'You missed the point,' Ruthan cut in.
'I now think you all did. She said to look across, into the eyes of the Crippled God. To look, and to feel. But you couldn't do it, Kindly, could you? Could you, Fist Sort? Lostara? Any of you?' 'And what of you?' Kindly snapped. 'Not a chance.' 'So she knocked us all down - what was the point of that?' 'Why shouldn't she?' Ruthan Gudd retorted. 'You ask for more from her. And then I nailed her to a damned tree with that madness about serving her. She struck back, and that, friends, was the most human moment from the Adjunct I've yet seen.' He faced them. 'Until then, I was undecided. Would I stay on? Would I ride out, away from all this? And if I left, well, it's not as though anyone could stop me, is it?' 'But,' said Faradan Sort, 'here you are.' 'Yes. I'm with her now for as long as she needs me.' Fist Kindly raised one hand, as if to strike Ruthan Gudd. 'But why?' 'You still don't get it. None of you. Listen. We don't dare look across into the eyes of a suffering god. But, Kindly, she dares. You asked for more from her - gods below, what more can she give? She'll feel all the compassion none of you can afford to feel. Behind that cold iron, she will feel what we can't.' His eyes went flat on Kindly. 'And you asked for more.' The Crippled God The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson