ing and infuriating, sweet and potentially deadly (as all the best ones were), Magic flowed in endless half- visible patterns about the porcelain globes-another detail she suspected was unusual.
Ensorcelled munitions-what were the Blue Moranth thinking? Indeed, whatever were they thinking?
Two empty chairs faced Kruppe, a situation most peculiar and not at all pleasing. A short time earlier they had been occupied. Scorch and Leff, downing a fast tankard each before setting out to their place of employment, their nightly vigil at the gates of the mysterious estate and its mysterious lady. Oh, a troubled pair indeed, their fierce frowns denoting an uncharacteristic extreme of concentration. They’d swallowed down the bitter ale like water, the usual exchange of pleasant idiocies sadly muted. Watching them hurry out, Kruppe was reminded of two condemned men on the way to the gallows (or a wedding), proof of the profound unfairness of the world.
But fairness, while a comforting conceit, was an elusive notion, in the habit of swirling loose and wild about the vortex of the self, and should the currents of one collide with those of another, why, fairness ever revealed itself as a one-sided coin. In this fell clash could be found all manner of conflict, from vast continent-spanning wars to neighbours feuding over a crooked fence line.
But what significance these philosophical meanderings? Nary effect upon the trudging ways of life, to be sure. Skip and dance on to this next scene of portentous gravity, and here arriving hooded as a vulture through the narrow portal of the Phoenix Inn, none other than Torvald Nom. Pausing just within the threshold, answering Sulty’s passing greeting with a distracted smile, and then to the bar, where Meese has already poured him a tankard. And in reaching over to collect it, Tor-vald’s wrist is grasped, Meese pulling him close for a few murmured words of possible import, to which Torvald grimaces and then reluctantly nods-his response sufficient for Meese to release him.
Thus sprung, Torvald Nom strode over to smiling Kruppe’s table and slumped down into one of the chairs. ‘It’s all bad,’ he said.
‘Kruppe is stunned, dear cousin of Rallick, at such miserable misery, such pessimistic pessimism. Why, scowling Torvald has so stained his world that even his underlings have been infected. Look, even here thy dark cloud crawls darkly Kruppe’s way. Gestures are necessary to ward off sour infusion!’ And he waved his hand, crimson handkerchief fluttering like a tiny flag. ‘Ah, that is much better. Be assured, Torvald Kruppe’s friend, that “bad” is never as bad as bad might be, even when it’s very bad indeed.’
‘Rallick left a message for me. He wants to see me.’
Kruppe waggled his brows and made an effort at leaning forward, but his belly got in the way so he settled back again, momentarily perturbed at what might be an expanding girth-but then, it was in truth a question of angles, and thus a modestShift in perspective eased his repose once more, thank the gods-‘Unquestionably Rollick seeks no more than a cheery greeting for his long lost cousin. There is, Kruppe proclaims, no need for worry.’
‘Shows what little you know,’ Torvald replied. ‘I did something terrible once. Horrible, disgusting and evil. I scarred him for life. In fact, if he does track me down, I expect he’ll kill me. Why d’you think I ran away in the first place?’
‘A span of many years,’ said Kruppe, ‘weakens every bridge, until they crumble at a touch, or if not a touch, then a frenzied sledgehammer.’
‘Will you speak to him for me, Kruppe?’
‘Of course, yet, alas, Rallick has done something terrible and horrible and disgusting and evil to poor Kruppe, for which forgiveness is not possible.’
‘What? What did he do?’
‘Kruppe will think of something. Sufficient to wedge firmly the crowbar of persuasion, until he cannot but tilt helpless and desperate for succour in your direction. You need only open wide your arms, dear friend, when said moment arrives.’
‘Thanks, Kruppe, you’re a true friend.’ And Torvald drank deep.
