A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

you
mean.'
    Nimander roused himself. 'Skin—'
    But Nenanda had taken the bait – and it was indeed
bait, since for all that Skintick had seemed intent on his
twigs, he had slyly noted Nenanda's diffidence. 'Liars like confusion. Liars and thieves, because they can slip in and
slip out, when there's confusion. They want your uncertainty,
but there's nothing uncertain in what they want, is
there? That's how they use you – you're like that yourself
sometimes, Skintick, with your clever words.'
    'Wait, how can they use me if I am them?'
    Desra snorted.
    Nenanda's expression filled with fury and he would have
risen, if not for Aranatha's gentle hand settling on his arm,
magically dispelling his rage.
    Skintick twisted the arms of the tiny figure until they
were above the knotted head with its lone green leaf, and
held it up over the fire so that it faced Nenanda. 'Look,' he
said, 'he surrenders.'
    'Do not mock me, Skintick.'
    'On the contrary, I applaud your desire to have things
simple. After all, either you can cut it with your sword or
you can't.'
    'There you go again.'
    The bickering would go on half the night, Nimander
knew. And as it went on it would unravel, and Skintick
would increasingly make Nenanda into a thick-witted fool,
when he was not anything of the sort. But words were indeed
ephemeral, able to sleet past all manner of defences,
quick to cut, eager to draw blood. They were the perfect
weapons of deceit, but they could also be, he well knew,
the solid pavestones of a path leading to comprehension
– or what passed for comprehension in this murky, impossible
world.
    There were so many ways to live, one for every single
sentient being – and perhaps for the non-sentient ones too
– that it was a true miracle whenever two could meet in
mutual understanding, or even passive acceptance. Proof,
Skintick had once said, of life's extraordinary flexibility. But then , he had added, it is our curse to be social creatures,
so we've little choice but to try to get along.
    They were camped on a broad terrace above the last of
the strange ruins – the day's climb had been long, dusty
and exhausting. Virtually every stone in the rough gravel
filling the old drainage channels proved to be some sort of
fossil – pieces of what had once been bone, wood, tooth or
tusk – all in fragments. The entire mountainside seemed
to be some sort of midden, countless centuries old, and
to imagine the lives needed to create so vast a mound
was to feel bewildered, weakened with awe. Were the
mountains behind this one the same? Was such a thing
even possible?
    Can't you see, Nenanda, how nothing is simple? Not even
the ground we walk upon. How is this created? Is what we
come from and where we end up any different? No, that was
badly put. Make it simpler. What is this existence?
    As Nenanda might answer, it does a warrior no good to
ask such questions. Leave us this headlong plunge, leave
to the moment to come that next step, even if it's over an
abyss. There's no point in all these questions.
    And how might Skintick respond to that? Show a
bhederin fear and watch it run off a cliff. What killed it? The
jagged rocks below, or the terror that made it both blind and
stupid? And Nenanda would shrug. Who cares? Let's just eat
the damned thing.
    This was not the grand conflict of sensibilities one
might think it was. Just two heads on the same coin, one
facing right on this side, the other facing left on the other side.
Both winking.
    And Desra would snort and say, Keep your stupid words,
I'll take the cock in my hand over words any time.
    Holding on for dear life , Skintick would mutter under
his breath, and Desra's answering smile fooled no one.
Nimander well remembered every conversation among his
followers, his siblings, his family, and remembered too how
they could repeat themselves, with scant variation, if all
the cues were triggered in the right sequence.
    He wondered where Clip had gone to – somewhere out
beyond this pool of firelight, perhaps listening, perhaps
not. Would he hear anything he'd not heard before? Would
anything said this night alter his opinion of them? It did
not seem likely. They bickered, they rapped against personalities
and spun off either laughing or infuriated. Prodding,
skipping away, ever seeking where the skin was thinnest
above all the old bruises. All just fighting without swords,
and no one ever died, did they?
Nimander watched Kedeviss – who had been unusually
quiet thus far – rise and