A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

trail.
    As they rounded the corner and came within sight of the
carriage, Faint saw that Glanno Tarp was already seated up
top. Various rituals had been triggered to effect repairs to
the huge conveyance; the horses looked restless and eager
to be away – as mad as the rest of them, they were. Off
to one side and now watching Faint, Quell and their new
shareholders approaching, stood Reccanto Ilk and Sweetest
Sufferance, and a third man – huge, round-shouldered,
and tattooed in a pattern of—
    'Uh oh,' said Master Quell.
    That's the one, isn't it? The caravan guard, the one who
survived the Siege of Capustan. What was his name again?
    'This is not for you, Gruntle,' Master Quell said.
    'Why not?'
    'I've got some damned good reasons for saying no to you,
and if you just give me a moment I'll come up with them.'
    The man's feral smile revealed elongated canines.
    'The Trell is inside,' Reccanto said. 'Want me to get him,
Quell? We should get going, right?'
    'Gruntle—'
    'I'd like to sign on,' the caravan guard said, 'as a shareholder.
Just like those recruits there behind you. Same
stakes. Same rules.'
    'When did you last take an order, Gruntle? You've been
commanding guards for years now. You really think I want
arguments with everything I say?'
    'No arguments. I'm not interested in second-guessing
you. As a shareholder, just another shareholder.'
    The tavern door opened then and out walked Mappo
Runt.
    His glance slipped past Gruntle then swung back,
eyes narrowing. Then he faced Master Quell. 'Is this one
accompanying us? Good.'
    'Well—'
    The Trell moved up to the wagon and clambered up its
side in a racket of squealing springs to take position behind
Glanno Tarp. He looked back down. 'We'll probably need
someone like him.'
    'Like what?' asked the witch, Precious Thimble.
    'Soletaken,' Mappo replied, shrugging.
    'It's not quite like that,' Gruntle said quietly as he moved
to join Mappo atop the carriage.
    Master Quell stared after him, then, shaking himself,
said, 'Everyone get aboard, then. You two Boles, you're
facing astern. Witch, inside with me, where we can have
ourselves a conversation. And you too, Mappo. We don't
put passengers up top. Too risky.'
    Faint swung herself up to sit beside Glanno Tarp.
    Brakes were released. Glanno glanced back to scan the
crowd clinging to various handholds on the roof behind
him. Grinned, then snapped the reins.
    The horses screamed, lunged.
    The world exploded around them.
    Blaze down, blessed sun, on this city of wonders where all
is of consequence. Cast your fiery eye on the crowds, the
multitudes moving to and fro on their ways of life. Flow
warmth into the rising miasma of dreams, hopes, fears and
loves that ever seethe skyward, rising in the breaths expelled,
the sighs released, reflected from restive glances and
sidelong regard, echoing eternal from voices in clamour.
    See then this street where walks a man who had been
young the last time he walked this street. He is young no
longer, oh, no. And there in the next street, wandering
a line of market stalls crowded with icons, figurines and
fetishes from a thousand cults – most of them long extinct
– walks a woman whose path had, years ago now, crossed
that of the man. She too no longer feels young, and if
desire possessed tendrils that could pass through stone and
brick, that could wend through mobs of senseless people,
why, might they then meet in some fateful place and there
intertwine, weaving something new and precious as a
deadly flower?
In another quarter of the city strides a foreigner, an
impressive creature, tall and prominently muscled, very
nearly sculpted, aye, with skin the perfect hue of polished
onyx and eyes in which glitter flecks of hazel and gold, and
many were the glances sliding over him as he passed. But
he was not mindful of such things, for he was looking for a
new life and might well find it here in this glorious, exotic
city.
    In a poor stretch of the Gadrobi District a withered,
weathered woman, tall and thin, knelt in her narrow strip
of garden and began placing flatstones into a pattern in
the dark earth. So much of what the soil could give must
first be prepared, and these ways were most arcane and
mysterious, and she worked as if in a dream, while in the
small house behind her still slept her husband, a knuckled
monster filled with fear and hate, and his dreams were
dark indeed for the sun could not reach the places in his
soul.
    A woman lounged on the deck of a moored ship