Forge of Darkness (The Kharkanas Trilogy #1)

by Steven Erikson

Let me ask this, then. Does one find memory in invention? Or will you find invention in memory? Which bows in servitude before the other?

Prediction is folly, belligerent assertion pathetic.

I am the poet Gallan, and my words will live for ever. This is not a boast. It is a curse. My legacy is a carcass in waiting, and it will be picked over until dust devours all there is. And when my last breath is long gone, see how the flesh still moves, see how it flinches.

There will be peace. Conviction is a fist of stone at the heart of all things. Its form is shaped by sure hands, the detritus quickly swept from view. It is built to withstand, built to defy challenge, and when cornered it fights without honour. There is nothing more terrible than conviction.

‘In natural justice, Arathan, the weak cannot hide, unless we grant them the privilege. And understand, it is ever a privilege, for which the weak should be eternally grateful. At any given moment, should the strong will it, they can swing a sword and end the life of the weak. And that will be today’s lesson. Forbearance.’

Kadaspala considered that for a moment, and then he shook his head. ‘Laws decide which forms of oppression are allowed, Lord. And because of that, those laws are servants to those in power, for whom oppression is given as a right over those who have little or no power. Now, shall we return to art, Lord? When stripped down to its bones, criticism is a form of oppression. Its intent is to manipulate both artist and audience, by imposing rules on aesthetic appreciation. Curiously, its first task is to belittle the views of those who appreciate a certain work but are unable or unwilling to articulate their reasons for doing so. On occasion, of course, one

Peace did not serve order; order served peace, and when order became godlike, sacrosanct and inviolate, then the peace thus won became a prison, and those who sought their freedom became enemies to order, and in the elimination of such enemies, peace was lost. He saw the logic to this, but it was a form of reasoning that surrendered its power when forced; as was the case with so many lines of reasoning. And arrayed against its simplicity was a virulent storm of emotional extremity, an array of vehemence, with fear wearing the crown. The Forulkan Assail solution was order born of fear, a peace deemed for ever under assault, for ever threatened by malicious forces, many of which wore the face of strangers. There was, he had to acknowledge, a kind of perfection to their stance. Dissent could find no purchase, so quickly was it cut down, annihilated in a welter of violence. And being unknown, strangers always posed a threat to those serving fear. Theirs was a civilization tempered on a cold anvil, and the Tiste had revealed the flaw in its forging. Galar Baras found it ironic that the great commander who had defeated the Forulkan was such an admirer of their civilization. For Galar himself, he could well see its seductive elements, but where Urusander had been drawn closer by them, Galar had recoiled in unease. What worth peace when it was maintained by threat?

Art failed reality. Each and every time, it failed in the essence of experience. A work could but achieve the merest hints of what was real and immediate: the tactile discomforts, the pangs of disequilibrium, the smells of endeavour and the shaky unease of a rattled mind.

‘The greatest gift of education, Korya, is the years of shelter provided when learning. Do not think to reduce that learning to facts and the utterances of presumed sages. Much of what one learns in that time is in the sphere of concord, the ways of society, the proprieties of behaviour and thought. Haut would tell you that this is another hard-won achievement of civilization: the time and safe environment in which to learn how to live. When this is destroyed, undermined or discounted, then that civilization is in trouble.’