An absurd way for her soul to die-

The apparition arrived in a storm of infernal wind, yet it emerged from the wall ghostly, almost transparent, and she felt the beasts and the conveyance tear through her-a momentary glimpse of a manic driver, eyes wide and staring, both legs jutting out straight and splayed and apparently splinted. And still others, on the carriage roof and tossing about on the ends of straps from the sides, expressions stunned and jolted. All of this, sweeping through her, and past-

And a rider lunged into view directly before her, sawing the reins-and this man and his mount were real, solid. Sparks spat out from skidding hoofs, the horse’s eyeless head lifting. Picker staggered back in alarm.

Damned corpses! She stared up at the rider, and then swore. ‘I know you!’

The one-eyed man, enwreathed in the stench of death, settled his horse and looked down upon her, And then he sad, ‘I am Hood’s Herald now, Corporal Picker,’

‘Oh. ls that a promotion?’

‘No, a damned sentence, and you’re not the only one I need to visit, so enough of the sardonic shit and listen to me-’

She bridled. ‘Why? What am I doing here? What’s Hood want with me that he ain’t already got? Hey, take a message back to him! I want to-’

‘I cannot, Picker. Hood is dead.’

‘He’s what?

‘The Lord of Death no longer exists. Gone. For ever more. Listen, I ride to the gods of war. Do you understand, tore-bearer? I ride to all the gods of war.’

Tore-bearer? She sagged. ‘Ah, shit.’

Toc the Younger spoke then, and told her all she needed to know.

When he was done, she stared, the blood drained from her face, and watched as he gathered the reins once more and prepared to leave.

‘Wait!’ she demanded. ‘I need to get out of here! How do I do that, Toc?’

The dead eye fixed upon her one last time. He pointed at the gourds resting on the stone floor to either side of Picker. ‘Drink. Live up to your name. Pick one, Picker.’

‘Are you mad? You just told me where that blood’s come from!’

‘Drink, and remember all that I have told you.’

And then he was gone.

Remember, yes, she would do that. ‘Find the Toblakai. Find the killer and re-mind him… remind him, do you understand me? Then, tore-bearer, lead him to war.

‘Lead him to war

There had been more, much more. None of it anything she could hope to forget. ‘All I wanted to do was retire.’

Cursing under her breath, she walked over to the nearest gourd, crouched down before it. Drink. It’s blood, dammit!

Drink.

To stand in the heart of Dragnipur, to stand above the very Gate of Darkness, this was, for Anomander Rake, a most final act. Perhaps it was desperation. Or a sac-rifice beyond all mortal measure.

A weapon named Vengeance, or a weapon named Grief-either way, where he had been delivered by that sword was a world of his own making. And all the choices that might have been were as dust on the bleak trail of his life.

He was the Son of Darkness. His people were lost. There was, for him, room to grieve, here at the end of things, and he could finally turn away, as his mother had done so long ago. Turn away from his children. As every father must one day do, in that final moment that was death. The notion of forgiveness did not even occur to him, as he stood on the mound of moaning, tattooed bodies.

He was, after all, not the begging sort.

The one exception was Draconus. Ah, but those circumstances were unique, the crime so faceted, so intricately complicated, that it did no good to seek to prise loose any single detail. In any case, the forgiveness he asked for did not demand an answer. All that mattered was that Draconus be given those words. He could do with them as he pleased.

Anomander Rake stood, eyes fixed heavenward, facing that seething conflagra-tion, the descending annihilation, and he did not blink, did not flinch. For he felt its answer deep within him, in the blood of T’iam, the blood of chaos.

He would stand, then, for all those he had chained here. He would stand for all the others as well. And for these poor, broken souls underfoot. He would stand, and face that ferocious chaos.

Until the very last moment. The very last moment.

Like a mass of serpents, the tattoos swarmed beneath him.

Kadaspala had waited for so long. For this one chance. Vengeance against the slayer of a beloved sister, the betrayer of Andarist, noble Andarist, husband and brother. Oh, he had come to suspect what Anomander Rake intended. Sufficient reparation? All but one Tiste Andii would answer ‘yes’ to that question. All but one.

Not Kadaspala! No, not me! Not me not me! Not me not me not me!

I will make yon fail. In this, your last gesture, your pathetic attempt at reconciliation-I will make you fail!

See this god I made? See it? See it see it!

No, you did not expect that expect that expect that, did you now? Did you now?

Nor the knife in its hand. Nor the knife in its hand!

Teeth bared, blind Kadaspala twisted on to his back, the better to see the Son of Darkness, yes, the better to see him. Eyes were not necessary and eyes were not necessary. To see the bastard.

Standing so tall, so fierce, almost within reach.

Atop the mountain of bodies, the moaning bridge of flesh and bone, the sordid barrier at Dark’s door, this living ward-so stupid so stupid! Standing there, eyes lifting up, soul facing down and down and downward-will she sense him? Will she turn? Will she see? Will she understand?

No to all of these things. For Kadaspala has made a god a god a god he has made a god and the knife the knife the knife-

Anomander Rake stands, and the map awakens, its power and his power, awakening.

Wandering Hold, wander no longer. Fleeing Gate, flee no more. This is what he will do. This is the sacrifice he will make, oh so worthy so noble so noble yes and clever and so very clever and who else but Anomander Rake so noble and so clever?

All to fail!

Child god! It’s time! Feel the knife in your hand-feel it? Now lift it high-the fool sees nothing, suspects nothing, knows nothing of how 1 feel, how I do not forget will never forget will never forget and no, I will never forget!

Reach high.

Stab!

Stab!

Stab!

Storm of light, a scattered moon, a rising sun behind bruised clouds from which brown, foul rain poured down, Black Coral was a city under siege, and the Tiste Anclii within it could now at last feel the death of their Lord, and with him the death of their world.

Was it fair, to settle the burden of long-dead hope upon one person, to ask of that person so much? Was it not, in fact, cowardice? He had been their strength. He had been their courage. And he had paid the Hound’s Toll for them all, centuries upon centuries, and not once had he turned away.

As if to stand in his mother’s stead. As if to do what she would not.

Our Lord is dead. He has left us.

A people grieved.

The rain descended. Kelyk ran in bitter streams on the streets, down building walls. Filled the gutters in mad rush. Droplets struck and sizzled black upon the hide of Silanah. This was the rain of usurpation, and against it they felt helpless.

Drink deep, Black Coral.

And dance, yes, dance until you die.

Monkrat struggled his way up the muddy, root-tangled slope with the last two children in his arms. He glanced up to see Spindle crouched at the crest, smeared in clay, looking like a damned gargoyle. But there was no glee in the staring eyes, only exhaustion and dread.

The unnatural rain had reached out to this broken, half-shattered forest. The old trenches and berms were black with slime, the wreckage of retaining walls re-minding him of rotting bones and teeth, as if the hillside’s flesh had been torn away to reveal a giant, ravaged face, which now grinned vacuously at the grey and brown sky.