Dread held Korya motionless. Her heart beat wildly, like a trapped bird.
This time, when Haut spoke, she heard him clearly. ‘I begin to see now, what they did. It is clever, yet rife with risk. Very well, we shall walk it, and see where it leads.’
‘Master — what has happened to the world?’
‘Nothing… yet. Come along.’
Somehow she managed to step into his wake, the ladle banging at her thigh with each stride. Flickers of irritation sought to distract her, but she held her gaze upon the strange, smoky darkness. As it flowed up and around her, she was startled to realize that she could see through its ethereal substance. Haut marched ahead, his worn boots thumping and scuffing across gravel.
Crossing the threshold of the tower’s entrance, she beheld a narrow path running along a ridge barely an arm’s reach across. To either side there was nothing but empty space. She swallowed down a sudden vertigo. When she spoke, the vastness devoured her voice. ‘Master, how can this be?’
Under her feet, she felt the gravel shifting unsteadily and looked down. She saw, in gleam and sparkle, jewellery: a thick carpet of gems, rings, baubles; a veritable treasure underfoot. Haut paid it no heed, kicking through the clutter as if it were nothing more than woodchips and pebbles. Crouching, she collected up a handful. The rings were all cut through, twisted as if pulled from senseless fingers. She held a neck torc of solid gold, bent and gouged as if by knife cuts. Snapped necklaces slithered down between the fingers of her hand, cool as serpents. Glancing up, she saw that Haut had stopped and was looking back at her.
Korya shook her head in disbelief. ‘Wealth to make a noble less than a beggar. Master, who would leave such a trail?’
Haut grunted. ‘Wealth? Is it rarity that warrants value? If so, of greater value than these trinkets are trust, truth and integrity. Of greater value still, forgiveness. Of greatest value among them all, an outstretched hand. Wealth? We live in paucity. And this here is a most treacherous path — and we must walk it with unerring step, child.’
Korya dropped the treasure and straightened. ‘I fear that I might stumble. I might fall, master.’
He shrugged, as if the notion gave him no qualm. ‘This is loot. A slayer’s hoard. The path wends upward and who can say what waits at its very end? A keep groaning beneath melted sheaths of gold? A throne of diamond where sits a rotted corpse? Will you believe this path to be so obvious? Who defends this realm? What army kneels in service to gold and silver? How warm is their bed of jewels at night?’
‘I said I dislike riddles, master. What realm is this?’
‘Ah, such a nuanced word. Realm. An invitation to balance, all stationary, mote tilted against mote, the illusion of solidity. A place to walk through, encompassing the span of one’s vision and calling it home. Did you expect the world you knew? Did you imagine the future awaits you no different in substance from the past? Where are the grasslands, you ask. Where is the tumble of days and nights — but of those, what more can I teach you? What more can be learned of them than any child of sound wits can comprehend after but a handful of years?’
With these words drifting back to her, and then out to the sides to fall away leaving no echo, Haut resumed his march.
Korya followed. ‘This is Azathanai.’
‘Very good,’ he answered without turning.
‘What do they mean by it?’
‘Ask the Jheleck. Bah, too late for that. The fools left, tails between their hairy legs. And to think, they wanted you. Another bauble. I wonder — what will your kin do with a score of Soletaken pups?’
‘I don’t know. Tame them, I suppose.’
Haut’s laugh was sharp, cutting. ‘To tame something, one must take advantage of its stupidity. They will never tame those beasts, because savage though they may be, they are not stupid.’
‘Then, as hostages, they will learn the ways of the Tiste, and see them not as strangers, nor enemies.’
‘You believe this? Perhaps it will be so.’
The path continued its climb, though not so steep as to make uncertain their purchase. But her legs were getting tired. ‘Master, did you expect this?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Child, we have been invited.’
‘By whom?’
‘That remains to be discovered.’
She knew her life was yet modest, but already she had a sense that most promises would, eventually, prove empty. There was nowhere to go but forward, but no one could avow that what lay ahead was a better life. Potential felt like a burden, possibility like wolves on her trail. Her dreams of godly powers were the frayed remnants of childhood; they trailed like wisps behind her, tired as the streamers of last year’s fete. She thought back to the dolls in the trunk’s silent, dark confines, the eyes staring at nothing, the mouths smiling at no one, now well behind her — long gone from reach, or a moment’s rush across the floor. There was stillness in that place, as still as the room surrounding it, as still as the keep itself. And just as the dolls dwelt in their trunk, so too had she and Haut dwelt in the keep, and it might well be true that this realm was but another version, and that it was all a matter of scale.