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

by Steven Erikson

We’re Bridgeburners, and we’ve been posted to Hood’s Gate—one last posting

In all our guises, Destriant, we shall be more than the Reaper ever was. We are not distant. Not indifferent. You see, unlike Hood, we remember what it was to be alive. We remember each and every moment of yearning, of desperate need, the anguish that comes when no amount of beseeching earns a single instant’s reprieve, no pleading yields a moment’s mercy. We are here, Destriant. When no other choice remains, call upon us.’

We are the Bridgeburners. We shall sustain. But not because we were greater in life than anyone else. Because, Destriant, we were no different.

‘Human, you keep strange company. They will teach you nothing of value, these Che’Malle. It is their curse to repeat their mistakes, again and again, until they have destroyed themselves and everyone else. They have no gifts for you.’ ‘It seems,’ said Kalyth of the Elan, ‘we humans have already learned all they could teach us, whether we ever knew it or not.’ A chilling sound, the rattling laughter of fourteen undead Jaghut.

Your hunters shall know the privilege of meeting the last soldiers of the only army the Jaghut ever possessed.’

Coltaine knew better—war is the means, not the end—the goal is not to wage slaughter—it is to achieve domination in the bargaining that follows.’

Raise the tent—the smaller one—tonight I will maintain the minimum number of providers, no more than twenty.

It took a thousand eyes to weave a hero, a thousand tongues to fill out the songs of worth. It took, in short, the calculated gift of witnessing to work every detail of every scene upon this vast, sprawling tapestry that was the Mortal Sword Krughava of the Perish Grey Helms.

War was the ultimate disintegration of civility, and, for that matter, simple logic.

‘A woman hobbled has her feet chopped and can refuse no man or woman or, indeed, camp dog.’

Thanks i hate it

‘Tonight,’ she said, nodding. ‘Vedith plays with our son once more. I can hear them shouting and laughing, and the sky is before them and it does not end.’ With genuine feeling—the first time in years—Gall took his wife into his arms.

‘Toc, my friend, do not take this from me. Do not take this, too, when you and your kind have taken everything else.’

‘I—I gifted you with an Imass name. Did you not realize the measure of that honour? Did you not know that no other of your kind has ever been given such a thing? I called you friend. When you died, I wept.’

‘Onos Toolan, I am the lock.’

Ayala Alalle who tends the Gardens of the Moon, for ever awaiting her lover.

Everything was a taste, a smell—thoughts and feelings, the sun’s very light, all flowing in a swarm of currents. Existence was an ocean. One could skate upon the surface, clinging to the shallows, or one could plunge into the depths, until the skull creaked with the pressure. She knew they saw her and her kind as timid, frightened by the mystery of unplumbed depths.

Dear daughter, you will not wander alone for long. I swear it. I will find your ghost, and I will protect you for ever more. As penance for my failure, and as proof of my love.

Absi Kire, a name gifted by a father struck with unexpected hope, long after the death of hopeful youth.

was long ago. Before you were born.’ ‘Toc the Younger,’ whispered Stavi. ‘He spoke of me?’ That this warrior was undead did not matter. Both girls rushed forward, one to either side, to hug his withered thighs. At their touch, he might have flinched, but then he reached out with his hands. Hesitated, only to settle them on the heads of the girls. As they wept in relief. The son of Onos Toolan had not moved, but he watched, and he was still smiling.

And a T’lan Imass rose from the ground. Walked, with slow, unsteady strides, to the fire-annealed flint sword left lying close to the Barghast pyre. A withered but oversized hand reached down and closed about the grip, lifting the weapon clear. Onos T’oolan faced southeast. And then set out. He had a people to kill.

Kaminsod has no army to summon to his defence.

She jabbed a bony finger at the Errant. ‘Even the Deck of Dragons has a new Master, and I tell you this, Errastas. You cannot stand against him. You’re not enough.’

His cold eyes settled upon the Errant. ‘You would devour our children, but even that desire proves that you have lost touch, that you—we, all of us here—are nothing more than the spent forces of history. Errant, our children have grown up.

‘Twice brought into the world of worship. Once, by a tribal people, and named Iskar Jarak. A bringer of wisdom, a saviour. And the other time, as the commander of a company of soldiers—promised to ascension by a song woven by a Tanno Spiritwalker. Yes, the entire company ascended upon death.’ ‘Soldiers?’ Errastas was frowning. ‘Ascended?’ Confused. Frightened by the notion. ‘And what name did he possess among these ascended soldiers?’ Mael asked. ‘Whiskeyjack. He was a Malazan.’ ‘A Malazan.’ Mael nodded. ‘So too is the Master of the Deck. And so too is the Master’s unpredictable, unknowable ally—the Adjunct Tavore, who leads a Malazan army east, across the Wastelands. Leads them,’ he turned to Sechul Lath, ‘into Kolanse.’

