A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

and if challenged would easily overwhelm
Asane's fears and the host of obsessions plaguing the others
– Breath's drowning, Rauto's miserable marriage, Last's
meaningless life of diffidence, Sheb's hatred and Nappet's
delight in viciousness. And now the conversations fell
away, leaving naught but the crunch and thud of bared feet
on the rough ground, and the low moan of the ceaseless
wind.
    High above, a score of capemoths tracked the lone figure
walking across the Wastelands. They had been drawn by
the sound of voices, only to find this solitary, gaunt figure.
Skin of dusty green, tusks framing its mouth. Carrying a
sword but otherwise naked. A lone wanderer, who spoke
in seven voices, who knew himself by seven names. He was
many, but he was one. They were all lost, and so was he.
    The capemoths hungered for his life to end. But it
had been weeks. Months. In the meantime, they just
hungered.
    There were patterns and they demanded consideration.
The elements remained disarticulated, however, in floating
tendrils, in smears of loose black like stains swimming
in his vision. But at least he could now see, and that was
something. The rotted cloth had pulled away from his eyes,
tugged by currents he could not feel.
    The key to unlocking everything would be found in
the patterns. He was certain of that. If only he could draw
them together, he would understand; he would know all
he needed to know. He would be able to make sense of the
visions that tore through him.
    The strange two-legged lizard, all clad in black gleaming
armour, its tail nothing more than a stub, standing on a
stone landing of some sort, whilst rivers of blood flowed
down gutters to each side. Its unhuman eyes fixed unblinking
on the source of all that blood – a dragon, nailed to
a latticework of enormous wooden beams, the spikes rusthued
and dripping with condensation. Suffering roiled
down from this creature, a death denied, a life transformed
into an eternity of pain. And from the standing lizard, cold
satisfaction rose in a cruel penumbra.
    In another, two wolves seemed to be watching him from
a weathered ridge of grasses and bony outcrops. Guarded,
uneasy, as if measuring a rival. Behind them, rain slanted
down from heavy clouds. And he found himself turning
away, as if indifferent to their regard, to walk across a
denuded plain. In the distance, dolmens of some sort rose
from the ground, scores of them, arranged without any
discernable order, and yet all seemed identical – perhaps
statues, then. He drew closer, frowning at the shapes, so
oddly surmounted in jutting cowls, their hunched, narrow
backs to him, tails curled round. The ground they crouched
on glittered as if strewn with diamonds or crushed glass.
    Even as he closed in on these silent, motionless sentinels,
moments from reaching the nearest one, a heavy
shadow slipped over him and the air was suddenly frigid. In
wrought despair, he halted, looked up.
    Nothing but stars, each one drifting as if snapped from
its tether, like motes of dust on a slowly draining pool. Faint
voices sinking down, touching his brow like flecks of snow,
melting in the instant, all meaning lost. Arguments in the
Abyss, but he understood none of them. To stare upward
was to reel, unbalanced, and he felt his feet lift from the
earth until he floated. Twisting round, he looked down.
    More stars, but emerging from their midst, a dozen
raging suns of green fire, slashing through the black fabric
of space, fissures of light bleeding through. The closer they
came, the more massive they grew, blinding him to all else,
and the maelstrom of voices rose to a clamour, and what
had once felt like flakes of snow, quickly melting upon his
heated brow, now burned like fire.
    If he could but draw close the fragments, make the
mosaic whole, and so comprehend the truth of the
patterns. If he could –
    Swirls. Yes, they are that. The motion does not deceive, the
motion reveals the shape beneath.
    Swirls, in curls of fur .
    Tattoos – see them now – see them!
    All at once, as the tattoos settled into place, he knew
himself.
    I am Heboric Ghost Hands. Destriant to a cast down god.
I see him –
    I see you, Fener.
    The shape, so massive, so lost. Unable to move.
    His god was trapped, and like Heboric, was mute witness
to the blazing jade suns as they bore down. He and his god
were in their path, and these were forces that could not be
pushed aside. No shield existed solid enough to block what
was coming.
    The Abyss cares