trees but awaited the coming of spring, of rebirth beneath the wheel of the stars, it seemed that the two Teblor warriors were but awaiting the season’s turn.
But Raraku defied every season. Raraku itself was eternal in its momentousness, perpetually awaiting rebirth. Patience in the stone, in the restless, ever-murmuring sands.
The Holy Desert seemed, to Karsa’s mind, a perfect place for the Seven Gods of the Teblor. It was possible, he reflected as he slowly paced before the faces he had carved into the boles, that something of that sardonic sentiment had poisoned his hands. If so, the flaw was not visible to his eyes. There was little in the faces of the gods that could permit expression or demeanour-his recollection was of skin stretched over broad, robust bone, of brows that projected like ridges, casting the eyes in deep shadow. Broad, flat cheekbones, a heavy, chinless jaw… a bestiality so unlike the features of the Teblor…
He scowled, pausing to stand before Urugal which, as with the six others, he had carved level with his own eyes. Serpents slithered over his dusty, bared feet, his only company in the glade. The sun had begun its descent, though the heat remained fierce.
After a long moment of contemplation, Karsa spoke out loud. ‘Bairoth Gild, look with me upon our god. Tell me what is wrong. Where have I erred? That was your greatest talent, wasn’t it? Seeing so clearly my every wrong step. You might ask: what did I seek to achieve with these carvings? You would ask that, for it is the only question worth answering. But I have no answer for you-ah, yes, I can almost hear you laugh at my pathetic reply.’
He had found this glade seeking solitude, and it had been solitude that had inspired his artistic creations. Yet now that he was done, he no longer felt alone here. He had brought his own life to this place, the legacies of his deeds. It had ceased to be a refuge, and the need to visit was born now from the lure of his efforts, drawing him back again and again. To walk among the snakes that came to greet him, to listen to the hiss of sands skittering on the moaning desert wind, the sands that arrived in the glade to caress the trees and the faces of stone with their bloodless touch.
Raraku delivered the illusion that time stood motionless, the universe holding its breath. An insidious conceit. Beyond the Whirlwind’s furious wall, the hourglasses were still turned. Armies assembled and began their march, the sound of their boots, shields and gear a deathly clatter and roar. And, on a distant continent, the Teblor were a people under siege.
Karsa continued staring at the stone face of Urugal.
A soft chuckle from across the clearing brought Karsa around.
‘And which of your countless secrets is this one, friend?’
‘Leoman,’ Karsa rumbled, ‘it has been a long time since you last left your pit.’
Edging forward, the desert warrior glanced down at the snakes. ‘I was starved for company. Unlike you, I see.’ He gestured at the carved boles. ‘Are these yours? I see two Toblakai-they stand in those trees as if alive and but moments from striding forth. It disturbs me to be reminded that there are more of you. But what of these others?’
‘My gods.’ He noted Leoman’s startled expression and elaborated, ‘The Faces in the Rock. In my homeland, they adorn a cliffside, facing onto a glade little different from this one.’
‘Toblakai-’
‘They call upon me still,’ Karsa continued, turning back to study Urugal’s bestial visage once more. ‘When I sleep. It is as Ghost Hands says-I am haunted.’
‘By what, friend? What is it your… gods… demand of you?’
Karsa shot Leoman a glance, then he shrugged. ‘Why have you sought me out?’
Leoman made to say one thing, then chose another. ‘Because my patience is at an end. There has been news of events concerning the Malazans. Distant defeats. Sha’ik and her favoured few are much excited… yet achieve nothing. Here we await the Adjunct’s legions. In one thing Korbolo Dom is right-the march of those legions should be contested. But not as he would have it. No pitched battles. Nothing so dramatic or precipitous. In any case, Toblakai, Mathok has given me leave to ride out with a company of warriors-and Sha’ik has condescended to permit us beyond the Whirlwind.’
Karsa smiled. ‘Indeed. And you are free to harass the Adjunct? Ah, I thought as much. You are to scout, but no further than the hills beyond the Whirlwind. She will not permit you to journey south. But at least you will be doing something, and for that I am pleased for you, Leoman.’
The blue-eyed warrior stepped closer. ‘Once beyond the Whirlwind, Toblakai-’
‘She will know none the less,’ Karsa replied.
‘And so I will incur her displeasure.’ Leoman sneered. ‘There is nothing new in that. And what of you, friend? She calls you her bodyguard, yet when did she last permit you into her presence? In that damned tent of hers? She is reborn indeed, for she is not as she once was-’
‘She is Malazan,’ Toblakai said.
‘What?’
‘Before she became Sha’ik. You know this as well as I-’
‘She was reborn! She became the will of the goddess, Toblakai. All that she was before that time is without meaning-’
‘So it is said, ‘Karsa rumbled. ‘Yet her memories remain. And it is those memories that chain her so. She is trapped by fear, and that fear is born of a secret which she will not share. The only other person who knows that secret is Ghost Hands.’
Leoman stared at Karsa for a long moment, then slowly settled into a crouch. The two men were surrounded by snakes, the sound of slithering on sand a muted undercurrent. Lowering one hand, Leoman watched as a flare- neck began entwining itself up his arm. ‘Your words, Toblakai, whisper of defeat.’
Shrugging, Karsa strode to where his tool kit waited at the base of a tree. ‘These years have served me well. Your company, Leoman. Sha’ik Elder. I once vowed that the Malazans were my enemies. Yet, from what I have seen of the world since that time, I now understand that they are no crueller than any other lowlander. Indeed, they alone seem to profess a sense of justice. The people of Seven Cities, who so despise them and wish them gone- they seek nothing more than the power that the Malazans took from them. Power that they used to terrorize their own people. Leoman, you and your kind make war against justice, and it is not my war.’
‘Justice?’ Leoman bared his teeth. ‘You expect me to challenge your words, Toblakai? I will not. Sha’ik Reborn says there is no loyalty within me. Perhaps she is right. I have seen too much. Yet here I remain-have you ever wondered why?’
Karsa drew out a chisel and mallet. ‘The light fades-and that makes the shadows deeper. It is the light, I now realize. That is what is different about them.’
‘The Apocalyptic, Toblakai. Disintegration. Annihilation. Everything. Every human… lowlander. With our twisted horrors-all that we commit upon each other. The depredations, the cruelties. For every gesture of kindness and compassion, there are ten thousand acts of brutality. Loyalty? Aye, I have none. Not for my kind, and the sooner we obliterate ourselves the better this world will be.’
‘The light,’ Karsa said, ‘makes them look almost human.’
Distracted as he was, the Toblakai did not notice Leoman’s narrowing eyes, nor the struggle to remain silent.
One does not step between a man and his gods.
The snake’s head lifted in front of Leoman’s face and hovered there, tongue flicking.
‘The House of Chains,’ Heboric muttered, his expression souring at the words.
Bidithal shivered, though it was hard to tell whether from fear or pleasure. ‘Reaver. Consort. The Unbound- these are interesting, yes? For all the world like shattered-’
‘From whence came these images?’ Heboric demanded. Simply looking upon the wooden cards with their lacquered paintings-blurred as they were-was filling the ex-priest’s throat with bile.
