The Malazan Empire Page 18

  There were miseries in the world, and then there was misery. In times of conscience he held the world’s concerns above his own. Fortunately, he reflected, such times were few, and this, he told himself, was not one of them.

  “Alas, the very same dream propels these many-toed implements beneath these wobbly knees.” He sighed. “Ever the same dream.” And so it was. He saw before him the sun riding the distant hilltop, a copper disc through woodsmoke haze. His feet carried him down the winding dirt street of Gadrobi Shantytown, the shacks and huts on either side crouching in the gathering gloom. Old men wrapped in the dingy yellow rags of lepers squatted over nearby cookfires, falling silent as he passed. Similarly clad women stood by the muddy well, pausing in their endless dunking of cats—a bemusing activity, its symbolism lost on the man as he hurried past.

  He crossed Maiten River bridge, passed through the dwindling Gadrobi Herder camps, out onto the open road flanked by vineyard plantations. He lingered here, thinking of the wine these succulent grapes would produce. But dreams carried on with their own momentum, and the thought was but fleeting in its passage.

  He knew his mind was in flight—fleeing the doomed city at his back, fleeing the dark, brooding smudge in the sky above it; but most of all, fleeing all that he knew and all that he was.

  For some, the talent they possessed found its channel through a toss of knucklebones, the reading of heat fractures in scapulae, or the Fatid of the Deck of Dragons. For Kruppe, he had no need of any such affectations. The power of divination was in his head and he could not deny it, no matter how hard he tried. Within the walls of his skull rang the dirge of prophecy, and it echoed through his bones.

  He muttered under his breath. “Of course this is a dream, the flight of sleep. Perhaps, thinks Kruppe, he will in truth escape this time. None could call Kruppe a fool, after all. Fat with sloth and neglect, yes; inclined to excesses, indeed, somewhat clumsy with a bowl of soup, most certainly. But not a fool. Such times are upon us when the wise man must choose. Is it not wisdom to conclude that other lives are of less importance than one’s own? Of course, very wise. Yes, Kruppe is wise.”

  He paused to catch his breath. The hills and the sun before him seemed no closer. Such were dreams like the hastening of youth into adulthood, a precipitous course one could never turn back on—but who mentioned youth? Or one youth in particular? “Surely not wise Kruppe! His mind wanders—Kruppe excuses the pun magnanimously—racked by the misery of his soles, which are tired, nay, half worn out from this reckless pace. Blisters have already appeared, no doubt. The foot cries out for a warm, soapy balm. Its companion joins in the chorus. Ah! Such a litany! Such a wail of despair! Cease complaining, dear wings of flight. How far is the sun, anyway? Just beyond the hills, Kruppe is certain. No more than that, surely. Yes, as certain as an ever-spinning coin—but who spoke of coins? Kruppe proclaims his innocence!”

  A breeze swept into his dream, down from the north carrying with it the smell of rain. Kruppe began fastening his threadbare coat. He drew in his belly in an effort to secure the last two buttons, but succeeded in clasping only one. “Even in sleep,” he groaned, “guilt makes its point.”

  He blinked against the wind. “Rain? But the year has just begun! Does it rain in the spring? Kruppe has never before concerned himself with such mundane matters. Perhaps this scent is no more than the lake’s own breath. Yes, indeed. The question is settled.” He squinted at the dark ridge of clouds above Lake Azur.

  “Must Kruppe run? Nay, where is his pride? His dignity? Not once have they shown their faces in Kruppe’s dreams. Is there no shelter on yon road? Ah, Kruppe’s feet are flailed, his soles bloodied shreds of throbbing flesh! What’s this?”

  Up ahead was a crossroads. A building squatted on a low rise just beyond. Candlelight bled from its shuttered windows.

  Kruppe smiled. “Of course, an inn. Far has the journey been, clear the need for a place of rest and relaxation for the weary traveler. Such as Kruppe, wizened adventurer with more than a few leagues under his belt, not to mention spanning it.” He hurried forward.

  A broad, bare-limbed tree marked the crossroads. From one heavy branch something long and wrapped in burlap swung creaking in the wind. Kruppe spared it but the briefest glance. He came to the path and began his ascent.

