Korya dropped the treasure and straightened. ‘I fear that I might stumble. I might fall, master.’
He shrugged, as if the notion gave him no qualm. ‘This is loot. A slayer’s hoard. The path wends upward and who can say what waits at its very end? A keep groaning beneath melted sheaths of gold? A throne of diamond where sits a rotted corpse? Will you believe this path to be so obvious? Who defends this realm? What army kneels in service to gold and silver? How warm is their bed of jewels at night?’
‘I said I dislike riddles, master. What realm is this?’
‘Ah, such a nuanced word. Realm. An invitation to balance, all stationary, mote tilted against mote, the illusion of solidity. A place to walk through, encompassing the span of one’s vision and calling it home. Did you expect the world you knew? Did you imagine the future awaits you no different in substance from the past? Where are the grasslands, you ask. Where is the tumble of days and nights — but of those, what more can I teach you? What more can be learned of them than any child of sound wits can comprehend after but a handful of years?’
With these words drifting back to her, and then out to the sides to fall away leaving no echo, Haut resumed his march.
Korya followed. ‘This is Azathanai.’
‘Very good,’ he answered without turning.
‘What do they mean by it?’
‘Ask the Jheleck. Bah, too late for that. The fools left, tails between their hairy legs. And to think, they wanted you. Another bauble. I wonder — what will your kin do with a score of Soletaken pups?’
‘I don’t know. Tame them, I suppose.’
Haut’s laugh was sharp, cutting. ‘To tame something, one must take advantage of its stupidity. They will never tame those beasts, because savage though they may be, they are not stupid.’
‘Then, as hostages, they will learn the ways of the Tiste, and see them not as strangers, nor enemies.’
‘You believe this? Perhaps it will be so.’
The path continued its climb, though not so steep as to make uncertain their purchase. But her legs were getting tired. ‘Master, did you expect this?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Child, we have been invited.’
‘By whom?’
‘That remains to be discovered.’
She knew her life was yet modest, but already she had a sense that most promises would, eventually, prove empty. There was nowhere to go but forward, but no one could avow that what lay ahead was a better life. Potential felt like a burden, possibility like wolves on her trail. Her dreams of godly powers were the frayed remnants of childhood; they trailed like wisps behind her, tired as the streamers of last year’s fete. She thought back to the dolls in the trunk’s silent, dark confines, the eyes staring at nothing, the mouths smiling at no one, now well behind her — long gone from reach, or a moment’s rush across the floor. There was stillness in that place, as still as the room surrounding it, as still as the keep itself. And just as the dolls dwelt in their trunk, so too had she and Haut dwelt in the keep, and it might well be true that this realm was but another version, and that it was all a matter of scale.
The gods and goddesses were in their rooms. She could almost see them, standing at the high windows looking out and dreaming of better places, better times, better lives. And like the dolls, their eyes were focused on vast distances and nothing closer to hand could make them waver, not for a moment.
Yet stranger memories haunted her now. Her room in the tower, the dead flies lying in the grit of the stone windowsill, crowded up against the discoloured glass, as if in the frenzy to escape they had bludgeoned themselves to death trying to reach an unattainable light. She should never have swept the spiders’ webs from the frame, for the spiders would have fed well on the flies’ futility.
Was the future no more than a succession of worlds one longed to live in? Each one for ever beyond reach, with such pure light and vistas that ran on without end? Was frenzy and anguish really that different?
They had been ascending for what seemed half a day, and still the path ahead wended its way ever upward. Fires burned in the muscles of her legs, making her imagine peat fires — some childhood memory, a place where the forest had died so long ago it had rotted into the ground, in layer upon layer, all soaked through with water the colour of rust. She remembered bundles of sodden skins pulled out from the pools, dangling stone weights from black ropes. She remembered stuffing wiry as hair, and the day was cold and the air was thick with midges, and knives flashed as the bundles were cut open and the hides rolled out.
The memory, arriving now so suddenly, halted Korya in her tracks.
Jheleck skins.
Haut must have sensed her absence behind him, for he turned about, and then made his way back down to her.
‘Master,’ she said, ‘tell me of the first encounters between the Jheleck and my people.’
The Jaghut’s pained expression filled her with dismay.
When he said nothing she spoke, her tone dull but relentless: ‘I found a memory, master. We understood nothing of Soletaken, did we? That the giant wolves we slew were in fact people. We killed them. We hunted them, because it is a lust in our souls, to hunt.’ She wanted to spit that last word, but it came out as lifeless as the others. ‘We cut their hides from their carcasses and we cured those skins in the bogs.’
He gestured for her to walk and set out once again. ‘The origin of the Jheleck is a mystery, hostage. When they have sembled into their walking forms, standing upon two legs, they bear some resemblance to the Dog- Runners of the far south. Their features are perhaps more bestial, but then, that should hardly surprise you — the frigid world of the far north is a harsh home, after all.’
‘Do the Dog-Runners treat with them?’
‘There are Jheck in the south now. It may be that they do.’
‘We hunted them. For pleasure.’
‘It is the legacy of most intelligent beings to revel in slaughter for a time,’ Haut replied. ‘In this we play at being gods. In this, we lie to ourselves with delusions of omnipotence. There is but one measure to the wisdom of a people, and that is the staying hand. Fail in restraint and murder thrives in your eyes, and all your claims to civilization ring hollow.’
‘Is there such a legacy among you Jaghut?’
‘There was a time, Korya, when the Jaghut ceased their forward stride.’
A faint chill came to her at that, as if he but plucked at her earlier thoughts with fullest knowing.
‘We faced a choice then,’ Haut went on. ‘To resume our onward journey, or to turn round, to discover the blessing that is walking back the way we came. In our standing in one place, we argued for centuries, until finally, in our mutual and well-deserved disgust, we each chose our own paths.’
‘And so ended your civilization.’
‘It was never much of one to begin with. But then, few are. So, you recall a grim memory, and would now chew it. Your next decision is crucial. Do you spit it out or do you swallow it down?’
‘I would walk from civilization.’
‘You cannot, for it resides within you.’
‘And not within you?’ she demanded.
‘Do not be a fool, Korya,’ he replied, his voice drifting back soft as a knife edge on a whetstone. ‘You saw well my array of weapons. Most arguments in iron are arguments of civilization. Which paint shall we wear? By which name are we to be known? Before what gods must we bow? And who are you to answer such questions on my behalf? I take up this axe to defend my savagery — but know this: you will hear the echo of such sentiments in every age to come.’
She snorted. ‘You imagine that I will live through ages, master?’
‘Child, you will live for ever.’
‘A child’s belief!’
‘An adult’s nightmare,’ he shot back.
‘You would I never grew up? Or are you happy to contemplate my eternal nightmare?’
‘The choice is yours, Korya. Spit it out or swallow it down.’
