The man slowed as he reached the foot of the stone pier. The years between him and that lad marched through his mind, a possession of martial images growing ever grimmer. If he searched out the many cross-roads he had come to in the past, he saw their skies storm-warped, the lands ragged and wind-torn. The forces of age and experience worked on them now, and whatever choices he had made then seemed fated and almost desperate.
Is it only the young who know desperation? he wondered, as he moved to sit on the pier's stone sea-wall. Before him rippled the bay's sooty waters. Twenty feet below, the rock-studded shore lay sheathed in darkness, the glitter of broken glass and crockery here and there winking like stars.
The man turned slightly to face the right. His gaze travelled the slope there as it climbed to the summit, on which loomed the squat bulk of Majesty Hall. Never reach too far. A simple lesson of life he had learned long ago on the burning deck of a corsair, its belly filling with the sea as it drifted outside the pinnacle fortifications of a city named Broken jaw.
Hubris, the scholars would call the fiery end of the Freemen Privateers.
Never reach too far. The man's eyes held on Majesty Hall. The deadlock that had come with the assassination of Councilman Lim still held within those walls. The Council raced aflurry in circles, more precious hours spent on eager speculation and gossip than on the matters of state.
Turban Orr, his victory on the voting floor snatched from his hands in the last moment, now flung his hounds down every trail, seeking the spies he was convinced had infiltrated his nest. The councilman was no fool.
Overhead a flock of grey gulls swept lakeward, crying into the nightchilled air. He drew a breath, hunched his shoulders and pulled his gaze with an effort from Majesty Hill.
Too late to, concern himself about reaching too far. Since the day the Eel's agent had come to him, the man's future was sealed; to some it would be called treason. And perhaps, in the end, it was treason. Who could say what lay in the Eel's mind? Even his principal agent-the man's contact-professed ignorance of his master's plans.
His thoughts returned to Turban Orr. He'd set himself against a cunning man, a man of power. His only defence against Orr lay in anonymity. It wouldn't last.
He sat on the pier, awaiting the Eel's agent. And he would deliver into that man's hands a message for the Eel. How much would change with the delivery of that missive? Was it wrong for him to seek help, to threaten his frail anonymity-the solitude that gave him so much inner strength, that stiffened his own resolve? Yet, to match wits with Turban Orr-he did not think he could do it alone.
The man reached into his jerkin and withdrew the scroll. A crossroads marked where he now stood, he recognized that much. In answer to his ill-measured fear, he'd written the plea for help on this scroll.
It would be an easy thing to do, to surrender now. He hefted the frail parchment in his hands, feeling its slight weight, the vague oiliness of the coating, the rough weave of its tie-string. An easy, desperate thing to do.
The man lifted his head. The sky had begun to pale, the lake wind picking up the day's momentum. There would be rain, coming from the north as it often did at this time of year. A cleansing of the city, a freshening of its spice-laden breath. He slipped the string from the scroll and unfurled the parchment.
So easy.
With slow, deliberate movements, the man tore up the scroll. He let the ragged pieces drift down, scattering into the gloom of the lake's shadowed shore. The rising waves swept them outward to dot the turgid swells like flecks of ash.
Coming from somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought he heard a coin spinning. It seemed a sad sound.
A few minutes later he left the pier. The Eel's agent, out on his morning stroll, would in passing note his contact's absence and simply continue on his way.
He made his way along the Lakefront Street with the summit of Majesty Hill dwindling behind him. As he passed, the first of the silk merchants appeared, laying out their wares on the wide paved walk.
Among the silks the man recognized the dyed lavender twists and bolts of Illem, the pale yellows of Setta and Lest-two cities to the south-east he knew had been annexed by the Pannion Seer in the last month-and the heavy bold twists of Sarrokalle. A dwindled sampling: all trade from the north had ended under Malazan dominion.
He turned from the lake at the entry to the Scented Wood and headed into the city. Four streets ahead his single room waited on the second floor of a decaying tenement, grey and silent with the coming dawn, its thin, warped door latched and locked. In that room he allowed no place for memories; nothing to mark him in a wizard's eye or tell the sharpwitted spy-hunter details of his life. In that room, he remained anonymous even to himself.
