Dust of Dreams (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #9)

by Steven Erikson

The power, so raw here, is elsewhere refined, aspected, organized into something like themes, and these themes are what we call warrens.

This we are happy to provide, at a complimentary, reduced rate—to show our appreciation of your exemplary efforts in ousting the Edur tyranny.

To ensure safe passage of the Bonehunters—not to mention the Grey Helms—we’re going to march on the capital. We’re going to pose such a threat that Tarkulf voids his bladder and overrules his advisors—I want the King thinking he might be facing a three-pronged invasion of his piss-ass latrine pit of a kingdom.’

This notion of insanely inimical nature was new to him, and most unwelcome.

‘Ah,’ said Krughava, with all the percipient wit of a cliff goat.

Even common sense was an enemy to the harvesters of the future. The beast that was civilization ever faced forward, and in making its present world it devoured the world to come. It was an appalling truth that one’s own children could be so callously sacrificed to immediate comforts, yet this was so and it had always been so.

‘By my Royal Blood,’ Twilight said, ‘I will open the Road to Gallan.’ She stared down at the witches, their gaping mouths, their wide eyes. ‘To the Dark Shore. I am taking us home.’

‘Errastas, my time is at an end.’ He made a rippling gesture with his fingers. ‘I leave it to the Twins.’ He smiled. ‘They were my finest cast.’

There wasn’t a fool alive who confided in an officer. Especially ones who viciously killed talented, happily married scorpions for no good reason.

‘That’s not nearly as worrisome as what was happening back in the Malazan Empire. The ascension of Mallick Rel, the Jhistal.’

‘A state that employs torture invites barbarism and deserves nothing better than to suffer the harvest of its own excesses.’

‘I thought I ordered you to cut your hair.’ ‘We did,’ said Kisswhere. ‘It grew back. It’s a trait among Dal Honese, right in the blood, an aversion—is that the word, Sint? Sure it is. Aversion. To bad haircuts. We get them and our hair insists on growing back to what looks better. Happens overnight, sir.’

That’s why the meanest religions work so hard at keeping their followers ignorant.

‘We are reviled for revealing the face of that other god—that god of negation. Your kind have a flawed notion of magic. You cut the veins of other worlds and drink of the blood, and this is your sorcery. But you do not understand. All life is sorcery. In its very essence, the soul is magical, and each process of chemistry, of obeisance and cooperation, of surrender and of struggle—at every scale conceivable—is a consort of sorcery. Destroy magic and you destroy life.’

She felt, as well, as the beast’s lifeblood spilled into the churned-up soil, its surrender, its understanding—in that final moment—that its terrible loneliness was at last coming to an end.

Four years’ back-breaking quarrying up near Bluerose. That had been Nappet’s sentence for that little gory mess back in Letheras, the sister’s husband who’d liked throwing the frail thing around—well, no brother was going to let that just sidle past. No brother worth anything.

Justice without compassion was the destroyer of morality, a slayer blind to empathy.

‘Divide to conquer the divide, sire, that’s my motto.’ ‘And a most curious one at that. Has it ever worked for you, Bugg?’ ‘I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as it does.’

Death waited in the hot, dry air, pulsed from the walls and swirled round the high flames. It was drawn close with every wheezing gasp from Vill’s wrinkled mouth, feebly pushed away again in shallow, whispery exhalations.

Of course, the very notion of reward was exclusively human in origin, bound inside precious beliefs in efforts noted, recognized, attributed value.

‘I understand. It is Fener who should be made to answer for that betrayal.’ He sensed wry amusement in Hood. ‘One day, even the gods will answer to death.’

He found that he feared for his god. For Hood, his foe, his friend. The only damned god he respected.

And then she rolled over and threw up.

Hellian in a nutshell

There’s a dread, settling down on all of us like a sky full of ashes.

Smiles gave everyone a bright, happy smile, and even that made her face hurt.

There exist no barriers to advancement beyond competence—’ ‘And sometimes not even that, sir.’ ‘Even confessions are insufficient cause to interrupt me, Master Sergeant.

Captain Lieutenant Master Sergeant Kindly Pores

Being optimistic’s worthless if it means ignoring the suffering of this world.

Is there anything more worthless than excuses?

More animals, wandering about. Great beasts that trembled the ground.’ He laughed again, but this time it was bitter. ‘We emptied it and called that success. Fucking unbelievable.’

Most faith was born of desperation,

Yedan urged his gelding into a thundering charge, but at an angle away from his attacker—in the direction of the fleeing scout. An instant’s assessment told him he would not catch the man. Instead he lifted himself upward, knees anchored tight to either side of the gelding’s spine. Drew back his arm and threw his sword. The point slammed up and under the rider’s right arm, driven a hand’s breadth between his ribs, deep enough to sink into the lung.

He was a prince of the Shake, with memories in the blood.

‘He compels me. In my most ancient capacity, he compels me. Sire, by the time Brys begins his return to the kingdom, the Errant will be busy . . . contending with me.’

‘My Queen, neither mortal nor immortal can fathom the mind of an artist. But as a general rule, between two possible answers, choose the more sordid one.’ ‘Of course. How silly of me.’

‘Take a thousand soldiers. Four hundred will stand in a fight but do nothing. Two hundred will run given the chance. Another hundred will get confused. That leaves three hundred you can count on. Your task in commanding that thousand is all down to knowing where to put that three hundred.’

‘I don’t like Old Hunch any more. I’m glad I killed him.’ ‘So is he.’ ‘I change my mind then. I’m not glad. I wish I’d left him alive for ever.’

‘ “Who speaks little says a lot,” ’ Faradan Sort said, presumably quoting someone.

‘If the choice is between comfortable and miserable, choose comfortable—don’t wait for any damned orders neither. Distracted and irritated makes you more tired. Tired gets you killed.

‘Or just join us in a drink and feel under no pressure to say anything at all. This shall be one of those interludes swiftly glossed over in the portentous histories of great and mediocre kings. We sit in the desultory aftermath, oblivious to omens and whatever storm waits behind yonder horizon.

‘Life and death is such an old game. I’m too old to play. Did you know, these lips once touched those of the Son of Darkness? In our days of youth, in a world far from this one—far, yes, but little different in the end.

‘To think,’ he muttered, ‘we called him coward.’

We believe in the road. And in believing we build it, stone by stone, drop by drop.

Kharkanas. The Shake have come home.

And Prince Yedan Derryg rode into Kharkanas.

Was Draconus a true Eleint? Or was he something else? All I can say is, he wore the skin of a Tiste Andii for a time, perhaps as a sour joke, mocking our self-importance—who can know? In any case, it was inevitable that Anomander, my brother, would step into the Consort’s path, and all those opportunities for knowledge and truth came to a swift end. To this day,’ he added, sighing, ‘I wonder if Anomander regrets killing Draconus.’

Korabas is an Eleint, Ryadd. She is the Otataral Dragon. There is chaos in a human soul—it is your mortal gift, but be aware—like fire it can turn in your hands.’

Never trust a nostalgic old man—or old woman, I suppose. Every tale they spin has a hidden agenda, a secret malice for the present. They make the past—their version of it—into a kind of magic potion. “Sip this, friends, and return to the old times, when everything was perfect.” Bah!

‘One long scream of horror, Badalle. Ten thousand pages long. No one will hear it.’

‘Where one yields,’ continued the bearded soldier, ‘we shall stand in his stead.’