Fall of Light

by Steven Erikson

  The younger woman snorted. ‘You were quick to take the flame away, Cred, and with it the Living Claim.’

  ‘Quick and clear-eyed, Stark,’ Cred replied, with an easy nod.

  The older woman dragged a cask close. She twisted the dowel loose and tapped her finger against the water that splashed free. Stoppering it again, she sighed and said, ‘Salt needs sucking out. It’s a problem.’

  ‘Why?’ Stark demanded. ‘Make blood and be done with it.’

  ‘We’re inland,’ the older woman replied. ‘There are faces to the magic here, more even than what’s out at sea. Most of them I don’t know.’ She looked around, spread her hands and said, ‘We’re poor offerings to make us a bargain.’

  ‘Stop being so afraid,’ Stark retorted. ‘We need fresh water.’

  The older woman twisted to regard Cred. ‘What do you think?’

  Cred shrugged. ‘We need the water, and a handful of salt wouldn’t hurt us, neither. Something to trade. Dog-Runners from inland will take it, for good red meat in exchange. Me, Brella, I kept the coals alive – I’ve not had to face any of these strange spirits yet.’

  ‘But if you needed to?’

  ‘Can’t argue with need, Brella. Drip some blood, see who comes.’

  This was the magic now roiling through this camp. A thousand paths, countless arcane rituals. It seemed rules grew up fast, making intricate patterns, proscriptions, and not one warlock or witch seemed to agree on any of them. Korya suspected that none of those rituals mattered in the least. The power was a dark promise, and the darkness promised mystery. It’s all writing in the sand.

  Until that sand turns to stone.

  Haut had explained about the blood, the unseen torrents that now flowed through all the realms. The madness of a lone Azathanai named K’rul. The sacrifice of a foolish god. Hood’s grief and torment was nothing compared to what K’rul had unleashed upon the world, and yet here in this absurd camp, with its thousands of strangers now crowding close, Korya had begun to sense the collision now under way.

  Death is the world’s back turned on the wonder of living. No magic flows into that realm. And yet, sorcery gathers here, and readies to march on the place where it cannot dwell. The enemy is absence, but this means nothing to Hood.

  Haut is right. No war is impossible. No victory is unattainable. No enemy is invincible. Name your foe, and your foe can fall. Call it out, and it must answer. There is sorcery here, too much, too wild, too undefined. What might it yield, when guided by Hood? By a Jaghut poisoned by grief?

  She watched Brella take a knife-tip to the thumb-pad of her left hand. A trickle of black. Peculiar draughts slipped past where Korya crouched, sweeping down to crowd invisibly around the sea-witch. Something farther away, huge and ancient, groaned awake.

  Oh, that’s not good.

  Korya straightened, standing tall atop the boulder. She faced in the direction of the awakener. What was it? Barely sentient, remembering some ancient sensation, an itch, a thirst. Heaving itself into motion, it approached.

  * * *

  Using one of the braziers, Arathan brewed tea. Gothos sat at his desk, but had turned the chair to one side in order to stretch out his legs. His hands rested now on his thighs. The tapping was done, and the fingers were curled as if waiting for something to grasp. His face was a clash of shadows. The sun outside was sinking, the light withdrawing as if inhaled, to mark the fiery orb’s dying gasp, and shadows flowed out from between abandoned buildings, spilling in through the doorway.

  Readying two cups, Arathan rose and brought one over to the Lord of Hate.

  ‘On the desk, if you will,’ Gothos said in a low rumble.

  ‘You eschewed the wine,’ Arathan said, setting the cup down and returning to his place beside the brazier. He thought to add something more, but nothing came to mind. Instead, he said, ‘I feel filled with words, lord, and still, I can think only of my father. And the Azathanai blood within me.’

  Gothos made a gesture of dismissal. ‘Blood is not an honorific. You cannot choose your family, Arathan. When the moment comes, and by honour and by love you must face the choice, meet his eye and call him friend.’

  ‘Friend?’ Arathan considered that for a moment, and then shook his head. ‘I see nothing between us to suggest friendship.’

