal’s bestial face each time his fallen opponent arose, renewed, stronger and deedlier than he had been only moments earlier.
He entered the bizarre necropolis, eyes drifting across the Various weapons, once so lovingly cared for-many of them bearing names-but now sheathed in rust. At the far end, slighty separated from all the others, stood an empty urn. Months earlier, out of curiosity, he had reached down into it, and found a silver cup. The cup that had contained the poison that killed three Letherii in the throne room-that had killed Brys Beddict.