‘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 river-worms 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 lean 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 cascade of expressions, as they ask themselves: who is it that would call me naive? Well, comes the answer, clearly a person possessing certainty with all the arrogance and pretension that position entails; a confidence, then, that permits the offhand judge ment, the derisive dismissal uttered from a most lofty height. And from all this, into your victim’s eyes will come the light of recognition-in you he faces his enemy, his truest enemy. And he will know fear. Indeed, terror.’
‘You invite the question, then, Invigilator…’
Karos Invictad smiled. ‘Do I possess certainty? Or am I in fact plagued by questions, doubts, do I flounder in the wild currents of complexity?’ He was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘I hold to but one certainty. Power shapes the face of the world. In itself, it is neither benign nor malicious, it is simply the tool by which its wielder reshapes all that is around him or herself, reshapes it to suit his or her own… comforts. Of course, to express power is to enact tyranny, which can be most subtle and soft, or cruel and hard. Implicit in power-political, familial, as you like-is the threat of coercion. Against all who choose to resist. And know this: if coercion is available, it will be used.’ He gestured. ‘Listen to that man. He does my work for me. Down in the dungeons, his cellmates hear his ravings, and some among them join in chorus-the guards take note of who, and that is a list of names I peruse daily, for they are the ones I can win over. The ones who say nothing, or turn away, now that is the list of those who must die.’
‘So,’ said Tanal, ‘we let him scream.’
‘Yes. The irony is, he truly is naive, although not of course as you originally meant. It is his very certainty that reveals his blithe ignorance. It is a further irony that both extremes of the political spectrum reveal a convergence or the means and methods and indeed the very attitudes of the believers-their ferocity against naysayers, the blood they willingly spill for their cause, defending their version of reality. The hatred they reveal for those who voice doubts. Scepticism disguises contempt, after all, and to be held in contempt by one who holds to nothing is to feel the ieepest, most cutting wound. And so we who hold to certainty, Yathvanar, soon find it our mission to root out and annihilate the questioners. And my, the pleasure we drrive from that…’
Tanal Yathvanar said nothing, inundated with a storm of suspicions, none of which he could isolate, chase down.
Karos Invictad said, ‘You were so quick to judge, weren’t you? Ah, you revealed so much with that contemptuous Utterance. And I admit to being amused at my own in-stinctive response to your words. Naive. Errant take me, I wnnted to rip your head from your body, like decapitating a swamp-fly. I wanted to show you true contempt. Mine. For you and your kind. I wanted to take that dismissive expression on your face and push it through an offal grinder. You think you have all the answers? You must, given the ease of your voiced judgement. Well, you pathetic little creature, one day Uncertainty will come to your door, will clamber down your throat, and it will be a race to see which arrives first, humility Of death. Either way, I will spare you a moment’s compassion, which is what sets you and me apart, isn’t it? A package arrived today, yes?’
I anal blinked. See how we all possess a bloodlust. Then he nodded. ‘Yes, Invigilator. A new puzzle for you.’
‘Excellent. From whom?’
‘Anonymous.’
‘Most curious. Is that part of the mystery, or fear of ridicule when I solve it after a mere moment’s thought? Well, how can you possibly answer that question? Where is It now?’
‘It should have been delivered to your office, sir.’
‘Good. Permit the man below to scream for the rest of the afternoon, then have him sent below again.’
Tanal bowed as Karos left the balcony. He waited for a hundred heartbeats, then he too departed.
A short time later he descended to the lowest level of the ancient dungeons, down spiralling stone steps to corridors and cells that had not seen regular use in centuries. The recent floods had inundated both this level and the one above it, although the waters had since drained, leaving behind thick silts and the stench of stagnant, filthy water. Carrying a lantern, Tanal Yathvanar made his way down a sloping channel until he came to what had once been the primary inquisition chamber. Arcane, rust-seized mechanisms squatted on the pavestoned floor, or were affixed to walls, with one bedframe-like cage suspended from the ceiling by thick chains.
Directly opposite the entrance was a wedge-shaped con-traption, replete with manacles and chains that could be drawn tight via a wall-mounted ratchet to one side. The inclined bed faced onto the chamber, and shackled to it was the woman he had been instructed to release.
She was awake, turning her face away from the sudden light.
Tanal set the lantern down on a table cluttered with instruments of torture. ‘Time for a feeding,’ he said.
She said nothing.
A well-respected academic. Look at her now. All those lofty words of yours,’ Tanal said. ‘In the end, they prove less substantial than dust on the wind.’
Her voice was ragged, croaking. ‘May you one day choke on that dust, little man.’
Tanal smiled. ‘“Little”. You seek to wound me. pathetic effort.’ He walked over to a chest against the wall to his right. It had contained vise-helms, but Tan; had removed the skull-crushers, filling the chest witi flasks of water and dried foodstuffs. ‘I shall need to bring down buckets with soap-water,’ he said, drawing out the makings of her supper. ‘Unavoidable as your defecation is, the smell and the stains are most unpleasant.’