Read The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Online
Authors: Steven Erikson
âRight now?'
âYes.'
Bugg drew out his tattered leather purse, prised it open and peered inside. Then he looked up. âTwo docks.'
âI see. Surely you exaggerate.'
âWell, I cut a sliver off one of them, to pay for a haircut.'
âYou have no hair.'
âThat's why it was just a sliver. Nose hairs. Ear hairs, a trim of the eyebrows. It's important to be presentable.'
âAt your Drowning?'
Bugg laughed. âThat would be fun.' Then he grew sober and leaned forward across his desk. âYou don't think it will come to that, surely. As your client, I expect a most diligent defence at my trial.'
âAs your advocate, Master Bugg, I will be first in line demanding your blood.'
âOh, that's not very loyal of you.'
âYou have not paid for my loyalty.'
âBut loyalty is not something one pays for, Advocate Sleem.'
âHad I known that delusions accompanied your now-apparent incompetence, Master Bugg, I would never have agreed to represent you in any matter whatsoever.'
Bugg leaned back. âThat makes no sense,' he said. âAs Tehol Beddict has observed on countless occasions, delusions lie at the very heart of our economic system. Indenture as ethical virtue. Pieces of otherwise useless metal â beyond decoration â as wealth. Servitude as freedom. Debt as ownership. And so on.'
âAh, but those stated delusions are essential to my well-being, Master Bugg. Without them my profession would not exist. All of civilization is, in essence, a collection of contracts. Why, the very nature of society is founded upon mutually agreed measures of value.' He stopped then, and slowly shook his head â a motion alarmingly sinuous. âWhy am I even discussing this with you? You are clearly insane, and your insanity is about to trigger an avalanche of financial devastation.'
âI don't see why, Master Sleem. Unless, of course, your faith in the notion of social contract is nothing more than cynical self-interest.'
âOf course it is, you fool!'
So much for awkward sibilance.
Sleem's fingers wriggled like snared, blind and groping worms. âWithout cynicism,' he said in a strangled voice, âone becomes the system's victim rather than its master, and I am too clever to be a victim!'
âWhich you must prove to yourself repeatedly in the measuring by your wealth, your ease of life, of the necessary contrast with the victims â a contrast that you must surround yourself with at every moment, as represented by your material excesses.'
âWordy, Master Bugg. Smug ostentation will suffice.'
âBrevity from you, Advocate Sleem?'
âYou get what you pay for.'
âBy that token,' Bugg observed, âI am surprised you're saying anything at all.'
âWhat follows is my gift. I will set forth immediately to inform your financiers that you are in fact broke, and I will in turn offer my services in the feeding frenzy over your material assets.'
âGenerous of you.'
Sleem's lips disappeared into a bony grimace. One eye twitched. The worms at the ends of his hands had gone white and deathly. âIn the meantime, I will take those two docks.'
âNot quite two.'
âNonetheless.'
âI can owe you that missing sliver.'
âBe certain that I will have it, eventually.'
âAll right.' Bugg reached into the purse and fished out the two coins. âThis is a loan, yes?'
âAgainst my fees?'
âNaturally.'
âI sense you are no longer playing the game, Master Bugg.'
âWhich game would that be?'
âThe one where winners win and losers lose.'
âOh, that game. No, I suppose not. Assuming, of course, I ever did.'
âI have a sudden suspicion â this very real truth behind all the rumours of impending market collapse â it is all your doing, isn't it?'
âHardly. Countless winners jumped in, I assure you. Believing, naturally, that they would win in the end. That's how these things work. Until they stop working.' Bugg snapped his fingers. âPoof!'
âWithout those contracts, Master Bugg, there will be chaos.'
âYou mean the winners will panic and the losers will launch themselves into their own feeding frenzy. Yes. Chaos.'
âYou are truly insane.'
âNo, just tired. I've looked into the eyes of too many losers, Sleem. Far too many.'
âAnd your answer is to make losers of us all. To level the playing field? But it won't do that, you know. You must know that, Bugg. It won't. Instead, the thugs will find the top of every heap, and instead of debt you will have true slavery; instead of contracts you will have tyranny.'
