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

by Steven Erikson

“Courting is the art of growing like mould on the one you want.”’

Once we knew nothing. Now we know everything. Stay away from our eyes. Our eyes are empty.

Look into our faces and see us if you dare. We are the skin of war. We are the skin of war. Once we knew nothing. Now we know everything.

Every word from a child is itself a prayer. A blessing. Dare we answer? Beware little Absi, Olar Ethil. There are hurts that slip through.

The things said and the things not said. In the space in between, a thousand worlds. A thousand worlds.

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.

Now, I must find a worthy lie. And if my name is to be cursed in the last breaths of these humans, so be it. My crime was hope. My punishment is to see it fail.

Down on the strand where the sea meets the land Where fishermen kneel over wounds that won’t heal And the water weeps at the end of the day In the mirror you walk away Among the red trees and the long dead leaves The axeman wanders but cannot remember And the earth runs like tears and will not stay In the mirror you walk away In the silent season high on the hill’s bastion In the burning rain and the soul’s dark stain Where the children lie where they lay In the mirror you walk away

Along the furrows of his heels a long shadow steals Down from the altar pulled all the destinies fulfilled Tell the tale another god has had his day And in the mirror you walk away When on the grey fields the troubles fall still Another soldier’s cause dies for what never was Drifting past the dreams now gone astray In the mirror you walk away Soiled the sacrament and broken the monument Sullied the sculpture and soured the rapture Beauty lives but brief its stay And in the mirror you walk away Gods will give and then take away If faith tastes of blood drink deep when you pray Beauty lives but brief its stay

And when it all goes away and there’s nothing left to save In the mirror you walk away I...

Nostalgia was like a disease, one that crept in and stole the colour from the world and the time you lived in. Made for bitter people. Dangerous people, when they wanted back what never was.

‘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.’

Karsa reached down, gathered the skeletal figure into his arms, and then settled back. ‘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.’

It wasn’t too much, to take a frail figure into one’s arms for those last moments of life. Better than a cot, or even a bed in a room filled with loved ones. Better, too, than an empty street in the cold rain. To die in someone’s arms – could there be anything more forgiving? Every savage barbarian in the world knew the truth of this.

And one last time, the Bridgeburners advanced to do battle.

He knew which world he wanted to live in. But, people didn’t have that choice, did they? Not unless they killed the spark inside themselves first. With drink, with the oblivion of sweet smoke, but those were false dreams and made mockery of the ones truly lost – the ones whose lives had passed.