‘No,’ the Trell rumbled as he approached, ‘I have no desire to return to Seven Cities, or Nemil.’

The bench groaned as he settled on to it.

Sweetest Sufferance was eyeing the newcomer with a strangely avid intensity. Reccanto Ilk simply stared, mouth open, odd twitches of his scalp shifting his hairline up and down.

Faint said to the Trell, ‘The truth of it is, we’re really in no shape for any-thing… ambitious. Master Quell needs to put out a call for more shareholders, and that could hold us back for days, maybe a week.’

‘Oh, that is unfortunate. It is said your Guild has an office here in Darujhistan-’

‘It does, but I happen to know we’re the only carriage available, for the next while. Where were you hoping to go, and how quickly?’

‘Where is your Master, or are you the one who does the negotiating?’

At that moment Glanno finally succeeded in dragging Quell out from the wa-ter closet. The Master was pale, and shiny with sweat, and it seemed his legs weren’t working very well. Faint met his slightly wild gaze. ‘Better?’ she asked.

‘Better,’ he replied in a gasp, as Glanno more or less carried him over to his chair. ‘It was a damned kidney stone, it was. Size of a knuckle I never thought… well, never mind. Gods, who is this?’

The Trell half rose to bow. ‘Apologies. My name is Mappo Runt.’ And he sat back down.

Faint saw Quell lick dry lips, and with a trembling hand reach for a tankard. He scowled to find it empty and set it back down. ‘The most infamous Trell of them all. You lost him, didn’t you?’

The barbarian’s dark eyes narrowed.

‘Ah, I see.’

‘Where?’ Quell’s voice sounded half strangled.

‘I need to get to a continent named Lether. To an empire ruled by Tiste Edur, and a cursed emperor. And yes, I can pay you for the trouble.’

Faint had never seen her master so rattled. It was fascinating. Clearly, Quell had recognized the Trell’s name, which signified… well, something.

‘And, er, did he face that emperor, Mappo? In ritual combat?’

‘I do not think so!’

‘Why?’

‘I believe I would have… sensed such a thing-’

‘The end of the world, you mean.’

‘Perhaps. No, something else happened. I cannot say what, Master Quell. I need to know, will you take me there?’

‘We’re under-crewed,’ Quell said, ‘but I can drop by the office see if there’s a list of waiting prospects. A quick interview process. Say by this time tomorrow, I can have an answer.’

The huge warrior sighed. He glanced round. ‘I have nowhere else to go, so I will slay here until then.’

‘Sounds wise,’ Quell said. ‘Faint, you’re with me. The rest of you, get cleaned up, see to the horses, carriage and all that. Then stay close by, keep Mappo company-he might have nasty tusks but he don’t bite.’

‘But I do,’ said Sweetest Sufferance, offering the Trell an inviting smile.

Mappo stared at her a moment, then, rubbing at his face, he rose. ‘Where’s that breakfast, anyway?’

‘Let’s go, Faint,’ said Quell, pushing himself upright with another wince.

‘Can you make it?’ she asked him.

A nod. ‘Haradas is handling the office these days-she can heal me quick enough.’

‘Good point. Hands on?’

There is, as a legion of morose poets well know, nothing inconsequential about love. Nor all those peculiarities of related appetites often confused for love, for example lust, possession, amorous worship, appalling notions of abject surrender where one’s own will is bled out in sacrifice, obsessions of the fetishistic sort that might include earlobes or toenails or regurgitated foodstuffs, and indeed that ado-lescent competitiveness which in adults-adults who should of course know bet-ter but don’t-is manifested as insane jealousy.

Such lack of restraint has launched and no doubt sunk an equal number of ships, if one took the long view of such matters, which in retrospect is not only advisable but, for all the sighs of worldly wind, probably the most essential sur-vival trait of them all-but pray, let not this rounded self wallow unthinkingly into recounting a host of lurid tales of woe, loss and the like, nor bemoan his pres-ent solitude as anything other than a voluntary state of being!

Cast attention, then (with audible relief), upon these three for whom love heaves each moment like a volcano about to erupt, amidst the groan of conti-nents, the convulsion of valleys and the furrowing of furrows-but no, honesty demands a certain revision to what steams and churns beneath the surface. Only two of the three thrash and writhe in the delicious agony of that-which-might-be-love, and the subject of their fixed attention is none other than the third in their quaint trio, who, being of feminine nature, is yet to decide and, now that she basks in extraordinary attention, may indeed never decide. And should the two ever vying for her heart both immolate themselves at some future point, ah well, there are plenty of eels in the muck, aren’t there?

And these three, then, bound together in war and bound yet tighter in the calamity of desire long after the war was done with, now find themselves in the fair city of Darujhistan, two pursuing one and where the one goes so too will they, but she wonders, yes, just how far she can take them and let’s see, shall we?

Being illiterate, she has scrawled her name on to a list, assuming her name can be pictographically rendered into something like a chicken heart’s spasm the mo-ment before death, and lo, did not her two suitors follow suit, competing even here in their expressions of Illiterate extravagance, with the first devising a most elaborate sigil of self that might lend one to imagine his name’s being Smear of Snail in Ecstasy, whilst the other, upon seeing this, set to with brush, scrivener’s dust and fingernails to fashion a scrawl reminiscent of a serpent trying to cross a dance floor whilst a tribe importuned the fickle gods of rain. Both men then stood, beaming with pride in between mutual baring of teeth, while their love sauntered off to find a nearby stall where an old woman wearing seaweed on her head was cooking stuffed voles over a brazier of coals.

The two men hastened after her, both desperate to pay for her breakfast, or beat the old woman senseless, whichever their darling preferred.

Thus it was that High Marshal Jula Bole and High Marshal Amby Bole, along with the swamp witch named Precious Thimble, all late of the Mott Irregulars, were close at hand and, indeed, ready and willing newfound shareholders when Master Quell and Faint arrived at the office of the Trygalle Trade Guild. And while three was not quite the number Quell sought by way of replacements, they would just have to do, given Mappo Runt’s terrible need.

So they would not have to wait until the morrow after all. Most consequential indeed.

Happy days!

Conspiracies are the way of the civilized world, both those real and those imag-ined, and in all the perambulations of move and countermove, why, the veracity of such schemes are irrelevant. In a subterranean, most private chamber in the estate of Councilman Gorlas Vidikas sat fellow Council members Shardan Lim and Hanut Orr in the company of their worthy host, and the wine had flowed like the fount of the Queen of Dreams-or if not dreams then at least irresponsible aspirations-throughout the course of the night just past.

Still somewhat inebriated and perhaps exhausted unto satiation by self-satisfaction, they were comfortably silent, each feeling wiser than their years, each feeling that wellspring of power against which reason was helpless. In their half-lidded eyes something was swollen and nothing in the world was unattain-able. Not for these three.

‘Coll will be a problem,’ Hanut said.

‘Nothing new there,’ Shardan muttered, and the other two granted him soft, muted laughter. ‘Although,’ he added as he played with a silver candle snuffer, ‘unless we give him cause for suspicion, there is no real objection he can legiti-mately make. Our nominee is well enough respected, not to mention harmless, at least physically.’