To this day it remains easy to ignore the fact that the Aren High Command was rife with treachery, dissension, rivalry and malice ... The assertion that [the Aren High Command] was ignorant of the undercurrents in the countryside is, at best naive, at worst cynical in the extreme .. .

The Sha'ik Rebellion
Cullaran

 

The red ochre handprint on the wall was dissolving in the rain, trickling roots down along the mortar between the fired mudbricks. Hunched against the unseasonal downpour, Duiker watched as the print slowly disappeared, wishing that the day had broken dry, that he could have come upon the sign before the rain obscured it, that he could then have gained a sense of the hand that had made its mark here, on the outer wall of the old Falah'd Palace in the heart of Hissar.

The many cultures of Seven Cities seethed with symbols, a secret pictographic language of oblique references that carried portentous weight among the natives. Such symbols formed a complex dialogue that no Malazan could understand. Slowly, during his many months resident here, Duiker had come to realize the danger behind their ignorance. As the Year of Dryjhna approached, such symbols blossomed in chaotic profusion, every wall in every city a scroll of secret code. Wind, sun and rain assured impermanence, wiping clean the slate in readiness for the next exchange.

And it seems they have a lot to say these days.

Duiker shook himself, trying to loosen the tension in his neck and shoulders. His warnings to the High Command seemed to be falling on deaf ears. There were patterns in these symbols, and it seemed that he alone among all the Malazans had any interest in breaking the code, or even in recognizing the risks of maintaining an outsider's indifference.

He pulled his cowl further over his head in an effort to keep his face dry, feeling water trickle on his forearms as the wide cuffs of his telaba cloak briefly opened to the rain. The last of the print had washed away. Duiker pushed himself into motion, resuming his journey.

Water ran in ankle-deep torrents down the cobbled slopes beneath the palace walls, gushing down into the gutters bisecting each alley and causeway in the city. Opposite the immense palace wall, awnings sagged precariously above closet-sized shops. In the chill shadows of the holes that passed for storefronts, dour-faced merchants watched Duiker as he passed by.

Apart from miserable donkeys and the occasional swaybacked horse, the streets were mostly empty of pedestrian traffic. Even with the rare wayward current from the Sahul Sea, Hissar was a city born of inland drylands and deserts. Though a port and now a central landing for the Empire, the city and its people lived with a spiritual back to the sea.

Duiker left behind the close ring of ancient buildings and narrow alleys surrounding the palace wall, coming to the Dryjhna Colonnade that ran straight as a spear through Hissar's heart. The guldindha trees lining the colonnade's carriage track swam with blurred motion as the rain pelted down on their ochre leaves. Estate gardens, most of them unwalled and open to public admiration, stretched green on either side. The downpour had stripped flowers from their shrubs and dwarf trees, turning the cobbled walkways white, red and pink.

The historian ducked as a gusting wind pressed his cloak tight against his right side. The water on his lips tasted of salt, the only indication of the angry sea a thousand paces to his right. Where the street named after the Storm of the Apocalypse narrowed suddenly, the carriage path became a muddy track of broken cobbles and shattered pottery, the tall, once royal nut trees giving way to desert scrub. The change was so abrupt that Duiker found himself up to his shins in dung-stained water before he realized he'd come to the city's edge. Squinting against the rain, he looked up.

Off to his left, hazy behind the sheets of water, ran the stone wall of the Imperial Compound. Smoke struggled upward from beyond the wall's fortified height. On his right and much closer was a chaotic knot of hide tents, horses and camels and carts – a trader camp, newly arrived from the Sialk Odhan.

Drawing his cloak tighter against the wind, Duiker swung to the right and made for the encampment. The rain was heavy enough to mask the sound of his approach from the tribe's dogs as he entered the narrow, mud-choked pathway between the sprawling tents. Duiker paused at an intersection. Opposite was a large copper-stained tent, its walls profusely cluttered with painted symbols. Smoke drifted from the entrance flap. He crossed the intersection, hesitating only a moment before drawing the flap to one side and entering.

A roar of sound, carried on waves of hot, steam-laden air buffeted the historian as he paused to shake the water from his cloak. Voices shouting, cursing, laughing on ail sides, the air filled with durhang smoke and incense, roasting meats, sour wine and sweet ale, closed in around Duiker as he took in the scene. Coins rattled and spun in pots where a score of gamblers had gathered off to his left; in front of him a tapu weaved swiftly through the crowd, a four-foot-long iron skewer of roasted meats and fruit in each hand. Duiker shouted the tapu over, raising a hand to catch the man's eye. The hawker quickly approached.

'Goat, I swear!' the tapu exclaimed in the coastal Debrahl language. 'Goat, not dog, Dosii! Smell for yourself, and only a clipping to pay for such delicious fare! Would you pay so little in Dosin Pali?'

Born on the plains of Dal Hon, Duiker's dark skin matched that of the local Debrahl; he was wearing the telaba sea cloak of a merchant trader from the island city of Dosin Pali, and spoke the language without hint of an accent. To the tapu's claim Duiker grinned. 'For dog I would, Tapuharal.' He fished out two local crescents – the equivalent of a base 'clipping' of the Imperial silver jakata. 'And if you imagine the Mezla are freer with their silver on the island, you are a fool and worse!'

Looking nervous, the tapu slid a chunk of dripping meat and two soft amber globes of fruit from one of the skewers, wrapping them in leaves. 'Beware Mezla spies, Dosii,' he muttered. 'Words can be twisted.'

'Words are their only language,' Duiker replied with contempt as he accepted the food. 'Is it true then that a scarred barbarian now commands the Mezla army?'

'A man with a demon's face, Dosii.' The tapu wagged his head. 'Even the Mezla fear him.' Pocketing the crescents he moved off, raising the skewers once more over his head. 'Goat, not dog!'

Duiker found a tent wall to put his back against and watched the crowd as he ate his meal in local fashion, swiftly, messily. Every meal is your last encompassed an entire Seven Cities philosophy. Grease smeared on his face and dripping from his fingers, the historian dropped the leaves to the muddy floor at his feet, then ritually touched his forehead in a now outlawed gesture of gratitude to a Falah'd whose bones were rotting in the silty mud of Hissar Bay. The historian's eyes focused on a ring of old men beyond the gamblers and he walked over to it, wiping his hands on his thighs.

The gathering marked a Circle of Seasons, wherein two seers faced one another and spoke a symbolic language of divination in a complicated dance of gestures. As he pushed into a place among the ring of onlookers, Duiker saw the seers within the circle, an ancient shaman whose silver-barbed, skin-threaded face marked him as from the Semk tribe, far inland, and opposite him a boy of about fifteen. Where the boy's eyes should have been were two gouged pits of badly healed scar tissue. His thin limbs and bloated belly revealed an advanced stage of malnutrition. Duiker d instinctively that the boy had lost his family during the Malazan conquest and now lived in the alleys and streets of Hissar. He had been found by the Circle's organizers, for it was well known that the gods spoke through such suffering souls.

The tense silence among the onlookers told the historian that there was power in this divination. Though blind, the boy moved to keep himself face to face with the Semk seer, who himself slowly danced across a floor of white sand in absolute silence. They held out their hands towards each other, inscribing patterns in the air between them.

Duiker nudged the man beside him. 'What has been foreseen?' he whispered.

The man, a squat local with the scars of an old Hissar regiment poorly obscured by mutilating burns on his cheeks, hissed warningly through his stained teeth. 'Nothing less than the spirit of Dryjhna, whose outline was mapped by their hands – a spirit seen by all here, a ghostly promise of fire.'

Duiker sighed. 'Would that I had witnessed that...'

'You shall – see? It comes again!'

The historian watched as the weaving hands seemed to contact an invisible figure, leaving a smear of reddish light that flickered in their wake. The glow suggested a human shape, and that shape slowly grew more defined. A woman whose flesh was fire. She raised her arms and something like iron flashed at her wrists and the dancers became three as she spun and writhed between the seers.

The boy suddenly threw back his head, words coming from his throat like the grinding of stones. 'Two fountains of raging blood! Face to face. The blood is the same, the two are the same and salty waves shall wash the shores of Raraku. The Holy Desert remembers its past!'

The female apparition vanished. The boy toppled forward, thumping stiff as a board onto the sand. The Semk seer crouched down, resting a hand on the boy's head. 'He is returned to his family,' the old shaman said in the silence of the circle. 'The mercy of Dryjhna, the rarest of gifts, granted to this child.'

Hardened tribesmen began weeping, others falling to their knees. Shaken, Duiker pulled back as the ring slowly contracted. He blinked sweat from his eyes, sensing that someone was watching him. He looked around. Across from him stood a figure shrouded in black hides, a goat's-head hood pulled up, leaving the face in shadow. A moment later the figure looked away. Duiker quickly moved from the stranger's line of sight.

He made for the tent flap.

Seven Cities was an ancient civilization, steeped in the power of antiquity, where Ascendants once walked on every trader track, every footpath, every lost road between forgotten places. It was said the sands hoarded power within their susurrating currents, that every stone had soaked up sorcery like blood, and that beneath every city lay the ruins of countless other cities, older cities, cities that went back to the First Empire itself. It was said each city rose on the backs of ghosts, the substance of spirits thick like layers of crushed bone; that each city forever wept beneath the streets, forever laughed, shouted, hawked wares and bartered and prayed and drew first breaths that brought life and the last breaths that announced death. Beneath the streets there were dreams, wisdom, foolishness, fears, rage, grief, lust and love and bitter hatred.

The historian stepped outside into the rain, drawing in lungfuls of clean, cool air as he once more wrapped cloak about him.

Conquerors could overrun a city's walls, could kill every living soul within it, fill every estate and every house and every store with its own people, yet rule nothing but the city's thin surface, the skin of the present, and would one day be brought down by the spirits below, until they themselves were but one momentary layer among many. This is an enemy we can never defeat, Duiker believed. Yet history tells the stories of those who would challenge that enemy, again and again. Perhaps victory is not achieved by overcoming that enemy, but by joining it, becoming one with it.

