Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

‘She has, though I knew it not at the time. Or perhaps I did, but kept the truth from myself. We are ever made uneasy by what we do not know, and there is no virtue in recognizing that, since it speaks only of our own ignorance.’

‘Better ignorance than this!’

With that hoarse admission from Raskan, Arathan arrived. He halted a few paces from the fire, and Feren saw how he would not look at her. This was a relief, since the single glance she had just cast his way burned like a knife blade in her chest. She felt her eyes drawn to the flickering flames and quickly looked away, off into the night.

Better ignorance than this! Voice that cry as if the words were holy, for they are surely that. Words to haunt our entire lives, I should think.

Rint rose. ‘Feren, if you would, the bowls are here.’

She did not object, as it gave her something to do. She set about ladling the broth into the bowls, while Rint moved off to his pack. When he returned he carried a flask which he offered to Raskan. ‘Sergeant, I’m of no mind to test your command this night. Nor shall Feren.’

The man frowned. ‘Meaning?’

‘Get drunk, sergeant. Get good and drunk.’

A faint smile cracked the man’s features. ‘I am reminded of an old saying and now wonder at its source…’

Rint jerked a nod. ‘Yes. “Drown the witch,” sergeant, with my blessing.’

‘And mine,’ Feren said.

When Raskan reached for the flask he suddenly hesitated and looked up at Arathan. ‘Lord Arathan?’

‘Mine, too,’ Arathan said.

Feren settled back on her haunches, closing her eyes.

‘ Lord Arathan.’ It is done, then. He met his son’s eyes and knew them as his own.

‘Of course he’d know them,’ she muttered under her breath. They just needed a few hundred wounds first.

‘You did not expect me,’ said Olar Ethil. When he did not answer she looked across at him, and then sighed. ‘Draconus, it pains me to see you like this.’

‘What I shall deliver to Kharkanas-’

‘Will heal nothing!’ she snapped. ‘You always see too much in things. You make symbols of every gesture and expect others to understand them, and when they do not, you are lost. And, Draconus, you do not fare well when you are lost. She has unmanned you, that doe-eyed, simpering fool.’

‘You speak ill of the woman I love, Olar Ethil. Do not think I will yield another step.’

‘It is not you I doubt, Draconus. You gave her Darkness. You gave her something so precious she knows not what to do with it.’

‘There is wisdom in her indecision,’ Draconus replied.

She studied him. The night felt starved of faith, as if he had taken it all inside, and now harboured it with undeserved loyalty. ‘Draconus. She now rules, and ascends into godhood. She sits on that throne, face to face with necessities — and I fear they have little to do with you, or what you desire. To rule is to kneel before expediency. You should fear her wisdom.’

If her words found tender places, he had the will and the strength to not flinch, but there was pain in his eyes. She knew it well, from long ago. ‘There are Jaghut among the Dog-Runners.’

He looked at her. ‘What?’

‘Those who rejected the Lord of Hate. They amuse themselves ordering and reordering what does not belong to them. They make fists and call them gods. Spirits of water, air and earth flee before them. Burn dreams of war. Vengeance.’

‘Must it all crumble, Olar Ethil? All that we have made here?’

She waved a dismissive hand. ‘I will answer with fire. They are my children, after all.’

‘Making you no different from those Jaghut, or will you now claim Burn as your child, too?’

Scowling, Olar Ethil set her hands upon her distended belly. ‘They don’t feed her.’

They were silent for a few heartbeats, and then he said, ‘Feren did not deserve that.’

‘I said I was a cruel goddess and I meant it, Draconus. What care I about who does or who doesn’t deserve anything? Besides, she was already well used. You will have a grandchild to play with and let us be plain: I don’t mean tossing on one knee. How are they, by the way? Our wretched spawn?’

‘If they had a fourth sister she would be called Venom,’ Draconus replied. ‘As it is, alas, they have no need for a fourth sister.’

‘Three memories of pain. That is all I have of them. Will you visit his mother, then?’

‘No.’

‘You and I, Draconus, we are cruel in love. I wager Mother Dark is yet to discover that.’

‘We shall not make love tonight, Olar Ethil.’

She laughed harshly against the sting of those words. ‘A relief, Draconus. Three pains are enough for me.’

‘Old Man says… the next village.’

‘And then?’

He sighed. ‘I shall send the others back and ride on to the Tower of Hate.’

‘Your son?’

‘He shall ride with me. I believe his tutor left him with gifts for the Lord of Hate.’

‘They will be ill received, I predict. Does the boy return to Kharkanas with you?’

‘He cannot, and the means with which I shall hasten that journey are for me and Calaras and none other.’

‘Then he knows nothing.’

‘Nothing.’

‘Draconus, must all your seeds be errant? Left to grow wild, for ever untamed? Our daughters will be the death of you — you keep them too close, smothered by your neglect. It is no wonder they are venomous.’

‘Perhaps,’ he admitted. ‘I have no answer to my children. All of myself that I see in them is but cause for concern, and I am left wondering why parents give to their children so freely their flaws, yet not their virtues.’

She shrugged. ‘We are all misers with what we believe we have earned, Draconus.’

He reached to her and rested his hand upon her shoulder, and that touch sent a tremble through her. ‘You wear your weight well, Olar Ethil.’

‘If you mean my fat then I call you a liar.’

‘I did not mean your fat.’

After a moment she shook her head. ‘I think not. We are no wiser, Draconus. We fall into the same traps, over and over again. For all that I am fed by my Dog-Runners, I do not understand them; and for all that I nurtured Burn, at my own breast, still I underestimated her. I fear it is that fated disregard that will see the end of me some day.’

‘Will you not see your own death?’

‘I choose not to. Best it come in an instant, unexpected and so not feared. To live in dread of dying is to not live at all. Pray that I am running on my last day, fleet as a hare, my heart filled with fire.’

‘So I shall pray, Olar Ethil. For you.’

‘What of your death, Draconus? You were always one for planning, no matter how many times those plans failed you.’

‘I will,’ he replied, ‘die many deaths.’

‘You have seen them?’

‘No. I have no need for that.’

She looked out upon the water of the spring. Night made it black. Caladan Brood’s sculpture of the Thel Akai still lifted a tormented face to the sky, and would do so for ever. It was aptly named Surrender, and he had forced that sentiment upon the stone itself, refusing all subtlety. She feared Caladan Brood for his honesty and despised him for his talent.

‘I see his mother in his face,’ she said after a time. ‘In his eyes.’

‘Yes.’

‘That must be hard for you.’

‘Yes.’

She pushed her hand into her belly, feeling the skin split, and then the sudden heat of blood and the steady beat of her heart — almost within reach. Instead, her hands closed about the baked clay form of a figurine. She pulled it out. She crouched to wash it clean and then straightened and offered it to Draconus. ‘For your son.’

‘Olar Ethil, he is not yours to protect.’