The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (985 page)

Is his own burden not enough? Why must he carry ours? Why have we done this to him? Why, because it's easier that way, and we so cherish the easy paths, do we not? The least of effort defines our virtues. Trouble us not, for we dislike being troubled.

The children are hungry. The forests are dead, the rivers poisoned. Calamity descends again and again. Diseases flower like mushrooms on corpses. And soon we will war over what's left. As we did in Kharkanas.

He will take this burden, but what does that mean? That we are freed to stay unchanging? Freed to continue doing nothing?

The black water overflowed the cup, spilled down to become rain once more.

Even the High Priestess did not understand. Not all of it, no. She saw this as a single, desperate gambit, a cast of the knuckles on which rode everything. But if it failed, well, there'd be another game. New players, the same old tired rules. The wealth wagered never lost its value, did it? The heap of golden coins will not crumble. It will only grow bigger yet.

Then, if the players come and go, while the rules never change, does not that heap in fact command the game? Would you bow to this god of gold? This insensate illusion of value?

Bow, then. Press forehead to the hard floor. But when it all goes wrong, show me no affronted disbelief.

Yes, Anomander Rake would take that burden, and carry it into a new world. But he would offer no absolution. He would deliver but one gift – an undeserved one – and that was
time.

The most precious privilege of all.
And what, pray tell, shall we do with it?

Off to his left, surmounting a much higher tower, a dragon fixed slitted eyes upon a decrepit camp beyond the veil of Night. No rain could blind it, no excuse could brave its unwavering regard. Silanah watched. And waited.

But the waiting was almost over.

Rush then, to this feast. Rush, ye hungry ones, to the meat of glee.

 

The wall had never been much to begin with. Dismantled in places, unfinished in others. It would never have withstood a siege for any length of time. Despite its execrable condition, the breach made by the Hounds of Shadow was obvious. An entire gate was gone, filled with the flame-licked wreckage of the blockhouses and a dozen nearby structures. Figures now clambered in its midst, hunting survivors, fighting the flames.

Beyond it, vast sections of the city – where heaving clouds of smoke lifted skyward, lit bright by raging gas-fires – suddenly ebbed, as if Darujhistan's very breath had been snatched away. Samar Dev staggered, fell to her knees. The pressure closing about her head felt moments from crushing the plates of her skull. She cried out even as Karsa crouched down beside her.

Ahead, Traveller had swung away from the destroyed gate, seeking instead another portal to the east, through which terrified refugees now spilled out into the ramshackle neighbourhood of shanties, where new fires had erupted from knocked-down shacks and in the wake of fleeing squatters. How Traveller intended to push his way through that mob—

‘Witch, you must concentrate.'

‘What?'

‘In your mind, raise a wall. On all sides. Make it strong, give it the power to withstand the one who has arrived.'

She pulled away from his hand. ‘Who? Who has arrived? By the spirits, I can't stand—'

He slapped her, hard enough to knock her down. Stunned, she stared up at him.

‘Samar Dev, I do not know who, or what – it is not the Hounds. Not even Shadowthrone.
Someone is there, and that someone blazes. I – I cannot imagine such a being—
'

‘A god.'

He shrugged. ‘Build your walls.'

The pressure had eased and she wondered at that, and then realized that Karsa had moved round, placing himself between her and the city. She saw sweat running down the Toblakai's face, streaming like rain. She saw the tightness in his eyes. ‘Karsa—'

‘If we are to follow, you and me both, then you must do this. Build walls, witch, and hurry.'

His gaze lifted to something behind her and all at once she felt a breath of power at her back, gusting against her, sinking past clothes, past skin, through flesh and then deep into her bones. She gasped.

The pressure was pushed back, left to rage against immense barriers now shielding her mind.

She climbed to her feet.

Side by side, they set out after Traveller.

He was cutting across a ragged strip of fallow field, dust rising with each stride, making for the gate at a sharp angle.

The surging mob of people blocking the portal seemed to melt back, and she wondered what those refugees had seen in Traveller's face as he marched straight for them. Whatever it had been, clearly it was not something to be challenged.

