I can get them out. Yes! And, all at once, he knew the truth of that, knew that killing would silence those cursed flies. Swinging round, he pitched forward, hands lifting, and fast-marched towards the drunken fool.
Who looked up at the last moment, in time to meet those terrible knuckles.
*
Krute of Talient slowed as he approached the recessed entrance to the tenement where he now lived. Someone was standing in the shadows, blocking the door. He halted ten paces away. ‘That was good work,’ he said. ‘You was behind me most of the way, making me think you wasn’t good at all, but now here you are.’
‘Hello, Krute.’
At that voice Krute started, then leaned forward, trying to pierce the gloom. Nothing but a shape, but it was, he concluded, the right shape. ‘Gods below, I never thought you’d come back. Do you have any idea what’s happened since you vanished?’
‘No. Why don’t you tell me?’
Krute grinned. ‘I can do that, but not out here.’
‘You once lived in a better neighbourhood, Krute.’
He watched Rallick Nom step out from the alcove and his grin broadened. ‘You ain’t changed at all. And yes, I’ve known better times – and I hate to say it, but you’re to blame, Rallick.’
The tall, gaunt assassin turned to study the tenement building. ‘You live here? And it’s my fault?’
‘Come on,’ Krute said, ‘let’s get inside. Top floor, of course, an alley corner – easy to the roof, dark as Hood’s armpit. You’ll love it.’
A short time later they sat in the larger of the two rooms, a scarred table between them on which sat a stubby candle with a badly smoking wick, and a clay jug of sour ale. The two assassins held tin cups, both of which leaked.
Since pouring the ale, Krute had said nothing, but now he grunted in amused surprise. ‘I just thought of something. You showing up, alive and hale, has just done what Krafar couldn’t do. We had a cult, Rallick Nom, worshipping the memory of you. Krafar outlawed it in the Guild, then tried to eradicate it – forced us deeper. Not deep enough for me – I’m under suspicion and they’ve gone and isolated me, like I was already dead. Old contacts . . . look right through me, Rallick. It’s been damned hard.’
‘Krafar?’
‘Seba, Talo’s brood. In the squabble over who was gonna take over after Vorcan, he’s the one got through unscathed – still breathing, I mean. The Guild’s decimated, Rallick. Infighting, lots of good killers getting disgusted and just up and leaving. Down to Elingarth, mostly, with a few to Black Coral, if you can believe that. Even heard rumours that some went to Pale, to join the Malazan Claws.’
Rallick held up a red-stained hand. ‘A moment, damn you. What idiot decided on a cult?’
Krute shrugged. ‘Just sort of happened, Rallick. Not really worship – that was the wrong word. It’s more like a . . . a philosophy. A philosophy of assassination. No magic, for one. Poisons, lots of poisons. And otataral dust if we can get it. But Seba Krafar wants to take us back to all that magic, even though you made it obvious which way was the better one, the surer one. The man’s stubborn – it’s in the blood with them, eh?’ Krute slapped the table, momentarily knocking over the candle, which he hastened to right before the paltry flame went out. ‘Can’t wait to see Krafar’s face when you walk in—’
‘You will have to,’ Rallick replied. ‘Something else, friend. You don’t say a word, to anyone.’
Krute smiled knowingly. ‘You plan on an ambush, don’t you? You, stepping over Krafar’s body, to take mastery of the Guild. And you need to make plans – and I can help you there, tell you the ones sure to be loyal to you, sure to back you—’
‘Be quiet,’ Rallick said. ‘There’s something you need to know.’
‘What?’
‘The night I disappeared, recall it?’
‘Of course.’
‘Someone else vanished that night too.’
Krute blinked. ‘Well, yes—’
‘And now I am back.’
‘You are.’
Rallick drank down a mouthful of ale. Then another.
Krute stared, then swore. ‘Her, too?’
‘Yes.’
Draining his cup, Krute quickly refilled it, then leaned back. ‘Gods below. Poor Krafar. You working with her on this, Rallick?’
‘No.’
‘Not that she’d need help—’
‘I don’t know where she is, Krute. I don’t know what she’s planning. If anything. I don’t know, and can’t guess, and neither can you.’
‘So, what do we do, Rallick?’
