The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (755 page)

‘She died, too. And so I had a chance to, you know, talk to her. Since we found ourselves in the same place. Her problem was, she couldn't put enough words together to make a real sentence. Not thick, much. Just inarticulate. People like that, how can you guess what's in their mind? They can't tell you, so the guessing stays guessing and most of the time you're so wrong it's pathetic. Well, we worked it out, more or less. I think. She said even less as a ghost.

‘But that's the thing with it all, Emroth. There's the big explosion, the white, then black, then you're stirring awake all over again. A damned ghost with nowhere worthwhile to go, and all you're left with is realizations and regrets. And a list of wishes longer than Hood's—'

‘No more, Hedge of the Bridgeburners,' Emroth interjected, the tremor of emotion in its voice. ‘I am not a fool. I comprehend this game of yours. But my memories are not for you.'

Hedge shrugged. ‘Not for you either, I gather. Gave them all away to wage war against the Jaghut. They were so evil, so dangerous, you made of yourselves your first victims. Kind of a backwards kind of vengeance, wouldn't you say? Like you went and done their work for them. And the real joke is, they weren't much evil or dangerous at all. Oh, maybe a handful, but those handful earned the wrath of their kin real fast – often long before you and your armies even showed up. They could police themselves just fine. They flung glaciers at you, so what did you do to defeat that? Why, you made your hearts even colder, even more lifeless than any glacier. Hood knows, that's irony for you.'

‘I am unbound,' Emroth said in a rasp. ‘My memories remain with me. It is these memories that have broken me.'

‘Broken?'

Another shrug. ‘Hedge of the Bridgeburners, unlike you, I remember love.'

Neither spoke for a time after that. The wind whipped bitter and dry. The crusted remnants of snow crackled underfoot in the beds of moss and lichen. On the horizon ahead there was a slate-grey ridge of some sort, angular like a massed line of toppled buildings. Above it the sky was milky white. Hedge gestured northward. ‘So, Emroth, is that it?'

The half-shattered head lifted. ‘Omtose Phellack.'

‘Really? But—'

‘We must cross it.'

‘Oh, and what lies beyond?'

The T'lan Imass halted and stared at Hedge with its withered, shadow-shrunken eyes. ‘I am not sure,' it replied. ‘But, I now believe, it may be…home.'

Damn you, Emroth. You've just made things a lot harder.

 

The temple stood on a low hill, the land barren on all sides. Its huge cyclopean walls looked battered, shoved inward as if by ten thousand stone fists. Crooked fissures tracked the dark grey granite from ground level to the massive lintel stone leaning drunkenly above what had once been a grand, noble entranceway. The remnants of statues jutted from pedestals set to either side of the broad, now sagging steps.

Udinaas did not know where he was. Just another dream, or what started as a dream. Doomed, like all the others, to slide into something far worse.

And so he waited, trembling, his legs crippled, broken and lifeless beneath him – a new variation on the theme of incapacity. Bludgeoning symbol to his many flaws. The last time, he recalled, he had been squirming on the ground, limbless, a broken-backed snake. It seemed his subconscious lacked subtlety, a most bitter admission.

Unless, of course, someone or something else was sending these visitations.

And now, corpses had appeared on the stony slopes beneath the temple. Scores, then hundreds.

Tall, skin pale as the shell of turtle eggs, red-rimmed eyes set deep in elongated, chiselled faces, and too many joints on their long limbs, transforming their stiff expressions of death into something surreal, fevered – but that last detail was no surprise.

And now, a smudge of motion in the darkness beneath the lintel stone. A figure staggering into view. Unlike the dead. No, this one looked…
human
.

Splashed in blood from head to toe, the man reeled forward, halted at the top of the steps and looked round with wild, enraged eyes. Then, flinging his head back, he screamed at the colourless sky.

No words. Just fury.

Udinaas recoiled, sought to drag himself away.

And the figure saw him. One crimson, dripping hand, lifting, reaching out for him. Beckoning.

As if grasped by the throat, Udinaas lurched closer to the man, to the temple, to the cold scree of corpses. ‘No,' he muttered, ‘not me. Choose someone else. Not me.'

‘Can you feel this grief, mortal?'

