A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

that? She was no languid beauty.
She was no genius wit. Courage failed her again and again,
but not this time, as she drew sharp blades lengthways up
her wrists, at precise angles, and watched as life flowed
away. In Irilta's mind, this last gesture was but a formality.
    Passing through Two-Ox Gate, Bellam Nom sets out on
the road. From a hovel among the lepers he hears someone
softly sobbing. The wind has died, the smell of rotting flesh
hangs thick and motionless. He hurries on, as the young
are wont to do.
    Much farther down the road, Cutter rides on a horse
stolen from Coll's stable. His chest is filled with ashes, his
heart a cold stone buried deep.
    He drew a breath, sometime earlier that day, filled with
love.
    And then released it, black with grief.
    Both seem to be gone now, vanished within him, perhaps
never to return. And yet, hovering there before his
mind's eye, he sees a woman.
    Ghostly, wrapped in black, dark eyes fixed upon his
own.
    Not this path, my love .
    He shakes his head at her words. Shakes his head.
    Not my path, my love. But he rides on.
    I will give you my breath, my love. To hold.
    Hold it for me, as I hold yours. Turn back.
    Cutter shakes his head again. 'You left me.'
    No, I gave you a choice, and the choice remains. My love,
I gave you a place to come to, when you are ready. Find me.
Come find me.
    'This first.'
    Take my breath. But not this one, not this one.
    'Too late, Apsalar. It was always too late.'
    The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath
that begins with love and ends with grief. But there are
other anguishes, many others. They unfold as they will,
and to dwell within them is to understand nothing.
    Except, perhaps, this. In love, grief is a promise. As sure
as Hood's nod. There will be many gardens, but this last
one to visit is so very still. Not meant for lovers. Not meant
for dreamers. Meant only for a single figure, there in the
dark, standing alone.
    Taking a single breath.

CHAPTER TWENTY
    In hollow grove and steeple chamber
The vine retreats and moss rolls inside
The void from whence it came
In shallow grave and cloven crypt
The bones shiver and shades flee
Into the spaces between breaths
In tilted tower and webslung doorway
Echoes still and whispers will die
Men in masks rap knuckles 'gainst walls
In dark cabinets and beneath bed slats
Puppets clack limbs and painted eyes widen
To the song pouring down from hills
And the soul starts in its cavern drum
Battered and blunted to infernal fright
This is the music of the beast
The clamour of the world at bay
Begun its mad savage charge
The hunt commences my friends
The Hounds are among us.
    Prelude
Toll the Hounds
Fisher
    Faces of stone, and not one would turn Nimander's
way. His grief was too cold for them, too strange. He
had not shown enough shock, horror, dismay. He had
taken the news of her death as would a commander hearing
of the loss of a soldier, and only Aranatha – in the single,
brief moment when she acknowledged anyone or anything
– had but nodded in his direction, as if in grim approval.
    Skintick's features were tight with betrayal, once the
stunned disbelief wore off, and the closeness he had always
felt with Nimander now seemed to have suddenly widened
into a chasm no bridge could span. Nenanda had gone so
far as to half draw his sword, yet was torn as to who most
deserved his blade's bite: Clip or Nimander. Clip for his
shrug, after showing them the crumbled edge of the cliff
where she must have lost her footing. Or Nimander, who
stood dry-eyed and said nothing. Desra, calculating, selfish
Desra, was the first to weep.
    Skintick expressed the desire to climb down into the
crevasse, but this was a sentimental gesture he had drawn
from his time among humans – the need to observe the
dead, perhaps even to bury Kedeviss's body beneath
boulders – and his suggestion was met with silence. The
Tiste Andii held no regard for corpses. There would be no
return to Mother Dark, after all. The soul was flung away,
to wander for ever lost.
    They set out shortly thereafter, Clip in the lead, continuing
on through the rough pass. Clouds swept down
the flanks of the peaks, as if the mountains were shedding
their mantles of white, and before long the air grew cold
and damp, thin in their lungs, and all at once the clouds
swallowed the world.
    Stumbling on the slick, icy stone, Nimander trudged on
in Clip's wake – although the warrior was no longer even
visible, there was only one possible path. He