‘You change nothing, stay with your routine.’
Krute snorted. ‘What routine? Slow starvation?’
‘I have coin, enough for both of us. Hidden here and there.’ Rallick rose. ‘I assume the rooftops are quiet these nights.’
‘Except for thieves, coming out like mice with not an owl to be seen – like I said, the Guild’s on its knees.’
‘All right. I will return before dawn. For now, Krute, we do nothing.’
‘I’m good at that.’
Rallick grimaced, but said nothing as he turned to the window and unlocked the shutters.
He didn’t need to say anything, as far as Krute was concerned. True enough, Krute was good at doing nothing. But Rallick Nom wasn’t. He wasn’t good at that at all. Oh, this is going to be fun, isn’t it?
The murmurings chased him down the alley, guttural noises issuing from a score of fanged mouths, tongues wiggling, black lips lifting clear. The glimmer and flash of rolling eyes in the gloom. Looking back over one shoulder, Iskaral Pust, Magus and High Priest of Shadow, bhokaral god, made faces at his worshippers. He cursed them in twitters. He waggled his tongue. He bared his teeth and bulged his eyes.
And did this frighten them off? Why, no! The very opposite, if such madness could be believed. They scrabbled ever closer, still clutching their loot from hapless victims in the markets, their faces writhing in constipated anguish or something equally dire. Infuriating!
‘Never mind, never mind them. I have tasks, missions, deeds of great import. I have stuff to do.’
And so he hurried on, kicking through rubbish, listening to the creatures behind him kicking through the same rubbish. He paused at each alley mouth, shot quick glances up and down the streets, then darted across to the next opening. In his wake, the bhokarala gathered in a clump at the alley mouths, looked one way, looked the other, and then tore off in pursuit.
A short time later he skidded to a halt, the sound of his heels echoed a moment later by countless claws gouging cobblestones. Iskaral Pust pulled at his hair and whirled. The crouching bhokarala all had their knobby fists up to either side of their tiny skulls.
‘Leave me be!’ he hissed.
They hissed back at him.
He spat.
And was sprayed with gobs of foul saliva.
He beat at his head.
They pounded their own heads with fistfuls of jewellery and globes of fruit.
Eyes narrowing (eyes narrowing), Iskaral Pust slowly stood on one leg. Watched the bhokarala stand tottering on single legs.
‘Gods below,’ he muttered, ‘they’ve all gone entirely insane.’
Spinning round once more, he glared across at the squat, octagonal temple fifty paces down the street to his right.
Its walls were a chaotic collection of niches and misshapen angles, a veritable plethora of shadows. Iskaral Pust sighed. ‘My new abode. A modest hovel, but it suits my needs. I plan to do it up, of course, when there’s time. Oh, you like the gold place settings and silk napkins? Just something I threw together, mind, but it pleases me well enough. Spiders? No, no spiders round here, oh, no. Simply not allowed. Ghastly creatures, yes, disgusting. Never bathe, don’t you know. Ghastly.’
Wordless singsong at his back.
‘Oh, don’t mind them. My ex-wife’s relations – if I’d have known, well of course I’d never have taken the leap, if you know what I mean.
But that’s how it is – get married and you end up saddled with the whole family menagerie. And even though she’s gone now, nothing but a dried-out husk with her legs sticking up in the air, well, I admit to feeling responsible for her hapless kin. No, no, she looked nothing like them. Worse, actually. I confess to a momentary insanity. The curse of being young, I suppose. When did we get married? Why, four, five years ago now, yes. Only seems like a lifetime and I’m glad, so glad, to be done with it now. More wine, sweetness?’
Smiling, Iskaral Pust set out for the temple.
Shadowed steps, leading to a shadowed landing beneath a pitted lintel stone; oh, this was all very well done. The twin doors were huge, very nearly gates, panelled in polished bronze moulded into an enormous image of charging Hounds. Delicious touch! Lovingly rendered, all that snarling terror.
‘Yes, the doors were my idea, by my own hand in fact – I dabble. Sculpture, tapestry, portraiture, caricature, potterature – pottery, I mean, I was simply using the technical term. See this funerary urn, exquisite, yes. She’s inside. Yes, my beloved departed, my belovedly departed, my blessedly departed, hee hee – oh, folding up her limbs was no easy task, let me tell you, quite a tight fit. I know, hard to believe she’s in there, in an urn barely larger than a jar of wine. I have many skills, yes, as befits the most glorious mortal servant of High House Shadow. But I’ll tell you this, she fought hard all the way in!’
