A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

And within that, Rath'Fener's knowledge that he had in so doing wrapped a viper about himself whose kiss was deadly. He was dead either way, but he had gone too far from his faith, too far to ever imagine he might one day return to it.
    I comprehend you, now, Rath'Fener, but comprehension is not synonymous with absolution. The justice that is your punishment does not waver. Thus, you were made to know pain.
    Aye, Fener should have been awaiting you; our god should have accepted your severed hands, so that he might look upon you following your death, that he might voice the words prepared for you and you alone – the words on your skin. The final atonement to your crimes. This is as it should have been, sir.
    But Fener is gone.
    And what holds you now has . . . other desires.
    I now deny it the possession of you —
    Rath'Fener's soul shrieked, seeking to pull away once more. Carving words through the tumult: Itkovian! You must not! Leave me with this, I beg you. Not for your soul – I never meant – please, Itkovian —
    The Shield Anvil tightened his spiritual embrace, breaking the last barriers. No-one is to be denied their grief, sir, not even you.
    But barriers, once lowered, could not choose what would pass through.
    The storm that hit Itkovian overwhelmed him. Pain so intense as to become an abstract force, a living entity that was itself a thing filled with panic and terror. He opened himself to it, let its screams fill him.
    On a field of battle, after the last heart has stilled, pain remains. Locked in soil, in stone, bridging the air from each place to every other, a web of memory, trembling to a silent song. But for Itkovian, his vow denied the gift of silence. He could hear that song. It filled him entire. And he was its counterpoint. Its answer.
    I have you now, Rath'Fener. You are found, and so I . . . answer.
    Suddenly, beyond the pain, a mutual awareness – an alien presence. Immense power. Not malign, yet profoundly ... different. From that presence: storm-tossed confusion, anguish. Seeking to make of the unexpected gift of a mortal's two hands... something of beauty. Yet that man's flesh could not contain that gift.
    Horror within the storm. Horror ... and grief.
    Ah, even gods weep. Commend yourself, then, to my spirit. I will have your pain as well, sir.
    The alien presence recoiled, but it was too late. Itkovian's embrace offered its immeasurable gift—
    —and was engulfed. He felt his soul dissolving, tearing apart – too vast!
    There was, beneath the cold faces of gods, warmth. Yet it was sorrow in darkness, for it was not the gods themselves who were unfathomable. It was mortals. As for the gods – they simply paid.
    We – we are the rack upon which they are stretched.
    Then the sensation was gone, fleeing him as the alien god succeeded in extracting itself, leaving Itkovian with but fading echoes of a distant world's grief – a world with its own atrocities, layer upon layer through a long, tortured history. Fading ... then gone.
    Leaving him with heart-rending knowledge.
    A small mercy. He was buckling beneath Rath'Fener's pain and the growing onslaught of Capustan's appalling death as his embrace was forced ever wider. The clamouring souls on all sides, not one life's history unworthy of notice, of acknowledgement. Not one he would turn away. Souls in the tens of thousands, lifetimes of pain, loss, love and sorrow, each leading to – each riding memories of its own agonized death. Iron and fire and smoke and falling stone. Dust and airlessness. Memories of piteous, pointless ends to thousands and thousands of lives.
    I must atone. I must give answer. To every death. Every death.
    He was lost within the storm, his embrace incapable of closing around the sheer immensity of anguish assailing him. Yet he struggled on. The gift of peace. The stripping away of pain's trauma, to free the souls to find their way ... to the feet of countless gods, or Hood's own realm, or, indeed, to the Abyss itself. Necessary journeys, to free souls trapped in their own tortured deaths.
    I am the . . .the Shield Anvil. This is for me . . .to hold . . . hold on. Reach – gods! Redeem them, sir! It is your task. The heart of your vows – you are the walker among the dead in the field of battle, you are the bringer of peace, the redeemer of the fallen. You are the mender of broken lives. Without you, death is senseless, and the denial of meaning is the world's greatest crime to its own children. Hold,