Midnight Tides & The Bonehunters - By Steven Erikson Page 0,194

of the pit and she looked up at the tall, pale figure at her side. His face was becoming more visible, less blurred. It looked handsome, but hard. 'I'm sorry,' she said after a moment, 'that she's got you by the ankles.'

'We all have our burdens, Kettle.'

'Where are we?'

'You have no recognition of this place?'

'No. Maybe.'

'Let us continue down, then.'

Into the darkness, three rungs to a landing, then a spiral staircase of black stone.

'Round and round,' Kettle said, giggling.

A short while later they came to the end, the stairs opening out onto a sprawling, high-ceilinged chamber. The gloom was no obstacle to Kettle, nor, she suspected, to her companion. She could see a ragged mound heaped against the far wall to their right, and made to move towards it, but his hand drew her back.

'No, lass. Not there.'

He led her instead directly ahead. Three doorways, each one elaborately arched and framed with reverse impressions of columns. Between them, the walls displayed deeply carved images.

'As you can see,' he said, 'there is a reversal of perspective. That which is closest is carved deepest. There is significance to all this.'

'Where are we?'

'To achieve peace, destruction is delivered. To give the gift of freedom, one promises eternal imprisonment. Adjudication obviates the need for justice. This is a studied, deliberate embrace of diametric opposition. It is a belief in balance, a belief asserted with the conviction of religion. But in this case, the proof of a god's power lies not in the cause but in the effect. Accordingly, in this world and in all others, proof is achieved by action, and therefore all action – including the act of choosing inaction – is inherently moral. No deed stands outside the moral context. At the same time, the most morally perfect act is the one taken in opposition to what has occurred before.'

'What do the rooms look like through those openings?'

'In this civilization,' he continued, 'its citizens were bound to acts of utmost savagery. Vast cities were constructed beneath the world's surface. Each chamber, every building, assembled as the physical expression of the quality of absence. Solid rock matched by empty space. From these places, where they did not dwell, but simply gathered, they set out to achieve balance.'

It seemed he would not lead her through any of the doorways, so she fixed her attention instead on the images. 'There are no faces.'

'The opposite of identity, yes, Kettle.'

'The bodies look strange.'

'Physically unique. In some ways more primitive, but as a consequence less ... specialized, and so less constrained. Profoundly long-lived, more so than any other species. Very difficult to kill, and, it must be said, they needed to be killed. Or so was the conclusion reached after any initial encounter with them. Most of the time. They did fashion the occasional alliance. With the Jaghut, for example. But that was yet another tactic aimed at reasserting balance, and it ultimately failed. As did this entire civilization.'

Kettle swung round to study that distant heap of ... something. 'Those are bodies, aren't they?'

'Bones. Scraps of clothing, the harnesses they wore.'

'Who killed them?'

'You had to understand, Kettle. The one within you must understand. My refutation of the Forkrul Assail belief in balance is absolute. It is not that I am blind to the way in which force is ever countered, the way in which the natural world strains towards balance. But in that striving I see no proof of a god's power; I see no guiding hand behind such forces. And, even if one such existed, I see no obvious connection with the actions of a self-chosen people for whom chaos is the only rational response to order. Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us. The only relevant struggle for balance I acknowledge is that within ourselves. Externalizing it presumes inner perfection, that the internal struggle is over, victory achieved.'

'You killed them.'

'These ones here, yes. As for the rest, no. I was too late arriving and my freedom too brief for that. In any case, but a few enclaves were left by that time. My draconic kin took care of that task, since no other entity possessed the necessary power. As I said, they were damned hard to kill.'

Kettle shrugged, and she heard him sigh.

'There are places, lass, where Forkrul Assail remain. Imprisoned for the most part, but ever restless. Even more disturbing, in many of those places they are worshipped by misguided mortals.' He hesitated, then said, 'You have