Post by Sire Halfblack on Nov 23, 2014 18:47:13 GMT
Deathly IM 1012: The Final Dawn
Dogs hurled themselves at the horned bear. Crushing paws caught at the closest only to pass through the illusion whilst its originator darted in to catch a mouthful of fur. Horned bears would see grandmother trolls move behind a tree but the dogs had been starved and taunted, kept wild - as domesticated they would lose their magic. Now they fought in a pit whilst the baron’s people (both relatively civilised and those quite the opposite) called out and placed bets, jeered and laughed at the bloody spectacle. Whether Selgard approved was not relevant, and he was not about to interfere. Fires burned high despite the weak daylight. Ice dusted from the trees. They were celebrating the young year still (though it was now days into its infancy). Selgard had shown willing to marry the land thinking that at some point in his past there must have been noble blood, but it was perhaps enough that he was here and with his people to share in their happiness and bloody games.
Selgard had been a gift giver, as had been right. The Goldsmiths knowing him had given him very good advice; rather than make up a lot of new torcs, why not buy old gold? It was what the tribes valued after all, and he had wanted to reward their loyalty. Where he might find such had been solved by directions to the King’s Bazaar and the current stock of Mumberly Scrape, Old Gold Dealer. Old gold meant something, and was by its nature precious because more could not be made. New stuff was pretty enough, but his people had been delighted to be presented with the arm rings and clasps he had brought with him. That meant something – they had fought for him and the land, for the extended tribe of the barony, and he had been almost embarrassed by their obvious gratitude. Knowing a good thing when he saw it, and Selgard willing to spend big, he had spent a day in the Bazaar securing pretty much every scrap of old gold anyone might know of. And being Selgard they had agreed. Hell, he might even make good grulls off old gold if chieftains and shaman of his acquaintance heard about it; which they would. The old gold had to be won from the hand of the gift giver. But it also had to be in that hand to begin with.
Not so far away and meat caught in the Harvest was being dug from the pits where it had been stored for the Deathly. There was to be a feast, another one, but it was the Deathly and out here people either fasted or starved. Selgard knew which of the two he preferred.
*
He had not slept for days. He had hidden the shaking from his Guild for fear they would assume him diseased. The Sire of the Diviners he had narrowly beaten Asquith to the position, their views so divergent that it had been the most bitterly fought contest in years, a contest that was normally but a formality. Now Saralas Varney navigated the back lanes of the Invisible, though he never seemed to take the right turn, confused and limping where he had tripped on an uneven cobble. An important man there was no one to pay him such respects for the lanes quite uniquely seemed to be deserted. The shakes overtook him. He groaned as he bent at the middle. He slid down a wall scraping ice with him. He looked up only out of good Deci habit when he heard a sound. He died.
All alone, without seeming injury, and despite the cold his body was still warm when with the sound of the city enfolding him once again his fine clothes, purse and good knife were lifted by fortunate passers-by.
*
Though the day was stark in the season it had not escaped Anath that it was somewhat warmer outside the city than within. He did not suspect any ritual significance in this. He had pondered it on the journey here since across the landscape there had been very little to draw his eye. Even he had to put up the quill at some point before he was simply making work for himself.
The estate, remote, was large. Certainly the town was and whilst every carter might know of it then still it was simply not something that came up in common conversation. The season might be Deathly but work went on and Anath was met at the gate of the high palisade to be led through the bustle of business, of carts and oxen and the gathers, bunkhouses and drinking dens that were set up for their convenience. Anath thought it unlikely that a great deal of the grulls paid to people here or passing through left the town at all. Get paid, spend, seek the next job and all without walking more a hundred yards in the process.
There were guards of course though Anath was taken in company with a cheerful fellow somewhat older than himself to where the Sire awaited him. There were a lot of adventurers over the years that had done great things and then not been seen for more years thereafter; a number it seemed worked for his host. The busy lives and jumbled business nonetheless had an order to it that Anath appreciated. He would, he knew, have expected nothing less.
*
The shove had sent him and Peaches backwards from the drag as some thin gristle was escorted back towards the gate of Malberno. Fraer’s ordinary face was screwed in an expression of distaste as she glanced at the guest now leaving. Her opinion of him had not stopped her pushing people out of his way however.
“Who was that?” Peaches asked.
“Anath Halfblack,” said Fraer.
Peaches looked impressed. She had only been in Deci for a few months now and hadn’t seen the man, though she knew the name. She said, “He’s important isn’t he? Runs the city?”
