«Yes. I, too, was surprised, Wizard. Usually I cannot find you. It seems cracks appeared.»
Quick Ben thought about that. «Cracks', he decided, wasn't the right word-but Sorry didn't know that. She'd sensed his whereabouts because she was what they'd suspected, a pawn of the Rope. The Shadow Realm had been linked, however briefly and however tenuously, to his flesh and blood. Yet none but a servant of Shadow possessed the necessary sensitivity to detect that link. The wizard moved to stand beside Kalam and laid a hand on the burly man's shoulder.
Kalam threw him a startled glare.
«She's right. Cracks appeared, Kalam. She's obviously a natural Talent in the ways of sorcery. Come on, friend, the girl's found what we've been looking for. Let's move on it.»
Sorry pulled up the hood around her head. «I am not accompanying you,» she said. «You'll know the man when you see him. I suspect it is his task to make his profession obvious. Perhaps the Guild is anticipating you. In any case, find the Phoenix Inn.»
«What the hell are you up to?» Kalam demanded.
«I will be completing an assignment for the sergeant.» She turned and left the hut.
Kalam's shoulders slumped and he let out a long breath.
«She's the one we thought her to be,» Quick Ben said quietly. «So far, so good.»
«In other words,» the assassin growled, «if I'd attacked her I'd be a dead man right now.»
«Exactly. We'll take her out, when the time's right. But for now we need her.»
Kalain nodded.
«Phoenix Inn?»
«Damn right. And when we get there the first thing I'm doing is buying a drink.»
Quick Ben smiled. «Agreed.»
Rallick looked up as the heavy-set man entered the bar. His black skin marked him a southerner, which in itself was not unusual. What caught Rallick's attention, however, was the horn-handled, silver-pommelled long-knives tucked into the man's narrow belt. Those weapons were anything but southern, and stamped on the pornmels was a cross-hatched pattern, recognizable to all within the trade as the mark of an assassin.
The man swaggered into the room as if he owned it, and none of the locals he shouldered aside seemed inclined to disagree with him. He reached the bar and ordered an ale.
Rallick studied the dregs in his own tankard. Obviously the man wanted to be marked, precisely by someone like Rallick Nom, a Guild assassin. So, who was the bait, then? This didn't fit.
Ocelot, his Clan Leader, was convinced, along with everyone else in the Guild, that Empire Claws had come into the city and now waged war against them. Rallick wasn't so sure. The man standing at the bar could as easily be Seven Cities as a traveller from Callows. He had the look of Malazan Empire about him. Was he Claw? If so, why show himself? Up until now the enemy hadn't left a single clue, or a single eye-witness, as to their identity. The brazenness he now observed either didn't fit, or marked a reversal of tactics. Had Vorcan's order to go to ground triggered it?
Alarm bells rang in Rallick's head. None of this felt right.
Murillio leaned close to him. «Something wrong, friend?»
«Guild business,» Rallick replied. «You thirsty?»
Murillio grinned. «An offer I can't refuse.»
After a single, bemused glance at Coll's unconscious form, slumped in the chair, the assassin left the table. What had all that been about five black dragons? He made his way to the bar. As he pushed through the crowd, he gave one youth a hard elbow to the back. The boy gasped, then surreptitiously slipped towards the kitchen.
Rallick arrived, called Scurve over, then ordered another pitcher.
Though he did not look the man's way, he knew he'd been marked by him. It was no more than a feeling, but one he'd learned to trust. He sighed as Scurve delivered the foaming pitcher. Well, he'd done what Ocelot had demanded of him, though he suspected his Clan Leader would be asking for more.
He returned to the table and conversed with Murillio for a time, plying his friend with the majority of the ale. Murillio sensed a growing tension around Rallick and took his cue. He drained the last of his drink and rose. «Well,» he said, «Kruppe's scurried off, Crokus too. And Coll's once again dead to the world. Rallick, I thank you for the ale. Time to find a warm bed. Until the morrow, then.»
Rallick remained seated for another five minutes, only once brushing gazes with the black man leaning against the bar. Then he rose and strode into the kitchen. The two cooks rolled their eyes at each other as he strode past. Rallick. ignored them. He came to the door, which had been left ajar in hopes of a cooling draught. The alley beyond was wet, though the rain had passed. From a shadowed recess on the wall opposite the inn stepped a familiar figure.
Rallick walked up to Ocelot. «It's done. Your man is the big black one nursing an ale. Two daggers, hatch-marked. He looks mean and not one I'd like to tussle with. He's all yours, Ocelot.»
The man's pocked face twisted. «He's still inside? Good. Head back in. Make sure you've been noticed-damn sure, Nom.»
