Midnight Tides & The Bonehunters - By Steven Erikson Page 0,637

unknown mortal, that cold-eyed murderer, who had understood nothing. In whose name? For whose liberation was this war being fought? The damned fool.

What curse was it, in the end, to see flaws unveiled, to see the twisted malice of mortals dragged to the surface, exposed to day's light? Who among these followers did not ever seek, wilful or mindless, the purity of self-destruction? In obsession they took death into themselves, but that was but a paltry reflection of the death they delivered upon the land, the water, the very air. Self-destruction making victim the entire world.

Apocalypse is rarely sudden; no, among these mortals, it creeps slow, yet inevitable, relentless in its thorough obliteration of life, of health, of beauty.

Diseased minds and foul souls had drawn her into this world; for the sake of the land, for the chance that it might heal in the absence of its cruellest inflicters of pain and degradation, she sought to expunge them in the breath of plague – no more deserving a fate was imaginable – for all that, she would now die.

She railed. Betrayal!

Five Hounds of Shadow entered the chamber.

Her death. Shadowthrone, you fool.

A Hound flung something from its mouth, something that skidded, spitting and writhing, up against the first step of the dais.

Even in her agony, a core of clarity remained within Poliel. She looked down, seeking to comprehend – even as the Hounds fled the room, round the dais, into the priest-hole – comprehend this cowering, scaled panther, one limb swollen with infection, its back legs and hips crushed – it could not flee. The Hounds had abandoned it here – why?

Ah, to share my fate.

A final thought, meekly satisfying in itself, as the Deragoth arrived, bristling with rage and hunger, Elder as any god, deprived of one quarry, but content to kill what remained.

A broken T'rolbarahl, shrieking its terror and fury.

A broken goddess, who had sought to heal Burn. For such was the true purpose of fever, such was the cold arbiter of disease. Only humans, she reminded herself – her last thought – only humans centre salvation solely upon themselves.

And then the Deragoth, the first enslavers of humanity, were upon her.

'She's a carrier now,' Brokeface said, 'and more. No longer protected, the plague runs wild within her, no matter what happens to Poliel. Once begun, these things follow their own course. Please,' he added as he watched the man attempt to awaken Torahaval, 'come with me.'

The stranger looked up with helpless eyes. 'Come? Where?'

'The Temple of Soliel.'

'That indifferent bitch—'

'Please,' Brokeface insisted. 'You will see. I cannot help but believe her words.'

'Whose words?'

'It's not far. She must be healed.' And he reached down once more, collecting the woman's legs. 'As before. It's not far.'

The man nodded.

Behind them, a single shriek rose from the temple, piercing enough to send fissures rippling through the building's thick walls, dust snapping out from the cracks. Groaning sounds pushed up from beneath them as foundations buckled, tugging at the surrounding streets.

'We must hurry away!' Brokeface said.

Dismounting, dragging a stumbling, gasping Noto Boil with one hand, Paran kicked down the doors to the Temple of Soliel – a modest but most satisfying burst of power that was sufficient, he trusted, to apprise the Sweet Goddess of his present frame of mind.

The girl slipped past him as he crossed the threshold and cast him a surprisingly delighted glance as she hurried ahead to the central chamber.

On the corridor's walls, paintings of figures kneeling, heads bowed in blessing, beseeching or despair – likely the latter with this damned goddess, Paran decided. Depending in folds from the arched ceiling were funeral shrouds, no doubt intended to prepare worshippers for the worst.

They reached the central chamber even as the ground shook – the Grand Temple was collapsing. Paran pulled Noto Boil to his side, then pushed him stumbling towards the altar. With luck it'll bury the damned Deragoth. But I'm not holding my breath.

He drew out a card and tossed it onto the floor. 'Soliel, you are summoned.'

The girl, who had been standing to the right of the altar, suddenly sagged, then looked up, blinking owlishly. Her smile broadened.

Paran vowed, then, that he would seek to recall every detail of the goddess's upon her enforced appearance, so exquisite her bridling fury. She stood behind the altar, as androgynous as her now-dead sister, her long fingers – so perfect for closing eyelids over unseeing eyes – clutching, forming fists at her side, as she said in a grating voice, 'You have