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

by Steven Erikson

No, all of this felt…good. Honest. He’d not had a murderous thought in weeks. Well, days then.

The two sections of the worm had squirmed until contacting one another, at which point they constricted in mortal battle. Someone threw a coin down, puffing dust. ‘The shorter myrid.’ ‘I’ll see you on that.’ A second coin landed near the first one.

‘You can’t ask soldiers to open their hearts. If they did they’d never take another life.’

She struck back, and that, friends, was the most human moment from the Adjunct I’ve yet seen.’

strike out at Ruthan Gudd. ‘But why?’ ‘You still don’t get it. None of you. Listen. We don’t dare look across into the eyes of a suffering god. But, Kindly, she dares. You asked for more from her – gods below, what more can she give? She’ll feel all the compassion none of you can afford to feel. Behind that cold iron, she will feel what we can’t.’ His eyes went flat on Kindly. ‘And you asked for more.’

‘Well,’ said Skanarow from her cot, ‘that woke me up.’ ‘My godlike physique?’ ‘The smell, Ruthan.’

‘Listen, if I have to drink it, better it be a woman’s, because then, if I work real hard, I might be able to pretend I like it. Or something.’ When no one said anything, Bottle opened his eyes, sat up. ‘What?’

New card. Piss Drinker, High House.’

‘That’s just it,’ Cuttle said. ‘Now, it was Dassem Ultor who really came down on the whole pillaging stuff—’ ‘We were conquering, not raiding. When you occupy a city, it’s bad practice to loot and rape the citizens. Riles them, and before you know it your occupying garrison soldiers start getting murdered on night patrol.’

No, they now looked on Kisswhere with a seriousness to their regard that spoke tomes about finally belonging, that spoke of seeing on her the fresh scars from the only rite of passage worth respecting – surviving, with the coin paid in full for the privilege.

And besides, did he really want to get tangled with someone like that? Standing up only to probably fall down again.

But if I’m the walking dead, why am I still so afraid?

Saltlick shifted uncomfortably. He’d sweated a lot in his tent, and now his sack was chafing. He could almost feel the skin peeling off. Fuck, that stings. Better air out my balls tomorrow.

‘When you are judgemental, all the paint in the world cannot hide the ugliness of your face.

‘There are pleasures in the world, Lostara Yil, that go beyond words.’

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.

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.

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.

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.

You can think about what’s to come. You can try and picture it in your mind. What warriors did. What soldiers walked into. But none of it readies you. None of it.

She stumbled, dropped to one knee, vomited into the crushed bones of the beach. Coughing, spitting, feeling a strange hollowness inside, blossoming outward, until it felt as if her brain was attached to nothing, floating free of her body.

White-skinned instead of black-skinned. Is that it? Is that the only fucking difference?

Seen my sword?’ he asked. ‘I dropped the fucker – you’ll know it ’cause it’s still in my hand – never mind—’ He bent down and came up with a wood-cutter’s axe.

A fighting force cannot be simply assembled. It needed that brutal forge and it needed all its fires quenched in the blood of battle. Her brother was making something here. But it would not be enough.

‘If my counsel is treason, then condemn me, Lord. But you will not see fear, not in me. Not any more and never again.’

‘Like us,’ he replied, ‘they have no choice. We’re in a war that began long ago, and it has never ended, Captain.’

‘Among mortals, every victory is temporary. In the end, we all lose.’

‘You can win even when you lose. Because, even in losing, you might still succeed in making your point. In saying that you refuse the way they want it.’

To have a ruler one must choose to be ruled over,

He lay down beside her. ‘Whatever happened to the shy, nervous woman I made my Atri-Ceda?’ ‘You seduced her, you fool.’

The day you stand on the wrong side of death, Spax, come and find me, and in the bitter truth of equals you and I shall discuss real fear.’

