The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

Kneading his brow, Kruppe sat reading in Mammot’s study. . . . and in the Calling Down to earth the God was Crippled, and so Chained in its place. In the Calling Down many lands were sundered by the God’s Fists, and things were born and things were released. Chained and Crippled was this God Kruppe glanced up from the ancient tome and rolled his eyes. “Brevity, Kruppe prays for brevity!” He returned to the faded handwritten script. and it bred caution in the unveiling of its powers. The Crippled God bred caution but not well enough, for the powers of the earth came to it in the end. Chained was the Crippled God, and so Chained was it destroyed. And upon this barren plain that imprisoned the Crippled God many gathered to the deed. Hood, gray wanderer of Death, was among the gathering, as was Dessembrae, then Hood’s Warrior—though it was here and in this time that Dessembrae shattered the bonds Hood held upon him. Also among the gathering were Kruppe groaned and flipped pages. The list seemed interminable, absurdly long. From this account he half expected to see his grandmother’s name among those listed. Finally, after three pages, he found the names he sought. and among those that came from the vaulted heavens of silver, the Tiste Andii, dwellers of Darkness in the Place before Light, Black Dragons numbering five, and in their league sailed red-winged Silanah, said to dwell among the Tiste Andii in their Fang of Darkness descending from the vaulted heavens of silver