Fiddler leaned back on the gunnel. He looked over at Kalam and raised an eyebrow. 'Well, Corporal? It's your call.'
'Give me a list, Fiddler,' Kalam said.
'The Empress wants Darujhistan,' The sapper met Crokus's steady gaze. 'Agreed?'
The boy hesitated, then nodded.
Fiddler continued. 'What she wants she usually gets sooner or later. Call it precedent. Now, she's tried to take your city once, right, Crokus? And it cost her Adjunct Lorn, two Imperial demons, and High Fist Dujek's loyalty, not to mention the loss of the Bridgeburners. Enough to make anyone sting.'
'Fine. But what's that got to do—'
'Don't interrupt. Corporal said make a list. I'm making it. You've followed me so far? Good. Darujhistan eluded her once – but she'll make certain next time. Assuming there is a next time.'
'Well,' Crokus was scowling, 'why wouldn't there be? You said she gets what she wants.'
'And you're loyal to your city, Crokus?'
'Of course—'
'So you'd do anything you could to prevent the Empress from conquering it?'
'Well, yes but—'
'Sir?' Fiddler turned back to Kalam.
The burly black-skinned man looked out over the waves, sighed, then nodded to himself. He faced Crokus. 'It's this, lad. Time's come. I'm going after her.'
The Daru boy's expression was blank, but Fiddler saw Apsalar's eyes widen, her face losing its colour. She sat back suddenly, then half-smiled – and Fiddler went cold upon seeing it.
'I don't know what you mean,' Crokus said. 'After who? The Empress? How?'
'He means,' Apsalar said, still smiling a smile that had belonged to her once, long ago, when she'd been ... someone else, 'that he's going to try and kill her.'
'What?' Crokus stood, almost pitching himself over the side. 'You? You and a seasick sapper with a broken fiddle strapped to his back? Do you think we're going to help you in this insane, suicidal—'
'I remember,' Apsalar said suddenly, her eyes narrowing on Kalam.
Crokus turned to her. 'Remember what?'
'Kalam. He was a Falah'dan's Dagger, and the Claw gave him command of a Hand. Kalam's a master assassin, Crokus. And Quick Ben—'
'Is three thousand leagues away!' Crokus shouted. 'He's a squad mage, for Hood's sake! That's it, a squalid little squad mage!'
'Not quite,' Fiddler said. 'And being so far away doesn't mean a thing, son. Quick Ben's our shaved knuckle in the hole.'
'Your what in the where?'
'Shaved knuckle, as in the game of knuckles – a good gambler's usually using a shaved knuckle, as in cheating in the casts, if you know what I mean. As for “hole”, that'd be Quick Ben's Warren – the one that can put him at Kalam's side in the space of a heartbeat, no matter how far away he happens to be. So, Crokus, there you have it: Kalam's going to give it a try, but it's going to take some planning, preparation. And that starts here, in Seven Cities. You want Darujhistan free for ever more? The Empress Laseen must die.'
Crokus slowly sat back down. 'But why Seven Cities? Isn't the Empress in Quon Tali?'
'Because,' Kalam said as he angled the fisherboat into the creek mouth and the oppressive heat of the land rose around them, 'because, lad, Seven Cities is about to rise.'
'What do you mean?'
The assassin bared his teeth. 'Rebellion.'
Fiddler swung around and scanned the fetid undergrowth lining the banks. And that, he said to himself with a chill clutching his stomach, is the part of this plan that I hate the most. Chasing one of Quick Ben's wild ideas with the whole countryside going up in flames.
A minute later they rounded a bend and the village appeared, a scattering of wattle-and-daub huts in a broken half-circle facing a line of skiffs pulled onto a sandy beach. Kalam nudged the tiller and the fisherboat drifted towards the strand. As the keel scraped bottom, Fiddler clambered over the gunnel and stepped onto dry land, Moby now awake and clinging with all fours to the front of his tunic. Ignoring the squawking creature, Fiddler slowly straightened. 'Well,' he sighed as the first of the village's mongrel dogs announced their arrival, 'it's begun.'
CHAPTER TWO
To this day it remains easy to ignore the fact that the Aren High Command was rife with treachery, dissension, rivalry and malice ... The assertion that [the Aren High Command] was ignorant of the undercurrents in the countryside is, at best naive, at worst cynical in the extreme .. .
