Read Online A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4 by Steven Erikson - Free Book Online
Authors: Steven Erikson
Ads: Link
begone
from my sight.'
As Tanal closed the door behind him, he struggled to
draw breath. The bastard. There was no warning off her, was there? Whose mistake was all this? Yet, you think to make me pay for it. All of it. Blade and Axe take you, Invictad, I won't suffer alone.
I won't.
'Depravity holds a certain fascination, don't you think?'
'No.'
'After all, the sicker the soul, the sweeter its
comeuppance.'
'Assuming there is one.'
'There's a centre point, I'm sure of it. And it should be
dead centre, by my calculations. Perhaps the fulcrum itself
is flawed.'
'What calculations?'
'Well, the ones I asked you to do for me, of course. Where
are they?'
'They're on my list.'
'And how do you calculate the order of your list?'
'That's not the calculation you asked for.'
'Good point. Anyway, if he'd just hold all his legs still, we
could properly test my hypothesis.'
'He doesn't want to, and I can see why. You're trying to
balance him at the mid-point of his body, but he's designed
to hold that part up, with all those legs.'
'Are those formal observations? If so, make a note.'
'On what? We had the wax slab for lunch.'
'No wonder I feel I could swallow a cow with nary a
hiccough. Look! Hah! He's perched! Perfectly perched!'
Both men leaned in to examine Ezgara, the insect with a
head at each end. Not unique, of course, there were plenty
around these days, filling some arcane niche in the complicated
miasma of nature, a niche that had been vacant for
countless millennia. The creature's broken-twig legs kicked
out helplessly.
'You're torturing him,' said Bugg, 'with clear depravity,
Tehol.'
'It only seems that way.'
'No, it is that way.'
'All right, then.' Tehol reached down and plucked the
hapless insect from the fulcrum. Its heads swivelled about.
'Anyway,' he said as he peered closely at the creature, 'that
wasn't the depravity I was talking about. How goes the
construction business, by the way?'
'Sinking fast.'
'Ah. Is that an affirmation or decried destitution?'
'We're running out of buyers. No hard coin, and I'm done
with credit, especially when it turns out the developers can't
sell the properties. So I've had to lay everyone off, including
myself.'
'When did all this happen?'
'Tomorrow.'
'Typical. I'm always the last to hear. Is Ezgara hungry, do
you think?'
'He ate more wax than you did – where do you think all
the waste goes?'
'His or mine?'
'Master, I already know where yours goes, and if Biri ever
finds out—'
'Not another word, Bugg. Now, by my observations, and
according to the notations you failed to make, Ezgara has
consumed food equivalent in weight to a drowned cat. Yet
he remains tiny, spry, fit, and thanks to our wax lunch today
his heads no longer squeak when they swivel, which I take
to be a good sign, since now we won't be woken up a
hundred times a night.'
'Master.'
'Yes?'
'How do you know how much a drowned cat weighs?'
'Selush, of course.'
'I don't understand.'
'You must remember. Three years ago. That feral cat
netted in the Rinnesict Estate, the one raping a flightless
ornamental duck. It was sentenced to Drowning.'
'A terrible demise for a cat. Yes, I remember now. The
yowl heard across the city.'
'That's the one. Some unnamed benefactor took pity on
the sodden feline corpse, paying Selush a small fortune to
dress the beast for proper burial.'
'You must be mad. Who would do that and why?'
'For ulterior motives, obviously. I wanted to know how
much a drowned cat weighs, of course. Otherwise, how valid
the comparison? Descriptively, I've been waiting to use it for
years.'
'Three.'
'No, much longer. Hence my curiosity, and opportunism.
Prior to that cat's watery end, I feared voicing the comparison,
which, lacking veracity on my part, would invite
ridicule.'
'You're a tender one, aren't you?'
'Don't tell anyone.'
'Master, about those vaults.'
'What about them?'
'I think extensions are required.'
