Crokus grinned wearily at his friend. 'I don't mind, really. It's safe in here, and that's what counts for me.'
'Assassin's war, bosh!' Kruppe said, leaning back to mop his brow with a wilted silk handkerchief. 'Kruppe remains entirely unconvinced. Tell me, did you not see Rallick Nom in here earlier? Spoke long with Murillio here, the lad did. As calm as ever, was he not?'
Murillio grimaced. 'Nom gets like that every time he's just killed somebody. Lay down a card, dammit! I've early appointments to attend to.'
Crokus asked, 'So what was Rallick talking to you about?'
Murillio's answer was a mere shrug. He continued glaring at Kruppe.
The small man's pencil-thin eyebrows rose. 'Is it Kruppe's turn?'
Closing his eyes, Crokus slumped in his chair. He groaned. 'I saw three assassins on the rooftops, Kruppe. And the two that killed the third went after me, even though it's obvious I'm no assassin.'
'Well,' said Murillio, eyeing the young thief's tattered clothing and the cuts and scrapes on his face and hands, 'I'm inclined to believe you.'
'Fools! Kruppe sits at a table of fools.' Kruppe glanced down at the snoring man. 'And Coll here is the biggest of them all. But sadly gifted with self-knowledge. Hence his present state, from which many profane truths might be drawn. Appointments, Murillio? Kruppe didn't think the city's multitude of mistresses awoke so early in the day. After all, what might they see in their mirrors? Kruppe shivers at the thought.'
Crokus massaged the bruise hidden beneath his long, brown hair. He winced, then leaned forward. 'Come on, Kruppe,' he muttered. 'Play a card.'
'My turn?'
'Seems self-knowledge doesn't extend to whose turn it is,' Murillio commented drily.
Boots sounded on the stairs. The three turned to see Rallick Nom descending from the first floor. The tall, dark-skinned man looked rested. He wore his day cloak, a deep royal purple, clasped at the neck by a silver clamshell brooch. His black hair was freshly braided, framing his narrow, clean-shaven face. Rallick walked up to the table and reached down to grasp Coil's thinning hair. He raised the man's head from the pool of beer and bent forward to study Coil's blotched face. Then he gently set down the man's head, and pulled up a chair.
'Is this the same game as last night?'
'Of course,' Kruppe replied. 'Kruppe has these two men backed to the very wall, in danger of losing their very shirts! It's good to see you again, friend Rallick. The lad here,' Kruppe indicated Crokus with a limp hand, fingers fluttering, 'speaks endlessly of murder above our heads. A veritable downpour of blood! Have you ever heard such nonsense, Rallick Kruppe's friend?'
Rallick shrugged. 'Another rumour. This city was built on rumours.'
Crokus scowled to himself. It seemed that no one was willing to answer questions this morning. He wondered yet again what the assassin and Murillio had been talking about earlier; hunched as they'd been over a dimly lit table in one corner of the room, Crokus had suspected some sort of conspiracy. Not that such a thing was unusual for them, though most times Kruppe was at its centre.
Murillio swung his gaze to the bar. 'Sulty!' he called out. 'You awake?'
There was a mumbled response from behind the wooden counter, then Sulty, her blonde hair dishevelled and plump face looking plumper, stood up. 'Yah,' she mumbled. 'What?'
'Breakfast for my friends here, if you please.' Murillio climbed to his feet and cast a critical, obviously disapproving eye over his clothing. The soft billowing shirt, dyed a bright green, now hung on his lanky frame, wilted and beer-stained. His fine tanned leather pantaloons were creased and patchy. Sighing, Murillio stepped away from the table. 'I must bathe and change. As for the game, I surrender consumed by hopelessness. Kruppe, I now believe, will never play his card, thus leaving us trapped in the unlikely world of his recollections and reminiscences, potentially for ever. Goodnight, one and all.' He and Rallick locked gazes, then Murillio gave a faint nod.
Crokus witnessed the exchange and his scowl deepened. He watched Murillio leave, then glanced at Rallick. The assassin sat staring down at Coll, his expression as unreadable as ever.
Sulty wandered into the kitchen, and a moment later the clanking of pots echoed into the room.
Crokus tossed his cards into the table's centre and leaned back, closing his eyes.
