The lie of wisdom is best hidden in monologue. Dialogue exposes it. Most people purporting to wisdom dare not engage in dialogue, lest they reveal the paucity of their assumptions and the frailty of their convictions. Better to say nothing, to nod and look thoughtful.
Was that notion worth a treatise? Yet another self-indulgent meander for the hall of scrolls? How many thoughts could one explore? Discuss, weigh, cast and count? All indulgences. The woman looking for the next meal for her child has no time for such things. The warrior shoulder to shoulder in a line facing an enemy can only curse the so-called wisdom that led him to that place. The flurry of kings and their avaricious terrors. The brutal solidity of slights and insults, grievances and disputes. Does it come down to who will eat and who will not! Or does it come down to who will control the option? The king’s privilege in deciding who cats and who starves, privilege that is the taste of power, its very essence, in fact!
Are gods and goddesses any different!
To that question, she knew Anomander Rake would but smile. He would speak of Mother Dark and the necessity of every decision she made-even down to the last one of turning away from her children. And he would not even blink when stating that his betrayal had forced upon her that final necessity.
She would walk away then, troubled, until some stretch of time later, when, in the solitude of her thoughts, she would realize that, in describing the necessities binding Mother Dark, he was also describing his very own necessities-all that had bound him to his own choices.
His betrayal of Mother Dark, she would comprehend-with deathly chill-had been necessary.
In Rake’s mind, at any rate. And everything had simply followed on from there, inevitably, inexorably.
She could hear the rain lashing down on the temple’s domed roof, harsh as ar-rows on upraised shields. The sky was locked in convulsions, a convergence of in-imical elements. A narrow door to her left opened and one of her priestesses hurried in, then abruptly halted to bow. ‘High Priestess.’
‘Such haste,’ she murmured in reply, ‘so unusual for the temple historian.’
The woman glanced up, and her eyes were impressively steady. ‘A question, ii I may.’
‘Of course.’
‘High Priestess, are we now at war?’
‘My sweetness-old friend-you have no idea.’
The eyes widened slightly, and then she bowed a second time. ‘Will you sum-mon Feral, High Priestess?’
‘That dour creature? No, let the assassin stay in her tower. Leave her to lurk or whatever it is she does to occupy her time.’
‘Spinnock Durav-’