A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

descent.
    And there was a sharp upward tug on the rope.
    He looked up. Vague faces peering over, hands and more
hands reaching to close on the rope. Venaz – yes, there he
was, grinning.
    'Got you,' he murmured, low and savage. 'Got you both,
Bainisk.'
    Another tug upward.
    Bainisk drew his knife one-handed. He reached down to
cut the rope beneath him, and then hesitated, looking up
once more at Venaz's face.
    Maybe that had been his own, only a few years ago. That
face, so eager to take over, to rule the moles. Well, Venaz
could have them. He could have it all.
    Bainisk reached up with the knife, just above his fist
where it held tight. And he sliced through.
    *
    Dig heels in, it will not help. We must wing back to the
present. For everything to be understood, every facet must
flash alight at least once. Earlier, the round man begged
forgiveness. Now, he pleads for trust. His is a sure hand,
even if it trembles. Trust.
    A bard sits opposite an historian. At a nearby table in
K'rul's Bar, Blend watches Scillara unfolding coils of smoke
from her mouth. There is something avid in that gaze, but
every now and then a war erupts in her eyes, when she
thinks of the woman lying in a coma upstairs. When she
thinks of her, yes. Blend has taken to sleeping in the bed
with Picker, has taken to trying all she could think of to
awaken sensation once more in her lover. But nothing has
worked. Picker's soul is lost, wandering far from the cool,
flaccid flesh.
    Blend hates herself now, as she senses her soul ready to
move on, to seek the blessing of a new life, a new body to
explore and caress, new lips to press upon her own.
    But this is silly. Scillara's amiability was ever casual.
She was a woman who preferred a man's charms, such as
they were. And truth be told, Blend had played in that
crib more than once herself. So why now has this lust
awakened? What made it so wild, so needy?
    Loss, my dear. Loss is like a goad, a stinging shove that
sets one lunging forward seeking handholds, seeking ecstasy,
delicious surrender, even the lure of self-destruction.
The bud cut at the stem throws its last energy into one
final flowering, one glorious exclamation. The flower defies ,
to quote in entirety an ancient Tiste Andii poem. Life runs
from death. It must, it cannot help it. Life runs , to quote a
round man's epitome of poetic brevity.
    Slip into Blend's mind, ease in behind her eyes, and
watch as she watches, feel as she feels, if you dare.
    Or try Antsy, there at the counter on which are arrayed
seven crossbows, twelve flatpacks of quarrels amounting
to one hundred and twenty darts, six shortswords, three
throwing axes of Falari design, a Genabarii broadsword and
buckler, two local rapiers with fancy quillons – so fancy
the weapons were snagged together and Antsy had spent
an entire morning trying to separate them, with no luck
– and a small sack containing three sharpers. He is trying
to decide what to wear.
    But the mission they were about to set out on was meant
to be peaceful, so he should just wear his shortsword as
usual, peace-strapped as usual, everything as usual, in
fact. But then there were assassins out there who wanted
Antsy's head on a dagger point, so maybe keeping things
usual was in fact suicidal. So he should strap on at least two
shortswords, throw a couple of crossbows over his shoulders
and hold the broadsword in his right hand and the twin
rapiers in his left, with a flatpack tied to each hip, the
sharper sack at his belt, and a throwing axe between his
teeth – no, that's ridiculous, he'd break his jaw trying that.
Maybe an extra shortsword, but then he might cut his own
tongue out the first time he tried saying anything and he
was sure to try saying something eventually, wasn't he?
    But he could run the scabbards for all six shortswords
through his belt, and end up wearing a skirt of shortswords,
but that'd be all right, wouldn't it? But then, where would
he carry the sharpers? One knock against a pommel or hilt
and he'd be an expanding cloud of whiskers and weapon
bits. And what about the crossbows? He'd need to load
them all up but keep everything away from the releases,
unless he wanted to end up skewering all his friends with
the first stumble.
    What if—
    What's that? Back to Blend, please? Flesh against flesh,
the weight of full breasts in hands, one knee pushing up
between parted thighs, sweat a blending of sweet oils, soft
lips trying to merge, tongues dancing eager and slick as—
    'I can't