Reaper's Gate & Toll the Hounds - By Steven Erikson Page 0,554

robe of russet in which green strands threaded down, but the robe hung open, unbelted, revealing a pale green linen blouse cut short enough to expose a faintly bulging belly. From her undersized breasts he judged that she was not with child, simply not yet past the rounded softness of adolescence.

She met his eyes in a shy manner that once again startled him. 'We call you the Benighted, out of respect. And all who arrive are told of you, and by this means we ensure that there is no theft, no rape, no crime at all. The Redeemer has chosen you to guard his children.'

'That is untrue.'

'Perhaps.'

'I had heard that no harm befell the pilgrims this close to the Great Barrow.'

'Now you know why.'

Seerdomin was dumbfounded. He could think of nothing to say to such a notion. It was madness. It was, yes, unfair. 'Is it not the Redeemer who shows us,' said the woman, 'that burdens are the lot of us all? That we must embrace such demands upon our souls, yet stand fearless, open and welcoming?'

'I do not know what the Redeemer shows – to anyone.' His tone was harsher than he'd intended. 'I have enough burdens of my own. I will not accept yours – I will not be responsible for your safety, or that of any other pilgrim. This – this . . .' This is not why I am here! Yet, much as he wanted to shout that out loud, instead he turned away, marched back to the avenue.

Pilgrims flinched from his path, deepening his anger.

Through the camp, eyes set on the darkness ahead, wanting to be once more within its chill embrace, and the city, too. The damp grey walls, the gritty cobbles of the streets, the musty cave of a tavern with its surround of pale, miserable faces – yes, back to his own world. Where nothing was asked of him, nothing demanded, not a single expectation beyond that of sitting at a table with the game arrayed before him, the twist and dance of a pointless contest.

On to the road, into the swirl of lost voices from countless useless ghosts, his boots ringing on the stones.

Damned fools!

Down at the causeway spanning the Citadel's moat, blood leaked out from bodies sprawled along its length, and in the north sky something terrible was happening. Lurid slashes like a rainbow gone mad, spreading in waves that devoured darkness. Was it pain that strangled the very air? Was it something else burgeoning to life, shattering the universe itself?

Endest Silann, a simple acolyte in the Temple of Mother Dark, wove drunkenly round the bodies towards the Outer Gate, skidding on pools of gore. Through the gate's peaked arch he could see the city, the roofs like the gears of countless mechanisms, gears that could lock with the sky itself, with all creation. Such was Kharkanas, First Born of all cities. But the sky had changed. The perfect machine of existence was broken – see the sky!

The city trembled, the roofs now ragged-edged. A wind had begun to howl, the voice of the multihued light-storm as it lashed out, flared with thunderous fire.

Forsaken. We are forsaken!

He reached the gate, fell against one pillar and clawed at the tears streaming from his eyes. The High Priestess, cruel poet, was shrieking in the nave of the Temple, shrieking like a woman being raped. Others – women all – were writhing on the marble floor, convulsing in unison, a prostrate dance of macabre sensuality. The priests and male acolytes had sought to still the thrashing limbs, to ease the ravaged cries erupting from tortured throats with empty assurances, but then, one by one, they began to recoil as the tiles grew slick beneath the women, the so-called Nectar of Ecstasy – and no, no man could now pretend otherwise, could not but see this the way it was, the truth of it.

They fled. Crazed with horror, yes, but driven away by something else, and was it not envy? Civil war had ignited, deadly as that storm in the sky. Families were being torn asunder, from the Citadel itself down to the meanest homes of the commonry. Andii blood painted Kharkanas and there was nowhere to run.

Through the gate, and then, even as despair choked all life from Endest Silann, he saw him approaching. From the city below. His forearms sheathed in black glistening scales, his bared chest made a thing of natural armour. The blood of Tiam ran riot through him,