Toll the Hounds

CHAPTER ELEVEN

No purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine. This scattering of sticks in the dust, that any adult might kick through without a moment’s thought, is in truth the bones of a vast world, clothed, fleshed, a fortress, a forest, a great wall against which terrible hordes surge and are thrown back by a handful of grim heroes. A nest for dragons, and these shiny smooth pebbles are their eggs, each one home to a furious, glorious future. No creation was ever raised as fulfilled, as brimming, as joyously triumphant, and all the machinations and manipulations of adults are the ghostly recollections of childhood and its wonders, the awkward mating to cogent function, reasonable purpose; and each facade has a tale to recount, a legend to behold in stylized propriety. Statues in alcoves fix sombre expressions, indifferent to every passer-by. Regimentation rules these creaking, stiff minds so settled in habit and fear.

To drive children into labour is to slaughter artists, to scour deathly all wonder, the flickering dart of imagination eager as finches flitting from branch to branch — all crushed to serve grown-up needs and heartless expectations. The adult who demands such a thing is dead inside, devoid of nostalgia’s bright dancing colours, so smooth, so delicious, so replete with longing both sweet and bitter — dead inside, yes, and dead outside, too. Corpses in motion, cold with the resentment the undead bear towards all things still alive, all things still warm, still breathing.

Pity these ones? Nay, never, never so long as they drive on hordes of children into grisly labour, then sup languid of air upon the myriad rewards.

Dare this round self descend into hard judgement? This round self does dare! A world built of a handful of sticks can start tears in the eyes, as the artist on hands and knees sings a score of wordless songs, speaks in a hundred voices, and moves unseen figures across the vast panorama of the mind’s canvas (pausing but once to wipe nose on sleeve). He does so dare this! And would hasten the demise of such cruel abuse.

Even a serpent has grandiose designs, yet must slither in minute increments, struggling for distances a giant or god would scorn. Tongue flicking for the scent, this way and that. Salvation is the succulent fruit at hunt’s end, the sun-warmed bird’s egg, the soft cuddly rat trapped in the jaws.

So searches the serpent, friend to the righteous. So slides the eel through the world’s stirred muck, whiskers a-probing. Soon, one hopes, soon!

Young Harllo was not thinking of justice, nor of righteous freedom, nor was he idly fashioning glittering worlds from the glistening veins of raw iron, or the flecks of gold in the midst of cold, sharp quartzite. He had no time to kneel in some over-grown city garden building tiny forts and reed bridges over run-off tracks left by yesterday’s downpour. No, for Harllo childhood was over. Aged six.

At this moment, then, he was lying on a shelf of hard, black stone, devoured by darkness. He could barely hear the workers far above, although rocks bounced their way down the crevasse every now and then, echoing with harsh barks from the floor far below.

The last time here he had dangled from a rope, and there had been no careless rain of stones — any one of which could crush his skull. And on his descent back then, his outstretched arms had encountered no walls, leading him to believe the crevasse was vast, opening out perhaps into a cavern. This time, of course, there was no rope — Harllo should not even be here and would probably be switched once he was found out.

Bainisk had sent him back to Chuffs at shift’s end. And that was where he ought now to be, hurriedly devouring his bowl of watery soup and husk of black bread, before stumbling off to his cot. Instead, he was climbing down this wall, without light to ensure that he would not be discovered by those working above.

Not a cavern after all. Instead, a pocked, sheer cliff-face — and those gaping holes were all oddly regular, rectangular, although not until Harllo reached this balcony ledge did he comprehend that he was climbing down the face of some buried building. He wanted to slip into one of these windows and explore, but he had promised to deliver splints to the Bone Miner below, and that was what he would do.

Careful questioning had led him to a definition of “splints”, but he could not find sticks suitable for the purpose of fixing the Miner’s shattered legs. Either too feeble and small, or not straight enough; and besides, all the wood brought to the camp was too well guarded. Instead, he had gone to the tailings heaps, where all manner of garbage was thrown. Eyed suspiciously by the old women who’d sold children and grandchildren to the mine yet found they could not sever their ties — thus dooming themselves to this fringe-world at camp’s edge — Harllo had picked through the rubbish.

Often, and especially from the run-off tunnels pumped through layers of sandstone, miners would find piles of bones from long dead creatures. Bones heavy and solid and almost impossible to break. Skulls and the like were sold to collectors — scholars with squinty eyes and too much coin and time for their own good. The pieces already fractured off, broken up and forming a kind of gravel, went to the herbalists for their gardens and the mock-healers for potions and pastes — or so Bainisk called them, mock-healers, with a sneer — ground-up bone’s good only for constipation! This left the oversized long bones — which for some reason were believed to be cursed.

Out on the heaps he found two that seemed to have been from the same kind of beast. After some examination and comparison, he confirmed that he had a right one and a left one. They were heavy, thick and ridged, and he hoped they would do.

Between shifts at the main tunnel there was a half-bell when no one was under rock, and Harllo, sweating beneath the weight of the bones, hurriedly carried them in; then, finding an abandoned side-passage, he stashed them along with some lengths of rope and leather laces. That had been before his shift, and now here he was, trying to do what he had promised.

Those long leg bones were strapped to his back. His neck and shoulders were raw from the ropes and more than once he had thought the swinging of the heavy bones would tug him away from the wall, but he had held on, this far at least.

And now, lying on this balcony ledge, Harllo rested.

If someone went looking for him and didn’t find him, an alarm would be raised. Always two possibilities when someone went missing. Flight, or lost in the tunnels. Searches would set out in both directions, and some old woman would say how she saw him at the heaps, collecting bones and who knew what else. Then someone else would recall seeing Harllo carrying something back to the main tunnel mouth in between shifts — and Venaz would say that Harllo was clearly up to something, since he never came back for his meal. Something against the rules! Which would put Bainisk in a bad situation, since Bainisk had favoured him more than once. Oh, this was all a mistake!

Groaning, he slipped over the edge, cautious with his handholds, and resumed his journey down.

And, not two man-heights down from the balcony, his groping feet found another ledge, followed immediately by another — a staircase, angling steeply down the wall. One hand maintaining contact with the seamless stone, Harllo worked his way down, step by step.

He did not recall noticing any of this his first time down here. Of course, the candlelight had been feeble — which made easier catching the glitter of gold and the like — and he had gone straight back to the rope. And hadn’t his mind been awhirl? A talking Imass! Down here for maybe hundreds of years — with no one to talk to and nothing to look at, oh, how miserable that must have been.

So. He should not be resenting doing all this for the Bone Miner. A few switches to the back wasn’t much to pay for this mercy.

He reached the floor and paused. So dark! ‘Hello? It’s me! Dev’ad Anan Tol, can you hear me?’

‘I can. Follow, then, the sound of my voice. If such a thing is possible-’

‘It is. . I think. Scratch the rock you’re sitting on — I’ll feel that under my feet-’

‘That,’ said the Imass, ‘is an impressive talent.’

‘I’m good when I can’t see. Vibrations, it’s called.’

‘Yes. Can you feel this then?’

‘I’m getting closer, yes. I think I can start a lantern here. Shuttered so it won’t spread out.’ He crouched down, the ends of the long bones thunking behind him, and untied the small tin lantern from his belt. ‘This one’s called a pusher. You can fix it on to a pole and push it ahead. If the wick dims fast then you know it’s bad air. Wait.’ A moment later and soft golden light slanted like a path, straight to where sat the Bone Miner. Harllo grinned. ‘See, I was almost there, wasn’t I?’

‘What is it that you carry, cub?’

‘Your splints. And rope and string.’

‘Let me see those. . bones. Yes, give them to me-’ And he reached out skeletal hands to grasp the splints as soon as Harllo came close enough. A low grating gasp from the Imass, then soft muttering. ‘By the Shore of Jaghra Til, I had not thought to see. . Cub, my tools. . for this. The gift is not in balance.’

‘I can try to find some better ones-’

‘No, child. The imbalance is the other way. These are emlava, a male, his hind long bones. True, they twist and cant. Still. . yes. . possible.’

‘Will they work as splints then?’

‘No.’

Harllo sagged.

The Imass rumbled a low laugh. ‘Ah, cub. Not splints. No. Legs.’

‘So you can walk again? Oh, I’m glad!’

‘If indeed I was somehow caught in the Ritual of Tellann, yes, I think I can fashion. . from these. . why do you fret so, cub?’

‘I had to sneak down here. If they find out I’m missing. .’

‘What will happen?’

‘I might be beaten — not so much as to make me useless. It won’t be so bad.’

‘You should go, then, quickly.’

Harllo nodded, yet still he hesitated. ‘I found a building, a buried building. Was that where you lived?’

‘No. It was a mystery even to the Jaghut Tyrant. Countless empty rooms, windows looking out upon nothing — blank rock, pitted sandstone. Corridors leading nowhere — we explored most of it, I recall, and found nothing. Do not attempt the same, cub. It is very easy to get lost in there.’

‘I better go,’ said Harllo. ‘If I can come down here again-’

‘Not at risk of your hide. Soon, perhaps, I will come to you.’

Harllo thought of the consternation such an event would bring, and he smiled. A moment later he shuttered the lantern and set off for the stairs.

From sticks a fortress, a forest, a great wall. From sticks, a giant, rising up in the darkness, and to look into the pits of its eyes is to see twin tunnels into rock, reaching down and down, reaching back and back, to the very bones of the earth.

And so he rises, to look upon you — Harllo imagines this but none of it in quite this way. Such visions and their deadly promise belong to the adults of the world. To answer what’s been done. What’s been done.

