 
Dassuk

### By

### Gordon Greenlaw

### Part the first:

###  Bloodseeker

Copyright 2013 Gordon Greenlaw

Smashwords Edition

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# Dedicated to my beloved son Guy

# 1972-2009

#  Table of Contents

#

Prologue

Map 1

Map 2

First reading – the Bignose memoir

First revelation – poisons

Second revelation – dassuk

Third revelation – unveiling

Fourth revelation - awakening

Fifth revelation – first defiance

Sixth revelation – Haruma

Seventh revelation - Mhet

Eighth revelation – odyssey

For more information, including full colour maps, go to http://www.dassukworld.co.uk

#  Prologue

#

Dusk. Clustered lamps cast a clear, soft light onto the central table. Around the table the robed figures are little more than shadows. Fumes from the lamps thicken the air, already heavy with sweat. All eyes are focussed on the table's polished copper surface.

_There, the chest is open at last. Its protective mechanisms lie dismantled beside it, the needles and darts now harmless. Tweezers held in trembling hands remove a thin glass vial from within. Inside the vial a dark liquid ripples_. _The vial is laid reverentially onto a bed of soft fibres. Small round mirrors on long rods are used to carry out a final painstaking inspection of the chest's interior. Then the men and women around the table stand back, straightening, relaxing, removing heavy leather gloves and aprons, unwrapping gauze from their mouths. They look at each other and nod._

One man steps forward, and begins to empty the chest of its closely packed contents: yellowing rolls of paper, each tightly bound with a twist of fibre. He selects one at random. The fibres crumble as he touches them, but the thin, almost translucent paper is still intact. He slowly unrolls it, holds it under the light. All there hold their breath. Then smiles break out. On the paper the fine script is still legible, its ink faded to a dull brown, but still legible.

More rolls are inspected; none have faded or crumbled beyond recall. Then a hesitant voice is raised:

" _Esteemed colleagues, it seems the Wind from the North left one last test for us. None of these scrolls is dated or numbered. How are we to know the order in which he intended these to be read?"_

#  Map 1

#  Map 2

### Book of Revelations

#

Composed of the Bignose Cache with additional material from the Ras Hold Archives and donations by the Elders of Brelana.

Compilation authorised by Third Convocation of Pod Yot.

Footnotes and comments by the Chosen Archivists

### Part the First

#  First Reading

# The Bignose Memoir

My Initiate name is Kleth nar Loka nar Smatzi, but everyone in Gheenbay knows me as Kleth Bignose. Kleth is a common enough Smatzi name, I suppose, and many Smatzis work in the arrak trade, so there has to be some way of telling us apart. And better Bignose than Kleth Arsewhistler, who buys my empties, or even Greasy Kleth, purveyor of low-grade fenny two eyots away. So, perhaps I do have a nose, which, though nobly proportioned, is a trifle larger than the norm, and somewhat darker in hue – but a well-pickled proboscis is a mark of all arrak dealers, a tribute to the excellence of their wares.

My wares are invariably excellent, my prices moderate, my establishment discreet but secure, my clientele loyal. Kleth Bignose now is a reputable citizen of New Gheenbay, flying Virgin White over his door and paying his taxes without too many regrets. So, Bignose it is. I have been called a lot worse.

"Dassuklicker" was probably the worst. There was some truth in it, after all. He who we must now think of as Lord Recorder, Wind from the North, lived amongst us first as Mramnam Mrecko, and as Mramnam Mrecko he entered into partnership with me on many profitable ventures. I knew he was different, of course, even before I met him, the tales of the Albanovan half-breed and his comical pet had spread throughout Gheenbay, and I had been meaning to visit his teahouse and see for myself for some time. But he had heard of me also, there was little about Gheenbay trade that escaped his notice, and he came to me first.

"Kleth nar Loka?" he asked as he stepped into my booth.

This shook me. No one else in Gheenbay had ever addressed me thus. He must have been talking to someone from Smath – and few there remembered me. I stared at him as I struggled for words, taking in the indefinable strangeness of him. I could guess who he was. Who else had such eyes, a pale mottled grey? Taller than me, if not by much, about the same age, slim, wide shouldered. His dress was nothing exceptional: White undershirt, plain Brown tunic and trews, neutral sash, no weapons on show, of course. As was usual in those days he wore his Krenditzi trading badge around his neck, the Chequers clear and bright.

Clearer and brighter than mine, where the Black was already flaking. His could be the real thing, of course; if not, it was a better fake than mine. The sleeves of his shirt were wide and long, and there was a tell tale bulge in his sash, the wrong shape for a purse. Nothing unusual in that those days, when there was no Peace Troop and the Krenditzi militias offered little protection to the small businessman, however much silver they squeezed out of you.

If I had any doubts as to his identity, the creature that padded through my door in his footsteps would have dispelled them. This had to be the creature from the Reefs, that could juggle and tumble and dance amusing jigs to his master's music. Lekk, that was its name. At first sight, perhaps there was something comical about the creature. Its rear legs were long, its front legs short, its dun brown velvety skin appeared too large for the body below and drooped in deep folds. Round, naked, pink ears twitched constantly, dark, melancholy eyes were fringed with curling lashes. Its nostrils were out of all proportion, triangular orifices that dominated its face.

As it entered, these flared even larger. Then it grunted dismissively, sat gracelessly upright on its broad buttocks and began to groom some impressive facial whiskers with slender fingers.

Tearing my gaze away, I looked back at my visitor in time to see a smile disappearing from his face.

Are you Kleth nar Loka?" he asked impatiently.

I replied as formally as possible: "At your service. Do I have the honour of addressing Mramnam Mrecko, host of Old Smero's?"

He laughed in agreement. Turning, I produced a flask of Red Dodo and two beakers.

"Care to sample my wares?' I asked, pouring equal tots of the golden arrak into the beakers and arranging them on the bench for him to make his choice. He picked one up, turned, and proffered it to his pet. The nostrils flared again, again came the dismissive grunt.

I raised my own beaker. "May the Lady be always at your shoulder"; I intoned, and took a disciplined sip.

"And yours" he responded. He sipped, raised an eyebrow. I noticed his nails, another alien note; far longer than the norm, painted like a woman's. He sipped again.

"This is your finest blend?"

It was not, of course, it was of good quality, but I kept the Virgin's Tears only for established customers, and kept it discreetly locked away lest a militiaman came calling. If any other prospective customer had asked the same question, I would have assured him the Red Dodo was indeed the finest generally available – once he became a good customer I would invite him to sample something better that was 'just in from Smath'.

But, as I stared into those eyes, my patter deserted me, and I shook my head. "I have better, for the right customers," I mumbled.

His eyes held mine. A faint memory began to surface – I had seen eyes like those before. I took a step forward.

Shock roared through me. Before my foot touched the ground thin fingers held my shoulders in a grip of iron. I felt the sting of claws. The creature's lips rolled back, displaying rows of shining yellow carnivore's teeth. Its nostrils flared. Before I could react it expelled a great gust of rank breath into my face, then released me and returned to its original position.

I let out a sob: I felt terror and disbelief, yet the whole incident occupied no more than five heartbeats. My other visitor still held his beaker to his lips and seemed unruffled by the brief flurry.

"Lekk is full of surprises," he remarked. "He sensed your mood change. He doesn't like sudden mood changes. You're still alive, so your thoughts can't have been aggressive. So, Kleth nar Loka, exactly what was going through your Smatzi brain just then, hey?"

I drew a deep breath.

"It was just a fancy, Lord, your face looked familiar for a moment, like one I saw several Wets ago – it was just a fancy."

My visitor tensed for a moment. His pet's ears pricked.

"And where exactly might you have fancied you saw me, hey?" he asked.

"I saw a man with eyes like yours once, in a bathhouse. He played music – not that many listened, not in a flesh shop like the House of Excellence."

My visitor laughed again.

" The House of Excellence, hey, yes, that could have been me. A real shithole – I wonder what you were doing there, Kleth nar Loka? Delivering cheap rotgut, no doubt. We've both come a long way since then, hey?"

He raised an eyebrow, and asked casually: "Would you like to go further?"

"Further, Lord? I ventured.

"Yes, further. More silver, more women, more security, whatever. Times are changing, new opportunities are arising, I see no reason why a man who knows his way around the arrak trade shouldn't pick up some extra silver here and there. With the Lady's blessing, of course."

He tossed off the last of his tot with a flourish and held out his beaker for a refill.

"Shall we talk, hey?"

He was right, there were new currents swirling through the creeks, and none knew where they would carry us. Gheenbay was booming, yes, in three generations it had gone from a bug-ridden exit port for greenstone on its way to the gasmasters' retorts on Sentah to the richest township in the entire Josi Makem archipelago– but everyone in Gheenbay still paid nominal homage to Bund Krenditz, homage expressed these days in good solid silver spangles and billets rather than military service. And what did the Bundlords spend all this silver on?

Why, on all the exotic teas and spices and silks and bedwarmers brought into Gheenbay at such risk by the Zepps. And what they had left over went South to the weaponmasters of Sentah, Bund Mantz, to buy enough coked iron to keep Gheenbay safe from the other Bunds looking greedily on from the other Great Islands.

But Gheenbay was getting rich too, perhaps too rich. The Zeppfactors, those that funded the voyages and reaped the real profit from them – and risked their silver, it must be admitted, for even then Zeppfaring was an uncertain business – were sitting on vast hoards, if the rumours were even half true. Some used their riches to construct more eyots, more booths and warehouses, bigger mansions topped with expensive Mantzi tiles instead of reedthatch, larger and more secure seraglios.

Others invested in their own guard troops, and were said to have coked iron weapons of their own discreetly tucked away against extreme need. So far the Krenditzi looked the other way, and if commercial rivalries between Zeppfactors occasionally flared into bloodshed, these incidents were usually ignored – but not forgotten.

"Tell me about arrak," my visitor said that day, as we sampled the Virgin's Tears I thought it politic to produce. I took a sip as I considered my reply.

"Arrak, true arrak, comes only from Smath, " I began.

"What about Ludda?" he interrupted " I've tasted arrak from Ludda. Hard to tell the difference, hey?"

I frowned. "Yes, Ludda produces a little, and it can be palatable, but there's simply not enough of the right land on Ludda, it's too close to the Margins. No, only on Smath do you get the land, and the climate, and the skill of the Smatzis, of course."

My visitor shrugged.

"But many know how to draw the spirit from the mash, there's no Secret there. I can buy fenny from almost every Great Island. Yes, most of it's rough, but it's cheap. How can you sell arrak when fenny's so cheap?"

"Fenny!" I snapped back.

"There was a time you could only get fenny from the brewers, when you knew what went into the mash, when the alembicists had some expertise, when the flavourings were tried and trusted. Now any greedy sodomite can buy a nice shiny alembic from Sentah, and make up a mash from anything the Lady will quicken – mangrove fruit if you're lucky, anything green and sappy if you're not.

"Some sort of berry juice for colour and flavour – but what sort of berry, hey? Those who drink fenny get drunk cheap, yes. But there's a good chance they'll end up blind or dead. Arrak is safer, much safer.

"And you have to admit, you've never tasted fenny as smooth or mellow as this," I concluded, topping up both our beakers with the Virgin's Tears.

"All down to the unique skills of the Smatzis?" my visitor responded, sniffing his sample. "Yet even I can detect familiar aromas in this. There are flavourings here that never came from Josi Makem, hey?"

Reluctantly, I nodded.

"Yes, there are twenty-seven different essences and spices in the Virgin's Tears, and most of them are exotic. I don't know the exact formulation, of course, but many must come from Albanova."

"So," he mused. "Once more we have the Zeppers to thank. Nobody likes them, but we can't do without them, hey?"

Another sip of the Virgin's Tears, another appreciative nod, and my visitor went on:

"You've heard of Old Smero's, you've probably heard tell of what we serve there –fine teas, delicious food, much of it new to Gheenbay, of course, that's the point, novelty sells. But we also offer arrak, a wide range of arrak – which we don't buy from you."

He paused and looked at me with one eyebrow raised.

"You must have wondered who my supplier is", he commented.

I shrugged in my turn.

"Supply is tricky these days. Those fucking Huntz are raiding everywhere, no barge is safe, even in the Greenway."

He nodded.

"Yet some shippers get their cargos through – perhaps they pay off the Huntz as well as the Bunds. Makes arrak remarkably expensive – at least if you buy through a licensed dealer, registered with the Hall of Factors, who pays his dues like a good little boy.

"Now, your prices are remarkably low, I hear, and the word is arrak from Kleth Bignose is the real thing, genuine Smatzi. Yet, according to the records in the Hall of Factors, you sell almost nothing – at least, you pay very few dues. A paradox is it not?" he added, tossing off the rest of his sample.

"I sell only what I can get," I retorted. "Those hairy buggers in the marshes get their hands on at least half of what leaves Smath. Glory Boys they call themselves now, have you heard that?

"Yes, my margins are low, but what else can I do, stuck out here on the Northern Shore?"

My visitor shook his head, and smiled.

"Low margins on low sales, yet this is a well built establishment, and a tidy little house out back. And you have a woman there, I hear. Marvellous what thrift can do, hey?"

He leant forward. "Let's stop pissing about, Smatzi. Most of what you stock, most of what you sell comes from those obliging renegade Ra Malinzi who sneak in at dark of night. You know what you're buying, stolen goods, stolen by the Glory Boys and their like.

"Once the outlaw bands were too small and disorganised to have any real effect on the barge traffic. Any arrak the Huntz did get their hands on went straight down their throats or was traded for gewgaws with other Huntzis.

"Now the bands are getting bigger and more organised, especially these Glory Boys. Now they have arrak to spare, and they want silver and women in exchange."

He paused, and held out his beaker again. I poured another generous tot, noting again the nails, multicoloured, touched with crystals. Leaning back reflectively, my visitor went on:

"Now, I might just happen to have a reliable source of arrak in respectable quantities – not those Ra Malinzi, so I don't have to pay their mark up. And I have a teahouse, the finest in Gheenbay, and I wish to offer the finest arrak in Gheenbay as well. But I have a problem."

"Which is?" I prompted, almost against my will.

"I don't know enough about arrak, and I'll never sell enough just through my teahouse to make it a worthwhile venture. What I need is a trustworthy partner with a superior palate and an established business, somebody who is prepared to risk a little in return for a lot – which would include a trading badge a lot more convincing than that pitiful thing you're wearing."

In the end, of course, we did become partners, and eventually I learned that Mramnam Mrecko actually ran the Glory Boys, and was trading in a lot more than Smatzi arrak. But it all nearly ended right then, before we could negotiate further, and I often wonder what would have happened to Gheenbay and the Seven Islands if neither of us had survived.

I had just leaned back, had just began to protest that I would be risking a lot more than a little, that I could easily find myself in the Arena – all part of the bargaining that was about to begin in earnest – when my booth shook violently, and the air was filled with dust, a rumble of collapsing adobe, and volleys of curses.

The creature Lekk was outside in a heartbeat, moving so fast the dust in the air swirled madly behind him. My visitor and I stumbled out, coughing and rubbing our eyes.

Outside, the booth of the tea dealer next door lay in partial ruin, its thatch askew. What caused the collapse was obvious. Looming overhead was a battered ten-bagger, hooked up to the thatch.

Pale faces peered over the side of the ottah; I could hear a frantic hammering. Water suddenly poured from the ballast valve, the hook line tightened, the thatch began to tear loose. Jakyn the tea dealer staggered out from the wreckage, hawking and spitting and bawling curses at the Zepp above.

Reedfibres exploded outwards as the landing hook tore free. The Zepp leapt upwards, drifting off towards the West, where catcher gangs would be waiting beyond the Zeppsheds. Jakyn continued to roar insults after it, then turned despairingly to contemplate the disaster that had struck his booth.

My roof had taken damage as well, but nothing on the same scale – a day's work for a competent thatcher, I reckoned.

"Did you see their Colours?" Jakyn demanded as he caught sight of us. "What were those useless fuckers flying?'

"Red and Green" I replied. "I reckon they're just in from the Black Isles, that's where the Garabi usually fare. Cargo of silk, no doubt.

"Probably missed their hook-up then couldn't get the ballast valves open – probably forgot to raise the hook line in the excitement."

"Useless fuckers" Jakyn repeated. "Nearly fucking killed me."

Then his face paled even further, and he whirled and started to lumber back towards the ruins.

"My customer," he shouted.

Lekk was there before him. Nostrils flared, the long fingers clawed at the debris. In a few heartbeats a purple, staring face was uncovered. Backing away, Lekk shook his head in a curiously human gesture.

"Zeppers, hey?" said my visitor, brushing the last dust off his clothing, frowning in distaste. "This is going to cost the Garabi a shitload of silver in compensation, the Cartel will make sure of that."

He regarded the damage to my roof. "The Lady certainly smiled on you today," he remarked.

So, I met the Dassuk. Had I known then that he came not from Albanova, but from the far North, from fabled Brelana, I would have fled screaming from his presence, maybe raised a mob to hunt him down and smother him. Brelana was the land of the dassuks, where no man or woman was Cleansed at Initiation. I had been told all about dassuks during my childhood, like every child in Josi Makem, and I feared them.

On Smath almost no-one knew my name. I was the youngest of six sons, my mother died giving birth to me, the corvee claimed my father and two oldest brothers almost before I could walk. Sept Loki dispensed intermittent charity to the four boys left behind, charity no doubt funded by selling my sisters to the slavers from the Turning House. Three of us survived until Initiation, scavenging scraps, huddling for shelter in any dry corner we could find, keeping our heads down and living in fear of the slavetakers.

Every other day we squatted alongside all the other charity cases at the rear door of the septhall, waiting in dull patience for the meagre handouts of stale sackfish porridge the septmaster considered could be wasted on orphans and cripples. Even my brothers called me 'Snouty' rather than my given name; even that was better than the names shouted at me in the alleys.

My Initiation brought little improvement. The Initiator was drunk, the knife was blunt and stained, my only Gifts were a well-worn tunic from the septmaster and a chipped luckstone from my older brothers. Sept Loki ranked well down from the top, well below the alembicists of Sept Jana, the arrak blenders of Sept Ronel, well below even those who assembled the casebottles or guarded the bonds. True, there were lower septs: browncoal had to be dug, furnaces tended, shit and wastes removed.

These were the 'blackhand' septs. Whitehands ruled. Sept Loki was 'greenhand' – sapsuckers they called us, it was our job to tap the rich yellow sap of the night blooming Walna vine at the right moment, when it was sweetest and most abundant, before the buds had begun to open.

Skill and judgment were needed to determine the right time and location to make the cuts in the stems, cuts that had to be just the right depth. Not that I would be tapping any time soon, if ever. My role was the lowest, pushing the carts that carried the brimming copper kettles of sap down to the brewhouses of Sept Danten, where the Lady would breathe on the cauldrons and quicken the mash.

Backbreaking work when the mud was deep and the ruts dangerous. Tapping time came very late in the Dry, when the cool nights that the vines required to flourish were beginning to warm and clouds of buzzstingers and noseeums were hatching everywhere. Frequent showers saturated the ground, cartpushers struggled and cursed and scratched the itchy red swellings that covered any exposed skin, courtesy of the buzzstingers.

Insect eating bats swirled overhead in their thousands, gorging themselves after months of shortage – but it was never the bats that caused me to lift my eyes away from the cart in front of me.

Zepps had fascinated me for as long as I could remember. Not that Zepps were a common sight on Smath: we lay well off the usual skyroads and it required a rare combination of winds and tides to bring one close. Normally, the best I could hope for was a distant glimpse, light gleaming off the huge gasbags far away to the East or South. But, maybe once every Dry, usually near its beginning, we would see one reaching down through the Northern Green, taking advantage of the deep, reed free, flippo free water there to keep its ottah in play and make its offing for the final approach to Gheenbay.

I never tired of the sight, and would abandon my duties to stare wistfully long after the Zepp had dwindled to a distant smudge on the horizon.

It was only a ten-bagger, the first Zepp I remember seeing close at hand, nothing remarkable by today's standards, but to me, a starveling child of five or six Wets, it looked immense, magical, something out of a fantasy. I tugged at the tunic of the older starveling standing next to me.

"What is it, what is it, what is it?" I squealed.

He angrily knocked my hand away. "It's only a Zepp", he snapped.

"Flying Red and Yellow – that's the Lotzi," the even older boy on my other side announced knowledgeably.

"Full of fucking shagheads, off to get pissed on our good Smatzi arrak, down there in stinking Gheenbay," snarled the first, turning and stamping away.

His anger and resentment baffled me. It made a fine, unforgettable picture, that ten-bagger. Stripes flew from the cargo decks: Red and Yellow, of course, but also token Krenditzi Black and White. A long, creamy wake streamed from the ottah; high above it, connected only by the almost invisible thread of the downhaul, the skeletal decks were hung with sacks and bales.

I could count at least a long dozen crewmembers – shagheads as I soon learned to call them – swinging casually through the rigging, shinning up the bagnets. I envied them then, I envy them still.

It was hard to believe that men had created such an amazing thing, that the translucent gasbags were sown together from flippo tripes and filled with the lifting gas liberated from the greenstone so jealously guarded by the Krenditz. Even harder to believe that such a contraption could be successfully navigated across vast oceans, while the rhales raged impotently below.

Brelana, Albanova, Toagim, the Black Isles, fabulous destinations, source of priceless treasures and immeasurable wealth for Zeppers and Gheenbay. Standing there with mud to my knees and hunger clawing at my belly, Gheenbay seemed like a dream city, far away, where silver flowed like water and even the lowest ate meat and thought nothing of it.

I never dreamed that I would ever leave Smath, never mind get to Gheenbay, but as I grew older the whispers increased.

"Forget the septs, forget the bunds," they counselled.

"Head for Gheenbay. No one there cares what sept you are, they just want hard workers, and they pay what you deserve. You don't even have to kiss the Chequers any more. A flask of decent arrak will buy you a trading badge good enough to pass most musters. There must be hundreds of Smatzis there now, they'll always help one of their own find their feet."

Well, I believed them, and there was truth in what the whispers said – but not the whole truth, far from it. Back then, Gheenbay was sown with many traps for the unwary and the naive. Most of those skulking in from the islands were stripped of any valuables within days. But I was strong and nimble, and had learned how to survive, and I not only survived but prospered. By the time the Dassuk walked through the door I had achieved a modest trading booth on a soundly constructed eyot, a house with a good sound roof, and a woman to cook my food and warm my bed – she was the most expensive purchase I had ever made at that point.

Not a virgin, of course, the militias had got to her first, but not ill favoured. She came from Douri, handed over to the Sentz in lieu of silver on the Day of Reckoning, and sold off in Gheenbay. In the end I lost her in the chaos that followed the Awakening, chaos that ultimately benefited me, but I found that I missed her.

Whatever I might tell my grandsons, I played no heroic role in the Awakening. I was there when mighty Orcan triumphed in the Arena, I cheered when the Virgin White was first unfurled, I was part of the mobs that harried the Krenditzi out of Gheenbay. After that, however, I kept my head well down, and bought safety with cut-price arrak for the Five's armies.

The Five! Who could ever have dreamed that such men could rise to rule the entire archipelago? Khakis the Estavani, the man of cunning and subtlety, the richest Zeppfactor in Gheenbay by repute, yes, one could imagine him seeking power. And Perlindo the Zepper, Dodo by nickname, a drunk by reputation, Zeppers were always arrogant cocksuckers. But a Huntzi, a hairy man from the Marshes, a yellowhead, a notorious bandit and cutthroat? That would have been inconceivable only a few seasons ago.

Mhet the Huntzi was almost normal compared to the other two. Orcan from the Reefs, wielder of Bloodseeker, the invincible warleader, violent, unpredictable, an insatiable deflowerer of virgins. And my partner the Dassuk, Lord Harum as he decided to call himself, better known as the Poisoner, with his deadly darts and toxins, and his lethal pet. Yet under their rule Gheenbay prospered, and Josi Makem was shaken to its core and has still not settled completely.

But men everywhere soon learned that a full belly, a dry bed and a quiet night were worth being ruled by outlanders. For many seasons there was stability, even though the Dassuk's true nature was no longer a secret, even though many speculated on what exactly went on in the great hold he built on Ras Island, out in the mouth of the bay.

Breeding a new sort of dassuk, it seems, taking in foundlings, male and female, schooling them night and day, teaching them how to use his poisons, no doubt, keeping them from their rightful Initiation.

Now Leron's Children, as we are supposed to call them, are everywhere. They control Harum's Mint, there on Ras Island, they pay the Peace Troop and the Red Swords, they negotiate with other outlanders, travelling in their very own Zepps, if you please. It was hard accepting Huntzis swaggering through Gheenbay like true men; accepting the reality of dassuks walking openly under the sun is even harder.

Maybe I am getting old. My grandchildren seem to have no problems with yellow hair or uncircumcised adults; although I made sure they were all decently Cleansed when the time came.

There was grey in the hair of the Dassuk the last time I met him, and even more grey around his pet's muzzle – the Nightmare was getting old as well. I had not spoken to him for many a year, and thanked the Lady every day that I had found a peaceful backwater to see out my days. But I had continued to run our businesses, rebuilding them swiftly when peace came, investing wisely, making a regular and truthful accounting, transferring the Dassuk's share into his moneyroom without demur.

So if he trusted anyone in Gheenbay still, he trusted Kleth Bignose, and it was to Kleth Bignose he turned when he made his final decision.

He said nothing of this at first, just sat there has he had so many times so long ago, sipping my finest, one hand on the Nightmare's head. Little was said worth remembering until he finally lifted the sack he had brought and set it on the counter.

"I need you to hide something for me," he said, those strange eyes fixed on mine.

From the sack he took a small chest, black iron, elaborately banded, with curious mechanisms almost covering the lid. He set it on the counter. I made no move; I had heard enough of what happened to those who attempted unsanctioned intrusion into the affairs of the Dassuk.

He laughed grimly. "Yes, there are traps and trickery, and a painful death for any who would try to force entry. You are wondering what is hidden within, hey?

"Would you believe me if I told you there's nothing you would reckon as treasure – no silver, no gems, no resins? No poisons, either, save those that lie in wait for the incautious. Nor does it hold antidotes to the Brown or the Yellow, as some might speculate. Solve the riddle of the mechanisms, open the lid, and you are likely to be sadly disappointed."

He hesitated, then went on:

"Some might say that it holds the rarest thing in the whole of Josi Makem. Others would say it's the most dangerous.

"It's the truth. It tells everything - who I really am, how I came to Gheenbay, what I had to do to survive. All of it, nothing held back, nothing concealed, however ignoble. All written down, by me, over the seasons, as and when I had the time to myself.

"No more than disconnected scribblings, I suppose, but still too much for Josi Makem to know about right now. So, I need them hidden away, for a long time, in the hope that anyone who finds the chest and survives the test of opening, will realise what he's found and will be living in a world ready to hear what I have set down."

I was bewildered.

"But, Lord, why me? Why now? Why can't you keep it safe in Ras Hold – it has the thickest walls on Josi Makem?"

My visitor regarded me with lowered brows for a long moment, then, in a gesture I still remembered, tossed off the last of his tot and held out his beaker for a refill. I obliged, although my hands shook – nerves, I reassured myself, not old age at all.

"Why not Ras Hold? Because that's the first place they will look. It's already suspected that I've been keeping some sort of record. That dull, dreary, self serving tome of Khakis', the 'History of the Great Awakening', you know it, hey?'

I nodded. "I've heard of it, Lord, I've never read it."

"Don't bother, it's shit, and boring shit at that. Anyway, when I read it I said a thing or two I shouldn't, so now they know there's another version of events around somewhere."

"They, Lord?" I asked, for by this time only the Dassuk remained of the Five.

He laughed bitterly.

"My Children – some of them at least, the ambitious bastards waiting for me to die. They want to turn me into a cult, with them as chief acolytes, take control of the mint and the armed forces, force Zeppfactors and Bundlords alike to kneel to my image and kiss their feet.

"If they find what's in that chest they will burn it, and the truth will be lost for ever."

He sipped again, and again fixed me with his gaze.

"And why you, Kleth nar Loka, Bignose Kleth, the most successful, most respected arrak trader in Gheenbay?

"Because I'm going to give you a fine new house on the highest land in Smath, where you can sit smugly on your porch and gaze down at the Loki septhall.

"And you, Kleth nar Loka, are going to retire there in five days time."

I let out an involuntary gasp of protest and half rose from my seat. Lekk sprang to his master's defence, teeth bared, but so slowly I was shocked. I had never seen him draw blood myself, but I had heard the tales: the blood-curdling 'skreek', the attack so fast the eye could barely follow, the teeth that could shear through armour and bone, that was the Nightmare, feared throughout the Seven Islands.

He once faced seven skilled archers twenty paces away, it was said, and killed them all before they could nock a single arrow. No mood, no emotion could be hidden from him, his nose could sniff out treachery and conspiracy however well concealed. Now he was old, and oddly pathetic.

His master shook his head impatiently, and continued:

"You're going to take your silver and your family off to Smath because in six days at the most I'm lifting off for the last time, and I'm never coming back.

"And when the Children and the Zeppfactors and the Bundlords finally realise I'm never coming back, there'll be a showdown – and who knows who will finish on top, hey? It could get very messy, and here will not be a safe place to be, particularly for old friends and allies of the Dassuk, hey?

"But you, Kleth nar Loka, you'll be well out of it, nice and cosy on Smath, with your silver and your grandchildren tucked away safely. You can arrange all that in five days, I'm sure.

"Then, once you're settled, dig a hole somewhere, on a night when the moons are asleep, bury this chest, tell no-one."

Well, I did as he said one more time, and he was right. When men realised that the last of the Five was gone, strife did arise, ambitious men did look to extend their power and influence. Some of the old Bunds even rose from their petulant torpor – we had Bo'Hatz strutting around on Smath for a while, until we taught them the penalties for presumption. But then the Council took over, with one of Orcan's sons at its head, and peace was restored, although the price of peace included letting Leron's Children have most of what they demanded, just as the Dassuk had foreseen.

But they never stopped looking over their shoulders. Few truly believed the Dassuk was gone forever. They feared a vengeful return, the Wind from the North refreshed and rejuvenated, quick to judge and condemn. Plots and intrigues dogged the Council, eventually a minority of the Children split away, calling themselves True Believers, leading ascetic lives in anticipation of the Dassuk's imminent return.

Elsewhere, men found they missed the certainties and stability of the Dassuk's rule, and the True Believers garnered a significant following.

I was one of them, one of the first. But now I am growing old, and my faith in the Dassuk is fading. My heart falters in my chest, my private orifices are wilful and unreliable, and my famous palate can hardly tell the difference between the finest distillate and babypiss. If the Dassuk returned to Gheenbay tomorrow, I would be too frail to welcome him back, or, more likely, to reproach him for abandoning us for so long.

So I shall go back to Smath for the last time, and die there, no doubt. And I shall store this memoir in a stout copper tube, dig up the Dassuk's chest, replace the linen wrappings with the finest silk, and within the wrappings I shall leave the tube, for those who will one day find the chest. After all, Kleth Bignose did play his part in great events, and his story deserves to be told. But I would have liked to read the Dassuk's story as well. And share a tot with him one more time.

Warning by Rhan the Elder, Archivist Emeritus: There are those that would have the credulous believe that the cache discovered on Smath does not contain all the scrolls written by the Wind from the North during his time in Josi Makem. No evidence has ever been offered to support this contention, which appears to be based solely on the proposition that one so farsighted would never have trusted all his truths to one agent and one repository. Although it is accepted that the Wind from the North was once known as The Joker, this is not a relevant fact.

#  First Revelation

# Poisons

There were poisons aplenty in Josi Makem long before I arrived, whatever the ballads say now. Crude corrosives mostly, some paralytics and a few convulsives. Stinkberry was the worst: it came from the Black Isles, where its fresh juice heavily diluted with arrack was believed to be a sovereign specific against enchantments and curses. Administered fresh and in sufficient concentration, however, the juice burst the victim's inner vessels, one by one. Blood spouted from every orifice, the lungs filled, the face turned blue, an agonising death followed, eventually. For stinkberry there was no antidote, no palliative; only a merciful knife could bring about a more peaceful end.

Bundlords often punished those who questioned their absolute powers with stinkberry, forcing all suspected of sympathy to witness the death throes.

Men still use it, of course, along with sayak, realgar or strychnos beans, but what they fear, what they desire, is the Black, the instant killer that sustains my power more even than Lekk. One scratch, one prick, and a man's heart beats twice more then stops forever.

I have resorted to the Black only twice since I came to Josi Makem, but the legends and myths that surround it are armour enough: I need no bullhide now. In truth the Brown is much more useful. Most of those who meet the Brown recover within half a day, with only a crippling brain ache and fouled undergarments to mark their ordeal.

True, the excessively corpulent are at serious risk of never waking at all, but few such would provoke me enough. Otherwise, the ability to induce a near instant loss of co-ordination followed maybe twenty heartbeats later by a rigid paralysis is one I cherish.

So is the power of the Yellow to fuddle men's minds and loosen their tongues and slacken their fundamental orifices. Setting aside the secrets they might let slip, few men survive the experience with their dignity intact.

Exhibit a Bundlord, naked, stumbling, babbling, pissing and shitting, but otherwise unmarked, and his power and authority slip rapidly away. Not a pretty sight, but a much more effective technique than the ritual decapitation favoured by Orcan.

These days, the darts in my armpipes are dipped in the Brown, and my nails carry only the Yellow. There is always a small vial of the Black concealed about my person, of course: it will only be used in the last resort.

It was naive faith in my poisons and my cunning that lured me to Gheenbay that first time. The Lady had chosen me, I believed. And why not? Had I not survived Winter on Brelana, escaped from Albanova, fought and won battles on the Reefs? Taking over the Glory Boys, transforming them into the deadliest fishskin band in the Central Green, that must prove something, I told myself. What had I to fear in Gheenbay, even without Lekk to watch my back?

Such arrogance! So I set out blithely, that first time, dressed in unbleached linen, paddling a battered reedboat that had seen better days. Far behind me, well hidden in the reeds fringing the Central Green, were three captured barges laden with plunder, guarded by the least irresponsible of my ragtag band. They had no overwhelming urge to enter Gheenbay, despite the silver in their pockets and the availability of harlots in the bathhouses. Huntz were tolerated in Gheenbay, but not welcomed, and all those I left behind me had regaled me with lurid tales of purses slit, bruises received and careless companions kidnapped and sold into slavery during previous visits.

