Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

Draconus studied him. ‘And you do?’

‘You are an Azathanai.’

His father collected up the reins and swung Calaras around. He rode out into the centre of the clearing, and as he did so the light faded around him, as if night itself had been summoned and now drew close to welcome its suzerain. In the moments before all light vanished, swallowing Draconus and his mount, Arathan saw a transformation come to Calaras. The stallion’s black hide deepened, his form blurring at the edges, his eyes flaring as if suddenly lit with lurid flames.

Then they vanished within impenetrable darkness. A moment later the day’s dying light swept in once more, revealing an empty clearing.

No embrace. No words of love to seal this farewell. He’s gone. My father is gone.

He stood, alone, feeling lost. Feeling free.

Drawing out the clay figurine, he studied it. Olar Ethil’s gift, passing to him through the hands of his father. For all that it comforted him with its roundness and its weight, he wished that he did not have it. But it was all that remained, the only thing left that marked this vast journey, from the moment Sagander had made him halt and look back upon the gate of House Dracons, to this last, solitary instant, in the empty wake of his father’s departure.

Another gift soaked in blood. Hearing a sound, he looked up.

From across the clearing, two figures had appeared. A Jaghut in armour, and beside him a young Tiste woman, thin and sharp-featured. He watched them approach.

When they reached him the Jaghut spoke, ‘Is he within?’

‘He is, sir. Sleeping in his chair.’

The Jaghut snorted, and then strode inside. A moment later his voice echoed loud and harsh: ‘If you’re not yet dead, Gothos, wake up!’

The woman met Arathan’s eyes, and then shrugged apologetically. A moment later she frowned. ‘What are you doing here? Who are you?’

The challenge in her eyes made him recoil a step. ‘I am a guest.’

‘A guest of the Lord of Hate?’

He nodded, putting the clay figurine back into the pouch at his belt.

‘Was that a doll?’

‘In a manner of speaking. A gift.’

‘It’s ugly. I had prettier dolls, once.’

He said nothing, made uncomfortable by the directness of her gaze.

‘Do you always do that?’

‘What?’

‘Chew your nails.’

Arathan dropped his hand and wiped his fingers on his thigh. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Did he ever speak of family?’

Feren said nothing to Ville’s question, and after a moment it was Rint who said, ‘Not that I recall. He talked only of House Dracons. It was the home he had made and if there was something before then, they were ashes he would not stir among us.’

‘Why should he?’ Galak demanded. ‘Sergeant or not, he was our commanding officer. I don’t see how our ignorance excuses anything. We may well be discharged from the Lord’s compass, but this does not absolve us from decency.’

‘He is not a Bordersword,’ Rint said in a growl. ‘I have no desire to ride back to House Dracons just to deliver a headless corpse. I have a newborn child and would see it.’

Feren held her gaze fixed on the way ahead, the rolling grasses and the dark wavy line that marked hills to the northeast. They had already left the trail they had made when venturing west. If Ville and Galak won this argument, they would have to cut across, straight east, to reach Abara Delack.

Their horses were tired, and the wrapped body of Gate Sergeant Raskan made pungent every wayward gust of wind.

‘We can build a cairn in the hills ahead,’ said Rint. ‘We can surrender his empty flesh to the realm of Mother Dark, and make all the necessary propitiations. There is nothing dishonourable in that. And if need be, we can send a message back to House Dracons, specifying the location of that cairn, should someone wish to come and collect the body.’

‘How could such a message not be deemed an insult?’ Ville said. ‘I don’t understand you, Rint. If we cannot hold to courtesy, what is left to us?’

‘I am past courtesy,’ Rint snapped. ‘If you and Galak feel it is so important, then deliver him. But I am returning home.’

‘Feren?’ Galak asked.

‘She took him,’ Feren replied. ‘The witch stole his soul. It matters not where you leave what’s left, or even that you make propitiation. Mother Dark will never receive his soul. Raskan is gone from us.’

‘The rituals serve the conscience of the living,’ Ville insisted. ‘Mine. Yours. His kin.’

She shrugged. ‘I see no salve in empty gestures, Ville.’

Galak grunted in frustration, and then said, ‘Would that we had never parted. You and me, Ville, we tell ourselves and each other that we ride in the company of two old friends. They well look the part.’

Everyone fell silent then, and the thumping of horse hoofs filled the cool afternoon air. Feren half closed her eyes, settling back into the rhythmic roll of her mount’s slow canter. In a short while they would slow their pace back down to a walk, and the distant hills would seem no closer and the homeland beyond would remain lost in longing and fearful uncertainty — as if distance alone could call its very existence into question.

There were ways of resenting the world that she had never known before, never sensed, and she would never have believed anyone’s claim to their veracity. She cursed the stretch of grassland. She cursed the pointless immensity of the sky overhead, its painless blue of daytime and its cruel indifference at night. The wind’s ceaseless moaning filled her head like the distant wailing of a thousand children, and every harsh breath bit at her eyes.

With the coming of dusk she would sit huddled with the others, and the fire they made would mock with every tongue of flame. And she would hear the witch’s laughter, and then her terrible screams which now came to Feren and sank in, stealing her satisfaction, her pleasure at what her brother had done. Instead, that sound of pain haunted her, leaving her feeling belittled and shamed.

The easy camaraderie among the Borderswords was gone. Her brother would sit with bruised eyes that caught the reflection of the fire, and she remembered the cry of anguish that had been torn from him when she had held on to his rigid body. She could not imagine what he had taken from her in that moment, to give him the strength to strike back at the witch. For the scar she now bore. For the murder of an innocent man. She had no courage to match his, and if he would now ride for home, she would ride with him and voice no objection.

She told herself that Rint was as he had once been: the brother who would always be there, protecting her from the world and its cruel turns. But the truth was that she doubted her own convictions, and for all of her gestures, her willingness to follow Rint, she felt herself falling behind him. She was a child again, and that was no place to be, with what she carried in her womb. Somewhere, in this vast landscape, the woman that she had been — strong, resolute — now wandered lost. Without that woman, Feren felt bereft and weak beyond measure, even as her brother seemed to be rushing towards an unknown but terrible fate.

She’d had no final parting words for Arathan, and this too shamed her. Few would not scorn the notion of an innocent father. After all, the guilt was in the conception, the act of wilful surrender. But she saw him as innocent. The knowledge and the wilfulness had belonged solely to her, and she suspected that she would have seduced him even without his father’s command.

The sky was deepening its hue, remote in its unchanging laws, its crawling progression that looked down with blind eyes and gave no thought to wounded souls and their hopeless longing for peace. If self-pity was a depthless pool then she skirted its muddy, slippery bank on hands and knees, round and round. Awareness made no difference. Knowledge was useless. She held innocence in her womb and felt like a thief.