Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1)

by Steven Erikson

  He wanted to weep. Instead, he cursed himself for being a fool.

  A figure appeared at the rise on the other side of the river. Massive, towering, clad in thick plates of leather armour, a clutch of spears balanced over one shoulder, a heavy sack held in one hand. His head was bare, his hair unbound and lit like fiery blood in the glare of the setting sun. He paused for a moment and then lumbered his way down to the ford.

  And Rint knew this Azathanai, though he had never seen him before.

  The lone warrior among the Azathanai. The one known as Protector. Though whom he has fought is a question I cannot answer. Thel Akai halfblood, mate to Kilmandaros.

  This is Grizzin Farl.

  The water barely breached his heavy boots.

  ‘Draconus!’ he bellowed. ‘Is this how you hide from all the world? Ha, I had not believed the tales – now see me for the fat fool I am! But look, I have ale!’

  * * *

  He came among them like a man with nothing to fear and nothing to lose, and only much later – years later – did Arathan come to understand how each fed the other and could in turn fashion sentiments of both admiration and great pity. But with his arrival in the camp, it was as if a giant had descended from some lofty mountain crag, down from some wind-whipped keep with echoing halls and frost at the foot of wooden doors. Its master had grown weary of the solitude and now sought company.

  There are those from whom pleasure exudes, heady as ale fumes, inviting as the warmth of a fire on a cold night. They encourage amusement with but a glance, as if jests fill the world and the company they share cannot help but fall into that welcoming embrace.

  The Azathanai named himself Grizzin Farl, and he did not wait for Draconus to introduce him to the others; instead walking to each in turn. Raskan, Rint, and then Arathan, and when his hand clasped Arathan’s wrist the nest of wrinkles bracketing the giant’s eyes sharpened and he said, ‘A sword-wielder’s forearm, that. Your father has not been careless in preparing you for the life ahead. You are Arathan, inconvenient son of Draconus, lost child to a grieving mother. Will it be this hand I now hold that sends the knife into your father’s back? So he fears, and what father wouldn’t?’

  Arathan stared up into those grey eyes. ‘I have no ambitions,’ he said.

  ‘Well you may not, but others have.’

  ‘They will never find me.’

  Gnarled eyebrows lifted at that. ‘Will you live a life in hiding, then?’

  Arathan nodded. The others were standing close, listening, but he could not pull his gaze from that of Grizzin Farl.

  ‘That is not much of a life,’ the giant said.

  ‘I am not much of a life, sir. Therefore it well suits me.’

  Grizzin Farl finally released his grip on Arathan’s arm and turned to Draconus. ‘It is said Darkness has become a weapon. Against whom is it intended to strike? This is the question, and I go to hear its answer. Tell me, Draconus, will Kharkanas reel to my fated arrival?’

  ‘Towers will topple,’ Draconus replied. ‘Women will swoon.’

  ‘Ha! As well they should!’ But then he frowned. ‘Those observations, old friend, do not sit well together.’ And with that he turned to Feren and lowered himself to one knee. ‘Who could expect such beauty here on the very edge of Bareth Solitude? It is ever in my nature to save the best for last. I am Grizzin Farl, known among the Azathanai as the Protector, known among the Jheleck as the warrior who misses every fight, sleeps through every battle, and but smiles at every challenge. Known, too, by those Jaghut who remain as the Stone that Sleeps, which is their poetic way of describing my infamous lethargy. Now, I would have you speak your own name, so that I may cherish it and hold the memory of your voice for ever in my heart.’

  Through all of this, Feren seemed unimpressed, though the colour was high on her cheeks. ‘I am Feren,’ she said. ‘A Bordersword and sister to Rint.’

  ‘Too young,’ Grizzin Farl said after a moment, ‘to lose hope. Your voice has told me a tragic tale, though the details remain obscured, but in loss there is pain, and pain will become a sting that ever reminds of that loss.’

  She backed away at his words. ‘I reveal no such thing!’ she said in a rasp.

