He had recently converted one such chamber into a secret office, wherein he could work alone, protected by a skein of long-dormant wards, and here he would remain for most of each night, strangely tireless, as if the very nobility of his cause blessed him with inhuman reserves-further proof to his mind that his efforts had begun to yield gifts, a recognition of sorts, from powers few even suspected still existed.
His thoughts were on such matters even during the day, and this day in particular, when his most loyal servant-the only man who knew of the secret crypts and, indeed, of Humble Measure’s master plan-entered his office and placed a small wax book on his desk, then departed.
A sudden quickening of anticipation, quickly crushed once he opened the book and read the message scribed into the wax.
Most unfortunate. Four assassins, all failing. The Guild assured him that such failure would not be repeated.
So, the targets had proved themselves to be truly as dangerous as Humble Measure had suspected, Sour consoltation,alas. He set the book down and reached for the roller on its heated plate. Carfully melted away the message.
The Guild would have to do better. Lest he lose faith and seek… other means.
In the yards beyond, bars of iron clanged as they were rolled from pallets on to the rail-beds leading to the warehouse, like the sudden clash of armies on a field of buttle. The sound made Humble Measure wince.
Whatever was necessary. Whatever was necessary.
In a very short time the foreign ship edging ever closer to the Lowstone Pier cap-tured the attention of the crowds on the quayside, sufficient to dampen the constant roar of the hawkers, stevedores, fortunetellers, prostitutes, carters, and fisherfolk. Eyes widened. Conversations died as lungs snatched air and held it taut in numbed shock. A sudden laugh yelped, swiftly followed by others.
Standing at the bow of the low-slung ship, one pale, perfect hand resting on the carved neck of the horse-head prow, was a woman. If not for her stunning, ethereal beauty, her poise was so regal, so haughty, that it would have verged on caricature. She was swathed in a diaphanous blouse of emerald green that glowed like water in a glacial stream. She wore a broad black leather belt in which were thrust three naked-bladed daggers, and beneath that, tight-fitting, tanned leather breeches down to rawhide leggings. Behind her, on the deck and in the rigging, swarmed a score of bhokarala, while three more fought over the steering oar.
All harbours the world over possessed tales of outrageously strange arrivals, but none matched this, or so it would be claimed by the witnesses in homes and bars for years to come. As the ship glided closer to the pier, disaster seemed imminent. Bhokarala were mere apes, after all, perhaps as smart as the average dog. Crewing a ship? Ridiculous. Drawing into berth with deft precision? Impossible. Yet, at the last moment, the three creatures struggling for control of the steering oar miraculously heeled the ship over. The straw bumpers barely squeezed between hull and stone as the craft nudged the pier. Lines sailed out in chaotic profusion, only a few within reach of the dockside handlers-but enough to make the ship fast. High on the main mast, the topsail luffed and snapped, then the yard loosened and the canvas folded as it dropped down, temporarily trapping a bhokaral within it, where the creature squawked and struggled mightily to free itself.
Down on the main deck, bhokarala rushed from all directions to fight over the gangplank, and all on the quayside watched as the grey, warped board jutted and jerked on its way down to clatter on the pier’s stones, a task that resulted in three or four of the black, winged beasts falling into the water with piteous squeals.
A dozen paces away stood a clerk of the harbour master’s office, hesitating overlong on his approach to demand moorage fees. The dunked bhokarala clambered back on to the deck, one with a large fish in its mouth, causing others to rush in to fight over the prize.
The woman had stepped back from her perch alongside the prow, but instead of crossing the main deck to disembark, she instead vanished down through the cabin hatch.
The clerk edged forward then quickly retreated as a half-dozen bhokarala crowding the rail near the gangplank bared their fangs at him.
Common among all crowds, fascination at novelty was short-lived, and before too long, as nothing else of note occurred beyond the futile attempts by the clerk to extract moorage fees from a score of winged apes that did little more than snarl and make faces at him-one going so far as to pelt him with a fresh fishhead-fixed regard wavered and drifted away, back to whatever tasks and whatever demands had required attention before the ship’s appearance. Word of the glorious woman and her absurd crew raced outward to infest the city, swift as starlings swirling from street to street, as the afternoon stretched on.
In the captain’s cabin aboard the ship, Scillara watched as Sister Spite, a faint smile on her full lips, poured out goblets of wine and set them down before her guests seated round the map-table. That smile collapsed into a sad frown-only slightly exaggerated-when Cutter twisted in his chair, too frustrated to accept the peaceable gesture.
‘Oh, really,’ Spite said, ‘some maturity from you would be a relief right now. Our journey has been long, yes, but I do reiterate that delaying our disembarkation until dusk remains the wisest course.’
‘I have no enemies here,’ Cutter said in a belligerent growl. ‘Only friends.’
‘Perhaps that is true,’ Spite conceded, ‘but I assure you, young assassin, Darujhistan is not the city you left behind years past. Fraught, poised on the very edge of great danger-’
‘I know that! I feel it-I felt it before I ever came aboard your cursed ship! Why do you think just sitting here, doing nothing, strikes me as the worst decision possible? I need to see people, I need to warn-’
‘Oh dear,’ Spite cut in, ‘do you truly believe that you alone are aware of the danger? That all hangs in the balance right there at your fingertips? The arrogance of youth!’f
Scillara filled her pipe with rustleaf and spent a moment sparking it alight. Heavy, brooding emotions filled the cabin. Nothing new in that, of course. This entire journey had been chaotic and contrary from the moment she, Cutter, Barathol and Chaur had been fished from the seas even as the sky flung giant goblets of fire down on all sides. Worshipful bhokarala, a miserable mule, an old hag who collapsed into a heap of spiders if one so much as looked askance in her direction. A scrawny, entirely mad High Priest of Shadow, and a brokenhearted Trell. And while Spite comported herself with all the airs of a coddled princess, she was in truth a soletaken sorceress, dreadfully powerfu and dangerously fey as some Elder Goddess. No, amore motley shipload of passengers and crew Scillara could not imagine.
And now here we are. Poor Darujhistan! ‘Won’t be long now,’ she said to Cutter. ‘We’re better off trying to stay as far beneath notice as possible.’
Iskara Pust, seated on hit chair with his legs drawn up so that his toadlike face was between his knees, seemed to choke on that comment; then, reddening and even bulging, be scowled at the table. ‘We have a crew of mad apes!’ His head tilted and he stared agog at Scillara. ‘We could smoke dried fish with her-just hang ’em in her hair! Of course, the fish’d end up poisoning us all, which might be her plan all along! Keep her away from food and drink-oh yes, I have figured her out. No High Priest of Shadow can be fooled so easily! Oh, no. Now, where was I?’ His brows knitted, then suddenly rose threateningly as he glared at her. ‘Beneath notice! Why not just sneak out in that cloud of yours, woman?’
She blew him a smoky kiss.