'Good. That will be all, then.'
Surprised, Kruppe climbed to his feet. 'When are we to leave, Master?'
'Soon. I'll let you know at least a day beforehand. Is that sufficient time?'
'Yes, friend Baruk. Kruppe deems that more than enough time. Rallick appears temporarily indisposed, but with luck he shall be available.'
'Get him if you can. If the Coin Bearer's influence turns against us, the assassin is charged with killing the boy. Does he understand this?'
'We've discussed it,' Kruppe said.
Baruk inclined his head and fell silent.
Kruppe waited a moment, then quietly left.
Less than an hour after Quick Ben's soul had left the body seated on the hut's floor and journeyed into the Shadow Realm, it creaked back into life. Red-eyed with an exhaustion born of unrelenting tension, Kalam pushed himself to his feet and waited for his friend to come round.
The assassin laid his hands on his long-knives, just to be on the safe side. If Quick Ben had been taken, whatever controlled him might well announce its arrival by attacking anyone within range. Kalam held his breath.
The wizard's eyes opened, the glaze slipping away as awareness returned. He saw Kalam, and smiled.
The assassin released his breath. 'Done? Success?'
'Yes, on both counts. Hard to believe, isn't it?'
Kalam found he was grinning uncontrollably. He stepped forward and helped Quick Ben to stand. The wizard leaned heavily against him, also grinning.
'He realized who I was just as I left.' Quick Ben's grin broadened. 'You should have heard him scream.'
'Well, are you surprised? How many High Priests burn the robes of their vestment?'
'Not enough, if you ask me. Without temples and priests the gods' bloody meddling couldn't touch the mortal realm. Now, that would be paradise, right, friend?'
'Perhaps,' said a voice at the doorway. Both men turned to see Sorry standing within the entrance, her half-cloak drawn about her slim body. She was wet with rain, and only now did Kalam notice the water dripping through cracks all around them. The assassin stepped away from Quick Ben to free his hands. 'What are you doing here?' he demanded.
'You dream of paradise, Wizard? I wish I'd heard the entire conversation.'
'How did you find us?' Quick Ben asked.
Sorry stepped inside and pushed back her hood. 'I've found an assassin,' she said. 'I've marked him. He is in a place called the Phoenix Inn, in the Daru District. Are you interested?' she asked, dully eyeing both men.
'I want answers,' Kalam said, in a low voice.
Quick Ben backed to the far wall, to give the assassin room and to prepare his spells if need be – though he was in no real shape to manage his Warren at the moment. Nor, he noticed, did Kalam look up to a scrap, not that the assassin would allow that to stop him. Right now, he was at his most dangerous – that low tone had said it all.
Sorry held her dead eyes on Kalam. 'The sergeant has sent me to you—'
'A lie,' Kalam interjected softly. 'Whiskeyjack doesn't know where we are.'
'Very well. I sensed your power, Wizard. It has a notable signature.'
Quick Ben was stunned. 'But I established a shield around this place,' he said.
'Yes. I, too, was surprised, Wizard. Usually I cannot find you. It seems cracks appeared.'
Quick Ben thought about that. 'Cracks', he decided, wasn't the right word – but Sorry didn't know that. She'd sensed his whereabouts because she was what they'd suspected, a pawn of the Rope. The Shadow Realm had been linked, however briefly and however tenuously, to his flesh and blood. Yet none but a servant of Shadow possessed the necessary sensitivity to detect that link. The wizard moved to stand beside Kalam and laid a hand on the burly man's shoulder.
Kalam threw him a startled glare.
'She's right. Cracks appeared, Kalam. She's obviously a natural Talent in the ways of sorcery. Come on, friend, the girl's found what we've been looking for. Let's move on it.'
Sorry pulled up the hood around her head. 'I am not accompanying you,' she said. 'You'll know the man when you see him. I suspect it is his task to make his profession obvious. Perhaps the Guild is anticipating you. In any case, find the Phoenix Inn.'
'What the hell are you up to?' Kalam demanded.
'I will be completing an assignment for the sergeant.' She turned and left the hut.
Kalam's shoulders slumped and he let out a long breath.
