Fall of Light (54 page)

Grizzin Farl collected up the jug and refilled his tankard. ‘Unearned?’

‘Need I explain that? Power too easily come by.’

‘Sir,’ said Grizzin, ‘you are a highborn. Noble in title, within an aristocracy of privilege in which the premise of what is earned or unearned matters not. Chosen by birth is no choice at all. Yet your kind cleave the child, by rules unquestioned, to cast one into privilege and the other deprivation. This civil war of yours, Silchas Ruin, poses a challenge to all of that. And now … sorcery, at the hands of anyone, provided they apply discipline and a diligence in its mastery … why, I see Urusander’s cause bolstered, at the expense of your own.’

Baring his teeth, Silchas said, ‘I am not blind to the imbalance! This magic will undermine us, perhaps fatally so. There is order in hierarchy, after all, and it is a necessary order, lest all fall into chaos.’

‘Agreed, chaos is most unwelcome,’ said Grizzin Farl. ‘Surely a new hierarchy will emerge, but by its own rules. You will see your old aristocracy shattered, sir. Will Lord Urusander take the magic into his own embrace, or simply seek out those adepts most likely to become masters? Will the new age see the rule of sorcerer kings and queens? If so, then any commoner can take the throne. Kurald Galain, my friend, totters upon a precipitous brink, yes?’

‘I still await words that comfort, Azathanai.’ Silchas drank from his tankard, and then, as a server arrived with a new pitcher, the lord reached across to drag it near. ‘You perturb the waters for your own amusement, I suspect.’

Grizzin Farl let his gaze slide away from the warrior opposite him, out into the tavern’s sullen crowd, the layers of pipe- and woodsmoke. Conversations were rarely worth listening to, when people were in the habit of repeating themselves, as if by each utterance they sought a different response.
Find a truth and make it into a chant. Find a falsehood and do the same. Assemble truths and lies and name it faith. Taverns and temples, see the libations flow, and all the sacrifices made. Here is a truth. Wherever mortals gather, ritual will rise, and in each place of ritual, habit and gesture invoke a hidden comfort. In these patterns, we would map our world.

‘You do not deny it, then?’

Grizzin started, and then sighed. ‘My friend, forgive me for mocking your noble pretensions. I see them too clearly to do otherwise.’

‘Why do you call me friend? Why, more to the point, do I consider you the same?’

‘My words anger you, Silchas, and yet you indulge that anger for but a moment before you see through the red haze, and must accept the truth of what I say, no matter how bleak or uncomplimentary it proves. I do admire this in you, sir.’

‘When we converse, I feel the strain of my temper.’

‘It will not snap,’ Grizzin said.

‘If it did? You clearly do not fear it.’

‘I gave up on fear long ago.’

At that, Silchas leaned forward, eyes narrow. ‘Now that is an admission! Tell me, pray, how you managed it?’

A brief flash clouded Grizzin’s mind as he saw himself reflected in broken glass, staggering from a place of slaughter. ‘When we lash out,’ he said, ‘we do so from fear. Recall, if you will, your every breaking of temper, the shock of it once you have struck, once you have done damage. In a sane mind, the act makes one recoil, dousing the fires inside. And with it, the first fear dies, only to have a new one take its place – the fear of the consequences of your violence. Two arguments, but only one voice. Two causes, but only one response. When you at last understand this, my friend, then the voice that is fear grows most tiresome. It repeats itself and so proves its own stupidity, and if by its stupid words you are led into violence, a relinquishing of all control, then you can only be a fool. A fool,’ Grizzin Farl repeated, ‘gullible and not very bright. When you match the stupidity of your fear, you insult your own intelligence, and with it all belief in yourself.’

Silchas was studying him. ‘Azathanai, you must understand, an entire people can be consumed by such fear.’

‘And so it lashes out, often against itself – against kin, against neighbour. Fear, in such a time, becomes a wild fever, burning all that it touches. And yes, it is utterly stupid.’

‘Imagine, Azathanai, that fear when given the power possible in magic. You invite a world in flames.’

‘Where you will, perhaps, thrive?’

With a troubled expression now on his pale face, Silchas sat back once more. ‘You have swung me about, Azathanai, to winter’s worship. May the season never end.’

‘When will you summon the Hust Legion?’

Silchas blinked, and then shrugged. ‘Soon, I think. It is absurd. We assemble a rabble armed with insane iron, to fling against the realm’s finest army.’

