The Malazan Empire, page 1022
Her hips throbbed with old pain. We have walked so far. But at last, we make our stand. And we become the fulcrum of the world. And where but upon the fulcrum shall justice be found? Clouds of dust from the work crews lifted to roll over their position. Discomforted by the sting in her eyes and the bitter taste in her mouth, she turned away. ‘Carry on, Brother Diligence.’
Lying prone in the withered grasses with his gaze fixed on the vast camp sprawled in the plain below, Stormy swore under his breath, reached under his belly and dragged free a sharp stone. Beside him, Gesler scratched at his nose and said, ‘That looks ominous, doesn’t it?’
A troop of Perish were marching a half-dozen of their comrades – these ones stripped down weaponless and wearing only their undergarments – out to a trench from which diggers were only now climbing. When they were formed into a line facing that trench, they were made to kneel. Sword blades flashed. Heads rolled and bodies fell.
Gesler grunted. ‘Explains Bent and Roach going mad over those long mounds yesterday.’
Sighing, Stormy said, ‘If we practised that, instead of arguing all the time, Ges, we’d have killed each other a thousand times by now.’
‘Some people hate it when the party ends.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Listen,’ said Stormy, ‘we caught us up with the shits – we should do like Gu’Rull says and cut ’em all down, starting with Tanakalian.’
‘In her worst moments, Krughava might agree. If we didn’t have her under guard, sooner or later she’d be down there trying to do it personally,’ muttered Gesler, ‘but it’d still be wrong. Not…tactical.’
‘Oh, here we go again. High First Fist Sword Prancing Gesler the Great talking tactics again. Lay a wager the rest of them Perish aren’t already waiting in the Assail capital – so instead of taking down five thousand Grey Helms here and now we’ll have to take down twice that number a week from now. How does that make tactical sense?’
‘Krughava thinks she can turn them back, Stormy. But now’s not the time.’
‘She also thinks the sun sets up her ass every night and comes out of her mouth every morning. She’s unhinged, Ges. You can see that, can’t you? Mad as a five-eyed one-whiskered cat—’
‘Hold on…who’s that?’
‘Who? Where?’
‘That girl.’
Stormy fell silent, watching. He could see Tanakalian approaching her, was stunned when the Shield Anvil knelt before her. They were too distant to hear, but by the girl’s gestures – pointing at the trench where the bodies and heads had been dumped – she wasn’t happy about something. And she was giving that backstabbing shit an earful.
‘That must be her,’ Gesler said. ‘The one Faint told us about.’
‘Destriant,’ Stormy grunted. ‘But the question is, how in Hood’s name did she get here?’
‘Warren. She was spat out by the Wolves.’
‘If Krughava’s going to have to face anybody down, it’ll be her.’
‘You’re probably right, Stormy.’ Gesler edged back down the slope of the ridge, and then sat up. After a moment Stormy slid down to join him. ‘It’s this,’ Gesler said, wiping dirt from his hands. ‘The Wolves of War, right? So how come that army’s acting like they don’t even know we’re half a day behind them?’
Stormy scratched in his beard. ‘Wolves do the hunting. They don’t get hunted.’
‘Except by us humans.’
‘Still, might be just never occurred to them to take a look back.’
‘So maybe the Adjunct had it right,’ Gesler said. ‘This army of K’Chain Che’Malle is ready to come down like a knife in the middle of the table.’
‘More like we’re like snakes in the grass, and our fangs are fuckin’ dripping.’ Stormy smiled without humour. ‘Excited yet, Mortal Sword?’
Gesler’s eyes were bright. ‘You?’
‘Nah, you’re bound to mess it all up.’
‘That didn’t last. Thanks.’
‘Just keep your head level, Ges, that’s all I’m asking.’
Gesler’s expression was incredulous. ‘Now that’s rich, Stormy, coming from you.’
‘I’m more battle-hardened these days, Ges. All my wisdom I earned the hard way.’
‘How are you managing to keep a straight face?’
