Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

Which was just as well, Faror Hend reflected: if there were yet more people as mad as they were, then the Tiste would be in trouble. Close to the edge of the Vitr the grasses died away, leaving bare ground studded with rotting stones and brittle boulders. The air sliding in from the tranquil silver sea stung in the lungs, burned raw the inside of the nose, made bitter every tear.

She sat astride her horse, watching her younger cousin draw out his sword and set one edge into a groove in a boulder near the Vitr’s edge. Some poison from the strange liquid dissolved even the hardest rock, and Wardens had taken to fashioning whetstones from select boulders. Her companion’s sword had been forged by the Hust, but long ago and thus mercifully silent. Still, it was new to Spinnock Durav’s hand, a blade the length of which crossed generations in the family. She could see his pride and was pleased.

The third and last rider in this patrol, Finarra Stone, had ridden along the shoreline, westward, and Faror had lost sight of her some time back. It was not unusual to set off unaccompanied when so near to the Vitr — the naked wolves of the plain never ventured this close, and of other beasts only bones remained. Finarra had nothing to fear and would eventually return. They would camp for the night in the shelter of the high crags where past storms had gnawed deep into the shoreline, far enough from the Vitr to escape its more toxic effects, yet still some distance from the verge of the grasses.

With the reassuring sound of Spinnock’s blade rasping as he honed it, Faror twisted in her saddle and stared out over the silver expanse of the sea. Its promise was dissolution, devouring flesh and bone upon contact. But for the moment the surface was calm, yet mottled, as if reflecting an overcast sky. The terrible forces that dwelt in its depths, or somewhere in its distant heart, remained quiescent. Of late, this was unusual. The last three times a patrol had arrived here, they had been driven back by the ferocity of storms, and in the aftermath of each one, more land was lost.

If the mystery of the Vitr could not be solved; if its power could not be blunted, forced back, or destroyed, then there would come a time, perhaps less than a dozen centuries away, when the poison sea devoured all of the Glimmer Fate, and so reached the very borders of Kurald Galain.

None knew with any certainty the source of the Vitr — at least, none among the Tiste. Faror believed that answers might be found among the Azathanai, but then, she had no proof of that and she was but a Warden of middling rank. And the scholars and philosophers of Kharkanas were an inward-looking, xenophobic lot, dismissive of foreigners and their foreign ways. It seemed that they valued ignorance, finding it a virtue when it was their own.

Perhaps among the war-spoils of the Forulkan, now in the possession of Lord Urusander, some revelations might be found; although it seemed that Urusander’s particular obsession, upon laws and justice, made the discovery of such revelations unlikely. Still, in his manic studies he might well stumble upon some ancient musings on the Vitr… but would he even notice?

The threat posed by the Vitr was acknowledged. Its imminence was well recognized. A few millennia were a short span indeed, and there were truths in the world that took centuries to truly understand. This led to a simple fact: they were running out of time.

‘It is said,’ Spinnock spoke, straightening and setting an eye down the length of his sword, ‘that some quality of the Vitr infuses the edge, strengthening it against notching and, indeed, shattering.’

She smiled to herself. ‘So it is said, cousin.’

He glanced up at her, and once more a strange kind of envy rushed through her. What woman would not lie prone before Spinnock Durav? Yet she could not, dared not. It was not that he was barely into manhood whilst she had eleven years on him and was betrothed besides. She would have discarded both obstacles in an instant; no, their bloodline was too close. The Hend — her own family — was but once removed from that of House Durav. The prohibitions were strict and immutable: neither the children of brothers nor those of sisters could mate.

Still, out here, so close to the Vitr, so distant from the lands of the Tiste, a voice whispered inside her, rising gleeful and urgent in moments like these: who would know? Finarra Stone had ridden off and would probably not return before dusk. The ground is bare and hard / and will hold all secrets / and the sky cares not / for the games of those beneath it. So many breathtaking truths in Gallan’s poetry, as if he had plied her own mind, and could at will reach into countless others. These were the truths that found their own flavours and made personal the taste, until it seemed that Gallan spoke directly to each and every listener, each and every reader. The sorceries of the delvers into the secrets of Night seemed clumsy compared to the magic of Gallan’s poems.

His words fed her innermost desires, and this made them dangerous. She forced silence upon the whispering in her mind, pushed down delicious but forbidden thoughts.

‘I have heard rumours,’ Spinnock went on, sheathing his sword, ‘that there are Azathanai vessels capable of holding Vitr. Made of strange and rare stone, they must be.’

She had heard the same, and it was details like that which convinced her that the Azathanai understood the nature of this terrible poison. ‘If there are such vessels,’ she now said, ‘one wonders what purpose might be served by collecting Vitr.’

She caught his shrug before he strode back to his horse. ‘Which camp is near, Faror?’

‘The one we call the Cup. You’ve not yet seen it. I will lead.’

His answering smile — so impossibly innocent — brushed her awake between the legs and she looked away, taking up the reins and silently cursing her own weakness. She heard him climb into the saddle of his own mount. Drawing her horse round, she guided the animal forward, back on to the trail leading away from the shoreline.

‘Mother Dark is the answer to this,’ Spinnock said behind her.

So we pray. ‘The poet Gallan has written of that,’ she said.

‘Why is that no surprise?’ Spinnock said, clearly amused. ‘Go on then, oh beautiful cousin, let’s hear it.’

She did not reply at once, struggling to slow the sudden leap of her heart. He had joined the Wardens a year past, yet this was the first time he had included her in his easy flirtations. ‘Very well, since you are so eager. Gallan wrote: In unrelieved darkness waits every answer.’

After a moment, as their horses scrabbled over uneven footing, Spinnock grunted. ‘As I thought.’

‘What thought is that, Spinnock?’

He laughed. ‘Even a bare handful of words from a poet, and I lose all sense of meaning. Such arts are not for me.’

‘One learns subtlety,’ she replied.

‘Indeed?’ She could hear his smile in the word. Then he went on, ‘And now, in your grey-haired wisdom, you will, perchance, pat my hand?’

She glanced back at him. ‘Have I offended you, cousin?’

He gave a careless shake of his head. ‘Never that, Faror Hend. But the years between us are not so vast, are they?’

She searched his eyes for a long moment, and then faced forward once more. ‘It will be dark soon, and Finarra will be most upset if we fail to have a meal awaiting her when she returns. And the tents raised, as well, with all bedding prepared.’

‘Finarra upset? I have yet to see that, cousin.’

‘Nor shall we this night.’

‘Will she find us in the dark?’

‘Of course, by the light of our fire, Spinnock.’

‘In a place called the Cup?’

‘Ah, well, there is that. Still, she well knows the camp, since it was she who first discovered it.’