Forge of Darkness (The Kharkanas Trilogy #1)

by Steven Erikson

Earlier, she had announced to them that they had killed their ancient river god. In binding water to mundane uses, in taking away its freedom, they had slain the very entity they sought to worship.

‘The throne is transformed,’ said Resh. ‘Its place of honour now is in the temple. Upon it sits Mother Dark, and by title it is no longer the Royal Throne, but the Throne of Night.’

‘Not all thoughts are uttered to please,’ Rise said. ‘This does not diminish their value.

Her gaze fixing upon Anomander, she said, ‘Night will claim your skin. Before your eyes, darkness will be revealed. But I will make visible the defiance within you, as a gift.’

The woman shrugged. ‘The sea does not dream of you.’

A moment later, High Priestess Syntara staggered into view. Her skin was the hue of alabaster, her dark eyes like pools of ink.

Before them, motionless on the Throne of Night, sat Mother Dark, black-clothed in loose silks, black-haired, and now black-skinned.

Mother Dark sighed. ‘You ever trouble me, First Son. One day I shall tell you of your mother.’

The purity of your skin is now a symbol – the light within you is a power. Above all, High Priestess, tell him this: in darkness there is ignorance. In light there is justice.’

‘I am to be a beacon, then? Still a High Priestess, but now in the name of light?’ ‘It is within you.’ She glanced away, still smiling. ‘Liossan.

Ribs was back around her legs, trembling. ‘Why is your dog so scared, Rancept?’ ‘Memories of the Ay,’ he said in a mutter.

‘Her face is polished wood, a deep brown that seems to hold gold in its depths. The wood has grown over the bones of her face. Once, that face would have been fair-skinned, the features heavy but open to all pleasures and joys – this is how the Dog-Runners are.

‘In the language of the Dog-Runners, she is named Burn. She dreams so that we may live. All of us: Tiste, Dog-Runner, Jaghut, Thel Akai, even the Forulkan. She dreams, to give us our freedom.’

‘No priests among the Deniers, milady.’ ‘What about the Dog-Runners?’ ‘Witches and warlocks,’ he replied. ‘Bonecasters, they’re called.’

If no one looked at the loss, they were left with no sense of the worth. In such a world not even life itself had any value.

The priestesses and priests had crowded the corridors and hallways deep into the night, but it seemed they had nothing but questions to exchange, a worthless currency when no answers could be found. He’d had trouble making his way

Halfway back, Old Man paused and looked back. ‘Oh, Draconus, I almost forgot. There is news.’ ‘What news?’ ‘The High King has built a ship.’

‘Begone, Olar Ethil. Skulk your way back to the Dog-Runners. These people are under my protection.’

‘What do you mean? What do you see? Sergeant Raskan, tell me – what do you see?’ ‘Azathanai blood is what I see. It needs chaining and that’s what he’s done. Chained it down.

All of myself that I see in them is but cause for concern, and I am left wondering why parents give to their children so freely their flaws, yet not their virtues.’

But on this day, she had seen a dying old man and a heartbroken, guilt-ridden commander stand face to face, and make peace with each other. They walked now, as would old friends, up to the house, and then disappeared inside.

Urusander’s Legion had returned to Kurald Galain. Against the bright blue, cloudless sky, the banner was like a golden blade, torn from the sun itself. She squinted at it. Painters called that colour liossan.

As the artist edged past them, he turned to Narad and said, ‘I can see the man you once were.’ Narad stiffened, biting back his shame. Kadaspala continued, ‘But all I can see is this. What was inside is now outside. I feel sorry for you, soldier. No one deserves to be that vulnerable.’

‘The man patrolling his prejudices never sleeps.’ As a boy, Ivis had not quite understood what Ivelis had meant by that. But he thought he understood now. No matter. The philosophers dug deep moats around their definitions of things like the soul; moats that no animal could breach, since animals spoke the wrong language and so could never argue their way across.

It was, to the captain’s mind, extraordinary what was possible when those people who could do something, did.

