always one of dissolution, a final sigh of exhaustion and surrender. She had seen her kin vanish from the world — the venal mockery that were the T’lan Imass hardly weighed as much as dust upon the scales of survival — and she well understood the secret desires of Olar Ethil.
Maybe the hag would succeed. The spirits knew, she was ripe for redemption.
Kilava had lied. To Onrack, to Udinaas, to Ulshun Pral and his clan. There had been no choice. To remain here would have seen them all slain, and she would not have that on her conscience.
When the wound was breached, the Eleint would enter this world. There was no hope of stopping them. T’iam could not be denied, not with what was coming.
The only unknown, to her mind, was the Crippled God. The Forkrul Assail were simple enough, as bound to the insanity of final arguments as were the Tiste Liosan. Kin in spirit, those two. And she believed she knew what her brother intended to do, and she would leave him to it, and if her blessing meant anything, well then he had it, with all her heart. No, the Crippled God was the only force that troubled her.
She remembered the earth’s pain when he was brought down from the sky. She remembered his fury and his agony when first he was chained. But the gods were hardly done with him. They returned again and again, crushing him down, destroying his every attempt to find a place for himself. If he cried out for justice, no one was interested in listening. If he howled in wretched suffering, they but turned away.
But the Crippled God was not alone in that neglect. The mortal realm was crowded with those who were just as wounded, just as broken, just as forgotten. In this way, all that he had become — his very place in the pantheon — had been forged by the gods themselves.
And now they feared him. Now, they meant to kill him.
‘Because the gods will not answer mortal suffering. It is too much … work.’
He must know what they intended — she was certain of it. He must be desperate in seeking a way out, an escape. No matter what, she knew he would not die without a fight. Was this not the meaning of suffering?
Her feline eyes narrowed on the gate. Starvald Demelain was a fiery red welt in the sky, growing, deepening.
‘Soon,’ she whispered.
She would flee before them. To remain here was too dangerous. The destruction they would bring to this world would beggar the dreams of even the Forkrul Assail. And once upon the mortal realm, so crowded with pathetic humans, there would be slaughter on a colossal scale. Who could oppose them? She smiled at the thought.
‘There are a few, aren’t there? But too few. No, friends, let them loose. T’iam must be reborn, to face her most ancient enemy. Chaos against order, as simple — as banal — as that. Do not stand in their path — not one of you could hope to survive it.’
What then of her children?
‘Dear brother, let us see, shall we? The hag’s heart is broken, and she will do whatever she can to see it healed. Despise her, Onos — the spirits know, she deserves nothing else — but do not dismiss her. Do not.’
It seemed very complicated.
Kilava Onass looked up at the wound.
‘But it isn’t. It isn’t anything like that at all.’
Rock cracked in Kettle House, startling her. Reddish mists roiled out from the sundered walls.
‘She was flawed, was Kettle. Too weak, too young.’ What legacy could be found in a child left alone, abandoned to the fates? How many truths hid in the scatter of small bones? Too many to bear thinking about.
Another stone shattered, the sound like snapping chains.
Kilava returned her attention to the gate.
Gruntle slumped against a massive boulder, in the full sun, and leaned his head back against the warm stone, closing his eyes. Instinct’s a bitch. The god who had damned him was a burning presence deep inside, filling him with an urgency he could not understand. His nerves were frayed; he was exhausted.
He had journeyed through countless realms, desperate to find the quickest path to take him … where? A gate. A disaster about to be unleashed. What is it you so fear, Trake? Why can you not just tell me, you miserable rat-chewing bastard? Show me an enemy. Show me someone I can kill for you, since that seems to be the only thing that pleases you.
The air stank. He listened to the flies crawling on the corpses surrounding him. He didn’t know where he was. Broad-leafed trees encircled the glade; he had heard geese flying overhead. But this was not his world. It felt … different. Like a place twisted by sickness — and not the sickness that had taken the twenty or so wretched humans lying here in the high grasses, marring their skin with weeping pustules, swelling their throats and forcing their tongues past blistered lips. No, all of that was just a symptom of some deeper disease.
There was intention. Here. Someone summoned Poliel and set her upon these people. I am being shown true evil — is that what you wanted, Trake? Reminding me of just how horrifying we can be? People curse you and the pestilence of your touch ruins countless lives, but you are not a stranger to any world.
These people — someone used you to kill them.
He thought he’d seen the worst of humanity’s flaws back in Capustan, in the Pannion War. An entire people deliberately driven insane. But if he understood the truths behind that war, there had been a wounded thing at the very core of the Domin, a thing that could only lash out, claws bared, so vast, so consuming was its pain.
And though he was not yet ready for it, a part of him understood that forgiveness was possible, from the streets of Capustan to the throne in Coral, and probably beyond — there had been mention of a being trapped in a gate, sealing a wound with its own life force. He could track an argument through all that, and the knowledge gave him something close to peace. Enough to live with.
But not here. What crime did they commit — these poor people — to earn such punishment?
He could feel his tears drying on his cheeks. This is … unforgivable. Is it my anger you want, Trake? Is this why I am here, to be reawakened? Enough of the shame, the grief, the self-recrimination, is that what you’re telling me?
Well then, it hasn’t worked. All I see here is what we’re capable of doing.
He missed Ganoes Paran. And Itkovian. Friends to whom he could speak. They seemed to belong to a different life, a life long lost to him. Harllo. Ah, you should see your namesake, my friend. Oh, how you would have loved him — she’d have to fight you off, brick up the doors to keep you from being his father. You’d have shown her what it meant to love a child unconditionally.
Stonny, do you miss Harllo as much as I do?
But you’ve got the boy. You’ve got your son. And I promised I would come back. I promised.
‘What would you do here, Master of the Deck?’ His question was swallowed by the glade. ‘What choice would you make, Paran? We weren’t happy with our lots, were we? But we took hold of them anyway. By the throat. I expect you’ve yet to relinquish your grip. Me? Ah, gods, how I’ve messed it up.’
In his dreams he had seen a blackened thing, with claws of red and fangs dripping gore. Lying panting, dying, on churned-up earth. The air was brittle cold. The wind whipped about as if warring with itself. What place was that?
That place? Gods, it’s where I’m going, isn’t it? I have a fight ahead. A terrible fight. Is she my ally? My lover? Is she even real?
It was time. An end to these morbid thoughts, this brush with self-indulgence. He knew well that to give voice to certain feelings, to expose them in all their honesty, made him vulnerable to derision. ‘Don’t touch us with what you feel. We don’t believe you.’ His eyes blinking open, he looked around.
Crows on the branches, but even they were not yet ready to feed.
Gruntle climbed to his feet, walked to the nearest corpse. A young man, skin of burnished bronze, braided
