We came upon the fiend on the eastern slope of the Radagar Spine. It was lying in a shallow gorge formed by flash flooding, and the stench pervading the hot air told us of rotting flesh, and indeed upon examination, conducted with utmost caution on this, the very day following the ambush on our camp by unknown attackers, we discovered that the fiend was, while still alive, mortally wounded. How to describe such a demonic entity? When upright, it would have balanced on two hugely muscled hind legs, reminiscent of that of a shaba, the flightless bird found on the isles of the Draconean Archipelago, yet in comparison much larger here. The hip level of the fiend, when standing, would have been at a man’s eye level. Long-tailed, the weight of the fiend’s torso evenly balanced by its hips, thrusting the long neck and head far forward, the spine made horizontal. Two long forelimbs, thickly bound in muscle and hardened scales providing natural armour, ended, not in grasping talons or hands, but enormous swords, iron-bladed, that seemed fused, metal to bone, with the wrists. The head was snouted, like that of a crocodile, such as those found in the mud of the southern shoreline of the Bluerose Sea, yet, again, here much larger. Desiccation had peeled the lips back to reveal jagged rows of fangs, each one dagger-long. The eyes, clouded with approaching death, were nonetheless uncanny and alien to our senses.
The Atri-Preda, bold as ever, strode forward to deliver the fiend from its suffering, with a sword thrust into the soft tissue of its throat. With this fatal wound, the fiend loosed a death cry that struck us with pain, for the sound it voiced was beyond our range of hearing, yet it burst in our skulls with such ferocity that blood was driven from our nostrils, eyes and ears.
One other detail is worth noting, before I expound on the extent of said injuries. The wounds visible upon the fiend were most curious. Elongated, curving slashes, perhaps from some form of tentacle, but a tentacle bearing sharp teeth, whilst other wounds were shorter but deeper in nature, invariably delivered to a region vital to locomotion or other similar dispensation of limbs, severing tendons and so forth…
– Factor Breneda Anict, Expedition into the Wildlands, Official Annals of Pufanan Ibyris
He was not a man in bed. Oh, his parts functioned well enough, but in every other way he was a child, this Emperor of a Thousand Deaths. But worst of all, Nisall decided, was what happened afterwards, as he fell into that half-sleep, half-something else, limbs spasming, endless words tumbling from him in a litany of pleading, punctuated by despairing sobs that scraped the scented air of the chamber. And before long, after she’d escaped the bed itself, drawing a robe about her and taking position near the painted scene in the false window, five paces distant, she would watch him crawl down onto the floor and make his way as if crippled from some spinal injury, the ever-present sword trailing in one hand, across the room to the corner, where he would spend the rest of the night, curled up, locked in some eternal nightmare.
A thousand deaths, lived through night upon night. A thousand.
An exaggeration, of course. A few hundred at most.
Emperor Rhulad’s torment was not the product of a fevered imagination, nor born of a host of anxieties. What haunted him were the truths of his past. She was able to identify some of his mutterings, in particular the one that dominated his nightmares, for she had been there. In the throne room, witness to Rhulad’s non-death, weeping there on the floor all slick with his spilled blood, with a corpse on his throne and Rhulad’s own slayer lying half upright against the dais-stolen away by poison.
Hannan Mosag’s pathetic slither towards that throne had been halted by the demon that had appeared to collect the body of Brys Beddict, and the almost indifferent sword thrust that killed Rhulad as the apparition made its way out.
The Emperor’s awakening shriek had turned her heart into a frozen lump, a cry so brutally raw that she felt its fire in her own throat.
But it was what followed, a short time after his return, that stalked Rhulad with a thousand dripping blades.
To die, only to return, is to never escape. Never escaped… anything.
Wounds closing, he had lifted himself up, onto his hand and knees, still gripping the cursed sword, the weapon that would not let go. Weeping, drawing in ragged breaths, h crawled towards the throne, sagging down once more whe: he reached the dais.
Nisall had stepped out from where she had hidden moments earlier. Her mind was numb-the suicide of he king-her lover-and the Eunuch, Nifadas-the shocks one upon another in this terrible throne room, the deaths, tumbling like crowded gravestones in a flooded field Triban Gnol, ever the pragmatist, knelt before the new Emperor, pledging his service with the ease of an eel sliding under a new rock. The First Consort had been witness, well, but she could not see Turudal Brizad now, as Rhulad, hlood-wet coins gleaming, twisted round on the step and bared his teeth at Hannan Mosag.
‘Not yours,’ he said in a rasp.
‘Rhulad-’
‘Emperor! And you, Hannan Mosag, are my Ceda… Warlock King no longer. My Ceda, yes.’
