FuckyeahMalazans

Submission without a word of thanks made plain the surrender, and that could only sting.

FoD Reread: ch. 2

‘They will forge alliances,’ she said. 'They will all war against us.’ Anomandaris shrugged. 'I have nothing better to do today.’

‘You two,’ Hood said, turning away, 'are worse than advocates. And you don’t want to know what I do with the souls of advocates.’ A heartbeat later and the Lord of Death was gone. Menandore frowned. 'Shadowthrone, what are advocates?’ 'A profession devoted to the subversion of laws for profit,’ he replied, his cane inexplicably tapping as he shuffled back into the woods. 'When I was Emperor, I considered butchering them all.’ 'So why didn’t you?’ she asked as he began to fade into a miasma of gloom beneath the trees. Faintly came the reply, 'The Royal Advocate said it’d be a terrible mistake.’

Forged by the gods, the chains shattered like ice, links exploding, flinging shards in a vicious hail. Soldiers cried out, flinched away. The Crippled God remained lying on the ground, motionless. He had carried that weight for so long, he felt unable to move. Yet his chest filled with air, the unyielding constriction now gone. The sudden release from pain left him hollow inside. Trembling took his body, and he turned his head. The mortals were screaming, though he could not hear them. They looked upon him with desperate need, but he no longer understood what they desired of him. And then, blinking, he stared up, not at the hovering, dying dragon, but beyond it. My worshippers. My children. I hear them. I hear their calls. The Crippled God slowly sat up, staring down at his mangled hands, the uneven fingers, the nubs where nails should have been. He studied his scarred, seamed skin, the slack muscles beneath it. Is this mine? Is this how I am? Rising to his feet, his attention was caught by the hundreds of dragons now massing to the south. They had drawn back from the Otataral Dragon, and now had begun writhing, swarming against each other, forming spiralling pillars of scale, wings and dragon flesh, twisting above a more solid mass. The shape towered into the sky, impossibly huge, and from the flattened, elongated ends of those pillars, high above them all, eyes suddenly flared awake. A word whispered into the Crippled God’s mind – faint, yet still voiced in a howl of terror. T'iam. Manifesting. Awakening to slay the Otataral Dragon. The Crippled God saw a man fighting his way closer to where he stood, as if against a whirlwind. Iron in his beard, a familiar face he vaguely recalled, and with that recollection vague emotions rising into his thoughts. There have been sacrifices this day. Made for me, by these strangers. Yet… asking for nothing. Not for themselves. Still, what do they now want from me? I am free. I can hear my children. And yet they are trapped in the heavens. If I call them down, all will be destroyed here. There were others, once – they fell as I did, and so much was damaged, so much was lost. I see them still, trapped in jade, shaped to make a message to these mortal creatures – but that message was never understood, and the voices stayed for ever trapped within. If I call my children down, this world will end in fire. Craning, he stared beseechingly into the heavens, and reached up, as if he might fly into them. The uneven fingers strained on the ends of his misshapen hands, pathetic as broken wings. The bearded man reached him, and now at last the Crippled God could hear his words, could understand them. “You must chain her! Lord! She will accept your chains! You must – T'iam is manifesting! She will destroy everything!” The Crippled God felt his face twisting. “Chain her? I, who have known an eternity in chains? You cannot ask this of me!” “Chain her or she dies!” “Then death shall be her release!” “Lord – if she dies, then we all die! I beg you, chain her!” He studied this mortal. “She accepts this?” “Yes! And quickly – D'rek is dying beneath us.” “But my power is alien – I have no means of binding it to this world, mortal.” “Find a way! You have to!” He was freed. He could walk from this place. He could leave these mortals – not even the deadly power of the Otataral Dragon could harm him. Otataral, after all, is nothing more than the scab this world makes to answer the infection. And what is that infection? Why, it is me. The Crippled God looked down upon this mortal. He kneels, as all broken mortals kneel. Against the cruelty of this and every world, a mortal can do nothing but kneel. Even before a foreign god. And what of the love I possess? Perhaps there is nothing – but no, there is no such thing as foreign love. He closed his eyes, released his mind to this world. And found them waiting for him.

FoD Reread: ch. 3

Soldiers who had fought in a just war – a war they could see as just, anyway – could hold on to a sense of pride, every sacrifice a worthy one. And so fortified, they could leave it behind, finding a new life, a different life. And no matter how grotesque the injustices of the world around them, the world of the present, that veteran could hold on to the sanctity of what he or she had lived through. But fighting an unjust war… that was different. If one had any conscience at all, there was no escaping the crimes committed, the blood on the hands, the sheer insanity of that time – when honour was a lie, duty a weapon that silenced, and courage itself was stained and foul. Suddenly, then, there was no defense against injustice, no sanctuary to be found in memories of a righteous time. And so anger seethed upward, filling every crack, building into rage. There was no way to give it a voice, no means of releasing it, and so the pressure built. When it finally overwhelmed, then suicide seemed the easiest option, the only true escape. Seerdomin could see the logic of that, but logic was not enough. Anyone could reason themselves into a corner, and so justify surrender. It was even easier when courage itself was vulnerable to abuse and sordid mockery. Because, after all, to persist, to live on, demanded courage, and that was only possible when the virtue remained worthy of respect.