And Sormo E'nath. Within the one man, eight elder warlocks, a loss of not just power, but knowledge, experience and wisdom. A blow that had driven the Wickans to their knees.
Earlier that day, at a time when the train had ground to a temporary halt, Captain Lull had joined the historian to share some rations. Few words passed between them to start, as if the events at Vathar Crossing were something not to be talked about, even as they spread like a plague through every thought and echoed ghostlike behind every scene around them, every sound that rose from the camp.
Lull slowly put away the remnants of their meal. Then he paused, and Duiker saw the man studying his own hands, which had begun trembling. The historian looked away, surprised at the sudden shame that swept through him. He saw List, wrapped in sleep on the buckboard, trapped within his prison of dreams. I could in mercy awaken the lad, yet the power for knowledge has mastered me. Cruelty comes easy these days.
The captain sighed after a moment, hastily completing the task. 'Do you find the need to answer all this, Historian?' he asked. 'All those tomes you've read, those other thoughts from other men, other women. Other times. How does a mortal make answer to what his or her kind are capable of? Does each of us, soldier or no, reach a point when all that we've seen, survived, changes us inside? Irrevocably changes us. What do we become, then? Less human, or more human? Human enough, or too human?'
Duiker was silent for a long minute, his eyes on the rock-studded dirt that surrounded the boulder upon which he sat. Then he cleared his throat. 'Each of us has his own threshold, friend. Soldier or no, we can only take so much before we cross over... into something else. As if the world has shifted around us, though it's only our way of looking at it. A change of perspective, but there's no intelligence to it – you see but do not feel, or you weep yet look upon your own anguish as if from somewhere else, somewhere outside. It's not a place for answers, Lull, for every question has burned away. More human or less human – that's for you to decide.'
'Surely it has been written of, by scholars, priests . . . philosophers?'
Duiker smiled down at the dirt. 'Efforts have been made. But those who themselves have crossed that threshold ... well, they have few words to describe the place they've found, and little inclination to attempt to explain it. As I said, it's a place without intelligence, a place where thoughts wander, formless, unlinked. Lost.'
'Lost,' the captain repeated. 'I am surely that.'
'Yet you and I, Lull, we are lost late in our lives. Look upon the children, and despair.'
'How to answer this? I must know, Duiker, else I go mad.'
'Sleight of hand,' the historian said.
'What?'
'Think of the sorcery we've seen in our lives, the vast, unbridled, deadly power we've witnessed unleashed. Driven to awe and horror. Then think of a trickster – those you saw as a child – the games of illusion and artifice they could play out with their hands, and so bring wonder to your eyes.'
The captain was silent, motionless. Then he rose. 'And there's my answer?'
'It's the only one I can think of, friend. Sorry if it's not enough.'
'No, old man, it's enough. It has to be, doesn't it?'
'Aye, that it does.'
'Sleight of hand.'
The historian nodded. 'Ask for nothing more, for the world – this world – won't give it.'
'But where will we find such a thing?'
'Unexpected places,' Duiker replied, also rising. Somewhere ahead, shouts rose and the convoy resumed its climb once more. 'If you fight both tears and a smile, you'll have found one.'
'Later, Historian.'
'Aye.'
He watched the captain set off back towards his company of soldiers, and wondered if all he'd said, all he'd offered to the man, was nothing but lies.
The possibility returned to him now, hours later as he trudged along on the trail. One of those random, unattached thoughts that were coming to characterize the blasted scape of his mind. Returned, lingered a moment, then drifted away and was gone.
The journey continued, beneath clouds of dust and a few remaining butterflies.
Korbolo Dom pursued, sniping at the train's mangled tail, content to await better ground before another major engagement. Perhaps even he quailed at what Vathar Forest had begun to reveal.
Among the tall cedars there were trees of some other species that had turned to stone. Gnarled and twisted, the petrified wood embraced objects that were themselves fossilized – the trees held offerings and had, long ago, grown around them. Duiker well recalled the last time he had seen such things, in what had been a holy place in the heart of an oasis, just north of Hissar. That site had revealed ram's horns locked in the wrapped crooks of branches, and there were plenty of those here as well, although they were the least disquieting of Vathar's offerings.
