Deeplight

by Frances Hardinge

Telling the truth was dangerous, though. You could never un-tell it, any more than you could un-break an egg. It

It crossed Hark’s mind that people could be softened the same way. You said the right thing, and struck the right chord, and then they were easier to manipulate.

‘Loyalty is not a virtue in its own right. Its worth depends on where it is spent.’

You wore people out like shoes. You didn’t mean to, but you did. This was what it felt like when the sole started getting thin.

‘You will find out who you are when your choices test you. In the end, we are what we do and what we allow to be done.’

‘In order to do what we did in those days, we needed to believe in our own holiness. However, if you believe that you are holier than other people, then I think after a while you lose something. Humility. Warmth. Humour. Many of us agonized over the sacrifices at first, but habit deadens you. The scars build up on your soul.’

I could feel the calluses growing on my soul

‘But she was not changed by visiting the gods, or the Undersea waters, or handling divine relics. We changed her, just as we changed each other and ourselves. We are all squeezed into new shapes by the people around us. If we are paying attention, though, we always have some say in how we are altered. The priesthood corroded Ailodie because she was resigned to it.’

‘Change is a lot more frightening when you are older,’ Quest continued conversationally. He did not look afraid. If anything, he seemed slightly wistful. ‘Gradually, gradually, your body lets you down. You reach a certain age . . . and almost every change is bad news. Bulletins from the front in a war you are losing. At your age, you are still asking yourself: Who should I be? I must ask myself: Did I manage to be the person I wanted to be, in the end? And how many chances do I have left to be that person?’

Human fear has a terrible power. It changes everything, distorts everything, maddens everything. Fear is the dark womb where monsters are born and thrive.’

It is a fantasy we sold to the people of the Myriad so that everyone’s oppression would be more bearable. We let everyone tell themselves that they were watched over by gods rather than terrorized by monsters. And we reassured everyone that the priesthood had everything under control. We had treaties with the gods, and knew how to negotiate with them. ‘All of that was a lie. The gods had no great or benevolent plan for us. There were no treaties. We never truly learned to reason with them, because they were not reasonable. Even those whom we could talk with were all mad, to some degree. And the biggest gods – the mightiest among them – had no more power of reason than beasts.’

We always had to come up with excuses for these “punishments”.

‘You must not love them,’ said Quest gently. ‘It is easy to love power, because power tells you it is majesty and beauty and greatness. But the gods were monsters. Do not even love their memory. Hate me if you like for the human deaths I caused. I tried to avoid them, but I knew the risks. I am not a good man. But the gods are dead.’