A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

I understand you well enough. 'I
have one true fear,' she said. 'And that is, when you are
done with civilization, it will turn out that you as master
of everything will prove no better than the ones you pulled
down. That you will find the last surviving throne and
plop yourself down on it, and find it all too much to your
liking.'
    'That is an empty fear, witch,' said Karsa Orlong. 'I will
leave not one throne to sit on – I will shatter them all. And
if, when I am done, I am the last left standing – in all the
world – then I will be satisfied.'
    'What of your people?'
    'I have listened too long to the whispers of Bairoth Gild
and Delum Thord. Our ways are but clumsier versions of all
the other ways in which people live – their love of waste,
their eagerness to reap every living thing as if it belonged
to them, as if in order to prove ownership they must destroy
it.' He bared his teeth. 'We think no differently, just slower.
Less . . . efficiently. You will prattle on about progress,
Samar Dev, but progress is not what you think it is. It is
not a tool guided by our hands – not yours, not mine, not
Traveller's. It is not something we can rightly claim as our
destiny. Why? Because in truth we have no control over it.
Not your machines, witch, not a hundred thousand slaves
shackled to it – even as we stand with whips in hand.'
    Now Traveller had turned slightly and was studying the
Toblakai with that same curious wonder that she had seen
before. 'What then,' he asked, 'is progress, Karsa Orlong?'
    The Toblakai gestured into the night sky. 'The crawl
of the stars, the plunge and rise of the moon. Day, night,
birth, death – progress is the passage of reality. We sit
astride this horse, but it is a beast we can never tame,
and it will run for ever – we will age and wither and fall
off, and it cares not. Some other will leap aboard and it
cares not. It may run alone, and it cares not. It outran the
great bears. The wolves and their worshippers. It outran
the Jaghut, and the K'Chain Che'Malle. And still it runs
on, and to it we are nothing.'
    'Then why not let us ride it for a time?' Samar Dev demanded.
'Why not leave us that damned illusion?'
    'Because, woman, we ride it to hunt, to kill, to destroy.
We ride it as if it is our right and our excuse both.'
    'And yet,' said Traveller, 'is that not precisely what you
intend, Karsa Orlong?'
    'I shall destroy what I can, but never shall I claim to own
what I destroy. I will be the embodiment of progress, but
emptied of greed. I shall be like nature's fist: blind. And
I shall prove that ownership is a lie. The land, the seas,
the life to be found there. The mountains, the plains, the
cities, the farms. Water, air. We own none of it. This is
what I will prove, and by proving it will make it so.'
    He leaned forward then and gathered up in his hands
a heap of dusty earth. The Toblakai rose to his feet, and
dropped the soil on to the fire, snuffing out the flames.
Darkness took them all, as if but awaiting this moment. Or,
she thought with a chill, as if it has always been there. The
light blinded me, else I would have seen it.
    As I do now.
    God of war, what did you want with me?
    With an ear-piercing scream the enkaral crashed down on
to Pearl, talons slashing through flesh, dagger fangs closing
on the back of the demon's neck. Grunting, he reached
up and closed one hand about the winged beast's throat,
the other forcing its way beneath the enkaral's upper jaw
– fingers sliced into shreds as he reached ever farther and
then began prising the mouth back open. The fangs of the
lower jaw sank deeper into the muscles of Pearl's neck,
and still he pushed. As this was going on, the talons never
ceased their frantic rending along the demon's lower back,
seeking to hook round his spine, seeking to tear loose that
column – but the chains and shackles snarled its efforts, as
did Pearl's twisting to evade each stabbing search through
his muscles.
    Finally, as his grip on the beast's throat tightened, he
could hear the desperate squeal of its breath, and the jaws
weakened. Something crunched and all at once Pearl was
able to rip the jaws free of his neck. He staggered forward,
dragging the huge beast round, both hands closing on
its scaled throat – and more things collapsed inside that
crushing grip.
    The enkaral flailed about, legs kicking wildly now, talons
scoring furrows on Pearl's thighs. He forced the beast down
on to the ground. The thrashing slowed, and then, with