His eyes adjusted. And the light did grow stronger as he climbed, sneaking in through the unglazed embrasures above.
How had Cloven Februaren gotten hold of this place? He supposed the villagers would have reports, thirty percent fiction and sixty-five percent speculation.
“Godslayer. Welcome to my mansion in Firaldia.”
“Soultaken. I’m glad you’re enjoying the Patriarch’s hospitality.”
“I don’t think your old man has much to do with it. Except insofar as he executes the will of the All-Father.”
Hecht found himself in a round, featureless room boasting few comforts. Archer’s embrasures marked the points of the compass, designed to accommodate crossbowmen. Hecht tried to hide the fact that he was winded.
“The will of the All-Father?”
“Unless my brother Shagot lied, one of our rewards for destroying the Godslayer would be a stone-built mansion in warm Firaldia. Warmth being a huge luxury and giant temptation for wild young Andorayans. Who believed everything could be theirs if they had the will to take it.”
“I must confess, you’re entirely unlike my preconceptions of an Andorayan pirate.”
“I’m not that Svavar anymore. He was ignorant and shallow and an embarrassment to his people. And wasn’t bright enough to see it.”
“So how…?”
“When you’re trapped inside the monster of the Jagos you can’t do much but think. And taste the Night. And sample the unfortunate minds and souls that get in your way. You become as aware of the beast you were as you’re aware of the horror you’ve become. All that time thinking could drive you mad. Unless you re-create yourself in a shape more acceptable to yourself. I think most ascendants must go mad. I’m probably barking mad myself-though I keep trying to convince me that I was doing my stint in Purgatory and I’m just fine now. A diet of iron and silver does wonders for clearing the mind.”
Hecht moved to an embrasure, looked out on countryside that had changed little in two thousand years. In all likelihood those vineyards and olive groves and wheat fields had been where they were before the rise of the Old Brothen Empire. There were ruins down there the Feaens claimed antedated the Old Empire. Ruins no one disturbed. They were part of a pagan graveyard protected by the insane fury of cairnmaidens, children buried alive so their angry ghosts would guard the burying ground.
Even devout Chaldareans would not test those beliefs.
“Nor should they dare,” the soultaken said, as though reading Hecht’s thoughts writ upon his face. “Those murdered children are ascendants themselves, of the most terrible sort. Though very small. The world is fortunate they can’t grow and can’t sever their connection to the ground they guard. I’ve tried to talk with them. I can’t. Their rage is impenetrable.”
“Once upon a time, when the Faith was young, the saints set out to free the cairnmaidens and lay them to rest.”
“So they did. Once upon a time. But it was cruel and painful work. And thankless. Changing the official religion didn’t change the superstitions of the country people. When those early saints passed over they left no apprentices to carry on. Idealism flees all faiths early.”
Hecht moved to another embrasure. From this he could observe Fea itself, and Madouc nervously pacing. He stuck an arm out and waved to demonstrate that he remained among the living. “You wanted to see me.”
“In a sense. The old man who comes has a very one-sided mind. He doesn’t want to talk. He wants to ask questions that produce definitive answers. But he doesn’t know how to ask the right questions.”
“You’re hoping I’ll sit around chatting, wrestling the world’s travails? I’m not the right man. I’m a soldier. I solve problems by killing people and burning things till the problems go away. I seem to be good at that.”
“Better than most of your contemporaries. Your weakness is your inability to be ruthless.”
Recalling the Connecten Crusade, Hecht considered a protest. He forbore. The soultaken was right. He had made examples in an effort to chivvy potential enemies away from the battlefield. But his thinking had been local and limited, concerned only with the immediate future. Ten years from now, if the Patriarch sent him against Arnhand, no one would be intimidated by what he had done then.
The Old Brothens said war was neither a game nor a pastime. If a man was not willing to pursue it with all his strength, with utter ruthlessness, he should not go to war in the first place. In the long term, ruthlessness saved lives.
An enemy had to be stripped of all hope. Before the killing started, if possible. He had to know that if war came it would not end till someone had suffered absolute destruction. The Old Brothens always had the numbers. Not to mention superior discipline and skills. And utter ruthlessness.
“I see what you mean.”
“Good, then. In time to come you’ll need to be less gentle.”
“What?”
“I am become a child of the Night. Though I’ve resumed my original shape part of me is still entangled in the Night’s boundless sea. I know what the Night knows. Like most Instrumentalities, I have trouble organizing that so it makes sense inside this world’s limitations. The toughest chore is to anchor information at the appropriate place on the tree of time.”
“The same problem your Old Ones had when they conscripted you to murder me.”
“Exactly. They read the causes and effects incorrectly, then misinterpreted the results. By trying to defeat the future they wrote their own downfall.”
“Be careful what you wish for.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m trapped climbing the tree of time myself. I have places to go and things to do according to the workings of this world.”
“True. A point I wanted to make. The reason I wanted to see you. I am an Instrumentality, now. Almost a new thing. My eyes are open to the Night. But I’m still human enough to see how I could be of use to an enemy of the Night.”
“You’re volunteering to spy?”
“Sort of. First I have to undo what rage made me do after my suffering at al-Khazen.”
“So you said. Yes.” Hecht was not ready to take the Night at its word, or at face value. Slippery was a defining characteristic of the Instrumentalities of the Night, be they gods or woodland sprites.
“Trust you need not invest. Judge by results.”
“You want to help in the struggle, feel free. A window into the supernatural realm would be priceless. But I can’t manage it. The old man will have to do. He can get any really useful information to me quickly.”
“He could teach me that traveling trick.”
“He could. You never know. He’s always got another surprise up his sleeve. But I wouldn’t count on it.”
“We have an understanding?”
“I’m not sure. I’m not clear on what you want for you.”
“At its simplest, absolution. Asgrimmur Grimmsson, as Svavar, was a terrible man. Not as bad as his brother Shagot, but a waste of flesh. What Svavar became might be worse-though that was circumstance, not intent. The ascendant absorbed power from two major Instrumentalities-which left him the slave of the qualities that made Svavar so awful.”
“But you’re a changed man now.” Hecht could not suppress his skepticism.
“The power of the metal to burn out evil and self-delusion can’t be explained in any way that would make sense to you. For weeks I’ve looked for an explanatory metaphor. There must not be one. Just say silver ripping through me constituted a baptism of the soul and spirit.”
Soul and spirit? The remark bore a suspicious odor. Some heretics believed men had two souls, consciousness and spirit. Hecht did not know the details. He shied away from deviant thinking.
The ascendant guessed his thoughts. “There’s a saying to the effect that there are more things in heaven and earth than we know. That is true beyond mortal imagining. For every Instrumentality you know there are a dozen in the air, the water, and the earth below. You know nothing about them because they never interact with human beings. They’ve always been insignificant in the history of your world. And always will be if they’re left alone.”