Kruppe nodded. 'Kruppe is no fool, K'rul. He openly opposes no one, and he finds power a thing to be avoided at all costs.'
As they spoke the Rhivi woman had taken Tattersail in her arms. Pran Chole squatted nearby, his eyes closed and his lips forming silent words. The Rhivi woman rocked the desiccated body in rhythmic motion, chanting softly. Water stained the Rhivi's thighs.
'Aye,' Kruppe whispered. 'She prepares to give birth in truth.'
Abruptly the Rhivi tossed away the body. It crumpled in a lifeless heap.
The Moon now hung immediately overhead, so bright that Kruppe found he could not look at it directly.
The Rhivi had assumed a squatting position, moving with the rhythm of labour, her face sheathed in sweat. Pran Chole remained immobile, though his body was racked in shivering bouts that twisted his face with pain. His eyes opened wide, glowing bright amber, and fixed on the Moon.
'Elder God,' Kruppe said quietly, 'how much will this Tattersail remember of her former life?'
'Unknown,' K'rul replied. 'Soul-shifting is a delicate thing. The woman was consumed in a conflagration. Her soul's first flight was carried on wings of pain and violence. More, she entered another ravaged body, bearing its own traumas. The child that is born will be like no other ever seen. Its life is a mystery, Kruppe.'
Kruppe grunted. 'Considering her parents, she will indeed be exceptional.' A thought came to him and he frowned. 'K'rul, what of the first child within the Rhivi?'
'There was none, Kruppe. The Rhivi woman was prepared in a manner unknown to any man.' He chuckled. 'Including myself.' He raised his head. 'This sorcery belongs to the Moon, Kruppe.'
They continued watching the labours of birth. To Kruppe it seemed they waited more hours in the darkness than any normal night could hold. The Moon remained overhead, as if it found its position to its liking – or, he reconsidered, as if it stood guard over them.
Then a small cry rose into the still air, and the Rhivi lifted in her arms a child furred in silver.
Even as Kruppe watched, the fur sloughed away. The Rhivi turned the child and placed her mouth against its belly. Her jaws bunched and the remaining length of umbilical cord fell away.
Pran Chole strode to stand beside Kruppe and the Elder God. The T'lan looked exhausted. 'The child drew from me power beyond my control,' he said softly.
As the Rhivi squatted again in afterbirth, holding the child against her chest, Kruppe's eyes widened. The mother's belly was smooth, the white fox tattoo was gone.
'I am saddened,' Pran said, 'that I may not return in twenty years to see the woman this child shall become.'
'You shall,' K'rul said in a low tone, 'but not as a T'lan. As a T'lan Imass Bone Caster.'
The breath hissed between Pran's teeth. 'How long?' he asked.
'Three hundred thousand years, Pran Chole of Cannig Tol's Clan.'
Kruppe laid a hand on Pran's arm. 'You've something to look forward to,' he said.
The T'lan stared at Kruppe a moment, then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.
The hours before Kruppe's dream had proved eventful, beginning with his meeting with Baruk that permitted the revelation of the Coin Bearer punctuated with the clever if slightly dramatic suspension of the coin's wax impression – a cantrip that had gone strangely awry.
But soon after the meeting, droplets of now-hardened wax pebbling the breast and arms of his coat, Kruppe paused just outside the alchemist's door. Roald was nowhere to be seen. 'Oh, my,' Kruppe breathed as he wiped sweat from his forehead. 'Why should Master Baruk find Crokus's name familiar? Ah, stupid Kruppe! Uncle Mammot, of course. Oh dear, that was close – all could well have been lost!' He continued on down the hall to the stairs.
For a time there, Oponn's power had waxed considerably. Kruppe smiled at his pun, but it was a distracted smile. He would do well to avoid such contacts. Power had a habit of triggering his own talents; already he felt the urgings of the Deck of Dragons within his head.
He hurried down the stairs and crossed the main hall to the doors. Roald was just entering, burdened beneath mundane supplies. Kruppe noted the dust covering the old man's clothing. 'Dear Roald, you look as if you've just weathered a sandstorm! Do you require Kruppe's assistance?'
'No,' Roald grunted. 'Thank you, Kruppe. I can manage. Will you be so kind as to close the doors on your way out?'
