A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

a
spasm, the creature went limp.
    Pearl slowly rose, flinging the carcass to one side; a thud,
the slap and rustle of chains. The demon then glanced over
to the figure walking alongside it. 'Did I anger it somehow,
Draconus?'
    The man squinted, shifting the weight of his chains over
his other shoulder before replying, 'No, Pearl. Madness
took it, that's all. You just happened to be near.'
    'Oh,' said Pearl. And then the demon sighed. 'Then it is
good it was me and not something . . . smaller.'
    'Can you continue, Pearl?'
    'I can, yes. Thank you for asking.'
    'Not much longer, I should think.'
    'No, not much longer,' agreed Pearl. 'And then?'
    'We will see, won't we?'
    'Yes, that is true. Draconus?'
    'Pearl?'
    'I think I will welcome an end – is that a terrible thing
for me to say?'
    The man shook his head, his expression hinting that he
might be in pain. 'No, my friend, it is not.'
    Fully one half of the sky was now a seething argent
storm. Thunder rolled from the horizon behind them, as
the very ground was ripped up, annihilated – their world
had acquired an edge, raw as a cliff, and that cliff was drawing
closer as vast sections sheared away, as the raging abyss
swallowed the toppling stone columns one by one.
    And it occurred to Draconus, then, that each of them
here, seemingly alone, each with his or her own shackle,
his or her own chain, had finally, at long last, come together.
    We are an army. But an army in retreat. See the detritus we
leave in our wake, the abandoned comrades. See the glaze of
our eyes, this veil of numbed exhaustion – when at last we tear
it aside, we will find the despair we have harboured for so long,
like a black poisoned fruit under a leaf – all revealed as we look
into each other's eyes.
    Was the comfort found in mutual recognition of any
true worth? Here, at the last? When the common ground is
failure? Like a field of corpses after a battle. Like a sea of skulls
rolling in the tide. Is not the brotherhood too bitter to bear?
    And now, he wanted to . . . to what? Yes, to rage, but first,
let me close my eyes. Just for a moment. Let me find, again,
my will—
    'Draconus?'
    'Yes, Pearl?'
    'Do you hear drums? I hear drums.'
    'The thunder—' and then he stopped, and turned
round, to look back at that fulminating, crazed horizon.
    'Gods below.'
    Chaos had found a new way to mock them. With legions
in ranks, weapons and armour blazing, with standards
spitting lightning into the sky. Emerging in an endless
row, an army of something vaguely human, shaped solely
by intent, in numbers unimaginable – they did not march
so much as flow, like a frothing surge devouring the ground
– and no more than a league away. Lances and pike heads
flashing, round shields spinning like vortices. Drums like
rattling bones, rushing to swarm like maddened wasps.
    So close . . . has the hunger caught fresh our scent – does the
hunger now rush to us, faster than ever before?
    Is there something in that storm . . . that knows what it
wants?
    'I do not understand,' said Pearl. 'How can chaos take
shapes?'
    'Perhaps, friend, what we are seeing is the manifestation
of what exists in all of us. Our secret love of destruction,
the pleasure of annihilation, our darkest glee. Perhaps
when at last they reach us, we shall realize that they are us
and we are them.' That Dragnipur has but cut us in two, and
all chaos seeks is to draw us whole once more.
    Oh, really now, Draconus, have you lost your mind?
    'If they are the evil in our souls, Pearl, then there can be
no doubt as to their desire.'
    'Perhaps not just our souls,' mused Pearl, wiping blood
from his eyes. 'Perhaps every soul, since the beginning of
creation. Perhaps, Draconus, when each of us dies, the evil
within us is torn free and rushes into the realm of Chaos.
Or the evil is that which survives the longest . . .'
    Draconus said nothing. The demon's suggestions horrified
him, and he thought – oh, he was thinking, yes – that
Pearl had found a terrible truth. Somewhere among those
possibilities.
    Somewhere among them . . . I think . . . there is a secret.
An important secret.
    Somewhere . . .
    'I do not want to meet my evil self,' said Pearl.
    Draconus glanced across at him. 'Who does?'
    Ditch was dreaming, for dreaming was his last road to
freedom. He could stride, reaching out to the sides,
reshaping everything. He could make the world as he
wanted it, as it should be, a place of justice, a place where
he could be a god and look upon humanity as