She did not know) with all their power. No, none of it would matter in the end.
Kill Rhulad Sengar. Kill him thrice. Kill him a dozen times. In the end he will stand, sword bloodied, and then will come lcarium, the very last.
To begin it all again.
Karsa Orlong, reduced to a mere name among the list of the slain. Nothing more than that. For this extraordinary warrior. And this is what you whisper, Fallen One, as your holy credo. Grandness and potential and promise, they all break in the end.
Even your great champion, this terrible, tortured Tiste Edur-you see him broken again and again. You fling him back each time less than what he was, yet with ever more power in his hands. He is there, yes, for us all. The power and its broken wielder broken by his power.
Karsa Orlong sat up. ‘Someone has left,’ he said.
Samar Dev blinked. ‘What?’
He bared his teeth. ‘lcarium. He is gone.’
‘What do you mean, gone? He’s left? To go where?’
‘It does not matter,’ the Toblakai replied, swinging round to settle his feet on the floor. He stared across at her. ‘He knows.’
‘Knows what, Karsa Orlong?’
The warrior stood, his smile broadening, twisting the crazed tattoos on his face. ‘That he will not be needed.’
‘Karsa-’
‘You will know when, woman. You will know.’
Know what, damn you? ‘They wouldn’t have just let him go,’ she said. ‘So he must have taken down all the guards. Karsa, this is our last chance. To head out into the city. Leave all this-’
‘You do not understand. The Emperor is nothing. The Emperor, Samar Dev, is not the one he wants.’
Who? Icarium? No-‘Karsa Orlong, what secret do you hold? What do you know about the Crippled God?’
The Toblakai rose. ‘It is nearly dawn,’ he said. ‘Nearly time.’
‘Karsa, please-’
‘Will you witness?’
‘Do I have to?’
He studied her for a moment, and then his next words shocked her to the core of her soul: ‘I need you, woman.’
Why?’ she demanded, suddenly close to tears.
‘To witness. To do what needs doing when the time comes.’ He drew a deep, satisfied breath, looking away, his chest swelling until she thought his ribs would creak. ‘I live for days like these,’ he said.
And now she did weep.
Grandness, promise, potential. Fallen One, must you so share out your pain?
‘Women always get weak once a month, don’t they?’
‘Go to Hood, bastard.’
‘And quick to anger, too.’
She was on her feet. Pounding a fist into his solid chest.
Five times, six-he caught her wrist, not hard enough to hurt, but stopping those swings as if a manacle had snapped tight.
She glared up at him.
And he was, for his sake, not smiling.
Her fist opened and she found herself almost physically pulled up and into his eyes-seeing them, it seemed, for the first time. Their immeasurable depth, their bright ferocity and joy.
Karsa Orlong nodded. ‘Better, Samar Dev.’
‘You patronizing shit.’
He released her arm. ‘I learn more each day about women. Because of you.’
‘You still have a lot to learn, Karsa Orlong,’ she said, turning away and wiping at her cheeks.
‘Yes, and that is a journey I will enjoy.’
‘I really should hate you,’ she said. ‘I’m sure most people who meet you hate you, eventually.’
The Toblakai snorted. ‘The Emperor will.’
‘So now I must walk with you. Now I must watch you die.’
From outside there came shouts.
‘They have discovered the escape,’ Karsa Orlong said, collecting his sword. ‘Soon they will come for us. Are you ready, Samar Dev?’
‘No.’
The water had rotted her feet, he saw. White as the skin of a corpse, shreds hanging loose to reveal gaping red wounds, and as she drew them onto the altar top and tucked them under her, the Errant suddenly understood something. About humanity, about the seething horde in its cruel avalanche through history.
The taste of ashes filling his mouth, he looked away, studied the runnels of water streaming down the stone walls of the chamber. ‘It rises,’ he said, looking back at her.
‘He was never as lost as he thought he was,’ Feather Witch said, reaching up distractedly to twirl the filthy strands of her once-golden hair. ‘Are you not eager, dear god of mine? This empire is about to kneel at your feet. And,’ she suddenly smiled, revealing brown teeth, ‘at mine.’
Yes, at yours, Feather Witch. Those rotting, half-dead appendages that you could have used to run. Long ago. The empire kneels, and lips quiver forth. A blossom kiss. So cold, so like paste, and the smell, oh, the smell…
‘Is it not time?’ she asked, with an oddly coy glance.
‘For what?’
‘You were a consort. You know the ways of love. Teach me now.’
‘Teach you?’
‘I am unbroken. I have never lain with man or woman.’
‘A lie,’ the Errant replied. ‘Gribna, the lame slave in the Hiroth village. You were very young. He used you. Often and badly. It is what has made you what you now are, Feather Witch.’
And he saw her eyes shy away, saw the frown upon her brow, and realized the awful truth that she had not remembered. Too young, too wide-eyed. And then, every moment buried in a deep hole at the pit of her soul. She, by the Abyss, did not remember. ‘Feather Witch-’
.’Go away,’ she said. ‘I don’t need anything from you right now. I have Udinaas.’
‘You have lost Udinaas. You never had him. Listen, please-’
‘He’s alive! Yes he is! And all the ones who wanted him are dead-the sisters, all dead! Could you have imagined that?’
‘You fool. Silchas Ruin is coming here. To lay this city to waste. To destroy it utterly-’
‘He cannot defeat Rhulad Sengar,’ she retorted. ‘Not even Silchas Ruin can do that!’
The Errant said nothing to that bold claim. Then he turned away. ‘I saw gangrene at your feet, Feather Witch. My temple, as you like to call it, reeks of rotting flesh.’
‘Then heal me.’
‘The water rises,’ he said, and this time the statement seemed to burgeon within him, filling his entire being. The water rises. Why? ‘Hannan Mosag seeks the demon god, the one trapped in the ice. That ice, Feather Witch, is melting. Water… everywhere. Water…’
By the Holds, was it possible? Even this? But no, I trapped the bastard. I trapped him!
‘He took the finger,’ Feather Witch said behind him. ‘He took it and thought that was enough, to just take it. But how could I go where he has gone? I couldn’t. So I needed him, yes. I needed him, and he was never as lost as he thought he was.’
And what of the other one?’ the Errant asked, still with his back to her.
‘Never found-’
The Elder God whirled round. ‘Where is the other finger?’
He saw her eyes widen.
Is it possible? Is it-
