The Thel Akai, such lovers of tales from distant lands, were nonetheless a people content with their own isolation. There were things to protect, after all, and pre-eminent among them a host of precious but flimsy beliefs. There was little defence, however, against the invasion of ideas, beyond whatever strength was offered by collective prejudices. And even among an isolated people such as the Thel Akai, factions arose, jostling for dominance, always eager to impose distinctions.
The only weapon of any worth against such idiocy was laughter, and it cut sharper and deeper than any blade.
A war upon death. That was worth a bold guffaw. Now watch us laugh all the way to the feet of the Lord of Rock-Piles himself. Some ideas will turn the blade, wounding the wielder with unexpected suddenness.
He turned at the sound of splashing from the lake, caught the glimmer of churning water as a figure clambered into view. Hanako saw a flash of tusks, and then heard muttered cursing as the stranger struggled with a bulky, sodden pack. He dragged it ashore, and then straightened, turning to face Hanako. ‘Is this the crude self-obsession of youth, Thel Akai, or has mercy simply died along with everything else?’
Hanako stepped forward, in time for the Jaghut to thrust the heavy sack into his hands.
‘It’s time to give thanks to that fire of yours,’ the Jaghut said, stepping past. ‘A beacon, a promising pyre, a rack to dry flesh and bone. It was all these things, and more.’
Hanako grunted under the weight of the sack, which was still draining water. He hurried to catch up to the Jaghut. ‘But – where did you come from?’
‘A boat, Thel Akai. By this means, one can journey across lakes. Unless,’ he added, ‘the boat changes its mind, and longs instead to explore the bottom.’
As they drew nearer the fire, Lasa Rook’s voice drifted out to them. ‘Another wastrel, Hanako? But not the grunts and growls of a bear, nor the hiss of a dragon. Why, this venture offers everything but the sweaty squeeze beneath the furs. Tell me, oh please, the tale of a shipwrecked prince flung so callously upon my lap, as it were …’
She was standing, awaiting them, and her words trailed away when the Jaghut stepped into the light, already stripping off his soaked clothing.
‘Unless you’re in the habit of devouring small children with your sweet trap, woman, best look back upon your companion, if satisfaction is what you seek.’
Lasa Rook snorted, and then moved to sit once more. ‘Wastrels indeed. Do charge these flames, Hanako, and with luck, such heat will dry our guest to a frail wisp, lifting him high into the night and gone.’
Now naked, the Jaghut moved closer to the hearth and began laying out his clothes. ‘Thel Akai,’ he said, making the words sound like a mild irritation, ‘you’ve been tumbling down out of the mountains for weeks now. All through the nights, as I communed with the walls of my cave, and paced the rough floor in search of quietude, I have been subjected to echoing braying I assumed to be laughter.’ Finished with his clothing, he moved closer to the flames and held out his hands to the heat. ‘But let it not be said that a Jaghut worth his salt would call but one cave his refuge. I set out, then, seeking a more remote cache.’
‘His boat sank,’ Hanako explained.
Lasa Rook lifted a bright gaze to him. ‘At last, brevity! Heed well this deplorable youth, Jaghut, and consider – in your own time, to be sure – the value of being succinct. After all, we do not all live for ages untold, inviting such preambles as to witness the greying of hair and bending of bones.’
After a moment, the Jaghut rose and retrieved the pack that Hanako had dragged into the firelight. He pulled free the straps and drew out a bundled chain surcoat, followed by a helm, a belt and twin scabbarded shortswords.
Hanako stared. ‘You swam carrying all that? I think even I could not manage such a thing, sir.’
‘When swimming fails, one walks.’
‘Listen to him, Hanako. Before this night is done, he will tell you of the stars he gathered from the sky.’ She rose. ‘I’m for sleep, yielding to you snores rather than moans. But do lean an ear to this pallid Jaghut, and partake in his dirge of exhausted wisdom. No finer music could more quickly put me to sleep.’
