Forge of Darkness (The Kharkanas Trilogy #1)

by Steven Erikson

She mocked him at every turn, and a dozen times each day he silently vowed that he was done with it, all of it, only to once more find himself answering her summons – which seemed to be uttered ever more imperiously – and finding himself, yet again, the arrow-butt to her barbs.

‘I imagine her suitors have all given up,’ Silchas answered. ‘Each draws near, only to see too sharply his own failings, and in shame pulls away, never to return.’

‘She seems to have suffered nothing in her solitude,’ Silchas observed, ‘nor do I see any weakness in her attention to grace and perfection. In elegant remoteness, she arrives like a work of high art, and you may well desire to edge ever closer, seeking flaws in the maker’s hand, but the closer you get, the more she blurs before your eyes.’

If there was neither a time before nor a time after, then was not the moment of creation eternal and yet for ever instantaneous? Was it not still in its birth and at the same time forever dying?

After all, Mother Dark had, before embracing Darkness, been a mortal Tiste woman – little different from Finarra herself.

The proof, as far as she was concerned, was found in the currency used, because it was always the same. From the Forulkan commander ordering her soldiers into battle, to the paying of a fine for baring a weapon on the streets of Kharkanas: disobey at peril to your life. If not your life then your freedom, and if not your freedom then your will, and if not your will, then your desire. What are these? They are coins of varying measure, a gradient of worth and value.

Just as there were many kinds of freedom, so too were there many kinds of prison.

Arathan welcomed the relative silence, although he too felt worn out. He hoped that for the rest of this journey he would be ignored by everyone. Life was easier that way. With attention came expectation, and with expectation there was pressure, and he did not do well with pressure. If he could slide through the rest of his life, unnoticed, unremarkable in any way, he would be content enough. The

There is but one measure to the wisdom of a people, and that is the staying hand.

The minds of some were shuttered things, singular of focus and thus narrow in their interests. They thrived as impediments to wonder. One day, he imagined, every place in every land might be filled with such men and women, each one busy draining colour from the world.

Rue the realm where bold laughter was met with disapproving frowns and sullen agitation! Serious people never stopped waging their war on joy and pleasure, and they were both relentless and tireless. In the making of his life he stood against them, and saw in his steadfastness a most worthy virtue.

‘Hah! Look upon me, friend, in the manner that would a true-blooded woman! See this golden hair? These bright dancing eyes? The grave assurance in my comportment? I am a mystery, a lure of well-hidden depths. To touch me is to brush jewels and gems; to stand too close is to swoon in heady spice – into my very arms. These gifts I have, friend, are not made of breadth or height; neither of weight nor robust presence. I could be a squirrel of a man and still women would fall in like bugs on a cup rim!’

‘Setch is weak, is what he is. To have them both come from my loins shrinks my sack with shame.’ ‘Amend that defect before you stand naked before Mother Dark.’ ‘In so many ways I will give thanks to the darkness surrounding her.

Thoughts unspoken left no scars upon others. The fate of the inner landscape of the one doing the thinking was, of course, entirely different. This was the procession, he knew, of the failing mind, and in that failure was found a place where many unspoken thoughts came to rest; and it was a place of prejudice, hatred and ignorance.

‘If Mother Dark had rejected the element of Night and taken the element of Silence instead,’ mused Resh, ‘there would be peace everlasting. ’ ‘You suggest then,’ Caplo asked, ‘that all instances of violence involve some manner of betrayal?’ ‘I do, and it shall be first and pre-eminent in my list of lessons never learned.’

To know too much is to lose the wonder of mystery. In answering every question we forget the value of not knowing.’ ‘There is no value in not knowing. Roll that thick hide of yours, Resh, and shake free of this nonsense. The value of not knowing? What value?’ ‘You have no answer and so you conclude that none exists. And there in your reaction, O pallid wretch, lies the lesson.’

This was the lure of violence, and violence did not begin at the moment of physical assault; it began earlier, in all the thoughts that led up to it, in that storm of vehemence and venom. Rage beckoned violence, like those call-and-answer songs among the Deniers.

‘I choose to paint death, yes, and you ask why – in horror and revulsion, you ask why? I choose to paint death, my friend, because life is too hard to bear.

A man who could offer weakness in strength was a man at peace with power.

‘When one loves all things of the world, when one has that gift of joy, it is not the armour against grief that you might think it to be. Such a person stands balanced on the edge of sadness – there is no other way for it, because to love as he does is to see clearly.

If you wound him – a thousand small wounds of disregard or indifference – until he stumbles and weakens, sorrow will find him and cut through to his heart.’

We’re all the same. Every cause is just when it is your own, when feelings count for something. But sometimes, among some people, feelings count for nothing at all. This was the soldier’s gift, he supposed.

‘Power should never be a gift,’ Arathan said. ‘An interesting assertion, from one so powerless. But I will listen. Go on.’ ‘Gifts are rarely appreciated,’ Arathan said, and in his mind he was remembering his first night with Feren. ‘And the one who receives knows only confusion. At first. And then hunger … for more. And in that hunger, there is expectation, and so the gift ceases being a gift, and becomes payment, and to give itself becomes a privilege and to receive it a right. By this all sentiment sours.’

‘I do claim stupidity as an illness,’ Varandas said with a nod, ‘and have written a fine treatise arguing my point. Badly, of course.’ ‘I’ve not read it.’ ‘No one has. I am satisfied to think of writing as a desire worth having, whereas its practical exercise is a turgid ordeal I leave to lesser folk, since I have better things to do with the sentient fragments of my brain.’

‘It may surprise you, but your impertinence pleases me. To an extent. The young seek quick appeasement and would flit like hummingbirds from one gaudy flower to the next, and so long as the pace remains torrid, why, they deem theirs a worthy life. Adventure and excitement, yes? But I have seen raindrops rush down a pane of glass with similar wit and zeal. And I accord their crooked adventure a value to match.’

the kind that comes from having no answers to anything.’ ‘Then is the absence of belief the same as ignorance?’ ‘As much as the presence of belief can be ignorant.’

I intend to hold on to control of the Houseblades for as long as I can, and with luck, if that is even a fraction longer than the enemy’s commander is able to do, we will win. This is the truth of all war. The side that holds its nerve longer is the side that wins.’ ‘No different then, from any argument.’ He smiled at her. ‘Just so, hostage. You are right to see war in this way. Each battle is an argument. Even the language is shared. We yield ground. We surrender. We retreat. In each, you can find a match to any knockdown scrap between husband and wife, or mother and daughter. And this should tell you something else.’ She nodded. ‘Victory is often claimed, but defeat is never accepted.’