It was not always so. The oldest of our scriptures say the same. This Azathanai has resurrected our god. This Azathanai has spoken with our god. But what does she promise the Tiste?
Chaos.
When they rode into the forest, however, Caplo had seen nothing unusual, nothing to give credence to the Azathanai’s portentous words. He had turned to the warlock riding beside him, a question on his lips, but Resh forestalled him with an upraised hand.
‘Not yet. It grows. Things stir. Dreams plague a thousand shadowed minds. Something is indeed awakening. We shall see its face upon our return.’
Caplo owned nothing of the sensitivity possessed by Warlock Resh and many of the others in the faith. Sheccanto once told him that even as a child he had knelt before pragmatism; and in so doing had surrendered his capacity for imagination. There existed a dichotomy between the two, and as forces of personality they often locked in combat. For some, however, there was an accord. Dreams defined the goal, pragmatism the path to it. Those who possessed that balance were said to be talented, but it did not make their lives any easier. The blunt of mind, who lived lives in which obstacles rose up before them with every step, were quick to raise similar obstacles before their ‘talented’ associates, and were often adamant in their belief that it was for the best, and justified their views with such words as ‘realistic’, ‘practical’ and, of course, ‘pragmatic’.
Caplo held much sympathy for those who would, by advice and by ridicule, rein in the unfettered dreamers of the world. He saw imagination as dangerous, at times deadly in its unpredictability. Among the many victims he had murdered, it had been the creative ones who caused him the most trouble. He could not track them upon the paths of their thinking.
That said, so many other things had been surrendered in the loss of his own imagination. It was difficult to feel anything for the lives of others. He had no interest, beyond the professional, in searching out empathy, and saw no reason to shift his own perspective on matters of opinion, since his opinions were soundly rooted in pragmatism and therefore proved ultimately unassailable.
For all of this, as they rode into the thinned fringe of the ancient forest, with the tight creaking of the Azathanai’s mount an incessant rhythm behind them, Caplo felt a chill that had nothing to do with the sudden falling off of sunlight. He glanced across at Resh to see the man’s craggy face sheathed in sweat.
‘Does she awaken her power again?’ he asked in a low tone.
Resh simply shook his head, a singular gesture of negation so uncharacteristic of the warlock that Caplo was startled and, indeed, somewhat frightened.
He looked about, eyes narrowed upon the shadows between the trees lining the road. He saw rubbish heaped in the ditches, and there, thirty or so paces deeper into the wood to his right, a squalid hovel wreathed in woodsmoke, with what might be a figure sitting hunched behind a smouldering fire — or perhaps it was nothing more than a boulder, or a stump. The air was cool on the cobbled road, redolent with decay, acidic enough to bite the back of his throat with each breath he took. There was little sound, barring that of a barking dog somewhere in the distance, and the nearer clump of horse hoofs upon the muddy stones.
The other times Caplo had ridden through, on his way to and from Kharkanas, he had barely noticed this stretch of woodland. There seemed to be as many stumps as growing trees, but now he realized that this was only true of the area immediately flanking the road. Things grew wilder deeper into the forest, where the gloom was a shroud no gaze could pierce, and to travel through would require a torch or lantern. It was astonishing to think people lived in this forest, hidden away, confined to an ever shrinking world.
‘They are free,’ said Resh in a strained voice.
Caplo started. ‘My friend, of whom do you speak?’
‘Free in ways lost to the rest of us. You see their limits, their seeming poverty. You see them as fallen, forgotten, ignorant.’
‘Resh, I do not see them at all.’
‘What they are is free,’ insisted Resh, his gloved hands making fists on the saddle horn where they gripped the reins. ‘No tithes, no tributes to pay. Perhaps even coin itself is unknown to them, and every measure of wealth lies within reach of able hands, and within sight of loving eyes. Caplo, when the last forest is gone, so too will end the last free people of the world.’
Caplo considered this, and then shrugged. ‘We’ll not notice the loss.’
‘Yes, and this is why: they are the keepers of our conscience.’
‘It is no wonder then that I never see them.’
‘Yes,’ said Resh, his tone removing all the humour from Caplo’s words.
Irritated, made uneasy by this wood, Caplo scowled. ‘It avails us nothing to elevate the impoverished.’
‘I do not speak of those who have fled our way of living,’ replied Resh, ‘although one might argue that by choice or by accident they walk towards truth, while we plunge ever forward into a world of self-delusion. No matter. Those I am speaking of are those who were never tamed. They live still in this forest — perhaps only a hundred or so left. One cannot imagine their numbers any greater than that. We take their home, tree by tree, shadow by shadow. To know too much is to lose the wonder of mystery. In answering every question we forget the value of not knowing.’
‘There is no value in not knowing. Roll that thick hide of yours, Resh, and shake free of this nonsense. The value of not knowing? What value?’
‘You have no answer and so you conclude that none exists. And there in your reaction, O pallid wretch, lies the lesson.’
‘Riddles now? You know how much I dislike riddles. Out with it, then. Tell me what I lack. What is gained by not knowing?’
‘Humility, you fool.’
Behind them T’riss spoke up, her voice carrying with unnatural clarity. ‘In ritual you abased yourselves. I saw it in the courtyard, many times. But the gesture was rote — even in your newfound fear, the meaning of that abasement was lost.’
‘Please,’ growled Resh, ‘explain yourself, Azathanai.’
‘I will. You carve an altar from stone. You paint the image of waves upon the wall and so fashion a symbol of that which you would worship. You give it a thousand names, and imagine a thousand faces. Or a single name, a single face. Then you kneel, or bow, or lie flat upon the ground, making yourselves abject in servitude, and you may call the gesture humble before your god, and see in your posture righteous humility.’
‘This is all accurate enough,’ said Resh.
‘Just so,’ she agreed. ‘And by this means you lose the meaning of the ritual, until the ritual is itself the meaning. These are not gestures of subservience. Not expressions of the surrendering of your will to a greater power. This is not the relationship your god seeks, yet it is the one upon which you insist. The river god is not the source of your worship; or rather, it shouldn’t be. The river god meets your eye and yearns for your comprehension — not of itself as a greater power, but comprehension of the meaning of its existence.’
‘And that meaning is?’ Resh demanded.
‘Recall the gesture of abasement, warlock. You make it in recognition of your own humility. A god’s powers are immeasurable and before them you are nothing. Therefore you would worship your god and surrender your life into its hands. But it doesn’t want your life, and knows not what to do with your longing, helpless soul. In ritual and symbol you have lost yourselves. Could the god make you understand, it would make you understand this simple truth: the only thing worthy of worship is humility itself.’
Caplo snorted and then made to speak, to heap derision upon her assertion — but he did not even need Resh’s gesture of admonishment to bite his tongue. It was true that he had no imagination, but even he could see the pattern of predictable behaviour, in this confusing of ritual and meaning, symbol and truth.