Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #1)

by Steven Erikson

“One day I’ll be a soldier,” Ganoes said. The man grunted. “Only if you fail at all else, son. Taking up the sword is the last act of desperate men. Mark my words and find yourself a more worthy dream.”

“Scatters bones, I said. Bones of husbands, bones of sons, bones of wives and bones of daughters. All the same to her. All the same to the Empire.” The old woman spat a second time. “Three husbands and two sons, ten coin apiece a year. Five of ten’s fifty. Fifty coin a year’s cold company, lass. Cold in winter, cold in bed.”

The Claw smiled. “You have begun to learn, Paran. Never be too easy with the knowledge you possess. Words are like coin—it pays to hoard.” “Until you die on a bed of gold,” Paran said.

And if I had sacrificed myself then? Cast my Warren’s defenses onto them instead of shielding my own hide? She’d been surviving on instinct back then, and her instincts had had nothing to do with altruism. Those kind of people didn’t live long in war.

Being alive, Tattersail concluded as she approached her tent, isn’t the same as feeling good about it.

“Captain,” Topper said quietly, “greater men than you have died for less. The Empress expects obedience of her servants, and demands loyalty.” “Any reasonable ruler would have the expectation and the demand the other way round.”

Was the Empire the Empress? Or was it something else, a legacy, an ambition, a vision at the far end of peace and wealth for all? Or was it a beast that could not cease devouring?

Through the gamut of life we struggled for control, for a means to fashion the world around us, an eternal, hopeless hunt for the privilege of being able to predict the shape of our lives.

Prediction had become a privilege now lost to her. Never mind the outside world, she could not even guess her own actions, or the course of her thoughts. Was this the true nature of emotion? she wondered. The great defier of logic, of control—the whims of being human. What lay ahead?

For such words to have come from a woman no older than him, Paran suspected then, as he did now, that her particular view had been no more than an easy, lazy mimicry of Empress Laseen’s. But Laseen had a right to it and Lorn did not.

Too many regrets. Lost chances—and with each one passing the less human we all became, and the deeper into the nightmare of power we all sank. Was his life irretrievable? He wished he had an answer to that question.

“But that wasn’t the worst betrayal, Paran,” he said at length, meeting the captain’s eyes. “Oh, no. That came when I walked away from it. I could’ve fought her. I might even have won.” His jaw tautened—the only hint of anguish that escaped his self-control—then he continued, in a flat, empty voice, “Acquaintances I’d known for decades looked right through me. To everyone I was dead. They chose not to hear me. They just walked past, or didn’t even come to the gates of their estates when I called on them. I was dead, Paran, even the city’s records claimed it. And so I agreed with them. I walked away. Disappeared. It’s one thing to have your friends mourn your passing in your face. But it’s another to betray your own life, Paran. But, as you said, it’s done.”

It was never a life before, only the palest shadow of what I’ve now found. Is that a truth most of us are too frightened to face?”

“I’m not the sharpest man you’ll meet, Paran, and your thoughts are running a touch too deep for me. But if I understand you right, you’re sitting there looking at a chopped-up old fool of a man and you’re telling him he’s alive. Right now. As alive as can be. And whatever he betrayed back then, it wasn’t life, was it?” “You tell me, Coll.” The man grimaced and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “The thing is, I want it back. I want it all back.”

any commander of long standing knows, treachery breeds its own. Once committed, whether against an enemy or an ally, it becomes a legitimate choice for everyone in your command, from the lowest private seeking promotion, to your personal aides, bodyguards, and officers. My people know of our alliance with you, Alchemist. If I were to betray it, I would not long remain the Lord of Moon’s Spawn. And rightly so.”

“Imagine your spirit dying while your body lives on. Not for ten years, not for fifty. But a body that lives on for fifteen, twenty thousand years.”

“The history is done, Baruk, and the Tiste Andii point of view is one of disinterest, stoicism, and quiet, empty despair. Are these gifts to the world worthy of preservation? I think not.”

“I’d hate to think,” Kalam said, from the bed, “that evil was real, that it existed with a face as plain as the next man’s. I know, Whiskeyjack, you’ve got your reasons for wanting it that way.”