‘That’s what us battle-hardened veterans do best. Now, let’s get back to camp. My mouth is watering at the thought of more armpit fungi and a big tankard brimming with gland juice.’
There is treachery in his heart. Setoc stared down at the beheaded brothers and sisters, feeling the fury of the Wolves, struggling to contain its wild wrath. The presence of the beast gods within her surged mindless as a storm, and again and again she felt as if she was moments from drowning in the deluge. I am Setoc. Leave me to be your voice! Blind rage is pointless – for all that your cause is just, it must be a human mind that guides us all into the war to come.
And this was what Tanakalian did not understand. Or, perhaps, what he feared the most. We must be free to speak – all of us. We must be free to object, to argue – even the Wolves do not understand this. Look at these bodies – they spoke out against the cruel pace…among other things. Above all, they spoke out of fear for the readiness of their fellow soldiers – this army is exhausted.
She turned, faced south, her eyes narrowing on a grassy ridge opposite. If they came for us now, these lizard warriors, we would fall like myrid to the neck-hooks. If they came for us now, I would have to awaken the Wolves. But…the footfall of gods upon the land shall summon like drums of war. Power draws power – too soon, too far away.
Still… I wonder. Why do they not attack?
She turned to see Tanakalian approaching. Another audience. Shall I drive him to his knees again, humiliate him? No. That can wait. She set off to take the two of them a fair distance from the camp, well beyond earshot. Still…treachery in his heart.
Even before he caught up to her he began speaking. ‘Destriant, you must understand. The Perish are bound by strict rules of behaviour. It is this discipline which gives us our strength.’
‘You are destroying this army, Shield Anvil.’
‘The K’Chain Che’Malle—’
‘Have already caught up to us.’
His eyes widened, but for once he did not question her. ‘The Wolves must be sent against them, Destriant! We cannot hope to—’
‘Now that our soldiers can barely stand, no, you’re right: we cannot.’
He drew himself up. ‘This threat was ever present in my mind, Destriant. It was my hope that the K’Chain Che’Malle would be content with escorting the Letherii and Bolkando. But I knew that I could not gamble the lives of my brothers and sisters on that assumption. This is why I drove my soldiers as hard as I did – we must reach the safety of the Forkrul Assail as soon as possible.’
‘But you have failed to do so, Shield Anvil. And what manner of welcome, do you imagine, will the Assail accord us when we arrive with an army already half-dead?’
He was pale and she could see the venom in his eyes. ‘I had no choice.’
‘You were impatient, Shield Anvil. You exulted in your betrayal and in so doing you revealed your true nature too soon – your once-allies know the truth of you now. And they have had time to adjust their tactics.’
‘This is Krughava’s fault! All of it!’
‘There shall be no more executions, Shield Anvil. Worse, your denial of their embrace has made a mockery of your title. I look upon you and I can see, at last, the path that led to the Forkrul Assail.’
Shock twisted his face. ‘What does that mean? I am sworn to the Wolves of Winter!’
‘You are drunk on justice, Shield Anvil, and for all that you imagine you walk a straight line, in truth you stumble and weave. Now you stand before me, deluded in your righteousness, and upon the path where you walked’ – she gestured back towards the bodies in the trench – ‘the corpses of the innocent.’
‘The delusions,’ he said in a low rasp, ‘are not mine, child.’
Setoc smiled. ‘Go on. I am intrigued.’
‘Do you truly believe you can withstand the will of the Forkrul Assail? We shall be brought to heel – but that is not how it was supposed to be. Their aims are petty compared to ours. For all their claims, Destriant, the truth is, I intended to use them. They demand that we kneel? So be it. It matters not. The Wolves are blind to all of this – we think in ways they cannot comprehend, and this game will not be won with slavering jaws and berserk rage. Against us, that has never worked. No, the Wolves of Winter are better off hiding in the forest, in the dark shadows. Leave us to do what must be done, and when all the players are weakened, then shall come the time for our gods to attack – after all, is that not the way of the wolves in the wild?’