The Empress has sent a new Fist to batter down the restless centuries of this land. Had she abandoned Coltaine as I'd suggested to Mallick Rel? Or had she just held him back in readiness, like a weapon forged and honed for one specific task?

Duiker left the encampment, once more hunched beneath the driving rain. Ahead loomed the gates of the Imperial Compound. He might well find some answers to his questions within the next hour, as he came face to face with Coltaine of the Crow Clan.

He crossed the rutted track, sloshing through the murky puddles filling the horse and wagon ruts, then ascended the muddy slope towards the gatehouse.

Two cowled guards stepped into view as he reached the gate's narrow side passage.

'No petitions today, Dosii,' one of the Malazan soldiers said. 'Try tomorrow.'

Duiker unclasped the cloak, opened it to reveal the Imperial diadem pinned to his tunic. 'The Fist has called a council, has he not?'

Both soldiers saluted and stepped back. The one who'd spoken earlier smiled apologetically. 'Didn't know you were with the other one,' he said.

'What other one?'

'He came in just a few minutes ago, historian.'

'Yes, of course.' Duiker nodded to the two men, then passed within. The stone floor of the passage bore the muddy tracks of a pair of moccasins. Frowning, he continued on, coming to the inside compound. A roofed causeway followed the wall to his left, leading eventually to the side postern of the squat, unimaginative headquarters building. Already wet, Duiker ignored it, electing to cross the compound directly towards the building's main entrance. In passing he noticed that the man who had preceded him had done the same. The pooled prints of his steps betrayed a bowlegged gait. The historian's frown deepened.

He came to the entrance, where another guard appeared, who directed Duiker to the council room. As he approached the room's double doors, he checked for his predecessor's footprints, but there were none. Evidently he'd gone to some other chamber within the building. Shrugging, Duiker opened the doors.

The council room was low-ceilinged, its stone walls unplastered but washed in white paint. A long marble table dominated, looking strangely incomplete in the absence of chairs. Already present were Mallick Rel, Kulp, Coltaine and another Wickan officer. They all turned at the historian's entrance, Rel's brows lifting in mild surprise. Clearly, he'd been unaware that Coltaine had extended to Duiker an invitation. Had it been the new Fist's intention to unbalance the priest, a deliberate exclusion? After a moment the historian dismissed the thought. More likely the result of a disorganized new command.

The chairs had been specifically removed for this council, as was evident in the tracks their legs had left through the white dust on the floor. The discomfort of not knowing where to stand or how to position oneself was evident in both Mallick Rel and Kulp. The Jhistal priest of Mael was shifting weight from one foot to the other, sweat on his brow reflecting the harsh glare of the lanterns set on the tabletop, his hands folded into his sleeves. Kulp looked in need of a wall to lean against, but was clearly uncertain how the Wickans would view such a casual posture.

Inwardly smiling, Duiker removed his dripping cloak, hanging it from an old torch bracket beside the doors. He then turned about and presented himself before the new Fist, who stood at the nearest end of the table, his officer on his left – a scowling veteran whose wide, flat face seemed to fold in on itself diagonally in a scar from right jawline to left brow.

'I am Duiker,' the historian said. 'Imperial Historian of the Empire.' He half bowed. 'Welcome to Hissar, Fist.' Up close, he could see that the warleader of the Crow Clan showed the weathering of forty years on the north Wickan Plains of Quon Tali. His lean, expressionless face was lined, deep brackets around the thin, wide mouth, and squint tracks at the corners of his dark, deep-set eyes. Oiled braids hung down past his shoulders, knotted with crow-feather fetishes. He was tall, wearing a battered vest of chain over a hide shirt, a crow-feather cloak hanging from his broad shoulders down to the backs of his knees. He wore a rider's leggings, laced with gut up the outer sides to his hips. A single horn-handled long-knife jutted out from under his left arm.

In answer to Duiker's words he cocked his head. 'When I last saw you,' he said in his harsh Wickan accent, 'you lay in fever on the Emperor's own cot, about to rise and walk through the Hooded One's Gates.' He paused. 'Bult was the young warrior whose lance ripped you open and for his effort a soldier named Dujek kissed Bult's face with his sword.' Coltaine slowly turned to smile at the scarred Wickan at his side.

The grizzled horseman's scowl remained unchanged as he glared at Duiker. After a moment he shook his head and swelled his chest. 'I remember an unarmed man. The lack of weapons in his hands turned my lance at the last moment. I remember Dujek's sword that stole my beauty even as my horse bit his arm crushing bone. I remember that Dujek lost that arm to the surgeons, fouled as it was with my horse's breath. Between us, I lost the exchange, for the loss of an arm did nothing to damage Dujek's glorious career, while the loss of my beauty left me with but the one wife that I already had.'

'And was she not your sister, Bult?'

'She was, Coltaine. And blind.'

Both Wickans fell silent, the one frowning and the other scowling.

Off to one side Kulp voiced something like a strangled grunt. Duiker slowly raised an eyebrow. 'I am sorry, Bult,' he said. 'Although I was at the battle, I never saw Coltaine, nor you. In any case, I had not noticed any particular loss of your beauty.'

The veteran nodded. 'One must look carefully, it's true.'

'Perhaps,' Mallick Rel said, 'time to dispense with the pleasantries, entertaining as they are, and begin this council.'

'When I'm ready,' Coltaine said casually, still studying Duiker.

Bult grunted. 'Tell me, Historian, what inspired you to enter battle without weapons?'

'Perhaps I lost them in the melee.'

'But you did not. You wore no belt, no scabbard, you carried no shield.'

Duiker shrugged. 'If I am to record the events of this Empire, I must be in their midst, sir.'

'Shall you display such reckless zeal in recording the events of Coltaine's command?'

'Zeal? Oh yes, sir. As for reckless,' he sighed, 'alas, my courage is not as it once was. These days I wear armour when attending battle, and a short sword and shield. And helm. Surrounded by bodyguards, and at least a league away from the heart of the fighting.'

'The years have brought you wisdom,' Bult said.

'In some things, I am afraid,' Duiker said slowly, 'not enough.' He faced Coltaine. 'I would be bold enough to advise you, Fist, at this council.'

Coltaine's gaze slid to Mallick Rel as he spoke, 'And you fear the presumption, for you will say things I will not appreciate. Perhaps, in hearing such things, I shall command Bult to complete the task of killing you. This tells me much,' he continued, 'of the situation at Aren.'

'I know little of that,' Duiker said, feeling sweat trickle beneath his tunic. 'But even less of you, Fist.'

Coltaine's expression did not change. Duiker was reminded of a cobra slowly rising before him, unblinking, cold.

'Question,' Mallick Rel said. 'Has the council begun?'

'Not yet,' Coltaine said slowly. 'We await my warlock.'

The priest of Mael drew a sharp breath at that. Off to one side, Kulp took a step forward.

Duiker found his throat suddenly dry. Clearing it, he said, 'Was it not at the command of the Empress – in her first year on the throne – that all Wickan warlocks be, uh, rooted out? Was there not a subsequent mass execution? I have a memory of seeing Unta's outer walls...'

'They took many days to die,' Bult said. 'Hung from spikes of iron until the crows came to collect their souls. We brought our children to the city walls, to look upon the tribal elders whose lives were taken from us by the short-haired woman's command. We gave them memory scars, to keep the truth alive.'

'An Empress,' Duiker said, watching Coltaine's face, 'whom you now serve.'

'The short-haired woman knows nothing of Wickan ways,' Bult said. 'The crows that carried within them the greatest of the warlock souls returned to our people to await each new birth, and so the power of our elders returned to us.'

A side entrance Duiker had not noticed before slid open. A tall, bow-legged figure stepped into the room, face hidden in the shadow of a goat's-head cowl, which he now pulled back, revealing the smooth visage of a boy no more than ten years old. The youth's dark eyes met the historian's.

'This is Sormo E'nath,' Coltaine said.

'Sormo E'nath – an old man – was executed at Unta,' Kulp snapped. 'He was the most powerful of the warlocks – the Empress made sure of him. It's said he took eleven days on the wall to die. This one is not Sormo E'nath. This is a boy.'

'Eleven days,' Bult grunted. 'No single crow could hold all of his soul. Each day there came another, until he was all gone. Eleven days, eleven crows. Such was Sormo's power, his life will, and such was the honour accorded him by the black-winged spirits. Eleven came to him. Eleven.'

'Elder sorcery,' Mallick Rel whispered. 'Most ancient scrolls hint at such things. This boy is named Sormo E'nath. Truly the warlock reborn?'

'The Rhivi of Genabackis have similar beliefs,' Duiker said. 'A newborn child can become the vessel of a soul that has not passed through Hood's Gates.'

The boy spoke, his voice reedy but breaking, on the edge of manhood. 'I am Sormo E'nath, who carries in his breastbone the memory of an iron spike. Eleven crows attended my birth.' He hitched his cloak behind his shoulders. 'This day I came upon a ritual of divination and saw there among the crowd the historian Duiker. Together we witnessed a vision sent by a spirit of great power, a spirit whose face is one among many. This spirit promised armageddon.'

'I saw as he did,' Duiker said. 'A trader caravan has camped outside the city.'

'You were not discovered as a Malazan?' Mallick asked.

'He speaks the tribal language well,' Sormo said. 'And makes gestures announcing his hatred of the Empire. Well enough of countenance and in action to deceive the natives. Tell me, Historian, have you seen such divinations before?'

'None so ... obvious,' Duiker admitted. 'But I have seen enough signs to sense the growing momentum. The new year will bring rebellion.'

'Bold assertion,' Mallick Rel said. He sighed, clearly uncomfortable with standing. 'The new Fist would do well to regard with caution such claims. Many are the prophecies of this land, as many as there are people, it seems. Such multitudes diminish the veracity of each. Rebellion has been promised in Seven Cities each year since the Malazan conquest. What has come of them? Naught.'

'The priest has hidden motives,' Sormo said.

Duiker found himself holding his breath.

