Steven Erikson - The Crippled God

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

In addition to those in Dust of Dreams

The Malazans

Himble Thrup

Seageant Gaunt-Eye

Corporal Rib

Lap Twirl

Sad

Burnt Rope

The Host

Ganoes Paran, High Fist and Master of the Deck

High Mage Noto Boil

Outrider Hurlochel

Fist Rythe Bude

Captain Sweetcreek

Imperial Artist Ormulogun

Warleader Mathok

Bodyguard T’morol

Gumble

The Khundryl

Widow Jastara

The Snake

Sergeant Cellows

Corporal Nithe

Sharl

The T’lan Imass: The Unbound

Urugal the Woven

Thenik the Shattered

Beroke Soft Voice

Kahlb the Silent Hunter

Halad the Giant

The Tiste Andii

Nimander Golit

Spinnock Durav

Korlat

Skintick

Desra

Dathenar Gowl

Nemanda

The Jaghut: The Fourteen

Gathras

Sanad

Varandas

Haut

Suvalas

Aimanan

Hood

The Forkrul Assail: The Lawful inquisitors

Reverence

Serenity

Equity

Placid

Diligence

Abide

Aloft

Calm

Belie

Freedom

Grave

The Watered: The Tiers Of Lesser assail

Amiss

Exigent

Hestand

Festian

Kessgan

Trissin

Melest

Haggraf

The Tiste Liosan

Kadagar Fant

Aparal Forge

Iparth Erule

Gaelar Throe

Eldat Pressan

Others

Absi

Spultatha

K’rul

Kaminsod

Munug

Silanah

Apsal’ara

Tulas Shorn

D’rek

Gallimada

Korabas

Cotillion drew two daggers. His gaze fell to the blades. The blackened iron surfaces seemed to swirl, two pewter rivers oozing across pits and gouges, the edges ragged where armour and bone had slowed their thrusts. He studied the sickly sky’s lurid reflections for a moment longer, and then said, ‘I have no intention of explaining a damned thing.’ He looked up, eyes locking. ‘Do you understand me?’

The figure facing him was incapable of expression. The tatters of rotted sinew and strips of skin were motionless upon the bones of temple, cheek and jaw. The eyes held nothing, nothing at all.

Better, Cotillion decided, than jaded scepticism. Oh, how he was sick of that. ‘Tell me,’ he resumed, ‘what do you think you’re seeing here? Desperation? Panic? A failing of will, some inevitable decline crumbling to incompetence? Do you believe in failure, Edgewalker?’

The apparition remained silent for a time, and then spoke in a broken, rasping voice. ‘You cannot be so … audacious.’

‘I asked if you believed in failure. Because I don’t.’

‘Even should you succeed, Cotillion. Beyond all expectation, beyond, even, all desire . They will still speak of your failure.’

He sheathed his daggers. ‘And you know what they can do to themselves.’

The head cocked, strands of hair dangling and drifting. ‘Arrogance?’

‘Competence,’ Cotillion snapped in reply. ‘Doubt me at your peril.’

‘They will not believe you.’

‘I do not care, Edgewalker. This is what it is.’

When he set out, he was not surprised that the deathless guardian followed. We have done this before . Dust and ashes puffed with each step. The wind moaned as if trapped in a crypt. ‘Almost time, Edgewalker.’

‘I know. You cannot win.’

Cotillion paused, half turned. He smiled a ravaged smile. ‘That doesn’t mean I have to lose, does it?’

Dust lifted, twisting, in her wake. From her shoulders trailed dozens of ghastly chains: bones bent and folded into irregular links, ancient bones in a thousand shades between white and deep brown. Scores of individuals made up each chain, malformed skulls matted with hair, fused spines, long bones, clacking and clattering. They drifted out behind her like a tyrant’s legacy and left a tangled skein of furrows in the withered earth that stretched for leagues.

Her pace did not slow, as steady as the sun’s own crawl to the horizon ahead, as inexorable as the darkness overtaking her. She was indifferent to notions of irony, and the bitter taste of irreverent mockery that could so sting the palate. In this there was only necessity, the hungriest of gods. She had known imprisonment. The memories remained fierce, but such recollections were not those of crypt walls and unlit tombs. Darkness, indeed, but also pressure. Terrible, unbearable pressure.

Madness was a demon and it lived in a world of helpless need, a thousand desires unanswered, a world without resolution. Madness, yes, she had known that demon. They had bargained with coins of pain, and those coins came from a vault that never emptied. She’d once known such wealth.

And still the darkness pursued.

Walking, a thing of hairless pate, skin the hue of bleached papyrus, elongated limbs that moved with uncanny grace. The landscape surrounding her was empty, flat on all sides but ahead, where a worn-down range of colourless hills ran a wavering claw along the horizon.