thieves, invaders, all, a wiser fool than some; priests connived, gods perished
in this and other planes
– and Ranke, the heart of empire, was in no less disarray, with every lord
conniving and every priest conspiring. She heard the rain upon the roof, heard
the thunder rattling the walls of the world and heard her own catspaw returning
up the path. She shod herself, flung her cloak about her, opened the door on
Mor-am’s rain-washed presence.
‘Take a dry cloak,’ she said, catching up a fine one, dark as hers. ‘Man, you’ll
catch your death.’
He was not amused; but she unwound the pain from him, cast one cloak aside, and
adjusted the finer one about his newly straightened shoulders, tenderly as a
mother her son, looking him closely in the eyes.
‘Gone?’ she asked.
‘They’ll try to trick you.’
‘Of course they will.’ She closed the front door, opened the back, never
glancing at either. ‘Come along,’ she said, flinging up her hood, the wide wings
of her cape flying in the wind that swirled the random, garish draperies of the
house like multicoloured fire. The gust struggled with the candles and the
fireplace and failed to extinguish them, while mad shadows ran the walls, ’til
she winked the lights out, having no more need of them.
Something rattled. Mradhon Vis opened an eye, in dark lit by the dying fire in
its crooked hearth. Beside him Haught and Moria lay inert, lost in sleep, curled
together in the threadbare quilt. But this sound came, and with it a chill, as
if someone had opened a door on winter in the room, while his heart beat in that