'The only cadre mage to have survived Tayschrenn's assault on Moon's Spawn,' Dujek replied.
'Indeed?' To Lorn, that revelation was even more remarkable. She wondered if Dujek suspected anything, but his next words put her at ease.
'She called it luck, on both counts, and she might be right.'
'Has she been a cadre mage for a long time?' Lorn asked.
'Ever since I took command. Perhaps eight, nine years.'
The familiarity of Tattersail's name returned to Lorn then, like a mailed fist clenching her heart. She found herself sitting down again, and Dujek had taken a step towards her, genuine concern in his eyes.
'Your injury needs attending to,' he said gruffly. 'I shouldn't have waited.'
'No, no, it's all right. Weariness, that's all.'
He studied her quizzically. 'Would you like some wine, Adjunct?'
She nodded. Tattersail. Was it possible? She would know when she saw the woman. She would know then. 'Nine years,' she murmured, 'the Mouse.'
'I beg your pardon?'
She looked up to find Dujek before her. He offered her a goblet of wine. 'Nothing,' she said, as she accepted it. 'Thank you.'
As the double doors swung open both turned. In strode Tayschrenn, his face dark with fury as he confronted Dujek.
'Damn you,' the High Mage grated. 'If you had a hand in this I'll find it, and that is a promise.'
Dujek raised an eyebrow. 'A hand in what, High Mage?' he asked coolly.
'I've just been to the Hall of Records. A fire? The place looks like the inside of an oven.'
Lorn rose and stepped between them. 'High Mage Tayschrenn,' she said, in a low, dangerous tone, 'perhaps you could tell me why this matter of some fire in some bureaucrat's chamber should override all other considerations?'
Tayschrenn blinked. 'I beg your pardon, Adjunct,' he said tightly, 'but within the Hall of Records were the city's census lists.' His dark eyes swung past her to fix on Dujek. 'Wherein all the names of Pale's nobility could be found.'
'Unfortunate,' the High Fist said. 'Have you begun an investigation? My staff's services are, of course, entirely at your disposal.'
'Unnecessary, High Fist,' the wizard drawled sardonically. 'Why make all your other spies redundant?' Tayschrenn paused, then stepped back and bowed to Lorn. 'Greetings, Adjunct. I apologize for this ungracious-seeming reunion—'
'Save your apologies for later,' Lorn said levelly. She faced Dujek. 'Thank you for the wine and conversation,' she said, noting with satisfaction Tayschrenn's stiffening at that. 'I trust there'll be a formal dinner this evening?'
Dujek nodded. 'Of course, Adjunct.'
'Would you be so kind as to request Tattersail's attendance as well?' She felt yet another flinch come from the High Mage, and saw in Dujek's gaze a new respect as he looked upon her, as if acknowledging her own skills in this brand of tactics.
Tayschrenn interrupted. 'Adjunct, the sorceress has been ill as a result of her encounter with the Hound of Shadow,' he turned a smile on Dujek, 'which I'm sure has been described to you by the High Fist.'
Not well enough, Lorn thought ruefully, but let Tayschrenn imagine the worst. 'I'm interested in a wizard's evaluation of that event, High Mage,' she said.
'Which you shall have shortly.'
Dujek bowed. 'I will enquire as to Tattersail's health, Adjunct. If you will excuse me, then, I can be on my way.' He turned to Tayschrenn and gave a curt nod.
Tayschrenn watched the one-armed old man leave the room, then waited for the doors to close once again. 'Adjunct, this situation is—'
'Absurd,' Lorn finished hotly. 'Dammit, Tayschrenn, where's your sense? You've taken on the craftiest bastard the Empire military has ever had the privilege of possessing and he's eating you alive.' She spun to the table and refilled her goblet. 'And you deserve it.'
'Adjunct—'
She faced him. 'No. Listen, Tayschrenn. I speak directly from the Empress. She reluctantly approved your commandeering the assault on Moon's Spawn – but if she'd known you so thoroughly lacked subtlety, she would never have permitted it. Do you take everyone else for fools?'
'Dujek is just one man,' Tayschrenn said.
Lorn took a large mouthful of wine, then set down the goblet and rubbed her brow. 'Dujek's not the enemy,' she said wearily. 'Dujek's never been the enemy.'
