A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

relevance.
    Kettle was more than just a child.
    She was also dead.
    Thanks to this careless omission, the Ceda's measure of fear was not as great as it should have been. Indeed, as it needed to be. Thanks to this omission, and in the last moments before the Finadd parted company with Kuru Qan, a crossroads was reached, and then, inexorably, a path was taken.
    The night air was pleasant, a warm wind stirring the rubbish in the gutters as Tehol and Bugg paused at the foot of the steps to Scale House.
    'That was exhausting,' Tehol said. 'I think I'll go to bed.'
    'Don't you want to eat first, master?'
    'You scrounged something?'
    'No.'
    'So we have nothing to eat.'
    'That's right.'
    'Then why did you ask me if I wanted to eat?'
    'I was curious.'
    Tehol anchored his fists on his hips and glared at his manservant. 'Look, it wasn't me who nearly got us investigated in there!'
    'It wasn't?'
    'Well, not all me. It was you, too. Poking eyes and all that.'
    'Master, it was you who sent me there. You who had the idea of offering a contract.'
    'Poking eyes!'
    'All right, all right. Believe me, master, I regret my actions deeply!'
    'You regret deeply?'
    'Fine, deeply regret.'
    'That's it, I'm going to bed. Look at this street. It's a mess!'
    'I'll get around to it, master, if I find the time.'
    'Well, that should be no problem, Bugg. After all, what have you done today?'
    'Scant little, it's true.'
    'As I thought.' Tehol cinched up his trousers. 'Never mind. Let's go, before something terrible happens.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    Out of the white
Out of the sun's brittle dismay
We are the grim shapes
Who haunt all fate
    Out of the white
Out of the wind's hoarse bray
We are the dark ghosts
Who haunt all fate
    Out of the white
Out of the snow's worldly fray
We are the sword's wolves
Who haunt all fate
    Jheck Marching Chant
    Fifteen paces, no more than that. Between emperor and slave. A stretch of Letherii rugs, booty from some raid a century or more past, on which paths were worn deep, a pattern of stolen colour mapping stunted roads across heroic scenes. Kings crowned. Champions triumphant. Images of history the Edur had walked on, indifferent and intent on their small journeys in this chamber.
    Udinaas wasn't prepared to ascribe any significance to these details. He had come to his own pattern, a gaze unwavering and precise, the mind behind it disconnected, its surface devoid of ripples and its depths motionless.
    It was safer that way. He could stand here, equidistant between two torch sconces and so bathed by the light of neither, and in this indeterminate centre he looked on, silently watching as Rhulad discarded his bearskin, to stand naked before his new wife.
    Udinaas might have been amused, had he permitted the emotion, to see the coins burned into the emperor's penis pop off, one, two, two more, then four, as Rhulad's desire became apparent. Coins thumping to the rug-strewn floor, a few bouncing and managing modest rolls before settling. He might have been horrified at the look in the emperor's red-rimmed eyes as he reached out, beckoning Mayen closer. Waves of sympathy for the hapless young woman were possible, but only in the abstract.
    Witnessing this macabre, strangely comic moment, the slave remained motionless, without and within, and the bizarre reality of this world played itself out without comment.
    Her self-control was, at first, absolute. He took her hand and drew it down, pulling her closer. 'Mayen,' the emperor said in a rasp, in a voice that reached for tenderness and achieved little more than rough lust. 'Should I reveal to you that I have dreamed of this moment?' A harsh laugh. 'Not quite. Not like this. Not... in so much ... detail.'
    'You made your desires known, Rhulad. Before ... this.'
    'Yes, call me Rhulad. As you did before. Between us, nothing need change.'
    'Yet I am your empress.'
    'My wife.'
    'We cannot speak as if nothing has changed.'
    'I will teach you, Mayen. I am still Rhulad.'
    He embraced her then, an awkward, child-like encirclement in gold. 'You need not think of Fear,' he said. 'Mayen, you are his gift to me. His proof of loyalty. He did as a brother should.'
    'I was betrothed—'
    'And I am emperor! I can break the rules that would bind the Edur. The past is dead, Mayen, and it is I who shall forge the future! With you at my side. I saw you looking upon me, day after day, and I could see the desire in your eyes. Oh, we both knew that Fear would have you in the end. What could we do? Nothing.