‘Your wife-’
‘Dead. Yes.’ Rhulad lifted himself onto the dais, then lose, staring now at the dead Letherii king, Ezgara Diskanar. Then he reached out with his unburdened hand, grasped the front of the king’s brocaded tunic, and dragged the corpse from the throne, letting it fall to one side, head crunching on the tiled floor. A shiver seemed to rack through Rhulad. Then he sat on the throne and looked out, eyes settling once more on Hannan Mosag. ‘Ceda,’ he said, ‘in this, our chamber, you will ever approach us on your belly, as you do now.’
From the shadows at the far end of the throne room there came a phlegmatic cackle.
Rhulad flinched, then said, ‘Now you will leave us, Ceda. And take that hag Janall and her son with you.’
‘Emperor, please, you must understand-’
‘Get out!’
The shriek jarred Nisall, and she hesitated, fighting the urge to flee, to get away from this place. From the court, from the city, from everything.
Then his free hand snapped out and without turning he said to her, ‘Not you, whore. You stay.’
Whore. ‘That term is inappropriate,’ she said, then stiffened in fear, surprised by her own temerity.
He fixed feverish eyes on her. Then, incongruously, he waved dismissively and spoke with sudden weariness. ‘Of course. We apologize. Imperial Concubine…’ His glittering fece twisted in a half-smile. ‘Your king should have taken you as well. He was being selfish, or perhaps his love for you was so dleep that he could not bear inviting you into death.’
She said nothing, for, in truth, she had no answer to give him.
‘Ah, we see the doubt in your eyes. Concubine, you have our sympathy. Know that we will not use you cruelly.’ He fell silent then, as he watched Hannan Mosag drag himself back across the threshold of the chamber’s grand entrance-way. A half-dozen more Tiste Edur had appeared, tremulous in their furtive motions, their uncertainty at what they were witnessing. A hissed command from Hannan Mosag sent two into the room, each one drawing up the burlap over the mangled forms of Janall and Quillas, her son. The sound as they dragged the two flesh-filled sacks from the chamber was, to Nisall’s ears, more grisly than anything else she had yet heard on this fell day.
‘At the same time,’ the Emperor went on after a moment, ‘the title and its attendant privileges… remain, should you so desire.’
She blinked, feeling as if she was standing on shifting sand. ‘You free me to choose, Emperor?’
A nod, the bleary, red-shot eyes still fixed on the chamber’s entranceway. ‘Udinaas,’ he whispered. ‘Betrayer. You… you were not free to choose. Slave-my slave-I should never have trusted the darkness, never…’ He flinched once more on the throne, eyes suddenly glittering. ‘He comes.’
She had no idea whom he meant, but the raw emotion in his voice frightened her anew. What more could come on this terrible day?
Voices outside, one of them sounding bitter, then diffident.
She watched as a Tiste Edur warrior strode into the throne room. Rhulad’s brother. One of them. The one who had left Rhulad lying on the tiles. Young, handsome in that way of the Edur-both alien and perfect. She tried to recall if she had heard his name-
‘Trull,’ said the Emperor in a rasp. ‘Where is he? Where is Fear?’
‘He has… left.’
‘Left? Left us?’
‘Us. Yes, Rhulad-or do you insist I call you Emperor?’
Expressions twisted across Rhulad’s coin-studded face, one after another, then he grimaced and said, ‘You left me, too, brother. Left me bleeding… on the floor. Do you think yourself different from Udinaas? Less a betrayer than my Letherii slave?’
‘Rhulad, would that you were my brother of old-’
‘The one you sneered down upon?’
‘If it seemed I did that, then I apologize.’
‘Yes, you see the need for that now, don’t you?’
Trull Sengar stepped forward. ‘It’s the sword, Rhulad. It is cursed-please, throw it away. Destroy it. You’ve won the throne now, you don’t need it any more-’
‘You are wrong.’ He bared his teeth, as if sickened by self-hatred. ‘Without it I am just Rhulad, youngest son of Tomad. Without the sword, brother, I am nothing.’
Trull cocked his head. ‘You have led us to conquest. I will stand beside you. So will Binadas, and our father. You have won that throne, Rhulad-you need not fear Hannan Mosag-’
‘That miserable worm? You think me frightened of him?’ The sword-tip made a snapping sound as its point jumped free of the tiles. Rhulad aimed the weapon at Trull’s chest. ‘I am the Emperor!’
‘No, you’re not,’ Trull replied. ‘Your sword is Emperor-your sword and the power behind it.’
‘Liar!’ Rhulad shrieked.
Nisall saw Trull flinch back, then steady himself. ‘Prove it.’
The Emperor’s eyes widened.
‘Shatter the sword-Sister’s blessing, just let it fall from your hand. Even that, Rhulad. Just that. Let it fall!’
‘No! I know what you want, brother! You will take it-I see you tensed, ready to dive for it-I see the truth!’ The weapon was shuddering between them, as if eager for blood, anyone’s blood.
Trull shook his head. ‘I want it shattered, Rhulad.’
