A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

allied
with Anomander and those others, it didn't sound as
though he meant he was a soldier or minor officer in some
army, did it?'
    Nimander frowned, then shook his head.
    Skintick hissed wordlessly through his teeth, and then
said, 'Like . . . equals.'
    'Yes, like that. But it doesn't matter, Skin – he won't
help us.'
    'I wasn't hoping for that. More like him deciding to do
something for his own reasons, but something that ends up
solving our problem.'
    'I'd wager no coins on that, Skin.'
    Drawing closer to the ruin, they fell silent. Decrepit as
it was, the tower was imposing. The air around it seemed
grainy, somehow brittle, ominously cold despite the sun's
fierce heat.
    The highest of the walls revealed a section of ceiling
just below the uppermost set of stones, projecting without
any other obvious support to cast a deep shadow upon the
ground floor beneath it. The facing wall reached only high
enough to encompass a narrow, steeply arched doorway.
Just outside this entrance and to one side was a belly-shaped
pot in which grew a few straggly plants with drooping
flowers, so incongruous amid the air of abandonment that
Nimander simply stared down at them, disbelieving.
    Kallor walked up to the entrance, drew off a scaled
gauntlet and rapped it against the root-tracked frame. 'Will
you greet us?' he demanded in a loud voice.
    From within a faint shuffling sound, and then a thin,
rasping reply: 'Must I?'
    'The ice is long gone, Jaghut. The plains beyond are dry
and empty. Even the dust of the T'lan Imass has blown
away. Would you know something of the world you have
ignored for so long?'
    'Why? Nothing changes.'
    Kallor turned a pleased smirk upon Nimander and
Skintick and then faced the dark doorway once more. 'Will
you invite us in, Jaghut? I am the High—'
    'I know who you are, O Lord of Futility. King of Ashes.
Ruler of Dead Lands. Born to glory and cursed to destroy it
every time. Killer of Dreams. Despoiler of—'
'All right, enough of all that. I'm not the one living in
ruins.'
    'No, but you ever leave them in your wake, Kallor.
Come in, then, you and your two Others. I greet you as
guests and so will not crush the life from you and devour
your souls with peals of laughter. No, instead, I will make
some tea.'
    Nimander and Skintick followed Kallor into the darkness
within.
    The air of the two-walled chamber was frigid, the stones
sheathed in amber-streaked hoarfrost. Where the other
two walls should have been rose black, glimmering barriers
of some unknown substance, and to look upon them too
long was to feel vertiginous – Nimander almost pitched
forward, drawn up only by Skintick's sudden grip, and his
friend whispered, 'Never mind the ice, cousin.'
    Ice, yes, it was just that. Astonishingly transparent
ice—
    A figure crouched at a small hearth, long-fingered hands
working a blackened kettle on to an iron hook above the
coals. 'I ate the last batch of cookies, I'm afraid.' The words
drifted out inflectionless from beneath a broad-brimmed
black felt hat. 'Most people pass by, when they pass by.
Seeing nothing of interest. None draw close to admire my
garden.'
    'Your garden?' Skintick asked.
    'Yes. Small, I know. Modest.'
    'The pot with the two flowers.'
    'Just so. Manageable – anything larger and the weeding
would drive me mad, you see.'
    'Taking up all your time,' Kallor commented, looking
round.
    'Just so.'
    A long stone altar provided the Jaghut with his bed, on
which pale furs were neatly folded. A desk sat nearby, the
wood stained black, the chair before it high-backed and
padded in deerskin. On a niche set in the highest wall
squatted a three-legged silver candlestick, oxidized black.
Beeswax candles flickered in guttered pools. Leaning near
the altar was an enormous scabbarded greatsword, the
cross-hilt as long as a child's arm. Cobwebs coated the
weapon.
    'You know my name,' Kallor said. 'But I have not yet
heard yours.'
    'That is true.'
    Something dangerous edged into Kallor's voice as he
said, 'I would know the name of my host.'
    'Once, long ago, a wolf god came before me. Tell me,
Kallor, do you understand the nature of beast gods? Of
course not. You are only a beast in the unfairly pejorative
sense – unfair to beasts, that is. How is it, then, that the
most ancient gods of this world were, one and all, beasts?'
    'The question does not interest me, Jaghut.'
    'What of the answer?'
    'You possess one?'
    The hands reached out and lifted the kettle from the
hook as steam rushed up round the