‘Tanakalian,’ said Setoc, ‘I agree with you. But alas, I cannot choose the times when the gods speak through me. I will have no control over their power the day it steals my will. Their anger will overwhelm, and through their eyes they will see nothing but blood.’
‘That is not how to fight a war.’
‘I know.’
He stepped forward, a sudden hope in his eyes. ‘Then you must work with me, Destriant! We can win this – win it in truth! Warn the Wolves – if they manifest, within reach of the Forkrul Assail, they will be murdered. Or worse, enslaved.’
‘Then stand before me now as a true Shield Anvil. It is not for you to judge, not for you to deny your brothers and sisters. And above all, it is not for you to take their lives.’
Tanakalian pointed back to the bodies in the trench. ‘They would have deserted, Destriant. They would have fled back to Krughava, carrying with them vital information. Their crime was treason.’
‘They sought to raise a new Mortal Sword,’ she said. ‘For the field of battle, they sought a veteran to command them. You killed them because of a personal slight, Tanakalian.’
‘Matters were far more complicated than you realize.’
She shook her head. ‘You face a crisis, Shield Anvil. Your soldiers have lost confidence in you. It is crucial that you understand – if not for me, this army would return to Krughava.’
‘Unleash the Wolves upon the K’Chain Che’Malle – buy us the time we need.’
‘It will not be.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because they refuse, Shield Anvil.’
‘But…why?’
Setoc shrugged. ‘The K’Chain Che’Malle were never the enemy of the beasts. They were never so insecure as to feel the need to slaughter everything in sight. They were never so frightened, so ignorant, so…pathetic. I believe the Wolves do not see them as deserving of slaughter.’
‘And will they change their minds when those lizards attack us?’
She fixed on him a sharp, searching stare. ‘What will the Wolves witness? K’Chain Che’Malle cutting down…humans.’
‘But we Perish are to be their swords of vengeance!’
‘Then we can only hope that we do not face the K’Chain Che’Malle on a field of battle.’
‘Do you finally comprehend the necessity, the burden upon us, Destriant? We must stand in the shadow of the Forkrul Assail. We must be free to choose where and when to fight, and indeed whom we shall face. Let the Assail believe they have us well shackled and compliant, eager even.’
‘You balance everything on the thinnest knife edge, Shield Anvil.’
‘We are the Grey Helms, Destriant, and we shall serve the Wolves.’
‘Indeed.’
‘And that is why we must continue marching at this pace – leave the lizards no time to think about what to do about us. And if they chase our tails right into the Assail army, well, the moment those two ancient foes set sight upon each other…’
‘We need only step aside.’
He nodded.
Dismissing him for the moment, Setoc turned away. Perhaps. Is this the treachery I sense in Tanakalian? And if I cannot agree with his methods, must I then reject his intentions? But the game he would play…poised between two such deadly enemies…is it possible?
No, ask yourself this instead, Setoc: what alternative do we have? When she turned he was standing as he had been, facing her, and in his face, blind need. ‘Are you clever enough for this, Shield Anvil?’
‘I see no other way, Destriant.’ He hesitated, and then he said, ‘Each night, I pray to the Wolves of Winter—’
She turned away again, and this time with finality. ‘You waste your breath, Shield Anvil.’
‘What?’
‘They don’t understand worshippers,’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘They never did.’
Once more, staggering lost – the darkness and the unbearable pressure, the raging currents that sought to rend the flesh from his bones, and on all sides the half-buried wreckage of the lost. He stumbled over rotted planks from broken hulls, kicked up bleached bones that flashed and spun in milky clouds. Silt-painted amphorae, ingots of tin and lead, a scattering of hundreds of round shields, hammered bronze over crumbling wood. Banded chests collapsed and spilling out their gems and coins – and everywhere the remains of sea creatures, their insensate bodies dragged down into the depths, and the rain from above was unending.
Brys Beddict knew this world. Was this yet another dream? A haunting from his memories? Or had his soul at last returned, to this place he would learn to call home?
