Reaper's Gate & Toll the Hounds - By Steven Erikson Page 0,553

a kind of penance, a kind of self-flagellation. There was need, in his mind, to bear his guilt openly, brazenly, to leave himself undefended and indefensible. This was how he saw his daily pilgrimage to the Great Barrow, although he well knew that some things could never be purged, and that redemption was a dream of the deluded.

Eyes fixed on him from the camps to either side as he continued on towards that massive heap of treasure – wealth of such measure that it could only belong to a dead man, who could not cast covetous eyes upon his hoard, who would not feel its immense weight night and day, who would not suffer beneath its terrible curse. He was tracked, then, by no doubt hardening eyes, the fixation of hatred, contempt, perhaps even the desire of murder. No matter. He understood such sentiments, the purity of such desires.

Armour clanking, chain rustling across the fronts of his thighs as he drew ever closer.

The greater vastness of wealth now lay buried beneath more mundane trinkets, yet it was these meagre offerings that seemed most potent in their significance to Seerdomin. Their comparative value was so much greater, after all. Sacrifice must be weighed by the pain of what is surrendered, and this alone was the true measure of a virtue's worth.

He saw now the glitter of sunlight in the dew clinging to copper coins, the slick glimmer on sea-polished stones in an array of muted colours and patterns. The fragments of glazed ceramics from some past golden age of high culture.

Feathers now bedraggled, knotted strips of leather from which dangled fetishes, gourd rattles to bless newborn babes and sick children. And now, here and there, the picked-clean skulls of the recent dead – a sub-cult, he had learned, centred on the T'lan Imass, who knelt before the Redeemer and so made themselves his immortal servants.

Seerdomin knew that the truth was more profound than that, more breathtaking, and that servitude was not a vow T'lan Imass could make, not to anyone but the woman known as Silverfox. No, they had knelt in gratitude.

That notion could still leave him chilled, wonder awakened in his heart like a gust of surprised breath.

Still, these staring skulls seemed almost profane.

He stepped into the slightly rutted avenue and drew closer. Other pilgrims were placing their offerings ahead, then turning about and making their way back, edging round him with furtive glances. Seerdomin heard more in his wake, a susurration of whispered prayers and low chanting that seemed like a gentle wave carrying him forward.

Reaching the barrow's ragged, cluttered edge, he moved to one side, off the main approach, then settled down into a kneeling position before the shrine, lowering his head and closing his eyes.

He heard someone move up alongside him, heard the soft breathing but nothing else.

Seerdomin prayed in silence. The same prayer, every day, every time, always the same.

Redeemer. I do not seek your blessing. Redemption will never be mine, nor should it, not by your touch, nor that of anyone else. Redeemer, I bring no gift to set upon your barrow. I bring to you naught but myself. Worshippers and pilgrims will hear nothing of your loneliness. They armour you against all that is human, for that is how they make you into a god. But you were once a mortal soul. And so I come, my only gift my company. It is paltry, I know, but it is all I have and all I would offer.

Redeemer, bless these pilgrims around me.

Bless them with peace in their need.

He opened his eyes, then slowly climbed to his feet.

Beside him spoke a woman. 'Benighted.'

He started, but did not face her. 'I have no such title,' he said.

There was faint amusement in her reply, 'Seerdomin, then. We speak of you often, at night, from fire to fire.'

'I do not flee your venom, and should it one day take my life, so it will be.'

All humour vanished from her voice as she seemed to draw a gasp, then said, 'We speak of you, yes, but not with venom. Redeemer bless us, not that.'

Bemused, he finally glanced her way. Was surprised to see a young, unlined face – the voice had seemed older, deep of timbre, almost husky – framed in glistening black hair, chopped short and angled downward to her shoulders. Her large eyes were of darkest brown, the outer corners creased in lines that did not belong to one of her few years. She wore a woollen