'She's the one we thought her to be,' Quick Ben said quietly. 'So far, so good.'
'In other words,' the assassin growled, 'if I'd attacked her I'd be a dead man right now.'
'Exactly. We'll take her out, when the time's right. But for now we need her.'
Kalam nodded.
'Phoenix Inn?'
'Damn right. And when we get there the first thing I'm doing is buying a drink.'
Quick Ben smiled. 'Agreed.'
Rallick looked up as the heavy-set man entered the bar. His black skin marked him a southerner, which in itself was not unusual. What caught Rallick's attention, however, was the horn-handled, silver-pommelled long-knives tucked into the man's narrow belt. Those weapons were anything but southern, and stamped on the pommels was a cross-hatched pattern, recognizable to all within the trade as the mark of an assassin.
The man swaggered into the room as if he owned it, and none of the locals he shouldered aside seemed inclined to disagree with him. He reached the bar and ordered an ale.
Rallick studied the dregs in his own tankard. Obviously the man wanted to be marked, precisely by someone like Rallick Nom, a Guild assassin. So, who was the bait, then? This didn't fit.
Ocelot, his Clan Leader, was convinced, along with everyone else in the Guild, that Empire Claws had come into the city and now waged war against them. Rallick wasn't so sure. The man standing at the bar could as easily be Seven Cities as a traveller from Callows. He had the look of Malazan Empire about him. Was he Claw? If so, why show himself? Up until now the enemy hadn't left a single clue, or a single eye-witness, as to their identity. The brazenness he now observed either didn't fit, or marked a reversal of tactics. Had Vorcan's order to go to ground triggered it?
Alarm bells rang in Rallick's head. None of this felt right.
Murillio leaned close to him. 'Something wrong, friend?'
'Guild business,' Rallick replied. 'You thirsty?'
Murillio grinned. 'An offer I can't refuse.'
After a single, bemused glance at Coil's unconscious form, slumped in the chair, the assassin left the table. What had all that been about five black dragons? He made his way to the bar. As he pushed through the crowd, he gave one youth a hard elbow to the back. The boy gasped, then surreptitiously slipped towards the kitchen.
Rallick arrived, called Scurve over, then ordered another pitcher. Though he did not look the man's way, he knew he'd been marked by him. It was no more than a feeling, but one he'd learned to trust. He sighed as Scurve delivered the foaming pitcher. Well, he'd done what Ocelot had demanded of him, though he suspected his Clan Leader would be asking for more.
He returned to the table and conversed with Murillio for a time, plying his friend with the majority of the ale. Murillio sensed a growing tension around Rallick and took his cue. He drained the last of his drink and rose. 'Well,' he said, 'Kruppe's scurried off, Crokus too. And Coil's once again dead to the world. Rallick, I thank you for the ale. Time to find a warm bed. Until the morrow, then.'
Rallick remained seated for another five minutes, only once brushing gazes with the black man leaning against the bar. Then he rose and strode into the kitchen. The two cooks rolled their eyes at each other as he strode past. Rallick ignored them. He came to the door, which had been left ajar in hopes of a cooling draught. The alley beyond was wet, though the rain had passed. From a shadowed recess on the wall opposite the inn stepped a familiar figure.
Rallick walked up to Ocelot. 'It's done. Your man is the big black one nursing an ale. Two daggers, h
atch-marked. He looks mean and not one I'd like to tussle with. He's all yours, Ocelot.'
The man's pocked face twisted. 'He's still inside? Good. Head back in. Make sure you've been noticed – damn sure, Nom.'
Rallick crossed his arms. 'I'm sure already,' he drawled.
'You're to draw him out, lead him into Tarlow's warehouse – into the loading grounds.' Ocelot sneered. 'Vorcan's orders, Nom. And when you head out, do it by the front door. No mistakes, nothing subtle.'
'The man's an assassin,' Rallick grated. 'If I'm not subtle he'll know it's a trap and crawl all over me in seconds flat.'
'You do as Vorcan wills, Nom. Now get back inside!'
Rallick stared at his commander, to make his disgust plain, then returned to the kitchen. The cooks grinned at him, but only for a moment. One look at Rallick's face was enough to kill any humour in the room. They bent to their tasks as if prodded by a landmaster.