  Grizzin Farl slowly straightened, then spread his arms out as if to encompass them all. ‘Tonight we will drink ourselves into wild joy, until the fire has dimmed and the stars flee the dawn, whereupon we will all grow maudlin and each swear everlasting fealty to one another, before passing out.’ He lifted his sack. ‘Ale from the Thel Akai, who are masters, if not of brewing, most certainly of drinking.’ He paused, and then added, ‘I trust you have food. In my haste to meet you, I fear I left home without any.’

  Arathan was startled to hear his father’s sigh.

  Then Grizzin Farl smiled, and once more all was right in the world.

  * * *

  The ale was strong and went immediately to Arathan’s head. Shortly after the evening meal, and in the midst of a bawdy song about a Thel Akai maiden and an old Jaghut with an aching tusk, sung with great melodrama by the Azathanai, Arathan fell asleep. Raskan awoke him the next morning with a cup of strong herbs and willow bark, and it was while he sat, sipping the hot drink, that he saw that Grizzin Farl was no longer among them.

  Even now it seemed like a dream, blurred and raucous, almost fevered. Head aching, Arathan kept his eyes on the ground before him, as the others began breaking camp. He wondered what other matters were spoken of in the night just past, and he felt his own absence as if it mocked whatever claims he might make to having become a man. He had fallen unconscious like a boy at his first cups, a tankard stolen from the table and hastily gulped down behind a chair.

  He had wanted to hear more about Darkness as a sword, a weapon. And it was clear that Grizzin Farl knew Arathan’s father – in ways no one else did, perhaps not even Mother Dark herself. What strange history did they share? What mysterious tales bound their past? A few covert glances to Raskan, Rint and Feren suggested that nothing momentous had been revealed; if anything, everyone seemed at greater ease than they had shown in the time before Grizzin Farl’s arrival, as if barriers had been pushed down after a night of ale and laughter.

  After a moment of consideration, Arathan looked again at Feren, and saw that something had changed. There was a looseness about her, and then he caught a smile she sent her brother’s way at some muttered comment, and suddenly it seemed as if everything had changed. Tensions had vanished. The oppressive weight that had been Sagander’s accident had disappeared. Grizzin Farl came among us, and then he left, but when he left, he took something with him.

  He saw his father watching him, and after a moment Draconus strode over. ‘I should have warned you about Thel Akai ale.’

  Arathan shrugged.

  ‘And you barely recovered from a concussion,’ his father continued. ‘It must have hit you like a sleeping draught. I am sorry, Arathan, that you missed most of an enjoyable evening.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘You have had too few of those.’

  ‘He called you his friend,’ Arathan said, his tone painfully accusing.

  A flatness came to his father’s eyes. ‘He calls everyone “friend”, Arathan. Give it no further thought.’

  Arathan glared after him as he walked away.

  From a lone, diseased tree upriver drifted the morning cry of a bird and he looked over but could not see the creature among the crooked branches and sullen leaves.

  It hides, and it is free.

  Free to fly away from all of this.

  * * *

  A short time later they ascended the slope and came out upon the Bareth Solitude, and the way ahead stretched on in ribboned rows beneath a clear sky, and Arathan was reminded of Sagander’s lessons recounting the death of a great inland sea.

  As he rode, he thought of water, and freedom.

  And prisons.

  To the west was the land of the Azathanai, where dwelt protectors who protected nothing, and wise sages who never spoke,
and Thel Akai came down from the mountains to share drunken nights no one remembered the next day. It was a world of mysteries, and he would soon see it for himself. With the thought, he felt light in the saddle, as if moments from transforming into a bird, from taking wing in search of a diseased tree.

  But the thin sea ahead was bereft of trees, and the beach ridges with their bleached cobbles edged basins of grass and little else.

  He wasn’t interested in stabbing his father in the back – that broad back just ahead, beneath that worn cloak. No one would ever wield him like a knife.

  Grizzin Farl had told him: his mother still lived. She lived, tormented by grief, which meant that she loved him still. He would find her and steal her away.

  In a world of mysteries, there were plenty of places in which to hide.

  For both of us.

  And we will love each other, and from that love, there will be peace.