'Of course, kind Roald!' Kruppe patted the man's arm and strode out into the courtyard. The gates leading to the street had been left open, and beyond was a swirling cloud of dust. 'Ah, yes, the road repairs,' Kruppe muttered.
A headache had burgeoned behind his eyes, and the bright sun overhead wasn't helping matters any. He was half-way to the gates when he stopped. 'The doors! Kruppe has forgotten to close the doors!' He spun round and returned to the estate entrance, sighing as the doors closed with a satisfying click. As he turned away a second time someone shouted in the street beyond. There followed a loud crash, but this latter sound was lost on Kruppe.
With that bellowed curse a sorcerous storm roared into his head. He fell to his knees, then his head snapped up, eyes widening. 'That,' he whispered, 'was indeed a Malazan curse. Then why does House Shadow's image burn like fire in Kruppe's skull? Who now walks the streets of Darujhistan?' A count of knots unending ... 'Mysteries solved, more mysteries created.'
The pain had passed. Kruppe climbed to his feet and brushed the dust from his clothing. 'Good that said affliction occurred beyond the eyes of suspicious beings, Kruppe notes with relief. All upon a promise made to friend Roald. Wise old friend Roald. Oponn's breath is this time welcome, though begrudgingly so.'
He strode to the gates and peered into the street. A cart filled with shattered cobbles had toppled. Two men argued incessantly as to whose fault it was while they righted the cart and proceeded to refill it. Kruppe studied them. They spoke well the Daru tongue, but to one who listened carefully there was the hint of an accent – an accent that did not belong. 'Oh, my,' Kruppe said, stepping back. He adjusted his coat, took a deep breath, then opened the gate and walked into the street.
The fat little man with the flopping sleeves walked from the house's gate and turned left. He seemed in a hurry.
Sergeant Whiskeyjack wiped the sweat from his brow with a scarred forearm, his eyes slits against the bright sunlight.
'That is the one, Sergeant,' Sorry said, beside him.
'Are you sure?'
'Yes, I'm sure.'
Whiskeyjack watched the man winding through the crowd. 'What's so important about him?' he asked.
'I admit,' Sorry replied, 'to some uncertainty as to his significance. But he is vital, Sergeant.'
Whiskeyjack chewed his lip, then turned to the wagon bed where a city map had been laid flat, its corners anchored down by chunks of rock. 'Who lives in that estate?'
'A man named Baruk,' Sorry answered. 'An alchemist.'
He scowled. How did she know that? 'Are you saying that fat little man is this Baruk?'
'No. He works for the alchemist. Not a servant. A spy, perhaps. His skills involve thievery, and he possesses ... talent.'
Whiskeyjack looked up. 'A Seer?'
For some reason Sorry winced. The sergeant watched, bemused, as Sorry's face paled. Damn, he wondered, what on earth is going on with this girl?
'I believe so,' she said, her voice trembling.
Whiskeyjack straightened. 'All right. Follow him.'
She nodded shakily, then slipped into the crowd.
The sergeant rested his back against the wagon's side-wall. His expression soured as he studied his squad. Trotts was swinging his pick as if on a battlefield. Stones flew everywhere. Passers-by ducked, and cursed when ducking failed. Hedge and Fiddler crouched behind a wheelbarrow, flinching each time the Barghast's pick struck the street. Mallet stood a short distance away, directing pedestrians to the other pavement. He no longer bellowed at the people, having lost his voice arguing with an old man with a donkey wobbling under an enormous b
asket of firewood. The bundles now lay scattered across the street – the old man and the donkey nowhere to be seen – providing an effective barrier to wheeled vehicles.
All in all, Whiskeyjack concluded, everyone with him had assumed the role of heat-crazed street worker with a facility he found oddly disturbing.
Hedge and Fiddler had acquired the wagon, loaded down with cobbles, less than an hour after their midnight landing at a public dock on the Lakefront. Exactly how this had been accomplished, Whiskeyjack was afraid to ask. But it suited their plans perfectly. Something nagged at the back of Whiskeyjack's mind but he dismissed it. He was a soldier and a soldier followed orders. When the time came, there would be chaos at every major intersection of streets in the city.
