Dust of Dreams

Che’Malle, it wasn’t out here waiting for us. Its attack was opportunistic—what else could it have been? No, the creature has other tasks awaiting it. For all I know, it too is hunting Icarium, a possibility too terrible to consider. In any case, let us hope it has now concluded we’re too much trouble.
    His eyes strayed to his mace, lying on the ground close to hand. He had managed to strike the Che’Malle one solid blow, enough to rock it back a step. It had felt as if his mace had collided with an iron obelisk. His shoulders still ached.
The eye looks past the target, to where the weapon is intended to reach. When it fails, shock thunders through the body. Every muscle, every bone. I can’t even remember the last time it so utterly failed.
    ‘Who are these strangers?’ Faint asked.
    Mappo sighed. ‘I am not sure. There is an undead ay with them.’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘An ancient wolf, from the age of the Imass. Their bloodline was harvested in the shaping of the Hounds of Shadow . . . but not the Hounds of Darkness. For those, it was the bloodline of a breed of plains bear.
Ty’nath okral
, in the language of the Bentract Imass.’
    ‘An undead wolf?’
    ‘Pardon? Oh, yes, called an
ay
when alive. Now? Perhaps a
maeth ay
, one of rot or decay. Or one could say an
oth ay
, referring to its skeletal state. For myself, I think I prefer
T’ay
—a broken ay, if you will—’
    ‘Mappo, I really don’t care what you call it. It’s an undead wolf, something to keep Cartographer company—he’s back, right? I’m sure I heard him—’
    ‘Yes. He guided these others to us and now interprets.’
    ‘They don’t speak Daru? Barbarians.’
    ‘Yet two of them—those twin girls—they possess Daru blood. I am almost certain of it. The boy now clinging to Gruntle, there is Imass in him. More than half, I would judge. Therefore, either his mother or father was probably Barghast. The leader among them—she is named Setoc and proclaimed by Gruntle to be the Destriant of the Wolves—reminds me of a Kanese, though she is not. Some scenes painted on the oldest of tombs on the north coast of Seven Cities display people much like her in appearance, from the time before the tribes came out of the desert, one presumes.’
    ‘You’re trying to keep me awake, aren’t you?’
    ‘You landed on your head, Faint. For a time there, you spoke in tongues.’
    ‘I did what?’
    ‘Well, it was a mix of languages, sixteen that I could identify, and some others I could not. An extraordinary display, Faint. There is a scholar who states that we possess every language, deep within our minds, and that the potential exists for perhaps ten thousand languages in all. She would have delighted in witnessing your feat. Then there is a
dystigier
, a dissector of human corpses, living in Ehrlitan, who claims that the brain is nothing more than a clumped mass of snarled chains. Most links are fused, but some are not. Some can be prised open and fitted anew. Any major head injury, he says, can result in a link breaking. This is usually permanent, but on rare occasions a new link is forged. Chains, Faint, packed inside our skull.’
    ‘Only they don’t look like chains, do they?’
    ‘No, alas, they don’t. It is the curse of theory disconnected from physical observation. Of course, Icarium would argue that one should not always test theory solely on the basis of pragmatic observation. Sometimes, he would say, theory needs to be interpreted more poetically, as metaphor, perhaps.’
    ‘I have a metaphor for you, Mappo.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘A woman lies on the ground, brain addled, listening to a hairy Trell with tusks discussing possible interpretations of theory. What does this mean?’
    ‘I don’t know, but whatever it may be, I doubt it would qualify as a metaphor.’
    ‘I’m sure you’re right, since I don’t even know what a metaphor is, truth be told. Try this, then. The woman listens to all that, but she knows her brain is addled. So, just how addled is it? Is it so addled that she actually believes she’s listening to a hairy Trell spouting philosophy?’
    ‘Ah, perhaps a tautology, then. Or some other manner of unprovable proof. Then again, it might well be something else entirely. Though I am occasionally philosophical, I do not claim to be a philosopher. The distinction is important, I’m sure.’
    ‘If you really want to keep me awake, Mappo, find a new subject.’
    ‘Do you truly believe Precious Thimble