Krute inclined his head in greeting. ‘Humble Measure.’
‘Parish Master. I was beginning to suspect that the guild had lost its edge.’
‘Whosoever has the coin gets our blades,’ Krute observed, congratulating himself on that pointed reminder.
‘Of course. That is as it should be.’ The man drew a cloth from a shirt pocket and wiped his hands. Krute noted with growing unease that the cloth was just as blackened as the man’s hands. Humble waved him forward. ‘This way, Master.’ As they walked, the ironmonger talked. ‘It strikes me that you assassins represent the exchange of business reduced to its purest form. What say you, Master?’
Krute shrugged. ‘Hadn’t really given it much thought.’ Gabble on, man. I’m really not interested in what crazy things you have to say.
‘You do not care who you kill, or for what hidden purpose, or to what consequences. You are merely paid money to do something, and so you do it. Rather like a prostitute, yes?’
Krute frowned, eyeing the man sidelong. ‘What’re you gettin’ at?’
‘I mean that questions of morality or ethics, honour or principles — all are irrelevant, yes?’
Krute hunched his shoulders. ‘Not all principles …’
The man flashed him a smile bright against his grimed face. ‘Of course. The principle of greed and profit remains paramount. Utterly uninhibited, in fact.’
He led Krute to a dilapidated manor house, pushed open the front door. ‘Let me provide an example, if I may.’ At the back of the house the ironmonger unlocked a trap door, revealing stone steps leading down. ‘Let us say there exists a city occupying a marshy lowland. The inhabitants of this urban centre are cursed by a wasting disease carried by flies that multiply like … well, like flies, within the swamps. Then, let us suppose that a learned man studies the situation and proposes a solution to said curse: move the city to the hills nearby where the scouring winds will keep the flies at bay.’
They reached a stone-walled cellar. Here Humble lit a lantern and led the way to an arched portal sealed by an iron-barred gate, which he unlocked. ‘An excavation for a wine cellar here revealed much more,’ he explained, pointing to a hole in the floor where a ladder led on down. ‘Now, the leaders of this fair — but cursed — city, landowners all, were naturally horrified by the idea of all their property becoming worthless and so they hired local assassins to put an end to such unwelcome talk.’
Stepping down off the ladder Krute was astonished to find himself in a corridor of brick lined by niches. ‘Burial catacombs,’ Humble told him, leaning close. ‘They date back thousands of years.’ He motioned onward. ‘This way, if you please. These killers, now, all local, were themselves victims of this wasting disease, with milky eyes and withered limbs. And all had lost sisters, brothers and parents to the fevers. But — and here is where the tale demonstrates the perversity of humanity — they accepted the contract to kill this scholar.’ The ironmonger turned to Krute. ‘Is that not, well, so sadly predictable?’
The assassin rubbed the back of a hand against his jaw. Won’t this man ever shut up? ‘Sounds like waters too deep for me, sir.’
‘Are they?’ the man asked, his eyes bright in the gloom. Then he shrugged. ‘Perhaps so.’ He waved a hand. ‘Well, just ten years later the city was an abandoned fever-infested field of ruins in any case.’
‘Your point being?’
‘Ah!’ Humble got to his knees and began pulling bricks from the wall. Slowly, brick by brick, a small opening was revealed. He invited Krute to slither in. For a moment Krute wondered whether the man intended to kill him, or bury him alive, or some such thing. But he knew the guild would avenge his death and he also knew that Humble was aware of this. Nevertheless, he decided some measure of caution was called for and so he motioned Humble ahead.
‘After you.’
A shrug. ‘If you wish.’
Within, the darkness hinted at a larger room, perhaps a burial chamber. Humble edged inwards, lantern pushed along ahead. Krute followed. What he saw took his breath away. A sea of gold reflected the already golden flame. Stacks of bars set out in rows crammed the tomb. A fortune countless leaps beyond any of Krute’s imaginings.
‘Poured by myself and a few trusted aides in the very works above our heads,’ Humble murmured with a touch of pride. ‘All of this is yours should you succeed in the contract.’
‘And that contract?’ Krute asked, distracted. He didn’t move his gaze from the neatly heaped bars. Take twenty men all day to move this mountain …
‘The contract, and my point, is that I still want the Legate’s head. Even if his improvements or plans for the city are somehow in alignment with my own, they are not what I planned and so I want his head.’
Krute’s nod was one of slow deliberate agreement. Vindictiveness. You can always count on that. The guild practically survives on it. He thought of Vorcan now standing behind the Legate. No doubt she means to retake the guild — then there will be a harrowing! ‘The man has powerful allies …’
‘Thus this astonishing price.’
Krute rubbed his stubbled cheek once more, swallowed hard. ‘Speaking for the guild, ironmonger, we agree to try again. But it will take some time to prepare.’
‘I understand. Time you have. This chamber will remain sealed until you succeed. And should we both die in what comes — it will remain sealed for ever.’
‘We have an agreement then, Humble Measure.’
On a rooftop across the broad avenue facing the main doors of the Eldra Iron Mongers, Rallick Nom lay prone, chin resting on a fist, crossbow cradled in an elbow. He’d watched while Krute entered the closed and now quiet works, and he kept watch until, many hours later, the man exited as well.
So, Humble Measure wasn’t a man to abandon a task half finished. Rallick could tell from the character of his old friend’s thoughtful and distracted walk that he was already planning ahead, considering the coming job.
What to do? Too late to kill the client now. An agreement’s already been struck. The guild will follow through regardless. A matter of reputation. And I’m in the crosshairs. Have to find a place to lie low; somewhere no one’s going to come hunting. And there’s only one place comes to mind … Hope he won’t object to house guests.
Rallick pushed himself backwards along the slate-shake roof.
A knock at the door to his offices drew Ambassador Aragan out of his thoughts as he stood at the window overlooking the city. He’d been thinking of the troubling lack of word from the north — it wasn’t like K’ess to be out of touch for this long. Nor had word come from the south, either, for that matter. It was oddly as if events outside the city were somehow unreal, or suspended in time. A bizarre sensation.
He turned at the knock, growling, ‘Yes?’
A trooper, one of his personal guard, opened the door. ‘Trouble downstairs, sir.’
Coming down, Aragan found a city Warden in the open doorway, the rest of his detachment waiting outside. His own guard was ranged across the bottom of the stairs, tensed, awaiting his command.
‘Ambassador Aragan,’ the city Warden officer called, ‘you are summoned to an audience with the Legate.’
At least this Legate sent an escort of twenty … Anything less would have been an insult.
‘Stand down ranks,’ he ordered. Passing the sergeant, he murmured, ‘Remain until I return.’
‘Sir.’
Aragan stopped before the Warden, gestured to invite the man outside. ‘After you.’
The man’s gaze slid over the solid front of Malazan veterans and his lips compressed. He backed up then aside to allow Aragan to exit. The detachment formed up to either side of the ambassador and the officer waved a hand. They marched off, heading, Aragan knew, for Majesty Hill.
Along the way, the only thing of interest Aragan noted was the scar of recent construction that marred the grounds atop the hill. A broad trench had been dug up and back-filled. It cut through crushed gravel walkways, ornamental hedges and beds of flowering perennials. He only caught a glimpse as they passed, but it appeared to describe an immense arc heading off round the buildings. Some sort of defensive installation? Pits?