The coin was spinning.
“Next!” Hairlock demanded. “You are too slow!”
Tattersail saw that the marionette was paying no attention to the card Oponn, and had in fact probably given it only sufficient notice to identify it. She drew a deep breath. Hairlock and the Bridgeburners were tied up in this, she knew that instinctively, but her own role was as yet undecided. With these two cards, she already knew more than they did. It still wasn't much, but it might be enough to keep her alive in what was to come. She released her breath all at once, reached forward and slammed a palm down on the Deck.
Hairlock jumped, then whirled to her. “You hold on this?” he raged. “You hold on the Fool? The second card? Absurd! Play on, woman!”
“No,” Tattersail replied, sweeping the two cards into her hands and returning them to the Deck. “I've chosen to hold. And there's nothing you can do about it.” She rose.
“Bitch! I can kill you in the blink of an eye! Here and now!”
“Fine,” Tattersail said. “A good excuse for missing Tayschrenn's debriefing. By all means proceed, Hairlock.” Crossing her arms, she waited.
The marionette snarled. “No,” he said. “I have need of you. And you despise Tayschrenn even more than I.” He cocked his head, reconsidering his last words, then barked a laugh. “Thus I am assured there will be no betrayal.”
Tattersail thought about that. “You are right,” she said. She turned and walked to the tent flap. Her hand closed on the rough canvas, then she stopped. “Hairlock, how well can you hear?”
“Well enough,” the marionette growled behind her.
“Do you hear anything, then?” A spinning coin?
“Camp sounds, is all. Why, what do you hear?”
Tattersail smiled. Without answering she pulled aside the tent flap and went outside. As she headed towards the command tent, a strange hope sang through her.
She'd never held Oponn as an ally. Calling on luck in anything was sheer idiocy. The first House she had placed, Darkness, touched her hand ice-cold, loud with the crashing waves of violence and power run amok-and yet an odd flavour there, something like salvation. The Knight could be enemy or ally, or more likely neither. Just out there, unpredictable, self-absorbed. But Oponn rode the warrior's shadow, leaving House Dark tottering on the edge, suspended in a place between night and day. More than anything else, it had been Oponn's spinning coin that had demanded her choice to hold.
Hairlock heard nothing. Wonderful.
Even now, as she approached the command tent, the faint sound continued in her head, as it would for some time, she believed. The coin spun, and spun. Oponn whirled two faces to the cosmos, but it was the Lady's bet. Spin o silver. Spin on.
CHAPTER THREE
Thelomen Tartheno Toblakai:
find the names of a people so reluctant to fade into oblivion:
Their legend rots my cynical cast and blights my eyes with bright glory ”
Cross not the loyal cage embracing their unassailable heart:
: Cross not these stolid menhirs, ever loyal to the earth.”
Thelomen Tartheno Toblakai:
Still standing, these towering pillars mar the gelid scape of my mind:
Gothos” Folly (ILiv)
Gothos
The imperial trireme carved the deep-sea troughs like a relentless axe-blade, sails stretched and spars creaking under the steady wind. Captain Ganoes Paran remained in his cabin. He had long since grown tired of scanning the eastern horizon for the first sighting of land. It would come, and it would come soon.
He leaned against the sloping wall opposite his bunk, watching the lanterns sway and idly tossing his dagger into the lone table's centre pole, which was now studded with countless tiny holes.
A cool musty brush of air swept across his face and he turned to see Topper emerge from the Imperial Warren. It had been two years since he'd last seen the Claw Master. “Hood's Breath, man,” Paran said, “can't you manage to find another colour of cloth? This perverse love of green must surely be curable.”
The tall half-blood Tiste And? seemed to be wearing the same clothes as the last time Paran had seen him: green wool, green leather. Only the countless rings spearing his long fingers showed any splash of contrary colour. The Claw Master had arrived in a sour mood and Paran's opening words had not improved it. “You imagine I enjoy such journeys, Captain? Seeking out a ship on the ocean is a challenge of sorcery few could manaze.”
“Makes you a reliable messenger, then,” Paran muttered.
“I see you've made no effort to improve on courtesy, Captain-I admit I understand nothing of the Adjunct's faith in you.”