Tehol used the tip of his right index finger to stroke
from my sight.'
As Tanal closed the door behind him, he struggled to
draw breath. The bastard. There was no warning off her, was there? Whose mistake was all this? Yet, you think to make me pay for it. All of it. Blade and Axe take you, Invictad, I won't suffer alone.
I won't.
'Depravity holds a certain fascination, don't you think?'
'No.'
'After all, the sicker the soul, the sweeter its
comeuppance.'
'Assuming there is one.'
'There's a centre point, I'm sure of it. And it should be
dead centre, by my calculations. Perhaps the fulcrum itself
is flawed.'
'What calculations?'
'Well, the ones I asked you to do for me, of course. Where
are they?'
'They're on my list.'
'And how do you calculate the order of your list?'
'That's not the calculation you asked for.'
'Good point. Anyway, if he'd just hold all his legs still, we
could properly test my hypothesis.'
'He doesn't want to, and I can see why. You're trying to
balance him at the mid-point of his body, but he's designed
to hold that part up, with all those legs.'
'Are those formal observations? If so, make a note.'
'On what? We had the wax slab for lunch.'
'No wonder I feel I could swallow a cow with nary a
hiccough. Look! Hah! He's perched! Perfectly perched!'
Both men leaned in to examine Ezgara, the insect with a
head at each end. Not unique, of course, there were plenty
around these days, filling some arcane niche in the complicated
miasma of nature, a niche that had been vacant for
countless millennia. The creature's broken-twig legs kicked
out helplessly.
'You're torturing him,' said Bugg, 'with clear depravity,
Tehol.'
'It only seems that way.'
'No, it is that way.'
'All right, then.' Tehol reached down and plucked the
hapless insect from the fulcrum. Its heads swivelled about.
'Anyway,' he said as he peered closely at the creature, 'that
wasn't the depravity I was talking about. How goes the
construction business, by the way?'
'Sinking fast.'
'Ah. Is that an affirmation or decried destitution?'
'We're running out of buyers. No hard coin, and I'm done
with credit, especially when it turns out the developers can't
sell the properties. So I've had to lay everyone off, including
myself.'
'When did all this happen?'
'Tomorrow.'
'Typical. I'm always the last to hear. Is Ezgara hungry, do
you think?'
'He ate more wax than you did – where do you think all
the waste goes?'
'His or mine?'
'Master, I already know where yours goes, and if Biri ever
finds out—'
'Not another word, Bugg. Now, by my observations, and
according to the notations you failed to make, Ezgara has
consumed food equivalent in weight to a drowned cat. Yet
he remains tiny, spry, fit, and thanks to our wax lunch today
his heads no longer squeak when they swivel, which I take
to be a good sign, since now we won't be woken up a
hundred times a night.'
'Master.'
'Yes?'
'How do you know how much a drowned cat weighs?'
'Selush, of course.'
'I don't understand.'
'You must remember. Three years ago. That feral cat
netted in the Rinnesict Estate, the one raping a flightless
ornamental duck. It was sentenced to Drowning.'
'A terrible demise for a cat. Yes, I remember now. The
yowl heard across the city.'
'That's the one. Some unnamed benefactor took pity on
the sodden feline corpse, paying Selush a small fortune to
dress the beast for proper burial.'
'You must be mad. Who would do that and why?'
'For ulterior motives, obviously. I wanted to know how
much a drowned cat weighs, of course. Otherwise, how valid
the comparison? Descriptively, I've been waiting to use it for
years.'
'Three.'
'No, much longer. Hence my curiosity, and opportunism.
Prior to that cat's watery end, I feared voicing the comparison,
which, lacking veracity on my part, would invite
ridicule.'
'You're a tender one, aren't you?'
'Don't tell anyone.'
'Master, about those vaults.'
'What about them?'
'I think extensions are required.'
Tehol used the tip of his right index finger to stroke
Similar Books
