Dust of Dreams

nothing, Janath.’
    Felash waved one sticky crumb-dusted hand. ‘Agreed! I will have a contract written up. There is no problem with the captain’s conditions. None at all. Well! I am delighted that everything’s now arranged to everyone’s satisfaction!’
    Janath blinked.
    ‘Well. That’s fine, then,’ said Shurq Elalle.
    ‘Oh, these sweets are a terror! I must not—oh, one more perhaps—’
     
    A short time later and the two Bolkando guests were given leave to depart. As soon as the door closed behind them, Shurq Elalle fixed a level gaze upon Janath. ‘So, O Queen, what precisely is the situation in Bolkando?’
    ‘Errant knows,’ Janath sighed, refilling her goblet. ‘A mess. There are so many factions in that court it makes a college faculty look like a neighbourhood sandbox. And you may not know it, but that is saying something.’
    ‘A sandbox?’
    ‘You know, in the better-off streets, the community commons—there’s always a box of sand for children to play in, where all the feral cats go to defecate.’
    ‘You privileged folk have strange notions of what your children should play with.’
    ‘Ever get hit on the head by a gritty sausage of scat? Well then, enough of that attitude, Shurq. We were as vicious as any rags-gang you ran with, let me tell you.’
    ‘All right, sorry. Have you warned the Malazans that Bolkando is seething and about to go up in their faces?’
    ‘They know. Their allies are in the midst of it right now, in fact.’
    ‘So what was that princess doing here in Letheras?’
    Janath made a face. ‘As far as I can tell, annihilating rival spy networks—the ones Bugg left dangling out of indifference, I suppose.’
    Shurq grunted. ‘Felash? She’s no killer.’
    ‘No, but I’d wager her handmaiden is.’
    ‘How old is this fourteenth daughter, anyway? Sixteen, seventeen—’
    ‘Fourteen, actually.’
    ‘Abyss below! I can’t say I’m looking forward to transporting that puffed-up pastry-mauler all the way to the Akrynnai Range.’
    ‘Just go light on ballast.’
    Shurq’s eyes widened.
    Janath scowled. ‘The pilot charts we possess indicate shallow reefs, Captain. What did you think I was referring to?’
    ‘No idea, Highness. Honest.’
    Janath rose. ‘Let’s go pounce on the men in the garden, shall we?’
     
    Departing the palace unseen was enabled by the Queen’s silent servants leading the two Bolkando women down a maze of unused corridors and passageways, until at last they were ushered out into the night through a recessed postern gate.
    They walked to a nearby street and there awaited the modest carriage that would take them back to their rooms in a hostel of passing quality down near the harbourfront.
    Felash held one hand in the air, fingers moving in slow, sinuous rhythm—an affectation of which she seemed entirely unaware. ‘A contract! Ridiculous!’
    Her handmaiden said nothing.
    ‘Well,’ said Felash, ‘if the captain proves too troublesome—’ and into that uplifted hand snapped a wedge-bladed dagger, appearing so suddenly it might well have been conjured out of the thin night air.
    ‘Mistress,’ said the handmaiden in a low, smooth and stunningly beautiful voice, ‘that will not work.’
    Felash frowned. ‘Oh, grow up, you silly girl. We can leave no trail—no evidence at all.’
    ‘I mean, mistress, that the captain cannot be killed, for I believe she is already dead.’
    ‘That’s ridiculous.’
    ‘Even so, mistress. Furthermore, she is enlivened by an ootooloo.’
    ‘Oh, now that’s interesting! And exciting!’ The dagger vanished as quickly as it had appeared. ‘Fix me a bowl, will you? I need to think.’
     
    ‘Here they come,’ murmured Bugg.
    Tehol turned. ‘Ah, see how they’ve made up and everything. How sweet. My darlings, so refreshing this night air, don’t you think?’
    ‘I’m not your darling,’ said Shurq Elalle. ‘She is.’
    ‘And isn’t she just? Am I not the luckiest man alive?’
    ‘Errant knows, it’s not talent.’
    ‘Or looks,’ added Janath, observing her husband with gauging regard.
    ‘It was better,’ Tehol said to Bugg, ‘when they weren’t allies.’
    ‘Divide to conquer the divide, sire, that’s my motto.’
    ‘And a most curious one at that. Has it ever worked for you, Bugg?’
    ‘I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as it does.’
     
    Thirty leagues north of Li Heng on the Quon Talian mainland was the village of Gethran, an unremarkable clump of