Brokeface flinched. 'There is a beast… in your eyes. Reveal yourself, Malazan. You are not as the others.'
'Tell her,' Paran said, 'I come to make an offering.'
The head cocked to one side. 'You seek to appease the Grey Goddess?'
'In a manner of speaking. But I should tell you, we have very little time.'
'Very little? Why?'
'Take me to her and I will explain. But quickly.'
'She does not fear you.'
'Good.'
The man studied Paran for a moment longer, then he gestured with his scythe. 'Follow, then.'
There had been plenty of altars before which she had knelt over the years, and from them, one and all, Torahaval Delat had discovered something she now held to be true. All that is worshipped is but a reflection of the worshipper. A single god, no matter how benign, is tortured into a multitude of masks, each shaped by the secret desires, hungers, fears and joys of the individual mortal, who but plays a game of obsequious approbation.
Believers lunged into belief. The faithful drowned in their faith.
And there was another truth, one that seemed on the surface to contradict the first one. The gentler and kinder the god, the more harsh and cruel its worshippers, for they hold to their conviction with taut certainty, febrile in its extremity, and so cannot abide dissenters. They will kill, they will torture, in that god's name. And see in themselves no conflict, no matter how bloodstained their hands.
Torahaval's hands were bloodstained, figuratively now but once most literally. Driven to fill some vast, empty space in her soul, she had lunged, she had drowned; she had looked for some external hand of salvation – seeking what she could not find in herself. And, whether benign and love-swollen or brutal and painful, every god's touch had felt the same to her – barely sensed through the numbed obsession that was her need.
She had stumbled onto this present path the same way she had stumbled onto so many others, yet this time, it seemed there could be no going back. Every alternative, every choice, had vanished before her eyes.
The first strands of the web had been spun more than fourteen months ago, in her chosen home city Karashimesh, on the shores of the inland Karas Sea – a web she had since, in a kind of lustful wilfulness, allowed to close ever tighter.
The sweet lure from the Grey Goddess, in spirit now the poisoned lover of the Chained One – the seduction of the flawed had proved so very inviting. And deadly. For us both. This was, she realized as she trailed Bridthok down the Aisle of Glory leading to the transept, no more than the spreading of legs before an inevitable, half-invited rape. Regret would come later if at all.
Perhaps, then, a most appropriate end.
For this foolish woman, who never learned how to live.
The power of the Grey Goddess swirled in thick tendrils through the battered-down doorway, so virulent as to rot stone.
Awaiting Bridthok and Torahaval at the threshold were the remaining acolytes of this desperate faith. Septhune Anabhin of Omari; and Sradal Purthu, who had fled Y'Ghatan a year ago after a failed attempt to kill that Malazan bitch, Dunsparrow. Both looked shrunken, now, some essence of their souls drained away, dissolving in the miasma like salt in water. Pained terror in their eyes as both turned to watch Bridthok and Torahaval arrive.
'Sribin is dead,' Septhune whispered. 'She will now choose another.'
And so she did.
Invisible, a hand huge and clawed – more fingers than could be sanely conceived – closed about Torahaval's chest, spears of agony sinking deep. A choked gasp burst from her throat and she staggered forward, pushing through the others, all of whom shrank back, gazes swimming with relief and pity – the relief far outweighing the pity. Hatred for them flashed through Torahaval, even as she staggered into the altar chamber; eyes burning in the acid fog of pestilence she lifted her head, and looked upon Poliel.
And saw the hunger that was desire.
The pain expanded, filled her body – then subsided as the clawed hand withdrew, the crusted talons pulling loose.
Torahaval fell to her knees, slid helplessly in her own sweat that had pooled on the mosaic floor beneath her.
Ware what you ask for. Ware what you seek.
The sound of horse hoofs, coming from the Aisle of Glory, getting louder.
A rider comes. A rider? What – who dares this – gods below, thank you, whoever you are. Thank you. She still clung to the edge. A few breaths more, a few more…
Sneering, Brokeface pushed past the cowering priests at the threshold.
Paran scanned the three withered, trembling figures, and frowned as they each in turn knelt at the touch of his regard, heads bowing.