17 LukarTHE GROUND SWAYED AS Ilissos was dragged, stumbling from the carriage. His knees and feet scraping and thudding over sharp stone edges. The stink of fish smeared queerly across the whirling dark, before he left the street behind and passed through a doorway. A floor and wall came up and jarred his bones. Voices and firelight, shouting, crashing, sickly surges, then a long darkness and someone holding his head and feeding him. He eased his eyes open.
He was in a high, round, fire-lit room, with stairs up to a door. He could make out three people and their looming shadows: Val-zajjhak, seated and sullen; an old woman huddled on a mattress; and a man who came lurching towards him, dragging a foot.
“Well now, well now, your chum’s woken up, Crow.”
“Do not use that name.”
“Why not?
