Coll considered for a time. 'Hell,' he said, 'I'd be mad not to accept, wouldn't I? You don't look the type to stick me in the back. I don't know your real story, Paran. If that's something you want to keep to yourself, that's your business. That won't stop me from asking questions, though. It's up to you whether you lie or not.'

'I think that goes both ways, doesn't it?' Paran responded. 'Well, you want my story straight? Fine, here it is, Coll. I'm a deserter from the Malazan Army, ranked as captain. I also did a lot of work with the Claw, and looking back on it that's where the trouble started. Anyway, it's done.' Oh, yes, and one more thing: people who get close to me usually end up dead.

Coll was silent, his eyes glittering in the firelight and fixed on the man opposite him. Then he puffed his cheeks and blew out a loud breath of air. 'Truth as bald as that makes a challenge, don't it?' He stared into the fire, then leaned back on his elbows and lifted his face to the stars now appearing overhead. 'I was once a noble in Darujhistan, the last son of a long-lined, powerful family. I was set for an arranged marriage but I fell in love with another woman – a hungry, ambitious woman, though I was blind to that.' He smiled wryly. 'She was a whore, in fact, only where most whores I've met are pretty down-to-earth, she was as twisted a soul as you could imagine.'

He passed a hand across his eyes. 'Anyway, I refuted my obligations and broke off the arranged marriage. It killed my father, I think, when I married Aystal – that was the whore's name, though she's changed it since.' He laughed harshly at the night sky. 'Didn't take her long. I'm still not sure how she managed the details, how many men she took to bed to buy their influence, or how they did it. All I know is I woke up one day and found myself stripped of title, stripped even of my family name. The estate was hers, the money was hers, it was all hers, and her need for me had ended.'

The flames licked the dry wood between them. Paran said nothing. He sensed that more was to come from the man opposite him, and that Coll was struggling with it.