'Does the lad surrender as well?' Kruppe asked.
Crokus nodded.
'Hah, Kruppe remains undefeated.' He set down his cards and tucked in a napkin at his thick, jiggling neck.
In the thief's mind suspicions of intrigue ran wild. First the assassin's war, now Rallick and Murillio had something cooking. He sighed mentally and opened his eyes. His whole body ached from the night's adventures, but he knew he'd been lucky. He stared down at Coll without seeing him. The vision of those tall, black assassins returned to him and he shivered. Yet, for all the dangers hounding his back up on the rooftops this past night, he had to admit how exciting it'd all been. After slamming that door behind him and quaffing the beer Sulty had thrust into his hand, his whole body had trembled for an hour afterwards.
His gaze focused on Coll. Coll, Kruppe, Murillio and Rallick. What a strange group – a drunkard, an obese mage of dubious abilities, a dandified fop and a killer.
Still, they were his best friends. His parents had succumbed to the Winged Plague when he'd been four years old. Since then his uncle Mammot had raised him. The old scholar had done the best he could, but it hadn't been enough. Crokus found the street's shadows and moonless nights on rooftops far more exciting than his uncle's mouldy books.
Now, however, he felt very much alone. Kruppe's mask of blissful idiocy never dropped, not even for an instant – all through the years when Crokus had been apprenticed to the fat man in the art of thievery, he'd never seen Kruppe act otherwise. Coil's life seemed to involve the relentless avoidance of sobriety, for reasons unknown to Crokus – though he suspected that, once, Coll had been something more. And now Rallick and Murillio had counted him out of some new intrigue.
Into his thoughts came an image – the moonlit limbs of a sleeping maiden – and he angrily shook his head.
Sulty arrived with breakfast, husks of bread fried in butter, a chunk of goat cheese, a stem of local grapes and a pot of Callows bitter coffee. She served Crokus first and he muttered his thanks.
Kruppe's impatience grew while Sulty served Rallick. 'Such impertinence,' the man said, adjusting his coat's wide, stained sleeves. 'Kruppe is of a mind to cast a thousand horrible spells on rude Sulty.'
'Kruppe had better not,' Rallick said.
'Oh, no, of course not,' Kruppe amended, wiping his brow with his handkerchief. 'A wizard of my skills would never belittle himself on a mere scullion, after all.'
Sulty turned to him. 'Scullion?' She snatched a bread husk from the plate and slapped it down on Kruppe's head. 'Don't worry,' she said, as she walked back to the bar. 'With hair like yours nobody'd notice.'
Kruppe pulled the husk from his head. He was about to toss it down on the floor, then changed his mind. He licked his lips. 'Kruppe is magnanimous this morning,' he said, breaking into a wide smile and setting the bread down on his plate. He leaned forward and laced together his pudgy fingers. 'Kruppe wishes to begin his meal with some grapes, please.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
I see a man
crouched in a fire
who leaves me cold
and wondering what
he is doing here so boldly
crouched in my pyre ...
Gadrobi Epitaph
Anonymous
This time, Kruppe's dream took him out through Marsh Gate, along South Road, then left on to Cutter Lake Road. Overhead the sky swirled a most unpleasant pattern of silver and pale green. 'All is in flux,' Kruppe gasped, his feet hurrying him along the dusty, barren road. 'The Coin has entered a child's possession, though he knows it not. Is it for Kruppe to walk this Monkey Road? Fortunate that Kruppe's perfectly round body is an example of perfect symmetry. On
e is not only born skilled at said balance, one must learn it through arduous practice. Of course, Kruppe is unique in never requiring practice – at anything.'
Off in the fields to his left, within a circle of young trees, a small fire cast a hazy red glow up among the budding branches. Kruppe's sharp eyes could make out a single figure seated there, seemingly holding its hands in the flames. 'Too many stones to turn underfoot,' he gasped, 'on this rocky, rutted road. Kruppe would try the ribbed earth, which is yet to green with the season's growth. Indeed, yon fire beckons.' He left the road and approached the circle of trees.
As he strode between two slim boles and stepped into the pool of light, the hooded figure turned slowly to study him, its face hidden in shadows despite the fire before it. Though it held its hands in the flame, they withstood the heat, the long, sinuous fingers spread wide.
