King of Thorns

We crossed the bridge at Remagen leading our horses, for in places the metal weave of the deck had holes punched up through it, some the width of a spear, some wide enough to swallow a man. Nowhere did rust have a hold on the silver metal, and what had made the holes no one could say. I remembered the peasant in his house of gravestones back by Perechaise, unable to read a single legend from them. I shouldn’t have sneered. We live in a world made from the Builders’ graves and can read almost none of the messages they carry, and understand fewer still.

We left Remagen without trouble and rode hard along the North Way so that trouble wouldn’t catch us up if it followed. Farms, forests, villages untouched by war, good land to ride through with the sun on your back. It set me in mind of Ancrath, cottages golden with thatch, orchards in bloom, all so fragile, so easy to erase.

“Thank you for not burning up too much of the circus, Gog,” I said.

“I’m sorry for the fire, Jorg,” Gog said behind me.

“No great harm done,” I said. “Besides, the stories they tell about it will bring more people to the show.”

“Did you see the little men?” Gog asked.

“The midgets?” I asked.

His claws dug in. “My little men, from the fire.”

“I saw them,” I said. “It looked like they were trying to pull you in.”

“Gorgoth stopped them,” Gog said. I couldn’t tell if he was happy or sad about that.

“You shouldn’t go,” I said. “You need to learn more. To know how to be safe. To know that you can come back. That’s why we’re going to Ferrakind. He can teach you these things.”

“I think I’ve seen him,” Gog said. At first I didn’t think I’d heard right above the thud and clatter of hooves.

“I can look into one fire and see out of another,” Gog said. “All sorts of things.” He giggled at that and for a moment he sounded like William, laughing on the morning we climbed into that carriage.

“Did he see you?” I asked.

I felt him nod against my back.

“We’d best go on then,” I said. “There’s no hiding from him now. Best find out what he has to say.”

We rode on and the rain started to fall, the kind of rain that comes and goes in the spring, cold and sudden and leaving the world fresh.

Heimrift lies in the Danelore, a hard ride from the Rhyme-lands. We made good speed and paced the season, caught in an unending wave of wakening, as if we carried the May with us.

Gorgoth ran beside me as often as not, tireless, pounding the road with great feet that seemed almost hooves. He spoke so seldom that it made you want him to, as if by storing each word he made it precious. I found him to be a deep thinker though he had never read a book or been taught by anyone.

“Why do you ask so much?” he asked once, his arms punching in and out like the great engine at York as he ran.

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” I said.

“Socrates?”

“How in hell do you know that?” I asked.

“Jane,” he said.

I grunted. She could have reached out from the dark halls of the leucrotas, that child, even without taking a step from the entrance caves. I had walked some of the paths she took, and the paths of the mind can take you anywhere.

“Who was she to you anyhow?” I asked.

“My eldest sister,” he said. “Only two of us lived from my mother’s line. The rest.” He glanced at Gog. “Too strong.”

“She was fire-sworn too?” I remembered the ghost-fire dancing across her.

“Fire-sworn, light-sworn, mind-sworn.” Gorgoth’s eyes narrowed to slits as he watched me. Jane died because of my actions, because of me, because I hadn’t cared if she lived or not. Mount Honas had fallen on Jane and the necromancer both. The wrong one survived. I still owed Chella for the Nuban and other Brothers besides, but even my thirst for vengeance wouldn’t see me digging in the burning wastes of Gelleth for her any time soon.

“Damnation!” It suddenly struck me that I should have asked Taproot about the Dead King. The excitement of the circus had somehow put him out of my mind. Given that a dozen and more severed heads had mouthed the Dead King’s name at me, it’s a tribute to the power of sawdust and greasepaint that they could push it out.

Gorgoth turned his head but didn’t ask.

“Who’s the Dead King?” I asked him. Gorgoth had enough dealings with the necromancers, and who better than necromancers to know about someone who speaks through corpses.

“Who he is I can’t say.” Gorgoth spoke in the rhythm of his running. “I can tell you something of what he is.”

“Yes?”

“A new power, risen in the dry places beyond the veil, in the deadlands. He speaks to those that draw their strength there.”

“He spoke to Chella?” I asked.

“To all the necromancers.” A nod. “They did not want to listen, but he made them.”

“How?” Chella struck me as a hard person to coerce.

“Fear.”

I sat back in the saddle and chewed that one over. Gorgoth ran in silence, matching Brath’s trot, and for the longest time I thought he wouldn’t speak again. But then he said, “The Dead King talks to all who reach past death.”

“So what should I do when he talks to me?”

“Run.”

Gorgoth’s sister had once given me the same advice. I resolved to take it this time.