The Crippled God

and—
    Lifting his gaze, still facing into the north, Onos Toolan then saw something else.
    A vague shape that appeared to be sitting on the ground, curled over.
    He rose, the girls reaching up to take his arms, the boy clinging to one shin. And then he moved forward, taking them all with him. When the boy complained, Storii picked him up in her arms. But Onos Toolan walked on, his steps coming faster and faster.
    It was not possible. It was—
    And then once more he was running.
    She must have heard his approach, for she looked up and then over, and sat watching him rushing towards her.
    He almost fell against her, his arms wrapping tight round her, lifting her with his embrace.
    Hetan gasped. ‘Husband! I have missed you. I – I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what has happened …’
    ‘Nothing has happened,’ he whispered, as the children screamed behind them.
    ‘Onos – my toes …’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I have someone else’s toes, husband, I swear it—’
    The children collided with them.
    In the distance ahead, on a faint rise of land, Onos Toolan saw a figure seated on a horse. The darkness was taking the vision – dissolving it before his eyes.
    And then he saw it raise one hand.
    Straightening, Onos Toolan did the same. I see you, my brother .
    I see you .
    When at last the light left the rise of land, the vision faded from his eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
     
I have heard voices thick with sorrow
I have seen faces crumble with grief
I have beheld broken men rise to stand
And witnessed women walk from small graves
Yet now you would speak of weakness
Of failings worth nothing but scorn
You would show all the sides of your fear
Brazen as trophies in the empty shell of conquest
But what have you won when the night draws close
To make stern your resolve among these shadows
When at last we are done with the world
When we neither stand nor fall nor wake from stillness
And the silent unknowing waits for us?
I have heard my voice thick with sorrow
I have felt my face crumble with grief
I have broken and turned away from graves
And I have grasped tight this hand of weakness
And walked in the company of familiar failings
Scorn lies in the dust and in the distance behind
Every trophy fades from sight
The night lies ahead drawing me into its close
For when I am done with this world
In the unknowing I will listen for the silence
To await what is to come
And should you seek more
Find me in this place
Before the rising dawn
     
    Journey’s Resolution
Fisher kel Tath
     
    BANASCHAR REMEMBERED HOW SHE HAD STOOD, THE SWORD IN ITS scabbard lying on the map table before her. A single oil lamp had bled weak light and weaker shadows in the confines of the tent. The air was close and damp and it settled on things like newborn skin. A short time earlier, she had spoken to Lostara Yil with her back to that weapon, and Banaschar did not know if Tavore had used those words before and the question of that gnawed at him in strange, mysterious ways.
    If they had been words oft repeated by the Adjunct, then what tragic truths did that reveal about her? But if she’d not said them before – not ever – then why had he heard them as if they were echoes, rebounding from some place far away and long ago?
    Lostara had been to see Hanavat, to share in the gift of the son that had been born. The captain’s eyes had been red from weeping and Banaschar understood the losses these women were now facing – the futures about to be torn away from them. He should not have been there. He should not have heard the Adjunct speak.
    ‘It is not enough to wish for a better world for the children. It is not enough to shield them with ease and comfort. Lostara Yil, if we do not sacrifice our own ease, our own comfort, to make the future’s world a better one, then we curse our own children. We leave them a misery they do not deserve; we leave them a host of lessons unearned.
    ‘I am no mother, but I need only look at Hanavat to find the strength I need.’
    The words were seared into his memory. In the voice of a childless woman, they left him more shaken, more distraught than he perhaps would otherwise have been.
    Was this what they were fighting for? Only one among a host of reasons, surely – and in truth he could not quite see how this path they’d chosen could serve such aspirations. He did not doubt the nobility of the Adjunct’s motivations, nor even the raw compassion so driving her to seek what was, in most eyes, virtually