‘Histories, they’re just what’s survived. But they’re not the whole story, because the whole story can never be known. Think of all the histories we’ve gone and lost. Not just kingdoms and empires, but the histories inside every one of us, every person who ever lived.’

‘Nothing to do but talk. Why is it the people with the least useful things to say do most of the talking?’

Comfort doesn’t lie in the mystery of the unknown and the unknowable. It lies in the home we dwell in, the faces we recognize, the past in our wake and the future we want for ourselves.

Happy to be back, Sunrise surmised. From that dead place where the dead went after they were dead. It

‘Aye.’ It’s a good word, I think. More a whole attitude than a word, really. With lots of meaning in it, too. A bit of ‘yes’ and a bit of ‘well, fuck’ and maybe some ‘we’re all in this mess together’.

Wits enough to be curious, not smart enough to be cautious.’

“Wherever you walk, someone’s stepped before you.” Our father used to say that.’

‘We lie about our past to make peace with the present. If we accepted the truth of our history, we would find no peace—our consciences would not permit it.

This is the secret of humiliation: the deadliest weapon the Barghast have.

But, as Onos Toolan might say, the real meaning of ‘tradition’ was . . . what had he called it? ‘Stupidity on purpose’, that’s what he said. I think. I never much listened.

But one truth you cannot deny: his compassion took hold of your arm, your knife, and showed you the strength of its will.

She was dead before dawn. I held her broken soul in my hands. I hold it still. As Rutt holds Held.

When she’d walked the bridge, the echo of the stones underfoot embraced her, as familiar and steeped in sorrow as a dead grandmother’s cloak.

‘All children,’ she said, ‘must be able to see. We gift the living with light and darkness and shadow. The truth of our natures cannot be found in the absence of that which we are not. Walk from darkness, walk into shadow, walk beyond into light. These are the truths of being. “Without ground, there can be no sky.” So spoke the Azathanai in the dust of their quarries.’

Introspection was an act of supreme courage, one that few could manage.

The First Shore. Where we began— A glimmer between the boles, flashes of white— Brother and sister rode clear of the forest. The horses beneath them slowed, halted as the reins grew slack, lifeless. With red-smeared vision, silence like a wound, they stared, uncomprehending. The First Shore.

‘Not this enemy! Not this war!’ Strahl sheathed the sword, slamming the weapon hard to lock it and then holding it high with both hands. Weapons flashed. Iron vanished. Barked commands from the rear and the Senan forces wheeled round. And now, we leave. You wanted this, Maral Eb? Then take it.

‘He sought to do what K’rul did so long ago,’ he said, ‘but Icarium is not an Elder God.’ He regarded Feather Witch again. ‘He wanted warrens of his own, enough to trap him in one place, as if it was a web. Trap him in place. Trap him in time.’

I am awake—no. I am . . . reborn. Icarium Lifestealer walked forward to take his throne.

The First Shore is the shore between Darkness and Light.

Shadow was first shattered by the legions of Andii and the legions of Liosan.

By then, after all, Shadow had become the battlefield of every Elder force, not just the Tiste—it was being torn apart, with blood-soaked forces dividing every spoil, every territory—what were they called again? Yes, warrens. Every world was made an island, isolated in an ocean of chaos.’

He stood for a time, studying the scene on all sides. ‘Ah, my love. Forgive me.’ He set out, boots crunching on the dead. Returned to the world. Draconus.

Nothing could have so fractured that ancient alliance, for it was more than an alliance. It was friendship.’

‘Why such hatred for humans, Kilmandaros?’ Her brows rose. ‘Errastas, really. Who among all the races is quickest to claim the right to judgement? Over everyone and everything? Who holds that such right belongs to them and them alone? A woodcutter walks deep into the forest, where he is attacked and eaten by a striped cat—what do his fellows say? They say: “The cat is evil and must be punished. The cat must answer for its crime, and it and all its kind must answer to our hate.” Before too long, there are no cats left in that forest. And humans consider that just. Righteous. Could I, Errastas, I would gather all the humans of the world, and I would gift them with my justice—and that justice is here, in these two fists.’

But doubts themselves are nothing but words, a troubled song in my head.