Gardens of the Moon & Deadhouse Gates - By Steven Erikson Page 0,67

on the Hound. As the invisible battle of wills continued between Gear and Hairlock, Paran stepped closer.

The movement caught Tattersail's eye. She opened her mouth to shout a warning, but Paran moved first. The blanket parted to reveal a longsword, point flashing outward as he extended into a full lunge. The sword sank into Gear's chest, even as the man leaped back, withdrawing the lunge, twisting the weapon as he pulled it clear. A bellow thundered from Gear's throat. The Hound staggered back into the ruins of the bed, biting at the wound gushing blood from its side.

Hairlock screamed in rage and jumped forward, closing in on Gear.

Tattersail scythed one foot into the puppet's path, flinging him against the far wall.

Gear howled. A dark rift opened around him with the sound of tearing burlap. He whirled and plunged into the deepening shadow. The rent closed and was gone, leaving in its wake a rippling of cold air.

Astonished beyond her pain, Tattersail swung her attention to Captain Paran and the bloodied sword in his hands. 'How?' she gasped. 'How could you have pierced the Hound's magic? Your sword—'

The captain looked down at it. 'Just lucky, I suppose.'

'Oponn!' Hairlock hissed, as he regained his feet, and glared at Tattersail. 'Hood's Curse on the Fools! And you, woman, this I'll not forget. You will pay – I swear it!'

Tattersail looked away and sighed. A smile touched her lips as words uttered earlier now returned with new, grim meaning. 'You'll be too busy staying alive, Hairlock, to start on me. You've given Shadowthrone something to think about. And you'll live to regret his attention, puppet. Deny that if you dare.'

'I'm returning to my box,' Hairlock said, scrambling. 'Expect Tayschrenn here in minutes. You'll say nothing, Sorceress.' He clambered inside. 'Nothing.' The lid slammed shut.

Tattersail's smile broadened, the taste of blood in her mouth like an omen, a silent, visible warning to Hairlock of things to come – a warning she knew he couldn't see. That made the taste almost sweet.

She tried to move, but it seemed that a chill had come to her limbs. Within her mind visions floated, but walls of darkness closed in around them before they could register. She felt herself fading.

A man's voice spoke close by, urgent. 'What do you hear?'

She frowned, trying to concentrate. Then she smiled. 'A spinning coin. I hear a spinning coin.'

BOOK TWO

DARUJHISTAN

What windfall has brushed our senses?

This rocking thunderhead that scraped

the lake's placid waters

and spun a single day's shadows

like a wheel that rolled us

from dawn to dusk, while we

tottered our tender ways ...

What windlass crackles dire warnings?

There in the gentle swells that tossed

a bobbing cork our way

with its fine magenta scent wafting

like a panoply of petals

that might be ashes

in twilight's crimson smear ...

Rumour Born

Fisher (b.?}

CHAPTER FIVE

And if this man sees you in his dreams,

while you rock in the season's

brooding night

'neath a tree's stout branch,

and your shadow is hooded

above the knotted rope,

so will the winds of his passing

twitch your stiffened limbs

into some semblance of running ...

Rumour Born

Fisher (b.?)

907th Year in the Third Millennium

The Season of Fanderay in the year of the Five Tusks

Two thousand years since the birth of Darujhistan, the city

In his dream the small round man found himself leaving the city of Darujhistan through Two Ox Gate as he headed towards the setting sun. The tattered tails of his faded red waistcoat flapped in his haste. He had no idea how far he would have to walk. Already his feet ached.

There were miseries in the world, and then there was misery. In times of conscience he held the world's concerns above his own. Fortunately, he reflected, such times were few, and this, he told himself, was not one of them.

'Alas, the very same dream propels these many-toed implements beneath these wobbly knees.' He sighed. 'Ever the same dream.' And so it was. He saw before him the sun riding the distant hilltop, a copper disc through woodsmoke haze. His feet carried him down the winding dirt street of Gadrobi Shantytown, the shacks and huts on either side crouching in the gathering gloom. Old men wrapped in the dingy yellow rags of lepers squatted over nearby cookfires, falling silent as he passed. Similarly clad women stood by the muddy well, pausing in their endless dunking of cats – a bemusing activity, its symbolism lost on the man as he hurried past.

He crossed Maiten River bridge, passed through the dwindling Gadrobi Herder camps, out on to the open road flanked by vineyard plantations. He lingered here,