The Crippled God

I’m never serious. That’s my curse . ‘So, Errastas, if you will not seek the heart of the Crippled God, where will you go now?’
    ‘That is my business,’ he snapped, turning to study the bleached scar crossing the land. ‘Far away.’ He faced Sechul again. ‘Mael finally comprehends what we have done here – but tell me, do you see him? Does he charge towards us now in all his fury? He does not. And Ardata? Know that she too now schemes anew. As does Olar Ethil – the Elders once more approach ascension, a return to rule. There is much to be done.’
    The Errant set off, then. Southward.
    He flees .
    Sechul turned to Kilmandaros. ‘I see my path now, Mother, from this moment onward. Shall I describe it for you? I see myself wandering,lost and alone. With only a growing madness for company. It is a vision – I see it clear as day. Well,’ and his laugh was dry, ‘every pantheon needs a fool, drooling and wild-eyed.’
    ‘My son,’ she said, ‘it is only a plan.’
    ‘Excuse me? What?’
    ‘The Errant. What we have unleashed here cannot be controlled. Now, more than ever, the future is unknown, no matter what he chooses to believe.’
    ‘Can she be chained again, Mother?’
    She shrugged. ‘Anomander Rake is dead. The other Eleint who partook of the chaining, they too are now dead.’
    ‘K’rul—’
    ‘She is loose within him. He can do nothing. The Eleint who come will fight her. They will seek to take her down – but Korabas has long ago surrendered her sanity, and she will fight them to the bitter end. I expect most will die.’
    ‘Mother, please .’
    Kilmandaros sighed. ‘You will not stay with me, my son?’
    ‘To witness your meeting with Draconus? I think not.’
    She nodded.
    ‘Draconus will kill you!’
    She faced him with burning eyes. ‘It was only a plan, my beloved son.’

BOOK SIX
     

     

TO ONE IN CHAINS

If you knew where this path led
Would you have walked it?
If you knew the pain at love’s solemn end
Would you have awakened it?
     
In darkness the wheel turns
In darkness the dust dims
In red fire the wheel burns
In darkness the sun spins
     
If you knew the thought in your head
Would you have spoken it?
If by this one word you betrayed a friend
Would you have uttered it?
     
In darkness the wheel turns
In darkness the dust dims
In red fire the wheel burns
In darkness the sun spins
     
If you knew the face of the dead
Would you have touched it?
If by this coin a soul’s journey to send
Would you have stolen it?
     
In darkness the wheel turns
In darkness the dust dims
In red fire the wheel burns
In darkness the sun spins
     
    Sparak Chant
Psalm VII ‘The Vulture’s Laugh ’
The Sparak Nethem
     

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
     
The faces all in rows will wait
As I take each in my hands
Remembering what it is
To be who I am not.
Will all these struggles
Fade into white?
Or melt like snow on stone
In the heat of dawn?
Do you feel my hands?
These weathered wings
Of dreams of flight
– stripped –
Are gifts worn down.
Still I hold fast and climb sure
Through your eyes –
Who waits for me
Away from the ravaged nests
The scenes of violence
Any searching will easily find
The broken twigs
The tufts of feather and hair
The spilled now drying –
Did you spring alight
Swift away unharmed?
So many lies we leave be
The sweet feeding to make us strong
But the rows are unmoving
And we journey without a step
What I dare you to lose
I surrendered long ago
But what I beg you to find
Must I then lose?
In these rows there are tales
For every line, every broken smile
Draw close then
And dry these tears
For I have a story to tell
     
    The Unwitnessed
Fisher kel Tath
     
    THESE SOLDIERS . THE TWO WORDS HUNG IN HER MIND LIKE MEAT from butcher hooks. They twisted slowly, aimlessly. They dripped, but the drips had begun to slow. Lying on her side atop the packs of wrapped food, Badalle could let her head sink down on one side and see the rough trail stretching away behind them. Not much was being left behind now – barring the bodies – and beneath the light of the Jade Strangers those pale shapes looked like toppled statues of marble lining a long-abandoned road. Things with their stories gone, their histories for ever lost. When she tired of that view, she could set her gaze the opposite way, looking ahead, and from her vantage point the column was like a swollen worm, with thousands of heads upon its elongated back, each one of them slave to the same crawling body.
    Every now and