Reaper's Gate & Toll the Hounds - By Steven Erikson Page 0,741

his eyes haunted and bleak. The others were no better. None of them had wanted this. And what they had done here . . . it had all been for Clip.

'Blood,' said Clip, echoing Nimander, and he slowly climbed to his feet. He glared at the others. 'Look at you. By Mother Dark, I'd swear you've been rolling in the waste pits of some abattoir. Get cleaned up or you won't have my company for much longer.' He paused, and his glare hardened into something crueller. 'I smell murder. Human cults are pathetic things. From now on, spare me your lust for killing innocents. I'd rather not be reminded of whatever crimes you committed in the name of the Son of Darkness. Yes,' he added, baring his teeth, 'he has so much to answer for.'

Standing over him, weapons whirling, spinning. Seerdomin watched her with his one remaining eye, waiting for the end to all of this, an end he only faintly regretted. The failure, his failure, yes, that deserved some regret. But then, had he truly believed he could stop this apparition?

He said I was dying.

I'm dying again.

All at once, she was still. Her eyes like hooded lanterns, her arms settling as if the dance had danced its way right out of her and now spun somewhere unseen. She stared down at him without recognition, and then she turned away.

He heard her stumbling back the way she had come.

'That was long enough.'

Seerdomin turned his head, saw the Redeemer standing close. Not a large man. Not in any way particularly impressive. Hard enough, to be sure, revealing his profession as a soldier, but otherwise unremarkable. 'What made you what you are?' he asked – or tried to – his mouth filled with blood that frothed and spattered with every word.

The Redeemer understood him none the less. 'I don't know. We may possess ambition, and with it a self-image both grandiose and posturing, but they are empty things in the end.' Then he smiled. 'I do not recall being such a man.'

'Why did she leave, Redeemer?'

The answer was long in coming. 'You had help, I believe.

And no, I do not know what will come of that. Can you wait? I may need you again.'

Seerdomin managed a laugh. 'Like this?'

'I cannot heal you. But I do not think you will . . . cease. Yours is a strong soul, Seerdomin. May I sit down beside you? It has been a long time since I last had someone to speak to.'

Well, here I bleed. But there is no pain. 'As long as I can,' he said, 'you will have someone to speak to.'

The Redeemer looked away then, so that Seerdomin could not see his sudden tears.

'He didn't make it,' Monkrat said, straightening.

Gradithan glowered down at Seerdomin's corpse. 'We were so close, too. I don't understand what's happened, I don't understand at all.'

He turned slightly and studied the High Priestess where she knelt on the muddy floor of the tent. Her face was slack, black drool hanging from her mouth. 'She used it up. Too soon, too fast, I think. All that wasted blood . . .'

Monkrat cleared his throat. 'The visions—'

'Nothing now,' Gradithan snapped. 'Find some more kelyk.'

At that Salind's head lifted, a sudden thirst burning in her eyes. Seeing this, Gradithan laughed. 'Ah, see how she worships now. An end to all those doubts. One day, Monkrat, everyone will be like her. Saved.'

Monkrat seemed to hesitate.

Gradithan turned back and spat on to Seerdomin's motionless, pallid visage. 'Even you, Monkrat,' he said. 'Even you.'

'Would you have me surrender my talents as a mage, Urdo?'

'Not yet. But yes, one day, you will do that. Without regrets.'

Monkrat set off to find another cask of kelyk.

Gradithan walked over to Salind. He crouched in front of her, leaned forward to lick the drool from her lips. 'We'll dance together,' he said. 'Are you eager for that?'

He saw the answer in her eyes.

High atop the tower, in the moment that Silanah stirred – cold eyes fixed upon the pilgrim encampment beyond the veil of Night – Anomander Rake had reached out to still her with the lightest of touches.

'Not this time, my love,' he said in a murmur. 'Soon. You will know.'

Slowly, the enormous dragon settled once more, eyes closing to the thinnest of slits.

The Son of Darkness let his hand remain, resting there on her cool, scaled neck. 'Do not fear,' he said, 'I will not restrain you next time.'

He sensed the departure of Spinnock Durav, on a