Mallick Rel's round, sweat-sheened face went white.

'All men have hidden motives,' Coltaine said, as if dismissing his warlock's claim. 'I hear counsel of warning and counsel of caution. A good balance. These are my words. The mage who yearns to lean against walls of stone views me as an adder in his bedroll. His fear of me speaks for every soldier in the Seventh Army.' The Fist spat on the floor, his face twisting. 'I care nothing for their sentiments. If they obey my commands I in turn will serve them. If they do not, I will tear their hearts from their chests. Do you hear my words, Cadre Mage?'

Kulp was scowling. 'I hear them.'

'I am here,' Rel's voice was almost shrill, 'to convey the commands of High Fist Pormqual—'

'Before or after the High Fist's official welcome?' Even as he spoke Duiker regretted his words, despite Bult's bark of laughter.

In response, Mallick Rel straightened. 'High Fist Pormqual welcomes Fist Coltaine to Seven Cities, and wishes him well in his new command. The Seventh Army remains as one of the three original armies of the Malazan Empire, and the High Fist is confident that Fist Coltaine will honour their commendable history.'

'I care nothing for reputations,' Coltaine said. 'They shall be judged by their actions. Go on.'

Trembling, Rel continued, 'The High Fist Pormqual has asked me to convey his orders to High Fist Coltaine. Admiral Nok is to leave Hissar Harbour and proceed to Aren as soon as his ships are resupplied. High Fist Coltaine is to begin preparations for marching the Seventh overland ... to Aren. It is the High Fist's desire to review the Seventh prior to its final stationing.' The priest produced a sealed scroll from his robes and set it on the tabletop. 'Such are the High Fist's commands.'

A look of disgust darkened Coltaine's features. He crossed his arms and deliberately turned his back on Mallick Rel.

Bult laughed without humour. 'The High Fist wishes to review the army. Presumably the High Fist has an attendant High Mage, perhaps a Hand of the Claw as well? If he wishes to review Coltaine's troops he can come here by Warren. The Fist has no intention of outfitting this army to march four hundred leagues so that Pormqual can frown at the dust on their boots. Such a move will leave the eastern provinces of Seven Cities without an occupying army. At this time of unrest it would be viewed as a retreat, especially when accompanied by the withdrawal of the Sahul Fleet. This land cannot be governed from behind the walls of Aren.'

'Defying the High Fist's command?' Rel asked in a whisper, eyes glittering like blooded diamonds on Coltaine's broad back.

The Fist whirled. 'I am counselling a change of those commands,' he said, 'and now await a reply.'

'Reply I shall give you,' the priest rasped.

Coltaine sneered.

Bult said, 'You? You are a priest, not a soldier, not a governor. You are not even recognized as a member of the High Command.'

Rel's glare flicked from Fist to veteran. 'I am not? Indeed—'

'Not by Empress Laseen,' Bult cut in. 'She knows nothing of you, priest, apart from the High Fist's reports. Understand that the Empress does not convey power upon people whom she does not know. High Fist Pormqual employed you as his messenger boy and that is how the Fist shall treat you. You command nothing. Not Coltaine, not me, not even a lowly mess cook of the Seventh.'

'I shall convey these words and sentiments to the High Fist.'

'No doubt. You may go now.'

Rel's jaw dropped. 'Go?'

'We are done with you. Leave.'

In silence they watched the priest depart. As soon as the doors closed Duiker turned to Coltaine. 'That may not have been wise, Fist.'

Coltaine's eyes looked sleepy. 'Bult spoke, not I.'

Duiker glanced at the veteran. The scarred Wickan was grinning.

'Tell me of Pormqual,' Coltaine said. 'You have met him?'

The historian swung back to the Fist. 'I have.'

'Does he govern well?'

'As far as I have been able to determine,' Duiker said, 'he does not govern at all. Most edicts are issued by the man you – Bult – just expelled from this council. There are a host of others behind the curtain, mostly noble-born wealthy merchants. They are the ones primarily responsible for the cuts in duty taxation on imported goods, and the corresponding increases in local taxes on production and exports – with exemptions, of course, in whatever export they themselves are engaged in. The Imperial occupation is managed by Malazan merchants, a situation unchanged since Pormqual assumed the title of High Fist four years ago.'

Bult asked, 'Who was High Fist before him?'

'Cartheron Crust, who drowned one night in Aren Harbour.'

Kulp snorted. 'Crust could swim drunk through a hurricane, but then he went and drowned just like his brother Urko. Neither body was ever found, of course.'

'Meaning?'

Kulp grinned at Bult, but said nothing.

'Both Crust and Urko were the Emperor's men,' Duiker explained. 'It seems they shared the same fate as most of Kellanved's companions, including Toe the Elder and Ameron. None of their bodies were ever found, either.' The historian shrugged. 'Old history now. Forbidden history, in fact.'

'You assume they were murdered at Laseen's command,' Bult said, baring his jagged teeth. 'But imagine a circumstance where the Empress's most able commanders simply ... disappeared. Leaving her isolated, desperate for able people. You forget, Historian, that before Laseen became Empress, she was close companions with Crust, Urko, Ameron, Dassem and the others. Imagine her now alone, still feeling the wounds of abandonment.'

'And her murder of the other close companions – Kellanved and Dancer – was not something she imagined would affect her friendship with those commanders?' Duiker shook his head, aware of the bitterness in his voice. They were my companions, too.

'Some errors in judgement can never be undone,' Bult said. 'The Emperor and Dancer were able conquerors, but were they able rulers?'

'We'll never know,' Duiker snapped.

The Wickan's sigh was almost a snort. 'No, but if there was one person close to the throne capable of seeing what was to come, it was Laseen.'

Coltaine spat on the floor once again. 'That is all to say on the matter, Historian. Record the words that have been uttered here, if you do not find them too sour a taste.' He glanced over at a silent Sormo E'nath, frowning as he studied his warlock.

'Even if I choked on them,' Duiker replied, 'I would recount them nonetheless. I could not call myself a historian if it were otherwise.'

'Very well, then.' The Fist's gaze remained on Sormo E'nath. 'Tell me, Historian, what hold does Mallick Rel have over Pormqual?'

'I wish I knew, Fist.'

'Find out.'

'You are asking me to become a spy.'

Coltaine turned to him with a faint smile. 'And what were you in the trader's tent, Duiker?'

Duiker grimaced. 'I would have to go to Aren. I do not think Mallick Rel would welcome me to inner councils any more. Not after witnessing his humiliation here. In fact, I warrant he has marked me as an enemy now, and his enemies have a habit of disappearing.'

'I shall not disappear,' Coltaine said. He stepped closer, reached out and gripped the historian's shoulder. 'We shall disregard Mallick Rel, then. You will be attached to my staff.'

'As you command, Fist,' Duiker said.

'This council is ended.' Coltaine spun to his warlock. 'Sormo, you shall recount for me this morning's adventure ... later.'

The warlock bowed.

Duiker retrieved his cloak and, followed by Kulp, left the chamber. As the doors closed behind them, the historian plucked at the cadre mage's sleeve. 'A word with you. In private.'

'My thoughts exactly,' Kulp replied.

They found a room further down the hallway, cluttered with broken furniture but otherwise unoccupied. Kulp shut and locked the door, then faced Duiker, his eyes savage. 'He's not a man at all – he's an animal and he sees things like an animal. And Bult – Bult reads his master's snarling and raised hackles and puts it all into words – I've never heard such a talkative Wickan as that mangled old man.'

'Evidently,' Duiker said dryly, 'Coltaine had a lot to say.'

'I suspect even now the priest of Mael is planning his revenge.'

'Aye. But it was Bult's defence of the Empress that shook me.'

'Do you countenance his argument?'

Duiker sighed. 'That she regrets her actions and now feels, in full, the solitude of power? Possibly. Interesting, but its relevance is long past.'

'Has Laseen confided in these Wickan savages, do you think?'

'Coltaine was summoned to an audience with the Empress, and I'd guess that Bult is as much as sewn to his master's side – but what occurred between them in Laseen's private chambers remains unknown.' The historian shrugged. 'They were prepared for Mallick Rel, that much seems clear. And you, Kulp, what of this young warlock?'

'Young?' The cadre mage scowled. 'That boy has the aura of an ancient man. I could smell on him the ritual drinking of mare's blood, and that ritual marks a warlock's Time of Iron – his last few years of life, the greatest flowering of his power. Did you see him? He fired a dart at the priest, then stood silent, watching its effect.'

'Yet you claimed it was all a lie.'

'No need to let Sormo know how sensitive my nose is, and I'll continue treating him as if he was a boy, an impostor. If I'm lucky he'll ignore me.'

Duiker hesitated. The air in the room was stale, tasting of dust when he drew breath. 'Kulp,' he finally said.

'Aye, Historian, what do you ask of me?'

'It has nothing to do with Coltaine, or Mallick Rel or Sormo E'nath. I require your assistance.'

'In what?'

'I wish to free a prisoner.'

The cadre mage's brows rose. 'In Hissar's gaol? Historian, I have no clout with the Hissar Guard—'

'No, not in the city gaol. This is a prisoner of the Empire.'

'Where is this prisoner kept?'

'He was sold into slavery, Kulp. He's in the Otataral mines.'

The cadre mage stared. 'Hood's breath, Duiker, you're asking the help of a mage? You imagine I would willingly go anywhere near those mines? Otataral destroys sorcery, drives mages insane—'

'No closer than a dory off the island's coast,' Duiker cut in. 'I promise that, Kulp.'

'To collect the prisoner, and then what, rowing like a fiend with a Dosii war galley in hot pursuit?'

Duiker grinned. 'Something like that.'

Kulp glanced at the closed door, then studied the wreckage in the room as if he had not noticed it before. 'What chamber was this?'

'Fist Torlom's office,' Duiker answered. 'Where the Dryjhnii assassin found her that night.'

Kulp slowly nodded. 'And was our choosing it an accident?'

'I certainly hope so.'

'So do I, Historian.'

'Will you help me?'

