The Crippled God

in combat …’
    ‘He failed in his guardianship.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘When he came for you,’ said Aranict, ‘it was to set you in his stead.’
    ‘You have the truth of it, I think.’ Or so it seemed .
    ‘The “names” you speak of, Brys – does no one guard them now?’
    ‘Ah, thus leading us to my resurrection. What do you know of the details surrounding it?’
    Aranict shook her head. ‘Nothing. But then, almost no one does.’
    ‘As you might imagine, I think about this often. In my dreams there are memories of things I have never done, or seen. Most troubling, at least at first. Like you, I have no real knowledge of my return to the realm of the living. Was there an invitation? A sundering of chains? I just don’t know.’
    ‘The power to achieve such a thing must have been immense.’
    ‘Something tells me,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘even an Elder God’s power would not have been enough. The desires of the living – for the return of the ones they have lost – cannot unravel the laws of death. This is not a journey one is meant to ever take, and all that we were when alive we are not now. I am not the same man, for that man died in the throne room, at the very feet of his king.’
    She was studying him now, with fear in her eyes.
    ‘For a long time,’ Brys said, ‘I did not think I was capable of finding anything – not even an echo of who I had once been. But then … you.’ He shook his head. ‘Now, what can I tell you? What value does any of this have, beyond the truths we have now shared? It is, I think, this: I was released … to do something. Here, in this world. I think I now know what that thing is. I don’t know, however, what will be achieved. I don’t know why it is so … important. The Guardian has sent me back, for I am his hope.’ He shot her a look. ‘When you spoke of Tavore’s belief in the boy, I caught a glimmer … like the flickering of a distant candle, as if through murky water … of someone in the gloom. And I realized that I have seen this scene before, in a dream.’
    ‘Someone,’ murmured Aranict. ‘Your Guardian?’
    ‘No. But I have felt that stranger’s thoughts – I have dreamed his memories. An ancient house, where once I stood, but now it was empty. Flooded, dark. Like so much upon the bed of the oceans, its time was past, its purpose … lost. He walked inside it, wanting to find it as he once found it, wanting, above all, the comfort of company. But they’re gone.’
    ‘“They”? People dwelt in that house?’
    ‘No longer. He left it and now walks, bearing a lantern – I see him like a figure of myth, the last soul in the deep. The lone, dull glow of all he has left to offer anyone. A moment of’ – he reached up to his face, wiped at the tears – ‘of … light. Relief. From the terrible pressures, the burdens, the darkness .’
    They had halted. She stood facing him, her eyes filled with sorrow. She whispered, ‘Does he beckon you? Does he beg your company, Brys?’
    He blinked, shook his head. ‘I – I don’t know. He … waits for me. I see the lantern’s light, I see his shadow. All a thing of myth, a conjuration. Does he wait for the souls of the drowned? It seems he must. When we flounder, when we lose the sense of what is up and what is down – is that not what often happens when one drowns? And we see a lightness in the murk, and we believe it to be the surface. Instead … his lantern calls us. Down, and down …’
    ‘Brys, what must you do?’
    ‘There is a voice within me,’ he said, his throat suddenly hoarse, thick with emotion. ‘All that the seas have taken – the gods and mortals – all the … the Unwitnessed .’ He lifted his gaze to meet her wide eyes. ‘I am as bound as the Adjunct, as driven on to … something … as she. Was I resurrected to be brother to a king? A commander of armies? Am I here in answer to a brother’s grief, to a wish for how things once were? Am I here to feel once more what it is to be human, to be alive? No. There is more, my love. There is more.’
    She reached up one hand, brushed his cheek. ‘Must I lose you, Brys?’
    I don’t know .
    Aranict must have seen his answer though he spoke it not, for she leaned against him, like one falling, and he closed an arm round her.
    Dear voice. Dear thing that waits inside me – words cannot change a world. They never could. Would you stir a thousand souls? A million? The mud kicked up and taken on the senseless