The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (219 page)

Gruntle returned his attention to Sunset Gate. There were no guards in sight, and little in the way of traffic. The two huge wooden doors hung ajar and looked not to have been closed in a long time. The captain’s mood soured even further. He slowed his horse until the carriage drew alongside him.

‘We’re passing right through, right?’ Stonny asked. ‘Straight through to Sunrise Gate, right?’

‘So I have advised,’ Gruntle said.

‘What’s the point of our long experience if the master won’t heed our advice? Answer me that, Gruntle!’

The captain simply shrugged. No doubt Keruli could hear every word, and no doubt Stonny knew that.

They approached the arched entrance. The avenue within quickly narrowed to a tortuous alley buried beneath the gloom of the flanking buildings’ upper levels, which projected outward until they almost touched overhead. Gruntle moved ahead of the carriage again. Mangy chickens scattered from their path, but the fat, black rats in the gutters only momentarily paused in their feasting on rotting rubbish to watch the carriage wheels slip past.

‘We’ll be scraping sides in a moment,’ Harllo said.

‘If we can manage Twistface Passage, we’ll be all right.’

‘Aye, but that’s a big if, Gruntle. Mind you, there’s enough that passes for grease on these walls…’

The alley narrowed ahead to the chokepoint known as Twistface Passage. Countless trader wagons had gouged deep grooves in both walls. Broken spokes and torn fittings littered the cobbles. The neighbourhood had a wreckers’ mentality, Gruntle well knew. Any carriage trapped in the Passage was free salvage, and the locals weren’t averse to swinging swords if their claims were contested. Gruntle had only spilled blood here once, six, seven years back. A messy night, he recalled. He and his guards had depopulated half a tenement block of cut-throats and thugs in those dark, nightmarish hours before they’d managed to back the wagon out of the passage, remove the wheels, lay rollers and manhandle their way through.

He did not want a repetition.

The hubs scraped a few times as they passed through the choke-point, but then, with a swearing Stonny and a grinning Harllo ducking beneath sodden clothes hanging from a line, they were clear and into the square beyond.

No deliberate intent created Wu’s Closet Square. The open space was born of the happenstance convergence of thirteen streets and alleys of various breadth. The inn to which they all once led no longer existed, having burned down a century or so ago, leaving a broad, uneven expanse of flagstones and cobbles that had, unaccountably, acquired the name of Wu’s Closet.

‘Take Mucosin Street, Stonny,’ Gruntle directed, gesturing towards the wide avenue on the east side of the square.

‘I remember well enough,’ she growled. ‘Gods, the stink!’

A score of urchins had discovered their arrival, and now trailed the carriage like flightless vultures, their dirty, pocked faces closed and all too serious. None spoke.

Still in the lead, Gruntle walked his horse into Mucosin Street. He saw a few faces peer out from grimy windows, but there was no other traffic.
Not here … not ahead. This isn’t good.

‘Captain,’ Harllo called.

Gruntle did not turn. ‘Aye?’

‘Them kids … they’ve just vanished.’

‘Right.’ He loosened his Gadrobi cutlasses. ‘Load your crossbow, Harllo.’

‘Already done.’

I know, but why not announce it anyway.

Twenty paces ahead three figures stepped into the street. Gruntle squinted. He recognized the tall woman in the middle. ‘Hello, Nektara. I see you’ve expanded your holdings.’

The scar-faced woman smiled. ‘Why, it’s Gruntle. And Harllo. And who else? Oh, would that be Stonny Menackis? No doubt as unpleasant as ever, my dear, though I still lay down my heart at your feet.’

‘Unwise,’ Stonny drawled. ‘I never step lightly.’

Nektara’s smile broadened. ‘And you do make that heart race, love. Every time.’

‘What’s the toll?’ Gruntle asked, drawing his mount to a halt ten paces from the woman and her two silent bodyguards.

Nektara’s plucked brows rose. ‘Toll? Not this time, Gruntle. We’re still in Garno’s holdings – we’ve been granted passage. We’re simply here by way of escort.’

‘Escort?’

The sound of the carriage’s shutters clattering open made the captain turn. He saw his master’s hand appear, then languidly wave him over.

Gruntle dismounted. He reached the carriage’s side door, peered in to see Keruli’s round, pale face.

‘Captain, we are to meet with this city’s … rulers.’

