The frog atop the stack of coins dares not jump.
Poor Umur’s Sayings Anonymous
‘FIVE WINGS WILL BUY YOU A GROVEL. I ADMIT, MASTER, THE meaning of that saying escapes me.’
Tehol ran both hands through his hair, pulling at the tangles. ‘Ouch. It’s the Eternal Domicile, Bugg. Wings numbering five, a grovel at the feet of the Errant, at the feet of destiny. The empire is risen. Lether awakens to a new day of glory.’
They stood side by side on the roof.
‘But the fifth wing is sinking. What about four wings?’
‘Gulls in collision, Bugg. My, it’s going to be hot, a veritable furnace. What are the tasks awaiting you today?’
‘My first meeting with Royal Engineer Grum. The shoring up we’ve done with the warehouses impressed him, it seems.’
‘Good.’ Tehol continued staring out over the city for another moment, then he faced his servant. ‘Should it have?’
‘Impressed him? Well, the floors aren’t sagging and they’re bone dry. The new plaster isn’t showing any cracks. The owners are delighted-’
‘I thought I owned those warehouses.’
‘Aren’t you delighted?’
‘Well, you’re right, I am. Every one of me.’
‘That’s what I told the Royal Engineer when I responded to his first missive.’
‘What about the people fronting me on those investments?’
‘They’re delighted, too.’
‘Well,’ Tehol sighed, ‘it’s just that kind of day, isn’t it?’
Bugg nodded. ‘Must be, master.’
‘And is that all you have planned? For the whole day?’
‘No. I need to scrounge some food. Then I need to visit Shand and her partners to give them that list of yours again. It was too long.’
‘Do you recall it in its entirety?’
‘I do. Puryst Rott Ale, I liked that one.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But they weren’t all fake, were they?’
‘No, that would give it away too quickly. All the local ones were real. In any case, it’ll keep them busy for awhile. I hope. What else?’
‘Another meeting with the guilds. I may need bribe money for that.’
‘Nonsense. Stand fast – they’re about to be hit from another quarter.’
‘Strike? I hadn’t heard-’
‘Of course not. The incident that triggers it hasn’t happened yet. You know the Royal Engineer’s obliged to hire guild members only. We have to see that conflict eliminated before it gives us trouble.’
‘All right. I also need to check on that safe-house for Shurq and her newfound friend.’
‘Harlest Eberict. That was quite a surprise. Just how many undead people are prowling around in this city anyway?’
‘Obviously more than we’re aware of, master.’
‘For all we know, half the population might be undead – those people on the bridge there, there, those ones with all those shopping baskets in tow, maybe they’re undead.’
‘Possibly, master,’ Bugg conceded. ‘Do you mean undead literally or figuratively?’
‘Oh, yes, there is a difference, isn’t there? Sorry, I got carried away. Speaking of which, how are Shurq and Ublala getting along?’
‘Swimmingly.’
‘Impressively droll, Bugg. So, you want to check on their hidden abode. Is that all you’re up to today?’
‘That’s just the morning. In the afternoon-’
‘Can you manage a short visit?’
‘Where?’
‘Rat Catchers’ Guild.’
‘Scale House?’
Tehol nodded. ‘I have a contract for them. I want a meeting – clandestine – with the Guild Master. Tomorrow night, if possible.’
Bugg looked troubled. ‘That guild-’
‘I know.’
‘I can drop by on my way to the gravel quarry.’
‘Excellent. Why are you going to the gravel quarry?’
‘Curiosity. They opened up a new hill to fill my last order, and found something.’
‘What?’
‘Not sure. Only that they hired a necromancer to deal with it. And the poor fool disappeared, apart from some hair and toe nails.’
‘Hmm, that is interesting. Keep me informed.’
‘As always, master. And what have you planned for today?’
‘I thought I’d go back to bed.’
Brys lifted his gaze from the meticulous scroll and studied the scribe seated across from him. ‘There must be some mistake,’ he said.
‘No sir. Never, sir.’
‘Well, if these are just the reported disappearances, what about those that haven’t been reported?’
‘Between thirty and fifty per cent, I would say, sir. Added on to what we have. But those would be the blue-edged scrolls. They’re stored on the Projected Shelf.’
‘The what?’
‘Projected. That one, the one sticking out from the wall over there.’
‘And what is the significance of the blue edges?’
‘Posited realities, sir, that which exists beyond the statistics. We use the statistics for formal, public statements and pronouncements, but we operate on the posited realities or, if possible, the measurable realities.’
‘Different sets of data?’
‘Yes, sir. It’s the only way to operate an effective government. The alternative would lead to anarchy. Riots, that sort of thing. We have posited realities for those projections, of course, and they’re not pretty.’
‘But’ – Brys looked back down at the scroll – ‘seven thousand disappearances in Letheras last year?’
‘Six thousand nine hundred and twenty-one, sir.’
‘With a possible additional thirty-five hundred?’
‘Three thousand four hundred and sixty and a half, sir.’
‘And is anyone assigned to conduct investigations on these?’
‘That has been contracted out, sir.’
‘Clearly a waste of coin, then-’
‘Oh no, the coin is well spent.’
‘How so?’
‘A respectable amount, sir, which we can use in our formal and public pronouncements.’
‘Well, who holds this contract?’
‘Wrong office, sir. That information is housed in the Chamber of Contracts and Royal Charters.’
‘I’ve never heard of it. Where is it?’
The scribe rose and walked to a small door squeezed between scroll-cases. ‘In here. Follow me, sir.’
The room beyond was not much larger than a walk-in closet. Blue-edged scrolls filled cubby-holes from floor to ceiling on all sides. Rummaging in one cubby-hole at the far wall, the scribe removed a scroll and unfurled it. ‘Here we are. It’s a relatively new contract. Three years so far. Ongoing investigations, biannual reports delivered precisely on the due dates, yielding no queries, each one approved without prejudice.’
‘With whom?’
‘The Rat Catchers’ Guild.’
Brys frowned. ‘Now I am well and truly confused.’
The scribe shrugged and rolled up the scroll to put it away. Over his shoulder he said, ‘No need to be, sir. The guild is profoundly competent in a whole host of endeavours-’
‘Competence doesn’t seem a relevant notion in this matter,’ Brys observed.
‘I disagree. Punctual reports. No queries. Two renewals without challenge. Highly competent, I would say, sir.’
‘Nor is there any shortage of rats in the city, as one would readily see with even a short walk down any street.’
‘Population management, sir. I dread to think what the situation would be like without the guild.’
Brys said nothing.
A defensiveness came to the scribe’s expression as he studied the Finadd for a long moment. ‘We have nothing but praise for the Rat Catchers’ Guild, sir.’
‘Thank you for your efforts,’ Brys said. ‘I will find my own way out. Good day.’
‘And to you, sir. Pleased to have been of some service.’
Out in the corridor, Brys paused, rubbing at his eyes. Archival chambers were thick with dust. He needed to get outside, into what passed for fresh air in Letheras.
Seven thousand disappearances every year. He was appalled.
So what, I wonder, has Tehol stumbled onto? His brother remained a mystery to Brys. Clearly, Tehol was up to something, contrary to outward appearances. And he had somehow held on to a formidable level of efficacy behind – or beneath – the scenes. That all too public fall, so shocking and traumatic to the financial tolls, now struck Brys as just another feint in his brother’s grander scheme – whatever that was.
The mere thought that such a scheme might exist worried Brys. His brother had revealed, on occasion, frightening competence and ruthlessness. Tehol possessed few loyalties. He was capable of anything.
All things considered, the less Brys knew of Tehol’s activities, the better. He did not want his own loyalties challenged, and his brother might well challenge them. As with Hull. Oh, Mother, it is the Errant’s blessing that you are not alive to see your sons now. Then again, how much of what we are now is what you made us into?
Questions without answers. There seemed to be too many of those these days.
He made his way into the more familiar passages of the palace. Weapons training awaited him, and he found himself anticipating that period of blissful exhaustion. If only to silence the cacophony of his thoughts.
There were clear advantages to being dead, Bugg reflected, as he lifted the flagstone from the warehouse office floor, revealing a black gaping hole and the top rung of a pitted bronze ladder. Dead fugitives, after all, needed no food, no water. No air, come to that. Made hiding them almost effortless.
He descended the ladder, twenty-three rungs, to arrive at a tunnel roughly cut from the heavy clay and then fired to form a hard shell. Ten paces forward to a crooked stone arch beneath which was a cracked stone door crowded with hieroglyphs. Old tombs like this were rare. Most had long since collapsed beneath the weight of the city overhead or had simply sunk so far down in the mud as to be unreachable. Scholars had sought to decipher the strange sigils on the doors of the tombs, while common folk had long wondered why tombs should have doors at all. The language had only been partially deciphered, sufficient to reveal that the glyphs were curse-laden and aspected to the Errant in some mysterious way. All in all, cause enough to avoid them, especially since, after a few had been broken into, it became known that the tombs contained nothing of value, and were peculiar in that the featureless plain stone sarcophagus each tomb housed was empty. There was the added unsubstantiated rumour that those tomb-robbers had subsequently suffered horrid fates.
The door to this particular tomb had surrendered its seal to the uneven heaving descent of the entire structure. Modest effort could push it to one side.
In the tunnel, Bugg lit a lantern using a small ember box, and set it down on the threshold to the tomb. He then applied his shoulder to the door.
‘Is that you?’ came Shurq’s voice from the darkness within.
‘Why yes,’ Bugg said, ‘it is.’
‘Liar. You’re not you, you’re Bugg. Where’s Tehol? I need to talk to Tehol.’
‘He is indisposed,’ Bugg said. Having pushed the door open to allow himself passage into the tomb, he collected the lantern and edged inside.
‘Where’s Harlest?’
‘In the sarcophagus.’
There was no lid to the huge stone coffin. Bugg walked over and peered in. ‘What are you doing, Harlest?’ He set the lantern down on the edge.
‘The previous occupant was tall. Very tall. Hello, Bugg. What am I doing? I am lying here.’
‘Yes, I see that. But why?’
‘There are no chairs.’
Bugg turned to Shurq Elalle. ‘Where are these diamonds?’
‘Here. Have you found what I was looking for?’
‘I have. A decent price, leaving you the majority of your wealth intact.’
‘Tehol can have what’s left in the box there. My earnings from the whorehouse I’ll keep.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want a percentage from this, Shurq? Tehol would be happy with fifty per cent. After all, the risk was yours.’
‘No. I’m a thief. I can always get more.’
Bugg glanced around. ‘Will this do for the next little while?’
‘I don’t see why not. It’s dry, at least. Quiet, most of the time. But I need Ublala Pung.’
Harlest’s voice came from the sarcophagus. ‘And I want sharp teeth and talons. Shurq said you could do that for me.’
‘Work’s already begun on that, Harlest.’
‘I want to be scary. It’s important that I be scary. I’ve been practising hissing and snarling.’
‘No need for concern there,’ Bugg replied. ‘You’ll be truly terrifying. In any case, I should be going-’
‘Not so fast,’ Shurq cut in. ‘Has there been any word on the robbery at Gerun Eberict’s estate?’
‘No. Not surprising, if you think about it. Gerun’s undead brother disappears, the same night as some half-giant beats up most of the guards. Barring that, what else is certain? Will anyone actually attempt to enter Gerun’s warded office?’
‘If I eat human flesh,’ Harlest said, ‘it will rot in my stomach, won’t it? That means I will stink. I like that. I like thinking about things like that. The smell of doom.’
‘The what? Shurq, probably they don’t know they’ve been robbed. And even if they did, they wouldn’t make a move until their master returns.’
‘I expect you’re right. Anyway, be sure to send me Ublala Pung. Tell him I miss him. Him and his-’
‘I will, Shurq. I promise. Anything else?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Let me think.’
Bugg waited.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said after a time, ‘what do you know about these tombs? There was a corpse here, once, in that sarcophagus.’
‘How can you be certain?’
Her lifeless eyes fixed on his. ‘We can tell.’
‘Oh. All right.’
‘So, what do you know?’
‘Not much. The language on the door belongs to an extinct people known as Forkrul Assail, who are collectively personified in our Fulcra by the personage we call the Errant. The tombs were built for another extinct people, called the Jaghut, whom we acknowledge in the Hold we call the Hold of Ice. The wards were intended to block the efforts of another people, the T’lan Imass, who were the avowed enemies of the Jaghut. The T’lan Imass pursued the Jaghut in a most relentless manner, including those Jaghut who elected to surrender their place in the world – said individuals choosing something closely resembling death. Their souls would travel to their Hold, leaving their flesh behind, the flesh being stored in tombs like this one. That wasn’t good enough for the T’lan Imass. Anyway, the Forkrul Assail considered themselves impartial arbiters in the conflict, and that was, most of the time, the extent of their involvement. Apart from that,’ Bugg said with a shrug, ‘I really can’t say.’
Harlest Eberict had slowly sat up during Bugg’s monologue and was now staring at the manservant. Shurq Elalle was motionless, as the dead often were. Then she said, ‘I have another question.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Is this common knowledge among serving staff?’
‘Not that I am aware of, Shurq. I just pick up things here and there, over time.’
‘Things no scholar in Letheras picks up? Or are you just inventing as you go along?’
‘I try to avoid complete fabrication.’
‘And do you succeed?’
‘Not always.’
‘You’d better go now, Bugg.’
‘Yes, I’d better. I’ll have Ublala visit you tonight.’
‘Do you have to?’ Harlest asked. ‘I’m not the voyeuristic type-’
‘Liar,’ Shurq said. ‘Of course you are.’
‘Okay, so I’m lying. It’s a useful lie, and I want to keep it.’
‘That position is indefensible-’
‘That’s a rich statement, coming from you and given what you’ll be up to tonight-’
Bugg collected the lantern and slowly backed out as the argument continued. He pushed the door back in place, slapped the dust from his hands, then returned to the ladder.
Once back in the warehouse office, he replaced the flagstone, then collecting his drawings, he made his way to the latest construction site. Bugg’s Construction’s most recent acquisition had once been a school, stately and reserved for children of only the wealthiest citizens of Letheras. Residences were provided, creating the typical and highly popular prison-style educational institution. Whatever host of traumas were taught within its confines came to an end when, during one particularly wet spring, the cellar walls collapsed in a sluice of mud and small human bones. The floor of the main assembly hall promptly slumped during the next gathering of students, burying children and instructors alike in a vast pit of black, rotting mud, in which fully a third drowned, and of these the bodies of more than half were never recovered. Shoddy construction was blamed, leading to a scandal.
Since that event, fifteen years past, the derelict building had remained empty, reputedly haunted by the ghosts of outraged proctors and bewildered hall monitors.
The purchase price had been suitably modest.
