A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

every Tiste
Andii poem ever written, for the sole purpose of sneering at
every one of them. Still.
    The words haunted him, mocked him with their ambiguity.
    He preferred things simple and straightforward.
    Solid like heroic sculpture – those marble and alabaster
monuments to some great person who, if truth be known,
was nowhere near as great as believed or proclaimed, and
indeed looked nothing like the white polished face above
the godlike body – oh, Abyss take me, enough of this!
    *
    In the camp, in the wake of the Tiste Andii's departure
with the High Priestess half dead in his arms, the bald
priest, short and bandy-legged and sodden under rain-soaked
woollen robes, hobbled up to Gradithan. 'You
saw?'
    The ex-soldier grunted. 'I was tempted, you know. A
sword point, right up back of his skull. Shit-spawned Tiste
Andii bastard, what in Hood's name did he think, comin'
here?'
    The priest – a priest of some unknown god somewhere to
the south, Bastion, perhaps – made tsk-tsking sounds, then
said, 'The point is, Urdo—'
    'Shut that mouth of yours! That rank ain't for nobody no
more, you understand? Never mind the arsehole thinkin'
he's the only one left, so's he can use it like it was his
damned name or something. Never mind, cos he'll pay for
that soon enough.'
    'Humble apologies, sir. My point was, she's gone now.'
    'What of it?'
    'She was the Redeemer's eyes – his ears, his everything
in the mortal world – and now that Tiste Andii's gone and
taken her away. Meaning we can do, er, as we please.'
    At that, Gradithan slowly smiled. Then said in a low,
easy voice, 'What've we been doin' up to now, Monkrat?'
    'While she was here, the chance remained of awakening
the Benighted to his holy role. Now we need not worry
about either of them.'
    'I was never worried in the first place,' the once-
Urdomen said in a half-snarl. 'Go crawl back into your
hole, and take whoever with you as you fancy – like you
say, nothing stopping us now.'
    After the horrid creature scurried off, Gradithan
gestured to one of his lieutenants. 'Follow that Andii pig
back into Night,' he said. 'But keep your distance. Then get
word to our friends in the city. It's all taken care of at the
Barrow – that's the message you tell 'em, right? Go on and
get back here before dawn and you can take your pick of
the women – one you want to keep for a while if you care
to, or strangle beneath you for all I give a shit. Go!'
    He stood in the rain, feeling satisfied. Everything was
looking up, and up. And by squinting, why, he could almost
make out that cursed tower with its disgusting dragon edifice
– aye, soon it would all come down. Nice and bloody,
like.
    And though he was not aware of it – not enough to find
cause for the sudden shiver that took him – he turned away
from that unseeing regard, and so unknowingly broke
contact with sleepy, cold, reptilian eyes that could see
far indeed, through rain, through smoke, through – if so
desired – stone walls.
    Carved edifice Silanah was not. Sleepless, all-seeing
protector and sentinel, beloved of the Son of Darkness,
and possessed of absolute, obsidian-sharp judgement, most
assuredly she was all that. And terrible in wrath? Few
mortals could even conceive the truth and the capacity of
the implacably just.
    Which was probably just as well.
    'Mercy in compassion, no dragon lives.'
    When skill with a sword was but passing, something else was
needed. Rage. The curse was that rage broke its vessel, sent
fissures through the brittle clay, sought out every weakness
in the temper, the mica grit that only revealed itself in the
edges of the broken shards. No repairs were possible, no
glue creeping out when the fragments were pressed back
together, to be wiped smooth with a fingertip.
    Nimander was thinking about pottery. Web-slung
amphorae clanking from the sides of the wagon, the
horrid nectar within – a species of rage, perhaps, little
different from what had coursed through his veins when
he fought. Rage in battle was said to be a gift of the gods
– he had heard that belief uttered by that Malazan marine,
Deadsmell, down in the hold of the Adjunct's flagship,
during one of those many nights when the man had made
his way down into the dark belly, jug of rum swinging by
an ear in one hand.
    At first Nimander had resented the company – as much
as did his kin – but the Malazan had persisted, like a sapper
undermining walls. The rum had trickled down throats,
loosened the hinges of tongues,