She found herself looking into them, there in the mirror, still clear even after half a carafe of wine at breakfast and then the pipe of rustleaf afterwards, and she had a sudden sense that the next time she stood thus, the face staring back at her would belong to someone else, another woman wearing her skin, her face. A stranger far more knowing, far wiser in the world’s dismal ways than this one before her now.

Was she looking forward to making her acquaintance?

It was possible.

The day beckoned and she turned away-before she saw too much of the woman she was leaving behind-and set about dressing for the city.

‘So, you’re the historian who survived the Chain of Dogs.’

The old man sitting at the table looked up and frowned. ‘Actually, I didn’t.’

‘Oh,’ said Scillara, settling down into the chair opposite him-her body felt strange today, as if even fat could be weightless. Granted, she wasn’t getting any heavier, but her bones were wearing plenty and there was a sense of fullness, of roundness, and for some reason all of this was making her feel sexually charged, very nearly brimming over with a slow, sultry indolence. She drew out her pipe and eyed the Malazan opposite. ‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘It’s a long story,’ he said.

‘Which you’re relating to that ponytailed bard.’

He grunted. ‘So much for privacy.’

‘Sounds to be a good thing, getting it all out. When he found out I was in Sha’ik’s camp in Raraku, he thought to cajole details out of me. But I was barely conscious most of that time, so I wasn’t much help. I told him about Heboric, though.’

And Duiker slowly straightened, a sudden glint in his eyes burning away all the sadness, all the weariness. ‘Heboric?’

Scillara smiled. ‘Fisher said you might be interested in that.’

‘I am. Or,’ he hesitated, ‘I think I am.’

‘He died, I’m afraid. But I will tell you of it, if you’d like. From the night we fled Sha’ik.’

The light had dimmed in Duiker’s eyes and he looked away. ‘Hood seems determined to leave me the last one standing. All my friends…’

‘Old friends, maybe,’ she said, pulling flame into the bowl. ‘Plenty of room for new ones.’

‘That’s a bitter consolation.’

‘We need to walk, I think.’

‘I’m not in the mood-’

‘But I am and Barathol is gone and your partners are upstairs chewing on conspiracies. Chaur is in the kitchen eating everything in sight and Blend’s fallen in love with me and sure, that’s amusing and even enjoyable for a time, but for me it’s not the real thing. Only she’s not listening. Anyway, I want an escort and you’re elected.’

‘Really, Scillara-’

‘Being old doesn’t mean you can be rude. I want you to take me to the Phoenix Inn.’

He stared at her for a long moment.

She drew hard on her pipe, swelled her lungs to thrust her ample breasts out and saw how his gaze dropped a fraction or two. ‘I’m looking to embarrass a friend, you see,’ she said, then released the lungful of smoke towards the black-stained rafters.

‘Well,’ he sourly drawled, ‘in that case…’

‘Rallick’s furious,’ Cutter said as he sat down, reaching for the brick of cheese to break off a sizeable chunk which he held in his left hand, an apple in his right. A bite from the apple was quickly followed by one from the cheese.

‘Kruppe commiserates. Tragedy of destiny, when destiny is that which one chooses given what one is given. Dear Cutter might have retained original name had he elected a life in, say, Murillio’s shadow. Alas, Cutter in name is cutter in deed.’

Cutter swallowed and said, ‘Hold on. I wasn’t making a point of walking in Rallick’s shadow. Not anybody’s shadow-in fact, the whole idea of “shadow” makes me sick. If one god out there has truly cursed me, it’s Shadowthrone.’

‘Shifty Shadowthrone, he of the sourceless shade, a most conniving, dastardly god indeed! Chill is his shadow, cruel and uncomfortable is his throne, horrid his Hounds, tangled his Rope, sweet and seductive his innocent servants! But!’ And Kruppe held aloft one plump finger. ‘Cutter would not speak of walking in shadows, why, not anyone’s! Even one which sways most swayingly, that cleaves most cleavingly, that flutters in fluttering eyelashes framing depthless dark eyes that are not eyes at all, but pools of unfathomable depth-and is she sorry? By Ap-salar she is not!’

‘I hate you sometimes,’ Cutter said in a grumble, eyes on the table, cheese and apple temporarily forgotten in his hands.

‘Poor Cutter. See his heart carved loose from yon chest, flopping down like so much bloodied meat on this tabletop. Kruppe sighs and sighs again in the deep of sympathy and extends, yes, this warm cloak of companionship against the cold harsh light of truth this day and on every other day! Now, kindly pour us more of this herbal concoction which, whilst tasting somewhat reminiscent of the straw and mud used to make bricks, is assured by Meese to aid in all matters of digestion, including bad news.’

Cutter poured, and then took another two bites, apple and cheese. He chewed for a time, then scowled. ‘What bad news?’

‘That which Is yet to arrive, of course, Will honey aid this digestive aid? Pro-. ably not. It will, one suspects, curdle and recoil. Why in it, Kruppe wonders, that those who claim all healthy amends via rank brews, gritty grey repast of the raw and unrefined, and unpalatable potions, and this amidst a regime of activities in-vented solely to erode bone and wear out muscle-all these purveyors of the pure and good life are revealed one and all as wan, parched well nigh bloodless, with vast fists bobbing up and down in the throat and watery eyes savage in righteous smugitude, walking like energized storks and urinating water pure enough to drink all over again? And pass if you please to dear beatific Kruppe, then, that last pastry squatting forlorn and alone on yon pewter plate.’

Cutter blinked. ‘Sorry. Pass what?’

‘Pastry, dear lad! Sweet pleasures to confound the pious worshippers of suffer-ing! How many lives do each of us have, Kruppe wonders rhetorically, to so constrain this one with desultory disciplines so efficacious that Hood himself must bend over convulsed in laughter? This evening, dear friend of Kruppe, you and I will walk the cemetery and wager which buried bones belong to the healthy ones and which to the wild cavorting headlong maniacs who danced bright with smiles each and every day!’

‘The healthy bones would be the ones left by old people, I’d wager.’

‘No doubt no doubt, friend Cutter, a most stolid truth. Why, Kruppe daily encounters ancient folk and delights in their wide smiles and cheery well-mets.’

‘They’re not all miserable, Kruppe.’

‘True, here and there totters a wide-eyed one, wide-eyed because a life of raucous abandon is behind one and the fool went and survived it all! Now what, this creature wonders? Why am I not dead? And you, with your three paltry decades of pristine boredom, why don’t you just go somewhere and die!’

‘Are you being hounded by the aged, Kruppe?’

‘Worse. Dear Murillio moans crabby and toothless and now ponders a life of inactivity. Promise Kruppe this, dear Cutter-when you see this beaming paragon here before you falter, dribble at the mouth, mutter at the clouds, wheeze and fart and trickle and all the rest, do bundle Kruppe up tight in some thick impervious sack of burlap, find a nearby cliff and send him sailing out! Through the air! Down on to the thrashing seas and crashing rocks and filmy foams-Kruppe implores you! And listen, whilst you do so, friend Cutter, sing and laugh, spit into my wake! Do you so promise?’

‘If I’m around, Kruppe, I’ll do precisely as you ask.’

‘Kruppe is relieved, so relieved. Aaii, last pastry revolts in nether gut-more of this tea, then, to yield the bitumen belch of tasteless misery on earth. And then, shortly anon, it will be time for lunch! And see who enters, why, none other than Murillio, newly employed and flush and so eager with generosity!’