'Planting mines ain't gonna be easy,' Fiddler had pointed out, 'so we do it right in front of everyone's nose. Road repair.'
Whiskeyjack shook his head. True to Fiddler's prediction, no one had yet questioned them. They continued ripping up streets and replacing the old cobbles with Moranth munitions encased in fire-hardened clay. Was everything going to be so easy?
His thoughts returned to Sorry. Not likely. Quick Ben and Kalam had at last convinced him that their half of the mission was better off without her. She'd tagged along with his crew, eyes never still, but otherwise offering little in the way of assistance. He admitted to feeling some relief that he'd sent her off on that fat man's trail.
But what had pulled a seventeen-year-old girl into the world of war? He couldn't understand it – he couldn't get past her youthfulness, couldn't see beyond to the cold, murderous killer behind those dead eyes. As much as he told his squad that she was as human as any of them, the doubts grew with every question about her that he could not answer. He knew almost nothing about her. The revelation that she could manage a fishing boat had come from seemingly nowhere. And here in Darujhistan she'd hardly acted like a girl raised in a fishing village. There was a natural poise about her, a measure of assurance more common to the higher, educated classes. No matter where she was, she carried herself as if she belonged there.
Did that sound like a seventeen-year-old girl? No, but it seemed to match Quick Ben's assertions, and that galled him. How else to match her with that icy-cold woman torturing prisoners outside Nathilog? He could look at her and part of him would say: 'Young, not displeasing to the eye, a confidence that makes her magnetic' While another part of his mind snapped shut. Young? He'd hear his own harsh, pained laugh. Oh, no, not this lass. She's old. She walked under a blood-red moon in the dawn of time, did this one. Her face is the face of all that cannot be fathomed, and she's looking you in the eye, Whiskeyjack, and you'll never know what she's thinking.
He could feel sweat drain down his face and neck. Nonsense. That part of his mind lost itself to its own terror. It took the unknown and fashioned, in blind desperation, a visage it could recognize. Despair, he told himself, always demands a direction, a focus. Find the direction and the despair goes away.
Of course, it wasn't that easy. The despair he felt had no shape. It was not just Sorry, not just this endless war, not even the treachery from within the Empire. He had nowhere to look for answers, and he was tired of asking questions.
When he had looked upon Sorry at Greydog, the source of his horror lay in the unveiling of what he was becoming: a killer stripped of remorse, armoured in the cold iron of inhumanity, freed from the necessity to ask questions, to seek answers, to fashion a reasonable life like an island in a sea of slaughter.
In the empty eyes of this child, he'd seen the withering of his own soul. The reflection had been unblemished, with no imperfections to challenge the truth of what he saw.
The sweat running down his back beneath the jerkin felt hot against the chill that gripped him. Whiskeyjack lifted a trembling hand to his forehead. In the days and nights ahead, people would die by his command. He'd been thinking of that as the fruition of his careful, precise planning – success measured by the ratio of the enemy's dead to his own losses. The city – its busy, jostling multitudes unceasing in their lives small and large, cowardly and brave – no more than a game-board, and the game played solely for the benefit of others. He'd made his plans as if nothing of himself was at stake. And yet his friends might die – there, he'd finally called them what they were – and the friends of others might die, and sons, daughters, parents. The roll-call of shattered lives seemed unending.
Whiskeyjack pressed his back against the side-wall in an effort to steady his reeling mind. Desperately, he lifted his gaze from the street. He saw a man at a window on the second floor of the estate. The man was watching them, and his hands were bright red.
Shaken, the sergeant looked away. He bit into the side of his mouth until he felt a sharp stab of pain, then tasted blood. Concentrate, he told himself. Step back from that chasm. Concentrate, or you'll die. And not just you, but also your squad. They trust you to get them out of this. You've got to keep earning that trust. He drew a deep breath through his nostrils, then turned to one side and spat a mouthful of blood. He stared down at the red-slicked cobble. 'There,' he hissed. 'It's easy to look at it, isn't it?'
He heard footsteps and looked up to see Hedge and Fiddler arrive. Both men wore troubled expressions.
