Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1)

by Steven Erikson

  As they passed among them, skirting the high edge of the valley’s north side, Korya saw that most were abandoned, and those few that showed signs of habitation were distant, and it seemed that Haut’s route deeper into the now dead Jaghut city deftly avoided drawing too near any of them.

  She saw no evidence of industry, or farming, or manufacture. There were no outbuildings to be seen, either for storing food or stabling animals. For sustenance, these Jaghut must have supped on air.

  Her thighs and calves ached from all the walking. The silence from Haut was oppressive and there was a steady pain behind her eyes and blood had soaked through the pad of moss between her legs. She awaited a word from him, something to snap at and so feel better, but he strode ahead without pause, until she felt as if he’d bound an invisible leash round her neck and was simply pulling her along like a reluctant pet. She wanted him to tug on that leash, draw her too close and so come within reach of her claws.

  Not that she had any. Nights of cooking over campfires had made scorched and smudged bludgeons of her hands. And for all her vehemence, her strength was gone, withered away by this seemingly endless trek. Her clothes and hair were filthy and stank of smoke.

  Another square tower was just ahead, and this one Haut was making no effort to avoid and so she assumed that it too was abandoned. Another monument to failure. How I long for Kurald Galain!

  When her master reached it, he halted and turned to Korya. ‘Prepare camp,’ he said. ‘Tonight we will sleep within, since there will be rain.’

  She glared up at the cloudless sky, and then at the Jaghut.

  ‘Will the child doubt the adult in all things?’ he asked.

  ‘I trust,’ she said as she dropped the pack from her shoulders, ‘that was rhetorical.’

  Haut pointed at a stunted tree outside the gaping entrance to the tower. ‘That shrub is called ilbarea.’

  ‘It’s dead.’

  ‘It does appear that way, yes. Collect a bag full of its leaves.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I see that you are in discomfort and ill-humour and so would remedy that. Not as much for your sake as for mine, since I have no desire to dodge barbs all night.’

  ‘I have questions, not barbs.’

  ‘And to grasp each one is to behold thorns. Collect the driest of the dead leaves and know that I do this for both of us.’

  ‘You just said—’

  ‘Bait to test your mood. The trap is sprung yet you still profess to a backbone and raised hackles. I will see you calmed and no longer so sickly-looking.’

  ‘Well, we can’t have your sensibilities so offended, can we?’ She rummaged in her pack and found a small sack that had once held tubers – ghastly tasting things even when boiled to a mush: she had thrown the rest away after the first night.

  ‘It is better,’ said Haut, ‘when you cook with enthusiasm.’

  ‘I thought we were hunting murderers,’ she said as she walked over to the shrub. ‘Instead we just walk and walk and get nowhere.’ She began plucking the dry, leathery leaves. ‘This will make wretched tea.’

  ‘I’m sure it would,’ he replied behind her. ‘Once you have filled the bag, we shall need a fire. There should be a wood pile behind the tower, in the yard. I have held on to a single bottle of wine and for that you will thank me, once you rediscover a thankful mood.’

  ‘I suggest you hold your breath while awaiting its arrival,’ she said, tugging at the leaves.

  He grunted. ‘I have failed you with too much shelter, I now see. You are resilient in civil settings, yet frail in the wilds.’

  ‘You call this wild, master?’

  ‘You would deem it civilization, hostage?’

  ‘Civilization on its knees – if that roof proves dry to the nonexistent rain. I am far from enamoured, master, exploring this legacy of surrender. But this is only the wildness of neglect, and that is ever sordid for the tale it tells.’

  ‘True enough, there is nothing more sordid than civil failure, in particular its way of creeping up on one, in such minute increments as to pass unnoticed. If we are to deem civilization a form of progress, then how should it be measured?’

  She sighed. Still more lessons. ‘You would engage an ill-tempered woman in debate, master?’

  ‘Hmm, true. Woman you are. Child no longer. Well, as I am bored, I will gird my armour and march into the perilous ferment of a woman’s fury.’

  She so wanted to dislike him, but again and again it proved impossible. ‘The progress of civilization is measured in its gifts to labour and service. We are eased by the coalescing of intent, willingness and capability.’