‘Not for me!'

‘But it is. You are the only one left. Are their deaths to be empty, forgotten, without meaning?'

Udinaas tried to hold on to the ground, but the stones pulled loose under his hands, the sandy soil broke free as his nails dragged furrows in his wake. ‘Find someone else!' His shriek echoed, as if launched directly at the temple, in through the gaping entrance, and echoing within – trapped, stolen away, rebounding until it was no longer his own voice, but that of the temple itself – a mournful cry of dying, of desperate defiance. The temple, voicing its thirst.

And something shook the sky then. Lightning without fire, thunder without sound – an arrival, jarring loose the world.

The entire temple heaved sideways, clouds of dust gasping out from between mortarless joins. It was moments from collapse—

‘No!
' bellowed the figure at the top of the stairs, even as he staggered to regain his balance.
‘This one is mine! My T'orrud Segul! Look at these dead – they must be saved, delivered, they must be—'

And now another voice sounded, behind Udinaas, high, distant, a voice of the sky itself. ‘No, Errant. These dead are Forkrul Assail. Dead by your own hand. You cannot kill them to save them—'

‘Dread witch, you know nothing! They're the only ones I can save!'

‘The curse of Elder Gods – look at the blood on your hands. It is all of your own making. All of it.'

A huge shadow swept over Udinaas then. Wheeled round.

Wind gusting, tossing tangled black hair upward from corpses, buffeting the torn fragments of their clothes; then, a sudden pressure, as of vast weight descending, and the dragon was there – between Udinaas and the Errant – long hind limbs stretching downward, claws plunging through cold bodies, crushing them in the snapping of bones as the enormous creature settled on the slope. Sinuous neck curling round, the huge head drawing closer to Udinaas, eyes of white fire.

Its voice filled his skull. ‘Do you know me?'

Argent flames rippling along the golden scales, a presence exuding incandescent heat – Forkrul Assail bodies blackened beneath her, skin crinkling, peeling back. Fats melting, popping from sudden blisters, weeping from joints.

Udinaas nodded. ‘Menandore. Sister Dawn. Rapist.'

Thick, liquid laughter. The head swung away, angled up towards the Errant. ‘This one is mine,' she said. ‘I claimed him long ago.'

‘Claim what you like, Menandore. Before we are done here, you will give him to me. Of your own will.'

‘Indeed?'

‘As…payment.'

‘For what?'

‘For news of your sisters.'

She laughed again. ‘Do you imagine I don't know?'

‘
But I offer more
.' The god raised his red hands. ‘
I can ensure they are removed from your path, Menandore. A simple…nudge.
'

The dragon shifted round, regarded Udinaas once more. ‘For this one?'

‘
Yes
.'

‘Very well, you can have him. But not our child.'

It was the Errant's turn to laugh.
‘When last did you visit that…child, Menandore?'

‘What does that mean?'

‘Only this. He is grown now. His mind is his own. Not yours, Menandore. You are warned, and this time I demand nothing in return. Elder Gods, my dear, can on occasion know mercy.'

She snorted – a gust of raw power. ‘I have heard that. Fine propaganda, the morsel you feed to your starving, pathetic worshippers. This man, this father of my child, he will fail you. T'orrud Segul. He has no faith. The compassion within him is like a meer-rat in a pit of lions – dancing faster than you can see, ever but moments from annihilation. He has played with it for a long time, Errant. You will not catch it, cannot claim it, cannot bind it to your cause.' She voiced her cruel laughter once more. ‘I took more from him than you realize.'

Including, bitch, my fear of you.
‘You think you can give me away, Menandore?'

The eyes flared with amusement or contempt or both. ‘Speak then, Udinaas, let us hear your bold claims.'

‘You both think you summoned me here, don't you? For your stupid tug of war. But the truth is, I summoned the two of you.'

‘You are mad—'

‘Maybe so, Menandore.
But this is my dream.
Not yours. Not his.
Mine
.'

‘You fool,' she spat. ‘Just try banishing us—'

 

Udinaas opened his eyes, stared up at a cold, clear night sky, and allowed himself a smile.
My dream, your nightmare.
He pulled the furs tighter about himself, drawing up his legs – making sure they weren't broken. Stiffness in the knees – normal, what came of scrabbling over rock and ice – but warm with life. ‘All is well,' he whispered.

