Dust of Dreams

‘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

Steven Erikson

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