The lanterns had dimmed. Calot used the handkerchief in his lap to wipe tears from his cheeks.

Power, oh, damn, my head feels ready to crack wide open.

'Very well,' Hairlock whispered, 'let's lay it out on the table. I'm sure the High Fist will appreciate you putting all his suspicions in the proper order. Make it plain, old friend.'

Tattersail glanced at Dujek. The commander's face had closed up, his sharp eyes narrow and fixed on Tayschrenn. He was doing some hard thinking.

Calot leaned against her. 'What the hell's going on, 'Sail?'

'No idea,' she whispered, 'but it's heating up nicely.' Though she'd made her comment light, her mind was whirling around a cold knot of fear. Hairlock had been with the Empire longer than she had – or Calot. He'd been among the sorcerers who'd fought against the Malazans in Seven Cities, before Aren fell and the Holy Falah'd were scattered, before he'd been given the choice of death or service to the new masters. He'd joined the 2nd's cadre at Pan'potsun – like Dujek himself he'd been there, with the Emperor's old guard, when the first vipers of usurpation had stirred, the day the Empire's First Sword was betrayed and brutally murdered. Hairlock knew something. But what?

'All right,' Dujek drawled, 'we've got work to do. Let's get at it.'

Tattersail sighed. Old Onearm's way with words. She swung a look on the man. She knew him well, not as a friend – Dujek didn't make friends – but as the best military mind left in the Empire. If, as Hairlock had just implied, the High Fist was being betrayed by someone, somewhere, and if Tayschrenn was part of it ... we're a bent bough, Calot had once said of Onearm's Host, and beware the Empire when it breaks. Seven Cities' soldiery, the closeted ghosts of the conquered but unconquerable ...

Tayschrenn gestured to her and to the other mages. Tattersail rose, as did Calot. Hairlock remained seated, eyes closed as if asleep.

Calot said to Dujek, 'About that transfer.'

'Later,' the High Fist grunted. 'Paperwork's a nightmare when you've only got one arm.' He surveyed his cadre and was about to add something but Calot spoke first.

'Anomandaris.'

Hairlock's eyes snapped open, found Tayschrenn with bright pleasure. 'Ahhh,' he said, into the silence following Calot's single pronouncement. 'Of course. Three more High Mages? Only three?'

Tattersail stared at Dujek's pale, still face. 'The poem,' she said quietly. 'I remember now.

'Caladan Brood, the menhired one,

winter-bearing, harrowed and sorrowless ...'

Calot picked up the next lines.

'... in a tomb bereaved of words,

and in his hands that have crushed anvils—'

Tattersail continued,

' the hammer of his song –

he lives asleep, so give silent warning

to all – wake him not.

Wake him not.'

Everyone in the compartment was staring at Tattersail now as her last words fell away. 'He's awake, it seems,' she said, her mouth dry. '"Anomandaris", the epic poem by Fisher Keltath.'