  ‘Then how does one measure the stalling of said progress? Or indeed, its decline?’

  ‘Intent remains. Willingness fades and capability is called into question. Accord dissolves but blame is impossible to assign, leading to malaise, confusion and a vacuous resentment.’ The bag was stuffed full. Eyeing the shrub she was startled to see that upon every branch she had stripped bare new shoots had appeared, just as brown as the leaves they replaced. ‘What a ridiculous tree,’ she said.

  ‘Its disguise is death,’ said Haut. He had removed his gauntlets and was shrugging out from his surcoat of mail. ‘Give me the ilbarea, thus freeing your hands to collect wood.’

  ‘That is kind of you, master. But I wonder, if I am to be a mahybe, a vessel to be filled, why fill it with mundane tasks and seething frustration?’

  He sat on a stone near the old firepit and then glanced up at her. ‘Have you ever held a stoppered bottle under water? No? Yes, why should you? No matter. Pull the stopper and what happens?’

  ‘If the bottle held air, then the air bubbles out and is replaced with water. If it held liquid, then I imagine a certain slow admixture with the water. These are the experiments suited to a child in a tub. But, master, as you can see, I am not under water, nor am I as empty as you would think me.’

  ‘These disciplines, hostage, are for your own good in that they bring ease and comfort to my being. I have been too long in civilization to understand the mundane cogitations of its basic requirements.’

  ‘You are intent without capability and entirely lacking in will.’

  ‘Just so, and I would not be a teacher of worth, if in neglect I led you into a life similarly devoid of useful knowledge.’

  She eyed him for a long moment and then made her way to the back of the tower. Instead of an overgrown garden, she found a massive hole in the ground. It was four or five paces across and when she ventured to its edge and peered down, she saw only blackness. Collecting up a rock, she held it out and dropped it. The stone struck something after a few heartbeats, and then bounced and clattered until the sounds faded away.

  The wood was stacked up against the wall, enough for a dozen nights at the campfire. That thought left her despondent. She collected an armful and returned to where Haut sat expectantly. He had set his last remaining wine bottle on the ground beside him. Eyes on the bottle, Korya contemplated smashing it over Haut’s hairless pate. Instead, she crouched and set down the wood beside the firepit, and then went off in search of kindling.

  A short time later, she had the fire lit and sat waiting for a decent bed of embers. The cookpot sat waiting, filled with water and a handful of dubious vegetables.

  Haut rummaged in his pack and removed three goblets, which he set to polishing with a silk handkerchief she had never seen before. He lined up the goblets in a perfect row in front of the bottle.

  A sound from the tower made her turn. A Jaghut was standing in the doorway. He was taller than Haut by more than a hand, broad across the shoulders and long-limbed. His tusks were stained almost black, except at the upthrust tips, where they faded to red-tinted amber. An old but savage scar seamed a ragged path diagonally across his face. He wore nothing but a colourless loincloth that failed to hide the lower half of his manhood. The vertical pupils of his eyes were thin as slits.

  ‘I kill trespassers,’ he said.

&nbs
p; Haut nodded. ‘We shall warn any who come near. Korya Delath, this is Varandas. I thought he was dead.’

  ‘Hoped, I’m sure,’ said Varandas, stepping forward. ‘A wondrous fire,’ he observed. ‘I need only glance upon it to see the path to our demise. Well lit every stride we take, until sudden darkness falls. But then, to live is to stumble, and to stumble is to plunge headlong and ever forward. Is it any wonder death takes so many of us?’

  ‘But not you,’ Haut said. ‘Not yet, in any case. Sit then, if you must intrude upon our peace, and pour out the wine.’

  ‘She is too young to drink—’

  ‘She has known wine from her mother’s tit.’

  ‘—too young to drink to, I was going to say. As for broaching the bottle, are you still so useless with your hands, Haut, that you need help with so simple a task?’

  Korya snorted.

  Varandas glanced at her, as if judging her anew. ‘That’s a woman’s laugh.’

  ‘She is Tiste,’ explained Haut. ‘She might be a thousand years old and you’d know it not.’

  ‘Surely she isn’t.’

  ‘No, but that was not my point. Useless with my hands I might be, but I note the persistent inefficacy of your wits, Varandas, telling me that your affliction of stupidity is indeed eternal.’