“Is he bollocks,” Fraer snapped back. She bent forward, “Funny thing though, you never see him and the Sire in the same room together...” she winked.
It was a hard season for carting but there were loads soon to arrive the word was going around. Gifts for the Sire, or a bribe, or his due – it did not ultimately matter which. Fraer amused at her joking dug into her heavy coat for a pipe that she lit with an extended thumb on which glittered a small ruby. She looked up, “You lot still standing around?”
“Got no loads yet...” Peaches whined.
Fraer (who could not abide idle hands) collared both the carters and led them away for a special job in Deci.
*
“Short and thin and sly and lovely,” sang the Hanot lustily. There were three that stood to one side of the atrium in the Spirit Well, and all had half-decent voices for a city never known for its cultural contribution to the Empire. Or rather, it’s artistic contribution; Deci culture could be been in half the rogues that walked the adventurers trail. Benches had been lined across the hallway and on which many people sat. A number refused to catch the eye of others as they waited their turn. Sat before them behind a crooked desk a severe looking woman attended to various scrolls, quills dancing about her. “The girl from Cheapside goes walking,” the singing continued, “And when she passes, each one she passes, goes arghghghghghghggh!” The scream that ended the chorus made only the latest arrivals jump. Everyone else had heard the same thing for hours. The Hanot only knew the one song.
Amongst the masked and the hooded, the lame and the irritated Sire Berry spied a pair of outsiders dusted with rust and horror, also a wolf girl, and a wizard. The girl at the desk looked up. “Take a number,” she indicated where in a vase were held a number of ceramic chits. Then at some signal unheard to him she said, “Curly fish.”
A filthy looking man all coughs and eyebrows jumped to his feet. Sire Berry waited till he reached the table before taking his chit from him. “Curly fish,” said the black hat. At the girls steady expression he added, “Took dis number.”
“Go right in, Sire Berry.”
“And when she walks, she’s like a mamba,” the Hanot sang. “That swings so deadly and clearly mental. That when she passes, each one she passes, goes arghghghghghghggh!”
“Catchy,” said Trundleberry, then to the hall, “Evenin’ all.”
*
Iron filings and wood shavings littered the floor. Stood with tools in hand the preacher man looked sidelong as the mayor entered. The first was in shirt-sleeves and braces, the second in apron and troll-hide gloves to the elbow. Taking pride of place beside preacher-Tirack was a barrel of wood-banded iron. Large enough to have given birth to other barrels it boasted a ring of steps that wound about the outside to the top. A bleat echoed from within.
“Gideon,” nodded Tirack.
“Tirack,” nodded Gideon. “Reckon there’s a diseased thing needs a cleanin’.”
“Figure you’re right. Figure we got a give it every chance. Ain’t a soul living don’t deserve a second chance.”
Mayor Gideon spat. In keeping with the resonance of Forgetown it rang like a bell where it struck. Hefting a bag he clambered about the barrel where able to inspect the screw-lid it was to see the breathing tube placed there. He pointed, “What in the hell is this, pard?”
“Told yer, mayor. Ain’t no place to be goin’ round melting folk.”
“Seems what we have here is a disagreement.”
Tirack removed his apron. “Can’t go around just lettin’ folk die, mayor,” he said.
“When folks’re gnolls figurin’ to blow up and trouble good people with their diseasing then maybe I think that meltin’ is right and proper?”
Tirack nodded. “Like as not, but I can’t let yer do it...”
“Sorry to hear that, pard,” Gideon pulled off his gloves. He flexed his fists.
“I could let yer do it, mayor?”
Gideon returned to face Tirack bristly chin to bristly chin. “Yer could?” he said.
“The hell I could!” and they went at it.
*
Snakes slipped over his boot to disappear into the gloom. Not that Deci brightened noticeably during the day time in any case but here and the windows never let the brightness in, the panes of scraped bone smoked and enchanted so that the gloom whatever the time of day was constant. It was also by far the warmest Davian had been for a week away from the heaped fireplaces of the Spire. Not hot by any means yet snakes disliked the cold; and here there were a lot of snakes. He had under one arm the grimoire that had been held for him and for which he had willingly paid. He was a nobleman of Deci and no matter what others might think of them they paid for good service or treasures. Many also paid what the city taxed them as its tithe.
