Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

Poison. They’re all dead.

Toras -

She was on her hands and knees, gouging up clumps of wine-soaked clay, pushing them into her mouth, coughing, choking — Galar saw himself spinning high above her. He saw how the first of the wagons had reached the descent, but the oxen were collapsing in their yokes, thrashing, legs kicking, and the lead wagon’s front wheels cut sharply to one side, and then the wagon toppled, spilling out the wooden crates on the bed.

He saw those crates burst apart, revealing Hust Henarald’s last gift to the Hust Legion — chain hauberks of the same iron, and helms and greaves and vambraces. The armour was answering the cry of the weapons in the valley below. The drovers were upon the ground, bleeding from their noses, their ears and eyes.

And still the howling built. It rent the canvas of the tents in the camp, snapped guide ropes. In the distant corrals to the west, the horses broke down the fences and fled in terror.

Galar was a battered kite in the rising storm of those terrible voices.

‘ Corporal Ranyd came running in. He drew his sword. He should never have done that.’

Abruptly, the howling stopped. Galar plunged earthward, and in the moment he struck the ground, blackness engulfed him.

‘ Never, and never again.’

Endest Silann looked old, as if his youth had been torn away, revealing something aged with grief. Many times Rise Herat had seen a face stripped back by the onslaught of loss, and each time he wondered if suffering but waited under the skin, shielded by a mask donned in hope, or with that superstitious desperation that imagined a smile to be a worthy shield against the world’s travails. These things, worn daily in an array of practised expressions insisting on civility, ever proved poor defenders of the soul, and to be witness to their cracking, their pathetic surrender to a barrage of emotion, was both humbling and terrible.

The young priest had come to his door like a beggar, fingers entwined on his lap and twisting ceaselessly, as if he held newborn snakes in his fists; and in his eyes there was a wretched pleading; but even this was of the kind that expected no largesse. How could one help a beggar who saw no salvation in a coin, or a meal, or a warm bed at night?

Rise had stepped back in invitation and Endest had shuffled past, moving like one afflicted by a host of mysterious ailments, proof against any medicine. He selected a chair near the fire and sat, not yet ready to speak, and studied his writhing hands. And there he remained.

After a time, the historian cleared his throat. ‘I have mulled wine, priest.’

Endest shook his head. ‘I close my eyes to sleep,’ he said, ‘and meet the same horrid dream, as if it but awaits me.’

‘Ah, that sounds unpleasant. Perhaps a draught to make you senseless would help.’

He glanced up with red-shot eyes, and then looked down again. ‘I have no certainty of this world, historian. This is the dream’s legacy, its curse upon my wakefulness — even now I am haunted and so in need of reassurance.’

‘Set hand upon stone, priest. Feel wood’s familiar grain, or the cool flank of a clay vessel. None of these things are uncertain. But if you would look to us soft creatures who move through this world, then I fear you will find us ephemeral indeed.’

Endest’s hands parted and made fists on his lap, the knuckles whitening, but still he would not look up. ‘Do you mock me?’

‘No. I see the weight of a curse upon you, priest, as surely it is upon us all. You close your eyes and dread the waiting dream. While here I pace in my room, longing to open my eyes and so discover all this to have been a dream. So here we face one another, as if to contest wills.’

Abruptly, Endest began thumping his thighs, swinging down upon them hard with his fists, in growing ferocity.

Rise stepped closer, alarmed. ‘Hear me! You are not asleep, friend!’

‘How can I know?’

The cry, so filled with despair, silenced the historian.

Endest ceased punching his thighs, his head shifting as if he was looking for something on the floor, and then he spoke. ‘I step into the hearth chamber. They have been arguing — terrible words, cutting like knives upon kin and loved ones. But she is not right, the woman dying on the hearthstone. I see her in the robes of a High Priestess. Of course,’ he added with a weak, dry laugh, ‘they are women who like to spread their legs. They do not fight, and would make of surrender a gift, even if one of little worth for its easy ubiquity.’

Rise studied the young priest, struggling to understand the scene Endest Silann was describing. Yet the historian dared not ask a question, although this prohibition seemed in itself arbitrary. The man before him had no answers.

‘I walk up to her, numb, unable to stop myself. She is already wed — though how I know this I do not know — but I see her as Andarist’s wife, and a High Priestess, beloved child of Mother Dark. She is not yet dead, and I kneel at her side and take her hand.’ He shook his head as if refusing an unspoken objection. ‘Sometimes her husband is there, sometimes not. She is badly used and dying. I watch the life leave her, and then I hear Lord Anomander. He is saying something, but none of the words make sense — I do not know if he speaks another language, or if I simply can’t hear them distinctly. When I grasp her hand, I am whispering to her, but the voice is not my own — it is Mother Dark’s.’

‘It is but a dream,’ Rise said quietly. ‘Do you recall, there was a banquet, Endest, which we attended. Two years ago. It was before Lord Andarist met Enesdia — before he saw her as a woman, I mean. Scara Bandaris was there, as guest to Silchas. The captain was telling a tale of when he was offered hospitality in House Enes on his way down from the north garrison. He had been amused by Lord Jaen’s daughter, who walked with the airs of a High Priestess. That was the title Scara gave Enesdia, and this memory has twisted its way into your dream. Nor, Endest Silann, were you there in the time of her dying. No one was but her killers.’

The priest was nodding vigorously. ‘So this world insists, and I bitterly bless its every claim to veracity, each time I awaken, each time I stumble into it. Still, what answer will you offer me, historian, when I find her blood mingled with sweat upon the palms of my hands? I have examined myself, stripped naked before a mirror, and I bear no wounds. What correction will you provide to right my senses when I walk the Hall of Portraits and see her image so perfectly painted upon the wall? High Priestess Enesdia. The label is worn, but I can make it out nevertheless.’

‘There is no such portrait, priest — no, a moment. Ah, you speak of her grandmother, who was indeed a High Priestess, but before the coming of Night. Her name was Enesthila, and she served as the last High Priestess of the river god, before the cult’s reformation. My friend, such is the sorcery of dreams-’

‘And the blood?’

‘You say that you speak in your dream, but that the voice belongs to Mother Dark. Forgive this blasphemy, but if there is blood on anyone’s hands, Endest-’

‘No!’ The priest was on his feet. ‘Have I no will left to me? We beg her for guidance! We plead with her! She has no right!’

‘Forgive me, friend. I reveal only ignorance in speaking on matters of faith. Have you spoken to Cedorpul?’

Endest slumped back down in the chair. ‘I went to him first. Now he flees the sight of me.’

‘But… why?’

The young man’s face twisted. ‘His hands remain clean, his dreams untouched.’

‘Do you imagine that he would welcome what leaves you outraged?’

‘If she demanded his lifeblood he would offer her his throat, and know delight in the bounty of his gift.’