A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

long-nailed
fingers pushing the strange assortment of gold and silver
coins back and forth as he sought to force upon them some
means of categorization, a task at which he was clearly failing.
The vast chests of coinage in Poliel's temple were
bottomless – not figuratively but literally, they had discovered.
And to reach down into the ice-cold darkness was
to close hands on frost-rimed gold and silver, in all manner
of currency. Stamped bars, studded teeth, holed spheres,
torcs and rings, rolled bolts of gold-threaded silk small
enough to fit in the palm of one hand, and coins of all sorts:
square, triangular, crescent, holed, tubular, along with
intricate folding boxes, chains, beads, spools, honeycomb
wafers and ingots. Not one of which was familiar to any of
them gathered here – trapped here – in the G'danisban
temple with its mad, horrendous goddess. Torahaval had no
idea there were so many languages in the world, such as she
saw inscribed upon much of the currency. Letters like tiny
images, letters proceeding diagonally, or vertically, or in
spiral patterns, some letters little more than patterns of
dots.
    From other realms, Bridthok insisted. The more
mundane coins could be found in the eastern chamber
behind the altar, an entire room heaped with the damned
things. An empire's treasury in that room alone, the man
claimed, and perhaps he was right. With the first rumour of
plague, the coffers of Poliel filled to overflowing. But it was
the alien coinage that most interested the old man. It had
since become Bridthok's obsession, this Cataloguing of Realms
that he claimed would be his final glory of scholarship.
    A strange contrast, this academic bent, in a man for
whom ambition and lust for power seemed everything, the
very reason for drawing breath, the cage in which his
murderous heart paced.
    He had loosed more rumours of his death than anyone
she had ever known, a new one every year or so, to keep the
many hunters from his trail, he claimed. She suspected he
simply took pleasure in the challenge of invention. Among
the fools – her co-conspirators – gathered here, Bridthok
was perhaps the most fascinating. Neither Septhune
Anabhin nor Sradal Purthu encouraged her, in matters of
trust or respect. And Sribin, well, Sribin was no longer
even recognizable.
    The fate, it seemed, of those whom the Grey Goddess took
as mortal lover. And when she tired of the rotted, moaning
thing that had once been Sribin, the bitch would select
another. From her dwindling store of terrified prisoners. Male,
female, adult, child, it mattered naught to Poliel.
    Bridthok insisted the cult of Sha'ik was reborn, invigorated
beyond – far beyond – all that had gone before.
Somewhere, out there, was the City of the Fallen, and a
new Sha'ik, and the Grey Goddess was harvesting for her
a broken legion of the mad, for whom all that was mortal
belonged to misery and grief, the twin offspring of Poliel's
womb. And, grey in miasma and chaos, blurred by distance,
there lurked the Crippled God, twisted and cackling in his
chains, ever drawing tighter this foul alliance.
    What knew Torahaval of wars among the gods? She did
not even care, beyond the deathly repercussions in her own
world, her own life.
    Her younger brother had long ago fallen one way; and
she another, and now all hope of escape was gone.
    Bridthok's mumbling ceased in a sudden gasp. He started
in his chair, head lifting, eyes widening.
    A tremor ran through Torahaval Delat. 'What is it?' she
demanded.
    The old man rose from behind the table. 'She summons
us.'
    I too must be mad – what is there left in life to love? Why do
I still grip the edge, when the Abyss offers everything I now
yearn for? Oblivion. An end. Gods ... an end. 'More than
that, Bridthok,' she said. 'You look ... aghast.'
    Saying nothing and not meeting her eye, he headed out
into the hallway. Cursing under her breath, Torahaval
followed.
    Once, long ago, her brother – no more than four, perhaps
five years old at the time, long before the evil within him
had fully grown into itself – had woken screaming in the
night, and she had run to his bedside to comfort him. In
child words, he described his nightmare. He had died, yet
walked the world still, for he had forgotten something.
Forgotten, and no matter what he did, no recollection was
possible. And so his corpse wandered, everywhere, with
ever the same question on his lips, a question delivered to
every single person cursed to cross his path. What?