A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

despite her hopes, her prayers. 'I cannot,'
she whispered.
    'You shall. Guardians are chosen. K'ell Sag Churok, Rythol,
Kor Thuran. Shi'gal Gu'Rull. One Daughter Gunth Mach.'
    'I cannot,' Kalyth said again. 'I have no . . . talents. I
am no Destriant – I am blind to whatever it is a Destriant
needs. I cannot find a Mortal Sword, Matron. Nor a Shield
Anvil. I am sorry.'
    The enormous reptile shifted her massive weight, and
the sound was as of boulders settling in gravel. Lambent
eyes fixed upon Kalyth, radiating waves of stricture.
    'I have chosen you, Destriant Kalyth. It is my children
who are blind. The failure is theirs, and mine. We have failed
every war. I am the last Matron. The enemy seeks me. The
enemy will destroy me. Your kind thrives in this world – to that
not even my children are blind. Among you, I shall find new
champions. My Destriant must find them. My Destriant leaves
with the dawn.'
    Kalyth said no more, knowing any response was useless.
After a moment, she bowed and then walked, feebly, as if
numb with drink, from the Nest.
    A Shi'gal would accompany them. The significance of
this was plain. There would be no failure this time. To fail
was to receive the Matron's displeasure. Her judgement.
Three K'ell Hunters and the One Daughter, and Kalyth
herself. If they failed . . . against the deadly wrath of a
Shi'gal Assassin, they would not survive long.
    Come the dawn, she knew, she would begin her last
journey.
    Out into the wastelands, to find Champions that did not
even exist.
    And this, she now understood, was the penance set upon
her soul. She must be made to suffer for her cowardice. I
should have died with the rest. With my husband. My children.
I should not have run away. I now must pay for my selfishness.
    The one mercy was that, when the final judgement
arrived, it would come quickly. She would not even feel,
much less see, the killing blow from the Shi'gal.
    A Matron never produced more than three assassins at
any one time, and their flavours were anaethema, preventing
any manner of alliance. And should one of them decide
that the Matron must be expunged, the remaining two, by
their very natures, would oppose it. Thus, each Shi'gal
warded the Matron against the others. Sending one with
the Seeking was a grave risk, for now there would be only
two assassins defending her at any time.
    Further proof of the Matron's madness. To so endanger
herself, whilst at the same time sending away her One
Daughter – her only child with the potential to breed – was
beyond all common sense.
    But then, Kalyth was about to march to her own death.
What did she care of these terrifying creatures? Let the war
come. Let the mysterious enemy descend upon Ampelas
Rooted and all the other Rooted, and cut down every last
one of these K'Chain Che'Malle. The world would not miss
them.
    Besides, she knew all about extinction. The only real
curse is when you find yourself the last of your kind. Yes, she
well understood such a fate, and she knew the true depth
of loneliness – no, not that paltry, shallow, self-pitying
game played out by people everywhere – but the cruel
comprehension of a solitude without cure, without hope
of salvation.
    Yes, everyone died alone. And there may be regrets.
There may be sorrows. But these are as nothing to what
comes to the last of a breed. For then there can be no
evading the truth of failure. Absolute, crushing failure.
The failure of one's own kind, sweeping in from all sides,
finding this last set of shoulders to settle upon, with a
weight no single soul can withstand.
    There had been a residual gift of sorts to the language of
the K'Chain Che'Malle, and it now tortured Kalyth. Her
mind had awakened, far beyond what she had known in
her life before now. Knowledge was no blessing; awareness
was a disease that stained the entire spirit. She could gouge
out her own eyes and still see too much.
    Did the shamans of her tribe feel such crushing guilt,
when recognition of the end finally arrived? She remembered
anew the bleakness in their eyes, and understood
it in ways she had not comprehended before, in the life
she had once lived. No, she could do naught but curse the
deadly blessings of these K'Chain Che'Malle. Curse them
with all her heart, all her hate.
    Kalyth began her descent. She needed the closeness of
Root; she needed the decrepit machinery on all sides, the
drip of viscid oils and the foul, close air. The world was
broken. She was the last of the Elan, and now her sole