Davian was aware that this was not some church as might be seen with more formal faiths. There was worship and it came in many levels. The innermost circle was for only those most dedicated to the dragon – or the serpent as they called it here – and there were said to be sinuous girls and blank eyed men, great snakes and fires that burned without much light but which made the cathedral as hot as any Ishmaic wasteland. The air he thought then was indeed very dry. He turned when he noticed the hooded woman that had drifted to see to his need. He introduced himself stiffly, “I wish to speak with whomsoever is in charge?”
“That which rules or that which has the power, my lord?”
“There are ritual matters I wish to discuss.”
The woman bowed formerly and beckoned him to accompany her. Doing so he could not help but notice her swaying hips within the robes, the grace of her movements so that it was as if she did not walk at all but glided across the smooth stone as he followed.
*
Dabbing his hand with a little salve he nodded at passers-by, he as full in the heart and trousers as any man that had rightly given another a ferocious hiding. The town was a place where punch ups occurred over the shape of a wheel and so matters between the founding fathers couldn’t rightly be settled in any other way.
Not everyone saw things like that if course. Quite a lot of them waited for him now with rolling pins bouncing in the palm of the hand or frying pans resting on the shoulder. Their faces, as one, looked determined. These were local wives every one. With arms like a grown man’s thighs and faces pretty as a wasp nest.
“Ladies,” he tipped a finger to his hat. No one could have failed to hear about the brawl. There were holes in walls across and about the Cart & Hammer that were the shape of two men with a difference of opinion to resolve. What there was not - was a gnoll. And maybe it lived, and maybe it had dissolved, but what it wasn’t doing was infectin’ folk!
“Mayor, you been fightin’ the preacher man?”
Gideon hooked his thumbs in his collar. “Now ladies, there ain’t no cause for to you concern your pretty little...”
*
Someone was getting a licking. What had been done had been done and Tirack passing the cave-in under the drag (and finding that that the thoroughfare now had its first ramp) descended it in case of more trouble. It was not long ago that the rock had crumbled away to make a series of low arches under this part of the town’s street and still those arches remained. Tirack should not have been surprised by what he found. Forgetown was a trade town. Enterprise ran through the folk hereabouts like poop through a goose. Nonetheless and seeing the state of those arches now Tirack was impressed.
They had been dressed, squared and gated with sturdy doorways. Carts were unloading into one even now. Space came and went in the wagon parks but wagon parks by their nature were easy to wander through and pay the Deci five-finger discount for goods just lying about. Here and someone had decided to offer more secure storage. There was not one empty gap. The roadway had been shored up by the power of the grull.
“Lady take me now...” said Tirack and winced about his swollen gums. He muttered a prayer and did something about that. Tuslin’ might not be strictly a part of Shaehan’s grace, but fixin’ it up afterwards? Well, she was just dandy at that.
*
They had not seen their homes for months and no matter how fine a mine it might be, it was still a mine and the town was everything a mining town could be. The rutted ground made for a web of ice and even Jander had to pick his way with some care. There would be a lot of sore heads in the morning. There was a lot of singing now. There had already been fights since with no other Host to argue over who was the best the Helds were slagging one another down as they fought for the pans to forge egg to banjo. Inside every doorway the air was pipe smoke, stinking socks, burned egg and everything that even looked like clothing worn atop everything else. Across the town and everyone was on a bender. And everyone had a beard. Jander had no idea where his traders had come up with the food, the drink, and the blackstone but he was pretty sure who was going to be footing the bill. The latrines at least had been hacked from the rock - all he needed now was a river of nuts and hundreds of drunk scallywags laying bets on brown-river races...
But what could he do?
Join in was about as far as he had gotten. He had spent the night in the mine all alone. He had considered what would come to be. He mined metal, he made metal, and the way things might go that was bloody lucky since as the years went by if anyone did not want to investigate the properties of flint and chert like they were in the ‘Rest they would have to deal with him. Deci despite its reputation did not run on crime, it ran on metal. And he would be the man with the metal. Though in about twelve hours he would be the man with the hangover, and he was buggered if he was going to queue when they were his eggs to crack and blacken. Snake eggs at that.
*
It had been a request, and even one made with something approaching politeness and after only a little haggling a little more in the purse to help that along. And just to ensure that he navigated the rural lands without fuss or bother he had been given an escort that had muttered and complained about a land so cold and so empty that all the way on the back of the traders cart Master Groves had endured the whines with growing displeasure. He knew the rural lands of course, his Guild raided and harvested them, but if he was out here then he would be out here to drink and eat and not leave the tavern he had been promised until that purse ran thin. It beat nicking wood, frankly. That and despite all Groves was in no bloody doubt that his own grand and adopted manner aside there were people in the city whose advice one always took. He was not the only one. A girl had been sent to Bildteve aboard a returning barge and a beggar had been taken to Cheapside. Cheapside was where one spent a life time making sure not to return to, but Bildteve was where you went to die.
