Rake scowled. 'That title is held by those fools who think me worthy of worship. I dislike it, Baruk, and would not hear it again from you. Does fear hold me in check? No. As powerful as fear is, it is no match for what compels me. Duty.' The Lord's eyes had shifted into a dun tone as they remained fixed on his hands, which he now turned palms up. 'You have a duty to your city, Baruk. It drives you, shapes you. I'm no stranger to such a thing. Within Moon's Spawn are the last of the Tiste Andii on this world. We are dying, Alchemist. No cause seems great enough to return to my people the zest for life. I try, but inspiration has never been a great talent of mine. Even this Malazan Empire could not make us rise to defend ourselves – until we ran out of places to run to.

'We still die on this continent. Better that it be by the sword.' He let his hands slip from his lap. 'Imagine your spirit dying while your body lives on. Not for ten years, not for fifty. But a body that lives on for fifteen, twenty thousand years.'

Rake rose swiftly. He looked down upon a silent Baruk, and smiled a smile that launched a dagger of pain into the alchemist's heart. 'Thus duty holds me, yet a duty that is in itself hollow. Is it enough to preserve the Tiste Andii? Simply preserve them? Do I raise Moon's Spawn into the heavens, where we live on, beyond any risk, any threat? What, then, will I be preserving? A history, a particular point of view.' He shrugged. 'The history is done, Baruk, and the Tiste Andii point of view is one of disinterest, stoicism and quiet, empty despair. Are these gifts to the world worthy of preservation? I think not.'

Baruk had no immediate response. What Anomander Rake had described was almost beyond comprehension, yet its anguished cry reached through to the alchemist. 'And yet,' he said, 'here you are. Allied with the Empire's victims. Do you stand alone in this, Anomander Rake? Do your people approve?'

'They care not,' Rake said. 'They accept my commands. They follow me. They serve Caladan Brood when I ask them to. And they die in the mud and forests of a land that is not their own, in a war not their own, for a people who are terrified of them.'

Baruk sat forward. 'Then why? Why do you do all this?'