‘The king and his Council? Why—’

A soft laugh interrupted him. ‘No, no. Saltoan’s
true
rulers. At great expense, and through extraordinary negotiation, a gathering of all the hold-masters and mistresses has been convened, to whom I shall make address this night. You have leave to permit the escort just offered. I assure you, all is well.’

‘Why didn’t you explain all this earlier?’

‘I was not certain that the negotiations were successful. The matter is complex, for it is the masters and mistresses who have asked for … assistance. I, in turn, must endeavour to earn their confidence, to the effect that I represent the most efficacious agent to provide said assistance.’

You? Then who in Hood’s name are you?
‘I see. All right, then, trust these criminals if you like, but I’m afraid we’ll not be sharing your faith.’

‘Understood, Captain.’

Gruntle returned to his horse. Collecting the reins, he faced Nektara. ‘Lead on.’

*   *   *

Saltoan was a city with two hearts, their chambers holding different hues of blood but both equally vile and corrupt. Seated with his back to the wall of the low-ceilinged, crowded tavern, Gruntle looked out with narrowed eyes on a motley collection of murderers, extortionists and thugs whose claim to power was measured in fear.

Stonny leaned against the wall to the captain’s left, Harllo sharing the bench on his right. Nektara had dragged her chair and a small, round table close to Stonny. Thick coils of smoke rose from the hookah before the hold-mistress, wreathing her knife-kissed features in the cloying, tarry fumes. With the hookah’s mouthpiece in her left hand, her other hand was on Stonny’s leather-clad thigh.

Keruli stood in the centre of the room, facing the majority of the crimelords and ladies. The short man’s hands were clasped above his plain grey silk belt, his cloak of black silk shimmering like molten obsidian. A strange, close-fitting cap covered his hairless pate, its style reminiscent of that worn by figures found among Darujhistan’s oldest sculptures and in equally ancient tapestries.

He had begun his speech in a voice soft and perfectly modulated. ‘I am pleased to be present at this auspicious gathering. Every city has its secret veils, and I am honoured by this one’s select parting. Of course I realize that many of you might see me as cut from the same cloth as your avowed enemy, but I assure you this is not the case. You have expressed your concern as regards the influx of priests of the Pannion Domin into Saltoan. They speak of cities newly come under the divine protection of the Pannion Seer’s cult, and offer to the common people tales of laws applied impartially to all citizens, of rights and enscripted privileges, of the welcome imposition of order in defiance of local traditions and manners. They sow seeds of discord among your subjects – a dangerous precedent, indeed.’

Murmurs of agreement followed from the masters and mistresses. Gruntle almost smiled at the mannered decorum among these street-bred killers. Glancing over, he saw, his brows rising, Nektara’s hand plunged beneath the leather folds of Stonny’s leggings at the crotch. Stonny’s face was flushed, a faint smile on her lips, her eyes almost closed.
Queen of Dreams, no wonder nine-tenths of the men in this room are panting, not to mention drinking deep from their cups of wine.
He himself reached for his tankard.

‘A wholesale slaughter,’ one of the mistresses growled. ‘Every damned one of them priests should be belly-smiling, that’s the only way to deal with this, I say.’

‘Martyrs to the faith,’ Keruli responded. ‘Such a direct attack is doomed to fail, as it has in other cities. This conflict is one of information, lords and ladies, or, rather, misinformation. The priests are conducting a campaign of deception. The Pannion Domin, for all its imposition of law and order, is a tyranny, characterized by extraordinary levels of cruelty to its people. No doubt you have heard tales of the Tenescowri, the Seer’s army of the dispossessed and the abandoned – all that you may have heard is without exaggeration. Cannibals, rapers of the dead—’

‘Children of the Dead Seed.’ One man spoke up, leaning forward. ‘It is true? Is it even possible? That women should descend onto battlefields and soldiers whose corpses are not yet cold…’

Keruli’s nod was sombre. ‘Among the Tenescowri’s youngest generation of followers … aye, there are the Children of the Dead Seed. Singular proof of what is possible.’ He paused, then continued, ‘The Domin possesses its sanctified faithful, the citizens of the original Pannion cities, to whom all the rights and privileges the priests speak of applies. No-one else can acquire that citizenship. Non-citizens are less than slaves, for they are the subjects – the
objects
– of every cruelty conceivable, without recourse to mercy or justice. The Tenescowri offers their only escape, the chance to match the inhumanity inflicted on them. The citizens of Saltoan, should the Domin subjugate this city, will be one and all cast from their homes, stripped of all possessions, denied food, denied clean water. Savagery will be their only possible path, as followers sworn into the Tenescowri.

