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Prok tilted his head to regard her, with a loose smile upon his features. ‘Often noted, yes.’
‘Is ink inimical?’
‘Drink down a bottle and you will surely die.’
‘Just so,’ she replied.
They waited, until Prok’s smile broadened. He leaned back. ‘Let us imagine, if you will indulge me, that future where healing is at hand for all things, or, to be more accurate, most things, for as Lady Sandalath noted earlier, death remains hungry and none can halt its feeding, but merely delay it for a time. Why, amidst such curative boon, should we not expect a society at ease with itself?’ He tipped his tankard towards Sorca. ‘She thinks not.’
‘I heard no such opinion from our keeper of records,’ Yalad said.
‘You didn’t? Then allow me to make it plain. Are we to live our lives in constant fear – present circumstances notwithstanding? Are we to flinch from all that we might touch, or ingest? From that cloud we must pass through should we cross, say, Sorca’s wake down a corridor? Or, in her instance, the ink with which she plies her trade? To what extent, one wonders, does equanimity confer health and well-being? A soul at ease with itself is surely healthier than one stressed with worry and dread. What of the overly judgemental among us? What ill humours are secreted internally by embittered comparisons of moral standing? What poisons attend to self-righteousness?’
‘Perhaps,’ ventured Yalad, ‘with sorcery making redundant the need for gods – with all their necessary configurations of sin and judgement – we will indeed turn to the mundane truths – or seeming truths – of health and well-being, upon which one might rest such notions as justice, blame and righteous punishment. In a way, is it not a simpler way of thinking?’
Prok stared at Yalad with undisguised delight. ‘Gate sergeant, I applaud you. After all, the mind of a god and the manner in which it assays judgement and punishment is by nature beyond our understanding, and in such a wayward world as ours, why yes, that surely serves as perversely comforting. But in contrast, as you say, we in a godless world are invited to judge one another, and by harsh rules indeed. Cast down your judgement! And if Sorca does not kneel to your reasoned distemper, why, pronounce banishment, and by this wetted cloth wash thy hands of her!’
‘In such a world,’ murmured Yalad, ‘I see the powers of healing withheld from those deemed undeserving.’
Prok’s eyes were suddenly keen. ‘Just so. The future, my friend, offers no respite for the unwell, the impure, the flawed and the peculiar. By its habits a society may well be judged, but more sure our assessment, I wager, when we judge its treatment of the habituated and the wilfully non-conforming.’ The surgeon refilled his tankard. ‘You are witness to my vow, then, by what powers Denul invests in me, and by what skills and learning I may possess, that I will heal without judgement. Until my dying day.’
‘Bless you,’ said Sorca, behind a cloud of smoke.
Nodding in acknowledgement, Prok continued. ‘On the field of battle, the surgeon has no regard for the allegiance of the soldier in dire need. It is, in fact, a point of pride among my ilk to dismiss the political world and its ambitions, and seek to heal all who can be healed, and, failing that, to mourn only
the tragedy of the argument’s harvest. Few, after all, would appreciate a surgeon’s history of the world, wherein each successive chapter recounts ever the same litany of broken bodies and shallow triumphs.’ He waved dismissively, and then added, ‘But history teaches us nothing new. And should I choose to look ahead, to what is yet to come, why, I see a future made most toxic, born on the day society sets the value of wealth above that of lives.’
Sandalath started. ‘Surely, surgeon, that could never come to pass!’
‘Cruel judgement – the poor deserve to be poor, and in the failing of their spirit, why, illness is only just. Besides, who would want to invite a burgeoning of these un-worthies, who in their poverty fall to endless breeding? As for the misfits, so stubborn in their refusal to conform, let them suffer the consequences of their own misdeeds!’
‘If that awaits us,’ Sandalath said, ‘I’d rather be quit of it than witness such corruption. What you describe, surgeon, is simply horrible.’
‘Yes, it is. While I am content for payment of my services little more than the meeting of my needs, I do fear a time when we measure all services against a stack of coins.’
‘Prok,’ interjected Ivis, ‘do you know the tale of the Lord of Hate?’
The surgeon simply smiled. ‘Commander, tell us, please, for can we not but wonder at the naming of such a lord?’
‘I have it from Lord Draconus himself,’ Ivis began. ‘Told to me when we were on campaign. There was a Jaghut, named Gothos. Cursed with preternatural intelligence and a relentless nature, his eye was too sharp, his wit too keen. In this, Prok, he was perhaps much like you.’
The surgeon smiled and raised his tankard in salute.
Ivis eyed Prok with an expression of faint distaste. After a moment, he continued. ‘Gothos began an argument, and found himself unable to halt his pursuit of it. He spiralled down, and down. Was he seeking truth? Or did he desire something else? A gift of hope, or even redemption? Did he dream of finding, at the very end, a world unfolding with the natural beauty of a rose?’
‘What was the argument?’ Sandalath asked.
Ivis nodded. ‘In a moment, milady. For now, let us examine a more common need, perhaps even a counter-argument, and that is one of balance. In the act of observing, should one not seek its measure, if only to ease the soul? The good with the bad, the glorious with the craven? If only to even the weights upon each scale?’
Prok spoke in a heavy tone. ‘The weights, Ivis, are not equal.’
‘Gothos would agree with you, surgeon. Civilization is a war against injustice. In its steps it might stutter on occasion, or even at times bow to exhaustion, but it holds nevertheless to a certain purpose, and that is, most simply put, a desire to defend the helpless against those who would prey upon them. Rules breed more rules, laws abound. Comfort and safety, lives lived out in peace.’
Prok grunted and Ivis responded with a pointed finger, silencing him. The commander then resumed. ‘Complexity grows ever more complex, but there is a belief that civilization is a natural force, and, by extension, that justice itself is a natural force.’ He paused, and then half smiled, as if at a memory. ‘My lord Draconus was most explicit on this point. That night, he argued as if defending himself, so stern was his regard.’ Then he shook his head. ‘But at some point, civilization forgot its primary purpose: that of protection. The rules and laws twisted round to fashion constraints to dignity, to equality and liberty, and then to the primal needs of security and comfort. The task of living was hard, but civilization was intended to make the task easier, and in many ways it did – and does. But at what cost?’
‘Forgive me, commander,’ said Prok, ‘but you return us to the notion of dignity, yes?’
‘What value this “civilization”, surgeon, if it dispenses with the virtue of being civil?’
