A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

alone. Indeed, he had no memory of ever having
been alone. The notion was impossible, in fact, and
that much he understood. As far as he could tell, he was
incorporeal, and possessed of the quaint privilege of being
able to move from one companion to another almost at
will. If they were to die, or somehow find a means of rejecting
him, why, he believed he would cease to exist. And he
so wanted to stay alive, floating as he did in the euphoric
wonder of his friends, his bizarre, disjointed family.
    They traversed a wilderness ragged and forlorn, a
place of broken rock, wind-rippled fans of grey sand,
screes of volcanic glass that began and ended with
random indifference. Hills and ridges clashed in wayward
confusion, and not a single tree broke the undulating
horizon. The sun overhead was a blurred eye that smeared
a path through thin clouds. The air was hot, the wind
constant.
    The only nourishment the group had been able to find
came from the strange swarms of scaled rodents – their
stringy meat tasting of dust – and an oversized breed of
rhizan that possessed pouches under their wings swollen
with milky water. Day and night capemoths tracked them,
ever patient should one fall and not rise, but this did not
seem likely. Flitting from one person to the next, he could
sense their innate resolve, their unfailing strength.
    Such fortitude, alas, could not prevent the seemingly
endless litany of misery that seemed to comprise the bulk
of their conversation.
    'What a waste,' Sheb was saying, clawing at his itching
beard. 'Sink a few wells, pile these stones into houses and
shops and whatnot. Then you'd have something worth
something. Empty land is useless. I long for the day when
it's all put to use, everything, right over the surface of the
world. Cities merging into one –'
    'There'd be no farms,' objected Last, but as always it was
a mild, diffident objection. 'Without farms, nobody eats –'
    'Don't be an idiot,' snapped Sheb. 'Of course there'd be
farms. Just none of this kind of useless land, where nothing
lives but damned rats. Rats in the ground, rats in the air,
and bugs, and bones – can you believe all the bones?'
    'But I –'
    'Be quiet, Last,' said Sheb. 'You never got nothing useful
to say, ever.'
    Asane then spoke in her frail, quavering voice. 'No
fighting, please. It's horrible enough without you picking
fights, Sheb –'
    'Careful, hag, or you're next.'
    'Care to try me , Sheb?' Nappet asked. He spat. 'Didn't
think so. You talk, Sheb, and that's all you do. One of these
nights, when you're asleep, I'm gonna cut out your tongue
and feed it to the fuckin' capemoths. Who'd complain?
Asane? Breath? Last? Taxilian? Rautos? Nobody, Sheb,
we'd all be dancing.'
    'Leave me out of this,' said Rautos. 'I suffered enough for
a lifetime when I was living with my wife and needless to
say, I don't miss her.'
    'Here goes Rautos again,' snarled Breath. 'My wife did
this, my wife said that. I'm sick of hearing about your
wife. She ain't here, is she? You probably drowned her,
and that's why you're on the run. You drowned her in your
fancy fountain, just held her down, watching as her eyes
went wide, her mouth opened and she screamed through
the water. You watched and smiled, that's what you did. I
don't forget, I can't forget, it was awful. You're a murderer,
Rautos.'
    'There she goes,' said Sheb, 'talking about drowning
again.'
    'Might cut out her tongue, too,' said Nappet, grinning.
'Rautos, too. No more shit about drowning or wives or
complainin' – the rest of you are fine. Last, you don't say
nothing and when you do, it don't rile nobody. Asane, you
mostly know when to keep your mouth shut. And Taxilian
hardly ever says nothing anyway. Just us, and that'd be –'
    'I see something,' said Rautos.
    He felt their attentions shift, find focus, and he saw
with their eyes a vague smudge on the horizon, something
thrusting skyward, too narrow to be a mountain, too massive
to be a tree. Still leagues away, rising like a tooth.
    'I want to see that,' announced Taxilian.
    'Shit,' said Nappet, 'ain't nowhere else to go.'
    The others silently agreed. They had been walking for
what seemed forever, and the arguments about where they
should go had long since withered away. None of them had
any answers, none of them even knew where they were.
    And so they set out for that distant, mysterious edifice.
    He was content with that, content to go with them,
and he found himself sharing Taxilian's curiosity, which
grew in strength