'This prisoner ... who?'

'Heboric Light Touch.'

Kulp slowly nodded a second time. 'Let me think on it, Duiker.'

'May I ask what gives you pause?'

Kulp scowled. 'The thought of another traitorous historian loose in the world, what else?'

 

The Holy City of Ehrlitan was a city of white stone, rising from the harbour to surround and engulf a vast, flat-topped hill known as Jen'rahb. It was believed that one of the world's first cities was buried within Jen'rahb, and that in the compacted rubble waited the Throne of the Seven Protectors which legend held was not a throne at all, but a chamber housing a ring of seven raised daises, each sanctified by one of the Ascendants who set out to found Seven Cities. Ehrlitan was a thousand years old, but Jen'rahb the ancient city, now a hill of crushed stone, was believed to be nine times that.

An early Falah'd of Ehrlitan had begun extensive and ambitious building on the flat top of Jen'rahb, to honour the city buried beneath the streets. The quarries along the north coast were gutted, whole hillsides carved out, the ten-tonne white blocks of marble dressed and transported by ship to Ehrlitan's harbour, then pulled through the lower districts to the ramps leading to the hill's summit. Temples, estates, gardens, domes, towers and the Falah'd palace rose like the gems of a virgin crown on Jen'rahb.

Three years after the last block had been nudged into place, the ancient buried city ... shrugged. Subterranean archways collapsed beneath the immense strains of the Falah'd Crown, walls folded, foundation stones slid sideways into streets packed solid with dust. Beneath the surface the dust behaved like water, racing down streets and alleys, into gaping doorways, beneath floors – all unseen in the unrelieved darkness of Jen'rahb. On the surface, on a bright dawn marking an anniversary of the Falah'd rule, the Crown sagged, towers toppled, domes split in clouds of white marble dust, and the palace dropped unevenly, in some places no more than a few feet, in others over twenty arm-spans down into flowing rivers of dust.

Observers in the Lower City described the event. It was as if a giant invisible hand had reached down to the Crown, closing to gather in every building, crushing them all while pushing down into the hill. The cloud of dust that rose turned the sun into a copper disc for days afterwards.

Over thirty thousand people died that day, including the Falah'd himself, and of the three thousand who dwelt and worked within the Palace, but one survived: a young cook's helper who was convinced that the beaker he had dropped on the floor a moment before the earthquake was to blame for the entire catastrophe. Driven mad with guilt, he stabbed himself in the heart while standing in the Lower City's Merykra Round, his blood flowing down to drench the paving stones where Fiddler now stood.

His blue eyes narrowed, the sapper watched a troop of Red Swords ride hard through a scattering crowd on the other side of the Round.

Swathed in thin bleached linen robes, the hood pulled up and over his head in the manner of a Gral tribesman, he stood motionless on the sacred paving stone with its faded commemorative script, wondering if the rapid thumping of his heart was loud enough to be heard by the crowds moving nervously around him. He cursed himself for risking a wander through the ancient city, then he cursed Kalam for delaying their departure until he'd managed to make contact with one of his old agents in the city.

'Mezla'ebdin!' a voice near him hissed.

Malazan lapdogs was an accurate enough translation. The Red Swords were born of Seven Cities, yet avowed absolute loyalty to the Empress. Rare – if at the moment unwelcome – pragmatists in a land of fanatical dreamers, the Red Swords had just begun an independent crackdown on the followers of Dryjhna in their typical fashion: with sword edge and lance.

Half a dozen victims lay unmoving on the bleached stones of the Round, amidst scattered baskets, bundles of cloth, and food. Two small girls crouched beside a woman's body near the dried-up fountain. Sprays of blood decorated nearby walls. From a few streets away the alarms of the Ehrlitan Guard were ringing, the city's Fist having just been informed that the Red Swords were once again defying his inept rule.

The savage riders continued their impromptu, indiscriminate slaughter up a main avenue leading off from the Round, and were soon out of sight. Beggars and thieves swooped in on the felled bodies, even as the air filled with wailing voices. A hunchbacked pimp gathered up the two girls and hobbled out of sight up an alleyway.

A few minutes earlier Fiddler had come near to having his skull split wide open upon entering the Round and finding himself in the path of a charging Red Sword. His soldier's experience launched him across the horse's path, forcing the warrior to swing his blade to his shield side, and a final duck beneath the swishing sword took the sapper past and out of reach. The Red Sword had not bothered pursuing him, turning instead to behead the next hapless citizen, a woman desperately dragging two children from the horse's path.

Fiddler shook himself, breathing a silent curse. Pushing through the jostling crowd, he made for the alley the pimp had used. The tall, leaning buildings to either side shrouded the narrow passage in shadow. Rotting food and something dead filled the air with a thick stench. There was no-one in sight as Fiddler cautiously padded along. He came to a side track between two high walls, barely wide enough for a mule and shin-deep in dry palm leaves. Behind each high wall was a garden, the tall palm trees entwining their fronds like a roof twenty feet overhead. Thirty paces on the passage came to a dead end, and there crouched the pimp, one knee holding down the youngest girl while he pressed the other girl against the wall, fumbling at her leggings.

The pimp's head turned at the sound of Fiddler striding through the dried leaves. He had the white skin of a Skrae and showed blackened teeth in a knowing grin. 'Gral, she's yours for a half jakata, once I've broken her skin. The other will cost you more, being younger.'

Fiddler stepped up to the man. 'I buy,' he said. 'Make wives. Two jakatas.'

The pimp snorted. 'I'll make twice that in a week. Sixteen jakatas.'

Fiddler drew the Gral long-knife he'd purchased an hour earlier and pressed the edge against the pimp's throat. 'Two jakatas and my mercy, simharal.'

'Done, Gral,' the pimp grated, eyes wide. 'Done, by the Hooded One!'

Fiddler drew two coins from his belt and tossed them into the leaves. Then he stepped back. 'I take them now.'

The simharal fell to his knees, scrabbling through the dried fronds. 'Take them, Gral, take them.'

Fiddler grunted, sheathing the knife and gathering one girl under each arm. Turning his back on the pimp, he walked out of the alley. The likelihood that the man would attempt any treachery was virtually nonexistent. Gral tribesmen often begged for insults to give cause for their favourite activity: pursuing vendettas. And it was reputedly impossible to sneak up on one from behind, so none dared try. For all that, Fiddler was thankful for the thick carpet of leaves between him and the pimp.

He exited the alleyway. The girls hung like oversized dolls in his arms, still numbed with shock. He glanced down at the face of the older one. Nine, maybe ten years of age, she stared up at him with wide, dark eyes. 'Safe now,' he said. 'If I set you down, can you walk? Can you show me where you live?'

After a long moment, she nodded.

They had reached one of the tortuous tracks that passed for a street in the Lower City. Fiddler set the girl down, cradling the other in the crook of his arm – she seemed to have fallen asleep. The older child immediately grasped his robes to keep from being pushed away by the jostling crowd, then began tugging him along.

'Home?' Fiddler asked.

'Home,' she replied.

Ten minutes later they passed beyond the market district and entered a quieter residential area, the dwellings modest but clean. The girl guided Fiddler towards a side street. As soon as they reached it, children appeared, shouting and rushing to gather around them. A moment later three armed men burst from a garden gate. They confronted Fiddler with tulwars raised as the crowd of children dispersed on all sides, suddenly silent and watchful.

'Nahal Gral,' Fiddler growled. 'The woman fell to a Red Sword. A simharal took these two. I bought them. Unbroken. Three jakatas.'

'Two,' corrected one of the men, spitting on the cobbles at Fiddler's feet. 'We found the simharal.'

'Two to buy. One more to deliver. Unbroken. Three.' Fiddler gave them a hard grin. 'Fair price, cheap for Gral honour. Cheap for Gral protection.'

A fourth man spoke from behind Fiddler. 'Pay the Gral, you fools. A hundred gold jakatas would not be too much. The nurse and the children were under your protection, yet you fled when the Red Swords came. If this Gral had not come upon the children and purchased them, they would now be broken. Pay the coin, and bless this Gral with the Queen of Dreams' favour, bless him and his family for all time.' The man slowly stepped around. He wore the armour of a private guard, with a captain's insignia. His lean face was scarred with the hatched symbol of a veteran of Y'ghatan and on the backs of his hands were the pitted tracks of incendiary scars. His hard eyes held Fiddler's. 'I ask for your trader name, Gral, so that we may honour you in our prayers.'

Fiddler hesitated, then gave the captain his true name, the name he had been born with, long ago.

The man frowned upon hearing it, but made no comment.

One of the guards approached with coins in hand. Fiddler offered the sleeping child to the captain. 'It is wrong that she sleeps,' he said.

The grizzled veteran received the child with gentle care. 'We shall have the House Healer attend to her.'

Fiddler glanced around. Clearly the children belonged to a rich, powerful family, yet the abodes within sight were all relatively small, the homes of minor merchants and craftworkers.

'Will you share a meal with us, Gral?' the captain asked. 'The children's grandfather will wish to see you.'

Curious, Fiddler nodded. The captain led him to a low postern gate in a garden wall. The three guardsmen moved ahead to open it. The young girl was the first through.

The gate opened into a surprisingly spacious garden, the air cool and damp with the breath of an unseen stream trickling through the lush undergrowth. Old fruit and nut trees canopied the stone-lined path. On the other side rose a high wall constructed entirely of murky glass. Rainbow patterns glistened on the panes, beaded with moisture and mottled with mineral stains. Fiddler had never before seen so much glass in one place. A lone door was set in the wall, made of bleached linen stretched over a thin iron frame. Before it stood an old man dressed in a wrinkled orange robe. The deep, rich ochre of his skin was set off by a shock of white hair. The girl ran up to embrace the man. His amber eyes held steadily on Fiddler.

The sapper dropped to one knee. 'I beg your blessing, Spiritwalker,' he said in his harshest Gral accent.

