Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

‘What would we do?’ Malice asked. She was the youngest and so she could ask the stupid questions without her sisters beating her up too badly, and sometimes they didn’t beat her up at all, or put things in her that hurt, and that was when she knew that her question had been a good one.

Spite snorted. ‘What do we do to you?’ she asked, and Malice could see the gleam of her smile and it was never good when Spite smiled. ‘We’d fill him up, that’s what, and keep doing it until he begged us.’

‘Begging never works,’ Malice said.

Envy laughed. ‘You idiot. Beg us for more. We could make him our slave. I want slaves.’

‘Slaves were done away with,’ Spite pointed out.

‘I’ll bring them back, when I grow up. I’ll make slaves of everyone and they’ll all have to serve me. I’ll rule an empire. I’d kill every pretty woman in it, or maybe just scar them for ever.’

‘It feels like we’ll never get older,’ Malice said, sighing.

She caught a silent look between her sisters, and then Envy shrugged and said, ‘Scrabal birds. Malice, you ever heard of scrabal birds?’

Malice shook her head.

‘They make small nests, but lay too many eggs,’ Envy explained. ‘All the chicks then hatch and at first it’s all right, but then they start growing.’

‘And the nest gets even smaller,’ said Spite, reaching out and walking her fingertips down Malice’s arm.

Envy was watching, her eyes bright. ‘So the biggest ones gang up on the little ones. They kill them and eat them, until the nest isn’t crowded any more.’

Spite’s walking fingers made their way back up the arm, edged closer to Malice’s neck.

‘I don’t like scrab birds,’ said Malice, shivering at the touch.

‘Scrabal,’ corrected Spite, still smiling.

‘Let’s talk about the hostage again,’ Malice suggested. ‘Making her ugly.’

‘You were too young to understand Father,’ said Spite, ‘when he talked to us about how we were going to grow up. Eight years, just like the Tiste, and nobody knows any different. We grow up like the rest of them. But just for those first eight years. Or nine.’

‘That’s because we’re not Tiste,’ said Envy in a whisper.

Spite nodded, her hand sliding round Malice’s throat. ‘We’re different.’

‘But Mother was-’

‘Mother?’ Spite snorted. ‘You know nothing about Mother. It’s a secret. Only me and Envy know, since you’re not old enough, not important enough.’

‘Father says it’s in our natures,’ Envy added.

‘What is?’ Malice asked.

‘Growing up… fast.’

‘Scary fast,’ Spite said, nodding.

‘Arathan-’

‘He’s different-’

‘No he isn’t, Spite,’ Envy said.

‘Yes he is!’

‘Well, half different, then. But you saw how he grew past us.’

‘After the ice.’

‘And that’s the secret, Spite. You have to nearly die first. That’s what I meant, before. That’s what I meant.’

Malice did not understand what they were talking about. She disliked the way Spite was holding her throat, but she dared not move. In case Spite decided to not let go. ‘We hate Sandalath Drukorlat,’ she said. ‘Who says hostages have to be special? Get her drunk and then cut her face, and use coals to pock her cheeks and forehead, and burn away her hair. Put a coal on one of her eyes. Burn it out!’

‘Do you want to grow up?’ Spite asked her.

Malice nodded.

‘Grow up fast?’ Envy pressed, leaning forward to stroke Malice’s hair. ‘Faster than us? Do you want to grow right past us, little one? If you did that, you could boss us around. You could make us lie with dogs and like it.’

Malice thought about the dog, the one that Ivis had to kill. She thought about what they did to Arathan when he was little, so little he couldn’t fight the dog off, not with the three of them holding him still. She wondered if he remembered all of that.

‘Don’t you want to make us lie with dogs?’ Spite asked her.

‘Jheleck,’ answered Malice. ‘Grown ones. And I’d make you like it, too, and beg for more.’

‘Of course you would,’ Envy murmured. ‘Unless we decide to grow right past you again, and make you littler than us all over again. Then we’d give you to the Jheleck.’

‘I wouldn’t let you!’

‘But there’s two of us,’ pointed out Spite, ‘and only one of you, Malice. Besides, we already make you like lots of things.’

But Malice only said that she did. The truth was, she hated everything they did to her. She wanted to kill them both. She wouldn’t be content with making them lie with dogs or Jheleck or old drooling men. When she grew up, she would murder her sisters. She would cut them into pieces. ‘Make me grow up fast,’ she said.

Spite’s smile broadened, and her hand tightened about Malice’s throat.

When she couldn’t breathe, she began struggling, trying to scratch Spite’s face, but Envy lunged close and grasped her wrists, pushing her arms down. Malice kicked, but Spite moved round and sat on her. And the hand kept squeezing, and it was terrifyingly strong.

Spite laughed, her eyes shining. ‘I dreamed this last night,’ she whispered. ‘I dreamed a murder far away. It was wonderful.’

Malice felt her eyes bulging, her face growing impossibly hot. Blackness closed in around her, swallowing everything.

Envy heard something break in Malice’s neck and tore Spite’s hands away. Their little sister’s head lolled back, as if to show them the deep imprint on her throat — the ribbons made by the fingers, the white knobs made by knuckles and the crescent cuts from nails digging in.

Neither said a word as they stared down at Malice.

Then Spite grunted. ‘It didn’t work,’ she said. ‘Not like with Arathan. It didn’t work at all, Envy.’

‘I’m not blind,’ Envy snapped. ‘You must have done it wrong.’

‘I did what you told me to!’

‘No — the choking was your idea, Spite! From your dream!’

‘Now,’ whispered Spite, ‘now I’ve done it twice. I’ve killed twice, both times the same way. I choked them to death.’

‘That’s what you get for going too far in your dreams,’ Envy said. ‘I told you to stay closer to home. You look through too many eyes.’

‘I didn’t just look,’ Spite said. ‘I made him like it.’

‘That’s your power then. Father said we had powers. He said we had aspects, that’s what he said.’

‘I know what he said. I was there.’

‘You make them like it. I make them want it.’ Envy looked down at Malice’s body. ‘I wonder what her aspect was.’

‘We’ll never know,’ said Spite. ‘And neither will she.’

‘You killed her, Spite.’

‘It was an accident. An experiment. It’s Father’s fault, for what he said.’

‘You killed Malice.’

‘An accident.’

‘Spite?’

‘What?’

‘What did it feel like?’

There was a niche under the foundations of the oven, where someone had pulled away a number of stones at the base as if to hide something, but nothing was there. It was just about big enough to fit Malice’s body, and once they pushed, sitting down and using their feet, and once a bone or two had snapped, they managed to get all of her inside. The stones that had been pulled away were the ones they always used to sit on. Now Spite and Envy pushed them back to at least block the niche.

‘Hilith is going to be a problem,’ Spite said. ‘She’ll want to know where Malice has gone.’

‘We’ll have to do what we said we’d do, then.’

‘Now?’

‘We don’t have any choice. It’s not just Hilith, is it? It’s Atran and Hidast and Ivis.’

Spite gasped. ‘What about the hostage?’