The Crippled God (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #10)

by Steven Erikson

‘In service,’ Logros replied, ‘the T’lan Imass sanctify him—’ ‘You would make of him a god?’ ‘We are warriors. Our blessing shall—’ ‘Damn him for eternity!’ ‘Onos T’oolan, you are of no use to us.’ ‘Do you imagine’ – and he recalled the timbre of his voice, the seething outrage, and the horror of what Logros sought to do…to a mortal man, to a man destined to face his own death, and that is something we have never done, no, we ever ran from that moment of reckoning – Logros, the Lord of Death shall strike at the T’lan Imass, through him. Hood shall make him pay. For our crime, for our defiance – ‘Do you imagine,’ he’d said, ‘that your blessing could be anything but a curse? You would make him a god of sorrow, and failure, a god with a face doomed to weep, to twist in anguish—’ ‘Onos T’oolan, we cast you out.’ ‘I shall speak to Dassem Ultor—’ ‘You do not understand. It is too late.’ Too late.