Page 61 of Fate of the Argosi

‘Single-mindedness: the state of an intellect directed only by itself, freed from influences outside or within the brain.’

The verses weren’t pleased with my interference.‘You demanded a will so powerful it could overwhelm the petty, scattered desires of those conjuring this necropolis. Why do you oppos—’

‘Because your notion of single-mindedness is precisely the knot I’m trying to untangle. The world’s been telling the Mahdek for generations that they’ve got no future. Now they all believe it with, shall we say, your sort of single-mindedness. So I can’t have you pushing that word onto me.’

A moment’s resistance, then finally,‘Agreed. You may have your own interpretation of single-mindedness. We will encompass the rest of your mind soon enough, now that you’ve allowed us to—’

‘Can we get on with the job at hand? The first black arch is right there in front of me.’

‘Resolute. Unyielding. Unfaltering. Bone. Diamond. Stone.’

Stone. There we go. That last one works for me!

I pulled up on Quadlopo’s reins, halting him before the first of the black arches that served as the gravestones in Mahdek tradition. Conch let out an angry bray as he scrabbled to keep his balance on my shoulder. I let go of the reins, nudging the horse to a slow walk with my knees and giving Conch a reassuring scratch under the chin before setting my will upon the shadowblack arch.

‘I am Argosi,’I informed the black stone arch.‘I walk the Way of Stone. Resolute. Unyielding. Unfaltering upon my path. There is no place for markers of death before my will. From shadow were you cast, back to shadow I return you.’

The arch resisted, drawing strength from the rest of the necropolis, on the unifying despair that gave form and structure to this graveyard. Beneath it lay a Mahdek woman, arms crossed over her chest, the placid smile of oblivion on her face.

Sorry, sister. No time for naps. Especially permanent ones.

Again I set my will on the arch. Again it resisted. But the shadowblack is a place of mind as much as matter, and my thoughts were propelled by the madness of the Red Scream that bound my every thought into a single purpose. Cracks appeared in the curved obsidian like tiny spider’s webs. The arch tried to repair itself, but something began to sprout from one of those cracks: a tiny black daisy.

Conch leaned over, made that chewing noise he makes right before launching himself at food. I grabbed hold of him and set him on Quadlopo’s neck between my legs. ‘Those arenotfor eating, understand?’

The spire goat curled his lip, showed me his teeth and made it plain he did not appreciate being told what he could and could not eat by a skinny, gangly-limbed human who was long overdue a lesson in manners.

I was saved from that unpleasant education when the obsidian arch collapsed into rubble. The Mahdek woman lying beneath it blinked her eyes open. She crawled out of the indentation her body had made in the black ice all around us. She was thick-bodied for a Mahdek, curvaceous and with features that reminded me of those portraits Daroman noblewomen pay exorbitant amounts of money to have painted of themselves. She got to her hands and knees, stared down at the daisy and then up at me. ‘I was content,’ was all she said.

It was hard to form words with my mouth. The Scarlet Verses instinctively tried to take control of my voice, eager to disseminate their madness to others who would then spread it far and wide until the entire world spoke a single, perfect language in which words were no longer necessary because all thought was one. Such notions have no place in the Way of the Argosi, however, so I forced my lips to dance around the words they wanted me to say and spoke my own.

‘You have kids?’ I asked.

‘Two daughters,’ the woman replied. ‘Both reside in . . . They’re dead.’

I glanced around the necropolis until I saw the young yellow-haired girl who’d been the first to leap over the side. ‘Like her?’

The woman shook her head. ‘She’s not dead yet. Soon though.’

I nudged Quadlopo closer, and snapped my fingers to get the woman’s attention again. When she turned, I slapped her across the face. ‘Then what the hells are you doing standing here?’

I shouldn’t have struck her. Violence isn’t the Argosi way. But I had the Scarlet Verses whispering madness in my ears and I was barely holding it together. Not much of an excuse, but it was all I had. For her part, the woman stared at me a moment longer, like she hadn’t felt a thing, then shrugged and trudged off to where the little girl lay beneath her arch.

Okay, I thought, holding tightly to my intention, focusing it through the unshakeable will the Scarlet Verses were infusing me with. My entire mind hardened, becoming an engine of raw determination. I had to make sure that determination served the right purpose.

I was about to give Quadlopo a kick, but the horse didn’t need any cue from me. He bounded ahead, racing to the next row of obsidian arches. I let go of the reins, reached my arms out wide and set about tearing this wasteland apart and leaving a garden of my own design in its place.

One by one the arches cracked, black daisies bursting from the obsidian, leaving mounds of those blooms behind. Some of the sinking Mahdek awoke on their own, others needed help from the woman I’d slapped or one of the people she’d awoken after the little girl. Quadlopo’s hoofs began to shatter the black icy ground, leaving cracks behind that collapsed in on themselves.

Over and over, the death arches of those seeking oblivion resisted me, struggling to keep the necropolis together. The Scarlet Verses were a lance in my hand that smashed through the wills of others. I’d never seen a joust, other than in some of the old shield romances Sir Gervaise and Sir Rosarite had shown me of their homeland across the water, but I revelled in every collision as my tenacity shattered that of those who resisted me. Never before had I understood how good it felt to be powerful.

‘Yes,’the verses whispered in my ears, adding more and more columns to prop up the walls they were constructing in my mind.‘You begin to comprehend our gift. You begin to see. Abandon your silly dancing, that-which-once-called-itself-Ferius, and let us build you a palace so fine you will never again wish to leave it.’

‘Friends, you make a convincing argument,’I agreed.

Half the arches were gone and the black ice behind us was crumbling, first into shards of obsidian, then melting into waves of glittering onyx. Those Mahdek now awoken were running for the ship. I felt no desire to join them.

The Way of the Argosi is supposed to be wondrous, but all it had ever done for me was force me into one hard choice after another. I thought I’d be free when I found my path, but that only led me to debts I never knew I owed and duties I never wanted. Every moment of happiness had been nothing but an interlude between deeper hurts and longer solitudes.

---