“Bloody empty, pointless, waste of space,” his escort continued on the matter of the rural lands. “Pave it all up, mine it. Poxy rock and no good funny smells neither...”
*
Just some bastard from Deci, Tirack had been told. Some fiend wandering down to see what Forgetown was all about - and in addition to kill a few people whilst he was in the area. What was anyone to do about such people? They could hardly keep them out, Deci was close enough for even fiends that didn’t know what the sky looked like, and being a trade town as many people came as went, and that could be hundreds across a few weeks. The only person Tirack was pretty sure had had nothing to do with it was the stranger, since everyone had known where he had been – was now – and it had not been around Milly.
The preacher man mused on the matter as he sat in the Cart & Hammer. Chasing adventurers was catching ghosts in a net. They came and went and there was not a Watch in the Empire that would happily tangle with anyone likely to be able to level streets. All the heroes could do was keep an eye out, and fiends from Deci had the habit of being noticed only by where they had been. Still Tirack had given Milly a proper funeral.
So Tirack mused until even his deep thoughts were disturbed by the commotion that came from the edge of town. He stood up, knocked back his drink and went out to see what was causing the disturbance. He was a man of peace, a holy man, and he was in a lecturin’ frame of mind.
*
Unsure whether to be happy or worried at the message he had received, Selgard had entered Dog Town full of thought but without forgetting to return the brusque greetings of those that saw him. He was certainly making no effort to hide his presence; here at least it just felt rude to do so. The lanes were nearly empty and smoke poured dirtily from a hundred chimneys that must have been cleared before being lit, but it was too bloody cold to do otherwise and if Selgard enjoyed perfect balance then still he was not unaware of the ice that crackled all about him. There was nothing cursed about the cold, it was just a bloody bitter Deathly this year and the wolves used to less shelter and probably harsher seasons were doubtless doing better than most. There was he saw no shortage of wood, just as there was no shortage of unoccupied buildings now mostly bereft of timber.
He stopped when stood about a cherry-red tar churn a number of rascals could scarce be seen but for the tatty old furs that were tied about tattier pelts beneath. One was almost certainly a woman judging by the scowling mind he sensed within. She turned about to peer at him. She said, “Mr Tamary says Dog Town is ours!”
“However reluctant the city might be, I for one would never seek to oppose the will of the City Spirit,” said Selgard. He had come back to Deci to say much the same thing, but being made to was probably better for his reputation, “And the Guilds?”
“Mr Tamary says we should let ‘em in, but you’ve gotta run stuff passed me first. He also says if any fool tries anything here, we can stuff ‘em.”
“His exact words I’m sure,” Selgard said without obvious mockery. “I agree, and I will continue to restrain the vast army of Deci from its plan of sweeping away the dangerous Hirds of Dog Town that quite by happenstance will doubtless fight to defend their territory against any aggressor.”
“Aye, so watch it,” said Zen.
Selgard who would, agreed. It was a tough and difficult position to be the Governor of Deci. For his next trick he would make sure that those that had food and were hungry would eat it. He did say, “Try and restrain Nichal from savaging the city in a month of blood and vengeance could you? After all, I’m sure he was going to get around to it any year now...”
“He’ll do as I say!”
“Madam, he has my sympathy.”
*
The stranger was taller than Gideon. The stranger was taller than everyone. Even the colossal ogre that pumped the bellows in the temple of the forge was topped by just enough inches to need to look up into the same shadowed eyes that stared down at the whole world narrowed against some distant sun. In a duster cloak and a long fur coat the stranger was watching as three goblins painted an outfitters red. They were perhaps a third of the way down the drag and were paying for their own paint.
“Mayor,” the stranger nodded.
“Stranger,” then, “Colourful work you’ve got going on here?”
“Some folk think it right to drink and I don’t say as how that can be any sin. But if folk can’t take it, they shouldn’t oughta expect to cause a ruckus and not pay the price. Rest of the gang high tailed it, should be just about in the Eartholme by now.”
“Paintin’ the town red?”
“Happen so,” the stranger eyed up the mayor from his swollen face to the lumps he had suffered at the hands of folk who didn’t care to see their preacher man-handled. “Problem?” he said.
