Surrender to the Will of the Night - By Glen Cook Page 0,41

comforts. Archer’s embrasures marked the points of the compass, designed to accommodate crossbowmen. Hecht tried to hide the fact that he was winded.

“The will of the All-Father?”

“Unless my brother Shagot lied, one of our rewards for destroying the Godslayer would be a stone-built mansion in warm Firaldia. Warmth being a huge luxury and giant temptation for wild young Andorayans. Who believed everything could be theirs if they had the will to take it.”

“I must confess, you’re entirely unlike my preconceptions of an Andorayan pirate.”

“I’m not that Svavar anymore. He was ignorant and shallow and an embarrassment to his people. And wasn’t bright enough to see it.”

“So how…?”

“When you’re trapped inside the monster of the Jagos you can’t do much but think. And taste the Night. And sample the unfortunate minds and souls that get in your way. You become as aware of the beast you were as you’re aware of the horror you’ve become. All that time thinking could drive you mad. Unless you re-create yourself in a shape more acceptable to yourself. I think most ascendants must go mad. I’m probably barking mad myself—though I keep trying to convince me that I was doing my stint in Purgatory and I’m just fine now. A diet of iron and silver does wonders for clearing the mind.”

Hecht moved to an embrasure, looked out on countryside that had changed little in two thousand years. In all likelihood those vineyards and olive groves and wheat fields had been where they were before the rise of the Old Brothen Empire. There were ruins down there the Feaens claimed antedated the Old Empire. Ruins no one disturbed. They were part of a pagan graveyard protected by the insane fury of cairnmaidens, children buried alive so their angry ghosts would guard the burying ground.

Even devout Chaldareans would not test those beliefs.

“Nor should they dare,” the soultaken said, as though reading Hecht’s thoughts writ upon his face. “Those murdered children are ascendants themselves, of the most terrible sort. Though very small. The world is fortunate they can’t grow and can’t sever their connection to the ground they guard. I’ve tried to talk with them. I can’t. Their rage is impenetrable.”

“Once upon a time, when the Faith was young, the saints set out to free the cairnmaidens and lay them to rest.”

“So they did. Once upon a time. But it was cruel and painful work. And thankless. Changing the official religion didn’t change the superstitions of the country people. When those early saints passed over they left no apprentices to carry on. Idealism flees all faiths early.”

Hecht moved to another embrasure. From this he could observe Fea itself, and Madouc nervously pacing. He stuck an arm out and waved to demonstrate that he remained among the living. “You wanted to see me.”

“In a sense. The old man who comes has a very one-sided mind. He doesn’t want to talk. He wants to ask questions that produce definitive answers. But he doesn’t know how to ask the right questions.”

“You’re hoping I’ll sit around chatting, wrestling the world’s travails? I’m not the right man. I’m a soldier. I solve problems by killing people and burning things till the problems go away. I seem to be good at that.”

“Better than most of your contemporaries. Your weakness is your inability to be ruthless.”

Recalling the Connecten Crusade, Hecht considered a protest. He forbore. The soultaken was right. He had made examples in an effort to chivvy potential enemies away from the battlefield. But his thinking had been local and limited, concerned only with the immediate future. Ten years from now, if the Patriarch sent him against Arnhand, no one would be intimidated by what he had done then.

The Old Brothens said war was neither a game nor a pastime. If a man was not willing to pursue it with all his strength, with utter ruthlessness, he should not go to war in the first place. In the long term, ruthlessness saved lives.

An enemy had to be stripped of all hope. Before the killing started, if possible. He had to know that if war came it would not end till someone had suffered absolute destruction. The Old Brothens always had the numbers. Not to mention superior discipline and skills. And utter ruthlessness.

“I see what you mean.”

“Good, then. In time to come you’ll need to be less gentle.”

“What?”

“I am become a child of the Night. Though I’ve resumed my original shape part of me is still entangled in the Night’s boundless sea. I know what