Fall of Light (78 page)

‘In smoke we dwell, shrouding us in the weariest of days. Do you see this ash? The last of the charcoal. Soon will come to us the stench of poor coal, and the iron will be brittle, red and short. It’s the sulphur, you see.’ He selected another piece of slag and peered at it. ‘We beat order into the world and make a song of smoke, but such music is too harsh, or not harsh enough, for the soul is never as strong as it believes itself, nor ever as weak as it fears. We are, in all, middling creatures, eager to bedeck our lives in trappings of grandeur. Self-importance. But still the smoke remains, blinding us, and what tears find our cheeks are but wet signifiers of irritation, damp whispers of discomfort. The air soon takes them away, to make each face a blank page.’ He set the rough piece of slag back down. ‘And now, this is all I see, here through the smoke. Faces like blank pages. I know none of them, yet imagine that I should. The confusion frightens me. I am stalked by what I once knew and haunted by the man I once was. You cannot know how that feels.’

‘Milord, what has happened to the Hust iron?’

Something flickered in Henarald’s blue eyes, like pale sunlight upon a blade. ‘Born of smoke – I never imagined how it would feel, this imprisonment. Is it any wonder we cry? Wrapped in flesh, drawn down, muscle to match the fuller’s peen, bent and swaged, the patina writ like poetry, yearning for a voice that might be music, only to yield nothing but cries of anguish. Iron is a prison, my friend, and escape is impossible when you are the bars.’

‘I never believed them alive, milord. In all my years, wielding this sword at my side, I told myself that I heard nothing living in its voice. Others swore otherwise. Many winced upon releasing the blade from its scabbard. They marched into battle with visages of dread. For one man, a fine soldier, that voice became his own cry of terror—’

Henarald waved dismissively. ‘Terror lives a brief span. When there is no possible escape, madness proves a quick and sure refuge.’ An odd smile twisted the old man’s gaunt features. ‘Iron and flesh alike.’

‘Milord—’

‘The forges are dying. The age of the Hust ends. We burned our way into a world of ash. Could you even imagine, my friend, how it felt? The day I walked a forest of stumps and holes, of ravaged ground, roots clawing the sky, and saw upon all sides the ledger of my enterprise, my sordid fever? Did I think the new vistas promised escape? Did I set my gaze upon distant hills, verdant with nature, and but lick my lips?’ He shuddered suddenly, and the wool slipped down to reveal the bones of his shoulders prominent beneath thin skin. The man was naked beneath the robe. ‘I might have. I might have. Mother bless me, but I might have.’

The madness of iron was a difficult, terrible thing to witness. Galar Baras looked away, chilled by the stone bench, the frigid, flake-filled air, this mocking knot of garden. After a moment he rose, stepped close to his lord, and returned the robe to its place upon Henarald’s shoulders. He saw the tears running down upon the man’s spalled cheeks, freezing white and glistening in the deep wrinkles.

‘Industry, milord. The demands of progress. These are forces the tide of which we cannot withstand. There is no single man or woman to blame. The crime, if such a thing could be said to exist, is our nature, and our nature we cannot deny, nor defeat.’

Henarald looked up with watery eyes. ‘You believe this thing, Galar Baras?’ he asked in a hoarse whisper.

‘I do, milord. If not the Hust bloodline upon the anvil, then another, or yet another. The Jaghut alone displayed the proper courage, to refuse their own natures, to turn their backs upon progress, but even then, milord, their final congress was one of destruction and abandonment.’

‘The Jaghut? The Jaghut, yes. They unravelled the iron, released the screams. So she told me, when she sat here with me, beside the fountain, and touched my brow.’

‘Milord? Who?’

He frowned. ‘The Azathanai, named by the Tiste Andii. What was that name? Yes, now I remember. T’riss, born of the Vitr. She sat with me, as I wept in the wake of my gift to Lord Anomander. Upon a night when I could hear the breaking of my soul.’

‘She came here?’

