A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

they?'
    Something crackled in the portalway of the gate. Shadowthrone and the Hounds flinched.
    Paran continued, wondering at his own courage, to bait these Ascendants. Always despised authority, didn't I? 'Half-way between life and death – this promise costs me nothing, you see.'
    'Liar, the only Warren that can touch you now is—'
    'Death,' Paran said. 'Of course,' he added, 'someone else ... interceded, and was certain to leave long before you and your too-loud Hounds arrived.'
    The King of High House Shadow edged forward. 'Who? What does it plan? Who opposes us?'
    'Find your own answers, Shadowthrone. You do understand, don't you, that if you send me on my way now, your ... opposition will seek other means? Knowing nothing of who their next tool is, how will you sniff out their next move? You'll be left darting at shadows.'
    'Easier to follow you,' the god conceded. 'I must speak with my companion—'
    'As you like,' Paran interrupted. 'I wish I could stand ...'
    The god rasped laughter. 'If you stand, you walk. One way only. You have a reprieve – and if Hood comes to gather you to your feet, the guiding hand is his, not ours. Excellent. And if you live, so shall my shadow follow you.'
    Paran grunted. 'My shadow's a crowded place, these days.' His eyes fell once again on the Hounds. The creatures watched him still, their eyes faint coals. I'll have you yet. As if fanned by his silent promise, the red glows sharpened.
    The god resumed speaking, but the world had darkened around Paran, fading, dwindling, until the voice was gone, and with it all awareness but the faint, renewed spinning of a coin.
     
    An unknown span of time passed in which Paran wandered through memories he had thought long lost – his days as a child clinging to his mother's dress and taking his first, tottering steps; the nights of storm when he raced down the chill hallway to his parents' bedroom, tiny feet slapping on the cold stone; holding the hands of his two sisters as they stood waiting on the hard cobbles of the courtyard – waiting, waiting for someone. The images seemed to lurch sideways in his head. His mother's dress? No, an old woman in the service of the household. Not his parents' bedroom, but those of the servants; and there, in the courtyard with his sisters, they'd stood half the morning, awaiting the arrival of their mother and father, two people they barely knew.
    In his mind scenes replayed themselves, moments of mysterious import, hidden significance, pieces of a puzzle he couldn't recognize, shaped by hands not his own and with a purpose he couldn't fathom. A tremor of fear travelled the length of his thoughts as he sensed that something – someone – was busy reordering the formative events of his life, turning them on end and casting them into the present new shadows. Somehow, the guiding hand ... played. With him, with his life.
    It seemed an odd kind of death—
    Voices reached him.
    'Aw, hell.' A face bent close to Paran's own, looked into his open blank eyes. The face was Picker's. 'He didn't stand a chance,' she said.
    Sergeant Antsy spoke from a few feet away. 'Nobody in the Ninth would've done him like this,' he said. 'Not right here in the city.'
    Picker reached out and touched the chest wound, her fingers surprisingly soft on his torn flesh. 'This isn't Kalam's work.'
    'You all right here?' Antsy asked. 'I'm going to get Hedge and Mallet, and whoever else has shown up.'
    'Go ahead,' Picker replied, seeking and finding the second wound, eight inches below the first. 'This one came later, right-handed and weak.'
    A very odd death indeed, Paran thought. What held him here? Had there been another ... place? A place of heat, searing yellow light? And voices, figures faint, indistinct, there beneath the arch of ... of crowds strangely held in place, eyes closed, mouths open. A chorus of the dead ... Had he gone somewhere only to return to these real voices, these real hands on his flesh? How could he see through the empty glass of his eyes, or feel the woman's gentle touch on his body? And what of the pain, rising as from a great depth like a leviathan?
    Picker withdrew her hands and rested her elbows on her thighs as she crouched before Paran. 'Now, how come you're still bleeding, Captain? Those knife wounds are at least an hour old.'
    The pain reached the surface. Paran felt his gummy lips split. The hinges of his jaw cracked and he drew in a savage gasp. Then screamed.
    Picker bolted backwards, her sword