Rallick entered the main room, then stopped dead in his tracks. 'Damn,' he muttered. The black man was gone. Now what? He shrugged. 'Front door it is.' He made his way through the crowd.
In an alley, on one side of which ran a high stone wall, Crokus leaned against the damp bricks of a merchant's house and gazed steadily at a window. It was on the third floor, beyond the wall, and behind its shuttered face was a room he knew intimately.
There'd been a light on inside for most of the two hours he'd stood below, but for the last fifteen minutes the room within had been dark. Numb with exhaustion and plagued with doubts, Crokus pulled his cloak tighter around him. He wondered what he was doing here, and not for the first time. All his resolve seemed to have drained into the gutters along with the rain.
Had it been the dark-haired woman in the Phoenix Inn? Had she rattled him that much? The blood on her dagger made it obvious that she wouldn't hesitate to kill him just to keep her secret intact. Maybe it was the spinning coin that had him so confused. Nothing about that incident had been natural.
What was so wrong with his dream of being introduced to the D'Arle maiden? It had nothing to do with that killer woman in the bar.
'Nothing,' he mumbled, then scowled. Now he was talking aloud to himself.
A thought came to him that deepened his scowl. Everything had begun its mad unravelling the night he'd robbed the maiden. If only he hadn't paused, if only he hadn't looked upon her soft, round, lovely face.
A groan escaped him, and he shifted his feet. A high-born. That was the real problem, wasn't it?
It all seemed so stupid now, so absurd. How could he have convinced himself that such a thing as meeting her was possible? He shook himself. It didn't matter, he'd planned this, now it was time to do it.
'I don't believe this,' he muttered as he pushed himself from the wall and headed down the alley. His hand brushed the pouch tied to his waist. 'I'm about to put a maiden's ransom back.'
He came to the stone wall he'd been looking for, and began to climb. He drew a deep breath. All right, let's get it done.
The stone was wet, but he had enough determination in him to scale a mountain. He climbed on, and did not slip even so much as a single foothold.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There's a spider here
in this corner in that –
her three eyes
tiptoe in darkness,
her eight legs
track my spine,
she mirrors and mocks
my pacing.
There's a spider here
who knows all of me
her web my history full writ.
Somewhere in this strange place
a spider waits
for my panicked flight ...
The Conspiracy
Blind Gallan (b. 1078)
As soon as the Guild assassin left the room, Kalam drained the last of his beer, paid up, and ascended the staircase. From the gallery railing he studied the crowd below, then, seeing that no one paid him much attention, he strode down the hallway and entered the last room on the right.
He closed the door and locked it. Quick Ben was seated cross-legged on the floor, within a circle of melted blue wax. The wizard was hunched over, bare-chested, his eyes shut and droplets of sweat trickling down his face. Around him the air shimmered, as if glossed with lacquer.
Kalam walked around the wax circle to the bed. He took a leather satchel from a peg above the bedpost and set it down on the thin, straw-filled mattress. Peeling back the flap he removed the contents. A minute later he'd laid out the mechanisms for a goat's foot arbalest. The crossbow's metal parts had been blued, the narrow wooden stock soaked in pitch and dusted with black sand. Kalam slowly, quietly, assembled the weapon.
Quick Ben spoke behind him. 'Done. Whenever you're ready, friend.'
'The man left through the kitchen. But he'll be back,' Kalam said, rising with the arbalest in his hands. He attached a strap to it and slung the weapon over one shoulder. Then he faced the wizard. 'I'm ready.'
Quick Ben also stood, wiping his forehead with a sleeve. 'Two spells. You'll be able to float, control every descent. The other should give you the ability to see anything magical – well, almost anything. If there's a High Mage kicking around, we're out of luck.'
'And you?' Kalam asked, as he examined his quiver of bolts.
'You won't see me directly, just my aura,' Quick Ben replied with a grin, 'but I'll be with you all the way.'
'Well, hopefully this'll go smoothly. We make contact with the Guild, we offer the Empire's contract, they accept and remove for us every major threat in the city.' He shrugged into his black cloak and pulled up the hood.