‘Masters and mistresses, we must fight this war with the weapon of truth, the laying bare of the lies of the Pannion priests. This demands a very specific kind of organization, of dissemination, of crafted rumours and counter-intelligence. Tasks at which you all excel, my friends. The city’s commonalty must themselves drive the priests from Saltoan. They must be guided to that decision, to that cause, not with fists and knouts, but with words.’

‘What makes you so sure that will work?’ a master demanded.

‘You have no choice but to make it work,’ Keruli replied. ‘To fail is to see Saltoan fall to the Pannions.’

Keruli continued, but Gruntle was no longer listening. His eyes, half shut, studied the man who had hired them. An intermediary had brokered the contract in Darujhistan. Gruntle’s first sight of the master was the morning outside Worry Gate, at the rendezvous, arriving on foot, robed as he was now. The carriage was delivered scant moments after him, of local hire. Keruli had quickly entered it and from then on Gruntle had seen and spoken with his master but twice on this long, wearying journey.

A mage, I’d concluded. But now, I think, a priest. Kneeling before which god, I wonder? No obvious signs. That itself is telling enough, I suppose. There’s nothing obvious about Keruli, except maybe the bottomless coin-chest backing his generosity. Any new temples in Darujhistan lately? Can’t recall – oh, that one in Gadrobi District. Sanctified to Treach, though why anyone would be interested in worshipping the Tiger of Summer is beyond me—

‘—killings.’

‘Been quiet these two nights past, though.’

The masters and mistresses were speaking amongst themselves. Keruli’s attention was nevertheless keen, though he said nothing.

Blinking, Gruntle eased slightly straighter on the bench. He leaned close to Harllo. ‘What was that about killings?’

‘Unexplained murders for four nights running, or something like that. A local problem, though I gather it’s past.’

The captain grunted, then settled back once again, trying to ignore the cool sweat now prickling beneath his shirt.
They made good time, well ahead of us – that carriage moved with preternatural speed. But it would never have managed Saltoan’s streets. Too wide, too high. Must have camped in Waytown. A score of paces from Sunrise Gate … Proof of your convictions, friend Buke?

*   *   *

‘I was bored out of my mind, what do you think?’ Stonny poured herself another cup of wine. ‘Nektara managed to alleviate that, and – if all those sweating hairy faces were any indication – not just for me. You’re all pigs.’

‘Wasn’t us on such public display,’ Gruntle said.

‘So what? You didn’t all have to watch, did you? What if it’d been a baby on my hip and my tit bared?’

‘If that,’ Harllo said, ‘I would have positively
stared.
’

‘You’re disgusting.’

‘You misunderstand me, dearest. Not your tit – though that would be a fine sight indeed – but you with a baby! Hah, a baby!’

Stonny threw him a sneer.

They were sitting in a back room in the tavern, the leavings of a meal on the table between them.

‘In any case,’ Gruntle said, sighing, ‘that meeting will last the rest of the night, and come the morning our master will be the only one among us privileged to catch up on his sleep – in the comfy confines of his carriage. We’ve got rooms upstairs with almost-clean beds and I suggest we make use of them.’

‘That would be to actually sleep, dearest Stonny,’ Harllo explained.

‘Rest assured I’ll bar the door, runt.’

‘Nektara has a secret knock, presumably.’

‘Wipe that grin off your face or I’ll do it for you, Harllo.’

‘How come you get all the fun, anyway?’

She grinned. ‘Breeding, mongrel. What I got and you ain’t got.’

‘Education, too, huh?’

‘Precisely.’

A moment later, the door swung open and Keruli entered.

Gruntle leaned back in his chair and eyed the priest. ‘So, have you succeeded in recruiting the city’s thugs, murderers and extortionists to your cause?’

‘More or less,’ Keruli replied, striding over to pour himself some wine. ‘War, alas,’ he sighed, ‘must be fought on more than one kind of battlefield. The campaign will be a long one, I fear.’

‘Is that why we’re headed to Capustan?’

The priest’s gaze settled on Gruntle for a moment, then he turned away. ‘I have other tasks awaiting me there, Captain. Our brief detour here in Saltoan is incidental, in the great scheme of things.’