Fall of Light (The Kharkanas Trilogy, #2)

by Steven Erikson

The pleasures of flesh made but a sharp fold in the sensations of life, and upon its opposite side that flesh knew pain and terrible damage. In a careless moment, one could mistake the stains of one for the other.

Thus in our childhoods we learn the lessons of strength and weakness, and violence delivered in the name of justice. We deem this maturity.

‘Never ask an artist to paint his or her own room. You invite a spilling out of landscapes one would not wish to see, for any cause.’ Dathenar sighed. ‘I cannot agree, friend. Every canvas reveals that hidden landscape.’ ‘Manageable,’ said Prazek. ‘It is when the paint bleeds past the edges that we recoil. The wooden frame offers bars to a prison, and this comforts the eye.’

I will tell her the truth as I see it. I will tell her that her beauty entrances me, as it surely does.’ ‘And so she wonders at your sanity.’ ‘To begin with,’ the Azathanai said, belching and nodding. Then he raised a finger. ‘Until, at last, my words deliver to her the greatest gift I can hope to give her – that she comes to believe in her own beauty.’ ‘What happens then? Seduced, swallowed in your embrace, another mysterious maiden conquered?’ The huge Azathanai waved a hand. ‘Why, no. She leaves me, of course. Knowing she can do much better.’

Step by step, pilgrims made a path. Seeking a place of tragedy deemed holy, or a site sanctified by nothing more than a truth or two scraped down to the bone, the ones who sought out such places transformed them into shrines. Endest Silann understood this now: that the sacred was not found, but delivered.

me?’ ‘Only what I see in you, and what all others see in you. Strength.’ ‘I feel no such thing.’ ‘No one who is strong does.’

perhaps holiness was nothing more than an eye’s gift – upon these stones, or that tree, or the spring bubbling beneath it. Perhaps the only murder possible in such places was the one that left hope lying lifeless upon the ground.

A coward saw regret as if regarding a lost lover, as a thing used hard and fast only to quickly pall, pulling apart in mutual disgust. Those regrets then died of starvation. But their carcasses littered his world, all within easy reach. Occasionally, when driven by need, he would pick one up and seek to force life into it once again. But any carcass could be prodded this way and that, given gestures that resembled those of the living. A child would understand this easily enough, and deem it play. The games adults played, however, existed in a realm of ever-shifting rules. Regrets were the pieces, escape the coward’s prize, and each time, the prize turned out to be failure.

From the moment of revelation, of religion’s stunning birth, each generation to follow but moves farther away, step by passing step, and this journey down the centuries marks a pathetic transgression. From sacred to secular, from holy to profane, from glory to mummery.

when, after all, did dreams belong only to the old and wise, who knew them solely by the disappointment left behind? Was it not the realm of children that still beckoned, crowded, as it was, to the heavens with dreams – dreams not yet slashed to ribbons, not yet torn down, or rotted from within?

‘It is our lack of purpose, K’rul, which drives us onward. Sensing absence, we seek to fill it. Lacking meaning, we seek to find it. Uncertain of love, we confess it.

The poet speaks what the imagination paints, but the language belongs to dreams, and every scene conjured up is but a chimera. You cannot declare war upon death!’

‘This, then, is friendship. A family you choose. What you give to it, you give freely. What you withhold from it, measures its depth.

In any case, this Tiste is not a pet.’ Burrugast grunted. ‘What is she then?’ ‘A weapon.’ Varandas sighed. ‘You leave it on the field, and invite anyone to come and collect it. This seems . . . irresponsible.’ ‘Yes,’ Haut agreed, ‘it does, doesn’t it?’

‘you have led armies, seen fields of battle. In your past, you knew the privations, the brutal games of necessity. You won a throne, only to flee it. Stood triumphant on a mound of the slain, only to kneel in surrender the following dawn. In victory you lost everything, and in defeat you won your freedom.

Said of Haut

Religion, Hunn Raal decided, was the marriage of holiness with base acquisitiveness, self-defined and purposefully delineated to eliminate natural worship – worship lying beyond the temple walls, beyond the rules, the prohibitions. Lying beyond – more to the point – the self-pronounced authority of whatever priesthood arose to manage, with grubby hands, the sacredness of things.

Tent and temple, we raise them to disguise all that haunts our soul. Between lover and priest, I think, it is the lover who can reach closest to that shivering, wide-eyed child. The priest, ah, well, the priest killed his inner child long ago, and now but plays at wonder, dancing joy’s steps with shuffling, self-conscious feet.

To reveal tenderness, darling, is not a confession of weakness. And even if it is, then we must all know that weakness, with someone. You seek to be strong, at all times, in all company. It makes you impatient. It makes you cruel.

