Forge of Darkness (The Kharkanas Trilogy #1)

Forge of Darkness (The Kharkanas Trilogy #1) Page 233

Kadaspala woke with a start. He sat up. In his mind there remained the echoes of screaming — a terrible dream he could not even remember. He rubbed at his face, looked down in the pale morning light to see that his bruised thigh had swollen to twice the size of the other. Groaning, he sank back down.

But the faint echoes of the screams did not fade away. They did not fade at all.

No. Oh, no no no no -

Paint and brush boxes left lying on the ground, Kadaspala somehow found himself on his feet, limping through blinding waves of agony, scrabbling up into the road. Trying to run, leg dragging, lurching under him, his breaths raw in his throat.

The sun climbed up through the trees. He hobbled on, wondering what madness had taken him. He could not have heard anything real. The distance was too far — he had been running on this road for ever. Leagues, tens of leagues — but no, the air was still cold from the night just past. Mist clung to the river’s surface like smoke.

He could barely walk, much less run.

When he came within sight of Andarist’s house, he halted. He could see the carriage, but the horses were gone. There was no movement — not a single Houseblade or servant. He limped forward.

Bodies on the ground. His father’s Houseblades and others. He saw faces he had known all his life, each one flat as the thinnest paint, the eyes half-lidded and blank. And everywhere, in lurid hues, gaping wounds. When he brought his hands to his face, he felt only numbness, as if even sensation was in retreat.

Fingers now stabbing the air, he staggered on.

The front door of the house was broken, torn from its hinges.

A sound was coming from Kadaspala, an inhuman sound, a sound of something sliding into a pit, an abyss, a fall into depths unending. The cry surrounded him, greeted the empty morning and its senseless light, and the blood on the earth made shadows beneath motionless bodies. He saw the open carriage door and more bodies beyond — more Houseblades, more strangers in filthy rags, eyes staring as dead eyes always did.

A shape on the steps of the house, a thing in a fine woollen cloak as blue as midnight. Grey hair clotted with black gore. The fingers on the end of Kadaspala’s hand danced in frenetic motion, jerking slashes of the invisible brush, and all the while the cry continued, like a soul in retreat, a soul plummeting for ever.

He stepped over his father’s body, and then over Cryl Durav’s. And saw Ephalla’s still, stained form.

He came to stand before the hearthstone.

This was not her. This… thing. Not her. Never her. I don’t know who this is. It’s not -

The face was all wrong. The bloodless cheeks, the swollen lips cracked and torn. He had never seen this woman before. She was staring at the ceiling. He felt himself pulled over her, stepping forward, shifting to intercept that empty gaze. He heard his own howl of protest. Still he leaned closer, watching the play of his own shadow sliding up over her face. He met her eyes.

The fingers of his hands curled into claws. The keening sound filled the chamber, ran wild, was trapped in corners, jolting free and careening against the ceiling. Its pitch was building, climbing ever higher. A sound tasting of blood, a sound smelling of horror. He staggered back and fell to his knees.

Enesdia.

Don’t look at me like that. Don’t -

His fingers reached up, as he stared at the forlorn figure sprawled on the hearthstone, and the invisible brushes stabbed.

Deep into his eyes.

Pain was a shock, rocking his head back, but the artist would not let go — the brushes dipped deeper, soaked in red paint. The cry was now shrieking in a chorus of voices, bursting from his mouth again and again. He felt his fingers grasp hold of his eyes, felt them clench tight, crushing everything.

And then he tore them away.

And darkness offered its perfect blessing, and he shuddered as if in ecstasy.

The babbling in his skull fell away, until a lone, quavering voice remained. It is the one question that haunts every artist, the one question we can never answer.

How does one paint love?

The brushes had done their work. The gods of the colours were all dead. Kadaspala sat slumped, with his eyes in his hands.

FIFTEEN

‘First son, take the sword in your hands.’

Kellaras stood near the door, his eyes on the magnificent weapon that Hust Henarald had unwrapped. It seemed to divide the table it rested on, as if moments from splitting the world in half. Lord Anomander, his face hooded as if in shadow, made no move to reach for the sword.

Kellaras could see his commander — the man he had always known — through the midnight pitch of his skin, and the long hair that had been black and was now silver, the hue of polished iron, yet capable of trapping every colour in its strands. The glow of the lanternlight was gold deepening to red, rippling like water as Anomander slowly leaned forward. The shadows within it were blue, on the very edge of inky black, and the way the hair fell reminded Kellaras of rain, or tears. He still struggled to comprehend this transformation.