A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

was that message again? I forget. Wait! Wait, hold
on. It was . . . what was it? Set a watch on the Urs Gate.
That's it, yes. Urs Gate. Or was it Foss Gate? Raven Gate?
Worry Gate? Cutter Gate? Two-Ox?'
    'Yes,' said Baruk, 'that's all of them.'
    'Urs, yes, it must have been. Urs.'
    Sordiko Qualm looked ready to weep.
    Baruk rubbed at his eyes, and then nodded. 'Very well. I
shall take my leave then.' He bowed to the High Priestess.
    The bhokarala rushed in. Each stole a knife and then,
with shrieks, they raced away clutching their prizes.
    Iskaral Pust stared agape, and then pulled at the two
snarls of hair above his ears. 'Evil!' he screamed. 'They
knew! They knew all my plans! How? How?'
    'Now, what shall I do with you?'
    Chaur watched her with doleful eyes. He had been crying
again, his eyes puffy, two runnels of snot streaking
down to his reddened, chapped lips.
    'We must assume,' Spite continued, 'that Barathol is
unavoidably indisposed – of course, at the moment all we
can do is assume, since in truth we have no idea what's
happened to him. One thing is obvious, and that is that he
cannot come here. If he could he would have, right? Come
to collect you, Chaur.'
    He was moments from bawling again. The simple mention
of Barathol threatened to set him off.
    Spite tapped her full lips with one long, perfectly manicured
finger. 'Unfortunately, I will need to leave here soon.
Can I trust you to stay here, Chaur? Can I?'
    He nodded.
    'Are you sure?'
    He nodded again, and then wiped his nose, rather messily.
    She frowned. 'Dear me, you're a sight. Do you realize it
is nothing more than certain pathways in your brain that
are in disarray? A practitioner of High Denul could work
wonders for you, Chaur. It's a thought, isn't it? Oh, I know,
you don't have "thoughts" as such. You have . . . impulses,
and confusion, and these two make up the man known as
Chaur. And, barring times such as this one, you are mostly
happy, and perhaps that is not something to be fiddled
with. The gods know, happiness is a precious and rare commodity,
and indeed it seems that the more intelligent and
perceptive the individual, the less happy they generally are.
The cost of seeing things as they are, I expect.
    'Then, of course, there is my sister. My smiling murderess
sibling. My vicious, ice-cold, treacherous kin. She happens
to be almost as intelligent as me, and yet she is immune
to unhappiness. A quality, I suspect, of her particular
insanity.
    'Anyway, Chaur, you will need to remain here, staying
out of sight. For I must pay my sister a visit. For a word or
two. Soon, yes?'
    He nodded.
    'Now, let's get you cleaned up. I wouldn't want to upset
Barathol and neither would you, I'm sure.'
    Now, Chaur was good at understanding people most of
the time. He was good at nodding, too. But on occasion
understanding and nodding did not quite match. This was
such a time.
    But more of that later.
    The carter failed to complete his breakfast, as it did not
take long for someone to take note of the wrapped corpse,
and then to bring word in to Meese that some fool had
left a body in the bed of the cart outside the inn – hardly
the kind of positive advertisement any inn might welcome,
even the Phoenix. Swearing, Meese went out to see for
herself, and something about those boots looked familiar.
With a suddenly cold heart, she pulled the canvas back
from Murillio's face.
    Things happened quickly then: wretched comprehension,
word's swift rush, and finally, the dusty, lifeless place
in the soul that was grief. Abject sense of uselessness, the
pummelling assault that is shock. The carter was cornered
by Irilta and, seeing the strait he'd found himself in, the old
man was quick to tell everyone all he knew.
    The short, round man at the back of the room rose then
with a sober expression and quietly took charge. He told
Irilta and Meese to carry the body to a spare room upstairs,
which they did with heartrending tenderness. Word was
sent out to Coll. As for the others, well, everyone returned
to the Phoenix Inn eventually, and so the ordeal of relaying
the bad news would not end soon, and each time the
emotions would well up once more. The living felt this new
burden and they could see that the next few days would be
without pleasure, without ease, and already everyone felt
exhausted, and not even Kruppe was immune.
    A dear friend is dead, and there is nothing just in death.
When the moment arrives, it is always too soon. The curse
of incompletion, the loss