He headed inland, up the slight grade of the waterfront district. Beyond the sun-greyed shake roofs rose the craggy wind-clawed cliffs of the escarpment with the stained granite stones of Mock’s Hold perched above like a crow’s nest.
He’d taken a room in town with an old widow who, out of decades of stubborn habit, still kept a watch for a sailor husband long past returning. At least he thought of her as old, even though he’d already seen more years than her in her grandmother’s time. Years of warfare in which he’d sold his services to petty robber barons, bandit despots, the kings of Purge and Bloor, all the way up to the last dynasty of the Talian hegemony.
But no more. No more fighting and no more battle magery. He now lent his talents to a far more worthy cause.
He paused to set his elbows upon the mortared stone ledge of a bridge over one of the many river channels that cut through the town, built as it was on a boggy marsh, remembering his surprise upon retiring to this back-of-beyond island of Malaz to find talents here that could blast away any of the mightiest practitioners he’d duelled on the continent. All settled, or gathered, for one reason alone. One he’d been ignorant of though living all the while across a relatively narrow band of water. Oh, certainly, he knew all the myths and legends of the Riders, but to him they’d been only stories …
Something tickled his nose then and he raised his head, turning to the waterfront. What was that? Something … new. He cocked his head, cast his awareness outwards. He knew it was there but he couldn’t pin it down. All he could sense was that there’d been a sudden shift in the wind.
He’d have dismissed the passing sensation as a mere shudder, or the distant echo of some far off plucking of the Warrens, but for one small thing. Far above, atop Mock’s Hold, possibly the highest point of the island itself, stood an ancient weathervane hammered and chiselled into the form of a demon. And at that moment of heightened awareness he noticed it too had suddenly shifted to point directly to the east.
A coincidence? He tapped the fishing rod on his shoulder, considering. Best not to jump at every visiting talent who happened to pass through town. Even this misbegotten backwater. He’d wait and see.
Perhaps it would come to nothing.
Part One
Chapter 1
‘Those Cawn merchants were fools to have turned us down!’ Wu assured Dancer from across their table in a waterfront dive in Malaz City.
‘You,’ Dancer corrected. ‘They turned you down.’
Wu waved a hand airily to dismiss the point. ‘Well, that still leaves them the fools in my little scenario.’ He sipped his glass of watered wine. ‘As to chasing us out of town … an obvious overreaction.’
Dancer leaned back, one brow arched. ‘You threatened to curse them all to eternal torment.’
Wu appeared surprised. ‘Did I? I quite forget – I’ve threatened to curse so many.’ He lowered his voice conspiratorially, ‘In any case, Malaz here suits our purpose even better. It is fortunate. The Twins favour our plans.’
Dancer sighed as he poked at his plate of boiled pork and barley; he’d quite lost his appetite recently. ‘It was the first boat out we could jump.’
Wu opened his hands as if vindicated. ‘Exactly! Oponn himself may as well have invited us aboard.’
Dancer clenched the edge of the table of sun-bleached slats and released it only after forcing himself to relax. It’s all right, he assured himself. It’s only a setback. There are bound to be setbacks. ‘Plans,’ he said. ‘You mentioned plans.’
Wu shovelled up his plate of onions and beans, then spoke with lowered voice once more. ‘Easier to control a small city and confined island such as this. An excellent first step.’
‘First step to what?’
Wu opened his hands wide, his expression one of disbelief. ‘Why … everything, of course.’
Dancer’s answering scorn was interrupted by the slamming of a stoneware tankard to their table in the most curt manner possible. The servitor, a young woman whose skin showed the unique bluish hue of the Napans, stalked off without a backward glance. Dancer thought her the least gracious help he’d ever encountered.
In point of fact, she was the fourth Napan he’d seen in this rundown waterfront dive. Two were obvious hired muscle hanging about the entrance, while the third was a tall lad he’d glimpsed in the kitchens – another bouncer held in reserve. The nightly fights in this rat-hole must be ferocious.
‘… and for this we need a base of operations,’ Wu was saying. Dancer blinked, refocusing on him.
‘I’m sorry? For what?’
Wu looked hurt and affronted. ‘Why, our grand plan, of course!’
Dancer looked away, scanning the sturdy semi-subterranean common room more thoroughly. ‘Oh, that. Right. Our try anything plan.’ Stone walls; one main entrance strongly defended; slim windows; a single narrow back entrance. And he’d seen numerous windows on the second floor – good for covering fire. Quite the fortress.
Wu drummed his fingers on the tabletop, his expression sour. ‘You don’t seem to be taking this in quite the right spirit. If I may tell you my news…?’
Still eyeing his surroundings, Dancer murmured, ‘Be my guest.’ He noted that the bouncers at the door were far from the typical over-sized beer-bloated souses that usually slouched at the doors of these low-class alehouses. They were obvious veterans, scarred and hardened, their narrowed gazes scanning the room and the street outside.
This was not your typical sailors’ drinking establishment. In fact, everything about it shouted ‘front’. And everyone in Quon Tali knew Malaz Island was nothing more than a pirates’ nest; he wondered if he was looking at one of their bases.
Wu, he saw, was watching him, looking quite vexed. ‘What?’
‘Do you wish me to continue?’
‘Certainly.’ Dancer motioned to the Napan server who was now leaning against the wall next to the kitchen’s entrance, examining her nails. The woman made a disgusted face and sauntered over.
‘What is it?’ she demanded.
He motioned to his plate. ‘This food is atrocious.’
‘Atrocious. Really. A plate of boiled pork. How atrocious could that be?’
Dancer invited her to take the plate away. ‘Well, your cook managed it.’
The woman scooped up the plate and stalked to the kitchen entrance. ‘Hey, Urko! There’s a fellow out here taking issue with your cooking.’
A great basso voice thundered from the kitchens. ‘Whaaat!’
The doors burst open and out shot fully the biggest and scariest-looking Napan of the lot: monstrously wide, with the shoulders of a strangler, yet wearing a dirty leather apron. Dancer readied himself for a confrontation, but instead of facing him the man turned on the server, bellowing, ‘I don’t need these complaints! I didn’t want to be the damned cook anyway. Make Choss the damned cook!’
‘He’s a better shipbuilder,’ the woman calmly returned, leaning against a wall, her arms crossed.
The big fellow raised fists the size of hams to his head. ‘Well … give the job to my brother then, dammit to Hood!’
‘He’s at sea.’