Gardens of the Moon

CHAPTER ELEVEN

«Yet another night, yet another dream,» KRUPPE MOANED, «With naught but a scant fire to keep this wanderer company.» He held his hands over the flickering, undying hearth that had been stoked by an Elder God. It seemed an odd gift, but he sensed a significance to it. «Kruppe would understand this meaning, for rare and unwelcome is this frustration.»

The landscape around him was barren; even the ploughed earth was gone, with no sign of habitation in sight. He squatted by the lone fire in a tundra wasteland, and the air had the breath of rotting ice. To the north and to the east the horizon gleamed green, almost luminescent though no moon had risen to challenge the stars. Kruppe had never before seen such a thing, yet it was an image fashioned within his mind.

«Disturbing, indeed, proclaims Kruppe. Are these visions of instinct, then, unfurled in this dream for a purpose? Kruppe knows not, and would return to his warm bed this instant, were the choice his.»

He stared about at the lichen- and moss-covered ground, frowning at the strange bright colours born there. He'd heard tales of Redspire Plain, that land far to the north, beyond the Laederon Plateau. Is this what tundra looked like? He'd always pictured a bleak, colourless world. «Yet peruse these stars overhead. They glisten with a youthful energy, nay, sparkle as if amused by the one who contemplates them. While the earth itself hints of vast blushes of red, orange and lavender.»

Kruppe rose as low thunder reached him from the west. In the distance moved a massive herd of brown-furred beasts. The steam of their breath gusted silver in the air above and behind them as they ran, turning as one this way and that but ever at a distance. He watched them for some time.

When they came closest to him he saw the reddish streaks in their fur, and their horns, sweeping down then up and out. The land shook with their passage.

«Such is the life in this world, Kruppe wonders. Has he travelled back, then, to the very beginning of things?»

«You have,» said a deep voice behind him.

Kruppe turned. «Ah, come to share my fire, of course.» He saw before him a squat figure, covered in the tanned hides of deer or some such similar animal. Antlers stretched out from a flat skull-cap on the man's head, grey and covered in fuzzy skin. Kruppe bowed. «You see before you Kruppe, of Darujhistan.»

«I am Pran Chole of Cannig Tol's Clan among the Kron Tlan.» Pran stepped close and crouched before the fire. «I am also the White Fox, Kruppe, wise in the ways of ice.» He glanced at Kruppe and smiled.

Pran's face was wide, the bones pronounced beneath smooth, gold skin. His eyes were barely visible between tight lids, but what Kruppe saw of them was a startling amber in colour. Pran reached out long, supple hands over the fire. «Fire is life, and life is fire. The age of ice passes, Kruppe. Long have we lived here, hunting the great herds, gathering to war with the Jaghut in the southlands, birthing and dying with the ebb and flow of the frozen rivers.»

«Kruppe has travelled far, then.»

«To the beginning and to the end. My kind give way to your kind, Kruppe, though the wars do not cease. What we shall give to you is freedom from such wars. The Jaghut dwindle, ever retreat into forbidding places. The Forkrul Assail have vanished, though we never found need to fight them. And the K'chain Che'Malle are no more-the ice spoke to them with words of death.» Pran's gaze swung back to the fire. «Our hunting has brought death to the great herds, Kruppe. We are driven south, and this must not be. We are the Tlan, but soon the Gathering comes, and so shall be voiced the Rite of Imass and the Choosing of the Bone Casters, and then shall come the sundering of flesh, of time itself.

«With the Gathering shall be born the T'lan Imass, and the First Empire.»

«Why, Kruppe wonders, is he here?»

Pran Chole shrugged. «I have come for I have been called. By whom, I know not. Perhaps it is the same with you.»

«But Kruppe is dreaming. This is Kruppe's dream.»

«Then I am honoured.» Pran straightened. «One of your time comes. Perhaps this one possesses the answers we seek.»

Kruppe followed Pran's gaze to the south. He raised an eyebrow. «If not mistaken, then Kruppe recognizes her as a Rhivi.»

The woman who approached was perhaps middle-aged, heavy with child. Her dark, round face bore features similar to Pran Chole's, though less pronounced. Fear shone in her eyes, yet there was a grim determination about her as well. She reached the fire and eyed the two men, most of her attention drawing to Pran Chole. «Tlan,» she said, «the Tellann Warren of the Imass of our time has birthed a child in a confluence of sorceries. Its soul wanders lost. Its flesh is an abomination. A shifting must take place.» She turned to Kruppe and swept back the thick woven robe she wore, revealing her swelled stomach. The bare, stretched skin had been recently traced in a tattoo. The image was that of a whitehaired fox. «The Elder God walks again, risen from blood spilled on consecrated stone. K'rul came in answer to the child's need and now aids us in our quest. He apologizes to you, Kruppe, for using the world within your dream, but no younger god can influence this place. Somehow you have made your soul immune to them.»

«The rewards of cynicism,» Kruppe said, bowing.

The woman smiled.

«I understand,» Pran Chole said. «You would make of this child, born of Imass powers, a Soletaken.»

«Yes. It is the best we can manage, Tlan. A shapeshifter-which we too know as Soletaken-must be fashioned.»

Kruppe cleared his throat. «Excuse Kruppe, please. But are we not missing someone vital to these plans?»

«She strides two worlds,» the Rhivi said. Vrul guides her now into yours. She is frightened still. It falls to you, Kruppe, to welcome her.»

Kruppe adjusted the sleeves of his faded, threadbare cloak. «This should not prove difficult for one of Kruppe's charms.»

«Perhaps,» the Rhivi said, frowning. «Her flesh is an abomination. You have been warned.»

Kruppe nodded affably, then looked around. «Will any direction do?»

Pran Chole laughed.

«I suggest south,» the Rhivi said.

He shrugged and, with a bow to the two companions, he headed south. After a few minutes he glanced back, but the fire was nowhere in sight. He was alone in the chill night.

A full moon appeared on the eastern horizon, bathing the land in silver light. Ahead, the tundra rolled on as far as Kruppe could see, flat and featureless. Then he squinted. Something had just appeared, still distant, walking with seeming great difficulty. He watched it fall once, then climb back to its feet. Despite the luminescence, the figure looked black.

Kruppe moved forward. It had yet to see him, and he stopped when he was but thirty feet away. The Rhivi had been right. Kruppe produced his silk handkerchief and wiped the sweat that had sprung across his brow.

The figure had been a woman once, tall, with long black hair. But that woman had been long dead. Her flesh had withered and assumed the hue of dark wood. Perhaps the most horrific aspect of her was her limbs, which had been roughly sewn back on to her body. «Aye,» Kruppe whispered. This woman had been torn apart once.