A strange, diffuse light now painted the city, the uneven wall, the domes, minarets and spires visible behind it. From a thousand throats erupted a moaning wail. Of shock, of dread. She saw faces lift, one by one. She saw eyes widen.

Grunting, Karsa glanced back, and then halted. ‘Gods below!'

She spun. The giant bear loomed twenty or so paces back, its outline limned by a silver light – and that light—

The moon had finally clambered free of the horizon – but it was…
Queen of Dreams
—

‘Shattered,' Karsa said. ‘The moon has shattered. Faces in the Rock, what has happened?'

What rose now into the sky was a mass of fragments, torn apart amidst a cloud of thin rings of dust. It had expanded in its eruption and was now twice its normal size. Huge chunks were visibly spiralling away from the centre. The light it cast was sickly yet astonishingly bright.

The monstrous bear had half turned and was lifting its snout towards that devastated world, as if it was capable of smelling death across the span of countless leagues.

Karsa tugged at Samar Dev. ‘He's in the city, witch. We cannot lose him.'

She permitted him to drag her along, her hand enveloped by his.

 

Perched in a niche close to the gate, Chillbais tracked the one known as Traveller. The demon was shaking uncontrollably. The bellowing of Hounds, the detonations of entire buildings, the arrival of the Son of Darkness and the slaying of a god – oh, any of these could have been sufficient cause for such quivering terror. Even that ruined moon thrusting skyward to the south. Alas, however, it was none of these that had elicited the winged toad's present state of abject extremity.

No, the source was threading through the crowd at the gate, now passing beneath the arch. The one named Traveller. Oh, he held in so much of himself, a will of such breathtaking intensity that Chillbais imagined it could, if the man so desired, reach into the heavens, close about all those spinning pieces in the sky, and remake the entire moon.

But this was not a healing power. This was not a benign will.

The Hounds howled anew, announcing all that they had sensed, all that they even now reeled away from. Goaded, they lashed out in all directions, killing with mindless frenzy. And once more madness was unleashed upon the hapless people of Darujhistan.

Oh, the master would be furious at this loss of control. Most furious.

Chillbais opened his mouth and managed an impossibly broad grin. A smile to the crazed night sky. The demon worked its way out of the niche and flapped its wings a few times to work out the folds. Then it sprang into the air.

Plunging into the milling crowd was not part of the plan, and the panic that ensued seemed out of all proportion to this modest demon's unexpected arrival. After some hectic moments, Chillbais succeeded in flapping upward once more, bruised and scraped, scratched and scuffed, winging his way to the estate of his master.

Eager to deliver a message.

He is here! He is here! Dassem Ultor is here!

Can I leave now?

 

Both Karsa and Samar Dev had witnessed the demon's plight, but neither made comment, even as it winged back up to vanish over the wall. They were rushing, Karsa Orlong imposing enough to clear a path, straight for the gate.

A short time later they stumbled through, out on to a broad avenue into which citizens streamed from every conceivable direction.

They saw Traveller sixty or so paces ahead, reaching an intersection oddly empty of refugees. Those figures nearest it were running in blind panic.

Traveller had halted. A solitary figure, bathed in the light of the shattered moon.

A Hound trotted into view on the warrior's left. A mangled, headless torso hung in its jaws, still draining thick blood. Its lambent eyes were on Traveller, who had not moved, although it was clear that he was tracking the beast with his gaze.

Karsa unsheathed his sword and quickened his pace. Samar Dev, her heart pounding, hurried after him.

She saw the Toblakai slow suddenly, and then stop, still thirty paces from the intersection, and a moment later she saw why.

Cotillion was walking up to Traveller. Another Hound – the black one – had appeared to guard the god's other flank.

Behind them a distant building suddenly crashed down, and in the heart of that thunder there was the sound of two beasts locked in mortal combat, neither yielding. Frail screams echoed in fragile counterpoint.

Traveller waited. Cotillion came to stand directly in front of him, and began to speak.

