'Unlikely,' Baruk said. 'Throwing the threat of the Empire at me implies what? That if the proclamation is voted down, the city's sorcerers will all die at the Empire's hand. But if it wins, you're free to justify opening the gates to the Malazans in peaceful co-existence, and in such a scenario the city's magery lives on.'
'Astute, Lord,' Crone said.
Baruk studied the anger now visible beneath Orr's expression. 'Neutrality? How you've managed to twist that word. Your proclamation serves the first step towards total annexation, Councilman. Fortunate for you that I cast no weight, no vote, no influence.' Baruk rose. 'Roald will see you out.'
Turban Orr also rose. 'You've made a grave error,' he said. 'The proclamation's wording is not yet complete. It seems we would do well to remove any consideration regarding Darujhistan's magery.'
'Too bold,' Crone observed. 'Prod him and see what more comes forth.'
Baruk strode towards the window. 'One may only hope,' he said drily over a shoulder, 'that your vote fails to win the day.'
Orr's reply was hot and rushed. 'By my count we've reached a majority this very night, Alchemist. You could have provided the honey on the cream. Alas,' he sneered,-we'll win by only one vote. But that will suffice.'
Baruk turned to face Orr as Roald quietly entered the room, bearing the councilman's cloak.
Crone stretched out on the rug. 'On this night of all nights,' she said, in mock dismay, 'to tempt myriad fates with such words.' The Great Raven cocked her head. Faintly, as from a great distance, she thought she could hear the spinning of a coin.
There was a tremble of power, coming from somewhere within the city, and Crone shivered.
Rallick Nom waited. No more indolence for the Lady Simtal. The end of such luxuries came this night. The two figures moved away from the railing and faced the glass door. Rallick's finger tightened on the trigger.
He froze. A whirring, spinning sound filled his head, whispering words that left him bathed in sudden sweat. All at once everything shifted, turned over in his mind. His plan for quick vengeance tumbled into disarray, and from the ruins arose something far more ... elaborate.
All this had come between breaths. Rallick's gaze cleared. Lady Simtal and Councilman Lim stood at the door. The woman reached out to slide the panel to one side. Rallick swerved his crossbow an inch to the left, then squeezed the trigger. The blackened iron rib of the bow bucked with the release of tension. The quarrel sped outward, so fast as to be invisible until it hit home.
A figure on the balcony spun with the quarrel's impact, arms thrown out as it stumbled. The glass door shattered as the figure fell through it.
Lady Simtal screamed in horror.
Rallick waited no longer. Rolling on to his back he reached up and slid the crossbow into the narrow ledge between the cornice and the roof. Then he slipped down the outside of the wall, hung with his hands briefly as shouts of alarm filled the estate. A moment later he dropped, spinning as he fell, and landed cat-like in the alley.
The assassin straightened, adjusted his cloak, then calmly walked into the side-street, away from the estate. No more indolence for the Lady Simtal. But no quick demise, either. A very powerful, very well-respected member of the City Council had just been assassinated on her balcony. Lim's wife – now widow – would certainly have something to say about this. The first phase, Rallick told himself as he strode through Osserc's Gate and descended the wide ramp leading down into the Daru District, just the first phase, an opening gambit, a hint to Lady Simtal that a hunt has begun, with the eminent mistress herself as the quarry. It won't be easy: the woman's no slouch in the intrigue game.
'There'll be more blood,' he whispered aloud, as he turned a corner and approached the poorly lit entrance to the Phoenix Inn. 'But in the end she'll fall, and with that fall an old friend will rise.' As he neared the inn a figure stepped from the shadows of an adjacent alleyway. Rallick stopped. The figure gestured, then stepped back into the darkness.
Rallick followed. In the alley he waited for his eyes to adjust.
The man in front of him sighed. 'Your vendetta probably saved your life tonight,' he said, his tone bitter.
Rallick leaned against a wall and crossed his arms. 'Oh?'
Clan Leader Ocelot stepped close, his narrow, pitted face twisted into its habitual scowl. 'The night's been a shambles, Nom. You've heard nothing?'
'No.'
Ocelot's thin lips curled into a humourless smile. 'A war has begun on the rooftops. Someone is killing us. We lost five Roamers in less than an hour, meaning there's more than one killer out there.'
