The Awakening of History : 06

Now Klane wept for he saw how dreadful History could be and it seemed to him that he had betrayed his mother and his Rider heritage; that he had betrayed all the peoples of the Earth who had once lived in bliss under the Season Of Innocence but must now contend with this ancient foe forever and again.
Instinctively, the old man drew the klane, the instrument which had defined and raised him from obscurity, but the pitying smile of History confirmed what he already knew in his heart. The days of the klane were over, and the days of Klane Kalonia too. And he let the blade drop.
"Do not cry Klane," the giant said gently. “You need not fear me. You see me as a mighty and terrible warrior because that is your nature, and you recognise that part of yourself in my nature. You recognise my implacability and my strength. But I have many aspects which you do not see. It is for others in future times to come to recognise those different qualities in me. They will know that I need not always be the enemy you have been taught to dread.”
“Then can you not spare the peoples of the city?” Klane asked. “Can they not forget you again and be as they once were?”
“No Klane,” the giant warned in a darker voice. “I am what I am and I cannot be changed. That is my strength and no matter what others may say or do, what once was is always the same. The scribes of Aberstone and Vesper and Freewater know this as they feed me daily. The New Sophisticates welcome me. I am not going back to sleep now!
“What you must understand Klane, is that when the fighting is done, there is work to do. I do not change but it is only through me that there can be any change. And change was needed. It was not enough to sleep through the Season of Innocence. It was not enough to wait for the balm of the gene sea to wash you clean. It was not enough to wait for my older brother Evolution to bring you absolution. You needed to win absolution sooner, for Evolution may have discarded you whilst I slept! The people needed me and now they know it.”
Then Klane knew that History was not to be resisted and he began to understand that perhaps it could bring good as well as evil. Yet he was not comforted, for he was a man who had lived free in a world where time ran as it would, easy and soft in long lazy days that were their own meaning without the prison of context, and it was not mastered as the giant had now mastered it. So although Klane finally accepted that it might be well for History to be working once again, he could not help but feel sad for those who would be crushed by it.