Hanako moved to check on Erelan Kreed, but the warrior remained unconscious, his brow hot with fever. Troubled, Hanako returned to sit opposite the Jaghut.
‘What ails your friend?’
‘He slew a dragon, and then drank its blood.’
The Jaghut grunted. ‘I expect he eats his own lice, too.’
‘I am named Hanako.’
‘I know.’
Hanako waited, and then shrugged before dragging close a branch torn from a tree they had pulled up from the high-water line. He flung it on to the fire. Sparks scattered and then died.
‘Names,’ said the Jaghut, ‘become their own curses. They are seared upon your soul, destined to follow your every deed. Such flimsy frames to bear inordinate burdens. It is my thought that we should all dispense with our old names, perhaps once every ten or so years. Imagine the wonder of beginning anew, Hanako, cleansed of all history.’
‘I would see a world, sir, where every crime was escaped.’
‘Hmm, you have a point there, but I wonder, what is it, precisely?’
‘With our names comes responsibility, for all that we have done, and all that we promise to do. But also, sir, how would we keep track of our companions? Our friends? Family?’
‘Yes, but your point?’
Hanako frowned. ‘You are Jaghut. You are unlike the rest of us. It is the very continuity that we yearn for, which you would reject. Well, which you have rejected.’
For a time neither spoke, and the only sound beyond the crackling flames was the drone of Lasa Rook’s snoring.
Then the Jaghut said, ‘Hanako, I am named Raest.’
‘Then welcome, Raest, to our fire.’
‘Voice a single jibe, Hanako, and I might have to chop off your head. Just so you understand how this night will play.’
‘I am too worried for Erelan Kreed, to be honest.’
‘He will live. Or die.’
‘Ah. Thank you.’
‘If he lives, he will not be the man you once knew. If you trusted this Erelan Kreed, trust him no longer. If you thought you knew him, you know him no more. And, should he instead die, why, honour who he once was. Raise a decent cairn and sing his praises.’
Hanako stared into the flames. ‘We journey, Raest,’ he said, ‘in answer to the call of one of your kin.’
‘Hood. Now that is a name worthy of being a curse.’
‘You will not answer his need?’
‘Of course not.’
‘You say that other Thel Akai have passed through this valley, and past your cave. It seems, then, that there will be many more in Hood’s army than I had first imagined.’
‘Thel Akai, who like a good joke,’ Raest said, nodding. ‘Dog-Runners, who have made sorrow a goddess of endless tears. Ilnap, who flee a usurper among their island kingdom. Forulkan, seeking the final arbiter. Jheck and Jhelarkan, ever eager for blood, even should it ooze from carrion. Petty tyrants from across the ocean, fleeing the High King’s incorruptible justice. Tiste, Azathanai, Halacahi, Thelomen—’
‘Thelomen!’
‘Word travels swift and far, Hanako, when even the waves carry the tale.’
‘Then,’ whispered Hanako, ‘this shall be a most formidable army.’
‘I would almost yield my isolation to see Hood’s ugly face, once he realizes the true tragedy that is the answer to his ill-considered summons.’
‘I should have realized,’ Hanako said. ‘Grief will make a vast legion. How could it not?’
‘It is not the grief, young Thel Akai, but the questions for which there are no answers. Against such silence, frustration and fury will see every sword drawn. Hood longs to face an enemy, and will, I fear, refashion death into a god. A being worthy of cursing, a face to be carved from senseless stone, offering up a blank, stony gaze, a g
rimace of granite.’ Raest snorted. ‘I see dolmens in the offing, and sacred wells from which the stench of rotting meat rises, to greet dancing flies. There will be sacrifices made, in the delusion of fair bargain.’
‘The Thel Akai,’ said Hanako, ‘hold to a faith in balance. When there is death, life will answer it. All things in this world, and in every other, ride upon a fulcrum.’
‘A fulcrum? And who then fashioned this cosmic construct, Hanako?’
