Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

‘The wolves are true to their nature,’ Rise said in reply, ‘and indifference plagues every age and every time, priest. Our doom is to be driven to act when it is already too late, and to then give zeal to our amends. And we beat our brows and decry that indifference, which we never own, or loudly proclaim our ignorance, which is ever a lie. And old women drag brooms through the streets and graves are dug in even rows, and we are made solemn before the revealed fragility of our ways.’

Cedorpul’s eyes tightened. ‘Now even you advise surrender? Historian, you mock the value of past lessons, making you worthless in all eyes.’

‘Past lessons deserve mockery, priest, precisely because they are never learned. If you deem that stance worthless, then you miss the point.’

Anger darkened Cedorpul’s round face. ‘We blather on and on — even as poor dwellers in the countryside fall beneath blade and spear! At last I understand what we are — we who hide in this chamber. You know of us, historian, you must! We are the useless ones. It is our task to fritter and moan, to cover our eyes with trembling hands, and bewail the loss of everything we once valued, and when at last there is no one else left, they will crush us like snails under their marching heels!’

Rise said, ‘If the wolves are indeed loose among us, priest, then we surrendered some time ago. Yet you berate my mockery of lessons unheeded. Vigilance is an exhausting necessity, if one would protect what one values. We lose by yielding in increments, here and there, a slip, a nudge. The enemy never tires in this assault and measures true those increments. They win in a thousand small victories, and know long before we do when they stand over our corpses.’

‘Then climb to your tower,’ Cedorpul said in a snarl, ‘and leap from its edge. Better not to witness the dregs of our useless demise.’

‘The last act of an historian, priest, is to live through history. It is the bravest act of them all, because it faces, unblinking, the recognition that all history is personal, and that every external truth of the world is but a reflection of our internal truths — the truths that shape our behaviours, our decisions, our fears, our purposes and our appetites. These internal truths raise monuments and flood sewers. They lift high grand works as readily as they fill graves. If you blame one appetite you blame all of our appetites. We all swim the same river.’

‘In which,’ muttered Emral, ‘even the wolves will drown.’

‘“Destruction spares no crown and I say this unto the lords behind every door, from hovel to palace.”’

‘Gallan again!’ spat Cedorpul. He swung to Endest Silann. ‘Let us go. Like keepsakes, they will rest upon shelves even as the flames enter the room.’

But the young acolyte hesitated. ‘Master,’ he said to Cedorpul, ‘did we not come here to speak of Draconus?’

‘I see no point,’ the priest replied. ‘He is but one more keepsake. Mother Dark’s own.’

Emral Lanear stood as one who would at last face her accuser. ‘Do you now go to join Sister Syntara, Cedorpul?’

‘I go in search of peace. I see in you the tragedy of standing still.’

He left the chamber. Endest bowed to the High Priestess but made no move to depart.

Sighing, Emral waved a hand. ‘Go on, keep him safe.’

When he slipped out, looking more broken than ever, she turned to Rise. ‘You said nothing of value, historian.’

‘Daughter of Night, the other has made me hoarse.’

Emral studied the tapestry Cedorpul had been leaning against. ‘She is young,’ she said. ‘Rigour of health and polish of beauty are seen as righteous virtue, and by this Syntara triumphs. Over me, surely. And over Mother Dark, whose darkness hides every virtue and every vice and so makes of them both a singular aspect… and one that yields nothing.’

‘That may be her intention,’ observed Rise.

She glanced at him and then back to the tapestry. ‘You claim to have written nothing, historian.’

‘In my younger days, High Priestess, I wrote plenty. There are fires that burn bright and so make youthful eyes shine like torches. Any wood pile, no matter how big, will one day be gone, leaving only memories of warmth.’

She shook her head. ‘I see no end to the fuel, sir.’

‘For lack of a spark, it does rot.’

‘I do not understand this image here, Rise.’

He drew up alongside her and studied the tapestry. ‘Creation allegory, one of the early ones. The first Tiste heroes, who slew a dragon goddess and drank of her blood and thus became as gods. So fierce was their rule and so cold their power, the Azathanai rose as one to cast them down. It is said that all discord reveals a touch of draconean blood, and that it is the loss of our purity that wields the hand of our ills in all the ages since that time.’ He shrugged, eyeing the faded scene. ‘A dragon with many heads, according to this unknown weaver.’

‘Always the Azathanai, like a shadow to our conscience. Your tale is obscure, historian.’

‘A dozen or more creation myths warred for eminence once, until but one survived. Alas, the victor was not this one. We seek reasons for what we are and how we imagine ourselves; and every reason strives to become justification, and every justification a righteous cause. By this a people build an identity and cleave to it. But it is all invention, High Priestess, to make clay into flesh, sticks into bone, and flames into thought. No alternative sits well with us.’

‘What alternative would you have?’

He shrugged. ‘That we are meaningless. Our lives, our selves, our pasts and most of all, our existence in the present. This moment, the next, and the next: each one we find in wonder and near disbelief.’

‘Is this your conclusion, Rise Herat? That we are meaningless?’

‘I try not to think in terms of meaning, Daughter of Night. I but measure life in degrees of helplessness, and in the observation of this, we find, in totality, the purpose of history.’

She sent him away when she began to weep. He did not object. There was no pleasure in witnessing the very helplessness of which he had spoken, and so a single gesture had set him to flight.

Now he stood, upon the tower, and from the gate below there came the creaking of massive doors, and out on to the bridge rode two Sons of Darkness and their entourage. Pure was Anomander’s black skin, and pure silver his long mane, and as the day’s light died, Rise thought he could hear, on the wind, that sundering of light — there, in the rumble of horse hoofs — and before it, on the street, barely discerned figures scattered from its path.

The dog, a bedraggled mess of mud and burrs, was entangled in a chaotic web of roots, branches and detritus, just beneath the eastern bank of the river. It was limp with exhaustion, struggling to keep its head above the water, as the currents tugged at its limbs.

Unmindful of the bitter cold water and pushing through the current — the stony bottom beneath the undercut bank shifting with every step — Grizzin Farl worked his way closer.

The dog swung its head towards him and he saw its large ears dip as if in shame. Reaching its side, the Azathanai lifted clear his travel sack and flung it over the bank, and then reached down and gently extricated the hapless creature.

‘Most bravery, dear little one,’ he said as he pulled the dog from the water and rested it across the back of his thickly muscled neck, ‘is marked by a strength less than imagined, and a hope farther from reach than one expects.’ He took hold of the roots above and tested to see if they would hold their weight. ‘One day, friend, I will be asked to reveal the heroes of the world, and do you know where I shall take my questioner?’ The roots held and he pulled himself up, out of the dragging current. The dog, still clinging atop his shoulders, licked the side of Grizzin’s face and he nodded. ‘You are quite correct. A cemetery. And in there, before every marker of stone, we shall stand, looking down upon a hero. What think you of that?’