“Hell no, little women trouble is all...”
“Yer gotta watch the little ones,” he agreed.
Gideon washed away the worst of it with the potion bottle he kept on one hip. With each wipe bruises, cuts and swelling vanished until he was once more himself. He said, “Look stranger, we can’t have folk bein’ judged by just about anybody. You ain’t the law round here.”
“That so?” said the stranger without turning about.
“Not unless you’re the shire reeve that is. You lookin’ for work, stranger?”
“Sheriff?”
“That’s what they call it. Shire reeve’s such a mouthful. You get three squares, place to put up your boots and a few drinkin’ grulls beside. Me, I don’t care to interfere, less I care to,” Gideon held up a badge he had had made up in the temple, which is how he had met the ogre. “And right now stranger, I’m fixin’ to do that...”
*
A troll had suffered a crude spike to be hammered through its neck and that attached to a chain served to keep it protesting, agonised and loudly pissed off. It also made a lot of noise which Jander supposed was the point where he stood and watched it as it struggled to reach him. It must have been hungry to even try; or maybe it just didn’t like his smell, which was of the mine, and so too much of that around here.
Days of absolute bugger-all crossing to the foothills of the Braekens had been relieved by the settlings he had passed. He had heard of a village right on the Eartholme border called Tooleys, and a clutter of dwarfs higher up in the Forgotten Hills but wanted to sweep up the scattered settlings here first if for no other reason than Tooleys and the dwarfs of Grumdledown were unlikely to be going anywhere soon – and were less likely to move in any case. He had spoken to a number of families out here that still worked mines away from anyone else – and all in common with one another that had sheltered in them at the end of the Magiarchal Wars. Inbred didn’t even come into it, he would still swear that one flinty old matriarch had possessed a face closer to a foot.
Jander waited and watched as from the long, low hut-cum-workshop a figure emerged hunched over, crossbow tucked under one arm, to pick its way through frozen mud and a half dozen abandoned humps of rust that had once been winches, wheelbarrows or mine trolleys. The man went to where the chain was attached to a pulley overhead and with which he gradually yanked the troll upright and harmless.
“Mornin’,” he said from within a terrifying fur hat, “Peddler? Yer gorr’any moss?”
“Moss?” said Jander, “No. I’ve got some chainmail I’ve been knitting?”
“Bit ‘ard on the ‘arse. Me nuts’s like nutty treacle too long on’a stove.”
“Hang on a moment,” Jander dug about in his pouches and travelling forge pack. He had grulls, and then with a smirk he found crumpled in the bottom a screw of several sheets of parchment all soft from age. He held them up in offering and the man took them gratefully.
“Wossis then?”
“Wisdom of the Lingist faith,” said Jander.
*
Goblins unloaded the wagons with wide-bellied spades and a two pronged fork. Other had had to set to at the loads with picks made for purpose. The goblins all wore a patch like that of a Guild. They were proper-honey workers and nearby a slovenly figure glowered at them, a ghoul put out of work and who now that eyed up the honey being unloaded with some hunger.
“I can’t believe we had to shift all this...” Peaches nodded at the wagons. Despite the season once the crust had been hacked through steam and stink wafted from within. It only improved the stench of Deci.
“Had to be done,” Orion said.
“They could have buried it...”
“Probably worth something, some high grade of honey matured over time. That and given how many oxen there are back at Slice’s it’s easier to cart it out than hack into the rock and spoil. If they did that the town would have collapsed over the years.”
Fraer hearing this said, “You seem to know a lot about honey?”
With a shrug Orion replied, “Carting is a step up for me, miss. I just go between Forgetown, Malberno, and the city. My ma worked the honey before it was the honey, back Alguz way.”
“You’re from Alguz?”
“Not really, me ma was. Spent time there before they all got religion and started making up how long they’d been around. Bargees got all the good loads anyway. Met some lads who knew Deci, said the Guilds was good, little did I know...”
“What?” said Peaches.
“It’s local,” said Orion. “You get born to Guilds, raised on the same streets in Cheapside, enter the Guilds. I done some shifting for them but it’s tricky to actually join. They work for the city mostly too,” he shrugged.
Fraer eyed Orion, though it was difficult to tell what she was thinking. After a brief pause she said, “That’s about right,” before rounding on one of the goblins to kick him in the arse. “I saw you pinch a pocket full there feckbag, put it back!”
The goblin with surprising bravery piped up, “The black ‘at won’t want yer kicking poor Bidly...”
