Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

He saw his father’s disgust, his sister’s shock. Hostage Cryl would laugh and drape an arm across his shoulders. All this on the morrow, then. A return to civilization for the wandering artist, the mad painter of portraits, the fool and his brushes.

But even this scene, conceived so tenderly in his mind, was but an illusion. Tiste were killing Tiste. Today’s righteous cause is religion. The gods are paying attention, after all. Wanting you to die in their name. Why? To prove your loyalty, of course. And what of their loyalty, you might wonder? Has your god blessed you and your life? Answered your every prayer? Given proof of its omnipotence?

Where is this god’s loyalty to you? Not loyal enough to spare your life which you give in its name. Not loyal enough to steer you past tragedy and grief, loss and misery. Not loyal enough to save your loved ones. Or the children who had to die as proof of that selfsame loyalty.

No, today the sack is filled with religion. Tomorrow it will be something else. The joy lies in beating it.

‘Poor Enesdia,’ he muttered as he sat down beneath the flimsy shelter. ‘The wrong wedding. At the wrong time.’ Bruised petals on the black currents.

He had asked, once, to paint a portrait of Lord Anomander. This in itself was almost unprecedented. Kadaspala was asked: he did not ask. But, that one time, he had, because he had seen something in that young highborn. Something different. He knew that he would find no answer to this mystery without day upon day devoted to piercing the mien of Anomander of House Purake, to slicing it away sliver by sliver with each stroke of his brush, down to the bone and then through that bone. No one, not even a highborn, should possess what Anomander possessed — that almost ancient assurance, and eyes that saw across a thousand years in an instant.

In other flesh, he would see it as madness. As tyranny, or an historian’s jaded, cynical regard, or both, since surely every historian was a tyrant at heart, so fiercely armed were they with the weapons of fact and truth; and if tyranny did not thrive in delusion and self-delusion, then it thrived nowhere at all. He would know the first honest historian he saw — the one broken and weeping and well beyond words or even a meeting of gazes. Instead, those he knew were mostly smug with their presumed knowledge, and on board or canvas their visages were as flat as anyone else’s.

But he saw no cynicism in Lord Anomander. He barely saw privilege, and the notions of strength and weakness blended in confusion, until Kadaspala wondered if he had not, all through his life, somehow inverted the meanings of each. A man who could offer weakness in strength was a man at peace with power.

Still, Kadaspala was haunted, when thinking of Anomander, by fears and unnamed, faceless dangers. If the lord had not refused him his request, he would now know the truth, from the surface through to the very roots, and all mysteries would be gone, revealed and exposed on board or canvas, and nothing would be quite as dark as it was.

Do not haunt me, Anomander. Not on this night, the night before your brother takes her hand and steals her from me. Not on this night, I beg you, when I curse the growing darkness and the mother who died in order to birth perfect beauty. Died and broke her husband, died and broke her son. Not on this night, when everything ends and nothing new begins.

Andarist, to be the hand that creates. Silchas, the hand that but waits to destroy. Anomander, who owns them both yet stands as would one defenceless and yet impenetrable. You three! War comes and it comes now. How will you answer?

Anomander, where is your weakness, and how can it be in truth your strength? Show this to me, and I in turn promise to not haunt you as you now haunt me. Fail in what comes, however, and I vow to never leave your soul in peace.

If there was one thing he could not deny, it was that, sullied and ruined as she would be, Enesdia would at least be safe. With Andarist and his gentle ways. Safe, but not preserved. The thought sickened him.

He drew his cloak around him and settled into the shelter. Too tired for a fire, too weary for false comforts, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

There was a hill overlooking Enes House. A watchtower had once commanded it, but some ancient conflict lost in the family’s history had seen it burned, and then fully dismantled until only the foundation stones remained. The ground surrounding the ring of stones and the rubbish-filled pit was mostly denuded, covered in a gravel of fire-cracked rocks and broken crockery. A single track led down the southeastern side of the hill to the road.

From the summit, Cryl studied the estate. The light was fast fading. The river bent away from the road, circling this hill, and it ran like a black serpent behind the house and its grounds. All looked peaceful.

Beside him, Corporal Rees was studying the ground. A moment later he dismounted and crouched. ‘Lieutenant, it’s as you said on the road — they rode up here, a dozen or so in all. To do just what we’re doing.’

Cryl continued studying the estate. He saw the pole bearing no banner. He could see the front courtyard of the house and the carriage stable, its doors open. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the mess hall. A few figures moved about, and the two guards at the gates were out on the sward, watching them.

‘Scouting,’ Rees said. ‘The Lord was right to fear for his home.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Cryl replied.

‘Sir?’

‘They came up here, studied the estate. They saw it was under-manned. They saw that the Lord was not present, and the carriage was gone.’

‘A perfect time to attack.’

‘Yet they didn’t, did they? Why not?’

‘Loss of nerve?’

Cryl shook his head. Dread was a cold fist tightening in his chest. ‘The estate wasn’t their target, corporal. They didn’t attack, because the procession had already left.’

‘Sir, they would not do that. It is one thing to launch a purge against the Deniers, but what you suggest — against highborn, against a Greater House — they could never justify that in Mother Dark’s name.’

‘Those highborn who harbour Deniers on their lands,’ said Cryl. ‘The Lord spoke of this.’

‘But sir, we are speaking of the bride of Lord Andarist.’

Cryl looked down at the corporal, bemused.

Rees had pulled off his helm, running a hand through his sparse hair. ‘Sorry, sir. It’s just… I have friends in the Legion. Dear friends. Men and women I fought alongside. What you’re saying — none of them I know would ever agree to that. You’re describing a crime. Raw murder. Lord Urusander would be the first to hunt down the killers and hang them all.’

‘Renegades,’ said Cryl. ‘Bandits, even, or perhaps the blame will be laid upon the Deniers. If proper signs are left behind. Abyss knows, they could even implicate Draconus. Deceit is their weapon, and every act of murder and chaos will simply impress upon everyone the need for more order — the need for the Legion’s return.’

‘They would not do that,’ Rees whispered.

‘They need to strike quickly,’ Cryl went on, ‘before those coming up from Kharkanas reach the wedding camp. Don’t you understand, Rees? Strike the brothers to anger — no, to blind rage — and by whose hand will this civil war be unleashed?’ He gathered up his reins. ‘Mount up. We ride to the estate, and there I will hand you over to the castellan.’

‘And you, sir?’

‘A fresh horse. No, two. I will ride through the night — Sergeant Agalas should have caught up with us. Something has happened to them. If the attackers wait for dawn, I should reach Lord Jaen in time-’

‘Sir, don’t you think they’d have watchers on the road?’