Above all, the greatest pressure he felt, the one force which neither the strength of his legs nor the stolid stubbornness of his will could withstand, was that of immense, devastating loneliness. Into death we step alone. Our last journey is made in solitude. Our eyes straining, our hands groping – where are we? We do not know. We cannot see.
It was all he needed. It was all anyone needed. A hand to take ours. A hand reaching out from the gloom. To welcome us, to assure us that our loneliness – that which we knew all our lives and so fought against with each breath we took – that loneliness has at last come to an end.
Making death the most precious gift of all.
A thousand sages and philosophers had closed desperate fingers about the throat of this…this one thing. Even as they recoiled in horror, or, with a defiant cry, leapt forward. Tell us, please – show us your proofs. Tell us oblivion has a face, and upon it the curve of a smile, the blessing of recognition. Is that too much to ask?
But this, he knew, was the secret terror behind all faiths. The choice to believe, when to not believe invited the horror of the meaningless, all these lives empty of purpose, all these hopes relinquished, dropped from the hand, left to sink in the thick mud – with silts raining down until everything is buried.
I knew a man who studied fossils. He had made this pursuit his entire life. He spoke with great animation about his need to solve the mysteries of the distant past. And this guided his life for decades, until, in a confession written the night he took his own life, he finally spoke of the truth he had at last discovered. ‘I have found the secret, the one secret that is the past. The secret is this. There are more life forms in the history of this world than we could ever imagine, much less comprehend. They lived and they died and what little remains tells us only that they once existed. And therein hides the secret, the terrible secret. It’s all for nothing. Nothing but fragments of bone. All of it…for nothing.’
Easy enough to understand how this could have unleashed the black dogs, when comprehension yielded only a vast abyss.
But then Brys found a familiar face rising before him, there in his beleaguered memories, or dream-world – whichever this was. Tehol, and that look in his eyes that one might see the moment before he spat in the face of every god that ever existed, only to then move on to the dour mendics and philosophers and wild-haired poets. Damn them all, Brys. No one really needs an excuse to give up on life, and all the ones you hear you might as well pluck out of a hat. Surrender is easy. Fighting is hard. Brother, I remember once reading about deadly swords that, in the moment of war, would howl with laughter. What better symbol of human defiance than that?
Sure, Brys, I remember that bone collector. He got it all wrong. With that secret he discovered, he had a choice. Despair or wonder. Between the two, which would you choose? Me, I look at the idiocy and futility of existence and how can I not wonder?
Every creature dies, brother – you should know. I’d wager that each and every one of those creatures set out into the darkness, soul crouched and timid, not knowing what waited ahead. Why should us smart animals be unique? Death levels us with the cockroaches and the rats and the earthworms. Faith is more than turning our backs on the abyss and pretending it’s not there, Brys. It’s how we climb up above the cockroaches, top of the ladder, lads! And those seven rungs make all the difference! Eight? Eight rungs, then. Up here, the gods can finally see us, right?
Remember that other sage who said the soul is carried from the body by maggots? Crush a maggot kill a soul. And damn but they’d have to crawl far, so the gods gave them wings, to carry them up into the heavens. Makes for a strangely logical theory, don’t you think? Where was I, brother?
More to the point, where are you?
The face of Tehol drifted away, leaving Brys alone once more. Where am I, Tehol? I am…nowhere.
He stumbled, he groped blindly, he staggered beneath unimaginable weights – too ephemeral to shrug off, yet heavy as mountains nonetheless. And on all sides, unrelieved darkness—
But no…is that light? Is that…
In the distance, a lantern’s yellow flame, murky, flaring and ebbing in the currents.
Who? Do…do you see me?
A hand reaching out, the curve of a smile on a welcoming face.
Who are you? Why do you come for me, if not to bless me with revelation?
The stranger held the lantern low, as if no longer caring what it might reveal, and Brys saw that he was a Tiste Edur, a grey-skinned warrior wearing tattered leathers that streamed behind him like tentacles.
