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

by Steven Erikson

‘It’s just…we were all there. Trying to make sense of things. And now I’ve got this feeling…we’re all going to meet again. To bring it all to an end.’ ‘One way or another.’ ‘Aye.’

And Kalam asked, ‘Love, tell me again, about that Tiste Edur with the spear…’

‘It is our greatest presumption, Pure,’ said Erekala, ‘that we be the hand of conscience.’ ‘Holding a sword.’

‘You are drunk on justice, Shield Anvil, and for all that you imagine you walk a straight line, in truth you stumble and weave. Now you stand before me, deluded in your righteousness, and upon the path where you walked’ – she gestured back towards the bodies in the trench – ‘the corpses of the innocent.’

It was all he needed. It was all anyone needed. A hand to take ours. A hand reaching out from the gloom. To welcome us, to assure us that our loneliness – that which we knew all our lives and so fought against with each breath we took – that loneliness has at last come to an end. Making death the most precious gift of all.

‘On the matter of fairness, Queen, King Tehol had much to say to my father, and all those others who profit from the debts of others.’ Abrastal scowled. ‘Speaking from a position of great privilege, I find that offensive.’ ‘Highness,’ said Idist, ‘I believe that was the point.’

I have just discovered the error of dictating this missive to my wife. So I will take this moment, before fleeing the room, to send to you all my love, and to extend my warmest greetings to everyone else whom you have forced into the awkward position of hearing this. ‘“With deepest affection, your loving brother, King Tehol.”’

Aranict was baffled. ‘Brys, what is it then?’ ‘I cannot recall, Aranict – and I have been trying – I cannot recall Tehol ever saying that he loved me. And that alone is the measure of his concern, and it’s shaken me to the core.’ ‘Brys—’ ‘Tehol fears we will not see each other again. For all its mundane silliness, he came as close to saying goodbye as anyone could without using the word itself. And so, as you perhaps can now imagine, I miss him. I miss him dearly.’

‘Even a man who has lived a life of sorrows will ask for one more day.’

other out – they could do naught else. The dragon is negation. But Icarium is an open wound into Chaos itself. When his self shatters, when his so-called rage is unleashed, he is but a conduit, a portalway. This is why he cannot be stopped – he is not even there. Shall you do battle against chaos itself? Impossible. They will clash, and that battle shall destroy the world. Good.

Listen, she’s a woman, and that alone makes her the most terrifying force in all the realms.’

‘They will walk out from that desert, friend,’ Shadowthrone said. ‘I feel it in my bones.’ ‘Didn’t know you had any.’ ‘Sticks, then. I feel it in my sticks. Hmm, doesn’t sound sufficiently assuring, does it?’ ‘Assuring? No. Creepy? Yes.’

‘Every wayward child should spend a few hundred lifetimes dragging a wagon filled with bodies.’ Shadowthrone grunted. ‘Sounds like something my mother might say. “Only a hundred lifetimes, Kellan? Too weak to handle a thousand, are you? Why, your father…” Aagh! Not again!’

As its echoes rebounded, Korabas flinched at the damage she had unleashed. No! Where is my beauty? Why is it only for you? No!

You say Tavore asks because for her that’s what’s needed. But her brother, he just expects.’

And two Ancient dragons, one living, the other undead, lifted into the empty sky.

‘So long as my leg doesn’t fall off.’ ‘If it does I’ll carry you.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Well, drag you.’ ‘You’re so sweet, Curdle.’

Heart suddenly pounding, nips of pain flaring in his stomach, he drew out the wooden card Ormulogun had prepared. Studied it in the lantern light. The first truly Malazan card for the Deck of Dragons. Artist, you did me proud. A single misshapen, vaguely polished object in the centre of a dark field. ‘Behold,’ Paran said under his breath, ‘the Shaved Knuckle in the Hole.’

If vengeance is all we have left, let’s get started…

‘Aye, Fist! – oh, Fist – did you see that Fiddling Hedge Drum? Gods below – in all my days left I’ll never forget

‘You’re seeing how it’s going to be – the old way of fighting is on its way out. The future, Erekala, just stood up and bit off half your face.’

Around her, an endless maelstrom of dragons. Weakening, she fought on, blind now to her path, blind to everything but the waves of pain and hate assailing her. This life. It is all that it is, all that I am. This life – why do I deserve this? What have I done to deserve this?

And even the sky has forgotten the sun

Tanakalian’s eyes narrowed. ‘They call themselves the White Face Barghast, yes.’ ‘Long ago,’ Diligence said, half in wonder, ‘we created a Barghast army to serve us. They sought to emulate the Forkrul Assail in appearance, electing to bleach the skin of their faces.’

This is the only worship worthy of the name. I hold in my hand a god’s heart, and together, we sing a thousand songs of suffering.

I am glad I did not see him die. I am glad my memories see him as only alive, for ever alive. I think I can live with that. I have no choice.

She would have made a frightening mother, he decided, this Krughava. Frightening, and yet, if she gave a child her love, he suspected it would be unassailable. Fierce as a she-wolf, yes.