And in the city every building wears a rictus grin, or so it might seem, when the stone, brick, plaster and wood breathe in the gloom of dusk, and the gas lanterns are yet to be set alight, and all the world is ebbing with shadows drawing together to take away all certainty. The city, this artifice of cliffs and caves, whispers of madness. Figures scurry for cover, rats and worse peer out curious and hungry, voices grow raucous in taverns and other fiery sanctuaries.

Is this the city of the day just past? No, it is transformed, nightmare-tinged, into a netherworld so well suited to the two figures walking — with comfort and ease — towards the gate of an estate. Where stand two guards, nervous, moments from warning the strangers off — for the Lady of the House was in residence and she valued her privacy, yes, she did. Or so it must be assumed, and Scorch and Leff, having discussed the matter at length, were indeed convinced that, being a Lady, she valued all those things few others could afford, including. . er, privacy.

They held crossbows because who could say what might creep into view and besides, the heavy weapons were so comforting to cradle when clouds devoured the stars and the moon had forgotten to rise and the damned lanterns still weren’t lit. True enough, torches in sconces framed the arched gateway but this did little more than blind the two guards to the horrors lurking just beyond the pool of light.

Two such horrors drew closer. One was enormous, broad-shouldered and oddly short-legged, his hair shaggy as a yak’s. He was smiling — or, that is, his teeth gleamed and perhaps it was indeed a smile, perhaps not. His companion was almost as tall, but much thinner, almost skeletal. Bald, the high dome of his forehead bore a tattooed scene of some sort within an elaborate oval frame of threaded gold stitched through the skin. His teeth, also visible, were all capped in silver-tipped gold, like a row of fangs. He wore a cloak of threadbare linen so long it dragged behind him, while his looming companion was dressed like a court jester — bright greens, oranges and reds and yellows — and these were just the colours of his undersized vest. He wore a billowy blouse of sky-blue silk beneath the vest, the cuffs of the sleeves stiff and reaching halfway between wrist and elbow. A shimmering black kerchief encircled his ox-like neck. He wore vermilion pantaloons drawn tight just beneath the knees, and calf-high snug moccasins.

‘I think,’ muttered Scorch, ‘I’m going to be sick.’

‘Stop there!’ Leff barked. ‘State your business if you have any — but know this, the Mistress is seeing no one.’

‘Excellent!’ said the huge one in a thunderous voice. ‘There will be no delay then in her granting us audience. If you please, O orange-eyed one, do inform the Mistress that Lazan Door and Madrun have finally arrived, at her service.’

Leff sneered, but he was wishing that Torvald Nom hadn’t gone off for supper or a roll with his wife or whatever, so he could pass all this on to him and not have to worry about it any more. Standing here at the gate, yes, that was within his abilities. ‘Train your weapon on ’em, Scorch,’ he said. ‘I’ll go find the castel shy;lan.’

Scorch shot him a look of raw terror. ‘There’s two, Leff, but only one quarrel! Leave me yours.’

‘Fine, but I’d like to see you get two off with them only ten paces away. If they rushed you, why, you’d be lucky to get just one off.’

‘Still, it’ll make me feel better.’

‘Now now, gentlemen,’ the big one said, all too smoothly, ‘there’s no need for concern. I assure you, we are expected. Is this not the estate of Lady Varada? I do believe it is.’

‘Varada?’ hissed Scorch to Leff. ‘Is that her name?’

‘Shut it,’ Leff snapped under his breath. ‘You’re making us look like idiots!’ He carefully set his crossbow down and drew out the gate key. ‘Nobody move unless it’s to go away — not you, Scorch! Stay right there. I’ll be right back.’

After Leff slipped out of sight, closing and locking the gate behind him, Scorch faced the two strangers once more. He managed a smile. ‘Nice get-up, that,’ he said to the jester. ‘You a court clown or something? Sing us a song. How ’bout a riddIe? I ain’t any good at riddles but I like hearing ’em and the way when I do my thinking, trying to figure ’em out, my whole brain just goes white, sorta. Can you juggle? I like juggling, tried it once, got up to two at a time — that took weeks, let me tell you. Weeks. Juggling demands discipline all right, and maybe it looks eas shy;ier to other people, but you and I know, well, just how talented you have to be to do it. Do you dance, too, or stand on your head-’

‘Sir,’ the giant cut in, ‘I am not a jester. Nor a juggler. Nor a riddler, nor singer, nor dancer.’

‘Oh. Colour-blind?’

‘Excuse, me?’

‘The guard,’ said the other man, the thin one, in a voice even thinner, ‘has misconstrued your attire, Madrun. Local fashion is characteristically mundane, unimaginative. Did you not so observe earlier?’

‘So I did. Of course. A clash of cultures-’

‘Just so!’ cried Scorch. ‘Your clothes, yes, a clash of cultures all right — good way of describing it. You a puppetmaster, maybe? I like puppet shows, the way they look so lifelike, even the ones with wrinkled apples for heads-’

‘Not a puppeteer, alas,’ cut in Madrun with a heavy sigh.

The gate creaked open behind Scorch and he turned to see Leff and Studlock step through. The castellan floated past and hovered directly in front of the two strangers.

‘Well, you two took your time!’

Madrun snorted. ‘You try digging your way out of a collapsed mountain, Studious. Damned earthquake came from nowhere-’

‘Not quite,’ said Studlock. ‘A certain hammer was involved. I admit, in the immediate aftermath I concluded that never again would I see your miser- your memorable faces. Imagine my surprise when I heard from a caravan merchant that-’

‘Such rumours,’ interjected the one Scorch rightly assumed was named Lazan Door, ‘whilst no doubt egregiously exaggerated and so potentially entertaining, can wait, yes? Dear Studious, who dreamed of never again seeing our pretty faces, you have a new Mistress, and she is in need of compound guards. And, as we are presently under-employed, why, destinies can prove seamless on occasion, can’t they?’

‘So they can, Lazan. Yes, compound guards. You see, we have gate guards already. And a captain as well, who is presently elsewhere. Now, if you two will follow me, we can meet the Mistress.’

‘Excellent,’ said Madrun,

Scorch and Leff moved well aside as the trio filed in through the gate. Leff then locked it and turned to Scorch.

‘We never got no audience with the Mistress!’

‘We been snubbed!’

Leff collected his crossbow again. ‘It’s because we’re on the lowest rung, that’s why. The lowest. . again! And here we thought we were climbing! Sure, Tor did some climbing, captain and all. But look at us — not even compound guards and we got here first!’

‘Well,’ said Scorch, ‘if we’d a known there was a difference — gate and compound we would’ve pushed for that, right? We was ill-informed — look at you, after all.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You got orange eyes, Leff!’

‘That was a different kind of ill-informed.’

‘That’s what you think.’

‘If you’re so smart, Scorch, you coulda asked about being compound guards!’

‘If it was just me, I would have!’

‘If it was just you, Studlock never would’ve hired you at all, except maybe to clean out the latrines!’

‘At least then I’d be inside the gate!’

Well, he had a point there. Leff sighed, stared out on the street. ‘Look, there’s the lantern crew.’

‘Let’s shoot ’em!’

‘Sure, if you want us to get fired, Scorch, is that what you want?’

‘I was only joking, Leff.’

There were looks that killed, and then there were looks that conducted torture. Excoriating skin with incremental, exquisite slices that left blood welling to the surface. That plucked eyeballs and pulled until all the tendons stretched, upon which those long wet ligaments were knotted together so that both eyes sat on the bridge of the nose. Torture, yes, delivered in cold pleasure, in clinical regard.

It was hardly surprising, then, that Torvald Nom devoured his supper in haste, forgetting to chew, and so was now afflicted with terrible indigestion, struggling to keep from groaning as he helped Tiserra clean the plates and whatnot; and the ominous silence stretched on, even as she cast sidelong looks of blood-curdling excision all unconvincingly dressed up as companionable, loving glances.

It was time to return to the estate for the evening. These precious deadly moments of domestic tranquillity — fraught as all such moments were with all that was left unspoken, the topics unbidden yet ever lurking, the hidden pitfalls and explosive nuances or even more explosive lack thereof — why, they had to come, alas, to an end, as considerations of career and professional responsibility returned once more to the fore.

‘My sweet, I must leave you now.’

‘Oh, must you?’

‘Yes. Until midnight, but don’t feel the need to wait up.’

‘I’ve had a busy day. Two new orders. I doubt I’ll be awake when you return, darling.’

‘I’ll try to be quiet.’

‘Of course you will.’

Perfunctory kiss.

Just so, the pleasant exchanges to conclude the repast just past, but of course such words were the flourishes of feint and cunning sleight of hand. Beneath the innocence, Torvald well understood, there was this: ‘My sweet, I will run not walk back to the estate now.’

‘Oh, your stomach is upset? Let’s hope you heave all over your two gate guards when you get there.’

‘Yes. And suddenly it’ll be midnight and like a doomed man I will count the steps to the gallows awaiting me at home. Pray to Beru and every other ascendant the world over that you’re asleep when I get here, or at least feigning sleep.’

‘I’ve had a busy day, husband, just thinking of all the things I’d like to do to you for breaking that promise. And when you get home, why, I’ll be dreaming dreadful scenes, each one adding to that pleasant smile on my slumbering visage.’

‘I shall attempt to sleep on no more than a hand’s span of bed, stiff as a planed board, not making a sound.’

‘Yes, you will. Darling.’

And the perfunctory kiss, smooch smooch.

Blue light painted the streets through which Torvald Nom now hurried along, blue light and black thoughts, a veritable bruising of dismay, and so the buildings to each side crowded, leaned in upon him, until he felt he was squirting — like an especially foul lump of excrement — through a sewer pipe. Terrible indeed, a wife’s disappointment and, mayhap, disgust.