Step by step, he drew closer. Brys stood in the man’s path, waiting.
When the Edur arrived, he looked up, dark eyes staring with an inner fire. His mouth worked, as if he’d forgotten how to speak.
Lying prone in the withered grasses with his gaze fixed on the vast camp sprawled in the plain below, Stormy swore under his breath, reached under his belly and dragged free a sharp stone. Beside him, Gesler scratched at his nose and said, ‘That looks ominous, doesn’t it?’
A troop of Perish were marching a half-dozen of their comrades – these ones stripped down weaponless and wearing only their undergarments – out to a trench from which diggers were only now climbing. When they were formed into a line facing that trench, they were made to kneel. Sword blades flashed. Heads rolled and bodies fell.
Gesler grunted. ‘Explains Bent and Roach going mad over those long mounds yesterday.’
Sighing, Stormy said, ‘If we practised that, instead of arguing all the time, Ges, we’d have killed each other a thousand times by now.’
‘Some people hate it when the party ends.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Listen,’ said Stormy, ‘we caught us up with the shits – we should do like Gu’Rull says and cut ’em all down, starting with Tanakalian.’
‘In her worst moments, Krughava might agree. If we didn’t have her under guard, sooner or later she’d be down there trying to do it personally,’ muttered Gesler, ‘but it’d still be wrong. Not…tactical.’
‘Oh, here we go again. High First Fist Sword Prancing Gesler the Great talking tactics again. Lay a wager the rest of them Perish aren’t already waiting in the Assail capital – so instead of taking down five thousand Grey Helms here and now we’ll have to take down twice that number a week from now. How does that make tactical sense?’
‘Krughava thinks she can turn them back, Stormy. But now’s not the time.’
‘She also thinks the sun sets up her ass every night and comes out of her mouth every morning. She’s unhinged, Ges. You can see that, can’t you? Mad as a five-eyed one-whiskered cat—’
‘Hold on…who’s that?’
‘Who? Where?’
‘That girl.’
Stormy fell silent, watching. He could see Tanakalian approaching her, was stunned when the Shield Anvil knelt before her. They were too distant to hear, but by the girl’s gestures – pointing at the trench where the bodies and heads had been dumped – she wasn’t happy about something. And she was giving that backstabbing shit an earful.
‘That must be her,’ Gesler said. ‘The one Faint told us about.’
‘Destriant,’ Stormy grunted. ‘But the question is, how in Hood’s name did she get here?’
‘Warren. She was spat out by the Wolves.’
‘If Krughava’s going to have to face anybody down, it’ll be her.’
‘You’re probably right, Stormy.’ Gesler edged back down the slope of the ridge, and then sat up. After a moment Stormy slid down to join him. ‘It’s this,’ Gesler said, wiping dirt from his hands. ‘The Wolves of War, right? So how come that army’s acting like they don’t even know we’re half a day behind them?’
Stormy scratched in his beard. ‘Wolves do the hunting. They don’t get hunted.’
‘Except by us humans.’
‘Still, might be just never occurred to them to take a look back.’
‘So maybe the Adjunct had it right,’ Gesler said. ‘This army of K’Chain Che’Malle is ready to come down like a knife in the middle of the table.’
‘More like we’re like snakes in the grass, and our fangs are fuckin’ dripping.’ Stormy smiled without humour. ‘Excited yet, Mortal Sword?’
Gesler’s eyes were bright. ‘You?’
‘Nah, you’re bound to mess it all up.’
‘That didn’t last. Thanks.’
‘Just keep your head level, Ges, that’s all I’m asking.’
Gesler’s expression was incredulous. ‘Now that’s rich, Stormy, coming from you.’
‘I’m more battle-hardened these days, Ges. All my wisdom I earned the hard way.’
‘How are you managing to keep a straight face?’
‘That’s what us battle-hardened veterans do best. Now, let’s get back to camp. My mouth is watering at the thought of more armpit fungi and a big tankard brimming with gland juice.’
