‘Oh, husband,’ she murmured, ‘you are in trouble indeed…’
Her eyes strayed once more to The Rope. Is that you, Cotillion? Or has Vorcan returned? It’s not just the Guild-the Guild means nothing here. No, there are faces behind that veil. There are terrible deaths coming. Terrible deaths. Abruptly, she swept up the cards, as if by that gesture alone she could defy what was coming, could fling apart the strands and so free the world to find a new future. As if things could be so easy. As if choices were indeed free.
Outside, a cart clunked past, its battered wheels crackling and stepping on the uneven cobbles. The hoofs of the ox pulling it beat slow as a dirge, and there came to her the rattle of a heavy chain, slapping leather and wood.
She wrapped the deck once more and returned it to its hiding place. And then went to another, this one made by her husband-perhaps indeed he’d thought to keep it a secret from her, but such things were impossible. She knew the creak of every floorboard, after all, and had found his private pit only days after he’d dug it.
Within, items folded within blue silk-the silk of the Blue Moranth. Tor’s loot-she wondered again how he’d come by it. Even now, as she knelt above the cache, she could feel the sorcery roiling up thick as a stench, reeking of watery decay-the Warren of Ruse, no less, but then, perhaps not. This, I think, is Elder. This magic, it comes from Mael.
But then, what connection would the Blue Moranth have with the Elder God?
She reached down and edged back the silk. A pair of sealskin gloves, glistening as if they had just come up from the depths of some ice-laden sea. Beneath them, a water-etched throwing axe, in a style she had never seen before-not Moranth, for certain. A sea-raider’s weapon, the inset patterns on the blue iron swirling like a host of whirlpools. The handle was an ivory tusk of some sort, appallingly over-sized for any beast she could imagine. Carefully tucked in to either side of the weapon were cloth-wrapped grenados, thirteen in all, one of which was-she had discovered-empty of whatever chemical incendiary was trapped inside the others. An odd habit of the Moranth, but it had allowed her a chance to examine more closely the extraordinary skill involved in manufacturing such perfect porcelain globes, without risk of blowing herself and her entire home to pieces. True, she had heard that most Moranth munitions were made of clay, but not these ones, for some reason. Lacquered with a thick, mostly transparent gloss that was nevertheless faintly cerulean, these grenados were-to her eye-works of art, which made the destruction implicit in their proper use strike her as almost criminal.
Now, dear husband, why do you have these? Were they given to you, or did you-as is more likely-steal them?
If she confronted him, she knew, he would tell her the truth. But that was not something she would do. Successful marriages took as sacrosanct the possession of secrets. When so much was shared, certain other things must ever be held back. Small secrets, to be sure, but precious ones none the less.
Tiserra wondered if her husband foresaw a futurel need for such items. Or was this just another instance of his natural inclination to hoard, a quirk both charm-
ing and infuriating, sweet and potentially deadly (as all the best ones were), Magic flowed in endless half-visible patterns about the porcelain globes-another detail she suspected was unusual.
Ensorcelled munitions-what were the Blue Moranth thinking? Indeed, whatever were they thinking?
Two empty chairs faced Kruppe, a situation most peculiar and not at all pleasing. A short time earlier they had been occupied. Scorch and Leff, downing a fast tankard each before setting out to their place of employment, their nightly vigil at the gates of the mysterious estate and its mysterious lady. Oh, a troubled pair indeed, their fierce frowns denoting an uncharacteristic extreme of concentration. They’d swallowed down the bitter ale like water, the usual exchange of pleasant idiocies sadly muted. Watching them hurry out, Kruppe was reminded of two condemned men on the way to the gallows (or a wedding), proof of the profound unfairness of the world.
But fairness, while a comforting conceit, was an elusive notion, in the habit of swirling loose and wild about the vortex of the self, and should the currents of one collide with those of another, why, fairness ever revealed itself as a one-sided coin. In this fell clash could be found all manner of conflict, from vast continent-spanning wars to neighbours feuding over a crooked fence line.
But what significance these philosophical meanderings? Nary effect upon the trudging ways of life, to be sure. Skip and dance on to this next scene of portentous gravity, and here arriving hooded as a vulture through the narrow portal of the Phoenix Inn, none other than Torvald Nom. Pausing just within the threshold, answering Sulty’s passing greeting with a distracted smile, and then to the bar, where Meese has already poured him a tankard. And in reaching over to collect it, Tor-vald’s wrist is grasped, Meese pulling him close for a few murmured words of possible import, to which Torvald grimaces and then reluctantly nods-his response sufficient for Meese to release him.
Thus sprung, Torvald Nom strode over to smiling Kruppe’s table and slumped down into one of the chairs. ‘It’s all bad,’ he said.
‘Kruppe is stunned, dear cousin of Rallick, at such miserable misery, such pessimistic pessimism. Why, scowling Torvald has so stained his world that even his underlings have been infected. Look, even here thy dark cloud crawls darkly Kruppe’s way. Gestures are necessary to ward off sour infusion!’ And he waved his hand, crimson handkerchief fluttering like a tiny flag. ‘Ah, that is much better. Be assured, Torvald Kruppe’s friend, that “bad” is never as bad as bad might be, even when it’s very bad indeed.’
‘Rallick left a message for me. He wants to see me.’
Kruppe waggled his brows and made an effort at leaning forward, but his belly got in the way so he settled back again, momentarily perturbed at what might be an expanding girth-but then, it was in truth a question of angles, and thus a modestShift in perspective eased his repose once more, thank the gods-‘Unquestionably Rollick seeks no more than a cheery greeting for his long lost cousin. There is, Kruppe proclaims, no need for worry.’
‘Shows what little you know,’ Torvald replied. ‘I did something terrible once. Horrible, disgusting and evil. I scarred him for life. In fact, if he does track me down, I expect he’ll kill me. Why d’you think I ran away in the first place?’
‘A span of many years,’ said Kruppe, ‘weakens every bridge, until they crumble at a touch, or if not a touch, then a frenzied sledgehammer.’
‘Will you speak to him for me, Kruppe?’
‘Of course, yet, alas, Rallick has done something terrible and horrible and disgusting and evil to poor Kruppe, for which forgiveness is not possible.’
‘What? What did he do?’
‘Kruppe will think of something. Sufficient to wedge firmly the crowbar of persuasion, until he cannot but tilt helpless and desperate for succour in your direction. You need only open wide your arms, dear friend, when said moment arrives.’
‘Thanks, Kruppe, you’re a true friend.’ And Torvald drank deep.
‘No truer, no lie, ’tis true. Kruppe blesses you, alas, with none of the formal panoply accorded you by the Blue Moranth-oh, had Kruppe been there to witness such extraordinary, indeed singular, honorificals! Sulty, sweet lass, is it not time for supper? Kruppe withers with need! Oh, and perhaps another carafe of vintage-’
‘Hold it,’ Torvald Nom cut in, his eyes sharpening. ‘What in Hood’s name do you know about that, Kruppe? And how? Who told you-no one could’ve told you, because it was secret in the first place!’