Hurl turned to peer about the room, at the set faces of the magistrates glowering in a full circle down upon them. It occurred to her that the place didn't have one window. Just seven old men and five old women blinking inward at one another from across a circular room. A single window looking out on the city, it seemed to her, would have helped this court a great deal. As it was, Captain Gujran standing beside her just scratched a flame-scorched brow and said, ‘No.’

The switch froze. ‘No?’

‘No.’

The switch trembled. ‘Think, Captain. You are risking your future, your career. You are being offered a rank far above that which your breeding could otherwise ever allow.’

Gujran's hands went to his belt. ‘You're doin’ yourself no favours with that, magistrate.’

‘Enough of this charade,’ Magistrate Plengyllen burst out from where he sat a quarter of the way around the room. ‘Arrest the lot of them.’ He waved his switch at a guard. ‘Summon the soldiers of the court. Arrest these criminals.’

The guard glanced to the centre of the room. Storo gave the smallest of assents. The guard left. Three of the twelve magistrates also sprang to their feet and hurriedly left the room. Hurl grasped Storo's arm to point but Storo waved her concern aside. Shortly the magistrates reappeared, backing into the chamber, forced in by soldiery filling all exits.

Magistrate Ehrlann glanced about, took in the soldiery, their Imperial colours, and swore. He threw his switch to the tabletop. He slipped his fingers over the forward edge of the table, his mouth twisting his disgust. ‘So,’ he hissed. ‘It comes to this. Usurpation of legitimate republican rule. Once more you Malazans are revealed for the pirates and thugs you are. Your rule is the sword and the fist. Ours authority arises from the consent of the ruled. We shall see of which history approves.’

Storo inclined his head to the guards, who motioned the magistrates from their seats. ‘It seems to me, Magistrate Ehrlann, that you are only legitimately blind to the truth that oppression comes in many forms. Consider, if you are capable, the rather narrow constituency you and your circle claim to speak for in this city for the last hundred years.’

The magistrate gaped at Storo – as did Hurl. Never before had she heard the man speak in such a manner. It occurred to her that many hours of expensive private tutoring stood behind such opinions.

Contact with rulership seemed to be bringing out the man's hidden talents.

As a guard reached for him, Ehrlann spun to his servant. ‘Do something, Jamaer! They're arresting me!’ Jamaer's feather pen scratched as he dutifully copied down the magistrate's words. Snarling, Ehrlann slapped the papers from the man's lap. ‘No, no! Do something, you fool. You've worked for me for over thirty years! Doesn't that count for something?’

Slowly, solemnly, Jamaer handed the magistrate his umbrella.

Hurl suppressed a laugh while Liss chortled. The stunned incomprehension on Ehrlann's face was worth it.

Once the magistrates had been taken away Storo ordered the guard to withdraw. He waited for the room to clear, his hands reclasped at his back, and studied the flagged black marble floor. Silk paced, and Hurl noted that despite the opportunity, even in a besieged city, the mage had yet to replace or mend his tattered finery, or even repair his worn boots. He also noted that while the mage paced from one side of the room to the other, his glance unfailingly returned to Storo. While Storo, it seemed to her, with his downcast eyes, was avoiding the man's attention.

Then Liss straightened, hissing, and faced the single lower floor entry portal. Silk stopped pacing. Three men entered – or, rather, three versions of what seemed to Hurl to be the same man, though each was dressed differently – Ahl, the very mage who had saved her. Hurl rubbed her eyes. Liss visibly shrank from the three's advance. Reacting to the tensions of the room, Rell shifted to stand next to Storo, his hands on the grips of his twinned swords now returned to his shoulder baldrics.

Liss's heated gaze darted to Silk. ‘How dare you invite this man – this creature – back into the city.’

‘We need allies, Liss.’

A fat arm shot out, pointing. ‘That Path is an abomination!’

As one, the three grinned – though their smiles were not identical; the one Hurl was sure had introduced himself as Ahl, the left side of his face drooped as if dead, while another's right side hung slack, also as if dead. The third seemed to suffer no such affliction at all. Studying them more closely now, Hurl noted many more differences: one had his hair cut short while it hung long and unkempt on another. Each also bore differing wounds: a facial slash on one, a mangled, mishealed hand on another.

‘Nice to see…’ said the one in a soldier's light leathers.

‘… You too…’ said Ahl, wearing his dirty frayed robes.

‘… Liss,’ finished the third, in a reversed sheepskin tunic sashed at his waist.

‘Explanations, Silk,’ Hurl demanded in the silence following the three Ahls’ eerie, mangled form of communication. Six glittering black eyes shifted to Hurl and she felt the power of that regard, like a red-hot iron plate held just before her face.

‘Later,’ Silk said, and the weight of the three's eyes slid from Hurl leaving her able to inhale.

Liss obviously had more to say but Storo straightened, letting out a long breath, and turned to study everyone present. Smiling at a sudden funny thought, he scratched a thumb across his chin. ‘Ehrlann was closer to the truth than he realized. We are gathered here to consider a very serious course of action.’

Silk was shaking his head, his thin blond hair tossing. ‘No,’ he barely mouthed, hushed. ‘Don't do it.’

Liss took a step to Storo, her eyes now narrowing to slits, the three forgotten. ‘Do – what?

‘We're far outnumbered, Liss. Have to shorten the odds. And a way does exist to do just that. Here, in the city.’

The Seti shamaness, who claimed to be the reborn Vessel of Baya-Gul, patroness of all Seti Seeresses, stood frozen for an instant, then, it appeared to Hurl, her matted greasy ropes of hair actually seemed to stand on end and her eyes, raw red with exhaustion, widened in horror. ‘So,’ she said, now nodding her comprehension, ‘this is how it will be fulfilled – his last words: “Those who hate me most shall set me free”.

‘Who-’ began Hurl.

‘What of the containment wards?’ Liss demanded.

‘Between all of us, we have a chance,’ Silk said, hugging himself.

Liss snorted her disdain. ‘Us? Wards set by Tayschrenn, the emperor himself and Gods know how many mage cadres?’

‘We think…’

‘… we can…’

‘… manage.’

A fat arm shot out to point in the three's direction. ‘You stay out of this.’ Liss faced Storo. ‘Please, consider all the lives that will be lost. The bloodshed.’

‘That's the idea, Liss. I'm sorry, but he'll tear them to pieces out there and that's what we want.’

The old woman shook her head. ‘And after all this is over, Storo? All the lives to be lost in the centuries to come? What of them?’

Storo lowered his gaze. ‘We'll deal with that then – assuming any of us remain alive.’

Hurl had had enough. ‘What are you two talking about?’ she shouted. ‘What's going on, Captain?’

The three regarded one another in silence for a time. Then Silk turned to her. ‘The man-jackal's still alive, Hurl,’ he said, still hugging himself. ‘He was imprisoned beneath the city. Probably yet another of the hidden assets Kellanved seemed to love salting away for emergencies.’

‘I heard he was cast over the cliffs of the escarpment.’

‘He was,’ said Silk.

‘What? Am I just slow or am I missing something here?’

‘Many have claimed to have destroyed him but he just keeps showing up again. Some say he is unkillable. That so long as the plains remain, so shall he. But…’ and the mage's gaze slid to the three brothers, ‘there are other theories.’