There is treachery in his heart. Setoc stared down at the beheaded brothers and sisters, feeling the fury of the Wolves, struggling to contain its wild wrath. The presence of the beast gods within her surged mindless as a storm, and again and again she felt as if she was moments from drowning in the deluge. I am Setoc. Leave me to be your voice! Blind rage is pointless – for all that your cause is just, it must be a human mind that guides us all into the war to come.
And this was what Tanakalian did not understand. Or, perhaps, what he feared the most. We must be free to speak – all of us. We must be free to object, to argue – even the Wolves do not understand this. Look at these bodies – they spoke out against the cruel pace…among other things. Above all, they spoke out of fear for the readiness of their fellow soldiers – this army is exhausted.
She turned, faced south, her eyes narrowing on a grassy ridge opposite. If they came for us now, these lizard warriors, we would fall like myrid to the neck-hooks. If they came for us now, I would have to awaken the Wolves. But…the footfall of gods upon the land shall summon like drums of war. Power draws power – too soon, too far away.
Still… I wonder. Why do they not attack?
She turned to see Tanakalian approaching. Another audience. Shall I drive him to his knees again, humiliate him? No. That can wait. She set off to take the two of them a fair distance from the camp, well beyond earshot. Still…treachery in his heart.
Even before he caught up to her he began speaking. ‘Destriant, you must understand. The Perish are bound by strict rules of behaviour. It is this discipline which gives us our strength.’
‘You are destroying this army, Shield Anvil.’
‘The K’Chain Che’Malle—’
‘Have already caught up to us.’
His eyes widened, but for once he did not question her. ‘The Wolves must be sent against them, Destriant! We cannot hope to—’
‘Now that our soldiers can barely stand, no, you’re right: we cannot.’
He drew himself up. ‘This threat was ever present in my mind, Destriant. It was my hope that the K’Chain Che’Malle would be content with escorting the Letherii and Bolkando. But I knew that I could not gamble the lives of my brothers and sisters on that assumption. This is why I drove my soldiers as hard as I did – we must reach the safety of the Forkrul Assail as soon as possible.’
‘But you have failed to do so, Shield Anvil. And what manner of welcome, do you imagine, will the Assail accord us when we arrive with an army already half-dead?’
He was pale and she could see the venom in his eyes. ‘I had no choice.’
‘You were impatient, Shield Anvil. You exulted in your betrayal and in so doing you revealed your true nature too soon – your once-allies know the truth of you now. And they have had time to adjust their tactics.’
‘This is Krughava’s fault! All of it!’
‘There shall be no more executions, Shield Anvil. Worse, your denial of their embrace has made a mockery of your title. I look upon you and I can see, at last, the path that led to the Forkrul Assail.’
Shock twisted his face. ‘What does that mean? I am sworn to the Wolves of Winter!’
‘You are drunk on justice, Shield Anvil, and for all that you imagine you walk a straight line, in truth you stumble and weave. Now you stand before me, deluded in your righteousness, and upon the path where you walked’ – she gestured back towards the bodies in the trench – ‘the corpses of the innocent.’
‘The delusions,’ he said in a low rasp, ‘are not mine, child.’
Setoc smiled. ‘Go on. I am intrigued.’
‘Do you truly believe you can withstand the will of the Forkrul Assail? We shall be brought to heel – but that is not how it was supposed to be. Their aims are petty compared to ours. For all their claims, Destriant, the truth is, I intended to use them. They demand that we kneel? So be it. It matters not. The Wolves are blind to all of this – we think in ways they cannot comprehend, and this game will not be won with slavering jaws and berserk rage. Against us, that has never worked. No, the Wolves of Winter are better off hiding in the forest, in the dark shadows. Leave us to do what must be done, and when all the players are weakened, then shall come the time for our gods to attack – after all, is that not the way of the wolves in the wild?’
‘Tanakalian,’ said Setoc, ‘I agree with you. But alas, I cannot choose the times when the gods speak through me. I will have no control over their power the day it steals my will. Their anger will overwhelm, and through their eyes they will see nothing but blood.’