The princely wages were without relevance. The flexible shifts could barely earn a begrudging nod. The sheer impressive legality of the thing yielded little more than a sour grunt. And even the fact that Torvald Nom now held the title of Captain of the House Guard, while Scorch and Leff were but underlings among a menagerie of underlings (yes, he had exaggerated somewhat), had but granted him a temporary abeyance of the shrill fury he clearly deserved — and it waited, oh, it waited. He knew it. She knew it. And he knew she was holding on to it, like a giant axe, poised above his acorn of a head.

Yes, he’d given up slavery for this.

Such was the power of love, the lure of domestic tranquillity and the fending off of lonely solitude. Would he have it any other way?

Ask him later.

Onward, and there before him the estate’s modest but suitably maintained wall, and the formal gate entranceway, its twin torches flaring and flickering, enough to make the two shapes of his redoubtable underlings look almost. . attentive.

Not that either of them was watching the street. Instead, it seemed they were arguing.

‘Stay sharp there, you two!’ Torvald Nom said in his most stentorian voice, undermined by the punctuation of a loud, gassy belch.

‘Gods, Tor’s drunk!’

‘I wish. Supper didn’t agree with me. Now, what’s your problem? I heard you two snapping and snarling from the other side of the street.’

‘We got two new compound guards,’ said Leff.

‘Compound guards? Oh, you mean guarding the compound-’

‘That’s what I said. What else do compound guards guard if not compounds? Captains should know that kind of stuff, Tor.’

‘And I do. It’s just the title confused me. Compound needs guarding, yes, since the likelihood of someone getting past you two is so. . likely. Well. So, you’ve met them? What are they like?’

‘They’re friends of Studlock — who they call Studious,’ said Scorch, his eyes widening briefly before he looked away and squinted. ‘Old friends, from under some mountain.’

‘Oh,’ said Torvald Nom.

‘That collapsed,’ Scorch added.

‘The friendship? Oh, the mountain, you mean. It collapsed.’

Leff stepped closer and sniffed. ‘You sure you’re not drunk, Tor?’

‘Of course I’m not drunk! Scorch is talking a lot of rubbish, that’s all.’

‘Rubble, not rubbish.’

‘Like that, yes! Oh, look, Leff, just open the damned gate, will you? So I can meet the new compound guards.’

‘Look for them in the compound,’ Scorch advised.

Oh, maybe his wife was right, after all. Maybe? Of course she was. These two were idiots and they were also his friends and what did that say about Torvald Nom? No, don’t think about that. Besides, she’s already done the necessary thinking about that, hasn’t she?

Torvald hastened through the gateway. Two strides into the compound and he halted. Studious? Studious Lock? The Landless? Studious Lock the Landless, of One Eye Cat?

‘Ah, Captain, well timed. Permit me to introduce our two new estate guards.’

Torvald flinched as Studlock drifted towards him. Hood, mask, eerie eyes, all bound up in rags to cover up what had been done to him back in his adopted city — yes, but then, infamy never stayed hidden for long, did it? ‘Ah, good evening, Castellan.’ This modest, civil greeting was barely managed, croaking out from an all too dry mouth. And he saw, with growing trepidation, the two figures trailing in Studlock’s wake.

‘Captain Torvald Nom, this gaily clad gentleman is Madrun, and his ephemer shy;ally garbed companion is Lazan Door. Both hail from the north and so have no local interests that might conflict with their loyalties — a most important requirement, as you have been made aware, for Lady Varada of House Varada. Now, I have seen to their kit and assigned quarters. Captain, is something wrong?’

Torvald Nom shook his head. Then, before he could think — before his finely honed sense of propriety could kick in — he blurted out: ‘But where are their masks?’

The shaggy haired giant frowned. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that is most unfortunate. Reassure me once more, Studious, please.’

The castellan’s pause was long, and then one rag-tied hand fluttered. ‘Reputations, alas, are what they are, Madrun. Evidently, our captain here has travelled some. One Eye Cat? Let us hope he never wandered close to that foul, treacherous den of thieves, murderers and worse-’

‘Never been there,’ Torvald Nom said, hastily, licking his lips. ‘But the tales of the, er, the ones hired to oust the Malazan Fist. . and, er, what happened after shy;wards-’

‘Outrageous lies,’ said Lazan Door in his breathy, wispy voice, ‘such as are invariably perpetrated by those with a vested interest in the illusion of righteousness. All lies, Captain. Foul, despicable, ruinous lies. I assure you we completed our task, even unto pursuing the Fist and his cadre into the very heart of a mountain-’

‘You and Madrun Badrun, you mean. Studious Lock, on the other hand, was. .’ And only then did Torvald Nom decide that he probably shouldn’t be speaking, probably shouldn’t be revealing quite the extent of his knowledge. ‘The tale I heard,’ he added, ‘was garbled, second and maybe even third hand, a jumble of details and who can separate truth from fancy in such things?’

‘Who indeed,’ said the castellan with another wave of one hand. ‘Captain, we must trust that the subject of our past misadventures will not arise again, in any company and in particular that of our two intrepid gate guards.’

‘The subject is now and for ever more closed,’ affirmed Torvald Nom. ‘Well, I’d best get to my office. To work on, um, shift scheduling — it seems we now have our night shift pretty much filled. As for the daytime-’

‘As stated earlier,’ cut in the castellan, ‘the necessity for armed vigilance during the day is simply non-existent. Risk assessment and so forth. No, Captain, we have no need for more guards. Four will suffice.’

‘Good, that will make scheduling easier. Now, it was a pleasure meeting you, Lazan Door, Madrun Badrun.’ And, with disciplined march, Torvald Nom crossed the compound, making for his tiny office in the barracks annexe. Where he shut the flimsy door and sat down in the chair behind the desk which, in order to reach it, demanded that he climb over the desk itself. Slumping down, hands holding up his head, he sat. Sweating.

Was Lady Varada aware of any of this. . this background, back there where the ground still steamed with blood and worse? Well, she’d hired Studlock, hadn’t she? But that didn’t mean anything, did it? He’d crunched down his name, and even that name wasn’t his real name, just something the idiots in One Eye Cat gave him, same as Madrun Badrun. As for Lazan Door, well, that one might be real, original even. And only one of them was wearing a mask and that mask was some local make, generic, not painted with any relevant sigils or whatever. So, she might not know a thing! She might be completely blind, unsuspecting, unaware, unprepared, uneverything!

He climbed back over his desk, straightened and smoothed out his clothing as best he could. It shouldn’t be so hard, the captain seeking audience with the Mistress. Perfectly reasonable. Except that the official route was through the castellan, and that wouldn’t do. No, he needed to be cleverer than that. In fact, he needed to. . break in.

More sweat, sudden, chilling him as he stood between the desk and the office door, a span barely wide enough to turn round in.

So, Lazan Door and Madrun Badrun would be patrolling the compound. And Studious Lock the Landless, well, he’d be in his own office, there on the main floor. Or even in his private chambers, sitting there slowly unravelling or undressing or whatever one wanted to call it.

There was a window on the back wall of the annexe. Plain shutters and simple inside latch. From there he could clamber on to the roof, which was close enough to the side wall of the main building to enable him to leap across and maybe find a handhold or two, and then he could scramble up to the next and final level, where dwelt the Lady. It was still early so she wouldn’t be asleep or in any particular state of undress.

Still, how would she react to her captain’s intruding so on her privacy? Well, he could explain he was testing the innermost security of the estate (and, in finding it so lacking, why, he could press for hiring yet more guards. Normal, reasonable, sane guards this time. No mass murderers. No sadists. No one whose humanness was questionable and open to interpretation. He could, then, provide a subtle counterbalance to the guards they already had).

It all sounded very reasonable, and diligent, as befitted a captain.

He worked his way round and opened the office door. Leaned out to make sure the barracks remained empty — of course it did, they were out there guarding things! He padded across to the back window. Unlatched it and eased out the shutters. Another quick, darting look, outside this time. Estate wall not ten paces opposite. Main building to his left, stables to his right. Was this area part of their rounds? It certainly should be. Well, if he moved fast enough, right this moment-

Hitching himself up on to the windowsill, Torvald Nom edged out and reached up for the eaves shy;trough. He tested his weight on it and, satisfied at the modest creak, quickly pulled himself up and on to the sloped roof. Reached back down and carefully closed the shutters.

He rolled on to his back and waited. He’d wait, yes, until the two monsters tramped past.

The clay tiles dug into his shoulder blades. Was that the scuff of boots? Was that the whisper of linen sweeping the cobbles? Was that — no, it wasn’t, he wasn’t hearing a damned thing. Where had his damned compound guards gone? He sat up, crept his way to the peak of the roof. Peered out on to the grounds — and there they were, playing dice against the wall to one side of the gate.

He could fire them for that! Why, even Studlock wouldn’t be able to-

And there he was, Studious himself, floating across towards his two cohorts. And his voice drifted back to Torvald Nom.

‘Any change in the knuckles, Lazan?’

‘Oh yes,’ the man replied. ‘Getting worse. Options fast diminishing.’

‘How unfortunate.’

Madrun Badrun grunted and then said, ‘We had our chance. Go north or go south. We should’ve gone north.’

‘That would not work, as you well know,’ said Studious Lock. ‘Where are your masks?’

Lazan Door flung the bone dice against the wall again, bent to study the re shy;sults.

‘We tossed ’em,’ answered Madrun.

‘Make new ones.’

‘We don’t want to, Studious, we really don’t.’