"And the bathhouses won't let you near the tubs, and charge double or more the rate for prime girlflesh then send in some toothless hag," I was told with bitter indignation.

"And they serve you yesterday's dregs and leftovers, and snigger behind their hands, and if you protest out come the bullyboys, who take all your silver and give you a good trunching to remember them by."

Nor could they advise me on how to market what we had hidden in the barges. Most was goods they would have tipped into the marshes had I not been there; blue glass rods, copper ingots and alum from Kark, Mantzi bar iron, roof tiles and broad sheet glass, tanned hides, foamroot. Little though I knew about Gheenbay, I was not going to be stupid enough to turn up there with obvious plunder like gewgaws, fine spices and aged arrak. These I saved to buy loyalty in my band and influence amongst the Huntz.

There would be discreet markets for such stuff even in Gheenbay, I was certain, but I would need time to track them down and establish secure dealings. Before I came my band of brigands had disposed of the high value items they stole through renegade Ra Malinzi middlemen - and probably still did - but after one experience of the sour deal I was offered by one such I had no mind to value my risks so lightly.

His name I no longer can recall, but I learnt much later he was Khakis' man, and what Khakis sought in the marshes was information, not luxuries, although these untaxed luxuries ultimately financed his whole spy network and never appeared in his ledgers. Mhet was one of his informers, passing information through this particular dealer and enjoying an undeserved reputation as a master haggler as a result of the inflated prices he was paid for the stolen luxuries he offered.

So Mhet, and others, reported on the traffic along Deadman's, and passed on snippets gleaned from the lowest peasants on the Great Islands bordering the Central Green during the furtive trading of wild and rustled flippomeat and ginga fish for the scrap metal and well worn linen the poorer Huntzi septs now depended on, those who had no easy access to the Gheenbay trade.

Much later, after I had taken it over, this network was central to the early victories of the Five. Then I saw the Ra Malinzi as little better than a parasite, grown fat on the risks taken by others, determined to pay insulting prices, and confident we had no alternative but to accept.

"You won't get a better offer in the marshes," he insisted, sniffing greedily at the fine Albanovan teas I had offered him as a sample of the goods I had to trade.

"Yes, true, if you could offer these in bulk in the Hall of Factors you could ask four times my generous offer.

"But you can't- and nor can I. I'll have to smuggle them in and sell them on, bribe guards and militias, risk the Arena, and still finish up with a profit so small it's hardly worth the effort."

An obvious liar, and only interested in luxury items, so I touched him with the Yellow, and in due course relieved him of his silver, his cargo of luxuries, and, most valuable of all, his specialized knowledge of Gheenbay customs. I never thought to ask him about spies, of course, or if he had a master, so Mhet's link to Khakis stayed secret for much longer.

Mhet was outraged at the way I plundered him, surprisingly so at the time, so when he was clear of the Yellow I tossed him back some of the less valuable spices and told him to be less insulting next time he came creeping into our camp. I never saw him again. I suspect now that Mhet decided not to risk his displeasure or a bad report to Khakis, and slit his throat somewhere close to camp.

However, I had learned there was a clandestine market in Gheenbay, on some of the newer eyots well away from the Hall of Factors. There could be found traders who would deal with small consignments of anything I wished to offer, who asked no questions, demanded no documents of ownership, and paid far better prices than the Ra Malinzi was offering.

Bribes kept the Krenditz away, the licensed markets frequented by Zeppfactors and craftmasters turned a blind eye as long as the deals were small and the goods went through their portals in the end. It was a place for the disaffected.

Junior wrights and artificers impatient with the old ways sold the fruits of their labour there, rather than to their Bund factors, and often bought residence in Gheenbay with the proceeds. Stolen goods passed across most of the tables as well, discreetly. I believed I could deal with such a market, provided I was discreet also.

None would take me for a Huntzi; my dark hair grew only on my head. Mhet had suggested I passed myself off as a Smatzi, a fringe Bund reputed to be the stupidest in Josi Makem and the butt of many jokes. Most of them centred on the vast quantities of arrak the locals consumed, as Smatzi arrak was famous for its potency.

"Carry a flask of rotgut fenny," he advised.

"And if anyone asks an awkward question, take a swig, sway about a bit, and give them a great big stupid grin."

So, while my linen was clean and carried no caste marks my craft was old and unobtrusive, with samples of my goods thrust well down inside the slimy reeds. A small cache of silver spangles was hidden there too, sealed in a smooth tube of well-greased mangrove root, ready to be inserted up my fundamental orifice once I neared the city, and an earthenware jar of cosmetic grease to mask the last tell tale traces of indigo on my face and hands.

There was no concealing my eyes, of course, but I had frequently been warned not to meet any dryfoot's eyes, for fear of offence. And no-one ever said dassuks had strange eyes. The most anyone would be likely to suspect was that I had some Huntzi blood in me: many Huntz had pale blue eyes, another mark of their inferiority.

Around my neck was slung a lucksack, but instead of bones and pebbles it carried my dwindling stocks of the Brown and the Yellow, and the tightly sealed soapstone flask of Black. Darts I had in plenty, only six had been irretrievable, even on the Reefs, and I carried armpipes up both commodious sleeves.

A flask of arrak in my pocket and a rusty Huntzi hook-knife slung over my shoulder completed my disguise. On entering the city, I was told I must conceal the knife under my tunic, lest it be seen as a provocation by the Krenditzi militias who still made token patrols through Gheenbay, even on the guild eyots. Otherwise, they said, if I stood aside for all dryfoot males, kept my gaze below shoulder level and spat on no-one's shadow, I should be safe enough.

Lekk I left behind me. His nostrils had flared in disgust when I first mentioned my plans. "Bin tharr, stingkss, no gud" he snarled.

I knew he had been there, searching for me after the Zeppwreck, and had killed any who had tried to interfere, until he had fled back East, baffled and raging, and picked up my scent on the shores of Douri.

He had prowled only in the dark, and the Bloody Nights were now legend, but the killings were put down to a dassuk on the prowl, and throughout Toyah, Smilt and Douri men took extra care with shutters and locks, and zarebas were strengthened.

Without Lekk I would feel naked, and near deaf and blind as well. But I had learned to rely on myself those first days on Josi Makem, before we found each other again, and I told myself I would actually be safer without him in a strange place, where no such creature had ever been seen before. Attention was the last thing I wanted.

At this time I had only a poor knowledge of the Great Islands and the waterways away from the Central Green. I had seen the shores of Kack and Krumah, of course, but had not gone dryfoot since I fled the Zeppwreck on the northernmost tip of Kack. My band had raided mainly against the water traffic hoping to avoid the heavy tolls levied on those who took the safer routes, heading North or East out of Deadman's Passage and skirting the Central Green. Deadman's Passage went to Gheenbay, everyone knew, so I thought to do the same. Mhet laughed when he heard.

"Not Deadman's, unless you can't think of a simpler way of committing suicide. Too many eyes, not enough cover, deep water most of the way. The Kratz and the Mantz can't have nasty Huntzi flaunting themselves on Deadman's, with all that barge traffic paying nice fat tolls for safe passage.

"There's a big iron gallows on the Western tip of Krumah that's always got a corpse or two swinging on it. That's where you'll finish up, Joker, there are just too many archers along Deadman's, even for you and your furry friend."

Instead, he suggested False Passage, between Smilt and Douri.

"I thought you said we had to stay away from there," I protested. "Prime flippogrounds, you said, watched day and night, not worth the risk when there are always a few flippos straying into our marshes."

Mhet stuttered for a moment, but Kritz interrupted in his usual abrupt manner.

"Look, it'll be alright, we have a sort of arrangement with the Bunds there. In False Passage we don't rustle their flippos, they ignore reedboats passing through. Travel alone, keep as far from the herds as you can, and leave your fishskin behind. Keep your head down, and the guards will usually turn a blind eye."

"Usually?" I enquired. "You mean that sometimes they don't? What happens then, the gallows again?

"If you fight them and lose, maybe," Mhet said.

"If you don't, they just take all your goodies, then have a bit of fun with you – strip you, stick a reedburr up your arse, turn you loose without your boat or weapons, stuff like that. But they only do that kind of thing when they're bored."

Very reassuring, especially to someone with an intact foreskin to conceal, but I had little choice. And False Passage seemed straightforward compared to the twists and forks of Deadman's. It was the end of the Wet as well, so visibility was good, and the watchers would have plenty of time to decide I was no threat, and I should be able to see the herds in plenty of time to skirt them safely. I could make it through in a day, I was assured, if I started before dawn on a flood tide.

"It's called False Passage for a good reason," my mentor continued. "At single low tides the Eastern stretch almost dries out, double lows, and it's nothing but mire. Time it right, let the flood take you past Smilt, ride the ebb the rest of the way and you'll be in Gheenbay by sundown.

"If the Lady chooses, of course."

I grunted. But I was still curious about why the Huntz would want to make an arrangement over False Passage.

"Gheenbay must mean more to you than you've been telling," I said to Mhet.

He shrugged.

"It's not Gheenbay, it's the Deepway. That's the passage from the Barren Gap to the Western Margins," he added, seeing my incomprehension.

I signalled I was still baffled. He sighed, and looked around. There were just the three of us, huddled into one of the temporary reed shelters the Huntz were so good at constructing in so short a time. At least a dozen others surrounded us, occupied by the rump of my band of marauders, the true believers.

We were not dryfoot, of course, we had found a reed raft vacated by a traditional Huntzi family when the ginga were fished out, rotting and waterlogged, but easy to refurbish with fresh reeds and still solid enough to support us for a while. It might have been the end of the Wet, but there were still occasional downpours, short but violent, and a night or two under cover would do morale no harm, I thought.

And we had hearthstones aplenty, most of them stolen, inevitably, and stolen charcoal and spices, and the remains of the carcass of the last flippo we had noosed out of the Smit Malinz grazing water was still just edible, and there was still no shortage of arrack or chatstem.

No women either, but Huntzi outcasts had long since learned how to cope with shortages of womanflesh, so more than one appetite was being satisfied in the shelters that night. And raunchy ballads were being sung, so I was content.

No one was obviously paying attention to what was being said in our shelter, and Lekk's presence discouraged close proximity. So, reluctantly, Mhet explained.

"Look, Joker, fishskins like us aren't popular in the Central Green, understand? We have to keep the old Huntzis happy, the ones with families and eyots and status, the septfathers, and the three who claim to be Bundlord. So we pay them off, all right?

"All right, since you taught them better, they no longer get the best of what we garner; most of the silver, most of the arrak and the spices, it used to be. But they still get plenty from the other fishskin bands.

"But they never trust us. Because if we get too strong and rich, we're going to be heading back into the Centre, looking for eyots to take over and women to steal. And if we cause too much trouble with the dryfeet then there might be militias in the marshes, and who has the most to lose then?

"The septfathers, of course, with their precious eyots and their nice dry longhouses and their caches of silver, not rootless outcasts like us."

He went on, reluctantly:

"When we're out of favour and we need somewhere to run to, the best place is the Western Margins. Getting to the Eastern and Northern Margins looks easier, but they're no use to the likes of us, even if the militias ignored us. Too many eyots out there, so too many fringe bunds all squabbling over territory. No sanctuary there.

"The Western Margins are different – South of Bogron at least. Lots of mangrove, plenty fish, few stable eyots, and people with limited curiosity. Yes, the tides can be fierce and the waters are salty and you have to catch rainwater if you don't want your brain to burst, but it's a convenient place to take it easy for a while.

"But to get there you have to run False Passage in daylight, sneak across the Barren Gap at night, hole up somewhere on the coast of Sentah, then take the Deepway, keeping to the Sentah shore. The Mantz don't care what happens on that coast, the Krenditz can't be bothered, and once you're safely past the Nose you can stop shitting yourself."

In fact the young Krenditzi Initiates enjoyed few things more than a Huntzi hunt, until the Glory Boys taught them what Huntzis could do, and in those days the Greenway in particular was closed to us. False Passage was different, it seemed, and it was down False Passage that I ventured a few days later. To placate the anxieties of my band, who were losing their leader for the first time and for an undetermined period, I took care to consult the luckwards and offer incense to the Lady, along with a lock of my hair sheared off by the luckward deemed to be the senior.

As the leader, of course, I had to burn colophony, olibanum and benjoin, the most expensive resins in my hoard, rather than the usual stippa, a sacrifice indeed.

I put greater faith in Mhet's Scroll of Tides, which he had scrutinised with greater than normal anxiety. A single neap was what I wanted, apparently, not so low that the flippo herds would have become concentrated at the Western end of the Passage, making a single day's run unlikely, not so high that the flood running up from the Western end would get to me before it began to ebb.

Five days later the Scroll predicted I would have what I needed, and off I set. I was eager for the change. Life in the marshes had begun to pall. Forming the band, establishing my dominance, developing my strategy, all this had satisfied me once mere survival had been accomplished. But I was tired of the flies and the stink and the slaughter, and hoped for more enlightened company and intelligent conversation and personal cleanliness.

Most of all I missed unmutilated women, but there was no hope of them anywhere in the South, so a bath in hot water, a dry bed and a sound roof would have to do instead. And maybe a game of Match.

It was a gamble, of course, and I never liked gambling when the odds were hidden from me. My much enlarged band could bicker themselves into fragmentation, Orcan could alienate them, I might never return from Gheenbay. I might not even get there alive. Yes, I was a talisman to my Huntzis, who fervently believed that the Lady was always at my shoulder, and they had grown rich by their standards under my stewardship. And they feared Lekk, but they slept sounder for his presence, and they savoured the greater fears of the other Huntzi bands who had ceded much territory to us.

Few realised just how many men now swore allegiance to me: we rarely all assembled in one place, for many reasons, not least the inherent ancestral tensions between many of the new men and my originals. Mhet had kept order so far, and could glimpse the better future I offered, so I had to trust him.

Orcan, I hoped, would finally accept he had nowhere else to go. For long enough, I hoped. Lekk, well, he still seemed to crave human company fairly often, and I still believed the bond between us was strong enough and durable enough to ensure he would still be there when I returned. So I gambled.

Reedboats are not that easy to manage for one not wetfoot from birth, and an old, saturated reedboat was worse. Mhet or any of the band could have lashed together a new one in half a day, but a Smatzi would not be paddling a new reedboat unless he was silver heavy, so an abandoned craft found near our temporary camp was ideal. My paddles were equally old, the bone well blackened, but still strong, strong enough for me, at any rate.

My men tactfully averted their gazes as I splashed and floundered, but after a day or two I could keep the contrary contraption pointing in the right direction most of the time, and maintain a slow but steady progress.

"No one's ever going to mistake you for a Huntzi," was the general verdict, delivered with suppressed glee.

Mhet added: "The herdwatches in False Passage are used to seeing all sorts sneaking into Gheenbay. Renegade dryfoot fortune hunters don't carry enough to interest them.

"An obvious Huntzi is different. They always assume he's a fishskin heading into Gheenbay with silver to spend in the bathhouses. But you should have no trouble, the Lady is always at your shoulder."

He was right, as it turned out. The weather was kindly; drier and cooler, with a favourable breeze from the East. A middling ebb tide swept me Westwards. As I left the true marshes and entered False Passage I could see a long dozen or more of Zepps glinting in the sun to the South of me over Krumah, drifting free with ottahs raised, hoping to hook up at Gheenbay this pass. Later I learned that most of these would be making at least their second attempt: they had come in from the West, aiming to dip their ottahs in the Deepway and thus manoeuvre smartly onto the Zeppground.

But the wind had shifted or the ottahmen had blundered, and they had to haul ottah and drift on till they had cleared Douri and Misli, where no welcome awaited them, and hope for catchermen on Krumah who would demand a fee not too unreasonable for them to harbour there until the Lady relented and the winds were favourable again

The Kratz did well out of such stragglers as well, of course, and even maintained stocks of greenstone for those windrode for a long time, but more than a few Zepps eventually made it onto the Gheenbay Roads with half its cargo left behind on Krumah or Kack. And the Eastern approach to Gheenbay was much trickier than the Western, so some unfortunates found themselves missing Gheenbay again and heading out to the West, where they had to tack and jill until the wind turned back in their favour, and hope to hook up next time, and not to finish up on Krumah again.

On the fringes of Gheenbay there was always work for the strong and the nimble amongst the catchermen, who tried to snare overshooting Zepps, particularly from the East and South, and warp them down to the Zeppgrounds proper, in exchange for a suitable fee. I worked for Bibi the Blue there for a while, later: the takings could be lavish, but it was unpredictable, and the constant battles for territory on the favoured Western sector with other catchermen gangs, in which many men were scarred and maimed and some died, were not to my taste.

The day I set out for Gheenbay for the first time I knew nothing of this, of course. True, I was the veteran of three Zepp voyages, and knew much of how a Zepp was operated, but two of my voyages had ended in disaster and the first in betrayal, and none of them had taught me anything about the Zepptrade. I had learnt, however, that the Zepps had had their beginnings in the watchbags, singlebaggers lifting little more than a flippo herder and his alarm bells, tethered not to an ottah but a substantial reedraft with shelters for the herders and guards.

These have long since replaced the old watchtowers on shore. I saw many of the crumbling ruins as I paddled down False Passage, but I spared them little attention; the watchbags were everywhere, and where they were, so were the flippos.

I had never been deep into Bund grazing water before. In the Central Green the waters were choked with vegetation, even the channels between the reeds were surfaced with dodoweed and lilyflower, but the water itself was almost clear and safe to drink. Wild flippos formed only small herds, and moved constantly as their preferred fodder was exhausted, and the marshes swallowed their filth without effort. False Passage was different.

Here there were flippos by the tens of tens of tens. They churned and fouled the water, they ate anything green, they fought and bickered constantly, and the young males killed and maimed each other with inexhaustible enthusiasm until they were netted and gelded. Only the goads of the herdsmen kept the herds together, only the fodder crops grown on dry land kept them fat and healthy.

Even before dawn, False Passage reverberated with their bellowing. Many were still sprawled lumpishly out on the mud flats, waiting for the tide that was sweeping me West. Herdsmen were stirring too: I could smell charcoal braziers, see the gleam of lamps. As the light brightened I saw the first of the watchbags rise. With these tides the navigable channel was still wide, and I kept my head down and concentrated on making distance.

In the event it was easy to avoid trouble. The watchbags marked the herds, the herdsmen kept the herds as far apart as possible, so there were plenty of gaps for me to slip through. It was anxious work, nonetheless.

I had been too long in the Central Green, tucked away among reeds twice as high as a man. The channels there were narrow, often completely overhung by the reedburrs, nice if you were gathering reedseed, not so good if you were looking for swift progress. Often you had to cut your way clear with the hookknives – barges rarely ventured there without two men wielding reedhooks in their bows full time.

On False Passage I was open to the sky, and to watching eyes. Reedhooks and flippos confined the reeds to a fringe. The open water must once have yielded rich pickings for the flippoherds; dodoweed and plantain flourish in any open water the reeds and mangrove allow them. But Gheenbay's endless hunger for flippotripes to process into gasbags had encouraged the Bunds to breed flippos without restraint, and to turn more and more of their land over to fodder crops. Now there was little left to yield leafgreen, the peasant's staple, and there were mutterings of dissent, if not yet rebellion.

Gheenbay was responsible for the unrest, and for the smell of carrion that drifted across the waters. Bundlords would sell hides, tripes and giblets to Gheenbay, but never the true meat, which was reserved for high caste Initiates. These days so many flippos were slaughtered for their tripes that even the Bundlords' gluttony was never enough, so the surplus carcasses rotted in shallow graves, and militia who had never tasted flippomeat stood guard lest the Huntzi came scavenging.

I passed a long dozen of butcheries, where skilled men carefully extracted the priceless stomachs and salted them down for transport to the processors in Gheenbay. Other skilled men made blood puddings, faggots, headcheese: there were smokehouses there as well, for sausages and giblet preserves, especially the tongue.

Once these delicacies had been enjoyed by the craft septs and the like, now most found their way to Gheenbay. Some true meat was also smoked, separately, over ancient mangrove root, and cured and smoked haunch, reputed to be the greatest delicacy, occasionally found its discreet way to Gheenbay.

Most of the tanneries on the shores had long since closed, the Bundlords happier to send the hides to Gheenbay than endure the unforgettable tannery stench. Zeppers could own flippos, and did so in large numbers, but I was laughed at later when I wondered why true meat from these never found its way onto Gheenbay tables.

"Because we have to lease grazing rights in the Greenway, and the fucking Krenditz make us pay through the nose for fodder and pasturage," I was told angrily.

"And we have to agree to our flippos passing through Krenditzi butcheries, and all we get back is the hide and tripes. The true meat goes into the ground, and we have to buy our own giblets back at extortionate prices, and any male calves go to the Krenditz as well."

They had little option. Flippos were needed for security when Zeppers sought loans to go Zeppfaring. But the Deepway was little use for flippos, and to the West the Huntzi bands roamed unchallenged, Huntzis said to be wilder and more vicious than those I had encountered in the Central Green, if less numerous. Flipporustling was endemic there.

A flippokill was the height of most young Central Green Huntzis' ambition, of course. Wild flippos had almost disappeared from their territory, but there were always a few strays from the grazing waters between the Great Islands, and my entire band claimed to have feasted on flippomeat at their Initiations. There were more strays all the time as the herds grew bigger and more stressed, and we ate true meat more often than most Huntzis.

All these ripples of disturbance came out of Gheenbay, so to Gheenbay I must go. But my Huntzi allies had grossly overestimated my skills with a paddle, and by dusk I was nowhere near Gheenbay, with the second flood tide strongly against me, and close to exhaustion, my shoulders on fire and my knees almost locked solid.

Reluctantly I squeezed into a reed-choked inlet close to the Western tip of Smilt, and spent an uneasy night. The next day I took early advantage of the ebb and headed West again, expecting to see Gheenbay by noon.

As I got closer, I began to understand Lekk's disgust. It was not just the coal smoke and the shit-fouled waters and the rotting vegetation. Overlying it all was a harsh tang, metallic and organic at the same time. It caught at the back of the throat, stung the eyes, churned the gut. These days I hardly notice it, and even Lekk has become almost accustomed, but that first day it sickened and frightened me at the same time.

This must be the infamous greenstone stink, I concluded, the subject of many jokes at Zeppers and Gheenbayers expense. I grimaced, but pushed on.

As I came out into the deep water of the Barren Gap the stink thickened. The fringes of Gheenbay are far from pleasant, where the hot greenstone waste is tipped into the bay and the water fumes and fizzles. Once, I was told later, the gasmasters paid men to drag the waste away from their retorts in baskets. By the time I arrived land speculators, mostly retired Zeppcrew, were bidding against each other for the priceless reeking cinders, and the first iron rails had been laid down to the waterside.

In the old days, too, the waste was simply dumped around the boggy mouth of the Cloven Stream regardless, and the raw new Northern Shore crept out into the bay unvalued, shunned by the Krenditz and the first Zeppers alike.

Back then, of course, the Zepps had not long been banished from Sentah, exiled to the steaming, waterlogged shores of the least valued headland on Toyah Proper. No Bundlord coveted land that bordered water too deep for flippos, no Krenditzi cared much for land that had once belonged to the despised and now exterminated Black Panz.

The Panz lost their long war with the Krenditz several generations ago, and the Krenditz annexed their territory, and parcelled it out amongst younger sons of younger sons of the main Krenditzi line, who were frankly puzzled how to win any wealth from its sodden soil.

How the Thin Krenditz must have chortled when the Mantz compelled the Zeppers to move their noisome and sometimes dangerous activities there. Then the Zeppers had to grit their teeth and pay taxes that seemed close to extortion, and pay again for the new roads and railtracks from the greenstone quarries to the retorts and agree to tithes on all trade that passed through the new markets.

Now the heirs of three generations flash more silver than those of the main Krenditzi line who still rely on the income from flippo trading, bradi seed and fodder growing and the salt tax, and their share of the greenstone mining.

This amuses the Zeppfactors particularly, I was to learn, who have devised many ingenious ways of avoiding the tithes and taxes, and could buy and sell any Krenditzi bundlord without strain.

One day much later Khakis was striding about his inner sanctum waving his arms in a manner that would have astonished and dismayed his fellow Zeppfactors. Only I was there, and only I ever heard him indulge in such emotional rants and tirades, in those days at least. As was usually the case, Khakis this day was fuming about the latest Krenditzi demands, recently communicated via their factors to the Open Cartel, which was the only organized Zepper faction operating openly in Gheenbay.

No Krenditzi seemed to suspect there might be a Closed Cartel as well. There was, and Khakis was a member of both, and usually in a minority on both despite his burgeoning wealth and public profile. But he was Estavani, and there on sufferance, and outnumbered by the Old Zeppers, as they thought of themselves.

So behind his cold face burned a permanent rage and frustration, which I hoped to tap one day. This day it had burst out, fanned by a demand from Ber Nathon that the Open Cartel should levy a headtax on all those who entered Gheenbay openly, on top of what was already charged for entry permits and trading permits by the Krenditzi militia.

"They say it's a special measure, a one-off, to fund new guardposts along the Greenway, now that your fishskin friends are becoming so bold," he growled.

"It's in the interests of all Gheenbay, they say, and hint they won't take note of anything we skim off the top. But they want us to carry the odium and listen to the moans, and most of what we raise will finish up in the moneyrooms at Ber Nathon and never come out again."

He cursed again.

"They think they're so bloody clever. They think that we're too interested in grubbing silver to notice what they're about, that we have too much invested here to risk losing it by turning against them, that we depend on them for the food we eat, that we daren't risk the greenstone supplies they make us pay through the nose for.

"They haven't noticed how much bradi seed and dressed dodo is coming in from Krumah and Makrali these days. And the day might come when we don't need their stinking greenstone anymore. Then we'll see, we'll see." And he stalked off, muttering.

Gheenbay did represent an enormous investment in time and money. Almost from the day the first Zepps hooked up, the growth of Gheenbay rapidly outstripped its natural potential, as old Smero often told.

"There was fuck all here when the farting Mantz wheeled out their bombard troops and suggested we fuck off out of Chabbay," he would say.

"Greenstone was being shipped out down the Cloven Stream, over the Northern Shore, so it made sense to move here, where the Thin Krenditz didn't give a shit about bangs and fires. But the only really dry ground was to the South and West, and the only place to dig the old-style Zeppsheds was on the Western Ridge.

"So the smartest Zeppfamilies grabbed the Southern Shore, and laid out a Zeppground down below the ridge, and docks to unload the greenstone barges.

"Gheenbay didn't stink as bad in those days, and business wasn't so cutthroat, and there weren't all these runaways and Estavani scum here. Now it's just a shitheap," he would say, wagging his head, reclining in comfort in my teahouse with a tray of exotic titbits at his elbow and a flask of arrack always close to hand.

According to Smero, as the Zepptrade boomed, more and more Zeppsheds were carved out of the ridges to the West until they jostled so close that the walls of earth dividing them grew unstable and dangerous, and the rents grew outrageous. Then the Mantz finally learned how to hammer out iron beams many paces long, and how to build iron derricks and lash barges together to carry derricks and beams from Chabbay to Gheenbay, and how to haul the beams on iron wheels to the Zeppshed once they got there.

Later came riveting, and lattice beams built up from small pieces of knifeiron light enough and strong enough to span the thirty or forty paces across a Zeppshed and support a roof covering of oiled linen or reed thatch. By this time the Barren Gap had proved to be a much better site to hook up on, so the Zeppsheds spread out onto the old Zeppgrounds, and the pressure came off, for a while.

Later again, some-one had the idea of creating separate eyots of greenstone waste tipped inside wattle cages, perhaps for the greater security endowed by the separation from Toyah Proper, although the Krenditz soon claimed sovereignty over the new land. It was probably a Mantzi, or at least someone who knew the Mantzi way of creating new land with slag and ashes from their furnaces.

This only worked in the few shallows that mainly bordered the Northern Shore: then came iron piles, and the windhammers to drive them. By the time I arrived there were more than five long dozens of eyots, one, built by the Zeppfactors of course, a thousand paces a side.

Inevitably, it was not the port itself that caught my eye when I finally had a clear view across the Gap. It was the Zepps. I had only seen two established Zeppgrounds before, on Brelana and Albanova - the Reefs had none, of course- and had assumed something similar but much bigger would exist near Gheenbay. But the original Zeppground had long since been built over. Now the Gap was the Zeppground, less convenient though it may be in many ways, its sheer size and depth the main factors in its success. Deep, clear water is rare in Josi Makem.

Here there were no dragstones, no mooring bitts. Instead, buoys by the tens of tens dotted the water. Between them, ropes and lines wove complex patterns. A swarm of fat kelpstem tenders propelled by a long dozen or more sweating crewmen skimmed the waters. As I watched, a twelve bagger was coming in from the East to try for hook up, its ottah at maximum extension, the ottahcrew flourishing grapnels. It passed the first few lines too fast and too high, but the wind eased for a moment, the Zepp dipped as gas was valved, and the grapnels took hold.

A bell on the Zepp clanged, and a dozen or more craft headed towards the ottah, paddles flashing. After a fraught and clamorous period of frenzied bidding and counterbidding, a tender threw a line to the ottah, and the Zepp was towed towards the Gheenbay Roads, where a mooring buoy was obtained after yet more negotiation. More Zepps than I had ever dreamed existed, a dozen long dozens at least, swung there while their loadmasters negotiated on shore for a speedy warping into the docks.

Banners in family Stripes fluttered bravely from the Zepps; some, faded and tattered, told of long voyages now near completion and rich cargoes to download. Brighter Stripes marked Zepps ready to lift off on new voyages, although all would wait until the wind shifted more towards the South and gave them clear passage away from Toyah Proper before they unhitched.

More Stripes flew from the watercraft, though most displayed a Black banner as well, signifying they were for hire. Those that displayed the Krenditzi Black and White Chequers usually had a long red pendant streaming aft, and spears on show. These were the harbourfactor's enforcers, watching, recording, spying out unlicensed traders and smuggled cargoes.

But there were few of them, and their enforcement was more token than actual. So, many small high value items were offloaded discreetly straight into the tenders, which docked at the Northern Shore and delivered their loads to the Zeppfactor's agents there, and the Krenditz could whistle for their dues.

Real profit for the Zeppcrew, however, depended on a swift harbouring and downloading on Southern and a rapid move into a welcoming Zeppshed for overhaul and refurbishment; straightforward regassing and the renewal of baggywrinkles and comforters if the Zepp was lucky, rebagging, renetting and new cordage if the Lady had turned away from it. A quick turnaround was the key, to get back onto the trade routes again before the winds changed.

Overwintering on the Dark Isles or Albanova or Bhor La Munrak was possible if the Lady decreed, but overwintering was full of risk without real shelter and all profit would be lost if the Zepp sustained significant damage so far from the Zeppsheds.

I was to find that half of Gheenbay was given over to the support of the Zepptrade. The gas retorts were out on the Western fringes, close to the Zeppsheds, but down hill from there were whole grimy districts devoted to ropewalks, tripe tanks, netsheds, yarnmills, ottahyards and the like. Brick chimneys belched greasy smoke, so, while the buildings could be brick or adobe, the roofs thatch or tile, all were soot stained, and the narrow lanes between them were no more than beaten earth.

Metalsmiths, craftsmen, armourers and others with skills to trade were establishing themselves on the new eyots off the Northern Shore. Coal smoke belched from dozens of chimneys there as well, but adobe and thatch was the norm, and many of the lanes, once trodden waste, were now paved with brick.

A few Zeppfactors had constructed eyots and built new mansions in brick and tile on them, but these were looked down on as upstarts by the old factor families on the Southern Shore. Later, Southern became known as Old Gheenbay, as opposed to the New Gheenbay that was growing so fast across the bay.

On that first day I could see that a clear passage ran almost due West from where I observed, right through all the eyots and up to a ridge on the Western Shore. The smoke and fumes made it hard to make out detail, but I guessed there could be found the fabulous Zeppsheds, the largest structures in the world, it was claimed.

In the murk little was visible of the grander brick buildings on the Southern Shore, but the sun struck gleams from the glazed roof tiles: green, blue and orange. Amongst the larger eyots there was the unmistakable loom of Zepps: but my destination was on the opposite side of the bay.

"Don't go near Southern,' the Ra Malinzi had warned me, slurring his words under the Yellow.

"That's Zeppfactor territory, all nice and proper, with nasty suspicious Zeppfactor guards and interfering Krenditzi militias to make sure it stays nice and proper. You need an entry permit to start with, and the militias will milk you for what they can get for one of those. Then you have to pay your dues to the Krenditzi factors and sell your cargo through the official markets, and pay the Zeppfactors' agents for the privilege of using the markets.

"No, the likes of you need to take your little packages to the Northern Shore. Sure, you'll probably have to pay a few bribes and sweeteners to keep out of trouble, but there are plenty of easy going bathhouses, and a couple of eyots behind the Isle of Swords where you can find a booth or two who'll make you a sensible offer for your teas and such, and ask no questions.

"Try Slath, he has a booth on 91 Eyot, with three dodoskulls over the door. He supplies the bathhouses mainly, but some of the less prosperous guilders get their little luxuries from him rather than on Southern."

Even from the far side of the Barren Gap I could see the harbourfactor's tower gleaming on the Southern Nose of Gheenbay. Once it had been a rotting reedhouse, where desperate Thin Krenditzi factors tried to squeeze bribes out of the greenstone barges. Now it was built tall of whitestone from Sentah, with copper shingles, and barracks for the enforcers and militias around it, although these were half empty then, did I but know it. Nevertheless, I was wary.

I had no stomach for venturing amongst the multitudes of barges and tenders churning up the Barren Gap, but after a while I noticed off to the North a stealthy trickle of reedboats accumulating off the Southern tip of what I deduced was Sa Toyah. A dark line on the water suggested reeds grew there, which meant shallower water, so less chance of an inquisitive Black and White tender demanding passage silver. I let the last of the ebb carry me towards the fringes of the flotilla, after a further check of my gear.

I was ignored when I got there. Most of the reedboats wallowing there were old and battered like mine; many of their occupants were clumsier watermen than I was. Few showed Colours; many had darker patches on their tunics where sept marks had been obscured. Some boats obviously carried heavy cargoes: lilyroot and dried sackfish, of course, staples of the poorer classes in Gheenbay, mangrove charcoal, reedfibre.

