A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

already past him, past us all, maybe. Listen, Harllo, I
seen ones like you before, coming in, going through. They
get beaten down, beaten stupid. Or they end up getting
killed. Maybe they try to run, maybe they stand up to the
pit bosses over something. Your smartness is what's going to
ruin you, you understand?'
    'Yes, Bainisk. I'm sorry.'
    'Why'd you sneak back into the tunnels?'
    He could tell him everything. At this moment, it seemed
like the right thing to do. But Harllo no longer trusted
himself with such feelings. Explaining was dangerous. It
could get them all into even more trouble.
    'You was carrying bones,' said Bainisk. 'Those bones,
they're cursed.'
    'Why?'
    'They just are.'
    'But why, Bainisk?'
    'Because they were found where no bones belong, that's
why. So far down it's impossible that anybody buried them
– and besides, who'd bury dead animals? No, those bones,
they're from demons that live in the rock and in the
dark. Right down with the roots of the earth. You don't
touch them, Harllo, and you never ever try putting them
back.'
    So this was what Bainisk suspected him of doing, then?
'I was . . . I was scared,' Harllo said. 'It was as if we were disturbing
graves or something. And that's why there've been
so many accidents lately—'
    'Them accidents are because the new boss is pushing us
too hard, into the tunnels with the cracked ceilings and
the bad air – the kind of air that makes you see things that
ain't real.'
    'I think maybe that's what happened to me.'
    'Maybe, but,' and he rose, 'I don't think so.'
    He walked away then. Tomorrow, Harllo was expected
to return to work. He was frightened of that, since his back
hurt so, but he would do it, because it would make things
easier for Bainisk who'd been punished when he shouldn't
have been. Harllo would work extra hard, no matter the
pain and all; he would work extra hard so Bainisk would
like him again.
    Because, in this place, with no one liking you, there
didn't seem much point in going on.
    Lying on his stomach, fresh into another year of life,
Harllo felt no ripples reach him from the outside world.
Instead, he felt alone. Maybe he'd lost a friend for ever
and that felt bad, too. Maybe his only friend was a giant
skeleton in the depths of the mines – who with new legs
might have walked away, disappeared into the dark, and
all Harllo had to remember him by was a handful of tools
hidden beneath his cot.
    For a child, thinking of the future was a difficult thing,
since most thoughts of the future built on memories of the
past, whether in continuation or serving as contrast, and a
child held few memories of his or her past. The world was
truncated forward and back. Measure it from his toes to the
top of his head, tousle the mop of hair in passing, and when
nothing else is possible, hope for the best.
    In the faint phosphor glow streaking the rock, a T'lan
Imass climbed to his feet and stood like someone who
had forgotten how to walk. The thick, curved femurs of
the emlava forced him into a half-lean, as if he was about
to launch himself forward, and the ridged ball of the long
bones, where it rested in the socket of each hip, made
grinding sounds as he fought for balance.
    Unfamiliar sorcery, this. He had observed how connecting
tissue had re-knitted, poorly at first, to these alien
bones, and he had come to understand that such details
were a kind of conceit. The Ritual forced animation with
scant subtlety, and whatever physical adjustments occurred
proceeded at a snail's pace, although their present incompleteness
seemed to have no effect on his ability to settle
his weight on these new legs, even to move them into his
first lurching step, then his second.
    The grinding sounds would fade in time, he thought,
as ball and socket were worn into a match, although he
suspected he would never stand as erect as he once had.
    No matter. Dev'ad Anan Tol was mobile once more.
And as he stood, a flood of memories rose within him in
a dark tide.
    Leading to that last moment, with the Jaghut Tyrant,
Raest, standing before him, blood-smeared mace in one
hand, as Dev'ad writhed on the stone floor, legs for ever
shattered.
    No, he had not been flung from a ledge. Sometimes, it
was necessary to lie.
    He wondered if the weapons he had forged, so long ago
now, still remained hidden in their secret place. Not far.
After a moment, the T'lan Imass set out. Feet scraping, his
entire body pitching from side to side.
    Raest's unhuman face twisted indignant.