Inside, Mammot was preparing herbal tea. Without turning he asked, 'Tea, Crokus? And as for that little monster who's probably riding your head, tell him I've had just about enough of him today.'
Moby sniffed indignantly and flapped over to the scholar's desk, where he landed with a belly-flop, scattering papers to the floor. He chirped.
Sighing, Mammot turned with the tray in his hands. His watery eyes fixed on Crokus. 'You look tired, lad.'
Crokus slumped into the less ragged of the two chairs occupying the room. 'Yes. Tired, and in a dark mood.'
'My tea will do its usual wonders,' Mammot said, smiling.
Crokus grunted, not looking up. 'Maybe. Maybe not.'
Mammot stepped forward and laid the tray on a small table between the chairs. He sat down with a soft groan. 'As you know, I possess few moral qualms about your chosen profession, Crokus, since I question rights of any kind, including ownership. Even privileges demand responsibility, as I've always said, and the privilege of ownership demands that the owner be responsible for protecting his or her claim. My only concern, of course, is for risks you must perforce take.' Mammot leaned forward and poured tea. 'Lad, a thief must be sure of one thing – his concentration. Distractions are dangerous.'
Crokus glanced up at his uncle. 'What have you been writing all these years?' he asked suddenly, gesturing at the desk.
Surprised, Mammot picked up his cup and sat back. 'Well! A genuine interest in education, then? Finally? As I've said before, Crokus, you possess the intelligence to go so far. And while I'm but a humble man of letters, my word will open to you many doors in the city. Indeed, even the City Council is not beyond your reach, if you would choose such a direction. Discipline, lad, the very same requirement you've mastered as a thief.'
A crafty expression glittered in Crokus's gaze as it held on Mammot. 'How long would it take,' he asked quietly, 'to become known in such circles?'
'Well,' said Mammot, 'it is the learning that matters, of course.'
'Of course.' In Crokus's mind, however, there rose the image of a sleeping maiden.
Mammot blew on his drink. 'With full-time studies, and your youthful eagerness, I would hazard a year, perhaps more, perhaps less. Is there a need for haste?'
'Just youthful eagerness, I suppose. In any case, you haven't answered me yet. What are you writing, Uncle?'
'Ah.' Mammot glanced at his desk, raising an eyebrow at Moby, who had opened an inkwell and was drinking from it. 'The history of Darujhistan,' he said. 'I am just beginning the fifth volume, which opens with the reign of Ektalm, second to last of the Tyrant Kings.'
Crokus blinked. 'Who?'
Smiling, Mammot sipped his tea. 'Usurper of Letastte and succeeded by his daughter, Sandenay, who brought on the Rising Time and with it the end of the age of tyrants.'
'Oh, right.'
'Crokus, if you're serious about all this, Darujhistan's history is where we'll begin in the lessons, but that doesn't mean starting at volume five. It means starting at the very beginning.'
Crokus nodded. 'Born on a rumour,' he said.
At the desk Moby squawked, then coughed. Mammot shot him a glance, then swung his attention back to Crokus, expression veiled as he replied, 'Yes, lad. Darujhistan was born on a rumour.' He hesitated. 'You've heard that saying elsewhere? Recently?'
'Someone mentioned it,' Crokus said casually. 'Can't recall who, though.' He could, in fact. It had been spoken by the assassin, Rallick Nom.
'Do you know what it means?'
Crokus shook his head.
Mammot leaned back. 'Drink your tea, my lad.' The old man paused, then began, 'In the Early Cycles in this Realm, three great peoples struggled for dominion, none of them human as we would know human. Bowing out early in the struggle were the Forkrul Assail, or the Krussail as they are now known. Not through weakness, but ... well, disinterest. The remaining two peoples warred endlessly. Eventually one fell, for they were a race of individuals, battling as much among themselves as against their racial enemies. They were called the Jaghut, though the term has degenerated these days to Jhag, or Shurl. While losers in the war, they did not disappear entirely – it's said some Jaghut survive to this day, though, thankfully, not on Genabackis.
