Orb Sceptre Throne (3 page)

‘That was a rare blind albino cave fish from the deserts of the Jhag Odhan, Kruppe.’

‘And tasty too. I highly recommend them. On toast.’

‘And to what, other than the raiding of my sample shelves and the bribing and suborning of my servants, do I owe this visit? I am reminded of your earlier call not so long ago, and I am not reassured.’

The fat man sniffed the jar’s milky fluid, wrinkled his nose, and set it aside. ‘Kruppe wonders now, in the presentsight, as it were – or is it
is
? – what pedestrian activities or seemingly innocuous events will, in the hindsight of the future, be seen to be foreshadowings of the grievous event which may, or may not, come to pass, and which, by the forewarning, may thusly be headed off.’ He set his pale hands under his chin and beamed up at Baruk, who blinked, frowning.

‘Such as?’

A fluttering of the oversized handkerchief. ‘Oh, who is to say? The subject is quite picked over. Perhaps if one dug deeper, though – who knows what might be uncovered? Things long hidden from the bright glare of the sun heaving up gasping and blinking unseeing orbs, yet somehow managing to be preserved, perhaps for all foreverness, thereby outlasting even you and me?’

Baruk turned the quill in its carved soapstone holder. ‘Now you are making me damned uncomfortable, Kruppe. The circle remains broken,’ and he inclined his head, ‘thanks to … whoever. Its hoped-for eternity of perfection was smashed. And all my time and resources are spent in ensuring that it remains so … yet the perturbations of these powerful events of late …’ He rubbed his brows and his back hunched, betraying an uncharacteristic infirmity and exhaustion.

For an instant the little man’s brows pinched in concern, unnoticed. Then he puffed out his chest – though to nowhere near the protrusion of the straining lower buttons of his waistcoat.

‘Do not despair, my High Alchemicalness. The Eel has eyes like a hawk! And had it any limbs, why, they would be the thews of a panther! No pale wriggling albino cave fish is the Eel! Er … that is … unlike said fish, no pickling jar could ever be quick enough to capture it!’

All through the alleys of the bourse of the dancing girls, beneath its multicoloured awnings and drifting fumes of burning prayer sticks, the gossip of the day was fixed upon the unprecedented arrival of a bright new star among the constellation of its most talented practitioners.

The heart of the bourse was the narrow Way of Sighs, a length of shadowed alley not incidentally overlooked by the open window alcoves of the dancers’ quarters. Here in the cool of the twilight the girls often gathered in their window seats to take in the pleasant night air, observe dusk prayers, and to receive the admiration of suitors lingering below. This eve the courtiers and young bravos talked among themselves, comparing rapturous descriptions of the new dancer’s goddess-like grace and classical beauty; while, above, tortoiseshell combs yanked rather savagely through midnight manes of hair.

She had appeared out of nowhere, this diminutive captivating sprite whose confidence so far surpassed her apparent age. No school could boast of having trained her, though many wished they had. A secretive rise of her painted lips and a flash of her green-tinged sloe-eyes easily deflected even the subtlest of questioning and left would-be interrogators speechless. Schooling at home by her mother, herself once a very famous dancer, was all she had admitted so far.

Then the romance began. How the alleyways resounded, the awnings fluttered, with twice the usual wistful sighs of admiration! The dedicated, brilliant dancer (no doubt of the lowest of family origins) and the awkward son of a noble house (and that house in poverty and decline). Why, it was like the stories of old! Jeshin Lim, the bookish, unpromising son of the once great Lim family, cousin to councilman Shardan, himself cut off so tragically, madly in love with a dancing girl of no family and no connections. What other explanation could there be but pure unadorned love?

In their window nooks some clenched perfectly manicured nails to palms and muttered through pearl teeth of
bewitchment
.

Then the unlikeliest of strokes. The cousin vaulted to a seat on the Council! All nod sagely at the obvious tonic to a man of the love and devotion of a gifted woman. And the path to said Council seat no doubt paved by the freely given gold bangles and anklets from those very shapely limbs!

Yet inevitably must come the tragic and tearful end. All know the conclusion to such star-crossed affairs. Lim, having achieved the vaunted rank of councilman, is far too prominent for such a low entanglement.

And so, in the cooling breezes of the window nooks, brushes now slid smoothly through long black hair, and kohl-lined eyes were languid and satisfied in the certain knowledge of such pending devastation.

Now he came, this very eve, drawn in a hired carriage to the apartment houses near the dancers’ quarters where so many girls were similarly kept at the expense of their, shall we say, patrons.

Lim’s carriage pulled up at the private entrance and he stepped down wrapped in a dark hooded cloak. He held a delicate gold mask pressed to his face, obscuring his features. The guard bowed respectfully, eyes averted, and pulled the sliding bolt. The councilman slipped within.

He came to one specific door along the second-floor hall and knocked four quick raps: their agreed secret code. Yet the door did not open; no smooth naked arms entwined him. The gold mask edged right and left, then a hand rose to try the latch, and found it unlocked. He stepped within, pushed the door shut behind. ‘My love?’

No answer from the cluttered darkened room. Layered carpets covered the floor in heaps, cushions lay about draped in abandoned gossamer clothes. He edged forward tentatively. ‘My dear?’

