people – towards the vast sprawl of caravan camps beyond the city wall just south of the harbour.
The Red Blades were provided a wide berth, and the swagger of their stride, their gauntleted hands resting on the grips of their sheathed but not peace-strapped tulwars, made of their arrogance a deliberate, provocative affront. Yet they passed unchallenged.
Moments before she caught up with them, Apsalar swung left down a side passage. There was more than one route to the caravan camps.
A merchant employing Pardu and Gral guards, and appearing to display unusual interest in the presence of a Shadow Dancer in the city, made him or herself in turn the subject of interest. It might simply be that the merchant was a buyer and seller of information, but even that could prove useful to Apsalar – not that she was prepared to pay for any information she gleaned. The tribal guards suggested extensive overland travel, between distant cities and the rarely frequented tracks linking them. That merchant would know things.
And so, indeed, might those guards.
She arrived at the outskirts of the first camp. If seen from the sky, the caravan city would look pockmarked, as merchants came and went in a steady stream of wagons, horse-warriors, herd dogs and camels. The outer edges were home to lesser merchants, their positions fixed according to some obscure hierarchy, whilst the high-status caravans occupied the centre.
Entering the main thoroughfare from a side path between tents, Apsalar began the long search.
At midday she found a tapu-hawker and sat at one of the small tables beneath an awning eating the skewered pieces of fruit and meat, the grease running hot tracks down her hands. She had noted a renewed energy among the merchant camps she had visited so far. Insurrection and strife were bad for business, obviously. The return of Malazan rule was a blessing on trade in all its normal avaricious glory, and she had seen the exultation on all sides. Coins were flowing in a thousand streams.
Three figures caught her eye. Standing before the entrance to a large tent and arguing, it seemed, over a cage of puppies. The two Pardu women and one of the Gral tribesmen she had seen at the tavern. They were too preoccupied to have spied her, she hoped. Wiping her hands on her thighs, Apsalar rose and walked, keeping to the shadier areas, out from under the awning and away from the guards and the merchant's tent.
It was enough to have found them, for now. Before she would endeavour to interrogate the merchant, or the guards, another task awaited her.
The long walk back to the inn was uneventful, and she climbed the stairs and made her way to her room. It was mid-afternoon, and her mind was filled with thoughts of sleep.
'She's back!'
The voice, Curdle's, came from under the wood-framed cot.
'Is it her?' asked Telorast from the same place.
'I recognize the moccasins, see the sewn-in ridges of iron? Not like the other one.'
Apsalar paused her removing of her leather gloves. 'What other one?'
'The one who was here earlier, a bell ago-'
'A bell?' Telorast wondered. 'Oh, those bells, now I understand. They measure the passing of time. Yes, Not- Apsalar, a bell ago. We said nothing. We were silent. That one never knew we were here.'
'The innkeeper?'
'Boots, stirrup-worn and threaded with bronze scales, they went here and there – and crouched to look under here, but saw naught of us, of course, and naught of anything else, since you have no gear for him to rifle through-'
'It was a man, then.'
'Didn't we say earlier? Didn't we, Curdle?'
'We must have. A man, with boots on, yes.'
'How long did he stay?' Apsalar asked, looking around the room. There was nothing there for the thief to steal, assuming he had been a thief.
'A hundred of his heartbeats.'
'Hundred and six, Telorast.'
'Hundred and six, yes.'
'He came and went by the door?'
'No, the window – you removed the bars, remember? Down from the roof, isn't that right, Telorast?'
'Or up from the alley.'
'Or maybe from one of the other rooms, thus from the side, right or left.'
Apsalar frowned and crossed her arms. 'Did he come in by the window at all?'
'No.'
'By warren, then.'
'Yes.'
'And he wasn't a man,' Curdle added. 'He was a demon. Big, black, hairy, with fangs and claws.'
'Wearing boots,' Telorast said.
'Exactly. Boots.'
Apsalar pulled off her gloves and slapped them down on the bed-stand.
She sprawled on the cot. 'Wake me if he returns.'
'Of course, Not-Apsalar. You can depend upon us.'
When she awoke it was dark. Cursing, Apsalar rose from the cot. 'How late is it?'
'She's awake!' The shade of Telorast hovered nearby, a smeared bodyshape in the gloom, its eyes dully glowing.
'Finally!' Curdle whispered from the window sill, where it crouched like a gargoyle, head twisted round to regard Apsalar still seated on the cot. 'It's two bells after the death of the sun! We want to explore!'
'Fine,' she said, standing. 'Follow me, then.'
'Where to?'
'Back to the Jen'rahb.'
'Oh, that miserable place.'
'I won't be there long.'
'Good.'
She collected her gloves, checked her weapons once more – a score of aches from knife pommels and scabbards attested that they remained strapped about her person – and headed for the window.
'Shall we use the causeway?'
Apsalar stopped, studied Curdle. 'What causeway?'
The ghost moved to hug one edge of the window and pointed outward. '
That one.'
A shadow manifestation, something like an aqueduct, stretched from the base of the window out over the alley and the building beyond, then curving – towards the heart of the Jen'rahb. It had the texture of stone, and she could see pebbles and pieces of crumbled mortar along the path. 'What is this?'
'We don't know.'
'It is from the Shadow Realm, isn't it? It has to be. Otherwise I would be unable to see it.'
'Oh yes. We think. Don't we, Telorast?'
'Absolutely. Or not.'
'How long,' Apsalar asked, 'has it been here?'
'Fifty-three of your heartbeats. You were stirring to wakefulness, right, Curdle? She was stirring.'
'And moaning. Well, one moan. Soft. A half-moan.'
'No,' Telorast said, 'that was me.'
Apsalar clambered up onto the sill, then, still gripping the edges of the wall, she stepped out onto the causeway. Solid beneath her feet. '
All right,' she muttered, more than a little shaken as she released her hold on the building behind her. 'We might as well make use of it.'