The Tano priest's laughter was like blowing sand. 'I cannot bless what you are not, sir,' he said quietly. 'But please, join me and Captain Turqa in a private repast. I trust these guardians will prove eager to regain their courage in taking care of the children, here within the garden's confines.' He laid a weathered hand on the sleeping child's forehead. 'Selal protects herself in her own way. Captain, tell the Healer she must be drawn back to this world, gently.'

The captain handed the child over to one of the guards. 'You heard the Master. Quickly now.'

Both children were taken through the linen door. Gesturing, the Tano Spiritwalker led Fiddler and Turqa to the same door at a more sedate pace.

Inside the glass-walled room squatted a low iron table with shin-high hide-bound chairs around it. On the table were bowls holding fruit and chilled meats stained red with spices. A crystal carafe of pale yellow wine had been unstoppered and left to air. At the carafe's base the wine's sediment was two fingers thick: desert flower buds and the carcasses of white honey bees. The wine's cool sweet scent permeated the chamber.

The inner door was solid wood, set in a marble wall. Small alcoves set within that wall held lit candles displaying flames of assorted colours. Their flickering reflections danced hypnotically on the facing glass.

The priest sat down and indicated the other chairs. 'Please be seated. I am surprised that a Malazan spy would so jeopardize his disguise by saving the lives of two Ehrlii children. Do you now seek to glean valuable information from a family overwhelmed by gratitude?'

Fiddler drew his hood back, sighing. 'I am Malazan,' he acknowledged. 'But not a spy. I am disguised to avoid discovery ... by Malazans.'

The old priest poured the wine and handed the sapper a goblet. 'You are a soldier.'

'I am.'

'A deserter?'

Fiddler winced. 'Not by choice. The Empress saw fit to outlaw my regiment.' He sipped the flowery sweet wine.

Captain Turqa hissed. 'A Bridgeburner. A soldier of Onearm's Host.'

'You are well informed, sir.'

The Tano Spiritwalker gestured towards the bowls. 'Please. If, after so many years of war, you are seeking a place of peace, you have made a grave error in coming to Seven Cities.'

'So I gathered,' Fiddler said, helping himself to some fruit. 'Which is why I am hoping to book passage to Quon Tali as soon as possible.'

'The Kansu Fleet has left Ehrlitan,' the captain said. 'Few are the trader ships setting forth on oceanic voyages these days. High taxes—'

'And the prospect of riches that will come with a civil war,' Fiddler said, nodding. 'Thus, it must be overland, at least down to Aren.'

'Unwise,' the old priest said.

'I know.'

But the Tano Spiritwalker was shaking his head. 'Not simply the coming war. To travel to Aren, you must cross the Pan'potsun Odhan, skirting the Holy Desert Raraku. From Raraku the whirlwind of the Apocalypse will come forth. And more, there will be a convergence.'

Fiddler's eyes narrowed. The Soletaken dhenrabi. 'As in a drawing-together of Ascendant powers?'

'Just so.'

'What will draw them?'

'A gate. The Prophecy of the Path of Hands. Soletaken and D'ivers. A gate promising . . . something. They are drawn as moths to a flame.'

'Why would shapeshifters have any interest in a warren's gate? They are hardly a brotherhood, nor are they users of sorcery, at least not in any sophisticated sense.'

'Surprising depth of knowledge for a soldier.'

Fiddler scowled. 'Soldiers are always underestimated,' he said. 'I've not spent fifteen years fighting Imperial wars with my eyes closed. The Emperor clashed with both Treach and Ryllandaras outside Li Heng. I was there.'

The Tano Spiritwalker bowed his head in apology. 'I have no answers to your questions,' he said quietly. 'Indeed, I do not think even the Soletaken and D'ivers are fully aware of what they seek. Like salmon returning to the waters where they were born, they act on instinct, a visceral yearning and a promise only sensed.' He folded his hands together. 'There is no unification among shapeshifters. Each stands alone. This Path of Hands –' he hesitated, then continued – 'is perhaps a means to Ascendancy – for the victor.'

Fiddler drew a slow, unsteady breath. 'Ascendancy means power. Power means control.' He met the Spiritwalker's tawny eyes. 'Should one shapeshifter attain Ascendancy—'

'Domination of its own kind, yes. Such an event would have ... repercussions. In any case, friend, the wastelands could never be called safe, but the months to come shall turn the Odhan into a place of savage horror, this much I know with certainty.'

'Thank you for the warning.'

'Yet it shall not deter you.'

'I am afraid not.'

'Then it befalls me to offer you some protection for your journey. Captain, if you would be so kind?'

The veteran rose and departed.

'An outlawed soldier,' the old priest said after a moment, 'who will risk his life to return to the heart of the Empire that has sentenced him to death. The need must be great.'

Fiddler shrugged.

'The Bridgeburners are remembered here in Seven Cities. A name that is cursed, yet admired all the same. You were honourable soldiers fighting in a dishonourable war. It is said the regiment was honed in the heat and scorched rock of the Holy Desert Raraku, in pursuit of a Falah'd company of wizards. That is a story I would like to hear some time, so that it may be shaped into song.'

Fiddler's eyes widened. A Spiritwalker's sorcery was sung, no other rituals were required. Although devoted to peace, the power in a Tano song was said to be immense. The sapper wondered what such a creation would do to the Bridgeburners.

The Tano Spiritwalker seemed to understand the question, for he smiled. 'Such a song has never before been attempted. There is in a Tano song the potential for Ascendancy, but can an entire regiment ascend? Truly a question deserving an answer.'

Fiddler sighed. 'Had I the time, I would give you that story.'

'It would take but a moment.'

'What do you mean?'

The old priest raised a long-fingered, wrinkled hand. 'If you were to let me touch you, I would know your history.'

The sapper recoiled.

'Ah,' the Tano Spiritwalker sighed, 'you fear I would be careless with your secrets.'

'I fear that your possessing them would endanger your life. Nor are all of my memories honourable.'

The old man tilted his head back and laughed. 'If they were all honourable, friend, you would be more deserving of this robe than I. Forgive me my bold request, then.'

Captain Turqa returned, carrying a small chest of weathered wood the colour of sand. He set it down on the table before his master, who raised the lid and reached inside. 'Raraku was once a sea,' the Tano said. He withdrew a bleached white conch shell. 'Such remnants can be found in the Holy Desert, provided you know the location of the ancient shores. In addition to the memory song contained within it, of that inland sea, other songs have been invested.' He glanced up, meeting Fiddler's eyes. 'My own songs of power. Please accept this gift, in gratitude for saving the lives and honour of my granddaughters.'

Fiddler bowed as the old priest set the conch shell into his hands. 'Thank you, Tano Spiritwalker. Your gift offers protection, then?'

'Of a sort,' the priest said, smiling. After a moment he rose from his seat. 'We shall not keep you any longer, Bridgeburner.'

Fiddler quickly stood.

'Captain Turqa will see you out.' He stepped close and laid a hand on Fiddler's shoulder. 'Kimloc Spiritwalker thanks you.'

The conch shell in his hands, the sapper was ushered from the priest's presence. Outside in the garden the water-cooled air plucked at the sweat on Fiddler's brow. 'Kimloc,' he muttered under his breath.

Turqa grunted beside him as they walked the path to the back gate. 'His first guest in eleven years. Do you comprehend the honour bestowed upon you, Bridgeburner?'

'Clearly,' Fiddler said dryly, 'he values his granddaughters. Eleven years, you say? Then his last guest would have been ...'

'High Fist Dujek Onearm, of the Malazan Empire.'

'Negotiating the peaceful surrender of Karakarang, the Holy City of the Tano cult. Kimloc claimed he could destroy the Malazan armies. Utterly. Yet he capitulated and his name is now legendary for empty threats.'

Turqa snorted. 'He opened the gates of his city because he values life above all things. He took the measure of your Empire and realized that the death of thousands meant nothing to it. Malaz would have what it desired, and what it desired was Karakarang.'

Fiddler grimaced. With heavy sarcasm he said, 'And if that meant bringing the T'lan Imass to the Holy City – to do to it what they did to Aren – then we would have done just that. I doubt even Kimloc's sorcery could hold back the T'lan Imass.'

They stood at the gate. Turqa swung it open, old pain in his dark eyes. 'As did Kimloc,' he said. 'The slaughter at Aren revealed the Empire's madness—'

'What happened during the Aren Rebellion was a mistake,' Fiddler snapped. 'No command was ever given to the Logros T'lan Imass.'

Turqa's only reply was a sour, bitter grin as he gestured to the street beyond. 'Go in peace, Bridgeburner.'

Irritated, Fiddler left.

 

Moby squealed in delight, launching itself across the narrow room to collide with Fiddler's chest in a frenzied flap of wings and clutching limbs. Swearing and pushing the familiar away as it attempted a throat-crushing embrace, the sapper crossed the threshold, closing the door behind him.

'I was starting to get worried,' Kalam rumbled from the shadows filling the room's far end.

'Got distracted,' Fiddler said.

'Trouble?'

He shrugged, stripping off his outer cloak to reveal the leather-bound chain surcoat beneath. 'Where are the others?'

'In the garden,' Kalam replied wryly.

On his way over Fiddler stopped by his backpack. He crouched and set the Tano shell inside, pushing it into the bundle of a spare shirt.

Kalam poured him a jug of watered wine as the sapper joined him at the small table, then refilled his own. 'Well?'

'A cusser in an eggshell,' Fiddler said, drinking deep before continuing. 'The walls are crowded with symbols. I'd guess no more than a week, then the streets run red.'

'We've horses, mules and supplies. We should be nearing the Odhan by then. Safer out there.'

Fiddler eyed his companion. Kalam's dark, bearish face glistened in the faint daylight from the cloth-covered window. A brace of knives rested on the pitted tabletop in front of the assassin, a whetstone beside them. 'Maybe. Maybe not.'

'The hands on the walls?'

Fiddler grunted. 'You noticed them.'

'Symbols of insurrection aplenty, meeting places announced, rituals to Dryjhna advertised – I can read all of that as well as any other native. But those unhuman handprints are something else entirely.' Kalam leaned forward, picking up a knife in each hand. He idly crossed the blued blades. 'They seem to indicate a direction. South.'

