‘Thank you, citizen. Tell me … have you also seen the new construction encircling the hill?’
‘In fact I have.’ Rallick noted with alarm that the flesh upon the man’s face and neck was cracking and smoking along the fault lines of the scars. Baruk’s frame shuddered and he staggered aside as if yanked. He spoke, grinding out every word as if each were a droplet of agony: ‘There is a man in the city, a Malazan … He may have a unique insight into its … peculiar … qualities …’
‘I will ask around,’ Rallick assured him. Then, sheathing his knives, he could not help reaching out to the tortured figure. ‘Baruk … tell me … what can I-’
‘No!’ The staff snapped up and the man staggered backwards. ‘Stay away!’ Turning, he flung himself from the roof, robes flapping, and disappeared.
Rallick leaned over the edge but saw no sign of him. Then, hunching, he ran as fast as he dared across the forest of mismatched tiled roofs.
Moments after Rallick left the roof the wavering commingled olive and silver light of the night revealed another figure that uncurled itself from a window to stand, stretching. The man wore a cloak that shone almost emerald in the light. He tapped one gloved finger to his pursed lips and whispered aloud, ‘Again, some go in … yet none come out. The lesson being …’ he held up his gloved hands and examined them as if the answer were written there, ‘don’t go in.’
He clasped his hands behind his back and set off, whistling soundlessly, tracing more or less the route taken by the ex-assassin.
When Rallick judged it safe to return to the Phoenix Inn he walked straight to the old table and sat facing the door in the seat where Kruppe usually held court. Rather disconcertingly, the empty seat was already warm and he was thinking of shifting to another chair when Sulty thumped down a tankard of beer, gave him a wink, and moved on to serve the rest of the crowd. Rallick pushed back his seat, held the tankard in both hands before him, and studied that crowd.
Guarded optimism he judged the mood. People seemed to think that things would get better now that the Seguleh had arrived to guard the city. Rumours were that the Legate had somehow contracted to have them come. Never mind the utter impossibility of such a notion to anyone who knew the least shred about those people. And to guard the city against whom? The Malazans? They hadn’t the troops to pacify the city in the first place. That left … who? No one he could think of. The city was without threats, as it had been for decades before the arrival of the Seguleh. And so the disconcerting thought: what were they here for?
His roving eye caught a man watching him from the bar. A tall, very dark foreigner, all in green. In a gesture like a mockery of some conspirator, the fellow offered him an exaggerated wink and shifted his gaze to the rear. As usual Rallick chose to reveal no hint of his mood — which was one of extreme annoyance — and he got up to push out through the crowd to the back door.
He waited leaning against a wall, arms crossed, hands on the grips of his knives. The stranger ambled out after a moment, hands clasped behind his back. ‘What do you want?’ Rallick said, trying to keep his voice as flat as possible.
The man held up his gloved hands, a smirk at his lips. ‘Parley, as they say.’
‘Claw?’
The fellow merely shrugged.
‘Say your piece.’
The man waved a hand in an airy manner and Rallick clamped down even harder on his irritation. ‘Oh … a pooling of intelligence and a uniting of efforts.’
‘I’m not with the guild. You got the wrong man.’
A smile from the man — the kind of crazy grin that Rallick had known from some as an affectation of unpredictable menace. But he now saw with a tensing of chilling certainty that from this fellow the pose was utterly genuine. A very dangerous sort — the kind who truly just doesn’t give a damn. ‘The guild, such as it is, doesn’t interest me. But you do.’
‘How so?’
The man leaned up against the opposite alley wall, which put him in the light of the Scimitar. He grimaced and held up a hand in the light. ‘You know, there are those around the world right now who go out at night carrying parasols so that the unnatural light of our Visitor doesn’t reach them. They claim it corrupts all it touches.’
‘Then everything’s corrupted.’
‘Indeed. We are all of us slowly rotting until we fall dead.’
‘Is that your message? Sounds like something from a street prophet of the Broken God.’
The man let his hand fall, frowned his exaggerated thoughtfulness. ‘Indeed? I suppose so. But no. That is not my message. My point is that we have intelligence mentioning “the Eel”. And in that intelligence this very inn features rather prominently. And here you are. What say you to that?’
Great Burn! Does this man think I’m the Eel? No — he must be fishing. Ha! Fishing for the Eel. Have to remember that one. But then if I told him who I thought maybe was the Eel he’d have a good laugh. No — he’s just trying to provoke a reaction.
Rallick turned his face away to study the empty street and the rats waddling down the centre gutter. ‘That’s not much of a point.’ His peripheral vision caught his reward in a first betrayal of temper from the man as his mouth tightened to a slit.
‘You are being deliberately difficult. Well, I blame myself. Ought to have expected it. We are both victims of our calling, yes? Neither of us willing to place our cards on the table. So be it — for now. If you should wish to exchange intelligence, then look to reach me through K’rul’s bar.’
Rallick eyed the man, puzzled. ‘K’rul’s bar? You mean the old temple to K’rul?’
‘Yes. K’rul’s Bar and Temple.’ The man tilted his head in farewell and ambled off up the street.
There he goes. Yet another rat on the street.
There’s a bar at K’rul’s temple? Since when?
A knock brought Barathol to the door. Little Chaur was down for the night and Scillara was in bed, sent off by that one evening pipe she allowed herself to ‘ease the nerves’. He’d taken the pipe from her hand as he did every night, and pulled up the blanket.
He was downstairs making a meal when the knock came. He opened the door to find one of the Majesty Hall clerks, now known as court officials, awaiting him with hands tucked into his robes and an oddly arrogant and impatient angle to his head.
‘What?’ Barathol asked, his own mood not improved by the youth’s superior airs.
‘You are summoned to the installation. Immediately.’
He half turned away. ‘In a minute. I’m just making a meal.’
‘Immediately,’ the young man repeated, emphasizing each syllable. Lifting his head he directed Barathol’s attention to his companions. Barathol peered out to see two Seguleh standing on the road, masked, swords at their hips.
Ah. So that’s how it is. The new cock of the roost. So be it. No business of mine.
He gave the clerk a slow nod. ‘Very well. I’ll get my gear.’
Barathol watched the faces of the passers-by as the little party walked the streets. At first there’d been jubilation. The average citizen now thought himself unassailable. Now, as the Seguleh went abroad to enforce the Legate’s will it seemed to him that a few people had finally — belatedly — begun to wonder. Just who did these swordsmen protect the city from? They limited themselves to guarding within the walls, atop Majesty Hill, and in the throne room itself. Protecting the ruler from … whom? Well, to his mind, from the ruled, of course. Perhaps this mounting suspicion was behind the worried, even pitying, glances that followed him. Could I be next? some seemed to wonder.
The worksite was guarded by four Seguleh. Ducking into the tent Barathol found the two mages already present, awaiting him impatiently. ‘Begin at once,’ the tall one, Barukanal, commanded, motioning to the forge with his staff. Barathol rolled down his sleeves and donned his thick leather apron.