'So,' Mammot cupped his hands around his tea-cup, 'Darujhistan was born on a rumour. Among the indigenous Gadrobi hill tribes survived the legend that a Jaghut's barrow lay somewhere in the hills. Now, the Jaghut were possessors of great magic, creators of secret Warrens and items of power. Over time the Gadrobi legend made its way beyond the hills, into the Genabackan north and the Catlin south, to kingdoms since crumbled to dust in the east and west. In any case, searchers came to the hills, at first a trickle then hordes – entire tribes led by power-hungry shamans and warlocks. Every hillside was laced with trenches and bore-holes. From the camps and shanty-towns, from the thousands of treasure-seekers arriving each spring, a city was born.'
'Darujhistan,' Crokus said.
'Yes. The barrow was never found, and the rumour has long since dwindled – few are even aware of it these days, and those who are know better than to resume the search.'
'Why?'
Mammot frowned. 'Rarely does a Jaghut construction appear in the hands of a human, but it has happened, and the consequences have inevitably been catastrophic' The old man's frown deepened. 'The lesson is clear for those who would choose to recognize it.'
Crokus thought for a time. 'So the Krussail vanished, the Jhag were defeated. What happened to the third people, then? The ones who won? Why aren't they here instead of us?'
Mammot opened his mouth to reply, then stopped, reconsidering.
Crokus's eyes narrowed. He wondered what Mammot had been about to reveal, and why he'd chosen not to reveal it.
Mammot set down his cup. 'No one is certain what happened to them, Crokus, or how they became what they are today. They exist, sort of, and are known, to all who have faced the Malazan Empire, as the T'lan Imass.'
Sorry pushed through the crowd, struggling to keep the fat man within sight. It was not that he was difficult to follow, but the girl was struggling against a storm within her head, which had been triggered by a single word uttered by Sergeant Whiskeyjack.
Seer.
It had felt as if a dark, compacted thing in her brain had burst open with that word, and now warred against all that surrounded it. Though it had initially come upon her with a force that seemed almost overwhelming, she could now sense its waning. Whatever it fought was winning the battle. Yet, faintly, she thought she could hear the weeping of a child.
'I am Cotillion,' she heard herself murmur, 'Patron of Assassins, known to all as the Rope of Shadow' The weeping grew fainter. 'The Seer is dead.'
A part of her mind cried out at that, while another asked, What Seer?
'I am within, yet apart. I stand at Shadowthrone's side, and he is named Ammanas and he is the Lord of Shadows. I am here as the hand of death.' Sorry smiled and nodded to herself, once again in control. Whatever had challenged that was now gone, once more buried deep inside. The luxury of weeping, of anger, of fear did not belong to her, had never belonged to her.
She drew a deep breath, and her senses narrowed to the task at hand. The fat little man was dangerous. The how and why of this remained to be answered, but every power hissed in alarm each time she caught a glimpse of him amid the crowds. And all that is dangerous, she told herself, must die.
Beneath the Second Tier Wall in the Lakefront, the market along Salt Walk was at its usual frenzied peak. The sour heat, building all day in the cluttered avenues and alleys, was at its height. Sweating, exhausted merchants screamed curses at competitors over the heads of customers. Fights broke out every few minutes in one or another area, the turgid jostle of the crowds pulling the contestants apart long before the arrival of ill-tempered guards.
Squatting on their grass mats, local Rhivi plainsmen called out in their nasal singsong endless descriptions of fine horseflesh. At intersections, Gadrobi h
erders stood at tethering poles surrounded by braying goats and sheep, while others pushed wooden carts burdened with cheeses and clay jugs filled with fermented milk. Daru fishermen walked with spears of smoked fish bobbing above their heads streaming with buzzing flies. Catlin weavers sat behind waist-high fortresses comprised of bolts of brightly dyed cloth. Gredfalan farmers stood in their wagons selling the season's bitter fruits and sweet tubers. Woodsellers forced their ox-drawn wagons through the crowds, their children clinging to the stacked bundles of wood like monkeys. Dark-robed men and women from Callows sang out the clashing claims of their Thousand Sects of D'rek, each holding aloft their sect's particular icon.
Kruppe strode down the market street with a jaunty step, his arms waving about seemingly of their own accord. Such movement, however, was no mere affectation: it disguised the gesturing required for casting spells. As a thief, it appeared that Kruppe's tastes did not demand much. He stole food – fruit and sweets, mostly – and it was to such desires of the palate that he had honed his skills of magic.
