He kicked at a cluster of crystals, expecting them to break. They didn’t. Cursing in pain under his breath, he hobbled for a few strides. ‘What did I know about romance? Nothing. But, after enough years of listening to every possible iteration on the subject, ah, eventually things start getting clearer.’
‘Do they now?’
‘They do, Adjunct. Shall I expound on love and romance?’
‘I’d rather you—’
‘It’s actually a mathematical exercise,’ he said. ‘Romance is the negotiation of possibilities, towards that elusive prize called love. There, you see? I wager you expected me to go on and on, didn’t you? But I’m done. Done discussing love and romance.’
‘Your description lacks something, Banaschar.’
‘It lacks everything, Adjunct. All that confuses and clouds, that makes murky what is in fact both simple and stupidly elegant. Or elegantly stupid, depending on your attitude to the subject.’
They continued on, neither speaking, for some time. The clatter and groan of the column behind them was incessant, but apart from a lone burst of laughter a while back there was none of the ribald songs and chants, the running jests or arguments. While it was true that the Adjunct had set a stiff pace, Banaschar knew that these soldiers were hardened enough to think little of it. The quiet was unnerving.
Got a desert to cross. It’s cold and it’s not nearly as dark as it should be. And that alien glow whispers down on us. If I listen carefully enough, I can hear words. Drifting down. In all the languages of the world – but not this world, of course. Some other one, where faces lift hopefully to the heavens. ‘Are you there?’ they ask. And the sky answers not.
While here I walk. Here I look up and I ask: ‘Are you there?’ and down come the voices. ‘Yes. We are here. Just … reach.’
‘I was a sober priest back then,’ he said. ‘A serious one. I listened. I counselled.’
Eventually, she looked over, but said nothing.
Fiddler glanced to the right. Southward, forty paces distant, the head of the column. The Adjunct. Beside her the priest. Behind the two of them, a pair of Fists.
Eight Khundryl youths walked with Fiddler, ushered out from under their mother’s skirts. They’d spotted him walking alone and had drawn closer. Curious, maybe. Or wanting to be doing something that might be important. Scouting, guarding the flank.
He didn’t send them away. Too many had that lost, hopeful look in their eyes. Dead fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters. Massive absences through which winds howled. Now they hovered, flanking him as if he was the column itself.
Fiddler was silent – and they’d taken up that silence as if it would make them older – so the only sounds were the stones shifting underfoot, the scuff of moccasins, the thump of his boots. And the grind of the column.
He’d seen the map. He knew what lay ahead. Only the impossible. Without water, we will never leave this desert. Without water, all of her plans die here. And the gods will close like jackals, and then the Elder Gods will show their hand, and blood will spill.
The Crippled God will suffer terribly – all the pain and anguish he has known up to now will be nothing but prelude. They will feed on his agony and they will feed for a long, long time.
On your agony, Fallen One. You are in the Deck of Dragons. Your House is sanctified. If we fail, that decision will prove your gravest error. It will trap you here. It will make suffering your holy writ – oh, many will flock to you. No one likes to suffer in isolation, and no one likes to suffer for no reason. You will answer both, and make of them an illness. Of body, of spirit. Even as the torturing of your soul goes on, and on.
I never said I’d like you, Fallen One. But then, you never said I had to. Not me, not the Adjunct, not any of us. You just asked us to do what’s right. We said yes. And it’s done. But bear in mind, we’re mortal, and in this war to come, we’re fragile – among all the players, we’re the most vulnerable.
Maybe that fits. Maybe it’s only right that we should be the ones to raise your standard, Fallen One. And ignorant historians will write of us, in the guise of knowledge. They will argue over our purpose – the things we sought to do. They will overturn every boulder, every barrow stone, seeking our motives. Looking for hints of ambition.
They will compose a Book of the Fallen.
And then argue over its significance. In the guise of knowledge – but truly, what will they know? Of each of us? From that distance, from that cold, cold distance – you’d have to squint. You’d have to look hard.
Because we’re thin on the ground.
So very … thin.
Children always made him feel awkward. Choices he’d put aside, futures he’d long ago surrendered. And looking at them left him feeling guilty. They were crimes of necessity, each time I turned away. Each time we all did. Whiskeyjack, remember once when we stood on the ramparts at Mock’s Hold? Laseen had just stepped out from … the shadows. There was a child, some son of some merchant. He was bold. You told him something, Whiskeyjack. Some advice. What was it? I can’t recall. I don’t even know why I’m remembering any of it.
Mothers were looking on from that column – their eyes were on their children, these young legacies, and would grip tight as talons if they could. But spaces now gape, and the children edge ever closer to them, to fill what has been lost. And the mothers tell themselves it will be enough, it must be enough.
Just as I tell you now, Fallen One, whatever we manage to do, it will have to be enough. We will bring this book to an end, one way or another.
And one more thing. Something I only realized today, when I chanced to glance across and see her, standing there, moments from signalling the beginning of this march. From the very first, we have lived the tale of the Adjunct. First it was Lorn, back in Darujhistan. And now it is Tavore Paran.
The Adjunct never stands in the centre. She stands to one side. Always. The truth of that is right there, in her title – which she will not relinquish. So, what does it mean? Ah, Fallen One, it means this: she will do what she has to do, but your life is not in her hands.
I see that now.
Fallen One, your life is in the hands of a murderer of Malazan marines and heavies.
Your life is in my hands.
And soon she will send us on our way.
In that Malazan Book of the Fallen, the historians will write of our suffering, and they will speak of it as the suffering of those who served the Crippled God. As something … fitting. And for our seeming fanaticism they will dismiss all that we were, and think only of what we achieved. Or failed to achieve.
And in so doing, they will miss the whole fucking point.
Fallen One, we are all your children.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Word came, and in the ashes I finally straightened and looked upon those few of my children left standing. The Throne of Shadows was no more and out from the twilight flew dragons, filling the air with cries of rage and frustration.
I knew then that he had done it. He had cheated them all, but at what cost? I looked at the heaps of corpses, a monstrous high water mark upon this cursed strand. Blood ran in streams down the slope to where crimson-streaked light cascaded, where all the wounds still gaped. Another wave was coming. We could not hold.
Down from the forest, at that moment of deepest despair, came a trio of figures. I faced them, and from my ravaged soul there was born hope’s glimmer …