A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 3

bailer and was scooping water from one
of the sculls. 'Want me to help?' she asked.
    'It's all right. Finally, I've got something to do.'
    'Day and night now.'
    The glance he threw her was shy. 'I've never tasted milk
before.'
    Laughing, she repacked her pipe. 'Yes you have. You just
don't remember it.'
    'Ah. I suppose you're right.'
    'Anyway, you're a lot gentler than that little sweet-faced
bloodfly was.'
    'You've not given her a name?'
    'No. Leave that to her new mothers to fight over.'
    'Not even in your own mind? I mean, apart from bloodfly
and leech and horse tick.'
    'Cutter,' she said, 'you don't understand. I give her a real
name I'll end up having to turn round and head back. I'll
have to take her, then.'
    'Oh. I am sorry, Scillara. You're right. There's not much
I understand about anything.'
    'You need to trust yourself more.'
    'No.' He paused, eyes on the sea to the east. 'There's
nothing I've done to make that ... possible. Look at what
happened when Felisin Younger trusted me – to protect
her. Even Heboric – he said I was showing leadership, he
said that was good. So, he too trusted me.'
    'You damned idiot. We were ambushed by T'lan Imass.
What do you think you could have done?'
    'I don't know, and that's my point.'
    'Heboric was the Destriant of Treach. They killed him as
if he was nothing more than a lame dog. They lopped limbs
off Greyfrog like they were getting ready to cook a feast.
Cutter, people like you and me, we can't stop creatures like
that. They cut us down then step over us and that's that as
far as they're concerned. Yes, it's a hard thing to take, for
anyone. The fact that we're insignificant, irrelevant.
Nothing is expected of us, so better we just hunch down
and stay out of sight, stay beneath the notice of things like
T'lan Imass, things like gods and goddesses. You and me,
Cutter, and Barathol there. And Chaur. We're the ones
who, if we're lucky, stay alive long enough to clean up the
mess, put things back together. To reassert the normal world. That's what we do, when we can – look at you, you've just
resurrected a dead boat – you gave it its function again –
look at it, Cutter, it finally looks the way it should, and
that's satisfying, isn't it?'
    'For Hood's sake,' Cutter said, shaking his head, 'Scillara,
we're not just worker termites clearing a tunnel after a god's
careless footfall. That's not enough.'
    'I'm not suggesting it's enough,' she said. 'I'm telling you
it's what we have to start with, when we're rebuilding –
rebuilding villages and rebuilding our lives.'
    Barathol had been trudging back and forth during this
conversation, and now Chaur had come down, timidly,
closer to the water. The mute had unpacked the supplies
from the horses, including Heboric's wrapped corpse, and
the beasts – unsaddled, their bits removed – now wandered
along the grassy fringe beyond the tideline, tails swishing.
    Cutter began loading the scull.
    He paused at one point and grinned wryly. 'Lighting a
pipe's a good way of getting out of work, isn't it?'
    'You said you didn't need any help.'
    'With the bailing, yes.'
    'What you don't understand, Cutter, is the spiritual
necessity for reward, not to mention the clarity that comes
to one's mind during such repasts. And in not understanding,
you instead feel resentment, which sours the blood in
your heart and makes you bitter. It's that bitterness that
kills people, you know, it eats them up inside.'
    He studied her. 'Meaning, I'm actually jealous?'
    'Of course you are, but because I can empathize with you,
I am comfortable withholding judgement. Tell me, can
you say the same for yourself?'
    Barathol arrived with a pair of casks under his arms. 'Get
off your ass, woman. We've got a good wind and the sooner
we're on our way the better.'
    She threw him a salute as she rose. 'There you go, Cutter,
a man who takes charge. Watch him, listen, and learn.'
    The Daru stared at her, bemused.
    She read his face: But you just said ...
    So I did, my young lover. We are contrary creatures, us
humans, but that isn't something we need be afraid of, or even
much troubled by. And if you make a list of those people who
worship consistency, you'll find they're one and all tyrants or
would-be tyrants. Ruling over thousands, or over a husband or
a wife, or some cowering child. Never fear contradiction,
Cutter, it is the very heart of diversity.
     
    Chaur held on to the steering oar whilst Cutter and
Barathol worked the sails. The day was bright, the