'You all right, Sarge?' Fiddler asked quietly. Behind the two saboteurs, Mallet approached, his gaze calculating and fixed on Whiskeyjack's white, sweat-soaked face.
The sergeant grimaced. 'We're behind schedule. How much longer?'
Their faces smeared with white dust and sweat, the two men looked at each other, then Hedge answered, 'Three hours.'
'We decided on seven mines,' Fiddler said. 'Four Sparkers, two Flamers and one Cusser.'
'Will that bring down some of these buildings?' Whiskeyjack asked, avoiding Mallet's eyes.
'Sure. No better way to block an intersection.' Fiddler grinned at his companion.
'You got one in particular you want dropped?' Hedge enquired.
'The estate behind you is an alchemist's.'
'Right,' Hedge said. 'That should light the sky all right.'
'You've got two and a half hours,' Whiskeyjack said. 'Then it's on to the Majesty Hill crossroads.'
Mallet stepped close. 'Another headache?' he asked softly.
Whiskeyjack closed his eyes, then gave a sharp nod.
The healer raised a hand and passed it over the sergeant's brow. 'Just easing it a little,' he said.
The sergeant grinned ruefully. 'This is getting old, Mallet. You're even using the same words.' A cool numbness flowed through his thoughts.
Mallet's face was drawn. He lowered his hand. 'When we have time I'll find the source, Whiskeyjack.'
'Right.' The sergeant smiled. 'When we have time.'
'Hope Kal and Quick are doing OK,' Mallet said, turning to watch the street traffic. 'You sent Sorry off?'
'Yes. We're on our own. They know where to find us, all three of them.' He glanced up at the estate window. The man with the red hands was still there, though now he was studying the distant rooftops. A cloud of dust rose between them, and Whiskeyjack returned his attention to the city map, where every major intersection, the barracks and Majesty Hill had been circled in red. 'Mallet?'
'Sarge?'
'Bit the inside of my cheek again.'
The healer stepped close, once more raising his hand.
Crokus Younghand strode south on Trallit's Walk. The first signs of the upcoming Gedderone Fête had appeared. Dyed banners hung from clothes-lines over the street, painted flowers and strips of bark framed doorways, and bushels of dried weeds had been tacked to walls at every crossing.
Outlanders already filled the streets, Gadrobi herders, Rhivi traders, Catlin weavers – a mob of sweaty, shouting, excited people. Animal smells mixed with human, making the narrower alleys so redolent as to be almost impassable, which in turn crowded the main thoroughfares even more.
In past years Crokus had revelled in the celebration, pushing through the midnight crowds and
filling his own pockets by emptying those around him. During the Fête, worries of the Malazan Empire's exploits in the far north disappeared for a time. His uncle always smiled at that, saying the turn of the season gave the efforts of humanity their proper perspective. 'The mewling, petty acts,' he'd say, 'of a short-lived and shortsighted species, Crokus, can do nothing to mar the Great Cycles of Life.'
As he walked home Mammot's words returned to him now. He had always looked upon his uncle as a wise, if slightly ineffectual, old man. Increasingly, however, he found himself troubled by Mammot's observations.
Celebrating Gedderone's Rite of Spring shouldn't be an excuse to avoid the pressures of reality. It wasn't just a harmless escape: it was a means of delaying the probable and making it inevitable. We could dance in the streets all year long, he scowled to himself, to a thousand Great Cycles, and with the same certainty reserved for the coming and going of seasons the Malazan Empire would march through our gates. They'd end the dance with the edge of a sword, being industrious, disciplined people, impatient with useless expenditures of energy – grimly short-sighted.
He came to a tenement and, nodding at the pipe-smoking old woman sitting on the steps, went inside. The hallway was empty, the usual crowd of children no doubt outside playing in the streets, and a calming domestic murmur drifted out from behind closed doors. He climbed the creaking staircase to the first floor.
Outside Mammot's door the scholar's pet winged monkey hovered, scratching and pulling desperately at the latch. It ignored Crokus until he arrived to push it aside, then it squealed and flew in circles around his head.
'Being a pain again, eh?' Crokus said to the creature, waving a hand as it flew too close and ended up snarled in his hair. Tiny human-like hands gripped his scalp. 'All right, Moby,' he said, relenting, and opened the door.