‘You must think me an idiot, Pick. Both of you!’ When neither objected to that assertion the Falari snarled and took the jar from Blend, raised it defiantly to his mouth and downed the rest of the contents in a cascade of gulps, his oversized Adam’s apple bobbing as if he was trying to swallow a cork.

A fearless idiot,’ Blend said, shaking her head.

Antsy sucked on his moustache ends for moment, then thumped the empty jar on to the tabletop He belched,

They watched as the wench delivered the bottle of white apricot nectar. A brief conversation with the woman ensued, whereupon she flounced off with a toss of her knobby head. The pleasantly plump woman and the Mekhar both poured a healthy measure of the liquor. With a bold toast in the Malazans’ direction, they sipped.

‘Look at that,’ Blend said, smiling, ‘such handsome shades of green.’

And the woman was on her feet, was marching over.

Antsy set a hand oh the grip of his short sword.

In Malazan tainted with the accent of Seven Cities, the woman-with a hard frown-said, ‘You trying to kill us or something? That was awful!’

‘It gets better,’ Blend said with an innocent blink.

‘Really? And when would that be?’

‘Well, embalmers swear by it.’

The woman snorted. ‘Damned Mezla. This is war, you know.’ And she spun about and walked, a little unsteadily, back to her table.

The server was simply waiting in the wings, it turned out, as she arrived at the table moments after the Seven Cities woman sank down into her chair. More conversation. Another toss of the head, and off she trundled.

The bottle she showed up with was of exquisite multihued glass, shaped like some giant insect.

‘This is for you!’ the server snapped. ‘And I ain’t playing no more no matter how much you tip me. Think I can’t work this out? Two women and a man here, one woman and two men o’er there! You are all disgusting and when I tell the manager, well, banning the likes of you won’t hurt us none, will it?’ A whirl, nose in the air, and a most impressive stalk to the restaurant’s nether regions or wherever it was managers squatted in the nervous gloom common to their kind.

The three Malazans said nothing for a long time, each with eyes fixed upon that misshapen bottle.

Then Picker, licking dry lips, asked, ‘Male or female?’

‘Female,’ Antsy said in a thin, grating voice, as if being squeezed from below. ‘Should smell… sweet.’

Clearing her throat, Blend said, ‘They just won the war, didn’t they?’

Picker looked at her. ‘A damned slaughter, too.’

Antsy moaned. ‘We got to drink it, don’t we?’

The two women nodded.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I once plunged straight into a squad of Crimson Guard-’

‘You fell out of the tree-’

‘-and made it out alive. And I once stood down a charging wild boar-’

‘Wasn’t wild, Antsy. It was Trotts’s pet, and you made a grunt that sounded just like a sow.’

‘-and at the last moment I jumped right over it-’

‘It threw you into a wall.’

‘-so if anyone here’s got the guts to start, it’s me.’ And with that he reached for the bottle of Quorl Milk. Paused to study the sigil on the stopper, ‘Green Moranth. The cheap brand. Figures.’

The normal dosage was a thimbleful. Sold exclusively to women who wanted to get pregnant. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t. Maybe all it did was shock the body into pregnancy-anything to avoid another taste of that stuff.

Picker drew out a pale handkerchief and waved it over her head. They’d have to offer them rooms now, at least a week’s stay, she judged. Us Mezla just got trounced. Gods, it’s about time we met folk worth meeting.

Makes it almost worth drinking Quorl Milk.

Antsy drank down a mouthful then set the bottle down. And promptly passed out. Crumpling like a man without bones, except for his head which crunched audibly on the cobbles.

Almost worth it. Sighing, she reached for the bottle. To Blend she said, ‘Good thing your foot’s been neutered, love.’

‘Don’t you mean sterile?’

‘I ain’t that delusional,’ Picker replied. ‘Be sure they promise to hire us all a carriage, before you drink, Blend.’

‘I will. See you tomorrow, sweetie.’

‘Aye.’

Crone circled the edge, fixing one eye then the other on the strange apparition swirling above the enchanted dais. The power of the High Alchemist’s sorcery was as sweet and intoxicating as the pollen of d’bayang poppies, but that which came from the demon was foul, alien-yet, the Great Raven knew, not quite as alien as it should be. Not to her and her kind, that is.