A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

wide, staring eyes.
    Yes, he had reeled back once that stare fixed his own.
Some things should never be communicated, should
never be cast across to slash through the heavy curtains
one raised to keep whatever was without from all that
was within, slashing through and lodging deep in the
soul of a defenceless witness. Keep your pain to yourself,
Andarist! He left you to this – he left you thinking you wiser
than you were. Do not look so betrayed, damn you! He is not
to blame!
    I am not to blame.
    To break Shadow is to release it into every other world.
Even in its birth, it had been necessarily ephemeral, an illusion,
a spiral of endless, self-referential tautologies. Shadow
was an argument and the argument alone was sufficient to
assert its existence. To stand within was a solipsist's dream,
seeing all else as ghostly, fanciful delusion, at best the raw
matter to give Shadow shape, at worst nothing more than
Shadow's implicit need to define itself – Gods, what is the
point of trying to make sense of such a thing? Shadow is, and
Shadow is not, and to dwell within it is to be neither of one
thing nor of any other.
    And your children, dear Shadow, took upon themselves the
strength of Andiian courage and Liosan piety, and made of
that blend something savage, brutal beyond belief. So much for
promises of glory.
    He found he was sitting with his head in his hands.
History charged, assailing his weary defences. From the
image of Andarist he next saw the knowing half-smile of
Silchas Ruin, on the dawn when he walked to stand beside
Scabandari, as if he knew what was to come, as if he was
content with accepting all that followed, and doing so to
spare his followers from a more immediate death – as Liosan
legions ringed the horizon, soldiers singing that horrifying,
haunting song, creating a music of heartbreaking beauty
to announce their march to slaughter – sparing his people
a more immediate death, granting them a few more days,
perhaps weeks, of existence, before the Edur turned on
their wounded allies on some other world.
    Shadow torn, rent into pieces, drifting in a thousand
directions. Like blowing upon a flower's seed-head, off they
wing into the air!
    Andarist, broken. Silchas Ruin, gone.
    Anomander Rake, standing alone.
    This long. This long . . .
    The alchemist knows: the wrong catalyst, the wrong
admixture, ill-conceived proportions, and all pretence of
control vanishes – the transformation runs away, unchained,
burgeons to cataclysm. Confusion and fear, suspicion and then
war, and war shall breed chaos. And so it shall and so it does and
so it ever will.
    See us flee, dreaming of lost peace, the age of purity and
stasis, when we embraced decay like a lover and our love kept
us blind and we were content. So long as we stayed entertained,
we were content.
    Look at me.
    This is what it is to be content.
    Endest Silann drew a deep breath, lifted his head and
blinked to clear his eyes. His master believed he could do
this, and so he would believe his master. There, as simple
as that.
    Somewhere in the keep, priestesses were singing.
    A hand reached up and grasped hard. A sudden, powerful
pull tore loose Apsal'ara's grip and, snarling curses, she
tumbled from the axle frame and thumped heavy on the
sodden ground.
    The face staring down at her was one she knew, and
would rather she did not. 'Are you mad, Draconus?'
    His only response was to grasp her chain and begin
dragging her out from under the wagon.
    Furious, indignant, she writhed across the mud, seeking
purchase – anything to permit her to right herself, to
even, possibly, resist. Stones rolled beneath the bite of her
fingernails, mud grated and smeared like grease beneath
her elbows, her knees, her feet. And still he pulled, treating
her with scant, bitter ceremony, as if she was nothing more
than a squalling cut-purse – the outrage!
    Out from the wagon's blessed gloom, tumbling across
rock-studded dirt – chains whipping on all sides, lifting
clear and then falling back to track twisting furrows, lifting
again as whoever or whatever was at the other end
heaved forward another single, desperate step. The sound
was maddening, pointless, infuriating.
    Apsal'ara rolled upright, gathering a length of chain and
glaring across at Draconus. 'Come closer,' she hissed, 'so I
can smash your pretty face.'
    His smile was humourless. 'Why would I do that, Thief?'
    'To please me, of course, and I at least deserve that much
from you – for dragging me out