Toll the Hounds (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #8)

by Steven Erikson

How much desperation hid within each and every prayer uttered? The hope for blessing, for peace, for the sense that something greater than oneself might acknowledge that hapless self, and might indeed alter all of reality to suit the self’s desires. Were prayers nothing more than attempted bargains? A pathetic assertion of some kind of reciprocity?