Dust of Dreams

Bridgeburner, he’d had no responsibilities beyond that of a regular soldier. A sapper, in fact, and sappers were notorious for the threat they presented to their own comrades, never mind the enemy. So, not just a regular but an irresponsible one at that. But now Fid was a sergeant, and a whole lot more. Reader of the Deck of Dragons. Legendary survivor of the Bridgeburners. He was the iron stake driven deep into the ground, and no matter how fierce the raging winds, he held fast—and everyone in turn clung to him, the whole damned army, it seemed.
We hold tight. Not to the Adjunct. Not to Quick Ben or Fist Keneb. We hold tight to Fiddler, a damned sergeant.
    Hood’s breath. This sounds bad. I shouldn’t be thinking of things this way. Fid deserves better. He deserves to have his life back.
    No wonder he ran when she wanted the reading.
    The black water swirled past, oblivious to the maelstrom of his thoughts, carrying what it could down to the distant sea. Cold with the memories of snow and ice in the high mountains, slowing with the silts of overturned earth and stones worn down to dust. Huge turtles slid through the muck far below. Blood-drinking eels—little more than jaws and tail—slithered in the currents, seeking the soft bellies of massive carp and catfish. Silt blooms billowed and rolled over rounded stones and gravel banks. Bedded in muck, amphorae of fired clay, fragments of corroded metal—tools, fittings, weapons—and the smooth, vaguely furry long bones of countlessanimals—the floor of this river was crowded indeed, unfurled like a scroll, writing a history down to the sea.
    He had already freed his mind to wander, sliding from spark to spark among the multitude of creatures beneath the spinning surface. It had become something of a habit. Wherever he found himself, he sent out tendrils, spreading like roots to expand his skein of awareness. Without it, he felt lost. And yet, such sensitivity was not always a gift. Even as he came to comprehend the vast interconnectedness of things, so too grew the suspicion that each life possessed its circle, closed-in, virtually blind to all that lay outside. No matter the scale, no matter the pretensions of the things within that circle, no matter even their beliefs, they travelled in profound ignorance of the vastness of the universe beyond.
    The mind could do no better. It wasn’t built for profundity, and each time it touched upon the wondrous, it slid away, unable to find purchase.
No, we do fine with wood-chips flying from the axe’s bite, the dowels we drive home, the seeds we scatter, the taste of ale in our mouths, the touch of love and desire at our fingertips. Comfort doesn’t lie in the mystery of the unknown and the unknowable. It lies in the home we dwell in, the faces we recognize, the past in our wake and the future we want for ourselves.
    All this is what is solid. All this is what we grasp hold of. Even as we long for the other.
    Was the definition of religion as simple as that? Longing for the other? Fuelling that wish with faith, emulating desires through rituals?
That what we wish to be therefore is. That what we seek in truth exists. That in believing we create, and in creating we find.
    By that argument, is not the opposite equally true? That what we reject ceases. That ‘truth’ is born in what we seek. That we create in order to believe. That we find only what we have created.
    That wonder does not exist outside ourselves?
    By our belief, we create the gods. And so, in turn, we can destroy them. With a single thought. A moment’s refusal, an instant’s denial.
    Is this the real face of the war to come?
    Chilled by the notion, Bottle contracted his senses, fled the indifferent sparks swirling through the river’s depths. He needed something . . . closer. Something human. He needed his rats in the hold.
     
    Deadsmell coughed, and then dropped two coins into the trough. ‘You won’t get your cage, Throatslitter. You watch as four comes back to me.’ He looked up and scowled. ‘What’s wrong? Throw the bones, fool.’
    ‘You must be kidding. Ebron?’
    ‘Aye, he glamoured the trough.’
    Throatslitter leaned forward. ‘You got yourself a problem, Deadsmell—and heed this too, Ebron, since you’re a mage and all—’
    ‘Hey! I just told you—’
    ‘And kindly, aye, you did. But listen anyway. Deadsmell, might be it’s a safething to be magicking the casts and whatnot, so long as you’re playing nitwits or