Torrent’s eyes snapped open. Stars in blurred, jade-tinged smears spun overhead. He drew a deep but ragged breath, shivered beneath his furs.
Olar Ethil’s crackling voice cut through the darkness. ‘Did he catch you?’
He was in no hurry to reply to that. Not this time. He could still smell the dry, musty aura of death, could still hear the drumbeat of hoofs.
The witch continued, ‘Less than half the night is done. Sleep. I will keep him from you now.’
He sat up. ‘Why would you do that, Olar Ethil? Besides,’ he added, ‘my dreams belong to me, not you.’
Rasping laughter drifted across to him. ‘Do you see his lone eye? How it glitters in darkness like a star? Do you hear the howl of wolves echoing out from the empty pit of the one he lost? What do the beasts want with him? Perhaps he will tell you, when at last he rides you down.’
Torrent bit down one reply, chose another: ‘I escape. I always do.’
She grunted. ‘Good. He is filled with lies. He would use you, as the dead are wont to do to mortals.’
In the night Torrent bared his teeth. ‘Like you?’
‘Like me, yes. There is no reason to deny it. But listen well, I must leave your side for a time. Continue southward on your journey. I have awakened ancient springs-your horse will find them. I will return to you.’
‘What is it you want, Olar Ethil? I am nothing. My people are gone. I wander without purpose, caring not if I live or die. And I will not serve you-nothing you can say can compel me.’
‘Do you believe me a Tyrant? I am not. I am a bonecaster-do you know what that is?’
‘No. A witch.’
‘Yes, that will do, for a start. Tell me, do you know what a Soletaken is? A D’ivers?’
‘No.’
‘What do you know of Elder Gods?’
‘Nothing.’
He heard something like a snarl, and then she said, ‘How can your kind live, so steeped in ignorance? What is history to you, warrior of the Awl’dan? A host of lies to win you glory. Why do you so fear the truth of things? The darker moments of your past-you, your tribe, all of humanity? There were thousands of my people who did not join the Ritual of Tellann-what happened to them? Why, you did. No matter where they hid, you found them. Oh, on rare occasions there was breeding, a fell admixture of blood, but most of the time such meetings ended in slaughter. You saw in our faces the strange and the familiar-which of the two frightened you the most? When you cut us down, when you carved the meat from our bones?’
‘You speak nonsense,’ Torrent said. ‘You tell me you are Imass, as if I should know what that means. I do not. Nor do I care. Peoples die. They vanish from the world. It is as it was and ever will be.’
‘You are a fool. From my ancient blood ran every stream of Soletaken and D’ivers. And my blood, ah, it was but half Imass, perhaps even less. I am old beyond your imagining, warrior. Older than this world. I lived in darkness, I walked in purest light, I cast curses upon shadow. My hands were chipped stone, my eyes spawned the first fires to huddle round, my legs spread to the first mortal child. I am known by so many names even I have forgotten most of them.’
She rose, her squat frame dangling rotted furs, her hair lifting like an aura of madness to surround her withered face, and advanced to stand over him.
A sudden chill gripped Torrent. He could not move. He struggled to breathe.
She spoke. ‘Parts of me sleep, tormented by sickness. Others rail in the fury of summer storms. I am the drinker of birth waters. And blood. And the rain of weeping and the oil of ordeal. I did not lie, mortal, when I told you that the spirits you worship are my children. I am the bringer of a land’s bounty. I am the cruel thief of want, the sower of suffering.
‘So many names… Eran’ishal, Mother to the Eres’al-my first and most sentimental of choices.’ She seemed to flinch. ‘Rath Evain to the Forkrul Assail. Stone Bitch to the Jaghut. I have had a face in darkness, a son in shadow, a bastard in light. I have been named the Mother Beneath the Mountain, Ayala Alalle who tends the Gardens of the Moon, for ever awaiting her lover. I am Burn the Sleeping Goddess, in whose dreams life flowers unending, even as those dreams twist into nightmares. I am scattered to the very edge of the Abyss, possessor of more faces than any other Elder.’ She snapped out a withered, bony hand, the nails long and splintered, and slowly curled her fingers. ‘And he thinks to hunt me down!’ Her head tilted back to the sky. ‘Chain down your servants, Hood!’ She fixed him once more with her eyes. ‘ Tell me, mortal! Did he catch you? ’