The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (1213 page)

‘Dear brother, let us see, shall we? The hag's heart is broken, and she will do whatever she can to see it healed. Despise her, Onos – the spirits know, she deserves nothing else – but do not dismiss her. Do not.'

It seemed very complicated.

Kilava Onass looked up at the wound.

‘But it isn't. It isn't anything like that at all.'

Rock cracked in Kettle House, startling her. Reddish mists roiled out from the sundered walls.

‘She was flawed, was Kettle. Too weak, too young.' What legacy could be found in a child left alone, abandoned to the fates? How many truths hid in the scatter of small bones? Too many to bear thinking about.

Another stone shattered, the sound like snapping chains.

Kilava returned her attention to the gate.

 

Gruntle slumped against a massive boulder, in the full sun, and leaned his head back against the warm stone, closing his eyes.
Instinct's a bitch.
The god who had damned him was a burning presence deep inside, filling him with an urgency he could not understand. His nerves were frayed; he was exhausted.

He had journeyed through countless realms, desperate to find the quickest path to take him…where?
A gate. A disaster about to be unleashed. What is it you so fear, Trake? Why can you not just tell me, you miserable rat-chewing bastard? Show me an enemy. Show me someone I can kill for you, since that seems to be the only thing that pleases you.

The air stank. He listened to the flies crawling on the corpses surrounding him. He didn't know where he was. Broad-leafed trees encircled the glade; he had heard geese flying overhead. But this was not his world. It felt…different. Like a place twisted by sickness – and not the sickness that had taken the twenty or so wretched humans lying here in the high grasses, marring their skin with weeping pustules, swelling their throats and forcing their tongues past blistered lips. No, all of that was just a symptom of some deeper disease.

There was intention. Here. Someone summoned Poliel and set her upon these people. I am being shown true evil – is that what you wanted, Trake? Reminding me of just how horrifying we can be? People curse you and the pestilence of your touch ruins countless lives, but you are not a stranger to any world.

These people – someone used you to kill them.

He thought he'd seen the worst of humanity's flaws back in Capustan, in the Pannion War. An entire people deliberately driven insane. But if he understood the truths behind that war, there had been a wounded thing at the very core of the Domin, a thing that could only lash out, claws bared, so vast, so consuming was its pain.

And though he was not yet ready for it, a part of him understood that forgiveness was possible, from the streets of Capustan to the throne in Coral, and probably beyond – there had been mention of a being trapped in a gate, sealing a wound with its own life force. He could track an argument through all that, and the knowledge gave him something close to peace. Enough to live with.

But not here. What crime did they commit – these poor people – to earn such punishment?

He could feel his tears drying on his cheeks.
This is…unforgivable. Is it my anger you want, Trake? Is this why I am here, to be reawakened? Enough of the shame, the grief, the self-recrimination, is that what you're telling me?

Well then, it hasn't worked. All I see here is what we're capable of doing.

He missed Ganoes Paran. And Itkovian. Friends to whom he could speak. They seemed to belong to a different life, a life long lost to him.
Harllo. Ah, you should see your namesake, my friend. Oh, how you would have loved him – she'd have to fight you off, brick up the doors to keep you from being his father. You'd have shown her what it meant to love a child unconditionally.

Stonny, do you miss Harllo as much as I do?

But you've got the boy. You've got your son. And I promised I would come back. I promised.

‘What would you do here, Master of the Deck?' His question was swallowed by the glade. ‘What choice would you make, Paran? We weren't happy with our lots, were we? But we took hold of them anyway. By the throat. I expect you've yet to relinquish your grip. Me? Ah, gods, how I've messed it up.'

In his dreams he had seen a blackened thing, with claws of red and fangs dripping gore. Lying panting, dying, on churned-up earth. The air was brittle cold. The wind whipped about as if warring with itself. What place was that?

That place? Gods, it's where I'm going, isn't it? I have a fight ahead. A terrible fight. Is she my ally? My lover? Is she even real?

It was time. An end to these morbid thoughts, this brush with self-indulgence. He knew well that to give voice to certain feelings, to expose them in all their honesty, made him vulnerable to derision.
‘Don't touch us with what you feel. We don't believe you.'
His eyes blinking open, he looked around.

Crows on the branches, but even they were not yet ready to feed.

Gruntle climbed to his feet, walked to the nearest corpse. A young man, skin of burnished bronze, braided hair black as pitch. Dressed like some Rhivi outlander. Stone tools, a wooden club at his waist – beautifully carved, shaped like a cutlass, the edge oiled and gleaming. ‘You loved that sword, didn't you? But it didn't help you. Not against this.'

He turned, took in the glade, and spread his arms. ‘You died miserable. I now offer you something more, a second way.'

The hair on the back of his neck lifted. Their spirits had drawn close. ‘You were warriors. Come with me and be warriors once again. And if we are to die, then it shall be a better death. I can offer this but nothing more.'

The last time he had done this, his followers had been alive. Until this moment, he had not even known that this was possible, this breaching of death's barrier.
It's all changing. I don't think I like it.

The spirits drifted back to their bodies. The flies scattered.

Moments later, limbs twitched, mouths opened to dry rasps.
Now, Trake, we can't have them like this, can we? Heal their flesh, you piece of immortal dung.

Power filled the glade, an emanation that pushed back the vile curse of this realm, all the exultant expressions of evil that seemed to thrive unopposed in this place. Swept away. Refuted.

He remembered sitting at a campfire, listening to Harllo going on about something, and a fragment of words returned to him now. The face across the fire, long and flickering.
‘War, Gruntle. Like it or not, it's the spur of civilization.'
And then that lopsided grin.