  PART TWO

  The solitude of this fire

  SIX

  HUST HENARALD’S EYES were level and dark, as if to test the weight of the words he was about to speak, to see if they sank claws deep into the man seated opposite him, or merely slipped past. The low light sculpted out the hollows of his cheeks, and above the prominent bones flaring out from his narrow, hooked nose those sharp eyes seemed to have retreated far in their shadowy recesses, yet remained piercing and intent. ‘One day,’ he said, voice rough from years at the forge, in the midst of bitter smoke and acrid steam, ‘I will be a child again.’ He slowly leaned back, withdrawing from the oil lamp’s light on the table, until he seemed to Kellaras more a ghostly apparition than a mortal man.

  From outside this overheated chamber, the great machines of the bellows thundered like an incessant heart, the reverberations rolling through every stone of the Great House. The sound never fell away – in all the days and nights Kellaras had been guest to the Lord of Hust Forge, he had felt this drum of industry, beating the pulse of earth and stone, of fire and smoke.

  This was, he had begun to believe, a place of elemental secrets, where truths roiled in the swirling heat, the miasmic tempest of creation and destruction clamouring without surcease on all sides; and this man, who had finally granted him audience, now sat across from him, in a high-backed chair shrouded in shadows, both lord and arbiter, ruler and sage, and yet his first words uttered had been … nonsense.

  Henarald might have smiled then, but it was difficult to see in the gloom. ‘One day, I will be a child again. Carved toys will caper and dance from my mind, out across rock I will raise as mountains. Through grasses I will proclaim forests. For too long I have been trapped in this world of measures, proportions and scale. For too long I have known and understood the limits of what is possible, so cruel in rejecting all that can be imagined. In this way, friend, we are each of us not one but two lives, for ever locked in mortal combat, and from all things at hand, we make weapons.’

  Kellaras slowly reached for the goblet of riktal on the tabletop before him. The spirit was fire in the throat and the only alcohol the Lord was purported to drink, but Kellaras’s first mouthful still rocked through his brain.

  ‘You hide your sudden acuity well, captain, but I well noted your intensity when I spoke the word “weapons”. To this you cleave, for among the words I have spoken, this alone you understand. I was speaking of all that we lose as the years crawl over us and the past – our youth – falls away.’ He closed both hands round his goblet, and those hands were massive, scarred and blunted, shiny in places from deep burns acquired over a lifetime at his forge. ‘Your lord wishes from me a sword. As a gift? Or does he seek to join the Hust Legion, perhaps. I cannot imagine Urusander’s supporters would be much pleased by a proclamation so overt.’

  Kellaras struggled for a reply. Henarald’s easy shift from the poetic to the pragmatic left him feeling wrong-footed. His thoughts felt clumsy, like a child’s when confounded by a puzzle box.

  But the Hust lord was of no mind to await a reply. ‘When I am a child again, the grown-ups will retreat from my eye. Drifting away into their own worlds and leaving me to mine. In their absence I am filled with trust and I reorder the scale of things to suit my modest command. Time yields its grip and I play until it is time to sleep.’ Henarald paused to drink. ‘And should I dream, it will be of surrender.’

  After a long moment, Kellaras cleared his throat. ‘Lord, my master well understands that such a commission is, at this time, unusual.’

  ‘There was a time when it was anything but unusual. But to call it so now is too coy for my liking. A commission for a sword from the First Son of Darkness cannot help but be seen as political. Will my acquiescence unleash rumours of secret allegiance and conspiracy? What snare does Anomander set in my path?’

  ‘None, Lord. His desire reaches back to the honour of tradition.’

  Brows slowly lifted. ‘His words, or your own?’

  ‘Such was my understanding, Lord, with respect to the First Son’s motivations.’

  ‘In choosing you, he chose well. One day I will be a child again.’ Then he leaned forward. ‘But not yet.’ The sharpness of Henarald’s gaze glittered like diamond shards. ‘Captain Kellaras, has your master specific instructions as to this blade of his desire?’

  ‘Lord, he would it be a silent weapon.’

  ‘Ha! Does the cry of the sword’s supple spine unnerve him, then?’

  ‘No, Lord, it does not.’

  ‘Yet he would prefer a gagged weapon, cut mute, a weapon cursed to howl and weep unheard by any.’

