A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

he of the sourceless shade, a
most conniving, dastardly god indeed! Chill is his shadow,
cruel and uncomfortable is his throne, horrid his Hounds,
tangled his Rope, sweet and seductive his innocent
servants! But!' And Kruppe held aloft one plump finger.
'Cutter would not speak of walking in shadows, why,
not anyone's! Even one which sways most swayingly,
that cleaves most cleavingly, that flutters in fluttering
eyelashes framing depthless dark eyes that are not eyes at
all, but pools of unfathomable depth – and is she sorry? By
Apsalar she is not!'
    'I hate you sometimes,' Cutter said in a grumble, eyes
on the table, cheese and apple temporarily forgotten in his
hands.
    'Poor Cutter. See his heart carved loose from yon chest,
flopping down like so much bloodied meat on this tabletop.
Kruppe sighs and sighs again in the deep of sympathy and
extends, yes, this warm cloak of companionship against
the cold harsh light of truth this day and on every other
day! Now, kindly pour us more of this herbal concoction
which, whilst tasting somewhat reminiscent of the straw
and mud used to make bricks, is assured by Meese to aid in
all matters of digestion, including bad news.'
    Cutter poured, and then took another two bites, apple
and cheese. He chewed for a time, then scowled. 'What
bad news?'
    'That which is yet to arrive, of course. Will honey aid
this digestive aid? Probably not. It will, one suspects, curdle
and recoil. Why is it, Kruppe wonders, that those who
claim all healthy amends via rank brews, gritty grey repasts
of the raw and unrefined, and unpalatable potions, and this
amidst a regime of activities invented solely to erode bone
and wear out muscle – all these purveyors of the pure and
good life are revealed one and all as wan, parched well nigh
bloodless, with vast fists bobbing up and down in the throat
and watery eyes savage in righteous smugitude, walking
like energized storks and urinating water pure enough to
drink all over again? And pass if you please to dear beatific
Kruppe, then, that last pastry squatting forlorn and alone
on yon pewter plate.'
    Cutter blinked. 'Sorry. Pass what?'
    'Pastry, dear lad! Sweet pleasures to confound the pious
worshippers of suffering! How many lives do each of us
have, Kruppe wonders rhetorically, to so constrain this one
with desultory disciplines so efficacious that Hood himself
must bend over convulsed in laughter? This evening, dear
friend of Kruppe, you and I will walk the cemetery and
wager which buried bones belong to the healthy ones and
which to the wild cavorting headlong maniacs who danced
bright with smiles each and every day!'
    'The healthy bones would be the ones left by old people,
I'd wager.'
    'No doubt no doubt, friend Cutter, a most stolid truth.
Why, Kruppe daily encounters ancient folk and delights in
their wide smiles and cheery well-mets.'
    'They're not all miserable, Kruppe.'
    'True, here and there totters a wide-eyed one, wide-eyed
because a life of raucous abandon is behind one and the
fool went and survived it all! Now what, this creature
wonders? Why am I not dead? And you, with your three
paltry decades of pristine boredom, why don't you just go
somewhere and die!'
    'Are you being hounded by the aged, Kruppe?'
    'Worse. Dear Murillio moans crabby and toothless and
now ponders a life of inactivity. Promise Kruppe this, dear
Cutter – when you see this beaming paragon here before
you falter, dribble at the mouth, mutter at the clouds,
wheeze and fart and trickle and all the rest, do bundle
Kruppe up tight in some thick impervious sack of burlap,
find a nearby cliff and send him sailing out! Through the
air! Down on to the thrashing seas and crashing rocks and
filmy foams – Kruppe implores you! And listen, whilst you
do so, friend Cutter, sing and laugh, spit into my wake! Do
you so promise?'
    'If I'm around, Kruppe, I'll do precisely as you ask.'
    'Kruppe is relieved, so relieved. Aaii, last pastry revolts
in nether gut – more of this tea, then, to yield the bitumen
belch of tasteless misery on earth. And then, shortly anon,
it will be time for lunch! And see who enters, why, none
other than Murillio, newly employed and flush and so eager
with generosity!'
    Iskaral Pust's love was pure and perfect, except that his
wife kept getting in the way. When he leaned left she
leaned right; when he leaned right she leaned left. When
he stretched his neck she stretched hers and all he could
see was the mangled net of her tangled hair and beneath
that