Midnight tides

‘A vast underground cavern yawned beneath the basin, the crust brittle and porous. Could one have stood in that ancient cave, the rain would have been ceaseless. Even so, eleven rivers fed into the marshlands that would one day be the city of Letheras, and the process of erosion that culminated in the collapse of the basin and the catastrophic draining of the rivers and swamps, was a long one. Thus, modest as Settle Lake is, it is worth reminding oneself of its extraordinary depth. The lake is, indeed, like a roof hatch with the enormous cavern the house beneath. So, the pulling down into the deep of Burdos’ fishing boat – the sole fisher of Settle Lake – nets and all, should come as no surprise. Nor should the fact the since that time, when so many witnessed Burdos’ demise, no other fishing boat has plied the waters of Settle Lake. In any case, I was, I believe, speaking of the sudden convergence of all those rivers, the inrush of the swamp’s waters, said event occurring long before the settlement of the area by the colonists. Fellow scholars, it would have been a dramatic sight, would it not?’

Excerpt from The Geologic History of Letheras

,

a lecture given by Royal Geographer Thula Redsand

at the Cutter Academy 19th Annual Commencement

(moments before the Great Collapse of the Academy Ceiling)

Comments recounted by sole survivor, Ibal the Dart

THERE WAS NOTHING NATURAL IN THE DUST THAT LOOMED LIKE A behemoth above the Edur armies as they came down from the north and began moving into positions opposite Brans Keep. The ochre cloud hovered like a standing wave in a cataract, fierce winds whipping southward to either side, carrying ashes and topsoil in a dark, ominous onslaught against the waiting Letherii armies and the barren hills behind them.

The emperor of the Tiste Edur had found the glory of rebirth yet again. Every death was a tier in his climb to unassailable domination. Resurrection, Udinaas now understood, was neither serene nor painless. It came in screams, in shrieks that rent the air. It came in a storm of raw trauma that tore at Rhulad’s sanity as much as it would anyone’s suffering the same curse. And there was no doubt at all in the slave’s mind, the sword and its gift were cursed, and the god behind it – if it was a god in truth – was a creature of madness.

This time, Rhulad’s brothers had been there to witness his awakening. Udinaas had not been surprised at the horror writ on their faces with the emperor’s first ragged scream, the convulsions racking Rhulad’s body of smudged gold and dried blood, the cold unearthly light blazing anew in his terrible eyes. He had seen them frozen, unable to draw closer, unable to flee, standing witness to the dreadful truth.

Perhaps, afterwards, when they had thawed – when their hearts started beating once more – there was sympathy. Rhulad wept openly, with only the slave’s arm across his shoulders for comfort. And Fear and Trull had looked on, the K’risnan sitting hunched and mute on the ground behind them, until such time as the emperor found himself once more, the child and brother and newly blooded warrior he’d once been – before the sword found his hands – discovered, still cowering but alive within him.

Little had been said on the return journey, but they had ridden their horses into the ground in their haste, and for all but Udinaas the ride had been a flight. Not from the Forkrul Assail and its immutable fascination for the peace of cold corpses, but from the death, and the rebirth, of the emperor of the Tiste Edur.