Rallick crossed his arms. «I'm sure already,» he drawled.
«You're to draw him out, lead him into Tarlow's warehouse-into the loading grounds.» Ocelot sneered. «Vorcan's orders, Nom. And when you head out, do it by the front door No mistakes, nothing subtle.»
«The man's an assassin,» Rallick grated. «If I'm not subtle he'll know it's a trap and crawl all over me in seconds flat.»
«You do as Vorcan wills, Nom. Now get back inside!»
Rallick stared at his commander, to make his disgust plain, then returned to the kitchen. The cooks grinned at him, but only for moment. One look at Rallick's face was enough to kill any humour in the room. They bent to their tasks as if prodded by a landmaster.
Rallick entered the main room, then stopped dead in his tracks «Damn,» he muttered. The black man was gone. Now what? He shrugged. «Front door it is.» He made his way through the crowd.
In an alley, on one side of which ran a high stone wall, Crokus leaned against the damp bricks of a merchant's house and gazed steadily at a window. It was on the third floor, beyond the wall, and behind it shuttered face was a room he knew intimately.
There'd been a light on inside for most of the two hours he'd stood below, but for the last fifteen minutes the room within had been dark.
Numb with exhaustion and plagued with doubts, Crokus pulled his cloak tighter around him. He wondered what he was doing here, and not for the first time. All his resolve seemed to have drained into the gutters along with the rain.
Had it been the dark-haired woman in the Phoenix Inn? Had she rattled him that much? The blood on her dagger made it obvious that she wouldn't hesitate to kill him just to keep her secret intact. Maybe it was the spinning coin that had him so confused. Nothing about that incident had been natural.
What was so wrong with his dream of being introduced to the D'Arle maiden? It had nothing to do with that killer woman in the bar.
«Nothing,» he mumbled, then scowled. Now he was talking aloud to himself.
A thought came to him that deepened his scowl. Everything had begun its mad unravelling the night he'd robbed the maiden. If only he hadn't paused, if only he hadn't looked upon her soft, round, lovely face.
A groan escaped him, and he shifted his feet. A high-born. That was the real problem, wasn't it?
It all seemed so stupid now, so absurd. How could he have convinced himself that such a thing as meeting her was possible? He shook himself.
It didn't matter, he'd planned this, now it was time to do it.
«I don't believe this,» he muttered as he pushed himself from the wall and headed down the alley. His hand brushed the pouch tied to his waist.
«I'm about to put a maiden's ransom back.»
He came to the stone wall he'd been looking for, and began to climb.
He drew a deep breath. All right, let's get it done.
The stone was wet, but he had enough determination in him to scale a mountain. He climbed on, and did not slip even so much as a single foothold.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There's a spider here in this corner in that -
her three eyes tiptoe in darkness, her eight legs track my spine, she mirrors and mocks my pacing.
There's a spider here who knows all of me her web my history full writ.
Somewhere in this strange place a spider waits for my panicked flight:
The Conspiracy Blind Gallan (b.1078)
Soon as the guild assassin left the room, kalam drained the last of his beer, paid up, and ascended the staircase.
From the gallery railing he studied the crowd below, then, seeing that no one paid him much attention, he strode down the hallway and entered the last room on the right.
He closed the door and locked it. Quick Ben was seated cross-legged on the floor, within a circle of melted blue wax. The wizard was hunched over, bare-chested, his eyes shut and droplets of sweat trickling down his face. Around him the air shimmered, as if glossed with lacquer.
Kalam walked around the wax circle to the bed. He took a leather satchel from a peg above the bedpost and set it down on the thin, straw-filled mattress. Peeling back the flap he removed the contents. A minute later he'd laid out the mechanisms for a goat's foot arbalest. The crossbow's metal parts had been blued, the narrow wooden stock soaked in pitch and dusted with black sand. Kalam slowly, quietly, assembled the weapon.
Quick Ben spoke behind him. «Done. Whenever you're ready, friend.»
«The man left through the kitchen. But he'll be back,» Kalam said, rising with the arbalest in his hands. He attached a strap to it and slung the weapon over one shoulder. Then he faced the wizard. «I'm ready.»
Quick Ben also stood, wiping his forehead with a sleeve. «Two spells. You'll be able to float, control every descent. The other should give you the ability to see anything magical-well, almost anything. If there's a High Mage kicking around, we're out of luck.»
«And you?» Kalam asked, as he examined his quiver of bolts.
«You won't see me directly, just my aura,» Quick Ben replied with a grin, «but I'll be with you all the way.»
«Well, hopefully this'll go smoothly. We make contact with the Guild, we offer the Empire's contract, they accept and remove for us every major threat in the city.» He shrugged into his black cloak and pulled up the hood.
