lumbered off, hips swaying.
Leff sat again. ‘Gotta admire your way with women there, friend.’
Sitting back, Kruppe slipped his hands under his tight crimson waistcoat looking quite satisfied with himself. ‘It’s a blessing and a curse I struggle to live with.’ He eyed them up and down. ‘And you two? How goes the search for gainful employment?’
‘Oh, we got-’ began Scorch only to break off and curse as Leff kicked him under the table.
Kruppe’s oily black brows rose. ‘Oh-ho! What is this? You have secured positions? You have an income? Ergo, you are able now to honour certain past debts that have heretofore been graciously allowed to languish, unpursued, by certain friends?’
‘We ain’t been paid yet,’ Leff said, glaring at Scorch.
Kruppe slapped a hand to the cluttered table. ‘As good as, I should say! This calls for celebration! Let us honour this coming plentitude with a drink now — for that is exactly what you will do once it arrives, yes? The difference being only one of inconsequential timing. Then, after that, then we can discuss your debt.’
Scorch sat with his typical expression of surprise compounded by incomprehension. ‘I don’t get it,’ he confessed to Leff.
‘Never mind,’ Leff sighed as tall tankards arrived with a glass of white wine, all set down by Jess.
‘Meese said it was okay.’
‘My dear,’ beamed Kruppe, ‘you are fitting in nicely here.’
She went away rolling her eyes.
‘To advances, advantage, and profitable positions,’ said Kruppe, lifting his glass.
Leff and Scorch knocked their tankards together. ‘Aye. Twins look away.’
The upper waters of the River Maiten flowed thick and heavy with silt, almost sluggish, like old blood. The wet silts even gave it a reddish hue. For a time they paced its course, heading north for Darujhistan. Eventually, they came to a nameless hamlet that hugged the river. Here the water allowed farming and animal husbandry. And the river offered some fishing, if only small bottom-dwellers.
Since neither the Seventh nor Lo appeared inclined to approach the villagers regarding hiring a boat, Yusek and Sall headed in to do the honours. Part of Yusek wondered why they were bothering with paying at all when they could just take one of the wretched battered old punts drawn up on the muddy shore. But another part of her understood that Lo and the Seventh had these conceits of honesty and honour that had to be observed.
‘They want coin,’ she told Sall. ‘You have any coin?’
The Seguleh lad drew a small pouch from beneath his cloak. ‘I have these. Our old currency.’
A clinking heap of shiny yellow bars, or wafers, fell into her cupped hands. ‘Osserc’s mercy!’ she exclaimed, pressing the pile to her chest. ‘Where did you get all this?’
The lad seemed unconcerned. ‘As I said, it is our old currency. We don’t use it any more. I keep these as mementos.’
Yusek shuffled them back into the pouch, which she then kept in her fist. ‘They’re gold,’ she hissed.
‘Yes. I know.’
‘Are we going to pay gold for a crappy old boat that can barely hold all of us?’
‘I see no alternative.’
‘Gods. The price of boats is about to go
‘Pay them — it is of no matter.’
The mask faced her squarely. The hazel and brown eyes grew stern. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘All right, all right!’ Yusek stalked away. ‘Can’t fucking believe I’m handing gold to these stinking hamlet- dwellers,’ she muttered. ‘They won’t even know what they’ve got in their hands …’
A short time later the Seventh pushed off one of the larger of the river boats and took the stern. Lo had the bow while Sall and Yusek sat in the middle. The boat was of hide ribbed with wood. It was without seats; one merely knelt in the fetid water that sloshed within. At first Yusek held on to a thwart, refusing to let her hide trousers touch the filth. Finally Sall reached up to yank her down.
‘And what do I do?’ she asked, wincing as the cold water clasped her knees.
Sall handed her a cup carved from wood. ‘You bail — or we sink.’
Kiska walked with Tayschrenn over the featureless dunes of black sands. Soon clouds swept in from ahead, which struck her as odd, since no clouds had ever before marred the sky here at the Shores. The shadows of the clouds glided over them, obscuring her vision, and in their wake she found herself walking a night-time landscape of blasted broken rock. Suddenly it was hard going, as the ground was uneven and the sharp stones turned under her feet. She missed the smooth sands, even if they did make walking a chore.
‘Where are we?’
Tayschrenn did not answer. He was peering into the sky. Suddenly he knelt behind a larger boulder, motioning her down. ‘Trespassing,’ he murmured. She huddled under the cover of the boulder then hissed, jerking away; it was hot to the touch.
‘What is this …’ Then she saw them wheeling in the sky and she stared, astounded and terrified. Winged long-necked beasts flying off in the distance. ‘Are those …’
‘Yes.’
‘Enchantress protect us. What’s going on?’
‘A gathering. A marshalling. Call it what you will.’
‘Is that where we’re …’
‘No. All this regards the past. I prefer to look to the future.’
‘Then what are we doing here?’
The mage struck off at right-angles. ‘As I said, trespassing. This is a short cut.’
Not long after that — at least if you counted time in paces, as she was doing — the landscape changed to a forested verge. The ground became swampy as they entered the woods, and thick vine-laden trunks and ferns blocked all view. Tayschrenn slowed, then came to an uncertain halt.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘We’re being deflected. This is not where I intended to come.’
The very air felt charged to Kiska, vibrating and heavy with potential. ‘Something’s stirring here,’ she whispered. ‘Something awful.’
He glanced at her, surprised. ‘I’d forgotten about your natural sensitivity. Yes. I feel it too. But again, this is not what I have chosen. I could commit myself — attempt to guide things one way or the other. But would it be for the better? Would the outcome be improved by yet another set of meddling hands? No, I think not.’
Kiska used her staff to flick a snake away from the man’s sandalled feet. ‘Perhaps we should be going …’
‘Yes. Let us … no. It is too late.’ He turned to face the darkness between the roots of two immense trunks. Kiska whipped her staff crossways.
A figure arose from the dark. Kiska would have said that this person, a woman, stepped from the darkness, but that was not right. She rose as if she had been crawling. She was tall and wide, wearing layers upon layers of black cloth all dusty and festooned with cobwebs. In contrast, her long black hair hung down past her shoulders, sleek and shimmering. Her complexion was a dark nut brown, her eyes very dark.
Tayschrenn bowed to her. ‘Ardata.’
The woman stepped forward. She was barefoot and the layers of cloth trailed behind, snagging on brush and roots, unravelling in long threads.
‘Magus,’ she greeted Tayschrenn. Her voice was surprisingly rich and musical. ‘Long have I known of you.’ She circled at a distance. ‘Your acts come to me like ripples in the skein of the Warrens.’ The dark eyes swung to Kiska. ‘And who is this?’
‘She is with me.’
