A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

going to do it all over again, so that's why
she's poisoning him.'
    'That don't make any sense. If she was worried she
wouldn't be killing him!'
    'Not killing, just making sickly. You forget, she's a witch,
she can do things like that. Of course, she'd do better by
poisoning you.'
    'I ain't touching nothing she cooks, that's for sure.'
    'It won't help if she decides you're better off dead, Scorch.
Gods, I am so glad I'm not you.'
    'Me too.'
    'What?'
    'I'd have orange eyes and that'd be awful because then
we'd both have orange eyes so looking at each other would
be like looking at yourself, which I have to do all the time
anyway but imagine double that! No thanks, is what I
say.'
    'Is that what you say?'
    'I just said it, didn't I?'
    'I don't know. I don't know what you just said, Scorch,
and that's the truth.'
    'Good, since what I had to say wasn't meant for you
anyway.'
    Leff looked round and no, he didn't see anyone else. Of
course he didn't, there was no point in looking.
    'Besides,' said Scorch, 'you're the one who's been
poisoned.'
    'It wasn't no poison, Scorch. It was a mistake, a misdiagnosis.
And it's fading—'
'No it ain't.'
    'Yes. It is.'
    'No. It ain't.'
    'I'd stop saying that if I was you—'
    'Don't start that one again!'
    Blessed fates! Leave them to it, thy round self begs!
The night stretches on, the city wears its granite grin and
shadows dance on the edge of darkness. Late-night hawkers
call out their wares, their services both proper and dubious.
Singers sing and the drunk drink and thieves do their
thieving and mysteries thrive wherever you do not belong
and that, friends, is the hard truth.
    Like rats we skitter away from the pools of light, seeking
other matters, other scenes both tranquil and foul.
    Follow, oh, follow me!
    Benefactor of all things cosmopolitan, bestower of
blessings upon all matters human and humane (bless their
hearts both squalid and generous, bless their dreams and
bless their nightmares, bless their fears and their loves
and their fears of love and love of fears and bless, well,
bless their shoes, sandals, boots and slippers and to walk
in each, in turn, ah, such wonders! Such peculiar follies!),
Kruppe of Darujhistan walked the Great Avenue of sordid
acquisitiveness, casting a most enormous, indeed gigantic
shadow that rolled sure as a tide past all these shops and
their wares, past the wary eyes of shop owners, past the
stands of fruit and succulent pastries, past the baskets of
berries and the dried fish and the strange leafy things
some people ate believing themselves to be masticators
of wholesomeness, past the loaves of bread and rounds of
cheese, past the vessels of wine and liquors in all assorted
sizes, past the weavers and dressmakers, past the crone
harpist with nubs for fingers and only three strings left on
her harp and her song about the peg and the hole and the
honey on the nightstand – ducking the flung coins and so
quickly past! – and the bolts of cloth going nowhere and
the breeches blocking the doorway and the shirts for men-at-arms and shoes for the soulless and the headstone makers
and urn-pissers and the old thrice-divorced man who tied
knots for a living with a gaggle of children in tow surely
bound by blood and thicker stuff. Past the wax-drippers
and wick-twisters, the fire-eaters and ashcake-makers,
past the prostitutes – oozing each languorous step with
smiles of appreciation and fingers all aflutter and unbidden
mysterious sensations of caresses in hidden or at least out-of-reach places and see eyes widen and appreciation flood
through like the rush of lost youth and princely dreams
and they sigh and call out Kruppe, you darling man! Kruppe,
ain't you gonna pay for that? Kruppe, marry every one of us
and make us honest women! Kruppe – rushing quickly past,
now, aaii, frightening prospect to imagine! A bludgeon of
wives (surely that must be the plural assignation)! A prattle
of prostitutes!
    Past this gate, thank the gods, and into the tunnel
and out again and now civilization loomed austere and
proper and this bodacious shadow strode alone, animated
in its solitude, and yet this moment proved ample time to
partake of past passages through life itself.
    Out from one sleeve a berry-studded pastry, a ripe
pompfruit, and a flask of minty wine; out from the
other a new silver dinner knife with the Varada House
monogram (my, where did this come from?), the polished
blade – astonishing! – already glistening with a healthy
dollop of butter