'I would partake of this warmth,' Kruppe said, with a slight bow. 'So rare within Kruppe's dreams of late.'
'Strangers wander through them,' the figure said, in a thin, oddly accented voice. 'Such as I. Have you summoned me, then? It has been a long time since I walked on soil.'
Kruppe's brows rose. 'Summoned? Nay, not Kruppe who is also a victim of his dreams. Imagine, after all, that Kruppe sleeps even now beneath warm blankets secure in his humble room. Yet see me, stranger, for I am cold, nay, chilled.'
The other laughed softly and beckoned Kruppe to the fire. 'I seek sensation once again,' it said, 'but my hands feel nothing. To be worshipped is to share the supplicant's pain. I fear my followers are no more.'
Kruppe was silent. He did not like the sombre mood of this dream. He held his hands before the fire yet felt little heat. A chill ache had settled into his knees. Finally he looked over the flames to the hooded figure opposite him. 'Kruppe thinks you are an Elder God. Have you a name?'
'I am known as K'rul.'
Kruppe stiffened. His guess had been correct. The thought of an Elder God awakened and wandering through his dreams sent his thoughts scampering like frightened rabbits. 'How have you come to be here, K'rul?' he asked, a tremor in his voice. All at once this place seemed too hot. He pulled his handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped sweat from his brow.
K'rul considered before answering, and Kruppe heard doubt in his voice. 'Blood has been spilled behind the walls of this glowing city, Kruppe, upon stone once holy in my name. This – this is new to me. Once I reigned in the minds of many mortals, and they fed me well with blood and split bones. Long before the first towers of stone rose to mortal whims, I walked among hunters.' The hood tilted upward and Kruppe felt immortal eyes fixing upon him. 'Blood has been spilled again, but that alone is not enough. I believe I am here to await one who will be awakened. One I have known before, long ago.'
Kruppe digested this like sour bile. 'And what do you bring Kruppe?'
The Elder God rose abruptly. 'An ancient fire that will give you warmth in times of need,' he said. 'But I hold you to nothing. Seek the T'lan Imass who will lead the woman. They are the Awakeners. I must prepare for battle, I think. One I will lose.'
Kruppe's eyes widened with sudden comprehension. 'You are being used,' he breathed.
'Perhaps. If so, then the Child Gods have made a grave error. After all,' a ghastly smile seemed to come into his tone, 'I will lose a battle. But I will not die.' K'rul turned away from the fire then. His voice drifted back to Kruppe. 'Play on, mortal. Every god falls at a mortal's hands. Such is the only end to immortality.'
The Elder God's wistfulness was not lost on Kruppe. He suspected that a great truth had been revealed to him with those final words, a truth he was now given leave to use. 'And use it Kruppe shall,' he whispered.
The Elder God had left the pool of light, heading north-east across the fields. Kruppe stared at the fire. It licked the wood hungrily, but no ash was born, and though unfed since he'd arrived it did not dim. He shivered.
'In the hands of a child,' he muttered. 'This night, Kruppe is truly alone in the world. Alone.'
An hour before dawn Circle Breaker was relieved of his vigil at Despot's Barbican. This night none had come to rendezvous beneath the gate. Lightning played among the jagged peaks of the Tahlyn Mountains to the north as the man walked in solitude down the winding Charms of Anise Street in the Spice Quarter. Ahead and below glittered the Lakefront, the merchant trader ships from distant Callows, Elingarth and Kepler's Spite hunched dark and gloaming between gaslit stone piers.
A cool lake breeze carried to the man the smell of rain, though overhead the stars glistened with startling clarity. He had removed his tabard, folding it into a small leather satchel now slung on one shoulder. Only the plain shortsword strapped at his hip marked him as a soldier, yet a soldier without provenance.
He had divested himself of his official duties, and as he walked down towards the water, the years of service seemed to slough from his spirit. Bright were the memories of his childhood at these docks, to which he had been ever drawn by the allure of the strange traders as they swung into their berths like weary and weathered heroes returned from some elemental war. In those days it was not uncommon to see the galleys of the Freemen Privateers ease into the bay, sleek and riding low with booty. They hailed from such mysterious ports as Filman Orras, Fort By a Half, Dead Man's Story and Exile; names that rang of adventure in the ears of a lad who had never seen his home city from outside its walls.
