A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

gut.
    'And then the world shall witness.'
    'Yes.'
    After a moment, the three set out, Karsa Orlong on her
left, Traveller on her right, neither speaking, yet they were
histories, tomes of past, present and future. Between them,
she felt like a crumpled page of parchment, her life a minor
scrawl.
    High, high above them, a Great Raven fixed
preternatural eyes upon the three figures far below, and
loosed a piercing cry, then tilted its broad black-sail wings
and raced on a current of chill wind, rushing east.
    She thought she might be dead. Every step she took
was effortless, a product of will and nothing else – no
shifting of weight, no swing of legs nor flexing of knees.
Will carried her where she sought to go, to that place of
formless light where the white sand glowed blindingly
bright beneath her, at the proper distance had she been
standing. Yet, looking down, she saw nothing of her own
body. No limbs, no torso, and nowhere to any side could
she see her shadow.
    Voices droned somewhere ahead, but she was not yet
ready for them, so she remained where she was, surrounded
in warmth and light.
    Pulses, as from torches flaring through thick mist, slowly
approached, disconnected from the droning voices, and
she now saw a line of figures drawing towards her. Women,
heads tilted down, long hair over their faces, naked, each
one heavy with pregnancy. The torch fires hovered over
each one, fist-sized suns in which rainbow flames flickered
and spun.
    Salind wanted to recoil. She was a Child of a Dead Seed,
after all. Born from a womb of madness. She had nothing
for these women. She was no longer a priestess, no longer
able to confer the blessing of anyone, no god and least of all
herself, upon any child waiting to tumble into the world.
    Yet those seething orbs of flame – she knew they were
the souls of the unborn, the not-yet-born, and these mothers
were walking towards her, with purpose, with need.
    I can give you nothing! Go away!
    Still they came on, faces lifting, revealing eyes dark and
empty, and seemed not to see her even as, one by one, they
walked through Salind.
    Gods, some of these women were not even human.
    And as each one passed through her, she felt the life
of the child within. She saw the birth unfolding, saw the
small creature with those strangely wise eyes that seemed
to belong to every newborn (except, perhaps, her own).
And then the years rushing on, the child growing, faces
taking the shape they would carry into old age—
    But not all. As mother after mother stepped through
her, futures flashed bright, and some died quickly indeed.
Fraught, flickering sparks, ebbing, winking out, darkness
rushing in. And at these she cried out, filled with anguish
even as she understood that souls travelled countless
journeys, of which only one could be known by a mortal
– so many, in countless perturbations – and that the loss
belonged only to others, never to the child itself, for in its
inarticulate, ineffable wisdom, understanding was absolute;
the passage of life that seemed tragically short could well
be the perfect duration, the experience complete—
    Others, however, died in violence, and this was a crime,
an outrage against life itself. Here, among these souls, there
was fury, shock, denial. There was railing, struggling, bitter
defiance. No, some deaths were as they should be, but
others were not. From somewhere a woman's voice began
speaking.
    'Bless them, that they not be taken.
    'Bless them, that they begin in their time and that they end
in its fullness.
    'Bless them, in the name of the Redeemer, against the cruel
harvesters of souls, the takers of life.
    'Bless them, Daughter of Death, that each life shall be as it is
written, for peace is born of completion, and completion denied
– completion of all potential, all promised in life – is a crime,
a sin, a consignation to eternal damnation. Beware the takers,
the users! The blight of killers!
    'They are coming! Again and again, they harvest the
souls—'
    That strange voice was shrieking now, and Salind sought
to flee but all will had vanished. She was trapped in this one
place, as mother after mother plunged into her, eyes black
and wide, mouths gaping in a chorus of screams, wailing
terror, heart-crushing fear for their unborn children—
    All at once she heard the droning voices again,
summoning her, inviting her into . . . into what?
    Sanctuary.
    With a cry tearing loose from her throat, Salind pulled
away, raced towards those