The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

‘An end to the foolishness, Mhybe. We’ve need of your counsel. Korlat tells me you are racked with dreams. You cry out against a threat that approaches us, something vast and deadly. Woman, your terror is palpable – even now, I see that my words have rekindled it in your eyes. Describe your visions, Mhybe.’ Struggling against a painfully hammering heart, she barked a rough, broken laugh. ‘You are all fools. Would you seek to challenge my enemy? My deadly, unopposable foe? Will you draw that sword of yours and stand in my stead?’ Whiskeyjack scowled. ‘If that would help.’ ‘There is no need. What comes for me in my dreams comes for us all. Oh, perhaps we soften its terrible visage, the darkness of a cowl, a vague human shape, even a skull’s grin which only momentarily shocks yet remains, none the less, deeply familiar – almost comforting. And we build temples to blunt the passage into its eternal domain. We fashion gates, raise barrows—’ ‘Your enemy is death?’ Whiskeyjack glanced away, then met her eyes again. ‘This is nonsense, Mhybe. You and I are both too old to fear death.’ ‘Face to face with Hood!’ she snapped. ‘That is how you see it – you fool! He is the mask behind which hides something beyond your ability to comprehend. I have seen it! I know what awaits me!’ ‘Then you no longer yearn for it—’ ‘I was mistaken, back then. I believed in my tribe’s spiritworld. I have sensed the ghosts of my ancestors. But they are but memories made manifest, a sense of self desperatel...