As he walked, the chaotic dance of his arms was timed to catch apples flying from baskets, pastries leaping from trays, chocolate-covered cherries plucked from pans, all moving so swiftly as to be no more than blurs dodging bodies in their path. Inside the wide, flopping sleeves of his coat, pockets had been sewn, some large, some tiny. All that entered Kruppe's hands disappeared up his sleeves, tucked into appropriately sized pockets. He strode on, a connoisseur of edible delicacies of a hundred cultures, an expression of sated contentment on his round face.
Eventually, after a long, circuitous route, Kruppe arrived at the Phoenix Inn. He paused on the steps and chatted with a lone thug standing there, removing from a sleeve a glazed honeyball. Then, taking a bite from the sweetmeat, he pushed open the door and disappeared inside.
Half a block down the street, Sorry propped herself against the pitted wall of a tenement and crossed her arms. The fat little man was a wonder. She'd seen enough of his exquisite ballet to recognize him as an Adept. Yet she felt confused, for the mind behind the man's façade hinted at capacities far greater than those he'd shown. Confirmation that here indeed was a dangerous creature.
From where she stood she studied the inn. The man on the steps seemed to be screening everyone entering, but she couldn't detect any gesture that might indicate a thieves' cant. The conversations were brief, usually of mutual recognition. Nevertheless she intended to enter the inn. It was the kind of place Whiskeyjack had sent Kalam and Quick Ben to find – a haunt of thieves, strong-arms and assassins. Why the sergeant wanted to find such a place was a detail that hadn't been shared with her. The wizard and Kalam had suspicions about her, and she sensed that their arguments were swaying Whiskeyjack. If they could, they'd keep her out of everything, but she didn't intend that to happen.
Pushing herself from the wall, Sorry crossed the street and approached the Phoenix Inn. Overhead, the afternoon had waned into a thick, heavy dusk, the smell of rain in the air. As she neared the front steps, the thug's attention focused on her. The man grinned. 'Following Kruppe around, eh?' He wagged his head. 'Girls shouldn't carry swords anyway. Hope you're not planning to go inside. With a sword? Uh, uh. Not unescorted, anyway.'
Sorry stepped back. She glanced up and down the street. The nearest pedestrian was over a street away, heading in the opposite direction. She closed her hands around the edges of her half-cloak and drew it around her waist. 'Let me pass,' she said quietly. How had that fat man spotted her?
The man leaned on the railing. 'All this is just begging for some kind of conversation, friendly-like,' he said. 'So how about you and me go back to the alley. You lay down your sword and I'll be gentle. Otherwise, things could get rough, and what would be the fun of—?'
Sorry's left hand darted out. A dagger flashed between them. The blade entered the man's right eye and then his brain. He jerked back over the rail and fell, landing with a heavy thud beside the steps. Sorry walked up to him and retrieved her dagger. She paused, adjusting the belt that carried her duelling sword, then checked the street. Seeing no one close enough to have noticed anything awry in the deepening gloom, she climbed the steps and entered the inn.
She was stopped before she'd taken her second step, coming face-to-face with a moaning boy hanging upside down. Two rough-looking women were taking turns to swing him back and forth. Every time he tried to reach up to the rope tied to his feet he earned a knock on the head. One of the women grinned at Sorry.
'Hey, now!' the woman said, grasping Sorry's arm as she walked by.
Sorry turned a cold eye on the woman. 'What?'
The woman leaned close, her breath a mist of beer as she whispered, 'You get in trouble, you just call for Irilta and Meese. That's us, right?'
'Thank you.'
Sorry resumed her walk. She'd already seen the fat little man – what had the thug called him? Kruppe. He'd seated himself at a table near the far wall, beneath the gallery. Through the crowded room Sorry saw a space open at the bar, where she might take position and observe. She pushed forward.
Since Kruppe evidently knew of her, she decided to make no effort in hiding her attention. Often, that was exactly the kind of pressure that cracked a man's will. In a war of patience, Sorry smiled inwardly, the mortal is ever at a disadvantage.
Crokus turned the corner and approached the Phoenix Inn. The course Mammot had set for him was intimidating, the education extending far beyond books, to the etiquette of court manners, the functions of various officials, blood-lines and particular quirks among certain dignitaries – but he'd vowed to himself he'd follow it through. His goal was one day to stand before that D'Arle maiden, awaiting a formal introduction.
