The Last Mortal Bond (116 page)

Authors: Brian Staveley

BOOK: The Last Mortal Bond

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This is a lie. The bridge will be different things to different people over the long years. To Adare, now, it is the price she has paid to make the Urghul stay out of Annur. Her brother does something like a smile with his face. How to describe it?

“A link,” he agrees, “between two great lands.”

This, too, a lie. To Valyn, the bridge is the knife he holds against his sister's throat. He is not the chieftain of the Urghul; they fractured into a hundred rival tribes when the Kettral killed the leach who led them, their assault on the city suddenly inchoate, hopeless. He is not their chieftain, but as the only Annurian who rides among them, he speaks here for all the pale riders. He translates their Urghul words into Annurian, then translates the plain truth once more into this lie he sets before his sister.

“It will bring us closer.”

The bridge was his idea. The paved span took half a year to build. It is wide enough for twenty Urghul to ride abreast, which they will do, if the Emperor closes her fist too tightly around her empire. If it is even still an empire.

The word that the historian might use for the bridge is
bond
âthe bridge binds as surely as any chainâbut it is not a historian's place to use his own words. When he pens this moment, he will record the words as they were spoken:
Monument to peace. A link between lands.

What else will he record? The detail is infinite. A full description of the scene, of each of the tens of thousands of horses gathered on the northern bank, of every ranked legionary at the Emperor's back, would be impossible. There is a universe of truth in the green-gold dragonfly that buzzes between these two Malkeenians, in the patterns of its fine-veined wings, in the refractions of its multiform eyes. A diligent historian could reflect for a lifetime on a single, swaying nuns-blossom, on the tessellation of the flower's white petals.â¦

For millennia, this was the way of the Csestriim: accounts of glaciation, records of water levels in flood and drought, examinations of the courses of the stars, investigations into heredity, numerical pattern, river formation, each with its columns and tallies, charts, maps, graphs.

They had no storiesâirrational to labor in the creation of the unreal. Their histories, before the humans came, were lists of dates, of deeds. Even after, the Historian cleaved to this approach, cleaved to it until it failed him.

The brother and sister have locked eyes: his black, scarred; hers on fire. The thousands watching from either bank will try to read the future in this moment, but they will fail. The Historian has been at his task long enough to understand that the future is beyond him. Even this present is unreachable. There is too much of it, even for him. It is too bright; there are too many layers. The past, the present, the futureâit is all beyond his grasp, the translation of a translation of a translation. Even the spoken words as they reach his ears are late, caught in the air's clear amber.

If the work cannot be done, what will he do?

The Historian smiles. It took him centuries to learn to smile.

The world is the world; his history is something else. What will he do? He will make the story up.

GODS AND RACES, AS UNDERSTOOD BY THE CITIZENS OF ANNUR

R
ACES

Nevariimâ
Immortal, beautiful, bucolic. Foes of the Csestriim. Extinct thousands of years before the appearance of humans. Likely apocryphal.

Csestriimâ
Immortal, vicious, emotionless. Responsible for the creation of civilization and the study of science and medicine. Destroyed by humans. Extinct thousands of years.

Humanâ
Identical in appearance to the Csestriim, but mortal, subject to emotion.

T
HE
O
LD
G
ODS, IN ORDER OF ANTIQUITY

Blank God, theâ
The oldest, predating creation. Venerated by the Shin monks.

Aeâ
Consort to the Blank God, the Goddess of Creation, responsible for all that is.

Astar'renâ
Goddess of Law, Mother of Order and Structure. Called the Spider by some, although the adherents of Kaveraa also claim that title for their own goddess.

Ptaâ
Lord of Chaos, disorder, and randomness. Believed by some to be a simple trickster, by others, a destructive and indifferent force.

Intarraâ
Lady of Light, Goddess of Fire, starlight, and the sun. Also the patron of the Malkeenian Emperors of Annur, who claim her as a distant ancestor.

Hullâ
The Owl King, the Bat, Lord of the Darkness, Lord of the Night, aegis of the Kettral, patron of thieves.

Bedisaâ
Goddess of Birth, she who weaves the souls of all living creatures.

Ananshaelâ
God of Death, the Lord of Bones, who unknits the weaving of his consort, Bedisa, consigning all living creatures to oblivion. Worshipped by the Skullsworn in Rassambur.

Cienaâ
Goddess of Pleasure, believed by some to be the mother of the young gods.

Meshkentâ
The Cat, the Lord of Pain and Cries, consort of Ciena, believed by some to be the father of the young gods. Worshipped by the Urghul, some Manjari, and the jungle tribes.

T
HE
Y
OUNG
G
ODS, ALL COEVAL WITH HUMANITY

Eiraâ
Goddess of Love and mercy.

Maatâ
Lord of Rage and hate.

Kaveraaâ
Lady of Terror, Mistress of Fear.

Heqetâ
God of Courage and battle.

Orellaâ
Goddess of Hope.

Orilonâ
God of Despair.

ALSO BY
BRIAN STAVELEY

The Emperor's Blades

The Providence of Fire

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Without the faith and hard work of my agent, Hannah Bowman, and my editor, Marco Palmieri, this story would never have seen the light of day. I am forever grateful to both of them for giving me the chance to write these books and for all their support along the way.

I'm grateful, also, to every reader who has picked up this tale. Whenever I reach a tough spot with the writing, a place where I feel I can't go on, I imagine you, all of youâsnuggled under blankets or listening in the car on the way to work, reading in the hallway while your kids are falling asleep or perched atop some rock in the backcountryâthen I plant my ass back in the chair and keep going.

Finally, my wife, Jo. It may not look like it, but this is a love story, and I wouldn't understand the first thing about love storiesânot how to write them, not how to live themâwithout her.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BRIAN STAVELEY
lives in rural Vermont.
The Last Mortal Bond
is his third novel, following
The Emperor's Blades
and
The Providence of Fire
. You can sign up for email updates
here
.

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