‘That goes without saying, but it changes nothing.’

Oh, Torvald suspected he could crouch here and listen to the idiots all night. Instead, he needed to take advantage of their carelessness. He eased back down the slope of the roof, lifted himself into a crouch, and eyed the main building — and, look, a balcony. Well, that wasn’t wise, was it?

Now, could he make the leap without making any noise? Of course he could — he’d been a thief for years, a successful thief, too, if not for all the arrests and fines and prison time and slavery and the like. He paused, gauging the distance, deciding which part of the rail he’d reach for, then launched himself across the gap.

Success! And virtually no noise at all. He dangled for a moment, then pulled himself on to the balcony. It was narrow and crowded with clay pots snarled with dead plants. Now, he could work the locks and slip in on this floor, taking the inside route to the level above. That would be simplest, wouldn’t it? Riskier scaling the outside wall, where a chance glance from any of the three fools still jabbering away just inside the gate might alight upon him. And the last thing he wanted was to see any of them draw swords (not that he recalled seeing them wearing any).

He tested the balcony door. Unlocked! Oh, things would indeed have to change. Why, he could just saunter inside and find himself-

‘Please, Captain, take a seat.’

She was lounging in a plush chair, barely visible in the dark room. Veiled? Yes, veiled. Dressed in some long loose thing, silk perhaps. One long-fingered hand, snug in a grey leather glove, held a goblet. There was a matching chair opposite her.

‘Pour yourself some wine — yes, there on the table. The failure of that route, from the roof of the annexe, is that the roof is entirely visible from the window of any room on this side of the house. I assume, Captain, you were either testing the security of the estate, or that you wished to speak with me in private. Any other alternatives, alas, would be unfortunate.’

‘Indeed, Mistress. And yes, I was testing. . things. And yes,’ he added as, summoning as much aplomb as he could manage, he went over to pour himself a goblet full of the amber wine, ‘I wished to speak with you in private. Concerning your castellan and the two new compound guards.’

‘Do they seem. . excessive?’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’

‘I would not want to be discouraging.’

He sat down. ‘Discouraging, Mistress?’

‘Tell me, are my two gate guards as incompetent as they appear to be?’

‘That would be quite an achievement, Mistress.’

‘It would, yes.’

‘It may surprise you,’ Torvald Nom said, ‘but they actually possess a nasty streak. And considerable experience. They have been caravan guards, enforcers, Guild thugs and bounty hunters. It’s the formality of this present job that has them so. . awkward. They will adjust in time.’

‘Not too well, I hope.’

All right, Torvald Nom decided, she was talking about something and he had no idea what that something was. ‘Mistress, regarding Studlock, Lazan and Madrun-’

‘Captain, I understand you are estranged from House Nom. That is unfortunate. I always advise that such past errors be mended whenever possible. Reconciliation is essential to well-being.’

‘I will give that some thought, Mistress.’

‘Do so. Now, please make your way out using the stairs. Inform the castellan that I wish to speak to him — no, there will be no repercussions regarding your seeking a private conversation with me. In fact, I am heartened by your concern. Loyalty was ever the foremost trait of the family Nom. Oh, now, do finish your wine, Captain.’

He did, rather quickly. Then walked over and locked the balcony doors. A bow to Lady Varada, and then out into the corridor, closing the door behind him. A moment to figure out where the stairs were, and, feeling slightly numbed — was it the wine? No, it wasn’t the wine — he descended to the ground floor and out through the formal entrance, striding across the compound to where stood the castellan and his two friends.

‘Castellan Studlock,’ Torvald Nom called out, pleased to see how all three looked up guiltily from their game. ‘The Mistress wishes to see you immediately.’

‘Oh? Of course. Thank you, Captain.’

Torvald watched him flit away, and then turned to Lazan Door and Madrun. ‘Interesting technique you have here. I feel the need to describe your duties, since it appears the castellan forgot to. You are to patrol the compound, preferably at random intervals, employing a variety of routes to ensure that you avoid predictability. Be especially mindful of unlit areas, although I do not recommend you carry torches or lanterns. Any questions?’

Madrun was smiling. He bowed. ‘Sound instruction, Captain, thank you. We shall commence our duties immediately. Lazan, collect up your scrying dice. We must attend to the necessary formalities of diligent patrol.’

Scrying dice? Gods below. ‘Is it wise,’ he asked, ‘to rely upon the hoary gods to determine the night’s flavour?’

Lazan Door cleared his throat then bared his metal fangs. ‘As you say, Captain. Divination is ever an imprecise science. We shall be sure to avoid relying overmuch on such things.’

‘Er, right. Good, well, I’ll be in my office, then.’

‘Again,’ Madrun said, his smile broadening.

There was, Torvald decided as he walked away, nothing pleasant about that smile. About either of their smiles, in fact. Or anything else about those two. Or Studious Lock, for that matter — Blood Drinker, Bile Spitter, Poisoner, oh, they had so many names for that one. How soon before he earns a few more? And Madrun Badrun? And Lazan Door? What is Lady Varada up to?

Never mind, never mind. He had an office, after all. And once he crawled over the desk and settled down in the chair, why, he felt almost important.

The sensation lasted a few heartbeats, which was actually something of an achievement. Any few precious moments, yes, of not thinking about those three. Any at all.

Make new masks — now why should they do that? Renegade Seguleh are renegade — they can’t ever go back. Supposedly, but then, what do any of us really know about the Seguleh? Make new masks, he said to them. Why?

What’s wrong with normal advice? Wash that robe, Lazan Door, before the spiders start laying eggs. Choose no more than two colours, Madrun, and not ones that clash. Please. And what’s with those moccasins?

Masks? Never mind the masks.

His stomach gurgled and he felt another rise of bilious gas. ‘Always chew your food, Tor, why such a hurry? There’s plenty of daylight left to play. Chew, Tor, chew! Nice and slow, like a cow, yes. This way nothing will disagree with you. Nothing disagrees with cows, after all.’

So true, at least until the axe swings down.

He sat in his office, squeezed in behind the desk, in a most disagreeable state.

‘She’s poisoning him, is my guess.’

Scorch stared, as if amazed at such a suggestion. ‘Why would she do that?’

‘Because of you,’ said Leff. ‘She hates you, Scorch, because of the way you always got Tor into trouble, and now she thinks you’re going to do it all over again, so that’s why she’s poisoning him.’

‘That don’t make any sense. If she was worried she wouldn’t be killing him!’

‘Not killing, just making sickly. You forget, she’s a witch, she can do things like that. Of course, she’d do better by poisoning you.’

‘I ain’t touching nothing she cooks, that’s for sure.’

‘It won’t help if she decides you’re better off dead, Scorch. Gods, I am so glad I’m not you.’

‘Me too.’

‘What?’

‘I’d have orange eyes and that’d be awful because then we’d both have orange eyes so looking at each other would be like looking at yourself, which I have to do all the time anyway but imagine double that! No thanks, is what I say.’

‘Is that what you say?’

‘I just said it, didn’t I?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what you just said, Scorch, and that’s the truth.’

‘Good, since what I had to say wasn’t meant for you anyway.’

Leff looked round and no, he didn’t see anyone else. Of course he didn’t, there was no point in looking.

‘Besides,’ said Scorch, ‘you’re the one who’s been poisoned.’

‘It wasn’t no poison, Scorch. It was a mistake, a misdiagnosis. And it’s fading-’

‘No it ain’t.’

‘Yes. It is.’

‘No. It ain’t.’

‘I’d stop saying that if I was you-’

‘Don’t start that one again!’

Blessed fates! Leave them to it, thy round self begs! The night stretches on, the city wears its granite grin and shadows dance on the edge of darkness. Late-night hawkers call out their wares, their services both proper and dubious. Singers sing and the drunk drink and thieves do their thieving and mysteries thrive wherever you do not belong and that, friends, is the hard truth.

Like rats we skitter away from the pools of light, seeking other matters, other scenes both tranquil and foul.

Follow, oh, follow me!

Benefactor of all things cosmopolitan, bestower of blessings upon all matters human and humane (bless their hearts both squalid and generous, bless their dreams and bless their nightmares, bless their fears and their loves and their fears of love and love of fears and bless, well, bless their shoes, sandals, boots and slippers and to walk in each, in turn, ah, such wonders! Such peculiar follies!), Kruppe of Darujhistan walked the Great Avenue of sordid acquisitiveness, casting a most enormous, indeed gigantic shadow that rolled sure as a tide past all these shops and their wares, past the wary eyes of shop owners, past the stands of fruit and succulent pastries, past the baskets of berries and the dried fish and the strange leafy things some people ate believing themselves to be masticators of wholesomeness, past the loaves of bread and rounds of cheese, past the vessels of wine and liquors in all assorted sizes, past the weavers and dressmakers, past the crone harpist with nubs for fingers and only three strings left on her harp and her song about the peg and the hole and the honey on the nightstand — ducking the flung coins and so quickly past! — and the bolts of cloth going nowhere and the breeches blocking the doorway and the shirts for men-at-arms and shoes for the soulless and the headstone makers and urn-pissers and the old thrice-divorced man who tied knots for a living with a gaggle of children in tow surely bound by blood and thicker stuff. Past the wax-drippers and wick-twisters, the fire-eaters and ashcake-makers, past the prostitutes — oozing each languorous step with smiles of appreciation and fingers all aflutter and unbidden mysterious sensations of caresses in hidden or at least out-of-reach places and see eyes widen and appreciation flood through like the rush of lost youth and princely dreams and they sigh and call out Kruppe, you darling man! Kruppe, ain’t you gonna pay for that? Kruppe, marry every one of us and make us honest women! Kruppe — rushing quickly past, now, aaii, frightening prospect to imagine! A bludgeon of wives (surely that must be the plural assignation)! A prattle of prostitutes!