The man slowed as he reached the foot of the stone pier. The years between him and that lad marched through his mind, a possession of martial images growing ever grimmer. If he searched out the many crossroads he had come to in the past, he saw their skies storm-warped, the lands ragged and wind-torn. The forces of age and experience worked on them now, and whatever choices he had made then seemed fated and almost desperate.
Is it only the young who know desperation? he wondered, as he moved to sit on the pier's stone sea-wall. Before him rippled the bay's sooty waters. Twenty feet below, the rock-studded shore lay sheathed in darkness, the glitter of broken glass and crockery here and there winking like stars.
The man turned slightly to face the right. His gaze travelled the slope there as it climbed to the summit, on which loomed the squat bulk of Majesty Hall. Never reach too far. A simple lesson of life he had learned long ago on the burning deck of a corsair, its belly filling with the sea as it drifted outside the pinnacle fortifications of a city named Broken Jaw. Hubris, the scholars would call the fiery end of the Freemen Privateers.
Never reach too far. The man's eyes held on Majesty Hall. The deadlock that had come with the assassination of Councilman Lim still held within those walls. The Council raced aflurry in circles, more precious hours spent on eager speculation and gossip than on the matters of state. Turban Orr, his victory on the voting floor snatched from his hands in the last moment, now flung his hounds down every trail, seeking the spies he was convinced had infiltrated his nest. The councilman was no fool.
Overhead a flock of grey gulls swept lakeward, crying into the night-chilled air. He drew a breath, hunched his shoulders and pulled his gaze with an effort from Majesty Hill.
Too late to concern himself about reaching too far. Since the day the Eel's agent had come to him, the man's future was sealed; to some it would be called treason. And perhaps, in the end, it was treason. Who could say what lay in the Eel's mind? Even his principal agent – the man's contact – professed ignorance of his master's plans.
His thoughts returned to Turban Orr. He'd set himself against a cunning man, a man of power. His only defence against Orr lay in anonymity. It wouldn't last.
He sat on the pier, awaiting the Eel's agent. And he would deliver into that man's hands a message for the Eel. How much would change with the delivery of that missive? Was it wrong for him to seek help, to threaten his frail anonymity – the solitude that gave him so much inner strength, that stiffened his own resolve? Yet, to match wits with Turban Orr – he did not think he could do it alone.
The man reached into his jerkin a
nd withdrew the scroll. A crossroads marked where he now stood, he recognized that much. In answer to his ill-measured fear, he'd written the plea for help on this scroll.
It would be an easy thing to do, to surrender now. He hefted the frail parchment in his hands, feeling its slight weight, the vague oiliness of the coating, the rough weave of its tie-string. An easy, desperate thing to do.
The man lifted his head. The sky had begun to pale, the lake wind picking up the day's momentum. There would be rain, coming from the north as it often did at this time of year. A cleansing of the city, a freshening of its spice-laden breath. He slipped the string from the scroll and unfurled the parchment.
So easy.
With slow, deliberate movements, the man tore up the scroll. He let the ragged pieces drift down, scattering into the gloom of the lake's shadowed shore. The rising waves swept them outward to dot the turgid swells like flecks of ash.
Coming from somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought he heard a coin spinning. It seemed a sad sound.
A few minutes later he left the pier. The Eel's agent, out on his morning stroll, would in passing note his contact's absence and simply continue on his way.
He made his way along the Lakefront Street with the summit of Majesty Hill dwindling behind him. As he passed, the first of the silk merchants appeared, laying out their wares on the wide paved walk. Among the silks the man recognized the dyed lavender twists and bolts of Illem, the pale yellows of Setta and Lest – two cities to the south-east he knew had been annexed by the Pannion Seer in the last month – and the heavy bold twists of Sarrokalle. A dwindled sampling: all trade from the north had ended under Malazan dominion.
He turned from the lake at the entry to the Scented Wood and headed into the city. Four streets ahead his single room waited on the second floor of a decaying tenement, grey and silent with the coming dawn, its thin, warped door latched and locked. In that room he allowed no place for memories; nothing to mark him in a wizard's eye or tell the sharp-witted spy-hunter details of his life. In that room, he remained anonymous even to himself.
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