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

‘There is a secret place,’ Henarald said, ‘known to me. Known to certain Azathanai. There is a forge that is the first forge. Its heat is the first heat. Its fire is the first fire, born in the time before the Dog-Runners, in the time of the Eresal who have long since vanished into the grasslands of the south, where the jungles crawl down to unknown seas.

But name yourself my salvation here, if you can, and I’ll know eternal gratitude.’ ‘Careful, Scara. Eternity has teeth.’

And perhaps, one day, I will walk in shadows.

Rise Herat still struggled with the physical transformation among Mother Dark’s children in the Citadel, this birth of the Andii that even now spread like a stain among her chosen.

He drew up alongside her and studied the tapestry. ‘Creation allegory, one of the early ones. The first Tiste heroes, who slew a dragon goddess and drank of her blood and thus became as gods.

The mouth opened and then closed, and then opened once more, like a wound. Red teeth offered up a ghastly smile. ‘Anomander? I have been expecting you. We all have. We have a question, you see. Just one, and we all ask it – all of us here. Anomander, where were you?’

Leave me to name your sword, Anomander. I beg you.’ ‘Brother—’ ‘Leave me to name it!’ ‘Then do so,’ Anomander said. ‘Grief.’

‘Our kin who kneel before the Azath, and so make deities of insensate stone, will find new assurance in what they worship, because like it or not, we have made true their faith. Power will find those places now, Draconus, and though the worshippers will remain ignorant of its source, it is all by our hands.’

They call the houses the Azath, and from this the Tiste name us,

‘The High Kingdom? Those borders are closed to the Azathanai.’ ‘Then we must bargain our way into the demesne, friend. There must be good reason why the King is so beloved among his people. Let us make this our next adventure, and discover all the hidden truths of the High Kingdom and its perfect liege.’

Blood painted red the man’s hands, but upon the soaked tiles the same blood had etched arcane symbols. No two tiles were alike.

My art, mahybe, is one of soul-shifting. My latest dolls will seek out a rare, winged rock ape native to the old crags of a desert far to the south. I name this series Nacht.’

Only rarely does a life have a theme, and even then such themes exist in confusion and uncertainty, and are only described by others once that life has come to an end.

‘He bled, and from the wounds he opened upon himself, in the blood itself, he gave birth to mysterious power. Sorcery. Magic in many currents and flavours. They are young still, vague in aspect, only barely sensed.

The Lord of Hate slowly leaned back. ‘Draconus, your son does you proud.’ ‘He does,’ his father whispered.

‘My fury remains, Hood, and I will curse Errastas for his deed, and for my own role in it. I will forge a sword and make of it a prison—’

She could not be certain, but she suspected that one of them had created the Jaghut. That another had answered in kind with the Tiste. Forulkan, Thel Akai, perhaps even the Dog-Runners, were all fashioned by the will of an Azathanai. Created like game pieces in an eternal contest, mysterious in its conditions of victory, in which few strategies were observable.

Faith is a personal accord between a lone soul and that in which it chooses to believe. In any other guise it is nothing more than a thin coat of sacred paint slapped over politics and the secular lust for power.

We deceive ourselves if we imagine that we proceed through life with any semblance of control over what is to come, and we should be thankful for the humility.

Civil war exposed the flaws in a people, and though each faction would view its cause as just, the illness revealed was endemic, and so weakened everyone.

Urusander, I begin to see a way to draw those hands together, to clasp in union and so find strength in balance. And no, we need not speak of love, only necessity. Something I think you understand. We shall make you Father Light, whether you welcome the title or not.

‘War is a shout against futility, hostage, but its echo never lasts long.’

Why is it, I wonder, that the gods of the world made of every pleasurable habit a poison? These gods, I think, have no understanding of joy. They make feeling good a thing of evil. Don’t ask me to worship such miserable shits, Galar Baras. Their paradise is a desert.

By this gift, all challenge is banished from this place. I give to you, and to all the Children of Night, this Terondai.’