Tayschrenn stepped forward. 'He was the Emperor's man, Adjunct.'
'Challenging that man's loyalty to the Empire is insulting, and it's that very insult that may well turn him. Dujek is not just one man. Right now he's ten thousand, and in a year's time he'll be twenty-five thousand. He doesn't yield when you push, does he? No, because he can't. He's got ten thousand soldiers behind him – and, believe me, when they get angry enough to push back, you'll not be able to withstand them. As for Dujek, he'll just end up being carried on the tide.'
'Then he is a traitor.'
'No. He's a man who cares for those he is responsible for and to. He's the best of the Empire. If he's forced to turn, Tayschrenn, then we're the traitors. Am I getting through?'
The High Mage's face was lined with a deep, disturbed frown. 'Yes, Adjunct,' he said quietly. 'You are.' He looked up. 'This task the Empress has commanded of me, it weighs heavily, Adjunct. These are not my strengths. It would do well if you dismissed me.'
Lorn gave that serious consideration. Mages by nature never commanded loyalty. Fear, yes, and the respect born of fear, but the one thing a mage found difficult to understand or cope with was loyalty. And yet there had been one mage, long ago, who had commanded loyalty – and that was the Emperor. She said, 'High Mage, we are all agreed on one thing. The old guard must disappear. All who stood with the Emperor and still cling to his memory will ever work against us, whether consciously or unconsciously. Dujek is an exception, and there is a handful of others like him. Those we must not lose. As for the others, they have to die. The risk lies in alerting them to that fact. If we're too open we may end up with an insurrection the size of which could destroy the Empire.'
'Apart from Dujek and Tattersail,' Tayschrenn said, 'we've cleaned out everyone else. As for Whiskeyjack and his squad, he's all yours, Adjunct.'
'With luck,' Lorn said, then frowned as the High Mage winced. 'What's the matter?'
He rose. 'I peruse my Deck of Dragons nightly,' he said. 'And I'm certain that Oponn has entered the world of mortal affairs. Tattersail's own reading did much to confirm my suspicions.'
Lorn looked at him sharply. 'She's an Adept?'
'Far more adept than I,' Tayschrenn admitted.
Lorn thought. 'What can you tell me of Oponn's involvement?'
'Darujhistan,' Tayschrenn replied.
Lorn closed her eyes. 'I was afraid you'd say that. We need Darujhistan – desperately. Its wealth, coming into our hands, would break this continent's back.'
'I know, Adjunct. But the matter is even worse than you realize. I also believe that, somehow, Whiskeyjack and Tattersail are in league with one another.'
'Any word of what happened to Captain Paran?'
'None. Someone is hiding him, or his body. I'm inclined to believe he's dead, Adjunct, but his soul has yet to pass through Hood's Gate and only a mage could prevent that.'
'Tattersail?'
The High Mage shrugged. 'Possibly. I would know more of this captain's role in all this.'
Lorn hesitated, then said, 'He was engaged in a long, arduous search.'
Tayschrenn growled, 'Perhaps he found whatever he was seeking.'
Lorn eyed him. 'Perhaps. Tell me, how good is Tattersail?'
'Good enough to be a High Mage,' Tayschrenn said. 'Good enough to survive a Hound's attack and to drive it away, though I would not think such a thing possible. Even I would have difficulty managing that.'
'Maybe she had help,' Lorn murmured.
'I hadn't thought of that.'
"Think on it now,' Lorn said. 'But before you do, the Empress requests that you continue your efforts, though not against Duje
k. You're needed here as a conduit in case my mission goes wrong in Darujhistan. Do not involve yourself with managing the occupation of Pale. Further, you are to provide Dujek with details on Oponn's appearance. If a god has entered the fray, he has a right to know and to plan accordingly.'
'How can one plan anything with Oponn in the game?'
'Leave that to Dujek.' She studied his face. 'Do you have difficulty with any of these instructions?'
Tayschrenn smiled. 'In truth, Adjunct, I'm greatly relieved.'
Lorn nodded. 'Good. Now, I need a mundane healer and quarters.'
'Of course.' Tayschrenn strode to the doors, then paused and turned. 'Adjunct, I am glad you're here.'
