A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

Torahaval through the back
passage, he'd thought he'd seen ... something. Someone,
ghostly in shadows, commanding the threshold.
    Whatever this chance clash, it had purchased his life.
And his sister's. Currency Quick Ben would not squander.
    Throwing Torahaval over his shoulder, he entered the
narrow corridor and ran as fast as he could manage.
    Before too long he heard someone in pursuit. Swearing,
Quick Ben swung round, the motion crunching Torahaval's
head against a wall – at which she moaned.
    A man, his face deformed – no, horse-bitten, the wizard
realized – rushed to close. 'I will help you,' he said.
'Quickly! Doom comes into this temple!'
    Had it been this man facing down the Hounds? No
matter. 'Take her legs then, friend. As soon as we're off
sanctified ground, we can get the Hood out of here—'
     
    As the Hounds gathered to rush Apsalar, she sheathed her
knives and said, 'Curdle, Telorast, stop your hissing. Time
to leave.'
    'You're no fun, Not-Apsalar!' Curdle cried.
    'No she isn't, is she?' Telorast said, head bobbing in
vague threat motions, that were now proving less effective.
    'Where is she?' Curdle demanded.
    'Gone!'
    'Without us!'
    'After her!'
     
    Poliel, Grey Goddess of pestilence, of disease and suffering,
was trapped in her own tortured nightmare. All strength
gone, all will bled away. The shard of deadly otataral impaling
her hand, she sat on her throne, convulsions racking
her.
    Betrayals, too many betrayals – the Crippled God's
power had fled, abandoning her – and that unknown
mortal, that cold-eyed murderer, who had understood nothing. In whose name? For whose liberation was this war
being fought? The damned fool.
    What curse was it, in the end, to see flaws unveiled, to
see the twisted malice of mortals dragged to the surface,
exposed to day's light? Who among these followers did not
ever seek, wilful or mindless, the purity of self-destruction?
In obsession they took death into themselves, but that was
but a paltry reflection of the death they delivered upon the
land, the water, the very air. Self-destruction making
victim the entire world.
    Apocalypse is rarely sudden; no, among these mortals, it
creeps slow, yet inevitable, relentless in its thorough
obliteration of life, of health, of beauty.
    Diseased minds and foul souls had drawn her into this
world; for the sake of the land, for the chance that it might
heal in the absence of its cruellest inflicters of pain and
degradation, she sought to expunge them in the breath of
plague – no more deserving a fate was imaginable – for all
that, she would now die.
    She railed. Betrayal!
    Five Hounds of Shadow entered the chamber.
    Her death. Shadowthrone, you fool.
    A Hound flung something from its mouth, something
that skidded, spitting and writhing, up against the first step
of the dais.
    Even in her agony, a core of clarity remained within
Poliel. She looked down, seeking to comprehend – even as
the Hounds fled the room, round the dais, into the priest-hole
– comprehend this cowering, scaled panther, one limb
swollen with infection, its back legs and hips crushed – it
could not flee. The Hounds had abandoned it here – why?
    Ah, to share my fate.
    A final thought, meekly satisfying in itself, as the
Deragoth arrived, bristling with rage and hunger, Elder as
any god, deprived of one quarry, but content to kill what
remained.
    A broken T'rolbarahl, shrieking its terror and fury.
    A broken goddess, who had sought to heal Burn. For
such was the true purpose of fever, such was the cold arbiter
of disease. Only humans, she reminded herself – her last
thought – only humans centre salvation solely upon themselves.
    And then the Deragoth, the first enslavers of humanity,
were upon her.
     
    'She's a carrier now,' Brokeface said, 'and more. No longer
protected, the plague runs wild within her, no matter what
happens to Poliel. Once begun, these things follow their
own course. Please,' he added as he watched the man
attempt to awaken Torahaval, 'come with me.'
    The stranger looked up with helpless eyes. 'Come?
Where?'
    'The Temple of Soliel.'
    'That indifferent bitch—'
    'Please,' Brokeface insisted. 'You will see. I cannot help
but believe her words.'
    'Whose words?'
    'It's not far. She must be healed.' And he reached down
once more, collecting the woman's legs. 'As before. It's not
far.'
    The man nodded.
    Behind them, a single shriek rose from the temple, piercing
enough to send fissures rippling through the