he had known had vanished, melted away, and now strangers sat where he had once sat. Held tankards he had once held. Smiled at the servers and flung out over-familiar suggestions as they swayed past.
Cutter imagined himself inside, imagined the resentment there on his face as he looked upon a score or more intruders, invaders into his own memories, each one crowding him, trying to push him out. And on, to whatever new life he had found, which was not in the Phoenix Inn. Not even in Darujhistan.
There was no returning. He had known that all along, at least intellectually, but only now, as he stood here, did the full realization descend upon him, a burden of such emotion that he felt crushed by it. And was it not equally true that the man behind the eyes was not the same man from those years past? How could he not see it differently, with all that he had been through, with all that he had seen and felt?
His heart thundered in his chest. Each drumming thud, he now understood, was, once done, never to return. Even the repetition was in truth nothing but an illusion, a sleight of similitude. It might be a comfort to pretend that the machinery never changed, that each pulse and swirl was identical, that a man could leap back and then forward in his mind and no matter where he ended up all that he saw would remain the same. Fixed like certainty.
The rough stones of the dank walls. The quality of the yellow light bleeding from the pitted glass window. Even the susurration of sound, the voices, the clank of pewter and fired clay, the very laughter spilling out as the door was opened, spilling out sour as bile as far as Cutter was concerned.
Who was left in there that he might recognize? The faces tugged a little older, shoulders a fraction more hunched, eyes framed in the wrinkled map of the weary. Would they light upon seeing him? Would they even know him? And even then, after the slapped backs and embraces, would he see something gauging come into their eyes, painting colourless their words, a certain, distance widening with every drawn-out moment that followed?
The faintest scrape of a boot two paces behind him. Spinning round, ducking low as he did so, daggers flashing in both hands. Left blade half raised, point downward, into a guard position. Right blade darting out in a stop- thrust-
– and the figure leaned back with a soft grunt of surprise, tjaluk knife snapping out from beneath a cloak to block the dagger-
Cutter twisted his wrist to fold into that parry, flicking his blade’s edge into a deep slice across the base of the attacker’s gloved palm, even as he lunged forward-staying low-and slashed his left-hand dagger for the indent beneath his foe’s right kneecap.
Avoiding that attack very nearly toppled the man straight into Cutter’s arms, but Cutter had already slipped past, slicing both blades for thigh, then hip, as he darted by on the man’s left.
Amazingly, that heavy tjaluk caught every slash-and another of the oversized, hooked knives now appeared in the man’s other hand, straightening in a back-flung stop-thrust in case Cutter pivoted round to take him from behind. Cutter was forced to pitch hard to evade that damned fend, and, balanced on one leg, he threw the dagger in his left hand, side-arm, launching the weapon straight for the man’s shadowed face-
Sparks as-impossibly-the man batted the flying weapon aside.
A new knife already in that hand, Cutter made to launch yet another attack-then he skidded on his heels and leaned back into an all-out defence as the man came forward, his heavy knives whirling a skein before him.
Two of those! Two!
‘Wait!’ Cutter cried out. ‘Wait! Rallick? Rallick!’
The tjaluks withdrew. Blood spattered down from the one in the right hand-where the palm had been laid open. Dark eyes glittered from beneath the hood.
‘Rallick-it’s me. Cut-Crokus! Crokus Younghand!’
‘As I’d first thought,’ came the rumbling reply, ‘only to change my mind, in a hurry. But now, yes, it is you. Older-gods, I have indeed been away a long time.’
‘I cut your hand-I’m sorry-’
‘Not half as sorry as me, Crokus. You are in the Guild now, aren’t you? Who has trained you? Not Seba Krafar, that’s for sure. I don’t recognize the style at all-’
‘What? No, no Guild. Not anything like that, Rallick. I’ve been-wait, you said you’ve been gone? From Darujhistan? Where? How long? Not since that night behind Coil’s? But-’
‘Aye,’ Rallick cut in, ‘it’s you all right.’