On these there were generally at least two crew with trading permits around their necks, and weapons on show. We waited, licensed traders and unlicensed fortune seekers alike, slapping at flies, dozing the day away, protected from the middling flood tide that surged down the Greenway later in the day.

The sun began to sink towards Toyah Proper. Out on the Barren Gap the tenders and barges headed towards Gheenbay, where lanterns were twinkling. As light faded and the tide slackened, the reedboats began their crossing. I followed.

We kept well to the North, rounding the end of the Roads with only a warning shout from the watchmen on a twelvebagger moored there to mark our passage. In those days Ras Island was home to nothing more than a giant windvane; we hardly spared it a glance, although we hugged it close. The cargo boats in the lead headed into the Northern canals without check or hesitation, the rest of us veered off, heading for what seemed to be a series of crude jetties, little more than heaps of waste, dimly visible, along the outer rim of the Northern Shore eyots. The stench was vile.

There were men waiting there, and muttered negotiations for secure moorings and cut price entry permits already used at least once and with but a few days validity left. But none of the new arrivals wished to present themselves to the Krenditzi harbourfactor or place their craft under the nominal protection of his militia, so they did the deals they had to, and vanished one by one into the darkness.

By the time it was my turn to disembark most of the dealers had vanished as well. I had my samples concealed amongst my linens with only the small sack of teas in view, and a few silver spangles in my belt. One spangle was demanded for an entry permit with only five days to run. I belched and grinned.

"Tell you what, boys," I said to the three who huddled around me, my hand on my hilt, "Tell you what, you come up with a better offer and I'll throw in the boat as well, hey?"

"Think you'll be staying, do you?' the middle one sneered.

"Well, you're a bit late in the day, all the bargains have gone. Could let you have a twenty four day permit, but that'll cost you the boat and two spangles, understand?"

"Come on," I said. "It's going to piss down again soon, right? How about the boat, one spangle, and this flask of the finest Smatzi arrack for the twenty four day permit, plus you show me where I can find a safe dry bed for the night, hey?"

And so I entered Gheenbay for the first time. It was a disaster. Soft, dry, warm beds seduced me. Smooth, oiled, complaisant women on soft dry warm beds seduced me. Warm, scented water, clean, dry linen, comfortable privies seduced me. I relaxed, and dropped my guard a little too much. Gheenbay's predators and parasites and scavengers descended with glee. The complex relationships that enabled Gheenbay to function were a mystery to me, I stumbled and blundered, and only Brelani stubbornness saved me from early and total ignominy and destitution.

The spangles in my belt lasted only six days, the teas bought me five days more, by which time I was bitterly regretting my presumption. Without the Yellow and the Brown I would have disappeared without trace, just another anonymous corpse in the canals. So I fled, with my tail between my legs, and with a burning obsession. I would return – but not until I knew more, not until I could face the Gheenbay predators with a snarl of my own.

#  Second Revelation

# Dassuk

Why was Khakis not afraid of the dassuk, you might well ask? Why was he the only one in the Seven Islands who did not believe that the uncircumcised son of an uncircumcised mother is mad, diseased, unclean, sub-human, a blood drinking monster who prowls at night seeking out virgin flesh to feast on? I found this hard to understand at first. He claimed it was because he had read the records of the first voyages to Brelana, before the Zeppers attempted conquest, which told of the crew's fears as the winds stayed foul and the Sun began to dip below the horizon as Fall neared.

"Yet as the dark came the Brelanis simply lit lamps, and continued to haggle", he told me. "But when the Blue/Green Dicki returned, none would believe them, saying it could not have been full dark, and that they had a lot to thank the Lady for, that the winds had changed before full dark came, and the true nature of the dassuks was revealed."

Later, of course, I learned that Mhet had been one of his spies, and had told him in all innocence of the Zeppwreck and the renegade slimesucker poisonmaster who had such a successful career as a marsh bandit he needed a Gheenbay factor to dispose of his loot. And to clinch it Mhet told of the alien creature that came out of the marsh one day, that could grunt words almost like a human child, that was either my companion or my familiar, that moved faster than anything alive.

Khakis had seen Lekk by then, but Lekk of the teahouse, Lekk the clumsy trickster, the beggar for titbits, was hard to picture as the nightmare that had haunted the islands four Drys earlier.

Much that Mhet told him Khakis discounted. Which turned out well for me in the end. But, without telling Mhet why, he questioned him most closely on my nocturnal behaviour, believing at first that the killer had been the dassuk on the prowl. Luckily, Mhet convinced him I slept like a normal man, and in any case had been far away during the Bloody Nights, and Khakis at last believed the stories of the Blue/Green Dicki.

Luckily again he did not have quite enough imagination to realise that a weapon can point two ways. But at first I had to accept his dominance, despite my poisons, and Lekk. Not that I let him see he had any power over me, of course, even that first day.

It was early. I was in the kitchen tallying the arrak stocks when old Smero came rushing in and said: "Better get out there, boss. Looks like real trouble."

I shrugged. Since I had relieved him of his teahouse he had swung between servility and condescension, depending on his arrak intake, but always deferring to me, always refusing to accept responsibility, hiding his resentment well, most of the time.

There was secret glee in his tone and expectation in his posture, so I sighed and put down my tallystick.

I peered cautiously round the kitchen door, my hand on my hookknife. Inside I could see men in mail with Brown and Red Stripes on their surcoats, busily evicting the few customers we had at that hour. Reflexively I checked my pipes, loaded with the Brown, and gave a low whistle to alert Lekk. I felt his shoulder press against my thigh.

Then I noticed that one customer remained, seated in a booth, his back to the wall. I recognised him, although he was far from a regular visitor.

Chaki, Dispenser of the Arrak, had pointed him out to me once, while Lekk was going through his nightly routine.

"See him?" Chaki had whispered. "That's Khakis the Estavani. They say he's one of the richest men in Gheenbay, if not the richest. Got his spoon in every stewpot, they say."

I had heard of Khakis, of course, and had even contemplated using him as my banker. But from what I heard he would drive a harder bargain than I fancied. That night and on subsequent visits he just sat there, sipping a little arrak, apparently enjoying the show, with only two bulky guards at his shoulders. He showed no interest in speaking to me, and I kept out of sight as much as possible.

This morning visit was obviously not about pleasure: the long dozen or more of his guards, the trunches they wore in full view, the slight artificial stiffness in their walk which signalled there were swords hidden under the surcoats, all spelled danger. "Stay" I hissed at Lekk, then opened the door wide and marched in.

"Welcome," I said, bowing and holding my hands wide. "How may I serve you, Lord Khakis?"

He smiled with his mouth.

"By considering what I have to say really, really seriously. You need a friend, outlander, a powerful friend. You're getting noticed, and questions are being asked. And some are saying they have the answers, that they know where you and that amusing creature of yours come from, and it's not Albanova.

"Yes, I know you have lots of silver tucked away, but that won't save you when the mob comes calling."

I kept my face as blank as possible. "Tea?" I enquired, not bothering with the honorific. "I have a fine Silvertip Gremona to offer, fresh from the market, courtesy of the _Island Soarer._

"I find a pot of fine tea helps concentrate the mind, don't you?"

Khakis laughed. I turned, ignored the guards who ringed me, snapped my fingers. A pale face appeared round the kitchen door. "A pot of the Silvertip, right away!" I snapped. "And two beakers." I turned back to Khakis, pulled out a chair, lowered myself casually into it.

"It will take a few moments, Gremola must always be allowed to steep properly," I remarked.

"So. What are we to talk about? Friendship, is it?"

Steepling his fingers, Khakis regarded me in silence. I met his gaze without changing my expression, taking in his long jaw, lined face, small, deep-set eyes, formal turban decorated with amber and ivory baubles. Then he waved his guards back out of earshot, and spoke.

"I do a lot of trade with Brelana, one way or another. So when I hear about a man who seems to be making far more silver than can be explained by this teahouse and your other little ventures, a man with a very strange pet and a hint of blue in his complexion, well, I'm curious.

"And I also have major interests in the Gheenbay barge traffic. So I'm also curious about a man who seems to be importing all sorts of things from who knows where, and selling them at very keen prices to the less scrupulous of the factors. And I wonder how much he knows about these Glory Boys who seem to be dominating all the fishskins in the marshes."

Of course, thanks to Mhet, he already knew the answers. He also knew that I had no idea that he knew. But his mention of my blue complexion struck a chord – no one in Gheenbay had ever seen me without my protective coating, so some one from the original Glory Boys had been talking. I shrugged carelessly, and made no answer.

He leant forward and lowered his voice even further. "You must know that if I start shouting 'dassuk' around the town you would have no chance, poisons or no poisons. But that would be a terrible waste. I could use you, outlander.

"I need to know much more about Brelana – and I would rather like to take over your unofficial import business. And I could offer you a safe haven in my mansion –safer than anywhere else in Gheenbay."

I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "You must know that if you're right, if I really am from Brelana, I could kill you in an eye blink, just with a touch. And Lekk is even more dangerous. Do you know that if I whistled now, everyone of your guards would be dead long before they could draw? Would you like a demonstration?"

He shook his head. "I've heard the stories from the marshes, outlander. I know the risks. But I've consulted the greatest seer in Gheenbay, and I believe the Lady'll favour us beyond our wildest dreams. You'll be a lot safer under my eye, and a lot more comfortable as well."

So I restored Smero as Host of House, carefully monitored by Chaki, one of the first of my Eyes and Ears, and we became Curiosities, Lekk and I, as I had been on Albanova, living in Khakis' household, displayed to his guests, hated by his staff.

Not as a dassuk, obviously. He announced me as the "False Dassuk", in reality a refugee from the Always Victorious, poisonmaster yes, but Albanovan not Brelani.

Few full blood Albanovans had ever been seen in the Islands, none had come in living memory, so I enjoyed a certain notoriety. Lekk still had to play the comic role, and was said to be a rare creature from the Reefs. I have repaid many of the insults I received there, but to little point.

So they still call me dassuk, down here in Josi Makem and throughout the islands. Not to my face of course. To my face they call me Lord Harum, Wind from the North, All-seeing, and bow low, and keep their eyes on my hands, and clutch their amulets. But behind my back they use other names, bridgebreaker, babyeater, blue-arse.

Or they make the two handed sign - left forefinger and thumb forming a circle, right forefinger drooping, which implies I am impotent.

Harum is not my real name, not the name my mother gave me at birth, not my Initiate name. I took the name Harum from the hill where we fought the decisive battle, the one that destroyed the old order in the South. Before that I had many names, as many as I needed, but the Huntz still call me Joker amongst themselves and the rest of my allies - I was going to write "friends" but that would be untrue - call me Stinger.

Whatever they call me, in private or in public, they think of me as the Dassuk.

It was on Albanova that I learned I was a dassuk. We knew the term on Brelana, the Zeppers had muttered it under their breaths often enough, we knew it was no compliment, but what it meant they never volunteered and we were too proud to ask. We had no idea it is a killing insult in the South, worse than cuckold or even the vulgar term for the feminine parts.

And when they told me that Dassuk literally means uncircumcised son of an uncircumcised woman, I was still none the wiser, for so I was, and so were all men where I was born.

Such is the inbred fear of dassuks that no child in the South had passed puberty unmutilated for a hundred generations. One of the most important duties of Bund or Family elders was to maintain meticulous birthing records and appoint officials whose sole task it was to hunt down every child at the appropriate age and ensure it was given to the knives of the Initiators.

"It's all about keeping the blood pure," they will insist to anyone naive enough to ask why. "Unless a man is cleansed early enough his member will become contaminated with the miasmas, from the privy and so on, you understand?

"They'll collect under the unnecessary flesh, and be absorbed into the blood, and pollute the brain. All that will be left is animal in human form."

"A dassuk, then?" you might ask.

"Oh no," they will reply. "If the mother was cleansed properly, the uncleansed son will be stupid, wilful, addicted to self-abuse, violent if thwarted, infertile, doomed to an early death, but not insane, not a bloodthirsty slaughterer.

"A dassuk has to be born of an uncleansed woman. You understand why we cleanse women? Because of what happened in the olden days, before our forefathers saw the light and brought order and discipline to the world.

"Uncleansed women are ruled by their lusts, neglecting home and children in their constant pursuit of gratification. If you don't keep them locked up they'll be out fucking every man in sight: if they can't get out they'll be frigging themselves non-stop. Their blood is fermented with stale juices, and it's that contaminated blood they pass on to their sons.

"And if that contaminated blood gets more pollution because the son is untrimmed, well, then you have your dassuk."

So only the pure of blood could be found in the South, yet grannies still terrorised children with tales of dassuks lurking in the mangroves, creeping out at nights to commit random slaughter and rapine and arson. Even now whole villages lock themselves away at dusk in fear of these imaginary monsters. They even believe that dassuks can live amongst normal people undetected, because the sun muddles their minds and stifles their evil impulses.

Until the sun goes down, and the dassuks go on the prowl. No stranger can expect to remain within the zareba once night falls, any stranger who behaves suspiciously during the day runs the risk of being hunted down and smothered by a screaming mob.

The fact that these unfortunates always turn out to be circumcised fails to dent the belief - everyone has heard of other villages where true dassuks were detected and killed. On that first Zepp the crew called me "fine young dassuk" and sniggered.

But as we left the darkless Summer nights of the North behind and the sun began to dip behind the horizon more and more they began to eye me strangely. Then on Albanova I stood naked in front of the Always Victorious, and he tittered when he realised my ignorance and one of his sycophants enlightened me.

"You have not been cleansed, as have all civilised men, and nor was your mother, unless the stories lie," he said, smirking behind his perfumed mask. "So the Southern cannibals think you will change into a blood-drinker when the sun goes down - we know better, of course."

Everyone laughed at my reaction when I finally understood what cleansing meant.

The Albanovans called me dassuk as well, but they meant something very different by it, as I discovered when they tried to geld me.

To them a Brelani is a sexual monster, unpredictable, insatiable, a threat to men and women alike. And a Brelani male is envied and despised in equal measure, for the Albanovans believe he is capable of endless rutting, with woman, man or beast, and buy vast quantities of willowflower under the impression it will confer similar stamina upon the imbiber.

Taken in moderation, willowflower tea aids digestion and generates a mild euphoria followed by dream-free sleep. Swill it down by the potful, overstewed and bitter, and the result is headaches, some mental confusion and a short-lived irritation of the male member. But the Albanovans continue to buy it eagerly, and the Zeppers profit by their illusion and congratulate themselves on their cunning.

As might be expected, Albanovans see themselves as superior to the rest of the known world, so they were irritated by my obvious revulsion at the whole concept of circumcision, and infuriated when I unwisely mocked their belief in willowflower, and once the Always Victorious grew bored with me it was only a matter of time before someone demanded my gelding.

They did not think to kill me, of course, for fear my ghost would take a grim revenge. None could be certain that the ghost of a Brelani dassuk could be imprisoned in any ghosthouse an Albanovan could devise, and so my life was not threatened, directly at least.

Gelding was a routine affair on Albanova, the Always Victorious had several Proctors who were expert trimmers, and very few failed to survive. Enslavement usually followed gelding, however, and I had no desire to cough out my life in the Northern mines.

Despite the Rules, I felt no guilt when I had to kill to escape, although, even now, I still remember the shame, shame that I felt no guilt. Only a lingering death awaited me back on Brelana, so I thought to find refuge in Josi Makem, Perlindo's homeland. Perlindo had not thought fit to warn me what would have happened to a true dassuk disembarking there unaware, but I could hazard a guess, based on my reception on Albanova.

On the Reefs few had time to spare from the daily battle to survive to worry about dassuks, even though Perlindo soon blurted out that I was from fabled Brelana. And they feared the Boogy-Boi more than a dassuk, and soon learned to fear Lekk more than the Boogy-Boi. But I grew very tired of the routine violence and slaughter, and gave heartfelt thanks when we lifted off again. I expected better in Perlindo's homelands, where I had decided to pose as a half-breed Albanovan, unlikely but not impossible.

Now I know that Perlindo would have been unable to keep my secret, but when the Zeppwreck scattered Orcan and Perlindo and Lekk across the marshes and I was left half-dead, lost, alone, friendless, I decided to stick to the story.

So when Mhet woke from the Brown and saw me going through his pack and moaned in terror, and sobbed "dassuk, dassuk", I just laughed and said: "If I were a dassuk, hairy one, you'd be dead. You did try to cut my throat, remember?"

"But you're blue, you're a bluearse," he gasped, trying to move.

I sighed. "Ever hear of a bluearse travelling on a Zepp?" I asked, nodding at the ottah wreckage strewn around us. "The blue is indigo, a Zeppcrew's idea of a joke. Tell you what, hairy one, you show me your cock, I'll show you mine."

He went even whiter as I put my hand to my belt, but all I did was turn, drop my trews and display my backside, which showed no blue stain. Then I pulled up my shirt and let him see my equally unblemished chest, and he began to relax.

The belief that Brelani dassuks are blue all over has some truth to it. As a baby I was laid naked in the sun, smeared with the pungent purple flybane that keeps the Summer host of biting insects away. I would have had a blue arse then, all right.

But the colour fades with time, and for most of my life I had used flybane only on my hands and face. And my time on Albanova and the Reefs had faded the colour there enough that I later was able to disguise it entirely with the same blend of animal grease and powdered chalk that women employ to lighten their complexions.

Later, after Mhet could move again, at least as much as the cords I had pinioned him with would allow, he asked who and what I was, and how I came to be on the wrecked Zepp, and why its crew had thought it funny to stain my face and hands with indigo.

"I can see you are no Zepper," he said. "So you must be a slave. But why would they stain you, how could they expect to sell a blue faced slave?"

I glared at him in pretended outrage.

"I am no slave, I am the son of a Zeppmaster", I lied.

His disbelief was obvious, so I shrugged and said:

"Well, that's what my mother always claimed. I'm from Albanova, hairy one, where any child that looked like you would have been tossed into a pit at birth.

"And I was taken by the stinking shavers because I was poisonmaster to an Ureni highborn who owed the Zeppers more silver than he could afford to pay."

He looked baffled. "But why stain you blue?" he persisted. I sighed dramatically.

"Don't you know anything, hairy one?" I replied.

"A real bluearse would be worth his weight in silver down here. The Zepps had this idea they could fool some stupid highborn into paying over the odds for me - I was lucky the storm arrived before they had got round to painting my arse as well."

More lies, of course, except the bit about what the Albanovans would have done to a hairy child, or even one with such ridiculous hair. By then I had seen yellow hair, yellow haired slaves were becoming popular Curiosities on Albanova, and, as I was to learn, foolish Huntz venturing into Gheenbay always ran the risk of peremptory enslavement and transportation to the Cape of Calms. Prices were falling as more came onto the market, but it would be a highly profitable trade for a long time.

One of the first to make the journey was Djann, whose plan it was that enabled us to escape, whatever Perlindo claims now. But Djann died at the hands of Orcan, who had never seen a yellowhair before and struck out in superstitious panic, so Djann is forgotten.

Naturally I never saw Djann without his robe, so Mhet's body hair had taken me aback when I searched him, abundant fine hair that covered much of his chest and back and limbs, not knowing then that it only appeared at puberty.

I only discovered this after stripping off his principle garment, a long skirted jack covered in overlapping hard plates of some organic material, softer than bullhide, of course, but obviously capable of turning an iron blade. Copper rivets secured the plates to the softer leather of the jack proper, and the whole was dyed a muddy green.

At that point the only body armour I had encountered was the elaborately chased and inlayed bronze breastplates, gorgets and pauldrons worn by the honour guards of the Families on Albanova – although in more than one Hall of Curiosities I had seen ancient armour from before the time of the Greatest of the Great hanging on the wall: massive circular bronze shields, thickly padded textile garments with crudely formed copper or bronze billets riveted on all over.

Later I was to learn that what Mhet wore was the famous "fishskin" jack sported by the more successful of Huntzi bandits, and that the 'scales' were flippo hide, boiled for days in various oils and rare earths.

His green tongue was less of a surprise; many Zeppers used chatstem. What did puzzle me was the soiled leather bag he wore on a cord round his neck. I assumed it contained silver or other valuables, but all I found were a few batskulls dyed blue and yellow and a couple of stones with holes through them. Later he told me it was his "luck", and displayed the contents proudly and explained the significance of each object in tedious detail.

I responded by telling many tall tales about Albanova, and when he doubted me, I said: "You don't believe what the Zeppers say, do you? You think the shavers tell the truth about what they do once they are over the horizon, and exactly what they carry on their Zepps, and just how much they pay for all the things they charge so much silver for?

"Don't tell me you are that simple, hairy one?"

So he believed me when I told him that all the highborns on Albanova had poisonmasters, and that Zeppers secretly imported both poisons and poisonmasters and used them against their enemies. Mhet's people, the Huntz, outcasts on the fringes of Josi Makem, were prepared to believe almost anything about the Zeppers, and the rest of Josi Makem.

This, and the fact that my hair had grown and that I had acquired something of an Albanovan lilt was enough for the Huntz to accept me as a renegade slimesucker, just another outcast, one of the many who had sought sanctuary amongst them. And on Josi Makem it is very easy for a man to hide the fact that he possesses a foreskin.

It could not last, of course. Once I had established myself and Lekk in Gheenbay and grown prosperous, it was only a matter of time before someone remembered Perlindo's story of the dassuk who had come by Zepp to Albanova, and the invulnerable creature that did his bidding, and how Perlindo had contrived to escape with dassuk and creature and others fleeing Albanovan justice.

When Perlindo first told his tales he believed that all but he and Rogan had been lost in the Zeppwreck, so no one hunted for the dassuk, and Perlindo's tale was largely forgotten. But Khakis remembered, and when my success came to his attention and he visited my teahouse and saw Lekk and heard my music he began to wonder.

His spies had told him about the Glory Boys, but they and the Glory Boys both still believed I was a renegade Albanovan, probably a half-breed, armed with Albanovan poisons and protected by a creature from the Reefs. Those Zeppers who had encountered Brelani poisons had kept the shame of their defeat to themselves: at least, very few knew of them, but the tales came inevitably to Khakis, who forgot very little.

So Lekk and I found comfortable refuge in Khakis's mansion, and more security than I had found since leaving Brelana, and I could sleep sound at night and awake in expectation of a full belly. And playing the role of Curiosity was no great burden, although I never displayed my danglers, as I had been forced to on Albanova without Lekk to protect me. Let them speculate and mock: Josi Makem was a long way from being ready to accept a true Dassuk, and I had a good idea of what would happen to me if anyone ever saw my untrimmed cock. It was only later, when I had power, and allies, that I could even contemplate showing my true self.

#  Third Revelation

# Unveiling

Whatever the ballads say now, there never was an Unveiling. I kept my secret for as long as possible, out of fear of the consequences if it became widely known that I was a true Dassuk, a blue-arsed babyeater from the wilds of Brelana. But embarrassing truths have a way of escaping, and there were too many stories circulating, too many people making connections.

The Zeppers on the _Lady of Gheenbay,_ the first Zepp that had conveyed me to Albanova, had kept their secret very well, for fear of commercial retaliation from the Brelani Elders should they ever learn that a Zepp had given passage to a Brelani, and one condemned to Winter at that. Maybe one of them had seen and recognised me in my teahouse, as Perlindo had done, and once the Five took control arrak-loosened tongues began to tell the tale.

One of those was Perlindo's, of course, who had little reason to love me, and lacked the brains to contemplate the consequences of his indiscretions. He was only part of the Five because of what he knew about me: yes, Khakis and I had both agreed that we needed a Zepper in our conspiracy to give us some credibility as liberators of Gheenbay, and Perlindo was venal and unprincipled enough for our purposes, but his flapping mouth was always a liability.

Khakis was furious: he did have the brains, and had kept his mouth shut whatever the provocation. He even urged me to undergo the necessary trimming, so that the rumours and gossip might be challenged, but I refused. I had thought about it, of course, many times, but absolute discretion could never be guaranteed, and without it what would be the point?

So I gambled on the loyalty of my supporters and the familiarity of the Glory Boys and others, who had eaten and slept and campaigned with me, and knew that, while my behaviour was sometimes strange in their eyes, it was not the behaviour of the dassuks they had learned about as children.

It took time, but in the end there was grudging acceptance, although those who hated the Five had even more cause for resentment, and those who had been boon companions during the wars now kept a careful distance from me, and were reluctant to meet my eyes.

No matter. The realization that I was truly a Brelani dassuk comforted many who had been badly shaken by the crushing defeat of the Krenditz and the Bo'Hatz and the rest. Now they had a simple explanation for the shattering of their world, now they could submit to the power of the Five without undue shame. And the others of the Five could give me precedence when it suited me without loss of face.

Now the Dassuk holds more power than anyone has ever held in Josi Makem before, but not even the Dassuk could stop the ritual mutilation of children, even when so many die from the cuts. Everyone in the South, men and women, truly believe that the perfect bodies of young men and women must be mutilated to prevent the onset of madness at puberty. So every girl child is cut at after ten Drys, and every boy child after fourteen, and not even the mighty Wind from the North can stop it. Not yet, at least.

There was worse. Throughout the Seven Islands, even in Gheenbay, every pleasure slave, even the miserable drabs in the most disreputable bathhouses, all were blinded so that they may never recoil from those who would mount them or tell tales about diminutive organs. One of my first controversial decrees banned pleasure slaves here in Gheenbay having their eyes put out. Instead they are hooded, but I understand that most of their clients now take them from behind or in total darkness, or both, just in case.

Zeppers claim to be more enlightened, more civilized than the Bunds, yet they follow much the same path on circumcision and the subjugation of women. And in truth, for all their bluster, most defer to the Bundlords, and treat their subordinates with greater arrogance as a result, and ease the pain of their deference by reckoning their silver.

Yet all their arrogance and power and wealth is based on two Secrets only: how to stop the lifting gas from leaking out of the gas bags too fast, and how to read the sun and the stars. And I know both these Secrets, and so do many others, and little good it does most of us. Building a Zepp costs much silver - or the promise of even more, and the Zeppfactors made sure that only Zeppers could find the funds to build Zepps.

So the Zeppers controlled all the trade between the known islands, and very well they did out of it. After two hundred Wets or more they had effectively conquered all lands they had discovered, with the exception of Brelana, Albanova and the Reefs, and many had set themselves up as petty tyrants and extortionists. And in all these subjugated territories, and on the Reefs and Albanova, Initiation means the knife, and dassuks are objects of fear, or contempt, or derision.

There are other dassuks in the world, of course, a hundred thousand of them, all penned up on my homeland, Brelana, many days flight to the North. On Brelana no woman or man is ever deliberately mutilated in that way. Brelana is a land of fable and nightmare to the southerners, a place of non-stop fornication and murder, where madmen stalk monsters amongst ice floes and madwomen eat their own children.

Before I learned his true nature I made the mistake of answering Perlindo truthfully when he asked me why I had left my homeland.

"I tried to kill my brother," I said without thinking.

I was distracted at the time. It was the third night out from Albanova, and we were still struggling to control the Zepp we had stolen. Perlindo was the only Zeppcrew aboard, those few others who had ever travelled by Zepp before had done so as blindfold slaves trussed in the cargo nets.

So I had to assist Perlindo in the ottah, as I had some understanding of how a Zepp was sailed even then. And Perlindo had first met me in the dark, before we stormed the Zeppground, and Djann had assured him I slept at night like true men, so he managed to swallow his distaste for my presence so close to him after sunset. Both Cranla and Kenla were shining bright, which helped.

There had been moments of farce and moments of real danger those first days of the voyage as we attempted to set a course for Josi Makem. Zepps are fickle contraptions, demanding constant attention and endless trimming and cosseting. Curses, yes, and screams of real terror had echoed over the indifferent ocean as we lurched from one crisis to another.

I had to admire Perlindo then: he worked like a man possessed, flinging himself through the rigging with bleeding fingers, knotting and splicing, urging us on with hoarse curses.

But the winds stayed kind, and with the downhaul shifted to the nose so that the ten remaining bags swung away from the wind and reduced the draw on the ottah it was possible to get a safe trim and make our course. Perlindo grumbled and claimed he was a "wet ottah" captain by inclination, and this slow progress turned his stomach.

I shook my head. I knew what an ottah was for, I understood that its deep keel gripped the water and enabled the Zepp to make progress even when the winds were foul. Ottahmen were the hardest working crew members, the ottahcaptain second only to the Zeppcaptain during a voyage.

Trimming the ballast tanks properly was a skilled task, and a complex balance between the helm on the ottah, the trim of the watersail and the positioning of the downhaul had to be struck every moment of the day. And those in the ottah had to live with the ever-present fear of the rhales, their safety entirely in the hands of the lookouts above.

I had heard about wet ottah captains before and the risks they took, and how they were hated by the ottahmen. An ottahman had explained some Zepplore to me on my first journey, after I had gained enough confidence to move around the flimsy swaying cradle of ropes and nets below the vast gasbags.

I forget his name, he was one of those Lekk had to kill a few nights later, but I remember his smile so full of teeth and his way of patting and touching me as he talked, out of bravado, I assume.

He said: "Some of them don't give a shit about the poor ottahmen, all they care about is making a faster passage and catching the market at its peak. They want as little leeway as possible, so they trim the ottah right down and lash the watersail tight and hold the Zepp across the wind, while the ottahmen are near drowned at every wave.

"And with a heavy ottah what chance do the ottahmen have should a rhale take offense at your trespass? And what profit in being the first to market if you have racked your cordage and frames past safety and lose all your gains in the refitting yards?"

He went on: "Dusk is almost as bad. Then the planet takes over, and the sun no longer draws the gas towards the sky. When it gets dark the gas remembers its birthplace under the soil, and yearns towards it, and the Zepp grows sullen and heavy.

"Then you must raise the ottah lest the rhales take it in the darkness, and let out ballast, but not too much, or come morning the ottah will be too far above the water and gas must be valved lest you drift into the blue. And the rat-tail must be lowered, and men with good eyes set on watch, and all balanced with niceness."

So those nights after we lifted off from Albanova I had some understanding of what Perlindo was trying to do. I knew that once we raised the ottah we drifted free, at the mercy of the wind until morning came and the light revealed any rhales in our path and we could dip the ottah in relative safety and set a course again.

And I knew that when the ottah was raised its ballast tanks were charged, and that water was released as the Zepp became heavy at dusk to keep it at least ten mensheight above the water. But I did not understand how the rat-tail worked.

Perlindo told me the first night, after he had finished cursing the old-fashioned gate valves on the ballast tanks that needed to be hammered open and shut so often did they stick. He cursed the rat-tail as we streamed it as well.

"Look at it," he commanded me. "The ottahmaster who let this get into this sort of state should have his cock cut off and stuffed up his arse.

"The covering is rotten, the cable is frayed and the pith is sodden. How am I supposed to trim this cow of a Zepp with this crap dangling below us?"

To my eyes the rat-tail looked like a string of linen-covered sausages. I ventured: "But why does it matter, what does it do exactly?"

He sighed and raised his arms to the moons. "This is the best crewman I've got, hey? Truly the Lady has turned her back on me."

Then he said: "Listen. What I'm going to tell you now is a Secret – not a big Secret, but it's still something nobody but a Zeppcrew Initiate should know, understand?"

I nodded.

Perlindo went on: "The rat-tail makes it easier to trim the Zepp at night. During the day the gas fights to escape the bags and we carry heavy ballast in the ottah and adjust the watersail to make our course and all is in balance unless the rhales come near. But at night we have to valve the ballast to balance the Zepp and the ottah between sea and sky. And if we valve too much ballast then must we bleed off gas next day lest we rise too high. And if we do that for too many nights, you know what we must do, hey?"

"Dump cargo," I replied dutifully.

"And what cargo do we carry, apart from starvation rations and a few rusty swords, hey?"

"Nothing but people," I replied, shrugging.

"Right," said Perlindo. "So we stream the rat-tail. And some of its weight is carried by the Zepp and some by the water. So what happens if I let out just a little bit too much ballast, hey? Don't answer, I'll tell you.

"As the Zepp rises, more of the rat-tail lifts off the surface, the weight comes onto the Zepp, the Zepp stops rising. If the Zepp sinks, the reverse happens.

"So my job is a lot easier. At least it would be if I had decent brass spindle valves and a rat-tail that wasn't sodden, kinked, and mouldy. Let's just hope we don't have to dump any of our beloved comrades before we get back to civilisation."

That was the first night. By the third night I had begun to relax. Despite Perlindo's curses and dire predictions we had managed to trim the Zepp without disaster and the rat-tail was still streaming behind us, leaving an arrow-straight wake over the moonlit sea. But I still feared the rhales.

Perlindo laughed at me when he saw how closely I scanned the waters ahead.

"Relax, outlander, relax. Look how shallow the waters are, how white is the bottom sand. You won't see many rhales in this channel, and those that do appear know we can see them a long way away tonight. They won't waste their time having a go at us when Cranla and Kenla are in the sky."

But I still remembered vast black shapes cruising arrogantly across our course on my first voyage, and how the Zeppers had been panicked into frantic action when a school of young males veered towards us. So I answered his question without thinking.

Others had asked me why I left, why I was the first Brelani ever to ride a Zepp, and I had a different story for every one of them. I told the first Zeppcrew I had lain with every woman in my Clan chief's seraglio and was fleeing his wrath, and that he had three like Lekk only bigger.

On Albanova no one from the Families was interested, I was a Curiosity, little better than a slave, and the other Curiosities had no difficulty in believing that I had been kidnapped by treacherous Zeppers. Perlindo knew how unlikely that was. But when I answered truthfully I heard his indrawn breath.

Assassination and murder are part of everyday existence in Josi Makem, but only amongst the highborn is parricide and fratricide a common and accepted part of the life game. Zeppers of course have long since put family above Bund, so what I told him only confirmed his prejudices.

Yet he had voyaged to Brelana. He had visited the trading pits, dickered with the Elders, seen the crafts and skills of my compatriots. All he could have taken exception to was the presence of unveiled women, and they past childbearing age, and the need for him to deal with them as equals if he wished to trade for our riches.

But he, like the rest, put our lack of dassuk frenzy down to it being Summer, when the Sun sets hardly ever, and remains convinced we spend our Winters in a non-stop orgy of lust and cruelty.

The truth remains, however, that I was not conceived in the midst of an orgy, father any one of a hundred, mother mad, nor was I fed on raw meat or human or animal blood. The truth is that some twenty-seven Winters ago I was born the second son of Kara Larasgirl Donne Biglo, the first and only child of Joni Leonason Voni Dent.

My mother drew the red counter after a tsunami drowned my great-uncle in the hunting tunnels on the fourteenth day of Summer. A rare event, most Brelanis died during the Spring and Fall icefishing, and I grew up childishly proud of my unusual genesis.

She would have had a wide choice of suitors had she waited until Winter. The Donne sept of the Biglo clan are the white eal killers, providers of ivory and bullhide, the most prestigious sept of the most prestigious clan on the island. Or so it was in earlier times, before the Zepps came.

Even so, she could have waited, and there was still enough Donne Biglo status for her to have had a choice of high-ranking mates from the Evyan or the Pekon, clans whose status has waxed since the Zepps came. Then I would not have felt so humiliated at my Initiation, when Joni Leonason could give me only the traditional gifts of ealwool blankets, squirrelskin waistcoats, snakefur, all dyed in the traditional russets and umbers.

I saw Rob Karason smirk as he inspected them. His father was Othis Vinison Evyan, and his Initiation gifts included silver jewellery, iron knives, ceramics, glassware.

Even the traditional blankets and furs glowed in the exotic greens, blacks and scarlets brought by the Zepps. So I came to resent my mother, even hate her sometimes, for not waiting until Winter.

In fact, although there was nothing in the Rules against it specifically, becoming pregnant during Summer was frowned on. It meant the child would be born in the crowded conditions of Winter, upsetting the calm, the routines, bringing stress and disruption.

Women who drew the red counter, even in Spring, usually waited until early Winter to conceive, not least because birth during Summer freed them from months of backbreaking labour. Expectant mothers and those nursing children were exempt from the Quotas.

But my mother was always different. Her first child, my intended victim, had been born in Summer like most. All through those few precious days of sunshine and warmth, surrounded by flowers, my mother sat in the babypit and nursed her first born. She hated it. Few women get the chance to bear children at all, those who do remember their Summers of nursing as the most precious of their lives.

Not so my mother. She missed the company of men, and soon got bored with the chatter of the other nursing mothers. She watched the sailcarts come rumbling in with their cargoes of ealmeat, ivory, salted landgulls, briarfruits, squidshell and all the other riches of Summer. She curled her nostrils at the stink of the tanneries and vinegarpits, yearning instead for the clean winds of the headlands, the laughter and teamwork of her sept, the midnight feasts, the flirting and assignations.

And she chafed at the idleness and lack of exercise that was so appreciated by the other mothers. Always energetic, impulsive, impatient, Kara Larasgirl found the realities of motherhood tedious and unappealing.

Nevertheless, when my great-uncle was lost, she stepped forward with all the other eligible would-be Biglo mothers, and groped in the ancient leather bag for the precious red counter. And when she saw she had drawn red instead of white for a second time, she rejoiced. Why?

I believe it was because she had become obsessed with my father, and had convinced herself that the rare prize of siring a child would keep him in her blankets. My father was a handsome man, with many lovers, but no one had ever chosen him as a father before.

The Dents are the briarfruit pickers, the pemmican makers, and their humblest sept is the Voni, specialising in the vinegarberry that leaves a permanent acrid tang on all Voni Dent fingers. Such products of Summer are no less essential to the clans than ivory or ealwool, in fact more essential, but there is little status to be had from supplying them.

Even the Voni Dent septmaster of the time had never fathered a child. So Joni Leonason would have had little chance of being chosen by a conventional Brelani woman, despite his good looks and fine tenor voice, so the bait was very tempting. And my mother was never a conventional Brelani.

She had eyed him for at least two Winters, without success, but her chance came when he strolled into the Donne Biglo pits early that summer. The Voni septmaster had sent him to gather vinegarberries on our headland, and like all the gathering septs, not just the Dents but the squidshell and b'leen collecting Evyan septs, the Frant sea-green pickers and blue limpet seekers, he used the permanent Summer quarters of the Biglos as a temporary base. There, with less competition, my mother was able to get into his blankets.

It was a brief encounter, of course. My father was six Winters younger than my mother, and there were fresher, younger Initiates amongst the Donne Biglos. But my mother was obsessed. So when the Biglo elders sat down in solemn ceremony, and called for the candidates to step forward, my mother was there.

Her success must have been unpopular. I hear that no Brelani woman is allowed to bear more than one child these days, even then it was considered unseemly for a mother to put herself forward again. But she was determined, and ignored the frowns, safe in the knowledge that nothing in the Rules specifically forbade what she did.

In fact few Brelani women have second children, let alone first. Chewing branka seed after sexual congress may prevent unwanted pregnancy, but after five or more Winters of use fertility begins to reduce sharply and after ten Winters virtually all Brelani women are barren. My mother had been using the seed for seven Winters before I was conceived, and it took a mighty effort by my father to set the seed that produced me.

Most of this was told to me by my mother's mother, Lara Mosisgirl Donne Biglo, shortly before she lost her nose to the ice one Fall. She answered my relentless questioning with reluctance; my interest in my own conception was unusual, even perverted. All this came out at my trial, of course, and did little to soften the faces of the Elders sitting in judgment.

My mother stood there as well, and told a similar tale, how I had pestered her for every detail of my birth and childhood, even after I was Initiated.

But she omitted to tell them that she had shown me, without prompting, exactly where I had been conceived, and told me with pride how she had lured my father there. She had been right, Joni Leonason could not resist the bait, even though the hook was in full view. He swallowed it whole.

The chance to beget a child of his own blood more than outweighed the two Winters of fidelity my mother demanded in return. So she led him to a sheltered dell in the lee of three pointed rocks, where the sand was soft, and there I was, eventually, conceived. Much later, it amused me to lure my lovers to the same spot. I never told them why.

So I was born, and named Leron, after the great-uncle I replaced, Leron Salason Gron Biglo. Thus my Initiate name, my real name, is Leron Karason Donne Biglo. Before I was exiled, my friends called me Lero, the baby name given by my mother. So did my mother.

Maybe his friends called my great-uncle Lero as well, I was never told. His was a miserable death. It was during the brown eal hunt. They said my uncle had not been fortunate that Summer, or the preceding Spring. The boneache had been bad, they said, and his hands were starting to twist and stiffen - he was nearly fifty Winters old, after all. So he had fumbled his way through the Spring icefishing, and failed to fill his Quota.

His punishment would not have been severe, the Rules are firm but not harsh, but he felt the shame deeply. And when the Brown hunt started his luck stayed bad. His butts seemed to be shunned by the Browns, few came into range of his darts. Desperate to fill his Quota, my uncle had taken to entering the tunnels earlier and earlier, before the waters had fully receded, hoping for a change in his luck.

The Brelani chronicles record only four previous tsunamis, and the one that drowned my uncle was the least destructive. If it had struck only a short while later, dozens of hunters would have been drowned. But it came halfway through the ebb, after a double tide, and the Gron Biglo were safe on shore, and could watch in horror as the silent green wall of water rolled over the ealgrounds and into the dunes.

When it was found that only my great-uncle and a young, inexperienced, Initiate had been trapped, the shock was lost in the greater tragedy, the drowning of the very young calves, thousands of them. Much of the meat was recovered through heroic labour over the next few days, but the next few Winters were tense, until the brown numbers recovered.

The Gron are the Brown eal killers and in truth they deserve higher status than has traditionally been the case. Brown eals are vital to survival on Brelana. Browns give meat, oil, leather, sinew; White bulls only ivory and glandoil to soften leather - we have little use for bullhide except for trade with the Zeppers - and the meat on a White carcass, bull, cow or calf, is black, stinking and poisonous.

But a true Donne would never admit this, scorning the Gron for the relative comfort of the butts during the Brown season, and the greater ease of killing the Brown pups, which yield such riches.

Brown bulls fight in the water, and cover the cows there as well. Only when the White bulls have quickened all the cows and the survivors have returned to the sea do the Brown cows come ashore to give birth. By then the White calves are shedding, and the fine, soft ealwool is blowing across the ealgrounds like low clouds.

Most is caught in the catchfences of the Na Milla, but enough remains for the Brown cows to scrape together into a birthing garland.

Thirty days or so after the birth the cows leave the calves and head back to the sea. By then the cows are lean and weak, drained by the calves, who are shrouded in oil-rich fat a hand and a half thick. Under the fat is tender, tasty meat and juicy liver, and the skin is thin, hairless and supple. But around the nostrils and jaws there is no fat, and the blood runs hot beneath the skin.

A Black dart there, and the calf is dead in three heartbeats, even though they be at least five strides long and weigh as much as four men.

White bulls are much harder to kill. Orcan asked me once: "How could you slay these fearsome beasts, before you had metal? The Zeppers say they are twenty strides long at least, furious as demons, with hides that turn the sharpest blades.

"They say there are numbers of them beyond counting, and the ice is sodden with the blood from the warring bulls. Yet you go out on the ice with these monsters, and kill them. How could you do that, armed only with obsidian weapons?"

His doubts were natural, I suppose, given that at the time of asking he regularly went into action caparisoned in back and breast, greaves and helm, all of the finest Brelani bullhide, with many scrapes and gouges from iron weapons, but no punctures.

I did not tell him the truth, of course, although the memories of my Winter exile were still fresh. It was more than one hundred and fifty Winters ago that the Zeppers taught us never to trust anyone from the South. So even though Orcan disliked Zeppers as much as any Brelani, I lied to him as I had been taught.

So I replied: "Ah, but you must know the Secret. And because of what they did to me, I will tell you the Secret of my sept, the way to kill a bull White, and take his tusks.

"First, you must soak your clothes in ealpiss, and rub ealdung into your hair and face. Then, wrap yourself in the skin of a freshly killed pup, tying it round you most securely, for if it falls off out on the ice you are surely dead.

"Then you must wriggle across the ice like a pup, but this takes many seasons of training to fool the bulls, who are alert and suspicious, and even more ferocious than you have heard. And bigger, more like thirty strides long.

"But the tusks that you desire are the bull's downfall. To strike, he must rear high in the air. And before he strikes, always, he roars his challenge. So, you must pretend to be a pup until you are less than five strides away, then leap to your feet, and scream defiance into his face.

"Then, provided you have not slipped on the bloody ice, you must take your chance, your only chance. As he throws back his head and his mouth gapes, you must fire your arrow up through the soft roof of his mouth, into his brain, then leap aside and hope to avoid his convulsions. Even a stone arrowpoint will kill, if it is aimed true."

And I smiled into his face, and punched him hard on his right shoulder, a gesture he would have accepted from no one else. I said: "Fancy your chances against a bull White, do you, big man?"

And he looked away and mumbled: "Nay, nay, you know I have little skill with the bow, it is a coward's weapon. A noble uses only the sword." Then his jaw dropped and he blenched, for by his code he had just offered me a mortal insult, and he feared my poisons.

But I just laughed, and flourished my fingernails in his face, and laughed again as he flinched, and said: "Brelanis have little use for the sword, big man."

Which is true. We have no use for the bow either. The lethal double-curved bow laminated from Brelani ivory, b'leen and ealsinew, is unknown on Brelana. Anything we need to kill we can kill surer and clearer with a dart. No, the bows were developed by the Rhapso Mantz at least three generations ago, not by us, using a Secret waterproof glue far superior to anything we had on Brelana.

So it is not my fault, or the fault of Brelanis, that this bow ended the dominance of the Bundlords in their plate armour. Ivory and b'leen can drive a Mantzi coked iron arrowhead through plate armour and man alike. But not through bullhide, of course.

Had the Bundlords been prepared to wear bullhide they would still be in power. But it was tainted, ignoble, and so they fell, killed finally by their own arrogance.

So the tale I told Orcan was totally false. Bulls strike sideways, not downwards, and have no soft roof to their mouths, and would not be fooled by any disguise. And the cows would crush you to death long before you got within five strides of a bull. Still, it amused me to think of Orcan or his like smeared in ealfilth, wriggling across the ice to their deaths.

In telling this tale I obeyed the Elders' Edict that said we must never tell any truth to anyone from the South. Given the choice I would always obey the Elders and the Rules as I was taught. But I have transgressed against the Rules many times since I fled South and became the Dassuk. On the way I was forced to kill beast and man, with the Black and the Brown, with blade and noose, with bombard and flamer.

And I have ordered men killed, though rarely with pleasure. Yet the others of the Five, who know more of my history, never understood my reluctance to kill except in self-defence, or supported my efforts to avoid pointless slaughter.

In truth they saw only dark motives or meaningless aberration in my otherwise inexplicable behaviour. Only Khakis occasionally supported me, for he sees little profit to be had from meaningless slaughter, but to the rest I was always a dassuk, bred to kill. Eventually I realised it was only by conforming to their beliefs that I could survive. So I act the dassuk, very convincingly, and let them fear arousing my bloodlust.

So now I sit in my tower, night after night, behind glitterstone two strides thick. Roof, floors and doors are wrought from the finest Mantzi iron; the only windows are a dozen mensheight above the rocks. The barbican is the biggest and most formidable in all Josi Makem.

In the cellar, behind the thickest doors of all, guarded at all times by a long dozen heavily armed veterans, is the silver everyone knows about, the silver that feeds the mint on the ground floor and the spangles and billets the mint produces, the only silver mint now permitted in the whole of Josi Makem.

The silver that no one but Lekk and I know about is elsewhere, of course.

According to popular belief the walls are riddled with secret passages and hiding places, all protected by cunning traps and deadfalls, and poisons. Here, on the uppermost floor, they believe I meet with my army of spies, brew poisons, engage in unnatural sexual practices with Lekk, torture my enemies.

Wrong, nearly all of it. I meet my Eyes and Ears elsewhere, a different rendezvous every time, and my poisons come by special courier, tribute from my homeland lest I interfere with the Zepptrade. And as for secret passages, ask yourself. How do you contrive a secret passage in solid stone and keep it a secret?

Kill all those who worked on it? And all their families? And friends? And anyone they might have talked to, and their families and friends as well?

But secret passages are part of hold tradition, and a secret passage that is not really a secret can perform a useful function. So when I ordered this hold built I made a great performance of flying in a team of masons from faraway Ludda to work on this tower. And I had a secret passage included, then contrived a cunning plot to make the Luddi workmen vanish, as though I had slaughtered them myself.

And when they were gone I carefully wedged and mortared the inner trapdoor shut with my own hands. But before I did I added a few interesting refinements to the traps and trickery installed by the Luddi. There are at least two corpses rotting in there already, because of course the Luddi were tracked down and bribed or blackmailed, by my allies and my enemies, so many know how to find the outer door, and the way to open it. But no one is likely to survive long enough to reach the inner wall, or even to my tower's foundations.

These walls and roof are warranted bombard-proof, but my real fear was that the tower would be undermined and the fine Ricken powder lit beneath me. So I contrived a secret passage that was no secret, to lure both assassins and miners to their deaths, and so far it has performed as I intended. So I am safer here than anywhere else, but even here I never relax.

#  Fourth Revelation

#  Awakening

The Awakening, the ballads later called it, the moment when we finally decided that New Gheenbay, Zeppers and Guilders alike, would have to challenge Krenditzi power. We decided, I write, this is what we tell the balladmakers, but in truth there was no Five then, when Khakis and I first clasped wrists as equals, as allies.

Orcan and Mhet were still running the marshes between them, and it was their smashing of a punitive expedition from Bogron that finally convinced Khakis and I that we did have the power and the means to resist Bund authority. Perlindo was off in Estavana, buying allies or promises of neutrality with Khakis' silver. So when news came of the Middle Green Slaughter, Khakis and I looked at each other, took deep breaths, and finally pledged ourselves to revolt.

Gheenbay old and new had been in a state of high tension for months. Business was good, never better: the Barren Gap could hardly handle the fleets of Zepps that came and departed every daylight hour, and still the Zeppbuilders laboured to build more.

Gas retorts glowed and stank all night: wagonneers toiled all day to keep them fed with greenstone and haul the waste away. The bargewrights complained constantly of kelpstem shortages, and refused to quote delivery dates.

Every quay, every wharf was lined with barges and reedboats, more quays and more wharfs were under construction. Crowds jammed the marketplaces, silver flowed like water. Yet none but the stupid slept easy.

Khakis and most of the other rich Zeppers were spending heavily on their retinues, more and more spearmen in Stripes could be seen marching through the streets, every outside window was being fitted with stout iron shutters.

"Short tempers?" Khakis snarled, when I commented one day on how the dealers and vendors in the Spice Market were as irascible as over-tired children.

"Of course they're short tempered. All this business, all this silver, and none of it secure. Who knows what the factors will demand next year? Who knows how the next Krenditzi Bundlord will deal with Gheenbay? While they control the greenstone quarries we could lose all this, any time. That's why everyone's short tempered."

"So stop whingeing and do something about it, for fuck's sake", I snapped back. "Zeppers have the silver, only the Mantz are richer than the Gheenbay Zeppers. Hire enough mercenaries, kick the Krenditz out of Ber Nathon, take over the greenstone. Who's going to stop you?"

He snorted in denial, but I persisted.

"Look, I've got the water trade in the West under control, nothing moves now down the creeks without paying toll to the Glory Boys. None of the Bunds can get reinforcements through to Toyah Proper without taking heavy losses, no mercenary band will sign up if it means fighting the Glory Boys in the marshes first.

"And the Mantz certainly aren't going to stop selling you weapons. So where's the problem?"

He whirled and pointed out of the window. "There's the problem," he snarled. "The Zepps are the problem now. So many of them, so profitable, so vulnerable. Everyone who has assets has pledged them so they can build more Zepps, buy more trade goods, make bigger profits.

"Zeppers have always been slow to risk a Zepp over land, now you want them to risk everything. Go to war against the Krenditz and every Zepp approaching from the North and the East is fair game for the Bunds.

"Reefers aren't the only ones who know how to pluck Zepps from the sky –but down here we don't need kites. Do you know what everyone in Gheenbay thinks will happen if we challenge the Krenditz?" He gulped more arrak.

"The Bunds will link the watch bags, and fill the skies with hooks. Lines of watch bags on every approach to Gheenbay, thousands of hooks just waiting to snare you. That's what the Mantz did to force us out of Chabbay, it wasn't the bombards, whatever the Mantz claim now. Only this time there's nowhere to go, no safe haven."

He scowled at me. "And nobody believes your Glory Boys can go up against Bunds on full war footing, with levies backing up the militias and the Bundlords themselves in the field.

"No, what they see are Geenbay blockaded and bombards firing into the Zeppsheds and the gas stores, and militiamen raping their women."

He thumped the table with his fist, red in the face, more agitated than I had seen him before. He went on: "The New Gheenbay men might be ready to take such a risk – most of them – but not that collection of old farts in Old Gheenbay.

"Most of the silver they're sitting on was won by their fathers and grandfathers. This generation won't put their balls on the line, that's why New Gheenbay controls everything now except the slave market and the greenstone rates.

"If Oolong and Hasus and the rest really thought we could seriously challenge the established order, they'd be scuttling off to Ber Nathon as fast as their skinny shanks could carry them. Kissing feet, licking arses, promising to fight alongside their rightful lords if upstarts like us ever got too cocky.

"Any revolt against the Krenditzi could turn into war between Old and New Gheenbay instead. And everyone out there senses that, so don't ask me why the spice merchants are so itchy, or the greenstone rate so volatile, all right?"

I sat and looked at him for a long while, long enough for him to refill his glass and gulp the arrack down, twice. I owed him a lot, he could claim. Taking Lekk and I into his household as Curiosities had probably saved my life in the short term at least, and possibly Lekk's as well. And I had needed his protection and financial support as I turned the Glory Boys from marsh marauders little better than the other fishskin bands into a powerful, disciplined force whose real strength was still only known to a very few.

But his fees had been stiff and his profits on the luxury goods we plundered high, so I felt no obligation on that score. I in my turn could claim that his long planned move against the Krenditzi would still be a fantasy without me.

Without me and Lekk and those who joined because of me, Khakis would still be sitting in his counting house, bitter, insecure, virtually friendless. More likely, a Krenditzi bravo would have been paid to cry insult against him and demand satisfaction in the Arena.

I suspected that Khakis had spent a lot of silver over the seasons on illicit weapons training with such a possibility in mind, and was still lean and fit, but he was past forty Wets and no match at all for a young swordmaster schooled by the Krenditzi.

Nor were any of the factors or builders or Zeppcrew, or any of the guilders of Gheenbay, however rich they may be. Every one of them dressed soberly, and walked with downcast eyes in the presence of Krenditzi, however junior. All feared the Arena, most would have kissed feet and paid whatever forfeit was demanded, even given their wives and daughters as bedwarmers, rather than enter it.

They lived in mortal terror of the arbiter, as the Krenditz called the curved two handed arena sword. This was nothing like the weapons carried by the Bund militia, short stabbing blades of sharp but brittle black iron, efficient killing tools. Arbiters were sharpened only for a short distance down the outside of the curve. They were designed to be used by skilled men, to slash not thrust, to wound and scar rather than kill quickly.

In the old days, it is said, disputes in the Arena rarely went past first blood, and young Krenditzi were proud of the scars they won there. They had to be from rich septs, however, for in those days each arbiter was the fruit of months of labour by the Krenditzi weaponsmiths. Bog iron and charcoal and sacrifices to the Lady all came from Toyah then, and weapons made in those days are revered by the Bundlords and claimed to be without peer.

This is excrement, of course. Arbiters were better iron than any issued to militias or levies, arbiters could clash blade to blade without risk of shattering, so a man wielding an arbiter needs no shield to deflect his opponent's blows. But knifeiron from the crucibles of Sentah, beaten out red hot and twisted and folded seven times, is better iron than any of the old Krenditzi weaponsmiths could ever produce, as Orcan proved on the field of battle many times.

An arbiter is no battle weapon, but those who take pride in their skill with it claim it requires levels of dexterity and nimbleness far higher and nobler than those of the melee or the skirmish. Constant practice is needed to maintain such skills, they say truthfully – and therein lies the secret of the fear from which the men of Gheenbay are never free, however large their retinues.

Because edged weapons with a blade longer than a hand are forbidden in Gheenbay, the penalty for any but a Krenditzi Initiate possessing something as lethal as an arbiter would be death for the owner, the enslavement of his family and the confiscation of all his goods.

Rich men of Gheenbay could, and did, practice in secret like Khakis with blunt replicas fabricated from bronze or other alloys, but only a member of the idle rich has the time to train constantly and the money to ensure his sons are schooled from early childhood in weapons like the arbiter and build the muscles a swordsman needs to survive.

So even if a weapon-trained Zepper like Khakis rose to a challenge from a Krenditzi and entered the Arena, the first time he would hold a real arbiter would be when the Honourmaster offered him first choice from the pair of weapons proffered by the challenger.

All the old rituals would be observed of course, but always the batons would be broken to indicate that the Honourmasters would not cry 'Enough' until the challenger was satisfied.

Such affairs were popular amongst the Krenditzi. They went to see upstarts humiliated and taught their place in the world. By tradition, they said, the family and dependents of the man challenged must attend as well, for to stay away implied insult to the Lady as well as the Arena, and hence insult to the Bund which could only be satisfied by forfeit of all goods and enslavement of all family and dependents.

If he was lucky, if the challenger's paymaster was playing a long game, the challenged man might leave the Arena alive, with no more than a few scars and the memory of the public humiliation to remind him of who really ruled in Gheenbay. Towards the end, as the Bund began to believe the rumours of the powers assembling against them, death was the usual outcome.

And not a quick death, not from the arbiter. The challenged man would be lightly slashed about the face and arms first, to get plenty of blood flowing, then clubbed with the blunt side of the blade until his senses were reeling and he staggered about the Arena floor in a manner the Krenditzi crowd found sufficiently amusing.

A skilled swordmaster might attempt the master's kill, the backhand slash across the throat of a standing opponent who still had weapon in hand, but this found little favour among the later crowds, who wished to see humiliation as much as death.

The Death of Five Cuts is what they wanted: first, each hand severed cleanly, backhand and forehand, then hamstringing, each cut behind the knee, to lay the upstart Zepper down in his own blood. If he had enough spirit to struggle to his knees again his reward was the diagonal disembowelling slash across the abdomen. If not his neck was hacked part through: either way the crowd laid bets on how long he would twitch.

Then the Honourmaster would cut off both the loser's ears and present them to the victor: a less skilful death merited only a right ear at best. The ears would be pickled in green glass jars, and displayed in the Hold reception halls, to impress visitors from other Bunds.

It was from such a fate that Orcan had saved Khakis, although his actions precipitated open revolt thirty days before we had planned. Later, of course, the seers said they had known all along that the world would begin to change that day, the Day of First Defiance as it became known, but did the Bund seers who had advised the Krenditzi lords to make their move against Khakis on that day and no other, whatever the cost?

By that time, so close to final, irreversible committal, Khakis rarely appeared in public, and then only with his full retinue. His guards openly wore only mail shirts and carried nothing more threatening than black iron lances, like the guards of all the other rich Zeppers, and thus were no obvious threat to the militias, and were there, the Krenditzi were assured, simply to protect Khakis and his wealth and property from bandits and his enemies among the Zepper families.

By then, however, each guard troop committed to our cause had new bullhide armour in secret store, and coked swords far better than anything the militia carried.

Or the swords also hidden away by the guards of our declared enemies. Still, even when Orcan heeded my summons and came, grumbling but eager, he showed himself as before, as a Curiosity like Lekk and myself, bearing no obvious weapons, venturing out only at night.

Khakis had planned to make the First Defiance himself, on the first of the Days of Reckoning later, when all the men of Gheenbay were supposed to present themselves to their Krenditzi overlord's factors and pay their leases and tolls and taxes. Khakis intended to pay rent only on the small frontage of quayside he still used on Toyah Proper, and nothing for his new land won from the waters at his own cost.

Nor would he pay tolls or taxes on any trade that began or ended on the new land, nor pay ridiculous prices for a leaking barge load of poor quality blacksalt, the quantity being that normally allocated to a household of peasants and thus an insult in any case.

"A man from New Gheenbay buys his salt when and where he wills," he planned to say. "Only those who live on Toyah Proper must pay the salt tax. I live where the writ of the Krenditz never ran and never will."

Fateful words. All in Gheenbay suffered from the salt tax, all were united in detesting it. Far finer salt could be had direct from the new refineries on Smath and Ludda, and much cheaper too, but the Krenditz bought the poorest blacksalt from their allies on Krumah and Lah and forced all within their power, on Toyah Proper as well as Gheenbay, to buy ten times as much as they needed at grossly inflated prices.

This they had always done, and some of the Krenditzi septs had few other sources of silver, and while tolls and taxes could be avoided, Zeppfactor and ironsmith alike had to present themselves on their Day of Reckoning and haul away their salt, usually to tip it straight into the creek.

Making the First Defiance was the first stage in the ancient ritual by which an ambitious sept could break away from its parent Bund and claim Colours of its own. After three Defiances, if the parent Bund had not re-imposed its will, the rebel sept was free, according to tradition, and its name and Colours would be formally granted by the old Bunds. No-one had taken such steps since the Lo Dahtz, four generations ago, but everyone knew of the tradition, and we thought to seek a spurious legitimacy and confuse our enemies by going down this route.

We did not seek Colours, of course, or aspire to Bund status: there was no unity in Gheenbay then, even though Khakis and I had both active and passive support from the majority of those who resided there.

Many from New Gheenbay were sworn to follow us to First Defiance over the salt tax, although none would take the final step until they saw the Glory Boys in full panoply on the waters and the Zepp militias in the markets with swords in hand and bullhide protecting them from the bodkin arrowpoints of the Bund militias. Khakis would have been followed to the Hall of Reckoning, on the shore of Toyah Proper, by a full troop of Smatzi mercenaries, the famed and feared and highly paid Jollymen, wearing Khakis' Stripes of Brown and Red over their bullhide.

These would have surrounded the Hall of Reckoning and guaranteed immunity to all those who chose to join Khakis in his defiance.

Mercenary bombard troops would have been landing on the Market Quay at the same time, a potential threat against all the openly hostile Zeppfactors whose eyots clustered around the Market Place, and those uncommitted, although they would have taken up first position at the Southern shore of the Market Place from where the Hall of Reckoning would have been within comfortable range.

Faced with such provocation, we reckoned, the Krenditzi warlords would have launched the first wave of militiamen over Zeppshed Ridge within three days. We were ready for this and a number of other possible responses –including the Krenditz moving first.

Their obvious move was to send a bravo to challenge Khakis and maybe myself. So we prepared knowing that the tipping moment was close. Rebellion was the talk of the teahouses and the markets for months, not all the Krenditzi spies were known to us, and although those we had detected and turned to sending misleading reports back to Ber Nathon had bought us at least half a year of priceless indecision, in the end Khakis' central role was impossible to conceal completely.

Given time, some-one in the Krenditzi inner council was bound to say: "I told you we should have taken care of that bumptious silvergrubber a long time ago. Now get our best man on to it."

We encountered the bravo they considered their best at the First Lift of the Brown/Red Steedi's new eighteen-bagger, the _Silver Blessing_. Khakis had to be there. The Zepp, as large as any ever built, bore his family's Stripes, and its crew, most assumed, had pledged most of their assets to Khakis to fund its construction and provisioning for a maiden voyage around the Northern Triangle. In fact the _Silver Blessing_ was owned outright by Khakis, and it was bound for Estavana with forbidden weaponry well hidden in its ballast sacks.

It was a day for momentous events. The Wet was over, but thunderstorms rumbled in the distance, and the Eastern horizon glittered with far off lightning. Crenla was already high, a faint pink disc in the sky, a good omen for a First Lift, the Zeppcrews believed. The _Silver Blessing's_ crew would already have fattened the purses of the local seers and spicedealers, and laid the hair shorn from their scalps onto an incense-scented brazier. Already the Lady had rewarded them with a fair wind, and they swarmed through the rigging with unusual briskness.

First Lifts were always excuses for public celebrations and sacrifices to the Lady, and Khakis himself was to donate an impressive mound of aromatic resins and spices and a particularly valued and allegedly flawless flippo calf to the altar, gifts perhaps less appreciated than the beer, arrack and selection of highly spiced titbits he also provided. All who wished could participate, so if a party of Krenditzi youths appeared and shouldered their way to the refreshment tables and amused themselves by sneering at their fellow guests and pulling sour faces at the quality of the arrack, well, there was nothing new in that.

The guilders kept their gaze averted, the rich Zeppers looked for escape routes and summoned their guards around them, and usually the youths would swagger away with flasks of their hosts' best arrack stuffed into their pouches and food stains down their elegant garments, sniggering as they went.

Sometimes, of course, one of the youths would be a paid bravo, who would claim insult against his paymaster's target, and all who saw Krenditzi youths approaching knew this, and tensed. Most quailed: but that day was to be different.

That day we were well prepared, our strategy agreed. Khakis held court within a ring of guards, his and those of the Builders and Factors who stood with him, beakers in hand and eyes never still. The guards separated these men of power from the rest of the celebrants, access through the cordon was at the word of Aran, Khakis' head of household, the only man I ever met who feared Khakis more than Lekk or the Dassuk.

He and the guards had strict, simple orders. If more than five Krenditzi bravos attempted to pass the cordon they were to be resisted, with spear butts only, and they could cry insult and demand satisfaction as much as they wished, but Khakis would ignore them. If they had brought militia in support these would have been marked as soon as they crossed the bridges from Toyah Proper, and the nets and nooses prepared.

Let the Krenditz draw their swords or the militia string their bows and Orcan would have given the order for all out action.

I touched Orcan on the shoulder as he reached for more food. "It's three, just as I said," I remarked, nodding to his left.

He turned smoothly, casually, but I could sense his eagerness. Lekk crooned "Fee, Fee" shaking his head against the jewelled collar and chain he had always worn in public.

"Free," I assented, unclipping his tether and tossing it to a Glory Boy. "But stay, Lekk, stay, let Orcan do it, understand, hey?"

"Sstay, sstay," he grumbled. "Sstay too long, time to kirr, kirr."

I ignored him, focusing on the three swordswinging bravos swaggering towards the line of guards. Khakis spoke from behind me. "Look what they're wearing," he said, with more than a touch of pride in his voice.

The silks and satins were what any young Krenditzi would have chosen to parade himself in before an audience of low rankers. It was the Colours they wore that marked them out. Instead of the pale pastels and whites that normally indicated their highborn status, or the formal Black on White Chequer of Bund Krenditzi, these three were robed in Yellow and Purple, with scarlet sword belts.

"Now it begins," Khakis hissed in my ear. I already knew that. Yellow and Purple were forbidden Colours, to be worn only by supreme Bundlords, and even then the Yellow and the Purple had to be bordered with bund Colours. Here there was no bordering. Yellow and Purple unbordered, worn with the Bloodbelt, were the traditional uniform of Nightwalkers, agents of the Bunds United, creatures of myth and legend, subject to no let or hindrance, with powers of life, death or enslavement without limit.

No such agents had stalked the Seven Islands for many generations. Nor did I believe the Bunds had already united against us, not this soon. This was a bluff, a high-risk charade, but one which our spies had hinted at, one for which I had prepared a particularly elegant riposte. It was also a tribute to the threat the Krenditz saw in Khakis.

And it was their best they sent against him. We expected him; twice in the last year he had administered the Death of Five Cuts in the arena, once on a close ally of Khakis. He had fought Krenditzi rivals to First Blood many times, the spies said, yet none had ever drawn blood from him.

In the manner of such bravos he styled himself Nam Reborn, Nam apparently being an ancient swordmaster of renown. In the Arena his birth name had to be declared, of course: it was Nor dar Stuori dar Krenditzi, as the ballads tell.

He sauntered towards the line of guards, hand on the hilt of the single-handed backsword hanging from the Bloodbelt. Bundlords now fought in full plate armour without shield, a double-edged battlesword in one hand, a swordbreaker or trident in the other. On formal occasions they would carry only the battlesword, sheathed in jewelled leather, slung from a baldric in Bund Colours. The Bloodbelt is archaic, inefficient and uncomfortable, the backsword archaic and clumsy. Both are worn only as symbols, never by a swordsman who expects to need to draw blade for his life.

Orcan laughed as he saw them approach, and let fall the cloak that had marked him as Khakis' man, and pulled off the soft cap that had hidden his hair. I heard the gasps behind me. The guards stood aside as instructed, Nam Reborn and his seconds strode towards Khakis, their pace accelerating. Orcan reached out with his left hand and scooped up an unmistakeable haunch of flippocalf from the steaming vat beside him, and strolled casually into their path.

Their shock was manifest. They checked and stared, faces reddening in outrage. The meat Orcan was munching with exaggerated relish was forbidden to all but high caste Bund Initiates, and Orcan condemned to slavery at least and confiscation of all assets in consequence, but that was nothing compared to what he wore.

Khakis' Brown and Red had hidden a tunic quartered in russet-yellow and deep purple, stronger, more vibrant colours than the three bravos displayed. Nam Reborn glared in outrage. He had to look up a long way to meet Orcan's eyes. He had the wide, almost grotesque shoulders of the swordmaster and meaty forearms too, but like all high ranking Bunders he was small of stature, while Orcan was a head and more taller than most men.

Orcan swallowed his mouthful and gave him a thin smile.

"You have a problem, little man?" he rumbled.

Nam Reborn stepped back, and reddened even further. "What the fuck do you mean by this, you turd?" he shouted, pointing at Orcan's tunic.

"Those are forbidden Colours. This is treachery, betrayal. All here present are condemned...."

At this point Orcan slapped him across the mouth, a blindingly fast backhanded stroke with the hard boned flippohaunch. Nam Reborn staggered back, but kept his feet. Gravy and juices and blood from his broken lips dripped from his chin and stained his silks, juices and gravy and fragments of meat spattered across the silken tunics of his stunned and disbelieving seconds.

There was a frozen moment of silence. Heads were still turning, mouths opening in shock. Nam Reborn slowly lifted one hand and wiped his mouth, his skin waxen under the blood and stains. His eyes left Orcan to stare down at the blood on his hand: I shouted: "Spears!" and a long dozen of Khakis' best guards wheeled away from the cordon and trotted back towards us, spears in the attack position.

Nam Reborn's hand froze on his hilt and he spun on his heel to confront the guards. They opened out into a half circle and halted, points level but still half a spears length clear. Their spearpoints glittered with the mirror brightness of coked iron well polished, not the dull gleam of common spearmetal. Nam Reborn would have noted that.

"Bodkins! Colours!" I ordered, and heard the rustle of more cloaks falling, and the hiss of iron leaving sheath.

And the gasps, from those who had had no foreknowledge of what had been planned. Some of these were our committed supporters, some neutrals who would now have little choice but to commit to our side, tainted as they would be now with our defiance.

When Nam Reborn and the others swung back towards us they saw revealed many in the Russet and Purple quarterings. Each, except Orcan, who continued to gnaw the remains of flippohaunch in his left hand while his right hand lay relaxed at his belt, held a highly polished needlepoint bodkin with fluted blade and inlaid crossguard.

I too had dropped the cloak that had concealed my true Colours, and drawn a bodkin: but the Black pipe was still up my sleeve, the darts freshly charged.

It should not be needed. The bravos were surrounded by the best iron in the Seven Islands, held with intent. From outside the cordon, where the remaining spears were now levelled, came a babble of growing amazement and approval.

To his credit, Nam Reborn had sense enough to leave his iron in the sheath, and courage enough to persist with his mission. He drew a square of embroidered silk from his sleeve and slowly wiped his face and hands, never averting his gaze from Orcan. He tossed the soiled silk away and spoke.

"I have business with a lowborn who styles himself Khakis the Moneylender," he rapped.

"Stand aside, turd, I will meet you again in the Arena."

I stepped up beside Orcan and laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. I spoke to Nam Reborn.

I said: "Lord Khakis dar Eifel dar Steedi has no business with the likes of you. I suggest you take your little sword and your little friends and fuck off back to the Black Sties before Orcan here decides to have your balls for relish."

His gaze swung to me, his face darkening again until it almost matched the purple of his tunic. "You're all dead men," he hissed.

"Forbidden meat, forbidden Colours, and forbidden blades. Dead three times over, food for the arbiter, little lord silvergrubber and his upstart rabble."

I laughed.

"How can it be forbidden for Lord Khakis and his guests to eat Lord Khakis' own meat on Lord Khakis' own ground? This is New Gheenbay, little man, not Krenditzi land. And who in the Seven Islands can forbid the wearing of the Russet and the Frant Purple, the Colours of Brelana?

"My men wear my Colours and they carry no edged weapons. See any edge on this, little man?" I concluded, flourishing my bodkin at his eye level.

"Brelana?" he snapped.

"Still claiming to be a Dassuk, are you, bumboy? I'll have your cock off in the Arena, after I slice this bloated turd down to size. Poisons and tricks are no answer to the arbiter, you'll see, women's weapons like that won't save you."

There was the unmistakeable sound of blade leaving scabbard. Nam Reborn swung back to face Orcan, and again took a backward step. Bloodseeker pointed at his throat, two glittering armslength of finest Mantzi coked knifeiron, Orcan's dream, modelled on the crude weapon he had wielded on the Reefs, but transformed by Mantzi weaponmasters into the most effective killing tool the Seven Islands had ever seen.

"This, however," said Orcan, "this is a man's weapon.

"And it has edges. Very sharp edges. Do you want to find out how sharp, little man? Or do you fancy your chances in the Arena? Dare you cry insult? Or shall I give you a good spanking and send you back with your little sword up your arse?"

Nam Reborn paled, but again his nerve held. He knew the backsword he carried was no match for the massive double-handed Bloodseeker, not while he wore no armour and faced a man with such a reach. In a melee it might be different, mobility and speed might overcome reach and power, but not man to man, not on open ground. He took his hand from his hilt, and stepped forward, until Bloodseeker touched his throat.

Face frozen, body under rigid control, he stared along the length of Bloodseeker and up into Orcan's eyes.

"I cry insult, turd. You have fouled my Colours and defied my Bund, and I seek the judgement of the arbiters."

And he spat on the shining blade at his throat.

Later, the ballads made Nam Reborn out to be a simpering popinjay, a craven buffoon who soiled himself when Bloodseeker was unveiled for the first time, but it was as I tell it. Nam Reborn was arrogant, true, a sadistic killer who loved to humiliate his opponents, also true, but he was no coward. I could never have faced down Bloodseeker the way he did, and went to considerable trouble to ensure Orcan never dared point it at me.

Orcan's reaction surprised us all. He laughed. He said later that Nam Reborn was a true man, and one he could have called friend. So he slowly swung Bloodseeker away from Nam Reborn's throat and wiped it clean on Nam Reborn's silk clad shoulders, left then right, then rested the point just below the bravo's left eye. He spoke:

"And you have fouled my name, and fouled my blade, and I cry insult back in your face. On the Reefs we have no Arena, we seek satisfaction for insult when and where insult is offered."

He paused, and adjusted his grip. There was absolute silence within the spear ring. Outside men jostled and elbowed for a better view, and questioning voices raised, but inside men hardly dared draw breath. Orcan spoke again, and now his voice rang out across the quay like a great bell, and some of the words he spoke were those I had spent weary hours coaching him to declaim with such eloquence.

"I am Orcan, I am Death to the Ironshirts and I take no insult from any man, not from a Krenditzi bullyboy nor from Bundlord either. I am Orcan of New Gheenbay, I carry a man's weapon, I wear the Russet and Purple, and tomorrow I will wear these Colours into the Arena.

"But today we follow the traditions of the Reefs, little man. A blade such as this, a noble blade, must never be drawn without cause, and never resheathed without tasting blood. Today, Bloodseeker tastes Krenditzi blood for the first time. It will not be the last."

And with that he drew the point down Nam Reborn's right cheek, from eye to chin, as delicately as a kiss. Nam Reborn never flinched, or raised a hand to stem the blood that flowed down his cheek.

He stared Orcan in the eye, and snarled at him, loud and clear:

"Tomorrow, turd. In the Arena. With noble weapons, not butcher's cleavers. And I will lick your blood from my blade, turd, and watch your friends shit themselves as they wait their turn to meet the arbiter."

He glared round at us: me, Khakis, Mhet who had passed Bloodseeker to Orcan, the Zeppers behind us.

"I cry insult against you all. All who wear forbidden Colours, all that eat forbidden meats, all that bear forbidden weapons. All will feel the wrath of the Krenditz, whose fief this is and will always be."

Then his arm shot out, finger pointing.

"Tomorrow these named will appear in the Arena to meet the arbiter. Khakis the moneylender. The False Dassuk. The Turd. And all those who wear the forbidden Colours and the Brown and Red and all their dependents will be there, to see the fate of those who forget their place."

Then he spun on his heel, waved his seconds into place, and stalked off towards the bridges that would take him back to Toyah Proper.

#  Fifth Revelation

# First Defiance

It was the tipping point, it was the First Defiance. What Orcan did that night on the quayside was irrevocable. Maybe all had not gone as we had hoped, maybe Nan Reborn's performance had bred doubts in some minds, but we all knew there was no turning back. We glanced at each other, shrugged, took deep swigs of arrak, watched Nan Reborn stalk away, all of us secretly seized with reluctant admiration.

Mhet muttered: "I hope you're as good as with the arbiter as they say, big man, I wouldn't fancy my chances against that cocky little scrat."

Orcan pretended not to hear him, as he went through the complex manoeuvres that returned Bloodseeker to the sheath on his back. The crowds that had been jostling to see and hear what had passed stood aside and let the three through in wondering silence, apart from a few hisses and insults called from those of my men who were stationed amongst them. The heralds that returned with the formal challenges had a rougher reception, and their Krenditzi chequers were well spattered with ordure and filth, and clods were flung after them as they fled back to Krenditzi land.

By that time the cheering had long since started, as the tale of the First Defiance spread and was embroidered with every repetition.

"A flippohaunch in the face, a flippohaunch! Grease all over the Purple and Yellow, blood down his cheek. Death to the Ironshirts has revealed himself, Bloodseeker has drunk Krenditzi blood, Gheenbay is free" and other nonsense, most of it encouraged by my men.

The _Silver Blessing_ lifted off to howling applause, its crew's frantic pleas for a delay ignored. More casebottles were broached, and men crowded round the stewing vats and snatched at flippohaunches and reprised the First Defiance over and over, rubbing meat into each other's faces and crowing like children. Grease and gravy sprayed like rain, stained silk became a badge of complicity.

By the water's edge the Five stood silent: Lekk circled us grumbling inside a ring of our most trusted and best-armed guards. Three of us held the red-ribboned challenges. Mine was addressed to Mramnam Mrecko, the name I had used in my teahouse, and summoned me to answer charges of trafficking in alien poisons and indulging in forbidden practices with my familiar – their term for Lekk, whose true nature was still our most closely guarded secret.

Orcan's hastily scrawled challenge named him only as "the Curiosity claimed to hail from the Reefs' and accused him of bearing a forbidden weapon and sporting forbidden Colours. Khakis, by contrast, received a document obviously long prepared, in immaculate script, listing a long dozen of offences ranging from usury to the importation of diseased bedwarmers.

The heralds had tried to deliver this challenge to Khakis first, so that he would be first in the Arena, but Orcan, roaring, had snatched the parchments from the heralds' shaking hands.

"I gave the first insult," he boasted, "I drew first blood. Tell little gravyface he meets me first, if he has the balls for it."

We laughed, but the other Challenged were all thinking the same thoughts as Mhet. This was a high risk strategy. If Orcan fell there was no way anyone else would enter the Arena, so we would have to take violent action immediately. Mhet wanted me to have Lekk standing by, convinced he could kill any man with any weapon without risk, and claimed the revelations of Lekk's powers would cow the Krenditz present into terrified submission.

Maybe, but many would see such a tactic as shameful, no better than murder, and the man who killed Orcan would become a martyr. Terror was a useful weapon only if applied with discretion. My plans were different.

Nam Reborn would disappear without trace, Orcan would be the martyr, slain by treachery, and that treachery would be the declared motive for the violence I would unleash. Messy, risky, and infinitely less desirable than a clear-cut victory for Orcan. A lot depended on the big man.

Had we chosen to, we could have barred the heralds from our presence and had them and the challenges they bore tossed into the canal. Perlindo had long argued for that option if the Krenditz sent in their bravos, claiming the humiliation of the heralds would be a telling Defiance of the Bundlords, especially if it followed Khakis' First Defiance. But Orcan roared against the plan, dubbing it a craven's trick, and was immoveable in his lust for blood in the arena and the glory that would go with it.

Khakis and I agreed, but for different reasons. He believed three Defiances were two too many.

"We can't give anyone time," he argued.

"Once we're committed we have to move as fast as possible. We don't want any of our lukewarm allies or sworn neutrals having second thoughts and we certainly don't want the other Bunds getting organised.

"A quick strike, cripple the Krenditz, dare the M'Kritz to do anything about it. By the time the other bunds have stopped huffing and puffing and waiting for us to beg for Colours it'll be too late. And we can use Krenditzi silver to keep the watch bags where they can do no harm."

I agreed, but with reservations. Khakis was still just seeking commercial freedom for Gheenbay, and an end to the parasitic embrace of the Krenditz. To me that was just a first stage, a foundation to build on. As long as there were powerful Bund militias out there, and greedy men controlling them, and clever young Mantzis developing who knows what new weapons, we would never be truly safe. The Bunds had to be broken.

Khakis again set great store by the experiments one Mantzi sept were carrying out in deep secrecy. He was convinced they would one day produce an alternative lifting gas from their brown coal retorts, and free Zeppers from their dependence on the greenstone. He funded the research for many seasons, and said even the quietest whispers that leaked out of Sentah of the possibility acted as a damper on the greenstone rates and so his investment paid back many times over.

Me, I thought this meant we would have to control the Mantz as well as the Krenditz, and we could only control the Mantz after we had smashed the rest of the Great Bunds: or all the ones that counted these days at least. It would take more than one battle, more than one campaign, and cost a lot more lives than Khakis was contemplating, I believed.

I had every intention of surviving. So I was happy for Orcan to win glory in the Arena, and planned he should be the face of the rebellion, and battle leader in name if not in practice. I had seen him in action on the Reefs and in the marshes, and knew him as the deadliest fighting man I had ever seen, but with little strategic or even tactical skills, I believed then.

Put a sword in his hand and an enemy in front of him, and he was untouchable. Ask him to plan a campaign or even an ambush, and he grew irritable and flustered, and dangerous to be around. I feared his unpredictable temper: but I had bested him on the Reefs with a lot of help from the Brown, and he had seen what Lekk did to anyone who threatened me with sword or arrow, so I felt safer than anyone in his presence. And he feared me, as did the rest of the Five, so as long as I suggested rather than commanded I was safe.

The ballads will tell you Orcan spent the night before the arena eating and drinking his fill and sporting with an improbable number of harlots in Khakis' best bed. Wrong. That came later. The night before he exercised with blunt arbiters, choosing as opponents the best swordsmen he could find from the guards and the younger Factors.

He knew that the blade he would wield in the arena would be lighter by far than Bloodseeker, faster and more subtle, yet with limited killing power. He had practiced before, and dazzled those few who had witnessed his skills, but now he knew the quality of his opponent, and so he practiced again until darkness fell, then went early and sober to solitary bed.

He was the only one of the Five to see much of his bed that night. Khakis, Mhet, Perlindo and I spent frantic hours confirming that "as expected" the Krenditz had made their play and that the Defiance had taken place already, and that men must begin moving immediately and continue moving until they reached their objectives and not hunker down for the night, as was the custom throughout the South.

The Jollymen, who had arrived in Gheenbay two days earlier and were quartered in secret in one of Khakis' more discreet warehouses, had to be bribed to move earlier than contracted and issued with Colours and the forbidden chiselpoint arrowheads. Bombard troops began to move, but only Khath's ragtag band with their captured bombards and stolen Scroll of Secrets could be inside Gheenbay by morning.

The creeks glowed all night as a thousand torches moved towards the muster points. Lamps shone bright in every window of the house of Khakis. Knifeiron glittered.

On the canals and in the markets and in the boulevards of New and Old Gheenbay the Russet and Purple and the Red and Brown moved upwards like a slow tsunami, securing the bridges, occupying the Hall of Reckoning from which the protective militia had long fled, storming and occupying the stoutly built Krenditzi factor's dwellings on the low hummocks that flanked Zeppshed Ridge.

As expected, the Krenditzi militias fled South, miring themselves in the Cham Bogs. A few tried to swing around the Western fringes and seek refuge in Ber Nathon, but there were swords waiting for them in the darkness. We wanted no word reaching Ber Nathon that night.

That night the First Battle of Gheenbay was fought and won, whatever the ballads say. There was little resistance, few died on either side, indeed our biggest danger came from the drunken, hysterical rabble the inhabitants of Gheenbay had become, who trailed our men in amiable hooting hordes and kept pressing strong liquor on them and encouraging them to loot any property that failed to display the Red and Brown. Even Orcan's ever present lieutenants, respected and feared as they were, could barely keep order, and at that stage we were not yet ready to show iron to Gheenbay citizens.

But once I heard that our key objectives were secured and there were no Krenditzi militia within Old Gheenbay I ordered the Glory Boys I had raised in Gheenbay back from the perimeter and set them patrolling with padded maces, and little damage was done in the end, for all the noise and panic.

All that night the spies crept in, from Toyah Proper, and Sa Toyah, from Smilt and Makrali and even Ber Nathon itself. They had already warned us the Krenditzi warlords had been pulling their best men back into Ber Nathon, leaving the ancient forts that still guarded the eastern shores of Toyah Proper against their traditional foes the M'Kritz staffed only with the old and the lame.

Even Sa Toyah had been left virtually undefended by the Ra Malinz, who had had little choice but to ally themselves with their bellicose neighbour and send the bulk of their Sa Toyah garrison in a frantic dash across the Greenway: but the M'Kritz sat tight in their holds on Makrali and waited on what the Lady would decide.

Not all the men summoned had arrived: although the bulk of the Glory Boys were now in Gheenbay our flanking parties had harassed the Ra Malinz in the Greenway and destroyed much of their water transport. Food stores had been torched, sluices opened, messengers ambushed. But near three thousand well armed well trained militiamen lay in the Black Sties that night, and laid bets on how long Orcan would last against Nam Reborn, and told the usual jokes about the False Dassuk.

Six bombard troops had been engaged: only three had made it through the screen of Glory Boys, two of these had been badly mauled in the process. No regular mercenaries had accepted the Krenditz silver yet.

Against these we had five hundred of the Jollymen, with their Brelani bows and Brelani bullhide and the finest Mantzi knifeiron, twice that number of Glory Boys under my direct command, most of them Huntzi, and five hundred or so Zepper guards wearing the Red and Brown, again over mail and bullhide. And six bombards, which the Glory Boys had never fired in anger before.

Arbitration was set for high noon. Orcan rose early, and was bathed, massaged and oiled well before noon. He passed the time talking quietly to those who had witnessed Nam Reborn in action: we already had a few disaffected and disinherited Krenditzi amongst our numbers even then, who preferred to work for Khakis than seek uncertain employment amongst the mercenary troops. Some of them had seen Nam Reborn matched against other Bund swordmasters, fighting to First Blood, and they told them what they knew of his preferred tactics against expert swordsmen.

By the time we moved out from New Gheenbay in strength Orcan was as ready as he would ever be, and eager beyond telling for the confrontation. Only a minority in the crowd that surged towards the Arena wore Russet and Gold or Red and Brown Stripes. Most were our committed supporters, with Stripes and Colours under anonymous robes, others were there reluctantly, fearful of the probable outcomes, bribed and threatened to attend.

I made sure the leaders of the main Guilds were there, and the bulk of the Zeppfactors, along with the most influential gasmasters and Zeppbuilders. All the powers in Gheenbay would be present there that day, or have their spies there ready to report back.

There would not be room for all. The Arena held maybe six hundred spectators in various degrees of comfort, with half the seating reserved for Krenditzi. In front of the main entrance stood a stolid phalanx of guards in Black and White Chequers. They were vigorous in admitting only those to whom I had issued ceramic tokens: even so, something more than four hundred squeezed in and sat sweltering on the unshaded benches.

As many again were pushed back away from the gate and off the paved North-facing terrace at the entrance, where they occupied themselves with jeering at the guards and making threatening gestures.

None of this was real. The guards were our men, and were ready to strip off the Chequers and reveal their true Colours when the moment came. We hoped the Krenditzi would notice nothing untoward when they arrived, and enter in ignorance.

Naturally, they kept us waiting, and it was close to noon before a flourish of clarions heralded their arrival.

The Arena stood alone, North of the Zeppsheds, West of New Gheenbay, surrounded at a discreet distance by fortified factors' villas with Chequers still flying. A broad path paved with redstone quarry waste imported from Sentah led from the Ber Nathon road to the entrance terrace. Perlindo had been keeping watch from the upper tier of Arena seating, and came clattering down to me with a satisfied grin.

"No word got through to them, it seems," he muttered.

" There must be two tens of tens, but most of them look like highborn youths out for a spree, there's no armour or weapons on show. And they're laughing, so the stupid farts noticed nothing on the road in, so the guilders are keeping their word."

I had placed Perlindo next to me, because he claimed familiarity with the Arena and spoke knowingly of sword skills and duel tactics. On my other side was Khakis, who slapped his hand on the rail in front of him as he watched the Highborns take their seats in the shady boxes opposite us.

"The stakes have just been raised, Stinger," he muttered in his turn.

"That's young Ragen there, the Bundheir, and four of his uncles, and somebody obviously important wearing Smit Malinzi Blue and Black.

"Are you sure there's no movement out of the Black Sties yet? This lot didn't have much of an escort, considering how important they are?"

"Relax," I replied.

"Nothing could get by the Glory Boys, not with Lekk to help them. What's happening here is what matters."

Clarions sounded again as I spoke, then cheers rose from the Krenditzi seats as the two honourmasters marched out onto the dry white sand of the arena floor. They wore Chequered masks and Chequered robes down to their ankles, and bore the long rakonstem staffs of office.

These were supposed to be used to enforce their rulings on the combatants, to punish transgressions with a sharp blow to the upper arm, to signal cessation at First Blood. But now they stepped out a ritual progression, and mouthed formal words that were drowned by the racket from the stands, and formally broke their staffs across their right knees, and paced solemnly to the edge of the arena, and folded their arms.

Another clarion cut through the din, but only triggered an even louder roar as Orcan strode out onto the hard packed sand of the Arena floor. Bare to the waist, he looked inhuman, huge, heavily muscled, his much-scarred skin gleaming, moving with a blithe assurance, his face set and remote. His sash was Striped, but Russet and Purple, its significance not lost on the New Gheenbay men in the audience, his mass of hair was heavily greased back and plaited into a short queue.

Another roar, and Nam Reborn strutted in. His sash was Chequered, his leggings black, his squat body as freakish as Orcan's, with long, elastic muscles rippling over his shoulders and arms and his long straight hair wound into a plain ball secured with a silver pin. He raised one arm to acknowledge the Krenditzi cheers, but paid no attention to Orcan, who was studying him intently from his left.

Servitors handed two cases to the honourmasters, who paced forward, opened them in unison, and offered first choice to Orcan, as the challenged.

He took his time, assessing the balance of each, testing the edges, flexing them against the ground. His choice made, he stepped back, the arbiter looking toy-like in his huge fists.

Nam Reborn turned, strolled casually across, and took up the remaining arbiter. He swung it, shrugged, and took up position some ten paces from Orcan, with the blade held straight up and down in front of him, motionless. Now his gaze met Orcan's unblinking stare, and he sneered, and said something inaudible to the crowd, which Orcan later claimed he had no memory of, which was no barrier to the creativity of the balladeers.

Absolute silence fell, for ten heartbeats or less. Then the honourmasters' voices rang in unison: "Judgement!"

Afterwards there were many who would recount every feint and counterfeint, every cut and parry, every advance and retreat. No two accounts matched. To me this was no wonder. All I recall are flurries of movement too fast for the eye to follow, iron glittering, two figures moving in and out and round and back in a deadly dance lit by fountains of sparks as the blades slammed into and slid off each other.

Perlindo so forgot himself he was pounding me on the shoulder with excitement, shouting in my ear without hardly pause to draw breath. "Shit, the big man's fast, really fast, but the little turd is an edge faster.

"Orcan's depending on his reach, but he's trying too many head cuts, he's leaving himself open on the backhand."

Then he let out a great yell of despair, as the fighters separated, and blood was visible on Orcan's upper left arm. There was just time to realise the cut was not immediately decisive before the duel recommenced at an even higher pitch.

There was general agreement later on the final kill. Orcan went for a massive backhand throat cut, and this time it nearly got through, Nam Reborn's parry was weak, but it deflected Orcan's blade enough that Nam Reborn could sway back in time to keep the edge from his neck.

But not from his nose. Blood spurted; but Orcan was now exposed on his left again. Nam Reborn cut reflexively, and Orcan stepped swiftly back, his left hand falling from the hilt, and blood pumping from his upper arm in alarming quantities.

Nam Reborn ignored his own blood. As the Krenditzi cheers washed over him, he turned his head slightly to the right, and opened his mouth.

All I saw, in my heartbeat of despair, was a blur of movement from Orcan, and then he was crouched there, fully extended in an unprecedented single handed lunge which had smashed the blunt point of the arbiter through Nam Reborn's teeth and through his brain and out through the back of his skull.

For an endless moment both figures were frozen. The arena lurched as every man there leapt to his feet and screamed. Nam Reborn's sword slipped from his grasp, his knees buckled, life left his body.

Then Orcan did something beyond imagination, and entered into legend. He stepped forward to take the weight and returned his blood drenched left hand to the hilt, and lifted the limply dangling corpse by the blade through its skull, and paraded it around the arena. Blood sluiced down his arms, his eyes popped, his teeth snarled, he roared his triumph like some wild beast as he brandished the corpse on high. For those moments he was more than human, and the crowd knew it.

Four hundred men punched the air and screamed their ecstasy and relief, and the noise reverberated off the arena walls in a mind-numbing crescendo as Orcan stalked across to the Krenditzi side and let the corpse of Nam Reborn slide off the arbiter's blade and tumble in an untidy heap in front of the Bundheir.

The ecstasy of relief that surged through me almost scattered my wits, but I shook myself aware, and prepared for the end game. I gave my signals, more than once, but my men were well chosen and had regained control almost as fast as I had.

The Honourmasters stumbled forward, unmasked, shaking, one with the blade case open in his hand, the other empty handed, his official function to cut the ears from the loser's corpse using the loser's blade. Reluctantly they approached Orcan, who was flaunting himself in front of the Krenditzi benches, arbiter held high, blood spurting disregarded from his left arm.

This was the moment of highest risk. We wanted hostages, not corpses. Behind me men were beginning to show their true Colours and unsheathe forbidden weaponry: swords were being drawn on the Krenditzi benches as well. It all hung on Orcan remembering the plan, lost as he was in battle fury and drunk on triumph.

He glimpsed the Honourmasters out of the corner of his eye, and spun, snarling, blade ready to strike. Then, as the old men cringed, he seemed to feel an unaccustomed embarrassment, and the snarl faded. He wiped the blade on his sash, and proffered it to the Honourmaster, and waved the other away from Nam Reborn.

I had watched the Bundheir screaming instructions at those around him. Now, apparently in response to his demands, there was a rush of Chequers into the Arena; a dozen or more men surrounded Orcan and hustled him away, the rest lined up in front of the Krenditzi benches, facing us across the sand. Tension ebbed on those benches; behind me I could hear puzzlement, and growing frustration.

A guardsman in Chequers entered the Bundheir's box and addressed him. I did not have to be there to know what was said, I had drafted the words for him. Jerl, Orcan's most trusted lieutenant and a renegade M'Kritzi, could easily pass for a Krenditzi guard captain, and he played his part to perfection.

"Best you all leave now, Lord, before these lowborns offer further insult to Bund Krenditzi," he was to say.

"My men have secured the terrace outside, the ones here will hold the rabble back until you are clear with dignity. Then you can progress back to Ber Nathon with us as your escort, at your own pace."

An undignified exit under threat was unacceptable, of course, so the Krenditzi filed out defiantly and emerged into an arc of guardsmen showing Chequers, facing out and away from them, spears lowered. Back in the arena I had vaulted the barrier and trotted across as calmly as possible to meet Khakis' woundmaster, who had just emerged from under the stand.

I had to know how dangerous Orcan's wounds were. Davo blurted:

"He's fine, Lord, a few stitches, a honey poultice and he'll be wielding iron within a week."

He was exaggerating, but I signalled my pleasure and relief and looked about me. All around the guards were stripping off their Chequers to reveal a carefully calculated balance of Red and Brown Stripes and Russet and Yellow – there were even a few token Marsh Green tunics there, although almost all of the Glory Boys were in ambush positions along the road from Ber Nathon. Swords were passed down from the stands.

I formed them up, and we clattered out onto the terrace, to the shock and horror of the Krenditzi. They spun around to seek protection from the Chequered guards behind them, then quivered and yelped with dismay when the guards turned to reveal the Russet and Purple and Red and Brown on the front of their surcoats.

"Throw down," I bellowed.

"Throw down, and live. We wish to trade you, not kill you."

I repeated this three times as the guards began to close in, then shoulders slumped, and swords and daggers began to clang onto the cobbles.

We marched them back into the Arena, more than two hundred of them, and as they shuffled in the cheering started again. Behind them the mob from outside swarmed in, bursting into roars of acclamation as they glimpsed the bloody corpse on the sand. Left alone, they would have mutilated and probably dismembered the remains, but the guards again pushed then back, so they contented themselves by clambering up into the now empty Krenditzi area, and shouting down insults.

I swung myself up into the Bundheir's box. Cheers arose, some of them mocking. Bugles sounded. Silence fell, anticipation simmered. I spoke.

"Men of New Gheenbay, did you enjoy the entertainment the Five provided today? Well, did you, hey?"

A roar of affirmation answered me. I went on:

"Have no worries about Orcan. He is recovered already, and demanding arrak by the bucketful and bedwarmers by the dozen."

A roar of relief and laughter this time, and chants of "Orcan! Orcan!"

I waited, smiling, then continued:

"The Five were born in many different lands, but we are all men of New Gheenbay now. And do you know what makes men of New Gheenbay different from Bunders, hey?

"We sweat for our silver, right? If we get rich, it's because we're stronger or cleverer than the rest. Nobody hands it to us on a plate.

"Not like the Bunders, not like the Krenditzi. Those fat parasites sit on their arses all day, counting silver they screwed out of us. They demand headtax, salt tax, land rents for land other men sweated to build, duties on goods men risked everything to bring across the world to Gheenbay. Silver bleeds out of Gheenbay, our silver, and what do we get in return?

"Militias who rob and beat you without penalty. Bullyboys strutting the streets with swords. Slavers seeking your daughters. Dirty salt. They take and take and take and give nothing back. And we say we've had enough."

They had been cheering me as I spoke. Now I raised my voice again.

"We have had enough. Have _you_ had enough - well, have you?"

"Yes!" they screamed back, shaking fists, cheering, Zeppers, Guilders, supporters, doubters, the uncommitted, the faint of heart: all cheering, all united. I raised my arms for silence.

"First Defiance had been made, and what did the Krenditzi do about it? They sent their best man, but we sent ours, and you saw what happened." I pointed down at Nam Reborn's distorted corpse.

"The man that did this is the man who will lead Gheenbay to freedom. Orcan and Bloodseeker will scatter the cowardly militias to the winds. Will you follow him?"

And 'yes! they roared again. I pointed upwards, to where the Chequers flew over the Arena. "Those are the last Krenditzi Colours that will ever be seen in Gheenbay. Let them fall for ever!"

As I finished, one of my Gheenbay recruits, Dharin the Ropewalker, leant over the balustrade that topped the Krenditzi stands and slashed the flag clear of the halyard. It fluttered down into the Arena, and by sheer luck spread itself over the Krenditz front ranks. There were titters of mirth as the Highborn struggled free of its embrace.

I spoke again. "Gheenbay has no Colours, but we need no permission from any ancient Bunder before we fly the flag we chose."

Dharin was swiftly bending on a new flag, still unfurled. I waited until he signalled, then spread my arms wide.

"Men of New Gheenbay, the Five will not fight under Russet and Purple or Red and Brown. Behold the flag we will fight under, the flag we will triumph under."

I signalled, and the flag broke out, brilliant White silk against the blue sky, Black Isles silk bleached by the secret new process just developed by the Mantz.

"No Colours. No Stripes. No Badges. Virgin White is for everyone in Gheenbay. Zeppers and Huntzi and Guilders will fight side by side under the White. Men of New Gheenbay, will you take this flag as your own?"

Of course they would. At that moment I could have revealed myself as an uncircumcised Brelani and got away with it – for a while at least. Food and drink appeared, White flags were handed out, and all the while the Krenditzi hostages shifted uneasily in the centre of the Arena, no doubt calculating if their Bundlord valued them enough or if he considered he had plenty of sons and brothers without them.

It took him three days to make up his mind, and we had to torch the Arena and then the harbourfactor's tower to get him to decide. Then he launched his militias straight up the Ber Nathon road, straight into the ambush so carefully prepared, where the Huntz had lain patiently since First Defiance. We destroyed them utterly, and then there was no turning back.

#  Sixth Revelation

# Haruma

She will be knocking at my door again, at the sixth bell of morning. Haruma. She will stand there, bitter, resentful, dressed against her will in what her aunts think is provocative clothing, reminding me of my duty. And I will go with her to her room, and climb into her bed, and we will lie side by side and stare at the ceiling until her maids come. Thus we placate her aunts, and the rest of her Bund, and maintain the illusion.

The necessary illusion. For while everyone thinks they know I am impotent, as long as I share a bed with my consort on her fertile nights I maintain the Bund conventions.

She is Highborn, of course, as they reckon things down South. When I realised the benefits that would flow did I chose a mate from amongst the Bunds that had remained neutral during the war, I naturally chose one from the most traditional, the Purz.

Not the largest, not the richest, but one of the most respected, flying Solid Red, the single Colour a mark of great antiquity. Before the rise of Gheenbay and Sentah, respect came less from wealth or success than from ancient lineage, obsessive adherence to custom and ruthless treatment of inferiors. A strong Hold was a mark of status as well, of course, but had to be located on what passes for high hills in the South to really accrue respect.

