Picker reached out and touched the chest wound, her fingers surprisingly soft on his torn flesh. 'This isn't Kalam's work.'

'You all right here?' Antsy asked. 'I'm going to get Hedge and Mallet, and whoever else has shown up.'

'Go ahead,' Picker replied, seeking and finding the second wound, eight inches below the first. 'This one came later, right-handed and weak.'

A very odd death indeed, Paran thought. What held him here? Had there been another ... place? A place of heat, searing yellow light? And voices, figures faint, indistinct, there beneath the arch of ... of crowds strangely held in place, eyes closed, mouths open. A chorus of the dead ... Had he gone somewhere only to return to these real voices, these real hands on his flesh? How could he see through the empty glass of his eyes, or feel the woman's gentle touch on his body? And what of the pain, rising as from a great depth like a leviathan?

Picker withdrew her hands and rested her elbows on her thighs as she crouched before Paran. 'Now, how come you're still bleeding, Captain? Those knife wounds are at least an hour old.'

The pain reached the surface. Paran felt his gummy lips split. The hinges of his jaw cracked and he drew in a savage gasp. Then screamed.

Picker bolted backwards, her sword appearing in her hand as if from nowhere as she backed to the alley's far wall. 'Shedenul's mercy!'

Boots pounded on the cobbles off to her right and her head whipped around. 'Healer! The bastard's alive!'

The third bell after midnight tolled sonorously through the city of Pale, echoing down streets emptied by the curfew. A light rain had begun, casting the night sky with a murky gold hue. In front of the large, rambling estate, two blocks from the old palace, that had become part of the 2nd's quarters, two marines wrapped in black raincapes stood guard outside the main gate.

'Damned miserable night, ain't it?' one said, shivering.

The other shifted his pike to his left shoulder and hawked a mouthful of phlegm into the gutter. 'You just guessing, mind,' he said, wagging his head. 'Any other brilliant insights you feel ready to toss my way, you just speak up, hear?'

'What did I do?' the first man demanded, hurt.

The second soldier stiffened. 'Hush, someone coming up the street.'

The guards waited tensely, hands on their weapons. A figure crossed from the opposite side and stepped into the torchlight.

'Halt,' the second guard growled. 'Advance slowly, and you'd better have business here.'

The man took a step closer. 'Kalam, Bridgeburners, the Ninth,' he said quietly.

The marines remained wary, but the Bridgeburner kept his distance, his dark face glistening in the rain. 'What's your business here?' the second guard asked.