'Pan'potsun Odhan,' Fiddler said. 'It's a convergence.'

The assassin went still, his dark eyes on the blades crossed before him. 'That's not a rumour I've heard yet.'

'It's Kimloc's belief.'

'Kimloc!' Kalam cursed. 'He's in the city?'

'So it's said.' Fiddler took another mouthful of wine. Telling the assassin of his adventures – and his meeting with the Spiritwalker – would send Kalam out through the door. And Kimloc to Hood's Gates. Kimloc, his family, his guards. Everyone. The man sitting across from him would take no chances. Another gift to you, Kimloc . . . my silence.

Footsteps sounded in the back hallway and a moment later Crokus appeared. 'It's as dark as a cave in here,' he complained.

'Where's Apsalar?' Fiddler demanded.

'In the garden – where else?' the Daru thief snapped back.

The sapper subsided. Remnants of his old unease still clung to him. When she was out of sight, trouble would come from it. When she was out of sight you watched your back. It was still hard to accept that the girl was no longer what she'd been. Besides, if the Patron of Assassins chose once more to possess her, the first warning we'd get would be a knife blade across the throat. He kneaded the taut muscles of his neck, sighing.

Crokus dragged a chair to the table, dropped into it and reached for the wine. 'We're tired of waiting,' he pronounced. 'If we have to cross this damned land, then let's do it. There's a steaming pile of rubbish behind the garden wall, clogging up the sewage gutter. Crawling with rats. The air's hot and so thick with flies you can barely breathe. We'll catch a plague if we stay here much longer.'

'Let's hope it's the bluetongue, then,' Kalam said.

'What's that?'

'Your tongue swells up and turns blue,' Fiddler explained.

'What's so good about that?'

'You can't talk.'

 

The stars bristled overhead, the moon yet to rise as Kalam made his way towards Jen'rahb. The old ramps climbed to the hill's summit like a giant's stairs, gap-toothed where the chiselled blocks of stone had been removed for use in other parts of Ehrlitan. Tangled scrub filled the gaps, long, wiry roots anchored deep in the slope's fill.

The assassin scrambled lithely over the rubble, staying low so that he would make little outline against the sky, should anyone glance up from the streets below. The city was quiet, its silence unnatural. The few patrols of Malazan soldiery found themselves virtually alone, as if assigned to guard a necropolis, the haunt of ghosts and scant else. Their unease had made them loud as they walked the alleys and Kalam had been able to avoid them with little effort.

He reached the crest, slipping in between two large limestone blocks that had once formed part of the summit's outer wall. He paused, breathing deep the dusty night air, and looked down on the streets of Ehrlitan. The Fist's Keep, once the home of the city's Holy Falah'd, rose dark and misshapen above a well-lit compound, like a clenched hand rising from a bed of coals. Yet within that stone edifice the military governor of the Malazan Empire cowered, shutting his ears to the heated warnings of the Red Blades and whatever Malazan spies and sympathizers had not yet been driven out or murdered. The entire occupying regiment was holed up in the Keep's own barracks, having been called in from the outlying garrison forts strategically placed around Ehrlitan's circumference. The Keep could not accommodate such numbers – the well was already foul, and soldiers slept on the bailey's flagstones under the stars. In the harbour two ancient Falari triremes were moored-off the Malazan mole and a lone undermanned company of marines held the Imperial Docks. The Malazans were under siege with not a hand yet raised against them.

Kalam found within himself conflicting loyalties. By birth he was among the occupied, but he had by choice fought under the standards of the Empire. He'd fought for Emperor Kellanved. And Dassem Ultor, and Whiskeyjack, and Dujek Onearm. But not Laseen. Betrayal cut those bonds long ago. The Emperor would have cut the heart out of this rebellion with its first beat. A short but unremitting bloodbath, followed by a long peace. But Laseen had left the old wounds to fester, and what was coming would silence Hood himself.

Kalam swung back from the hill's crest. The landscape before him was a tumbled maze of shattered limestone and bricks, sinkholes and knotted shrubs. Clouds of insects hovered over black pools. Bats and rhizan darted among them.

Near the centre rose the first three levels of a tower, tilted with roots snaking down from a drought-twisted tree on its top. The maw of a doorway was visible at its base.

Kalam studied it for a time, then finally approached. He was ten paces from the opening when he saw a flicker of light within. The assassin withdrew a knife, tapped the pommel twice against a block, then crossed to the doorway. A voice from its darkness stopped him.

'No closer, Kalam Mekhar.'

Kalam spat loudly. 'Mebra, you think I don't recognize your voice? Vile rhizan like you never wander far from their nest, which is what made you so easy to find, and following you here was even easier.'

'I have important business to attend to,' Mebra growled. 'Why have you returned? What do you want of me? My debt was with the Bridgeburners, but they are no more.'

'Your debt was with me,' Kalam said.

'And when the next Malazan dog with the sigil of a burning bridge finds me, he can claim the debt as well? And the next, and the next after that? Oh no, Kal—'

The assassin was at the doorway before Mebra realized it, lunging into the darkness, a hand flashing out unerringly to grip the spy by the throat. The man squawked, dragged from his feet as Kalam lifted him and threw him against a wall. The assassin held him there, a knife point pricking the hollow above his breastbone. Something the spy had been clutching to his chest fell, slipping between them to thud heavily at their feet. Kalam did not spare it a glance; his eyes fixed on Mebra's own.

'The debt,' he said.

'Mebra is an honourable man,' the spy gasped. 'Pays every debt! Pays yours!'

Kalam grinned. 'The hand you've just closed on that dagger at your belt had best remain where it is, Mebra. I see all that you plan. There in your eyes. Now look into mine. What do you see?'

Mebra's breath quickened. Sweat trickled down his brow. 'Mercy,' he said.

Kalam's brows rose. 'A fatal misreading—'

'No, no! I ask for mercy, Kalam! In your eyes I see only death! Mebra's death! I shall repay the debt, my old friend. I know much, all that the Fist needs to know! I can deliver Ehrlitan into his hands—'

'No doubt,' Kalam said, releasing his grip on the man's throat and stepping back. Mebra slid down the wall into a feeble crouch. 'But leave the Fist to his fate.'

The spy looked up, in his eyes a sudden cunning. 'You are outlawed. With no wish to return to the Malazan fold. You are Seven Cities once again! Kalam, may the Seven bless you!'

'I need the signs, Mebra. Safe passage through the Odhan.'

'You know them—'

'The symbols have bred. I know the old ones, and those will get me killed by the first tribe that finds me.'

'Passage is yours with but one symbol, Kalam. Across the breadth of Seven Cities, I swear it.'

The assassin stepped back. 'What is it?'

'You are Dryjhna's child, a soldier of the Apocalypse. Make the whirlwind gesture – do you recall it?'

Suspicious, Kalam slowly nodded. 'Yet I have seen so many more, so many new symbols. What of them?'

'Amidst the cloud of locusts there is but one,' Mebra said. 'How best to keep the Red Blades blind? Please, Kalam, you must go. I have repaid the debt.. .'

'If you have betrayed me, Adaephon Ben Delat shall know of it. Tell me, could you escape Quick Ben with his warrens unveiled?'

Mute, his face pale as the moonlight, Mebra shook his head.

'The whirlwind.'

'Yes, I swear by the Seven.'

'Do not move,' Kalam commanded. One hand on the long-knife at his belt, the assassin stepped forward, crouched and collected the object that Mebra had dropped earlier. He heard the spy's breath catch and smiled. 'Perhaps I will take this with me, as guarantee.'

'Please, Kalam—'

'Silence.' The assassin found himself holding a muslin-wrapped book. He pulled the dirt-stained cloth away. 'Hood's breath!' he whispered. 'From the High Fist's vaults at Aren ... into the hands of an Ehrlii spy.' He looked up and met Mebra's eyes. 'Does Pormqual know of the theft of that which is to unleash the Apocalypse?'

The little man grinned, displaying a row of sharp silver-capped teeth. 'The fool could have his silk pillow stolen from under him and would not know it. You see, Kalam, if you take this as guarantee, every warrior of the Apocalypse will be hunting you. The Holy Book of Dryjhna has been freed and must return to Raraku, where the Seeress—'

'Will raise the Whirlwind,' Kalam finished. The ancient tome felt heavy as a slab of granite in his hands. Its bhederin-hide binding was stained and scarred, the lambskin pages within smelling of lanolin and bloodberry ink. And on those pages ... words of madness, and in the Holy Desert waits Sha'ik, the Seeress, the rebellion's promised leader . . .'You shall tell me the final secret, Mebra, the one the carrier of this Book must know.'

The spy's eyes widened with alarm. 'This cannot be your hostage, Kalam! Take me in its stead, I beg you!'

'I shall deliver it into the Holy Desert Raraku,' Kalam said. 'Into Sha'ik's own hands, and this shall purchase my passage, Mebra. And should I detect any treachery, should I see any single soldier of the Apocalypse on my trail, the Book is destroyed. Do you understand me?'

Mebra blinked sweat from his eyes, then jerked a nod. 'You must ride a stallion the colour of sand, your bloods blended. You must wear a telaba of red. Each night you must face your trail, on your knees, and unwrap the Book and call upon Dryjhna – that, and no more, not another word, for the Whirlwind goddess shall hear and obey – and all signs of your trail shall be obliterated. You must wait an hour in silence, then wrap the Book once again. It must never be exposed to sunlight, for the time of the Book's awakening belongs to Sha'ik. I shall now repeat those instructions—'

'No need,' Kalam growled.

'Are you truly an outlaw?'

'Is this not proof enough?'

'Deliver into Sha'ik's hands the Book of Dryjhna, and your name shall be sung to the heavens for all time, Kalam. Betray the cause, and your name shall ride spit into the dust.'

The assassin shrouded the Book once more in its muslin wrap, then tucked it into the folds of his tunic. 'Our words are done.'