'Undoubtedly,' Rallick replied, fidgeting as the damp stones of the inn's wall reached through his cloak and touched his flesh with chill. As always, Guild affairs bored him.
Ocelot continued, 'We lost that bull of a man, Talo Krafar, and a Clan Leader.' The man snapped a glance over his shoulder as if expecting a sudden dagger to come flashing at his own back.
Despite his lack of interest Rallick's eyebrows lifted at this last bit of news. 'They must be good.'
'Good? All of our eye-witnesses are dead, goes the sour joke this night. They don't make mistakes, the bastards.'
'Everyone makes mistakes,' Rallick muttered. 'Has Vorcan gone out?'
Ocelot shook his head. 'Not yet. She's too busy recalling all the Clans.'
Rallick frowned, curious in spite of himself. 'Could this be a challenge to her Guild mastery? Perhaps an inside thing, a faction—'
'You think we're all fools, don't you, Nom? That was Vorcan's first suspicion. No, it's not internal. Whoever's killing our people is from outside the Guild, outside the city.'
To Rallick the answer seemed obvious suddenly, and he shrugged. 'An Empire Claw, then.'
Though his expression bore reluctance, Ocelot nevertheless acknowledged agreement. 'Likely,' he grated. 'They're supposed to be the best, aren't they? But why go after the Guild? You'd think they'd be taking out the nobles.'
'Are you asking me to guess the Empire's intentions, Ocelot?'
The Clan Leader blinked, then his scowl deepened. 'I came to warn you. And that's a favour, Nom. With you wrapped up in this vendetta thing, the Guild's not obliged to spread its wing over you. A favour.'
Rallick pushed himself from the wall and turned to the alley-mouth. 'A favour, Ocelot?' He laughed softly.
'We're setting a trap,' Ocelot said, moving to block Rallick's way. He jerked his scarred chin at the Phoenix Inn. 'Make yourself visible, and leave no doubt as to what you do for a living.'
Rallick's gaze on Ocelot held steady, impassive. 'Bait.'
'Just do it.'
Without replying, Rallick left the alley, climbed the steps and entered the Phoenix Inn.
'There is a shaping in the night,' Crone said, after Turban On-had left. The air around her shimmered as she assumed her true shape.
Baruk strode to his map table, hands clasped behind his back to still the trembling that had seized them. 'You felt it too, then.' He paused, then sighed. 'All in all, these seem the busiest hours.'
'A convergence of power ever yields thus,' Crone said, as she rose to stretch her wings. 'The black winds gather, Alchemist. Beware their flaying breath.'
Baruk grunted. 'While you ride them, a harbinger of our tragic ills.'
Crone laughed. She waddled to the window. 'My master comes. I've other tasks before me.'
Baruk turned. 'Permit me,' he said, gesturing. The window swung clear.
Crone flapped up on to the sill. She swivelled her head round and cocked an eye at Baruk. 'I see twelve ships riding a deep harbour,' she said. 'Eleven stand tall in flames.'
Baruk stiffened. He had not anticipated a prophecy. Now he was afraid. 'And the twelfth?' he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
'On the wind a hailstorm of sparks fill the night sky. I see them spinning, spinning about the last vessel.' Crone paused. 'Still spinning.' Then she was gone.
Baruk's shoulders slumped. He turned back to the map on the table an
d studied the eleven once Free Cities that now bore the Empire flag. Only Darujhistan remained, the twelfth and last marked by a flag that was not burgundy and grey. 'The passing of freedom,' he murmured.
Suddenly the walls around him groaned, and Baruk gasped as an enormous weight seemed to press down on him. The blood pounded in his head, lancing him with pain. He gripped the edge of the map table to steady himself. The incandescent globes of light suspended from the ceiling dimmed, then flickered out. In the darkness the alchemist heard cracks sweeping down the walls, as if a giant's hand had descended on the building. All at once the pressure vanished. Baruk raised a shaking hand to his sweat-slicked brow.
A soft voice spoke behind him. 'Greetings, High Alchemist. I am the Lord of Moon's Spawn.'
Still facing the table, Baruk closed his eyes and nodded. 'The title isn't necessary,' he whispered. 'Please call me Baruk.'
'I'm at home in darkness,' the Lord said. 'Will this prove an inconvenience, Baruk?'