Past this gate, thank the gods, and into the tunnel and out again and now civilization loomed austere and proper and this bodacious shadow strode alone, animated in its solitude, and yet this moment proved ample time to partake of past passages through life itself.

Out from one sleeve a berry-studded pastry, a ripe pompfruit, and a flask of minty wine; out from the other a new silver dinner knife with the Varada House monogram (my, where did this come from?), the polished blade — astonishing! — already glistening with a healthy dollop of butter streaked with honey — and so many things crowding these ample but nimble hands but see how one thing after another simply vanishes into inviting mouth and appreciative palate as befitting all culinary arts when the subtle merging of flavours yielded exquisite master shy;piece — butter, honey, and — oh! — jam, and pastry and cheese and fruit and smoked eel — agh! Voluminous sleeve betrays self! Wine to wash away disreputable (and most cruel) taste.

Hands temporarily free once more, to permit examination of new shirt, array of scented candles, knotted strings of silk, handsome breeches and gilt-threaded sandals soft as any one of Kruppe’s four cheeks, and here a kid-gut condom — gods, where did that come from? Well, an end to admiration of the night’s most successful shopping venture, and if that crone discovered but two strings left on her harp, well, imagine how the horse felt!

Standing now, at last, before most austere of austere estates. As the gate creaked open, inviting invitation and so invited Kruppe invited himself in.

Steps and ornate formal entranceway and corridor and more steps these ones carpeted and wending upward and another corridor and now the dark-stained door and — oh, fling aside those wards, goodness — inside.

‘How did you — never mind. Sit, Kruppe, make yourself comfortable.’

‘Master Baruk is so kind, Kruppe shall do as bid, with possibly measurable relief does he so oof! into this chair and stretch out legs, yes they are indeed stretched out, the detail subtle. Ah, an exhausting journey, Baruk beloved friend of Kruppe!’

A toad-like obese demon crawled up to nest at his feet, snuffling. Kruppe produced a strip of dried eel and offered it. The demon sniffed, then gingerly accepted the morsel.

‘Are things truly as dire as I believe, Kruppe?’

Kruppe waggled his brows. ‘Such journeys leave self puckered with dryness, gasping with thirst.’

Sighing, the High Alchemist said, ‘Help yourself.’

Beaming a smile, Kruppe drew out from a sleeve a large dusty bottle, already uncorked. He examined the stamp on the dark green glass. ‘My, your cellar is indeed well equipped!’ A crystal goblet appeared from the other sleeve. He poured. Downed a mouthful then smacked his lips. ‘Exquisite!’

‘Certain arrangements have been finalized,’ said Baruk.

‘Most impressive, Baruk friend of Kruppe. How can such portentous events be measured, one wonders. If one was the wondering type. Yet listen — the buried gate creaks, dust sifts down, stones groan! Humble as we are, can we hope to halt such inevitable inevitabilities? Alas, time grinds on. All fates spin and not even the gods can guess how each will topple. The moon itself rises uncertain on these nights. The stars waver, rocks fall upward, wronged wives forgive and forget — oh, this is a time for miracles!’

‘And is that what we need, Kruppe? Miracles?’

‘Each moment may indeed seem in flux, chaotic and fraught, yet — and Kruppe knows this most surely — when all is set out, moment upon moment, then every aberration is but a modest crease, a feeble fold, a crinkled memento. The great forces of the universe are as a weight-stone upon the fabric of our lives. Rich and poor, modest and ambitious, generous and greedy, honest and deceitful, why, all is flattened! Splat! Crunch, smear, ooze! What cares Nature for jewelled crowns, coins a-stacked perilously high, great estates and lofty towers? Kings and queens, tyrants and devourers — all are as midges on the forehead of the world!’

‘You advise an extended perspective. That is all very well, from an historian’s point of view, and in retrospect. Unfortunately, Kruppe, to those of us who must live it, in the midst, as it were, it provides scant relief.’

‘Alas, Baruk speaks true. Lives in, lives out. The sobs of death are the sodden songs of the world. So true, so sad. Kruppe asks this: witness two scenes. In one, an angry, bitter man beats another man to death in an alley in the Gadrobi District. In the other, a man of vast wealth conspires with equally wealthy compatriots to raise yet again the price of grain, making the cost of simple bread so prohibitive that families starve, are led into lives of crime, and die young. Are both acts of violence?’

The High Alchemist stood looking down at Kruppe. ‘In only one of those examples will you find blood on a man’s hands.’

‘True, deplorable as such stains are.’ He poured himself some more wine.

‘There are,’ said Baruk, ‘countless constructs whereby the wealthy man might claim innocence. Mitigating circumstances, unexpected costs of production, the law of supply and demand, and so on.’

‘Indeed, a plethora of justifications, making the waters so very murky, and who then sees the blood?’

‘And yet, destitution results, with all its misery, its stresses and anxieties, its foul vapours of the soul. It can be said that the wealthy grain merchant wages subtle war.’

Kruppe studied the wine through the crystal. ‘And so the poor remain poor and, mayhap, even poorer. The employed but scarcely getting by cling all the harder to their jobs, even unto accepting despicable working conditions — which in turn permits the employers to fill their purses unto bulging, thus satisfying whatever hidden pathetic inadequacies they harbour. A balance can be said to exist, one never iterated, whereby the eternal war is held in check, so as to avoid anarchy. Should the grain merchant charge too high, then revolution may well explode into life.’

‘Whereupon everyone loses.’

‘For a time. Until the new generation of the wealthy emerge, to begin once again their predations on the poor. Balance is framed by imbalances and so it seems such things might persist for all eternity. Alas, in any Iong view, one sees that this is not so. The structure of society is far more fragile than most believe. To set too much faith in its resilience is to know a moment of pristine astonishment at the instant of its utter collapse — before the wolves close in.’ Kruppe raised one finger. ‘Yet, witness all these who would grasp hold of the crown, to make themselves the freest and the wealthiest of them all. Oh, they are most dangerous in the moment, as one might expect. Most dangerous indeed. One is encouraged to pray. Pray for dust.’

‘An end to it all.’

‘And a new beginning.’

‘I somehow expected more from you, my friend.’

Kruppe smiled, reached down and patted the demon’s pebbly head. It blinked languidly. ‘Kruppe maintains a perspective as broad as his waistline, which, as you know, is unceasing. After all, where does it begin and where does it end?’

‘Any other momentous news?’

‘Cities live in haste. Ever headlong. Nothing changes and everything changes. A murderer stalks Gadrobi District, but Kruppe suspects you know of that. Assassins plot. You know this too, friend Baruk. Lovers tryst or dream of said trysts. Children belabour unknown futures. People retire and others are retired, new careers abound and old nemeses lurk. Friendships unfold while others unravel. All in its time, most High Alchemist, all in its time.’

‘You do not put me at ease, Kruppe.’

‘Join me in a glass of this exquisite vintage!’

‘There are a dozen wards sealing the cellar — twice as many as since your last visit.’

‘Indeed?’

‘You did not trip a single one.’

‘Extraordinary!’

‘Yes, it is.’

The demon belched and the heady fragrance of smoked eel wafted through the chamber. Even the demon wrinkled its nostril slits.

Kruppe produced, with a flourish, some scented candles.

An intestinal confusion of pipes, valves, copper globes, joins and vents dominated one entire end of the building’s main front room. From this bizarre mechanism came rhythmic gasps (most suggestive), wheezes (inserting, as it were, a more realistic contribution) and murmurs and hissing undertones. Six nozzles jutted out, each one ready for a hose attachment or extension, but at the moment all shot out steady blue flame and this heated the crackling dry air of the chamber so that both Chaur and Barathol — working barebacked as they had been the entire day just done — were slick with sweat.

Most of the clutter in this decrepit bakery had now been removed, or, rather, transferred from inside to the narrow high-walled yard out the back, and Chaur was on his hands and knees using wet rags to wipe dust and old flour from the well-set pavestone floor. Barathol was examining the brick bases of the three humped ovens, surprised and pleased to find, sandwiched between layers of brick, vast slabs of pumice-stone. The interior back walls of the ovens each contained fixtures for the gas that had been used as fuel, with elongated perforated tubes projecting out beneath the racks. Could he convert these ovens to low-heat forges? Perhaps.

The old copper mixing drums remained, lining one half of the room’s back wall, and would serve for quenching. He had purchased an anvil from an inbound caravan from Pale, the original buyer having, alas, died whilst the object was en route. A plains design, intended for portability — Rhivi, he had been informed — it was not quite the size he wanted or needed, but it would suffice for now. Various tongs and other tools came from the scrap markets on the west side of the city, including a very fine hammer of Aren steel (no doubt stolen from a Malazan army’s weaponsmith).

On the morrow he would put in his first orders for wood, coke, coal, and raw copper, tin and iron.

It was getting late. Barathol straightened from his examination of the ovens and said to Chaur, ‘Leave that off now, my friend. We’re grimy, true, but perhaps an outside restaurant would accommodate us, once we show our coin. I don’t know about you, but some chilled beer would sit well right now.’

Looking up, Chaur’s smeared and smudged face split into a wide smile.

The front door was kicked open and both turned as a half-dozen disreputable men pushed in, spreading out. Clubs and mallets in their hands, they began eyeing the equipment. A moment later and a finely dressed woman strode through the milling press, eyes settling on Barathol, upon which she smiled.

