The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (54 page)

That weapon had come to him after his first battle, found amid a field of dead. He’d still had the chalk of his father’s quarry on his boots then, and a world’s promise stretched out before him on the banners of Empire. The sword had come to him shiny, without even so much as a nick in its honed blade, and he had taken it as his own personal standard.

Whiskeyjack’s gaze lost its focus. His mind had stepped into the gray, muddy tracks of his youth, where he walked the familiar path, lost and blinded by an unidentifiable sorrow.

The door flew open, carrying into the room a gust of steamy air and then Trotts. The Barghast’s coal-dark eyes met the sergeant’s.

Whiskeyjack stood quickly. He went to the bed and retrieved his sword. At
the table the others remained intent on their card game, their only betrayal of anxiety a subtle shifting of chairs. Whiskeyjack pushed past Trotts and closed the door to a crack, through which he looked. Across the street, at the mouth of an alley, two figures crouched, the larger leaning heavily against the other. Whiskeyjack’s breath hissed through his teeth. “Mallet,” he said over his shoulder.

At the table the healer frowned at the two saboteurs, then carefully set down his cards.

The two figures in the alley crossed the street. Whiskeyjack’s hand crept to grip his sword.

“Which?” Mallet asked, as he rearranged the blankets on one of the beds.

“Kalam,” the sergeant replied. The two men reached the door and he swung it wide to let them through, then shut it again. He beckoned at Trotts, who walked over to the curtained window, pulling back a corner to watch the street.

Kalam was pale, sagging against Quick Ben. The assassin’s dark gray shirt was soaked with blood. Mallet moved to help the wizard and together they carried Kalam to the bed. As soon as the healer had him laid out, he waved Quick Ben away and began removing Kalam’s shirt.

Quick Ben shook his head at Whiskeyjack and sat down in the chair Mallet had occupied. “What’s the game?” he asked, picking up Mallet’s cards and frowning as he studied them.

Neither Hedge nor Fiddler replied.

“No idea,” Whiskeyjack said, as he walked over to stand behind Mallet. “They just sit and stare.”

Quick Ben grinned. “Ah, a waiting game, right, Fid?” He leaned back comfortably and stretched out his legs.

Mallet glanced up at the sergeant. “He’ll be down for a while,” the healer said. “The wound is clean, but he’s lost a lot of blood.”

Crouching, Whiskeyjack studied the assassin’s pallid face. Kalam’s gaze remained sharp, focused on the sergeant. “Well?” Whiskeyjack demanded. “What happened?”

Quick Ben answered behind him. “Had a bit of a mage duel out there.”

Kalam nodded in confirmation.

“And?” Whiskeyjack asked, straightening to glare at the wizard.

Quick Ben wilted slightly in his chair. “It went sour. I had to release an Empire demon to get us out alive.”

Everyone in the room went still. At the window Trotts turned and made a tribal warding gesture, tracing the woad lines on his face.

Whiskeyjack’s voice was soft. “It’s loose in the city?”

“No,” the wizard answered. “It’s dead.”

“
Who
did you run into?” Whiskeyjack bellowed, throwing up his hands.

“Not sure exactly,” Quick Ben said quietly. “Whatever it was, it took care of the demon in less than a minute. I heard the death cry when we were only a block away. Assassin mages, Sergeant, coming down out of the sky. Seemed intent on wiping out the city’s Guild.”

Whiskeyjack returned to his chair and dropped into it, the wood complaining beneath him. “From the sky. Tiste Andii.”

“Yes,” Quick Ben muttered. “We thought that. The sorcery had that flavor. Old, dark, and icy cold. Kurald Galain.”

“From what we saw,” Kalam added, “they did a damn good job. No contact established, Sergeant. It was messy up there.”

“So the Moon’s active here.” Whiskeyjack paused, then pounded his fist on the chair’s arm. “Worse, the Moon’s lord is a move ahead of us. He reckoned we’d try to contact the Guild, so what does he do?”

“Takes out the Guild,” Kalam said. “How’s that for arrogance?”

“Whatever arrogance that lord has,” Whiskeyjack said, grimacing, “he’s earned it. I’ll give him that. I wonder how good this city’s Guild Master is—good enough to take on Tiste Andii? Unlikely.”

“And about the other thing,” Quick Ben said. “It worked.”

The sergeant stared at the wizard for half a dozen seconds, then nodded.