The upper levels directly above the main assembly hall were structurally compromised, and Bugg’s first task had been to oversee the installation of bracing, before the crews could re-excavate the pit down to the cellar floor. Once that floor was exposed – and the jumble of bones dispatched to the cemetery – shafts were extended straight down, through lenses of clay and sand, to a thick bed of gravel. Cement was poured in and a ring of vertical iron rods put in place, followed by alternating packed gravel and cement for half the depth of the shaft. Limestone pillars, their bases drilled to take the projecting rods, were then lowered. From there on upwards, normal construction practices followed. Columns, buttresses and false arches, all the usual techniques in which Bugg had little interest.
The old school was being transformed into a palatial mansion. Which they would then sell to some rich merchant or noble devoid of taste. Since there were plenty of those, the investment was a sure one.
Bugg spent a short time at the site, surrounded by foremen thrusting scrolls in his face describing countless alterations and specifications requiring approval. A bell passed before he finally managed to file his drawings and escape.
The street that became the road that led to the gravel quarry was a main thoroughfare wending parallel with the canal. It was also one of the oldest tracks in the city. Built along the path of a submerged beach ridge of pebbles and cobbles sealed in clay, the buildings lining it had resisted the sagging decay common to other sections of the city. Two hundred years old, many of them, in a style so far forgotten as to seem foreign.
Scale House was tall and narrow, squeezed between two massive stone edifices, one a temple archive and the other the monolithic heart of the Guild of Street Inspectors. A few generations past, a particularly skilled stone carver had dressed the limestone facade and formal, column-flanked entrance with lovingly rendered rats. In multitudes almost beyond counting. Cavorting rats, dancing rats, fornicating rats. Rats at war, at rest, rats feasting on corpses, swarming feast-laden tabletops amidst sleeping mongrels and drunk servants. Scaly tails formed intricate borders to the scenes, and in some strange way it seemed to Bugg as he climbed the steps that the rats were in motion, at the corner of his vision, moving, writhing, grinning.
He shook off his unease, paused a moment on the landing, then opened the door and strode inside.
‘How many, how bad, how long?’
The desk, solid grey Bluerose marble, almost blocked the entrance to the reception hall, spanning the width of the room barring a narrow space at the far right. The secretary seated behind it had yet to look up from his ledgers. He continued speaking after a moment. ‘Answer those questions, then tell us where and what you’re willing to pay and is this a one-off or are you interested in regular monthly visits? And be advised we’re not accepting contracts at the moment.’
‘No.’
The secretary set down his quill and looked up. Dark, small eyes glittered with suspicion from beneath a single wiry brow. Ink-stained fingers plucked at his nose, which had begun twitching as if the man was about to sneeze. ‘We’re not responsible.’
‘For what?’
‘For anything.’ More tugging at his nose. ‘And we’re not accepting any more petitions, so if you’re here to deliver one you might as well just turn round and leave.’
‘What sort of petition might I want to hand to you?’ Bugg asked.
‘Any sort. Belligerent tenement associations have to wait in line just like everyone else.’
‘I have no petition.’
‘Then we didn’t do it, we were never there, you heard wrong, it was someone else.’
‘I am here on behalf of my master, who wishes to meet with your guild to discuss a contract.’
‘We’re backed up. Not taking any more contracts-’
‘Price is not a consideration,’ Bugg cut in, then smiled, ‘within reasonable limits.’
‘Ah, but then it is a consideration. We may well have unreasonable limits in mind. We often have, you know.’
‘I do not believe my master is interested in rats.’
‘Then he’s insane… but interesting. The board will be in attendance tonight on another matter. Your master will be allotted a short period at the meeting’s end, which I will note in the agenda. Anything else?’
‘No. What time tonight?’
‘Ninth bell, no later. Come late and he will be barred outside the chamber door. Be sure he understands that.’
‘My master is always punctual.’
The secretary made a face. ‘Oh, he’s like that, is he? Poor you. Now, begone. I’m busy.’
Bugg abruptly leaned forward and stabbed two fingers into the secretary’s eyes. There was no resistance. The secretary tilted his head back and scowled.
‘Cute,’ Bugg smiled, stepping back. ‘My compliments to the guild sorceror.’
‘What gave me away?’ the secretary asked as Bugg opened the door.
The manservant glanced back. ‘You are far too rat-like, betraying your creator’s obsession. Even so, the illusion is superb.’
‘I haven’t been found out in decades. Who in the Errant’s name are you?’
‘For that answer,’ Bugg said as he turned away, ‘you’ll need a petition.’
‘Wait! Who’s your master?’
Bugg gave a final wave then shut the door. He descended the steps and swung right. A long walk to the quarries was before him, and, as Tehol had predicted, the day was hot, and growing hotter.
Summoned to join the Ceda in the Cedance, the chamber of the tiles, Brys descended the last few steps to the landing and made his way onto the raised walkway. Kuru Qan was circling the far platform in a distracted manner, muttering under his breath.
‘Ceda,’ Brys called as he approached. ‘You wished to see me?’
‘Unpleasant, Finadd, all very unpleasant. Defying comprehension. I need a clearer mind. In other words, not mine. Perhaps yours. Come here. Listen.’
Brys had never heard the Ceda speak with such fraught dismay. ‘What has happened?’
‘Every Hold, Finadd. Chaos. I have witnessed a transformation. Here, see for yourself. The tile of the Fulcra, the Dolmen. Do you see? A figure huddled at its base. Bound to the menhir with chains. All obscured by smoke, a smoke that numbs my mind. The Dolmen has been usurped.’
Brys stared down at the tile. The figure was ghostly, and his vision blurred the longer he stared at it. ‘By whom?’
‘A stranger. An outsider.’
‘A god?’
Kuru Qan massaged his lined brow with his fingers as he continued pacing. ‘Yes. No. We hold no value in the notion of gods. Upstarts who are as nothing compared to the Holds. Most of them aren’t even real, simply projections of a people’s desires, hopes. Fears. Of course,’ he added, ‘sometimes that’s all that’s needed.’
‘What do you mean?’
Kuru Qan shook his head. ‘And the Azath Hold, this troubles me greatly. The centre tile, the Heartstone, can you sense it? The Azath Heartstone, my friend, has died. The other tiles clustered together around it, at the end, drawing tight as blood gathers in a wounded body. The Tomb is breached. Portal stands unguarded. You must make a journey for me to the square tower, Finadd. And go armed.’
‘What am I to look for?’
‘Anything untoward. Broken ground. But be careful – the dwellers within those tombs are not dead.’
‘Very well.’ Brys scanned the nearest tiles. ‘Is there more?’
Kuru Qan halted, brows lifting. ‘More? Dragon Hold has awakened. Wyval. Blood-Drinker. Gate. Consort. Among the Fulcra, the Errant is now positioned in the centre of things. The Pack draws nearer, and Shapefinder has become a chimera. Ice Hold’s Huntress walks frozen paths. Child and Seed stir to life. The Empty Hold – you can well see – has become obscured. Every tile. A shadow stands behind the Empty Throne. And look, Saviour and Betrayer, they have coalesced. They are one and the same. How is this possible? Wanderer, Mistress, Watcher and Walker, all hidden, blurred by mysterious motion. I am frightened, Finadd.’
‘Ceda, have you heard from the delegation?’
‘The delegation? No. From the moment of their arrival in the Warlock King’s village, all contact with them has been lost. Blocked by Edur sorcery, of a sort we’ve not experienced before. There is much that is troubling. Much.’
‘I should leave now, Ceda, while there’s still daylight.’
‘Agreed. Then return here with what you have discovered.’
‘Very well.’
The track leading to the quarries climbed in zigzag fashion to a notch in the hillside. The stands of coppiced trees on the flanks were sheathed in white dust. Goats coughed in the shade.
