A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

and random, the imminent collision one of chance rather than design, although in her bones Felisin knew different. Would the helmed guards step forward, seek to guide the priest to one side, lead him safely through the Round?
    'I think not,' said the man squatting on her right. His half-closed eyes, buried deep in their orbits, flashed with something that might have been amusement. 'Seen you flicking your gaze, guards to priest, priest to guards.'
    The big, silent man on her left slowly rose to his feet, pulling the chain with him. Felisin winced as the shackle yanked at her when the man folded his arms across his bare, scarred chest. He glared at the approaching priest but said nothing.
    'What does he want with me?' Felisin asked in a whisper. 'What have I done to earn a priest of Hood's attention?'
    The squatting man rocked back on his heels, tilting his face into the late afternoon sun. 'Queen of Dreams, is this self-centred youth I hear from those full, sweet lips? Or just the usual stance of noble blood around which the universe revolves? Answer me, I pray, fickle Queen!'
    Felisin scowled. 'I felt better when I thought you asleep – or dead.'
    'Dead men do not squat, lass, they sprawl. Hood's priest comes not for you but for me.'
    She faced him then, the chain rattling between them. He looked more a sunken-eyed toad than a man. He was bald, his face webbed in tattooing, minute, black, square-etched symbols hidden within an overall pattern covering skin like a wrinkled scroll. He was naked but for a ragged loincloth, its dye a faded red. Flies crawled all over him; reluctant to leave their sated thirst they danced on – but not, Felisin realized, to Hood's bleak orchestration. The tattooed pattern covered the man – the boar's face overlying his own, the intricate maze of script-threaded, curled fur winding down his arms, covering his exposed thighs and shins, the detailed hoofs etched into the skin of his feet. Felisin had until now been too self-absorbed, too numb with shock to pay any attention to her companions in the chain-line: this man was a priest of Fener, the Boar of Summer, and the flies seemed to know it, understand it enough to alter their frenzied motion. She watched with morbid fascination as they gathered at the stumps at the ends of the man's wrists, the old scar tissue the only place on him unclaimed by Fener, but the paths the sprites took to those stumps touched not a single tattooed line. The flies danced a dance of avoidance – but for all that, they were eager to dance.
    The priest of Fener had been ankle-shackled last in the line. Everyone else had the narrow iron bands fastened around their wrists. His feet were wet with blood and the flies hovered there but did not land. She saw his eyes flick open as the sun's light was suddenly blocked.
    Hood's priest had arrived. Chain stirred as the man on Felisin's left drew back as far as the links allowed. The wall at her back felt hot, the tiles painted with scenes of imperial pageantry now slick through the thin weave of her slave tunic. Felisin stared at the fly-shrouded creature standing wordless before the squatting priest of Fener. She could see nothing of exposed flesh, nothing of the man himself – the flies had claimed all of him and beneath them he lived in darkness where even the sun's heat could not touch him. The cloud around him spread out now and Felisin shrank back as countless cold insect legs touched her legs, crawled swiftly up her thighs. She pulled her tunic's hem close around her, clamping her legs tight.
    The priest of Fener spoke, his wide face split into a humourless grin. 'The Thirsting Hour's well past, acolyte. Go back to your temple.'
    Hood's servant made no reply but it seemed the buzzing changed pitch until the music of the wings vibrated in Felisin's bones.
    The priest's deep eyes narrowed and his tone shifted. 'Ah, well now. Indeed I was once a servant of Fener but no longer, not for years – Fener's touch cannot be scrubbed from my skin. Yet it seems that while the Boar of Summer has no love for me, he has even less for you.'
    Felisin felt something shiver in her soul as the buzzing rapidly shifted, formed words that she could understand. Secret ... to show ... now...
    'Go on then,' the once-servant of Fener growled. 'Show me.'
    Perhaps Fener acted then, the swatting hand of a furious god – Felisin would remember the moment and think on it often – or the secret was the mocking of immortals, a joke far