A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

moment
of life – your birth, your deed, your death. By this you must
measure yourself, in this handful of breaths.
    Your maker wants you to kill.
    You are born now. Your deed awaits. Your death hovers just
beyond it. Child god, what will you do?
    And he felt the god hesitate. He felt it awaken to its own
self, and to the freedom that such awakening offered. Yes,
its maker had sought to shape it. Sire to child, an unbroken
stream of hate and vengeance. To give its own imminent
death all the meaning it demanded.
    Fail in this, and that death will have no meaning at all.
'Yes. But, if I die without achieving what I am made to
do—'
    The god could sense the power that had lifted clear now
rushing down from this extraordinary Tiste Andii with the
silver hair, rushing down along the traceries of the countless
bodies – travelling the strands of the vast web. Down,
and down, into that Gate.
    What was he doing?
    And Ditch smiled as he answered. Friend, know this for
certain. Whatever Anomander Rake now attempts to do, he
does not do it for himself.
    And that statement stunned this child god.
    Not for himself? Was such a thing possible? Did one not
ever choose, first and foremost, for oneself?
    For most, yes, that is true. And when these ones pass, they
are quickly forgotten. Their every achievement grows tarnished.
The recognition comes swift, that they were not greater than
anyone else. Not smarter, not braver. Their motives, ah, such
sordid things after all. For most, I said, but not this one. Not
Anomander Rake.
    'I see. Then, my mortal friend, I . . . I shall do no less.'
    And so, that long arm writhed round, twisting, and the
knife stabbed down, down into Kadaspala's chest.
    The blind Tiste Andii shrieked, and his blood poured
over the packed bodies.
    Slain by his own child. And the web drank deep its
maker's blood.
    Someone crawled alongside Ditch. He struggled to focus
with his one dying and dying eye. A broad face, the skin
flaking off in patches, long thick hair of black slashed
through with red. She held a flint knife in one hand.
    'Take it,' he whispered. 'Take it quick—'
    And so she did.
    Agonizing pain, fire stabbing deep into his skull, and
then . . . everything began to fade.
    And the child god, having killed, now dies.
    Only one man wept for it, red tears streaming down.
Only one man even knew what it had done.
    Was it enough?
    Apsal'ara saw Anomander Rake pause, and then look
down. He smiled. 'Go, with my blessing.'
    'Where?'
    'You will know soon enough.'
    She looked deep into his shining eyes, even as they
darkened, and darkened, and darkened yet more. Until
she realized what she was seeing, and a breath cold as ice
rushed over her. She cried out, recalling where she had felt
that cold before—
    And Apsal'ara, Mistress of Thieves, tossed him the
bloody eye of the god.
    He caught it one-handed.
    'A keepsake,' she whispered, and then rolled clear.
    For this wagon was no place to be. Not with what was
about to happen.
    The pattern sank down, through the heaped forms, even as
the Gate of Darkness rose up to meet it.
    Wander no longer.
    Anomander Rake, still standing, head tilted back, arms
raised, began to dissolve, shred away, as the Gate took hold
of him, as it fed upon him, upon the Son of Darkness.
Upon what he desired, what he willed to be.
    Witnessing this, Draconus sank down to his knees.
    He finally understood what was happening. He finally
understood what Anomander Rake had planned, all along
– this, this wondrous thing.
    Staring upward, he whispered, 'You ask my forgiveness?
When you unravel what I have done, what I did so long
ago? When you heal what I wounded, when you mend what
I broke?' He raised his voice to a shout. 'Rake! There is no
forgiveness you must seek – not from me, gods below, not
from any of us!'
    But there was no way to know if he had been heard. The
man that had been Anomander Rake was scattered into
the realm of Kurald Galain, on to its own long-sealed path
that might – just might – lead to the very feet of Mother
Dark.
    Who had turned away.
    'Mother Dark,' Draconus whispered. 'I believe you
must face him now. You must turn to your children. I
believe your son insists . He demands it. Open your eyes,
Mother Dark. See what he has done! For you, for the Tiste
Andii – but not for himself. See! See and know what he has
done!'
    Darkness awakened, the pattern grasping hold of the
Gate itself, and sinking, sinking down, passing beyond
Dragnipur, leaving for ever the dread