The alchemist muttered a spell. Before him the details of the map on the table took on distinction, emanating a cool blue glow. He faced the Lord and was startled to discover that the tall, cloaked figure reflected as little heat as the room's inanimate objects. Nevertheless, he was able to distinguish quite clearly the man's features. 'You're Tiste Andii,' he said.
The Lord bowed slightly. His angled, multihued eyes scanned the room. 'Have you any wine, Baruk?'
'Of course, Lord.' The alchemist walked over to his desk.
'My name, as best as it can be pronounced by humans, is Anomander Rake.' The Lord followed Baruk to the desk, his boots clicking on the polished marble floor.
Baruk poured wine, then turned to study Rake with some curiosity. He had heard that Tiste Andii warriors were fighting the Empire up north, commanded by a savage beast of a man named Caladan Brood. They had allied with the Crimson Guard and, together, the two forces were decimating the Malazans. So, there were Tiste Andii in Moon's Spawn, and the man standing before him was their lord.
This moment marked the first time Baruk had ever seen a Tiste Andii face to face. He was more than a little disturbed. Such remarkable eyes, he thought. One moment a deep hue of amber, cat-like and unnerving, the next grey and banded like a snake's – a fell rainbow of colours to match any mood. He wondered if they were capable of lying.
In the alchemist's library lay copies of the surviving tomes of Gothos' Folly, Jaghut writings from millennia past. In them Tiste Andii were mentioned here and there in an aura of fear, Baruk recalled. Gothos himself, a Jaghut wizard who had descended the deepest warrens of Elder Magic, had praised the gods of the time that the Tiste Andii were so few in number. And if anything, the mysterious black-skinned race had dwindled since then.
Anomander Rake's skin was jet-black, befitting Gothos' descriptions, but his mane flowed silver. He stood close to seven feet tall. His features were sharp, as if cut from onyx, a slight upward tilt to the large vertical-pupilled eyes.
A two-handed sword was strapped to Rake's broad back, its silver dragonskull pommel and archaic crosshilt jutting from a wooden scabbard fully six and a half feet long. From the weapon bled power, staining the air like black ink in a pool of water. As his gaze rested on it Baruk almost reeled, seeing, for a brief moment, a vast darkness yawning before him, cold as the heart of a glacier, from which came the stench of antiquity and a faint groaning sound. Baruk wrenched his eyes from the weapon, looked up to find Rake studying him from over one shoulder.
The Tiste Andii quirked a knowing smile, then handed Baruk one of the wine-filled goblets. 'Was Crone her usual melodramatic self?'
Baruk blinked, then could not help but grin.
Rake sipped his wine. 'She's never been modest in displaying her talents. Shall we sit?'
'Of course,' Baruk replied, relaxing in spite of his trepidation. From his years of study the alchemist knew that great power shaped different souls differently. Had Rake's been twisted Baruk would have known immediately. But the Lord's control seemed absolute. That alone engendered awe. The man shaped his power, not the other way around. Such control was, well, inhuman. He suspected that this would not be the first insight he'd have regarding this warrior-mage that would leave him astonished and frightened.
'She threw everything she had at me,' Rake said suddenly. The Tiste Andii's eyes shone green as glacial ice.
Startled by the vehemence of that outburst, Baruk frowned. She? Oh, the Empress, of course.
'And even then,' Rake continued, 'she couldn't bring me down.'
The alchemist stiffened in his chair. 'Yet,' he said cautiously, 'you were driven back, battered and beaten. I can feel your power, Anomander Rake,' he added, grimacing. 'It pulses from you like waves. So I must ask: how is it you were defeated? I know something of the Empire's High Mage Tayschrenn. He has power but it's no match to yours. So again I ask, how?'
His gaze on the map table, Rake replied, 'I've committed my sorcerers and warriors to Brood's north campaign.' He turned a humourless grin on Baruk. 'Within my city are children, priests and three elderly, exceedingly bookish warlocks.'
City? There was a city within Moon's Spawn?
A dun tone had entered Rake's eyes. 'I cannot defend an entire Moon. I cannot be everywhere at once. And as for Tayschrenn, he didn't give a damn about the people around him. I thought to dissuade him, make the price too high ...' He shook his head as if perplexed, then he looked to Baruk. 'To save the home of my people, I retreated.'
'Leaving Pale to fall—' Baruk shut his mouth, cursing his lack of tact.
