And so they stood. Silent. Flesh rotted and bloated with gases, puddles of slime spreading round their white, wrinkled feet. A father on whose shoulders Rhulad had ridden, shrieking with laughter, a child atop his god as it ran down the strand with limitless power and strength, with the promise of surety like a gentle kiss on the child’s brow.
A mother-no, enough. I die and die. More deaths, yes, than anyone can imagine. 1 die and I die, and 1 die.
But where is my peace?
See what awaits me? See them!
Rhulad Sengar, Emperor of a Thousand Deaths, sat alone on his throne, dreaming peace. But even death could not offer that.
At that moment his brother, Trull’ Sengar, stood near Onrack, the emlava cubs squalling in the dirt behind them, and watched with wonder as Ben Adaephon Delat, a High Mage of the Malazan Empire, walked out across the shallow river. Unmindful of the glacial cold of that stream that threatened to leave numb his flesh, his bones, the very sentiments of his mind-nothing could deter him from this.
Upon seeing the lone figure appear from the brush on the other side, Quick Ben had halted. And, after a long moment, he had smiled, and under his breath he had said something like: ‘Where else but here? Who else but him?’ Then, with a laugh, the High Mage had set out.
To meet an old friend who himself strode without pause into that broad river.
Another Malazan.
Beside Trull, Onrack settled a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘You, my friend, weep too easily.’
‘I know,’ Trull sighed. ‘It’s because, well, it’s because I dream of such things. For myself; My brothers, my family. My people. The gifts of peace, Onrack-this is what breaks me, again and again.’
‘I think,’ said Onrack, ‘you evade a deeper truth.’
‘I do?’
‘Yes. There is one other, is there not? Not a brother, not kin, not even Tiste Edur. One who offers another kind of peace, for you, a new kind. And this is what you yearn for, and see the echo of, even in the meeting of two friends such as we witness here.
‘You weep when I speak of my ancient love.
‘You weep for this, Trull Sengar, because your love has not been answered, and there is no greater anguish than that.’
‘Please, friend. Enough. Look. I wonder what they are saying to each other?’
‘The river’s flow takes their words away, as it does us all.’ Onrack’s hand tightened on Trull’s shoulder. ‘Now, my friend, tell me of her.’
Trull Sengar wiped at his eyes, then he smiled. ‘There was, yes, a most beautiful woman…’
I went in search of death
In the cast down wreckage
Of someone’s temple nave
I went in search among flowers
Nodding to the wind’s words
Of woeful tales of war
I went among the blood troughs
Behind the women’s tents
All the children that never were
And in the storm of ice and waves
I went in search of the drowned
Among bony shells and blunt worms
Where the grains swirled
Each and every one crying out its name its life its loss
I went on the current roads
That led me nowhere known
And in the still mists afield
Where light itself crept uncertain
I went in search of wise spirits
Moaning their truths in dark loam
But the moss was silent, too damp to remember my search
Finding at last where the reapers sow
Cutting stalks to take the season
I failed in my proud quest
To a scything flint blade
And lying asward lost to summer
Bared as its warm carapace
of youthful promise was sent away
into autumn’s reliquary sky
Until the bones of night
Were nails glittering in the cold
oblivion, and down the darkness
death came to find me
