A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

were the one we victimized by
proclaiming you as our leader. And on that night, my friend,
you will see that it was all for naught, and you will take your
own life. A tower, a window ledge and a plummet down
through the dark to achieve the incumbent poetic futility.
    Skintick could not find himself in that future. He did
not expect to complete this journey. He was not sure he
even wanted to. The same chronicler who painted past
scenes would paint the future ones, too. The same damned
theme, reworked with all the obsessiveness of a visionary
throttling the blind.
    One thing was certain. He would permit no one ever
again to abuse his virtues – even those few that remained,
in their dishevelled state. They were not currency, not
things to be measured, weighed against gold, gems, property
or power. If the bastards wanted all that, they could sweat
their own sweat and bleed their own blood to get it.
    Take me as a knife and I will turn in your hand. I swear it.
    'You are smiling,' Nimander observed. 'It pleases me to
see that alive and well.'
    Skintick glanced at him. The legacy of Bastion remained
in the stains of old blood beneath the salt that now caked
moccasins and leggings. No one had bothered cleaning
their gear, so desperate was the need to leave that city.
    Something had changed in Nimander, however, beyond
the horrors of saemankelyk and the Dying God's altar. As
if his sense of purpose had taken a fresh beating, like a new
seedling trampled underfoot. How many times, Skintick
wondered, could Nimander suffer that, before some
fundamental poison altered his very nature? The vision
he had of Nimander's final demise was dependent upon
a certain sanctity of spirit remaining, something precious
and rare that would drive him to that last act of despair.
If it was already dead, or twisted malign, then Nimander's
fate would become truly unknown.
    Has he found ambition? Is the poison of cynicism awakening
in his beleaguered soul? This could change things, Skintick
realized. He might become someone I could choose to follow
– yes, down that nasty path and why not? Let someone else
suffer for our gains, for a change. Topple them into the dirt and
see how they like the sweet reversal.
    Is he hard enough to play that game?
    Am I hard enough to make use of him?
    They had found a horse for Clip, but retained the
wagon, at least for this journey northward along the edge
of the dying salt lake. Nenanda was seated once more on
the raised bench, reins in one hand, switch in the other.
Aranatha sat with her legs dangling off the end of the
wagon, eyes on the row of broken teeth that was Bastion's
dwindling skyline, hazy and shimmering above the heat
waves. Desra lounged in the wagon's bed, dozing among the
casks of water and bundles of dried goods. Kedeviss rode
flank off to the right, almost thirty paces away now, her
horse picking its way along the old beach with its withered
driftwood.
    Clip rode far ahead, emphasizing his impatience. He'd
not been much interested in hearing the tale of their
doings since his collapse at the village – a failing on his
part (as he evidently saw the suggestion) that he refused
to entertain, although this clearly left a mysterious and no
doubt troubling gap in his memory. He was, if anything,
even more evasive than he had been before, and more than
once Skintick had caught suspicion in the warrior's eyes
when observing the rest of them. As if they had conspired
to steal something from him, and had succeeded.
    Skintick's distrust of the bastard was growing. It wasn't
hard to hate Clip – absurdly easy, in fact – and such sentiments
could well cloud his sense of the warrior with his
endlessly spinning rings. Clip was, he now believed, one of
those eager to abuse the virtues of others to achieve whatever
private and entirely personal victory he sought. And
if the effort left a half-dozen contemptible youths dead in
his wake, what of it?
    He could not but see the bloodstains they now wore; could
not but have noticed the notched and nicked weapons they
took files to during rest stops. Their damaged armour. And
dazed and groggy as he had been upon awakening in the
altar chamber, he could not have been blind to the scores
of dead – the veritable slaughterhouse they had left behind.
And yet still Clip saw them as barely worth his regard,
beyond that malicious suspicion as it slowly flowered into
paranoia, and what might that lead him to do?
    To us?
    Yes, one more fear to stalk me now, though I am