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‘What I grasp,’ Karsa cut in, ‘is the smell of burning meat.’
‘Ah, yes. Rare are my moments of discourse-’
‘I had no idea.’
‘-which ca
‘There in your chest.’
Cy
Karsa handed the Jaghut a beaker filled with wine. ‘Alas, my hand has warmed it some.’
‘I’ll suffer the degradation, thank you. Here, help yourself to the deer. Charcoal is good for you, did you know that? Cleanses the digestive tract, confounds the worms, turns your excrement black. Black as a forest bear’s. Recommended if you are being pursued, for it will fool most, barring those who have made a study of excrement, of course.’
‘And do such people exist?’
‘I have no idea. I rarely get out. What preening empires have risen only to then fall beyond the Jhag Odhan? Pomposity choking on dust, these are cycles unending among short-lived creatures. I do not grieve for my own ignorance. Why should I? Not knowing what I have missed means I do not miss what I do not know. How could I? Do you see? Aramala was ever questing for such pointless knowledge, and look where it got her. Same for Phyrlis, whom you will meet tomorrow. She can never see beyond the leaves in front of her face, though she ceaselessly strives to do so, as if the vast panorama offers something other than time’s insectile crawl. Empires, thrones, tyrants and liberators, a hundred thousand tomes filled with versions of the same questions, asked over and over again. Will answers deliver their promised solace? I think not. Here, cook some more, Karsa Orlong, and drink more wine-you see the carafe never empties. Clever, isn’t it? Now, where was I?’
‘You rarely get out.’
‘Indeed. What preening empires have risen only to then fall beyond the Jhag Odhan? Pomposity choking…’
Karsa’s eyes narrowed on the Jhag Odhan, then he reached for the wine.
A lone tree stood on ground that was the summit of a hill that in turn abutted a larger hill. Sheltered from the prevailing winds, it had grown vast, its bark thin and peeling as if it was skin unable to contain the muscular breadth underneath. Branches as thick around as Karsa’s thigh reached out from the massive, knotted trunk. Its top third was thickly leaved, forming broad, flattened canopies of dusty green.
‘Looks old, doesn’t it?’ Cy
‘But this one hasn’t.’
‘No sharper an observance could be made. And why, you ask?’
‘I do not bother, for I know you will tell me in any case.’
‘Of course I shall, for I am of a helpful sort, a natural proclivity. The reason, my young friend, shall soon be made evident.’
They clambered over the last of the rise and came to the flat ground, eternally shadowed beneath the canopy and so free of grasses. The tree and all its branches, Karsa now saw, were wrapped in spiders’ webs that somehow remained entirely translucent no matter how thickly woven, revealed only by a faint flickering reflection. And beneath that glittering shroud, the face of a Jaghut stared back at him.
‘Phyrlis,’ Cy
The Jaghut woman’s body remained visible here and there, revealing that the tree had indeed grown around her. Yet a single shaft of wood emerged from just behind her right collarbone, rejoining the main trunk along the side of her head.
‘Shall I tell him your story, Phyrlis? Of course, I must, if only for its remarkability.’
Her voice did not come from her mouth, but sounded, fluid and soft, inside Karsa’s head. ‘Of course you must, Cy
Karsa smiled, for there was too much affection in the tone to lend the words any edge.
‘My Thelomen Toblakai friend, a most extraordinary tale, for which true explanations remain beyond us all,’ Cy
Karsa set his sword’s point down and leaned on it. ‘Yet she was the maker of the Jhag horses.’
‘A small role, Karsa Orlong. From my blood came their longevity. The Jhag horses breed infrequently, insufficient to increase, or even maintain, their numbers, were they not so long-lived.’
‘I know, for the Teblor-my own people, who dwell in the mountains of north Genabackis-maintain herds of what must be Jhag horses.’
‘If so, then I am pleased. They are being hunted to extinction here on the Jhag Odhan.’
‘Hunted? By whom?’
‘By distant kin of yours, Thelomen Toblakai. Trell.’
Karsa was silent for a moment, then he scowled. ‘Such as the one known as Mappo?’
‘Yes indeed. Mappo Runt, who travels with Icarium. Icarium, who carries arrows made from my branches. Who, each time he visits me, remembers naught of the previous encounter. Who asks, again and again, for my heartwood, so that he may fashion from it a mechanism to measure time, for my heartwood alone can outlive all other constructs.’
‘And do you oblige him?’ Karsa asked.
‘No, for it would kill me. Instead, I bargain. A strong shaft for a bow. Branches for arrows.’
‘Have you no means to defend yourself, then?’
‘Against Icarium, no-one has, Karsa Orlong.’
The Teblor warrior grunted. ‘I had an argument with Icarium, which neither of us won.’ He tapped his stone sword. ‘My weapon was of wood, but now I wield this one. The next time we meet, even Mappo Trell’s treachery shall not save Icarium.’
Both Jaghut were silent for a long moment, and Karsa realized that Phyrlis was speaking to Cy
Finally, Cy
‘How many head in this herd?’
‘I ca
Karsa lifted his gaze suddenly as the noise of hoofs sounded, rumbling through the ground underfoot. ‘More than a dozen, I think,’ he murmured.