I could ask Endest-ah, no, he is gone from us for the time being. The High Priestess, perhaps. She knows every Tiste Andii poem ever written, for the sole purpose of sneezing at every one of them. Still.
The words haunted him, mocked him with their ambiguity. He preferred things simple and straightforward. Solid like heroic sculpture-those marble and alabaster monuments to some great person who, if truth be known, was nowhere near as great as believed or proclaimed, and indeed looked nothing like the white polished face above the godlike body- oh, Abyss take me, enough of this!
In the camp, in the wake of the Tiste Andii’s departure with the High Priestess half dead in his arms, the bald priest, short and bandy-legged and sodden under rain-soaked woollen robes, hobbled up to Gradithan. ‘You saw?’
The ex-soldier grunted. ‘I was tempted, you know. A sword point, right up back of his skull. Shit-spawned Tiste Andii bastard, what in Hood’s name did he think, comin’ here?’
The priest-a priest of some unknown god somewhere to the south, Bastion, perhaps-made tsk-tsking sounds, then said, ‘The point is, Urdo-’
‘Shut that mouth of yours! That rank ain’t for nobody no more, you under-stand? Never mind the asshole thinkin’ he’s the only one left, so’s he can use it like it was his damned name or something. Never mind, cos he’ll pay for that soon enough.’
‘Humble apologies, sir. My point was, she’s gone now.’
‘What of it?’
‘She was the Redeemer’s eyes-his ears, his everything in the mortal world-and now that Tiste Andii’s gone and taken her away. Meaning we can do, er, as we please.’
At that, Gradithan slowly smiled. Then said in a low, easy voice, ‘What’ve we been doin’ up to now, Monkrat?’
‘While she was here, the chance remained of awakening the Benighted to his holy role. Now we need not worry about either of them.’
‘I was never worried in the first place,’ the once-Seerdomin said in a half-snarl. ‘Go crawl back into your hole, and take whatever boy with you as you fancy-like you say, nothing stopping us now.’
After the horrid creature scurried off, Gradithan gestured to one of his lieu-tenants. ‘Follow that Andii pig back into Night,’ he said. ‘But keep your distance. Then get word to our friends in the city. It’s all taken care of at the Barrow-that’s the message you tell ’em, right? Go on and get back here before dawn and you can take your pick of the women-one you want to keep for a while if you care to, or strangle beneath you for all I give a shit. Go!’
He stood in the rain, feeling satisfied. Everything was looking up, and up. And by squinting, why, he could almost make out that cursed tower with its disgust-i ng dragon edifice-aye, soon it would all come down. Nice and bloody, like.
And though he was not aware of it-not enough to find cause for the sudden shiver that took him-he turned away from that unseeing regard, and so un-knowingly broke contact with sleepy, cold, reptilian eyes that could see far in-deed, through rain, through smoke, through-if so desired-stone walls.
Carved edifice Silanah was not. Sleepless, all-seeing protector and sentinel, beloved of the Son of Darkness, and possessed of absolute, obsidian-sharp judge-ment, most assuredly she was all that. And terrible in wrath? Few mortals could even conceive the truth and the capacity of the implacably just.
Which was probably just as well.
‘Mercy in compassion, no dragon lives.’
When skill with a sword was but passing, something else was needed. Rage. The curse was that rage broke its vessel, sent fissures through the brittle clay, sought out every weakness in the temper, the mica grit that only revealed itself in the edges of the broken shards. No repairs were possible, no glue creeping out when the fragments were pressed back together, to be wiped smooth with a fingertip.
Nimander was thinking about pottery. Web-slung amphorae clanking from the sides of the wagon, the horrid nectar within-a species of rage, perhaps, little dif-ferent from what had coursed through his veins when he fought. Rage in battle was said to be a gift of the gods-he had heard that belief uttered by that Malazan marine, Deadsmell, down in the hold of the Adjunct’s flagship, during one of those many nights when the man had made his way down into the dark belly, jug of rum swinging by an ear in one hand.
At first Nimander had resented the company-as much as did his kin-but the Malazan had persisted, like a sapper undermining walls. The rum had trickled down throats, loosened the hinges of tongues, and after a time all those fortifica-tions and bastions had stretched open their doorways and portals.