A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

round, simply said, 'Come over
here, husband.'
    'Thordy, there's trouble. I messed up. We messed up – we
got to think – we got to get out of here, out of the city – we
got to run—'
    'We're not running,' she said.
    He came up beside her. 'Listen, you stupid woman—'
She casually raised an arm and slid something cold and
biting across his throat. Gaz stared, reached up his battered,
maimed hands, and felt hot blood streaming down from his
neck. 'Thordy?' The word bubbled as it came out.
    Gaz fell to his knees, and she stepped up behind him and
with a gentle push sent him sprawling face down on to the
circle of flat stones.
    'You were a good soldier,' she said. 'Collecting up so
many lives.'
    He was getting cold, icy cold. He tried to work his way
back up, but there was no strength left in him, none at
all.
    'And me,' she went on, 'I've been good too. The dreams
– he made it all so simple, so obvious. I've been a good
mason, husband, getting it all ready . . . for you. For him.'
    The ice filling Gaz seemed to suddenly reach in, as deep
inside him as it was possible to go, and he felt something
– something that was his, and his alone, something that
called itself me – convulse and then shriek in terror and
anguish as the cold devoured it, ate into it, and piece after
piece of his life simply vanished, piece after piece after—
    Thordy dropped the knife and stepped back as Hood,
the Lord of Death, High King of the House of the Slain,
Embracer of the Fallen, began to physically manifest on
the stone dais before her. Tall, swathed in rotting robes of
muted green, brown, and black. The face was hidden but
the eyes were dull slits faintly lit in the midst of blackness,
as was the smeared gleam of yellow tusks.
    Hood now stood on the blood-splashed stones, in a
decrepit garden in the district of Gadrobi, in the city of
Darujhistan. Not a ghostly projection, not hidden behind
veils of shielding powers, not even a spiritual visitation.
    No, this was Hood, the god .
    Here, now.
    And in the city on all sides, the howling of the Hounds
rose in an ear-shattering, soul-flailing crescendo.
    The Lord of Death had arrived, to walk the streets in the
City of Blue Fire.
    The guard came on to the decrepit street facing the
ramshackle house that was home to the serial murderer,
but he could barely make it out through the pulsing waves
of darkness that seemed to be closing in on all sides, faster
and faster, as if he was witness to a savage, nightmarish
compression of time, day hurtling into night into day and
on and on. As if he was somehow rushing into his own old
age, right up to his final mortal moment. A roaring sound
filled his head, excruciating pain radiating out from his
chest, burning with fire in his arms, the side of his neck.
His jaws were clenched so tight he was crushing his own
teeth, and every breath was agony.
    He made it halfway to the front door before falling to
his knees, doubling up and sinking down on to his side, the
lantern clunking as it struck the cobbles. And suddenly he
had room for a thousand thoughts, all the time he could
have wanted, now that he'd taken his last breath. So many
things became clear, simple, acquiring a purity that lifted
him clear of his body—
    And he saw, as he hovered above his corpse, that a figure
had emerged from the killer's house. His altered vision
revealed every detail of that ancient, unhuman visage
within the hood, the deep-etched lines, the ravaged map
of countless centuries. Tusks rising from the lower jaw,
chipped and worn, the tips ragged and splintered. And the
eyes – so cold, so . . . haunted – all at once the guard knew
this apparition.
    Hood. The Lord of Death had come for him.
    He watched as the god lifted his gaze, fixing him with
those terrible eyes.
    And a voice spoke in his head, a heavy voice, like the
grinding of massive stones, the sinking of mountains. 'I
have thought nothing of justice. For so long now. It is all
one to me. Grief is tasteless, sorrow an empty sigh. Live an
eternity in dust and ashes and then speak to me of justice.'
    To this the guard had nothing to say. He had been arguing
with death night after night. He had been fighting all
the way from the Phoenix Inn. Every damned step. He was
past that now.
    'So,' continued Hood, 'here I stand. And the air surrounding
me, the air rushing into my lungs, it lives. I
cannot prevent what comes with my every step here in the
mortal world. I cannot be other than what I am.'
    The guard was