A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

to
straighten his cloak. 'Of them all,' he said in a low voice,
'you, Kedeviss, are the sharpest. You see what the others
do not.'
    'I make a point of paying attention. You've hidden yourself
well, Clip – or whoever you now are.'
    'Not well enough, it seems.'
    'What do you plan to do?' she asked him. 'Anomander
Rake will see clearly, the moment he sets his eyes upon you.
    And no doubt there will be others.'
    'I was Herald of Dark,' he said.
    'I doubt it,' she said.
    'I was Mortal Sword to the Black-Winged Lord, to Rake
himself.'
    'He didn't choose you, though, did he? You worshipped a
god who never answered, not a single prayer. A god who, in
all likelihood, never even knew you existed.'
    'And for that,' whispered Clip, 'he will answer.'
    Her brows rose. 'Is this a quest for vengeance? If we had
known—'
    'What you knew or didn't know is irrelevant.'
    'A Mortal Sword serves.'
    'I said, Kedeviss, I was a Mortal Sword .'
    'No longer, then. Very well, Clip, what are you now?'
    In the grainy half-light she saw him smile, and something
dark veiled his eyes. 'One day, in the sky over
Bastion, a warren opened. A machine tumbled out, and
down—'
    She nodded. 'Yes, we saw that machine.'
    'The one within brought with him a child god – oh,
not deliberately. No, the mechanism of his sky carriage, in
creating gates, in travelling from realm to realm, by its very
nature cast a net, a net that captured this child god. And
dragged it here.'
    'And this traveller – what happened to him?'
    Clip shrugged.
    She studied him, head cocked to one side. 'We failed,
didn't we?'
    He eyed her, as if faintly amused.
    'We thought we'd driven the Dying God from you – instead,
we drove him deeper. By destroying the cavern realm
where he dwelt.'
    'You ended his pain, Kedeviss,' said Clip. 'Leaving only
his . . . hunger.'
    'Rake will destroy you. Nor,' she added, 'will we accompany
you to Black Coral. Go your own way, godling. We
shall find our own way there—'
    He was smiling. 'Before me? Shall we race, Kedeviss – me
with my hunger and you with your warning? Rake does not
frighten me – the Tiste Andii do not frighten me. When
they see me, they will see naught but kin – until it is too
late.'
    'Godling, if in poring through Clip's mind you now feel
you understand the Tiste Andii, I must tell you, you are
wrong. Clip was a barbarian. Ignorant. A fool. He knew
nothing.'
    'I am not interested in the Tiste Andii – oh, I will kill
Rake, because that is what he deserves. I will feed upon
him and take his power into me. No, the one I seek is
not in Black Coral, but within a barrow outside the city.
Another young god – so young, so helpless, so naïve.' His
smile returned. 'And he knows I am coming for him.'
    'Must we then stop you ourselves?'
    'You? Nimander, Nenanda, all you pups ? Now really,
Kedeviss.'
    'If you—'
    His attack was a blur – one hand closing about her
throat, the other covering her mouth. She felt her throat
being crushed and scrabbled for the knife at her belt.
    He spun her round and flung her down to the ground,
so hard that the back of her head crunched on the rocks.
Dazed, her struggles weakened, flailed, fell away.
    Something was pouring out from his hand where it
covered her mouth, something that numbed her lips, her
jaws, then forced its way into her mouth and down her
throat. Thick as tree sap. She stared up at him, saw the
muddy gleam of the Dying God's eyes – dying no longer,
now freed – and thought: what have we done?
    He was whispering. 'I could stop now, and you'd be mine.
It's tempting.'
    Instead, whatever oozed from his hand seemed to
burgeon, sliding like a fat, sleek serpent down her throat,
coiling in her gut.
    'But you might break loose – just a moment's worth, but
enough to warn the others, and I can't have that.'
    Where the poison touched, there was a moment of
ecstatic need, sweeping through her, but that was followed
almost instantly by numbness, and then something . . .
darker. She could smell her own rot, pooling like vapours
in her brain.
    He is killing me. Even that knowledge could not awaken
any strength within her.
    'I need the rest of them, you see,' he was saying. 'So we
can walk in, right in, without anyone suspecting anything.
I need my way in, that's all. Look at Nimander.' He snorted.
'There is no guile in him, none at all. He will be my shield. My shield.'
    He was no longer gripping her neck. It was no longer
necessary.
    Kedeviss stared up at him as she died, and her