A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

inclined to
panic. He is neither. No, he needs to be pushed, kept off
balance – oh, we will deliver panic, yes, and sooner or later
he will do as you say. Speak to Rhulad. And then we will
have him. And Invictad. Two snakes in the same basket –
a basket soaked in oil. And it will be Triban Gnol himself
who strikes the spark.'
    'How?'
    'You will see.'
    * * *
    Tehol stared down through the roof hatch in unmitigated
horror. 'That was a mistake,' he said.
    Leaning beside him, also looking down, Bugg nodded. 'It
was an act of mercy, Master. Twelve hens in a sack, half
crushing each other, jostled about in fetid darkness. There
was the risk of suffocation.'
    'Precisely! Peaceful demise, remote, unseen. No wringing
of necks required! But now look at them! They've taken
over our room! My house. My abode, my very hearth—'
    'About that – seems one of them has caught fire, Master.'
    'It's smouldering, and too brainless to care. If we wait we
can dine on roast chicken for breakfast. And which one
laid that egg?'
    'Hmm, a most gravid mystery indeed.'
    'You may find this amusing right now, Bugg, but you are
the one who will be sleeping down there. They'll peck your
eyes out, you know. Evil has been bred into them, generation
after generation, until their tiny black bean brains are
condensed knots of malice—'
    'You display unexpected familiarity with hens, Master.'
    'I had a tutor who was a human version.'
    Bugg leaned back and glanced over at the woman sleeping
in Tehol's bed.
    'Not her. Janath was only mildly vicious, as properly
befits all instructors, plagued as they often are by mewling,
lovestruck, pimply-faced students.'
    'Oh, Master, I am sorry.'
    'Be quiet. We're not talking about that. No, instead,
Bugg, my house has been invaded by rabid hens, because of
your habit of taking in strays and the like.'
    'Strays? We're going to eat those things.'
    'No wonder strays avoid you these days. Listen to them –
how will we sleep with all that racket going on?'
    'I suppose they're happy, Master. And in any case they
are taking care of that cockroach infestation really fast.'
    Creaking from the bed behind them drew their
attention.
    The scholar was sitting up, looking about in confusion.
    Tehol hastily pushed Bugg towards her.
    She frowned as the old man approached. 'Where am I?
Who are you? Are we on a roof?'
    'What do you last recall?' Bugg asked.
    'Being alone. In the dark. He moved me . . . to a new
place.'
    'You have been freed,' he said.
    Janath was examining her shapeless, rough tunic. 'Freed,'
she said in a low voice.
    'That shift was all we could find at short notice,' Bugg
said. 'Of course, we will endeavour to, uh, improve your
apparel as soon as we are able.'
    'I have been healed.'
    'Your physical wounds, yes.'
    Grimacing, she nodded. 'The other kind is rather more
elusive.'
    'You seem remarkably . . . sound, Janath.'
    She glanced up at him. 'You know me.'
    'My master was once a student of yours.' He watched as
she sought to look past him, first to one side, then the
other. Bemused, Bugg turned, to see Tehol moving back
and forth in an effort to keep the manservant between himself
and the woman on the bed. 'Tehol? What are you
doing?'
    'Tehol? Tehol Beddict?'
    Bugg spun round again, to see Janath gathering her tunic
and stretching it out here and there in an effort to cover as
much of her body as she could.
    'That lecherous, pathetic worm? Is that you, Tehol?
Hiding there behind this old man? Well, you certainly
haven't changed, have you? Get out here, front and
centre!'
    Tehol stepped into view. Then bridled. 'Hold on, I am no
longer your student, Janath! Besides, I'm well over you, I'll
have you know. I haven't dreamt of you in . . . in . . . years!
Months!'
    Her brows rose. 'Weeks?'
    Tehol drew himself straighter. 'It is well known that an
adult man's adolescent misapprehensions often insinuate
themselves when said man is sleeping, in his dreams, I
mean. Or, indeed, nightmares—'
    'I doubt I feature in your nightmares, Tehol,' Janath said.
'Although you do in mine.'
    'Oh, really. I was no more pathetic than any other
pathetic, lovestruck student. Was I?'
    To that she said nothing.
    Bugg said to her, 'You are indeed on a roof—'
    'Above a chicken coop?'
    'Well, as to that. Are you hungry?'
    'The fine aroma of roasting chicken is making my mouth
water,' she replied. 'Oh, please, have you no other clothes?
I have no doubt at all what is going on in my former
student's disgusting little brain right