A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

teacher. I barely
managed any interest in this from the very start – it was
always the coin – and now I find I could not care less.
About the school, the students – even promising ones like
Nom there. I don't care about anything, in fact.'
    Including you, Murillio. Yes, he heard that unspoken
addition without the need for her to actually say it aloud.
Well, she would of course want to push him away. Much
as she needed him to play those self-wounding games
with her, she needed even more the solitude necessary for
complete self-destruction. Isolation was more than a simple
defence mechanism; it also served to prepare one for more
severe punishments, possibly culminating in suicide. On
another level, she would view her desire to drive him off as
an act of mercy on her part. But that was a most irritating
form of self-pity.
    He had given his heart to the wrong woman. Timing,
Bellam Nom, is everything. With sword in hand.
    With love in hand.
    Oh, well. I'd figured it out with a rapier, at least.
    'Don't make that decision just yet,' he said. 'I have one
more thing I can try.' It won't be pleasant, but you don't need
to know that.
    Stonny simply turned away. 'I'll see you tomorrow,
then.'
    Many adults, in the indurated immobility of years, acquire
a fear of places they have never been, even as they long for
something different in their lives, something new. But this
new thing is a world of the fantastical, formless in answer
to vague longings, and is as much defined by absence
as presence. It is a conjuration of emotions and wishful
imaginings, which may or may not possess a specific
geography. Achieving such a place demands a succession
of breaks with one's present situation, always a traumatic
endeavour, and upon completion, why, sudden comes the
fear.
    Some do not choose the changes in their lives. Some
changes no one in their right mind would ever choose. In
K'rul's Bar, a once-soldier of the Malazan Empire stands
tottering over the unconscious form of her lover, whilst behind
her paces Antsy, muttering self-recriminations under
his breath, interrupted every now and then with a stream
of curses in a half-dozen languages.
    Blend understood all that had motivated Picker to attempt
what she had done. This did little to assuage her fury.
The very same High Denul healer who had just attended
to her had set to a thorough examination of Picker as soon
as Antsy had returned with his charge lying in the bed of a
hired oxcart, only to pronounce that there was nothing to
be done. Either Picker would awaken or she wouldn't. Her
spirit had been torn loose and now wandered lost.
    The healer had left. In the main room below, Duiker and
Scillara sat in the company of ghosts and not much else.
    Although still weak, Blend set out to collect her weapons
and armour. Antsy followed her into the corridor.
    'What're you planning?' he demanded, almost on her
heels as she went into her own room.
    'I'm not sure,' she replied, laying out her chain hauberk
on the bed, then pulling off her shirt to find the padded
undergarment.
    Antsy's eyes bugged slightly as he stared at her breasts,
the faint bulge of her belly, the sweet—
    Blend tugged on the quilted shirt and then returned to
the hauberk. 'You'll need to wrap me,' she said.
    'Huh? Oh, aye. Right. But what about me?'
    She regarded him for a moment. 'You want to help?'
    He half snarled in reply.
    'All right,' she said. 'Go find a couple of crossbows and
plenty of quarrels. You're going to cover me, for as long as
that's possible. We don't walk together.'
    'Aye, Blend.'
    She worked the hauberk over her head and pushed her
arms through the heavy sleeves.
    Antsy went to the equipment trunk at the foot of the
bed and began rummaging through its contents, looking
for the swaths of black cloth to bind the armour close and
noiseless about Blend's body. 'Gods below, woman, what do
you need all these clothes for?'
    'Banquets and soirées, of course.'
    'You ain't never been to one in your life, woman.'
    'The possibility always exists, Antsy. Yes, those ones, but
make sure the drawstrings are still in them.'
    'How do you expect to find the nest?'
    'Simple,' she said. 'Don't know why we didn't think of it
before. The name Picker said, the one that Jaghut heard.'
She selected a matched pair of Wickan longknives from her
store of weapons and strapped the belt on, low on her hips,
offered Antsy a hard grin. 'I'm going to ask the Eel.'

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    And these things were never so precious
Listen to