His expression drained into something lifeless, spun so far inward that he seemed a corpse. His next words fell flat, devoid of inflection. ‘The realms are bound. Beaten and twisted. They tremble to the pressure and yearn to burst apart. Wrapped and folded, wrapped and folded, quenched in the fires of chaos. Within the Hust iron, my friend, Mother bless me, I imprisoned a thousand realms. A thousand and more.’ He paused, eyes slightly widening as they remained fixed upon the slag heap. ‘She showed me, with her horse of grass, her woven cloak, her russet sword. Magic resists imprisonment – and yet, I worked unknowing, blissfully uncomprehending of my crimes. The forges are dying, as they must, and the world will end, as it must.’ He reached up, set a trembling finger upon his brow. ‘Here, with a single caress, she gave me leave. And now here I dwell, in this place. This quick and sure refuge.’ Suddenly smiling, Henarald reached down to select another piece of slag. He studied it intently. ‘We deem this waste. Why? It has all the shout of stone, freed of the weight of iron, smelling only of usage. Waste? No more than a corpse, and it takes a cold soul to deem that detritus.’

‘Milord, I beg you – tell me more of the Hust iron, and these realms of which you speak.’

Henarald blinked. ‘Realms?’ His face twisted. ‘You fool! Here I speak of the beauty that is waste, the beauty that is usefulness exhausted. I speak of the freedom in each piece of slag, in each bone upon the field. See how this one curls? Is that not the most perfect smile? It revels in its escape. Beyond our grasp now, don’t you understand? Like the ashes rising from the last chimneys, or the wretched sulphur in the coal. Like the barren hillsides, or the mined-out pits. Our industry promises immortality, and yet behold, the only immortal creation it achieves is the wasteland!’ He leaned over, plunging his hands into the heap of slag. ‘Listen! Bury me in a mound of this treasure, Galar Baras. A barrow constructed of my legacy, piece by piece. Imbue the gesture with ritual, and each one of you select a single fragment. Build the mound by procession, suitably solemn. I would my bones join the pointless concert of freedom. Pronounce me useless and so bless my remains with everlasting peace.’

Shaken, Galar Baras stepped back. He bowed to Henarald – the gesture unseen by the lord, who now sought to embrace the pile of slag with both arms, slipping down to his knees upon the frozen ground beside the fountain’s wall – and then departed the garden.

When such a man loses his way, we are all left feeling lost. We flee, and yet carry with us something of the infection, jarred into imbalance, reeling in our own minds like a drunkard.

He found himself in a broad corridor, a grand causeway with niches upon each wall, in which stood mundane objects fashioned from metal. They marked a progression, from copper and tin to bronze and iron, from cast to wrought, poured to drawn and folded, an evolution of metallurgy, as if inviting the notion of advancement with the ease of taking a step, and then another, and another. The intention, he well understood, was one of triumph, of wild energies tamed, subjugated. And yet, he now realized, not one object on display revealed the discarded leavings of its making: more than just slag and tailings, but also the bitter taste of the smoke from its forging, the stench of burned hair and flesh, the dusty surrender of wood and sap, streams and rivers fouled, the countless lives altered, for good or ill, by industry’s manic zeal.

Despondent, he walked slowly down the corridor until he came to the last niche, which was empty. This vacant space announced the birth of Hust iron. The tale of that absence was one he’d always thought both unlikely and perverse. No object made of that metal, it was said, welcomed the stripping away of function, of value and labour, the reduction to a curiosity, an offering solely for display. The tale was well known of the moment when a Hust sword, bared, was set in the niche. Its howl was heard throughout the estate, and it had been unceasing, deafening. Until recently, Galar Baras had thought the story apocryphal.

Now, he halted opposite the empty niche and stared into the poignant absence.

It had been midday, snow wet upon the ground, when at last the officers of the Hust Legion were fully assembled at the wagons. Amid the sharp unease there was a current of anticipation among the prisoners. If freedom had a cost, and if that charge was the cruel gift of Hust weapons and armour, then this was the moment of consummation, and bound to the notion of freedom there was power. Men and women who had lived in cages, they were the starved before the feast.

Among the officers, only two held back, visibly reluctant to join the others. The woman Rance, who had drowned her own babe, stood beside Wareth. Her wringing hands were so red Galar thought them scalded, and her face was ashen with dread. As for Wareth, well, Galar Baras understood the man’s sickly visage, his slumped shoulders and the animal panic flitting about in his gaze as the tarps were drawn back from the nearest wagon.

Captain Castegan had taken a malicious pleasure in finding Wareth’s old sword among the wrapped weapons on the bed. Its hide sheath had been marked to distinguish it from the others, with a series of runes branded into the leather. They were the marks of a weaponsmith when, upon completing and then testing a blade’s will, it was found to be flawed. In this instance, of course, it was not the iron at fault, but its wielder.