‘Hear that, Trake? I just figured out why you've granted me this gift. It's all nothing but expedience with you. One hand blesses but the other waits for the coin. And you'll be paid, no matter what. No matter what.'

Twenty-one silent warriors now faced him, their sores gone, their eyes bright. He could be cruel now and just take them. ‘He'll have made sure you can understand me. He'll have done that, I think.'

Cautious nods.

‘Good. You can stay here. You can return to your people – if any are still alive. You can try to seek vengeance against the ones who killed you. But you know you'll lose. Against the evil now in your land, you are doomed.

‘You're warriors. When you run with me, know that a fight awaits us. That is our path.' He hesitated, and then spat to one side. ‘Is there glory in war? Come with me and let's find out.'

When he set off, twenty-one warriors followed.

And when he awakened his power they rushed closer.
This, my friends, is called veering. And this, my friends, is the body of a tiger.

A rather big one.

The three strangely garbed strangers they found walking on the trail ahead barely had time to lift their long clubs before Gruntle was among them. Once he passed, there wasn't much left of those three pale men, and he felt the pleasure of his companions. And shared it.
There's only one thing to do with evil. Take it in your jaws and crush it.

Then they were gone from the world.

 

What place washes bones up like driftwood?
Mappo's gaze narrowed on the flat, blinding stretch awaiting him. Shards of quartz and gypsum studded the colourless, dead ground, like knots of cacti. The horizon was level behind shimmering waves of heat, as if this desert reached to the very edge of the world.

I have to cross it.

He crouched, reached down and picked up a long bone, studied it.
Bhederin? Maybe. Not yet fully grown.
He collected another.
Wolf or dog jaw. So, this desert was once prairie. What happened?
The bones fell with a clatter. Straightening, Mappo drew a deep breath.
I think… I think I am getting tired of living. Tired of the whole thing. Nothing is working like it used to. Flaws are appearing, signs of things breaking down. Inside. The very core of my spirit.

But I have one thing left to do. Just one thing left, and then I can be done with all this.
He found himself drifting off, not for the first time, finding that place in his head where every thought rattled like chains, and he could only drag himself in crooked circles, the weight stealing his strength, his willingness to go on.

One thing left. It's down to managing resources. Harbouring the will. Navigating between all the sour truths. You can live that long, Mappo. You have no choice but to live that long, or all this will be for nothing.

I see the world's edge. Waiting for me.

He tightened the straps of his sack, and then set out. At a steady jog.
It's just a desert. I've run across a few in my day. I won't go hungry. I won't go thirsty, and whatever exhaustion comes to me, well, it'll end when it's all over.

With each footfall his nerves seemed to recoil from the contact. This was a damaged place, one vast scar upon the earth. And for all the death lining the desert's bizarre shore behind him, there was life here. Inimical, unpleasant life. And it possessed
intent.

You feel me, don't you? I offend you. But it is not my desire to offend. Leave me to pass, friend, and we will be done with each other.

Flies buzzed round him now. He had settled into a dogtrot, his breathing steady and deep. The insects kept pace, gathering in ever greater numbers.
Death is not punishment. It is release. I have seen that all my life. Though I did not wish to, though I told myself stories to pretend otherwise. Every struggle must end. Is the rest that follows eternal? I doubt it. I doubt we'd ever get off that easily.

Hood, I feel your absence. I wonder what it means. Who now waits beyond the gate? So much anguish comes in knowing that each of us must pass through it alone. To then discover that once through we remain alone – no, that is too much to bear.

I could have married. Stayed in the village. I could have fathered children, and seen in each child something of my wife, something of me. Is that enough meaning to a life? A cloth of unending folds?

I could have murdered Icarium – but then, he has instincts for such things. His madness awakens so fast, so utterly fast, that I might have failed – and after killing me his rage would have sought a new target, and many others would have died.

There really was no choice. There never was. Is it any wonder I am so tired?

The flies swarmed him in a thick, glittering cloud. They sought out his eyes, but those had closed to slits. They spun round his mouth, but the gusts of breath from his nostrils drove them off. His people had been herders. They understood flies. He ignored their seething embrace. It meant nothing, and on he ran.

But then my death would have made my loved ones grieve, and there is nothing pleasant in grieving. It is hot and dry to the touch. It is weakness taken inside. It can rise up and drown a life. No, I am glad I never found a wife, never fathered children. I could not bear to be the cause of their sorrow.

How can one give so freely of love to another, when the final outcome is one of betrayal? When one must leave the other – to be the betrayer who dies, to be the betrayed left alive. How can this be an even exchange, with death waiting at the end?

He ran, and time passed. The sun tracked across half the sky. The warm ache in his legs had shaken off the torment of his thoughts again and again, leading him into a world emptied of everything.
How perfect is running? This grand delusion of flight? Away from our demons, ever away, until even the self sobs loose, spins lost in our wake.

Perfect, oh yes. And a thing to despise. No distance can win an escape; no speed can outrun this self and all its host of troubles. It's only the sweet exhaustion that follows that we so cherish. An exhaustion so pure it is as close to dying as we can get without actually doing so.

Poets could speak knowingly of metaphors; if life is walking, then running is a life's entire span speeded up, and to act out birth to death in a single day, over and over again, has the flavour of perfect habit, for it mimicks undeniable truths.
Small deaths paying homage to the real one. We choose them in myriad forms and delight in the ritual. I could run until I wear out. Every joint, every bone and every muscle. I could run until my heart groans older than its years, and finally bursts.

I could damn the poets and make the metaphor real. We are all self-destructive. It is integral to our nature. And we will run even when there's nowhere to run to, and nothing terrible to run from. Why? Because to walk is just as meaningless. It just takes longer.