“We also ran into Sorry,” Kalam said, wincing as Mallet pressed a hand on his wound. The healer muttered under his breath.

“Oh? I sent her after some fat man she thought was important. How come she ran into you two?”

Quick Ben’s brows had risen. “So she told the truth, then. We don’t know how she found us, but she’d found the man we were looking for—and gave him to us.”

Mallet raised his hand. Where the wound had been there was now a pink scar. Kalam grunted his thanks and sat up.

Whiskeyjack tapped his fingers against the chair’s arm. “If we only knew who was running this damn city, we could try it ourselves.”

The assassin sniffed. “If we start taking out Council members, maybe we’ll flush out the real rulers.”

The sergeant frowned. “Not bad,” he said, rising to his feet. “Work on that. The Moon’s lord knows we’re here, now, with that demon popping up. We’ll have to move fast.”

Fiddler spoke up. “We could blow up Majesty Hall,” he said, smirking at Hedge.

“You’ve got enough munitions to manage that?” Whiskeyjack asked.

Fiddler’s face fell. “Well, uh, we’ve got enough to take out an estate, maybe. But if we pull up some of the mines we planted . . .”

Whiskeyjack sighed. “This is getting absurd. No, we leave things as they are.” He watched the nonexistent card game. It seemed to involve complete immobility. A stand-off. The sergeant’s eyes narrowed. Were they trying to tell him something?

Orange and yellow hues lit the eastern horizon, casting a coppery sheen upon the city’s bricks and cobbles. Apart from the dripping of water the streets were
quiet, though the first emergings of citizenry were minutes away. Soon those farmers who had depleted their supplies of grains, fruits, and root crops would take to their carts and wagons and depart the city. Merchant shops and stalls would open to catch the morning wave of shoppers.

Throughout Darujhistan the Grayfaces prepared to shut the valves feeding gas to the torches lining the major avenues. These figures moved in small groups, gathering at intersections then dispersing with the day’s first bell.

Sorry watched Crokus wearily ascend a tenement’s front steps. She stood half a block down the street, within shadows that seemed reluctant to disappear despite the growing light.

A short while earlier, she’d felt the Empire demon’s death strike her almost physically, deep in her chest. Normally demons fled back to their realm once enough damage had been inflicted on them, enough to sever the links of summoning. But the Korvalah had not been simply cut down, or forcibly dismissed. There’d been a finality to its end that had left her shaken. A death in truth. She still recalled its silent, despairing scream ringing in her head.

All the ambivalence surrounding the Coin Bearer was gone, driven away. She knew now she would kill him. It had to be done, and soon. All that remained before she could do so was the mystery of his actions. To what extent was Oponn using the boy?

She knew he’d seen her in the D’Arles’ garden, just before he’d escaped to the estate’s roof. Seeing the light come on behind the balcony’s sliding doors had clinched her decision to continue following Crokus. The D’Arle family was powerful in Darujhistan. That the boy seemed to be involved in a clandestine love affair with the daughter was an outrageous proposition, yet what else could she conclude? So, the question remained: was Oponn working through the boy directly, insinuating a peculiar influence with the City Council? What powers of influence did this young maiden possess?

Only a matter of position, of possible scandal. Yet what was the political position of Councilman Estraysian D’Arle? Sorry realized that even though she’d learned much of Darujhistan’s political arena she still did not know enough to second-guess Oponn’s moves. Councilman D’Arle was Turban Orr’s principal opposition on this proclamation-of-neutrality business—but what did that matter? The Malazan Empire could not care less. Unless the proclamation was no more than a feint. Was this Turban Orr seeking to lay the groundwork for an Empire-backed coup?

The answers to such questions would be slow in coming. She knew she’d have to exercise patience. Of course, patience was her finest quality. She’d hoped that showing herself to Crokus a second time, there in the garden, might trigger panic in the lad—or, at the very least, annoy Oponn if indeed the god’s control was as direct as that.

Sorry had watched on, from the shadows she drew around her, as the assassin named Rallick took the lad to task. She’d also lingered to catch the conversation between Rallick and Murillio. It seemed the boy had protectors, and an odd lot
they were, assuming that the fat little man, Kruppe, was some kind of group leader. Hearing that they were to take Crokus out of the city on behalf of their “master” made the whole situation even more intriguing.

She knew she’d have to make her move soon. The protection offered by Kruppe and this Murillio would not impede her much, she expected. Though Kruppe was certainly more than he seemed, violence hardly seemed his major skill.

