A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

could do with them as
he pleased.
    Anomander Rake stood, eyes fixed heavenward, facing
that seething conflagration, the descending annihilation,
and he did not blink, did not flinch. For he felt its answer
deep within him, in the blood of Tiam, the blood of chaos.
    He would stand, then, for all those he had chained here.
He would stand for all the others as well. And for these
poor, broken souls underfoot. He would stand, and face
that ferocious chaos.
    Until the very last moment. The very last moment.
    Like a mass of serpents, the tattoos swarmed beneath
him.
    Kadaspala had waited for so long. For this one chance.
Vengeance against the slayer of a beloved sister, the
betrayer of Andarist, noble Andarist, husband and brother.
Oh, he had come to suspect what Anomander Rake
intended. Sufficient reparation? All but one Tiste Andii
would answer 'yes' to that question. All but one.
    Not Kadaspala! No, not me! Not me not me! Not me not
me not me!
    I will make you fail. In this, your last gesture, your pathetic
attempt at reconciliation – I will make you fail!
    See this god I made? See it? See it see it!
    No, you did not expect that expect that expect that, did you
now? Did you now?
    Nor the knife in its hand. Nor the knife in its hand!
    Teeth bared, blind Kadaspala twisted on to his back, the
better to see the Son of Darkness, yes, the better to see
him. Eyes were not necessary and eyes were not necessary.
To see the bastard.
    Standing so tall, so fierce, almost within reach.
    Atop the mountain of bodies, the moaning bridge of
flesh and bone, the sordid barrier at Dark's door, this living
ward – so stupid so stupid! Standing there, eyes lifting up,
soul facing down and down and downward – will she sense
him? Will she turn? Will she see? Will she understand?
    No to all of these things. For Kadaspala has made a god
a god a god he has made a god and the knife the knife the
knife—
    Anomander Rake stands, and the map awakens, its
power and his power, awakening.
    Wandering Hold, wander no longer. Fleeing Gate, flee
no more. This is what he will do. This is the sacrifice he
will make, oh so worthy so noble so noble yes and clever
and so very clever and who else but Anomander Rake so
noble and so clever?
    All to fail!
    Child god! It's time! Feel the knife in your hand – feel it!
Now lift it high – the fool sees nothing, suspects nothing, knows
nothing of how I feel, how I do not forget will never forget will
never forget and no, I will never forget!
    Reach high.
    Stab!
    Stab!
    Stab!
    Storm of light, a scattered moon, a rising sun behind
bruised clouds from which brown, foul rain poured down,
Black Coral was a city under siege, and the Tiste Andii
within it could now at last feel the death of their Lord, and
with him the death of their world.
    Was it fair, to settle the burden of long-dead hope upon
one person, to ask of that person so much? Was it not, in
fact, cowardice? He had been their strength. He had been
their courage. And he had paid the Hound's Toll for them
all, centuries upon centuries, and not once had he turned
away.
    As if to stand in his mother's stead. As if to do what she
would not.
    Our Lord is dead. He has left us.
    A people grieved.
    The rain descended. Kelyk ran in bitter streams on the
streets, down building walls. Filled the gutters in mad rush.
Droplets struck and sizzled black upon the hide of Silanah.
This was the rain of usurpation, and against it they felt
helpless.
    Drink deep, Black Coral.
    And dance, yes, dance until you die.
    Monkrat struggled his way up the muddy, root-tangled
slope with the last two children in his arms. He glanced
up to see Spindle crouched at the crest, smeared in clay,
looking like a damned gargoyle. But there was no glee in
the staring eyes, only exhaustion and dread.
    The unnatural rain had reached out to this broken, half-shattered
forest. The old trenches and berms were black
with slime, the wreckage of retaining walls reminding him
of rotting bones and teeth, as if the hillside's flesh had
been torn away to reveal a giant, ravaged face, which now
grinned vacuously at the grey and brown sky.
    The two ex-Bridgeburners had managed to find an even
twenty children, four of them so close to death they'd
weighed virtually nothing, hanging limp in their arms.
The two men had worked through the entire night ferrying
them up to the entrenchments, down into the tunnels
where they could be out of the worst of the rain. They had
scrounged blankets, some food, clean water in