Rake tossed his mask on to the floor between them and clasped the collar of his cloak. «If it proves necessary, I shall.»
Fists pounded on the carriage and voices shouted good-naturedly. The crowds around them pushed in on all sides, rocking the carriage. The festival approached the Twelfth Bell, the Hour of Ascension as the Lady of Spring took to the sky in the coming of the moon.
Rake continued, «In the meantime the city's streets must be cleared,» he said. «I imagine it's your desire to minimize the loss of life.»
«And this is all you give me, Rake?» Baruk gestured sharply. «Clear the streets? How in Hood's name do we manage that? There are three hundred thousand people in Darujhistan, and they're all in the streets!»
The Tiste And? opened the door beside him. «Then leave that to me. I need to find a high vantage-point, Alchemist. Suggestions?»
Baruk's frustration was so great that he had to fight the desire to defy Anomander Rake. «K'rul's Belfry,» he said. «A square tower near Worry Gate.»
Rake stepped out of the carriage. «We'll speak again at your estate, Alchemist,» he said, leaning back inside. «You and your fellow mages must prepare yourselves.» He faced the crowds, pausing for a moment as if smelling the air. «How far to this belfry?»
«Three hundred paces-surely you don't mean to go on foot?»
«I do. I am not yet ready to unveil my Warren.»
«But how-?» Baruk fell silent, as Anomander Rake provided the answer to his question.
Standing head and shoulders above the jostling crowds, he unsheathed his sword. «If you value your souls,» the Son of Darkness bellowed, «make way!» Raised high, the sword groaned awake, chains of smoke writhing from the blade. A terrible sound as of wheels creaking filled the air and behind it arose a chorus of moaning filled with hopelessness. Before Lord Anomander Rake the crowd in the street shrank back, all thoughts of festivity swept away.
«Gods forfend!» Baruk whispered.
It had begun innocently enough. Quick Ben and Whiskeyjack stood together near the fountain. Servants scurried as, despite the night's bloodshed and the hostess's absence, the party's energy burgeoned anew as the twelfth bell approached. They were joined by Captain Paran.
«We have met with the Guild Master,» he said. «She has accepted the contract.»
Whiskeyjack grunted. «Where would we all be without greed?»
«I just noticed something,» Quick Ben said. «My headache's gone. I'm tempted to access my Warren, Sergeant. See what I can see.»
Whiskeyjack thought briefly. «Go ahead.»
Quick Ben stepped back into the shadow of a marble pillar.
Before them, an old man wearing a ghastly mask drifted towards Whiskeyjack's line of men. Then a large, buxom woman with a waterpipe approached the old man. Her servant followed half a step behind.
Trailing smoke as she walked, she called to the old man.
The next moment the night was shattered as a wave of energy flowed like a stream of water between Whiskeyjack and Paran, striking the old man in the chest. The sergeant's sword was in his hand as he turned to find his wizard, magic swirling from him, pushing him to one side and racing for the woman. «No!» Quick Ben screamed. «Stay away from him!» Paran, too, had unsheathed his sword in his hand, the blade keening as if filled with terror. He sprinted forward.
A bestial roar of rage shook the air as the old man, his mask torn away, whirled. His burning eyes found the woman and he flung a hand towards her. The surge of power that streamed from him was as grey as slate, crackling in the air.
Whiskeyjack, frozen, watched in disbelief as Quick Ben's body hurled into the woman's. Both collided with the servant and all three went down in a heap. The writhing stream of energy cut a swath through the stunned crowd, incinerating everyone it touched. Where men and women had stood a moment earlier there was nothing but white ash. The attack branched out, ripping through everything in sight. Trees disintegrated, stone and marble exploded in clouds of dust. People died, some with parts of their body simply gone, blood spraying in black flecks as they crumpled.
A lance of energy shot wildly skyward, flashing in the night sky within a heavy cloud. Another struck the estate with a rattling boom. A third snaked towards Paran as he closed the gap between him and the old man.
The power struck the sword, and it and Paran vanished.
The sergeant took a half-step forward, then something hard and massive struck a glancing blow to his shoulder. He was spun round, his right knee buckling inward as he fell.
He felt the snap of bone, then the meaty tearing of flesh and skin as his weight bore him down. His sword clanged. Agony lancing through him, he rolled to free his pinned leg, and came up against a toppled pillar.
An instant later hands grasped his cloak. «I got you!» Fiddler grunted.
Whiskeyjack bellowed in pain as the saboteur dragged him across the paving-stones. Then darkness swept in around him and he knew no more.
Quick Ben found himself buried beneath flesh, and for a second he could not breathe. Then the woman's hands pressed down on his shoulders and she pushed herself off him. She shouted at the old man.
«Mammot! Anikaleth araest!»
Quick Ben's eyes widened as he sensed the wave of power rise through her body. The air suddenly smelled of deep forest loam.
«Araest!» she yelled, and the power burst from her in a virulent pulse.
Quick Ben heard Mammot's scream of pain.
«Attend, Wizard!» the woman said. «He is Jaghut-possessed.»
«I know,» he growled, rolling on to his stomach then climbing to his hands and knees. A quick glance showed Mammot on the ground, waving a feeble hand. The wizard's gaze flicked to where Whiskeyjack had been. The pillars around the fountain had toppled, and the sergeant was nowhere in sight. In fact, he realized, none of the squad was visible.
