A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

immeasurable and just as stillness
did not in fact exist, so neither did true, absolute silence.
    'Why are you here?' Endest Silann asked after a time.
    'I wish I could answer you, old friend, and Burn knows
the desire to ease the burden is almost overwhelming.'
    'You are assuming, Caladan, that I am ignorant of what
awaits us.'
    'No, I do not do that – after all, you have sought a
pilgrimage, out to this river – and among the Tiste Andii,
this place has proved a mysterious lure. Yet you ask why I
am here, and so your knowledge must be . . . incomplete.
Endest Silann, I cannot say more. I cannot help you.'
    The old Tiste Andii looked away, off into the dark where
the river sang to the night. So, others had come here, then.
Some instinctive need drawing them, yes, to the ghost of
Dorssan Ryl. He wondered if they had felt the same disappointment
as he had upon seeing these black (but not black
enough) waters. It is not the same. Nothing ever is, beginning with ourselves. 'I do not,' he said, 'believe much in forgiveness.'
    'What of restitution?'
    The question stunned him, stole his breath. The river
rushed with the sound of ten thousand voices and those
cries filled his head, spread into his chest to grip his heart.
Cold pooled in his gut. By the Abyss . . . such . . . ambition. He felt the icy trickle of tears on his fire-warmed cheeks. 'I
will do all I can.'
    'He knows that,' Caladan Brood said with such
compassion that Endest Silann almost cried out. 'You might
not believe this now,' the huge warrior continued, 'but you
will find this pilgrimage worthwhile. A remembrance to
give strength when you need it most.'
    No, he did not believe that now, and could not imagine
ever believing it. Even so . . . the ambition . So appalling, so
breathtaking.
    Caladan Brood poured the tea and set a cup into
Endest's hands. The tin shot heat into his chilled fingers.
The warlord was standing beside him now.
    'Listen to the river, Endest Silann. Such a peaceful
sound . . .'
    But in the ancient Tiste Andii's mind that sound was a
wailing chorus, an overwhelming flood of loss and despair.
The ghost of Dorssan Ryl? No, this was where that long
dead river emptied out, feeding the midnight madness of its
history into a torrent where it swirled with a thousand other
currents. Endless variations on the same bitter flavour.
    And as he stared into the flames he saw once more
the city dying in a conflagration. Kharkanas beneath the
raging sky. Blinding ash like sand in the eyes, smoke like
poison in the lungs. Mother Darkness in her fury, denying
her children, turning away as they died and died. And
died.
    Listen to the river. Remember the voices.
    Wait, as does the warlord here. Wait, to see what comes.
    The smell of the smoke remained long after the fire was
done. They rode in on to charred ground and blackened
wreckage. Collapsed, crumbled inward, the enormous
carriage still reared like a malignant smoking pyre in the
centre of stained earth. Detritus was scattered about to
mark the disintegration of the community. Yet, although
the scene was one of slaughter, there were no bodies. Trails
set off in all directions, some broader than others.
    Samar Dev studied the scene for a time, then watched as
Traveller dismounted to walk over to the edge of the camp,
where he began examining some of the tracks leading away.
He was an odd man, she decided. Quiet, self-contained, a
man used to being alone, yet beneath it all was a current
of . . . yes, mayhem. As if it was his own solitude that kept
the world safe.
    Once, long ago now, she had found herself in the
company of another warrior equally familiar with that
concept. But there the similarity ended. Karsa Orlong,
notwithstanding that first journey into the besieged
fortress outside Ugarat, thrived on an audience. Witness ,
he would say, in full expectation of just that. He wanted
his every deed observed, as if each set of eyes existed solely
to mark Karsa Orlong, and the minds behind them served,
to the exclusion of all else, to recount to all what he had
done, what he had said, what he had begun and what he
had ended. He makes us his history. Every witness contributes
to the narrative – the life, the deeds of Toblakai – a narrative to
which we are, each of us, bound.
    Chains and shackles snaked out from the burned carriage.
Empty, of course. And yet, despite this, Samar Dev
understood that the survivors of this place remained slaves.
Chained to Karsa Orlong, their liberator, chained to