It was about a hundred days after the last of our enemies accepted our rule. Khakis and I were relaxing in his inner sanctum; it was the coolest room in Josi Makem until I built this tower. At first sight the sheer luxury of the room, the Lahti marble, the bronze, and pinchbeck, the stained glass, was a strange setting for one so notoriously austere and mean as Khakis.

True, the building itself had cost him much silver. Mantzi brick and iron never comes cheap, and since the wars iron tiles were replacing the copper roof, after much anxious figuring by Khakis' masterbuilder. Until my stronghold on Ras Island was completed this was the strongest building in Gheenbay, and its moneyroom was stuffed with the spoils of war. Khakis was now openly minting spangles and billets, each stamped with a pentagon, melting and refining Bund silver to feed the presses.

He planned to monopolise the minting of currency throughout Josi Makem: so did I, but he had yet to realize that. His reputation before the wars had largely been built on the purity of the silver he had covertly minted and ambiguously marked – even the bundlords preferred his coinage to their own. But it had been a high risk strategy, with the shadow of the Arena always present.

Even as we sprawled there, relishing the cool breezes that came through the tall windows overlooking the water, there were guards at every door and below every window, guards on the roof, guards out on the creeks and the canals. Guards in pairs: Khakis' personal retinue, my Glory Boys, stiffly ignoring each other, rigid with mutual contempt, united only in their detestation of the Bund militias.

All this made sense. Money spent on security was an essential investment for a Zeppfactor like Khakis. But luxury, ostentation?

Khakis, when he bothered to justify this apparent extravagance, claimed the room put his clients at a disadvantage. While they were goggling around them, he said, they were unlikely to read all the clauses in the contracts they were agreeing. And thus, he said, he had repaid his original investment many times over.

This may be true, of course. Myself, I now believe his main motive was to annoy the other Zeppfactors in Gheenbay, whose counting houses traditionally were sombre, unwelcoming places, with no obvious display of wealth lest they attract the unwelcome attentions of the Krenditz. Even the use of marble was technically a crime for which Khakis could have faced the Arena.

Dressed and mortared stone was forbidden more than a mansheight above double spring tide level, but Khakis claimed this did not apply to his floors and walls, which were internal, and held together with iron pegs not mortar.

Whatever the reason I often had opportunity those days to benefit from his fancy. That day in particular, for it was one of the hottest of that year's Dry, and the Five had been sitting in state hearing petitions from our new subjects. When we finally lost patience and called a halt to the interminable complaints Mhet and the Dodo had hurried off to sample the women in a new bathhouse, Orcan returned to his armourer, only Khakis and I were left. And Lekk, wallowing in a marble tub.

Khakis and I moved to the window seats and opened a flask of matured arrack. I removed my surcoat and shirt, and my boots, and put my feet up. Khakis, as was typical of the man even when relaxing, retained the full formal robes of a two-stripe Zeppfactor, but he did unlace the neck slightly, toss his heavily jewelled turban into a corner and let his hair down to his shoulders. He even crossed his legs.

We talked of nothing much for a while. Both of us were still savouring our new power, elated by the memory of the audience where so many Highborn had had to crawl to us, and how they had scuttled away when Orcan had hammered the hilt of Bloodseeker on the great bronze and marble high table, and roared: "Enough, enough" at them.

So we drank more than was wise, and so our tongues were loosened, and I began to talk more freely than I normally dared.

I said to Khakis, "I need a consort, Silverballs. All the Five have consorts now, except me, and are stronger for it. But the balance is wrong. Yours is from an Estavani Zeppfactor family, Mhet has taken a high status Huntzi and made her pregnant already; Orcan has those two Krenditzi girls. And the Dodo and his consort are from the Blue/Black Chekana, and very smug about it."

"What's wrong with that?" he asked, idly polishing the massive silver wristband he had begun to wear, part of the spoils from the Turning House.

I replied: "Do I need to spell it out? Apart from Mhet, and who in Gheenbay gives a shit about the Huntz, you're all allied to families from Gheenbay or Toyah. The old Bunds are still out there, you know, licking their wounds. We may have beaten them, but we haven't broken them yet".

He looked at me and laughed. "What, you are seriously proposing to take a Bunddaughter as consort? A Highborn from the Kratz or the Liminz? I like it. Stinger and a Highborn, what a pretty picture."

Then he sobered and looked at me thoughtfully. Alone of my allies he respected my political instincts, though he ascribed them to low animal cunning rather than intellect.

He said: "You're right, you know, Stinger. Allying you with one of the old Bunds would strengthen the Five.

"But not one of those we fought. We need one of the neutrals, one with a good name but not too much silver or too big a militia, one we can bribe or threaten."

The Purz have a very good name, even though their main fortress, Bel Kavana, is a leaky, crumbling snail hold, and their militia down at heel, undisciplined and armed only with rusty spears. But Bel Kavana stands high above the fertile plains of Eastern Krumah and the Purzi Bundlords enforce purdah and suttee on their women and maintain discipline among the peasants and their slaves with an iron fist, and sneer at all those reformed Bunds that have grown wealthy through trade or industry.

Selling one of their daughters is different, of course. Many junior bunds and ambitious septs purchase females from the old Bunds, and the Purz owe much of what wealth and influence they still have through alliances contracted this way. So we chose the Purz.

Khakis explained it to me, trying hard to avoid the dassuk word. He said:

"Look, we can forget the Lo Dahtz and the Ra Smitz, they've got too many links to those we smashed. And even with the Purz there's no hope of a daughter of the Bundlord's line. Face it, Stinger, you may be one of the Five, but to the old Bunds you're still the blue-arsed babyeater from the North.

"There's not enough silver in the world to buy you one of the Bundlord's issue. But we could perhaps afford a brother's or sister's child."

He paused, then added:

"And, of course, there is the added benefit of the Thesari."

He looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

I sighed.

"Who are the Thesari, why would they be a benefit?", I asked dutifully.

"Not who, what", he replied.

"Flippos, of course. The Purz raise the Thesari strain, even you should have heard of them. Small beasts, true, but very well-marked, strong marbling, plenty of white where it shows, bold eyes".

He rambled on enthusiastically, his passion for the amphibious cropeaters typical of his class. It all meant little to me, but I gathered that by taking a Purzi consort a little of the fame of the Thesari would rub off on me. I allowed myself to be convinced.

There was another factor, never openly acknowledged. Bel Kavana might be in disrepair, but its elevation still attracted envy and greed, as did the fertile pastures of Eastern Krumah and the broad grazing waters of the Southern Green. The Purzi Bundlords knew there were always those amongst the Kratz and the Lo Dahtz who kept a calculating eye on the Purzi militia. However distasteful an alliance with the Dassuk might be, it was bound to give pause to any aggressive intentions, they obviously hoped.

Properly, I should have used a tassa, an elderly female relative, and sent her to visit the Purzi aunts and inspect the girlflesh and open negotiations. Lacking such a relative I sent Khakis and his consort. Very uncouth I have no doubt, but no more than would have been expected from a dassuk. Khakis tried to demand the traditional tassa's fee, I told him to milk the Purz for a commission.

They went the easy way, by barge to Sha Shona, Krumah's only decent waterport then by the new railcar across the central ridges. Khakis said it took two long dozen of Kratzi railmen to drag the car over the summit and nearly as many to brake it on the descent, and that the rails came to a sudden halt at the Purzi boundary cairn, from where they were carried on the backs of Purzi peasants to a chilly welcome at Bel Kavana.

He came back gloomier than ever, grumbling about the arrogance and greed of the Purzi negotiators, but I could tell he was satisfied with the outcome.

"I've got you a brother's daughter, Stinger," he said. "They tried to fob me off with some ancient hag, hardly even a cousin, but I held out for the one Mona recommended.

"She has seen fifteen Wets. I am assured she is beautiful, she should be, she's going to cost you enough."

"How much?" I asked.

"Half a mansweight, a Gheenbay mansweight, mind, I wouldn't trust Purzi scales."

Seeing my look of shock, he added: "Don't worry, your share of what we took from the Krenditz alone is ten times that.

"And you only have to pay half on arrival."

He winked, then laughed as I look puzzled.

"You'll have to get used to how we order things here," he said. "Half when the girl leaves her family, half when she gives you a son. That's the civilised way."

I asked: "What's her name, then, this fabulously expensive female?"

Khakis looked shocked.

"She has no name yet, Stinger. If you intend to be known as Harum from now on, she will be Haruma, of course, the Lady Haruma."

It is true. Josi Makem highborn girls have no name until they are chosen as consorts. Even at their Initiation they are only named as "daughter of..." Of course their mothers and their aunts give them childnames, but these are never known to the men.

Most men in fact give their consorts informal names, private names that only they and a few trusted male friends know. Thus the Lady Khakisa was known to Khakis, and to me, as Mona.

So I collected a set of the new, Five-licensed official Gheenbay scales and journeyed in state to Bel Kavana on the far shore of Krumah, a tedious journey as we had to take little-used channels along Krumah's South and East coasts and dock at a tumbledown quay, which was all the Purzi, could offer in the way of wharfage.

There, I handed over a fortune in silver to stiff, arrogant men in shabby robes who avoided my gaze and offered neither refreshment nor accommodation. All I got for my money, which was accepted in bad grace after I produced my own scales, were some vague promises, a mis-spelled marriage contract written on grubby batskin, and seven women.

One, a slim figure completely hidden beneath layers of indigo linen appeared to be drugged and had to be led by the arm like a blind creature. Behind her six much fatter females swathed in black set up a dolorous lamentation. It was a far from impressive procession that draggled back down to the barges.

For his own amusement Khakis had omitted to explain exactly how traditional the Purz were. The female I had bought like a sack of vegetables had seen no man since her fourth year, not even her own father. He alone had ever seen her uncovered face, spied through a peephole before her Initiation.

Instead, her aunts had brought her up, as they call all female relatives past the age of childbearing. And it was six of these aunts I was expected to take into my own establishment, and feed and clothe them, and give them silver and jewels adequate to satisfy their sense of what was proper for their status.

There was another custom Khakis had concealed from me. Another cacophony announced the arrival of fifty flippo calves, all no doubt beautifully marbled, but all lamenting their recent separation from their mothers in discordant hoots. The Purzi herdsmen disdained to help my retinue load them. No wonder, as the frantic beasts voided themselves of unbelievable volumes of shit as they were dragged over the side.

I sold them to Hasus, formerly Khakis' biggest rival, for a knockdown price as soon as we got back to Gheenbay, so I gained some revenge on him. But the aunts I had to endure.

I grew to hate these stupid fat creatures. The Purz made sure that they got rid of the laziest, most quarrelsome of all, of course, and only the fear of the Dassuk's rage keeps them in any sort of check. But I hate them most for what they did to Haruma.

That first night, after we had returned hungry and thirsty to our barges with the lamentations of the aunts grating in our ears, I had little enthusiasm for sharing my cabin with her. Why should I? I could not believe she had any interest in my attentions, scarred as I knew she was from the Initiator's knife. But Khakis had told me that I must be seen to have consummated the union, or give deadly insult to the Purz, so eventually I told my body servant to bring one of the aunts to me.

I heard the wailing from the forepeak redouble as he delivered the summons, and the shrieking as he lost patience and dragged the nearest one away. When she was brought to my presence she collapsed on the floor in front of me, and laid there quivering and babbling and moaning like a madwoman.

Her accent was so strong I could understand nothing of what she was saying. My body servant was grinning openly, as were my guards. I snapped: "What's so funny, what is this fat cow saying?"

"She's begging for her life, Lord", the body servant explained. "She thinks you are going to eat her."

Anger flooded through me as I began to make out the word "dassuk" in her babblings. Not because of the word itself, you understand, but because I would now be forced to take action. No one could be allowed to call me dassuk to my face if I was to retain my reputation.

So I leaned forward and touched her with the Brown, and she toppled silently. I heard the indrawn breaths, saw those around me stiffen with revulsion and fear, heard the warning rumble begin in Lekk's throat, repressed my surging anger.

"Thus is she punished for the insult," I announced in my Lord Recorder voice.

"Were she a man she would have died instantly. But she will sleep now, and wake with demons gnawing her brain, and perhaps she will learn her lesson. Because the next time I hear such insult from her she dies."

It was what they expected from the Dassuk. They were also expecting me to go to my cabin and ravish the woman waiting therein. I had thought to sent the aunt in front of me to give her some warning, to ask if she needed refreshment or the place of easement, but now I was impatient to get the whole stupid business over with.

There was one more tradition to be observed, which I did know about. So the great jars were hoisted out of the hold, and the cauldrons heated over brown coal braziers lit on the shore, and my crew ate and drank to satiety in my honour and at my expense.

I had little appetite for boiled flippo and Huntzi beer, but I had to choke down some of the choicer cuts, and drink several tankards of the sour, gassy beer. As soon as everyone else was past noticing my absence, I slipped away.

Entering my cabin I was struck first by the stink of fresh piss. My new consort was nowhere to be seen. I gritted my teeth. My expectations of that night had not been high, based as they were on the total passivity of such highborn hostages I had been forced to sample during our campaigns, but I had not expected this.

And I was angered by the soiling of my cabin. It was the finest afloat, as was my state barge. Once it had belonged to the DaDanzi Bundlord, but when we were harassing the DaDanzi fleet before our crossing to Bogron, Mhet and Lekk and I climbed up its anchor cable one dark, wet, moonless night.

There were thirty militiamen aboard, and the Bundlord cavorting with three painted bedwarmers. The bedwarmers, none of whom had seen more than twelve Wets, we spared, the militia that stood and fought Lekk killed. The Bundlord, a fat, smelly little man we took for ransom. Then we cut the cable and let wind and tide take us back to our own forces.

The DaDanz appeared unruffled by their loss, and stood their ground as long as any when the whipstickers went to work before Harum Hill a week later. Pod Gar struck its Colours as our forces approached, and the ransom, a mansweight of silver, was paid with poor grace. Nor did the surviving DaDanz seem overjoyed at the safe return of their lord, who had little dignity left after ten days in the hands of the Glory Boys. We kept the barge as well.

Mhet scorned such a modern craft, preferring the Huntzi reedboats, so I claimed it for my own. I had to give Mhet my share of the ransom, of course, but I had wanted my own barge since I came to Josi Makem and saw men sail on water for the first time.

Until then open water represented danger, and mystery. It was the home of the rhales that smash any work of man that ventures on it, it was the source of riches; b'leen kelpstem, squidshell. Brelanis love to bathe, in meltpool or rock tub, but none can swim, none would wade out more than ankle-deep from the seashore. Like the rest of the known world we believed the only way to cross water was by Zepp.

But there are no rhales in the shallow, brackish waters of Josi Makem, just lorcas, and few enough of them these days. So the waterways are busy with reedcraft and barges, skiffs, and flitting kiteboats crewed by languid Highborn youths. None are as fine as my state barge.

They assure me it is the fastest craft on the water. Twenty-five strides along the keel, five strides on the beam, built of three skins of kelpstem over wrought iron frames, it has a forepeak for the women, one great hold under the benches, and my state cabin at the stern. Too large to be moved by paddles it is propelled instead by a dozen huge sweeps that must have cost as much as the rest of the craft itself.

A fabulous weight of finest Mantzi knifeiron was beaten thin, rolled and riveted to make them. Each needs at least three men to pull it: I use five. During the latter stages of the wars we mounted bombards fore and aft; 12-spike middleweights that almost capsized us when we fired them on the beam.

In truth it was far from a good idea, we nearly set ourselves alight a score of times, but the bombards were the biggest afloat and won us a skirmish or two.

The state cabin was built from reeds in the old Huntzi style, too dark and hot for me. I had it replaced by an airy structure of woven kelpstem roofed with copper and curtained with the finest linens dyed in many colours.

My cot is silver and ivory, its mattress soft, its linens perfumed with dried flowers. At night silver lamps burn scented ealoils from my homeland. There is a great copper tub in one corner, where I bathe every morning in hot water. My barge has the largest hearthstone afloat, and one of the new iron stoves, and I take full advantage. Like everyone else aboard I relieve myself over the side from special curtained platforms.

So the stink that greeted me that night offended me greatly. Nevertheless, I had a duty to perform.

"Where are you, my lady?" I called in as pleasant a tone as I could manage.

A moan was my only answer. It came from a blue mound huddled in one corner, as far as possible from the pathetic puddle by the door.

Almost I turned and left. It was one of the least erotic situations I have ever faced in my life. But I forced myself to approach the huddled figure and lay my hand on what I guessed to be a shoulder. To my astonishment I realised she was shaking violently; I could even hear her teeth chattering. She was consumed with terror, even as I stood there a stronger stench hit my nostrils and the moaning skirled up into a doleful keening.

It was too much. I stamped to the door and shouted for water, then dashed several buckets of it over her. The shock stopped the noise and cut the stink. Then I pulled her ungraciously to her feet, took out my knife and cut away the soaking cloths that swaddled her.

When I was done she stood there shivering, sobbing, clutching one last scrap of linen to her face and another to her crotch. In other circumstances I would have been eager to bed her, her body was young and shapely, but unlike these Southerners I find nothing arousing in a terrified, helpless woman. But she had to be bedded at least once, Khakis had said, and the bed sheet displayed with its evidence of virginity.

A primitive custom, and how it was to be managed I had no idea; my organ had not so much as flickered. So I picked her up and laid her on the clean linens of my cot, and slipped out of my clothes, all the time talking gently and encouragingly to her.

It did no good. She still lay rigid, hiding her face in the rag, shaking with fear. So, losing patience, I pricked her with the Yellow, and while it did its work I thought about the lovers of my youth. And by the time the Yellow had dazed her mind and relaxed her muscles my memories had stiffened my organ enough to do the necessary. And afterwards I gave thanks that the Purz, unlike the Albanovans, did not practice infibulation.

It was all so different from Brelana. Brelani girls go to their first lovers without fear, confident they will receive nothing but pleasure and satisfaction. They have been opened during their Initiation, by means about which males can only speculate, and their first lovers will be experienced and skilful.

Much the same occurs for the men, except there is nothing similar during Initiation, thankfully. But it is the custom that some older female will take the new Initiate to her blankets and begin his education. Many of these females prefer callow Initiates to all other lovers, and become famous for the quality of their teaching.

They know nothing of this down here in the South, of course. They think we rut endlessly, mindlessly, trying to satisfy insatiable partners, writhing naked like maggots all Winter long. No doubt Haruma was brought up to expect nothing but brutality and pain from all men: from a dassuk, I am sure the aunts told her, she could expect nameless, horrific perversions. No wonder she shat herself when I touched her.

When she woke next morning she had no memory of the night, of course, but the essential stain was on the linen when her aunts came scurrying in. How disappointed they must have been when they could get no salacious details from her. What they couldn't hear they soon invented of course, and lurid details of how sorely I had used her were circulating in Gheenbay within hours of our return.

To her relief, at first, and to the dismay of the aunts, I came no more to her bed, nor did I bother to give her a private name. Haruma, as I was beginning to learn to call her, was installed in state in the gloomy mansion I had taken from a Zeppfactor who backed the losing side, and provided with every comfort money could buy. Eventually, after some months, during which I made no attempt to violate her in any form, she lost some of her terror, and never soiled herself in my presence again.

But I never used her again. The aunts shaved her head, of course, and procured a range of elaborate highly scented wigs, and spent much of the silver I had given her for her own independent disbursement on the finest, sheerest Black Isles silk: but she wore them in vain. Soon the tales circulating changed from my lusts to my impotence - it was even said that it was Lekk who had entered her that first night. Eventually the aunts cried insult to Khakis, who came to me in a bathhouse.

I never liked bathhouses much in the old days, when they were the only places I could cleanse myself of the stink and sweat of Gheenbay. Patrons expected to share their tubs with naked blind slaves of the preferred sex, then drink arrack and stuff themselves with whatever version of flippogiblet stew the house was famous for. I earned a living in one of the worst, misnamed the House of Excellence, for a while after I left the ropewalk, and a dreary establishment it was.

The slaves were diseased and apathetic, the house stew a mixture of gristle and sour spices that twisted the guts, the host dirty, lazy, greedy, perverted and sodden with the crude fenny that was all he served. So the patrons were the lowest of the low, rootless vagrants, muggers, petty thieves, shit-shovellers.

I was supposed to sing for them as well. Few listened. They had come there to get puking drunk and abuse the slaves, not listen to some outlander singing outlandish songs. My skill with poisons was rarely needed; I carried a Huntzi hookknife in plain view, and an invention of my own, a long sharp ivory handled bodkin, up my right sleeve.

Then I heard about the teahouses. Retired Zeppcrew had begun to open a new type of establishment, well away from the old bathhouse eyots, close to the growing trading posts near the waterfront. In them one could drink fine teas, blended on the premises from herbs and spices brought back from many lands, and be waited on by young Zeppcrew Initiates who had not yet found a berth.

There were baths for those who needed them, but no harlots, and fine quality arrack and exotic distillates and other hot waters, including Brelani icewine. The kitchens were clean, imported slaves cooked exotic foods from far islands. There they appreciated good singing, I was told.

So they did. I was taken on by old Smero, and did well out of the silver and copper thrown to me after my performances. I did even better out of old Smero, who fancied himself as a gambler. Within ninety days I had won the teahouse off him.

I kept his name over the door, and let him greet the guests still, but he never forgave me. And when I was off in Bogrom fighting he raised a mob and burned my teahouse to the ground.

So I had not been near a bathhouse since, but it was that or go back to the house where I had installed Haruma, and run the risk of being shrilled at by the aunts. Lately I had taken to living on my barge, where it was quieter, and cooler. Anchored out in the bay, open to any cooling breezes, surrounded by reedboats crewed by my Glory Boys, I was safer and more comfortable than I ever would have been in the city.

Every bathhouse in these islands is full of men who claim to have been one of the Glory Boys. Some of them were, we took on a very mixed bag towards the end. But my Honour Guard was made up of original Glory Boys, Huntzi younger sons to a man, veterans of a dozen campaigns, blooded killers. If I could trust anyone I could trust them.

Without me they were nothing. Before I came they were the outcasts of the outcasts, with no hope of a woman, or status, reduced to petty thievery and piracy. Now they walked proudly, displaying their chest hair, and looked the dryfeet males in the eye and shouldered them aside. All had bought Huntzi women as wives and installed them in their barracks on shore.

On board my barge I pretended I did not know about the clutch of dryfoot harlots sweltering in the forepeak, and order and tranquillity were maintained. But kelpstem needs to be varnished every year if it is to last, so my proud barge had to be beached, careened and flamed to clean off the weed before this essential operation could be accomplished.

So I enquired as to the best and cleanest of the bathhouses and slipped ashore dressed as one of my own guards. Other patrons soon left after we swaggered in. A pouch of silver convinced the host to bar the doors, and we could relax. It was a tribute to the efficiency of the spies Khakis set upon me that they marked where I went and could direct him to me so quickly. His name was enough to unbar the doors, much to my annoyance.

I was relaxing after my bath and massage, playing at Match with one of the old male slaves retained by the bathhouse owners to entertain lonely men who had no friends to play with. I never grew used to the sight of such slaves, with the scar tissue in their eye sockets hidden behind dirty bandages, but this one seemed more ebullient than most. He was from Smath, and distracted me with colourful tales of ambush and rape between moves.

He had no idea who sat across the board from him until Khakis entered and hailed me by name.

The blind slave jerked in shock, and knocked the board over. I was angry. He had been letting me win, of course, but doing it so skilfully I could enjoy the game, which had been close to a tight finish. So I let my voice show my annoyance as I dismissed him, and greeted Khakis. Lekk lifted his head, I shook mine and he relaxed into apparent slumber.

Khakis affected not to notice either this exchange or the edge in my voice. He chattered buoyantly about Council matters, gossiped about the Mantz, until he felt I had relaxed, then got to the point, albeit obliquely.

"It's those cursed Purzi aunts, they've been after Mona again", he began, assuming a wry expression.

"That's your problem", I interrupted. "It was you agreed to take them on. Whatever they want, tell them to fuck off. They've had more than enough out of me already. In fact, you get Mona to hint to them that I get very unpredictable at this time of year, and they'd do much better to keep their ugly traps shut".

He shook his head, spread his hands, and went on: "If it was just more silver or servants they wanted, I would agree with you, but it's a bit more complicated than that. In fact it's so complicated I tell you now I would much rather not have to mention it to you."

Khakis had always taken it upon himself to tutor me in the ways of the South, and generally I played along with him, because I learned a lot from him. His condescending manner often grated, but I had learn to accept it, and now I braced myself for another lecture on what stupid taboo or ancient custom I had broken and thus offended the aunts.

It took a while for me to understand what he was trying to say. The subject was not one that males in the South ever talked about save to boast. Next to organ size, the most sensitive topic amongst the males everywhere in Josi Makem was sexual performance. Bluntly, Khakis was trying to find out if I was now impotent, or had decided that I preferred boys, in short, why I never shared Haruma's bed, and trying to do so in a way that would not rouse my anger.

By his standards he was showing considerable courage. When I realised what he was about my first reaction was to laugh out loud. He flinched, which did anger me.

I said: "Tell those stupid bloated farts that if they want to keep on eating my food and sleeping in my silk sheets, in fact if they want to keep on fucking breathing, then they had better start minding their fucking mouths."

Khakis exclaimed in horror: "Stinger, please don't even think about killing them! Whip them, starve them, even cut their tongues out, but don't kill them. The blood money would be horrendous!"

I looked at him and sighed. "Don't tell me," I said.

"I can't send them back, I can't afford to kill them, and they know it. Now tell me why it matters if I don't share Haruma's bed. Considering what I had to pay for her I think I'm entitled to do what I like with her, including ignoring her."

"But you haven't paid for her, you've only paid half", he exclaimed.

"They think you're trying to cheat them out of their money. You have to at least look as though you are trying for a son, or they'll cry insult and demand even more money in settlement!"

"Let them try it", I snarled back at him, holding up a warning hand to Lekk who was twitching with agitation.

"They sold me a woman who shits herself at the mention of my name. I have no taste for cold meat, Silverballs, I'm a blue-arsed babyeater, remember? Tell the Purz I might ask for a refund, I've had fuck all for my money, or I might come looking for satisfaction with the Glory Boys at my back. Orcan's been getting restless recently; he hasn't massacred anyone for ages.

"Tell them who rules in Josi Makem now, Silverballs, tell them what a dassuk can do if he feels in the mood."

Khakis was white and shaking by the time I finished, not least because Lekk's eyes were fixed on his throat and he was crooning "Kirr, kirr, kirr?"

I put a calming hand on his head, said: "Not kill, not kill, understand?"

He shook my hand off, growled "Ess, ess, kirr, kirr, Lekk no' like, kirr, kirr!"

Most of this was show, a little routine Lekk and I had developed over the seasons to terrorise our allies as well as our enemies, like the arrow-catching. But Lekk really did dislike Khakis. He smelled wrong, Lekk said, and I had had to spend many hours convincing Lekk that a dubious smell was not a good reason to tear a man's throat out. But my control over Lekk was limited at best, and I had little doubt he was looking for the slightest excuse to kill Khakis.

Nor had Khakis. I had to pour him arrack, and let him gulp it down before he could compose himself enough to continue. But he is a tough one, old Silverballs, and he had risked Lekk's teeth before, and he was seriously worried about the situation between Haruma and myself.

"Stinger, you know how sensitive things are at the moment," he went on in a softer voice. "We've only been in control for a short time. The wars did a lot of damage, trade still isn't back to normal, some of the people who supported us are beginning to ask if it was all worth it and wasn't life better before you and the big man came.

"We need a couple of peaceful seasons to let trade really take off, to let the peasants plant up the land we granted them. We have to be careful not to upset too many people. There's already talk about why exactly you need the hold you're building out there, is it going to be a home for more da - I mean, more Brelanis. It's very important you don't offend against too many of our customs."

He paused, and looked at his hands, which were still shaking, then went on even softer.

"Stinger, I know you're not incapable, I saw you spike a hostage or two during the Smilt campaign. Why can't you just drink enough arrack to forget who she is, and give her the occasional tumble? Every man wants a son, after all, and you can afford the money, believe me."

I sat and looked at him for a long while, long enough for him to refill his glass and gulp the arrack down, twice.

What I eventually said was: "I want no son.

"I have seen you and the Dodo and the rest. You have sons, and you live in constant fear for their lives. You have sons, and you must set guards upon them every hour of the day and night, and keep them behind strong walls lest they be taken hostage. Sons weaken you.

"And when your sons grow up, they will be jealous of your power and bitter from the unnatural life you made them live. I want no son, and I will not get one upon Haruma and I will not pay the Purz any more silver. Those are my words."

Khakis sat silent for a while, then shrugged.

"Well then, Lord Harum", he said formally:

"May I suggest a possible alternative to further wars and destruction? A little charade, perhaps? Let her body servants see you go to her room on her fertile nights, and leave it in the morning. There's no need to cover her, or share her bed for more than a moment. Spend most of the night elsewhere, if you like.

"Just keep the aunts happy, look as though you are really trying for a son. After all, Haruma's not likely to admit you never lay a finger on her, is she?"

Then he leant forward and slowly and carefully laid his hand on my wrist, a courageous gesture. He dropped his voice. "Stinger," he said:

"Believe me, it's the best solution. Better the world thinks you sterile than incapable. Keep them guessing. After a few Wets you can set her aside, or go back to ignoring her, but for now, please, act the man, not the monster."

I accused him of only being worried that the Purz would demand he refunded half his commission, but I agreed in the end, of course. And in the end Haruma's terror changed to contempt, and she too began to think me impotent or a pervert.

So one night, when I knew conception was unlikely, I drank just enough arrack, had her brought to my cabin on the barge, and ravished her several times without ceremony and without the aid of the Yellow.

So now the contempt is mixed with fear, and we play out our charade every month. Lekk, whose nose can almost tell your every thought, says she does not hate me enough to want to kill me, and does not care that I have at last taken a bedwarmer. But she will come to hate me in time, because women in these benighted lands have no status without sons, and I will give her no sons. What I said to Khakis I meant.

Addendum by Carpin, First Archivist of Ras Hold

Authenticated documents in the Ras Hold Archives record only the place and time of the death of the woman once known as the Lady Haruma. Popular legend may hold that she was murdered by agents of Perlindo the Traitor, and that the disappearance of the Traitor shortly afterwards was retribution engineered by the Wind from the North, but no irrefutable evidence has ever been presented to support this supposition.

#  Seventh Revelation

# Mhet

If Mhet had not been alone and unsupported when he stalked me after the Zeppwreck, everything might have been very different. But he was alone, sneaking back after meeting with a middleman to exchange his meagre pickings for arrak and spices. Luckily for me, he had already swigged down much of the arrak, and his attack lacked the stealth and cunning I later learned to reluctantly admire.

Perhaps it was the indigo tinge to my skin that distracted him at the crucial moment: certainly, it was the same tinge that made the rest of his band reluctant to accept me at first. But Mhet was insistent that a slimesucker poisonmaster would be a boon to all.

A harmless demonstration of the Yellow on the usual gurning butt of their crude practical jokes helped, but in the short term it was my few simple tricks and riddles and sleight of hand that really led them to tolerate and then accept me. Any relief from the tedium of life in the marshes was highly welcome.

After the Reefs the squalor and brutality of Mhet's existence was reasonably easy to accept. Home was a reedraft, usually hijacked and bloodstained, with a hearthstone on which charcoal smouldered, and reed shelters against the frequent downpours during the Wet. There were twelve of them when I first arrived – and thirteen is a lucky number to the Huntz.

Naturally I had interrogated Mhet while he was still my prisoner and before he offered me a place in his band. No-one had told me about the Huntz: Djann I had taken to be a Curiosity from far away, and although he had spoken of Josi Makem I had assumed only that he had passed through the slave markets there.

Perlindo and other Zeppers were my models of men from the Seven Islands: much like me they were dark haired, smooth skinned, brown eyed. To be told there were many like Mhet in the marshes, the True Men, who Mhet insisted had been driven off their ancestral holdings on the Seven Islands by barbarian invaders many centuries ago, was illuminating, to say the least. What he told me of the dryfoot Bunds dismayed me; there would be no sanctuary for me there. And then I realised Mhet was an outcast like me, and could offer little beyond temporary, conditional refuge.

I wondered what Code he had broken to be so cut off from his family and sept. Atrocities he had committed in plenty, and boasted of them freely: murder, theft, rape, and piracy amongst them. When I learned he had slit Huntzi throats as well as dryfeet, I thought that was it, but no.

Huntzi septs massacre each other routinely. Some have feuds going back generations. No, Mhet was an outcast simply because he was a younger son of a youngest son and his mother was the child of rape. With one grandfather long dead and the other unknown, he had no close blood links with anyone with land and power. The eyots held by the powerful septs may have been little more than stable mud banks rarely covered by the tides, but in their longhouses there was the nearest thing to comfort and security to be found in the marshes.

Mhet was born on a fringe reedraft, last in line for food and shelter, bundled out into the marshes when he had survived ten Wets after a minimal Initiation, gifted only a torn shift and a rusty hook knife.

Once, those like Mhet, and there were many, could have ventured into the Margins, and found new islets and raided the dryfoot bunds for women, and started up septs of their own. Those days were long gone; the Margins were full, and the Bunds too powerful.

Or they could have contented themselves with reedrafts, and slowly amassed dowries from charcoal burning, spinning reedrope, trading mangrove and lilyroot and ginga, or building reedboats and reedrafts for the flippo herders, or hunting lodges for the wealthy.

Those days were almost gone as well. The Mantz and the Zeppers had introduced the Bunds to new ideas, like kelpstem and coal, ivory and brick, Albanovan cordage, iron beams, copper shingles, fired roof tiles. Huntzi goods and products were spurned by all those who could afford to show their status this way, even the charcoal now so much in demand in Gheenbay came from Mantzi retorts these days.

And what little legitimate trade there was left, mainly supplying young reeds for papermaking in Gheenbay or mangrove root for smokehouses and charcoal production, was firmly in the hands of the established septs, and no room left for the likes of Mhet, who had to turn brigand if he was ever to be more than the lowest of the low. Outcasts could avoid starvation, the marshes were fertile and full of fish, but they were at the mercy of all.

"It's a fine life, being outlaw," he always insisted.

"No man to call master, no drudgery, a full belly most nights, spangles to be lifted, spices and arrak for the taking.