On the terrace crumpled bodies lay in grotesque piles, none moving.
Everyone else had fled.
«Mammot recovers,» the woman said desperately. «I have nothing left, Wizard. You must do something now, yes?»
He stared at her.
Paran stumbled, slid across greasy clay and rolled up against a bank of tufted reeds. A storm racked the sky above him. He scrambled to his feet, the sword Chance hot and moaning in his hand. A calm shallow lake stretched out on his left, ending in a distant ridge of faintly luminescent green. To his right the marshes continued out to the horizon. The air was cool, sweet with decay.
Paran sighed shakily. He studied the storm overhead. jagged arcs of lightning warred with each other, the clouds dark and twisting as if in agony. A concussion sounded to his right and he spun. A thousand paces away, something had appeared. The captain squinted. It rose above the marsh grasses like an animated tree, gnarled and black, pulling at the roots that gripped it and flinging them aside. Another figure appeared, danced lithely around it, a brown-bladed jagged sword in its hands. This figure was clearly in retreat, as the gnarled man-shape lashed at it with miasmic waves of power. They were approaching Paran's position.
He heard bubbling, sucking sounds behind him and turned. «Hood's Breath!»
A house was rising out of the lake. Swamp grass and mud slid from its battered stone walls. A huge stone doorway gaped black, hissing with steam. The second level of the structure looked misshapen, scarred, the cut stones melted away here and there, revealing a skeletal wooden Another explosion drew his attention back to the fighters. They were much closer now, and Paran could see the figure with the two-handed sword clearly. A T'lan Imass. Despite its awesome skill with the chalcedony weapon in its hands, it was being driven back. Its attacker was a tall, lean creature with flesh like oak. Two gleaming tusks rose from its lower jaw, and it was shrieking with rage. It struck the T'lan Imass again, flinging the warrior fifteen paces, to roll through the muck and come to rest almost at Paran's feet.
The captain found himself staring down into depthless eyes.
«The Azath is not yet ready, mortal,» the T'lan Imass said. «Too young, not yet of strength to imprison that which called it into being-the Finnest. When the Tyrant fled, I sought out its power.» It tried to rise, failed. «Defend the Azath, the Finnest seeks to destroy it.»
Paran looked up to see the apparition stalking towards him. Defend? Against that? The choice was taken from him. The Finnest roared and a sizzling wave of power rolled towards him. He swung Chance into its path.
The blade slid through the energy. Unaffected, the power swept over, then into Paran. Blinded, he screamed as bitter cold lanced through him, shattering his thoughts, his sense of self. An invisible hand closed around his soul. Mine! The word rang in his head, triumphant and filled with savage glee. You are mine!
Paran dropped Chance, fell to his knees. The grip on his soul was absolute. He could only obey. Fragments of awareness reached through.
A tool, nothing more. All I have done, all I have survived, to reach but this.
Deep within him he heard a sound, repeating again and again, growing louder. A howl. The chill of his blood that had seamlessly filled every part of his body began to break apart. Flashes of heat, bestial and defiant, ripped through the cold. He threw back his head, the howling reaching his throat. As it broke loose, the Finnest staggered back.
Blood of a Hound! Blood no one can enslave-Paran launched himself at the Finnest. His muscles filled with pain as overwhelming strength flowed into them. You dare! He struck the creature, driving it to the ground, battering its oak flesh with his fists, sinking his teeth into the bark of its face. The Finnest tried to push him away, and failed. It screamed, flailing its limbs. Paran began ripping it methodically to pieces.
A hand closed on the collar of his cloak, pulled him from the tattered body. Frenzied, Paran tried to twist round, to rend the creature holding him. The T'lan Imass shook him. «Cease!»
The captain blinked.
«Cease! You cannot destroy the Finnest. But you have held it. Long enough. The Azath will take it now. Do you understand?»
Paran sagged, the fires within him ebbing. Glancing down at the Finnest, he saw roots and fibrous tendrils rising from the wet earth to wrap themselves around the battered apparition and begin to pull their captive down into the cloying mud. In a moment, the Finnest was gone.
The T'lan Imass released Paran and stepped back. It regarded him steadily for a long moment.
Paran spat blood and splinters from his mouth, wiped his lips with the back of a hand. He bent down and retrieved Chance. «Damned luck turned,» he mumbled, sheathing the weapon. «Do you have something to say, Imass?»
«You are a long way from home, mortal.»
Paran reappeared a moment later, staggering half-blind across the terrace, then collapsing in a heap. Quick Ben scowled. What in Hood's Breath happened to him?
A Jaghut curse escaped Mammot, fierce as if ripped from the soul. The old man regained his feet, trembling with rage. Then his hooded eyes were on the wizard.
«Awaken the Seven within me!» Quick Ben roared, then shrieked as seven Warrens opened within him. His agonized scream rode the cascading waves of power as they swept across the terrace.
The Jaghut Possessed threw up his arms before his face as the waves struck. Mammot's body withered beneath the clambering, frenzied attack. Flesh was ripped away, fires lancing, boring holes through him.
He was driven to his knees, a vortex swirling like madness around him. Mammot howled, raising a fist that was nothing but charred bone.