‘My dearest soldiers! My beloved citizens! My wretched minions!’ Dathenar tilted his head back and yelled, ‘We’re here, sire! Summoned—’ ‘Press-ganged.’ ‘Your pardon, press-ganged into your service, as if tithes weren’t enough—’ ‘You, peasant, what was that you mumbled?’ ‘Nothing, sire, I but await your speech!’

‘We are gathered here upon the eve of battle—’ ‘Best make it dawn, Prazek, we’re nearing the hills.’ ‘Upon the dawn of a day promising glorious battle! Permit me to elaborate. The battle is yours and the glory is mine. There will be no confusion regarding this matter, I trust. Excellent! You are here, and you will fight in my name, for one perfectly reasonable reason – to wit, because you are not over there, upon the valley’s other side, fighting in the name of him, or her. In other words, you are here and not there. Is that clear, then?’ ‘Sire! Sire!’ ‘What is it?’ ‘I have a brother who fights for him or her, over there!’ ‘That man is no brother of yours, fool.’ ‘But our mother—’ ‘Your mother was a whore and a liar! Now, where was I?’

‘I hold high this sword, my kin, my comrades, and with it do point that way, towards the enemy. And where my sword points, you follow. You will march, yes, and when close enough, why, you will charge, and if you prevail, I will be pleased, and further pleased to send those of you left alive back to your shacks and barns, if you please. But if you fail, I’ll not be pleased. No, not at all. In fact, your failure will mean that I’m likely to get my skull cracked open—’ ‘Spilling into the ditch minarets and towers and spires all tumbling every which way. Crowns askew, robes besmudged, bared head laid bare through and through, and, alas, godliness snuffed out like a guttered candle.’ ‘Just so. Was that succinct enough, then? Now, we march to war!’

As a child Kellaras had listened, eager as any boy wearing a wooden sword, to tales of great heroes, all of whom – he saw now – strode through a miasma of violence, stern-faced and righteous. The virtues set forth, step by step, were of the basest sort, and vengeance was the answer to everything. It slashed, it carved, it marched monstrously through a welter of blood. The hero killed for love lost, for love denied, for love misunderstood. The delivery of pain to others, in answer to a pain within – a soul wounded and lashing out – ran like a dark current through every tale.

‘Wareth, take your fellows out to the wagons. Oh, by the way, your old blade awaits you.’ At those words, Wareth flinched. ‘Sir, I beg you, not that one.’ ‘You are bound to it,’ Galar Baras replied. ‘Until death takes you. Really, Wareth, you already knew that.’ ‘Then, sir, I humbly request that I remain unarmed.’ ‘Denied. Seltin, join Wareth and see to the proper issuing to my lieutenants here.

When you become a man, you learn to do what you say you will do. That’s what makes you a man.’ ‘Alas, there are far fewer men in the world than you might think,

And, in the name of worship, I am lost in doubt, if not outright disbelief.’ ‘And why is that?’ ‘Power does not confer wisdom, nor rightful authority, nor faith in either of the two. If it offers a caress, so too can it by force make one kneel. The former is by nature suspect, while the latter – well, it can at least be said that it does not disguise its truth.’

‘Faith is the state of not knowing, and yet, by choice, knowing. Every construct of reason propping it up plays a game, but the rules of that game are left, quite deliberately, incomplete. Thus, the argument has, to be crass, holes. But those “holes” are not synonymous with failure. If anything, they become a source of strength, as they are the places of knowing what cannot be known. To know what cannot be known is to find yourself in an unassailable position, proof against all argument, all dissuasion.’

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.

I lust for knowledge, yet refuse to taste it. I gather news and facts and secrets, and do nothing with them. I am like the Protector, Grizzin Farl, who claims to protect nothing. Just as the historian refuses to record history, and the goddess refuses the comforts of worship. While arrayed against us, a general who would rather not lead, a commander who follows only his own drunken whims, and a high priestess still awaiting her god. We are, all of us, nothing but impostors to our cause, because the cause we espouse is nothing more than the blind we raise to hide our own ambitions.

Power is not born of love, except among the wise, for whom surrender is strength. Alas, wisdom is the rarest wine, and even among those who partake of it, there are few who will know its flavour.

‘You heed too few of my words. Kneels? Falters? Look to the night sky, foolish man, and gauge the victor in the contest between Dark and Light.

Why do I long to feel your arms around me, hard as bent branches, with loss written in your every caress? As if you offer nothing more than winter’s embrace, while my own season wallows in indecision. Still I hunger for you.

the world had a way of making borderlands the repository of the discarded, as if in the collision of smaller worlds things did not merge, only break.

Civilization is an argument between thinkers and doers, just as invention is an argument against nature.’

Why is it that there comes a time in every civilization when the idiots rise to dominate all discourse, with beetled brows and reams of spite? Who are such fools, and how long did they lurk mostly unseen, simply awaiting their day in the benighted light?’

