‘How brave do you think I am?’
‘As brave as is necessary.’
‘Again.’
‘Aye. Again.’
‘You don’t seem much like a god at all, Cotillion.’
‘I’m not a god in the traditional fashion, I am a patron. Patrons have responsibilities. Granted, I rarely have the opportunity to exercise them.’
‘Meaning they are not yet burdensome.’
His smile broadened, and it was a lovely smile. ‘You are worth far more for your lack of innocence, Apsalar. I will see you again soon.’ He stepped back into the shadows of the chamber.
‘Cotillion.’
He paused, arms half raised. ‘Yes.’
‘Thank you. And take care of Cutter. Please.’
‘I will, as if he were my own son, Apsalar. I will.’
She nodded, and then he was gone.
And, a short while later, so was she.
There were snakes in this forest of stone. Fortunately for Kalam Mekhar, they seemed to lack the natural belligerence of their kind. He was lying in shadows amidst the dusty, shattered fragments of a toppled tree, motionless as serpents slithered around him and over him. The stone was losing its chill from the night just past, a hot wind drifting in from the desert beyond.
He had seen no sign of patrols, and little in the way of well-trod trails. None the less, he sensed a presence in this petrified forest, hinting of power that did not belong on this world. Though he could not be certain, he sensed something demonic about that power.
Sufficient cause for unease. Sha’ik might well have placed guardians, and he would have to get past those.
The assassin lifted a flare-neck to one side then drew his two long-knives. He examined the grips, ensuring that the leather bindings were tight. He checked the fittings of the hilts and pommels. The edge of the otataral long-knife’s blade was slightly rough-otataral was not an ideal metal for weapons. It cut ragged and needed constant sharpening, even when it had seen no use, and the iron had a tendency to grow brittle over time. Before the Malazan conquest, otataral had been employed by the highborn of Seven Cities in their armour for the most part. Its availability had been tightly regulated, although less so than when under imperial control.
Few knew the full extent of its properties. When absorbed through the skin or breathed into the lungs for long periods, its effects were varied and unpredictable. It often failed in the face of Elder magic, and there was another characteristic that Kalam suspected few were aware of-a discovery made entirely by accident during a battle outside Y’Ghatan. Only a handful of witnesses survived the incident, Kalam and Quick Ben among them, and all had agreed afterwards that their reports to their officers would be deliberately vague, questions answered by shrugs and shakes of the head.
Otataral, it seemed, did not go well with Moranth munitions, particularly burners and flamers. Or, to put it another way, it doesn’t like getting hot . He knew that weapons were quenched in otataral dust at a late stage in their forging. When the iron had lost its glow, in fact. Likely, blacksmiths had arrived at that conclusion the hard way. But even that was not the whole secret. It’s what happens to hot otataral… when you throw magic at it .
He slowly resheathed the weapon, then focused his attention on the other. Here, the edge was smooth, slightly wavy as often occurred with rolled, multi-layered blades. The water etching was barely visible on this gleaming, black surface, the silver inlay fine as thread. Between the two long-knives, he favoured this one, for its weight and balance.
Something struck the ground beside him, bouncing with a pinging sound off a fragment of tree trunk, then rattling to a stop down beside his right knee.
Kalam stared at the small object for a moment. He then looked up at the tree looming over him. He smiled. ‘Ah, an oak,’ he murmured. ‘Let it not be said I don’t appreciate the humour of the gesture.’ He sat up and reached down to collect the acorn. Then leaned back once more. ‘Just like old times… glad, as always, that we don’t do this sort of thing any more…’
Plains to savanna, then, finally, jungle. They had arrived in the wet season, and the morning suffered beneath a torrential deluge before, just past noon, the sun burned through to lade the air with steam as the three T’lan Imass and one Tiste Edur trudged through the thick, verdant undergrowth.
Unseen animals fled their onward march, thrashing heavily through the brush on all sides. Eventually, they stumbled onto a game trail that led in the direction they sought, and their pace increased.
‘This is not your natural territory, is it, Onrack?’ Trull Sengar asked between gasps of the humid, rank air. ‘Given all the furs your kind wear…’