He exited the alleyway. The girls hung like oversized dolls in his arms, still numbed with shock. He glanced down at the face of the older one. Nine, maybe ten years of age, she stared up at him with wide, dark eyes. 'Safe now,' he said. 'If I set you down, can you walk? Can you show me where you live?'
After a long moment, she nodded.
They had reached one of the tortuous tracks that passed for a street in the Lower City. Fiddler set the girl down, cradling the other in the crook of his arm — she seemed to have fallen asleep. The older child immediately grasped his robes to keep from being pushed away by the jostling crowd, then began tugging him along.
'Home?' Fiddler asked.
'Home,' she replied.
Ten minutes later they passed beyond the market district and entered a quieter residential area, the dwellings modest but clean. The girl guided Fiddler towards a side street. As soon as they reached it, children appeared, shouting and rushing to gather around them. A moment later three armed men burst from a garden gate. They confronted Fiddler with tulwars raised as the crowd of children dispersed on all sides, suddenly silent and watchful.
'Nahal Gral,' Fiddler growled. 'The woman fell to a Red Sword. A simharal took these two. I bought them. Unbroken. Three jakatas.'
'Two,' corrected one of the men, spitting on the cobbles at Fiddler's feet. 'We found the simharal.'
'Two to buy. One more to deliver. Unbroken. Three.' Fiddler gave them a hard grin. 'Fair price, cheap for Gral honour. Cheap for Gral protection.'
A fourth man spoke from behind Fiddler. 'Pay the Gral, you fools. A hundred gold jakatas would not be too much. The nurse and the children were under your protection, yet you fled when the Red Swords came. If this Gral had not come upon the children and purchased them, they would now be broken. Pay the coin, and bless this Gral with the Queen of Dreams' favour, bless him and his family for all time.' The man slowly stepped around. He wore the armour of a private guard, with a captain's insignia. His lean face was scarred with the hatched symbol of a veteran of Y'ghatan and on the backs of his hands were the pitted tracks of incendiary scars. His hard eyes held Fiddler's. 'I ask for your trader name, Gral, so that we may honour you in our prayers.'
Fiddler hesitated, then gave the captain his true name, the name he had been born with, long ago.
The man frowned upon hearing it, but made no comment.
One of the guards approached with coins in hand. Fiddler offered the sleeping child to the captain. 'It is wrong that she sleeps,' he said.
The grizzled veteran received the child with gentle care. 'We shall have the House Healer attend to her.'
Fiddler glanced around. Clearly the children belonged to a rich, powerful family, yet the abodes within sight were all relatively small, the homes of minor merchants and craftworkers.
'Will you share a meal with us, Gral?' the captain asked. 'The children's grandfather will wish to see you.'
Curious, Fiddler nodded. The captain led him to a low postern gate in a garden wall. The three guardsmen moved ahead to open it. The young girl was the first through.
The gate opened into a surprisingly spacious garden, the air cool and damp with the breath of an unseen stream trickling through the lush undergrowth. Old fruit and nut trees canopied the stone-lined path. On the other side rose a high wall constructed entirely of murky glass. Rainbow patterns glistened on the panes, beaded with moisture and mottled with mineral stains. Fiddler had never before seen so much glass in one place. A lone door was set in the wall, made of bleached linen stretched over a thin iron frame. Before it stood an old man dressed in a wrinkled orange robe. The deep, rich ochre of his skin was set off by a shock of white hair. The girl ran up to embrace the man. His amber eyes held steadily on Fiddler.
The sapper dropped to one knee. 'I beg your blessing, Spiritwalker,' he said in his harshest Gral accent.
The Tano priest's laughter was like blowing sand. 'I cannot bless what you are not, sir,' he said quietly. 'But please, join me and Captain Turqa in a private repast. I trust these guardians will prove eager to regain their courage in taking care of the children, here within the garden's confines.' He laid a weathered hand on the sleeping child's forehead. 'Selal protects herself in her own way. Captain, tell the Healer she must be drawn back to this world, gently.'
The captain handed the child over to one of the guards. 'You heard the Master. Quickly now.'
Both children were taken through the linen door. Gesturing, the Tano Spiritwalker led Fiddler and Turqa to the same door at a more sedate pace.
Inside the glass-walled room squatted a low iron table with shin-high hide-bound chairs around it. On the table were bowls holding fruit and chilled meats stained red with spices. A crystal carafe of pale yellow wine had been unstoppered and left to air. At the carafe's base the wine's sediment was two fingers thick: desert flower buds and the carcasses of white honey bees. The wine's cool sweet scent permeated the chamber.
The inner door was solid wood, set in a marble wall. Small alcoves set within that wall held lit candles displaying flames of assorted colours. Their flickering reflections danced hypnotically on the facing glass.
The priest sat down and indicated the other chairs. 'Please be seated. I am surprised that a Malazan spy would so jeopardize his disguise by saving the lives of two Ehrlii children. Do you now seek to glean valuable information from a family overwhelmed by gratitude?'
Fiddler drew his hood back, sighing. 'I am Malazan,' he acknowledged. 'But not a spy. I am disguised to avoid discovery … by Malazans.'
The old priest poured the wine and handed the sapper a goblet. 'You are a soldier.'
'I am.'
'A deserter?'
Fiddler winced. 'Not by choice. The Empress saw fit to outlaw my regiment.' He sipped the flowery sweet wine.
Captain Turqa hissed. 'A Bridgeburner. A soldier of Onearm's Host.'
'You are well informed, sir.'
The Tano Spiritwalker gestured towards the bowls. 'Please. If, after so many years of war, you are seeking a place of peace, you have made a grave error in coming to Seven Cities.'
'So I gathered,' Fiddler said, helping himself to some fruit. 'Which is why I am hoping to book passage to Quon Tali as soon as possible.'
'The Kansu Fleet has left Ehrlitan,' the captain said. 'Few are the trader ships setting forth on oceanic voyages these days. High taxes-'
'And the prospect of riches that will come with a civil war,' Fiddler said, nodding. 'Thus, it must be overland, at least down to Aren.'
'Unwise,' the old priest said.
'I know.'
But the Tano Spiritwalker was shaking his head. 'Not simply the coming war. To travel to Aren, you must cross the Pan'potsun Odhan, skirting the Holy Desert Raraku. From Raraku the whirlwind of the Apocalypse will come forth. And more, there will be a convergence.'
Fiddler's eyes narrowed. The Soletaken dhenrabi. 'As in a drawing-together of Ascendant powers?'
'Just so.'
'What will draw them?'
'A gate. The Prophecy of the Path of Hands. Soletaken and D'ivers. A gate promising. . something. They are drawn as moths to a flame.'
'Why would shapeshifters have any interest in a warren's gate? They are hardly a brotherhood, nor are they users of sorcery, at least not in any sophisticated sense.'
'Surprising depth of knowledge for a soldier.'
Fiddler scowled. 'Soldiers are always underestimated,' he said. 'I've not spent fifteen years fighting Imperial wars with my eyes closed. The Emperor clashed with both Treach and Ryllandaras outside Li Heng. I was there.'
The Tano Spiritwalker bowed his head in apology. 'I have no answers to your questions,' he said quietly. 'Indeed, I do not think even the Soletaken and D'ivers are fully aware of what they seek. Like salmon returning to the waters where they were born, they act on instinct, a visceral yearning and a promise only sensed.' He folded his hands together. 'There is no unification among shapeshifters. Each stands alone. This Path of Hands — ' he hesitated, then continued — 'is perhaps a means to Ascendancy — for the victor.'