A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

Silchas Ruin commented, and there was
something like amusement in his tone, as if he had enjoyed
the slave's poking at Fear Sengar's sententious self-importance,
thus revealing two edges to his observation. 'I
am of a mind to follow him.'
    'Me, too,' said Kettle.
    Seren Pedac sighed. 'Very well, but I suggest we use ropes
between us, and leave the showing off to Udinaas.'
    The mouth of the cave revealed that it had been a corridor,
probably leading out onto a balcony before the façade had
sheared off. Massive sections of the walls, riven through
with cracks, had shifted, settled at conflicting angles. And
every crevasse, every fissure on all sides that Seren could
see, seethed with the squirming furred bodies of bats,
awakened now to their presence, chittering and moments
from panic. As Seren set her pack down, Udinaas moved
beside her.
    'Here,' he said, his breath pluming, 'light this lantern,
Acquitor – when the temperature drops my hands start
going numb.' At her look he glanced over at Fear Sengar,
then said, 'Too many years reaching down into icy water. A
slave among the Edur knows little comfort.'
    'You were fed,' Fear Sengar said.
    'When a bloodwood tree toppled in the forest,' Udinaas
said, 'we'd be sent out to drag it back to the village. Do you
remember those times, Fear? Sometimes the trunk would
shift unexpectedly, slide in mud or whatever, and crush a
slave. One of them was from our own household – you
don't recall him, do you? What's one more dead slave? You
Edur would shout out when that happened, saying the
bloodwood spirit was thirsty for Letherii blood.'
    'Enough, Udinaas,' Seren said, finally succeeding in
lighting the lantern. As the illumination burgeoned, the
bats exploded from the cracks and suddenly the air was
filled with frantic, beating wings. A dozen heartbeats later
the creatures were gone.
    She straightened, raising the lantern.
    They stood on a thick mouldy paste – guano, crawling
with grubs and beetles – from which rose a foul stench.
    'We'd better move in,' Seren said, 'and get clear of this.
There are fevers . . .'
    The man was screaming as the guards dragged him by his
chains, across the courtyard to the ring-wall. His crushed
feet left bloody smears on the pavestones. Screams of
accusation wailed from him, shrill outrage at the shaping
of the world – the Letherii world.
    Tanal Yathvanar snorted softly. 'Hear him. Such naivety.'
    Karos Invictad, standing beside him on the balcony, gave
him a sharp look. 'You foolish man, Tanal Yathvanar.'
    'Invigilator?'
    Karos Invictad leaned his forearms on the railing and
squinted down at the prisoner. Fingers like bloated riverworms
slowly entwined. From somewhere overhead a gull
was laughing. 'Who poses the greatest threat to the empire,
Yathvanar?'
    'Fanatics,' Tanal replied after a moment. 'Like that one
below.'
    'Incorrect. Listen to his words. He is possessed of
certainty. He holds to a secure vision of the world, a man
with the correct answers – that the prerequisite questions
were themselves the correct ones goes without saying. A
citizen with certainty, Yathvanar, can be swayed, turned,
can be made into a most diligent ally. All one needs to do
is find what threatens them the most. Ignite their fear, burn
to cinders the foundations of their certainty, then offer an
equally certain alternate way of thinking, of seeing the
world. They will reach across, no matter how wide the gulf,
and grasp and hold on to you with all their strength. No,
the certain are not our enemies. Presently misguided, as in
the case of the man below, but always most vulnerable to
fear. Take away the comfort of their convictions, then coax
them with seemingly cogent and reasonable convictions of
our own making. Their eventual embrace is assured.'
    'I see.'
    'Tanal Yathvanar, our greatest enemies are those who are
without certainty. The ones with questions, the ones who
regard our tidy answers with unquenchable scepticism.
Those questions assail us, undermine us. They . . . agitate.
Understand, these dangerous citizens understand that
nothing is simple; their stance is the very opposite of
naivety. They are humbled by the ambivalence to which
they are witness, and they defy our simple, comforting
assertions of clarity, of a black and white world. Yathvanar,
when you wish to deliver the gravest insult to such a
citizen, call them naive. You will leave them incensed;
indeed, virtually speechless . . . until you watch their minds
back-tracking, revealed by a