Something in him mocked the image. There stands Crokus, the scholar, the sophisticated young promise, the thief. It was all too absurd. Yet it dogged him, steeled his resolve. He'd come to it one day soon. Until then, however, there were other matters to attend to, things that needed redressing.
As he came up to the inn's steps he saw a huddled shadow beneath the railing. Cautiously Crokus moved closer.
As Sorry reached the bar the door slammed open on the other side of the room. She turned with everyone else to see a young, black-haired man standing there.
'Someone's murdered Chert!' the man shouted. 'He's been knifed!'
Half a dozen patrons surged to the door, pushing past the young man and disappearing outside.
Sorry faced the bar again. Catching the barman's eye she said, 'Gredfalan ale, please, in a pewter tankard.'
The woman Irilta had called Meese appeared beside her, thumping two broad forearms on the bar as she leaned forward. 'Attend the lady, Scurve,' Meese growled. 'She got taste.'
Meese dipped her head close to Sorry's. 'Good taste all round. Chert was a pig.'
Sorry stiffened. Her hands slipped down beneath her cloak.
'Easy, girl,' Meese said, in a low tone. 'We ain't wagging tongues. Around here, y' take care of yourselves first, and I don't want no knife in my eye. We said we'd take care of you, didn't we?'
The ale arrived, as ordered. Sorry raised a hand and closed it on the tankard's handle. 'You don't want to take care of me, Meese,' she said quietly.
Another person arrived on Meese's other side. Glancing at him, Sorry saw that it was the black-haired youth, his face pale. 'Dammit, Meese,' he hissed, 'I'm having a really bad day.'
Meese chuckled and draped an arm over his shoulders. 'Scurve, serve us up a couple of them Gredfalan ales. Crokus here's earned Darujhistan's best.' Meese turned her head and bent close to Sorry again. 'Next time,' she whispered, 'you don't want to show that kind of breeding. Not around here, anyway.'
Sorry frowned down at her drink. She'd been careless, ordering the city's best. Then she took a mouthful. 'That's fine,' she said. 'Fine indeed.'
Meese grinned, nudging Crokus. 'The lady likes it just fine.'
Crokus leaned forward, offering Sorry a weary but warm smile. From outside came the klaxon of t
he Guard.
Scurve served up the two ales.
Sorry watched Crokus's gaze move down her body, then stop. The youth's smile tightened, his face whitening even more than before. As the tankard was set before him, Crokus averted his eyes and reached for it.
'Pay up before you drink that, Crokus,' Scurve muttered. 'You're getting to be just as bad as Kruppe.'
Crokus reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. As he tried to count them some slipped between his fingers and bounced on the bar. Of the three that fell, two clattered briefly then stopped. The third coin spun, and continued spinning. Sorry's eyes swung to it, as did Scurve's and Meese's. Crokus reached for it, then hesitated. The coin was still spinning, its momentum unchanged.
Sorry stared at the coin, feeling echoes of power slam into her skull like ocean waves. From within, all at once, came an answering surge. Scurve shouted as the coin skidded across the bar, bounced once high into the air, then clattered to a stop directly in front of Crokus.
No one spoke. Beyond their small ring no one else had witnessed the event.
Crokus thrust his hand forward and collected the coin. 'Not this one,' he grated.
'Fine,' Scurve answered, in a similar, hoarse voice. He reached shaking hands to gather in the other coins Crokus had laid on the bar.
Beneath the counter, Sorry brushed her hand against her dagger's hilt and scabbard. It came away wet. So, Crokus had seen the blood. She would have to kill him. Only, her frown deepened, she knew she wouldn't.
'Crokus, my boy!' came a shout from under the gallery.
Meese sneered in that direction. 'The flopping fish himself,' she muttered. 'Kruppe calls, lad.'
Crokus snorted, having returned the coin to his pocket. He picked up his tankard. 'Later, Meese.'
So, she'd found Oponn's man – as easily as that. And he was connected to Kruppe, somehow. This was almost too simple. It made her suspicious.
'A likely lad,' Meese said. 'Me and Irilta, we look out for him, right?'