He found her at the window – no open seated alcove here: bars sealed these small openings. She was peering out to where the blue-tinted night flames of the city seemed to battle the green-tinged night sky above.

‘I am sorry, my dear …’ he began.

She turned, arms crossed over her small high breasts. For a moment her eyes seemed to flash with a green light akin to that of the night sky. ‘And who is this who comes intruding upon my privacy?’

Jeshin stared, confused, then lowered the mask and examined it wryly. He pushed back the hood, revealing his long black hair, his narrow scholar’s face. He tapped a finger to the gold mask. ‘You see? Even now I come as you request. Though why this façade of anonymity when everyone seems to know of … well.’ He tossed the mask aside.

‘You should not have come,’ she said, hugging herself even tighter, as if struggling to keep something in.

Jeshin turned away, pacing. ‘Yes, yes. Now that I am a councillor. Even now you shame me in your concern for my
reputation
.’ He spun upon her. ‘Yet perhaps there
is
a way. I no longer need the blessings of my family …’

Slipping forward, she silenced him with a finger to his lips. ‘No.’ She spoke soothingly, as if to a child. ‘I’ll not have you weakened in any way. Your opponents will use it against you. Paint you an impetuous fool. You must not be compromised.’ And she peered up at him, her gaze almost furtive. ‘Your great vision for the city, remember?’

He squeezed her to him. ‘But without you?’

Dancer that she was, she somehow easily eluded his grasp to put her back to him. ‘We … both … must make sacrifices,’ she said, facing the window once more.

He shook his head in awed admiration. ‘Your determination is a lesson to me.’

She turned, finger at her chin. ‘Yet there is one last thing I can do for you, my Jeshin, my noble councillor.’

He waved the suggestion aside, still shaking his head. ‘You have done enough – too much. Your advice, the things you knew … As they say: all secrets are revealed beneath the feet of the dancer.’

Her henna-lined lips drew up, pleased. ‘That is a very old saying. And very true. No, one last word that has come to me. There is an extraordinarily wealthy man in the city who shares your vision of a strong Darujhistan that commands the respect it deserves.’ Her lips drew down, dismissive. ‘True, he is a northerner, from Cat. But he should support you. His name is Humble. Humble Measure.’

Jeshin frowned. ‘The ironmonger?’

‘He is more than that. Trust in me.’

The young councillor held out his hands as if in surrender. ‘If you say so, dearest. I shall contact him.’

‘Excellent. With his resources your ascent will be assured.’

Jeshin stared, almost awestruck. ‘I do not deserve you, my love.’

Smiling once more, she pressed a palm to his chest and gently urged him down to a heap of cushions. ‘You shall, my love. You shall.’

Standing above him she struck the opening pose of
Burn Awakening
, one leg raised, toe just brushing the floor, one hand lifted to her face as if warding off the harsh glare of a primeval dawn. From this pose she flowed into the first four devotional motions, one to each corner of the world, bowing, hands raised in supplication, palms inward.

Then she danced.

Staring, mesmerized, his pulse racing, Jeshin could only moan, ‘Oh, Taya … Taya …’

The retreat had been established in the coastal mountains south of Mengal generations ago. Some named it a monastery, others a school. Those who entered did so in the understanding of a voluntary abandonment of the world, with all its diversions and deluding ambitions.

Why the legendary Traveller, slayer of Anomander Rake, the very son of Darkness and Lord of Moon’s Spawn, would come here was a mystery to Esten Rul. If
he
had defeated the most feared and powerful Ascendant once active in the world he would not be squatting in some dusty monastery full of mumbling priests and acolytes.

And that was not what he planned on doing after he in turn defeated this Traveller.

Even now, assured by numerous independent sources, he could not quite believe that this squalid mountain-hugging collection of huts and open-air temples was the retreat of the great swordsman. Entering the main sand courtyard he paused, eyed the passing robed priests on their unhurried ways. None even cast him a single glance. This was not the sort of treatment to which Esten Rul, master duellist and swordsman of three continents, was accustomed. These shaven-headed wretches obviously did not possess the wit to understand that the man who stood before them was acknowledged a master on Quon Tali and Falar. And that he had taken the measure of the current crop of talents here in Genabackis and frankly thought them rather second-rate.

One oldster was dutifully sweeping up the leaves that littered the courtyard and this one he approached.

‘You. Old man. Where can I find the one who goes by the name Traveller?’

In what was obviously a deliberate insult the fellow had the effrontery to continue sweeping. Esten stamped his foot down on the bundled straw of the broom. ‘I am talking to you, grandfather.’

The man peered up at him, very dark, not a local, his scalp freshly shaven, the face scarred and graven in lines of care. Yet the eyes: utterly without fear, deep midnight blue like ocean depths.

The weight of that gaze made Esten look away, uncomfortable. So, not a servant after all. A broken-down veteran perhaps, shattered by battle. ‘You know of him?’

‘The one those here call Master? Yes.’

Esten grunted. So, their master, was he? Of course. What else could such a man be? ‘Where is he? Which of these pathetic huts?’ The old man looked him up and down. Esten saw his eyes casting over the quillons of his sheathed rapier.