‘It is simply how things are made, Raest. Mountains will crack and tumble, making the ground level where once stood cliffs. Rivers will flood and then subside when the waters drain away. For every dune raised up by the winds, there is an answering hollow.’
‘For every cry, there follows a silence. For every laugh, there is weeping. Yes, yes, Hanako.’ Raest waved a long-fingered, almost skeletal hand. ‘But alas, what you describe to me is the mind’s game with itself, haunted by the need to make sense of senseless things. To be certain, there are vague rules at work, which observation can detect. Crumbling mountains and flooding rivers and the like. The grinding wheel of the stars at night. But such predictability can deceive, Hanako. Worse, it can lead to complacency. Better to heed the unlikely, and assemble such rules only after disaster’s dust settles. After all, the heart of that need is comfort.’
Hanako glanced away, and then scowled down into the flames of the fire. ‘You mock our beliefs.’
‘But gently, I assure you.’
‘As you would a child, you mean.’
‘Such is our curse,’ Raest replied. ‘In fact,’ he added, ‘one cannot help but detest the Jaghut in general. Permit me, if you will, to explain.’
Hanako pushed more of the branch into the fire. He considered the Jaghut’s offer. There would indeed be value in learning more of these strange people. After a moment, he nodded. ‘Very well.’
Raest reached out to collect a stick, one end of which he thrust into the embers. ‘Some dread failure overtook us, one in which the intellect, knowing only itself, rose to dominate our proud selves, and by the seduction of language then set about denigrating all that was not rational, all that hovered tantalizingly out of reach, beyond its power to comprehend, much less explain away. Although it works hard at doing precisely that: explaining away, dismissing, impugning, mocking. The cynical eye is cast, and the cleverness of the mind ascends to assume the pose of the haughty. What results, sadly, is an intellect that won’t be denied its own sense of superiority.’ He held up the stick with which he had been stirring the embers, studied the small flames flickering from its blackened tip. ‘Is there anything more obnoxious than that?’
Hanako found himself matching Raest’s examination of the small tongues of fire writhing about the stick’s tip.
Raest continued. ‘So Gothos gave to us this wretched truth, and in so doing, he showed us the paucity of our lives. The intellect delights in standing triumphant within us, even as the ashes rise past our knees, as the skies darken and grow foul with smoke; even as children starve or are flung into the face of war and strife. 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.’ He waved the stick before him to make the tip glow, inscribing patterns that seemed to linger in the air. ‘To all this, Caladan Brood but nodded, and built for us a monument to our own stupidity. The Tower of Hate. Oh, how we laughed at the wonder of it, the blatant skyward stab of our obdurate natures. A monument, in truth, to announce the fall of our civilization … now that was a night of celebration!’
‘But surely,’ objected Hanako, ‘the rational state proffers many gifts to a civilization!’
Raest shrugged, and then set one hand over one of his eyes, blinking with the other. ‘Why yes, I see them now! These gifts!’ He withdrew his hand and frowned. ‘Oh dear, is that the cost? What my second eye observes – all those poor fools made to kneel in the dirt! And the well-meaning but utterly self-deceiving leaders – living in such splendour – who hold in their hands the life and death and liberty of those abject minions! And there, ever ready with their salutes, the soldiers who would impose the will of said leaders, in the subjugation of their fellows. Why, reason rules this world! The necessities of organization are such rational constructs – who could deny their worth?’ He snorted. ‘Hmm, shall we ask the slaves, in the few moments they win each day in which to pause and draw breath from their labours? Or shall we ask the leaders, who in the luxury of privilege are granted time to contemplate the system in which they thrive? Or, perhaps, the soldiers? But then, they are told not to think, only to obey. Where, then, among these myriad participants, are we to look for judgement?’
‘The bards, the poets, the sculptors and painters.’
‘Bah, who ever listens to them?’
‘You heeded Caladan Brood.’
‘He drove the spear into our civilization, yes, but that civilization was already a corpse, already cold and lifeless upon the ground. No, the role of artists is to attend the funerals. They are the pall-bearers of failure, and every wonder they raise high in celebration harks back to a time already dead.’
