Chapters (43)

'As always, Baruk, Kruppe's friend.' The man bowed. 'And thank you for the wine, it was most delicious.'

Baruk heard the door open then close. He gazed down the street. He'd managed to clamp a hold on his fear. Oponn had a way of making ruins of the most finely wrought plans. Baruk despised that prospect of chance operating in his affairs. He could no longer rely on his ability to predict, to prepare contingencies, to work out every possibility and seek out the one best suited to his desires. As the Coin spun, thus the city.

Added to this the mysterious ways of the Empress. Baruk rubbed his brow. He'd have to instruct Roald to bring him some healing tea. His headache was reaching debilitating proportions. As he brought his hand down past his face his eyes caught a flash of red. He raised both palms into view. Red ink stained them. He leaned forward on the window-sill. Through a sparkling cloud of dust, Darujhistan's rooftops sprawled, and the harbour beyond. 'And you, Empress,' he whispered. 'I know you're here, somewhere. Your pawns move unseen as yet, but I will find them. Be sure of that, with or without Oponn's damned luck.'

BOOK THREE - THE MISSION

Marionettes dance afield

beneath masterly hands –

I stumble among them

crossed by the strings

in tangled two-step

and curse all these fools

in their mad pirouette –

I shall not live as they do

oh, no, leave me in my

circled dance –

these unbidden

twitchings you see

I swear on Hood's Grave

is artistry in motion

Sayings of the Fool

Theny Bule (b?)

CHAPTER EIGHT

He stepped down then

among women and men,

the sigil stripped

in her foul cleansing

there on the blood-soaked sand

spilled the lives

of Emperor and First Sword –

so tragic this treachery ...

He was of the Old Guard,

commanding the honed edge

of Empire's fury,

and so in stepping down

but not away

he remained the remembrance

before her eyes, the curse

of conscience she would not stand.

A price was placed before him

that he glanced over in first passing

unknowing and so unprepared

in stepping down among women

and men, he found what

he'd surrendered and damned

its reawakening ...

The Bridgeburners

Toc the Younger

A quarter-hour before dawn the sky held the colour of iron shot through with streaks of rust. Sergeant Whiskeyjack squatted on a dome of bedrock up from the pebble beach, gazing out over the misty calm surface of Lake Azur. Far to the south, on the lake's opposite shore, rose the faint glow of Darujhistan.

The mountain crossing of the night just past had been hell, the Quorl tossed about in the midst of three warring thunder-heads. It was a miracle no one had been lost. The rain had since stopped, leaving the air cool and clammy.