âAll the masks torn off, yes.'
âWhere is the virtue in that?'
The Elder God shrugged. âThe perils of unfettered expansion, Advocate Sleem, are revealed in the dust and ashes left behind. Assume the species' immortality since it suits the game. Every game. But that assumption will not save you in the end. No, in fact, it will probably kill you. That one self-serving, pious, pretentious, arrogant assumption.'
âThe bitter old man speaks.'
âYou have no idea.'
âWould that I carried a knife. For I would kill you with it, here and now.'
âYes. The game always ends at some point, doesn't it?'
âAnd you dare call me the cynical one.'
âYour cynicism lies in your willing abuse of others to consolidate your superiority over them. My cynicism is in regard to humanity's wilful blindness with respect to its own extinction.'
âWithout that wilful blindness there is naught but despair.'
âOh, I am not that cynical. In fact, I do not agree at all. Maybe when the wilful blindness runs its inevitable course, there will be born wilful wisdom, the revelation of seeing things as they are.'
âThings? To which things are you referring, old man?'
âWhy, that everything of true value is, in fact, free.'
Sleem placed the coins in his own bulging purse and walked to the door. âA very quaint notion. Alas, I will not wish you a good day.'
âDon't bother.'
Sleem turned at the hard edge in Bugg's voice. His brows lifted in curiosity.
Bugg smiled. âThe sentiment wouldn't be free now, would it?'
âNo, it would not.'
As soon as the hapless advocate was gone, Bugg rose.
Well, it's begun. Almost to the day when Tehol said it would. The man's uncanny. And maybe in that, there lies some hope for humanity. All those things that cannot be measured, cannot be quantified in any way at all.
Maybe.
Bugg would have to disappear now. Lest he get torn limb from limb by a murder of advocates, never mind the financiers. And that would be a most unpleasant experience. But first, he needed to warn Tehol.
The Elder God glanced around his office with something like affectionate regret, almost nostalgia. It had been fun, after all. This game. Like most games. He wondered why Tehol had stopped short the first time. But no, perhaps that wasn't at all baffling. Come face to face with a brutal truth â with any brutal truth â and it was understandable to back away.
As Sleem said, there is no value in despair.
But plenty of despair in value, once the illusion is revealed. Ah, I am indeed tired.
He set out from his office, to which he would never return.
Â
âHow can there be only four hens left? Yes, Ublala Pung, I am looking directly at you.'
âFor the Errant's sake,' Janath sighed, âleave the poor man alone. What did you expect to happen, Tehol? They're hens that no longer lay eggs, making them as scrawny and dry and useless as the gaggle of matronly scholars at my old school. What Ublala did was an act of profound bravery.'
âEat my hens? Raw?'
âAt least he plucked their feathers.'
âWere they dead by that point?'
âLet's not discuss those particular details, Tehol. Everyone is permitted one mistake.'
âMy poor pets,' Tehol moaned, eyeing Ublala Pung's overstuffed pillow at one end of the reed mat that served as the half-blood Tarthenal's bed.
âThey were not pets.'
He fixed a narrow gaze on his ex-tutor. âI seem to recall you going on and on about the terrors of pragmatism, all through history. Yet what do I now hear from you, Janath? “They were not pets.” A declarative statement uttered in most pragmatic tones. Why, as if by words alone you could cleanse what must have been an incident of brutal avian murder.'
âUblala Pung has more stomachs than both you and me combined. They need filling, Tehol.'
âOh?' He placed his hands on his hips â actually to make certain that the pin was holding the blanket in place, recalling with another pang his most public display a week past. âOh?' he asked again, and then added, âAnd what, precisely and pragmatically, was wrong with my famous Grit Soup?'
âIt was gritty.'
âHinting of most subtle flavours as can only be cultivated from diligent collection of floor scrapings, especially a floor pranced upon by hungry hens.'
She stared up at him. âYou are not serious, are you? That really
was
grit from the floor?
This floor?
