A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

bigger, level, often raised. Roads from
a civilization that's all gone now. And look at that stretch
of ground over there,' she pointed southward. 'See the
ripples? That's furrowing, old, almost worn away, but when
the light lengthens you can start to make it out. It was all
once tilled. Fertile. I've been seeing this for weeks, Cutter.
Heboric's track is taking us through the bones of a dead age.
Why?'
    'Why don't you ask him?'
    'I don't want to.'
    'Well, since he's right behind us, he's probably listening
right now, Scillara.'
    'I don't care. I was asking you.'
    'Well, I don't know why.'
    'I do,' she said.
    'Oh. All right, then, why?'
    'Heboric likes his nightmares. That's why.'
    Cutter met her eyes, then the Daru twisted in his saddle
and looked back at Heboric.
    Who said nothing.
    'Death and dying,' Scillara continued. 'The way we suck
the land dry. The way we squeeze all colour from every
scene, even when that scene shows us paradise. And what
we do to the land, we also do to each other. We cut each
other down. Even Sha'ik's camp had its tiers, its hierarchy,
keeping people in their place.'
    'You don't have to tell me about that,' Cutter said. 'I
lived under something similar, in Darujhistan.'
    'I wasn't finished. It's why Bidithal found followers for
his cult. What gave it its strength was the injustice, the
unfairness, and the way bastards always seemed to win. You
see, Bidithal had been one of those bastards, once.
Luxuriating in his power – then the Malazans arrived, and
they tore it all apart, and Bidithal found himself on the run,
just one more hare fleeing the wolves. For him, well, he
wanted it back, all that power, and this new cult he created
was for that purpose. The problem was, either he was lucky
or a genius, because the idea behind his cult – not the
vicious rituals he imposed, but the idea – it struck a nerve.
It reached the dispossessed, and that was its brilliance—'
    'It wasn't his idea,' Heboric said behind them.
    'Then whose was it?' Cutter asked.
    'It belongs to the Crippled God. The Chained One. A
broken creature, betrayed, wounded, imperfect in the way
of street beggars, abandoned urchins, the physically and the
morally damaged. And the promise of something better,
beyond death itself – the very paradise Scillara spoke of,
but one we could not deface. In other words, the dream of
a place immune to our natural excesses, to our own
depravity, and accordingly, to exist within it is to divest
oneself of all those excesses, all those depravities. You just
have to die first.'
    'Do you feel fear, Heboric?' Scillara asked. 'You describe
a very seductive faith.'
    'Yes, to both. If, however, its heart is in fact a lie, then we
must make the truth a weapon, a weapon that, in the end,
must reach for the Crippled God himself. To shy from that
final act would be to leave unchallenged the greatest
injustice of all, the most profound unfairness, and the
deepest betrayal imaginable.'
    'If it's a lie,' Scillara said. 'Is it? How do you know?'
    'Woman, if absolution is free, then all that we do here
and now is meaningless.'
    'Well, maybe it is.'
    'Then it would not even be a question of justifying anything
– justification itself would be irrelevant. You invite
anarchy – you invite chaos itself.'
    She shook her head. 'No, because there's one force more
powerful than all of that.'
    'Oh?' Cutter asked. 'What?'
    Scillara laughed. 'What I was talking about earlier.' She gestured
    once more at the ancient signs of tillage. 'Look around, Cutter, look around.'
     
    Iskaral Pust plucked at the thick strands of web covering
Mappo Runt's massive chest. 'Get rid of this! Before he
wakes up, you damned hag. You and your damned moon –
look, it's going to rain. This is a desert – what's it doing
raining? It's all your fault.' He glanced up, smiling evilly.
'She suspects nothing, the miserable cow. Oh I can't wait.'
Straightening, he scurried back to the long bamboo stick
he'd found – bamboo, for god's sake – and resumed drilling
the tiny fixing holes in the base.
    Twisted wire eyelets, bound at intervals with wet gut
right up to the finely tapered end. A carved and polished
wooden spool and half a league's worth of Mogora hair,
spun together and felted or something similar, strong
enough to reel in anything, including a miserable cow
flopping about in the shallows. True, he'd have to wait a
year or two, until the little wriggling ones grew to a decent
size. Maybe he'd add a few bigger ones – there