Fall of Light (The Kharkanas Trilogy, #2)

by Steven Erikson

in the face of what they perceive to

The pick Wareth had wielded was a fine tool. Iron tamed and given shape. Iron domesticated, subjugated, forged into a slayer of its wild kin. This was the only battle he fought, and he and the pick fought it well, and so the wild ore retreated, shard by shard. Of course, the truth was, the vein did not retreat. It simply died, in buckets of rubble. This was the only war he knew how to win.

There was an ancient saying his father had been wont to use, wielding the words like weapons to batter down his children. A hero’s name will live for ever. Die forgotten, and you have not lived at all.

‘The courage of husbands is directly proportionate to the proximity of the wife.’

‘This, then, is friendship. A family you choose. What you give to it, you give freely. What you withhold from it, measures its depth. There are those who know only distant relations – associates, if you will. Then there are those who would embrace even a stranger, should that stranger venture a smile or nod. In each instance described, we see facets of fear. The dog that growls should anyone come near. The dog that lies on its back and exposes its throat, surrendering to anyone, with begging eyes and a demeanour made helpless.’ ‘You describe extremes, lord. There must be other kinds, healthier kinds.’ ‘I would first describe the ones that damage, Arathan, so that you may begin to eliminate past experiences, insofar as friendship is concerned.’

He had come, forlornly, to the belief that love was given but once. No doubt, as Gothos had suggested, there was a plethora of feelings that sought the guise of love, but in truth proved to be lesser promises, guarded commitments, alliances of sympathy, and so, when exposed, revealed their fragile illusions.

Love lost, love denied, love misunderstood. Woman or man, few could claim a life lived without regrets. But such regrets dwelt in the realm of the adult, not the child. They were, in truth, the essential difference between the two. Sing to us of true heroes, so that we may weep, for something no child will ever understand.

Do this and not that. Why? Because the god said so, that’s why. But was that really the god speaking, or just some twisted echo of mortal flaws and frailties, each one adding to the list of holy pronouncements?’

‘When your time comes … for vengeance. Find me.’ ‘I don’t need any help. They stuck a sword in me and I didn’t die. They can try it again and I still won’t die. My promise keeps me alive. 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, Wreneck.’ ‘But I’m one.’

‘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.’

Simple observations, my friends. I am not one for judgement, but one might whisper, now and then, to those dreamers, and say: dream not of the impossible past, but of the possible future. They are not one and the same. They cannot ever be the same. Know this. Understand this. Make peace with this. Else you fight a war you can never win.

One day, I fear, our world will be inundated with a multitude of people with little to say, but all the time in the world in which to say it. The cacophony will deafen us all, until we are insensate, drunk on the trivial. Upon that day, civilization will die with little fanfare, much less anyone’s noticing.’

Conversations were rarely worth listening to, when people were in the habit of repeating themselves, as if by each utterance they sought a different response.

‘When we lash out,’ he said, ‘we do so from fear. Recall, if you will, your every breaking of temper, the shock of it once you have struck, once you have done damage. In a sane mind, the act makes one recoil, dousing the fires inside. And with it, the first fear dies, only to have a new one take its place – the fear of the consequences of your violence. Two arguments, but only one voice. Two causes, but only one response. When you at last understand this, my friend, then the voice that is fear grows most tiresome. It repeats itself and so proves its own stupidity, and if by its stupid words you are led into violence, a relinquishing of all control, then you can only be a fool.

Because the mind that has convinced itself of its own superiority is incapable of humility, and in the absence of humility, it is incapable of growth.’

‘The gift of momentary forgetfulness,’ Raest said, nodding. ‘This we name entertainment.’ ‘Does that not have value?’ ‘It does, except when pursued to excess. At that point, it becomes denial.’

‘Humility. Seek it within yourself, be as sceptical of your own superiority as your intellect is sceptical of the superiority of things other than itself. Turn your critical faculties inward, with ruthless diligence, and by that you will understand the true meaning of courage. It is the kind of courage that sees you end up on your knees, but with the will to rise once more, to begin it all over again.’

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

‘Just don’t bash down the door,’ Tathenal advised. Garelko frowned. ‘Why not?’ ‘We must keep out the weather, of course. This is the purpose of doors and walls and so on.’ The eldest husband paused. ‘You have a point. Suggestions?’ ‘You could knock,’ said Tathenal. ‘Knuckles to wood, aye, sound notion.’ He shouldered his mace and glanced at Ravast. ‘See, pup? A wise leader must learn the art of assuaging his underlings. Of course, such recourse had already occurred to me, being eldest and so on. Yet I remained silent, to give Tathenal leave to feel clever. This is the art of command.’

What is perceived is rarely the truth, and what is true is only rarely perceived. Between the two, upon which is one best advised to rely? Some delusions, after all, are comforting. While truths, alas, are mostly unpleasant.’

‘The witless have no comprehension of the rhetorical. They misapprehend unanswerable questions, since in their puny worlds of comprehension they possess none. Only answers, solid as lumps of shit, and just as foul.’

