A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

depths.
Crumbling into dust. Expelled in a gust of hot wind.
    Venomous spears lanced through Skintick's brain,
shearing through every last tether that remained. And
suddenly he was free, launching skyward. Free, yes, because
nothing mattered any more. The hoarders of wealth, the
slayers of children, the rapists of the innocent, all gone.
The decriers of injustice, the addicts of victimization, the
endlessly offended, gone.
    Nothing was fair. Nothing. And that is why you are dying,
dear god. That is why. How can you do anything else? The
sun rages!
    Meaningless!
    We all die. Meaningless!
    Who—
    A hard slap and he was jolted awake. A seamed, tusked
face hovered over him. Vertical pupils set in grey, the
whites barely visible. Like a damned goat.
    'You,' the Jaghut said, 'are a bad choice for this. Answering
despair with laughter like that.'
    Skintick stared up at the creature. He couldn't think of
anything to say.
    'There is a last moment,' Gothos continued, 'when every
sentient creature alive realizes that it's over, that not enough
was done, that hindsight doesn't survive dying. Not enough
was done – you Tiste Andii understood that. Anomander
Rake did. He realized that to dwell in but one world was
madness. To survive, you must spread like vermin. Rake
tore his people loose from their complacency. And for this
he was cursed.'
    'I saw – I saw a world dying.'
    'If that is what you saw, then so it is. Somewhere, somewhen.
On the paths of the Azath, a distant world slides
into oblivion. Potential snuffed out. What did you feel,
Skintick?'
    'I felt . . . free.'
    The Jaghut straightened. 'As I said, a bad choice.'
    'Where – where is Nimander?'
    Sounds at the doorway—
    Desra rushed into the chamber. She saw Skintick, saw him
slowly sitting up. She saw what must be the Jaghut, the
hood drawn back to reveal that greenish, unhuman visage,
the hairless pate so mottled it might have been a mariner's
map of islands, a tortured coastline, reefs. He stood tall in
his woollen robes.
    But nowhere could she find Nimander.
    The Jaghut's eyes fixed on her for a moment, and then he
faced one of the walls of ice.
    She followed that gaze.
    Staggering into darkness he was struck countless times.
Fists pounded, fingers raked ragged furrows through his
skin. Hands closed about his limbs and pulled.
    'This one is mine!'
    'No, mine!'
    All at once voices cried out on all sides and a hand closed
about Nimander's waist, plucked him into the air. The
giant figure carrying him ran, feet thumping like thunder,
up a steep slope, rocks scurrying down, first a trickle, then a
roar of cascading stones, with screams in their wake.
    Choking dust blinded him.
    A sharp-edged crest crunching underfoot, and then a
sudden even steeper descent, down into a caldera. Grey
clouds rising in plumes, sudden coruscating heat foul with
gases that stung his eyes, burned in his throat.
    He was flung on to hot ash.
    The giant creature loomed over him.
    Through tears Nimander looked up, saw a strangely
child-like face peering down. The forehead sloped back
behind an undulating brow-ridge from which the eyebrows
streamed down in thick snarls of pale, almost white hair.
Round, smooth cheeks, thick lips, a pug nose, a pale bulging
wattle beneath the rounded chin. Its skin was bright
yellow, its eyes emerald green.
    It spoke in the language of the Tiste Andii. 'I am like
you. I too do not belong here.'
    The voice was soft, a child's voice. The giant slowly
blinked, and then smiled, revealing a row of dagger-like
fangs.
    Nimander struggled to speak. 'Where – who – all those
people . . .'
    'Spirits. Trapped like ants in amber. But it is not amber.
It is the blood of dragons.'
    'Are you a spirit?'
    The huge head shook in a negative. 'I am an Elder, and
I am lost.'
    'Elder.' Nimander frowned. 'You call yourself that.
Why?'
    A shrug like hills in motion. 'The spirits have so named
me.'
    'How did you come to be here?'
    'I don't know. I am lost, you see.'
    'And before this place?'
    'Somewhere else. I built things. Of stone. But each house
I built then vanished – I know not where. It was most . . .
frustrating.'
    'Do you have a name?'
    'Elder?'
    'Nothing else?'
    'Sometimes, I would carve the stone. To make it look
like wood. Or bone. I remember . . . sunsets. Different suns,
each night, different suns. Sometimes two. Sometimes
three, one fierce, the others like children. I would build
another house, if I could. I think, if I could do that, I would
stop being