‘Dear sir, you are engaged in an illegal activity-’

‘Illegal? That is a reach, I’m sure. Now, before you send your thugs on a rampage of destruction, might I point out that the valves are not only open but the threads have been cut. In other words, for now, the flow of gas from the chambers beneath this structure cannot be stopped. Any sort of damage will result in, well, a ball of fire, probably of sufficient size to incinerate a sizeable area of the dis shy;trict.’ He paused, then added, ‘Such wilful destruction on your part will be viewed by most as, um, illegal. Now, you won’t face any charges since you will be dead, but the Guild that hired you will face dire retribution. The fines alone will bankrupt it.’

The woman’s smile was long gone by now. ‘Oh, aren’t you the clever one. Since we cannot discourage you by dismantling your shop, we have no choice then but to focus our attention on yourselves.’

Barathol walked to the kneading counter and reached into a leather satchel, withdrawing a large round ball of fired clay. He faced the woman and her mob, saw a few expressions drain of blood, and was pleased. ‘Yes, a Moranth grenado. Cusser, the Malazans call this one. Threaten myself or my companion here, and I will be delighted to commit suicide — after all, what have we to lose that you would not happily take from us, given the chance?’

‘You have lost your mind.’

‘You are welcome to that opinion. Now, the question is, have you?’

She hesitated, then snarled and spun on her heel. Waving her crew to follow her, out she went.

Sighing, Barathol returned the cusser to the satchel. ‘In every thirteenth crate of twelve cussers each,’ Mallet had told him, ‘there is a thirteenth cusser. Empty. Why? Who knows? The Moranth are strange folk.’

‘It worked this time,’ he said to Chaur, ‘but I doubt it will last. So, the first or shy;der of business is to outfit you. Armour, weapons.’

Chaur stared at him as if uncomprehending.

‘Remember the smell of blood, Chaur? Corpses, the dead and dismembered?’

Sudden brightening of expression, and Chaur nodded vigorously.

Sighing again, Barathol said, ‘Let’s climb out over the back wall and find us that beer.’

He took the satchel with him.

Elsewhere in the city, as the tenth bell of the night sounded, a fingerless man set out for a new tavern, murder on his mind. His wife went out to her garden to kneel on stone, which she polished using oiled sand and a thick pad of leather.

A buxom, curvaceous woman — who drew admiring regard along with curdling spite depending on gender and gender preference — walked with one rounded arm hooked in the rather thinner seamed arm of a Malazan historian, who bore an expression wavering between disbelief and dismay. They strolled as lovers would, and since they were not lovers, the historian’s bemusement only grew.

In the High Markets of the Estates District, south of the gallows, sauntered Lady Challice. Bored, stung with longing and possibly despoiled (in her own mind) beyond all hope of redemption, she perused the host of objects and items, none of which were truly needed, and watched as women just like her (though most were trailed by servants who carried whatever was purchased) picked through the expensive and often finely made rubbish eager as jackdaws (and as mindless? Ah, beware cruel assumptions!), and she saw herself as so very different from them. So. . changed.

Not three hundred paces away from Lady Challice, wandering unmindful of where his steps took him, was Cutter, who had once been a thief named Crokus Younghand, who had once stolen something he shouldn’t have, and, finding that he could not truly give it back, had then confused guilt and sympathy with the bliss of adoration (such errors are common), only to be released in the end by a young woman’s open contempt for his heartfelt, honest admissions.

Well, times and people change, don’t they just.

On a rooftop half a city away, Rallick Nom stood looking out upon the choppy sea of blue lights, at his side Krute of Talient, and they had much to discuss and this meant, given Rallick Nom’s taciturnity, a long session indeed.

Krute had too much to say. Rallick weighed every morsel he fed back, not out of distrust, simply habit.

In a duelling school, long after the last of the young students had toddled out, Murillio sat under moonlight with Stonny Menackis as, weeping, she unburdened herself to this veritable stranger — which perhaps is what made it all so easy — but Stonny had no experience with a man such as Murillio, who understood what it was to listen, to bestow rapt, thorough and most genuine attention solely upon one woman, to draw all of her essence — so pouring out — into his own being, as might a hummingbird drinking nectar, or a bat a cow’s ankle blood (although this analogy ill serves the tender moment).

And so between them unseen vapours waft, animal and undeniable, and so much seeps into flesh and bone and self that stunning recognition comes — when it comes — like the unlocking of a door once thought sealed for ever more.

She wept and she wept often, and each time it was somehow easier, somehow more natural, more comfortable and acceptable, no different, truly, from the soft stroke of his fingers through her short hair, the way the tips brushed her cheek to smooth away the tears — and oh, who then could be surprised by all this?

To the present, then, as the blurred moon, now risen, squints down upon a score of figures gathering on a rooftop. Exchanging hand signals and muttering instructions and advice. Checking weapons. A full score, for the targets were tough, mean, veterans with foreign ways. And the assault to come, well, it would be brutal, unsubtle, and, without doubt, thorough.

The usual crowd in K’rul’s Bar, a dozen or so denizens choosing to be unmindful of the temple that once was — these quarried stone walls, stained with smoke and mute repositories for human voices generation upon generation, from droning chants and choral music to the howl of drunken laughter and the squeals of pinched women, these walls, then, thick and solid, ever hold to indifference in the face of drama.

Lives play out, lives parcel out portions framed by stone and wood, by tile and rafter, and each of these insensate forms have, in their time, tasted blood.

The vast, low-ceilinged main taproom with its sunken floor was once a transept or perhaps a congregation area. The narrow corridor between inset pillars along the back was once a colonnade bearing niches on which, long ago, stood funerary urns containing the charred, ashen remains of High Priests and Priestesses. The kitchen and the three storerooms behind it had once supplied sustenance to monks and the sanctioned blade-wielders, scribes and acolytes. Now they fed patrons, staff and owners.

Up the steep, saddled, stone steps to the landing on the upper floor, from which ran passages with sharply angled ceilings, three sides of a square with the fourth interrupted by the front facade of the building. Eight cell-like rooms fed off each of these passages, those on the back side projecting inward (supported by the pillars of the main floor colonnade) while the two to either side had their rooms against the building’s outer walls (thus providing windows).

The cells looking out on to the taproom had had inside walls knocked out, so that eight rooms were now three rooms, constituting the offices. The interior windows were now shuttered — no glass or skin — and Picker was in the habit of throwing them wide open when she sat at her desk, giving her a clear view of the front third of the taproom, including the entranceway.

On this night, there were few guests resident in the inn’s rooms. Barathol and Chaur had not yet returned. Scillara had taken Duiker into the Daru District. The bard was on the low dais in the taproom, plunking some airy, despondent melody that few of the twenty or so patrons listened to with anything approaching attention. A stranger from Pale had taken a corner room on the northeast corner and had retired early after a meagre meal and a single pint of Gredfallan ale.

Picker could see Blend at her station beside the front door, sunk in shadows as she sat, legs outstretched, her hands cradling a mug of hot cider — bizarre tastes, that woman, since it was sultry and steamy this night. People entering rarely even noticed her, marching right past without a glance down. Blend’s talent, aye, and who could say if it was natural or something else.

Antsy was yelling in the kitchen. He’d gone in there to calm down the two cooks — who despised each other — and it turned out as it usually did, with Antsy at war with everyone, including the scullions and the rats cowering beneath the counter. In a short while utensils would start flying and Picker would have to drag herself down there.

Bluepearl was. . somewhere. It was his habit to wander off, exploring the darker crooks and crannies of the old temple.

A night, then, no different from any other.

Bluepearl found himself in the cellar. Funny how often that happened. He had dragged out the fourth dusty cask from the crawlspace behind the wooden shelves. The first three he had sampled earlier in the week. Two had been vinegar, from which he could manage only a few swallows at a time. The other had been something thick and tarry, smelling of cedar or perhaps pine sap — in any case, he’d done little more than dip a finger in, finding the taste even fouler than the smell.

This time, however, he felt lucky. Broaching the cask, he bent close and tried a few tentative sniffs. Ale? Beer? But of course, neither lasted, did they? Yet this cask bore the sigil of the temple on the thick red wax coating the lid. He sniffed again. Definitely yeasty, but fresh, which meant. . sorcery. He sniffed a third time.

He’d danced with all kinds of magic as a squad mage in the Bridgeburners. Aye, he had so many stories that even that sour-faced bard upstairs would gape in wonder just to hear half of them. Why, he’d ducked and rolled under the nastiest kinds, the sorceries that ripped flesh from bones, that boiled the blood, that made a man’s balls swell up big as melons — oh, that time had been before he’d joined, hadn’t it? Yah, the witch and the witch’s daughter — never mind. What he was was an old hand.

And this stuff — Bluepearl dipped a finger in and then poked it into his mouth — oh, it was magic indeed. Something elder, hinting of blood (aye, he’d tasted the like before).

‘Is that you, Brother Cuven?’

He twisted round and scowled at the ghost whose head and shoulders lifted into view through the floor. ‘Do I look like Brother Cuven? You’re dead, long dead. It’s all gone, you hear? So why don’t you go and do the same?’

‘I smelled the blade,’ murmured the ghost, beginning to sink back down. ‘I smelled it. .’

No, Bluepearl decided, it probably wasn’t a good thing to be drinking this stuff. Not before some kind of analysis was made. Could be Mallet might help on that. Now, had he messed it up by opening the cask? Probably it would go bad now. So, he’d better take it upstairs.

Sighing, Bluepearl replaced the wooden stopper and picked up the cask.

In the corner room on the second level, the stranger who’d booked the room for this night finished digging out the last of the bars on the window. He then doused the lantern and moved across to the hallway door, where he crouched down, listening.