‘Good,' said Kettle.

Udinaas turned, looked up. She was crouched at his side. ‘Why are you awake?' he demanded.

‘I'm not. And neither are you. That temple, it fell over. After you left.'

‘Hope it crushed the Errant flat, then.'

‘No. You'd already sent him away. Her too.'

‘But not you.'

‘No. You didn't know I was there.'

‘All right, so I am still dreaming. What do you want?'

‘That temple. It couldn't have held all those souls. All that grief. It was broken and that's why it fell over. That was what you were supposed to see. So you'd understand when everything happens. And not be sad. And be able to do what he wants you to do, just not in the way he thought it would be. That's all.'

‘Good. Now crawl back to your own dreams, Kettle.'

‘Okay. Just remember, don't cry too soon. You have to wait.'

‘Really. How long before I do this crying?'

But she was gone.

He'd caught some damn fever from the rotting ice. Shivering and hallucinating for three – maybe four – nights now. Bizarre dreams inside dreams and on and on. Delusions of warmth, the comfort of furs not sodden with sweat, the balm of mysterious conversations where meaning wasn't an issue.
I like this life. It's predictable. Mostly. And when it isn't, it feels no different. I take whatever comes at me. As if each night I receive lessons in…in taking control.

Now it was time for the huge table heaped with all his favourite foods.

They said he was gaunt as a wraith.

But every night he ate his fill.

 

With the dawn light pushing the shadows into the clefts and valleys and transforming the snow-clad peaks into molten gold, Seren Pedac rose from her furs and stood, feeling grimy and dishevelled. The high altitude left her throat sore and her eyes dry, and her allergies only exasperated those conditions. Shivering in the cutting wind, she watched Fear Sengar struggling to relight the fire. Long-frozen wood was reluctant to burn. Kettle had been gathering grasses and she now squatted down beside the Tiste Edur with her offerings.

A ragged cough from where Udinaas lay still buried in furs. After a moment, he slowly sat up. Face flushed with fever, sweat on his brow, his eyes dull. He hacked out a noise Seren belatedly realized was laughter.

Fear's head snapped round as if wasp-stung. ‘This amuses you? You'd rather another cold meal to start the day?'

Udinaas blinked over at the Tiste Edur, then shrugged and looked away.

Seren cleared her throat. ‘Whatever amused him, Fear, had nothing to do with you.'

‘Speaking for me now?' Udinaas asked her. He tottered weakly to his feet, still wrapped in the furs. ‘This might be another dream,' he said. ‘At any moment that white-skinned warrior perched over there might transform into a dragon. And the child Kettle will open her mouth like a door, into which Fear Sengar will plunge, devoured by his own hunger to betray.' The flat, murky eyes fixed on Seren Pedac. ‘And you will conjure lost ages, Acquitor, as if the follies of history had any relevance, any at all.'

The whirl and snap of a chain punctuated the bizarre pronouncements.

Udinaas glanced over at Clip, and smiled. ‘And you're dreaming of sinking your hands into a pool of blood, but not any old blood. The question is, can you manipulate events to achieve that red torrent?'

‘Your fever has boiled your brain,' the Tiste Andii warrior said with an answering smile. He faced Silchas Ruin. ‘Kill him or leave him behind.'

Seren Pedac sighed, then said, ‘Clip, when will we begin our descent? Lower down, there will be herbs to defeat his fever.'

‘Not for days,' he replied, spinning the chain in his right hand. ‘And even then…well, I doubt you'll find what you're looking for. Besides,' he added, ‘what ails him isn't entirely natural.'

Silchas Ruin, facing the trail they would climb this day, said, ‘He speaks true. Old sorcery fills this fetid air.'

‘What kind?' Seren asked.

‘It is fragmented. Perhaps…K'Chain Che'Malle – they rarely used their magic in ways easily understood. Never in battle. I do recall something…necromantic.'

‘And is that what this is?'

‘I cannot say, Acquitor.'

‘So why is Udinaas the one afflicted? What about the rest of us?'