«I am known as K'rul.»
Kruppe stiffened. His guess had been correct. The thought of an Elder God awakened and wandering through his dreams sent his thoughts scampering like frightened rabbits. «How have you come to be here, K'rul?» he asked, a tremor in his voice. All at once this place seemed too hot. He pulled his handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped sweat from his brow.
K'rul considered before answering, and Kruppe heard doubt in his voice. «Blood has been spilled behind the walls of this glowing city, Kruppe, upon stone once holy in my name. This-this is new to me.
«Once I reigned in the minds of many mortals, and they fed me well with blood and split bones. Long before the first towers of stone rose to mortal whims, I walked among hunters.» The hood tilted upward and Kruppe felt immortal eyes fixing upon him. «Blood has been spilled again, but that alone is not enough. I believe I am here to await one who will be awakened. One I have known before, long ago.»
Kruppe digested this like sour bile. «And what do you bring Kruppe?»
The Elder God rose abruptly. «An ancient fire that will give you warmth in times of need,» he said. «But I hold you to nothing. Seek the T'lan Imass who will lead the woman. They are the Awakeners. I must prepare for battle, I think. One I will lose.»
Kruppe's eyes widened with sudden comprehension. «You are being used,» he breathed.
«Perhaps. If so, then the Child Gods have made a grave error. After all,» a ghastly smile seemed to come into his tone, «I will lose a battle. But I will not die.» K'rul turned away from the fire then. His voice drifted back to Kruppe. «Play on, mortal. Every god falls at a mortal's hands. Such is the only end to immortality.»
The Elder God's wistfulness was not lost on Kruppe. He suspected that a great truth had been revealed to him with those final words, a truth he was now given leave to use. «And use it Kruppe shall,» he whispered.
The Elder God had left the pool of light, heading north-east across the fields. Kruppe stared at the fire. It licked the wood hungrily, but no ash was born, and though unfed since he'd arrived it did not dim. He shivered.
«In the hands of a child,» he muttered. «This night, Kruppe is truly alone in the world. Alone.»
An hour before dawn Circle Breaker was relieved of his vigil at Despot's Barbican. This night none had come to rendezvous beneath the gate.
Lightning played among the jagged peaks of the Tahlyn Mountains to the north as the man walked in solitude down the winding Charms of Anise Street in the Spice Quarter. Ahead and below glittered the Lakefront, the merchant trader ships from distant Callows, Elingarth and Kepler's Spite hunched dark and gloaming between gaslit stone piers.
A cool lake breeze carried to the man the smell of rain, though overhead the stars glistened with startling clarity. He had removed his tabard, folding it into a small leather satchel now slung on one shoulder. Only the plain shortsword strapped at his hip marked him as a soldier, yet a soldier without provenance.
He had divested himself of his official duties, and as he walked down towards the water, the years of service seemed to slough from his spirit.
Bright were the memories of his childhood at these docks, to which he had been ever drawn by the allure of the strange traders as they swung into their berths like weary and weathered heroes returned from some elemental war. In those days it was not uncommon to see the galleys of the Freemen Privateers ease into the bay, sleek and riding low with booty.
They hailed from such mysterious ports as Filman Orras, Fort By a Half, Dead Man's Story and Exile; names that rang of adventure in the ears of a lad who had never seen his home city from outside its walls.
The man slowed as he reached the foot of the stone pier. The years between him and that lad marched through his mind, a possession of martial images growing ever grimmer. If he searched out the many cross-roads he had come to in the past, he saw their skies storm-warped, the lands ragged and wind-torn. The forces of age and experience worked on them now, and whatever choices he had made then seemed fated and almost desperate.
Is it only the young who know desperation? he wondered, as he moved to sit on the pier's stone sea-wall. Before him rippled the bay's sooty waters. Twenty feet below, the rock-studded shore lay sheathed in darkness, the glitter of broken glass and crockery here and there winking like stars.
The man turned slightly to face the right. His gaze travelled the slope there as it climbed to the summit, on which loomed the squat bulk of Majesty Hall. Never reach too far. A simple lesson of life he had learned long ago on the burning deck of a corsair, its belly filling with the sea as it drifted outside the pinnacle fortifications of a city named Broken jaw.
Hubris, the scholars would call the fiery end of the Freemen Privateers.
Never reach too far. The man's eyes held on Majesty Hall. The deadlock that had come with the assassination of Councilman Lim still held within those walls. The Council raced aflurry in circles, more precious hours spent on eager speculation and gossip than on the matters of state.
Turban Orr, his victory on the voting floor snatched from his hands in the last moment, now flung his hounds down every trail, seeking the spies he was convinced had infiltrated his nest. The councilman was no fool.
Overhead a flock of grey gulls swept lakeward, crying into the nightchilled air. He drew a breath, hunched his shoulders and pulled his gaze with an effort from Majesty Hill.
Too late to, concern himself about reaching too far. Since the day the Eel's agent had come to him, the man's future was sealed; to some it would be called treason. And perhaps, in the end, it was treason. Who could say what lay in the Eel's mind? Even his principal agent-the man's contact-professed ignorance of his master's plans.
His thoughts returned to Turban Orr. He'd set himself against a cunning man, a man of power. His only defence against Orr lay in anonymity. It wouldn't last.
He sat on the pier, awaiting the Eel's agent. And he would deliver into that man's hands a message for the Eel. How much would change with the delivery of that missive? Was it wrong for him to seek help, to threaten his frail anonymity-the solitude that gave him so much inner strength, that stiffened his own resolve? Yet, to match wits with Turban Orr-he did not think he could do it alone.
The man reached into his jerkin and withdrew the scroll. A crossroads marked where he now stood, he recognized that much. In answer to his ill-measured fear, he'd written the plea for help on this scroll.
It would be an easy thing to do, to surrender now. He hefted the frail parchment in his hands, feeling its slight weight, the vague oiliness of the coating, the rough weave of its tie-string. An easy, desperate thing to do.
The man lifted his head. The sky had begun to pale, the lake wind picking up the day's momentum. There would be rain, coming from the north as it often did at this time of year. A cleansing of the city, a freshening of its spice-laden breath. He slipped the string from the scroll and unfurled the parchment.
So easy.
With slow, deliberate movements, the man tore up the scroll. He let the ragged pieces drift down, scattering into the gloom of the lake's shadowed shore. The rising waves swept them outward to dot the turgid swells like flecks of ash.
Coming from somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought he heard a coin spinning. It seemed a sad sound.
A few minutes later he left the pier. The Eel's agent, out on his morning stroll, would in passing note his contact's absence and simply continue on his way.
He made his way along the Lakefront Street with the summit of Majesty Hill dwindling behind him. As he passed, the first of the silk merchants appeared, laying out their wares on the wide paved walk.