‘The Crippled God.’
‘Yes, Samar Dev.’
‘Do you actually think it can be healed?’
‘I do not know. There is physical damage and then there is spiritual damage. The former is more easily mended than the latter. He is sustained by rage, I suspect. His last source of power, perhaps his only source of power whilst chained in this realm.’
‘I doubt he’s in the negotiating mood,’ Samar Dev said, ‘And even if he was, he’s anathema to the likes of me.’
‘It is an extraordinary act of courage,’ said Tulas Shorn, ‘to come to know a stranger’s pain. To even consider such a thing demands a profound dispensation, a willingness to wear someone else’s chains, to taste their suffering, to see with one’s own eyes the hue cast on all things - the terrible stain that is despair.’ The Tiste Edur slowly shook its head. ‘I have no such courage. It is, without doubt, the rarest of abilities.’
None spoke then for a time. The fire ate itself, indifferent to witnesses, and in its hunger devoured all that was offered it, again and again, until night and the disinterest of its guests left it to starve, until the wind stirred naught but ashes.
Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson
