were free to flow, free to swirl round unseen, as if detached from all reality. But they weren't, were they? Detached from all reality.
Oh, no, they were not.
Does this lead one into unease?
*
On a surge of immense satisfaction, Barathol Mekhar's rather large fist smashed into the man's face, sending him flying back through the doorway of the smithy. He stepped out after him, shaking the stinging pain from his hand. 'I will be pleased to pay the Guild's annual fees, sir,' he said, 'when the Guild decides to accept my membership. As for demanding coin while denying my right to run my business, well, you have just had my first instalment.'
A smashed nose, blood pouring forth, eyes staring up from a puffiness burgeoning to swallow up his features, the Guild agent managed a feeble nod.
'You are welcome,' Barathol continued, 'to come back next week for the next one, and by all means bring a few dozen of your associates – I expect I'll be in an even more generous mood by then.'
A crowd had gathered to watch, but the blacksmith was disinclined to pay them any attention. He rather wanted word to get out, in fact, although from what he'd gathered his particular feud was already a sizzling topic of conversation, and no doubt his words just spoken would be quoted and misquoted swift as a plague on the hot winds.
Turning about, he walked back into his shop.
Chaur stood near the back door, wearing his heavy apron with its spatter of burn holes revealing the thick weave of aesgir grass insulation beneath the leather – the only plant known that did not burn, even when flung into a raging fire. Oversized gloves of the same manufacture covered his hands and forearms, and he was holding tongs that gripped a fast-cooling curl of bronze. Chaur's eyes were bright and he was smiling.
'Best get that back into the forge,' Barathol said.
As expected, business was slow. A campaign had begun, fomented by the Guild, that clearly involved the threat of a blacklist that could – and would – spread to other guilds in the city. Barathol's customers could find themselves unable to purchase things they needed from a host of other professions, and that of course would prove devastating. And as for Barathol's own material requirements, most doors had already begun closing in his face. He was forced to seek out alternatives in the black market, never a secure option.
As his friend Mallet had predicted, Malazans resident in the city had been indifferent to all such extortions and warnings against taking Barathol's custom. There was, evidently, something in their nature that resisted the notion of threats, and in fact being told they could not do something simply raised their hackles and set alight a stubborn fire in their eyes. That such a response could prove a curse had been driven home with the slaughter at K'rul's – and the grief that followed remained deeply embedded in Barathol, producing within him a dark, cold rage. Unfortunately for the latest agent from the Guild of Blacksmiths, something of that fury had transferred itself into Barathol's instinctive reaction to the man's demand for coin.
Even so, he had not come to Darujhistan to make enemies. Yet now he found himself in a war. Perhaps more than one at that. No wonder, then, his foul mood.
He made his way into the work yard, where the heat from the two stoked forges rolled over him in a savage wave. His battle axe needed a new edge, and it might do to fashion a new sword – something he could actually wear in public.
Barathol's new life in Darujhistan was proving anything but peaceful.
Bellam Nom was, in Murillio's estimation, the only student of the duelling school worthy of the role. Fifteen years of age, still struggling with the awkwardness of his most recent growth spurt, he approached his studies with surprising determination. Even more astonishing, the lad actually wanted to be here.
In the prolonged absence of Stonny Menackis's attention, it had fallen to Murillio to assume most of the school's responsibilities, and he was finding this very distant relation of Rallick (and Torvald) in every respect a Nom, which alone encouraged a level of instruction far beyond what he gave the others. The young man stood before him sheathed in sweat, as the last of the class hurried out through the compound gate, the echoes of their voices quickly fading, and Murillio sensed that Bellam was far from satisfied with the