A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

cities in wars at the very edges of the Empire, Felisin had never before witnessed such forces. It was never as common as the tales purported it to be. And the witnessing of magic left scars, a feeling of overwhelming vulnerability in the face of something beyond one's control. It made the world suddenly fey, deadly, frightening and bleak. That day in Unta had shifted her place in the world, or at least her sense of it. And she'd felt off-balance ever since.
    But maybe it wasn't that. Not that at all. Maybe it was what I lived through on the march to the galleys, maybe it was that sea of faces, the storm of hate and mindless fury, of the freedom and hunger to deliver pain writ so plain in all those so very normal faces. Maybe it was the people that sent me reeling.
    She looked over at the severed heads. The eyes did not blink. They were drying, crackling like egg white splashed on hot cobblestones. Like mine. Too much has been seen. Far too much. If demons rose out of the waters around them right now she would feel no shock, only a wonder that they had taken so long to appear and could you be swift in ending it all, now? Please.
    Like a long-limbed ape, Truth came scrambling down from the rigging, landing lightly on the deck and pausing close to her as he brushed dusty rope fibres from his clothes. He had a couple of years on her, yet looked much younger to her eyes. U npocked, smooth skin. The wisps of beard, all too clear eyes. No gallons of wine, no clouds of durhang smoke, no weighty bodies taking turns to push inside, into a place that had started out vulnerable yet was soon walled off from anything real, anything that mattered. I only gave them the illusion of getting inside me, a dead' end pocket. Can you grasp what I'm talking about, Truth?
    He noted her attention, gave her a shy smile. 'He's in the clouds,' he said, his voice hoarse with adolescence.
    'Who is?'
    'The sorcerer. Like an untethered kite, this way and that, trailing streamers of blood.'
    'How poetic, Truth. Go back to being a marine.'
    He reddened, turned away.
    Baudin spoke behind her. 'The lad's too good for you and that's what makes you mean.'
    'What would you know?' she sneered without turning.
    'I can't scry you much, lass,' he admitted. 'But I can scry you some.'
    'So you'd like to believe. Let me know when that hand starts rotting – I want to be there when it's cut off.'
    The oars clacked in counterpoint to the thundering drum. The wind arrived like a gasping exhalation, and the sorcerer's storm was upon them.
     
    Something ragged across his brow awoke Fiddler. He opened his eyes to a mass of bristle ends that suddenly lifted clear to reveal a wizened black face peering critically down. The face concluded its examination with an expression of distaste.
    'Spiders in your beard ... or worse. Can't see them, but I know they're there.'
    The sapper drew a deep breath and winced at the throbbing protest from his broken ribs. 'Get away from me!' he growled. Stinging pain wrapped his thighs, reminders of the gouging claws that had raked them. His left ankle was heavily bandaged – the numbness from his foot was worrying.
    'Can't,' the old man replied. 'No escape is possible. Bargains were sealed, arrangements made. The Deck speaks plain in this. A life given for a life taken, and more besides.'
    'You're Dal Honese,' Fiddler said. 'Where am I?'
    The face split into a wide grin. 'In Shadow. Hee hee.'
    A new voice spoke from behind the strange old man. 'He wakens and you torment him, High Priest. Move aside, the soldier needs air, not airs.'
    'It's a matter of justice,' the High Priest retorted, though he pulled back. 'Your tempered companion kneels before that altar, does he not? These details are vital to understanding.' He took another step back as the massive form of the other speaker moved into view.
    'Ah,' Fiddler sighed. 'The Trell. Memory returns. And your companion ... the Jhag?'
    'He entertains your companions,' the Trell said. 'Feebly, I admit. For all his years, Icarium has never mastered the social grace necessary to put others at ease.'
    'Icarium, the Jhag by that name. The maker of machines, the chaser of time—'
    The Trell showed his canines in a wide, wry smile. 'Aye, lord of the sand grains – though that poetic allusion's lost on most and awkward besides.'
    'Mappo.'
    'Aye again. And your friends name you Fiddler, relieving you of the guise of a Gral horsewarrior.'
    'Hardly matters that I awoke out of character, then,'