A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

power? Or staying there for long? Me
neither. The hoarders of wealth will band together to
destroy such a man or woman. Besides, it is much easier to
create an enemy and wage war, although why such hoarders
of wealth actually believe that they would survive such a
war is beyond me. But they do, again and again. Indeed, it
seems they believe they will outlive civilization itself.'
    'You propose little hope for civilization, Spite.'
    'Oh, my lack of hope extends far beyond mere civilization.
The Trell were pastoralists, yes? You managed the
half-wild bhederin herds of the Masai Plains. Actually, a
fairly successful way of living, all things considered.'
    'Until the traders and settlers came.'
    'Yes, those who coveted your land, driven as they were by
enterprise or the wasting of their own lands, or the poverty
in their cities. Each and all sought a new source of wealth.
To achieve it, alas, they first had to destroy your people.'
    Iskaral Pust scrambled to the Trell's side. 'Listen to you
two! Poets and philosophers! What do you know? You go
on and on whilst I am hounded unto exhaustion by these
horrible squirming things!'
    'Your acolytes, High Priest,' Spite said. 'You are their
god. Indicative, I might add, of at least two kinds of
absurdity.'
    'I'm not impressed by you, woman. If I am their god, why
don't they listen to anything I say?'
    'Maybe,' Mappo replied, 'they are but waiting for you to
say the right thing.'
    'Really? And what would that be, you fat oaf?'
    'Well, whatever it is they want to hear, of course.'
    'She's poisoned you!' The High Priest backed away, eyes
wide. He clutched and pulled at what remained of his hair,
then whirled about and rushed off towards the cabin. Three
bhok'arala – who had been attending him – raced after
him, chittering and making tugging gestures above their
ears.
    Mappo turned back to Spite. 'Where are we going, by the
way?'
    She smiled at him. 'To start, the Otataral Sea.'
    'Why?'
    'Isn't this breeze enlivening?'
    'It's damned chilly.'
    'Yes. Lovely, isn't it?'
     
    A vast oblong pit, lined with slabs of limestone, then walls
of brick, rising to form a domed roof, the single entrance
ramped and framed in limestone, including a massive lintel
stone on which the imperial symbol had been etched
above the name Dujek Onearm, and his title, High Fist.
Within the barrow lanterns had been set out to aid in drying
the freshly plastered walls.
    Just outside; in a broad, shallow bowl half-filled with
slimy clay, basked a large toad, blinking sleepy eyes as it
watched its companion, the imperial artist, Ormulogun,
mixing paints. Oils by the dozen, each with specific
qualities; and pigments culled from crushed minerals, duck
eggs, dried inks from sea-creatures, leaves and roots and
berries; and jars of other mediums: egg whites from turtles,
snakes, vultures; masticated grubs, gull brains, cat urine,
dog drool, the snot of pimps—
    All right, the toad reflected, perhaps not the snot of
pimps, although given the baffling arcanum of artists, one
could never be certain. It was enough to know that people
who delved into such materials were mostly mad, if not to
start with, then invariably so after years spent handling
such toxins.
    And yet, this fool Ormulogun, somehow he persisted,
with his stained hands, his stained lips from pointing the
brushes, his stained beard from that bizarre sputtering
technique when the pigments were chewed in a mouthful
of spit and Hood knew what else, his stained nose from
when paint-smeared fingers prodded, scratched and
explored, his stained breeches from—
    'I know what you're thinking, Gumble,' Ormulogun said.
    'Indeed? Please proceed, then, in describing my present
thoughts.'
    'The earwax of whores and stained this and stained that,
the commentary swiftly descending into the absurd as befits
your inability to think without exaggeration and puerile
hyperbole. Now, startled as you no doubt are, shift that
puny, predictable brain of yours and tell me in turn what I'm thinking. Can you? Hah, I thought not!'
    'I tell you, you grubber of pastes, my thoughts were not
in the least as you just described in that pathetic paucity of
pastiche you dare call communication, such failure being
quite unsurprising, since I am the master of language whilst
you are little more than an ever-failing student of
portraiture bereft of both cogent instruction of craft and,
alas, talent.'
    'You seek to communicate to the intellectually deaf, do
you?'
    'Whilst you paint to