A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

the bird in its cage as it speaks
In a dying man's voice; when he is gone
The voice lives to greet and give empty
Assurances with random poignancy
    I do not know if I could live with that
If I could armour myself as the inhuman beak
Opens to a dead man's reminder, head cocked
As if channelling the ghost of the one
Who imagines an absence of sense, a vacuum awaiting
    The cage is barred and nightly falls the shroud
To silence the commentary of impossible apostles
Spirit godlings and spanning abyss, impenetrable cloud
Between the living and the dead, the here and the gone
Where no bridge can smooth the passage of pain
    And these things were never so precious
Listening to the bird as it speaks and it speaks
And it speaks, the one who has faded away
The father departed knowing the unknown
And it speaks and it speaks and it speaks
In my father's voice
    Caged Bird
Fisher kel Tath
    There was no breath to speak of. Rather, what awoke
him was the smell of death, dry, an echo of pungent
decay that might belong to the carcass of a beast
left in the high grasses, desiccated yet holding its reek
about itself, close and suffocating as a cloak. Opening
his eyes, Kallor found himself staring up at the enormous,
rotted head of a dragon, its massive fangs and shredded
gums almost within reach.
    The morning light was blotted out and it seemed the
shade cast by the dragon roiled with all its centuries of
forgotten breath.
    As the savage thunder of Kallor's heartbeat eased, he
slowly edged to one side – the dragon's viper head tilting
to track his movement – and carefully stood, keeping his
hands well away from the scabbarded sword lying on the
ground beside his bedroll. 'I did not,' he said, scowling, 'ask
for company.'
    The dragon withdrew its head in a crackling of dried
scales along the length of its serpent neck; settled back
between the twin cowls of its folded wings.
    He could see runnels of dirt trickling down from creases
and joins on the creature's body. One gaunt forelimb bore
the tracery of fine roots in a colourless mockery of blood
vessels. From the shadowed pits beneath the gnarled brow
ridges there was the hint of withered eyes, a mottling of grey
and black that could hold no display of desire or intent; and
yet Kallor felt that regard raw as sharkskin against his own
eyes as he stared up at the undead dragon.
    'You have come,' he said, 'a long way, I suspect. But I
am not for you. I can give you nothing, assuming I wanted
to, which I do not. And do not imagine,' he added, 'that
I will bargain with you, whatever hungers you may still
possess.'
    He looked about his makeshift camp, saw that the
modest hearth with its fistful of coals still smouldered from
the previous night's fire. 'I am hungry, and thirsty,' he said.
'You can leave whenever it pleases you.'
    The dragon's sibilant voice spoke in Kallor's skull. 'You cannot know my pain.'
    He grunted. 'You cannot feel pain. You're dead, and you
have the look of having been buried. For a long time.'
    'The soul writhes. There is anguish. I am broken.'
    He fed a few clumps of dried bhederin dung on to the
coals, and then glanced over. 'I can do nothing about
that.'
    'I have dreamt of a throne.'
    Kallor's attention sharpened with speculation. 'You
would choose a master? That is unlike your kind.' He shook
his head. 'I scarcely believe it.'
    'Because you do not understand. None of you understand.
So much is beyond you. You think to make yourself the King
in Chains. Do not mock my seeking a master, High King
Kallor.'
    'The Crippled God's days are numbered, Eleint,' said
Kallor. 'Yet the throne shall remain, long after the chains
have rusted to dust.'
    There was silence between them then, for a time. The
morning sky was clear, tinted faintly red with the pollen
and dust that seemed to seethe up from this land. Kallor
watched the hearth finally lick into flames, and he reached
for the small, battered, blackened pot. Poured the last of his
water into it and set the pot on the tripod perched above
the fire. Swarms of suicidal insects darted into the flames,
igniting in sparks, and Kallor wondered at this penchant
for seeking death, as if the lure for an end was irresistible.
Not a trait he shared, however.
    'I remember my death ,' the dragon said.
    'And that's worth remembering?'
    'The Jaghut were a stubborn people. So many saw naught
but the coldness in their hearts—'
    'Misunderstood, were they?'
    'They mocked your empire, High King. They answered you
with scorn. It seems the