The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

  ‘Nor should they yield love to you, should they? Any of them. The children . . .’

  ‘They should not, no.’

  ‘Because, Toc the Younger, you are the brother of Onos T’oolan. His true brother now. And for all the mercy that once dwelt in your mortal heart, only ghosts remain. They must not love you. They must not believe in you. For you are not the man you once were.’

  ‘Did you think I needed reminding, too, Olar Ethil?’

  ‘I think . . . yes.’

  She was right. He felt inside for the pain he’d thought—he’d believed—he had lived with for so long. As if lived was even the right word. When he found it, he saw at last its terrible truth. A ghost. A memory. I but wore its guise.

  The dead have found me.

  I have found the dead.

  And we are the same.

  ‘Where will you go now, Toc the Younger?’

  He gathered the reins of his horse and looked back at the distant fire. It was a spark. It would not last the night. ‘Away.’

  Snow drifted down, the sky was at peace.

  The figure on the throne had been frozen, lifeless, for a long, long time.

  A fine shedding of dust from the corpse marked that something had changed. Ice then crackled. Steam rose from flesh slowly thickening with life. The hands, gripping the arms of the throne, suddenly twitched, fingers uncurling.

  Light flickered in its pitted eyes.

  And, looking out from mortal flesh once more, Hood, who had once been the Lord of Death, found arrayed before him fourteen Jaghut warriors. They stood in the midst of frozen corpses, weapons out but lowered or resting across shoulders.

  One spoke. ‘What was that war again?’

  The others laughed.

  The first one continued, ‘Who was that enemy?’

  The laughter this time was louder, longer.

  ‘Who was our commander?’

  Heads rocked back and the thirteen roared with mirth.

  The first speaker shouted, ‘Does he live? Do we?’

  Hood slowly rose from the throne, melted ice streaming down his blackened hide. He stood, and eventually the laughter fell away. He took one step forward, and then another.

  The fourteen warriors did not move.

  Hood lowered to one knee, head bowing. ‘I seek . . . penance.’

  A warrior far to the right said, ‘Gathras, he seeks penance. Do you hear that?’

  The first speaker replied. ‘I do, Sanad.’

  ‘Shall we give it, Gathras?’ another asked.

  ‘Varandas, I believe we shall.’

  ‘Gathras.’

  ‘Yes, Haut?’

  ‘What was that war again?’

  The Jaghut howled.

  The Errant was lying on wet stone, on his back, unconscious, the socket of one eye a pool of blood.

  Kilmandaros, breathing hard, stepped close to look down upon him. ‘Will he live?’

  Sechul Lath was silent for a moment, and then he sighed. ‘Live is such a strange word. We know nothing else, after all. Not truly. Not . . . intimately.’

  ‘But will he?’

  Sechul turned away. ‘I suppose so.’ He halted suddenly, cocked his head and then snorted. ‘Just what he always wanted.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s got an eye on a Gate.’

  Her laughter rumbled in the cavern, and when it faded she turned to Sechul and said, ‘I am ready to free the bitch. Beloved son, is it time to end the world?’

  Face hidden from her view, Sechul Lath closed his eyes. Then said, ‘Why not?’

  This ends the Ninth Tale

  of The Malazan

  Book of the Fallen

  THE CRIPPLED GOD

  BOOK TEN OF THE

  MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLEN

  STEVEN ERIKSON

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE CRIPPLED GOD: BOOK TEN OF THE MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLEN

  Copyright © 2011 by Steven Erikson

  Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Bantam Press, a division of Transworld Publishers

  All rights reserved.

  Map by Neil Gower

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  eISBN 9781429969475

  Many years ago one man took a chance on an unknown writer and his first fantasy novel – a novel that had already gone the rounds of publishers a few times without any luck. Without him, without his faith and, in the years that followed, his unswerving commitment to this vast undertaking, there would be no ‘Malazan Book of the Fallen.’ It has been my great privilege to work with a single editor from start to finish, and so I humbly dedicate The Crippled God to my editor and friend, Simon Taylor.

  Dramatis Personae

  In addition to those in Dust of Dreams

  The Malazans

  Himble Thrup

  Sergeant 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

  Silannah

  Apsal’ara

  Tulas Shorn

  D’rek

  Gallimada

  Korabas

  Book One

  ‘He Was A Soldier’

  I am known

  in the religion of age.

  Worship me as a pool

  of blood in your hands.

  Drink me deep.

  It’s bitter fury

  that boils and burns.

  Your knives were small

  but they were many.

  I am named

  in the religion of rage.

  Worship me with your

 
; offhand cuts

  long after I am dead.

  It’s a song of dreams

  crumbled to ashes.

  Your wants overflowed

  but now gape empty.

  I am drowned

  in the religion of rage.

  Worship me unto

  death and down

  to a pile of bones.

  The purest book

  is the one never opened.

  No needs left unfulfilled

  on the cold, sacred day.

  I am found

  in the religion of rage.

  Worship me in a

  stream of curses.

  This fool had faith

  and in dreams he wept.

  But we walk a desert

  rocked by accusations,

  where no man starves

  with hate in his bones.

