A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

mill-stone. Back storage hatches
had sprung open, spilling their contents of supplies. On the
roof, still strapped in place, was the crushed body of a shareholder,
blood running like meltwater down the copper tiles,
his arms and legs hanging limp, the exposed flesh
pummelled and grey in the bright sunlight.
    One of the Pardu women picked herself up from the mud
and limped over to come alongside Paran as he reined in
near the carriage.
    'Captain,' she said, 'I think we should make camp.'
    He stared down at her. 'Are you all right?'
    She studied him for a moment, then turned her head and
spat out a red stream. Wiped her mouth, then shrugged.
'Hood knows, we've had worse trips ...'
     
    The savage wound of the portal, now closed, still marred
the dust-laden air. Hedge stepped out from where he'd been
hiding near one of the pedestals. The Deragoth were gone
– anything but eager to remain overlong in this deathly,
unpleasant place.
    So he'd stretched things a little. No matter, he'd been
convincing enough, yielding the desired result.
    Here I am. On my own, in Hood's own Hood-forsaken pit.
You should've thought it through, Captain. There was nothing
sweet in the deal for us, and only fools agree to that. Well, being
fools is what killed us, and we done learned that lesson.
    He looked round, trying to get his bearings. In this place,
one direction was good as another. Barring the damned sea,
of course. So, it's done. Time to explore ...
    The ghost left the wreckage of the destroyed statues
behind, a lone, mostly insubstantial figure walking the
denuded, muddy land. As bowlegged as he had been in life.
    Dying left no details behind, after all. And most
certainly, nothing like absolution awaited the fallen.
    Absolution comes from the living, not the dead, and, as
Hedge well knew, it has to be earned.
     
    She was remembering things. Finally, after all this time. Her
mother, camp follower, spreading her legs for the Ashok
Regiment before it was sent to Genabackis. After it had left,
she just went and died, as if without those soldiers she could
only breathe out, never again in – and it was what you drew
in that gave you life. So, just like that. Dead. Her offspring
was left to fare for itself, alone, uncared for, unloved.
    Mad priests and sick cults and, for the girl born of the
mother, a new camp to follow. Every path of independence
was but a dead-end side-track off that more deeply rutted
road, the one that ran from parent to child – this much was
clear to her now.
    Then Heboric, Destriant of Treach, had dragged her
away – before she found herself breathing ever out – but no,
before him, there had been Bidithal and his numbing gifts,
his whispered assurances of mortal suffering being naught
more than a layered chrysalis, and upon death the glory
would break loose, unfolding its iridescent wings. Paradise.
    Oh, that had been a seductive promise, and her drowning
soul had clung to the solace of its plunging weight as
she sank deathward. She had once dreamed of wounding
young, wide-eyed acolytes, of taking the knife in her own
hands and cutting away all pleasure. Misery loves – needs –
company; there is nothing altruistic in sharing. Self-interest feeds
on malice and all else falls to the wayside.
    She had seen too much in her short life to believe anyone
professing otherwise. Bidithal's love of pain had fed his
need to deliver numbness. The numbness within him made
him capable of delivering pain. And the broken god he
claimed to worship – well, the Crippled One knew he
would never have to account for his lies, his false promises.
He sought out lives in abeyance, and with their death he
was free to discard those whose lives he had used up. This
was, she realized, exquisite enslavement: a faith whose
central tenet was unprovable. There would be no killing
this faith. The Crippled God would find a multitude of
mortal voices to proclaim his empty promises, and within
the arbitrary strictures of his cult, evil and desecration
could burgeon unchecked.
    A faith predicated on pain and guilt could proclaim no
moral purity. A faith rooted in blood and suffering—
    'We are the fallen,' Heboric said suddenly.
    Sneering, Scillara pushed more rustleaf into the bowl of
her pipe and drew hard. 'A priest of war would say that,
wouldn't he? But what of the great glory found in brutal
slaughter, old man? Or have you no belief in the necessity
of balance?'
    'Balance? An illusion. Like trying to focus on a single
mote of light