Dust of Dreams

Kolanse.’
    ‘Indeed.’
    ‘And we don’t know why.’
    The handmaid said nothing.
    Felash sent a stream of smoke ceilingward. ‘Tell me again of the undead in the Wastelands.’
    ‘Which ones, Highness?’
    ‘The ones who move as dust on the winds.’
    The handmaid frowned. ‘At first I thought that they alone were responsible for the impenetrable cloud defying my efforts. They number in the thousands, after all, and the one who leads them emanates such blinding power that I dare not look too long upon it. But now . . . Highness, there are others. Not dead to be sure. Even so. One of darkness and cold. One of golden fire high in the sky. Another at his side, a winged knot of grief harder and crueller than the sharpest cut diamond. Still others, hiding in the howl of wolves—’
    ‘Wolves?’ Felash cut in. ‘Do you mean the Perish?’
    ‘No and yes, Highness. I can be no clearer than that.’
    ‘Wonderful. Go on.’
    ‘Yet another, fiercer and wilder than all the others. It hides inside stone. It swims in a sea thick with the pungent flavours of serpents. It waits for the moment, and grows in its power, and facing it . . . Highness, whatever it faces is more dreadful than I can bear.’
    ‘This clash—will it occur on the Wastelands?’
    ‘I believe so, yes.’
    ‘Do you think my mother knows?’
    The handmaid hesitated, and then said, ‘Highness, I cannot imagine her cedas to be anything but utterly blind and thus ignorant of that threat. It is only because I am able to see from this distance, from the outside, as it were, that I have gleaned as much as I have.’
    ‘Then she is in trouble.’
    ‘Yes. I think so, Highness.’
    ‘You must find a way,’ said Felash, ‘to reach through to her.’
    ‘Highness. There is one way, but it risks much.’
    ‘Who will bear that risk?’
    ‘Everyone aboard this ship.’
    Felash pulled on her mouthpiece, blew rings that floated, wavered and slowly flattened out, drifting to form a chain in the air. Her eyes widened upon seeing it.
    The handmaid simply nodded. ‘He is close, yes. My mind has spoken his name.’
    ‘And this omen here before us?’
    ‘Highness, one bargains with an Elder God at great peril. We must pay in blood.’
    ‘Whose blood?’
    The handmaid shook her head.
    Felash tapped the amber tube against her teeth, thinking. ‘Why is the sea so thirsty?’
    Again, there was no possible answer to that question. ‘Highness?’
    ‘Has the damned thing a name? Do you know it?’
    ‘Many names, of course. When the colonists from the First Empire set forth, they made sacrifice to the salty seas in the name of Jhistal. The Tiste Edur in their great war canoes opened veins to feed the foam, and this red froth they called Bloodmane—in the Edur language that word was
Mael
. The Jheck who live upon the ice call the dark waters beneath that ice the Lady of Patience,
Barutalan.
The Shake speak of
Neral
, the Swallower.’
    ‘And on.’
    ‘And on, Highness.’
    Felash sighed. ‘Summon him, and we shall see what cost this bargain.’
    ‘As you command, Highness.’
     
    On the foredeck, Shurq Elalle straightened as the lookout cried out. She faced out to sea.
That’s a squall. Looks to be a bad one. Where in the Errant’s bung-hole did that come from?
‘Pretty!’
    Skorgen Kaban clumped into view from amidships. ‘Seen it, Cap’n!’
    ‘Swing her out, Pretty. If it’s gonna bite, best we lock jaws with it.’ The thought of the storm throwing
Undying Gratitude
on to that treefall shore wasn’t a pleasant one, not in the least.
    The black wire-wool cloud seemed to be coming straight for them.
    ‘Piss in the boot, this dance won’t be fun.’

Chapter Twenty-Two
    This is ancient patience
belly down on the muds
lining the liana shore.
Everyone must cross
rivers in high flood.
Bright blossoms float
past on the way down
to the snake mangroves
harbouring the warm sea.
But nothing slides smooth
into the swirling waters
hunting their bold beauty.
We mill uneasy on the verge
awaiting necessity’s
paroxysms—the sudden rush
to cross into the future.
Rivers in high flood
dream of red passages
and the lizards will feed
as they have always done.
We bank on numbers,
the chaotic tumult,
the frenzied path on the backs
of loved ones, fathers and
mothers, the quill-lickers
inscribing lists of lives:
this solid stand, that
slippage of desire.
Ancient patience swells
the tongue, all the names
written in tooth-row jaws—
we surge, we clamber