‘That is not how to fight a war.’
‘I know.’
He stepped forward, a sudden hope in his eyes. ‘Then you must work with me, Destriant! We can win this – win it in truth! Warn the Wolves – if they manifest, within reach of the Forkrul Assail, they will be murdered. Or worse, enslaved.’
‘Then stand before me now as a true Shield Anvil. It is not for you to judge, not for you to deny your brothers and sisters. And above all, it is not for you to take their lives.’
Tanakalian pointed back to the bodies in the trench. ‘They would have deserted, Destriant. They would have fled back to Krughava, carrying with them vital information. Their crime was treason.’
‘They sought to raise a new Mortal Sword,’ she said. ‘For the field of battle, they sought a veteran to command them. You killed them because of a personal slight, Tanakalian.’
‘Matters were far more complicated than you realize.’
She shook her head. ‘You face a crisis, Shield Anvil. Your soldiers have lost confidence in you. It is crucial that you understand – if not for me, this army would return to Krughava.’
‘Unleash the Wolves upon the K’Chain Che’Malle – buy us the time we need.’
‘It will not be.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because they refuse, Shield Anvil.’
‘But…why?’
Setoc shrugged. ‘The K’Chain Che’Malle were never the enemy of the beasts. They were never so insecure as to feel the need to slaughter everything in sight. They were never so frightened, so ignorant, so…pathetic. I believe the Wolves do not see them as deserving of slaughter.’
‘And will they change their minds when those lizards attack us?’
She fixed on him a sharp, searching stare. ‘What will the Wolves witness? K’Chain Che’Malle cutting down…humans.’
‘But we Perish are to be their swords of vengeance!’
‘Then we can only hope that we do not face the K’Chain Che’Malle on a field of battle.’
‘Do you finally comprehend the necessity, the burden upon us, Destriant? We must stand in the shadow of the Forkrul Assail. We must be free to choose where and when to fight, and indeed whom we shall face. Let the Assail believe they have us well shackled and compliant, eager even.’
‘You balance everything on the thinnest knife edge, Shield Anvil.’
‘We are the Grey Helms, Destriant, and we shall serve the Wolves.’
‘Indeed.’
‘And that is why we must continue marching at this pace – leave the lizards no time to think about what to do about us. And if they chase our tails right into the Assail army, well, the moment those two ancient foes set sight upon each other…’
‘We need only step aside.’
He nodded.
Dismissing him for the moment, Setoc turned away. Perhaps. Is this the treachery I sense in Tanakalian? And if I cannot agree with his methods, must I then reject his intentions? But the game he would play…poised between two such deadly enemies…is it possible?
No, ask yourself this instead, Setoc: what alternative do we have? When she turned he was standing as he had been, facing her, and in his face, blind need. ‘Are you clever enough for this, Shield Anvil?’
‘I see no other way, Destriant.’ He hesitated, and then he said, ‘Each night, I pray to the Wolves of Winter—’
She turned away again, and this time with finality. ‘You waste your breath, Shield Anvil.’
‘What?’
‘They don’t understand worshippers,’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘They never did.’
Once more, staggering lost – the darkness and the unbearable pressure, the raging currents that sought to rend the flesh from his bones, and on all sides the half-buried wreckage of the lost. He stumbled over rotted planks from broken hulls, kicked up bleached bones that flashed and spun in milky clouds. Silt-painted amphorae, ingots of tin and lead, a scattering of hundreds of round shields, hammered bronze over crumbling wood. Banded chests collapsed and spilling out their gems and coins – and everywhere the remains of sea creatures, their insensate bodies dragged down into the depths, and the rain from above was unending.
Brys Beddict knew this world. Was this yet another dream? A haunting from his memories? Or had his soul at last returned, to this place he would learn to call home?
Above all, the greatest pressure he felt, the one force which neither the strength of his legs nor the stolid stubbornness of his will could withstand, was that of immense, devastating loneliness. Into death we step alone. Our last journey is made in solitude. Our eyes straining, our hands groping – where are we? We do not know. We cannot see.