  ‘Because you are incomplete, Arathan. Oh, very well, a lesson then, long overdue. I am rarely loquacious, so pay attention. I do not challenge the acuity of your observations, or your thoughts, such as you reveal to any of us. Among kin, we are one in a most familiar crowd, defined by how each family member sees us, and the manner in which they see us was carved out long ago, in childhood. Theirs, yours. These are strictures, confining, resisting change. True, you may find friends among siblings, or even think of an aunt, or an uncle, in such a manner. But they are all simulacra. A family is a gathering of blood-kin wielding fists. Attacking, defending, or simply determined to make space amidst the tumult.’

  Arathan thought back on what little he knew of his own kin. The half-sisters who seemed chained to childhood, who had flitted through his life like vicious afterthoughts. The father who had ignored him for most of Arathan’s existence, only to drag him to the forefront of a journey undertaken in the name of gifts, and who in the end made of Arathan himself a gift.

  Had Raskan been a friend? Rind? Feren?

  After a time, he grunted and said, ‘My horses proved loyal.’

  Gothos snorted a laugh, and then reached for the cup. He sniffed at it, sipped, and then said, ‘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.’

  Sighing, Arathan said, ‘I have but few experiences as it stands, lord, and would rather not see them savaged.’

  ‘Better to defend your delusions, then?’

  ‘Comforts are rare enough.’

  ‘You will come upon those who exude life, who burn bright. In their company, how are you to be? Proud to name them friend? Pleased to bask in their fire? Or, in the name of need, will you simply devour all that they offer, like a force of darkness swallowing light, warmth, life itself? Will you make yourself a rocky island, black and gnarled, a place of cold caves and littered bones? The bright waves do not soothe your shores, but crash instead, explode in a fury of foam and spray. And you drink in every swirl, sucked down into your caves, your bottomless caverns.

  ‘I do not describe a transitory mood. Not a temporary disposition, brought on by external woes. What I describe, in fashioning this island soul, so bleak and forbidding, is a place made too precious to be surrendered, too stolid to be dismantled. This island I give you, this soul in particular, is a fortress of need, a maw that knows only how to ease its eternal hunger. Within its twisted self, no true friend is acknowledged and no love is honest in its exchange. The self stands alone, inviolate as a god, but a besieged god … forever besieged.’ Gothos leaned forward, studied Arathan with glittering eyes. ‘Oddly, those who burn bright are often drawn to such islands, such souls. As friends. As lovers. They imagine they can offer salvation, a sharing of warmth, of love, even. And in contrast, they see in themselves something to offer their forlorn companion, who huddles and hides, who gives occasion to rail and loose venom. The life within them feels so vast! So welcoming! Surely there is enough to share! And so, by giving – and giving – they are themselves appeased, and made to feel w
orthwhile. For a time.

  ‘But this is no healthy exchange, though it might at first seem so – after all, the act of giving will itself yield a kind of euphoria, a drunkenness of generosity, not to mention the salve of protectiveness, of paternal regard.’ Gothos leaned back again, drank more from the cup in his hands, and closed his eyes. ‘The island is unchanging. Bones and corpses lie upon its wrack on all sides.’

  Arathan licked dry lips. ‘She was not like that,’ he whispered.

  Shrugging, Gothos turned his head, to study the dull frozen fog on the window above the desk. ‘I do not know whom you mean, Arathan. When you find a true friend, you will know it. There may be challenges in that relationship, but for all that, it thrives on mutual respect, and honours the virtues exchanged. You need no fists to make a space for yourself. No one clings to your shadow – even as they grow to despise that shadow, and the one who so boldly casts it. Your feelings are not objects to be manipulated, with cold intent or emotion’s blind, unreasoning heat. You are heard. You are heeded. You are challenged, and so made better. This is not a tie that exhausts, nor one that forces your senses to unnatural extremes of acuity. You are not to be tugged or prodded, and your gifts – of wit and charm – are not to be denigrated for the attentions they earn. Arathan, one day you may come to call your father a friend. But I tell you this, I believe he already sees you as one.’

  ‘What gives you reason to so defend him, lord?’

