A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

–
Rhulad had no wife, after all.
    The Emperor's lover, a role she was accustomed to,
although it did not seem that way. Rhulad was so young, so
different from Ezgara Diskanar. His spiritual wounds were
too deep to be healed by her touch, and so, even as she
found herself in a position of eminence, of power – close as
she was to the throne – she felt helpless. And profoundly
alone.
    She stood, watching the Emperor of Lether writhing as
he curled up ever tighter in the corner of the room. Among
the whimpers, groans and gasps, he spat out fragments of his
conversation with Trull, his forsaken brother. And again and
again, in hoarse whispers, Rhulad begged forgiveness.
    Yet a new day awaited them, she reminded herself. And
she would see this broken man gather himself, collect the
pieces and then take his place seated on the imperial
throne, looking out with red-rimmed eyes, his fragmented
armour of coins gleaming dull in the light of the traditional
torches lining the chamber's walls; and where those coins
were missing, there was naught but scarred tissue, crimson-ringed
weals of malformed flesh. And then, this ghastly
apparition would, in the course of that day, proceed to
astonish her.
    Eschewing the old protocols of imperial rule, the
Emperor of a Thousand Deaths would sit through a
presentation of petitions, an ever-growing number of
citizens of the empire, poor and rich alike, who had come
to accept the Imperial Invitation, feeding their courage to
come face to face with their foreign ruler. For bell after bell,
Rhulad would mete out justice as best he could. His
struggles to understand the lives of the Letherii had
touched her in unexpected ways – there was, she had come
to believe, a decent soul beneath all that accursed trauma.
And it was then that Nisall found herself most needed,
although more often of late it was the Chancellor who
dominated the advising, and she had come to realize that
Triban Gnol had begun to view her as a rival. He was the
principal organizer of the petitions, the filter that kept
the numbers manageable, and his office had burgeoned
accordingly. That his expanded staff also served as a vast and
invasive web of spies in the palace was of course a given.
    Thus, Nisall watched her Emperor, who had ascended
the throne wading through blood, strive for benign rule,
seeking a sensitivity too honest and awkward to be other
than genuine. And it was breaking her heart.
    For power had no interest in integrity. Even Ezgara
Diskanar, so full of promise in his early years, had come to
raise a wall between himself and the empire's citizens in the
last decade of his rule. Integrity was too vulnerable to abuse
by others, and Ezgara had suffered that betrayal again and
again, and, perhaps most painfully of all, from his own wife,
Janall, and then their son.
    Too easy to dismiss the burden of such wounds, the depth
of such scars.
    And Rhulad, this youngest son of an Edur noble family,
had been a victim of betrayal, of what must have been true
friendship – with the slave, Udinaas – and in the threads of
shared blood, from his very own brothers.
    But each day, he overcame the torments of the night just
gone. Nisall wondered, however, how much longer that could
last. She alone was witness to his inner triumph, to that
extraordinary war he waged with himself every morning. The
Chancellor, for all his spies, knew nothing of it – she was
certain of that. And that made him dangerous in his
ignorance.
    She needed to speak to Triban Gnol. She needed to
mend this bridge. But I will not be his spy.
    A most narrow bridge, then, one to be trod with caution.
    Rhulad stirred in the gloom.
    And then he whispered, 'I know what you want,
brother . . .
    'So guide me . . . guide me with your honour . . .'
    Ah, Trull Sengar, wherever your spirit now lurks, does it please you? Does this please you, to know that your Shorning failed?
    So that you have now returned.
    To so haunt Rhulad.
    'Guide me,' Rhulad croaked.
    The sword scraped on the floor, rippling over mosaic
stones like cold laughter.
    'It is not possible, I'm afraid.'
    Bruthen Trana studied the Letherii standing before him
for a long moment and said nothing.
    The Chancellor's gaze flicked away, as if distracted, and
seemed moments from dismissing the Edur warrior outright;
then, perhaps realizing that might be unwise, he cleared his
throat and spoke in a tone of sympathy. 'The Emperor
insists on these petitions, as you are aware, and they
consume his every