The woman's head flew up and sightless eyes fixed upon Kruppe. She stopped, her mouth opening but no words coming forth.

Surreptitiously, Kruppe cast a spell upon himself, then looked at her yet again. He frowned. A spell had been woven about the woman, one of preservation. But something had happened to that spell, something had reshaped it. «Lass!» Kruppe barked. «I know you can hear me" He didn't know, but decided to insist in any case. «Your soul is trapped within a body that is not your own. It does not become you. I am named Kruppe, and I will lead you to succour. Come!» He spun round and began to walk. A moment later he heard a shuffling behind him, and smiled «Ah,» he whispered, «Kruppe has charms indeed. But more, he can be harsh when necessary.»

The fire had returned, a beacon e re'tern and Kruppe Q!axxr'tA ft3 three figures awaiting them. The vestiges of the spell he had cast upon himsell made the Tlan and the Rhivi blinding to his eyes, such was their power.

Pran Chole stepped forward. «Thank you, Kruppe.» He studied the woman and nodded slowly. «Yes, I see the effects of the Imass upon her.

«But there is more.» He looked to the Rhivi. «She was a mage once?»

The Rhivi moved close to the woman. «Hear me, lost one. Your name Tattersail, your sorcery is Thyr. The Warren flows within you now, it animates you, protects you.» She opened her robe once more. «It is time to bring you back into the world.»

Tattersail stepped back in alarm «Within you is the past,» Pran said. «My world. You know the present and the Rhivi offers you to the future. In this place all is merged. The flesh you wear has upon it a spell of preservation, and in your dying act you opened your Warren within the influence of Tellarm. And now you wander within a mortal's dream. Kruppe is the vessel of change. Permit I With a wordless cry Tattersail staggered into Pran's arms. The Rhivi

«My,» Kruppe breathed, «but Kruppe's dreams have taken a strange turn. While his own concerns are ever present, a haunting voice, once Kruppe looked up at the Elder God. «Kruppe asks for nothing. There is a gift in this, and I am glad to be part of its making.»

K'rul nodded. «Nevertheless. Speak to me of your efforts.»

«Rallick and Murillio seek to right an old wrong,» Kruppe said, with sigh. «They think me ignorant of their schemes, but I shall turn such schemes to my purposes. Guilt rides this decision, but they are needed.»

«Protection has been set in motion, though its final shaping i come. I know that the Malazan Empire acts covertly for the moment. What they seek-»

yet tc «Is anything but clear, Kruppe. Even to them. Use this to your advantage when you find them. Allies might come from surprising quarters. I will tell you this: two now approach the city, one is a T'lan Imass, the other a bane to magic. Their purposes are destructive, but already forces are in play attending to them. Seek knowledge of them, but do no openly oppose them. They are dangerous. Power attracts power, Kruppe. Leave them to the consequences of their actions.»

Kruppe nodded. «Kruppe is no fool, K'rul. He openly opposes no one, and he finds power a thing to be avoided at all costs.»

As they spoke the Rhivi woman had taken Tattersail in her arms. Pran Chole squatted nearby, his eyes closed and his lips forming silent words.

The Rhivi woman rocked the desiccated body in rhythmic motion, chanting softly. Water stained the Rhivi's thighs.

«Aye,» Kruppe whispered. «She prepares to give birth in truth.»

Abruptly the Rhivi tossed away the body. It crumpled in a lifeless heap.

The Moon now hung immediately overhead, so bright that Kruppe found he could not look at it directly.

The Rhivi had assumed a squatting position, moving with the rhythm of labour, her face sheathed in sweat. Pran Chole remained immobile, though his body was racked in shivering bouts that twisted his face with pain. His eyes opened wide, glowing bright amber, and fixed on the Moon.

«Elder God,» Kruppe said quietly, «how much will this Tattersail remember of her former life?»

«Unknown,» K'rul replied. «Soul-shifting is a delicate thing. The woman was consumed in a conflagration. Her soul's first flight was carried on wings of pain and violence. More, she entered another ravaged body, bearing its own traumas. The child that is born will be like no other ever seen. Its life is a mystery, Kruppe.»

Kruppe grunted. «Considering her parents, she will indeed be exceptional.» A thought came to him and he frowned. Vrul, what of the first child within the Rhivi?»

«There was none, Kruppe. The Rhivi woman was prepared in a manner unknown to any man.» He chuckled. «Including myself.» He raised his head. «This sorcery belongs to the Moon, Kruppe.»

They continued watching the labours of birth. To Kruppe it seemed they waited more hours in the darkness than any normal night could hold. The Moon remained overhead, as if it found its position to its liking-or, he reconsidered, as if it stood guard over them.

Then a small cry rose into the still air, and the Rhivi lifted in her arms a child furred in silver.

Even as Kruppe watched, the fur sloughed away. The Rhivi turned the child and placed her mouth against its belly. Her jaws bunched and the remaining length of umbilical cord fell away.

Pran Chole strode to stand beside Kruppe and the Elder God. The T'lan looked exhausted. «The child drew from me power beyond my control,» he said softly.

As the Rhivi squatted again in afterbirth, holding the child against her chest, Kruppe's eyes widened. The mother's belly was smooth, the white fox tattoo was gone.

«I am saddened,» Pran said, «that I may not return in twenty years to see the woman this child shall become.»

«You shall,» K'rul said in a low tone, «but not as a T'lan. As a T'lan Imass Bone Caster.»

The breath hissed between Pran's teeth. «How long?» he asked.

«Three hundred thousand years, Pran Chole of Cannig Tol's Clan.»

Kruppe laid a hand on Pran's arm. «You've something to look forward to,» he said.

The T'lan stared at Kruppe a moment, then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

The hours before Kruppe's dream had proved eventful, beginning with his meeting with Baruk that permitted the revelation of the Coin Bearer punctuated with the clever if slightly dramatic suspension of the coin's wax impression-a cantrip that had gone strangely awry.

But soon after the meeting, droplets of now-hardened wax pebbling the breast and arms of his coat, Kruppe paused just outside the alchemist's door. Roald was nowhere to be seen. «Oh, my,» Kruppe breathed as he wiped sweat from his forehead. «Why should Master Baruk find Crokus's name familiar? Ah, stupid Kruppe! Uncle Mammot, of course. Oh dear, that was close-all could well have been lost!» He continued on down the hall to the stairs.

For a time there, Oponn's power had waxed considerably. Kruppe smiled at his pun, but it was a distracted smile. He would do well to avoid such contacts. Power had a habit of triggering his own talents; already he felt the urgings of the Deck of Dragons within his head.

