A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

him, Sister.'
    If there was hidden significance to that distinction,
Sukul Ankhadu was unable to discern it. Her gaze lifted,
fixed on the river to the south. Wheeling gulls, strange
islands of sticks and grasses spinning on the currents. And,
she could sense, beneath the swirling surface, enormous,
belligerent leviathans, using the islands as bait. Whatever
came close enough . . .
    She was drawn to a rumble of power from the broken
barrow and looked down once more. 'She's coming,
Hannan Mosag.'
    'Shall I leave? Or will she be amenable to our
arrangement?'
    'On that, Edur, I cannot speak for her. Best you depart –
she will, after all, be very hungry. Besides, she and
I have much to discuss . . . old wounds to mend between
us.'
    She watched as the malformed warlock dragged himself
away. After all, you are much more her child than you are mine, and I'd rather she was, for the moment, without allies.
    It was all Menandore's doing, anyway.

CHAPTER SIX
    The argument was this: a civilization shackled to the
strictures of excessive control on its populace, from choice
of religion through to the production of goods, will sap the
will and the ingenuity of its people – for whom such
qualities are no longer given sufficient incentive or reward.
At face value, this is accurate enough. Trouble arrives when
the opponents to such a system institute its extreme
opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and
sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal
(including community) is possible. In such a system
rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and
the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore, a kind
of intransigence as fierce and nonsensical as its
maternalistic counterpart.
    And so, in the clash of these two extreme systems, one is
witness to brute stupidity and blood-splashed insensitivity;
two belligerent faces glowering at each other across the
unfathomed distance, and yet, in deed and in fanatic
regard, they are but mirror reflections.
    This would be amusing if it weren't so pathetically
idiotic . . .
    In Defence of Compassion
Denabaris of Letheras, 4th century
    Dead pirates were better, Shurq Elalle mused. There
was a twisted sort of justice in the dead preying
upon the living, especially when it came to stealing
all their treasured possessions. Her pleasure in prying those
ultimately worthless objects from their hands was the sole
reason for her criminal activities, more than sufficient
incentive to maintain her new-found profession. Besides,
she was good at it.
    The hold of the Undying Gratitude was filled with the
cargo from the abandoned Edur ship, the winds were fresh
and steady, pushing them hard north out of the Draconean
Sea, and it looked as if the huge fleet in her wake was not
getting any closer.
    Edur and Letherii ships, a hundred, maybe more. They'd
come out of the southwest, driving at a converging angle
towards the sea lane that led to the mouth of the Lether
River. The same lane that Shurq Elalle's ship now tracked,
as well as two merchant scows the Undying Gratitude was
fast overhauling. And that last detail was too bad,
since those Pilott scows were ripe targets, and without a
mass of Imperial ships crawling up her behind, she'd have
pounced.
    Cursing, Skorgen Kaban limped up to where she stood at
the aft rail. 'It's that infernal search, ain't it? The two main
fleets, or what's left of 'em.' The first mate leaned over the
rail and spat down into the churning foam skirling out from
the keel. 'They're gonna be nipping our tails all the way
into Letheras harbour.'
    'That's right, Pretty, which means we have to stay nice.'
    'Aye. Nothing more tragic than staying nice.'
    'We'll get over it,' Shurq Elalle said. 'Once we're in the
harbour, we can sell what we got, hopefully before the fleet
arrives to do the same – because then the price will drop,
mark my words. Then we head back out. There'll be more
Pilott scows, Skorgen.'
    'You don't think that fleet came up on the floating
wreck, do you? They've got every stretch of canvas out, like
maybe they was chasing us. We get to the mouth and we're
trapped, Captain.'
    'Well, you have a point there. If they were truly scattered
by that storm, a few of them could have come up on the
wreck before it went under.' She thought for a time, then
said, 'Tell you what. We'll sail past the mouth. And if they
ignore us and head upriver, we can come round and follow
them in. But that means they'll offload before we will,
which means we won't make