He would never be one of the multitude. And he had proved it, again and again, and again. And he would continue to prove it.
A crown was within reach. A kingship waited to be claimed. Mastery not over something as mundane as an empire-that game had grown stale long ago-but over a realm. An entity consisting of all the possible forces of existence. The power of earthly flesh, every element unbound, the coruscating will of belief, the skein of politics, religion, social accord, sensibilities, woven from the usual tragic roots of past ages golden and free of pain and new ages bright with absurd promise. While through it all fell the rains of oblivion, the cascading torrent of failure and death, suffering and misery, a god broken and for ever doomed to remain so-oh, Kallor knew he could usurp such a creature, leave it as powerless as his most abject subject.
All-all of it-within his reach.
He kicked again at the embers, the too-small branches that had made up this shortlived fire, saw countless twigs fall into white ash. A few picked bones were visible amidst the coals, all that remained of the pathetic creature he had devoured earlier this night.
A smear of clouds cut a swath across the face of the stars and the dust-veiled moon had yet to rise. Somewhere out on the plain coyotes bickered with the night. He had found trader tracks this past day, angling northwest-southeast. Well-worn wagon ruts, the tramping of yoked oxen. Garbage strewn to either side. Rather dis¬appointing, all things considered; he had grown used to solitude, where the only sign of human activity had been the occasional grassfire on the western horizon-plains nomads and their mysterious ways-something to do with the bhederin herds and the needs for various grasses, he suspected. If they spied him they wisely kept their distance. His passing through places had a way of agitating ancient spirits, a detail he had once found irritating enough to hunt the things down and kill them, but no longer. Let them whine and twitch, thrash and moan in the grip of timorous nightmares, and all that. Let their mortal children cower in the high grasses until he was well and gone.
The High King had other concerns. Ami other matters with which he could occupy his mind.
He sat straighter, every sense stung awake by a burgeoning of power to the north. Slowly rising to his feet, Kallor stared into the darkness. Yes, something foaming awake, what might it be? And… yes, another force, and that one he well recognized-Tiste Andii.
Breath hissed between worn teeth. Of course, if he continued on this path he would have come full circle, back to that horrid place-what was its name? Yes, Coral. The whole mess with the Pannion Domin, oh, the stupidity! The pathetic, squalid idiocy of that day!
Could this be those two accursed hunters? Had they somehow swept round him? Were they now striking south to finally face him? Well, he might welcome that. He’d killed his share of dragons, both pure and Soletaken. One at a time, of course. Two at once… that could be a challenge.
For all this time, their pursuit had been a clumsy, witless thing. So easily. fooled, led astray-he could have ambushed them countless times, and perhaps he should have done just that. At the very least, he might have come to understand the source of their persistent-yes, pathological-relentlessness. Had he truly angered Rake that much? It seemed ridiculous. The Son of Darkness was not one to become so obsessed; indeed, none of the Tiste Andii were, and was that not their fundamental weakness? This failing of will?
How he had so angered Korlat and Orfantal? Was it because he did not stay, did not elect to fight alongside all the doomed fools on that day? Let the Malazans bleed! They were our enemies! Let the T’lan Imass betray Silverfox-she deserved it!
It was not our war, Brood. Not our war, Rake. Why didn’t you listen to me?
Bah, come and face me, then, Korlat. Orfantal. Come, let us be done with this rubbish!
The twin flaring of powers ebbed suddenly.
Somewhere far to the east the coyotes resumed their frantic cries.
He looked skyward, saw the gleam of the rising moon, its ravaged scowl of reflected sunlight and the blighted dust of its stirred slumber. Look at you. Your face is my face, let us be truthful about that. Beaten and boxed about, yet we climb upright time and again, to resume our trek.
The sky cares nothing for you, dear one. The stars don’t even see you.
But you will march on, because it is what you do.
A final kick at the coals. Let the grasses burn to scar his wake, he cared not. No, he would not come full circle-he never did, which was what had kept him alive for this long. No point in changing anything, was there?
Kallor set out. Northward. There were, if he recalled, settlements, and roads, and a main trader track skirling west and north, out across the Cinnamon Wastes, all the way to Darujhistan.
Where he had an appointment to keep. A destiny to claim by right of sword and indomitable will.
The union’s light took hold of his shadow and made a mess of it. Kallor walked on, oblivious of such details
Three scrawny horses, one neglected ox and a wagon with a bent axle and a cracked brake: the amassed inherited wealth of the village of Morsko comprised only these. Bodies left to rot on the tavern floor-they should have set fire to the place, Nimander realized. Too late now, too hard the shove away from that horrid scene. And what of the victims on their crosses, wrapped and leaking black ichors into the muddy earth? They had left them as well.
Motionless beneath a blanket in the bed of the wagon, Clip stared sightlessly at the sideboards. Flecks of the porridge they had forced down his throat that morning studded his chin. Flies crawled and buzzed round his mouth. Every now and then, faint trembling rippled through his body.
Stolen away.
Noon, the third day now on this well-made cobbled, guttered road. They had just passed south of the town of Heath, which had once been a larger settlement, perhaps a city, and might weUreturn to such past glory, this time on the riches of kelyk, a dilute form of saemankelyk, the Blood of the Dying God. These details and more they had learned from the merchant trains rolling up and down this road, scores of wagons setting out virtually empty to villages and towns east of Bastion-to Outlook itself-then returning loaded with amphorae of the foul drink, wagons groaning beneath the weight, back to some form of central distri¬bution hub in Bastion.
The road itself ran south of these settlements-all of which nested above the shoreline of Pilgrim Lake. When it came opposite a village there would be a junction, with a track or wend leading north. A more substantial crossroads marked the intersection of levelled roads to the reviving cities of Heath, Kel Tor and, somewhere still ahead, Sarn.
Nimander and his group did not travel disguised, did not pretend to be other than what they were, and it was clear that the priests, fleeing ahead of them, had delivered word to all their ken on the road and, from there, presumably into the towns and villages. At the junctions, in the ramshackle waystations and storage sheds, food and water and forage for the animals awaited them.
The Dying God-or his priests-had blessed them, apparently, and now awaited their pleasure in Bastion. The one who had sacrificed his soul to the Dying God was doubly blessed, and some final consummation was anticipated, prob¬ably leading to Clip’s soul’s being thoroughly devoured by an entity who was cursed to suffer for eternity. Thus accursed, it was little wonder the creature welcomed company.
All things considered, it was well that their journey had been one of ease and accommodation. Nimander suspected that his troupe would have been rather more pleased to carve their way through hordes of frenzied fanatics, assuming they could manage such a thing.