He hurried down the stairs and crossed the main hall to the doors.

Roald was just entering, burdened beneath mundane supplies. Kruppe noted the dust covering the old man's clothing. «Dear Roald, you look as if you've just weathered a sandstorm! Do you require Kruppe's assistance?»

«No,» Roald grunted. «Thank you, Kruppe. I can manage. Will you be so kind as to close the doors on your way out?»

«Of course, kind Roald!» Kruppe patted the man's arm and strode out into the courtyard. The gates leading to the street had been left open, and beyond was a swirling cloud of dust. «Ah, yes, the road repairs,» Kruppe muttered.

A headache had burgeoned behind his eyes, and the bright sun overhead wasn't helping matters any. He was half-way to the gates when he stopped. «The doors! Kruppe has forgotten to close the doors!» He spun round and returned to the estate entrance, sighing as the doors closed with a satisfying click. As he turned away a second time someone shouted in the street beyond. There followed a loud crash, but this latter sound was lost on Kruppe.

With that bellowed curse a sorcerous storm roared into his head. He fell to his knees, then his head snapped up, eyes widening. «That,» he whispered, «was indeed a Malazan curse. Then why does House Shadow's image burn like fire in Kruppe's skull? Who now walks the streets of Darujhistan?» A count of knots unending: «Mysteries solved, more mysteries created.»

The pain had passed. Kruppe climbed to his feet and brushed the dust from his clothing. «Good that said affliction occurred beyond the eyes of suspicious beings, Kruppe notes with relief. All upon a promise made to friend Roald. Wise old friend Roald. Oponn's breath is this time welcome, though begrudgingly so.»

He strode to the gates and peered into the street. A cart filled with shattered cobbles had toppled. Two men argued incessantly as to whose fault it was while they righted the cart and proceeded to refill it.

Kruppe studied them. They spoke well the Daru tongue, but to one who listened carefully there was the hint of an accent-an accent that did not belong. «Oh, my,» Kruppe said, stepping back. He adjusted his coat, took a deep breath, then opened the gate and walked into the street.

The fat little man with the flopping sleeves walked from the house's gate and turned left. He seemed in a hurry.

Sergeant Whiskeyjack wiped the sweat from his brow with a scarred forearm, his eyes slits against the bright sunlight.

«That is the one, Sergeant,» Sorry said, beside him.

«Are you sure?»

«Yes, I'm sure.»

Whiskeyjack watched the man winding through the crowd. «What's so important about him?» he asked.

«I admit,» Sorry replied, «to some uncertainty as to his significance. But he is vital, Sergeant.»

Whiskeyjack chewed his lip, then turned to the wagon bed where a city map had been laid flat, its corners anchored down by chunks of rock. «Who lives in that estate?»

«A man named Baruk,» Sorry answered. «An alchemist.»

He scowled. How did she know that? «Are you saying that fat little man is this Baruk?»

«No. He works for the alchemist. Not a servant. A spy, perhaps. His skills involve thievery, and he possesses: talent.»

Whiskeyjack looked up. «A Seer?»

For some reason Sorry winced. The sergeant watched, bemused, as Sorry's face paled. Damn, he wondered, what on earth is going on with this girl?

«I believe so,» she said her voice trembling.

Whiskeyjack straightened. «All right. Follow him.

She nodded shakily, then slipped into the crowd.

The sergeant rested his back against the wagon's side-wall. His expression soured as he studied his squad. Trotts was swinging his pick as if on a battlefield. Stones flew everywhere. Passers-by ducked, and cursed when ducking failed. Hedge and Fiddler crouched behind a wheelbarrow, flinching each time the Barghast's pick struck the street. Mallet stood a short distance away, directing pedestrians to the other pavement.

He no longer bellowed at the people, having lost his voice arguing with an old man with a donkey wobbling under an enormous basket of firewood. The bundles now lay scattered across the street-the old man and the donkey nowhere to be seen-providing an effective barrier to wheeled vehicles.

All in all, WhiskeyJack concluded, everyone with him had assumed the role of heat-crazed street worker with a facility he found oddly disturbing.

Hedge and Fiddler had acquired the wagon, loaded down with cobbles, less than an hour after their midnight landing at a public dock on the Lakefront. Exactly how this had been accomplished, Whiskeyjack was afraid to ask. But it suited their plans perfectly. Something nagged at the back of Whiskeyjack's mind but he dismissed it. He was a soldier and a soldier followed orders. When the time came, there would be chaos at every major intersection of streets in the city.

«Planting mines ain't gonna be easy,» Fiddler had pointed out, «so we do it right in front of everyone's nose. Road repair.»

Whiskeyjack shook his head. True to Fiddler's prediction, no one had yet questioned them. They continued ripping up streets and replacing the old cobbles with Moranth munitions encased in fire-hardened clay. Was everything going to be so easy?

His thoughts returned to Sorry. Not likely. Quick Ben and Kalam had at last convinced him that their half of the mission was better off without her. She'd tagged along with his crew, eyes never still, but otherwise offering little in the way of assistance. He admitted to feeling some relief that he'd sent her off on that fat man's trail.

But what had pulled a seventeen-year-old girl into the world of war?

He couldn't understand it-he couldn't get past her youthfulness, couldn't see beyond to the cold, murderous killer behind those dead eyes.

As much as he told his squad that she was as human as any of them, the doubts grew with every question about her that he could not answer. He knew almost nothing about her. The revelation that she could manage a fishing boat had come from seemingly nowhere. And here in Darujhistan she'd hardly acted like a girl raised in a fishing village. There was a natural poise about her, a measure of assurance more common to the higher, educated classes. No matter where she was, she carried herself as if she belonged there.

Did that sound like a seventeen-year-old girl? No, but it seemed to match Quick Ben's assertions, and that galled him. How else to match her with that icy-cold woman torturing prisoners outside Nathilog? He could look at her and part of him would say: «Young, not displeasing to the eye, a confidence that makes her magnetic.»

«While another part of his mind snapped shut. Young? He'd hear his own harsh, pained laugh. Oh, no, not this lass. She's old. She walked under a blood-red moon in the dawn of time, did this one. Her face is the face of all that cannot be fathomed, and she's looking you in the eye, Whiskeyjack, and you'll never know what she's thinking.

He could feel sweat drain down his face and neck. Nonsense. That part of his mind lost itself to its own terror. It took the unknown and fashioned, in blind desperation, a visage it could recognize. Despair, he told himself, always demands a direction, a focus. Find the direction and the despair goes away.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. The despair he felt had no shape. It was not just Sorry, not just this endless war, not even the treachery from within the Empire. He had nowhere to look for answers, and he was tired of asking questions.

