The captain handed the child over to one of the guards. ‘You heard the Master. Quickly now.’

Both children were taken through the linen door. Gesturing, the Tano Spiritwalker led Fiddler and Turqa to the same door at a more sedate pace.

Inside the glass-walled room squatted a low iron table with shin-high hide-bound chairs around it. On the table were bowls holding fruit and chilled meats stained red with spices. A crystal carafe of pale yellow wine had been unstoppered and left to air. At the carafe’s base the wine’s sediment was two fingers thick: desert flower buds and the carcasses of white honey bees. The wine’s cool sweet scent permeated the chamber.

The inner door was solid wood, set in a marble wall. Small alcoves set within that wall held lit candles displaying flames of assorted colours. Their flickering reflections danced hypnotically on the facing glass.

The priest sat down and indicated the other chairs. ‘Please be seated. I am surprised that a Malazan spy would so jeopardize his disguise by saving the lives of two Ehrlii children. Do you now seek to glean valuable information from a family overwhelmed by gratitude?’

Fiddler drew his hood back, sighing. ‘I am Malazan,’ he acknowledged. ‘But not a spy. I am disguised to avoid discovery ... by Malazans.’

The old priest poured the wine and handed the sapper a goblet. ‘You are a soldier.’

‘I am.’

‘A deserter?’

Fiddler winced. ‘Not by choice. The Empress saw fit to outlaw my regiment.’ He sipped the flowery sweet wine.

Captain Turqa hissed. ‘A Bridgeburner. A soldier of Onearm’s Host.’

‘You are well informed, sir.’

The Tano Spiritwalker gestured towards the bowls. ‘Please. If, after so many years of war, you are seeking a place of peace, you have made a grave error in coming to Seven Cities.’

‘So I gathered,’ Fiddler said, helping himself to some fruit. ‘Which is why I am hoping to book passage to Quon Tali as soon as possible.’

‘The Kansu Fleet has left Ehrlitan,’ the captain said. ‘Few are the trader ships setting forth on oceanic voyages these days. High taxes—’

‘And the prospect of riches that will come with a civil war,’ Fiddler said, nodding. ‘Thus, it must be overland, at least down to Aren.’

‘Unwise,’ the old priest said.

‘I know.’

But the Tano Spiritwalker was shaking his head. ‘Not simply the coming war. To travel to Aren, you must cross the Pan’potsun Odhan, skirting the Holy Desert Raraku. From Raraku the whirlwind of the Apocalypse will come forth. And more, there will be a convergence.’

Fiddler’s eyes narrowed. The Soletaken dhenrabi. ‘As in a drawing-together of Ascendant powers?’

‘Just so.’

‘What will draw them?’

‘A gate. The Prophecy of the Path of Hands. Soletaken and D’ivers. A gate promising . . . something. They are drawn as moths to a flame.’

‘Why would shapeshifters have any interest in a warren’s gate? They are hardly a brotherhood, nor are they users of sorcery, at least not in any sophisticated sense.’