A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

between
ancient skill and modern squalor so pathetic it verged on
the comical, and Kedeviss heard Skintick's amused snort as
they wended their way between the first structures.
    A rectangular well dominated the central round, with
more perfectly cut stone set incompetently in the earth to
form a rough plaza of sorts. Discarded clothing and bedding
was scattered about, bleached by salt and sun, like the
shrunken remnants of people.
    'I seem to recall,' Skintick said, 'a child's story about
flesh-stealers. Whenever you find clothes lying on the
roadside and in glades, it's because the stealers came and
took the person wearing them. I never trusted that story,
though, since who would be walking round wearing only a
shirt? Or one shoe? No, my alternative theory is far more
likely.'
    Nimander, ever generous of heart, bit on the hook.
'Which is?'
    'Why, the evil wind, of course, ever desperate to get
dressed in something warm, but nothing ever fits so the
wind throws the garments away in a fit of fury.'
    'You were a child,' Kedeviss said, 'determined to explain
everything, weren't you? I don't really recall, since I stopped
listening to you long ago.'
    'She stabs deep, Nimander, this woman.'
    Nenanda had drawn up the cart and now climbed down,
stretching out the kinks in his back. 'I'm glad I'm done with
that,' he said.
    Moments later Aranatha and Desra joined them.
    Yes, here we are again. With luck, Clip will fall into a
crevasse and never return.
    Nimander looked older, like a man whose youth has been
beaten out of him. 'Well,' he said with a sigh, 'we should
search these huts and find whatever there is to find.'
    At his command the others set out to explore. Kedeviss
remained behind, her eyes still on Nimander, until he
turned about and regarded her quizzically.
    'He's hiding something,' she said.
    He did not ask whom she meant, but simply nodded.
    'I'm not sure why he feels the need for us, 'Mander. Did
he want worshippers? Servants? Are we to be his cadre in
some political struggle to come?'
    A faint smile from Nimander. 'You don't think, then, he
collected us out of fellowship, a sense of responsibility – to
take us back . . . to our "Black-Winged Lord"?'
    'Do you know,' she said, 'he alone among us has never
met Anomander Rake. In a sense, he's not taking us to
Anomander Rake. We're taking him.'
    'Careful, Kedeviss. If he hears you you will have offended
his self-importance.'
    'I may end up offending more than that,' she said.
    Nimander's gaze sharpened on her.
    'I mean to confront him,' she said. 'I mean to demand some
answers.'
    'Perhaps we should all—'
    'No. Not unless I fail.' She hoped he wouldn't ask for
her reasons on this, and suspected, as she saw his smile
turn wry, that he understood. A challenge by all of them,
with Nimander at the forefront, could force into the open
the power struggle that had been brewing between Clip
and Nimander, one that was now played out in gestures
of indifference and even contempt – on Clip's part, at any
rate, since Nimander more or less maintained his pleasant,
if slightly morbid, passivity, fending off Clip's none too
subtle attacks as would a man used to being under siege.
Salvos could come from any direction, after all. So carry a
big shield, and keep smiling.
    She wondered if Nimander even knew the strength
within him. He could have become a man such as Andarist
had been – after all, Andarist had been more of a father
to him than Anomander Rake had ever been – and yet
Nimander had grown into a true heir to Rake, his only
failing being that he didn't know it. And perhaps that was
for the best, at least for the time being.
    'When?' he asked now.
    She shrugged. 'Soon, I think.'
    A thousand paces above the village, Clip settled on one
of the low bridging walls and looked down at the quaintly
sordid village below. He could see his miserable little army
wandering about at the edges of the round, into and out
of huts.
    They were, he decided, next to useless. If not for concern
over them, he would never have challenged the Dying
God. Naturally, they were too ignorant to comprehend
that detail. They'd even got it into their heads that they'd
saved his life. Well, such delusions had their uses, although
the endless glances his way – so rank with hopeful expectation
– were starting to grate.
    He spun the rings. Clack-clack . . . clack-clack . . .
    Oh, I sense your power, O Black-Winged Lord. Holding
me at bay. Tell me, what do you fear? Why force me into