A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

filled with endings.
    Arriving at the estate, he is quickly and without comment
escorted into the main house, down its central
corridor and out into a high-walled garden where night
flowers stream down the walls, drenched blossoms opening
to drink in the gathering dusk. The masked bodyguard
then leaves him, for the moment alone in the garden, and
the bard stands motionless for a time, the air sweet and
pungent, the sound of trickling water filling the enclosed
space.
    He recalls the soft songs he has sung here, unaccompanied
by any instrument. Songs drawn from a hundred
cultures, a dozen worlds. His voice weaving together the
fragments of Shadow's arrival, drawing together the day
just past and the night eager to arrive.
    There were secrets in music and poetry. Secrets few
knew and even fewer understood. Their power often stole
into a listener subtle as the memory of scent on a drawn
breath, less than a whisper, yet capable of transforming
the one so gifted, an instinctual ecstasy that made troubles
vanish, that made all manner of grandeur possible – indeed,
within reach.
    A skilled bard, a wise bard, knew that at certain moments
in the course of a cycle of day and night, the path into the
soul of a listener was smooth, unobstructed, a succession
of massive gates that swung open to a feather's touch. This
was the most precious secret of all. Dusk, midnight, and
that strange period of sudden wakefulness known as the
watch – yes, the night and its stealthy approach belonged
to the heart.
    Hearing a footfall behind him, he turns.
    She stands, her long black hair shimmering, her face untouched
by sun or wind, her eyes a perfect reflection of the
violet blossoms adorning the walls. He can see through the
white linen of her dress, to the outlines of her body, roundness
and curves and sweeps of aesthetic perfection – those
forms and lines that murmured their own secret language
to awaken desires in a man's soul.
    Every sense, he knows, is a path into the heart.
    Lady Envy watches him, and he is content to let her do
so, as he in turn regards her.
    They could discuss the Seguleh – the dead ones in the
casks, the living ones serving in this estate. They could
ponder all that they sensed fast approaching. He could
speak of his anger, its quiet, deadly iron that was so cold it
could burn at the touch – and she would see the truth of his
words in his eyes. She might drift this way and that in this
modest garden, brushing fingertips along trembling petals,
and speak of desires so long held that she was almost insensate
to the myriad roots and tendrils they had wrought
through her body and soul, and he would perhaps warn her
of the dangers they presented, the risk of failure that must
be faced and, indeed, accepted – and she would sigh and
nod and know well he spoke with wisdom.
    Mocking flirtation, the jaw-dropping self-obsession, all
the ways in which she amused herself when engaging with
the mortals of this world, did not accompany Lady Envy
to this garden. Not with this man awaiting her. Fisher kel
Tath was not a young man – and there were times when
she wondered if he was mortal at all, although she would
never pry in search of truth – and he was not at all godlike
with physical perfection. His gifts, if she could so crassly
list them, would include his voice, his genius with the lyre
and a dozen other obscure instruments, and the mind behind
the eyes that saw all, that understood far too much
of what he did see, that understood too the significance of
all that remained and would ever remain hidden – yes, the
mind behind the eyes and every faint hint he offered up to
reveal something of that mind, its manner of observance,
its stunning capacity for compassion that only blistering
fools would call weakness.
    No, this was one man whom she would not mock – could
not, in fact.
    They could have discussed many things. Instead, they
stood, eyes meeting and held, and the dusk closed in with
all its scents and secrets.
    Storm the abyss and throw down a multitude of astounded
gods! The sky cracks open from day into night, and then
cracks yet again, revealing the flesh of space and the blood
of time – see it rent and see it spray in glistening red droplets
of dying stars! The seas boil and the earth steams and
melts!
    Lady Envy has found a lover.
    Poetry and desire, fulminations one and the same and
oh this is a secret to make thugs and brainless oafs howl at
the night.
    Has found a lover.
    A lover.
    'I dreamt I