  ‘I do claim stupidity as an illness,’ Varandas said with a nod, ‘and have written a fine treatise arguing my point. Badly, of course.’

  ‘I’ve not read it.’

  ‘No one has. I am satisfied to think of writing as a desire worth having, whereas its practical exercise is a turgid ordeal I leave to lesser folk, since I have better things to do with the sentient fragments of my brain.’

  ‘Thus the argument of a thousand useless geniuses, each one quick to venture an opinion, particularly a negative one, since by their own negativity they can justify doing nothing but complain.’

  ‘Good company one and all,’ said Varandas, taking up the bottle and inspecting its unmarked clay body. ‘I pronounce this singular in quality.’

  ‘So it is,’ agreed Haut.

  ‘Have you anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh well.’ He plucked free the stopper and poured, filling each of the goblets to the brim.

  ‘You would have us spill upon our hands?’

  Varandas sat back. ‘No, I would have us simply observe them and so appreciate the perfection of my measure.’

  ‘I fear Korya was able to gauge that some time ago.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Your diaper is too small, Varandas.’

  ‘That is a matter of opinion, Haut. I will not apologize for the prodigiousness of my famous prowess. Now, let us embark on sticky hands and the smacking of lips and such. Tiste, do precede us.’

  ‘As far as I know,’ said Korya, reaching for the first goblet, ‘my mother’s tit was not full of wine. I refuse to be responsible for my master’s opinions.’

  Varandas regarded her. ‘Her mood is foul, Haut. How do you put up with it?’

  ‘Mostly I hide, but as you can see, this is presently difficult to achieve. I have a solution, of course.’

  ‘Speak on, O spiteful one.’

  Haut pulled out a clay pipe. ‘Ilbarea leaves, from your own tree, Varandas.’

  ‘Oh? I thought it was dead.’

  * * *

  ‘That,’ said Varandas a short time later, ‘is an expression I will never forget.’

  Haut frowned, reached out and picked up the pipe from where it had fallen from Korya’s senseless hand. He sniffed at the smoke still drifting up from the bowl, and his head snapped back. ‘Oh dear, this would challenge the constitution of a Thel Akai. How long have those leaves ripened on the vine?’

  ‘I can’t say for certain, since I never picked them off. Decades, I would think. Or perhaps centuries – why do you ask me such challenging questions? You delight in making obvious the symptoms of my stupidity and this makes me cross and prone to belligerence.’

  ‘Well, one hopes she will awaken on the morrow refreshed and full of vigour.’

  ‘Or perhaps the following day, or the next one after that. That was a lungful to melt iron ore. See how she still exudes white tendrils with each breath? But I will say this, her ill-disposition no longer offends us and so I judge this a pleasing outcome.’

  ‘The bottle is empty,’ Haut observed, ‘and I am no longer hungry, which is good since my cook lies supine.’

  ‘Then we must walk to the back of the tower, Haut.’

  ‘Very well, if you insist.’

  ‘We have things to discuss.’

  They rose and left the motionless form of Korya, although Haut paused to fling a blanket over her as he passed by.

  Varandas led the way to the edge of the vast hole in the yard. Haut joined him. They stared down into the pitch black and said nothing for a time.

  Then Haut grunted and said, ‘I fear for Hood.’

  ‘I fear the precedent,’ Varandas replied. ‘An Azathanai now truly stands apart, and would make a bold claim to godhood.’

  ‘What is to be done?’

  ‘This question is asked by everyone, Haut. Barring Hood himself, who speaks not a word and languishes still in chains.’

  ‘In chains?’

  ‘The Lord of Hate has the care of him.’

  ‘In chains?’

  ‘This was deemed a mercy. An act of compassion. We await Hood, I now believe – all of us who choose to care. We await his word.’

  ‘And you?’

  Varandas shrugged. ‘It has been a long time since I took up the sword, and now I view the gesture as one of bluster. What do I recall of war? What do I know of fighting? I will listen to Hood, however, and give him the openness of my judgement until I can weigh his words.’

  Haut nodded. ‘That is honourable, Varandas. How many others will join you on that day, I wonder?’

