A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

oath, the second guard tugged at his
shortsword.
    Karsa's punch rocked his head back and the man
collapsed.
    Hoarse shouts of alarm, more Letherii soldiers
converging.
    Samar Dev rushed forward. 'Hood take you, Toblakai –
do you intend to war with the whole empire?'
    Glaring at the half-circle of guards closing round him,
Karsa grunted then crossed his arms. 'If you are to be my
escort,' he said to them, 'then be civil, or I will break you
all into pieces.' Then he swung about, pushing past Samar.
    'Where is my horse?' he bellowed to the crew still on
deck. 'Where is Havok! I grow tired of waiting!'
Samar Dev considered returning to the ship, demanding
that they sail out, back down the river, back into the
Draconean Sea, then beyond. Leaving this unpredictable
Toblakai to Letheras and all its hapless denizens.
    Alas, even gods don't deserve that.
    Bugg stood thirty paces from the grand entrance to the
Hivanar Estate, one hand out as he leaned against a wall to
steady himself. In some alley garden a short distance away,
chickens screeched in wild clamour and flung themselves
into the grille hatches in frenzied panic. Overhead,
starlings still raced back and forth en masse.
    He wiped beads of sweat from his brow, struggled to draw
a deep breath.
    A worthy reminder, he told himself. Everything was only
a matter of time. What stretched would then contract.
Events tumbled, forces closed to collision, and for all that,
the measured pace seemed to remain unchanged, a current
beneath all else. Yet, he knew, even that slowed,
incrementally, from one age to the next. Death is written in birth – the words of a great sage. What was her name? When did she live? Ah, so much has whispered away from my mind, these memories, like sand between the fingers. Yet she could see what most cannot – not even the gods. Death and birth. Even in opposition the two forces are bound, and to define one is to define the other.
    And now he had come. With his first step, delivering the
weight of history. This land's. His own. Two forces in opposition,
yet inextricably bound. Do you now feel as if you have come home, Icarium? I remember you, striding from the sea, a refugee from a realm you had laid to waste. Yet your father did not await you – he had gone, he had walked down the throat of an Azath. Icarium, he was Jaghut, and among the Jaghut no father reaches across to take his child's hand.
    'Are you sick, old man?'
    Blinking, Bugg looked across to see a servant from one of
the nearby estates, returning from market with a basket of
foodstuffs balanced on his head. Only with grief, dear mortal. He shook his head.
    'It was the floods,' the servant went on. 'Shifting the
clay.'
    'Aye.'
    'Scale House fell down – did you hear? Right into the
street. Good thing it was empty, hey? Though I heard there
was a fatality – in the street.' The man suddenly grinned. 'A
cat!' Laughing, he resumed his journey.
    Bugg stared after him; then, with a grunt, he set off for
the gate.
    * * *
    He waited on the terrace, frowning down at the surprisingly
deep trench the crew had managed to excavate into the
bank, then outward, through the bedded silts of the river
itself. The shoring was robust, and Bugg could see few leaks
from between the sealed slats. Even so, two workers were
on the pump, their bared backs slick with sweat.
    Rautos Hivanar came to his side. 'Bugg, welcome. I
imagine you wish to retrieve your crew.'
    'No rush, sir,' Bugg replied. 'It is clear to me now that this
project of yours is . . . ambitious. How much water is coming
up from the floor of that pit?'
    'Without constant pumping, the trench would overflow
in a little under two bells.'
    'I bring you a message from your servant, Venitt Sathad,
who visited on his way out of the city. He came to observe
our progress on the refurbishment of the inn you recently
acquired, and was struck with something of a revelation
upon seeing the mysterious mechanism we found inside an
outbuilding. He further suggested it was imperative that
you see it for yourself. Also, he mentioned a collection of
artifacts . . . recovered from this trench, yes?'
    The large man was silent for a moment, then he seemed
to reach a decision, for he gestured Bugg to follow.
    They entered the estate, passing through an elongated,
shuttered room in which hung drying herbs, down a
corridor and into a workroom dominated by a large table
and prism lanterns attached to hinged arms so that, if
desired, they could be drawn close or