History, she realized, was mostly lost. No matter how diligent the recorders, the witnesses, the researchers, most of the past simply no longer existed. Would never be known. The notion seemed to empty her out somewhere deep inside, as if the very knowledge of loss somehow released a torrent of extinction within her own memories — moments swirling away, never to be retrieved. She set a finger in one groove etched into the stone, followed its serpentine track downward as far as she could reach, then back up again. The first to do so in how long?
Repeat the old pattern — ignorance matters not — just repeat it, and so prove continuity.
Which in turn proves what?
That in living, one recounts the lives of all those long gone, long dead, even forgotten. Recounts in the demands of necessity — to eat, sleep, make love, sicken, fade into death — and the urges of blessed wonder — a finger tracking the serpent’s path, a breath against stone. Weight and presence and the lure of meaning and pattern.
By this we prove the existence of the ancestors. That they once were, and that one day we will be the same. I, Samar Dev, once was. And am no more.
Be patient, stone, another fingertip will come, to follow the track. We mark you and you mark us. Stone and flesh, stone and flesh. .
Karsa slid down from Havok, paused to stretch out his back. He had been thinking much of late, mostly about his people, the proud, naive Teblor. The ever-tightening siege that was the rest of the world, a place of cynicism, a place where virtually every shadow was painted in cruelty, in countless variations on the same colourless hue. Did he truly want to lead his people into such a world? Even to deliver a most poetic summation to all these affairs of civilization?
He had seen, after all, the poison of such immersion, when observing the Tiste Edur in the city of Letheras. Conquerors wandering bewildered, lost, made useless by success. An emperor who could not rule even himself. And the Crippled God had wanted Karsa to take up that sword. With such a weapon in his hands, he would lead his warriors down from the mountains, to bring to an end all things. To become the living embodiment of the suffering the Fallen One so cherished.
He had not even been tempted. Again and again, in their disjointed concourse, the Crippled God had revealed his lack of understanding when it came to Karsa Orlong. He made his every gift to Karsa an invitation to be broken in some fashion. But I cannot be broken. The truth, so simple, so direct, seemed to be an invisible force as far as the Crippled God was concerned, and each time he collided with it he was surprised, dumbfounded. Each time, he was sent reeling.
Of course, Karsa understood all about being stubborn. He also knew how such a trait could be fashioned into worthy armour, while at other times it did little more than reveal a consummate stupidity. Now, he wanted to reshape the world, and he knew it would resist him, yet he would hold to his desire. Samar Dev would call that ‘stubborn’, and in saying that she would mean ‘stupid’. Like the Crippled God, the witch did not truly understand Karsa.
On the other hand, he understood her very well. ‘You will not ride with me,’ he said now as she rested against one of the stones, ‘because you see it as a kind of surrender. If you must rush down this torrent, you will decide your own pace, as best you can.’
‘Is that how it is?’ she asked.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know anything. I had some long forgotten god of war track me down. Why? What meaning was I supposed to take from that?’
‘You are a witch. You awaken spirits. They scent you as easily as you do them.’
‘What of it?’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’ she demanded.
‘Why, Samar Dev, did you choose to become a witch?’
‘That’s — oh, what difference does that make?’
He waited.
‘I was. . curious. Besides, once you see that the world is filled with forces — most of which few people ever see, or even think about — then how can you not want to explore? Tracing all the patterns, discovering the webs of existence — it’s no different from building a mechanism, the pleasure in working things out.’
He grunted. ‘So you were curious. Tell me, when you speak with spirits, when you summon them and they come to you without coercion — why do you think they do that? Because, like you, they are curious.’
She crossed her arms. ‘You’re saying I’m trying to find significance in something that was actually pretty much meaningless. The bear sniffed me out and came for a closer look.’
He shrugged. ‘These things happen.’
‘I’m not convinced.’
‘Yes,’ he smiled, ‘you are truly of this world, Samar Dev.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He turned back to Havok and stroked the beast’s dusty neck. ‘The Tiste Edur failed. They were not thorough enough. They left the cynicism in place, and thought that through the strength of their own honour, they could defeat it. But the cynicism made their honour a hollow thing.’ He glanced back at her. ‘What was once a strength became an affectation.’
She shook her head, as if baffled.
Traveller moved to join them, and there was something haggard in his face. Seeing this odd, inexplicable transformation, Karsa narrowed his gaze on the man for a moment. Then he casually looked away.
‘Perhaps the bear came to warn you,’ he said to Samar Dev.
‘About what?’
‘What else? War.’
‘What war?’
The shout made Havok shift under his hand, and he reached up to grasp the beast’s wiry mane. Calming the horse, he then vaulted on to its back. ‘Why, the one to come, I would think.’
She glared across at Traveller, and seemed to note for the first time the change that had come over him.
Karsa watched her take a step closer to Traveller. ‘What is it? What has hap shy;pened? What war is he talking about?’
‘We should get moving,’ he said, and then he set out.
She might weep. She might scream. But she did neither, and Karsa nodded to himself and then reached down one arm. ‘This torrent,’ he muttered, ‘belongs to him, not us. Ride it with me, witch — you surrender nothing of value.’
‘I don’t?’
‘No.’
She hesitated, and then stepped up and grasped hold of his arm.
When she was settled in behind him, Karsa tilted to one side and twisted round slightly to grin at her. ‘Don’t lie. It feels better already, does it not?’
‘Karsa — what has happened to Traveller?’
He collected the lone rein and faced forward once more. ‘Shadows,’ he said, ‘are cruel.’
Ditch forced open what he thought of as an eye. His eye. Draconus stood above the blind Tiste Andii, Kadaspala, reaching down and dragging the squealing creature up with both hands round the man’s scrawny neck.
‘You damned fool! It won’t work that way, don’t you see that?’
Kadaspala could only choke in reply.
Draconus glowered for a moment longer, and then flung the man back down on to the heap of bodies.
Ditch managed a croaking laugh.
Turning to skewer Ditch with his glare, Draconus said, ‘He sought to fashion a damned god here!’
‘And it shall speak,’ Ditch said, ‘in my voice.’
‘No, it shall not. Do not fall into this trap, Wizard. Nothing must be fashioned of this place-’
‘What difference? We all are about to die. Let the god open its eyes. Blink once or twice, and then give voice. .’ he laughed again, ‘the first cry also the last. Birth and death with nothing in between. Is there anything more tragic, Draconus? Anything at all?’
‘Dragnipur,’ said Draconus, ‘is nobody’s womb. Kadaspala, this was to be a cage. To keep Darkness in and Chaos out. One last, desperate barrier — the only gift we could offer. A gate that is denied its wandering must find a home, a refuge — a fortress, even one fashioned from flesh and bone. The pattern, Kadaspala, was meant to defy Chaos — two antithetical forces, as we discussed-’