Samar Dev wanted to rush forward, at least to a spot from where she could overhear the god, catch whatever response Traveller delivered. But Karsa's hand held her back, and he shook his head, saying in a murmur, ‘This is not for us, witch.'

Traveller seemed to be refusing something, stepping back, looking away.

Cotillion pressed on.

‘He does not want it,' Karsa said. ‘Whatever he asks, Traveller does not want it.'

Yes, she could see that. ‘Please, I need to—'

‘No.'

‘Karsa—'

‘What drives you is want, not need.'

‘Fine, then! I'm a nosy bitch – just leave me to it—'

‘No. This is between them, and so it must remain. Samar Dev, answer me this. If you could hear what they say, if you comprehended all that it might mean, would you be able to stay silent?'

She bristled, and then hissed in frustration. ‘I'm not very good at doing that, am I? All right, Karsa – but what if I did say something? What harm would that do?'

‘Leave him,' said Karsa. ‘Leave him free to choose for himself.'

Whatever Cotillion was saying seemed to strike like physical blows, which Traveller absorbed one after another, still looking away – still clearly unable to meet the god's eyes.

The Hound with the chewed-up torso was now eating it with all the mindless intensity common to carnivores filling their stomachs. The other beast had half turned away and seemed to be listening to that distant fight.

Cotillion was unrelenting.

For the god, for Traveller, and for Samar Dev and Karsa Orlong, the world beyond this scene had virtually vanished. A moment was taking portentous shape, hewn one piece at a time, like finding a face in the heart of a block of stone. A moment that spun on some kind of decision, one that Traveller must make, here, now, for it was obvious that Cotillion had placed himself in the warrior's path, and would not step to one side.

‘Karsa – if this goes wrong—'

‘I have his back,' said the Toblakai in a growl.

‘But what if—'

An inhuman cry from Traveller cut through her words, cut through every thought, slashing like a knife. Such a forlorn, desperate sound – it did not belong to him, could not, but he had thrust out one arm, as if to shove Cotillion aside.

They stood too far apart for that. Yet Cotillion, now silent, simply stepped away from Traveller's path.

And the warrior walked past, but now it was as if each boot needed to be dragged forward, as if Traveller now struggled against some terrible, invisible tide. That ferocious obsession seemed to have come untethered – he walked as would a man lost.

Cotillion watched him go, and she saw him lift a forearm to his eyes, as if he did not want the memory of this, as if he could wipe it away with a single, private gesture.

Although she did not understand, sorrow flooded through Samar Dev. Sorrow for whom? She had no answer that made sense. She wanted to weep. For Traveller. For Cotillion. For Karsa.
For this damned city and this damned night.

The Hounds had trotted off.

She blinked. Cotillion too had disappeared.

Karsa shook himself, and then led her onward once more.

The pressure was building, leaning in on her defences. She sensed cracks, the sifting of dust. And as they stumbled along in Traveller's wake, Samar Dev realized that the warrior was marching straight for the nexus of that power.

The taste of fear was bitter on her tongue.

No, Traveller, no. Change your mind. Change it, please.

But he would not do that, would he? Would not. Could not.
The fate of the fated, oh, that sounds clumsy, and yet…what else can it be called? This force of inevitability, both willed and unwilling, both unnecessary and inexorable. The fate of the fated.

Walking, through a city trapped in a nightmare, beneath the ghoulish light of a moon in its death-throes. Traveller might as well be dragging chains, and at the ends of those chains, none other than Karsa Orlong and Samar Dev. And Traveller might as well be wearing his own collar of iron, something invisible but undeniable heaving him forward.

She had never felt so helpless.

 

In the eternity leading up to the moment of the Lord of Death's arrival, the world of Dragnipur had begun a slow, deadly and seemingly unstoppable convulsion. Everywhere, the looming promise of annihilation. Everywhere, a chorus of desperate cries, bellowing rage and hopeless defiance. The raw nature of each chained thing was awakened, and each gave that nature voice, and each voice held the flavour of sharp truth. Dragons shrilled, demons roared, fools shrieked in hysteria. Bold heroes and murderous thugs snatched deep breaths that made ribs creak, and then loosed battle cries.