She would kill Crokus, then, outside the city. As soon as she discovered the nature of their mission, and who their master was. As soon as everything had fallen into place.

Sergeant Whiskeyjack would have to wait a while longer for her return. Sorry smiled at that, knowing full well how relieved the whole squad would be that she was nowhere to be seen. As for that whole matter—the threat presented by Quick Ben and Kalam—well, everything in its own time.

Alchemist Baruk’s savage migraine was ebbing. Whatever presence had been unleashed in the city was gone. He sat in his reading chair, pressing a cloth-wrapped chunk of ice against his forehead. It had been a conjuring. He felt certain of that. The emanations stank of demonry. But there’d been more. The moment before the presence vanished, Baruk had experienced a mental wrench that came close to driving him into unconsciousness.

He’d shared the creature’s final death scream, his own shriek echoing down the hall and bringing his men-at-arms shouting to his bedroom door.

Baruk felt a wrongness, deep within him, as if his soul had been battered. For a single, brief second, he’d looked upon a world of absolute darkness, and from that darkness came sounds, the creak of wooden wheels, the clank of chains, the groans of a thousand imprisoned souls. Then it was gone, and he found himself sitting in his chair, Roald kneeling at his side with a pail of ice from the cellar.

He now sat in his study, alone, and the ice pressed against his brow was warm compared to what he felt in his heart.

There was a knock at the door, and Roald entered, his face creased with worry. “Lord, you have a visitor.”

“I have? At this hour?” He rose shakily to his feet. “Who is it?”

“Lord Anomander Rake.” Roald hesitated. “And . . . another.”

Frowning, Baruk waved a hand. “Bring them in.”

“Yes, Lord.”

Rake entered, holding a dog-sized winged creature by the nape of its neck. The creature twisted and hissed, then turned pleading eyes to Baruk.

“This thing was following me here,” Rake said. “Yours?”

Startled, Baruk managed a nod.

“I thought as much,” Rake said, releasing the demon to flap across the room and land at the alchemist’s slippered feet.

Baruk gazed down on it. The demon was trembling.

Rake strode to a chair and sat, stretching out his long legs. “A busy night,” he said.

Baruk gestured and the demon vanished with a faint popping sound. “Indeed,” he said, his voice hard. “My servant was on a mission. I had no idea it would involve you.” He went to stand before the Tiste Andii. “Why were you in the middle of an assassin war?”

“Why not?” Rake answered. “I started it.”

“What?”

He smiled up at Baruk. “You don’t know the Empress as well as I do, Baruk.”

“Please explain.” Color had risen in the alchemist’s face.

Rake looked away. “Tell me this, Baruk,” he said, turning to meet the alchemist’s gaze, “who in this city is most likely to be aware of your secret council? And who might benefit the most from your removal? And, most importantly, who in this city is capable of killing you?”

Baruk did not answer immediately. He walked slowly to the table, where a newly painted map had been laid out. He leaned over it, hands resting on the edge. “You suspect the Empress might seek out Vorcan,” he said. “A contract to offer.”

“On you and the rest of the High Mages,” Rake said, behind him. “The Empress has sent a Claw here, not so much to worry your city’s defenses, but to establish contact with the Master Assassin. I wasn’t entirely certain that I was right in this, but I meant to prevent that contact.”

Baruk’s eyes remained on the map’s red wash. “So you sent your own assassins to wipe out her Guild. To flush her out.” He faced Rake. “And then what? Kill her? All on the basis of some suspicion of yours?”

“This night,” Rake said calmly, “we prevented the Claw from making that contact. Your demon’s report will confirm this. Besides, you aren’t suggesting that the death of Vorcan and the decimation of the city’s assassins is a bad thing, are you?”

“I fear I am.” Baruk was pacing, struggling against a growing sense of outrage. “I may not know the Empress as well as you, Rake,” he said, gritting his teeth, “but I do know this city—far better than you ever will.” He glared at the Tiste Andii. “To you, Darujhistan is just another battleground for your private war with the Empress. You don’t give a damn about how this city survives—how it has managed to survive three thousand years.”

Rake shrugged. “Enlighten me.”

“The City Council has its function, a vital one. They are the city’s machine. True, Majesty Hall is a place of pettiness, corruption, endless bickering, but, despite all that, it’s also a place where things get done.”