"Yes, we have to pay off the septfathers to keep them off our backs, and there are never enough women, but it's a lot better life than cutting reeds, believe me."

I was not as horrified as I might have been before I left Brelana. There it would have been unthinkable for any Clan member to be left destitute, or shunned because of their parentage. On Albanova, in much the same way, the Families looked after their own in return for unquestioning loyalty. But on the Reefs there were no Clans, no Families, just the loyalty of the sword, and the weak and friendless died swiftly, so the selfishness of the Huntz did not totally surprise me.

It would not have surprised any of the dryfoot Bunds who bothered to enquire, either. Those days in Josi Makem the Bundlords still boasted they would always offer a full stomach and a dry bed to any member in extremis, however lowly their sept, again provided their loyalty was beyond question. The Huntzi were despised for many reasons; lack of sept solidarity was only one.

Mhet survived his exile, living on his wits; scavenging lorca kills, snaring food from the reeds, creeping into the fringes of dryfoot territory to snatch dodo eggs. Gradually he gathered around him a band of outcasts from a number of nominally friendly septs, and grew bolder. He was a brigand, a kidnapper, but with no fixed base, and under constant threat from stronger fishskin bands as well as established Huntzi septs.

So I joined them, for want of any realistic alternative. It was a life little better than I had known on the Reefs, with no future I could see.

True, the Central Green was largely untouched by tempests, and the insects were no worse than on my homeland, although crushed lilystem gave much less protection against stings and bites than Brelani flybane, but there was even less security and protection on a reedraft than in a rockhold, damp, cold and cheerless though it might be.

And the food might have been much better, usually: at least it was usually cooked, and I soon developed a taste for the spices that came our way, but it rotted quickly in the damp heat.

Food poisoning killed more men than violence, I reckoned, and I had no wish to end that way, coated in my own shit and vomit. And while there were no serpents in the Central Green, these being now found only in the Eastern Margins, there was always the gligga, with its ten legs and venomous jaws.

Small it might be, but it harboured a toxin as least as potent as the Brown, and while it tended to shun noisy, stinking humans there was always the risk of wading unknowingly too close to its underwater egg chamber.

I was to discover that bands like Mhet's, constantly on the move, were healthier by far than the established septs crammed onto their eyots. Inevitably the water around the eyot became foul; reedhuts continually inhabited harboured myriads of stinging and bloodsucking insects, and debilitating parasites flourished in the stinking margins.

Marsh fever was endemic, of course, but plagues could strike swiftly, and there were a number of desolate abandoned eyots scattered around the Central Green where no one dare tread for fear of the plagues. Instead, the survivors moved to reedrafts and stood guard over what had been their homes for generations sometimes, staking out slaves and captives at regular intervals to see if they survived.

It was soon obvious that Mhet's dominance was not just down to his acknowledged superiority in the lesser skills of knifework, stalking, and haggling with the middlemen who lurked around the fringes of the Central Green. And boasting, especially about the women he claimed to have spiked and the sons he had fathered by stealth.

He was also acknowledged to be the second best cook there, after old Bhal, and when he was in the mood he could be remarkably affable, with an endless fund of rough banter, and sudden generous impulses. His main strength, however, was his custody of the band's Scroll of Tides; ancient and tattered, sweat soiled, stolen and restolen many times, no doubt, but accurate enough for our purposes still.

Somewhere Mhet had learned to puzzle out the blotched and faded charts and tables, a skill he resolutely declined to pass on to others, a skill that gained him both respect and admiration. But he had no long-term plan, no strategy, only an irrational faith in the Lady. He lived from day to day, and seemed resigned to dying young, almost certainly by violence, probably at the hands of an ambitious fellow band member.

Then Lekk found me. Later I calculated he must have leapt down from the disintegrating _Krenla's Darling_ somewhere on Krumah and taken to the water in the Sleeve. But the Sleeve is prime flippogrounds and heavily guarded, and the water heavily polluted, so he moved on to the land again on Kack, and from there somehow found his way to Toyah and Gheenbay.

Baffled and repulsed there, he must have returned to the clean waters of the Central Green and picked up my trail. His arrival caused a sensation: one man was foolish enough to launch a javelin at him and was dead in the blink of an eye, and I came close to using the Black as well as the Brown, but I had always believed that Lekk with his incredible musculature would have survived the Zeppwreck and had warned them he might appear one day.

Most of them thought the tale was another of my jokes, but the memory of the warning inclined them to trust me and treat Lekk with exaggerated respect, especially when he started dragging lorcas into camp. But then one day his nose saved us from ambush and his teeth gave us victory, and I was ready to make my move.

It helped that the arrak and chatstem was all but finished and that we were reduced to living on lilyroot and reedseeds, a shaming thing, the mark of the lowest status. And we had lost men recently, due to Mhet's recklessness in attacking a reedraft belonging to the Sharp Plungers, a powerful sept that had shown its resentment by dispatching a punitive expedition against us.

Yes, we finally sent them ruefully home carrying their dead, but in the preliminary skirmishes three of our men, one of them very popular, had been snared and mutilated, and more would have met the same squalid end had Lekk not been with us.

Afterwards, as we licked our wounds back in our thankfully untouched camp, the atmosphere was strained and resentful. Most of the men gathered together on one side, muttering amongst themselves, casting bitter glances at Mhet. He squatted on his own, isolated, ostentatiously sharpening his hookknife, meeting no man's gaze.

Everyone knew what could happen. Lekk circled restlessly, hissing, his teeth unveiled, his eyes on Mhet as well. I knew what was expected of me. It was not what I wanted.

I glared back at the rest of the band, shook my head in warning. Turning to Lekk, I ordered: "Patrol, Lekk. Find enemies, find meat. Patrol, Lekk."

He froze; ears cocked, a rumble of discontent in his throat. I held my breath. In truth I never had total control over Lekk, I suggested rather than ordered whenever possible, and whenever I ordered there was always a moment of uncertainty. So it was now.

Lekk crouched. His gaze switched back and forth between me and Mhet, he hissed in objection, his hindquarters twitched with anticipation. I kept my eyes on him, pointed to the creek on the West.

"Shite", he snarled. I held my position. There was a moment of singing tension. No-one in the camp moved so much as a finger, even Mhet. Lekk's posture suddenly relaxed, his ears drooped, he turned away with a final, dismissive "Shiiiite" and slipped into the creek in his usual fluid manner. Within a few heartbeats the ripples had subsided.

We all breathed again. I turned, faced Mhet, held my hands out in a gesture of reassurance.

"We need to talk, Blue-eyes," I said with as much confidence as I could muster.

All I got in reply was a glare, but I could see the slackness around the mouth and the quiver in the hands. Again, I held my position, locked stares. I had sounded out the others, I had a plan, it just needed Mhet to understand and accept.

I jerked my head towards the far side of the raft. His body relaxed, he shrugged, rose to his feet, trudged in my footsteps until we were safely out of earshot.

"Look," I told him, keeping my voice low. The men think the Lady has turned against you. They're not keen to follow you again, and some want to cut your throat. Losing Karon like that was the final blow. They want me to take over now, because they want Lekk on their side, and they expect me to tell him to kill you.

"But I think the Lady is at both our shoulders. If you agree to act as my Second Leader, then the men will accept you, and you can sleep safe again. And if you support me, then we can make this band the richest in the marshes."

He looked at me hard, his hand on his hilt, obviously suspicious. Changes of leadership in such bands as his usually involved bloodshed and ignominy. But my hands were in clear sight, and he knew that I had no need of tricks and stratagems, not with Lekk and my pipes, so he shrugged again, and spat into the water.

Then, moving slowly, I produced the last full flask of arrak from under my tunic, pulled out the stopper with my teeth, took a swig, passed it to him. He accepted it, looked at it quizzically, shrugged, and drank deep. He coughed, then laughed.

"You're the clever one, Joker. Cleverer than me, at any rate. Clever enough to know you need me as much as you need that creature of yours. And you're right, the Lady is at our shoulders, or we wouldn't both still be alive.

"So, yes, I'll be your Second Leader, and keep order, and you can have the Leader's share, and first go at any women who come our way. We'll all probably live a bit longer, and maybe we'll get stinking rich if the Lady keeps smiling on us. And it could be fun."

So we returned to the men arm in arm with smiles on our faces, and passed around the arrak, and everyone started to relax. The Lady's favour was confirmed when Lekk came in next day with news of a stray flippo not far away, so we ate well that night.

My leadership had got off to a good start, but I made sure that Lekk lay beside me as I sampled true meat for the first time, and while they laughed at my jokes and riddles the men rarely took their eyes off him, and there were hisses of wonder when his teeth sheared effortlessly through spine and skull alike.

Everyone was aware that Lekk obeyed only me, and that anyone who attacked me, if he survived my sting, would inevitably be hunted down and killed by Lekk. They thought only of the greater security Lekk's presence guaranteed, and the fear he would engender amongst our enemies, and the extra loot that would come our way.

I kept my long-term plans to myself, and set about the task of turning the band into something new to the marshes. I started by forbidding the unprofitable attacks on mangrove cutters and small traders that had been my band's main source of income, and status, before I arrived. I had plumper prey in mind, the clumsy barges crewed mainly by the Ra Smitz and Grey Krutz, carrying Zeppgoods and Mantzi manufactures to and from Gheenbay and Sentah and out to the Great Islands, and meat and grain into Sentah.

Most of the traffic took the safe passages, handing over tithes and more to the Bunds that controlled them: others preferred to risk sneaking around the fringes of the Central Green, taking their chances with the Huntz. Usually they were permitted to proceed unharmed once they had paid off the septfathers along the way, and overall they usually handed over less silver than if they had taken the Greenway or the Sleeve.

Barges from Gheenbay loaded with high value Zeppgoods were most at risk – and best protected. Most carried well-armed guards, and shields were slung along the gunwales, and slack nets were hung out on each beam at night.

Few outlaw bands were prepared to attack such barges when there were easier targets to be found. And even the larger bands found it easier to extort a little silver or samples of the cargo in return for safe passage.

But we had Lekk to scout for us. He gave us enough time to block channels, string ropes and nets, trap barges and snare their guards. The barge crews soon learned that if they threw down their weapons promptly the survivors would be put ashore live on Douri or Kack, stripped of their wealth and possessions, but bodily intact.

The men grumbled, of course. Slaughtering dryfeet was their second favourite pastime. But they soon understood the wisdom of my policy when bargemen held up their hands the moment their barge lurched to a halt and the first shower of javelins had thudded home.

I reckoned that if we switched quickly from channel to channel and did no serious damage to any particular traffic and were moderate in any ransom demands the Zeppers and the Mantz would hesitate to take reprisals. But all I heard was grumbles - barges were few and far between, barges from Sentah were full of useless rubbish like metal ingots, roof tiles, fired bricks and pottery, the hulls had no value in the marshes.

But I harboured plans to deliver the pick of the plunder to Gheenbay myself in due course, so I shared out the silver and the arrack that every barge yielded in some degree, hoarded the rest, and hid the hulls safely in the swamp.

And there was sullen resistance to my policy on captured women. Luckily, eventually, we took four pleasure slaves, who reluctantly accepted life with the Huntz instead of service in the bathhouses, and raised no particular objection to serving the sexual needs of sixty-seven men in the end, in return for most of the jewellery we possessed.

For obvious reasons the purchase of slaves from Huntzi bandits was formally banned by Zeppfactors and Bundlords alike - there was some illicit trade, of course, there was always a market for Highborn virgins however harsh the official penalties for unsanctioned defloration might be.

None of these came our way, however, or were likely to. Opportunities for ransom were also limited. We took a couple of dyers and a silversmith trying to sneak into Gheenbay - any craftsman seeking to leave his Lord's domain and look for greater reward in the Zeppers' city in those days had to do so by stealth under threat of mutilation if he was caught -and they had relatives in Gheenbay who could be persuaded to hand over a reasonable amount of silver for a safe delivery.

But it was a chancy business, only worth the risk for serious reward, and I would not countenance any suggestions that we should sell such captives back to their Bundlords, who were said to pay highly for such delinquents.

Under Mhet's leadership, Huntzi prisoners were usually just robbed and released, unless a blood feud existed, when the prisoner could lose his life, or merely various amusing portions of his anatomy if his captors were in a whimsical mood. Dryfoot boatmen and smugglers had their throats cut without hesitation.

I gradually changed all that, and we were more secure as a result, whatever my men might imply. But I could not rest when there was so much to learn, about the marshes, about the dryfeet, and above all, about fabled Gheenbay. I already knew, from the Reefs and Albanova, that lack of information could kill you as surely as lack of food or water.

So when I came scuttling back crestfallen from my first disastrous foray into Gheenbay, I knew I needed to know much more about the Great Islands before I ventured there again.

In Gheenbay, however, I had learned something else, something important. Accumulating silver gave only temporary security. Anyone could rob me of all I had, or pinion and enslave me, and no one would care. The Krenditzi militia or a Zeppfactor's guards could cut down someone like me without warning, and no one would care. There had to be a better way to live, a more efficient way, one where a man – or a woman – could lie down at night in peace without fearing a knife in the dark or the fetters of slavery.

And Gheenbay was my only hope. Return to Brelana was impossible. Albanova, the Reefs, the Great Islands: there was no peace or security there. I had found security of a sort in the marshes, but no future. Gheenbay it had to be, and I sensed that in Gheenbay changes were stirring that could, if directed, yield a better life, for me at least.

#  Eighth Revelation

# Odyssey

My Odyssey, as the balladmakers would have it, my wanderings through Lah and Sentah, taught me many things of later value. Before I left I had only dreams and hopes: I returned with plans and ambitions. And hope. Leaving my band for the better part of a Dry was an obvious risk. Mhet and Orcan remained bitter rivals, and their rivalry unsettled the men. Lekk and I had always held the balance.

But there was still faith in my judgement, and my luck, so I sat down solemnly with my senior men and formally consulted them on my next move. Fortunately, their advice could be held to support the decision I had already made, and so I set off.

One of the first things I had to learn was how to get Lekk accepted by the dryfeet. Convincing him to show a witless enthusiasm for the tweaks and prodding of importunate children had done a lot to smooth our passage, more even than the limited repertoire of juggling and tumbling he had reluctantly learned, and the instant obedience to my commands that he rarely showed in other circumstances. Convincing him not to hunt at night had been harder.

He would eat the dressed dodo or sackfish porridge we earned for our performances, grumbling as he did so, and there were nights when he vanished and came back in the morning emanating satisfaction and embarrassment, but any losses from the paddies were usually attributed to Huntzi raiders.

It was on Sentah he was accepted best, where the Mantz prided themselves on their sophistication and rationality. And it was on Sentah that I learned most about Gheenbay and its guilds and factors, although even the Mantz could tell me little useful about the Zeppers.

On Lah I learned only to hate the Bundlords. The peasants there knew less than I did about fabled Gheenbay, and often I earned my supper with tales of Zepps and greenstone and bathhouses, rather than with my songs and trickery. For most of them, Gheenbay was the only hope they had of escaping the grinding poverty of their existence. There was not one man in my audiences who did not dream of building a new life there, free of the caprice of the factors and the random brutality of the Bundlords.

The stories they whispered to me as the charcoal dimmed, of floggings and impalements for the slightest transgressions real or alleged, of wives and daughters defiled, sons impressed, of taxes and levies and barefaced theft that left them always at the edge of starvation, with no hope of ever improving their station in life because their status and occupation were decided before they were born and to seek to change any aspect of their lives was a crime subject to almost limitless punishment, these stories repeated again and again marked me and motivated me, and much that happened later began with those resentful whisperings in the dark in Lah.

"Would you rise?" I began to whisper back to them.

"If someone put weapons in your hands and told you to take the land for yourself, to own free and clear in fee simple, to pass on to your sons unencumbered, would you rise?"

There would be a growl of assent from the young men in the rear, but in the dimness I would see shoulders shrug amongst the elders, and heads shake. Then one of them would whisper:

"How could we fight the militias, never mind the bundlords themselves? We have no skill with weapons."

And another would always add: "Stranger, you must understand. Life is bad, yes, we pray to the Lady for change, yes, but many of us fear what change might bring."

What they really feared was losing their land, even though their hold on it was tenuous at best. Throughout Josi Makem land was held in allodium by the bunds, by swordright alone. Septs were granted vassalage land and property rights by the Bundlord, for which the septfathers had to do homage and swear fealty every year, by the kissing of feet in most cases. Septfathers then distributed these rights, to their members and subsepts, again on pledges of fealty.

As absolute and unencumbered owners of the land – until such time as a stronger bund drove them off it – the bund could levy whatever taxes and levies it chose. It also had the power to take land away from any bund member and give it to another, without warning or compensation, as a punishment and example to others, or purely on a whim.

On most of the Great Islands, like Lah, a lowborn man could own only what he could carry for fifty paces: silver, armour and weapons excluded. Most of the peasants hardly saw a spangle from one year to another, and even what they called chips, spangles painstakingly chopped into quarters and eighths, were rare.

Even if a peasant more enterprising than the norm built a house or a mill with his own hands it would never belong to him, and it could never be handed down to his sons by right.

"It wasn't so bad, in the days of our grandfathers," I was told on Lah.

"Then we paid the crop tax: one part in ten for the sept, one part in five for the bund. Even when the Lady turned away from us, we could find enough to fill our bellies and still save seed to plant.

"Yes, there was the corvee, taking our sons away to break their backs building holds and jetties, and only seven in ten came back. And when Bundlords fell out, we had to take our place in the line of battle, and five in ten were lost, or came home crippled.

"But in return we had our land, and our village, and it nurtured us, and all shared in the bounty, and if the Lady turned away from us, everyone from the lowest to the highest suffered in proportion.

"But now the Bundlords demand a head tax in silver from the septs, so we have to grow crops to sell; flippofodder mostly, and every year the demands are higher, regardless of how good the harvest has been. And should we fail to produce enough, we are cursed as wastrels, and replaced by slaves, and have to scavenge along the water's edge for Huntzi leavings, or try to scrape a living as a saltburner."

Sentah was different, of course, but it was a long time before I appreciated the complexities of Sentah society. And Gheenbay was even more different, as Khakis explained to me much later.

"They were smart, those early Zeppers," he said.

"You have to remember that no such migration had ever happened before, not a peaceful migration with both sides in agreement, however grudging. Most of them were Mantzi in theory, but from many different septs, and there was a significant number of Liminzi and Kratzi Zeppers as well – becoming a Zepper back in those days was much easier, of course, you just needed to know the right people and not be worried about your sept sneering at you.

"Naturally the Thin Krenditzi demanded that the Zeppers kiss feet for the land they wanted, but the Zeppers refused, saying this would antagonize the bunds on Sentah and Krumah. Instead, they offered to buy land on an individual basis and hold it in fee simple, subject only to Krenditzi taxation and justice, and a Krenditzi monopoly on the supply of bradi, leafgreen and charcoal.

"They offered so much silver the Thin Krenditzi couldn't refuse. But holding land in fee simple is the real secret of Gheenbay's success. Do you understand why?"

I shook my head dutifully.

"Because then you can use it as security, to borrow silver against. You can build on it, and what you build belongs to you, and any profit you make on it. And if needs be, you can sell it to raise capital.

"Yes, I know that most Zeppcrew would still rather invest in flippos or hoard their silver in factors' money rooms and see no point in buying property until they retire from Zeppfaring – but property underpins everything in Gheenbay. Some Zeppfactors hardly deal with cargos anymore, they grow rich on rents and wharfage, and invest their profits in more eyots and quays and warehouses".

He laughed. "Actually, a lot of the silver going into property here comes from Sentah. Sentah's full of silver. We sell them every Zeppgood you can name, but all the islands buy Mantzi artefacts, and the moneyrooms of every sept in Chabbay and High Votok bulge with silver. And yet all the foundries and mills and mines still belong ultimately to the Bundlord, however rich the sept may be.

"So the clever Mantzis move their silver to where the Bundlord can't get at it, tucked away in a Zeppfactor's moneyroom, and commission him to invest it on their behalf. Most of it still helps finance the Zepptrade, but more and more is being invested in property.

"That's why land and building prices are soaring, and why eyot construction is booming. Only the Lady knows where it's all going."

By then, of course, most (but not all) of my silver was in Khakis' charge, much of it invested in property. My teahouse I owned in fee simple, although the only title I held was an ill-written scrawl on grubby batskin, overwritten and countersigned many times. Old Smero's grudging cartouche filled the last scrap of space.

Much later, my first task as Recorder of the Five was to compile a land register for Gheenbay, and impose standard title deeds, which had to be validated by me or my deputy, for an appropriate fee, of course.

After Lah and Sentah I felt confident enough to enter Gheenbay for the second time, using the same route as before. I took employment in a ropewalk, the first opportunity that came to hand, but within a hundred days I had rented a new brick built booth on 89 Eyot, with a bedroll under the counter and silver under the hearthstone and a high quality counterfeit residence medal hanging round my neck.

Ten more days and I had an agent, a real Smatzi, a runaway paddyhand who believed me to be a Zepper's bastard by a bathhouse slave and had some skill on the water. He too was called Mhet, so I dubbed him Bubble to avoid confusion, and sent him out to rendezvous with my band and begin the delicate operation that would bring the stolen barges safely to my eyot. Bubble was cheerful, completely unprincipled yet reasonably trustworthy, so I mourned when he was killed in a pointless brawl during the next Wet.

Eventually an alliance of unlicensed factors and racketeers raided me and drove me off my eyot and stole what they thought was my horde of silver. Fortunately I was in the tea market at the time, so the only casualty was the first man who thrust his hand under the hearthstone and found the Black-tipped spike that guarded my stash.

It seems I had been too successful, and too slow to pay tribute to the petty gangmasters who tried to screw silver out of the Northern eyots through intimidation and occasional arson. So I smuggled my real horde to a Southern factor – not Khakis – and deposited it in his moneyroom, and found others to manage the illicit trade from Mhet and my happy band.

While my wealth slowly accumulated I took to the streets in Gheenbay, sleeping rough but dry most nights at first, taking any work that came my way. Work was easy to find. Gheenbay was constantly growing, the eyot builders always needed day labourers, although it was hard, dirty work. Most unskilled incomers finished up there, they could earn more silver in a day than most of them had seen in their entire lives.

I worked on the eyots long enough to leave my back permanently scarred from the ropes that we slung round us to support the greenstone waste tubs, long enough to make many friends, but I had to move on. I tried net weaving, lintpicking, metalsmithing and a dozen others, but any progress beyond basic labouring meant joining the appropriate guild, and I had no intention of that. Eventually, of course, I had my teahouse, and could look forward to a period of comparative security and comfort.

But I always had to bear in mind the need to return regularly to the marshes and reassert my authority. Without me the Glory Boys were torn between allegiances. The hardcore, the original band and their close kin, had never really accepted Orcan's authority, despite his dominating physical presence and his skill with the sword. Huntzis thought little of swordsmanship – ambush and trickery were more effective in the marshes, hookknives deadlier in a muddy melee.

Orcan made little secret of his contempt for such dishonourable stratagems, and was never slow to deal out buffets to those who failed to show him what he considered adequate deference. The fact that so far I had always been able to face him down added much to my authority, so while I was there they accepted him, but with ill grace.

Mhet was perpetually anxious about his status once Orcan joined us.

"So who leads while you are gone?" was the first question he asked when I announced my first departure. Everyone hung on my words.

I said: "Orcan leads" – Mhet's face drooped – "When we fight dryfoot", I went on.

"You lead in the marshes. But only in battle, and in dealings with other Huntzis. Orcan keeps order, and holds plunder. Kritz feeds you as he does now, and makes sure you sleep dry. Any questions?

There were scowls and mutterings, but no one looked triumphant, so I believed I had got the balance right. And so it proved, for a time. But during my second, protracted absence, on my Odyssey through Lah and Sentah and later, once I was established in my tearoom in Gheenbay, the hidden tensions came boiling up.

Kritz, whatever his abilities as a quartermaster, had no talent for holding the balance. I had chosen him partly because his subsept of the Dawn Singers had no close ties to Mhet's, and no history of recent violence between them, but when push came to shove he chose to ally himself with Mhet against Orcan and Lekk. Not openly, of course.

Everyone in my band was an outcast of one sort or another, and eventually we included dryfoot banishees, fugitives, and renegades, desperate men with skills and contacts that were to prove invaluable in the long run. By then the Glory Boys were smug with success and newfound status and prepared to tolerate allies they would earlier have slaughtered without a second thought. But in the early days we were held together only by their fear of Lekk and my pipes and their belief that the Lady was at my shoulder.

While the luck held they accepted my authority. I gave them hope, even though all they hoped for was an eyot and women of their own, and acceptance back into Huntzi society. Orcan had dubbed them the Glory Boys after he joined us – it was a joke, of course, but they adopted it with enthusiasm.

Bringing dryfeet into the band was a gamble on my part. Dryfoot outcasts had always been fair game in the Marshes: many of them fled there loaded down with stolen valuables and their unfamiliarity with the Marshes made them easy prey. But while we were trying to extract ransom from Gheenbay for a one-eyed herbalist from Drinith Hold itself he made himself very useful, compounding effective salves and laxatives from leaves and roots to hand, dressing wounds, an act for which he would have been severely punished on Makrali, even setting bones.

Then the messages came back from his cousins in Gheenbay.

"Stay away," they warned.

"Tell Stanath there is a reward offered for him in Gheenbay and throughout the Islands, a big reward. There is no refuge for him here."

"Stanath, what have you done that the M'Kritz are so eager to have you back?" I asked. "Poison somebody, did you, hey? Creep into the seraglio, what?"

He shrugged and grimaced.

"An ambitious younger son got tired of deferring to his brother, offered me silver and a Munraki bedwarmer if I would prepare him an undetectable compound to flavour his brother's arrak.

"But he was clumsy and his brother survived and put him to the question, and he named me before the flames even touched his skin."

By that time his potions and his good humour had made him generally acceptable to the men, and he accepted my invitation to join us with as good a grace as he could muster, and served me well until a gligga's sting laid him low. By then there were more dryfoot outcasts with us.

Only the most desperate joined us, those who had tried life in Gheenbay and found the silver came too slow, those who had made themselves outcast from Gheenbay as well, those who believed the stories that our camps were filled with acquiescent free virgins eager to serve every whim.

At first we gave refuge only to those with special skills or knowledge; a toothpuller, a jewelsmith, a counterfeiter. Then, as the resentment among the established Huntzi septs grew, we took on fighting men, deserters from the militias, Zeppguards accused of rape or fraud, mercenaries too violent for their peers. Such men had much in common with the original Glory Boys, but it was an unstable mixture held together only by success, plunder, and Lekk.

After four Wets we numbered more than five hundreds, the biggest fishskin band in the Central Green, and relationships with the dryfoot Bunds and local Huntzi septs were becoming increasingly strained. Those Huntz with prime eyots well furnished with long houses and big enough to keep a few dodos for their eggs always lived in fear of attack from those less fortunate themselves, and now we were big enough to take on most septs, and better armed as well. And all Huntz were beginning to fear that our boldness would bring the bunds down on the Central Green, to general woe and the ruination of what trade still existed.

Within the band the relationships were also under constant pressure. Less than two in three were Huntz, and the numbers of dryfoot recruits was increasing fast. Eventually I ordered Orcan and Mhet to start raiding out from the Central Green, to the Middle and Northern Greens initially, offering any outlaw bands there the choice between destruction and incorporation into the Glory Boys.

But during the fourth Wet, while I was consolidating my position in my tearoom, the first open rifts appeared.

Almost always, the trouble was arrak-fuelled, and triggered by women. Orcan had always chafed against my edict banning girl-snatching raids on the Islands. He wanted his own women, kept in purdah, as did the rest of my band, but they at least were happy enough to share the women that were available in camp. Orcan thought sharing women was demeaning.

Free women were a rare capture, only the most desperate or stupid men would venture into the marshes with their wives and daughters aboard, and any that we did take I promptly put up for ransom, treating them with respect while they were with us, a respect enforced mainly by Lekk's teeth.

My long-term plans were still not fully formed, but I needed to differentiate myself and my band from the rest, and start to build a legend for the future. Slaves, of course were different, but skilled pleasure slaves were almost as rare a catch as free virgins.

Orcan had no taste for Gheenbay, either. In Gheenbay then he had to go swordless, a loss that seemed to unman him on the very rare occasions he visited me there in my teahouse **.**

"Go to the pens, buy yourself a couple of bedwarmers", I urged him often. "I hear they've got a prime crop of warranted Munraki virgins on show, just what you need."

I despised myself for talking that way, but if it was a choice between Orcan buying a bedwarmer and Orcan raiding bund villages for free virgins my options were limited. In any case it was in vain. The only women Orcan lusted after were free virgins taken by the sword, prizes of victory, to be his exclusively until he tired of them and passed them on to his favoured acolytes. That was the way on the Reefs, and the Reefs never entirely left Orcan.

Inevitably, as my absences grew longer, my control slackened, and Orcan began to scout out likely villages, and quietly recruit like-minded followers from amongst the band.

Orcan had found it hard to survive on his own after the Zeppwreck. He had been flung clear on the Western shores of Krumah, luckily well away from Bel Kavana, and had suffered little more than cuts and bruises. Like the shards of the _Krenla's Darling_ , his hoarded treasure was scattered across half of Krumah and Kack, all he had left, inevitably, was his sword, so, hand on hilt, he marched into a Purzi village and demanded food and shelter.

Ragged and filthy he might have been, scarred and bruised and thickly accented, but his sword gave him status, for a while at least. The Purzi peasants, downtrodden and spiritless with little love for their overlords, presumably took him for some sort of mercenary or a deserter from the militia and at first they scuttled to meet his demands.

But when he demanded women, they looked at each other, and someone trotted off to inform Bel Kavana that a dangerous lunatic was at large.

Purzi militias were an underpaid, ill-trained rabble, much given to extortion and casual violence, slothful and complacent. What they expected to find at the village no one now knows. Certainly not Orcan, sober and vicious, and suspicious of betrayal, so the militias were totally unprepared when they finally swaggered in, reeking of arrak.

Five were dead before any had drawn blades, and Orcan was away and into the reeds, where he huddled grimly until the surviving militias had taken out their rage and frustration on the peasants, torching the village as they left.

Orcan spoke rarely about the days that followed – I suspect he had spent them searching frantically for his son. But he never found any trace of Zoran, or of the other five who were lost in the Zeppwreck: only Perlindo and Rogan ever made it back to Gheenbay, and Rogan was on board the _Hopeful Venturer_ when it disappeared en route to the Black Isles.

The marshes were a bewildering maze for someone from the Reefs, and Orcan must have floundered around attempting to quiz peasants and extort food and shelter at sword point until every man's hand was against him. We heard the stories, I sent Lekk out on his trail, and in the end I bought his freedom from another band that had snared him in nets and put him up for sale.

The Red Spikes demanded a ridiculous price, and laughed at our counteroffer of Zeppgoods and spices. Silver it had to be, and even though Mhet haggled the price down considerably, our coffers had to be almost emptied to satisfy their demands. So we had little option but to raid the Red Spikes as soon as possible.

Orcan was desperate to retrieve his sword, which the Red Spikes had kept as a trophy, and did great execution with a borrowed reedhook. A thorough search of the Red Spike reedrafts yielded considerably more silver than we had handed over, along with rotgut fenny and a clutch of miserable drabs too ill-used to excite the lust of more than a handful of my men.

There were grumbles when I had them released on Kack, and what sort of welcome awaited them there I had no idea, but the scale of the plunder confirmed to the men that the Lady smiled on me. It made Orcan's acceptance easier, as well.

His battle frenzy during the melee excited reluctant admiration, but his posturing with his recovered sword made no impression on the Huntz. It was only later, when we had dryfeet amongst us, that there was an audience for his sword exercises and significant respect for his fighting skills.

While I was there I kept them busy and worked them hard, and made sure there was always plenty of arrak and spices, and sent Lekk off scouting for stray flippos whenever I felt they had earned a feast. Teaching the dryfeet to swim absorbed a lot of surplus energy. Huntzis of course swam like fish from childhood, but dryfeet usually shunned the water, only a few septs outside Gheenbay would work barges and ferries, and only the poorest or the desperate would venture onto a reedboat.

But much of our success was based on the Huntzi ability to swim long distances silently wearing fishskin armour while encumbered with javelin and hookknife, so if the new recruits were to earn their keep they had to learn to take to the water with confidence.

Generally, only those militiamen and guards with the sense to discard their mail and helms once they entered the Central Green survived long enough to join up with us. But they missed the security mail and helm supplied, and showed little enthusiasm for trusting themselves to the water encumbered with fishskin jacks. The solution was provided by a tailor from Krumah – oiled silk waistcoats quilted with chouk and stiffened with strips of b'leen.

These kept them from drowning and provided significant protection against swords and cleavers. The whole exercise provided much amusement for the Huntzi members of the band, amusement that was cordially resented by the dryfeet.

Even when I spent most of my time in Gheenbay I kept myself well informed on the situation in the marshes. It was the need to be aware of whatever foolishness Mhet and Orcan contrived in time to mitigate the worst of the inevitable consequences that compelled me to develop the network of spies, informants and eavesdroppers that later became notorious as my Eyes and Ears.

There was always movement into and out of the Glory Boys, as members wandered away to pursue personal vendettas or woo the parents of eligible virgins with looted gewgaws, discipline in those early days being conveniently lax. My spies within the band could slip away without comment to report; later I recruited peasants, factors, bargemasters, pedlars, hucksters to back them up.

My first networks enclosed the Central Green and the main creeks around it, in the end I had my finger on the pulse in every Great Island and beyond. So it was no real surprise when Mhet came tapping on my door one night at the start of the Wet, agog to tell me his news.

"It's the big man, he's finally gone and done it," he announced with badly muffled glee. "Him and the rest of the dryfeet. A village on Smilt burned and looted, peasants slaughtered, six virgins taken.

"The Smit Malinz militia are floundering about in the marshes, rumour has it they've gutted at least three mangrove-cutters from the Eager Fishers already, and the Eager Fisher septfathers want the big man's balls on a platter – or a lot of blood money."

When Orcan finally awoke two mornings later he was groggy and sluggish, feebly struggling against the cords in which I had bound him after darting him with the Yellow in his sleep. "Does your cock feel strange?" I whispered in his ear.