But Rake merely shrugged. 'I didn't anticipate that I'd face a full assault. My presence alone had been keeping the Empire at bay for almost two years.'
'I've heard the Empress is short of patience,' murmured Baruk thoughtfully. His eyes narrowed, then he looked up. 'You have asked to meet with me, Anomander Rake, and so here we are. What is it you wish from me?'
'An alliance,' the Moon's lord answered.
'With me? Personally?'
'No games, Baruk.' Rake's voice was suddenly cold. 'I'm not fooled by that Council of idiots bickering at Majesty Hall. I know that it's you and your fellow mages who rule Darujhistan.' He rose and glared down with eyes of grey. 'I'll tell you this. For the Empress your city is the lone pearl on this continent of mud. She wants it and what she wants she usually gets.'
Baruk reached down and plucked at the frayed edge of his robe. 'I see,' he said, in a low voice. 'Pale had its wizards.'
Rake frowned. 'Indeed.'
'Yet,' Baruk continued, 'when the battle was begun in earnest, your first thought was not for the alliance you made with the city but for the well-being of your Moon.'
'Who told you this?' Rake demanded.
Baruk looked up and raised both hands. 'Some of those wizards managed to escape.'
'They're in the city?' Rake's eyes had gone black.
Seeing them, Baruk felt sweat break out beneath his clothes. 'Why?' he asked.
'I want their heads,' Rake replied casually. He refilled his goblet and took a sip.
An icy hand had slipped around Baruk's heart and was now tightening. His headache had increased tenfold in the last few seconds. 'Why?' he asked again, the word coming out almost as a gasp.
If the Tiste Andii knew of the alchemist's sudden discomfort he made no sign of it. 'Why?' He seemed to roll the word in his mouth like wine, a light smile touching his lips. 'When the Moranth army came down from the mountains, and Tayschrenn rode at the head of his wizard cadre, and when word spread that an Empire Claw had infiltrated the city,' Rake's smile twisted into a snarl, 'the wizards of Pale fled.' He paused, as if reliving memories. 'I dispatched the Claw when they were but a dozen steps inside the walls.' He paused again, his face betraying a flash of regret. 'Had the city's wizards remained, the assault would have been repelled. Tayschrenn, it seemed, was preoccupied with ... other imperatives. He'd saturated his position – a hilltop – with defensive wards. Then he unleashed demons not against me but agai
nst some of his companions. That baffled me but, rather than allow such conjurings to wander at will, I expended vital power destroying them.' He sighed and said, 'I pulled the Moon back mere minutes from its destruction. I left it to drift south and went after those wizards.'
'After them?'
'I tracked down all but two.' Rake gazed at Baruk. 'I want those two, preferably alive, but their heads will suffice.'
'You killed those you found? How?'
'With my sword, of course.'
Baruk recoiled as if struck. 'Oh,' he whispered. 'Oh.'
'The alliance,' Rake said, before draining his goblet.
'I'll speak to the Cabal on this matter,' Baruk answered, rising shakily to his feet. 'Word of the decision will be sent to you soon.' He stared at the sword strapped to the Tiste Andii's back. 'Tell me, if you get those wizards alive, will you use that on them?'
Rake frowned. 'Of course.'
Turning away, Baruk closed his eyes. 'You'll have their heads, then.'
Behind him Rake laughed harshly. 'There's too much mercy in your heart, Alchemist.'
The pale light beyond the window signified the dawn. Within the Phoenix Inn only one table remained occupied. Around it sat four men, one asleep in his chair with his head lying in a pool of stale beer. He snored loudly. The others were playing cards, two red-eyed with exhaustion while the last one studied his hand and talked. And talked.
'And then there was the time I saved Rallick Norn's life, at the back of All Eve's Street. Four, no, five nefarious hoodlums had backed the boy to a wall. He was barely standing, was Rallick, gushing blood from a hundred knife wounds. Clear to me was the grim fact that it couldn't last much longer, that tussle. I come up on them six assassins from behind, old Kruppe with fire dancing on his fingertips – a magical spell of frightful violence. I uttered the cantrip in a single breath and lo! Six piles of ash at Rallick's feet. Six piles of ash aglitter with the coin from their wallets – hah! A worthy reward!'
Murillio leaned his long, elegant frame close to Crokus Younghand. 'Is this possible?' he whispered. 'For a turn to last as long as Kruppe's?'
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