When he had looked upon Sorry at Greydog, the source of his horror lay in the unveiling of what he was becoming: a killer stripped of remorse, armoured in the cold iron of inhumanity, freed from the necessity to ask questions, to seek answers, to fashion a reasonable life like an island in a sea of slaughter.

In the empty eyes of this child, he'd seen the withering of his own soul.

The reflection had been unblemished, with no imperfections to challenge the truth of what he saw.

The sweat running down his back beneath the jerkin felt hot against the chill that gripped him. Whiskeyjack lifted a trembling hand to his forehead. In the days and nights ahead, people would die by his command. He'd been thinking of that as the fruition of his careful, precise planning-success measured by the ratio of the enemy's dead to his own losses. The city-its busy, jostling multitudes unceasing in their lives small and large, cowardly and brave-no more than a gameboard, and the game played solely for the benefit of others. He'd made his plans ~$ it nqd~mS Qf himself was at stake. And yet his friends might die-there, he'd finally called them what they were-and the friends of others might die, and sons, daughters, parents. The roll-call of shattered lives seemed unending.

Whiskeyjack pressed his back against the side-wall in an effort to steady his reeling mind. Desperately, he lifted his gaze from the street. He saw a man at a window on the second floor of the estate. The man was watching them, and his hands were bright red.

Shaken, the sergeant looked away. He bit into the side of his mouth until he felt a sharp stab of pain, then tasted blood. Concentrate, he told himself. Step back from that chasm. Concentrate, or you'll die. And not just you, but also your squad. They trust you to get them out of this.

You've got to keep earning that trust. He drew a deep breath through his nostrils, then turned to one side and spat a mouthful of blood. He stared down at the red-slicked cobble. «There,» he hissed. «It's easy to look at it, isn't it?»

He heard footsteps and looked up to see Hedge and Fiddler arrive.

Both men wore troubled expressions.

«You all right, Sarge?» Fiddler asked quietly. Behind the two saboteurs, Mallet approached, his gaze calculating and fixed on Whiskeyjack's white, sweat-soaked face.

The sergeant grimaced. «We're behind schedule. How much longer?»

Their faces smeared with white dust and sweat, the two men looked at each other, then Hedge answered, «Three hours.»

«We decided on seven mines,» Fiddler said. «Four Sparkers, two Flamers and one Cusser.»

«Will that bring down some of these buildings?» Whiskeyjack asked, avoiding Mallet's eyes.

«Sure. No better way to block an intersection.» Fiddler grinned at his companion.

«You got one in particular you want dropped?» Hedge inquired.

«The estate behind you is an alchemist's.»

«Right,» Hedge said. «That should light the sky all right.»

«You've got two and a half hours,» Whiskeyjack said. «Then it's on to the Majesty Hill crossroads.»

Mallet stepped close. «Another headache?» he asked softly.

Whiskeyjack closed his eyes, then gave a sharp nod.

The healer raised a hand and passed it over the sergeant's brow. «Just easing it a little,» he said.

The sergeant grinned ruefully. «This is getting old, Mallet. You're even using the same words.» A cool numbness flowed through his thoughts.

Mallet's face was drawn. He lowered his hand. «When we have time I'll find the source, Whiskeyjack.»

«Right.» The sergeant smiled. «When we have time.»

«Hope Kal and Quick are doing OK,» Mallet said, turning to watch the street traffic. «You sent Sorry off?»

«Yes. We're on our own. They know where to find us, all three of them.» He glanced up at the estate window. The man with the red hands was still there, though now he was studying the distant rooftops. A cloud of dust rose between them, and Whiskeyjack returned his attention to the city map, where every major intersection, the barracks and Majesty Hill had been circled in red. «Mallet?»

«Sarge?»

«Bit the inside of my cheek again.»

The heater stepped close, once more raising his hand.

Crokus Younghand strode south on Trallit's Walk. The first signs of the upcoming Gedderone F?te had appeared. Dyed banners hung from clothes-lines over the street, painted flowers and strips of bark framed doorways, and bushels of dried weeds had been tacked to walls at every crossing.

Outlanders already filled the streets, Gadrobi herders, Rhivi traders, Catlin weavers-a mob of sweaty, shouting, excited people. Animal smells mixed with human, making the narrower alleys so redolent as to be almost impassable, which in turn crowded the main thoroughfare even more.

In past years Crokus had revelled in the celebration, pushing through the midnight crowds and filling his own pockets by emptying those around him. During the F?te, worries of the Malazan Empire's exploits in the far north disappeared for a time. His uncle always smiled at that, saying the turn of the season gave the efforts of humanity their proper perspective. «The mewling, petty acts,» he'd say, «of a short-lived ar short-sighted species, Crokus, can do nothing to mar the Great Cycles of Life.»

As he walked home Mammot's words returned to him now. He had always looked upon his uncle as a wise, if slightly ineffectual, old man. Increasingly, however, he found himself troubled by Mammot's observations.

Celebrating Gedderone's Rite of Spring shouldn't be an excuse to avoid the pressures of reality. It wasn't just a harmless escape: it was a means of delaying the probable and making it inevitable. We could dance in the streets all year long, he scowled to himself, to a thousand Great Cycles, and with the same certainty reserved for the coming and going of seasons the Malazan Empire would march through our gates. They'd end the dance with the edge of a sword, being industrious, disciplined people, impatient with useless expenditures of energy-grimly short-sighted.

He came to a tenement and, nodding at the pipe-smoking old woman sitting on the steps, went inside. The hallway was empty, the usual crowd of children no doubt outside playing in the streets, and a calming domestic murmur drifted out from behind closed doors. He climbed the creaking staircase to the first floor.

Outside Mammot's door the scholar's pet winged monkey hovered, scratching and pulling desperately at the latch. It ignored Crokus until he arrived to push it aside, then it squealed and flew in circles around his head.

«Being a pain again, eh?» Crokus said to the creature, waving a hand as it flew too close and ended up snarled in his hair. Tiny human-like hands gripped his scalp. «All right, Moby,» he said, relenting, and opened the door.

Inside, Mammot was preparing herbal tea. Without turning he asked, «Tea, Crokus? And as for that little monster who's probably riding your head, tell him I've had just about enough of him today.»

Moby sniffed indignantly and flapped over to the scholar's desk, where he landed with a belly-flop, scattering papers to the floor. He chirped.

Sighing, Mammot turned with the tray in his hands. His watery eyes fixed on Crokus. «You look tired, lad.»

