A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

that the night
ahead would stretch out into eternity.
    Blend descended to the main floor, where she paused. The
bard sat on the edge of the stage, tuning his lyre. Duiker
sat at his usual table, frowning at a tankard of ale that his
hands were wrapped round as if he was throttling some
hard, unyielding fate.
    Antsy – Antsy was in gaol. Scillara had wandered out a
few bells earlier and had not returned. Barathol was spending
his last night in his own cell – he'd be on a wagon
headed out to some ironworks come the dawn.
    Picker was lying on a cot upstairs, eyes closed, breaths
shallow and weak. She was, in truth, gone. Probably never
to return.
    Blend drew on her cloak. Neither man paid her any
attention.
    She left the bar.
    Ever since the pretty scary woman had left earlier – how
long, days, weeks, years, Chaur had no idea – he had sat
alone, clutching the sweating lance a dead man wearing
a mask had once given C'ur, and rocking back and forth.
Then, all at once, he wanted to leave. Why? Because the
gulls outside never stopped talking, and the boat squeaked
like a rat in a fist, and all the slapping water made him
need to pee.
    Besides, he had to find Baral. The one face that was
always kind, making it easy to remember. The face that belonged
to Da and Ma both, just one face, to make it easier
to remember. Without Baral, the world turned cold. And
mean, and nothing felt solid, and trying to stay together
when everything else wasn't was so hard.
    So he dropped the lance, rose and set out.
    To find Baral. And yes, he knew where to find him.
How he knew no one could say. How he thought, no one
could imagine. How deep and vast his love, no one could
conceive.
    Spite stood across the street from the infernal estate that
was the temporary residence of her infernal sister, and
contemplated her next move, each consideration accompanied
by a pensive tap of one finger against her full, sweetly
painted lips.
    All at once that tapping finger froze in mid-tap, and she
slowly cocked her head. 'Oh,' she murmured. And again,
'Oh.'
    The wind howled in the distance.
    But, of course, there was no wind, was there?
    'Oh.'
    And how would this change things?
    A guard, ignoring once more the dull ache in his chest
and the occasional stab of pain shooting down his left arm,
walked out from the guard annexe to begin his rounds,
making his way to the Lakefront District and the wall that
divided it from the Daru District – the nightly murders had
begun clustering to either side of that wall. Maybe this time
he'd be lucky and see something – someone – and everything
would fall into place. Maybe.
    He had put in a requisition for a mage, a necromancer, in
fact, but alas the wheels of bureaucracy ground reluctantly
in such matters. It would probably take the slaying of someone
important before things could lurch into motion. He
really couldn't wait for that. Finding this killer had become
a personal crusade.
    The night was strangely quiet, given that it marked the
culmination of the Gedderone Fête. Most people were still
in the taverns and bars, he told himself, even as he fought
off a preternatural unease, and even as he noted the taut
expressions of those people he passed, and the way they
seemed to scurry by. Where was the revelry? The delirious
dancing? Early yet , he told himself. But those two words
and everything behind them felt oddly flat.
    He could hear a distant storm on the plains south of the
city. Steady thunder, an echoing wind, and he told himself
he was feeling that storm's approach. Nothing more, just
the usual fizz in the air that preceded such events.
    He hurried on, grimacing at the ache in his chest, still
feeling the parting kiss of his wife on his lips, the careless
hugs of his children round his waist.
    He was a man who would never ask for sympathy. He
was a man who sought only to do what was right. Such
people appear in the world, every world, now and then, like
a single refrain of some blessed song, a fragment caught on
the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony.
    Imagine a world without such souls.
    Yes, it should have been harder to do.
    After a rather extended time of muted regard fixed dully
upon a sealed crypt, four mourners began their return
journey to the Phoenix Inn, where Meese would make a
grim discovery – although one that, in retrospect, did not
in fact shock her as much as it might have.
    Before they had gone five hundred paces, however,
Rallick Nom drew to a sudden halt. 'I must leave you