Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

The Jaghut glanced over. ‘Out. Why?’

‘I will kill him.’

‘There is a queue for that, mahybe. But he meant you little harm and the cause was just and indeed agreeable to all present-’

‘Not to me!’

‘Well, you excused yourself forthwith, as I recall. We had a passably benign evening. I even boiled up that pot of wrinkled things you imagined to be vegetables. While we did not partake of the broth, the exercise made work for my restless hands.’

She felt rested, virulently awake. ‘I will allow,’ she said, ‘it was a good night’s sleep.’

‘And a day,’ said Varandas. ‘In oblivion, time is stolen, never to be returned. Imagine, some people actually welcome the losses. They measure them out as victories against what, boredom? The banal consideration of their own mental paucity? The wretched uselessness of their lives? The sheer pall of their dyspeptic thoughts? I am considering a thesis. On the Seduction of Oblivion. My arguments will be senseless, as befits the subject.’

‘I did not think it possible,’ Korya said.

‘What?’

‘I now believe Haut to be exceptional among you Jaghut.’

Varandas seemed to consider the observation for a moment, and then he grunted. ‘I do not disagree, although I find the notion disagreeable. Tell me, has he explained why the Lord of Hate is so called?’

She picked herself up from the filthy stone floor. ‘No. I need to pee.’

‘There is a hole out back, but beware the crumbling edge.’

‘I’m not a man, you fool.’

‘Fret not. It is large enough to mean that you do not have to aim, dear.’

Moving near the table as she made for the doorway, she paused, eyes fixing on the objects arrayed in front of the Jaghut. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Playing with dolls. Why?’

‘I recognize those,’ she whispered.

‘Of course you do. Your master bought a dozen for you the week you came into his care. I make them.’

She found it impossible to speak, but tears filled her eyes, and then she rushed outside.

Standing in the rain, Korya lifted her face to the sky. Oh, goddess, they were not your children after all.

From the doorway behind her, Varandas said, ‘He deems you his last hope.’

She shook her head. In the valley below, lightning was flashing and she heard the mutter of thunder through the rain.

‘The slayer of Karish,’ continued the Jaghut, ‘set you upon a trail. There was purpose in that. The killer wishes to stir us to life, or so Haut believes. But I wonder if that path was not made for you instead.’

‘That makes no sense,’ she retorted, angered by the thought. ‘No one knows anything about me.’

‘Untrue. You are the only Tiste to ever live among the Jaghut. Your arrival awakened debate and conjecture, not just among the Jaghut, but also among the Azathanai.’

She faced him. ‘Why?’

‘He has made a sorcery for you-’

‘Who? Haut? He’s done nothing of the sort. I am his maid, his cook, his slave.’

‘Lessons in humility. But no, I was not speaking of Haut. I was speaking of Draconus.’

‘The Consort? I have never even met him!’

‘Ah. By “you” I meant the Tiste. Draconus has given the Tiste the sorcery of Darkness. He has walked the Forest of Night, and the very shores of Chaos itself. It is within you, mahybe, and your progress has been observed by many.’

‘That makes no sense. There is no sorcery in me.’

‘Unfortunately,’ Varandas went on, ‘some of those observers possessed inimical thoughts, and unpleasant ambitions. They saw the precedent of the Suzerain’s manipulation of power. By the path you were set upon, there at the Spar, you were mocked. Draconus was too patient. Mother Dark is lost within his gift to her. The Tiste are blind to their own power.’

‘I did not know that cooking and washing floors could awaken sorcery, Jaghut.’

‘The greatest gift of education, Korya, is the years of shelter provided when learning. Do not think to reduce that learning to facts and the utterances of presumed sages. Much of what one learns in that time is in the sphere of concord, the ways of society, the proprieties of behaviour and thought. Haut would tell you that this is another hard-won achievement of civilization: the time and safe environment in which to learn how to live. When this is destroyed, undermined or discounted, then that civilization is in trouble.’

‘You Jaghut are obsessed with this, aren’t you? Yet you threw it all away!’

‘We were convinced of the inherent madness of codified inequity. All cooperation involves some measure of surrender. And coercion. But the alternative, being anarchy, is itself no worthy virtue. It is but an excuse for selfish aggression, and all that seeks justification from taking that stance is, each and every time, cold-hearted. Anarchists live in fear and long for death, because they despair of seeing in others the very virtues they lack in themselves. In this manner, they take pleasure in sowing destruction, if only to match their inner landscape of ruin.’ He moved out to stand beside her, huge and almost formless in the close gloom of the downpour. ‘We rejected civilization, but so too we rejected anarchy for its petty belligerence and the weakness of thought it announced. By these decisions, we made ourselves lost and bereft of purpose.’

‘I would think,’ she said, ‘that despair must stalk every Jaghut.’

‘It should have,’ Varandas said. ‘It would have, if not for the Lord of Hate.’

‘It seems that he was the cause of it all!’

‘He was, and so in return he took upon himself our despair, and called it his penance. He bears our hate for him and our self-hate, too. He holds fast to our despair, and laughs in our faces, and so we hate him all the more.’

‘I do not understand you Jaghut,’ Korya said.

‘Because you seek complexity where none exists.’

‘Where has Haut gone?’

‘He is upon the roof of my tower.’

‘Why?’

‘He watches the battle in the valley below.’

‘Battle? What battle? Who is fighting?’

‘We’re not sure. It is difficult to see in this rain. But come tomorrow, he will take you to the Lord of Hate.’

‘What for? Another lesson in humility?’

‘Oh, an interesting thought. Do you think it is possible?’

Korya frowned.

Lightning flashed again, and this time the sound of thunder rumbled through the ground beneath her feet, and she heard things rattling in the tower behind her. She was soaked through, and she still needed to pee. ‘Do you think he can see anything from up there?’

‘Of course not. I am afraid I am to blame, as I bored him witless talking about my new series of dolls. They please me immensely, you see, and soon I will set them free to find their own way in the world.’

‘I locked mine in a box,’ she told him.

‘To what end?’

Korya shrugged. ‘Perhaps to keep guard over my childhood.’

Varandas grunted. ‘That is a worthy post, I think. Well done. But not too long, I hope? We must all earn our freedom eventually, after all.’

She wondered if the Jaghut standing beside her, this maker of dolls, was perhaps mad. ‘So,’ she asked, ‘when will you set your new creations free?’

‘Well,’ he replied, ‘they need to wake up first.’

I was right. He’s mad. Completely mad.

‘Skin and flesh, blood and bone,’ Varandas said, ‘sticks and twine, leather and straw are all but traps for a wandering soul. The skill lies in the delicacy of the snare, but every doll is temporary. My art, mahybe, is one of soul-shifting. My latest dolls will seek out a rare, winged rock ape native to the old crags of a desert far to the south. I name this series Nacht.’