Crokus slumped into the less ragged of the two chairs occupying the room. «Yes. Tired, and in a dark mood.»

«My tea will do its usual wonders,» Mammot said, smiling.

Crokus grunted, not looking up. «Maybe. Maybe not.»

Mammot stepped forward and laid the tray on a small table between the chairs. He sat down with a soft groan. «As you know, I possess few moral qualms about your chosen profession, Crokus, since I question rights of any kind, including ownership. Even privileges demand responsibility, as I've always said, and the privilege of ownership demands that the owner be responsible for protecting his or her claim. My only concern, of course, is for risks you must perforce take.»

Mammot leaned forward and poured tea. «Lad, a thief must be sure of one thing-his concentration. Distractions are dangerous.»

Crokus glanced up at his uncle. «What have you been writing all these years?» he asked suddenly, gesturing at the desk.

Surprised, Mammot picked up his cup and sat back. «Well! A genuine interest in education, then? Finally? As I've said before, Crokus, you possess the intelligence to go so far. And while I'm but a humble man of letters, my word will open to you many doors in the city. Indeed, even the City Council is not beyond your reach, if you would choose such a direction. Discipline, lad, the very same requirement you've mastered as a thief.»

A crafty expression glittered in Crokus's gaze as it held on Mammot.

«How long would it take,» he asked quietly, «to become known in such circles?»

«Well,» said Mammot, «it is the learning that matters, of course.»

«Of course.» In Crokus's mind, however, there rose the image of a sleeping maiden.

Mammot blew on his drink. «With full-time studies, and your youthful eagerness, I would hazard a year, perhaps more, perhaps less. Is there a need for haste?»

«Just youthful eagerness, I suppose. In any case, you haven't answered me yet. What are you writing, Uncle?»

«Ah.» Mammot glanced at his desk, raising an eyebrow at Moby, who had opened an inkwell and was drinking from it. «The history of Darujhistan,» he said. «I am just beginning the fifth volume, which opens with the reign of Ektalm, second to last of the Tyrant Kings.»

Crokus blinked. «Who?»

Smiling, Marnmot sipped his tea. «Usurper of Letastte and succeeded by his daughter, Sandenay, who brought on the Rising Time and with it the end of the age of tyrants.»

«Oh, right.»

«Crokus, if you're serious about all this, Darujhistan's history is where we'll begin in the lessons, but that doesn't mean starting at volume five. It means starting at the very beginning.»

Crokus nodded. «Born on a rumour,» he said.

At the desk Moby squawked, then coughed. Mammot shot him a glance, then swung his attention back to Crokus, expression veiled as he replied, «Yes, lad. Darujhistan was born on a rumour.» He hesitated.

«You've heard that saying elsewhere? Recently?»

«Someone mentioned it,» Crokus said casually. «Can't recall who, though.» He could, in fact. It had been spoken by the assassin, Rallick Nom «Do you know what it means?»

Crokus shook his head.

Mammot leaned back. «Drink your tea, my lad.» The old man paused then began, «In the Early Cycles in this Realm, three great people struggled for dominion, none of them human as we would know human. Bowing out early in the struggle were the Forkrul Assail, or the Krussa as they are now known. Not through weakness, but: well, disinterest.

The remaining two peoples warred endlessly. Eventually one fell, for they were a race of individuals, battling as much among themselves as against their racial enemies. They were called the Jaghut, though the term has degenerated these days to Jhag, or Shurl. While losers in the war, they did not disappear entirely-it's said some Jaghut survive to this day, though, thankfully, not on Genabackis.

«So,» Mammot cupped his hands around his tea-cup, «Darujhistan was born on a rumour. Among the indigenous Gadrobi hill tribes survived the legend that a Jaghut's barrow lay somewhere in the hills. Now, the Jaghut were possessors of great magic, creators of secret Warrens and items of power. Over time the Gadrobi legend made its way beyond the hills, into the Genabackan north and the Catlin south, to kingdoms since crumbled to dust in the east and west. In any case, searchers came to the hills, at first a trickle then hordes-entire tribes led by power-hungry shamans and warlocks. Every hillside was laced with trenches and boreholes. From the camps and shanty-towns, from the thousands of treasure-seekers arriving each spring, a city was born.»

«Darujhistan,» Crokus said.

«Yes. The barrow was never found, and the rumour has long since dwindled-few are even aware of it these days, and those who are know better than to resume the search.»

«Why?»

Mammot frowned. «Rarely does a Jaghut construction appear in the hands of a human, but it has happened, and the consequences have inevitably been catastrophic.» The old man's frown deepened. «The lesson is clear for those who would choose to recognize it.»

Crokus thought for a time. «So the Krussail vanished, the Jhag were defeated. What happened to the third people, then? The ones who won? Why aren't they here instead of us?»

Mammot opened his mouth to reply, then stopped, reconsidering.

Crokus's eyes narrowed. He wondered what Mammot had been about to reveal, and why he'd chosen not to reveal it.

Mammot set down his cup. «No one is certain what happened to them, Crokus, or how they became what they are today. They exist, sort of, and are known, to all who have faced the Malazan Empire, as the T'lan Imass.»

Sorry pushed through the crowd, struggling to keep the fat man within sight. It was not that he was difficult to follow, but the girl was struggling against a storm within her head, which had been triggered by a single word uttered by Sergeant Whiskeyjack.

Seer.

It had felt as if a dark, compacted thing in her brain had burst open with that word, and now warred against all that surrounded it. Though it had initially come upon her with a force that seemed almost overwhelming, she could now sense, Ws way6m& WhateNet it fought was winning the battle. Yet, faintly, she thought she could hear the weeping of a child.

«I am Cotillion,» she heard herself murmur, «Patron of Assassins, known to all as the Rope of Shadow.» The weeping grew fainter. «The Seer is dead.»

A part of her mind cried out at that, while another asked, What Seer!

«I am within, yet apart. I stand at Shadowthrone's side, and he is named Ammanas and he is the Lord of Shadows. I am here as the hand of death.» Sorry smiled and nodded to herself, once again in control.

Whatever had challenged that was now gone, once more buried deep inside. The luxury of weeping, of anger, of fear did not belong to her had never belonged to her.

She drew a deep breath, and her senses narrowed to the task at hand. The fat little man was dangerous. The how and why of this remained to be answered, but every power hissed in alarm each time she caught glimpse of him amid the crowds. And all that is dangerous, she told herself, must die.