'Thank you, High Mage.' After he left, Lorn sank into her chair and her mind travelled back nine years, to the sights and sounds experienced by a child, to a night, one particular night in the Mouse, when every nightmare a young girl's imagination could hold became real. She remembered blood, blood everywhere, and the empty faces of her mother, her father and older brother – faces numbed by the realization that they'd been spared, that the blood wasn't their own. As the memories stalked once again through her mind, a name rode the winds, rustling in the air as if clawing through dead branches. Lorn's lips parted, and she whispered, 'Tattersail.'
The sorceress had found the strength to leave her bed. She now stood at the window, leaning with one hand against the frame for support, and looked down on a street crowded with military wagons. The systematic plunder that quartermasters called 'resupply' was well under way. The eviction of nobility and gentry from their familial estates for the stationing of the officer corps, of which she was one, had ended days ago, while the repairing of the outer walls, the refitting of sundered gates, and the clearing of 'Moon rain' continued apace.
She was glad she'd missed the river of corpses that must have filled the city streets during the initial phase of clean-up – wagon after wagon groaning beneath the weight of crushed bodies, white flesh seared by fire and slashed by sword, rat-gnawed and raven-pecked – men, women, and children. It was a scene she had witnessed before, and she had no wish ever to see it again.
Now, shock and terror had seeped down and out of sight. Scenes of normality reappeared as farmers and merchants emerged from hiding to meet the needs of occupiers and occupied alike. Malazan healers had swept the city, rooting out the birthing of plague and treating common ailments among all those they touched. No citizen would have been turned from their path. And sentiments began the long, perfectly planned swing.
Soon, Tattersail knew, there'd be the culling of the nobility, a scourge that would raise to the gallows the greediest, least-liked nobles. And the executions would be public. A tried and true procedure that swelled recruitment on a tide of base vengeance – with every hand stained by a righteous glee. A sword in such hands completed the conspiracy and included all players in the hunt for the next victim to the cause – the Empire's cause.
She'd seen it run its course in a hundred such cities. No matter how benign the original rulers, no matter how generous the nobility, the word of Empire, weighted by might, twisted the past into a tyranny of demons. A sad comment on humanity, a bitter lesson made foul by her own role in it.
In her mind returned the faces of the Bridgeburners, a strange counterpoint to the cynicism with which she viewed all around her. Whiskeyjack, a man pushed to the edge, or, rather, the edge creeping on him on all sides, a crumbling of beliefs, a failing of faiths, leaving as his last claim to humanity his squad, a shrinking handful of the only people that mattered any more. But he held on, and he pushed back – pushed back hard. She liked to think – no, she wanted to believe – he would win out in the end, that he'd live to see his world stripped of the Empire.
Quick Ben and Kalam, seeking to take the responsibility from their sergeant's shoulders. It was their only means of loving the man, though they'd never put it in such terms. In the others, barring Sorry, she saw the same, yet with them there was a desperation that she found endearing, a child-like yearning to relieve Whiskeyjack of everything their grim place had laid upon him.
She responded to them in a way deeper than she'd thought possible, from a core she'd long been convinced was burned out, the ashes scattered in silent lament – a core no mage could afford. Tattersail recognized the danger, but that only made it all the more alluring.
Sorry was another matter, and she found herself avoiding even thinking about that young woman.
And that left Paran. What to do about this captain? At the moment the man was in the room, seated on the bed behind her and oiling his sword, Chance. They'd not spoken much since she'd awakened four days ago. There was still too much distrust.
Perhaps it was that mystery, that uncertainty, that made them so attracted to one another. And the attraction was obvious: even now, with her back to the man, she sensed a taut thread between them. Whatever energy burned between them, it felt dangerous. Which made it exciting.
Tattersail sighed. Hairlock had appeared this very morning, eager and agitated about something. The puppet would not answer their queries, but the sorceress suspected that Hairlock had found a trail, and it seemed it might take the puppet out of Pale and on to Darujhistan.
That was not a happy thought.
She stiffened as the ward she'd placed outside her door was tripped. Tattersail whirled to Paran. 'A visitor,' she said.
He rose, Chance in his hands.
The sorceress waved her hand over him. 'You're no longer visible, Captain. Nor can anyone sense your presence. Make no sound, and wait here.' She strode into the outer room just as a soft knock sounded on the door.
