Fall of Light (The Kharkanas Trilogy 2)

‘He kept her attention away from us.’

‘What of it?’

‘He knew, even then. What she might see.’ Then he shook his head. ‘Look at us, hiding from our goddess, and relieved by her continued ignorance. As prophet, Endest Silann walked among the commonfolk. He opened his hands so that she could not turn away, could not blink. You think by this act did he condemn the faithless, the misguided, the banal selfishness of each person who suffered that regard. But I think, now, the one he sought to condemn was her.’

To that she had no reply. He watched her tamping the herb into the bowl. She then tipped in some embers from a silver and enamel box that was now part of her regular attire, tied to her sash by a leather string. We are creatures of ritual and habit, repeating patterns of comfort. Alas, too often we also repeat patterns of disaster. As every historian cannot help but comprehend. From the minuscule and mundane to the monumental and the profound, we draw and redraw the same maps, enough to make a book, enough to make a life.

Smoke plumed on the breeze.

Clouds inside and out. Obscure me from myself, that I might imagine my demeanour noble, my stance statuesque. Yes, I will have some of that.

* * *

Endest Silann found Cedorpul on the road, leading his horse by the reins. As he slowed his mount to a walk and drew up alongside the priest, Cedorpul cast him a dark glare. ‘Damned beast threw a shoe. I had hoped to catch Silchas Ruin.’

‘You hope for many things,’ Endest said.

‘You were of little use back there. I once knew you as a friend. Now, I know not what you are.’

‘Apparently, an acolyte once more. Punished for my walk in the market. And now, it seems, distrusted. But I wonder, is it me the High Priestess would see excluded from council, or Mother Dark?’

Cedorpul kicked at a stone on the path, watched it roll into the shallow ditch. ‘Elemental Night. It did not take me long to find it. She does not command that realm, Endest. I assure you of that. It is vast. There are rivers, pools of power, of which she knows nothing.’ He glanced up at Endest. ‘What do you make of it? Is our goddess an impostor?’

‘If she does not rule that realm, Cedorpul, then who does?’

‘I wish I knew. Perhaps,’ he added, ‘the throne remains unclaimed.’

‘Ambition unbridled, Cedorpul, can make ugly even the most benign and placid visage.’

The man scowled, and then spat. ‘I am a wizard now. The world bends to my will.’

‘In a small way, to be sure.’

‘Do you mock me?’

Endest Silann shook his head. ‘I advise caution, knowing it will be unheeded. You say there are sources of power within the realm of night, many of them unclaimed. You are right.’

Cedorpul’s small eyes narrowed. ‘What do you know? What has she told you?’

‘She tells me nothing.’

‘You have always been too coy for my liking, Endest Silann.’

Endest could make out the walls of Kharkanas ahead, a grim black line rising from the horizon. The horses’ slow walk on the frozen road made a solemn beat. ‘Wizardry, magery, sorcery, alchemy, thaumaturgy. Myriad arts, each one wondrous in what it can create, and wholly destructive in what it means.’

‘Explain that.’

Endest Silann smiled. ‘You sound like Silchas Ruin. Simplify, reduce, divide and decide. Very well. This power you now possess, it is a way of circumvention. It slips to one side of mundane reality. It draws on unseen energies to twist nature. It imposes a flawed will upon the shape of the world, upon its laws, its rules and its propensities. It is, in short, a cheat.’

Cedorpul was silent for a few steps, and then he nodded. ‘I will allow all of that. Go on.’

‘One cheats to escape the rules, howsoever those rules are expressed. A winter wind casting a chill upon your bones? A simple cantrip warms you through and through. That, or the mere expedient of donning a cloak. You choose the former as it requires less effort. You choose out of convenience.’ He paused, and then continued. ‘A thousand enemies marching upon you. Draw your sword and prepare for a day of brutal fighting. Or, with a wave of one hand, incinerate them all. As you see, each time, we fall upon the side of convenience. But how cold, how cruel, is that measure of worth? Consider again that line of soldiers. Consider each of their lives, wagered there on the field, and consider as well a day’s hard battle, the wounded, the many slain, the wills bent and then broken. Consider, most of all, the survivors. Each one blessing his or her fortune. Each one returning home, at last, to drop the bundled armour and weapon-belts to the floor, to then embrace a weeping loved one, with, perhaps, children gathering round, their eyes alight with the joy only a child can feel.’ Squinting, he could now make out the Citadel’s bulky towers. ‘But wave the hand. Much simpler, much quicker, and call it mercy, against all the suffering and pain. Deliver death sudden and absolute, and to walk a field of ashes invites an easy dismissal – far easier indeed than to stumble across a field of corpses, hounded by the chorus of the dying.’

‘A wave of the hand,’ Cedorpul said in a growl. ‘Hunn Raal will delight in that simple gesture.’

‘And will you match him with destruction of your own? Why not, then, set the two of you upon the other, alone on the field, our champions of magic, there to duel to the death?’

‘In that, our function is no different from that of armies, is it?’