Bugg paused to wipe sweaty grit from his forehead, then went on.
Two wagons filled with stonecutters had passed him a short while earlier, and from the frustrated foreman came the unwelcome news that the crew had refused to work the quarry any longer, at least until the situation was resolved.
A cavity had been inadvertently breached, within which a creature of some sort had been imprisoned for what must have been a long, long time. Three ‘cutters had been dragged inside, their shrieks short-lived. The hired necromancer hadn’t fared any better.
Bugg reached the notch and stood looking down at the quarry pit with its geometric limestone sides cut deep into the surrounding land. The mouth of the cavity was barely visible near an area that had seen recent work.
He made his way down, coming to within twenty paces of the cave before he stopped.
The air was suddenly bitter cold. Frowning, Bugg stepped to one side and sat down on a block of limestone. He watched frost form on the ground to the left of the cave, reaching in a point towards the dark opening, the opposite end spreading ever wider in a swirl of fog. The sound of ice crunching underfoot, then a figure appeared from the widening end, as if striding out from nowhere. Tall, naked from the hips upward, grey-green skin. Long, streaked blonde hair hanging loose over the shoulders and down the back. Light grey eyes, the pupils vertical slits. Silver-capped tusks. Female, heavy-breasted. She was wearing a short skirt, her only clothing barring the leather-strapped moccasins, and a wide belt holding a half-dozen scabbards in which stabbing knives resided.
Her attention was on the cave. She anchored her hands on her hips and visibly sighed.
‘He’s not coming out,’ Bugg said.
She glanced over. ‘Of course he isn’t, now that I’m here.’
‘What kind of demon is he?’
‘Hungry and insane, but a coward.’
‘Did you put him there?’
She nodded. ‘Damned humans. Can’t leave things well enough alone.’
‘I doubt they knew, Jaghut.’
‘No excuse. They’re always digging. Digging here, digging there. They never stop.’
Bugg nodded, then asked, ‘So now what?’
She sighed again.
The frost at her feet burgeoned into angular ice, which then crawled into the cave mouth. The ice grew swiftly, filling the hole. The surrounding stone groaned, creaked, then split apart, revealing solid ice beneath it. Sandy earth and limestone chunks tumbled away.
Bugg’s gaze narrowed on the strange shape trapped in the centre of the steaming ice. ‘A Khalibaral? Errant take us, Huntress, I’m glad you decided to return.’
‘Now I need to find for him somewhere else. Any suggestions?’
Bugg considered for a time, then he smiled.
Brys made his approach between two of the ruined round towers, stepping carefully around tumbled blocks of stone half hidden in the wiry yellow grasses. The air was hot and still, the sunlight molten gold on the tower walls. Grasshoppers rose from his path in clattering panic and, at the faint sensation of crunching underfoot, Brys looked down to see that the ground was crawling with life. Insects, many of them unrecognizable to his eyes, oversized, awkward, in dull hues, scrambling to either side as he walked.
Since they were all fleeing, he was not unduly concerned.
He came within sight of the square tower. The Azath. Apart from its primitive style of architecture, there seemed to be little else to set it apart. Brys was baffled by the Ceda’s assertion that a structure of stone and wood could be sentient, could breathe with a life of its own. A building presupposed a builder, yet Kuru Qan claimed that the Azath simply rose into being, drawn together of its own accord. Inviting suspicion on every law of causality generations of scholars had posited as irrefutable truth.
The surrounding grounds were less mysterious, if profoundly more dangerous. The humped barrows in the overgrown yard were unmistakable. Gnarled and stunted, dead trees rose here and there, sometimes from the highest point of the mound, but more often from the flanks. A winding flagstone pathway began opposite the front door, the gate marked by rough pillars of unmortared stone wrapped in vines and runners. The remnants of a low wall enclosed the grounds.
Brys reached the edge of the yard along one side, the gate to his right, the tower to the left. And saw immediately that many of the barrows within sight had slumped on at least one of their sides, as if gutted from within. The weeds covering the mounds were dead, blackened as if by rot.
He studied the scene for a moment longer, then made his way round the perimeter towards the gateway. Striding between the pillars, onto the first flagstone – which pitched down to one side with a grinding clunk. Brys tottered, flinging his arms out for balance, and managed to recover without falling.
High-pitched laughter from near the tower’s entrance.
He looked up.
The girl emerged from the shadow cast by the tower. ‘I know you. I followed the ones following you. And killed them.’
‘What has happened here?’
‘Bad things.’ She came closer, mould-patched and dishevelled. ‘Are you my friend? I was supposed to help it stay alive. But it died anyway, and things are busy killing each other. Except for the one the tower chose. He wants to talk to you.’
‘To me?’
‘To one of my grown-up friends.’
‘Who,’ Brys asked, ‘are your other grown-up friends?’
‘Mother Shurq, Father Tehol, Uncle Ublala, Uncle Bugg.’
Brys was silent. Then, ‘What is your name?’
‘Kettle.’
‘Kettle, how many people have you killed in the past year?’
She cocked her head. ‘I can’t count past eight and two.’
‘Ah.’
‘Lots of eight and twos.’
‘And where do the bodies go?’
‘I bring them back here and push them into the ground.’
‘All of them?’
She nodded.
‘Where is this friend of yours? The one who wants to talk to me?’
‘I don’t know if he’s a friend. Follow me. Step where I step.’
She took him by the hand and Brys fought to repress a shiver at that clammy grip. Off the flagstoned path, between barrows, the ground shifting uncertainly beneath each cautious step. There were more insects, but of fewer varieties, as if some kind of attrition had occurred on the grounds of the Azath. ‘I have never seen insects like these before,’ Brys said. ‘They’re… big.’
‘Old, from the times when the tower was born,’ Kettle said. ‘Eggs in the broken ground. Those stick-like brown ones with the heads at both ends are the meanest. They eat at my toes when I sit still too long. And they’re hard to crush.’
‘What about those yellow, spiky ones?’
‘They don’t bother me. They eat only birds and mice. Here.’
She had stopped before a crumpled mound on which sat one of the larger trees in the yard, the wood strangely streaked grey and black, the twigs and branches projecting in curves rather than sharp angles.
Roots spread out across the entire barrow, the remaining bark oddly scaled, like snake skin.
Brys frowned. ‘And how are we to converse, with him in there and me up here?’
‘He’s trapped. He says you have to close your eyes and think about nothing. Like you do when you fight, he says.’
Brys was startled. ‘He’s speaking to you now?’
‘Yes, but he says that isn’t good enough, because I don’t know enough… words. Words and things. He has to show you. He says you’ve done this before.’
‘It seems I am to possess no secrets,’ Brys said.
‘Not many, no, so he says he’ll do the same in return. So you can trust each other. Somewhat.’
‘Somewhat. His word?’
She nodded.
Brys smiled. ‘Well, I appreciate his honesty. All right, I will give this a try.’ He closed his eyes. Kettle’s cold hand remained in his, small, the flesh strangely loose on the bones. He pulled his thoughts from that detail. A fighter’s mind was not in truth emptied during a fight. It was, instead, both coolly detached and mindful. Concentration defined by a structure which was in turn assembled under strict laws of pragmatic necessity. Thus, observational, calculating, and entirely devoid of emotion, even as every sense was awakened.
He felt himself lock into that familiar, reassuring structure.
And was stunned by the strength of the will that tugged him away. He fought against a rising panic, knowing he was helpless before such power. Then relented.
Above him, a sky transformed. Sickly, swirling green light surrounding a ragged black wound large enough to swallow a moon. Clouds twisted, tortured and shorn through by the descent of innumerable objects, each object seeming to fight the air as it fell, as if this world was actively resisting the intrusion. Objects pouring from that wound, tunnelling through layers of the sky.