The flesh is a weary vessel, and that which crumbles soon becomes a prison to the soul. Death, accordingly, is a relief. Indeed, an escape.’ She frowned. ‘But why confound a soul with the uncertainty of its immortality?’ ‘Perhaps,’ ventured Hood, ‘to awaken in us the value of faith.’ ‘And what value has faith, Hood?’ ‘Belief exists in order to humble the mundane world of proofs. If mortal flesh is a prison, so too is a world too well known. Within and without, we desire – and perhaps need – a means of escape.’ ‘An escape you name faith.

As a youth he had often ridden far from the estate, fleeing the shadow of sire and siblings, seeking solitude in denuded hills, dried lake beds and sweeps of withered prairie. These were the half-formed urges of youth, groping in ignorance, not yet comprehending that the solitude he sought already existed, buried deep in his own mind. Every jarring sense of being different, every fear of exclusion, every instant of estrangement from his laughing brothers and their companions, these were the things setting him apart, pushing him into a world solely his own.

‘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 reached the door, studied its black bronze, its rivets and stained wood. Beyond it, alas, was his love. No matter her condition, he knew that he would fall to his knees upon seeing her, if not in body then in his soul. We do well to curse love. That makes us so abject, so eager to surrender. She need only meet my eye to know that I am hers, to do with as she pleases. Where then is my courage?

‘I would hold, my friend, that what you describe is but one side of the matter, and indeed one that looks only inward, as if the borders of your life enclose everything to be valued, while what lies beyond is of no worth whatsoever.’ ‘Perhaps I misunderstood, milord.’ ‘Consider this, Ivis. The sorrow belongs also to our sense of what awaits that child. The harsh lessons, the wounds taken and felt but not yet understood, the losses and the failures – those the child is destined to make, and those made by others. The battering of belief, and the loss of faith, which begins with oneself and then comes, in a relentless storm, from loved ones – parents, tutors or guardians. By such wounding is innocence lost.’

Victory belongs on canvas, not in the real world.

‘I have heard, milord, that you refused Kadaspala’s request. For a portrait. And now, alas, it is too late.’ ‘Too late? Why is that?’ ‘Why, milord, because he is now blind.’ ‘I would trust his hand more now than when he had eyes to see, Ivis. Yes, I believe I would accept his request. He is at last free to paint what he will, with no argument from the world beyond.’

The fear of unknown words, not yet spoken, which I now race to answer . . . as if every moment of silence between us pulls another stone from the bridge one of us must cross.’ ‘So, in your courage, milord, you are the one taking the steps.’ ‘Is that courage now, Ivis?’ ‘It is, sir. All too often cowardice wears the habit of wounded pride.’

‘Give yourself to me, Wreneck, and together we’ll turn on them. We’ll feed on them instead. We’ll devour them and take their power. With sorcery you can get to those soldiers, no matter where they’re hiding. More to the point, Wreneck, they won’t be able to hide at all.’ She rose and moved down a step. ‘We could go straight to them. We could leave tonight with none to stop us.’ ‘I need my spear—’ ‘I’ll make you a new one.’ ‘I don’t want a new one.’ Her small hands curled into fists. ‘Are you going to mess up everything I’m promising you on account of a damned spear?’

Beware any congress, Warden, that indulges in secrecy – you can be certain that it does not have your interests in mind, nor will it accord you the proper respect as befits the innocent, or, as they might label you, the ignorant. The secretive mind starts at every shadow, for it has peopled its world with suspicion.’

‘Sergeant, where’s Lieutenant Esk?’ ‘Dead, sir. Uskan’s inside. He’s badly wounded. He went in there with eighteen soldiers, sir, came out with three still standing. It was Sheccanto’s bodyguards, sir.’ ‘Abyss take me, how many did she have?’ ‘Two, sir.’

Odd, isn’t it, how it is the goddess who receives gifts? What shall we make of him who bears them?

‘Youth is the soul’s disguise, milord. It serves, until it is used up. For now, sir, you are seduced by what you see. What if I told you that a vicious, venal demon hides within me? A thing of scars remembering every wound?’ ‘Then, perhaps,’ said Urusander, turning once more to the window, ‘I would welcome you to our company.’

‘This is a dreadful truth: much as I would like to imagine an army of such perfection that it need never draw a blade, need never deliver death and have death delivered unto it, I recognize the brutal truth. Each and every soldier out there has had his or her flesh hacked away, everything soft – all gone. Leaving nothing but stone, cold and hard. Intent on feeling nothing. Existing only in order to destroy.’

Sheltatha slowly sat up, her eyes bright on Urusander. ‘You mean to betray them. Your own soldiers.’ ‘I wanted peace. All I ever wanted.’ ‘Hunn Raal will see you dead. High Priestess Syntara will hand him the dagger, with every blessing of Light she can conjure.’

A faith that blinded one to natural flaws made perfection a false conceit, one defying too careful an examination. It must eschew complexity, promising simplicity in its stead. He suspected it would prove popular indeed.