'Blessings of the Seven, Kalam Mekhar.'

With a grunt his only reply, Kalam moved to the doorway, pausing to scan outside. Seeing no-one under the moonlight, he slipped through the opening.

Still crouched against the wall, Mebra watched the assassin leave. He strained to hear telltale sounds of Kalam crossing the rocks, bricks and rubble, but heard nothing. The spy wiped sweat from his brow, tilted his head back against the cool stone and closed his eyes.

A few minutes later he heard the rustle of armour at the tower's entrance. 'You saw him?' Mebra asked, eyes still shut.

A low voice rumbled in reply. 'Lostara follows him. He has the Book?'

Mebra's thin mouth widened in a smile. 'Not the visitor I anticipated. Oh no, I could never have imagined such a fortuitous guest. That was Kalam Mekhar.'

'The Bridgeburner? Kiss of Hood, Mebra, had I known, we would have cut him down before he'd taken a step from this tower.'

'Had you tried,' Mebra said, 'you and Aralt and Lostara would now be feeding your blood to Jen'rahb's thirsty roots.'

The large warrior barked a laugh, stepping inside. Behind him, as the spy had guessed, loomed Aralt Arpat, guarding the entrance, tall and wide enough to block most of the moonlight.

Tene Baralta rested his gauntleted hands on the sword pommels on either side of his hips. 'What of the man you first approached?'

Mebra sighed. 'As I told you, we would likely have needed a dozen nights such as this one. The man took fright and is probably halfway to G'danisban by now. He ... reconsidered, as any reasonable man would.' The spy rose to his feet, brushing the dust from his telaba. 'I cannot believe our luck, Baralta—'

Tene Baralta's mailed hand was a blur as it flashed out and struck Mebra, the spurred links raking deep gashes across the man's face. Blood spattered the wall. The spy reeled back, hands to his torn face.

'You are too familiar,' Baralta said calmly. 'You have prepared Kalam, I take it? The proper ... instructions?'

Mebra spat blood, then nodded. 'You shall be able to trail him unerringly, Commander.'

'All the way to Sha'ik's camp?'

'Yes. But I beg you, be careful, sir. If Kalam senses you, he will destroy the Book. Stay a day behind him, even more.'

Tene Baralta removed a fragment of bhederin hide from a pouch at his belt. 'The calf yearns for its mother,' he said.

'And seeks her without fail,' Mebra finished. 'To kill Sha'ik, you shall need an army, Commander.'

The Red Blade smiled. 'That is our concern, Mebra.'

Mebra drew a deep breath, hesitating, then said, 'I ask only one thing, sir.'

'You ask?'

'I beg, Commander.'

'What is it?'

'Kalam lives.'

'Your wounds are uneven, Mebra. Allow me to caress the other side of your face.'

'Hear me out, Commander! The Bridgeburner has returned to Seven Cities. He claims himself a soldier of the Apocalypse. Yet is Kalam one to join Sha'ik's camp? Can a man born to lead content himself to follow?'

'What is your point?'

'Kalam is here for another reason, Commander. He sought only safe passage across the Pan'potsun Odhan. He takes the Book because to do so will ensure that passage. The assassin is heading south. Why? I think that is something the Red Blades – and the Empire – would know. And such knowledge can only be gained while he yet breathes.'

'You have suspicions.'

'Aren.'

Tene Baralta snorted. 'To slip a blade between Pormqual's ribs? We would all bless that, Mebra.'

'Kalam cares nothing for the High Fist.'

'Then what does he seek at Aren?'

'I can think of only one thing, Commander. A ship bound for Malaz.' Hunched, his face pulsing with pain, Mebra watched with hooded eyes as his words sank roots into the Red Blade commander's mind.

After a long moment, Tene Baralta asked in a low voice, 'What do you plan?'

Although it cost him, Mebra smiled.

 

Like massive limestone slabs each resting against the other, the cliffs rose from the desert floor the height of four hundred arm-spans. Gouged across the weathered face were deep fissures, and tucked inside the largest of these, a hundred and fifty arm-spans above the sands, was a tower. A single arched window showed black against the bricks.

Mappo sighed shakily. 'I see no obvious approach, but there must be one.' He shot a glance back at his companion. 'You believe it is occupied.'

Icarium rubbed the crusted blood from his brow, then nodded. He half slid the sword from its sheath, frowning at the fragments of flesh still snagged on the notched edge.

The D'ivers had caught them unawares, a dozen leopards the colour of sand, streaming from a gully bed less than ten paces to their right as the two travellers prepared to make camp. One of the beasts had leapt onto Mappo's back, jaws closing on the nape of his neck, the fangs punching through the Trell's tough hide. It had attacked him as if he was an antelope, seeking to bite down on his windpipe as it dragged him down, but Mappo was no antelope. Though the canines sank deep, they found only muscle. Enraged, the Trell had reached over his head and torn the animal from his shoulders. Gripping the snarling leopard by its skin at neck and hips, he had slammed it hard against a boulder, shattering its skull.

The other eleven had closed in on Icarium. Even as Mappo flung his attacker's body aside and whirled, he saw four of the beasts lying motionless around the half-blood Jaghut. Fear gripped the Trell suddenly as his gaze fell on Icarium. How far? How far has the Jhag gone? Beru bless us, phase.

One of the other beasts had wrapped its jaws around Icarium's left thigh and Mappo watched the warrior's ancient sword chop downward, decapitating the leopard. In a macabre detail, the head held on briefly, a blood-gushing lump protruding from the warrior's leg.

The surviving cats circled.

Mappo lunged forward, hands closing on a lashing tail. He bellowed as he swung the squalling creature through the air. Writhing, the leopard sailed seven or eight paces until it struck a rock wall, snapping its spine.

It was already too late for the D'ivers. Realizing its error, it tried to pull away, but Icarium was unrelenting. Giving voice to a keening hum, the Jhag plunged among the five remaining leopards. They scattered but not quickly enough. Blood fountained, sheared flesh thudded into the sand. Within moments five more bodies lay still on the ground.

Icarium whirled, seeking more victims, and the Trell took half a step forward. After a moment Icarium's high-pitched keening fell away and he slowly straightened from his crouch. His stony gaze found the Trell, and he frowned.

Mappo saw the beads of blood on Icarium's brow. The eerie sound was gone. Not too far. Safe. Gods below, this path ... I am a fool to follow. Close, all too close.

The scent of D'ivers blood so copiously spilled would draw others. The two had quickly repacked their camp gear and set off at a swift pace. Before leaving, Icarium withdrew a single arrow from his quiver, which he stabbed into the sand in full view.

They travelled at a dogtrot through the night. Neither was driven by fear of dying; for both of them, it was killing that brought a greater dread. Mappo prayed that Icarium's arrow would prove sufficient warning.

Dawn brought them to the eastern escarpment. Beyond the cliffs rose the range of weathered mountains that divided Raraku from the Pan'potsun Odhan.

Something had ignored the arrow and was trailing them, perhaps a league behind. The Trell had sensed it an hour earlier, a Soletaken, and the form it had taken was huge.

'Find us the ascent,' Icarium said, stringing his bow. He set out his remaining arrows, squinting back along their trail. After a hundred paces the shimmering heat that rose like a curtain obscured everything beyond. If the Soletaken came into view and charged, the Jhag had time to loose half a dozen arrows. The warrens carved into their shafts could bring down a dragon, but Icarium's expression made it clear he was sickened by the thought.

Mappo probed at the puncture wounds on the back of his neck. The torn flesh was hot, septic and crawling with flies. The muscles ached with a deep throb. He pulled a blade of jegura cactus from his pack and squeezed its juices onto the wounds. Numbness spread, allowing him to move his arms without the stabbing agony that had had him bathed in sweat over the last few hours. The Trell shivered with sudden chill. The cactus juice was so powerful it could be used only once a day, lest the numbing effect spread to the heart and lungs. And if anything, it would make the flies thirstier.

He approached the cleft in the rockface. Trell were plains dwellers. Mappo had no special skill in climbing, and he was not looking forward to the task ahead. The fissure was deep enough to swallow the sun's morning light, and narrow at the base, barely the width of his shoulders. Ducking, he slipped inside, the cool, musty air triggering another wave of shivering. His eyes quickly adjusting, he made out the fissure's back wall six paces away. There were no stairs, no handholds. Tilting his head, he looked up. The cleft widened higher up but was unrelieved until it reached what he took to be the base of the tower. Nothing so simple as a dangling knotted rope. Growling in frustration, Mappo stepped back into the sunlight.

Icarium stood facing their trail with arrow nocked and bow raised. Thirty paces from him was a massive brown bear, down on all fours, swaying, nose lifted and testing the wind. The Soletaken had arrived.

Mappo joined his companion. 'This one is known to me,' he said quietly.

The Jhag lowered his weapon, releasing the bowstring's tension. 'He is sembling,' he said.

The bear lurched forward.

Mappo blinked against the sudden blurring of his vision. He tasted grit, nostrils twitching at the strong spicy smell that came with the change. He felt an instinctive wave of fear, a dusty dryness making swallowing difficult. A moment later the sembling was complete, and a man now strode towards them, naked and pale under the harsh sunlight.

Mappo slowly shook his head. When masked, the Soletaken was huge, powerful, a mass of muscle – yet now, in his human form, Messremb stood no more than five feet in height, was almost hairless and thin to the point of emaciation, narrow-faced and shovel-toothed. His small eyes, the colour of garnet, shone within wrinkled nests of humour that drew his mouth into a grin.

'Mappo Trell, my nose told me it was you!'

'It's been a long time, Messremb.'

The Soletaken was eyeing the Jhag. 'Aye, north of Nemil it was.'

'Those unbroken pine forests better suited you, I think,' Mappo said, his memories drawn back to that time for a moment, those freer days of massive Trellish caravans and the great journeys undertaken.

The man's grin fell away. 'That it did. And you, sir, must be Icarium, maker of mechanisms and now the bane of D'ivers and Soletaken. Know that I am greatly relieved you have lowered your bow – there was racing thunder in my chest when I watched you take aim.'

