But the
dangers and possible means of his downfall, wrapped with fear and based
on past experience, are as clear to him as the struggling flesh he
inhabits. For truth and fear exist only inches apart, and fear, by its
very nature, will always seem the stronger voice. Men have faced this
same darkness for thousands of years, and many fallen before it. And
the darkness never ends.
Kalus felt, as he always had in times of deep struggle, the eternal
desire for life that calls a man to action in the face of danger, and
courage in the face of despair. But he also felt something altogether
new, or at least, never before felt at this level of intensity. He felt
a flat and empty indifference that told him all such effort was futile,
even laughable, in the eyes of the gods who tormented him. Just as a
laboratory animal that can endure no more torture will simply stop
eating and slowly die of shock, he too felt that he had been punished
long enough, that any reasonable bounds of endurance had been long since
passed, and that the hopeless games of this world no longer held any
meaning for him. He saw only death: his father mauled by a bear, Shama
torn open by Shar-hai and his guard, who had themselves been dragged
back to earth. Skither, who had died alone in a stinking hole at the
hands of mindless brutes, protecting others who were heedless.
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