David Farland - The Lair of Bones

He crawled to his knees, realized what had happened. She had tried to distract him from his line of reasoning. Indeed, Gaborn suspected that if he returned to his line of reasoning, he would invite another attack.

Let her come, then, Gaborn told himself. I want an end to her. I hate her. He got up.

“Then she will use that hate against you,” a voice whispered in the back of his mind. “She will invite you to hate those who serve her, and in the end, she will overcome you. When you expand the bounds of virtue, the evil ones wail and mourn.”

The swirling winds of darkness were gone now, and peace filled Gaborn’s heart, even though he could hear, as if far off, the wailing voice of the locus.

“Learn to love all men equally,” Erden Geboren had written, and the words seemed now to ring in Gaborn’s ears, as if Erden Geboren stood beside him. “The cruel as well as the kind.”

The cruel as well as the kind, Gaborn repeated. Doubt assailed him. He thought of King Lowicker the wife-killer.

What should I have done with him?

He recalled the hundreds of cruel men that he had refused to Choose. He recalled how he’d hated Raj Ahten.

“Learn to love all men equally. The cruel as well as the kind .”

When Choosing those who would live and those who would die, Gaborn had tried to set some sort of standard. He had refused to Choose only the strong, letting the weak die. He had refused to Choose only the wise, letting the foolish die. He had Chosen old and young, male and female, Rofehavanish and Indhopalese.

He’d set only one standard. He had rejected the wicked. In that, he had felt justified. For men may be born stupid and weak and ugly, Gaborn had told himself, and fortune may abandon even the most frugal, but a man must be held accountable for his own character. Otherwise, we invite anarchy.

“Hold them accountable for their weakness, then,” the voice whispered. But punish them for their own transgressions in the measure they deserve, and not to gratify your wrath.”

Gaborn held that thought.

He felt foolish. He had grieved the Earth Spirit and lost his ability to warn his Chosen warriors of danger. Because of Gaborn’s weakness, women and children would die in Carris tonight.

Who will punish me for my weakness? Gaborn wondered.

He knew the answer. People would die, and he would live, and that would be his punishment.

But was there something more that he could have done?

Erden Geboren had said that he was to love the cruel and the cunning, to seek their benefit, even when they were too blinded by greed and hatred to recognize their own best interests.

Something didn’t fit. Gaborn wondered about Iome’s ability to translate. In his book, Erden Geboren had often found it difficult to select a word, had crossed out a word to insert another, only to cross it out again. It was as if his own tongue were too imprecise to fit with that of the Bright Ones.

What did he mean, to “love” the cruel? How could he love a cruel person without also loving cruelty? Unless “love” were not an emotion but a determination. Perhaps to love another perfectly meant to seek to expand his horizons, to help him become better, even if he had no desire to do so himself.

Gaborn ran blindly down the tunnel, almost by instinct. Blind-crabs and other vermin seemed frozen in fear. Gaping holes in the floor showed where chervil, tiny insects, had eaten away the rock. Stonewood trees hung from the roof above, whorls of branches crazily twisting.

From the corner of his eye he noticed a brightness near the roof of the tunnel.

He glanced up, and the brightness departed.

An illusion, Gaborn thought, thrown by my cape pin.

He remembered something that his grandfather had once told him. “Goodness is like a stone, tossed into a still pond. Its effect causes ripples everywhere, touches everything around it, and in time its effect will return to its source. You say hello to a man, praise his work, and you brighten his day. He in turn brightens those around him, and soon the whole town is smiling, and people you don’t even know seem glad to meet you. Goodness works this way. Evil does, too.”

Erden Geboren had called the locus a shadow, a blackness that spread forth vapors to touch those around it.

Can there be a good locus? Gaborn wondered. Can there be creatures of light that do the same?

Something came to him strongly then, a knowledge that pierced him. It came powerfully, as if it were a shouted word, or memory long forgotten. Yet it came as if in words spoken outside himself.

“Yes, there are Glories,” the voice came to him again.

Again he saw that furtive light hovering above. It was shaped like a vast bird, like a gull with graceful wings, gliding silently in slow circles overhead.

I am not alone, Gaborn whispered in his heart. Am I?

“No,” the voice answered. “I am near you.”

A sure knowledge filled Gaborn. He understood now why the Master had attacked. She had also sensed the presence of a Glory.

“Can you help me?” Gaborn asked. He did not know why he asked. He felt unworthy to ask it. He had promised his people protection, and through his own weaknesses had made that promise a lie. He had taken Dedicates only to see them destroyed. He had killed men rather than work to redeem them.

“Perhaps, if you crave it enough,” the voice whispered.

“I do,” Gaborn said.

Suddenly the brightness above him flared, becoming white hot. The light was blinding, and Gaborn threw his hands up to protect his eyes, yet he felt little heat. Instead, there was only wisdom and power, vast reservoirs that until that moment had been unimaginable to him.

The light dazzled him. Every bone in his body quivered as if to an invisible rhythm. And still the light grew fiercer.

The shadows in the cave fled, and Gaborn pulled his hands from his eyes, hoping for only a glimpse of the Glory. But if the creature had a body, Gaborn could not see. It was only an indescribable brightness, more dazzling than a noonday sun, and Gaborn felt that at any moment he would melt in its presence, or be blasted into pieces.

And then the light pierced him.

It was like a flaming lance in the heart, a lance that struck him and burned through him, consuming the evil hidden within, until every hair of his body felt energized, and every pore of his body bled illumination.

Things that he had never understood suddenly made perfect sense—the relationship between good and evil, between men and loci and Glories.

The light bursting within him was unbearable.

“I’m dying!” Gaborn called out in fear.

As silently as the light had filled the chamber, it began to fade. The shadows grew and lengthened. The tunnel darkened as the winged bird of light fled before the shadows.

Gaborn sat, panting, alone.

He stopped and looked at his hands. He could feel the radiance within, and brightness seemed to illumine his mind. But he could see no physical mark upon him.

Did I really see a Glory? he wondered. Or was it a waking dream? If others were here, would they have seen it?

He knew. He could not deny his senses. It was no dream.

So he got up and ran, down, down, deeper into the Underworld, carrying the brightness in his heart.

Glittering like gems against a backdrop of black ash, Raj Ahten and his retinue of lords from Indhopal rode to the camp of Rialla Lowicker.