Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

Despite her robes, Enesdia felt herself grow cold. ‘Don’t say that,’ she whispered.

‘Do you love Andarist?’

‘Of course I do! How could I not?’

‘Enesdia.’ He faced her, took hold of her shoulders. ‘To say that I do not value the gift that Andarist possesses, by his very nature, could not be more wrong. I value it above most other qualities among a man or a woman. Because it is so rare.’

‘Did Mother have it? That gift?’

He blinked down at her, and then shook his head. ‘No. But I am glad for that, for otherwise her loss would be impossible for me to bear. Enesdia, speak truth to me here and now. If you do not love him enough, your marriage to him will destroy his gift. It may take decades, or centuries, but you will destroy him. Because you do not love him enough.’

‘Father-’

‘When one loves all things of the world, when one has that gift of joy, it is not the armour against grief that you might think it to be. Such a person stands balanced on the edge of sadness — there is no other way for it, because to love as he does is to see clearly. Clearly. Andarist smiles in the understanding that sadness stalks him, step by step, moment by moment. If you wound him — a thousand small wounds of disregard or indifference — until he stumbles and weakens, sorrow will find him and cut through to his heart.’

‘I do love him,’ she said. ‘More than enough, more than any one man needs. This I swear.’

‘We will return home upon the dawn, daughter, and weather all that comes.’

‘If we do that, Father, then I wound him when he is at his most vulnerable. If we do that, I destroy his gift, and his life.’

He studied her, and she saw in his eyes that he knew the truth of her words. That it was already too late.

‘Cryl did the honourable thing, Enesdia.’

‘I know,’ she replied. ‘But I wish he hadn’t!’ These last words came in a welter of tears and she fell against him.

Her father drew her into a tight embrace. ‘I should have acted,’ he said, his voice gruff, almost broken. ‘I should have said something-’

But she shook her head. ‘No, I’m the fool. I have always been the fool — I showed him that often enough.’

She wept then, as there was nothing more for either of them to say.

There was no sense in the world, she decided, much later when she lay sleepless under furs in the carriage. No sense at all. It had surrendered to the facile creatures like her, gliding through life in a glowing penumbra of petty self-obsession, where every unclear comment was a slight, and every slight personal, and spite and malice bred like vermin, in whispers and hidden glances. That is my world, where everything close to me is bigger than it really is. But the truth is, I know no other way to live.

She would never let Andarist doubt her, never give cause to hurt. Only in imagination would she free herself to betray, and dream of a son of the Durav in her arms, and the face of a young man who knew her too well.

Narad dreamed of women. Beautiful women who turned away from him in revulsion, in disgust. They were crowding close on all sides, and each recoil jostled him. He struggled to hide his face, but it seemed as if his hands were not his own, and that they were helpless in their efforts to find what he sought to hide.

He had not been born with much. He could not recall once basking in the admiring regard of a woman. There was no point in counting all the whores, since they were paid to look pleased; besides, they never held his gaze for very long. Desire was a thing no eye could fake, and its absence was plain enough to unman the boldest man.

Blinking awake, he stared up through the motionless branches and leaves that seemed to fracture the night sky. He would never be desired — even the small hope he had cherished in the wasted years before the beating was now dead.

Not even the gods offered fairness, not without a bargain to be made first. There were tears in his eyes, blurring the scene overhead. Bargain? I have nothing to give up. If gods looked down on him now, their regard was flat, unfeeling. Even pity demanded a soul dropping to its knees, and he would not give that up for so poor a reward. I get pity enough here among the mortals.

The beautiful women look away, look past. Their eyes glide over and that has always been the way of it, long before my face was broken. All they want is a mirrored reflection, another perfect face to match the admiration that is the only wealth they understand.

Behind this broken face waits an honest man, a man capable of love. He wants only what so many others have. Something beautiful to hold on to.

I ask for it, but the gods do not answer. No light or warmth finds their flat eyes. They blink cold. They look away, find something else, something more interesting, more original.

There were no ugly gods. Their first expression of power was in the reshaping of their selves, into forms lovely to behold. Had he the power, he would do the same. He would take this clay in his own hands and mould it into perfection.

But no such gifts awaited him.

He heard low voices, and then a figure moved close to him, one hand reaching out to nudge him. ‘Up, Waft, it’s time. Cold breakfast and then weapons and armour on.’

It was the woman who had spoken so bitterly the night before. He turned his head, studied her dark form. Wishing she was both beautiful and blind, even her fingers senseless and dumb. Wishing he could lie to her and convince her and then slide into her and afterwards feel at peace.

‘You awake?’

‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘Good.’ She moved on to the next sleeping form, and he knew that she had been oblivious of his thoughts.

Just as well. He’d had enough of their laughter.

A short time later, over a hundred armed figures were moving through the forest. Narad was among them, a few steps behind Corporal Bursa. He had drawn his sword but the hand that held it was cold. He was shivering under his clothes yet his skin was slick with sweat, and in his mind there was turmoil.

He saw his life unfurled behind him: all the times when he cut people with words, mocking all their pretensions. When he had viewed with disdain every gesture of kindness or supposed sincerity. It seemed to him now that he had been fighting a war all his life. Nothing was real enough to believe in; nothing was good enough to fight for, barring the patch of useless ground he stood upon, and the flimsy borders of his contempt.

And now he found himself in the company of murderers, just one more shadowy form threading between silent boles. Somewhere ahead slept innocent people. Assuming innocence even existed, and of that he had a lifetime of doubt gnawing the edges of his faith. No matter. Their dawn was about to be shattered in a sudden descent into violence and brutality.

He did not want this, and yet something in him hungered for what was to come, the ugliest part of himself — the outside pulled in and made still more venal, still more disgusting. Among all the soldiers in this midst, he alone bore the physical truth of what was hidden inside each and every one of them.

They had their lists, their grievances, just as he had his own.

Moving through the wood, as it drew the darkness down and around them all. There were different kinds of purity, different kinds of pain, but in the gloom every distinction was lost, made the same. He was no uglier than anyone here, they no more beautiful or handsome than he. We’re all the same.

Every cause is just when it is your own, when feelings count for something. But sometimes, among some people, feelings count for nothing at all.

This was the soldier’s gift, he supposed.

He staggered then, down to one knee, and his breakfast came back up his throat, sprayed out on to the black earth. The convulsions continued, until there was nothing left inside. Head hanging, threads of mucus and bile dangling from his twisted lips, he sensed people moving past him. Heard a few low laughs.