On the landscape before him was a vast city, rising up from a level plain with tiered gardens and raised walkways. A cluster of towers rose from the far side, reaching to extraordinary heights. Farmland reached out from the city’s outskirts in every direction for as far as Brys could see, strange shadows flowing over it as he watched.
He pulled his gaze from the scene and looked down, to find that he stood on a platform of red-stained limestone. Before him steep steps ran downward, row upon row, hundreds, to a paved expanse flanked by blue-painted columns. A glance to his right revealed a sharply angled descent. He was on a flat-topped pyramid-shaped structure, and, he realized with a start, someone was standing beside him, on his left. A figure barely visible, ghostly, defying detail. It was tall, and seemed to be staring up at the sky, focused on the terrible dark wound.
Objects were striking the ground now, landing hard but with nowhere near the velocity they should have possessed. A loud crack reverberated from the concourse between the columns below, and Brys saw that a massive stone carving had come to rest there. A bizarre beast-like human, squatting with thickly muscled arms reaching down the front, converging with a two-handed grip on the penis. Shoulders and head were fashioned in the likeness of a bull. A second set of legs, feminine, were wrapped round the beast-man’s hips, the platform on which he crouched cut, Brys now saw, into a woman’s form, lying on her back beneath him. From nearby rose the clatter of scores of clay tablets – too distant for Brys to see if there was writing on them, though he suspected there might be – skidding as if on cushions of air before coming to a rest in a scattered swath.
Fragments of buildings – cut limestone blocks, cornerstones, walls of adobe, wattle and daub. Then severed limbs, blood-drained sections of cattle and horses, a herd of something that might have been goats, each one turned inside out, intestines flopping. Dark-skinned humans – or at least their arms, legs and torsos.
Above, the sky was filling with large pallid fragments, floating down like snow.
And something huge was coming through the wound. Wreathed in lightning that seemed to scream with pain, shrieks unending, deafening.
Soft words spoke in Brys’s mind. ‘My ghost, let loose to wander, perhaps, to witness. They warred against Kallor; it was a worthy cause. But… what they have done here…’
Brys could not pull his eyes from that howling sphere of lightning. He could see limbs within it, the burning arcs entwined about them like chains. ‘What – what is it?’
‘A god, Brys Beddict. In its own realm, it was locked in a war. For there were rival gods. Temptations…’
‘Is this a vision of the past?’ Brys asked.
‘The past lives on,’ the figure replied. ‘There is no way of knowing… standing here. How do we measure the beginning, the end – for all of us, yesterday was as today, and as it will be tomorrow. We are not aware. Or perhaps we are, yet choose – for convenience, for peace of mind – not to see. Not to think.’ A vague gesture with one hand. ‘Some say twelve mages, some say seven. It does not matter, for they are about to become dust.’
The massive sphere was roaring now, burgeoning with frightening speed as it plunged earthward. It would, Brys realized, strike the city.
‘Thus, in their effort to enforce a change upon the scheme, they annihilate themselves, and their own civilization.’
‘So they failed.’
The figure said nothing for a time.
And the descending god struck; a blinding flash, a detonation that shook the pyramid beneath them and sent fissures through the concourse below. Smoke, rising in a column that then billowed outward, swallowing the world in shadow. Wind rushed outward in a shock, flattening trees in the farmland, toppling the columns lining the concourse. The trees then burst into flame.
‘In answer to a perceived desperation, fuelled by seething rage, they called down a god. And died with the effort. Does that mean that they failed in their gambit? No, I do not speak of Kallor. I speak of their helplessness which gave rise to their desire for change. Brys Beddict, were their ghosts standing with us now, here in the future world where our flesh resides, thus able to see what their deed has wrought, they would recognize that all that they sought has come to pass.
‘That which was chained to the earth has twisted the walls of its prison. Beyond recognition. Its poison has spread out and infected the world and all who dwell upon it.’
‘You leave me without hope,’ Brys said.
‘I am sorry for that. Do not seek to find hope among your leaders. They are the repositories of poison. Their interest in you extends only so far as their ability to control you. From you, they seek duty and obedience, and they will ply you with the language of stirring faith. They seek followers, and woe to those who question, or voice challenge.
‘Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. And people die.’
Brys studied the firestorm engulfing what was once a city of great beauty. He did not know its name, nor the civilization that had birthed it, and, it now struck him, it did not matter.
‘In your world,’ the figure said, ‘the prophecy approaches its azimuth. An emperor shall arise. You are from a civilization that sees war as an extension of economics. Stacked bones become the foundation for your roads of commerce, and you see nothing untoward in that-’
‘Some of us do.’
‘Irrelevant. Your legacy of crushed cultures speaks its own truth. You intend to conquer the Tiste Edur. You claim that each circumstance is different, unique, but it is neither different nor unique. It is all the same. Your military might proves the virtue of your cause. But I tell you this, Brys Beddict, there is no such thing as destiny. Victory is not inevitable. Your enemy lies in waiting, in your midst Your enemy hides without need for disguise, when belligerence and implied threat are sufficient to cause your gaze to shy away. It speaks your language, takes your words and uses them against you. It mocks your belief in truths, for it has made itself the arbiter of those truths.’
‘Lether is not a tyranny-’
‘You assume the spirit of your civilization is personified in your benign king. It is not. Your king exists because it is deemed permissible that he exist. You are ruled by greed, a monstrous tyrant lit gold with glory. It cannot be defeated, only annihilated.’ Another gesture towards the fiery chaos below. ‘That is your only hope of salvation, Brys Beddict. For greed kills itself, when there is nothing left to hoard, when the countless legions of labourers are naught but bones, when the grisly face of starvation is revealed in the mirror.
‘The god is fallen. He crouches now, seeding devastation. Rise and fall, rise and fall, and with each renewal the guiding spirit is less, weaker, more tightly chained to a vision bereft of hope.’
‘Why does this god do this to us?’
‘Because he knows naught but pain, and yearns only to share it, to visit it upon all that lives, all that exists.’
‘Why have you shown me this?’
‘I make you witness, Brys Beddict, to the symbol of your demise.’
‘Why?’
The figure was silent for a moment, then said, ‘I advised you to not look for hope from your leaders, for they shall feed you naught but lies. Yet hope exists. Seek for it, Brys Beddict, in the one who stands at your side, from the stranger upon the other side of the street. Be brave enough to endeavour to cross that street. Look neither skyward nor upon the ground. Hope persists, and its voice is compassion, and honest doubt.’
The scene began to fade.
The figure at his side spoke one last time. ‘That is all I would tell you. All I can tell you.’
He opened his eyes, and found himself once more standing before the barrow, the day dying around him. Kettle still held his hand in her cold clasp
‘You will help me now?’ she asked.
‘The dweller within the tomb spoke nothing of that.’
‘He never does.’
‘He showed me virtually nothing of himself. I don’t even know who, or what, he is.’
‘Yes.’
‘He made no effort to convince me… of anything. Yet I saw…’
Brys shook his head.
‘He needs help escaping his tomb. Other things are trying to get out. And they will. Not long now, I think. They want to hurt me, and everyone else.’
‘And the one we’re to help will stop them?’
‘Yes.’
‘What can I do?’
‘He needs two swords. The best iron there is. Straight blades, two-edged, pointed. Thin but strong. Narrow hilts, heavy pommels.’
Brys considered. ‘I should be able to find something in the armoury. He wants me to bring them here?’
Kettle nodded.
