House of Chains (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #4)

House of Chains (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #4) Page 245

Among a people where solitude was as close to a crime as possible. Where to separate was to weaken. Where the very breaking of vision into its components-from seeing to observing, from resurrecting memory and reshaping it beyond the eye’s reach, onto walls of stone-demanded a fine-edged, potentially deadly propensity.

A poor bonecaster. Onrack, you were never what you were meant to be. And when you broke the unwritten covenant and painted a truthful image of a mortal Imass, when you trapped that lovely, dark woman in time, there in the cavern no-one was meant to find… ah, then you fell to the wrath of kin. Of Logros himself, and the First Sword.

But he remembered the expression on the young face of Onos T’oolan, when he had first looked upon the painting of his sister. Wonder and awe, and a resurgence of an abiding love-Onrack was certain that he had seen such in the First Sword’s face, was certain that others had, as well, though of course none spoke of it. The law had been broken, and would be answered with severity.

He never knew if Kilava had herself gone to see the painting; had never known if she had been angered, or had seen sufficient to understand the blood of his own heart that had gone into that image.

But that is the last memory I now come to.

‘Your silences,’ Trull Sengar muttered, ‘always send shivers through me, T’lan Imass.’

‘The night before the Ritual,’ Onrack replied. ‘Not far from this place where we now stand. I was to have been banished from my tribe. I had committed a crime to which there was no other answer. Instead, events eclipsed the clans. Four Jaghut tyrants had risen and had formed a compact. They sought to destroy this land-as indeed they have.’

The Tiste Edur said nothing, perhaps wondering what, precisely, had been destroyed. Along the river there were irrigation ditches, and strips of rich green crops awaiting the season’s turn. Roads and farmsteads, the occasional temple, and only to the southwest, along that horizon, did the broken ridge of treeless bluffs mar the scene.

‘I was in the cavern-in the place of my crime,’ Onrack continued after a moment. ‘In darkness, of course. My last night, I’d thought, among my own kind. Though in truth I was already alone, driven from the camp to this final place of solitude. And then someone came. A touch. A body, warm. Soft beyond belief-no, not my wife, she had been among the first to shun me, for what I had done, for the betrayal it had meant. No, a woman unknown to me in the darkness…’

Was it her? I will never know. She was gone in the morning, gone from all of us, even as the Ritual was proclaimed and the clans gathered. She defied the call-no, more horrible yet, she had killed her own kin, all but Onos himself. He had managed to drive her off-the truest measure of his extraordinary martial prowess.

Was it her? Was there blood unseen on her hands? That dried, crumbled powder I found on my own skin-which I’d thought had come from the overturned bowl of paint. Fled from Onos… to me, in my shameful cave.

And who did I hear in the passage beyond? In the midst of our love-making, did someone come upon us and see what I myself could not?

‘You need say no more, Onrack,’ Trull said softly.

True. And were I mortal flesh, you would see me weep, and thus say what you have just said. Thus, my grief is not lost to your eyes, Trull Sengar. And yet still you ask why I proclaimed my vow…

‘The trail of the renegades is… fresh,’ Onrack said after a moment.

Trull half smiled. ‘And you enjoy killing.’

‘Artistry finds new forms, Edur. It defies being silenced.’ The T’lan Imass slowly turned to face him. ‘Of course, changes have come to us. I am no longer free to pursue this hunt… unless you wish the same.’

Trull grimaced, scanned the lands to the southwest. ‘Well, it’s not as inviting a prospect as it once was, I’ll grant you. But, Onrack, these renegades are agents in the betrayal of my people, and I mean to discover as much as I can of their role. Thus, we must find them.’

‘And speak with them.’

‘Speak with them first, aye, and then you can kill them.’

‘I no longer believe I am capable of that, Trull Sengar. I am too badly damaged. Even so, Monok Ochem and Ibra Gholan are pursuing us. They will suffice.’

The Tiste Edur’s head had turned at this. ‘Just the two of them? You are certain?’

‘My powers are diminished, but yes, I believe so.’

‘How close?’

‘It does not matter. They withhold their desire for vengeance against me… so that I might lead them to those they have hunted from the very beginning.’