‘I was never worried in the first place,’ the once-Seerdomin said in a half-snarl. ‘Go crawl back into your hole, and take whatever boy with you as you fancy-like you say, nothing stopping us now.’
After the horrid creature scurried off, Gradithan gestured to one of his lieu-tenants. ‘Follow that Andii pig back into Night,’ he said. ‘But keep your distance. Then get word to our friends in the city. It’s all taken care of at the Barrow-that’s the message you tell ’em, right? Go on and get back here before dawn and you can take your pick of the women-one you want to keep for a while if you care to, or strangle beneath you for all I give a shit. Go!’
He stood in the rain, feeling satisfied. Everything was looking up, and up. And by squinting, why, he could almost make out that cursed tower with its disgust-i ng dragon edifice-aye, soon it would all come down. Nice and bloody, like.
And though he was not aware of it-not enough to find cause for the sudden shiver that took him-he turned away from that unseeing regard, and so un-knowingly broke contact with sleepy, cold, reptilian eyes that could see far in-deed, through rain, through smoke, through-if so desired-stone walls.
Carved edifice Silanah was not. Sleepless, all-seeing protector and sentinel, beloved of the Son of Darkness, and possessed of absolute, obsidian-sharp judge-ment, most assuredly she was all that. And terrible in wrath? Few mortals could even conceive the truth and the capacity of the implacably just.
Which was probably just as well.
When skill with a sword was but passing, something else was needed. Rage. The curse was that rage broke its vessel, sent fissures through the brittle clay, sought out every weakness in the temper, the mica grit that only revealed itself in the edges of the broken shards. No repairs were possible, no glue creeping out when the fragments were pressed back together, to be wiped smooth with a fingertip.
Nimander was thinking about pottery. Web-slung amphorae clanking from the sides of the wagon, the horrid nectar within-a species of rage, perhaps, little dif-ferent from what had coursed through his veins when he fought. Rage in battle was said to be a gift of the gods-he had heard that belief uttered by that Malazan marine, Deadsmell, down in the hold of the Adjunct’s flagship, during one of those many nights when the man had made his way down into the dark belly, jug of rum swinging by an ear in one hand.
At first Nimander had resented the company-as much as did his kin-but the Malazan had persisted, like a sapper undermining walls. The rum had trickled down throats, loosened the hinges of tongues, and after a time all those fortifica-tions and bastions had stretched open their doorways and portals.
The rum had lit a fire in Nimander’s brain, casting flickering red light on a host of memories gathered ghostly round the unwelcoming heart. There had been a keep, somewhere, a place of childhood secure and protected by the one they all called
What had there been before that? Where were all the mothers? That memory was lost, entirely lost.
There had been a priest, an ancient companion of the Son of Darkness, whose task it had been to keep the brood fed, clothed, and healthy. He had looked upon them all with eyes filled with dismay, no doubt understanding- long before any of them did-the future that waited them. Understanding well enough to with-hold his warmth-oh, he had been like an ogre to them all, certainly, but one who, for all his bluster, would never, ever do them harm.
Knowing this, they had abused their freedom often. They had, more than once, mocked that poor old man. They had rolled beakers into his path when he walked past, squealing with delight when his feet sent them flying to bounce and shatter, or, better yet, when he lost his balance and thumped down on his backside, winc-ing in pain.
Such a cruel fire, lighting up all these ghastly recollections. Deadsmell, in his sleepy, seemingly careless way, had drawn out their tale. From that keep hidden in the fastness of some remote range of mountains to the sudden, startling arrival of a stranger-the aged, stooped Tiste Andii who was, it was learned with a shock, Anomander’s very own brother. And the arguments echoing from their fa-ther’s private chambers, as brothers fought over unknown things-decisions past, decisions to come, the precise unfolding of crimes of the soul that led to harsh ac- cusations and cold, cold silences.
Days later, peace was struck, somehow, in the dark of night. Their father came to them then, to tell them how Andarist was taking them all away. To an island, a place of warmth, of stretches of soft sand and pellucid waters, of trees crowded with fruit. And there, standing in the background during this imparting of a new future, was old Endest Silann, his face ravaged by some extremity of emotion-no more beakers underfoot, no more taunts and elusive imps racing to escape imag ined pursuits (he never pursued, never once reached to snatch one of them, never raised a hand, never even raised his voice; he was nothing but a focus for their irreverence-an irreverence they would not dare turn upon their father). He had had his purpose and he had weathered it and now he wept as the children were drawn together and a warren was opened, a portalway into an unknown, mysteri-ous new world where anything was possible.
Andarist led them through.
They would learn new things. The weapons awaiting them.
A stern teacher, not one to mock, oh no, that was quickly made clear when a casual cuff against the side of Skintick’s head sent him flying-a cuff to answer some muttered derision, no doubt.
The games ended. The world turned suddenly serious.
They came to love that old man. Loved him far too much, as it turned out, for where Anomander might well have proved capable of pushing back the horrors of adulthood and its terrible world, Andarist was not.
Children made perfect soldiers, perfect killers. They had no sense of mortality. They did not fear death. They took bright pleasure in destruction, even when that destruction involved taking a life. They played with cruelty to watch the results. They understood the simplicity of power found there in the weapon held in the hand.
Good soldiers. Andarist had made them good soldiers. What child, after all, does not know rage?
But the vessel breaks.
The vessel breaks.
The Dying God, Nimander now believed, was a child. The mad priests poured him full, knowing the vessel leaked, and then drank of that puerile seepage. Because he was a child, the Dying God’s thirst and need were without end, never satiated.
As they journeyed along the road, ever westward, they found themselves be-tween planted fields. Here the scarecrows were truly dead, used up. Withered, webbed in black scraps of cloth, stiffly rocking in the wind. Poured out, these lives, and Nimander now saw these fields as bizarre cemeteries, where some local aberration of belief insisted that the dead be staked upright, that they ever stand ready for whatever may come.
Watchers of this road and all the fools who travelled it.
Once, on Drift Avalii, almost a year before the first attacks, two half-dead Dal Honese had washed up on the rocky coast. They had been paddling to the island of Geni, for reasons unexplained, in an ancient dugout. Both were naked, as they had used up every scrap of cloth from their garments, to stuff into the cracks in the hull-too many cracks, it turned out, and the beleaguered craft eventually sank, forcing the two men to swim.
The Lord’s nudge brought them to Drift Avalii, and somehow they avoided the murderous reefs and rocks girdling the island.
Dwellers in the dark jungles of their homeland, they were from a tribe ob-sessed with its own ancestors. The dead were not buried. The dead were made part of the mud walls of the village’s huts. When one in a family died, a new room would be begun, at first nothing but a single wall projecting outward. And in that wall was the corpse, clay-filled eye sockets, nose, ears, mouth. Clay like a new skin upon face, limbs, torso. Upright, in cavorting poses as if frozen in a dance. Two more kin needed to die before the room was complete and ready to be roofed with palm fronds and the like.
Some house were big as castles, sprawled out at ground level in a maze of chambers, hundreds of them, dark and airless, in this way, the dead never left, They remained, witnessing all, eternal in judgement this pressure, said