He needed help. But he did not ask for it. ‘Very well. I will do this. But I will speak to the Ceda regarding this.“
‘Do you trust him? He wants to know, do you trust this Ceda?’
Brys opened his mouth to reply, to say yes, then he stopped. The dweller within the barrow was a powerful creature, probably too powerful to be controlled. There was nothing here that would please Kuru Qan. Yet did Brys have a choice? The Ceda had sent him here to discover what had befallen the Azath… He looked over at the tower. ‘The Azath, it is dead?’
‘Yes. It was too old, too weak. It fought for so long.’
‘Kettle, are you still killing people in the city?’
‘Not many. Only bad people. One or two a night. Some of the trees are still alive, but they can’t feed on the tower’s blood any more. So I give them other blood, so they can fight to hold the bad monsters down. But the trees are dying too.’
Brys sighed. ‘All right. I will visit again, Kettle. With the swords.’
‘I knew I could like you. I knew you would be nice. Because of your brother.’
That comment elicited a frown, then another sigh. He gently disengaged his hand from the dead child’s grip. ‘Be careful, Kettle.’
‘It was a perfectly good sleep,’ Tehol said as he walked alongside Bugg.
‘I am sure it was, master. But you did ask for this meeting.’
‘I didn’t expect such a quick response. Did you do or say something to make them unduly interested?’
‘Of course I did, else we would not have achieved this audience.’
‘Oh, that’s bad, Bugg. You gave them my name?’
‘No.’
‘You revealed something of my grand scheme?’
‘No.’
‘Well, what did you say, then?’
‘I said money was not a consideration.’
‘Not a consideration?’ Tehol slowed his pace, drawing Bugg round. ‘What do you think I’m willing to pay them?’
‘I don’t know,’ the manservant replied. ‘I have no idea of the nature of this contract you want to enter into with the Rat Catchers’ Guild.’
‘That’s because I hadn’t decided yet!’
‘Well, have you decided now, master?’
‘I’m thinking on it. I hope to come up with something by the time we arrive.’
‘So, it could be expensive…’
Tehol’s expression brightened. ‘You’re right, it could be indeed. Therefore, money is not a consideration.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I’m glad we’re in agreement. You are a wonderful manservant, Bugg.’
‘Thank you, master.’
They resumed walking.
Before long they halted in front of Scale House. Tehol stared up at the riotous rodent facade for a time. ‘They’re all looking at me,’ he said.
‘They do convey that impression, don’t they?’
‘I don’t like being the singular focus of the attention of thousands of rats. What do they know that I don’t?’
‘Given the size of their brains, not much.’
Tehol stared for a moment longer, then he slowly blinked and regarded Bugg. Five heartbeats. Ten.
The manservant remained expressionless, then he coughed, cleared his throat, and said, ‘Well, we should head inside, shouldn’t we?’
The secretary sat as he had earlier that day, working on what seemed to Bugg to be the same ledger. Once again, he did not bother looking up. ‘You’re early. I was expecting punctual.’
‘We’re not early,’ Tehol said.
‘You’re not?’
‘No, but since the bell is already sounding, any more from you and we’ll be late.’
‘I’m not to blame. Never was at any point in this ridiculous conversation. Up the stairs. To the top. There’s only one door. Knock once then enter, and Errant help you. Oh, and the manservant can stay here, provided he doesn’t poke me in the eyes again.’
‘He’s not staying here.’
‘He’s not?’
‘No.’
‘Fine, then. Get out of my sight, the both of you.’
Tehol led the way past the desk and they began their ascent.
‘You poked him in the eyes?’ Tehol asked.
‘I judged it useful in getting his attention.’
‘I’m pleased, although somewhat alarmed.’
‘The circumstances warranted extreme action on my part.’
‘Does that happen often?’
‘I’m afraid it does.’
They reached the landing. Tehol stepped forward and thumped on the door. A final glance back at Bugg, suspicious and gauging, then he swung open the door. They strode into the chamber beyond.
In which rats swarmed. Covering the floor. The tabletop. On the shelves, clambering on the crystal chandelier. Crouched on the shoulders and peering from folds in the clothes of the six board members seated on the other side of the table.
Thousands of beady eyes fixed on Tehol and Bugg, including those of the three men and three women who were the heart of the Rat Catchers’ Guild.
Tehol hitched up his trousers. ‘Thank you one and all-’
‘You’re Tehol Beddict,’ cut in the woman seated on the far left. She was mostly a collection of spherical shapes, face, head, torso, breasts, her eyes tiny, dark and glittering like hardened tar. There were at least three rats in her mass of upright, billowed black hair.
‘And I’m curious,’ Tehol said, smiling. ‘What are all these rats doing here?’
‘Insane question,’ snapped the man beside the roundish woman. ‘We’re the Rat Catchers’ Guild. Where else are we supposed to put the ones we capture?’
‘I thought you killed them.’
‘Only if they refuse avowal,’ the man said, punctuating his words with a sneer for some unexplainable reason.
‘Avowal? How do rats make vows?’
‘None of your business,’ the woman said. ‘I am Onyx. Beside me sits Scint. In order proceeding accordingly, before you sits Champion Ormly, Glisten, Bubyrd and Ruby. Tehol Beddict, we suffered losses on our investments thanks to you.’
‘From which you have no doubt recovered.’
‘That’s not the point!’ said the woman called Glisten. She was blonde, and so slight and small that only her shoulders and head were above the level of the tabletop. Heaps of squirming rats passed in front of her every now and then, forcing her to bob her head up to maintain eye contact.
‘By my recollection,’ Tehol said reasonably, ‘you lost a little less than half a peak.’
‘How do you know that?’ Scint demanded. ‘Nobody else but us knows that!’
‘A guess, I assure you. In any case, the contract I offer will be for an identical amount.’
‘Half a peak!’
Tehol’s smile broadened. ‘Ah, I have your fullest attention now. Excellent.’
‘That’s an absurd amount,’ spoke Ormly for the first time. ‘What would you have us do, conquer Kolanse?’
‘Could you?’
Ormly scowled. ‘Why would you want us to, Tehol Beddict?’
‘It’d be difficult,’ Glisten said worriedly. ‘The strain on our human resources-’
‘Difficult,’ cut in Scint, ‘but not impossible. We’d need to recruit from our island cells-’
‘Wait!’ Tehol said. ‘I’m not interested in conquering Kolanse!’
‘You’re the type who’s always changing his mind,’ Onyx said. She leaned back and with a squeak a rat plummeted from her hair to thump on the floor somewhere behind her. ‘I can’t stand working with people like that.’
‘I haven’t changed my mind. It wasn’t me who brought up the whole Kolanse thing. In fact, it was Champion Ormly-’
‘Well, he can’t make up his mind neither. You two are made for each other.’
Tehol swung to Bugg. ‘I’m not indecisive, am I? Tell them, Bugg. When have you ever seen me indecisive?’
Bugg frowned.
‘Bugg!’
‘I’m thinking!’
Glisten’s voice came from behind a particularly large heap of rats. ‘I can’t see the point of any of this.’
‘That’s quite understandable,’ Tehol said evenly.
‘Describe your contract offer,’ Ormly demanded. ‘But be advised, we don’t do private functions.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I won’t waste my breath on explaining… unless it turns out to be relevant. Is it?’
‘I don’t know. How can I tell?’
‘Well, that’s my point exactly. Now, about the contract?’
‘All right,’ Tehol said, ‘but be warned, it’s complicated.’
Glisten’s plaintive voice: ‘Oh, I don’t like the sound of that!’