Beneath the Second Tier Wall in the Lakefront, the market along St Walk was at its usual frenzied peak. The sour heat, building all day in the cluttered avenues and alleys, was at its height. Sweating, exhausted merchants screamed curses at competitors over the heads of customers. Fights broke out every few minutes in one or another area, the turl jostle of the crowds pulling the contestants apart long before the arrival of ill-tempered guards.

Squatting on their grass mats, local Rhivi plainsmen called out in d nasal singsong endless descriptions of fine horseflesh. At intersections Gadrobi herders stood at tethering poles surrounded by braying goats and sheep, while others pushed wooden carts burdened with cheeses and clay jugs filled with fermented milk. Daru fishermen walked with sp(of smoked fish bobbing above their heads streaming with buzzing flies. Catlin weavers sat behind waist-high fortresses comprised of bolts of brightly dyed cloth. Gredfalan farmers stood in their wagons selling season's bitter fruits and sweet tubers. Woodsellers forced their drawn wagons through the crowds, their children clinging to the stacked bundles of wood like monkeys. Dark-robed men and women of Callows sang out the clashing claims of their Thousand Sects of D», each holding aloft their sect's particular icon.

Kruppe strode down the market street with a jaunty step, his arms waving about seemingly of their own accord. Such movement, however, was no mere affectation: it disguised the gesturing required for casting spells. As a thief, it appeared that Kruppe's tastes did not demand much.

He stole food-fruit and sweets, mostly-and it was to such desires of the palate that he had honed his skills of magic.

As he walked, the chaotic dance of his arms was timed to catch apples flying from baskets, pastries leaping from trays, chocolate-covered cherries plucked from pans, all moving so swiftly as to be no more than blurs dodging bodies in their path. Inside the wide, flopping sleeves of his coat, pockets had been sewn, some large, some tiny. All that entered Kruppe's hands disappeared up his sleeves, tucked into appropriately sized pockets. He strode on, a connoisseur of edible delicacies of a hundred cultures, an expression of sated contentment on his round face.

Eventually, after a long, circuitous route, Kruppe arrived at the Phoenix Inn. He paused on the steps and chatted with a lone thug standing there, removing from a sleeve a glazed honeyball. Then, taking a bite from the sweetmeat, he pushed open the door and disappeared inside.

Half a block down the street, Sorry propped herself against the pitted wall of a tenement and crossed her arms. The fat little man was a wonder. She'd seen enough of his exquisite ballet to recognize him as an Adept. Yet she felt confused, for the mind behind the man's fa?ade hinted at capacities far greater than those he'd shown. Confirmation that here indeed was a dangerous creature.

From where she stood she studied the inn. The man on the steps seemed to be screening everyone entering, but she couldn't detect any gesture that might indicate a thieves» cant. The conversations were brief, usually of mutual recognition. Nevertheless she intended to enter the inn.

It was the kind of place Whiskeyjack had sent Kalam and Quick Ben to find-a haunt of thieves, strong-arms and assassins. Why the sergeant wanted to find such a place was a detail that hadn't been shared with her.

The wizard and Kalam had suspicions about her, and she sensed that their arguments were swaying Whiskeyjack. If they could, they'd keep her out of everything, but she didn't intend that to happen.

Pushing herself from the wall, Sorry crossed the street and approached the Phoenix Inn. Overhead, the afternoon had waned into a thick, heavy dusk, the smell of rain in the air. As she neared the front steps, the thug's attention focused on her. The man grinned. «Following Kruppe around, eh?» He wagged his head. «Girls shouldn't carry swords anyway. Hope you're not planning to go inside. With a sword? Uh, uh. Not unescorted, Sorry stepped back. She glanced up and down the street. The nearest pedestrian was over a street away, heading in the opposite direction. She closed her hands around the edges of her half-cloak and drew it around her waist. «Let me pass,» she said quietly. How had that fat man spotted her?

The man leaned on the railing. «All this is just begging for some kind of conversation, friendly-like,» he said. «So how about you and me go back to the alley. You lay down your sword and I'll be gentle. Otherwise, things could get rough, and what would be the fun of —

Sorry's left hand darted out. A dagger flashed between them. The blade entered the man's right eye and then his brain. He jerked back over the rail and fell, landing with a heavy thud beside the steps. Sorry walked up to him and retrieved her dagger. She paused, adjusting the belt that carried her duelling sword, then checked the street. Seeing no one close enough to have noticed anything awry in the deepening gloom, she climbed the steps and entered the inn.

She was stopped before she'd taken her second step, coming face-to-face with a moaning boy hanging upside down. Two rough-looking women were taking turns to swing him back and forth. Every time he tried to reach up to the rope tied to his feet he earned a knock on the head. One of the women grinned at Sorry.

«Hey, now!» the woman said, grasping Sorry's arm as she walked by.

Sorry turned a cold eye on the woman. «What?»

The woman leaned close, her breath a mist of beer as she whispered, «You get in trouble, you just call for Irilta and Meese. That's us, right?»

«Thank you.»

Sorry resumed her walk. She'd already seen the fat little man-what had the thug called him? Kruppe. He'd seated himself at a table near the far wall, beneath the gallery. Through the crowded room Sorry saw a space open at the bar, where she might take position and observe. She pushed forward.

Since Kruppe evidently knew of her, she decided to make no effort in hiding her attention. Often, that was exactly the kind of pressure that cracked a man's will. In a war of patience, Sorry smiled inwardly, the mortal is ever at a disadvantage.

Crokus turned the corner and approached the Phoenix Inn. The course Mammot had set for him was intimidating, the education extending, far beyond books, to the etiquette of court manners, the functions of various officials, blood-lines and particular quirks among certain dignitaries-but he'd vowed to himself he'd follow it through. His goal was one day to stand before that D'Arle maiden, awaiting a formal introduction.

Something in him mocked the image. There stands Crokus, the scholar, the sophisticated young promise, the thief. It was all too absurd.

Yet it dogged him, steeled his resolve. He'd come to it one day soon.

Until then, however, there were other matters to attend to, things that needed redressing.

As he came up to the inn's steps he saw a huddled shadow beneath the railing. Cautiously Crokus moved closer.

As Sorry reached the bar the door slammed open on the other side of the room. She turned with everyone else to see a young, black-haired man standing there.

«Someone's murdered Chert!» the man shouted. «He's been knifed!»

Half a dozen patrons surged to the door, pushing past the young man and disappearing outside.

Sorry faced the bar again. Catching the barman's eye she said, «Gredfalan ale, please, in a pewter tankard.»

The woman Irilta had called Meese appeared beside her, thumping two broad forearms on the bar as she leaned forward. «Attend the lady, Scurve,» Meese growled. «She got taste.»

