A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

walked
he looped the plain, battered weapon over his head, a few
passes, as if loosening up his shoulders. Suddenly he did not
seem very old at all.
    Skintick asked, 'Should we help him?'
    'Did he ask for help, Skin?'
    'No, you're right, he didn't.'
    They watched as Kallor marched directly into the face
of the mob.
    And all at once that mob blew apart, people scattering,
crowding out to the sides as the singing broke up into wails
of dismay. Kallor hesitated for but a moment, before resuming
his march. In the centre of a corridor now that had
opened up to let him pass.
    'He just wants to see that altar,' Skintick said, 'and he's
not the one they're bothered with. Too bad,' he added, 'it
might have been interesting to see the old badger fight.'
    'Let's head back,' Nimander said, 'while they're distracted.'
    'If they let us.'
    They turned and set off, at an even, unhurried pace.
After a dozen or so strides Skintick half turned. He
grunted, then said, 'They've left us to it. Nimander, the
message seems clear. To get to that altar, we will have to go
through them.'
    'So it seems.'
    'Things will get messy yet.'
    Yes, they would.
    'So, do you think Kallor and the Dying God will
have a nice conversation? Observations on the weather.
Reminiscing on the old tyrannical days when everything
was all fun and games. Back when the blood was redder, its
taste sweeter. Do you think?'
    Nimander said nothing, thinking instead of those faces
in that mob, the black stains smeared round their mouths,
the pits of their eyes. Clothed in rags, caked with filth,
few children among them, as if the kelyk made them all
equal, regardless of age, regardless of any sort of readiness
to manage the world and the demands of living. They
drank and they starved and the present was the future,
until death stole away that future. A simple trajectory. No
worries, no ambitions, no dreams.
    Would any of that make killing them easier? No.
    'I do not want to do this,' Nimander said.
    'No,' Skintick agreed. 'But what of Clip?'
    'I don't know.'
    'This kelyk is worse than a plague, because its victims
invite it into their lives, and then are indifferent to their
own suffering. It forces the question – have we any right to
seek to put an end to it, to destroy it?'
    'Maybe not,' Nimander conceded.
    'But there is another issue, and that is mercy.'
    He shot his cousin a hard look. 'We kill them all for their
own good? Abyss take us, Skin—'
    'Not them – of course not. I was thinking of the Dying
God.'
    Ah . . . well. Yes, he could see how that would work, how
it could, in fact, make this palatable. If they could get to
the Dying God without the need to slaughter hundreds of
worshippers. 'Thank you, Skin.'
    'For what?'
    'We will sneak past them.'
    'Carrying Clip?'
    'Yes.'
    'That won't be easy – it might be impossible, in fact. If
this city is the temple, and the power of the Dying God
grants gifts to the priests, then they will sense our approach
no matter what we do.'
    'We are children of Darkness, Skintick. Let us see if that
still means something.'
    Desra pulled her hand from Clip's brow. 'I was wrong. He's
getting worse.' And she straightened and looked across to
Aranatha. 'How are they?'
    A languid blink. 'Coming back, unharmed.'
    Something was wrong with Aranatha. Too calm, too . . .
empty. Desra always considered her sister to be vapid – oh,
she wielded a sword with consummate elegance, as cold a
killer as the rest of them when necessity so demanded – but
there was a kind of pervasive disengagement in Aranatha.
Often descending upon her in the midst of calamity and
chaos, as if the world in its bolder mayhem could bludgeon
her senseless.
    Making her unreliable as far as Desra was concerned.
She studied Aranatha for a moment longer, their eyes
meeting, and when her sister smiled Desra answered with
a scowl and turned to Nenanda. 'Did you find anything to
eat in the taproom? Or drink?'
    The warrior was standing by the front door, which he
held open with one hand. At Desra's questions he glanced
back. 'Plenty, as if they'd just left – or maybe it was a
delivery, like the kind we got on the road.'
    'Someone must be growing proper food, then,' said
Kedeviss. 'Or arranging its purchase from other towns and
the like.'
    'They've gone to a lot of trouble for us,' Nenanda
observed. 'And that makes me uneasy.'
    'Clip is dying, Aranatha,' Desra said.
    'Yes.'
    'They're back,' Nenanda announced.
    'Nimander will know what to do,' Desra pronounced.
    'Yes,' said