  “Ill judgment, pronounces Kruppe. Inns for the dusty journeyman should not sit atop hills. The curse of climbing is discovering how great the distance yet to climb. A word to the proprietor shall be necessary. Once sweet ale has soothed the throat, slabs of juicy red meat and broiled yams eased the gullet, and clean, anointed bandages clothed the feet. Such repairs must take precedence over flaws in planning such as Kruppe sees here.”

  His monologue fell away, replaced by gasps as he struggled up the path. When he arrived at the door Kruppe was so winded that he did not even so much as look up, merely pushed against the weathered panel until it swung inward with a squeal of rusty hinges. “Alas!” he cried, pausing to brush the sleeves of his coat. “A foamy tankard for this . . .” His voice died as he surveyed the array of grimy faces turned to him. “Methinks the business is poor,” he mumbled. The place was indeed an inn—or it had been, perhaps a century past. “’Tis rain in the night air,” he said, to the half-dozen beggars crouched around a thick tallow candle set on the earthen floor.

  One of the fellows nodded. “We will grant you audience, hapless one.” He waved at a straw mat. “Be seated and entertain our presence.”

  Kruppe raised an eyebrow. “Kruppe is graced by your invitation, sire.” He dipped his head, then strode forward. “But, please, do not think he is bereft of contributions to this honored gathering.” He sat down cross-legged, grunting with the effort, and faced the one who had spoken. “He would break bread with you all.” From a sleeve he withdrew a small rye loaf. A bread knife appeared in his other hand. “Known to friends and strangers alike is Kruppe, the man now seated before you. Inhabitant of yon glittering Darujhistan, the mystic jewel of Genabackis, the juicy grape ripe for picking.” He produced a chunk of goat cheese and smiled broadly at the faces before him. “And this is his dream.”

  “So it is,” the beggars’ spokesman said, his lined face crinkling with amusement. “It ever pleases us when we taste your particular flavor, Kruppe of Darujhistan. And always are we pleased at your traveling appetites.”

  Kruppe laid down the rye loaf and cut slices. “Kruppe has always considered you mere aspects of himself, a half-dozen Hungers among many, as it were. Yet, for all your needs, you would urge what of your master? That he turn back from his flight, of course. That one’s own skull is too worthy a chamber for deception to reign—and yet Kruppe assures you from long experience that all deceit is born in the mind and there it is nurtured while virtues starve.”

  The spokesman accepted a slice of bread and smiled. “Perhaps we are your virtues, then.”

  Kruppe paused to study the cheese in his hand. “A thought Kruppe has not considered before now, mingling with the silent observation of mold on this cheese. But alas, the subject is in danger of being lost within the maze of such semantics. Nor can beggars be choosers when it comes to cheese. You have returned once again, and Kruppe knows why, as he has already explained with admirable equanimity.”

  “The Coin spins, Kruppe, still spins.” The spokesman’s face lost its humor.

  Kruppe sighed. He handed the chunk of goat cheese to the man seated on his right. “Kruppe hears it,” he conceded wearily. “He cannot help but hear it. An endless ringing that sings in the head. And for all that Kruppe has seen, for all that he suspects to be, he is just Kruppe, a man who would challenge the gods in their own game.”

  “Perhaps we are your Doubts,” the spokesman said, “which you have never been afraid to face before, as you do now. Yet even we seek to turn you back, even we demand that you strive for the life of Darujhistan, for the life of your many friends, and for the life of the youth at whose feet the Coin shall fall.”

  “It falls
this very night,” Kruppe said. The six beggars nodded at this, though mostly they remained intent on the bread and cheese. “Shall Kruppe accept this challenge, then? What are gods, after all, if not the perfect victims?” He smiled, raising his hands and fluttering his fingers. “For Kruppe, whose sleight of hand is matched only by his sleight of mind? Perfect victims of confidence, claims Kruppe, ever blinded by arrogance, ever convinced of infallibility. Is it not a wonder that they have survived this long?”

  The spokesman nodded and said, around a mouthful of cheese, “Perhaps we are your Gifts, then. Wasting away, as it were.”

  “Possibly,” Kruppe said, his eyes narrowing. “Yet only one of you speaks.”

  The beggar paused to swallow, then he laughed, his eyes dancing in the candlelight. “Perhaps the others have yet to find their voice, Kruppe. They await only their master’s command.”