‘Gods below,’ Cutter said, ‘but it’s so good to see you, Rallick Nom. I mean, if I’d known it was you at first-you shouldn’t come up on a man from behind like that. I could’ve killed you!’
The assassin stood studying him.
Suddenly trembling, Cutter sheathed his knives, then began looking around for the one he’d thrown. ’Two of those pig-choppers-who else would use those? I should’ve realized when I saw the first one. I’m so sorry, Rallick. Instincts took over. They just… took over.’
‘You did not heed my warning, then.’
Years ago, those dark, angry words, but Cutter did not need to ask what warning? He remembered it all too well. ‘I would have,’ he said, pausing in his search.
‘Trully, Rallick, I went with the Malazans, you see and Apsalar, Fiddler, Kalam, the four of us, to Seven Cities. Where everything,,. changed,’
‘When did you return, Crokus?’
‘Today. Tonight.’ He glanced ruefully at the entrance to the Phoenix Inn. ‘I’ve not even gone inside yet, It’s,,. changed-aye, that word is already starting to haunt me.’ He resumed his hunt. ‘I suppose I should have expected it-where in Hood’s name did that knife go, dammit?;
Rallick leaned back against a wall. ‘The one you aimed at my throat?’
‘Yes-I’m so-’
‘Yes, you’re sorry. Well, you won’t find it down there. Try my left shoulder.’
‘Oh, the thickness of blood! Darujhistan and her hundred thousand hearts and each and every one beats for none other than this hale, most generous resident of the Phoenix Inn! Seated here at this most grand of tables- although surely Meese should attend to this wobbly leg-nay, not mine, though that would be delicious indeed and well beyond common service in said establishment-with-where was Kruppe? Oh yes, with nary fell company to jiggle awake the night! Tell prescient Kruppe, yon friends, why the glowing faces belied by fretful eyes? Did Kruppe not promise boons galore? Pressures eased? Panics prevented? Purses packed with precious baubles all aglitter? Drink up-oh, humble apologies, we shall order more anon, ’tis a promise most pertinent should one elect to toast this, that and, perchance, t’other!’
‘We got news,’ Scorch said, looking surprised by his own words, ‘and if you’d just shut your trap, you’d hear about it too.’
‘News! Why, Kruppe is news personified. Details, analysis, reactions from common folk in the street, all in the blink of an eye and the puff of a single breath, who needs more? This new madness we must witness now weekly and all the bolts of burlap wasted on which some purple fool blathers all manner of foul gossip, why, ’tis nothing but rags for the ragman, or wipes for the arse-wipes or indeed blots for the blotters bless their feminine wiles-Kruppe rails at this elevation of circumstance and incidence! A profession, the fops now claim, as if baying hounds need certification to justify their slavering barks and snarls! Whatever happened to common decency? To decent commonry? What’s decent is rarely common-that is true enough, while the obverse is perverse in all prickly irony, would you not agree? Kruppe would, being such an agreeable sort-’
‘We found Torvald Norn!’
Kruppe blinked at Leff, then at Scorch, then-seeing perhaps the disbelief mirrored in the face of the latter-back to Leff. ‘Extraordinary! And did you horribly hand him over to hirsute Gareb the Lender?’
Scorch growled under his breath.
‘We worked out a better deal,’ said Leff, licking his lips. ‘Torvald will pay Gareb back, in full, and, you see, to do so he had to pay us for the privilege, right? So, Torvald pays us, Gareb pays us. We get paid twice!’
Kruppe lifted one pudgy finger-on which, he saw with momentary dismay, there was a smear of something unrecognizable ‘A moment, please. Torvald has both returned and bought you off? Then why is it Kruppe buying the drinks this night? Ah, allow Kruppe to answer his own question! Why, because Torvald in yet to pay off trusting Leff and Scorch, yes? He begged, yes, for one night. One night! And all would be well and such!’
‘How’d you guess?’
Kruppe smiled. ‘Dear foolish friends, should Gareb hear of this any time soon-should he, yes, learn that you had the notorious Torvald Nom in your very grasp, why, you will find your names on the very list you hold, thus forcing
