Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

Blisters rose, then broke, spurting thick, yellow liquid.

Screams of unbearable, unimaginable pain filled the plaza, the body on the flagstones spasming as muscle and fat dissolved beneath the skin, then boiled, breaking through.

Yet the man did not die.

Itkovian sheathed his sword.

The Malazan was the first to comprehend. His hand snapped forward, closed on the Shield Anvil's arm. 'By the Abyss, do not-'

'Captain Norul.'

Face white beneath the rim of her helm, the woman settled a hand on the grip of her sword. 'Captain Paran,' she said in a taut, brittle voice, 'withdraw your touch.'

He swung on her. 'Aye, even you recoil at what he plans-'

'Nevertheless, sir. Release him or I will kill you.'

The Malazan's eyes glittered strangely at that threat, but Itkovian could spare no thought for the young captain. He had a responsibility. Rath'Fener had been punished enough. His pain must end.

And who shall save me?

Paran relinquished his grip.

Itkovian bent down to the writhing, barely recognizable shape on the flagstones. 'Rath'Fener, hear me. Yes, I come. Will you accept my embrace?'

For all the envy and malice within the tortured priest, all that led to the betrayal, not just of Brukhalian — the Mortal Sword — but of Fener himself, some small measure of mercy remained in the man's soul. Mercy, and comprehension. His body jerked away, limbs skidding as he sought to crawl from Itkovian's shadow.

The Shield Anvil nodded, then gathered the suppurating figure into his arms and rose.

I see you recoil, and know it for your final gesture. One that is atonement. To this, I cannot but answer in kind, Rath'Fener. Thus. I assume your pain, sir. No, do not fight this gift. I free your soul to Hood, to death's solace -

Paran and the others saw naught but the Shield Anvil standing motionless, Rath'Fener in his arms. The rendered, blood-streaked priest continued to struggle for a moment longer, then he seemed to collapse inward, his screams falling into silence.

The man's life unfolded in Itkovian's mind. Before him, the priest's path to betrayal. He saw a young acolyte, pure of heart, cruelly schooled not in piety and faith, but in the cynical lessons of secular power struggles. Rule and administration was a viper's nest, a ceaseless contest among small and petty minds with illusory rewards. A life within the cold halls of the Thrall that had hollowed out the priest's soul. The self filled the new cavern of lost faith, beset by fears and jealousies, to which malevolent acts were the only answer. The need for preservation made every virtue a commodity, to be traded away.

Itkovian understood him, could see each step taken that led, inevitably, to the betrayal, the trading of lives as agreed between the priest and the agents of the Pannion Domin. And within that, Rath'Fener's knowledge that he had in so doing wrapped a viper about himself whose kiss was deadly. He was dead either way, but he had gone too far from his faith, too far to ever imagine he might one day return to it.

I comprehend you, now, Rath'Fener, but comprehension is not synonymous with absolution. The justice that is your punishment does not waver. Thus, you were made to know pain.

Aye, Fener should have been awaiting you; our god should have accepted your severed hands, so that he might look upon you following your death, that he might voice the words prepared for you and you alone — the words on your skin. The final atonement to your crimes. This is as it should have been, sir.

But Fener is gone.

And what holds you now has. other desires.

I now deny it the possession of you -

Rath'Fener's soul shrieked, seeking to pull away once more. Carving words through the tumult: Itkovian! You must not! Leave me with this, I beg you. Not for your soul — I never meant — please, Itkovian -

The Shield Anvil tightened his spiritual embrace, breaking the last barriers. No-one is to be denied their grief, sir, not even you.

But barriers, once lowered, could not choose what would pass through.

The storm that hit Itkovian overwhelmed him. Pain so intense as to become an abstract force, a living entity that was itself a thing filled with panic and terror. He opened himself to it, let its screams fill him.

On a field of battle, after the last heart has stilled, pain remains. Locked in soil, in stone, bridging the air from each place to every other, a web of memory, trembling to a silent song. But for Itkovian, his vow denied the gift of silence. He could hear that song. It filled him entire. And he was its counterpoint. Its answer.

I have you now, Rath'Fener. You are found, and so I. answer.

Suddenly, beyond the pain, a mutual awareness — an alien presence. Immense power. Not malign, yet profoundly … different. From that presence: storm-tossed confusion, anguish. Seeking to make of the unexpected gift of a mortal's two hands… something of beauty. Yet that man's flesh could not contain that gift.

Horror within the storm. Horror … and grief.

Ah, even gods weep. Commend yourself, then, to my spirit. I will have your pain as well, sir.

The alien presence recoiled, but it was too late. Itkovian's embrace offered its immeasurable gift-

— and was engulfed. He felt his soul dissolving, tearing apart — too vast!

There was, beneath the cold faces of gods, warmth. Yet it was sorrow in darkness, for it was not the gods themselves who were unfathomable. It was mortals. As for the gods — they simply paid.

We — we are the rack upon which they are stretched.

Then the sensation was gone, fleeing him as the alien god succeeded in extracting itself, leaving Itkovian with but fading echoes of a distant world's grief — a world with its own atrocities, layer upon layer through a long, tortured history. Fading … then gone.

Leaving him with heart-rending knowledge.

A small mercy. He was buckling beneath Rath'Fener's pain and the growing onslaught of Capustan's appalling death as his embrace was forced ever wider. The clamouring souls on all sides, not one life's history unworthy of notice, of acknowledgement. Not one he would turn away. Souls in the tens of thousands, lifetimes of pain, loss, love and sorrow, each leading to — each riding memories of its own agonized death. Iron and fire and smoke and falling stone. Dust and airlessness. Memories of piteous, pointless ends to thousands and thousands of lives.

I must atone. I must give answer. To every death. Every death.

He was lost within the storm, his embrace incapable of closing around the sheer immensity of anguish assailing him. Yet he struggled on. The gift of peace. The stripping away of pain's trauma, to free the souls to find their way … to the feet of countless gods, or Hood's own realm, or, indeed, to the Abyss itself. Necessary journeys, to free souls trapped in their own tortured deaths.

I am the. the Shield Anvil. This is for me. to hold. hold on. Reach — gods! Redeem them, sir! It is your task. The heart of your vows — you are the walker among the dead in the field of battle, you are the bringer of peace, the redeemer of the fallen. You are the mender of broken lives. Without you, death is senseless, and the denial of meaning is the world's greatest crime to its own children. Hold, Itkovian. hold fast -

But he had no god against which to set his back, no solid, intractable presence awaiting him to answer his own need. And he was but one mortal soul…

Yet, I must not surrender. Gods, hear me! I may not be yours. But your fallen children, they are mine. Witness, then, what lies behind my cold face. Witness!

In the plaza, amidst a dreadful silence, Paran and the others watched as Itkovian slowly settled to his knees. A rotting, lifeless corpse was slumped in his arms. The lone, kneeling figure seemed — to the captain's eyes — to encompass the exhaustion of the world, an image that burned into his mind, and one that he knew would never leave him.