A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

were those
giant catfish he'd seen in that flooded realm, the one with all
the monsters padding the shorelines. Iskaral Pust shivered
at the recollection, but a true lover of fishing would understand
the lengths an aficionado would go to in the hunt for
worthy spawn. Even the extreme necessity of killing demons
and such. Granted, that particular sojourn had been a little
hairy. But he'd come back with a string of beauties.
    As a child he'd wanted to learn the art of angling, but
the women and elders in the tribe weren't interested in
that, no, just weirs and collecting pools and nets. That was
harvesting, not fishing, but young Iskaral Pust, who'd once
run away with a caravan and had seen the sights of Li Heng
– for a day and a half, until his great-grandmother had come
to retrieve him and drag him screaming like a gutted piglet
back to the tribe – well, Iskaral Pust had discovered the
perfect expression of creative predation, an expression which
was – as everyone knew – the ideal manly endeavour.
    Soon, then, and he and his mule would have the ultimate
excuse to leave the hoary temple of home. Going
fishing, dear. Ah, how he longed to say those words.
    'You are an idiot,' Mogora said.
    'A clever idiot, woman, and that's a lot more cleverer
than you.' He paused, eyeing her, then said, 'Now all I need
to do is wait until she's asleep, so I can cut off all her hair –
she won't notice, it's not like we have silver mirrors hanging
about, is it? I'll mix it all up, the hair from her head,
from her ears, from under her arms, from—'
    'You think I don't know what you're up to?' Mogora asked,
then cackled as only an old woman begotten of hyenas could.
'You are not just an idiot. You're also a fool. And deluded, and
immature, and obsessive, and petty, spiteful, patronizing,
condescending, defensive, aggressive, ignorant, wilful, inconsistent,
contradictory, and you're ugly as well.'
    'So what of it?'
    She gaped at him like a toothless spider. 'You have a
brain like pumice stone – throw stuff at it and it just sinks
in! Disappears. Vanishes. Even when I piss on it, the piss
just poofs! Gone! Oh how I hate you, husband. With all
your obnoxious, smelly habits – gods, picking your nose for
breakfast – I still get sick thinking about it – a sight I am
cursed never to forget—'
    'Oh be quiet. There's nutritious pollen entombed in
snot, as everyone well knows—'
    A heavy sigh interrupted him, and both Dal Honese
looked down at Mappo. Mogora scrabbled over and began
stripping away the webs from the Trell's seamed face.
    Iskaral Pust leaned closer. 'What's happened to his skin?
It's all lined and creased – what did you do to him, woman?'
    'The mark of spiders, Magi,' she replied. 'The price for
healing.'
    'Every strand's left a line!'
    'Well, he was no beauty to begin with.'
    A groan, then Mappo half-lifted a hand. It fell back and
he groaned again.
    'He's now got a spider's brain, too,' Iskaral predicted.
'He'll start spitting on his food – like you do, and you dare
call picking my nose disgusting.'
    'No self-respecting creature does what you did this morning,
Iskaral Pust. You won't get no spiders picking their
noses, will you? Ha, you know I'm right.'
    'No I don't. I was just picturing a spider with eight legs
up its nose, and that reminded me of you. You need a haircut,
Mogora, and I'm just the man to do it.'
    'Come near me with intentions other than amorous and
I'll stick you.'
    'Amorous. What a horrible thought—'
    'What if I told you I was pregnant?'
    'I'd kill the mule.'
    She leapt at him.
    Squealing, then spitting and scratching, they rolled in
the dust.
    The mule watched them with placid eyes.
     
    Crushed and scattered, the tiles that had once made the
mosaic of Mappo Runt's life were little more than faint
glimmers, as if dispersed at the bottom of a deep well.
Disparate fragments he could only observe, his awareness of
their significance remote, and for a seemingly long time
they had been retreating from him, as if he was slowly, inexorably
floating towards some unknown surface.
    Until the silver threads arrived, descending like rain,
sleeting through the thick, murky substance surrounding
him. And he felt their touch, and then their weight, halting
his upward progress, and, after a time of motionlessness,
Mappo began sinking back down. Towards those broken
pieces far below.
    Where pain awaited him. Not of the flesh – there was no
flesh, not yet – this was a searing of the soul, the