Meese dipped her head close to Sorry's. «Good taste all round. Chert was a pig.» Sorry stiffened. Her hands slipped down beneath her cloak.

«Easy, girl,» Meese said, in a low tone. «We ain't wagging tongues. Around here, y» take care of yourselves first, and I don't want no knife in my eye. We said we'd take care of you, didn't we?»

The ale arrived, as ordered. Sorry raised a hand and closed it on the tankard's handle. «You don't want to take care of me, Meese,» she said quietly.

Another person arrived on Meese's other side. Glancing at him, Sorry saw that it was the black-haired youth, his face pale. «Dammit, Meese,» he hissed, «I'm having a really bad day.»

Meese chuckled and draped an arm over his shoulders. «Scurve, serve us up a couple of them Gredfalan ales. Crokus here's earned Darujhistan's best.» Meese turned her head and bent close to Sorry again.

«Next time,» she whispered, «you don't want to show that kind of breeding. Not around here, anyway.»

Sorry frowned down at her drink. She'd been careless, ordering the city's best. Then she took a mouthful. «That's fine,» she said. «Fine indeed.»

Meese grinned, nudging Crokus. «The lady likes it just fine.»

Crokus leaned forward, offering Sorry a weary but warm smile. From outside came the klaxon of the Guard.

Scurve served up the two ales.

Sorry watched Crokus's gaze move down her body, then stop. Th youth's smile tightened, his face whitening even more than before. As the tankard was set before him, Crokus averted his eyes and reached for it.

«Pay up before you drink that, Crokus,» Scurve muttered. «You're getting to be just as bad as Kruppe.»

Crokus reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. A he tried to count them some slipped between his fingers and bounced on the bar. Of the three that fell, two clattered briefly then stopped. The third coin spun, and continued spinning. Sorry's eyes swung to it, as did Scurve's and Meese's. Crokus reached for it, then hesitated. The coin was still spinning, its momentum unchanged.

Sorry stared at the coin, feeling echoes of power slam into her skull like ocean waves. From within, all at once, came an answering surge. Scurve shouted as the coin skidded across the bar, bounced once big into the air, then clattered to a stop directly in front of Crokus.

No one spoke. Beyond their small ring no one else had witnessed the event.

Crokus thrust his hand forward and collected the coin. «Not this one,» he grated.

«Fine,» Scurve answered, in a similar, hoarse voice. He reached shaking hands to gather in the other coins Crokus had laid on the bar.

Beneath the counter, Sorry brushed her hand against her dagger's hilt and scabbard. It came away wet. So, Crokus had seen the blood. She would have to kill him. Only, her frown deepened, she knew she wouldn't.

«Crokus, my boy!» came a shout from under the gallery.

Meese sneered in that direction. «The flopping fish himself,» she muttered. «Kruppe calls, lad.»

Crokus snorted, having returned the coin to his pocket. He picked up his tankard. «Later, Meese.»

So, she'd found Oponn's man-as easily as that. And he was connected to Kruppe, somehow. This was almost too simple. It made her suspicious «A likely lad,» Meese said. «Me and Irilta, we look out for him, right?»

Sorry leaned against the bar, her eyes on the tankard in her hand. She'd have to play this very carefully. That burst of Shadow sorcery, responding to the Coin's influence, had been entirely instinctive. «Right, Meese, she said. «No worries on that count. «OK,» Meese sighed. «OK. Let's try for the cheap stuff now. Scurve? Dar beer, if you please. Earthenware, if you have it.»

Crouched against the Second Tier Wall on the Lakefront side was Quip Bar, a common haunt of shipmen and fisher-hands. The bar's walls were cut sandstone, and over time the whole edifice had developed a backward lean, as if withdrawing from the front street. Quip's now sagged against the Second Tier Wall, as did the adjoining squatter shacks constructed mostly of driftwood and hull planks washed ashore from the occasional wreck out on Mole's Reef.

Dusk brought a light rain to Darujhistan, the mists crawling in from the water and on to the shore. Far out over the lake lightning flashed, but too distant for thunder to be heard.

Kalam emerged from Quip's Bar just as a local Greyface brought his burning pitch-stick to a nearby gas-light, having moments earlier opened the copper valves. The lamp ignited in a flash of blue flame that quickly evened out. Kalam paused outside the bar to watch the odd, grey-robed man continue on down the street. He squinted skyward, then moved up the street. He came to the last squatter shack, this one abutting a peculiar jag in the tier wall, and entered.

Quick Ben looked up from his cross-legged position in the centre of the dirt floor. «Any luck?»

«No,» Kalam said. «The Guild's gone to ground-why, I've no idea.» He went to the far wall and sat down on his bedroll. He leaned back against the ancient, pitted stone and eyed his comrade. «You think maybe the City Council's moved to take out the local assassins?»

Quick Ben's gaze glittered in the gloom. «You mean, anticipating we'd try to make contact?»

Kalam looked away. «I doubt they're idiots. They must know it's the Malazan way. Offer the Guild a contract it can't refuse, then sit back and watch the rulers drop like headless flies. Whiskeyjack suggested the plan. Dujek OK'd it. Those two were talking the old Emperor's language there, Quick. The old man must be laughing in hell right now.»

The wizard shivered. «An unpleasant image.»

Shrugging, Kalam continued, «It's all academic, anyway, if we can't find a local assassin. Wherever they are, it's not in Lakefront District, I'd swear to that. The only name I picked up that's got mystery around it is someone named the Eel. Not an assassin, though. Something else.»

«Where next, then?» Quick Ben asked. «Gadrobi District?»

«No. just a bunch of farmers and herders there. Hell, the smell alone coming from that place is enough to cross it off the list. We'll try Daru, starting tomorrow.» Kalam hesitated. «What about your side of things?»

Quick Ben bowed his head. When he answered it was a faint whisper.

«Almost ready.»

«Whiskeyjack nearly choked when he heard your proposal. So did I. You'll be walking into the viper's den, Quick. You sure it's necessary?»

«No.» Quick Ben looked up. «Personally, I'd rather we just dropped everything and ran away from it all, from the Empire, from Darujhistan, from war. But try convincing the sergeant to do that. He's loyal to an idea, and that's the hardest kind to turn.»

Kalam nodded. «Honour, integrity, all that expensive crap.»

«Right. So we do it this way because it's the only way left to us. Hairlock's insanity has become a liability, but we can use him still, one last time. Power draws power, and with luck Hairlock's demise will do just that. The more Ascendants we can lure into the fray the better.»

«I always thought that was something to avoid, Quick.»

