A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

trying to find
significance in something that was actually pretty much
meaningless. The bear sniffed me out and came for a closer
look.'
    He shrugged. 'These things happen.'
    'I'm not convinced.'
    'Yes,' he smiled, 'you are truly of this world, Samar Dev.'
    'What's that supposed to mean?'
    He turned back to Havok and stroked the beast's dusty
neck. 'The Tiste Edur failed. They were not thorough
enough. They left the cynicism in place, and thought
that through the strength of their own honour, they could
defeat it. But the cynicism made their honour a hollow
thing.' He glanced back at her. 'What was once a strength
became an affectation.'
    She shook her head, as if baffled.
    Traveller moved to join them, and there was something
haggard in his face. Seeing this odd, inexplicable transformation,
Karsa narrowed his gaze on the man for a moment.
Then he casually looked away.
    'Perhaps the bear came to warn you,' he said to Samar
Dev.
    'About what?'
    'What else? War.'
    'What war?'
    The shout made Havok shift under his hand, and he
reached up to grasp the beast's wiry mane. Calming the
horse, he then vaulted on to its back. 'Why, the one to
come, I would think.'
    She glared across at Traveller, and seemed to note for the
first time the change that had come over him.
    Karsa watched her take a step closer to Traveller. 'What
is it? What has happened? What war is he talking about?'
    'We should get moving,' he said, and then he set out.
    She might weep. She might scream. But she did neither,
and Karsa nodded to himself and then reached down one
arm. 'This torrent,' he muttered, 'belongs to him, not us.
Ride it with me, witch – you surrender nothing of value.'
    'I don't?'
    'No.'
    She hesitated, and then stepped up and grasped hold of
his arm.
    When she was settled in behind him, Karsa tilted to one
side and twisted round slightly to grin at her. 'Don't lie. It
feels better already, does it not?'
    'Karsa – what has happened to Traveller?'
    He collected the lone rein and faced forward once more.
'Shadows,' he said, 'are cruel.'
    Ditch forced open what he thought of as an eye. His eye.
Draconus stood above the blind Tiste Andii, Kadaspala,
reaching down and dragging the squealing creature up
with both hands round the man's scrawny neck.
    'You damned fool! It won't work that way, don't you see
that?'
    Kadaspala could only choke in reply.
    Draconus glowered for a moment longer, and then flung
the man back down on to the heap of bodies.
    Ditch managed a croaking laugh.
    Turning to skewer Ditch with his glare, Draconus said,
'He sought to fashion a damned god here!'
    'And it shall speak,' Ditch said, 'in my voice.'
    'No, it shall not. Do not fall into this trap, Wizard.
Nothing must be fashioned of this place—'
    'What difference? We all are about to die. Let the god
open its eyes. Blink once or twice, and then give voice
. . .' he laughed again, 'the first cry also the last. Birth and
death with nothing in between. Is there anything more
tragic, Draconus? Anything at all?'
    'Dragnipur,' said Draconus, 'is nobody's womb. Kadaspala,
this was to be a cage. To keep Darkness in and Chaos out.
One last, desperate barrier – the only gift we could offer.
A gate that is denied its wandering must find a home, a
refuge – a fortress, even one fashioned from flesh and bone.
The pattern, Kadaspala, was meant to defy Chaos – two
antithetical forces, as we discussed—'
    'That will fail!' The blind Tiste Andii was twisting about
at Draconus's feet, like an impaled worm. 'Fail, Draconus
– we were fools, idiots. We were mad to think mad to think
mad to think – give me this child, this wondrous creation
– give me—'
    'Kadaspala! The pattern – nothing more! Just the
pattern, damn you!'
    'Fails. Shatters. Shatters and fails shattering into failure.
Failure failure failure. We die and we die and we die and
we die!'
    Ditch could hear the army marching in pursuit, steps
like broken thunder, spears and standards clattering like a
continent of reeds, the wind whistling through them. War
chants erupting from countless mouths, no two the same,
creating instead a war of discordance, a clamour of ferocious
madness. The sound was more horrible than anything he
had ever heard before – no mortal army could start such
terror in a soul as this one did. And above it all, the sky
raged, actinic and argent, seething, wrought through with
blinding flashes from some descending devastation, ever
closer descending – and when at last it struck, the army