Tehol made an effort to see her, then gave up. The mound of rats on the tabletop in front of her was milling. ‘You surprise me, Glisten,’ he said. ‘It strikes me that the Rat Catchers’ Guild thrives on complications. After all, you do much more than, uh, harvest rats, don’t you? In fact, your primary function is as the unofficial assassins’ guild – unofficial because, of course, it’s an outlawed activity and unpleasant besides. You’re also something of a thieves’ guild, too, although you’ve yet to achieve full compliance among the more independent-minded thieves. You also provide an unusually noble function in your unofficial underground escape route for impoverished refugees from assimilated border tribes. And then there’s the-’
‘Stop!’ Onyx shrieked. In a slightly less shrill tone she said, ‘Bubyrd, get our Chief Investigator in here. Errant knows, if anyone needs investigating, it’s this Tehol Beddict.’
Tehol’s brows rose. ‘Will that be painful?’
Onyx leered and whispered, ‘Restrain your impatience, Tehol Beddict. You’ll get an answer to that soon enough.’
‘Is it wise to threaten a potential employer?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Onyx replied.
‘Your knowledge of our operations is alarming,’ Ormly said. ‘We don’t like it.’
‘I assure you, I have only admiration for your endeavours. In fact, my contract offer is dependent upon the fullest range of the guild’s activities. I could not make it without prior knowledge, could I?’
‘How do we know?’ Ormly asked. ‘We’ve yet to hear it.’
‘I’m getting there.’
The door behind them opened and the woman who was in all likelihood the Chief Investigator strode in past Tehol and Bugg. Stepping carefully, she took position on the far right of the table, arms crossing as she leaned against the wall.
Onyx spoke. ‘Chief Investigator Rucket, we have in our presence a dangerous liability.’
The woman, tall, lithe, her reddish hair cut short, was dressed in pale leathers, the clothing South Nerek in style, as if she had just come from the steppes. Although, of course, the nearest steppes were a hundred or more leagues to the east. She appeared to be unarmed. Her eyes, a startling tawny shade that looked more feline than human, slowly fixed on Tehol. ‘Him?’
‘Who else?’ Onyx snapped. ‘Not his manservant, surely!’
‘Why not?’ Rucket drawled. ‘He looks to be the more dangerous one.’
‘I’d agree,’ Bubyrd said in a hiss. ‘He poked my secretary in the eyes.’
Scint started. ‘Really? Just like that?’ He held up a hand and stretched out the first two fingers, then jabbed the air. ‘Like that? Poke! Like that?’
‘Yes,’ Bubyrd replied, glaring at Bugg. ‘He revealed the illusion! What’s the point of creating illusions when he just ups and pokes holes in them!’
Tehol swung to his manservant. ‘Bugg, are we going to get out of here alive?’
‘Hard to say, master.’
‘All because you poked that secretary in the eyes?’
Bugg shrugged.
‘Touchy, aren’t they?’
‘So it seems, master. Best get on with the offer, don’t you think?’
‘Good idea. Diversion, yes indeed.’
‘You idiots,’ Onyx said. ‘We can hear you!’
‘Excellent!’ Tehol stepped forward, carefully, so as to avoid crushing the seething carpet of rats. Gentle nudging aside with the toe of his moccasin seemed to suffice. ‘To wit. I need every tribal refugee in the city ushered out. Destination? The islands. Particular islands, details forthcoming. I need full resources shipped ahead of them, said supplies to be purchased by myself. You will work with Bugg here on the logistics. Second, I understand you are conducting an investigation into disappearances for the Crown. No doubt you’re telling them nothing of your findings. I, on the other hand, want to know those findings. Third, I want my back protected. In a short while, there will be people who will want to kill me. You are to stop them. Thus, my contract offer. Half a peak and a list of safe investments, and as to that last point, I suggest you follow my financial advice to the letter and swallow the expense-’
‘You want to be our financial adviser?’ Onyx asked in clear disbelief. ‘Those losses-’
‘Could have been avoided, had we been engaged in a closer relationship back then, such as the one we are about to enter into.’
‘What about those refugees who are Indebted?’ Ormly asked. ‘Having them all disappear could cause another crash in the Tolls.’
‘It won’t, because the trickle is to be so slow that no-one notices-’
‘How could they not notice?’
‘They will be… distracted.’
‘You’ve got something ugly planned, haven’t you, Tehol Beddict?’ Ormly’s small eyes glittered. ‘Meaning what happened the first time wasn’t no accident. Wasn’t incompetence neither. You just found yourself with a string in your hand, which you then tugged to see how much would unravel. You know what you’re telling us? You’re telling us you’re the most dangerous man in Lether. Why would we ever let you walk out of this chamber?’
‘Simple. This time I’m taking my friends with me. So the question is, are you my friends?’
‘And what if our Chief Investigator investigates you right here and right now?’
‘My scheme is already under way, Champion Ormly, whether I stay alive or not. It’s going to happen. Of course, if I die, then nobody escapes what’s coming.’
‘Hold on,’ Onyx said. ‘You said something about expense. You becoming our financial adviser is going to cost us?’
‘Well, naturally.’
‘How much?’
‘A quarter of a peak or thereabouts.’
‘So you pay us half and we pay you back a quarter.’
‘And so you come out ahead.’
‘He’s got a point,’ Scint said, snatching a rat from the table and biting its head off.
Everyone stared, including a roomful of rats.
Scint noticed, chewed for a moment, making crunching sounds, then said around a mouthful of rat head, ‘Sorry. Got carried away.’ He looked down at the headless corpse in his hand, then tucked it into his shirt and out of sight.
From where Glisten sat came a plaintive sound, then, ‘What did that rat ever do to you, Scinty?’
Scint swallowed, ‘I said sorry!’
Tehol leaned close to Bugg and whispered, ‘If you could poke any of them in the eyes…’
‘Three of ’em would likely complain, master.’
‘Can I guess?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Ormly, Bubyrd and Rucket.’
‘I’m impressed.’
‘What are you two whispering about?’ Onyx demanded.
Tehol smiled at her. ‘Do you accept my offer?’
Brys found the Ceda in his work room, hunched over an upended crab lying on the table. He had removed the flat carapace covering the underside and was prodding organs with a pair of copper probes. The crab appeared to be dead.
Burners had been lit beneath a cauldron behind Kuru Qan, and the lid was rocking to gusts of steam.
‘Finadd, this array of organs is fascinating. But I’m distracting myself. Shouldn’t do that, not at this critical juncture.’ He set the instruments down and picked up the crab. ‘What have you to tell me?’
Brys watched the Ceda nudge the cauldron’s lid aside then drop the crab in. ‘The Azath tower is dead.’
Kuru Qan pushed the lid back into place then walked back to sit in his chair. He rubbed at his eyes. ‘What physical evidence is there?’
‘Little, admittedly. But a child is resident there, on the grounds,’ Brys replied. ‘The tower was in some sort of communication with her.’
‘The role of Keeper? Odd that the Hold should choose a child. Unless the original Keeper had died. And even then… odd.’
‘There is more,’ Brys said. ‘A resident within one of the barrows was accorded the role of protector. The child, Kettle, believes that person is capable of destroying the others – all of whom are close to escaping their prisons.’
‘The Hold, in its desperation, made a bargain, then. What else does this Kettle know of that resident?’
‘He speaks to her constantly. He speaks through her, as well. At the moment, he is trapped. He can go no further, and no, I don’t know how that situation will be resolved. Ceda, I also spoke to that stranger.’ Kuru Qan looked up. ‘He reached into your mind? And showed you what?’
