The Crippled God

people.’

‘You really believe that?’

‘And when we’re better people, we make better gods.’

Fiddler looked away. ‘It’s hopeless, then. We can stuff a god with every virtue we got, it still won’t make us any better, will it? Because we’re not good with virtues, Hedge.’

‘Most of the time, aye, we’re not. But maybe then, at our worst, we might look up, we might see that god we made out of the best in us. Not vicious, not vengeful, not arrogant or spiteful. Not selfish, not greedy. Just clear- eyed, with no time for all our rubbish. The kind of god to give us a slap in the face for being such shits.’

Fiddler sank back down on to the ground. He leaned forward and closed his eyes, hands covering his face. ‘Ever the optimist, you.’

‘When you been dead, everything after that’s looking up.’

Fiddler snorted.

‘Listen, Fid. They did it. Now it’s our turn. Ours and Tavore’s. Who’d have thought we’d even get this far?’

‘Two names come to mind.’

‘Since when didn’t their empire demand the best in us, Fid? Since when?’

‘Wrong. It was as corrupt and self-serving as any other. Conquered half the fucking world.’

‘Not quite. World’s bigger than that.’

Fiddler sighed, freed one hand to wave it in Hedge’s direction. ‘Go get some rest, will you?’

The man rose. ‘Don’t want anyone interrupting all that feeling sorry for yourself, huh?’

‘For myself?’ Fiddler looked up, shook his head, and his gaze slipped past Hedge, down to where his soldiers were only now settling once again, desperate for sleep.

‘We’re not finished yet,’ Hedge said. ‘You plan on talking to ’em all? Before it all starts up?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because this is their time, from now to the end. They can do the talking, Hedge. Right now, for me, I’ll do the listening. Just like that god back there.’

‘What do you expect to be hearing?’

‘No idea.’

‘It’s a good knoll,’ Hedge said. ‘Defendable.’ And then he departed.

Closing his eyes again, Fiddler listened to the crunch of his boots, until they were gone. Chains. House of Chains. Us mortals know all about them. It’s where we live.

Calm could see the rise where she had left him, could see a darker shape low across its summit. The chains of her ancestors still bound him. Distant deaths tracked cold fingers across her skin — Reverence was no more. Diligence was gone. They had lost the heart of the Fallen God.

When a building is so battered and worn that no further repairs are possible, it needs tearing down. As simple as that, now. Their enemies might well stand filled with triumph at this very moment, there on the heights of the Great Spire, with a fresh clean wind coming in from the sea. They might believe that they had won, and that no longer would the Forkrul Assail make hard the fist of implacable justice — to strike at their venal selves, to crush their presumptuous arrogance. They might now imagine that they were free to take the future, to devour this world beast by beast, tree by tree, emptying the oceans and skies of all life.

And if the victory on this day just past tasted of blood, so be it — it was a familiar taste to them, and they were still not weaned from it and perhaps would never be.

But nature had its own weapons of righteousness. Weapons that struck even when none held them. No god, no guiding force or will beyond that of blind destruction was even necessary. All it needed was freedom.

The time for Lifestealer had come.

Face the sea, you fools. Face the rising of the sun, imagining your new day.

You do not see what comes from the darkness in the west. The slayer is awakened. Obliteration awaits you all.

Innocence and ignorance. He had struggled with those two words for so long, and each time he had looked upon the face of Icarium Mappo had known his own war, there in his mind. They were places of being, that and nothing more, and long had sages chewed on their distinctiveness. But they understood little of the battle the Trell had fought. He protected innocence by making ignorance a weapon and shield. In the belief that innocence had value, was a virtue, was a state of purity.

So long as he remains … ignorant.

Knowledge is the enemy. Knowledge was ever the enemy.

Staggering through the gloom, shadow roads crossing the plain around him though there was no sun left to cast them, he looked up to see a figure in the distance, coming from the southeast.

Something cold whispered through him.

He’s close. I feel him … so close! He forced himself to move faster — that stranger, the way it walked, the way it seemed a thing of bleached bone beneath this uncanny light — he knew. He understood.

With a soft groan, he broke into a run.

She saw him, after turning, after feeling his footfalls lumbering closer. Skin the colour of stained wood, a dark visage bestial by nature and ravaged by deprivation. The creature was emaciated, hunched beneath a heavy satchel, his clothes half rotted off. An apparition, yet one of weakness and pathos.

Calm faced him, waited.

When she saw him spot the body of Lifestealer — when he cried out a small animal sound, pitching as he changed direction, as he stumbled towards Icarium — Calm stepped into his path. ‘It is too late, Trell. He is mine now.’

Haunted eyes fixed on her as the Trell stopped, only a few paces away. She could see the pain that had come from running, the way his chest heaved, the way he bent over, legs shaky beneath him. Then he sank down, pulled the satchel from his shoulder. His hands fumbled and a scatter of small objects spilled out from the sack — the shards of a broken pot. The Trell stared down at them, as if in horror. ‘We’ll fix that,’ he mumbled, visibly jerking as he pulled his gaze away from the fragments. Looking up, he glared at Calm. ‘I won’t let you, Assail.’

‘Don’t be a fool.’

He pulled a heavy mace from the satchel, struggled to his feet.

‘I will kill you if you continue to stand in my way,’ she said. ‘I understand, Trell. You are his latest protector — but you lost him. All the ones before you — and there were many — they all lost him, eventually, and then they died.

‘But none of you ever understood. The Nameless Ones weren’t interested in Icarium. Each time, the one they chose — that one was the real danger. A warleader who threatened their hidden alliances. A rebel of terrible potential. Each time, for nothing more than squalid, immediate necessities — political expediency — they snatched away the maker of trouble, gave to him or her a task impossible to achieve, and a lifetime chained to it.

‘You are the last of them, Trell. Made … harmless.’

He was shaking his head. ‘Icarium-’

‘Icarium Lifestealer is what he is and what he has always been. Uncontrollable, destined to awaken again and again, there in the midst of the devastation he has wrought. He cannot be stopped, cannot be saved.’ She stepped forward. ‘So, let me free him, Trell.’

‘No.’ The mace lifted in his hands. ‘I will die first.’

She sighed. ‘Trell, you died long ago.’

Roaring, he charged.

Calm evaded the clumsy swing, moved in close, one hand shooting out. The blow against his right shoulder punched the bone from its socket, ripped the muscles clean away. The Trell was thrown round by the impact. She drove her elbow into his face, shattering it. Angled a kick against his right shin, broke both bones.

The mace thudded on to the ground.

Even as he fell, he tried to grasp her with his left hand. She caught it by the wrist, clenched and twisted, crushed the bones. A savage pull snapped him closer. Calm plunged her other hand into his chest, up and under the