Trull Sengar saw chains upon the Letherii. He saw the impenetrable net which bound them, the links of reasoning woven together into a chaotic mass where no beginning and no end could be found. He understood why they worshipped an empty throne. And he knew the manner in which they would justify all that they did. Progress was necessity, growth was gain. Reciprocity belonged to fools and debt was the binding force of all nature, of every people and every civilization. Debt was its own language, within which were used words like negotiation, compensation and justification, and legality was a skein of duplicity that blinded the eyes of justice.
An empty throne. Atop a mountain of gold coins.
Father Shadow had sought a world wherein uncertainty could work its insidious poison against those who chose intransigence as their weapon – with which they held wisdom at bay. Where every fortress eventually crumbled from within, from the very weight of those chains that exerted so inflexible an embrace.
In his mind he argued with that ghost – the Betrayer. The one who sought to murder Scabandari Bloodeye all those thousands of years ago. He argued that every certainty is an empty throne. That those who knew but one path would come to worship it, even as it led to a cliff’s edge. He argued, and in the silence of that ghost’s indifference to his words he came to realize that he himself spoke – fierce with heat – from the foot of an empty throne.
Scabandari Bloodeye had never made that world. He had vanished in this one, lost on a path no-one else could follow.
Trull Sengar stood before the corpse and its mound of rotting leaves, and felt desolation in his soul. A multitude of paths waited before him, and they were all sordid, sodden with despair.
The sound of boots on the trail. He turned.
Fear and Rhulad approached. Wearing their cloaks. Fear carried Trull’s own in his arms, and from the man’s shoulders hung a small pack.
Rhulad’s face was flushed, and Trull could not tell if it was born of anxiety or excitement.
‘I greet you, Trull,’ Fear said, handing him the cloak.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Our father passes this night in the temple. Praying for guidance.’
‘The Stone Bowl,’ Rhulad said, his eyes glittering. ‘Mother sends us to the Stone Bowl.’
‘Why?’
Rhulad shrugged.
Trull faced Fear. ‘What is this Stone Bowl? I have never heard of it.’
‘An old place. In the Kaschan Trench.’
‘You knew of this place, Rhulad?’
His younger brother shook his head. ‘Not until tonight, when Mother described it. We have all walked the edge of the Trench. Of course the darkness of its heart is impenetrable – how could we have guessed that a holy site hid within it?’
‘A holy site? In absolute darkness?’
‘The significance of that,’ Fear said, ‘will be made evident soon enough, Trull.’
They began walking, eldest brother in the lead. Into the forest, onto a trail leading northwest. ‘Fear,’ Trull said, ‘has Uruth spoken to you of the Stone Bowl before?’
‘I am Weapons Master,’ Fear replied. ‘There were rites to observe…’
Among them, Trull knew, the memorization of every battle the Edur ever fought. He then wondered why that thought had come to him, in answer to Fear’s words. What hidden linkages was his own mind seeking to reveal, and why was he unable to discern them?
They continued on, avoiding pools of moonlight unbroken by shadows. ‘Tomad forbade us this journey,’ Trull said after a time.
‘In matters of sorcery,’ Fear said, ‘Uruth is superior to Tomad.’
‘And this is a matter of sorcery?’
Rhulad snorted behind Trull. ‘You stood with us in the Warlock King’s longboat.’
‘I did,’ agreed Trull. ‘Fear, would Hannan Mosag approve of what we do, of what Uruth commands of us?’
Fear said nothing.
‘You,’ Rhulad said, ‘are too filled with doubt, brother. It binds you in place-’
‘I watched you walk the path to the chosen cemetery, Rhulad. After Dusk’s departure and before the moon’s rise.’
If Fear reacted to this, his back did not reveal it, nor did his steps falter on the trail.
‘What of it?’ Rhulad asked, his tone too loose, too casual.
‘My words, brother, are not to be answered with flippancy.’
‘I knew that Fear was busy overseeing the return of weapons to the armoury,’ Rhulad said. ‘And I sensed a malevolence prowling the darkness. And so I stood in hidden vigil over his betrothed, who was alone in the cemetery. I may be unblooded, brother, but I am not without courage. I know you believe that inexperience is the soil in which thrive the roots of false courage. But I am not false, no matter what you think. For me, inexperience is unbroken soil, not yet ready for roots. I stood in my brother’s place.’