‘No truer, no lie, ’tis true. Kruppe blesses you, alas, with none of the formal panoply accorded you by the Blue Moranth-oh, had Kruppe been there to witness such extraordinary, indeed singular, honorificals! Sulty, sweet lass, is it not time for supper? Kruppe withers with need! Oh, and perhaps another carafe of vintage-’
‘Hold it,’ Torvald Nom cut in, his eyes sharpening. ‘What in Hood’s name do you know about that, Kruppe? And how? Who told you-no one could’ve told you, because it was secret in the first place!’
‘Calmly, please, calmly, Kruppe’s dearest friend.’ Another wave of the handkerchief, concluded by a swift mop as sweat had inexplicably sprung to brow. ‘Why, rumours-’
‘Not a chance.’
‘Then, er, a dying confession-’
‘We’re about to hear one of those, yes.’
Kruppe hastily mopped some more. ‘Source escapes me at the moment, Kruppe swears! Why, are not the Moranth in a flux-’
‘They’re always in a damned flux, Kruppe!’
‘Indeed. Then, yes, perturbations among the Black, upon gleaning hints of said catechism, or was it investiture? Something religious, in any case-’
‘It was a blessing, Kruppe.’
‘Precisely, and who among all humans more deserved such a thing from the Moranth? Why, none, of course, which is what made it singular in the first place, thus arching the exoskeletal eyebrows of the Black, and no doubt the Red and Gold and Silver and Green and Pink-are there Pink Moranth? Kruppe is unsure. So many colours, so few empty slots in Kruppe’s brain! Oh, spin the wheel and let’s see explosive mauve flash into brilliant expostulation and why not? Yes, ’twas the Mauve Moranth so verbose and carelessly so, although not so carelessly as to reveal anything to anyone but Kruppe and Kruppe alone, Kruppe assuresyou. In infact so precise their purple penchant for verbosity that even Kruppe’s rec-oUection of the specific moment is lost-to them and to Kruppe himself. Violate it Violet if you dare, but they’re not telling. Nor is Kruppe!’ And he squeezed out a stream of sweat from his handkerchief, off to one side, of course, which unfor-unately coincided with Sulty’s arrival with a plate of supper.
Thus did Kruppe discover the virtue of perspiratory reintegration, although his subsequent observation that the supper was a tad salty was not well received, not well received at all.
Astoundingly, Torvald quickly lost all appetite for his ale, deciding to leave (rudely so) in the midst of Kruppe’s meal.
Proof that manners were not as they once were. But then, they never were, were they?
Hasty departure to echo Torvald Norn’s flight back into the arms of his wife, out into the dusk when all paths are unobstructed, when nothing of reality intrudes with insurmountable obstacles and possibly deadly repercussions. In a merchant house annexe down at the docks, in the second floor loft above a dusty storeroom with sawdust on the floor, a wellborn young woman straddles a once-thiefon the lone narrow cot with its thin, straggly mattress, and in her eyes darkness unfolds, is revealed to the man savage and naked-raw enough to startle in him a moment of fear.
Indeed. Fear. At the moment, Cutter could not reach past that ephemeral chill, could not find anything specific-what Challice’s eyes revealed was all-consuming, frighteningly desperate, perhaps depthless and insatiable in its need.
She was unmindful of him-he could see that. In this instant he had become a weapon on which she impaled herself, ecstatic with the forbidden, alive with betrayal. She stabbed herself again and again, transformed into something private, for ever beyond his reach, and, yes, without doubt these were self-inflicted wounds, hinting of an inwardly directed contempt, perhaps even disgust.
He did not know what to think, but there was something alluring in being faceless, in being that weapon-and this truth shivered through him as dark as all that he saw in her eyes.
Apsalar, is this what you feared? If it is, then I understand. I understand why you fled. You did it for both of us.
With this thought he arched, groaning, and spilled into Challice Vidikas. She gasped, lowered herself on to him. Sweat on sweat, waves of heat embracing them.
Neither spoke.
From outside, gulls cried to the dying sun. Shouts and laughter muted by walls, the faint slap of waves on the broken crockery-cluttered shore, the creak of pulleys as ships were loaded and off-loaded. From outside, the world as it always was.