She opened it to see a young marine standing in the hallway. 'What is it?' she demanded.
The marine bowed. 'High Fist Dujek is enquiring as to your health, Sorceress.'
'Much better,' she said. 'That's kind of him. Now, if you'll—'
The marine interrupted diffidently. 'If you answered as you just have, I am to convey the High Fist's request that you attend a formal supper this evening in the main building.'
Tattersail cursed silently. She shouldn't have told the truth. Now, it was too late. A 'request' from her commander was not something that could be denied. 'Inform the High Fist that I will be honoured to share his company over supper.' A thought struck her. 'May I ask who else will be present?'
'High Mage Tayschrenn, a messenger named Toc the Younger, and Adjunct Lorn.'
'Adjunct Lorn is here?'
'Arrived this morning, Sorceress.'
Oh, Hood's Breath. 'Convey my reply,' Tattersail said, struggling against a rising tide of fear. She shut the door, then heard the marine's boots hurrying down the hallway.
'What's wrong?' Paran asked, from the opposite doorway.
She faced him. 'Put that sword away, Captain.' She walked over to the dresser and began rummaging through the drawers. 'I'm to attend a dinner,' she said.
Paran approached. 'An official gathering.'
Tattersail nodded distractedly. 'With Adjunct Lorn there as well, as if Tayschrenn isn't bad enough.'
The Captain murmured, 'So she's finally arrived.'
Tattersail froze. She turned to him slowly. 'You've been expecting her, haven't you?'
Paran started and looked at her with frightened eyes.
She realized his mumbling hadn't been meant for her ears. 'Dammit,' she hissed. 'You're working for her!'
The captain's answer was clear as he spun round. She watched him vanish into the bedroom, her thoughts a storm of fury. The threads of conspiracy now thrummed in her mind. So, Quick Ben's suspicions had been accurate: a plan was afoot to kill the squad. Did that make her life at risk as well? She felt herself nearing a decision. What that decision was she wasn't sure, but there was a direction to her thoughts now, and it had the inevitable momentum of an avalanche.
The seventh bell was ringing from some distant tower as Toc the Younger passed into the Empire headquarters.
He showed his invitation to
yet another grim-faced, intense guard, and was grudgingly allowed to continue on down the main hall to the dining chamber. Unease churned in Toc's stomach. He knew the Adjunct was behind the request, but she could be as unpredictable and as manipulative as the rest. Beyond the doors he now approached might as well be a pit filled with vipers, all hungrily awaiting his arrival.
Toc wondered if he'd be able to keep anything down, and knowing the condition of his facial wound, he then wondered grimly if anyone else would be able to keep anything down. Among his fellow soldiers his scars were barely noticed: rare was the soldier in Dujek's army who did not carry a scar or three. Those few friends he had seemed simply thankful that he still lived.
In the Seven Cities, superstition held that loss of an eye was also the birth of inner sight. He'd been reminded of that belief at least a dozen times in the last couple of weeks. There had been no secret gift granted him in exchange for his eye. Flashes of searing light ripped through his mind every now and then, but he suspected that was no more than a memory of the last thing his eye had seen: fire.
And now he was about to sit among the loftiest company in the Empire, barring the Empress herself. Suddenly the wound was a thing of shame. He'd sit there as testament to the horrors of war – Toc stiffened just outside the dining room door. Was that why the Adjunct had invited him? He hesitated, then shrugged and entered.
Dujek, Tayschrenn and the Adjunct turned as one to regard him. Toe the Younger bowed.
'Thank you for coming,' Adjunct Lorn said. She stood with the two men near the largest of three fireplaces, in the wall opposite the entrance. 'Please, join us. We're now awaiting but one more guest.'
Toe strode to them, thankful for Dujek's grin. The High Fist set his crystal goblet down on the mantel and deliberately scratched the stump of his left arm.
'Bet it's driving you half crazed,' the old man said, his grin broadening.
'I scratch with both hands,' Toc said.
Dujek barked a laugh. 'Join us in a drink?'
'Thank you.' He noticed Lorn's appraisal as he accepted a goblet from Dujek. Taking the decanter from a nearby table, his glance crossed the High Mage, but Tayschrenn's attention was fixed on the roaring fire behind Lorn.