A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

entirely blocking her path, his eyes glittering like
wrecker fires on a promontory. 'So pleased I found you,' he
said. 'I must head out to the mining camp – no doubt you
can hear the carriage being readied behind you.'
    Casual words, yet she was startled, like a bird; flash of
fluttering, panicked wings in the gloom as she half turned
to register the snort of horses and the rustle of traces from
the forecourt behind her. 'Oh,' she managed, then faced
him once more. Her heart's rapid beat began slowing
down.
    'Even here,' Gorlas said, 'there is a sweet flush to your
cheeks, dear. Most becoming.'
    She could almost feel the brush of fingertips to grant
benediction to the compliment. A moth, startled awake by
the clash of currents in the dusty air, wings dry as talc as it
fluttered against her face. She flinched back. 'Thank you,'
she said.
    This was just another game, of course. She realized that
now. He did not want things to get messy, not here, not any
time soon. She told herself this with certainty, and hoped
it was true. But then, why not an explosive shattering?
Freeing him, freeing her – wouldn't that be healthier in the
end? Unless his idea of freeing himself is to kill me. Such things
happen, don't they?
    'I do not expect to be back for at least three days. Two
nights.'
    'I see. Be well on your journey, Gorlas.'
    'Thank you, darling.' And then, without warning, he
stepped close, his free hand grasping her right breast. 'I
don't like the thought of strangers doing this,' he said, his
voice low, that odd smile still there. 'I need to picture the
face, one I know well. I need a sense of the bastard behind
it.'
    She stared into his eyes and saw only a stranger, calculating,
as clinical and cold as a dresser of the dead – like the
one who'd come to do what was needed with the corpse of
her mother, once the thin veil of sympathy was tossed aside
like a soiled cloth and the man set to work.
    'When I get back,' he continued, 'we'll have a talk. One
with details. I want to know all about him, Challice.'
    She knew that what she said at this precise moment
would echo in her husband's mind for virtually every spare
moment in the course of the next three days and two
nights, and by the time he returned her words would have
done their work in transforming him – into a broken thing,
or into a monster. She could say All right , as if she was being
forced, cornered, and whatever immediate satisfaction he
felt would soon twist into something dark, unpleasant, and
she would find herself across from a vengeful creature in
three days' time. She might say If you like , and he would
hear that as defiance and cruel indifference – as if for her
his needs were irrelevant, as if she would oblige out of pity
and not much else. No, in truth she had few choices in
what she might utter at this moment. In an instant, as he
awaited her response, she decided on what she would say
and when it came out it was calm and assured (but not too
much so). 'Until then, husband.'
    He nodded, and she saw the pupils of his eyes dilate.
She caught his quickened breathing, and knew her choice
had been the right one. Now, the next three days and two
nights, Gorlas would be as one on fire. With anticipation,
with his imagination unleashed and playing out scenarios,
each one a variation on a single theme.
    Yes, Gorlas, we are not done with each other yet, after all.
    His hand withdrew from her breast and, with a courtly
bow, he stepped to one side to permit her to pass.
    She did so.
    Murillio hired a horse for the day; with tack included,
the rental amounted to three silver councils along with
a twenty-council deposit. Of that, the animal was worth
perhaps five, certainly not much more. Slope-backed, at
least ten years old, worn out, beaten down, the misery in
the beast's eyes stung Murillio to sympathy and he was of
half a mind to forgo the deposit and leave the animal in the
hands of a kindly farmer with plenty of spare pasture.
    He rode at a slow, plodding walk through the crowded
streets, until he reached Two-Ox Gate. Passing through the
archway's shadow, he collected the horse into a steady trot
on the cobbled road, passing laden wagons and carts and
the occasional Gadrobi peasant struggling beneath baskets
filled with salted fish, flasks of oil, candles and whatever
else they needed to make bearable living in a squalid hut
along the roadside.
    Once beyond the leper colony, he began scanning the
lands to either side, seeking the nearest active