  Poet’s Night i.iv

  The Malazan Book of the Fallen

  Fisher kel Tath

  Chapter One

  If you never knew

  the worlds in my mind

  your sense of loss

  would be small pity

  and we’ll forget this on the trail.

  Take what you’re given

  and turn away the screwed face.

  I do not deserve it,

  no matter how narrow the strand

  of your private shore.

  If you will do your best

  I’ll meet your eye.

  It’s the clutch of arrows in hand

  that I do not trust

  bent to the smile hitching my way.

  We aren’t meeting in sorrow

  or some other suture

  bridging scars.

  We haven’t danced the same

  thin ice

  and my sympathy for your troubles

  I give freely without thought

  of reciprocity or scales on balance.

  It’s the decent thing, that’s all.

  Even if that thing

  is a stranger to so many.

  But there will be secrets

  you never knew

  and I would not choose any other way.

  All my arrows are buried and

  the sandy reach is broad

  and all that’s private

  cools pinned on the altar.

  Even the drips are gone,

  that child of wants

  with a mind full of worlds

  and his reddened tears.

  The days I feel mortal I so hate.

  The days in my worlds,

  are where I live for ever,

  and should dawn ever arrive

  I will to its light awaken

  as one reborn.

  Poet’s Night iii.iv

  The Malazan Book of the Fallen

  Fisher kel Tath

  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.

  She had brought her ancestors with her and they rattled a chaotic chorus. She had not left a single one behind. Every tomb of her line now gaped empty, as hollowed out as the skulls she’d plundered from their sarcophagi. Silence ever spoke of absence. Silence was the enemy of life and she would have none of it. No, they talked in mutters and grating scrapes, her perfect ancestors, and they were the voices of her private song, keeping the demon at bay. She was done with bargains.

  Long ago, she knew, the worlds – pallid islands in the Abyss – crawled with creatures. Their thoughts were blunt and simple, and beyond those thoughts there was nothing but murk, an abyss of ignorance and fear. When the first glimmers awakened in that confused gloom, they quickly flickered alight, burning like spot fires. But the mind did not awaken to itself on strains of glory. Not beauty, not even love. It did not stir with laughter or triumph. Those fires, snapping to life, all belonged to one thing and one thing only.

  The first word of sentience was justice. A word to feed indignation. A word empowering the will to change the world and all its cruel circumstances, a word to bring righteousness to brutal infamy. Justice, bursting to life in the black soil of indifferent nature. Justice, to bind families, to build cities, to invent and to defend, to fashion laws and prohibitions, to hammer the unruly mettle of gods into religions. All the prescribed beliefs rose out twisting and branching from that single root, losing themselves in the blinding sky.

  But she and her kind had stayed wrapped about the base of that vast tree, forgotten, crushed down; and in their place, beneath stones, bound in roots and dark earth, they were witness to the corruption of justice, to its loss of meaning, to its betrayal.

  Gods and mortals, twisting truths, had in a host of deeds stained what once had been pure.

  Well, the end was
coming. The end, dear ones, is coming. There would be no more children, rising from the bones and rubble, to build anew all that had been lost. Was there even one among them, after all, who had not suckled at the teat of corruption? Oh, they fed their inner fires, yet they hoarded the light, the warmth, as if justice belonged to them alone.

  She was appalled. She seethed with contempt. Justice was incandescent within her, and it was a fire growing day by day, as the wretched heart of the Chained One leaked out its endless streams of blood. Twelve Pures remained, feeding. Twelve. Perhaps there were others, lost in far-flung places, but she knew nothing of them. No, these twelve, they would be the faces of the final storm, and, pre-eminent among them all, she would stand at that storm’s centre.

  She had been given her name for this very purpose, long ago now. The Forkrul Assail were nothing if not patient. But patience itself was yet one more lost virtue.

  Chains of bone trailing, Calm walked across the plain, as the day’s light died behind her.

  ‘God failed us.’

  Trembling, sick to his stomach as something cold, foreign, coursed through his veins, Aparal Forge clenched his jaw to stifle a retort. This vengeance is older than any cause you care to invent, and no matter how often you utter those words, Son of Light, the lies and madness open like flowers beneath the sun. And before me I see nothing but lurid fields of red, stretching out on all sides.

  This wasn’t their battle, not their war. Who fashioned this law that said the child must pick up the father’s sword? And dear Father, did you really mean this to be? Did she not abandon her consort and take you for her own? Did you not command us to peace? Did you not say to us that we children must be as one beneath the newborn sky of your union?

  What crime awoke us to this?

  I can’t even remember.

  ‘Do you feel it, Aparal? The power?’

  ‘I feel it, Kadagar.’ They’d moved away from the others, but not so far as to escape the agonized cries, the growl of the Hounds, or, drifting out over the broken rocks in ghostly streams, the blistering breath of cold upon their backs. Before them rose the infernal barrier. A wall of imprisoned souls. An eternally crashing wave of despair. He stared at the gaping faces through the mottled veil, studied the pitted horror in their eyes. You were no different, were you? Awkward with your inheritance, the heavy blade turning this way and that in your hand.