A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

had known they would. 'You heard?' she asked, not
caring which one answered.
    Neither did. Menandore dropped her pose and scowled
over to the scrawny, shadow-swarmed god to her left. 'That
cane is an absurd affectation, you know.'
    'Never mind my absurd affectations, woman. Blood
dripping from a flower, for Hood's sake – oops—' The god
known as Shadowthrone tilted a head towards the tall,
cowled figure opposite. 'Humblest apologies, Reaper.'
    Hood, Lord of Death, seemed to cock his head as if
surprised. 'Yours?'
    'Apologies? Naturally not. I but made a declarative statement.
Was there a subject attached to it? No. We three fell
creatures have met, have spoken, have agreed on scant
little, and have concluded that our previous impressions of
each other proved far too . . . generous. Nonetheless, it
seems we are agreed, more or less, on the one matter you,
Hood, wanted to address. It's no wonder you're so ecstatic.'
    Menandore frowned at the Lord of Death, seeking
evidence of ecstasy. Finding none, she eyed Shadowthrone
once more. 'Know that I have never accepted your claim.'
    'I'm crushed. So your sisters are after you. What a dreadful
family you have. Want help?'
    'You too? Recall my dismissal of the Errant.'
    Shadowthrone shrugged. 'Elders think too slowly. My
offer is of another magnitude. Think carefully before you
reject it.'
    'And what do you ask in return?'
    'Use of a gate.'
    'Which gate?'
    Shadowthrone giggled, then the eerie sound abruptly
stopped, and in a serious tone he said, 'Starvald Demelain.'
    'To what end?'
    'Why, providing you with assistance, of course.'
    'You want my sisters out of the way, too – perhaps more
than I do. Squirming on that throne of yours, are you?'
    'Convenient convergence of desires, Menandore. Ask
Hood about such things, especially now.'
    'If I give you access to Starvald Demelain, you will use it
more than once.'
    'Not I.'
    'Do you so vow?'
    'Why not?'
    'Foolish,' Hood said in a rasp.
    'I hold you to that vow, Shadowthrone,' Menandore said.
    'Then you accept my help?'
    'As you do mine in this matter. Convergence of desires,
you said.'
    'You're right,' Shadowthrone said. 'I retract all notions of
"help". We are mutually assisting one another, as fits said
convergence; and once finished with the task at hand, no
other obligations exist between us.'
    'That is agreeable.'
    'You two,' Hood said, turning away, 'are worse than
advocates. And you don't want to know what I do with the
souls of advocates.' A heartbeat later and the Lord of Death
was gone.
    Menandore frowned. 'Shadowthrone, what are
advocates?'
    'A profession devoted to the subversion of laws for
profit,' he replied, his cane inexplicably tapping as he
shuffled back into the woods. 'When I was Emperor, I considered
butchering them all.'
    'So why didn't you?' she asked as he began to fade into a
miasma of gloom beneath the trees.
    Faintly came the reply, 'The Royal Advocate said it'd be
a terrible mistake.'
    Menandore was alone once again. She looked around,
then grunted. 'Gods, I hate this place.' A moment later she
too vanished.
    Janall, once Empress of the Lether Empire, was now barely
recognizable as a human. Brutally used as a conduit of the
chaotic power of the Crippled God, her body had been
twisted into a malign nightmare, bones bent, muscles
stretched and bunched, and now, huge bulges of fat hung in
folds from her malformed body. She could not walk, could
not even lift her left arm, and the sorcery had broken her
mind, the madness burning from eyes that glittered
malevolently in the gloom as Nisall, carrying a lantern,
paused in the doorway.
    The chamber was rank with sweat, urine and other
suppurations from the countless oozing sores on Janall's
skin; the sweet reek of spoiled food, and another odour,
pungent, that reminded the Emperor's Concubine of
rotting teeth.
    Janall dragged herself forward with a strange, asymmetrical
shift of her hips, pivoting on her right arm. The
motion made a sodden sound beneath her, and Nisall saw
the streams of saliva easing out from the once-beautiful
woman's misshapen mouth. The floor was pooled in
the mucus and it was this, she realized, that was the source
of the pungent smell.
    Fighting back nausea, the Concubine stepped forward.
'Empress.'
    'No longer!' The voice was ragged, squeezed out from a
deformed throat, and drool spattered with every jerk
of her misshapen jaw. 'I am Queen! Of his House, his
honeyed House – oh, we are a contented family, oh yes, and
one day, one