A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

from the
surrounding darkness. From woman to child, to helpless
babe.
    She knew what was coming. She knew, too, that in the
end there was a kind of mercy to that blind ignorance, to
the innocence of pieces. Unknowing, the orphans would
dissolve away, leaving nothing.
    What mind could not fear such a fate?
    'Draconus,' she whispered, although she was far from his
side now, closing in on the wagon once more, 'there is no
other side of chaos. Look at us. Each chained. Together,
and yet alone. See us pass the time as we will, until the
end. You made this sword, but the sword is only a shape
given to something far beyond you, far beyond any single
creature, any single mind. You just made it momentarily
manageable.'
    She slipped into the gloom behind the lead wheel. Into
the thick, slimy rain.
    'Anomander Rake understands,' she hissed. 'He
understands, Draconus. More than you ever did. Than you
ever will. The world within Dragnipur must die. That is
the greatest act of mercy imaginable. The greatest sacrifice.
Tell me, Draconus, would you relinquish your power?
Would you crush down your selfishness, to choose this
. . . this emasculation? This sword, your cold, iron grin of
vengeance – would you see it become lifeless in your hands?
As dead as any other hammered bar of iron?'
    She ducked beneath the lead axle and heaved the chain
on her shoulders up and on to the wooden beam. Then
climbed up after it. 'No, Draconus, you could not do that,
could you?'
    There had been pity in Rake's eyes when he killed her.
There had been sorrow. But she had seen, even then, in
that last moment of locked gazes, how such sentiments
were tempered.
    By a future fast closing in. Only now, here, did she comprehend
that.
    You give us chaos. You give us an end to this.
    And she knew, were she in Anomander Rake's place,
were she the one possessing Dragnipur, she would fail in
this sacrifice. The power of the weapon would seduce her
utterly, irrevocably.
    None other. None other but you, Anomander Rake.
    Thank the gods.
    He awoke to the sting of a needle at the corner of one eye.
Flinching back, gasping, scrabbling away over the warm
bodies. In his wake, that blind artist, the mad Tiste Andii,
Kadaspala, face twisted in dismay, the bone stylus drawing
back.
    'Wait! Come back! Wait and wait, stay and stay, I am
almost done! I am almost done and I must be done before
it's too late, before it's too late!'
    Ditch saw that half his mangled body now bore tattoos,
all down one side – wherever skin had been exposed whilst
he was lying unconscious atop the heap of the fallen. How
long had he been lying there, insensate, whilst the insane
creature stitched him full of holes? 'I told you,' he said, 'not
me. Not me!'
    'Necessary. The apex and the crux and the fulcrum
and the heart. He chose you. I chose you. Necessary! Else
we are all lost, we are all lost, we are all lost. Come back.
Where you were and where you were, lying just so, your
arm over, the wrist – the very twitch of your eye—'
    'I said no ! Come at me again, Kadaspala, and I will choke
the life from you. I swear it. I will crush your neck to pulp.
Or snap your fingers, every damned one of them!'
    Lying on his stomach, gaping sockets seeming to glare,
Kadaspala snatched his hands back, hiding them beneath
his chest. 'You must not do that and you must not do that.
I was almost finished with you. I saw your mind went away,
leaving me your flesh – to do what was needed and what
was needed is still needed, can't you understand that?'
    Ditch crawled further away, well beyond the Tiste
Andii's reach, rolling and then sinking down between two
demonic forms, both of which shifted sickeningly beneath
his weight. 'Don't come any closer,' he hissed.
    'I must convince you. I have summoned Draconus.
He is summoned. There will be threats, they come with
Draconus, they always come with Draconus. I have
summoned him.'
    Ditch slowly lowered himself down on to his back. There
would be no end to this, he knew. Each time his mind fell
away, fled to whatever oblivion it found, this mad artist
would crawl to his side, and, blind or not, he would resume
his work. What of it? Why should I really care? This body is
mostly destroyed now, anyway. If Kadaspala wants it – no,
damn him, it is all I have left.
    'So many are pleased,' the Tiste Andii murmured, 'to
think that they have become something greater than they
once were. It is a question of sacrifices, of which I know all
there is to know, yes, I know all there