Deadhouse Gates

'I don't see any boats,' Crokus said.

'Up the creek,' Fiddler mumbled, dragging a nail through his beard in pursuit of a nit. After a moment he plucked it out and flicked it over the side. Ten hours on foot, then Ehrlitan, and a bath and a shave and a Kansuan girl with a saw-comb and the whole night free afterward.

Crokus nudged him. 'Getting excited, Fiddler?'

'You don't know the half of it.'

'You were here during the conquest, weren't you? Back when Kalam was fighting for the other side — for the Seven Holy Falah'dan — and the T'lan Imass marched for the Emperor and-'

'Enough,' Fiddler waved a hand. 'I don't need reminding, and neither does Kalam. All wars are ugly, but that one was uglier than most.'

'Is it true that you were in the company that chased Quick Ben across the Holy Desert Raraku, and that Kalam was your guide, only he and Quick were planning on betraying you all, but Whiskeyjack had already worked that out-'

Fiddler turned a glare on Kalam. 'One night in Rutu Jelba with a jug of Falari rum, and this boy knows more than any Imperial historian still breathing.' He swung back to Crokus. 'Listen, son, best you forget everything that drunken lout told you that night. The past is already hunting our tails — no point in making it any easier.'

Crokus ran a hand through his long black hair. 'Well,' he said softly, 'if Seven Cities is so dangerous, why didn't we just head straight down to Quon Tali, to where Apsalar lived, so we can find her father? Why all this sneaking around — and on the wrong continent at that?'

'It's not that simple,' Kalam growled.

'Why? I thought that was the reason for this whole journey.' Crokus reached for Apsalar's hand and clasped it in both of his, but saved his hard expression for Kalam and Fiddler. 'You both said you owed it to her. It wasn't right and you wanted to put it right. But now I'm thinking it's only part of the reason, I'm thinking that you two have something else planned — that taking Apsalar back home was just an excuse to come back to your Empire, even though you're officially outlawed. And whatever it is you're planning, it's meant coming here, to Seven Cities, and it's also meant we have to sneak around, terrified of everything, jumping at shadows, as if the whole Malazan army was after us.' He paused, drew a deep breath, then continued. 'We have a right to know the truth, because you're putting us in danger and we don't even know what kind, or why, or anything. So out with it. Now.'

Fiddler leaned back on the gunnel. He looked over at Kalam and raised an eyebrow. 'Well, Corporal? It's your call.'

'Give me a list, Fiddler,' Kalam said.

'The Empress wants Darujhistan,' The sapper met Crokus's steady gaze. 'Agreed?'

The boy hesitated, then nodded.

Fiddler continued. 'What she wants she usually gets sooner or later. Call it precedent. Now, she's tried to take your city once, right, Crokus? And it cost her Adjunct Lorn, two Imperial demons, and High Fist Dujek's loyalty, not to mention the loss of the Bridgeburners. Enough to make anyone sting.'

'Fine. But what's that got to do-'

'Don't interrupt. Corporal said make a list. I'm making it. You've followed me so far? Good. Darujhistan eluded her once — but she'll make certain next time. Assuming there is a next time.'

'Well,' Crokus was scowling, 'why wouldn't there be? You said she gets what she wants.'

'And you're loyal to your city, Crokus?'

'Of course-'

'So you'd do anything you could to prevent the Empress from conquering it?'

'Well, yes but-'

'Sir?' Fiddler turned back to Kalam.

The burly black-skinned man looked out over the waves, sighed, then nodded to himself. He faced Crokus. 'It's this, lad. Time's come. I'm going after her.'

The Daru boy's expression was blank, but Fiddler saw Apsalar's eyes widen, her face losing its colour. She sat back suddenly, then half-smiled — and Fiddler went cold upon seeing it.

'I don't know what you mean,' Crokus said. 'After who? The Empress? How?'

'He means,' Apsalar said, still smiling a smile that had belonged to her once, long ago, when she'd been … someone else, 'that he's going to try and kill her.'

'What?' Crokus stood, almost pitching himself over the side. 'You? You and a seasick sapper with a broken fiddle strapped to his back? Do you think we're going to help you in this insane, suicidal-'

'I remember,' Apsalar said suddenly, her eyes narrowing on Kalam.

Crokus turned to her. 'Remember what?'

'Kalam. He was a Falah'dan's Dagger, and the Claw gave him command of a Hand. Kalam's a master assassin, Crokus. And Quick Ben-'

'Is three thousand leagues away!' Crokus shouted. 'He's a squad mage, for Hood's sake! That's it, a squalid little squad mage!'

'Not quite,' Fiddler said. 'And being so far away doesn't mean a thing, son. Quick Ben's our shaved knuckle in the hole.'

'Your what in the where?'

'Shaved knuckle, as in the game of knuckles — a good gambler's usually using a shaved knuckle, as in cheating in the casts, if you know what I mean. As for "hole", that'd be Quick Ben's Warren — the one that can put him at Kalam's side in the space of a heartbeat, no matter how far away he happens to be. So, Crokus, there you have it: Kalam's going to give it a try, but it's going to take some planning, preparation. And that starts here, in Seven Cities. You want Darujhistan free for ever more? The Empress Laseen must die.'

Crokus slowly sat back down. 'But why Seven Cities? Isn't the Empress in Quon Tali?'

'Because,' Kalam said as he angled the fisherboat into the creek mouth and the oppressive heat of the land rose around them, 'because, lad, Seven Cities is about to rise.'

'What do you mean?'

The assassin bared his teeth. 'Rebellion.'

Fiddler swung around and scanned the fetid undergrowth lining the banks. And that, he said to himself with a chill clutching his stomach, is the part of this plan that I hate the most. Chasing one of Quick Ben's wild ideas with the whole countryside going up in flames.

A minute later they rounded a bend and the village appeared, a scattering of wattle-and-daub huts in a broken half-circle facing a line of skiffs pulled onto a sandy beach. Kalam nudged the tiller and the fisherboat drifted towards the strand. As the keel scraped bottom, Fiddler clambered over the gunnel and stepped onto dry land, Moby now awake and clinging with all fours to the front of his tunic. Ignoring the squawking creature, Fiddler slowly straightened. 'Well,' he sighed as the first of the village's mongrel dogs announced their arrival, 'it's begun.'

CHAPTER TWO

To this day it remains easy to ignore the fact that the Aren High Command was rife with treachery, dissension, rivalry and malice … The assertion that [the Aren High Command] was ignorant of the undercurrents in the countryside is, at best naive, at worst cynical in the extreme …

The Sha'ik Rebellion

Cullaran

The red ochre handprint on the wall was dissolving in the rain, trickling roots down along the mortar between the fired mudbricks. Hunched against the unseasonal downpour, Duiker watched as the print slowly disappeared, wishing that the day had broken dry, that he could have come upon the sign before the rain obscured it, that he could then have gained a sense of the hand that had made its mark here, on the outer wall of the old Falah'd Palace in the heart of Hissar.

The many cultures of Seven Cities seethed with symbols, a secret pictographic language of oblique references that carried portentous weight among the natives. Such symbols formed a complex dialogue that no Malazan could understand. Slowly, during his many months resident here, Duiker had come to realize the danger behind their ignorance. As the Year of Dryjhna approached, such symbols blossomed in chaotic profusion, every wall in every city a scroll of secret code. Wind, sun and rain assured impermanence, wiping clean the slate in readiness for the next exchange.