‘More lumps than last time I was here,’ Picker observed as they made their way towards the gate.

Antsy grunted. ‘No shortage of idiots tryin’ t’get inside. Thinkin’ they’ll find treasure…’

‘Secret short cuts to power,’ she added. ‘Magical items and crap.’

‘An’ all they got was an early grave.’ He hesitated at the gate and glanced at Picker. ‘Could be we end up the same way.’

‘Stay on the path, that’s the trick. Follow me.’

He fell into step close behind her as she set out along the narrow, winding track of tilted pavestones. Too close, as he trod on her heel and almost made her stumble. She shot him a vicious look over one shoulder before continuing on.

The sheer lack of anything untoward had Antsy’s nerves overwrought by the time they reached the door. He watched as Picker lifted a gloved hand, made a fist, hesitated, then thumped it hard against the black wood. The boom reverber-ated as if an abyss waited on the other side.

They waited. From here, all sounds of the city beyond this wood had vanished, as if the normal world had ceased to exist, or, perhaps, the endless rush of life out there held no relevance to what loomed before them now, this grotesque intru-sion from another realm.

A dozen heartbeats. Picker made to pound once more on the door.

The clunk of a latch sounded dully through the thick wood, and a moment later the door creaked back.

Paran had spoken of the lich resident in the Finnest House, the blasted creature that had once been a Jaghut, but this was Antsy’s first sight of it. Tall (gods how he hated tall things), gaunt yet large-boned, adorned in a long ragged coat of black chain. Bared head with long colourless hair hanging down from patches-where the scalp was visible there was twisted scarring, and in one place something had punctured through the skull, and within the uneven hole left behind there was only darkness, as if the apparition’s brain had simply withered away. Tusks in a shattered face, the eyes shrunken back into shadows. All in all, Antsy was not in-spired with confidence that this fell meeting would proceed in anything like a rea-sonable fashion.

‘Lord Raest,’ Picker said, bowing. ‘I am a friend of Ganoes Paran. If you recall, we met-’

‘I know who you are, Corporal Picker,’ the lich replied in a deep, resonant voice.

‘This is Sergeant Antsy-’

‘What do you want?’

‘We need to find Ganoes Paran-’

‘He is not here.’

‘We need to get a message to him.’

‘Why?’

Picker glanced at Antsy, then back up at Raest. ‘Well, it’s a complicated tale-can we come inside?’

Raest’s dead eyes held steady on her for a long moment, and then he asked, ‘Do you expect me to serve refreshments as well?’

‘Er, no, that won’t be necessary, Raest.’

The Jaghut stepped back.

Picker edged round him and halted a few steps in. Antsy pushed in behind her. They stood in a vaulted entryway, raw black stone underfoot. Opposite the front door there were twin doors and a narrow corridor off to the right and left. The air was dry and warm, smelling of freshly turned earth-reminding Antsy of the cel-lar beneath K’rul’s Bar.

‘Been digging graves?’ he asked, and then cursed himself, trying to ignore Picker’s wild stare.

Raest shut the door and faced them. ‘What manner of refreshments were you expecting, Sergeant Antsy? I am afraid I have nothing buried within the house. If you like, however-’

‘No that’s fine,’ Picker said hastily.

Ant»y could only nod agreement. His mouth had dried up, tongue like a piece of leather gummed against the palate. And he needed to empty his bladder, but the thought of asking directions to the water closet was suddenly akin to de-manding that the Jaghut hand over all his money or else.

Raest studied them in silence for a moment longer, and then said, ‘Follow me, if you must.’

The lich’s moccasin-wrapped feet made rasping sounds. Cloth rustled, the mail of the coat crackling, as Raest walked to the double doors and pushed them open.

Within was a main room bearing a stone fireplace directly opposite, wherein flames flickered cosily, and two deep, high-backed chairs to either side, sitting on a thick woven rug bearing arcane, geometric patterns barely visible in the general gloom. Large tapestries covered the walls to either side, one clearly Malazan in origin-probably Untan given the subject matter (some antiquated court event, significance long lost but no doubt relevant to House Paran); the other was local and depicted a scene from the Night of the Moon, when Moon’s Spawn had de-scended to brush the highest buildings in the city; when dragons warred in the night sky, and Raest himself had attempted his assault upon Darujhistan. The im-age focused on the dragons, one black and silver-maned, the other muted bronze or brown. Jaws and talons were locked upon one another as they fought in midair, with the backdrop the base of Moon’s Spawn and the silhouettes of rooftops and spires, all bordered in an intricate pattern of Great Ravens in flight.

‘That’s not bad,’ Picker muttered, eyeing the work.

Antsy grunted, not one to ponder too much on artwork beyond identifying whatever scene it happened to be recording. Personally, he could not imagine a more useless talent, and thanked the gods he’d never been cursed with such cre-ative misery. Most of his own memories of great events he had witnessed em-ployed stick figures, and that was good enough for him. It did not occur to him that this was at all unusual.

Raest gestured to the two chairs. ‘Sit down,’ he said, the tone only vaguely re-lated to an invitation. When they had done so, both angling their chairs to face the Jaghut, he said, ‘Explain to me, if you will, how precisely you intend to send Ganoes Paran a message.’

‘We have no idea,’ Picker said, with a queasy smile. ‘We were hoping you might have some suggestions.’

‘I have many suggestions,’ Raest replied, ‘none of which are relevant to your request.’

Antsy slowly narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.

Picker opened her mouth a few times, breaking off a succession of possible re-sponses, the repeated gaping reminding Antsy of netted fish on the deck of his da’s fisher boat. Unless I just made that up. All a lie, maybe. Maybe I seen a fish on some other deck. How can I be sure? How can-

‘One possibility occurs to me,’ Raest said. ‘It would, I suspect, require that one of you be an adept with the Deck of Dragons. Or possessing the potential thereof.’

‘I see,’ said Picker. ‘Well, I’ve had a few brushes with the Deck.’

‘You are an illustrator of Decks?’

‘What? Oh, not that kind of brush. I mean, I’ve had my hands on ’em a few times.’

‘Did such contact leave you damaged, Sergeant Picker?’

‘Damaged how?’

‘Arc you, perhaps, now insane?’

She sat upright. ‘Hang on, how in Hood’s name would I even know if I was in-sane or not?’

‘Precisely,’ said Raest, and waited.

Antsy’s gaze fixed once more on the Jaghut. ‘Pick,’ he finally growled.

She twisted to face him in exasperation. ‘What is it now, Antsy?’

‘This bastard’s having us on.’

Her eyes bulged momentarily, and then she looked once more at the Jaghut.

Who shrugged. ‘One needs to amuse oneself on occasion. Company is so very rare these days.’

‘So when it arrives,’ Antsy snapped, ‘you treat it like dirt? Do you think maybe there’s a connection atwixt the two, you hoary lich?’

‘Like dirt? I think not. More like… with amiable contempt.’

‘You got a few things to learn about people, Jaghut.’

‘Undoubtedly, Sergeant Antsy. Alas, I find myself disinclined to make any ef-fort in that direction.’

‘Oh? And what direction do you make your efforts in?’

‘When I discover one I will let you know, if it proves of any interest-to either me or, of course, you. In the meantime, I have no idea if communication is pos-sible with Ganoes Paran. Perhaps if you informed me of your present crisis, I might be able to assist you in some way that does not involve precipitous, desperate acts that might ultimately inconvenience me.’