So it was that he entered, tapping a finger to his lips, his mind elsewhere, not paying particular attention to the common room until a gruff voice called out, ‘Hey, skinny – you work for the Dal Hon mage, Kellanved?’
He paused, blinking, drawing his mind in from its wanderings, and glanced over to see a very squat, sun-darkened older man gesturing at him from a table. He drew himself up to his full height and peered down his nose at the bald sweaty fellow. ‘And you are …?’
‘Fucking irritated to be kept waiting like this, kid.’
‘How very unfortunate for you.’
A broad, frog-like smile cracked the man’s face and he pushed back his chair to cross his thick, muscular arms. ‘No. Unfortunate for you, ’cause I was invited by Kellanved to join him here. So, my question to you is … who the fuck are you?’
Though quite taken aback, Tayschrenn controlled his features; he glanced about the common room and saw several of their Malazan hires lounging about, all armed, and all eyeing this stranger.
‘I have been asked to organize a mage corps,’ he answered. ‘And so I must ask again. You are …?’
The fellow’s dark gaze moved about the room also, his smile becoming, if anything, even more evil. ‘Oh, I see. You’re organizing a mage corps, are you? Well, we’ll see about that. Name’s Hairlock, and I’ve already seen some action with your Dal Hon friend. Up north. Seven Cities way.’ He hooked his thumbs at his tight belt. ‘So maybe I’ll just hang about till he shows up.’
Tayschrenn lifted a brow. ‘I was unaware that Kellanved had been to Seven Cities.’
The mage – for it was clear to Tayschrenn that this fellow was a fairly powerful mage – deliberately turned away to peer out of the dimpled glass of a slit window. ‘Oh, he gets around, he does. You’d be surprised.’
Privately, Tayschrenn was coming to the conclusion that nothing involving that mage of Meanas ought to surprise him at all; yet he shrugged. ‘As you please. We are recruiting, of course. Our aim is to place a talent with every military unit.’
The fellow barked a harsh laugh. ‘Slog through muck and dust surrounded by a pack of dimwitted knuckleheads? No thank you. Not for this mother’s son.’
Tayschrenn waved his dismissal. ‘Very well. We need people who aren’t afraid of a little discomfort,’ and he turned away.
A Malazan guard at the stairs motioned to him and he stepped close. ‘Yes?’
‘She wants to see you.’
He nodded and started up the stairs. He allowed himself one quick glance back to see Hairlock scowling savagely as he stared out the window.
At the top he knocked on the door to what was once Kellanved’s office, but had since been taken over by Surly as her headquarters; like him, she found the Hold too … high profile.
The door opened and he faced two guards in blackened leather armour. A more divergent pair one would be hard-pressed to find: a Dal Hon woman, surprisingly tall, with extraordinarily long thin arms; her partner, a man of swarthy shading, perhaps of south Itko Kan, squat, bearded and barrel-shaped. Yet both shared the same flat evaluative gaze as they studied him in silence.
Tayschrenn couldn’t remember having seen either of them before. But then, he wasn’t around much.
‘Let him in,’ spoke a hidden Surly from somewhere further within.
The two parted, hands on the knives at their belts. Curious, Tayschrenn also noted the glint of identical brooches at their chests: silver tokens that resembled birds’ feet. Some sort of order, or brotherhood?
Beyond, Surly stood, chin in one hand, peering down at a swath of papers spread out on the hardwood floor before her. Two aides, or scribes, knelt before her, arranging the pages. Seeing him enter, the two hurriedly turned each sheet face down.
He glimpsed copious notes and numerous long lists. The blue-hued Napan woman turned to him, rubbing her eyes, which shone bloodshot and bruised.
‘You appear to be in need of rest,’ he told her.
A half-smile ghosted her lips. ‘Ever the smooth flatterer and courtier, Tayschrenn.’ She added, musingly, ‘Rather like me,’ then, more forcefully, ‘thank you for coming. How goes the recruitment?’
‘It proceeds.’ He glanced to the guards. ‘As yours appears to be. Where are your old crew? Urko? Tocaras?’
‘They are far too busy these days. Urko is off raiding the coast, as is Tocaras.’
‘Raiding? I thought they were preparing for the—’ He caught himself before saying anything specific aloud, even here, and finished, ‘ah, the attack.’
The lean woman nodded, gestured for the scribes to turn back the pages, and resumed her study. ‘They are. We need weapons, stores, supplies. Raiding is the quickest way to amass them.’
‘Ah. I see.’ He waved to the papers. ‘And these?’
‘Reports. Estimates. Correspondence with … assets … in the coastal cities.’
The two scribes now eyed him warily, as if he were about to snatch up a handful of the pages and race for the door. He nodded instead. ‘Intelligence. Very good. We are on track, then, for the … ah, the plan?’
She spared him a sharp glance. ‘Are we?’
He tilted his head, thinking. ‘Speaking for the mage corps – no. We are not. We are far behind my first expectations. Surprisingly, recruiting here on this island has been poor. To say the least.’
‘I thought you told me the island was rife with talents.’
‘It was – is. However, none appear interested in leaving. They seem content to remain. Which, as I say, is surprising. I assure you this is not the usual case.’
The Napan woman nodded, her attention refocusing upon the reports spread before her. ‘Very well. Continue your efforts.’
The conversation – or interrogation – was over. He inclined his head and turned away. He knew that another person might be insulted by the curt treatment, but somehow he and she seemed to understand one another; each considered themself a professional in their field, untroubled by such petty concerns as feelings or ego. And each seemed determined to out-professionalize the other.
Exiting the bar, he turned uphill, his feet taking him whither they would, as he set loose his thoughts. Surly’s questioning reopened the mystery of why this island’s fecund pool of talents should be so reluctant to leave. Quite frankly it did astonish him that almost none were willing to join Kellanved’s forces. Perhaps some personal animosity or dread? But no, he was given to understand that such had always been the case. And all the more unlikely was it, given that this isle’s crop of wax-witches, hedge wizards, wind-callers, card readers and sea-soothers was the densest anywhere. Above almost every cottage door there hung a sign proclaiming readings, healing or an apothecary, or showing the candle of a wax-witch.
He brooded upon the mystery for a time as he walked, hands clasped at his back, until, looking up, he realized he’d left the town far behind and had climbed one of the low and bare inland hills. Here, lichen-dappled granite rocks protruded through the grasses as little more than stubs – a circle of ancient standing stones.
The hill afforded a view southwards, over further blunt hills. Unseen beyond lay the southern seas. The Strait of Storms. Said to be haunted by the so-called Stormriders: alien beings that terrorized the waters and allowed no trespass. He remembered reading third- and fourth-hand transcribed legends of attacks upon this isle by the Riders.
He pressed his fingertips together and brushed them to his lips; something. He’d touched upon something – he felt it. There was a mystery here. But one so very much larger than he’d first imagined. It was as if he had entered some shepherd’s sod-roofed hut only to find a multi-roomed mansion.
But what was it? What was hidden here on this island?
‘You are looking for recruits?’ someone called, startling him.
He turned. A woman approached, tall and thin, in bedraggled simple peasant’s tunic and trousers, her feet bare and dirty. As she neared, he became uncertain as to her ethnicity; her hair was hacked short, dirty brown, her eyes very large, her face long. He couldn’t quite place where she might hail from. She walked stiffly, using a cane, one hand across her front. It seemed she’d suffered some sort of injury recently.