A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

and everyone else
had died. He had arrived at the gates of the city that morning,
in the company of twelve half-wild dogs. A Carrier, but
here, in this place, that was not cause for banishment.
Indeed, the very opposite. Kulat would take the boy under
his wing, for teaching in the ways of pilgrimage, for this
would be his new calling, to carry plague across the world,
and so, among the survivors in his wake, gather yet more
adherents to the new religion. Faith in the Broken, the
Scarred, the Unmanned – all manner of sects were being
formed, membership defined by the damage the plague had
delivered to each survivor. Rarest and most precious among
them, the Carriers.
    All that Kulat had predicted was coming to pass.
Survivors arrived, at first a trickle, then by the hundred,
drawn here, guided by the hand of a god. They began
excavating the long-buried city, making for themselves
homes amidst the ghosts of long-dead denizens who still
haunted the rooms, the hallways and the streets, silent and
motionless, spectres witnessing a rebirth, on their faint,
blurred faces a riot of expressions ranging from dismay to
horror. How the living could terrify the dead.
    Herders arrived with huge flocks, sheep and goats, the
long-limbed cattle called eraga that most had believed
extinct for a thousand years – Kulat said that wild herds
had been found in the hills – and here the dogs recollected
what they had been bred for in the first place and now
fended the beasts against the wolves and the grey eagles
that could lift a newborn calf in their talons.
    Artisans had arrived and had begun producing images
that had been born in their sickness, in their fevers: the
God in Chains, the multitudes of the Broken and
the Scarred and the Unmanned. Images on pottery, on
walls painted in the ancient mix of eraga blood and red
ochre, stone statues for the Carriers. Fabrics woven with
large knots of wool to represent the nodules, scenes of fever
patterns of colour surrounding central images of Felisin herself,
Sha'ik Reborn, the deliverer of the true Apocalypse.
    She did not know what to make of all this. She was left
bewildered again and again by what she witnessed, every
gesture of worship and adoration. The horror of physical
disfigurement assailed her on all sides, until she felt numb,
drugged insensate. Suffering had become its own language,
life itself defined as punishment and imprisonment. And this is my flock.
    Her followers had, thus far, answered her every need but
one, and that was the growing sexual desire, reflecting the
changes overtaking her body, the shape of womanhood,
the start of blood between her legs, and the new hunger
feeding her dreams of succour. She could not yearn for the
touch of slaves, for slavery was what these people willingly
embraced, here and now, in this place they called Hanar
Ara, the City of the Fallen.
    Around a mouthful of stones, Kulat said, 'And this is the
problem, Highness.'
    She blinked. She hadn't been listening. 'What? What is
the problem?'
    'This Carrier, who arrived but this morning from the
southwest track. With his dogs that answer only to him.'
    She regarded Kulat, the old bastard who confessed sexually
fraught dreams of wine as if the utterance was itself
more pleasure than he could bear, as if confession made
him drunk. 'Explain.'
    Kulat sucked at the stones in his mouth, swallowed spit,
then gestured. 'Look upon the buds, Highness, the buds of
disease, the Many Mouths of Bluetongue. They are shrinking.
They have dried up and are fading. He has said as
much. They have grown smaller. He is a Carrier who shall,
one day, cease being a Carrier. This child shall lose his
usefulness.'
    Usefulness. She looked upon him again, more carefully
this time, and saw a hard, angular face older than its years,
clear eyes, a frame that needed more flesh and would likely
find it once again, now that he had food to eat. A boy still
young, who would grow into a man. 'He shall reside in the
palace,' she said.
    Kulat's eyes widened. 'Highness—'
    'I have spoken. The Open Wing, with the courtyard and
stables, where he can keep his dogs—'
    'Highness, there are plans for converting the Open Wing
into your own private garden—'
    'Do not interrupt me again, Kulat. I have spoken.'
    My own private garden. The thought now amused her, as
she reached for her goblet of wine. Yes, and we shall see how
it grows.
    So carried on her unspoken thoughts, Felisin saw
nothing of Kulat's sudden dark look, the moment before