‘I should like to see it,’ Thalia said. They had stood on the cliffs of the far north coast of Illyr, looking into the northern sea that has no end: ‘I should like to see it here at the south,’ Thalia said.
‘We can set up a marker there,’ said Osen. ‘They say the sea is warm there, the sea winds smell of spices there and the cliffs are silver-shining. An empire stretching from sea to sea. A tower, a monument, a mirror-image of the tower of Ethalden, silver and pearl. A tower greater and more beautiful than Ethalden, a palace, a house of glory for the king who had conquered from the furthest north to the furthest south, a monument to all his victories.’
Yes. On and on. On and on. Alleen shouted in agreement. Marith said, very quietly, ‘And then what we will do?’
‘Then what will we do?’
The sound of men’s feet, marching. The flash of their bronze spears held high. ‘Don’t abandon us, My Lord King!’ ‘Pension us off, will you?’ ‘Pay us, you bastard shit!’ Marith and Thalia, Marith and Osen, sitting by the fireside, children rolling happily at their feet, Marith and Osen have well-combed long beards, Thalia is stout and grey. Marith said, ‘When we have conquered the world. When there is nothing left to conquer. What will we do?’
Thalia sat up, looked at him. Osen said, laughing, ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Eralad, Issykol, Khotan, Mar, Allene, Maun, Medana, Sorlost …’ The awkwardness in his voice again, Osen was frowning, still trying to think it was fooling, Thalia made a little laugh noise in her throat to show she understood, and he brushed it away. ‘Chathe is our ally, Immish is our ally.’ Counting the places off on his fingers as he named them. ‘And then … we’ve conquered the world. There’s nothing left. So what will we do?’
‘That’s still a lot of places still to conquer, Marith,’ Ryn Mathen the King of Chathe’s cousin said.
‘Fewer places than we’ve conquered already, Ryn.’
Kiana said, ‘Pol Island. The Forest of Maun where there are a thousand miles of wilderness where a man has never been.’
‘Ae-Beyond-the-Waters!’ said Alleen Durith. ‘If Ae-Beyond-the-Waters is even a real place!’
‘That bit of rock off the coast of Allene!’ Osen shouted. ‘Those bits off rock off Maun’s coast! Places we’ve made up!’
Thalia grasped his hand. ‘Marith—’
‘Yes! We’ll load the Army of Amrath aboard a flotilla of war ships, sail away into the west. Ae-Beyond-the-Waters. Places that do not and cannot exist. All of them! How glorious, we’ll conquer the sea, the waves beneath the ships’ keels, all the creatures of the land and the water, all the birds of the air, we’ll conquer the sky and the rain and the wind and the snow and the summer heat. Tear the sun and the moon from the sky and trample them. Rip out the stars of heaven and give them to my men. To the eternal glory of the god Amrath! From the sea-eaten shore to the grey of the mountains, from the north to the south, from the sunrise to the sunset, to the end of the world, we will hail Him king! Do you think they will be satisfied if I give them the stars to rape and pillage? Do you?’
‘Marith,’ Thalia said to him quietly. He thought he saw her belly move, where the child kicked.
‘And by then the cities of Irlast will have been rebuilt, their towers and their walls will shine bright again, their armies, their treasuries, swords, spears, helms of bronze, and we can go around and do it all again. And again. And again.’
‘Don’t abandon us, My Lord King!’ ‘Pay us, you cheap bastard shit!’ Thalia’s hand dug into his wrist.
‘We’ll go round and round Irlast killing and burning, round and round and round and round. Pay them to rebuild, so we can sack them again! Rebuild them ourselves then tear them down! I’ve got all the money in the world now, after all. What else is there to bloody do?’
‘Stop,’ said Thalia. ‘Marith.’
He laughed and sat down and thought he would break down sobbing. ‘What else is there to bloody do?’
Silence.
‘Let’s go for a swim, Osen,’ said Alleen at last. ‘They’ve caught us a feast of fish for dinner, come and swim while they cook it.’
They slept that night on great rafts floating on the water, like waterlilies, a thing that the people who had once lived there were said to have done. It was pleasant enough.
They marched on south down the coast. Issykol he drowned in a storm. Ranene the weather hand’s masterwork: black sky, black sea with white waves, rain so heavy it bruised the skin. The earth turned to liquid. The earth and the sky and the sea and the wind and the rain blurred into one howling, screaming maelstrom. This was what the world was like before sea and sky became separate, at the dawning of all things before sea and sky and land were formed. The soldiers huddled in dug-out shelters. The storm downed them. The storm buried them. The storm ripped them away screaming into the air. Marith stood out in it, face thrown back, arms raised to the wind.
‘Like rainfall, like storms in the desert, drowning, engendering,
Soaking the parched earth and washing away all that survives there.’
The Song of the Red Year. The storm drowns all to recreate it. Only through death can the world be remade. Beautiful. Like all illusions. The wind tore at his hair, the rain poured over him, the force of it almost overpowering him. The waves shattered cliff tops. The wind tore down buildings, uprooted trees. Like a child bored while his mother tends her garden, and he plucks leaves, breaks off flowers, snaps fresh green stems. The world was mud and ruin. Dead bodies floated on the mud. Broken stonework. The remains of houses. The remains of ships. The city drowned and gone.
The storm died. Clear pale sky.
The joy of it faded in Marith. Ranene crouched at his feet, exhausted.
‘It … is done,’ said Ranene, wheezing out tired breath.
‘Good. Well done. We’ll have a feast tonight and you’ll have the place of honour.’
Turned away from the ruin before him, his eyes already fixed south on the ashes of the forests, the high mountain peaks.
‘Then tomorrow we’ll march on. Khotan. The Mountains of Pain.’ Thinking, thinking, how to destroy them. ‘Turain. Pen Amrean. Allene.’
Sorlost.
The dragons circled overhead. Like gulls. Circling in the clear washed liquid sky. They are laughing, he thought. They were wise beyond all imagining, all the wisdom in the world was there in their eyes. Thus they knew. Valim’s voice, cursing him: You are my king. Always. I wish now that I had done these things.
Thalia stared at the mud with big sad mother’s eyes. He’d played in the puddles with Ti and once he’d pushed Ti over and Ti had pulled him down after him, they’d got soaked through, ruined their clothes, their nursemaid had been whipped, their mother had scolded them.
On. On.
The storm passes, the sun comes out, and the earth is shining. I had forgotten what it feels like in the warmth of the south. Damp heat, lush with growing, not the dry deserts of my other life. We go riding together, away from the columns marching. Up into the mountains, feel the spray from the river where it comes down in a waterfall over a gorge, sends up rainbows, there is snow up there