The apparition remained silent for a time, and then spoke in a broken, rasping voice. ‘You cannot be so…audacious. I asked if you believed in failure. Because I don’t. Even should you succeed, Cotillion. Beyond all expectation, beyond, even, all desire. They will still speak of your failure.’He sheathed his daggers. ‘And you know what they can do to themselves.’The head cocked, strands of hair dangling and drifting. ‘Arrogance?’
’Competence,’ Cotillion snapped in reply. ‘Doubt me at your peril. They will not believe you. I do not care, Edgewalker. This is what it is.’When he set out, he was not surprised that the deathless guardian followed. We have done this before. Dust and ashes puffed with each step. The wind moaned as if trapped in a crypt. ‘Almost time, Edgewalker. I know. You cannot win.’
Cotillion paused, half turned. He smiled a ravaged smile. ‘That doesn’t mean I have to lose, does it?’Dust lifted, twisting, in her wake. From her shoulders trailed dozens of ghastly chains: bones bent and folded into irregular links, ancient bones in a thousand shades between white and deep brown. Scores of individuals made up each chain, malformed skulls matted with hair, fused spines, long bones, clacking and clattering. They drifted out behind her like a tyrant’s legacy and left a tangled skein of furrows in the withered earth that stretched for leagues.Her pace did not slow, as steady as the sun’s own crawl to the horizon ahead, as inexorable as the darkness overtaking her. She was indifferent to notions of irony, and the bitter taste of irreverent mockery that could so sting the palate. In this there was only necessity, the hungriest of gods. She had known imprisonment. The memories remained fierce, but such recollections were not those of crypt walls and unlit tombs. Darkness, indeed, but also pressure. Terrible, unbearable pressure.Madness was a demon and it lived in a world of helpless need, a thousand desires unanswered, a world without resolution. Madness, yes, she had known that demon. They had bargained with coins of pain, and those coins came from a vault that never emptied. She’d once known such wealth.And still the darkness pursued.
My Favourite Author!
No comments:
Post a Comment