He crouched in front of the bronze doors, glowering into the gaping jaws of the Hounds. Reached up one knuckled hand, and rapped Baran’s nose.
A faint, hollow reverberation.
‘I knew it,’ he said, nodding.
The bhokarala fidgeted on the steps, knocking each other on their snouts, then sagely nodding.
The door to the left opened a crack. A hood-shrouded head poked out at about chest height, the face peering up vague and blurry. ‘We don’t want any,’ said a thin, whispery woman’s voice.
‘You don’t want any what?’
‘They’ll soil the furniture.’
Iskaral Pust scowled. ‘She’s insane. Why is everyone I meet insane? Listen, wretched acolyte, step aside. Scrape your pimply forehead on the tiles and kiss my precious feet.
I am none other than Iskaral Pust.’
‘Who?’
‘Iskaral Pust! High Priest of Shadow. Magus of the High House. Our god’s most trusted, favoured, valued servant! Now, move aside, let me in! I claim this temple by right of seniority, by right of rightful hierarchy, by right of natural superiority! I will speak with the High Priestess immediately! Wake her up, clean her up, prop her up – whatever you need to do to get her ready for me.’
The door creaked back and all at once the acolyte straightened, revealing herself to be ridiculously tall. She swept her hood back to display an exquisitely moulded face surrounded by long, straight, rust-red hair. In a deep, melodic voice she said, ‘I am High Priestess Sordiko Qualm of the Darujhistan Temple of Shadow.’
‘Ah, a master of disguise. Just like me.’
‘Yes, I can see that.’
‘You can?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, isn’t that funny.’ He tilted his head. ‘Not funny at all.’ Then smiled winningly up at her. ‘And what do you think I am, dear?’
‘Some sort of sunburned toad, I believe.’
‘Just what I want you to think. Now, invite me in, before
I lose my temperature.’
‘Temper, you mean.’
‘No, temperature. It’s getting chilly.’
Her amber eyes shifted to the steps behind him. ‘What of your offspring?’
‘Ha ha. Offspring they are not. Never mind them. They can weep, they can whimper, they can grovel, they can—’
‘Right now they are all waving their hands about in perfect mimicry of you, Iskaral Pust. Why would they do that?’
‘Forget them, I said.’
Shrugging, she stepped back.
Iskaral Pust scrambled inside.
Sordiko Qualm shut the door and locked it. ‘Now, you claim to be a High Priest. From where?’
‘Seven Cities, the secret monastery.’
‘What monastery?’
‘The one that’s a secret, of course. You don’t need to know and I don’t need to tell you. Show me to my chambers, I’m tired. And hungry. I want a seven-course supper, plenty of expensive, suitably delicate wine, and nubile female servants eager to appease my delighted whim.’
‘I cannot, alas, think of a single servant here who would touch your whim, as you so quaintly call it. As for the rest, let it not be said I am remiss in according fellow seneschals every courtesy as befits a guest of my temple.’
‘Your temple, is it?’ Iskaral Pust sniggered. ‘Not for long, but say nothing at the moment. Leave her such pathetic delusions. Smile, yes, and nod – and how in the Abyss did they get inside?’
The bhokarala were now crowding behind the High Priestess, heads bobbing.
She swung about. ‘I don’t know. There are wards . . . should be impossible. Most disturbing indeed.’
‘Never mind,’ Iskaral Pust said. ‘Lead on, underling.’
One fine eyebrow lifted. ‘You claim to be the Magus of High House Shadow – that is quite an assertion. Have you proof?’
‘Proof? I am what I am and that is that. Pray, pray. Pray, I mean, do pray and perchance all manner of revelation will afflict you, humble you, reduce you to wondering adoration. Oh,’ he added, ‘wait until she does just that! Oh, the song will change then, won’t it just! Never mind servants servicing my whim, it will be this glorious woman!’