‘And the Houseblades of the Great Houses?’

‘I am surprised this interests you.’

‘The Houseblades do not, to be honest,’ admitted Grizzin Farl. ‘But I see something awaiting the Hust Legion – too vague to be certain. Only a sense of foreboding, as if a fate is taking shape, a future as yet unimaginable.’

‘They may well be cursed now,’ Silchas said. ‘A legion made into our realm’s madness. There is no glory to be found walking from graves, Grizzin Farl. Nor from mining pits, or freshly dug barrows. Whatever spirit Hust Henarald imbued into the iron from his forges, the murder of three thousand men and women now taints it. So, you wonder why I still hesitate in summoning such an army?’

‘The fate awaiting them is beyond you, Lord Silchas.’

‘Indeed? Then who will deliver it?’

‘I am poor at prophecy,’ Grizzin Farl said. ‘Still, though I see nothing but a blur, I hear a voice, and words spoken in the tone of command.’

‘But not mine.’

‘No. The voice I hear belongs to Anomander.’

Silchas let out a sudden sigh. ‘Then he returns. Good. I am truly done with this. Tell me, Azathanai, are there any quicker paths to sorcery?’

The question ran like ice through Grizzin Farl. He dropped his gaze to the tankard in his hands, seeing the lurid play of lamplight upon the surface of the ale within. ‘None,’ he said, ‘you would welcome.’

‘I would hear them nonetheless.’

Grizzin Farl shook his head, and rose. ‘I have kept the historian waiting too long. My friend, discount my last words. They were ill advised. The days ahead will prove desperate enough, I wager, without the lure of such recourse.’ Bowing to the lord, the Azathanai left the table.

Protector of nothing, not this path, not any path. When next you find me, Silchas Ruin, I will of course yield to your demands, seeing in you the ambition which you will name necessity. The easier path is not one to welcome – I said as much – but in the slaying of fear, my warning will not stop you, will it?

Draconus. Caladan Brood. Unknown sister T’riss. See what we begin here. The wolves are awake, and we drip words in a trail of blood.

Let them find their own hunger, as they must.

But oh, see what we begin here.

Outside the tavern, in the street surrounded by the brittle city, the sky above looked strangely shattered, with dark and light and colours splaying out like shards, as if made of stained glass cast awry. Grizzin Farl studied it with watery eyes.

Cynicism and rage, both drunk upon the other.
It’s enough to make one feel young again.

He set off for the Citadel. It was time to speak to the historian.

  *   *   *

Orfantal halted in the doorway. He saw the historian, Rise Herat, seated in a chair that had been positioned near the hearth, which was only now flickering into life. The room was chilly, unlit except for the lapping flames rising around the wood.

‘He’s here,’ said the historian, gesturing to the floor beyond his boots. ‘Do come in, Orfantal. Ribs arrived in such a pant I believe you have worn the beast out.’

Still clutching his wooden sword, Orfantal walked over. The dog lying before the hearthstone was fast asleep.

‘Too many battles for one day, Orfantal. He’s not as young as he once was.’

‘When I’m a warrior, I will have pet wolves at my side. Two of them. Trained for war.’

‘Ah, you see a long war ahead of us, then.’

Orfantal sat down on the edge of the hearthstone, with the heat against his left side. ‘Cedorpul says these things never go away. If not one reason, then another. Because we love fighting.’

‘It wasn’t always so. There was a time, Orfantal, when we loved hunting. But even then, I will grant you, there was a lust for blood. When the time came that we tamed those beasts we would eat, still the hunters went out. They were like children who refuse to grow up – there is a power there, in that ability to decide life and death. The innocence of the prey is irrelevant to such children. Their need is too selfish to consider the victims of their indulgence.’

Orfantal reached down to scratch behind Ribs’s ragged ear. The dog sighed in its sleep. ‘Gripp Galas cut a man’s throat open. From ear to ear. Then he hacked the head off, and carved something on the brow.’

Rise Herat said nothing for a long moment, and then he grunted. ‘Well. We are indeed in a war, Orfantal. Gripp Galas saved your life, did he not?’

‘He killed that man for his horse.’

‘He saw the need, one must assume. Gripp Galas is an honourable man. You were his responsibility. I would wager what you saw there was Gripp’s anger. We’re in a time when to be upon the other side is itself a crime, with death the punishment.’

‘Heroes don’t get angry.’