'
âHardly reason for such a shocked expression, Janath. Of course,' he threw in offhandedly as he walked over to stand next to the blood-splotched pillow, âcreative cuisine demands a certain delicacy of the palate, a culture of appreciationâ' He kicked at the pillow and it squawked.
Tehol spun round and glared at Ublala Pung, who sat, back to a wall, and now hung his head.
âI was saving one for later,' the giant mumbled.
âPlucked or unplucked?'
âWell, it's in there to stay warm.'
Tehol looked over at Janath and nodded, âSee? Do you see, Janath? Finally see?'
âSee what?'
âThe deadly slope of pragmatism, Mistress. The very proof of your arguments all those years ago. Ublala Pung's history of insensitive rationalizations â if you could call anything going on in that skull rational â leading him â and, dare I add, innumerable unsuspecting hens â into the inevitable, egregious extreme ofâ¦of abject nakedness inside a pillow!'
Her brows lifted. âWell, that scene last week really scarred you, didn't it?'
âDon't be absurd, Janath.'
Ublala had stuck out his tongue â a huge, pebbled slab of meat â and was trying to study it, his eyes crossing with the effort.
âWhat are you doing now?' Tehol demanded.
The tongue retreated and Ublala blinked a few times to right his eyes. âGot cut by a beak,' he said.
âYou ate their beaks?'
âEasier to start with the head. They ain't so restless with no heads.'
âReally?'
Ublala Pung nodded.
âAnd I suppose you consider that merciful?'
âWhat?'
âOf course not,' Tehol snapped. âIt's just
pragmatic
. “Oh, I'm being eaten. But that's all right. I have no head!”'
Ublala frowned at him. âNobody's eating you, Tehol. And your head's still there â I can see it.'
âI was speaking for the hens.'
âBut they don't speak Letherii.'
âYou are not eating my last four hens.'
âWhat about the one in the pillow, Tehol? Do you want it back? Its feathers might grow back, though it might catch a cold or something. I can give it back if you like.'
âGenerous of you, Ublala, but no. Put it out of its misery, but mind the beak. In the meantime, however, I think you need to get yourself organized â you were supposed to leave days ago, after all, weren't you?'
âI don't want to go to the islands,' Ublala said, dragging a chipped nail through the grit on the floor. âI sent word. That's good enough, isn't it? I sent word.'
Tehol shrugged. âIf it's good enough, it's good enough. Right, Janath? By all means, stay with us, but you have to set out now to find food. For all of us. A hunting expedition and it won't be easy, Ublala. Not at all easy. There's not been a supply ship on the river for days now, and people have started hoarding things, as if some terrible disaster were imminent. So, as I said, Ublala, it won't be easy. And I hate to admit it, but there are people out there who don't think you can succeed.'
Ublala Pung's head snapped up, fire in his eyes. âWho? Who?'
The four hens paused in their scratchings and cocked heads in unison.
âI better not say,' Tehol said. âAnyway, we need food.'
The Tarthenal was on his feet, head crunching on the ceiling before he assumed his normal hunched posture when indoors. Plaster dust sprinkled his hair, drifted down to settle on the floor. The hens pounced, crowding his feet.
âIf you fail,' Tehol said, âwe'll have to start eating, uh, plaster.'
âLime is poisonous,' Janath said.
âAnd hen guano isn't? Did I hear you complain when you were slurping down my soup?'
âYou had your hands over your ears, Tehol, and I wasn't slurping anything down, I was spewing it back up.'
âI can do it,' Ublala said, hands bunching into fists. âI can get us food. I'll show you.' And with that he pushed through the doorway, out into the narrow alley, and was gone.
âHow did you do that, Tehol?'
âI won't take credit. It's how Shurq Elalle manages him. Ublala Pung has an eagerness to show what he can do.'
âYou prey on his low self-esteem, you mean.'
âNow that's rather hypocritical coming from a tutor, isn't it?'
âOoh, all the old wounds still smarting, are they?'
âNever mind old wounds, Janath. You need to leave.'
âWhat? Are there rumours I'm incapable of something?'
âNo, I'm serious. Any day now, there is going to be trouble. Here.'