  ‘I do not defend Draconus, Arathan. I speak in defence of his son’s future. As does a friend, when the necessity arises.’

  The admission silenced Arathan. And yet, is he not the Lord of Hate? From where, then, this loving gift?

  Gothos reached out and ran his fingers, splayed out, down the icerimed glass of the window. ‘The notion of hatred,’ he said as if catching Arathan’s thoughts, ‘is easily misapplied. One must ask: what is it that this man hates? Is it joy? Hope? Love? Or is it, perhaps, the cruelty by which so many of us live, the unworthy thoughts, the revel of base emotions, the sheer stupidity that sends a civilization lurching onward, step by step into self-destruction? Arathan, you are here, far away from the Tiste civil war, and I am glad for that. So too, I suspect, is your father.’

  The shadows stole into the chamber, barring the strange bars of the sun’s last light, streaming in through the streaks the lord’s fingers had left behind on the glass.

  Arathan drank the tea and found it surprisingly sweet.

  * * *

  ‘It’s done,’ Brella said dully.

  ‘But the bleeding does not stop,’ Cred observed, edging closer.

  ‘I know,’ she mumbled, head dipping. ‘Too many here. Too many … drinking deep.’

  ‘See the boulder!’ Stark hissed. ‘It bleeds water!’

  The stove’s heat made the rock’s face sizzle as the streams whispered down. ‘Brella!’ cried Cred, pulling her close in a rough embrace. ‘Stark, tear some cloth – make bandages! It pours from her!’

  Korya stared down upon them. She could feel the spirits, swirling round the three figures below. They flowed into the water trickling down the stone, raced to sudden death in the fierce heat of the stove. Their death-cries were childlike. Others crowded about Brella, an eager mob. Twisting round, Korya glanced back across the fire-studded encampment. The monstrous emanation was drawing closer – she saw small fires dim in a broad swath marking its passing. She heard distant shouts as the sensitive among the army – the adepts – recoiled from its passage.

  Brella was doomed. So too the fire-spirits bound to the pumice stones in the stove, and possibly Cred himself. The spirit reaching for them held the memory of global floods, of cold, unlit depths and crushing pressure. Of seas that boiled, and ice that cracked and shattered. Mountains reduced to rubble filled its throat. It crawled. It heaved itself forward, desperate for the taste of mortal blood.

  K’rul. You damned fool. We stumble into this sorcery in ignorance. We imagine a world for the taking, filled with small powers eager to answer our needs. We are drunk on wonder, seeking satiation with no thought of the founts we find – or who guards them.

  The camp seethed with motion now. A panic seemingly without source tightened throats, constricted chests, bringing pain to every breath drawn, every gasp loosed. She saw figures fall to their knees, hands at their faces. Fires winked out, snuffed by the growing pressure that it seemed only she could see.

  ‘Oh, enough.’ Korya spread out her arms. See this vessel, old one! Come to me, as a crab finds its perfect shell! I can hold you. I am your Mahybe, your home. Refuge. Lair. Whatever.

  She saw a shape taking form, ghostly, ethereal. Wormlike, and yet shouldered behind the blunt, eyeless head. The arms were gnarled and thick, planted on the ground like forelegs, and they were the only limbs visible, as the body snaked out, its distant end vanishing into the earth. The emanation towered over the entire camp, big enough to make a modest meal of the thousand souls cowering there.

  Shelter first. And then you can feed.

  The head lifted, questing blind, and then somehow Korya felt the old one’s attention fix on her. It surged forward.

  Mahybe. A vessel to be filled. Was this to be her task in life? Deadly trap for every ambitious power, every hungry fool?

  I will hold you inside. It’s the curse of every woman, after all—

  Someone scrabbled up the boulder’s broken side, but she had no time to see who would join her in this fraught moment. The leviathan was coming, and she felt something inside her open up, gaping, widening—

  ‘Stupid girl,’ a voice beside her said.

  Startled, she turned to see Haut. He stretched out one hand, as if to push away the ancient power. Instead, he twisted the hand until it was palm-up, uncurling his fingers.

  With a piercing shriek, the leviathan lunged forward, swept down upon them like a toppling tower.