She stared at him a moment longer, then, in a whirl of robes, swung about and gestured that he follow. The grace she no doubt sought was fouled almost immediately as she had to kick and stumble her way through the squall of bhokarala, each of which bared teeth in rollicking but silent laughter. She shot a glance back at Iskaral Pust, but not, he was certain, in time to see his noiseless laugh.
Into the sanctum they went.
‘Not long,’ Iskaral Pust whispered. ‘Those doors need paint, yes. Not long now at all . . .’
‘Gods below,’ the guard gasped, ‘you’re bigger than a Barghast!’
Mappo Runt ducked his head, embarrassed that he had so shocked this passing watchman. The guard had staggered back, clutching momentarily at his chest – yes, he was past his prime, but it seemed that the gesture had been just that, a gesture, and the Trell’s sudden dread that he had inadvertently sent the first citizen he met stumbling through Hood’s Gate slowly gave way to shame. ‘I am sorry, sir,’ he now said. ‘I thought to ask you a question – nothing more.’
The guard lifted his lantern higher between them. ‘Are you a demon, then?’
‘You regularly encounter demons on your patrols? A truly extraordinary city.’
‘Of course not. I mean, it’s rare.’
‘Ah. I am a Trell, from the plains and hills east of Nemil, which lies west of the Jhag Odhan in Seven Cities.’
‘What, then, was your question?’
‘I seek the Temple of Burn, sir.’
‘I think it best that I escort you there, Trell. You have been keeping to the alleys this night, haven’t you?’
‘I thought it best.’
‘Rightly so. And you and I shall do the same. In any case, you are in the Gadrobi District, while the temple you want is in the Daru District. We have some way to go.’
‘You are very generous with your time, sir.’
The guard smiled. ‘Trell, you plunging into any crowded street is likely to cause a riot. By taking charge of you, I hope to prevent that. Thus, not generous. Simply doing my duty.’
Mappo bowed again. ‘I thank you even so.’
‘A moment, while I douse this light, then follow me – closely, please.’
The fete’s celebrants in this quarter seemed to be concentrated in the main streets, bathed in the blue glow of the gas lamps. It was not difficult to avoid such places with the watch
man guiding him down narrow, twisting and turning alleys and lanes. And those few figures they encountered quickly slunk away upon seeing the guard’s uniform (and, perhaps, Mappo’s massive bulk).
Until, behind a decrepit tavern of some sort, they came upon two corpses. Swearing under his breath, the guard crouched down beside one, fumbling to relight his lantern. ‘This is becoming a problem,’ he muttered, as he cranked the wick high and a golden glow filled the area, revealing filth-smeared cobblestones and the gleam of pooled blood. Mappo watched as he rolled over the first body. ‘This one’s a plain beating. Fists and boots – I knew him, poor man. Losing a battle with spirits . . . well, the battle’s over now, Beru bless his soul.’ He moved on to the next one. ‘Ah, yes. Hood take the one that did this – four others just the same. That we know of. We still cannot fathom the weapon he uses . . . perhaps a shovel handle. Gods, but it’s brutal.’
‘Sir,’ ventured Mappo, ‘it seems you have more pressing tasks this night. Directions—’ ‘No, I will take you, Trell. Both have been dead for a couple of bells now – a little longer won’t matter. I think it’s time,’ he added, straightening, ‘for a mage or a priest to be brought into this.’
‘I wish you success,’ Mappo said.
‘I can never figure it,’ the guard said as he led the Trell onward. ‘It’s as if peace is not good enough – someone needs to crawl out of the pit with blood dripping from his hands. Delivering strife. Misery.’ He shook his head. ‘Could I but shake reason into such abominations. There’s no need. No one wants them and no one wants what they do. What’s needed? That’s what I wish I knew. For them, I mean. What do they need, what do they want? Is it just that sweet sip of power? Domination? The sense of control, over who lives and who dies? Gods, I wish I knew what fills their brains.’
‘No, sir,’ said Mappo, ‘be glad you do not. Even the beasts succumb to such aggression. Killers among your kind, among my kind, are just that – the savagery of beasts mated with intelligence, or what passes for intelligence. They dwell in a murky world, sir, confused and fearful, stained dark with envy and malice. And in the end, they die as they lived. Frightened and alone, with every memory of power revealed as illusion, as farce.’