Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

'A horrific conflict indeed,' Lady Envy quietly observed. 'Where does it occur?'

'The continent of Assail. Our losses: twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and fourteen Kerluhm. Twenty-two thousand two hundred Ifayle. Eight months of battle. We have lost this war.'

Lady Envy was silent for a long moment, then she said, 'It seems you've finally found a Jaghut Tyrant who is more than your match, Lanas Tog.'

The T'lan Imass cocked her head. 'Not Jaghut. Human.'

First in, last out.

Motto of the Bridgeburners

Your friend's face might prove the mask

the daub found in subtle shift

to alter the once familiar visage.

Or the child who formed unseen

in private darkness as you whiled oblivious

to reveal cruel shock as a stone

through a temple's pane.

To these there is no armour on the soul.

And upon the mask is writ the bold word,

echoed in the child's eyes,

a sudden stranger to all you have known.

Such is betrayal.

Death Vigil of Sorulan

Minir Othal

Captain Paran reined in his horse near the smoke-blackened rubble of the East Watch redoubt. He twisted in his saddle for a last look at Capustan's battered walls. Jelarkan's Palace reared tall and dark against the bright blue sky. Streaks of black paint etched the tower like cracks, a symbol of the city's mourning for its lost prince. The next rain would see that paint washed away, leaving no sign. That structure, he had heard, never wore the mortal moment for very long.

The Bridgeburners were filing out through the East Gate.

First in, last out. They're always mindful of such gestures.

Sergeant Antsy was in the lead, with Corporal Picker a step behind. The two looked to be arguing, which was nothing new. Behind them, the soldiers of the other seven squads had lost all cohesion; the company marched in no particular order. The captain wondered at that. He'd met the other sergeants and corporals, of course. He knew the names of every surviving Bridgeburner and knew their faces as well. None the less, there was something strangely ephemeral about them. His eyes narrowed as he watched them walk the road, veiled in dust, like figures in a sun-bleached, threadbare tapestry. The march of armies, he reflected, was timeless.

Horse hooves sounded to his right and he swung to see Silverfox ride up to halt at his side.

'Better we'd stayed avoiding each other,' Paran said, returning his gaze to the soldiers on the road below.

'I'd not disagree,' she said after a moment. 'But something's happened.'

'I know.'

'No, you don't. What you no doubt refer to is not what I'm talking about, Captain. It's my mother — she's gone missing. Her and those two Daru who were caring for her. Somewhere in the city they turned their wagon, left the line. No-one seems to have seen a thing, though of course I cannot question an entire army-'

'What of your T'lan Imass? Could they not find them easily enough?'

She frowned, said nothing.

Paran glanced at her. 'They're not happy with you, are they?'

'That is not the problem. I have sent them and the T'lan Ay across the river.'

'We've reliable means of reconnoitring already, Silverfox-'

'Enough. I do not need to explain myself.'

'Yet you're asking for my help-'

'No. I am asking if you knew anything about it. Those Daru had to have had assistance.'

'Have you questioned Kruppe?'

'He's as startled and dismayed as I am, and I believe him.'

'Well,' Paran said, 'people have a habit of underestimating Coll. He's quite capable of pulling this off all on his own.'

'You do not seem to realize the severity of what they've done. In kidnapping my mother-'

'Hold on, Silverfox. You left your mother to their care. Left? No, too calm a word. Abandoned her. And I have no doubt at all that Coll and Murillio took the charge seriously, with all the compassion for the Mhybe you do not seem to possess. Consider the situation from their point of view. They're taking care of her, day in and day out, watching her wither. They see the Mhybe's daughter, but only from a distance. Ignoring her own mother. They decide that they have to find someone who is prepared to help the Mhybe. Or at the very least grant her a dignified end. Kidnapping is taking someone away from someone else. The Mhybe has been taken away, but from whom? No-one. No-one at all.'

Silverfox, her face pale, was slow to respond. When she did, it was in a rasp, 'You have no idea what lies between us, Ganoes.'

'And it seems you've no idea of how to forgive — not her, not yourself. Guilt has become a chasm-'

'That is rich indeed, coming from you.'

His smile was tight. 'I've done my climb down, Silverfox, and am now climbing up the other side. Things have changed for both of us.'

'So you have turned your back on your avowed feelings for me.'

'I love you still, but with your death I succumbed to a kind of infatuation. I convinced myself that what you and I had, so very briefly, was of far vaster and deeper import than it truly was. Of all the weapons we turn upon ourselves, guilt is the sharpest, Silverfox. It can carve one's own past into unrecognizable shapes, false memories leading to beliefs that sow all kinds of obsessions.'

'Delighted to have you clear the air so, Ganoes. Has it not occurred to you that clinical examination of oneself is yet another obsession? What you dissect has to be dead first — that's the principle of dissection, after all.'

'So my tutor explained,' Paran replied, 'all those years ago. But you miss a more subtle truth. I can examine myself, my every feeling, until the Abyss swallows the world, yet come no closer to mastery of those emotions within me. For they are not static things; nor are they immune to the outside world — to what others say, or don't say. And so they are in constant flux.'

'Extraordinary,' she murmured. 'Captain Ganoes Paran, the young master of self-control, the tyrant unto himself. You have indeed changed. So much so that I no longer recognize you.'

He studied her face, searching for a hint of the feelings behind those words. But she had closed herself to him. 'Whereas,' he said slowly, 'I find you all too recognizable.'

'Would you call that ironic? You see me as a woman you once loved, while I see you as a man I never knew.'

'Too many tangled threads for irony, Silverfox.'

'Perhaps pathos, then.'

He looked away. 'We've wandered far from the subject. I am afraid I can tell you nothing of your mother's fate. Yet I am confident, none the less, that Coll and Murillio will do all they can for her.'

'Then you're an even bigger fool than they are, Ganoes. By stealing her, they have sealed her doom.'

'I didn't know you for the melodramatic type.'

'I am not-'

'She is an old woman, an old, dying woman. Abyss take me, leave her alone-'

'You are not listening!' Silverfox hissed. 'My mother is trapped in a nightmare — within her own mind, lost, terrified. Hunted! I have stayed closer to her than any of you realized. Far closer!'

'Silverfox,' Paran said quietly, 'if she is within a nightmare, then her living has become a curse. The only true mercy is to see it ended, once and for all.'

'No! She is my mother, damn you! And I will not abandon her !'

She wheeled her horse, drove her heels into its flanks.

Paran watched her ride off. Silverfox, what machinations have you wrapped around your mother? What is it you seek for her? Would you not tell us, please, so that we are made to understand that what we all see as betrayal is in fact something else?