A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

had more to do with the limits of what could be
sustained at any one time, the reach of temporary exhaustion.
Memory did not let go; it remained the net dragged
in one's wake, with all sorts of strange things snarled in the
knotted strands.
    He had behaved unfairly, and that had hurt her and,
indeed, hurt their friendship. And now it seemed he had
gone too far, too far to ever get back what he now realized
was precious, was truer than everything he was feeling now,
here beneath this woman.
    It's said joy's quick crash was weighted in truth. All at
once Challice, sprawled prone atop him, felt heavier.
    In her own silence, Challice of House Vidikas was thinking
back to that morning, to one of those rare breakfasts in the
company of her husband. There had been sly amusement in
his expression, or at least the tease of that emotion, making
his every considerate gesture slightly mocking, as if in
sitting facing one another at the table they were but acting
out clichéd roles of propriety. And finding, it seemed, a
kind of comfort in the ease of their mutual falsehoods.
    She suspected that some of Gorlas's satisfaction involved
a bleed-over into her private activities, as if it pleased
him to take some credit for her fast-receding descent into
depravity; that his unperturbed comfort was in fact supportive,
something to be relied upon, a solid island she
could flail back to when the storm grew too wild, when
her swimming in the depths took on the characteristics of
drowning.
    Making her so-called private activities little more than
extensions of his possession. In owning her he was free to
see her used and used up elsewhere. In fact, she had sensed
a sexual tension between them that had not been there
since . . . that had never been there before. She was, she
realized, making herself more desirable to him.
    It seemed a very narrow bridge that he chose to walk.
Some part of her, after all, was her own – belonging to
no one else no matter what they might believe – and so
she would, ultimately, be guided by her own decisions, the
choices she made that would serve her and none other.
Yes, her husband played a most dangerous game here, as he
might well discover.
    He had spoken, in casual passing, of the falling out
between Shardan Lim and Hanut Orr, something trivial
and soon to mend, of course. But moments were strained
of late, and neither ally seemed eager to speak to Gorlas
about any of it. Hanut Orr had, however, said some strange
things, offhand, to Gorlas in the few private conversations
they'd had – curious, suggestive things, but no matter.
It was clear that something had wounded Hanut Orr's
vaunted ego, and that was ever the danger with possessing
such an ego – its constant need to be fed, lest it deflate to
the prods of sharp reality.
    Sharden Lim's mood, too, had taken a sudden downward
turn. One day veritably exalted, the next dour and short-tempered.
    Worse than adolescents, those two. You'd think there
was a woman involved . . .
    Challice had affected little interest, finding, to her
own surprise, that she was rather good at dissembling, at
maintaining the necessary pretensions. The Mistress of the
House, the pearlescent prize of the Master, ever smooth to
the touch, as delicate as a porcelain statue. Indifferent to
the outside world and all its decrepit, smudged details. This
was the privilege of relative wealth, after all, encouraging
the natural inclination to manufacture a comforting cocoon.
Keeping out the common indelicacies, the mundane
miseries, all those raw necessities, needs, wants, all those
crude stresses that so strained the lives of normal folk.
    Only to discover, in gradual increments of growing
horror, that the world within was little different; that all
those grotesque foibles of humanity could not be evaded –
they just reared up shinier to the eye, like polished baubles,
but no less cheap, no less sordid.
    In her silence, Challice thought of the gifts of privilege,
and oh wasn't she privileged indeed? A rich husband
getting richer, one lover among his closest allies (and that
was a snare she might use again, if the need arose), and
now another – one Gorlas knew virtually nothing about.
At least, she didn't think he did.
    Sudden rapid flutter of her heart. What if he has someone
following me? The possibility was very real, but what could
she do about it? And what might her husband do when he
discovered that her most recent lover was not a player in
his game? That he was, in fact, a