"That's because Lekk has your danglers in his mouth. Look around. There's no one here. All those little bells you string around yourself at night to warn you of anyone creeping up on you, did you really think they'd work against the Nightmare?

"I silenced you and trussed you and got you out of camp, and no one the wiser. Annoy me again, then I let Lekk chew them off while you sleep. Fancy waking up with nothing between your legs, do you, hey?

"Now you know why I'm annoyed, but this time there was enough silver in your cache for me to keep the Eager Fishers off our backs, and to pay brideprice for the Smit Malinzi girls. Next time I won't bother, I'll just send your danglers instead."

I told no one what had happened that morning. Orcan was sullen and vicious for a while, until a couple of dryfoot skirmishes with the Kratz militias on Kack restored his good humour. Cheap fenny purporting to be Smatzi arrak was being traded for looted teas and fibres, illicitly of course, and the militias tried to demand the Kratz dues, and were roundly cut to pieces.

I had not sanctioned the trade, but my anger was directed mainly at the poor quality of the fenny and the stupid price Orcan and his cronies had paid. But in time he began to understand the limits of what I would allow, and in the end I accustomed him to Gheenbay and its ways, and his strength and weapon skills were a vital part of the Five's ultimate success.

Gheenbay has changed little since we took over, although my Peace Troop should bring more stability when I can finally extend its operations from Southern to the Northern Shore. Where there is so much wealth to be had, when the bold and the skilled can raise themselves from the humblest origins to positions of power and security, when vices can be indulged and new luxuries sampled and new comforts enjoyed, men live in a fever, grasping every moment, lashing out at any potential threat without hesitation.

And how they strove for success and status. Markets and workshops alike opened early and closed late, hummed with activity. Metal rang, hucksters cried their wares, watersellers rang their bells, everywhere there was competition and clamour and Colours.

Gheenbay boiled with untrammelled humanity, fermented with greed and anxiety, reeked of opportunity and threat and sweat and blood and silver, reeked strong enough to mask the stench of the greenstone, smelled sweet enough to draw the desperate, the dreamers, the rebels and the renegades, artists, builders, thieves, killers, fools, victims, revolutionaries, people like me, desperate, landless, rootless, with nowhere else to go. I loved it. And hated it.

And I sensed that Gheenbay was a canker that could slowly wear down and drain the old order in Josi Makem. Most of the old Bunds thought the changes wrought by the Mantz were the real threat to their existence, but they were wrong. I was wrong too. When the end came, it was swift, not lingering, but I aimed the final blow.

****

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There are currently (2013) two other volumes containing scrolls from the Bignose Cache.

Appended here is a sample from _Part the Second – Thunderstroke._

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# Second tranche from the Bignose Cache

# Thunderstroke

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# Prologue

Midnight. Two moons glow in a misty sky. On the island at the mouth of the bay raw stonework soars upwards. Ramparts and turrets loom over the shallow waters. Torches flare; light gleams on polished metal, confident boots raise martial echoes on the battlements. Dominating the whole complex, rising high above battlements and barbican, is one central, circular tower, its ashlar walls unstained, its conical iron-tiled roof barely rusted.

A soft light spills from a ring of small, unglazed windows below the eaves. Inside, the single room is stark: black iron floor, one black iron door with elaborate bars and locks. Five glass and iron lamps around the plastered, limewashed walls give off elusive fragrances that struggle to mask the odours of fresh mortar and protective oils. To the right of the door hangs a huge tapestry.

Its colours are bright, even garish; it depicts in stylized form a multitude of green islands in a pale blue sea. Seven of the islands dominate the rest; several dozen smaller ones are also represented. There are no names on the map, only a random scatter of heraldic blazons, bright with primary colours.

_Opposite the tapestry a man sits at a desk cunningly jointed and carved from ivory. His braided hair is black, his skin_ _a light olive with a hint of indigo, he wears the loose clothing of a tropical culture. In front of him the desk is littered with scrolls, small jars, hand tools, and what can only be short blowpipes with swollen mouthpieces. He hunches over the desk, writing in a flowing, cursive script on crisp, semi translucent paper._

A bell sounds, a grunting, laboured voice murmurs through the low grille in the middle of the door. The writer jumps to his feet, blowpipe in hand, and snaps out an impatient enquiry. Again, the grunting voice answers. Shrugging his shoulders, the writer turns to his desk, operates a long lever. The door swings open.

A tall man in elaborate robes enters. His reluctance is obvious. For a moment he is tongue tied, then, in a carefully neutral voice:

" _News from Lord Orcan, fresh from Upper Lah, Lord. He has taken Tanith Hold – many prisoners, many hostages, half a mansweight of silver. He says." his voice falters for a moment, then continues: "He says the Lady has shown us her favour again. Glory to the Five, he says."_

" _Tanith Hold?" roars the writer. "The Grey Krutz are supposed to be fucking neutrals – we have a treaty, for fuck's sake." He stamps across the room, glares at the tapestry for a long moment, turns on his heel._

" _Lekk?" he shouts through the door. "Find Mhet now, get him to the Iron House by dawn._

" _You" he adds, glaring at the robed man, "Take ten Troopers, trawl the bathhouses until you find the Dodo, sober him up, get him to the Iron House as well."_

Turning away, the writer begins rolling up the documents on his desk and sliding them into ivory cylinders. The robed man lingers at the door, looks over his shoulder, hesitates.

" _And Lord Khakis?" he ventures._

A bark of sardonic laughter. "That pleasure will be mine."

# Second Reading

# Testimony of the Standardbearer

As dictated to Rani Leronson the Younger, subsequently contributed by the Elders of Brelana and approved for dissemination by the Second Council of Chabbay.

I was there, as the world knows. It was I who first unfurled the Virgin White; it was I, Dharin of the Ropewalkers, who held the Russet and Purple aloft on Corfor. There I stood, beside the Dassuk, and watched the Bo'Hatz and DaDanz go down to red ruin and disaster on Harum Hill. And counted myself lucky to be safe there with the rearguard, well away from the arrowstorm.

But the Lady has been at my shoulder since the night I saved the Dassuk's life, so long ago. Now I have fame and fortune, a modest but well-chosen seraglio, a high status wife and sons aplenty. True, life is not what it was, but then what is? The sweet flame of my youth burns but dimly now, the days of fierce hope and exultation in victory are long gone and the final darkness is there on the horizon.

So be it. Leron's Children would silence me if they could, and indeed I have been discreet of late and all but retired from public life. But it seems there are those who would ensure that the true story is preserved, and so here you are, pestering me to break my silence and speak out. To you, Brelani spy that you probably are, with the indigo tinge to your skin and your fancy fingernails.

Do I fear your poisons? Me, who slept beside the Dassuk without a qualm? There is little fear left in me. But I am ready to talk, it is well beyond time for me to talk, and to tell the whole truth at last. And so I will, just keep the arrak coming.

Yes, I will start at the beginning, fear not. Not the beginning you mean, Brelani, not the night I saved the Dassuk, oh no. My beginning, I mean. Yes, I am laughing. Because I know nothing of my beginning, that's why, nothing of who my father was, nor of which sept or bund I could call mine. I was a foundling, see. Dumped outside the first Ropewalker's guildhall, naked and grizzling in a rotting basket.

How old was I then? No idea. Old enough to be sold to a slave farmer, certainly, which tells me my mother was no drab in a bathhouse. Probably I was the fruit of a bedwarmer, one who served an indulgent master and was allowed to give their child a better chance of life than a slave would ever know. A prosperous craftsman my father, probably, one with a shrill wife who would never accept a bedwarmer's get into the household.

He might even have been a ropewalker himself. All pointless speculation, I know, but as I grew older I found myself scrutinising the features of all the senior ropewalkers, hoping to discern a resemblance.

All the guilds took in foundlings in those days, and were glad to get them. None would reveal their Secrets to slaves, so, as Gheenbay boomed, they became increasingly eager to recruit new apprentices.

Guilder children, of course, had a smooth path from birth, and, as I was to discover, even the middle ranks of the hierarchy were exclusively for the Guild-born. But there were still not enough Guild-borns back then to meet the need, so foundlings were taken in willingly.

The guilds themselves were still something of a novelty in those days. Yes, there had been secret Craft societies on all the Great Islands for many seasons, a natural reaction to the incessant and unreasonable demands of the Bundlords, but they had little real power or influence, I was told. But, when the first renegade craftsmen came skulking into Gheenbay, following the silver trail of the Zepps from Chabbay, they soon grew weary of their uncomfortable lives caught between the Zeppers and the Thin Krenditzi.

Ropewalkers, metalsmiths, thatchers, all the crafts found solidarity with fellow craftsmen more relevant than any lingering Bund loyalties. So the guilds were formed, one by one, and the first crude Guildhalls arose. Most had been replaced with much grander structures by the time I was old enough to notice: the Ropewalker's was one of the finest, of course, although you would expect me to say that.

Then came the Guilds Council. They were brave men, those first Councillors. They knew the Krenditzi might take umbrage at such a flaunting of emancipation, and that they would be the obvious focus of the Krenditzi's displeasure, and, indeed, in later days, a Councillor would be dragged off to the Arena from time to time, just to remind Gheenbay who had sovereignty here.

But in truth it suited the Krenditzi to have the Council responsible for the setting of rates and the collection of taxes and levies, so while they never formally recognised its existence, they dealt with it as convenient. A similar hypocrisy applied to the Open Cartel.

As far as the Krenditzi were concerned, of course, there was no difference between the Guilds, the Zeppers or the gasmasters. All were Zeppers to them, renegades to a man, almost as low and despicable as the Huntz. We never saw high status Krenditzi in Gheenbay when I was young, just the militias, usually commanded by a low status junior Krenditzi, eager for bribes and ransoms, ever ready to snatch up any stray child that could be sold on to the slave farmers.

Now, since the Awakening, Bundlords come to Gheenbay as humble petitioners, in simple Virgin White robes, a great satisfaction to those old enough to remember different times. These days, unfortunately, no-one bothers to pelt the petitioners with dung. To do so now would be beneath my present dignity, but I still remember with glee how we spattered the first Krenditzi to present themselves for judgement after the Awakening.

Everyone was there; Guild Councillors, Cartel members and gasmasters alike were flinging the shit alongside the hairy men and the militias. A great day, and a better night followed, a wallow in fine arrak and Krenditzi virgins. Something you never forget, and a fitting reward for my services to the Dassuk.

What services, you ask? All in good time. Be patient. This is my story, and it will be told my way or not at all. Understood? Good. So, back to those early days, before the Dassuk arrived, back to my pre-Initiate innocence, safe behind the walls of the Guildhall. All in all, things could have been worse. There were usually around a long dozen of us foundlings in each clutch, under the wing of an elderly widow earning her pension.

She taught us little beyond continence, cleanliness and unthinking obedience, but the food, if plain, was adequate, the beds, if crowded, were dry, and we were allowed to play games and rush around in a shabby courtyard. And no-one was actively or maliciously unkind to us. No-one showed us much affection, either.

My Initiation? You know nothing of such things, do you, Brelani? So we are enlightened now, and no longer believe that untrimmed danglers turn a pubescent child into a monster, hey? Well, I was decently Cleansed and so were all my children when the time came, and so are most in Gheenbay and everywhere in the Seven Islands.

Yes, there are many now amongst us who seek to emulate the Dassuk, but those of us who knew him know it takes more than an untrimmed cock. And yes, he had the Lady always at his shoulder, but who knows why? She's been at mine for most of my life, and that wasn't 'Dassuk's luck.' So we still Cleanse our children, and the old decencies are maintained. Too much change is bad for the digestion, we used to joke.

Now I know all Initiations are much the same: lamplight, chanting, incense, solemn oaths, threats, and then the knife. Beforehand I was terrified: fail the test of the knife and I would be Outcast, me, who had hardly ever seen beyond the Guildhall's walls. Outcasts, we were assured, thrust into an uncaring unfriendly world in only a loincloth, empty-handed and friendless, soon suffered a miserable end. But I need not have worried.

Whatever was still happening in the stricter Bunds, the Ropewalkers had no intention of letting a promising lad fail at the last test, so I went to the Initiator with my first tot of arrak burning in my belly and my dangler numb and tingling from the pungent grease with which it had been discreetly anointed.

Now that is something I have never told anyone before, my Brelani friend. Yes, more arrak, please. You would probably surmise that such chicanery was widespread. Still is widespread, I suppose. Certainly my boys passed the test without a whimper, and none suffered ill effects afterwards. My daughters? What do fathers know of their daughter's Initiation? All but one survived, and are placed in prosperous households.

And the bride prices were substantial, I will have you know, as befits the daughters of the Standard Bearer. Grandchildren? Of course. My sons have been fruitful – a long dozen of grandsons so far. Now I have what I dreamed of, back in the Guildhall, once I had the Guild Badge on my tunic.

But the ropewalks were no place for dreamers, I can tell you. Before my Initiation I had been one of the drudges, sweeping, sluicing, washing down, mouth wrapped against the fog of reedfibres, eyes watering from the reek of the glomm. And what did I have to look forward to, hey? Sweltering away my life in the same fug, turning handles all day and every day, spinning yarn, strand, rope and cable, until I was too old even for the cuttyhunk walk.

Foundlings never became walkmasters, I soon realised. But if I was to show serious resentment, what then? Off to the glomming tank, no doubt, to dip the finished lines and cables into the foul brew from Sentah that kept the rot away for seven Wets or more, the foul black brew that left men with burning eyes, ulcerated skin, rotting lungs. Something to look forward to, hey?

Yes, of course I was paid for what I did, in silver, and paid better than many in Gheenbay, but after Initiation you have to find your own roof and bed and fill your belly with your own silver, and there was precious little to spare for arrak or women.

So, naturally, I gambled. Why not? To a young lad full of juice it seemed inevitable that I would win all that I desired, surely the Lady would smile on one so special, so deserving. So I thought, in my innocence.

Not that I was truly innocent, you understand, my first spare silver had gone to rent my first woman, but I wanted fresher meat than a bathhouse drab. And better lodgings than the stinking hovel I shared with six other junior ropewalkers, all but one fellow foundlings. And new clothes, fine linens, trinkets and baubles, I wanted them all, and the gambling dens were where I would find them. I thought.

No, no more arrak, I know my limits. An old man like me can acknowledge his limitations without shame, you know. And be patient. The Dassuk will be appearing in my tale before long, never fear.

So, I went gambling. Not to the fancy bathhouses on the Southern Shore, of course. I knew nothing of Match, or the games the rich and fortunate played with those Brelani tablets that were so fashionable then. No, it was the godowns and shebeens of the North Shore that offered what I was looking for – simple games of chance, small stakes, the chance to build up my stake through cautious play. I soon learned the hard way that the shebeens were not for the likes of me.

Cheap fenny muddied my judgement, shills and stooges flattered me into staking more than I could afford, shaved and loaded dice soon emptied my pouch. But the bruises and the mocking laughter taught me valuable lessons, as you will hear.

It was in the back rooms of godowns that I found honest games in the end. Those that stored fibres and the like from Albanova were the most hospitable, for some reason long forgotten. Not that you would find marble tables there or any of those rank eggchairs you Brelanis managed to sell to the rich and credulous, oh no.

Everything would be adobe.

Down one side the floor was usually smoothed, oiled and polished so that the energetic could play at jimjim with fired earth balls. Gaming took place on waist-high blocks of adobe, with the playing area carved into the surface.

Yes, you can smirk, yes, it sounds crude, but it had its benefits, believe me. There would usually be two games in play: Swords and Skulls, what most called the Copper Game, and the Silver Game, Stook, for the serious players. What, never heard of Swords and Skulls – or Stook? You really are from Brelana, then. Swords and Skulls is where I started again. A simple game, yes, but what did we know, who knew nothing but the ropewalk or the tanning sheds or the tripe tanks?

Nobody taught us to read or write or figure, no one explained the odds. A simple game for simple folks, too simple for the likes of you, no doubt. But I will explain it anyway, because I remember it fondly even if forty or more Wets have passed since I last played it.

Six fields on the playing surface, understand, each marked. Sword and Skull, of course, always, and always a rampant Dangler. The rest, well, the most common, I suppose, were Sun, Star, and Moons, though in some godowns there would be Leaf instead of Star, or Eye instead of Moons, but no matter. Three dice, each marked with the same symbols.

When your turn came, you placed your bets in up to three fields, and if the same symbols came up, you won, and the banker paid out. Evens if only one came up, two to one if there were two showing, and if you were really lucky, three to one for three. Of course, if your chosen field was unlucky the banker raked your bet in.

The banker? Oh, just another visitor who had outbid all others to buy the bank from the host. That's how the host made his real profit, no fenny for sale, you see, only small beer.

The bully boys from the shebeens would be round sharpish if it was known a godown host was selling fenny or arrak, I can tell you. But they were relaxed about the gambling, they knew those who frequented the godowns would never risk their silver in a shebeen. Bankers and hosts were the clever ones, I eventually realised.

Even cleverer were the coiners. Know why we called Swords and Skulls the Copper Game? Yes, all right, it was because we played with copper tokens: if you had only a few spangles in your pouch, a few bad guesses would leave it empty very quickly.

So those who could aim no higher than the Copper Game sidled up to the coiner in the corner, the man with at least two bully boys lounging on each hand, and exchanged their spangles for tokens. Pretty things, some of them, more skill and thought went into them than into any spangles bar the best from the Zeppfactors.

Ten tokens were supposed to be worth a spangle. Ha. Ten tokens a spangle was the rate the coiner would exchange your winnings for, yes, but when you first handed over your spangle all you got was nine, and in some places only eight.

But tokens were easier to handle than spangles as well, being that much bigger, and even before the Dassuk came they were circulating in the markets and trading halls. After a few scandals the Cartel and the Guilds made sure that anyone issuing tokens had the silver to hand to underwrite them, and so they became accepted, and now we have demis circulating.

As for Stook, who plays that these days? I have forgotten most of the rules, I only played it a handful of times, and the last time I lost all my silver – that was the night I met the Dassuk, of course.

See, I told you it wouldn't be long. But I do remember it was played with numbered dice, one black, one yellow, and you could bet on odds or evens, doubles or scrats, black high or yellow low or lucky numbers – and some others, ah, my memory lets me down.

The bank played everybody at once, the bank won everything if doubledots came up, that I do remember. I should.

Three times in a row that last night the dice spun and clattered and came up double one, and I was cleaned out. It can happen, of course, even without chicanery, but I refused to believe the Lady had deserted me, and roared threats and accusations, and in the end they gave me a thorough drubbing and threw me out to nurse my bruises and warned me never to come back.

And, of course, I never did. Because of the Dassuk. Yes, I can see you sit up and prick your ears. The boring part is over, hey? Well, I might be getting too sober to continue, so top up my glass and let us see what my memory can provide for your entertainment.

It was a black night, I remember that clearly. Black, with a thin drizzle, and mud underfoot. A stinking night as well: the winds brought the stench of the gasmasters' retorts right over the North Shore. I leaned against a wall, head still buzzing, trying to scrape the mud off my linens. I could taste blood in my mouth. I could feel the rage and frustration and bitterness building: I welcomed them, my bruises faded to insignificance.

Fantastical plots for revenge and justification swirled through my brain. Then, close at hand, I heard it. Scuffling, muffled oaths, the thud of blows. Common enough in those days, when there was no Peace Troop patrolling and the Krenditzi militias never ventured onto the North Shore after sunset.

Normally I would have turned on my heel and scuttled off to safety, but that night my blood was running hot. I felt like inflicting serious violence on someone, to be frank.

It was stupid, I had no weapon, but I stepped out of the alley without fear. There was a lamp guttering above the door of a shebeen across the way, By its light I could see three figures struggling: two against one, of course, and despite what the ballads would have you believe, one man always loses against two, everything being equal. But the victim here was still on his feet, although his arms were pinioned and blows, heavy blows, were landing.

Then all three stumbled and toppled into the mud. This was my moment, the instinctive rage-fuelled move that set me on the long road to fame and fortune. I took three running steps and kicked one of the assailants in the kidneys as hard as I could. With heavy leather pattens over my sandals I could deliver a massive blow, and he squealed like a woman in childbirth then vomited.

He was out of it. I turned my attention to the other two, then saw the victim climbing to his feet, still unsteady, wiping blood from his face. The second attacker lay motionless – dead, I assumed. I looked again at the man I now believed I had rescued, saw him slip something up his sleeve, a knife, I assumed again.

He coughed, spat, spoke.

"Many thanks, whoever you are. Not many in Gheenbay would do what you just did."

I shook my head.

"Let's see if we can profit by it," I suggested.

Twitching and moaning, the man I had attacked put up little resistance as I helped myself to his pouch and trinkets. The second man was rigid, but I detected a slow breath as I searched his clothing. There was no blood, either, something I ignored at the time. Afterwards, I wondered.

He who I had rescued took no part in the search. I could see little of him. He had pulled his hood over against the drizzle, and now he stood straighter, although he still rubbed his bruises.

"Twelve spangles and half a billet" I reported, flourishing the pouches. "And a handful of coppers. Eight spangles and the coppers for you, four and the half billet for me, hey?"

"Good price for a few bruises," he replied.

Now I could detect an accent, a strange accent, nothing like a Zepper or a Seven Islands man. I hesitated, then held out my hand.

"Dharin of the Ropewalkers. May the Lady smile on our meeting."

"I think She already has" he responded, then hesitated in his turn. Eventually he held his hand out as well.

No, I did not notice his nails, all right? It was dark, as I said. Why do people keep asking me questions like that? It was dark, he kept his hood up, I didn't notice his eyes, or the colour of his skin, or his nails, not then, there was nothing obvious to frighten me.

The only strange thing I noticed was his accent, all right? From what I heard later, there was nothing to see in the way of fancy nails or blue skin back then, anyway, he had enough trouble explaining the eyes and the accent.

"My friends call me Joker," he said. His tone discouraged further curiosity.

We looked at each other, shadows in the rain. There was an air of unfinished business. Neither of us seemed in a hurry to break away. Joker, if that was his name, eventually shrugged.

"Know a quiet place where we can get a drink that hasn't been watered?" he asked.

I looked at him again, closer. He was still unsteady. "Have you a bed for the night, what's left of it?" I enquired.

He shrugged again by way of answer. There was no way I was taking him back to my crowded shack, my fellows would think me moonstruck if I turned up with a muddied, bloodied vagabond from who knows where. But there was an alternative.

Dry beds and a decent bottle of fenny were always available for those with silver: providing such services was a sideline for most of the smaller merchants with booths along the canals. I looked about me for the lamps that promised unbarred doors and a welcome of sorts. Even this late there would be some still burning, I reckoned, and I was right, eventually.

We eventually found haven in the back room of a hawker of cheap amulets. Thankfully he made no attempt to interest us in his wares, just waved us through the curtains with a grunt, and came through with a casebottle of Green Island fenny and a demand for four spangles for the night and the bottle. We beat him down to two: I might have got it lower if Joker had not interrupted the negotiations with an impatient word.

Our host shambled off to bar the door, he and his bully boy unrolled mats and composed themselves for sleep among the baskets and bundles. Behind the curtain, in the dimly lit back room, my new friend and I passed the bottle back and forth in silence for a while.

My blood was still fizzing, the lumpy palliasse against the wall held no attraction. I took a swig from the bottle, gave the neck a ritual wipe on my sleeve, held it out to my companion. He had pulled his hood back, but with the solitary reed dip flickering behind him I could see little of his face. His hands, yes, I could see them better now, but I remember nothing unusual about them, understand? So I asked the inevitable question.

"Where you from, Joker, hey?"

He stilled for a moment, then swigged, wiped, shrugged. "Long story," he muttered.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter now. I'm off, Dharin of the Ropewalkers, I've had a gutful of Gheenbay. Tonight wasn't the first time someone tried to rob me.

"Tell you the truth, I was hoping to liberate a boat tonight, and be well away by sunup. Now I can afford to buy one, so the Lady has smiled on me at last, it seems."

"Buy one?" I queried, reaching for the bottle.

"Seven spangles won't get you much these days, not here in Gheenbay, the bargewrights know it's a seller's market. There'll be some second-hand reedboats for sale along at the Eastern end of Southern, maybe, you could afford one of those, but who knows how long it would last? Is seven spangles really all you've got, hey?"

Another shrug was the only response at first. He took another swig, then gave a short bark of laughter.

"Yes, Dharin of the Ropewalkers, that's all I've got, and a little while back I had nothing. My time in Gheenbay hasn't exactly been a resounding success. To put it mildly, I've got my life and lucky to have it, as you saw tonight.

"Crestfallen is what I am. I was hoping to liberate something fancy in kelpstem, so I could leave with some pride, but I think I'll have to settle for good old reed, hey?"

A mad idea began to bubble up inside me. Exhilaration was singing in my blood. Truly the Lady was leading me by the hand that night.

"Kelpstem, hey?" I said, drawing out my words. "I might be able to help you with kelpstem, funnily enough."

I felt his stare. Taking another swig, not bothering to wipe, I went on:

"I have a drinking friend, Joker, a junior bargewright. His eyot specialises in kelpstem skiffs for the Krenditz and the like. It's not far from here."

I lifted the bottle, but set it down untasted. Clear heads would be needed if my mad idea were to be made flesh.

"Rhinin was telling me the other evening that they're overstocked at the moment, these skiffs may be going out of fashion, or maybe the skiffs they make aren't as fancy as others. They're certainly overpriced, kelpstem isn't that expensive any more.

"What say we stroll down there right now and see what's available, hey?"

There was a pause, heavy with unsaid truths. The Lady did her work. At last there was another bark of laughter. He reached out and took the bottle from me, sketched an elaborate salute, touched the neck to his lips, set it down.

"So, Dharin of the Ropewalkers, we stroll down, in the dark, in the rain, to your friend's eyot, and there we, what, liberate a suitable skiff?

"Sounds easy enough, hey? No barriers, no guards, I take it. But what's in it for you, Dharin of the Ropewalkers? Are you proposing we leave together, hey? Because where I'm going you wouldn't like, believe me."

I shook my head impatiently, my blood was really up now.

"No, no, no," I reassured. "I'm staying – but in exchange for showing you how to get past the guards I'll take those spangles. Deal?"

Another pause, while my future hung on the Lady's favour. Then a hand came out of the shadows to clasp mine, and without another word we rose to our feet. I signalled silence and caution, and peered through the curtain.

Harsh snores greeted me. Enough light came through from the back room for me to pick my way safely to the door. As I studied the securing bar and its locks, I heard the snoring change rhythm. Alarmed, I turned my head, saw the dark shape bending over the two sleeping men.

"Here you go", he said in a normal voice, straightening, holding out a key. I shushed him frantically, but he just shook his head. "Relax, friend, they won't wake before noon.

"Now can we go, it's not that long to sunup?"

As we stepped outside, the Lady gave me another sign that she smiled on us both that night. The black clouds had cleared, only a thin mist remained, and it was dry. And Krenla was high and bright, so we could easily see to pick our way around the deepest puddles. So it was a smooth path to Eyot Starnit, but I was less easy by the moment as we neared the bargeyard.

When I proposed this venture I had gambled that the dark and the drizzle and the lateness of the hour would ensure the guards – and I knew there would be at least two – were snoring under shelter somewhere. There would be skiffs aplenty in the wet dock, I was certain, and I thought we would be able to grope our way around the edge of the kelpstem barrier and cut out one of the nearest skiffs, almost by touch.

But the closer we got the better the light seemed, and a cool breeze had risen. And Joker was right about sunup; there was already a hint of colour along the Eastern horizon.

So I applied my eye to a gap in the barrier when we got there with some anxiety, and cursed under my breath at what I saw. A guard stood there in the moonlight, not ten strides away, yawning and stretching, with a mug in his hand and a cudgel in his belt. I cursed again.

A hand touched my shoulder, a voice breathed close to my ear.

"Problem?"

"There's a fucking guard, wide awake, the miserable scrat", I whispered back.

He pushed me aside, peered through the gap.

"No problem," I heard him whisper.

There were rustles, then I saw him holding what looked like a short black stick. His fingers moved swiftly, the stick was poked though the gap in the barrier, he stooped and put the stick's end to his mouth. His cheeks bulged. Moments later I heard the heavy thud of a body in an iron breastplate hitting the ground.

And moments after that there was a shout. Obviously I saw nothing of this, but I imagine the second guard had heard the commotion and was coming to investigate. My partner in crime must have done what he did before; there was another thud, then silence.

Yes, now I know he used his famous blowpipe - but who had seen blowpipes in Josi Makem then? So I was confused. What the fuck is he, I thought, but then events moved at breakneck speed.

Strong arms boosted me to the top of the barrier. I dropped inside, rolled, regained my feet. The gate was only barred. Ignoring the recumbent guards we trotted to the edge of the wet dock. I cursed.

Yes, eight or ten skiffs were clearly visible, dark silhouettes on moonlit water. But I had forgotten the tides, what do ropewalkers know or care about the tides? And the dock gates had been heightened since I last saw them. Low tide, high gates: we had to get those gates open, somehow, without raising the alarm. Or so I thought.

I cursed again. A stout iron chain and headless bolts secured the gates. No chance. I turned helplessly to my companion, stepped back in shock as pale eyes locked on mine. He grabbed my arm.

"You're a ropewalker, so find me some fucking rope, at least fifty paces."

Dumbly I complied. What the fuck is he, I thought again. There was rope aplenty nearby, I chose a coil, slung it over my shoulder, turned back to the dock. Joker was already in a skiff. Frantic whispers were exchanged, rope was slung and hitched, Joker scrambled back onto the dock.

My head was in a whirl, bile rose in my throat, yes, the Standard Bearer was close to shitting himself. What Joker was intending was a mystery to me. He scampered around the dock like a man demented, but my eyes were only on the brightening horizon and my ears were straining for the first sounds of wakefulness in the yard.

A rope's end was thrust into my hands.

"Time to earn your spangles," he hissed, racing back to the other side of the dock. Most of what happened then I had forgotten within moments. I heaved when ordered to heave, belayed when told to belay. I heaved until crack-backed and sweat-blinded, sobbing out entreaties to the Lady, biting down on my panic.

Then came the wonderful command "Let go all" and a splash that seemed to echo across the water.

I wiped my eyes and stared at the sight of a skiff bobbing serenely outside the gate. Then Joker was at my shoulder.

"Find me a paddle and bar the gate again," he commanded.

Somehow I remembered where to look, and returned swiftly with a smoothly crafted double paddle. He grunted in approval, but I whispered:

"Look, Joker, I need to get away now. Just give me my spangles and I'll be on my way, hey?"

He shook his head, replied in a fierce whisper.

"No, you might be seen. You want your spangles, bar the gate, get in the skiff, I'll drop you off somewhere safe."

Reluctantly I complied. On my way back from the gate I found him stooping over the comatose guards. He rose, slipping something up his sleeve, his darts, obviously although it was far from obvious at the time.

You sit in skiffs, as opposed to kneeling on reedboats, and neither of us had tried it before. A nervy business, the skiff bobbed and heeled at the slightest shift in weight. But eventually, as the first red gleam of sunrise coloured the water, we were away, Joker paddling, me holding very tight to the saxboards, and the coil of rope we had used lying between us.

"Barred gate, no clues as to what happened, guards with no memory of anything untoward", came the voice from behind me.

"And there was fenny in that mug. With the Lady's favour nobody will notice a skiff is missing until I'm well across the Gap."

I nodded, feebly. Panic was ebbing now, but Gheenbay was stirring, and other craft were on the water. Soon I should be back at the cable crank, with another day of fetid tedium stretching in front of me. But I knew now that my life had changed this night past. Freedom, of a sort, was beckoning. I began anxious calculation.

If Joker kept his word I would soon have a decent pouch of silver at my belt. There were also a long dozen hanks of cuttyhunk fishing line hidden away behind my bed, fruits of earlier chicanery. Each was worth a spangle at least. And there were men who owed me money.

With my head buzzing, I hardly noted our progress, so it came as something of a shock when the skiff bumped alongside a set of greasy steps.

"Out, sharpish" came the command from behind.

There was little dignity in my disembarkation, I can tell you, skiffs take some getting used to, but at the cost of green slime on my tunic and some bruised knuckles, I managed to scramble ashore. Joker remained on board, wielding the paddle with unexpected dexterity.

We locked stares for a long moment: even with his hood pulled well over and the sunrise behind him I could still make out those pale eyes. Then he fumbled in his tunic.

"Catch", he commanded. Three small silk wrapped parcels were tossed onto the dockside.

"Albanovan tea, the best, Angry Mountain blend. My emergency stash. You should get at least a billet for each."

"But what about my eight spangles?" I protested automatically.

A snort was my reply. The paddle was dug deep, the light craft spun away, a final remark was tossed over his shoulder.

"Look in your pouch, Dharin of the Ropewalkers, and give thanks to the Lady."

So I looked, and of course there were eleven spangles there now, and the half billet, but not the silver trinkets I had hoped he had forgotten, and of course I was amazed and more than a little scared. What the fuck was he, I muttered to myself as I headed for the ropewalk.

Strange eyes were not unknown in Gheenbay, even then. You came across slaves with blue eyes from time to time: not pure-bred Huntz, of course, nobody would want a hairybacked slave. No, these were mongrels, got by Huntzis on dryfeet women, women they abducted, or traded, believe it or not.

If the get came out yellow haired, blue-eyed and hairy backed, apparently, it had a chance of acceptance, but any deviation condemned it to a life of dryfoot servitude, or worse. But those eyes I saw that sunup, they were palest grey. I had a lot to think about.

No, I made my break for freedom another day, some time later, never mind how long. But I never went a-gambling again, I risked my silver only in trade and for a more certain profit. By the time the Dassuk returned I was established as a small trader and hawker, with my own little booth and a simpleton from Sa Toyah as bully boy and general factotum. When the Dassuk returned he came as a vagabond, he carried no illicit goodies. He worked, and made friends, and he looked after his friends. And where did he work first? In a ropewalk. And who arranged it? Me, of course, because I knew the ropewalkers were still desperate for labourers.

Now you want to hear how the Joker built up his power and influence in Gheenbay, and why so many men like me followed him all the way to Bogron. Then you will no doubt expect me to tell you about the battles and the campaigns, and what the Dassuk did and how he did it. But that will have to wait until another day. I need my bed. Too much arrak tonight, I shall suffer for it tomorrow. Come back in two days. You seem a good fellow, for a Brelani spy, but you can fuck off now.