The wizard's smile was strained. «Tell me about it. But right now the more confusion and chaos the better.»

«And if Tayschrenn catches wind?»

Quick Ben's smile broadened. «Then we're dead all that much sooner. So it goes.»

Kalam barked a short, humourless laugh. «So it goes.»

The wizard cocked his head. «The sun's past the horizon. Time to start.»

«You want me out of here?» Kalam asked.

Quick Ben shook his head. «No, I want you right where you are for this one. If I don't come back, take my body and burn it down to ash. Scatter the ash to the four winds, and curse my name with all your heart.»

Kalam was silent. Then he asked, in a growl, «How long do I wait?»

«Dawn,» Quick Ben replied. «You understand I would only ask this of my closest friend.»

«I understand. Now, get on with it, dammit.»

Quick Ben gestured. A ring of fire sprang from the earth, surrounding the wizard. He closed his eyes.

To Kalam, his friend seemed to deflate slightly, as if something essential to life had disappeared. Quick Ben's neck creaked as his chin sank down to his chest, his shoulders slumped, and a long breath escaped with a slow hiss. The ring of fire flared, then dimmed to a lapping glimmer on the earth.

Kalam shifted position, stretching out his legs and crossing his arms.

In the gathering silence, he waited.

A pale Murillio returned to the table and sat down. «Someone's disposing of the body,» he said, then shook his head. «Whoever killed Chert was a professional with a real nasty streak. Right through the eye-»

«Enough!» Kruppe cried out, raising his hands. «Kruppe happens to be eating, dear Murillio, and Kruppe also happens to have a delicate stomach.»

«Chert was a fool,» Murillio continued, ignoring Kruppe, «but hardly the type to attract such viciousness.»

Crokus said nothing. He'd seen the blood on that dark-haired woman's dagger.

«Who can say?» Kruppe waggled his eyebrows. «Perhaps he was witness to some horrific horror. Perhaps he was stamped out as a man crushes a cute mouse underfoot.»

Crokus glanced around. His eyes returned to the woman standing with Meese at the bar. Dressed in leather armour with a plain duelling sword strapped to her hip, she reminded him of the time he'd watched, as a young boy, a troop of mercenaries ride through the city. They had been the Crimson Guard, he recalled: five hundred men and women without a shiny buckle among them.

His gaze remained on the woman. Like a mercenary, a killer for whom killing had long since lost its horror. What had Chert done to earn a knife in the eye?

Crokus looked away, in time to see Rallick Nom enter the bar. The assassin approached the table, seemingly unconscious of the locals moving from his path.

Coll intercepted him, before he reached the table. The burly man slapped Rallick's back and leaned drunkenly against him. «Nom, you old bastard!»

Rallick threw an arm around Coll's round shoulders and together they came to the table.

Kruppe looked up. «Ho, my dear comrades! Kruppe invites you to join our familiar gathering.» Waving his arms at the two empty chairs, he rocked back in his seat. «To bring you up to date on our dramatic doings, the lad Crokus has been staring dreamily into space while Murillio and Kruppe have discussed the latest natterings of the street rats.»

Coll remained standing, weaving unsteadily, a frown knitting his brows. Rallick sat down and reached for the pitcher of beer. «What natterings are those?» the assassin asked casually.

«The rurnour that we're now allied with Moon's Spawn,» Murillio said.

«Nonsense, of course,» Kruppe said. «Have you seen anything to suggest such a thing?»

Murillio grinned. «The Moon hasn't moved away, has it? Not only that, there's that Council tent stationed directly under it.»

Crokus spoke up. «I heard from Uncle Mammot that the councilmen haven't had any luck getting a message to whoever's in Moon's Spawn.»

«Typical,» Murillio commented, his eyes narrowing briefly on Rallick.

«Who lives in there?» Crokus asked.

Coll tottered and threw both hands down on the table to steady himself. He thrust his red face at Crokus and bellowed, «Five black dragons!»

Within the Warren of Chaos, Quick Ben knew of the innumerable shifting pathways that led to doors. Though he called them doors they were in fact barriers created where Warrens touched, an accretion of energy as solid as basalt. Chaos touched on all realms with gnarled fingertips bleeding power, the doors hardened wounds in the flesh of other worlds, other avenues of magic.

The wizard had focused his talents on such doors. While within the Warren of Chaos, he had learned the ways of shaping their energy. He'd found means of altering the barriers, of sensing what lay beyond them.

Each Warren of magic possessed a smell, each realm a texture, and though the pathways he took were never the same as those he'd taken before, he had mastered the means of finding those he sought.

He travelled now down one of those paths, a track of nothingness enclosed by the Warren's own accretions, twisting and fraught with contradictions. On one trail he'd will himself forward yet find himself moving back; he'd come to a sharp right turn, followed by another, then another, then yet another-all in the same direction.

He knew it was the power of his mind that opened the pathways, but they had their own laws-or perhaps they were his, yet unknown to him.

Whatever the source of the shaping, it was madness defined.

He came at last to the door he sought. The barrier showed as nothing more than a dull, slate-grey. stone. Hovering before it, Quick Ben whispered a command, and his spirit took the form of his own body. He stood a moment, mastering the disconnected tremble of his ghost-body, then stepped forward and laid hands on the door.

Its edges were hard and warm. Towards the centre it grew hot and soft to the touch. The surface slowly lost its opaqueness beneath the wizard's hands, becoming glassy like obsidian. Quick Ben closed his eyes.

He'd never before sought to pass through such a door. He was not even certain that it was possible. And if he survived into the beyond, was there any way to return? Past the mechanics of the one thing loomed his final, most difficult worry: he was about to attempt entry into a realm where he wasn't welcome.

Quick Ben opened his eyes. «I am direction,» he said quietly. He leaned against the barrier. «I am the power of will in a place that respects this, and only this.» He leaned harder. «I am the Warren's touch. To chaos nothing is immune, nowhere is immune.» He felt the door begin to yield.

He lashed out one hand behind him, fending off a growing pressure.

«Only I shall pass!» he hissed. Abruptly, with a strange thumping sound, he slipped through, energy flaring around his body.

The wizard staggered over rough, parched earth. He regained his balance and looked around. He stood on a barren plain, the horizon off to his left humped with low hills. Overhead spanned a sky the colour of quicksilver, a scatter of long, stringy clouds moving in unison and black as ink directly above.

Quick Ben sat down, folding his legs and clasping his hands in his lap.

«Shadowthrone,» he said, «Lord of Shadows, I am come to your realm. Will you receive my presence as befits a peaceful visitor?»

From the hills came an answer: the howling of Hounds.