14: Awakening
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the days before Garroch at last threw off the nightmare of death, he lay in the house that had once been Marrag’s house, and was now his. He was silent and full of thought, even when his throat had healed and the bitter chill had left his limbs, though it was not easy for him to think of things now. He saw the things about him, clearer than ever it seemed, when the blindness of hysterical exhaustion had left him—but he saw them only in their shapes and colours, and could spare no love for them, no insight into their life, no feeling. Even his precious polished greenstone axe lay at his side unloved. He knew well enough what it was and how best to use it, but he no longer cherished it, thought of it as a companion with an inner life of its own, as he had done once, in t
