‘Bigger fools them,’ Bucch said, nodding. ‘Arrogance like that, they should pay for, I say.’
‘When’s the next meeting?’ the second man asked.
The third man stirred from his slouch on his chair. ‘We were just off for that, Harak. You want to come along?’
As the three men rose and walked off, Seerdomin finished the last of his kelyk, waited another half-dozen heartbeats, and then rose, drawing his cloak round him, even as he reached beneath it and loosened the sword in its scabbard.
He paused, then, and formally faced north. Closing his eyes, he spoke a soft prayer.
Then, walking with a careless stride he set off, more or less in the direction the three men were taking,
High on the tower, a red-scaled dragon’s eyes looked down upon all, facets reflecting scenes from every street, every alley, the flurry of activity in the markets, the women and children appearing on flat rooftops to hang laundry, figures wandering here and there between buildings. In those eyes, the city seethed.
Somewhere, beyond Night, the sun unleashed a morning of brazen, heady heat. It gave form to the smoke of hearth fires in the makeshift camps alongside the beaten tracks wending down from the north, until the pilgrims emerged to form an unbroken line on the trails, and then it lit into bright gold a serpent of dust that rode the winds all the way to the Great Barrow.
The destitute among them carried shiny shells collected from shoreline and tidal pools, or polished stones or nuggets of raw copper. The better off carried jewellery, gem-studded scabbards, strips of rare silk, Delantine linen, Daru councils of silver and gold, loot collected from corpses on battlefields, locks of hair from revered relatives and imagined heroes, or any of countless other items of value. Now within a day’s march of the Great Barrow, the threat of bandits and thieves had vanished, and the pilgrims sang as they walked towards the vast, descended cloud of darkness to the south.
Beneath that enormous barrow of treasure, they all knew, lay the mortal remains of the Redeemer.
Protected for ever more by Night and its grim, silent sentinels.
The serpent of dust journeyed, then, to a place of salvation.
Among the Rhivi of North Genabackis, there was a saying. A man who stirs awake the serpent is a man without fear. A man without fear has forgotten the rules of life.
Silanah heard their songs and prayers.
And she watched.
Sometimes mortals did indeed forget. Sometimes, mortals needed… reminding.
Chapter Three
And he knew to stand there
Would be a task unforgiving
Relentless as sacrifices made
And blood vows given
He knew enough to wait alone
Before the charge of fury’s heat
The chants of vengeance
Where swords will meet
And where once were mortals
Still remain dreams of home
If but one gilded door
Could be pried open
Did he waste breath in bargain
Or turn aside on the moment
Did he smile in pleasure
Seeking chastisement?
See him still, he stands there
While you remain, unforgiving
The poet damns you
The artist cries out
The one who weeps
Turns his face away
Your mind is crowded
By the inconsequential
Listing the details
Of the minuscule
And every measure
Of what means nothing
To anyone
He takes from you every rage
Every crime…
Whether you like it
Or you do not…
Sacrifices made
Vows given
He stands alone
Because none of you dare
Stand with him
– Fisher’s challenge to his listeners, breaking the telling of the Mane of Chaos
On this morning, so fair and fresh with the warm breeze coming down off the lake, there were arrivals. Was a city a living thing? Did it possess eyes? Could its senses be lit awake by the touch of footsteps? Did Darujhistan, on that fine morning, look in turn upon those who set their gazes upon it? Arrivals, grand and modest, footsteps less than a whisper, whilst others trembled to the very bones of the Sleeping Goddess. Were such things the beat of the city’s heart?
But no, cities did not possess eyes, or any other senses. Cut stone and hardened plaster, wood beams and corniced facades, walled gardens and quiescent pools beneath trickling fountains, all was insensate to the weathering traffic of its denizens. A city could know no hunger, could not rise from sleep, nor even twist uneasy in it s grave.
Leave such things, then, to a short rotund man, seated at a table at the back of the Phoenix Inn, in the midst of an expansive breakfast, to pause with a mouth crammed full of pastry and spiced apple, to suddenly choke. Eyes bulging, face flushing scarlet, then launching a spray of pie across the table, into the face of a regretfully hungover Meese, who, now wearing the very pie she had baked the day before, simply lifted her bleary gaze and settled a basilisk regard upon the hack-ing, wheezing man opposite her.
If words were necessary, then, she would have used them. The man coughed on, tears streaming from his eyes.
Sulty arrived with a cloth and began wiping, gently, the mess from a motionless, almost statuesque Meese.
On the narrow, sloped street to the right of the entrance to Quip’s Bar, the detritus of last night’s revelry skirled into the air on a rush of wild wind. Where a moment before there had been no traffic of any sort on the cobbled track, now there were screaming, froth-streaked horses, hoofs cracking like iron mallets on the uneven stone. Horses-two, four, six-and behind them, in a half-sideways rattling skid, an enormous carriage, its back end crashing into the face of a building in a shattering explosion of plaster, awning and window casement. Figures flew from the careering monstrosity as it tilted, almost tipping, then righted itself with the sound of a house falling over.