“Trundleberry? Way I hear it he don’t want you thieving bastards stealing any longer. He wants you upright; so put it back and feck off.”
*
It was Lord Beren Gelmanslew that was the most aggrieved at the news that had come from Halgar. Beren some years into his rule after the assassination by wolves of his forebear might well be a... well, not precisely a friend of Earl Hail... but the orbit of the Deci nobility was an erratic one and even had there been open warfare the lines would have passed to and fro over one another. Beren had cleared out his House of idiots two years ago. It had cost him influence and prestige in the Halls of the Nobility but since he rarely cared to leave Deci that concerned him less than the House stability where it mattered. He had lost weight along with a number of awkward cousins. Some had suffered what happened to those that played the great game of Deci, one had been a colossal wastrel, and the last had been an embarrassment whose actions had reflected badly on Gelmanslew towards the now-Duchess Claugh-Bartholomaw.
He drank heavily, or seemed to. Certainly he had a servant that filled his cup with frequency. With what though was not so certain to one with an eye for such things. Throughout the Spire people moved in jumps between the fire places and by one he leant with a face as cold as the season.
*
Drunks and troublemakers, beggars, blusterers, rabble rousers, priests, rat-oil salesmen, and scribes were either hunched at the edge of town or nursing their lumps as with axe handles in their hands Gideon and the stranger herded the last to where others waited. They could think about what they might have done and make amends, and the worst of them had been tied to an ox post since there was nowhere else for the moment to put them. Gideon and the stranger had decided to indulge in a little Deathly cleaning, and if they had had the brooms the dirt they had dusted up would have been made to do just that. But even the stranger did not peer at the rabble. For sagging on the ground not so far out of town there was a colossal leather bag tangled up in a fence post.
Tirack they saw was returning now from where he had gone to investigate it, reassuring a man he had dragged from a large basket beneath the sagging bag who himself dragged a number of cases that rattled with the tools inside. The man had suffered a broken moustache which along amongst the injuries the preacher man had been unable to do much about.
“This here’s Mr Schlaggwetter,” said the preacher man.
“Slagger?” said Gideon, whereupon it stuck.
The man straightened. He was from the Baronies and was rather lost.
“You done come with me, Mr Slagger,” said Tirack. “Happen folks around here have had enough excitement for one day and I don’t doubt that even a heathen like you wouldn’t say no to a drink.”
“Queer days you have here, mayor,” the stranger said as he watched the pair go.
“Oh, this is nothing...” Gideon assured him.
*
There were a lot of holes and Jander who knew about such things could see no useful purpose in any of them. In one a goblin was trying to hide but otherwise they stored nothing, were too deep to be stood in easily and too shallow to go anywhere. They were however pretty good holes. Regular, square and cut into the rock here well above the line of the clay and chalk that made up much of the territory. Following the sound of picks Jander came to stand on top of the last in the line where four men and two women were about halfway down from the top. He called out and they grinned up at him sheepishly. He could see now where in a cave nearby a home had been made. He said, “What are you doing?”
“Mining!”
“There’s nothing to mine up here.”
“Not yet,” one bright spark admitted.
Jander nodded, “Let me guess, you’re good at digging but there’s no treasure in it back home – Gothiel at a guess. So you’ve come here to prospect. But you’ve not got much of a hang of that either?”
“We’re mining,” agreed one of the women.
“No,” said Jander, “You’re really not. Allow me to demonstrate the difference.”
*
The bottle of wine refused it had returned with Anath. He now uncorked it with a flourish to pour a glass for each of his closest retainers, each rather flusher for the bonus he had paid to each. They stood close to the grate. The larger the house the harder it was to heat and as a Merchant House they had not got where they were today by simply throwing grulls upon the fire. Outside and the Invisible Quarter was almost handsome through the icicles that hung like bars across the window.
“Gentlemen,” said Anath, “To us, and to (Merchant) House Halfblack!”
*
Atop the Guild the roof whilst ringed with narrow turrets was flat. It made a circle here, one with many arrows radiating inwards so that it resembled a clock which time it told was always the same. Those arrows ended about a plinth. The poison smoke of the city glittered with ice, frozen soot and poison that sparkled darkly. The rest of the city as might have been seen here remained only as darker suggestions across the rooftops; even the great spire was but a taller blur, indistinct that came and went as the smog rolled about them without encroaching upon the inward circle.
The air cracked softly, tiny lines running between them. Clean, it felt profane in Deci. The city below them was entirely silent.
By Alan Morgan