A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

. well, since Kharkanas.'
    That shocked the temple historian – when nothing
else had, thus far. But she recovered and, drawing a deep
breath, said, 'Then I must invoke my role, High Priestess.
Tell me what must be told. All of it.'
    'For posterity?'
    'Is that not my responsibility?'
    'And if there will be no posterity? None to consider it,
naught but ashes in the present and oblivion in place of a
future? Will you sit scribbling until your last moment of
existence?'
    She was truly shaken now. 'What else would you have
me do?'
    'I don't know. Go find a man. Make fearful love.'
    'I must know what has befallen us. I must know why our
Lord sent away our greatest warrior, and then himself left
us.'
    'Countless fronts, this war. As I have said. I can tell you
intent – as I understand it, and let me be plain, I may well
not understand it at all – but not result, for each outcome is
unknown. And each must succeed.'
    'No room for failure?'
    'None.'
    'And if one should fail?'
    'Then all shall fail.'
    'And if that happens . . . ashes, oblivion – that will be
our fate.'
    The High Priestess turned away. 'Not just ours, alas.'
    Behind her, the historian gasped.
    On all sides, water trembled in bowls, and the time for
the luxurious consideration of possibilities was fast fading.
    Probably just as well.
    'Tell me of redemption.'
    'There is little that I can say, Segda Travos.'
    Seerdomin snorted. 'The god known as the Redeemer
can say nothing of redemption.' He gestured to that distant
quiescent figure kneeling in the basin. 'She gathers power
– I can smell it. Like the rot of ten thousand souls. What
manner of god does she now serve? Is this the Fallen One?
The Crippled God?'
    'No, although certain themes are intertwined. For
followers of the Crippled God, the flaw is the virtue.
Salvation arrives with death, and it is purchased through
mortal suffering. There is no perfection of the spirit to strive
towards, no true blessing to be gained as a reward for faith.'
    'And this one?'
    'As murky as the kelyk itself. The blessing is surrender,
the casting away of all thought. The self vanishes within
the dance. The dream is shared by all who partake of pain's
nectar, but it is a dream of oblivion. In a sense, the faith
is anti-life. Not in the manner of death, however. If one
views life as a struggle doomed to fail, then it is the failing
that becomes the essence of worship. He is the Dying God,
after all.'
    'They celebrate the act of dying?'
    'In a manner, yes, assuming you can call it celebration.
More like enslavement. Worship as self-destruction,
perhaps, in which all choice is lost.'
    'And how can such a thing salve the mortal soul, Redeemer?'
    'That I cannot answer. But it may be that we shall soon
find out.'
    'You do not believe I can protect you – at least in that
we're in agreement. So, when I fall – when I fail – the
Dying God shall embrace me as it will you.' He shook his
head. 'I am not unduly worried about me. I fear more the
notion of what eternal dying can do to redemption – that
seems a most unholy union.'
    The Redeemer simply nodded and it occurred to Seerdomin
that the god had probably been thinking of little
else. A future that seemed sealed into fate, an end to what
was, and nothing glorious in what would follow.
    He rubbed at his face, vaguely dismayed at the weariness
he felt. Here, disconnected from his body, from any
real flesh and bone, it was his spirit that was exhausted,
battered down. And yet . . . and yet, I will stand. And do all
I can. To defend a god I have chosen not to worship, against
a woman who dreamt once of his embrace, and dreams of the
same now – with far deadlier intent. He squinted down at
her, a form almost shapeless in the gathering gloom beneath
gravid, leaden clouds.
    After a moment raindrops splashed against his helm,
stained his forearms and his hands. He lifted one hand,
and saw that the rain was black, thick, wending like slime.
    The sky was raining kelyk.
    She raised her head, and the distance between them
seemed to vanish. Her eyes shone with fire, a slow, terrible
pulse.
    Gods below . . .
    Like the worn ridge of a toothless jaw, the Gadrobi Hills
rose into view, spanning the north horizon. Kallor halted
to study them. An end to this damned plain, to this pointless
sweep of grasses. And there, to the northwest, where
the hills sank back down, there was a city.
    He could not yet see it. Soon.
    The temple would be nondescript, the throne within
it a paltry thing,