  “My,” Kruppe sighed, as he prepared to stand, “but Kruppe is full of surprises.”

  The spokesman looked up. “You return to Darujhistan?”

  “Of course,” Kruppe replied, gaining his feet with a heartfelt groan. “He merely stepped out for a breath of night air, so much cleaner beyond the city’s crumbling walls, don’t you agree? Kruppe must needs exercise to hone his already prodigious skills. A walk in his sleep. This night,” he said, hitching his thumbs in his belt, “the Coin falls. Kruppe must take his place in the center of things. He returns to his bed, the night still young.” His eyes traveled among the beggars. All seemed to have gained weight, a healthy robust color to their upturned faces. Kruppe sighed with satisfaction. “It has, pronounces Kruppe, been a pleasure, gentlemen. Next time, however, let us settle on an inn that is not on a hilltop. Agreed?”

  The spokesman smiled. “Ah, but, Kruppe, Gifts are not easily attained, nor are Virtues, nor are Doubts easily overcome, and Hungers are ever the impetus to climbing.”

  Kruppe’s eyes narrowed on the man. “Kruppe is too clever by far,” he muttered.

  He left their company and shut the creaking door softly behind him. Returning down the path he came to the crossroads and stopped in front of the burlap-wrapped figure swinging from the branch. Kruppe planted his fists on his hips and studied it. “I know who you are,” he said jovially. “The final aspect of Kruppe to complete this dream’s array of those faces facing him which are Kruppe’s own. Or so you would proclaim. You are Humility but, as everyone knows, Humility has no place in Kruppe’s life, remember that. So here you will stay.” With that he moved his gaze to the great city lighting the eastern sky blue and green. “Ah, this wondrous fiery gem that is Darujhistan is home to Kruppe. And that,” he added, as he began to walk, “is as it should be.”

  From the wharf sprawled along the shore of the lake, upward along the stepped tiers of the Gadrobi and Daru Districts, among the temple complexes and the Higher Estates, to the summit of Majesty Hill where gathers the city’s Council, the rooftops of Darujhistan presented flat tops, arched gables, coned towers, belfries, and platforms crowded in such chaotic profusion as to leave all but the major streets forever hidden from the sun.

  The torches marking the more frequented alleyways were hollow shafts that gripped pumice stones with fingers of blackened iron. Fed through ancient pitted copper pipes, gas hissed balls of flame around the porous stones, an uneven fire that cast a blue and green light. The gas was drawn from great caverns beneath the city and channeled by massive valves. Attending these works were the Grayfaces, silent men and women who moved like specters beneath the city’s cobbled streets.

  For nine hundred years the breath of gas had fed at least one of the city’s districts. Though pipes had been sundered by raging tenement fires and gouts of flame reached hundreds of feet into the sky, the Grayfaces had held on, twisting the shackles and driving their invisible dragon to its knees.

  Beneath the rooftops was an underworld forever bathed in a blue glow. Such light marked the major avenues and the oft-frequented, narrow and crooked thoroughways of the markets. In the city, however, over twenty thousand alleys, barely wide enough for a two-wheeled cart, remained in shadow broken only by the occasional torch-bearing citizen or the globed lanterns of the City Watch.

  By day the rooftops were bright and hot beneath the sun, crowded with the fluttering flags of domestic life drying in the lake wind. By night, the stars and moon illuminated a world webbed with empty clotheslines and the chaotic shadows they cast.

  On this night a figure wove around the hemp ropes and through the faint shadows. Overhead, a sickle moon sliced its way between thin clouds like a god’s scimitar. The figure wore soot-stained cloth wrapped snugly about its torso and limbs, and its face was similarly hidden, leaving only space enough for its eyes, which scanned the nearby rooftops. A black leather harness criss-crossed the figure’s chest, bearing pockets and tight, stiff loops holding tools of the trade: coils of copper wire, iron files, three metal saws each wrapped in oiled parchment, root gum and a squared lump of tallow, a spool of fishing string, a thin-bladed dagger and a throwing knife both sheathed under the figure’s left arm, pommels facing forward.