‘Some would dance, and give to us joy and hope.’
‘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.’
‘What, then, is your answer, Raest?’
The Jaghut’s tusks flashed dully as Raest grinned. ‘I shall endeavour to create a new civilization, one heeding the inherent flaws of its organization. I shall, indeed, attempt the impossible. Alas, I can already foresee the outcome, as I am driven by frustration and, ultimately, despair. The possibility must be acknowledged – which we dare not do – that we, being imperfect creatures, are ever doomed to fail in achieving the perfection of a just society, a society of liberation, balanced and compassionate, reasonable and spiritual, devoid of tyrannies of thought and deed, absent wanton malice, the cruelty of natural vices, be they greed, envy, or the desire to dominate.’
Hanako studied the flames, considering the Jaghut’s chilling words. ‘But, Raest, can we not try?’
‘To try implies a willingness to accept our flaws, and to serve the cause of mitigating them. To try, Hanako, begins with acknowledging those flaws, and that requires humility, and so we return, once again, to an intellect convinced of its own superiority – not just superiority over others of its own kind, but superiority over nature itself. The Tiste poet Gallan said it well when he wrote “The shore does not dream of you”. Do you know that poem?’
Hanako shook his head.
‘Do you grasp the meaning of that line?’
‘Nature will prove itself superior to our every conceit.’
Raest nodded, his eyes shining in the firelight. ‘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.’
‘You describe an unending journey, Raest, of a nature which would test a soul to its very core.’
‘I describe a life lived well, Hanako. I describe a life of worth.’ Then he flung the stick on to the flames. ‘But my words are not for the young, alas. Even so, they may echo into future years, and rebound when the time is propitious. Thus, I offer them to you, Hanako.’
‘For your gift this night,’ Hanako said, ‘I thank you.’
‘A gift you barely comprehend.’
The Thel Akai heard the wryness in the Jaghut’s tone, stealing the sting from the words. ‘Just so, Raest.’
‘The Dog-Runners speak with rare vision,’ Raest said, ‘when they say that in the flames of the hearth, we can see both
our rise and our fall.’
‘And the ashes in the morning to come?’
The Jaghut’s twisted mouth fashioned a bitter grin. ‘Those ashes … yes, well. There are none to see them, just as none of us can do aught but remember heat yet remain doomed to feel no warmth from the memory, so we know but cannot know what it was like to be born, nor what it will be like to die. Ashes … they will tell you that something has burned, but what is the shape of that thing? For those who burned but faintly, some form remains, enough with which to guess. But for those who burned fiercely, ah, as you say, nothing but a heap of ashes, swiftly scattered on the wind.’
‘Is there no hope for legacy, Raest?’
‘By all means hope, Hanako. Indeed, aspire. But what the future will read from what you leave behind is beyond your power to control. And if that is not humbling, then nothing is.’
‘And yet,’ said Hanako, ‘I travel to find an army that seeks death, to wage a war that cannot be won. In my heart, I yearn for failure, and dream of glory.’
‘And no doubt you will find it,’ Raest replied.
‘Tell me of the Azathanai.’
‘Squalid wretches every one of them. Look not to the Azathanai for guidance.’
‘How did you walk across the bottom of the lake, carrying your armour?’
‘How? A few steps, amidst clouds of silt, and then back to the surface, and then down again, for a few more strides. It was dull work, I tell you. There is a forest down there, making a tangle of everything. And hearthstones in rings, like pocks, making treacherous holes. Tree stumps and overly curious fish. Biting eels. I’ve had better days.’ With that, Raest rose. ‘Sleep beckons.’
But Hanako was not yet finished with this unexpected guest. ‘Raest, can you heal Erelan Kreed?’
The Jaghut paused, and then said, ‘No. As I said, the blood will either kill him or it won’t. But what I can offer is a warning. The kin of the slain dragon will know your friend by the scent of that Draconic blood. Some will seek to resume old arguments.’
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