From the window behind him the first of the assassins climbed in.

Blend, her eyes half closed, watched as five men came in, moving in a half-drunken clump and arguing loudly about the latest jump in the price of bread, slurred statements punctuated by shoves and buffets, and wasn’t it a wonder, Blend reflected as they staggered into the taproom, how people could complain about very nearly anything as if their lives depended on it.

These ones she didn’t know, meaning they’d probably spied the torchlit sign on their way back from some other place, deciding that this drunk wasn’t drunk enough, and she noted that they were better dressed than most — nobles, most likely, with all the usual bluster and airs of invincibility and all that. Well, they’d be spending coin here and that was what counted.

She took another sip of cider.

Antsy had his short sword out as he crept towards the back of the smallest of the three storerooms. That damned two-headed rat was back. Sure, nobody else believed him except maybe the cooks now since they’d both seen the horrid thing, but the only way to prove it to the others was to kill the bugger and then show it to everyone.

They could then pickle it in a giant jar and make of it a curio for the bar. It would be sure to pull ’em in. Two-headed rat caught in the kitchen of K’rul’s Bar! Come see!

Oh, hold on. . was that the best kind of advertising? He’d have to ask Picker about that.

First, of course, he needed to kill the thing.

He crept closer, eyes fixed on the dark gap behind the last crate to the left.

Kill the thing, aye. Just don’t chop either head off.

Eleven figures crowded the corner room on the upper floor. Three held daggers, including the man crouched at the door. Four cradled crossbows, quarrels set. The last four — big men all — wielded swords and bucklers, and beneath their loose shirts there was fine chain.

The one at the door could now hear the argument in the taproom downstairs, accusations regarding the price of bread — a ridiculous subject, the man thought yet again, given how these ones were dressed like second and thirdborn nobles — but clearly no one had taken note of the peculiarity. Loud voices, especially drunk-sounding ones, had a way of filling the heads of people around them. Filling them with the wrong things.

So now everyone’s attention was on the loud, obnoxious newcomers, and at least some of the targets were likely to be converging, having it in mind to maybe toss the fools out or at least ask them to tone it down and all that.

Almost time then. .

Sitting on the stool on the dais, the bard let his fingers trail away from the last notes he had played, and slowly leaned back as the nobles now argued over which table to take. There were plenty to choose from so the issue was hardly worth all that energy.

He watched them for a long moment, and then set his instrument down and went over to the pitcher and tankard waiting to one side of the modest stage. He poured himself some ale, and then leaned against the wall, taking sips.

Picker rose from her chair as the door opened behind her. She turned. ‘Mallet, that bunch of idiots who just came in.’

The healer nodded. ‘There’ll be trouble with them. Have you seen Barathol or Chaur? They were supposed to be coming back here — the Guild’s probably caught wind of what he’s up to by now. I’m thinking of maybe heading over, in case-’

Picker held up her hand, two quick signals that silenced Mallet. ‘Listen to them,’ she said, frowning. ‘It’s not sounding right.’

After a moment, Mallet nodded. ‘We’d better head down.’

Picker turned and leaned on the sill, squinting at the shadows where Blend sat — and she saw those outstretched legs slowly draw back. ‘Shit.’

It was an act. That conclusion arrived sudden and cold as a winter wind. Alarmed, Blend rose from her chair, hands slipping beneath her raincape.

As the outside door opened once more.

That damned rat had slipped beneath the door leading to the cellar — Antsy saw its slithery tail wriggle out of sight and swore under his breath. He could catch it on the stairs-

The cellar door swung open and there stood Bluepearl, carrying a dusty cask as if it was a newborn child.

‘Did you see it?’ Antsy demanded.

‘See what?’

‘The two-headed rat! It just went under the door!’

‘Gods below, Antsy. Please, no more. There’s no two-headed rat. Move aside, will you? This thing’s heavy.’

And he shouldered past Antsy, out into the kitchen.

Three cloaked figures stepped in from outside K’rul’s Bar, crossbows at the ready. The bolts snapped out. Behind the bar, Skevos, who was handling the shift this night, was driven back as a quarrel thudded into his chest, shattering his sternum. A second quarrel shot up towards the office window where Picker was lean shy;ing out and she lunged back, either struck or dodging there was no way to tell. The third quarrel caught Hedry, a serving girl of fifteen years of age, and spun her round, her tray of mugs tumbling over.

From closer to the dais, the five drunks drew knives and swords from beneath their cloaks and fanned out, hacking at everyone within reach.

Shrieks filled the air.

Stepping out from her table, Blend slid like smoke into the midst of the three figures at the doorway. Her knives flickered, slashed, opening the throat of the man directly in front of her, severing the tendons of the nearest arm of the man to her left. Ducking beneath the first man as he toppled forward, she thrust one of her daggers into the chest of the third assassin. The point punched through chain and the blade snapped. She brought the other one forward in an upper cut, stabbing between the man’s legs. As he went down, Blend tore the knife free and spun to slash at the face of the second assassin. Throwing his head back to avoid the blade drove it into a low rafter. There was a heavy crunch and the man sagged on watery knees. Blend stabbed him through an eye.

She heard a fourth crossbow release and something punched her left shoulder, flinging her round. The arm below that shoulder seemed to have vanished — she could feel nothing — and she heard the knife clunk on the floor, even as the assassin, who had held back in the doorway, now rushed towards her, crossbow discarded and daggers drawn.

Mallet had opened the door at the moment that Picker — leaning out of the window — gave a startled yelp. A quarrel slammed into the wall not an arm’s reach from the healer’s head. Ducking, he threw himself out into the corridor.

As he half straightened, he saw figures pouring from round the corner to his left. Cords thrummed. One bolt punched into his stomach. The other ripped through his throat. He fell backward in a wash of blood and pain.

Lying on his back, hearing footfalls fast approach, Mallet reached up to his neck — he couldn’t breathe — blood gushed down into his lungs, hot and numbing. Frantic, he summoned High Denul-

A shadow descended over him and he looked up into a passive young face, the eyes blank as a dagger lifted into view.

Kick open the gate, Whiskeyjack-

Mallet watched the point flash down.

A sting in his right eye, and then darkness.

Mallet’s killer straightened, withdrawing the dagger, and he wondered, briefly, at the odd smile on the dead man’s face.

Emerging from the kitchen, ducking beneath the low crossbeam of the doorway leading into the taproom, Bluepearl heard crossbows loose, heard screams, and then the hiss of swords whipped free of scabbards. He looked up.

A flung dagger pinned his right hand to the cask. Shouting at the fiery agony, he staggered back as two assassins rushed towards him. One with a knife, the other with a long, thin-bladed sword.

The attacker with the knife was in the lead; his weapon raised.

Bluepearl spat at him.

That pearlescent globule transmogrified in the air, expanding into a writhing ball of serpents. A dozen fanged jaws struck the assassin in the face. He screamed in horror, slashing at his own face with his knife.

Bluepearl sought to drop the cask, only to have its weight tug his arm downward — his hand still pinned — and he shrieked at the burst of agony.

He had time to look up and see the sword as it was thrust into his face. Into the side of his nose, the point punching deeper, upward, driving into his forebrain.

At the threshold to the cellar, Antsy heard the scrap erupt in the taproom. Whirling round, loosing twenty curses in fourteen different languages, readjusting his grip on his shortsword. Gods, it sounded like unholy slaughter out there. He needed a damned shield!

The cooks and scullions were rushing for the back door — and all at once there were screams from the alley beyond.

Antsy plunged into the storeroom on the left. To the crate at the far end, beneath the folds of burlap. He jimmied the lid open and plucked out three, four sharpers, stuffing them beneath his shirt. A fifth one for his left hand. Then he rushed back out into the kitchen.

One cook and two scullions — both girls — were running back inside, and Antsy saw cloaked forms crowding the back door. ‘Down!’ he screamed, throwing the sharper overhand, hard, straight past the two assassins in the doorway. The sharper struck the alley wall and exploded.

He saw red mist burst round the two visible assassins, like Hood’s own haloes. They both slammed down face first. From the alley beyond, a chorus of terrible shrieks. Antsy drew out another sharper, ran to the doorway. Standing on the backs of the dead assassins, he leaned out and threw the grenado into the alley. Another snapping, fierce detonation. And there were no more cries out there.

‘Chew on that, you fuckin’ arseholes!’

Picker rolled across the floor in the wake of that first quarrel. She saw Mallet lunge into the corridor, saw the bolts take him down. Scrambling — knowing the healer was a dead man — she threw herself at the office door, slamming it shut even as footfalls rushed closer. Dropping the latch, a heartbeat before a heavy weight pounded into the solid barrier, she went to the crate at the foot of the desk.

Fumbled with the key for a moment — thundering thumps from the door behind her, mayhem in the taproom below — before working the lock free and flinging back the lid. She drew out her heavy crossbow and a clutch of quarrels.

She heard the echo of sharpers from the kitchen and grinned, but it was a cold grin.

On her feet once more, even as wood splintered on the door, she rushed back to the window — in time to see Blend knocked back by a bolt in her shoulder, and an assassin lunging after her from the doorway.

It was a damned good shot, her quarrel striking the man in the forehead, snapping his head back in a burst of blood, skull and brains.

Whirling round, she went back to the crate, found the lone sharper she’d stashed there, then back to the window, where she leapt up on to the sill, balanced in a crouch. Directly below was a table. Two bodies bled out beside it, legs tangled in the knocked-over chairs — two innocent patrons, two regulars who never did nobody any harm, good with tips, always a smile-

The door crashed open behind her. She twisted and threw the sharper, then dropped down from the sill. The crack of the grenado in the office, a gout of flames and smoke, as Picker landed on the tabletop.