  The tips of the thief’s moccasins had been soaked in pitch. As he crossed the flat rooftop he was careful not to lower his full weight on his toes, leaving mostly intact the half-inch strip of sticky tar. He came to the building’s edge and looked down. Three flights below crouched a small garden, faintly lit by four gas lamps set at each corner of a flagstoned patio that encircled a fountain. A purple glow clung to the foliage encroaching on the patio, and glimmered on the water trickling down a series of stone tiers to the fountain’s shallow pool. On a bench beside the fountain sat a guard reclined in sleep, a spear across his knees.

  The D’Arle estate was a popular topic among the higher circles of Darujhistan’s nobility, specifically for the eligibility of the family’s youngest daughter. Many had been the suitors, many the gifts of gems and baubles that now resided in the young maiden’s bedroom.

  While such stories were passed like the sweetest bread in the upper circles, few of the commonry paid attention when the tales trickled down into their company. But there were those who listened carefully indeed, possessive and mute with their thoughts yet oddly eager for details.

  His gaze on the dozing house guard in the garden below, the mind of Crokus Younghand picked its way carefully through speculations of what was to come. The key lay in finding out which room among the estate’s score of chambers belonged to the maiden. Crokus did not like guesswork, but he’d found that his thoughts, carried almost entirely on instinct, moved with their own logic when determining these things.

  Top floor most assuredly for the youngest and fairest daughter of the D’Arles. And with a balcony overlooking the garden.

  He turned his attention from the guard to the wall immediately beneath him. Three balconies, but only one, off to the left, was on the third floor. Crokus pulled back from the edge and slipped silently along the roof until he judged he was directly above the balcony, then he approached again and looked down.

  Ten feet, at the most. On either side of the balcony rose ornately carved columns of painted wood. A half-moon arch spanned them an arm’s length down, completing the fancy frame. With a final glance at the house guard, who had not moved, and whose spear did not seem in danger of clattering to the flag-stones at any moment, Crokus slowly lowered himself down the wall.

  His moccasins’ pitch gripped the eaves with snug assurance. There were plenty of handholds, as the carver had cut deep into the hardwood, and sun, rain, and wind had weathered the paint. He descended along one of the columns until his feet touched the balcony’s handrail where it abutted the wall. A moment later he crouched on the glazed tiles in the shadow of a wrought-iron table and pillowed chair.

  No light leaked between the shutters of the sliding door. Two soft steps brought him next to it. A moment’s examination identified the style of the latch’s lock. Crokus withdrew a fine-toothed saw and set to work. The sound the tool made was minimal,
no more than the shivering of a locust’s leg. A fine tool, rare and probably expensive. Crokus was fortunate in having an uncle who dabbled in alchemy and had need of such magically hardened tools when constructing his bizarre condensing and filtering mechanisms. Better yet, an absentminded uncle prone to misplacing things.

  Twenty minutes later the saw’s teeth snipped the last restraining bolt. He returned the tool to his harness, wiped the sweat from his hands, then nudged the door open.

  Crokus poked his head into the room. In the gray dimness he saw a large four-poster bed a few feet to his left, its headboard against the outer wall. Mosquito netting descended around it, ending in piled heaps on the floor. From within came the even breaths of someone deep in sleep. The room was redolent of expensive perfume, something spicy and probably from Callows.

  Immediately across from him were two doors, one ajar and leading into a bathing chamber; the other a formidable barrier of banded oak sporting an enormous lock. Against the wall to his right stood a clothes cupboard and a makeup stand over which stood three polished silver mirrors hinged together. The center one rose flush on the wall, the outer two angled onto the tabletop to provide an infinity of admiring visages.

  Crokus turned sideways and edged into the room. He rose slowly and stretched, relieving his muscles of the tension that had held them for the past half-hour. He swung his gaze to the makeup stand, then tiptoed toward it.

  _______

  The D’Arle estate was third from the summit of Old K’rul’s Avenue, which climbed the first of the inner city’s hills to a circular court tangled with weeds and irregular, half-buried dolmens. Opposite the court rose K’rul Temple, its ancient stones latticed with cracks and entombed in moss.

  The last monk of the Eldering God had died generations past. The square belfry that rose from the temple’s inner court bore architectural stylings of a people long dead. Four rose marble posts marked the corners of the high platform, still holding aloft a peaked roof with sides that were scaled in green-stained bronze tiles.