‘Oh but they do, Orfantal. They most certainly do. Often, it’s anger that drives them to heroic acts.’

‘What makes them so angry?’

‘The unfairness of the world. When it’s made personal, the hero becomes indignant, and filled with refusal. The hero will not abide what it seems must be. These are not thoughts. They are acts. Deeds. Something unutterable made manifest, and in witnessing, our breaths are taken away. We cannot but admire audacity, and the way in which it defies the rules.’

‘I don’t think Gripp Galas is a hero,’ said Orfantal. The fire on his left was building, flames wrapping round the cluttered shafts of wood. Soon it would grow too hot for him to sit where he was, but not yet.

‘Perhaps not,’ the historian said. ‘He is, I fear, too pragmatic a man for heroism.’

‘What are you doing in Grizzin Farl’s chamber?’

‘Awaiting his return. And you?’

‘Looking for Ribs. He comes here a lot. They’re friends, Ribs and Grizzin Farl.’

‘I recall hearing that the Azathanai plucked the beast from the Dorssan Ryl. Saved the dog’s life, in fact. This will forge a bond, I’m sure.’

‘Lord Silchas is Grizzin’s friend, too.’

‘Is he now?’

Orfantal nodded. ‘It’s the helplessness they share.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘That’s what Grizzin says. The white shadow to a brother’s dark power. That skin, he says, will undo Silchas, even though it’s unfair. People are driven to do things, says Grizzin, by what they think is lacking in them.’

‘The Azathanai has many things to say to you, it seems.’

‘It’s because I’m young,’ Orfantal explained. ‘He talks to me because I don’t understand what he’s talking about. That’s what he says. But I understand him better than he thinks. I dreamed once there was a giant hole in the ground behind me, and it kept growing, and I kept running to keep from falling in, and I ran through walls of stone, and mountains, and across the bottom of deep lakes, and then ice and snow. I ran and ran, to keep from falling into the hole. If it wasn’t for that hole, I could never have run through a stone wall, or all the rest.’

‘And so people are driven to do by what’s lacking in them.’

Orfantal nodded. He edged away from the growing flames, but the room beyond was still cold.

‘How proceed your studies?’

Shrugging, Orfantal reached down to stroke Ribs’s flank. ‘Cedorpul’s busy, with all that magic and stuff. I miss my mother.’

‘Your aunt, you mean.’

‘Yes. My aunt.’

‘Orfantal, have you met the other hostage in the Citadel?’

He nodded. ‘She’s young. And shy. She runs away from me, up into the safe room. Then she locks the door so I can’t get in.’

‘You’re chasing her?’

‘No, I’m trying to be nice.’

‘I suggest trying to be somewhat less … direct. Let her come to you, Orfantal.’

‘I miss Sukul Ankhadu, too. She drinks wine and everything. It’s as if she’s already grown up. She knows about all the Great Houses, and the nobles, and who can be trusted and who can’t.’

‘She is not aligned, then, with sister Sharenas.’

‘I don’t know.’ Finally, the heat was too much. Orfantal rose and walked a few paces from the hearth. ‘Cedorpul told me about the sorcery. The Terondai’s gift to all of the Tiste Andii.’

‘Oh? And have you explored the magic for yourself, Orfantal? I should warn you of the risks—’

‘I can do this,’ Orfantal cut in, raising his arms out to the sides. Darkness suddenly billowed, coalesced, making forms that made the historian recoil in his chair. ‘These are my wolves,’ Orfantal said.

From before the hearthstone, Ribs bolted, claws clattering and skidding on the flagstones as he pelted for the doorway.

The conjurations had indeed assumed wolf-like shapes, but tall enough at the shoulder to surpass Orfantal’s own height. Eyes glowed amber.

‘I can go into them,’ Orfantal continued. ‘I can jump right out of my body and go into them, both of them, at the same time – but they have to stay together when I do that. If I go into just one of them, I can still make the other one follow me, or do whatever I tell it to do. It feels strange, historian, to walk on four legs. Is this the same as what the Jheleck can do?’

‘Orfantal, if you would, send them away again.’

Shrugging, Orfantal dropped his arms. The blackness swirled, then dispersed like ink in water.

‘No,’ Rise Herat said, ‘that was nothing like what the Jheleck do. Theirs is an ancient magic, more … bestial, and wild. To witness it, I’m told, burns the eyes. Your … conjurations … they were subtler. Orfantal, have you shown anyone else this power of yours?’

‘Not yet.’