  Winds roared in Korya’s skull. She felt the hard, wet stone slam against her knees, but she was blind now, deafened, and whatever had yawned wide inside her was now stoppered shut, ringing like a bell.

  Moments later, in a sudden, disorienting shift, she heard the trickling of water, the faint hiss from the heat still bathing the boulder’s opposite side. She opened her eyes, feeling impossibly weak. The roaring was gone, leaving only echoes that drifted through the emptiness within. The leviathan had vanished. ‘W-what?’

  Reaching down one-handed, Haut helped her upright. ‘I prepared you for this? Hardly. Here.’ He grasped her right hand and brought it up to set something small, polished and hard into its grip. ‘Don’t break it.’

  Then Haut moved away, clambering back down the rocky slope, muttering under his breath and waving both hands, as if fighting off a chorus of unspoken questions.

  Korya opened her hand and looked down at what she held.

  An acorn? A fucking acorn?

  From below, Brella was coughing, but with vigour. And then Stark said, in a faintly wild tone, ‘Can we drink that water now?’

  * * *

  Varandas stepped in alongside Haut when the captain returned from the outcrop, and they continued on, with Burrugast trailing, towards Hood’s tent.

  ‘She’s ambitious, this Tiste girl of yours,’ Varandas said.

  ‘Youth is a thirst that will drink any old thing, once,’ Haut replied. ‘It is that fearlessness we observe with bemusement, and not a little envy. She has grown sensitive, too – I believe she saw the thing, saw the truth of it.’

  ‘And yet,’ muttered Burrugast behind them, ‘she invited it nonetheless. Foolish. Precipitous. Dangerous. I trust, captain, she’ll not be accompanying us on this march.’

  ‘I await an Azathanai to take charge of her,’ Haut replied.

  ‘They care nothing for hostages,’ Varandas said. ‘Nor prodigies. I can think of not one Azathanai who will accede to your wish.’

  They were passing among the warriors and their small camps. The sudden, debilitating force that had descended upon everyone had left them
shaken, confused, angry. Voices rose in argument, bitter with accusations, as men and women turned on the warlocks and witches in their company. Flushed with firelight, faces swung towards the three Jaghut striding past, but none called out. Overhead, winter’s stars glittered, the sky-spanning band assembled like a belligerent host.

  At Varandas’s assertion, Haut shrugged. ‘Then a Dog-Runner, if the Azathanai will not have her.’

  ‘Send her home,’ said Burrugast. ‘You never did well with pets, Haut. Especially other people’s pets.’

  Haut scowled. ‘I warned Raest. Besides, in the end, he could not find dishonour in the tomb I raised for that idiot cat. 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?’

  Hood’s tent was small, of a size to suit a single occupant, with that occupant doing little more than sleeping. It had been raised on the floor of what had once been a tower, the walls of which had collapsed long ago. The low foundation stones roughly encircled the camp, with a few scattered blocks drawn up to provide seats around a desultory hearth. Cowled against the chill, Hood sat alone.

  ‘Hood!’ barked Burrugast as the three arrived. ‘Your self-proclaimed officers are here! Iron of spine and steeled with resolve, our hands twitch in anticipation of sharp salutes and whatnot. What say you to that?’

  ‘Ah now, Burrugast,’ Varandas pointed out, ‘an unseemly challenge rides your greeting. Beloved Hood, Lord of Grief, pray do not let him sting you to life. The drama alone might kill us all.’

  ‘They but followed me here,’ said Haut, sitting down opposite Hood. ‘Worse than dogs, these two. Why, just yesterday I found them both upon the western shore, rolling in rotten fish. To hide the scent, no doubt.’

  ‘Ha,’ said Varandas, ‘and what scent would that be?’

  ‘A complex odour, to be sure,’ Haut allowed, adjusting himself atop the blockish stone. ‘Hints of derision, mockery. Smudges of contempt. The flavour of rooks on a leafless branch, looking down upon a raving fool. The glitter of sordid patience. Flavours of sorrow, but already turned bitter, as if grief deserves not a face, nor a purpose. And, at the last, wisps of envy—’