It was all he needed. It was all anyone needed. A hand to take ours. A hand reaching out from the gloom. To welcome us, to assure us that our loneliness – that which we knew all our lives and so fought against with each breath we took – that loneliness has at last come to an end.
Making death the most precious gift of all.
A thousand sages and philosophers had closed desperate fingers about the throat of this…this one thing. Even as they recoiled in horror, or, with a defiant cry, leapt forward. Tell us, please – show us your proofs. Tell us oblivion has a face, and upon it the curve of a smile, the blessing of recognition. Is that too much to ask?
But this, he knew, was the secret terror behind all faiths. The choice to believe, when to not believe invited the horror of the meaningless, all these lives empty of purpose, all these hopes relinquished, dropped from the hand, left to sink in the thick mud – with silts raining down until everything is buried.
I knew a man who studied fossils. He had made this pursuit his entire life. He spoke with great animation about his need to solve the mysteries of the distant past. And this guided his life for decades, until, in a confession written the night he took his own life, he finally spoke of the truth he had at last discovered. ‘I have found the secret, the one secret that is the past. The secret is this. There are more life forms in the history of this world than we could ever imagine, much less comprehend. They lived and they died and what little remains tells us only that they once existed. And therein hides the secret, the terrible secret. It’s all for nothing. Nothing but fragments of bone. All of it…for nothing.’
Easy enough to understand how this could have unleashed the black dogs, when comprehension yielded only a vast abyss.
But then Brys found a familiar face rising before him, there in his beleaguered memories, or dream-world – whichever this was. Tehol, and that look in his eyes that one might see the moment before he spat in the face of every god that ever existed, only to then move on to the dour mendics and philosophers and wild-haired poets. Damn them all, Brys. No one really needs an excuse to give up on life, and all the ones you hear you might as well pluck out of a hat. Surrender is easy. Fighting is hard. Brother, I remember once reading about deadly swords that, in the moment of war, would howl with laughter. What better symbol of human defiance than that?
Sure, Brys, I remember that bone collector. He got it all wrong. With that secret he discovered, he had a choice. Despair or wonder. Between the two, which would you choose? Me, I look at the idiocy and futility of existence and how can I not wonder?
Every creature dies, brother – you should know. I’d wager that each and every one of those creatures set out into the darkness, soul crouched and timid, not knowing what waited ahead. Why should us smart animals be unique? Death levels us with the cockroaches and the rats and the earthworms. Faith is more than turning our backs on the abyss and pretending it’s not there, Brys. It’s how we climb up above the cockroaches, top of the ladder, lads! And those seven rungs make all the difference! Eight? Eight rungs, then. Up here, the gods can finally see us, right?
Remember that other sage who said the soul is carried from the body by maggots? Crush a maggot kill a soul. And damn but they’d have to crawl far, so the gods gave them wings, to carry them up into the heavens. Makes for a strangely logical theory, don’t you think? Where was I, brother?
More to the point, where are you?
The face of Tehol drifted away, leaving Brys alone once more. Where am I, Tehol? I am…nowhere.
He stumbled, he groped blindly, he staggered beneath unimaginable weights – too ephemeral to shrug off, yet heavy as mountains nonetheless. And on all sides, unrelieved darkness—
But no…is that light? Is that…
In the distance, a lantern’s yellow flame, murky, flaring and ebbing in the currents.
Who? Do…do you see me?
A hand reaching out, the curve of a smile on a welcoming face.
Who are you? Why do you come for me, if not to bless me with revelation?
The stranger held the lantern low, as if no longer caring what it might reveal, and Brys saw that he was a Tiste Edur, a grey-skinned warrior wearing tattered leathers that streamed behind him like tentacles.
Step by step, he drew closer. Brys stood in the man’s path, waiting.
When the Edur arrived, he looked up, dark eyes staring with an inner fire. His mouth worked, as if he’d forgotten how to speak.