‘No time like the present, which, if you think on it, could not be truer, with the past done with and the future forever undiscovered.

Gallan had once called them his soldier poets, and after half a week in their company, official and otherwise, she well understood the honorific. But theirs was a wit too sharp for her, and even to witness it was to feel one’s own mind as something too blunt, likely to stumble should it seek to keep pace with the two men. Still, it proved a modest wound, given how entertaining they often were.

A dulled wit was blind to nuance, even the hint of possible innuendo, when it offered that narrow trail between empty charm and crass invitation.

We shall hope, by virtue of imitation and the pressure to conform, that the witnessing of taking food to mouth will incite in our guest the same inclination, thus putting us all at ease.’

‘This sausage mocks the pretence. But,’ he added, spearing another piece, ‘I am assured that it lodges in the pit of the belly, and remains silent, if not unobtrusive, until the moment of its rebirth into the world.’ ‘Hardly an image to encourage our appetites,

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.’ Thinking on his own childhood, Ivis grunted. Anomander sighed, and then said, ‘Sympathy is not a weakness, Ivis. To grieve for the loss of innocence is to remind yourself that yours is not the only life in this world.’

“War?” he cried. “Why, another name for shit, my friends. So now, keep your heads above the flood and swim for your fucking lives!”’

Besides, reinventions are necessary, enough to knock history into some semblance of destiny, when it is all said and done. I will pen the new truths of all this.

‘Broken heart, Ivis. Heal it might, but the scar remains, and what you miss most is how it was before it broke, when that heart was whole. So, yes, you can’t get that back.’

‘No. No one. Well … no. I always look higher than my station. It’s my own private dance with inevitable disappointment. Someone beyond reach remains forever pure, unsullied.

if you must think of it that way. Bloodlines and rank and station and whatnot. All rubbish. If you find someone who fills your heart, fills in all the cracks and stops all the leaking, to the Abyss with station, Ivis. But you see, I understand you all too well. It’s your excuse for doing nothing.’

let’s drink against the night and remember other nights from long ago, when we had nothing and everything, when we knew it all but didn’t know a fucking thing. Let’s drink, Ivis, to the sunken islands of our youth.’

‘Cynicism is the voice of ill-concealed despair, milady. The reality the cynic hides behind is one of his or her own making. Convenient, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I get bored, K’rul.’ ‘Bored with yourself?’ ‘Bored with everything, and everyone. I search for something I cannot name. A beacon, perhaps, in the darkness of perpetual ignorance. A spark of defiance among the wilfully obtuse. This endless drone irritates me, the frenzied flurry of busyness for little purpose beyond perpetuating a dissatisfying life. The constructs of the intellect are delusional, and so I become the fist of unreason. The gods, I say, care nothing for machines. Care nothing for the lies of habit, nothing for the tyranny of how things were always done and therefore must always be. The gods are deaf to excuses, rationalizations, justifications. Instead, they listen in the silence beyond the machines for the whispered opening of a single heart.’

Understand: we exist for the sole purpose of being witness to existence. This and this alone is our collective contribution to all that has been created. We serve to bring existence into being. Without eyes to see, nothing exists.’

This is the madness of it all. Mundane conversations, fragments of meaning and dubious import. All the things left unsaid. If we could assemble our words, merge those inside and out, we would be startled to find that we speak but a tenth of what we think. And yet, each of us presumes to expect that the other understands – indeed, hears both the spoken and the unspoken.

She was hurting herself, you see. I could make no sense of it. Can you?’ Wreneck wanted to hurry on, leave the strange old man behind. Instead, he shrugged. ‘She was trying to feel something. Anything.’ ‘But she was loved. We all loved her. Surely she understood that.’ Wreneck glanced back to the mass of ghosts on the road behind them. ‘She didn’t believe you. You loved her because you didn’t really know her. That’s what she believed, I mean. You didn’t know her so whoever you loved wasn’t her, it was someone else, someone who just looked like her. But she knew better.’ Jinia, wait for me. Don’t do anything to hurt yourself.

Your eternal hunt for justice, sir, but circles a host of simple truths. We are all believers in justice as applied to others, but never to ourselves. And this is how we make virtue a weapon, and delight in seeing it make people bleed.’ ‘The imposition of law is civilization’s only recourse, Renarr.’ ‘And in its inevitable exceptions lies civilization’s downfall.’

My heart still breaks, but no sharp crack issues forth. Rather, I faintly hear a dull sob. Such is the dubious gift of drink.’

Details of administration now, with you clerks and list-makers venturing out from the shadowy alcoves. Who gets what, who pays, who gets paid. Missives sent out to families in the countryside, regretful in tone, yet urging an everlasting pride in the ones who sacrificed their lives defending … whatever.’

Nothing ends. There is matter and there is energy, and some believe these two the only things in existence. But a third exists. It infuses both matter and energy, and yet also stands alone. Let us call it potential. Only in the realm of potential can we act, to effect changes upon all existence. Indeed, it is the realm in which we live, we living things, in our stubborn battle with success and failure. Yet the truth remains. Of the two, success and failure, only one ends the game.