Assassins kill for money, Severn offered.
Do you think he occupies that office of his for free?Scoros countered.
I don’t know.
He doesn’t. He’s paid, and paid well, for his service.
As are we, Ybelline said. This silenced Scoros. Ybelline did not believe that silence would last for long.What Scoros meant to say was simply this. If you are a Wolf, you might be called upon to kill. Those whodokill are required to face us every single time. Their jobs are dependent on the reports we then give the Wolflord. And Severn? Unlike today, those sessions are mandatory. You will be a Wolf, and you will be under Helmat’s command.
Will it always be you?
Garadin laughed. Scoros grimaced. Neither of these could be seen, but both could be felt. Severn was merely embarrassed.
I can’t guarantee that it will always be me. You’ve seen, from today, that different members of the Tha’alanari must sometimes retreat from service.
Has there ever been a time when you’ve told Lord Marlin not to hire someone?
Yes, Scoros said.
Did he listen?
Garadin laughed again.
Yes. He wasn’t happy about it, but then again, he never is. And regardless, the appraisal and the recommendation won’t be mine. It will be Ybelline’s.
But...
But we see what she sees?
Severn’s nod was a ripple, not a gesture.
We do not see all that she sees. No more does she know all of what I see, or all of what Garadin sees. We will have the gist of it, no more. It is how we function. At the point where we cannot keep our sanity, cannot keep our internal walls intact, wemuststop.
Why are you explaining this to me?
Because you asked, boy. When we are drowning in darkness and pain and cruelty, we reach instinctively for our kin. But as with any drowning person, grip too tightly, grip in the wrong way, and all that is achieved is two deaths, not one. It is a pity that you are not seeking to be a Hawk. I believe we would find the experience far less taxing, were you. Ybelline, decide. The boy is clearly willing.
Ybelline said yes.
She said it wordlessly. She returned to the silence of her own thoughts, disentangling herself from the Tha’alanari, the familiar voices of Garadin, of Scoros, of the others. Here, in the remaining hush, she was as close as she could come to a human experience. She felt the isolation keenly, as she always did. But humans experienced thisall the time. They had no choice.
There was an element of trust in Severn’s apprehension, an element missing from those whom the Imperial Service wished to interrogate. Scoros had taught her—taught most of them—that regardless of the emotions of their subjects, the Tha’alanari must be worthy of a trust that would never be offered. They must touch only those things that were relevant, and if they stumbled, if they were sucked, by the vortex of fear and rage, into other memories, other thoughts, they must never, ever speak of the things that were not relevant.
Humans feared the Tha’alani because humans required secrets.
But the Tha’alani feared human secrets almost as much. She wondered, as she sometimes did, what the world would be like if all races, everywhere, could join and live within the confines of the Tha’alaan. She wondered what it would take to create a Tha’alaan in which other races could be at home. In which secrets weren’t necessary; in which belonging eased fear and anger.
For she understood, every time she attempted this, that so much of the damage done to humans—by themselves, by the world—was caused by the certainty of their isolation. They were alone. They felt alone. They could not, in despair, reach out for the comfort of their kin, because their kin could not hear or answer them as the Tha’alani could. They felt that they could not reach out to anyone. Eventually, the certainty that no one cared about them at all became inverted: if no one had ever cared for them, why should they care for anyone else?
The inversion took different forms. Sometimes, driven mad by the bitterness of isolation, the lack of external balances, they moved fromwhy should I caretoI’ll show them all.
She shuddered but examined her thoughts in the intimidating silence.
You don’t have that?
Ah, no, not silence.
I do. But...all children do. All people who feel powerless do. It’s not a constant, and as we mature, we feel less and less of it because we understand external contexts better. But it’s not the same. Of course, it’s not. We canhearthe children. We can see what they feel. We can remember—by searching the Tha’alaan, if necessary—when we were that young. Every one of us. We don’t judge it because it’s part of life. But we open up those memories to those who are in the throes of the anger, and they see it. They see that it’s normal, but—I’m sorry. I can’t explain it. I’ve tried but—Can you explain how you breathe?