'You sure we can't just go downstairs and walk right up to the man, lay it out?'
Kalam shook his head. 'Not how it's done. We've identified him, he's done the same with us. He's probably just made contact with his commander, and they'll arrange things to their liking. Our man should lead us now to the meet.'
'Won't it be an ambush we're walking into, then?'
The large man agreed. 'More or less. But they'll want to know what we want with them first. And once that's out, I doubt the Guild's master will be interested in killing us. You ready?'
Quick Ben raised a hand towards Kalam, then muttered briefly under his breath.
Kalam felt a lightness come into him, rising to his skin and emanating a cushion of cool air that enveloped his body. And before his eyes Quick Ben's figure formed a blue-green penumbra, concentrated at the wizard's long-fingered hands. 'I have them,' the assassin said, smiling, 'two old friends.'
Quick Ben sighed. 'Yes, here we are doing this all over again.' He met his friend's gaze. 'Hood's on our heels, Kal. I can feel his breath on my neck, these days.'
'You're not alone in that.' Kalam turned to the window. 'Sometimes,' he said drily, 'I have the feeling our Empire wants us dead.' He walked to the window, unlatched the shutters, then swung them inward and leaned both hands on the sill.
Quick Ben came up beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. They gazed out at the darkness, a brief sharing of unease passing between them.
'We've seen too much,' Quick Ben said softly.
'Hood's Breath,' Kalam growled, 'what are we doing this for anyway?'
'Maybe if the Empire gets what it wants – Darujhistan – they'll let us slip away.'
'Sure, but who's going to convince the sergeant to walk out of the Empire?'
'We show him he hasn't got any choice.'
Kalam climbed on to the sill. 'Good thing I'm not a Claw any more. Just soldiers, right?'
Behind him Quick Ben touched his own chest and vanished. His disembodied voice held a note of wry amusement. 'Right. No more cloak-and-dagger games for old Kalam.'
The assassin pulled himself up, turning to face the wall then beginning his climb to the roof. 'Yeah, I've always hated it.'
Quick Ben's voice was beside him now. 'No more assassinations.'
'No more spying,' Kalam added, reaching for the roof's edge.
'No more disguis
ing spells.'
Clambering on to the roof, Kalam lay still. 'No more daggers in the back,' he whispered, then sat up and scanned the nearby rooftops. He saw nothing; no unusual huddled shapes, no bright magical auras.
'Thank the gods,' came Quick Ben's whisper from above.
'Thank the gods,' Kalam echoed, then looked down over the roof's edge. Below a pool of light marked the inn entrance. 'You take the back door. I've got this one.'
'Right.'
Even as the wizard answered Kalam stiffened. 'There he is,' he hissed. 'You still with me?'
Quick Ben assented.
They watched the figure of Rallick Nom, now cloaked, crossing to the far side of the street and entering an alley.
'I'm on him,' Quick Ben said.
A blue-green glow rose around the wizard. He rose into the air and flew out swiftly across the street, slowing as he reached the alley. Kalam climbed to his feet and padded silently along the roof's edge. Reaching the corner, he glanced down to the rooftop of an adjacent building, then jumped.
He descended slowly, as if sinking through water, and landed without a sound. Off to his right, moving on a parallel path, was Quick Ben's magical aura. Kalam crossed the rooftop to the next building. Their man was heading for the harbour-front.
Kalam continued tracking Quick Ben's beacon, moving from one rooftop to the next, sometimes jumping down, at other times climbing. There was little subtlety about Kalam: where others used finesse he used the strength of his thick arms and legs. It made him an unlikely assassin, but he'd learned to use that to his advantage.
They now approached the harbour area, the buildings single-storeyed and large, the streets rarely lit except around the double-door entrances to warehouses, where the occasional private guard lingered. In the night air hung the taint of sewage and fish.
Finally, Quick Ben stopped, hovered over a warehouse courtyard, then hurried back to Kalam, who waited at the edge of a nearby two-storeyed clearing house. 'Looks like the place,' Quick Ben said, floating a few feet above Kalam. 'What now?'
'I want a good line of sight to that courtyard.'
'Follow me.'
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