On the breath that animates us

On the breath that animates us

What animates a living body is, in our usage, the breath — though every register has its word, and the registers will not agree even on so plain a matter as the soul. The southern scholars prefer psyche. The coast-cultures write the wake; the forge-cultures, the ember. The fragments from inscriptions older than any standing kingdom gesture at the Quick, which is to say the living. Whatever the name, the substance is agreed: something animates a body which is not the body. It carries weight. It persists. It knows itself.

We have observed, however, that breaths come in two kinds — and that this distinction matters more than the priests of any single register pretend.

The first kind we call restless. A restless breath is loosely held to its body — loose enough that when the body takes a killing wound the breath does not at once depart, and the body itself, given a little time and not actively interfered with, will recover. Most mortals are restless and have no notion of being so. Their deaths, when survived (as they often are), leave them spent and changed for a while, but in the same flesh and the same life. The folk in every country we have travelled recognise the phenomenon: the long swoon, the second breath, the slow rising. Soldiers learn to mark an enemy left for dead, by fire or by knife, lest he stand up again later.

The second kind we call anchored. An anchored breath is tightly bound; it cannot be drawn forth when the body fails. The anchored know one death and one only. They cannot wear a soul-hold; no small mend will save them. In exchange — and we shall come to this exchange in its turn — they can wield bindings the restless cannot touch.

Some kingdoms revere the restless as touched by mercy. The next kingdom over reveres the anchored as touched by dignity. Both regimes will tell you their position is obvious; both will persecute the other when given the chance, and the persecutions are usually more vigorous than the doctrines warrant. We do not endorse either view. We have buried friends of both kinds, by every rite each kingdom permits and several it does not.