‘I am here, Malazans, seeking a war. And yet only now do I realize that I have walked in shadow, all this time, since I first rose from the dust outside the city of Pale. I thought I was abandoned. And each time I sought a new path, that shadow followed me. That shadow found me, as it must. I am the First Sword of the T’lan Imass, and from this there is no escape.’

‘If by our sacrifice – yours and mine,’ said Onos T’oolan, ‘the pain of one life can be ended; if, by our deaths, this one can be guided home…we will judge this a worthy cause.’ ‘This Crippled God – he is a stranger to us all.’ ‘It is enough that in the place he calls home, he is no stranger.’

‘We’re not here to win,’ Aranict replied. ‘We’re just here to take a long time to die.’

Itkovas Lord of Terror among the K’ollass K’Chain Che’Malle of Ethilas Nest…’

Let them be known. All the forgotten gods. All their forgotten people. All the ages past, all the mysteries lost. This unending stream of rise and fall, dream and despair, love and surrender. They deserve utterance, one more time. One last time.

Precious Thimble’s hands tightened on the wounds, but now there were only scars beneath her palms, and she could feel Faint’s pulse. But…gods, it’s there – I can feel it. It’s…faint. A sudden giggle escaped her – but that was just relief. She’d always hated puns.

‘If we do not meet again, Firehair, I should tell you’ – and Spax leapt down from the mound of supplies – ‘I went and knocked up your daughter.’ ‘Gods below!’

Old man, we owe you so much. Why are we Beddicts so important to you? But…it wasn’t me you did this for, was it? It was for Tehol. Your chosen mortal, the one you would have wanted as your own son. Rest assured, I’m not complaining.

Karsa now understood that god. The times that he had been chained, he had felt that terrible panic, that animal frenzy to escape. No mortal, human or Toblakai, should ever feel such feelings. Nor, he knew now, should a god. ‘He cannot know compassion, from whom compassion has been taken. He cannot know love, with love denied him. But he will know pain, when pain is all that is given him.’

A civilization was the means by which too many people could live together despite their mutual hatred.

‘I stepped over corpses on the way here,’ the Toblakai said. ‘People no one cared about, dying alone. In my barbaric village this would never happen, but here in this city, this civilized jewel, it happens all the time.’

‘You – you would do this for me? A stranger?’ ‘In my village no one is a stranger – and this is what civilization has turned its back on. One day, Munug, I will make a world of villages, and the age of cities will be over. And slavery will be dead, and there shall be no chains – tell your god. Tonight, I am his knight.’ Munug’s shivering was fading. The old man smiled. ‘He knows.’

There need be no end to it – there is no law to say that one cannot break one more time.

Another battle, the same war. The war we never lost, yet never knew how to win.

‘First Sword – do you see? Forkrul Assail, K’Chain Che’Malle, Imass and now Jaghut! What a fell party this is!’ Gedoran grunted and said, ‘All we now need are a few Thel Akai, Haut, and we can swap old lies all night long!’

And he raised one gauntleted hand, the two soldiers of his own squad drawing up around him – Mallet on his left, Trotts on his right. When he threw that hand forward, the massed army of Bridgeburners surged on to the hillside, lunged like an avalanche – sweeping past Toc, driving his own horse round, shoving it forward. And one last time, the Bridgeburners advanced to do battle.

Old old shit, all of this. Can’t they all just go away? Back into their forgotten graves. It’s not right, us having to fight in wars we didn’t even start – wars that have been going on for so long they don’t mean a thing any more.

But Hood was not yet done with her. He swung her up again, spun and once more hammered her on to the stone. ‘I have had,’ the Jaghut roared, and into the air she went again, and down once more, ‘enough’ – with a sob the crushed, broken body was yanked from the ground again – ‘of— ‘your— ‘justice!’

He heard the wailing of a woman in grief. And was reminded that there was, in truth, no sadder sound in all the worlds.

It was not possible. It was— And then once more he was running. She must have heard his approach, for she looked up and then over, and sat watching him rushing towards her. He almost fell against her, his arms wrapping tight round her, lifting her with his embrace. Hetan gasped. ‘Husband! I have missed you. I – I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what has happened…’ ‘Nothing has happened,’ he whispered, as the children screamed behind them. ‘Onos – my toes…’ ‘What?’ ‘I have someone else’s toes, husband, I swear it—’ The children collided with them. In the distance ahead, on a faint rise of land, Onos Toolan saw a figure seated on a horse. The darkness was taking the vision – dissolving it before his eyes. And then he saw it raise one hand. Straightening, Onos Toolan did the same. I see you, my brother. I see you.

‘It is not enough to wish for a better world for the children. It is not enough to shield them with ease and comfort. Lostara Yil, if we do not sacrifice our own ease, our own comfort, to make the future’s world a better one, then we curse our own children. We leave them a misery they do not deserve; we leave them a host of lessons unearned.

How many great compassions arose from a dark source? A private place of secret failings?

Lost ages are neither more nor less profound than the one we live in right now. We think it’s all some kind of forward momentum, endless leaving behind and reaching towards. But the truth is, wherever we find ourselves – with all its shiny gifts – we do little more than walk in circles.