The Crippled God

A thousand sages and philosophers had closed desperate fingers about the throat of this … this one thing. Even as they recoiled in horror, or, with a defiant cry, leapt forward. Tell us, please — show us your proofs. Tell us oblivion has a face, and upon it the curve of a smile, the blessing of recognition. Is that too much to ask?

But this, he knew, was the secret terror behind all faiths. The choice to believe, when to not believe invited the horror of the meaningless, all these lives empty of purpose, all these hopes relinquished, dropped from the hand, left to sink in the thick mud — with silts raining down until everything is buried.

I knew a man who studied fossils. He had made this pursuit his entire life. He spoke with great animation about his need to solve the mysteries of the distant past. And this guided his life for decades, until, in a confession written the night he took his own life, he finally spoke of the truth he had at last discovered. ‘I have found the secret, the one secret that is the past. The secret is this. There are more life forms in the history of this world than we could ever imagine, much less comprehend. They lived and they died and what little remains tells us only that they once existed. And therein hides the secret, the terrible secret. It’s all for nothing. Nothing but fragments of bone. All of it … for nothing.’

Easy enough to understand how this could have unleashed the black dogs, when comprehension yielded only a vast abyss.

But then Brys found a familiar face rising before him, there in his beleaguered memories, or dream-world — whichever this was. Tehol, and that look in his eyes that one might see the moment before he spat in the face of every god that ever existed, only to then move on to the dour mendics and philosophers and wild-haired poets. Damn them all, Brys. No one really needs an excuse to give up on life, and all the ones you hear you might as well pluck out of a hat. Surrender is easy. Fighting is hard. Brother, I remember once reading about deadly swords that, in the moment of war, would howl with laughter. What better symbol of human defiance than that?

Sure, Brys, I remember that bone collector. He got it all wrong. With that secret he discovered, he had a choice. Despair or wonder. Between the two, which would you choose? Me, I look at the idiocy and futility of existence and how can I not wonder?

Every creature dies, brother — you should know. I’d wager that each and every one of those creatures set out into the darkness, soul crouched and timid, not knowing what waited ahead. Why should us smart animals be unique? Death levels us with the cockroaches and the rats and the earthworms. Faith is more than turning our backs on the abyss and pretending it’s not there, Brys. It’s how we climb up above the cockroaches, top of the ladder, lads! And those seven rungs make all the difference! Eight? Eight rungs, then. Up here, the gods can finally see us, right?

Remember that other sage who said the soul is carried from the body by maggots? Crush a maggot kill a soul. And damn but they’d have to crawl far, so the gods gave them wings, to carry them up into the heavens. Makes for a strangely logical theory, don’t you think? Where was I, brother?

More to the point, where are you?

The face of Tehol drifted away, leaving Brys alone once more. Where am I, Tehol? I am … nowhere.

He stumbled, he groped blindly, he staggered beneath unimaginable weights — too ephemeral to shrug off, yet heavy as mountains nonetheless. And on all sides, unrelieved darkness-

But no … is that light? Is that …

In the distance, a lantern’s yellow flame, murky, flaring and ebbing in the currents.

Who? Do … do you see me?

A hand reaching out, the curve of a smile on a welcoming face.

Who are you? Why do you come for me, if not to bless me with revelation?

The stranger held the lantern low, as if no longer caring what it might reveal, and Brys saw that he was a Tiste Edur, a grey-skinned warrior wearing tattered leathers that streamed behind him like tentacles.

Step by step, he drew closer. Brys stood in the man’s path, waiting.

When the Edur arrived, he looked up, dark eyes staring with an inner fire. His mouth worked, as if he’d forgotten how to speak.

Brys held up a hand in greeting.

The Edur grasped it and Brys grunted as the man leaned forward, giving him all his weight. The face, pitted and rotted, lifted to his own.

And the Edur spoke. ‘Friend, do you know me? Will you bless me?’

When his eyes snapped open, Aranict was ready for him, ready for the raw horror of his expression, the soul exposed and shaken to its very core, and she took him tight in her arms. And knew, in the pit of her heart, that she was losing him.

Back. He’s on his way back, and I cannot hold on to him. I cannot. She felt him shudder, and his flesh felt cold, almost damp. He smells of … salt.

It was some time before his breathing calmed, and then once more he was asleep. She slowly disengaged herself, rose, throwing on a cloak, and stepped out from the tent. It was near dawn, the encampment still and quiet as a graveyard. Overhead, the Jade Strangers cut a vast swathe across the night sky, poised like talons about to descend.

She drew out her tinder box and a stick of rustleaf. To ease the gnawing hunger.

This land was ruined, in many ways far worse than the Wastelands. All around them were signs of past prosperity. Entire villages now empty, abandoned to weeds, dust and the scattered remnants left by those who had once lived there. The fields surrounding the farms were blown down to rocks and clay, and not a single tree remained — only stumps or, here and there, pits where even the stumps had been dug out. There was no animal life, no birds, and every well they examined, every stream bed her minor mages worked over, seeking to draw water from the depths, yielded little more than soupy sludge. Their few remaining horses were suffering and might not even make it into Kolanse proper. And the rest of us aren’t doing much better. Low on food, exhausting ourselves sinking wells, and knowing that somewhere ahead a well-rested, well-fed army waits for us.

She drew hard on the stick, looked eastward to the distant camp of the Bolkando. No fires. Even the standards tilted like the masts of some foundered ship. I fear we won’t be enough, not to do what the Adjunct needed, what she wanted. It may prove that this entire journey will end in failure, and death.

Brys came out of the tent to stand beside her. He took the stick from her fingers and drew on it. He’d begun doing that a few weeks past, seeking, perhaps, to calm his nerves in the wake of his nightmares. But she didn’t mind. She liked the company.

‘I can almost taste the thoughts of my soldiers,’ he said. ‘We will have to kill and eat the last horses. Won’t be enough — even sparing the water to make a stew … ah, if we could have scavenged, this might have succeeded.’

‘We’re not done yet, my love.’ Please, I beg you, do not answer that with yet another sad smile. With each one, I feel you slip further away.

‘It is our growing weakness that worries them the most,’ he said. ‘They fear we won’t be fit to fight.’

‘The Perish, if anything, will be even worse off.’

‘But they will have some days in which to recover. Besides which, Aranict, one must fear more the Assail army.’

She lit a second stick, and then gestured with one hand. ‘If all of Kolanse is like this, they won’t have an army.’

‘Queen Abrastal assures me that Kolanse continues to thrive, with what the sea offers, and the fertile valley province of Estobanse continues to produce, sheltered from the drought.’

And each night the nightmares take you. And each night I lie awake, watching you. Wondering about all the other paths we could have taken. ‘How have we failed her?’ Aranict asked. ‘What more could we have done?’

Brys grimaced. ‘This is the risk when you march an army into the unknown. In truth, no commander in his or her right mind would even contemplate such a precipitous act. Even in the invasion of new territories, all is