“I would partake of this warmth,” Kruppe said, with a slight bow. “So rare within Kruppe's dreams of late.”
“Strangers wander through them,” the figure said, in a thin, oddly accented voice. “Such as I. Have you summoned me, then? It has been a long time since I walked on soil.”
Kruppe's brows rose. “Summoned? Nay, not Kruppe who is also a victim of his dreams. Imagine, after all, that Kruppe sleeps even now beneath warm blankets secure in his humble room. Yet see me, stranger, for I am cold, nay, chilled.”
The other laughed softly and beckoned Kruppe to the fire. “I seek sensation once again,” it said, “but my hands feel nothing. To be worshipped is to share the supplicant's pain. I fear my followers are no more.”
Kruppe was silent. He did not like the sombre mood of this dream. He held his hands before the fire yet felt little heat. A chill ache had settled into his knees. Finally he looked over the flames to the hooded figure opposite him. “Kruppe thinks you are an Elder God. Have you a name?”
“I am known as K'rul.”
Kruppe stiffened. His guess had been correct. The thought of an Elder God awakened and wandering through his dreams sent his thoughts scampering like frightened rabbits. “How have you come to be here, K'rul?” he asked, a tremor in his voice. All at once this place seemed too hot. He pulled his handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped sweat from his brow.
K'rul considered before answering, and Kruppe heard doubt in his voice. “Blood has been spilled behind the walls of this glowing city, Kruppe, upon stone once holy in my name. This-this is new to me.
“Once I reigned in the minds of many mortals, and they fed me well with blood and split bones. Long before the first towers of stone rose to mortal whims, I walked among hunters.” The hood tilted upward and Kruppe felt immortal eyes fixing upon him. “Blood has been spilled again, but that alone is not enough. I believe I am here to await one who will be awakened. One I have known before, long ago.”
Kruppe digested this like sour bile. “And what do you bring Kruppe?”
The Elder God rose abruptly. “An ancient fire that will give you warmth in times of need,” he said. “But I hold you to nothing. Seek the T'lan Imass who will lead the woman. They are the Awakeners. I must prepare for battle, I think. One I will lose.”
Kruppe's eyes widened with sudden comprehension. “You are being used,” he breathed.
“Perhaps. If so, then the Child Gods have made a grave error. After all,” a ghastly smile seemed to come into his tone, “I will lose a battle. But I will not die.” K'rul turned away from the fire then. His voice drifted back to Kruppe. “Play on, mortal. Every god falls at a mortal's hands. Such is the only end to immortality.”
The Elder God's wistfulness was not lost on Kruppe. He suspected that a great truth had been revealed to him with those final words, a truth he was now given leave to use. “And use it Kruppe shall,” he whispered.
The Elder God had left the pool of light, heading north-east across the fields. Kruppe stared at the fire. It licked the wood hungrily, but no ash was born, and though unfed since he'd arrived it did not dim. He shivered.
“In the hands of a child,” he muttered. “This night, Kruppe is truly alone in the world. Alone.”
An hour before dawn Circle Breaker was relieved of his vigil at Despot's Barbican. This night none had come to rendezvous beneath the gate.
Lightning played among the jagged peaks of the Tahlyn Mountains to the north as the man walked in solitude down the winding Charms of Anise Street in the Spice Quarter. Ahead and below glittered the Lakefront, the merchant trader ships from distant Callows, Elingarth and Kepler's Spite hunched dark and gloaming between gaslit stone piers.
A cool lake breeze carried to the man the smell of rain, though overhead the stars glistened with startling clarity. He had removed his tabard, folding it into a small leather satchel now slung on one shoulder. Only the plain shortsword strapped at his hip marked him as a soldier, yet a soldier without provenance.
He had divested himself of his official duties, and as he walked down towards the water, the years of service seemed to slough from his spirit.
Bright were the memories of his childhood at these docks, to which he had been ever drawn by the allure of the strange traders as they swung into their berths like weary and weathered heroes returned from some elemental war. In those days it was not uncommon to see the galleys of the Freemen Privateers ease into the bay, sleek and riding low with booty.
They hailed from such mysterious ports as Filman Orras, Fort By a Half, Dead Man's Story and Exile; names that rang of adventure in the ears of a lad who had never seen his home city from outside its walls.