It exploded beneath her. One of her knees slammed into her chin and she felt teeth crack as she fell to one side, thumping down on one of the corpses. She managed to hold on to the crossbow, although the quarrels scattered across the floor.

Spitting blood, she sat up.

Blend saw her attacker flung back, saw his head cave inward above his eyes. She crouched down, reaching up for the quarrel embedded in her left shoulder. The point was jammed into the cartilage between the bone of the upper arm and the shoulder’s sockets. Leaving it in there was probably worse than pulling the damned thing out. Gritting her teeth, she tugged the bolt free.

That made her pass out.

After pushing the surviving crew in the kitchen back out into the alley — now crowded with a dozen torn-up corpses — Antsy crossed the room, collecting the iron lid of a large cauldron along the way. At the entrance leading to the taproom he found Bluepearl, dead as dead could be in a pool of ale, and just beyond him knelt an assassin who seemed to have taken his dagger to his own face, which was now a sliced, shredded, eyeless mess. He was crooning some wordless melody from deep in his throat.

Antsy’s backslash split the bastard’s skull. Tugging the sword loose, he edged forward.

There’d been another sharper, from upstairs, and the crashing of furniture, but little else now. Moving in a crouch, sword ready, lid held like a shield, he worked his way round the near end of the bar.

There was Picker, on her knees directly ahead, reaching out for a quarrel on the floor and quickly loading her marine-issue weapon. Blend was lying motionless near the bar entrance.

Antsy hissed.

Picker looked up, met his eyes. She signalled with one hand, six gestures, and he nodded, answering with two.

Dripping ale and blood, a few soft groans here and there.

Soft footfalls on the landing at the top of the stairs.

Antsy set down his sword, drew out a sharper and showed it to Picker, who nodded and then quietly moved round, using the wreckage of the table for cover, and trained her crossbow on the stairs.

When he saw she was ready, Antsy lifted his makeshift shield to cover shoulder and head, then quickly stepped round to the foot of the stairs. And threw the grenado upward.

Two quarrels clanged off the cauldron lid, with enough force to knock it from his hand. At the same moment an assassin, having launched herself from halfway down the stairs, sailed down towards him.

Picker’s quarrel caught the attacker somewhere in the midsection, convulsing her in mid-flight. She crashed down just as the sharper detonated near the landing.

And then Antsy, sword in hand once more, was rushing up those steps. Picker raced into his wake, drawing out her own sword. ‘Get outa the way with that pig-sticker!’ she snarled. ‘Cover me in close!’ She pulled him back and round by one shoulder and pushed past.

Limbs twitching from a heap of bodies on the landing, and splashed blood on the walls — and movement beyond, somewhere in the corridor.

She scrambled over the dead and dying on the landing, pitched into the corridor and, seeing three assassins slowly picking themselves up from the floor, charged forward.

Short work cutting down the stunned attackers, with Antsy guarding her back.

Blend opened her eyes and wondered why she was lying on the floor. She attempted to lift her left arm and gasped as pain blossomed red and hot, leaving her half blind in its aftermath. Oh, now she remembered. With a low moan, she rolled on to her good side and worked herself into a sitting position, blinking sweat and worse from her eyes.

The bar door was open, one of the hinges broken.

In the street beyond, she saw at least a half-dozen cloaked figures, gathered and creeping closer.

Shit.

Desperate, she looked round for the nearest discarded weapon. Knowing she wouldn’t have time, knowing they were going to cut her down once and for all. Still — she saw a knife and reached out for it.

The six assassins came at a sprint.

Someone slammed into them from one side, loosing a bellowing bawl like a wounded bull, and Blend stared as the huge man — Chaur — swung his enormous fists. Heads snapped back on broken necks, faces crumpled in sprays of blood-

And then Barathol was there, with nothing more than a knife, slashing into the reeling assassins, and Blend could see the fear in the blacksmith’s eyes — fear for Chaur, dread for what might happen if the assassins recovered-

As they were now doing.

Blend pushed herself to her feet, collecting the dagger from the floor as she staggered forward-

And was shoved aside by Antsy. Hacking at the nearest assassin with his shortsword, a dented cauldron lid shielding his left side.

Chaur, his forearms slashed by desperate daggers, picked up an assassin and threw him down on to the cobbles. Bones snapped. Still bawling, he picked the broken form up by an ankle and swung him into the air, round, then loose — to collide with another assassin, and both went down. Barathol was suddenly above the first man, driving his boot heel down on his temple. Limbs spasmed.

Antsy pulled his sword from an assassin’s chest and readied himself for his next target, then slowly straightened.

Leaning against the doorframe, Blend spat and said, ‘All down, Sergeant.’

Barathol wrapped Chaur in a hug to calm the man down. Tears streaked Chaur’s broad cheeks, and his fists were still closed, like massive bloody mauls at the ends of his arms. He had wet himself.

Blend and Antsy watched as the blacksmith hugged his friend tightly, with need and with raw relief, so exposed that both Malazans had to look away.

Picker came up behind Blend. ‘You gonna live?’ she asked.

‘Good as new, as soon as Mallet-’

‘No. Not Mallet, love,’

Blend squeezed shut her eyes, ‘They caught as, Pick,’ she said. ‘They caught us good.’

‘Aye.’

She glanced,over. ‘You got ’em all in the taproom? Damned impressive-’

‘No, I didn’t, but they’re all down. Four of ’em, right at the foot of the stage. Looked like they rushed it.’

Rushed it? But who was up there. . ‘We lose our bard, then?’

‘Don’t know,’ Picker said. ‘Didn’t see him.’

Rushed the stage. .

‘We lost Bluepearl, too.’

Blend slowly closed her eyes a second time. Oh, she was hurting, and a lot of that hurt couldn’t get sewn up. They caught us. ‘Picker.’

‘They slaughtered everyone, Blend. People with nothing but bad luck being here tonight. Skevos. Hedry, Larmas, little Boothal. All to take us down.’

From up the street came a squad of City Guard, lanterns swinging.

For a scene such as Blend was looking out on right now, there should be a crowd of onlookers, the ones hungry to see injured, dying people, the ones who fed on such things. But there was no one.

Because this was Guild work.

‘Some of us are still breathing,’ Blend said. ‘It’s not good to do that. Leave some marines still breathing.’

‘No, it’s not good at all.’

Blend knew that tone. Still, she wondered. Are we enough? Is there enough in us to do this? Do we still have what’s needed? They’d lost a healer and a mage this night. They’d lost the best of them. Because we were careless.

Antsy joined them as the guards closed in round Barathol and Chaur. ‘Pick, Blend,’ he said, ‘I don’t know about you two, but right now, gods below, I’m feeling old.’

A sergeant of the guard approached. ‘How bad is it inside?’

No one seemed eager to reply.

Six streets away, a world away, Cutter stood in the front yard of a store selling headstones and crypt facades. An array of stylized deities, none of them temple-sanctioned as yet, beseeching blessings upon the future dead. Beru and Burn, Soliel and Nerruse, Treach and the Fallen One, Hood and Fanderay, Hound and tiger, boar and worm. The shop was closed and he looked upon stones still uncarved, awaiting names of loved ones. Against one of the low yard walls stood a row of marble sarcophagi, and against the wall opposite there were tall urns with their flared mouths, narrow necks and swollen bellies, reminding him of pregnant women. . birth into death, wombs to hold all that remained of mortal flesh, homes to those who would answer the final question, the last question: what lies beyond? What awaits us all? What shape the gate before me? There were plenty of ways of asking it, but they all meant the same thing, and all sought the one answer.

One spoke of death often. The death of a friendship. The death of love. Each echoed with the finality that waited at the very end, but they were faint echoes, ghostly, acting out scenes in puppet shows swallowed in flickering shadows. Kill a love. What lies beyond? Emptiness, cold, drifting ashes, yet does it not prove fertile? A place where a new seed is planted, finding life, growing into itself? Is this how true death is, as well?

From the dust, a new seed. .

A pleasing thought. A comforting thought.

The street behind him was modestly crowded, the last of the late night shoppers reluctant to close out this day. Maybe they had nothing to go home to. Maybe they hungered for one more purchase, in the forlorn hope that it would fill whatever emptiness gnawed deep inside.

None wandered into this yard, none wanted the reminder of what waited for them all. Why, then, had he found himself here? Was he seeking some kind of comfort, some reminder that for each and every person, no matter where, the same conclusion was on its way? One could walk, one could crawl, one could run headlong, but one could never turn round and head the other way, could never escape. That, even with the truism that all grief belonged to the living, the ones left behind — facing empty spaces where someone once stood — there could be found a kind of calm repose. We walk the same path, some farther along, some further back, but still and for ever more the same path.

There was, then, the death of love.

And there was, alas, its murder.

‘Crokus Younghand.’

He slowly turned round. A woman stood before him, exquisitely dressed, a cloak of ermine about her shoulders. A heart-shaped face, languid eyes, painted lips, and yes, he knew this face. Had known it, a younger version, a child’s version, perhaps, but now there was nothing of that child — not in the eyes, not even in the sad smile on those full lips. ‘Challice D’Arle.’

Later, he would look back on this moment, on the dark warning contained in the fact that, when he spoke her name of old, she did not correct him.

Would such percipience have changed things? All that was to come?

Death and murder, seeds in the ashes, one does as one does. Sarcophagi gaped. Urns echoed hollow and dark. Stone faces awaited names, grief crouching at the gate.

Such was this night in the city of Darujhistan.

Such is this night, everywhere.