House of Chains

Not that freedom ensured happiness. Indeed, to be free was to live in absence. Of responsibilities, of loyalties, of the pressures that expectation imposed. Ah, misery has tainted my views. Misery, and the threat of true grieving, which draws nearer-but no, she must be alive. Somewhere up above. On an island assailed … ‘Darist, please, wait a moment.’



The tall figure stopped. ‘I see no reason to answer your questions.’



‘I am concerned… for my companion. If she’s alive, she’s somewhere above us, on the surface. You said you were under attack. I fear for her-’



‘We sense the presence of strangers, Cutter. Above us, there are Tiste Edur. But no-one else. She is drowned, this companion of yours. There is no point in holding out hope.’



The Daru sat down suddenly. He felt sick, his heart stuttering with anguish. And despair.



‘Death is not an unkind fate,’ Darist said above him. ‘If she was a friend, you will miss her company, and that is the true source of your grief-your sorrow is for yourself. My words may displease you, but I speak from experience. I have felt the deaths of many of my kin, and I mourn the spaces in my life where they once stood. But such losses serve only to ease my own impending demise.’



Cutter stared up at the Tiste Andu. ‘Darist, forgive me. You may be old, but you are also a damned fool. And I begin to understand why Rake left you here then forgot about you. Now, kindly shut up.’ He pushed himself upright, feeling hollowed out inside, but determined not to surrender to the despair that threatened to overwhelm him. Because surrendering is what this Tiste Andu has done .



‘Your anger leaves me undamaged,’ Darist said. He turned and gestured to the double doors directly ahead. ‘Through here you will find a place to rest. Your salvage awaits there, as well.’



‘Will you tell me nothing of the battle above?’



‘What is there to tell you, Cutter? We have lost.’



‘Lost! Who is left among you?’



‘Here in the Hold, where stands the Throne, there is only me. Now, best rest. We shall have company soon enough.’



The howls of rage reverberated through Onrack’s bones, though he knew his companion could hear nothing. These were cries of the spirits-two spirits, trapped within two of the towering, bestial statues rearing up on the plain before them.



The cloud cover overhead had broken apart, was fast vanishing in thinning threads. Three moons rode the heavens, and there were two suns. The light flowed with shifting hues as the moons swung on their invisible tethers. A strange, unsettling world, Onrack reflected.



The storm was spent. They had waited in the lee of a small hill while it thrashed around the gargantuan statues, the wind howling past from its wild race through the rubble-littered streets of the ruined city lying beyond. And now the air steamed.



‘What do you see, T’lan Imass?’ Trull asked from where he sat hunched, his back to the edifices.



Shrugging, the T’lan Imass turned away from his lengthy study of the statues. ‘There are mysteries here… of which I suspect you know more than I.’



The Tiste Edur glanced up with a wry expression. ‘That seems unlikely. What do you know of the Hounds of Shadow?’



‘Very little. The Logros crossed paths with them only once, long ago, in the time of the First Empire. Seven in number. Serving an unknown master, yet bent on destruction.’



Trull smiled oddly, then asked, ‘The human First Empire, or yours?’



‘I know little of the human empire of that name. We were drawn into its heart but once, Trull Sengar, in answer to the chaos of the Soletaken and D’ivers. The Hounds made no appearance during that slaughter.’ Onrack looked back at the massive stone Hound before them. ‘It is believed,’ he said slowly, ‘by the bonecasters, that to create an icon of a spirit or a god is to capture its essence within that icon. Even the laying of stones prescribes confinement. Just as a hut can measure out the limits of power for a mortal, so too are spirits and gods sealed into a chosen place of earth or stone or wood… or an object. In this way power is chained, and so becomes manageable. Tell me, do the Tiste Edur concur with that notion?’



Trull Sengar climbed to his feet. ‘Do you think we raised these giant statues, Onrack? Do your bonecasters also believe that power begins as a thing devoid of shape, and thus beyond control? And that to carve out an icon-or make a circle of stones-actually forces order upon that power?’



Onrack cocked his head, was silent for a time. ‘Then it must be that we make our own gods and spirits. That belief demands shape, and shaping brings life into being. Yet were not the Tiste Edur fashioned by Mother Dark? Did not your goddess create you?’