You would choose only the worthy to embrace, Shield Anvil? Then what you do is not an embrace, sir. It is a reward. And if you are to taste the flavour of naught but virtuous souls, how will you ever find the strength to best the flaws within your own soul? Shield Anvil Tanakalian, you are headed into difficult times.

‘I hear you,’ he whispered, studying the dog. ‘The way you wince when you get up after another night on cold ground. I see you limping at day’s end, Bent.’ You and me, we’re both breaking down. This journey will be the last of us, won’t it? You and me, Bent. The last of us. ‘I’ll take your side when the time comes,’ he said. ‘In fact, I will die for you, dog. It’s the least I can do.’

When the faces blur before our eyes in these last of last days We shall turn about to see the path of years we have made And wail at the absence of answers and the things left unseen

But the Crippled God was not alone in that neglect. The mortal realm was crowded with those who were just as wounded, just as broken, just as forgotten. In this way, all that he had become – his very place in the pantheon – had been forged by the gods themselves. And now they feared him. Now, they meant to kill him. ‘Because the gods will not answer mortal suffering. It is too much…work.’

There’s only one thing to do with evil. Take it in your jaws and crush it.

Simple need had the power to crush entire civilizations, to bring down all order in human affairs.

The book shall be a cipher. For all time. A cipher.

‘The real mutiny is brewing with the haul teams. That food is killing us. Sure, chewing on dried meat works up some juices, but it’s like swallowing a bhederin cow’s afterbirth after it’s been ten days in the sun.’ Faradan Sort made a choking sound. ‘Wall’s foot, Pores, couldn’t you paint a nicer picture?’ Pores raised his eyebrows. ‘But Fist, I worked on that one all day.’

From ahead of them all, Sergeant Urb glanced back. ‘Everyone relax,’ he said. ‘There won’t be any trouble.’ ‘What makes you so sure, Sergeant?’ ‘Because, Corporal Clasp, we got Bridgeburners marching beside us. And they got kittens.’

And all the ages past Have nothing to say They rest easy underfoot Uttering not a whisper They are dead as the eyes That looked upon them

To either side, her people rallied. Fighting with their queen – they could not let her stand alone, they could not leave her, not now, and what took hold of their lives then was something unruly and huge, a leviathan bristling awake.

‘Do you truly believe suicide belongs solely to the one taking his or her own life? All that rot about selfishness and self-hatred? The lies we tell ourselves to absolve us of all blame, of all the roles that we played in that wretched death?’

She moved to stand over him. ‘You will cease speaking ill of him,’ she said in a low voice. ‘We did not always agree. Often we quarrelled. But the Son of Darkness was a man of integrity and honour. No longer will I permit you to spit on his name. He is dead, and your voice lives on like the cry of a cowardly crow, Errastas. You were never his match, and even in death he stands taller than you in all your guises. Do you think I do not hear your resentment? Your envy? It disgusts me.’

‘If you wish, we could still cross blades, you sperm-clouded abomination of darkness.’ Tulas considered the proposition. ‘You are returned to this world, Silchas, leading me to the inescapable conclusion that the Azath do indeed know how to shit.’

‘So, Sechul Lath casts the die, and Errastas nudges the last tip – the game is rigged, friend.’ ‘Just the way they like it, yes.’ ‘Will you still play?’ Silchas looked thoughtful, and then he sighed. ‘They consider themselves masters at cheating. But then, I think this will be the first time that they sit at a table with mortal humans facing them. Cheating? When it comes to that, the Elder Gods are as children compared to humans. Since the time of my return, this much at least I have learned.’

But each time you walk away The memory remains And no matter how far or fast You run The memory remains.’

‘Eyes can be hard as armour. They can be hardened to see yet feel nothing, if the will is strong enough.

A part of me chooses to believe that if I weep long enough, I’ll weep myself out. And then, in the ashes – in the aftermath – will be born something else.’ ‘Like what?’ Errastas demanded. Sechul Lath shrugged. ‘Hope.’

‘Korabas Otataral iras’Eleint.