Brys shook his head. ‘He made no effort to convince me of anything, Ceda. Voiced no arguments in his own defence. Instead, I was made witness to an event, from long ago, I believe.’
‘What kind of event?’
‘The bringing down of a god. By a cadre of sorcerors, none of whom survived the ritual.’
Kuru Qan’s eyes widened at these words. ‘Relevant? Errant bless me, I hope not.’
‘You have knowledge of this, Ceda?’
‘Not enough, Finadd, I’m afraid. And this stranger was witness to that dire scene?’
‘He was. Inadvertently, he said.’
‘Then he has lived a very long time.’
‘Is he a threat?’
‘Of course he is. None here could match his power, I would think. And, assuming he is successful in destroying the other residents of the yard, the question one must face is, what then?’
‘It strikes me as a huge assumption, Ceda. Killing the others. Why would he hold to his bargain with a now-dead Azath?’
‘One must believe that the Hold chose wisely, Finadd. Do you have doubts?’
‘I’m not sure. He has asked for weapons. Two swords. I am inclined to accede to his request.’
The Ceda slowly nodded. ‘Agreed. No doubt you were thinking of finding something in the armoury. But for an individual such as this, a normal weapon won’t do, even one of Letherii steel. No, we must go to my private hoard.’
‘I wasn’t aware you had one.’
‘Naturally. Now, a moment.’ Kuru Qan rose and walked back to the cauldron. Using large tongs, he retrieved the crab, the shell now a fiery red. ‘Ah, perfect. Of course, it can cool down some. So, follow me.’
Brys had thought he knew virtually every area of the old palace, but the series of subterranean chambers the Ceda led him into were completely unfamiliar to him, although not a single hidden door was passed through on the way. By the Finadd’s internal map, they were now under the river.
They entered a low-ceilinged chamber with rack-lined walls on which were hundreds of weapons. Brys had collected a lantern along the way and he now hung it from a hook in a crossbeam. He walked to a rack crowded with swords. ‘Why a private collection, Ceda?’
‘Curios, most of them. Some antiques. I am fascinated with forging techniques, particularly those used by foreign peoples. Also, there is sorcery invested in these weapons.’
‘All of them?’ Brys lifted one particular weapon from its hooks, a close match to the description relayed to him by Kettle.
‘Yes. No, put that one back, Finadd. It’s cursed.’
Brys replaced it.
‘In fact,’ Kuru Qan went on in a troubled voice, ‘they’re all cursed. Well, this could prove a problem.’
‘Perhaps I should go to the regular armoury-’
‘Patience, Finadd. It’s the nature of curses that allows us to possibly find a reasonable solution. Two swords, you said?’
‘Why would sorcerors curse a weapon?’
‘Oh, most often not an intentional act on their parts. Often it’s simply a matter of incompetence. In many cases, the sorcerous investment refuses to function. The iron resists the imposition, and the better the forging technique the more resistant the weapon is. Sorcery thrives on flaws, whether structural in the physical sense, or metaphorical in the thematic sense. Ah, I see your eyes glazing over, Finadd. Never mind. Let’s peruse the antiques, shall we?’
The Ceda led him to the far wall, and Brys immediately saw a perfect weapon, long and narrow of blade, pointed and double-edged, modest hilt. ‘Letherii steel,’ he said, reaching for it.
‘Yes, in the Blue Style, which, as you well know, is the very earliest technique for Letherii steel. In some ways, the Blue Style produces finer steel than our present methods. The drawbacks lie in other areas.’
Brys tested the weight of the weapon. ‘The pommel needs to be replaced, but otherwise…’ Then he looked up. ‘But it’s cursed?’
‘Only in so far as all Blue Style weapons are cursed. As you know, the blade’s core is twisted wire, five braids of sixty strands each. Five bars are fused to that core to produce the breadth and edge. Blue Style is very flexible, almost unbreakable, with one drawback. Finadd, touch the blade to any other here. Lightly, please. Go ahead.’
Brys did so, and a strange sound reverberated from the Blue Style sword. A cry, that went on, and on.
‘Depending on where on the blade you strike, the note is unique, although each will eventually descend or ascend to the core’s own voice. The effect is cumulative, and persistent.’
‘Sounds like a dying goat.’
‘There is a name etched into the base of the blade, Finadd. Arcane script. Can you read it?’
Brys squinted, struggled a moment with the awkward lettering, then smiled. ‘Glory Goat. Well, it seems a mostly harmless curse. Is there any other sorcery invested in it?’
‘The edges self-sharpen, I believe. Nicks and notches heal, although some material is always lost. Some laws cannot be cheated.’ The Ceda drew out another sword. ‘This one is somewhat oversized, I’ll grant you-’
‘No, that’s good. The stranger was very tall.’
‘He was now, was he?’
Brys nodded, shifting the first sword to his left hand and taking the one Kuru Qan held in his right. ‘Errant, this would be hard to wield. For me, that is.’
‘Sarat Wept,’ the Ceda said. ‘About four generations old. One of the last in the Blue Style. It belonged to the King’s Champion of that time.’
Brys frowned. ‘Urudat?’
‘Very good.’
‘I’ve seen images of him in frescos and tapestries. A big man-’
‘Oh, yes, but reputedly very quick.’
‘Remarkable, given the weight of this sword.’ He held it out. ‘The blade pulls. The line is a hair’s breadth outward. This is a left-handed weapon.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ Brys considered, ‘the stranger fights with both hands, and he specified two full swords, suggesting-’
‘A certain measure of ambidexterity. Yes.’
‘Investment?’
‘To make it shatter upon its wielder’s death.’
‘But-’
‘Yes, another incompetent effort. Thus, two formidable weapons in the Blue Style of Letherii steel. Acceptable?’
Brys studied both weapons, the play of aquamarine in the lantern-light. ‘Both beautiful and exquisitely crafted. Yes, I think these will do.’
‘When will you deliver them?’
‘Tomorrow. I have no desire to enter those grounds at night.’ He thought of Kettle, and felt once more the clasp of her cold hand. It did not occur to him then that he had not informed the Ceda of one particular detail from his encounter at the tower. It was a matter that, outwardly at least, seemed of little relevance.
Kettle was more than just a child.
She was also dead.
Thanks to this careless omission, the Ceda’s measure of fear was not as great as it should have been. Indeed, as it needed to be. Thanks to this omission, and in the last moments before the Finadd parted company with Kuru Qan, a crossroads was reached, and then, inexorably, a path was taken.
The night air was pleasant, a warm wind stirring the rubbish in the gutters as Tehol and Bugg paused at the foot of the steps to Scale House.
‘That was exhausting,’ Tehol said. ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’
‘Don’t you want to eat first, master?’
‘You scrounged something?’
‘No.’
‘So we have nothing to eat.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then why did you ask me if I wanted to eat?’
‘I was curious.’
Tehol anchored his fists on his hips and glared at his manservant. ‘Look, it wasn’t me who nearly got us investigated in there!’
‘It wasn’t?’
‘Well, not all me. It was you, too. Poking eyes and all that.’
‘Master, it was you who sent me there. You who had the idea of offering a contract.’
‘Poking eyes!’
‘All right, all right. Believe me, master, I regret my actions deeply!’
‘You regret deeply?’
‘Fine, deeply regret.’
‘That’s it, I’m going to bed. Look at this street. It’s a mess!’
‘I’ll get around to it, master, if I find the time.’
‘Well, that should be no problem, Bugg. After all, what have you done today?’
‘Scant little, it’s true.’
‘As I thought.’ Tehol cinched up his trousers. ‘Never mind. Lets go, before something terrible happens.’