A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

matter
how fast Snell spun round on the street – he was out there!
Waiting, stalking.
    Snell needed to prove things, and that was why he was
running through Maiten, where the stink of Brownrun Bay
and the lepers was nearly enough to make him retch – and
hah! Listen to them scream when struck by the bigger
stones he threw at them! He was tempted to tarry for a
time, to find one of the uglier ones he could stone again
and again until the cries just went away, and wouldn't that
be a mercy? Better than rotting away.
    But no, not yet, maybe on the way back, after he'd stood
for a time, looking down at the flyblown corpse of Harllo
– that would be the perfect conclusion to this day, after all.
His problems solved. Nobody hunting him in the shadows.
He'd throw stones fast and hard then, a human catapult
– smack! Crush the flimsy skull!
    Maybe he wasn't grown up yet, but he could still do
things. He could take lives.
    He left the road, made his way up the hill. This was
the place all right – how could he forget? Every detail
was burned into his brain. The first giant tapestry in the
history of Snell. Slaying his evil rival, and see the dragons
wheeling in the sky above the lake – witnesses!
    The slope unaccountably tired him, brought a tremble to
his legs. Just nervousness, of course. His shins stung as he
rushed through the grasses, and came to the place.
    No body.
    Sudden terror. Snell looked round, on all sides – he
was out there! Wasn't hurt at all! He'd probably faked
the whole thing, biting down on his pain with every kick.
Hiding, yes, just to get Snell in trouble and when Gruntle
came back there'd be Hood to pay! Gruntle who made
Harllo his favourite because Harllo did things to help out
but wasn't it Snell who brought back that last sack of fuel?
It was! Of course Gruntle wasn't there to see that, was he?
So he didn't know anything because if he did—
    If he did he'd kill me.
    Cold, shivering in the lake wind, Snell ran back down
the hill. He needed to get home, maybe not right home,
but somewhere close – so he could jump Harllo when he
showed up to tell his lies about what had happened. Lies
– Snell had no bag of coins, did he? Harllo's mother's coins,
hah, wasn't that funny? She was rich enough anyway and
Snell deserved that money as much as anyone else – he
reached up and tenderly touched the swelling on his left
cheek. The bitch had hit him, all to steal back the money.
Well, she'd pay one day, yes, she would.
    One day, yes, he'd be all grown up. And then . . . look
out!
    It had taken the death of a once-famous duellist before
people started treating Gorlas Vidikas as an adult, but
now he was a man indeed, a feared one, a member of the
Council. He was wealthy but not yet disgustingly rich,
although that was only a matter of time.
    Fools the world over worshipped gods and goddesses.
But coin was the only thing worth worshipping, because to
worship it was to see it grow – more and ever more – and all
that he took for himself he took from someone else and this
was where the real conquest happened. Day by day, deal by
deal, and winning these games was proof of true faith and
worship, and oh how deliciously satisfying.
    Fools dropped coins into collection bowls. The rich
cleaned those bowls out and this was the true division of
humanity. But more than that: the rich decided how many
coins the fools had to spare and how did that rate as power?
Which side was preferable? As if the question needed asking.
    Coin purchased power, like a god blessing the devout,
but of both power and wealth there could never be enough.
As for the victims, well, there could never be enough of
them either. Someone was needed to clean the streets of
the Estate District. Someone was needed to wash clothes,
bedding and the like. Someone was needed to make the
damned things in the first place! And someone was needed
to fight the wars when the rich decided they wanted still
more of whatever was out there.
    Gorlas Vidikas, born to wealth and bred to title, found
life to be good. But it could be better still and the steps to
improvement were simple enough.
    'Darling wife,' he now said as she was rising to leave, 'I
must take a trip and will not return until tomorrow or even
the day after.'
    She paused, watching in a distracted way as the servants
closed in to collect the dishes from the late breakfast
– calloused hands darting in like featherless birds – and
said, 'Oh?'
    'Yes. I have been granted the overseer title of