Expectation has so proved the death of me.’
He spoke to say, ‘You cannot war against the man you were,
And I cannot slay the man I shall one day become,
Our enemy is expectation flung backward and fore,
The memories you choose and the tracks I would run.
Slayer of dreams, sower of regrets, all that we are.’
Soldier at the End of his Days (fragment)
They did not stop for the night. With the city’s fitful glow to the north, throbbing crimson, Traveller marched as would a man possessed. At times, as she and Karsa rode on ahead to the next rise to fix their gazes upon that distant conflagration, Samar Dev feared that he might, upon reaching them, simply lash out with his sword. Cut them both down. So that he could take Havok for himself, and ride hard for Darujhistan.
Something terrible was happening in that city. Her nerves were on fire. Her skull seemed to creak with some kind of pervasive pressure, building with each onward step. She felt febrile, sick to her stomach, her mouth dry as dust, and she held on to Karsa Orlong’s muscled girth as if he was a mast on a storm-wracked ship. He had said nothing for some time now, and she did not have the courage to break that grim silence.
Less than a league away, the city flashed and rumbled.
When Traveller reached them, however, it was as if they did not exist. He was muttering under his breath. Vague arguments, hissed denials, breathless lists of bizarre, disconnected phrases, each one worked out as if it was a justification for something he had done, or something he was about to do. At times those painful phrases sounded like justifications for both. Future blended with the past, a swirling vortex with a tortured soul at its very heart. She could not bear to listen.
Obsession was a madness, a fever. When it clawed its way to the surface, it was terrible to behold. It was impossible not to see the damage it did, the narrowness of the treacherous path one was forced to walk, as if between walls of thorns, jutting knife blades. One misstep and blood was drawn, and before long the poor creature was a mass of wounds, streaked and dripping, blind to everything but what waited somewhere ahead.
And what if he found what he sought? What if he won through in his final battle — whatever that might be? What then for Traveller?
It will kill him.
His reason for living. . gone.
Gods below, I will not bear witness to such a scene. I dare not.
For I have my own obsessions. .
Traveller marched on in dark argument. She and Karsa rode Havok, but even this frightening beast was starting, shying as if something was bodily pushing against it. Head tossed, hoofs stamped the packed ground.
Finally, after the horse almost reared, Karsa uttered a low snarl and reined in. ‘Down, witch,’ he said — as Traveller once more stalked past — ‘we will walk from here.’
‘But Havok-’
‘Can fend for himself. When I need him, we shall find each other once more.’
They dismounted. Samar stretched her back. ‘I’m exhausted. My head feels like a wet pot in a kiln — about to explode. Karsa-’
‘Stay here if you will,’ he said, eyes on Traveller’s back. ‘I will go on.’
‘Why? Wherever he’s going, it’s his battle, not yours. You cannot help him. You must not help him, Karsa — you see that, don’t you?’
He grimaced. ‘I can guard his back-’
‘Why? We have journeyed together out of convenience. And that’s done, now. Can’t you feel it? It’s done. Take one wrong step — cross his path — and he will drag out that sword.’ She brought her hands up and pressed hard against her eyelids. Flashes of fire ignited her inner world. No different from what she was seeing in the city before them. She dropped her hands and blinked blearily at the To shy;blakai. ‘Karsa, in the name of mercy, let’s turn away. Leave him to. . whatever’s in Darujhistan.’
‘Witch, we have been following a trail.’
‘Sorry, what?’
‘A trail.’ He glanced down at her. ‘The Hounds.’
She looked again at the city, even as a fireball ripped upward and moments later thunder rolled through the ground at their feet. The Hounds. They’re tearing that city apart. ‘We can’t go there! We can’t walk into that!’
In answer Karsa bared his teeth. ‘I do not trust those beasts — are they there to protect Traveller? Or hunt him down in some deadly game in the streets?’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll not clip his heels, witch. We’ll keep a respectable distance, but I will guard his back.’
She wanted to scream. You stupid, stubborn, obstinate, thick-skulled bastard! ‘So who guards our backs?’
Sudden blackness welled up inside her mind and she must have reeled, for a moment later Karsa was holding her up, genuine concern in his face. ‘What ails you, Samar?’
‘You idiot, can’t you feel it?’
‘No,’ he replied.
She thought he lied then, but had no energy to challenge him. That blackness had seemed vast, depthless, a maw eager to devour her, swallow her down. And, most horrifying of all, something about it was seductive. Slick with sweat, her legs shaky beneath her, she held on to Karsa’s arm.
‘Stay here,’ he said quietly.
‘No, it makes no difference.’
He straightened suddenly, and she saw that he was facing the way they had come. ‘What — what is it?’
‘That damned bear — it’s back.’
She twisted round. Yes, there, perhaps a hundred paces away, a huge dark shape. Coming no closer.
‘What’s it want with me?’ she asked in a whisper.
‘If you stay, you may find out, witch.’
‘No, I said. We’ll follow Traveller. It’s decided.’
Karsa was silent for a moment, and then he grunted. ‘I am thinking. .’
‘What?’
‘You wanted to know, earlier, who would be guarding our backs.’
She frowned, and then loosed a small gasp and squinted once more at that monstrous beast. It was just. . hovering, huge head slowly wagging from side to side, pausing occasionally to lift its snout in their direction. ‘I wouldn’t trust that, Karsa, I wouldn’t trust that at all.’
He shrugged.
But still she resisted, glaring now into the vault of night overhead. ‘Where’s the damned moon, Karsa? Where in the Abyss is the damned moon?’
Kallor was certain now. Forces had converged in Darujhistan. Clashing with deadly consequence, and blood had been spilled.
He lived for such things. Sudden opportunities, unexpected powers stumbling, falling within reach. Anticipation awakened within him.
Life thrust forth choices, and the measure of a man or woman’s worth could be found in whether they possessed the courage, the brazen decisiveness, to grasp hold and not let go. Kallor never failed such moments. Let the curse flail him, strike him down; let defeat batter him again and again. He would just get back up, shake the dust off, and begin once more.
He knew the world was damned. He knew that the curse haunting him was no different from history’s own progression, the endless succession of failures, the puerile triumphs that had a way of falling over as soon as one stopped looking. Or caring. He knew that life itself corrected gross imbalances by simply folding everything over and starting anew.
Too often scholars and historians saw the principle of convergence with narrow, truncated focus. In terms of ascendants and gods and great powers. But Kallor un shy;derstood that the events they described and pored over after the fact were but con shy;centrated expressions of something far vaster. Entire ages converged, in chaos and tumult, in the anarchy of Nature itself. And more often than not, very few compre shy;hended the disaster erupting all around them. No, they simply went on day after day with their pathetic tasks, eyes to the ground, pretending that everything was just fine.