  ‘Lord,’ said Kellaras, ‘the weapon you describe leads me to wonder which is the greatest torment, silence or a voice for its pain?’

  ‘Captain, the weapon I describe does not exist. Yet those fools in Urusander’s Legion would tell you otherwise. Tell me, will your master hide the origin of his blade?’

  ‘Of course not, Lord.’

  ‘Yet he would have it muted.’

  ‘Must all truths be spoken, Lord?’

  ‘Does the riktal un-man you, captain? I can call for wine if you prefer.’

  ‘In truth, Lord, I had forgotten that I had goblet in hand. I beg your pardon.’ Kellaras swallowed down another mouthful.

  ‘He wishes a blade of truth, then.’

  ‘One that demands the same in its wielder, yes. In concord, then, but a silent concord.’

  Abruptly Henarald rose to his feet. He was tall, gaunt, yet he stood straight, as if the iron of his world was in his bones, his flesh. In the pits of his eyes now, nothing was visible from the low angle at which sat Kellaras. ‘Captain, there is chaos in every weapon. We who forge iron, indeed, all metal, we lock hands with that chaos. We fight it, seeking control and order, and it fights back, with open defiance and, when that fails, with hidden treachery. Your master seeks a blade devoid of chaos. Such a thing cannot be achieved, and the life I have spent is proof of that.’

  Kellaras hesitated, and then said, ‘Lord, First Son Anomander is aware of the secret of the Hust swords. He knows what lies at the core of every weapon you now make. This is not the path he seeks in the making of his chosen sword. He requests that the spine of the blade be quenched in sorcery, in the purity of Darkness itself.’

  The Lord of Hust Forge was motionless, the lines of his face seeming to deepen the longer he stared down at Kellaras. Then he spoke, in flat tones. ‘It is said that the sceptre I made for Mother Dark now possesses something of the soul of Kurald Galain. She has imbued it with sorcery. She has taken pure but plain iron and made it … unnatural.’

  ‘Lord, I know little of that.’

  ‘It now embodies Darkness, in some manner few of us understand. Indeed, I wonder if even Mother Dark is fully aware of what she has done.’

  The direction of this conversation was making Kellaras uneasy.

  Henarald grunted. ‘Do I speak blasphemy?’

  ‘I would hope not, Lord.’

  ‘But now we must take care in what we say. It seems, captain, that as her p
ower grows, her tolerance diminishes. They are like lodestones, pushing each other away. Does power not grant immunity? Does power not strengthen the armour; does power not find assurance in itself? Can it be that those who hold the most power also know the greatest fear?’

  ‘Lord, I cannot say.’

  ‘And yet, do not those who are most powerless also suffer from the same fear? What does power grant its wielder, then? Presumably, the means with which to challenge that fear. And yet, it would seem that it does not work, not for long, in any case. By this we must conclude that power is both meaningless and delusional.’

  ‘Lord, the Forulkan sought to extend their power over the Tiste. Had they succeeded, we would be either enslaved now, or dead. There is nothing delusional about power, and through the strength of our legions, including the Hust, we prevailed.’

  ‘If the Forulkan had won, what would they have achieved? Mastery over slaves? But let us be truthful here, captain. Not one Tiste would kneel in slavery. The Forulkan would have had no choice but to kill us all. I ask again, what would that have achieved? A triumph in solitude makes a hollow sound, and to every glory proclaimed the heavens make no answer.’

  ‘My master requests a sword.’

  ‘Pure and plain iron.’

  ‘Just so.’

  ‘To take the blood of Darkness.’

  The captain’s brows rose. ‘Lord, her sorcery is not Azathanai.’

  ‘Isn’t it? She feeds her power, but how?’

  ‘Not by blood!’

  Henarald studied Kellaras for a moment longer, and then he sat once more in his heavy, high-backed chair. He drained the goblet in his hand and set it down on the table. ‘I have breathed poison for so long, only riktal can burn through the scars on my throat. Age numbs us to feeling. We are dulled as black bedrock on a crag. Waiting for yet one more season of frost. Now that the First Son has discovered the secret of the Hust, will he barter his knowledge to suit his political ambitions?’