Icarium was frowning. 'I would be bane to no-one, were the choice mine,' he said. 'We were attacked without warning,' he added, the words sounding strangely uncertain.

'Meaning you had no chance to warn the hapless creature. Pity the pieces of his soul. I, however, am anything but precipitous. Cursed only with a curious nose. What scent is joined with the Trell's, I wondered, so close to Jaghut blood, yet different? Now that my eyes have given me answer I can resume the Path.'

'Do you know where it takes you?' Mappo asked.

Messremb stiffened. 'You have seen the gates?'

'No. What do you expect to find there?'

'Answers, old friend. Now I shall spare you the taste of my veering by putting some distance between us. Do you wish me well, Mappo?'

'I do, Messremb. And add a warning: we crossed paths with Ryllandaras four nights ago. Be careful.'

Something of the savage bear glittered in the Soletaken's eyes. 'I shall look out for him.'

Mappo and Icarium watched the man walk away, disappearing behind an outcrop of rock. 'Madness lurked within him,' Icarium said.

The Trell flinched at those words. 'Within them all,' he sighed. 'I've yet to find an ascent, by the way. The cave reveals nothing.'

The sound of shod hooves reached them, slow and plodding. From a trail paralleling the cliff face, a man on a black mule appeared. He sat cross-legged on a high wood saddle, shrouded in a ragged, dirt-stained telaba. His hands, which rested on the ornate saddlehorn, were the colour of rust. A hood hid his features. The mule was a strange-looking beast, its muzzle black, the skin of its ears black, as were its eyes. No lightening of its ebon hue was anywhere visible with the exception of dust and spatters of what might have been dried blood.

The man swayed on the saddle as they approached. 'No way in,' he hissed, 'but the way out. It's not yet the hour. A life given for a life taken, remember those words, remember them. You are wounded. You are bright with infection. My servant will tend to you. A caring man with salty hands, one wrinkled, one pink – do you grasp the significance of that? Not yet. Not yet. So few ... guests. But I have been expecting you.'

The mule stopped opposite the cleft, swinging a mournful gaze on the two travellers as its rider struggled to pull his legs from their crossed position. Whimpers of pain accompanied the effort, until his frantic attempts overwhelmed his balance and, with a squeal of dismay, the man toppled, thumping into the dust.

Seeing crimson red bloom through the telaba's weave, Mappo stepped forward. 'You bear your own wounds, sir!'

The man writhed on the ground like an upended tortoise, his legs still trapped in their crossed position. His hood fell back, revealing a large hawk nose, tufts of wiry grey beard, a tattooed bald pate and skin like dark honey. A row of perfect white teeth showed in his grimace.

Mappo knelt beside him, squinting to see signs of the wound that had spilled so much blood. A smell of iron was pungent in the Trell's nose. After a moment he reached under the man's cloak and withdrew an unstoppered bladder. Grunting, he glanced over at Icarium. 'Not blood. Paint. Red ochre paint.'

'Help me, you oaf!' the man snapped. 'My legs!'

Bemused, Mappo helped the man unlock his legs, every move eliciting moans. As soon as they were free the man sat up and started beating his own thighs. 'Servant! Wine! Wine, damn your wood-rotted brain!'

'I am not your servant,' Mappo said coolly, stepping back. 'Nor do I carry wine when crossing a desert.'

'Not you, barbarian!' The man glared about. 'Where is he?'

'Who?'

'Servant, of course. He thinks carrying me about is his only task – ah, there!'

Following the man's gaze, the Trell frowned. 'That is a mule, sir. I doubt he could manage a wineskin well enough to fill a cup.' Mappo grinned at Icarium, but the Jhag was paying no attention to the proceedings: he had unstrung his bow and now sat on a boulder, cleaning his sword.

Still sitting on the ground, the man collected a handful of sand and flung it at the mule. Startled, the beast brayed and bolted towards the cleft, disappearing into the cave. With a grunt the man clambered to his feet and stood wobbling, hands held before him plucking at each other in some kind of nervous tic. 'Mostly rude greeting of guests,' he said, attempting a smile. 'Most. Most rude greeting, was meant. Meaningless apologies and kindly gestures very important. I am so sorry for temporary collapse of hospitality. Oh yes, I am. I would have more practice if I wasn't the master of this temple. An acolyte is obliged to fawn and scrape. Later to mutter and gripe with his comrades in misery. Ah, here comes Servant.'

A wide-shouldered, bow-legged man in black robes had emerged from the cave, carrying a tray bearing a jug and clay cups. He wore a servant's veil over his features, with only a thin slit for his eyes, which were deep brown.

'Lazy fool! Did you see any cobwebs?'

Servant's accent caught Mappo by surprise. It was Malazan. 'None, Iskaral.'

'Call me by my title!'

'High Priest—'

'Wrong!'

'High Priest Iskaral Pust of the Tesem Temple of Shadow—'

'Idiot! You are Servant! Which makes me .. .'

'Master.'

'Indeed.' Iskaral turned to Mappo. 'We rarely talk,' he explained.

Icarium joined them. 'This is Tesem, then. I was led to believe it was a monastery, sanctified to the Queen of Dreams—'

'They left,' Iskaral snapped. 'Took their lanterns with them, leaving only ...'

'Shadows.'

'Clever Jhag, but I was warned of that, oh yes. You two are sick as undercooked pigs. Servant has prepared your chambers. And broths of healing herbs, roots, potions and elixirs. White Paralt, emulor, tralb—'

'Those are poisons,' Mappo pointed out.

'Are they? No wonder the pig died. It's almost time, shall we prepare to ascend?'

'Lead the way,' Icarium invited.

'A life given for a life taken. Follow me. None can outwit Iskaral Pust.' The High Priest faced the cleft with a fierce squint.

They waited, for what Mappo had no idea. After a few minutes the Trell cleared his throat. 'Will your acolytes send down a ladder?'

'Acolytes? I have no acolytes. No opportunity for tyranny. Very sad, no muttering and grumbling behind my back, few satisfying rewards for this High Priest. If not for my god's whispering, I wouldn't bother, be assured of that, and I trust you will take that into account with all I have done and am about to do.'

'I see movement in the fissure,' Icarium said.

Iskaral grunted. 'Bhok'arala, they nest on this cliffside. Foul mewling beasts, always interfering, sniffing at this and that, pissing on the altar, defecating on my pillow. They are my plague, they have singled me out, and why? I've not skinned a single one, nor cooked their brains to scoop out of their skulls in civilized repast. No snares, no traps, no poison, yet still they pursue me. There is no answer to this. I despair.'

As the sun sank further the bhok'arala grew bolder, flapping from perch to perch high on the cliff wall, scampering with their hands and feet along cracks in the stone, seeking the rhizan as the small flying lizards emerged for their night-feeding. Small and simian, the bhok'arala were winged like bats, tailless with hides mottled tan and brown. Apart from long canines, their faces were remarkably human.

From the tower's lone window a knotted rope tumbled down. A tiny round head poked out to peer down at them.

'Of course,' Iskaral added, 'a few of them have proved useful.'

Mappo sighed. He'd been hoping for some sorcerous means of ascent to appear, something worthy of a High Priest of Shadow. 'So now we climb.'

'Most certainly not,' Iskaral replied with indignation. 'Servant climbs, then pulls us up.'

'He would be a man of formidable strength to manage me,' the Trell said. 'And Icarium, too.'

Servant set down the tray he had been holding, spat on his hands and walked over to the rope. He launched himself upward with surprising agility. Iskaral crouched by the tray and poured wine into the three cups.

'Servant's half bhokar'al. Long arms. Muscles like iron. Makes friends with them, probable source of all my ills.' Iskaral collected a cup for himself and gestured down at the tray as he straightened. 'Fortunate for Servant I am such a gentle and patient master.' He swung to check on the man's climb. 'Hurry, you snub-tailed dog!'

Servant had already reached the window and was now clambering through it and out of sight.

'Ammanas's gift, is Servant. A life given for a life taken. One hand old, one hand new. This is true remorse. You'll see.'

The rope twitched. The High Priest quaffed down the last of his wine, flung the cup away and scrambled towards the rope. 'Too long exposed! Vulnerable. Quickly now!' He wrapped his hands around a knot, set his feet atop another. 'Pull! Are you deaf? Pull!'

Iskaral shot upward.

'Pulleys,' Icarium said. 'Too fast to be otherwise.'

The pain returning to his shoulders, Mappo winced, then said, 'Not what you were expecting, I take it.'

'Tesem,' Icarium said, watching the priest vanish through the window. 'A place of healing. Solitary reflection, repository of scrolls and tomes, and insatiable nuns...'

'Insatiable?'

The Jhag glanced at his friend, an eyebrow rising. 'Indeed.'

'Oh, sad demise.'

'Very.'

'In this instance,' Mappo said as the rope tumbled back down, 'I think solitary reflection has addled a brain. Battling wits with bhok'arala and the whisperings of a god most hold as himself insane...'

'Yet there is power here, Mappo,' Icarium said in a low voice.

'Aye,' the Trell agreed as he approached the rope. 'A warren opened in the cave when the mule entered.'

'Then why does the High Priest not use it?'

'I doubt we'll find easy answers to Iskaral Pust, friend.'

'Best hold tight, Mappo.'

'Aye.'

Icarium reached out suddenly, rested a hand on Mappo's shoulder. 'Friend.'

'Aye?'

The Jhag was frowning. 'I am missing an arrow, Mappo. More, there is blood on my sword, and I see upon you dreadful wounds. Tell me, did we fight? I recall... nothing.'

The Trell was silent a long moment, then he said, 'I was beset by a leopard while you slept, Icarium. Made some use of your weapons. I did not think it worthy of mention.'

Icarium's frown deepened. 'Once again,' he slowly whispered, 'I have lost time.'

'Nothing of worth, friend.'

'You would tell me otherwise?' There was a look of desperate pleading in the Jhag's grey eyes.

'Why would I not, Icarium?'