With a half-smile, Castegan clearly intended to make a ceremony of delivering the sword to Wareth. Furious, Galar Baras set out, marshalling hard words for the old man. But to Castegan’s surprise Wareth stepped forward and, before the captain could embellish the moment further, plucked the wrapped sword from the veteran’s hands. He then stripped away the hide to reveal the naked blade.

Galar Baras saw the weapon jolt in Wareth’s grip, as if seeking to twist round to cut its owner, but Wareth steadied the sword, the muscles of his wrist bunching with the effort. And from the man came a wry smile that he held with bitter disdain as he met Castegan’s eyes. ‘Thank you, captain,’ he said.

‘It wants your blood.’

‘Enough, Castegan,’ warned Galar Baras as he drew nearer.

The moment had been seen by the others. There had been gasps upon witnessing the will of the sword, and some of the anticipation among the prisoners drained away.

Even then, Galar could not be certain that the sword’s sudden twist had not belonged to some wayward, suicidal impulse from Wareth himself. But, after a moment’s contemplation, that seemed unlikely. After all, in addition to wilful stupidity, suicide also took courage.

‘Best sheathe it soon, lieutenant,’ Castegan said. ‘You wouldn’t want an accident.’

The sword had begun moaning, and that in turn woke the other weapons still on the wagon, raising a mournful dirge.

Quickly returning to the wagon, Castegan gestured to Seltin Ryggandas. Expression bleak, the quartermaster directed one of his aides to begin distributing the arms.

The first prisoner to step forward to accept a sword was the blacksmith, Curl.

Another wagon had been brought up, this one stacked with standard scabbards of wood, bronze and leather, and after taking a Hust sword into his hands Curl was directed towards that one. The man unwrapped the blade as he made his way to the second wagon. When the cover fell away, he halted as if struck. His sword had begun laughing. Quickly the laughter rose into a manic cackle.

In shock, Curl flung the weapon to the ground.

The sword shrieked its glee, shivering on the half-frozen mud.

‘Pick it up!’

Galar Baras was not sure who had shouted that command, but Curl reached down and collected up the weapon. He seemed to struggle to hold on to it as he hurried over to the second wagon. Accepting a scabbard he quickly slammed the weapon home. Its terrible laughter was muted, but only by the scabbard itself.

Something is wrong. I have never heard
—

Wareth moved up beside Galar Baras and said, ‘They have been driven mad, sir.’

‘That is ridiculous, Wareth. They are not sentient. There is nothing living within that iron.’

‘You still hold to that, sir?’

Galar Baras made no reply, stung by the disbelief in Wareth’s tone.

‘The others have lost their lust for power,’ Wareth then observed of the prisoners, who had all drawn back from the wagons. ‘And these are the officers, since you insist on calling them that. How will it be when we equip everyone else in this camp? Granted, more than a few will join in the laughter, being utterly mad already. But most, sir, well, they just made mistakes in their lives. And were busy paying for them.’

‘Wareth, make Rebble the next one.’

‘Commander, I doubt I can make Rebble do anything he’s not of a mind to do.’

‘Just convey my order.’

Nodding, Wareth walked over to the tall, bearded man. They began arguing in low tones.

Galar glanced over at Rance. ‘You after Rebble,’ he said.

‘I tried telling Wareth,’ she said in a brittle voice. ‘I don’t like blood. My … my first night of womanhood wasn’t … not a good memory, that is. Sir. I don’t want to be here. I can’t be a soldier, sir.’

‘It’s that, or the corps of cutters.’

‘But that would be—’

‘I’m sure it would,’ Galar snapped.

At last, Rebble moved, but instead of making his way to the weapons, he strode to the wagon bearing the scabbards. Collecting one, he faced the other wagon. Then, with an oath, he approached. Reaching the aide he snatched the wrapped sword from the woman’s hands. Tearing the hide away he raised the suddenly shrieking blade before his own face, and snarled, ‘Save it for the fucking enemy!’

The sword’s scream intensified, and from the wagon the moaning sharpened, rising in pitch, and then broke into gleeful laughter.

The prisoners were all backing away. Galar could see, beyond his officers, a crowd gathering from the main camp. The air was taut now, on the very edge of panic.

Rebble sheathed the sword with shaking hands.