A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

little
demon, we knew that, even then – and you knew her better
than us, me and Kalam, we only met her once, in Malaz
City. But you, you were like her uncle, which means you
got some explaining to do!'
    Fiddler stared at the man, at his wide eyes. 'Me? You've
lost your mind, Quick. Listen to you! Blaming me, for her!
Wasn't nothing to do with me!'
    'Stop it, both of you,' Kalam said. 'You're frightening the
soldiers behind us. Look, we're all too nervous right now,
about all sorts of things, to be able to make sense of any of
this, assuming there's any sense to be made. People choose
their own lives, what they do, where they end up, it don't
mean some god's playing around. So, Whiskeyjack's little
sister is now Leoman's lover, and they're both hiding out in
the Queen of Dreams' warren. All right, better that than
crumbling bones in the ashes of Y'Ghatan, right? Well?'
    'Maybe, maybe not,' Fiddler said.
    'What in Hood's name does that mean?' Kalam
demanded.
    Fiddler drew a deep, shaky breath. 'We must have told
you, it's not like it was secret or anything, and we always
used it as an excuse, to explain her, the way she was and all
that. Never so she could hear, of course, and we said it to
take its power away—'
    'Fiddler!'
    The sapper winced at Kalam's outburst. 'Now who's
frightening everyone—'
    'You are! And never mind everyone else – you're
frightening me, damn you!'
    'All right. She was born to a dead woman –
Whiskeyjack's stepmother, she died that morning, and the
baby – Dunsparrow – well, she was long in coming out, she
should have died inside, if you know what I mean. That's
why the town elders gave her up to the temple, to Hood's
own. The father was already dead, killed outside Quon, and
Whiskeyjack, well, he was finishing his prenticeship. We
was young then. So me and him, we had to break in and
steal her back, but she'd already been consecrated, blessed
in Hood's name – so we took its power away by talking
about it, ha ha, making light and all that, and she grew up
normal enough. More or less. Sort of ...' He trailed away,
refused to meet the two sets of staring eyes, then scratched
at his singed face. 'We need us a Deck of Dragons, I
think ...'
     
    Apsalar, four paces behind the trio, smiled as the wizard
and assassin both simultaneously cuffed Sergeant Fiddler. A
short-lived smile. Such revelations were troubling.
Whiskeyjack had always been more than a little reticent
about where he'd come from, about the life before he
became a soldier. Mysteries as locked away as the ruins
beneath the sands. He'd been a mason, once, a worker in
stone. She knew that much. A fraught profession among
the arcana of divination and symbolism. Builder of barrows,
the one who could make solid all of history, every monument
to grandeur, every dolmen raised in eternal gestures of
surrender. There were masons among many of the Houses
in the Deck of Dragons, a signifier of both permanence and
its illusion. Whiskeyjack, a mason who set his tools down, to
embrace slaughter. Was it Hood's own hand that guided him?
    It was believed by many that Laseen had arranged
Dassem Ultor's death, and Dassem had been the Mortal
Sword of Hood – in reality if not in name – and the centre
of a growing cult among the ranks of the Malazan armies.
The empire sought no patron from among the gods, no
matter how seductive the invitation, and in that Laseen
had acted with singular wisdom, and quite possibly at the
command of the Emperor. Had Whiskeyjack belonged to
Dassem's cult? Possibly – still, she had seen nothing to
suggest that was so. If anthing, he had been a man entirely
devoid of faith.
    Nor did it seem likely that the Queen of Dreams would
knowingly accept the presence of an avatar of Hood within
her realm. Unless the two gods are now allies in this war. The
very notion of war depressed her, for gods were as cruel and
merciless as mortals. Whiskeyjack's sister may be as much an
unwitting player in all this as the rest of us. She was not prepared
to condemn the woman, and not yet ready to
consider her an ally, either.
    She wondered again at what Kalam and Quick Ben were
planning. Both were formidable in their own right, yet
intrinsic in their methods was staying low, beneath notice.
What was obvious – all that lay on the surface – was invariably
an illusion, a deceit. When the time came to
choose sides, out in the open, they were likely to surprise
everyone.
    Two men, then, whom no-one could truly trust. Two
men whom not