A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

the mind to consider, cold or hot, all manner of
judgement. Propriety is dispensed with, decency cast
aside. This is the eye that does not blink, but is such steely
regard an invitation to cruel indifference? To a hardened,
compassionless aspect? Or will a sliver of honest empathy
work its way beneath the armour of desensitized excess?
When all is done, dare to weigh thine own harvest of
feelings and consider this one challenge: if all was met
with but a callous shrug, then, this round man invites, shift
round such cruel, cold regard, and cast one last judgement.
Upon thyself.
    But for now . . . witness.
    Skilles Naver was about to murder his family. He had been
walking home from Gajjet's Bar, belly filled with ale, only
to have a dog the size of a horse step out in front of him. A
blood-splashed muzzle, eyes burning with bestial fire, the huge
flattened head swinging round in his direction.
    He had frozen in place. He had pissed himself, and then shat
himself.
    A moment later a high wooden fence surrounding a vacant
lot further up the street – where a whole family had died of
some nasty fever a month earlier – suddenly collapsed and a
second enormous dog appeared, this one bone white.
    Its arrival snatched the attention of the first beast, and in a
surge of muscles the creature lunged straight for it.
    They collided like two runaway, laden wagons, the impact a
concussion that staggered Skilles. Whimpering, he turned and
ran.
    And ran.
    And now he was home, stinking like a slop pail, and his
wife was but half packed – caught in the midst of a treacherous
flight, stealing the boys, too. His boys. His little workers, who
did everything Skilles told them to (and Beru fend if they didn't
or even talked back, the little shits) and the thought of a life
without them – without his perfect, private, very own slaves
– lit Skilles into a white rage.
    His wife saw what was coming. She pushed the boys into
the corridor and then turned to give up her own life. Besk the
neighbour the door next over was collecting the boys for some
kind of escape to who knew where. Well, Skilles would just
have to hunt him down, wouldn't he? It wasn't as if puny rat-faced
Surna was going to hold him back for long, was it?
    Just grab her, twist that scrawny neck and toss the waste of
space to one side—
    He didn't even see the knife, and all he felt of the murderous
stab was a prick under his chin, as the thin blade shot up
through his mouth, deflected inward by his upper palate, and
sank three fingers deep straight into the base of his brain.
    Surna and her boys didn't have to run after all.
    Kanz was nine years old and he loved teasing his sister who
had a real temper, as Ma always said as she picked up pieces of
broken crockery and bits of hated vegetables scattered all over
the floor, and the best thing was prodding his sister in the ribs
when she wasn't looking, and she'd spin round, eyes flashing
with fury and hate – and off he'd run, with her right on his
heels, out into the corridor, pell-mell straight to the stairs and
then down and round and down fast as he could go with her
screeching behind him.
    Down and round and down and—
    —and he was flying through the air. He'd tripped, missed
his grip on the rail, and the ground floor far below rushed up
to meet him.
    'You two will be the death of each other!' Ma always said.
Zasperating! She said that too—
    He struck the floor. Game over.
    Sister's quick temper went away and never returned after
that night. And Ma never again voiced the word 'zasperating'.
Of course it did not occur to her that its sudden vanishing from
her mind was because her little boy had taken it with him, the
last word he'd thought. He'd taken it, as would a toddler a doll,
or a blanket. For comfort in his dark new world.
    Benuck Fill sat watching his mother wasting away. Some kind
of cancer was eating her up inside. She'd stopped talking,
stopped wanting anything; she was like a sack of sticks when he
picked her up to carry her to the washtub to wipe down all the
runny stuff she leaked out these days, these nights. Her smile,
which had told him so much of her love for him, and her shame
at what she had become – that horrible loss of dignity – had
changed now into something else: an open mouth, lips withered
and folded in, each breath a wheezing gasp. If that was a smile
then she was smiling at death itself and that was hard for him to
bear. Seeing that. Understanding it, what it meant.
    Not long now.