  ‘A handful, I would think. We keep small gardens and pluck weeds with uncommon vigour. After all, the Lord of Hate only spoke the truth, and by this made infernal argument none could oppose.’

  They were silent then for a long time, until Varandas turned to Haut and asked, ‘And you?’

  ‘Mahybe Korya.’

  Varandas’s brows lifted. ‘Indeed? A Tiste mahybe? Unprecedented and bold.’

  ‘I am otherwise helpless,’ said Haut.

  Varandas gestured to the hole. ‘What do you think of this?’

  ‘I have been thinking of it, I admit,’ confessed Haut. ‘How did you come by it?’

  ‘No idea,’ Varandas answered.

  They studied it some more.

  * * *

  ‘The worship of stone,’ said Errastas, ‘is a plea to longevity, but that’s a secret stone never yields.’

  Sechul Lath continued pulling rocks from the rubble, swearing as his fingers brushed the occasional stone that was still blistering hot. Steaming earth sifted down as the mound continued to settle. The air was rank with a smell he could not identify, but which he imagined to be outrage.

  Nearby, Errastas crouched at a heap of broken slate tiles, rummaging through them and setting aside certain ones, arranging even stacks as if counting coins. ‘They claim,’ he went on, ‘that the buildings simply grew from the ground. At first they were little more than piles of rock, but still they rose from the earth, and soon new ones found the shape of hovels. Here and there, a wall or line. Others made circles. And then, as if all these pathetic efforts somehow merged and found each other, houses were born. Well, not just houses as we now know. But towers to match those of the Jaghut. And others that bore the semblance of wood, as you might imagine a Tiste would make. While yet others took to earth itself, in Thel Akai fashion, or hides like the huts of the Dog-Runners.’

  Sechul adjusted his grip on a particularly large boulder and pulled on it. It came away with a grinding lurch. He rolled it to one side and studied the hole where the stone had been. And then twisted round to look at his companion.

  ‘But thi
s is the struggle towards order,’ Errastas continued, frowning at a shattered tile. ‘The imperative of organization, which is both laudable and pathetic. We have all resisted dissolution, in our own ways, and thus make of our lives bold assertions to purpose and meaning.’ He flung the tile away, and then picked up another one. ‘This pose we insist upon, Setch, is substance constructed as argument. Our flesh, our blood, our bone, our selves. I for one am not impressed.’

  Sechul returned to the mound of rubble. He tugged loose rocks and swept up handfuls of earth. He made the hole bigger.

  ‘You can argue with nature and of course you will lose. You can argue with someone else and unless the wager is one of life or death, then the exercise is meaningless. Nature awaits us all, with emphatic solidity. All that is won is an illusion. All that is lost, you were doomed to lose anyway, eventually. They call the houses the Azath, and from this the Tiste name us, but we are not all worshippers of stone, are we, Setch?’

  ‘It seems,’ said Sechul, leaning back and wiping dirt from his battered hands, ‘that you have won this particular argument, Errastas.’

  Grunting as he rose, Errastas made his way over. ‘I knew as much,’ he said. ‘Not even a Jaghut tower could withstand half a hill of earth and rock descending on it.’

  Sechul Lath thought back to the power of his companion’s conjuration. The sorcery was brutal, and the sound it had made – like a clap of thunder inside the skull – still reverberated through his bones. ‘This could begin a war,’ he said.

  ‘I have purpose,’ Errastas replied, dropping into a crouch to peer into the small cave dug into the mound. ‘This may seem madness – murder often does. But this table I set will see multitudes gathering to the feast, dear brother of mine.’

  ‘Half-brother,’ corrected Sechul Lath, feeling the need to assert the distinction. ‘Will they thank you?’

  Errastas shrugged. ‘They will gorge, friend, and grow fat and think not once upon the farmer, or the herder, or the one crushing the grapes. Nor will they muse on the maker of the utensils they wield, or the hand that hammered out their pewter plates. They will sit upon chairs that creak to their weight, and give no thought to the carpenter, or indeed the tree. They will listen to the rain upon the roof, and give no thanks to the mason. I do not seek notoriety, friend. I do not yearn for adulation. But I will remain the bringer of feasts.’