‘You cannot stand at my side,’ the Emperor hissed. ‘Too close-there is betrayal in your eyes-you left me! Crippled on the floor!’ He raised his voice. ‘Where are my warriors? Into the chamber! Your Emperor commands it!’
A half-dozen Edur warriors suddenly appeared, weapons out.
‘Trull,’ Rhulad whispered. ‘I see you have no sword. Now it is for you to drop your favoured weapon, your spear. And your knives. What? Do you fear I will slay you? Show me the trust you claim in yourself. Guide me with your honour, brother.’
She did not know it then; she did not understand enough of the Edur way of life, but she saw something in Trull’s face, a kind of surrender, but a surrender that was far more complicated, fraught, than simply disarming himself there before his brother. Levels of resignation, settling one upon another, the descent of impossible burdens-and the knowledge shared between the two brothers, of what such a surrender signified. She did not realize at the time what Trull’s answer would mean, the way it was done, not in his own name, not for himself, but for Fear. Fear Sengar, more! than anyone else. She did not realize, then, the immensity’ of his sacrifice, as he unslung his spear and let it clatter to, the tiles; as he removed his knife belt and threw it to one side.
There should have been triumph in Rhulad’s tortured eyes, then, but there wasn’t. Instead, a kind of confusion clouded his gaze, made him shy away, as if seeking help. His attention found and focused upon the six warriors, and he gestured with the sword and said in a broken voice, ‘Trull Sengar is to be Shorn. He will cease to exist, for ourself, for all Edur. Take him. Bind him. Take him away.’
Neither had she realized what that judgement, that deci-sion, had cost Rhulad himself.
Free to choose, she had chosen to remain, for reasons she could not elucidate even in her own mind. Was there pity?
Perhaps. Ambition, without question-for she had sensed, in that predatory manner demanded of life in the court, that there was a way through to him, a way to replace-without all the attendant history-those who were no longer at Rhulad’s side. Not one of his warrior sycophants they were worthless, ultimately, and she knew that Rhulad was well aware of that truth. In the end, she could see, he had no-one. Not his brother, Binadas, who, like Trull, proved too close and thus too dangerous for the Emperor to keep around-and so he had sent him away, seeking champions and scattered kin of the Edur tribes. As for his father, Tomad, again the suborning role proved far too awkward to accommodate. Of the surviving K’risnan of Hannan Mosag, fully half had been sent to accompany Tomad and Binadas, so as to keep the new Ceda weak.
And all the while, as these decisions were made, as the Shoming was conducted, in secrecy, away from Letherii eyes, and as Nisall manoeuvred herself into the Emperor’s bed, the Chancellor, Triban Gnol, had watched on, with the hooded eyes of a raptor.
The consort, Turudal Brizad, had vanished, although Nisall had heard rumours among the court servants that he had not gone far; that he haunted the lesser travelled corridors and subterranean mysteries of the old palace, ghostly and rarely more than half seen. She was undecided on the veracity of such claims; even so, if he were indeed hiding still in the palace, she realized that such a thing would not surprise her in the least. It did not matter-Rhulad had no wife, after all.
The Emperor’s lover, a role she was accustomed to, although it did not seem that way. Rhulad was so young, so different from Ezgara Diskanar. His spiritual wounds were too deep to be healed by her touch, and so, even as she found herself in aposition of eminence, of power-close as she was to the throne-she felt helpless. And profoundly done.
She stood, watching the Emperor of Lether writhing as he curled up ever tighter in the corner of the room. Among the whimpers, groans and gasps, he spat out fragments of his conversation with Trull, his forsaken brother. And again and again, in hoarse whispers, Rhulad begged forgiveness.
Yet a new day awaited them, she reminded herself. And she would see this broken man gather himself, collect the pieces and then take his place seated on the imperial throne, looking out with red-rimmed eyes, his fragmented armour of coins gleaming dull in the light of the traditional torches lining the chamber’s walls; and where those coins were missing, there was naught but scarred tissue, crimson- ringed weals of malformed flesh. And then, this ghastly apparition would, in the course of that day, proceed to astonish her.
Eschewing the old protocols of imperial rule, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths would sit through a presentation of petitions, an ever-growing number of citizens of the empire, poor and rich alike, who had come to accept the Imperial Invitation, feeding their courage to come face to face with their foreign ruler. For bell after bell, Rhulad would mete out justice as best he could. His struggles to understand the lives of the Letherii had touched her in unexpected ways-there was, she had come to believe, a decent soul beneath all that accursed trauma, And it was then that Nisall found herself most needed, although more often of late it was the Chancellor who dominated the advising, and she had come to realize that Triban Gnol had begun to view her as a rival. He was the principal organizer of the petitions, the filter that kept the numbers manageable, and his office had burgeoned accordingly. That his expanded staff also served as a vast and invasive web of spies in the palace was of course a given.
Thus, Nisall watched her Emperor, who had ascended the throne wading through blood, strive for benign rule, seeking a sensitivity too honest and awkward to be other, than genuine. And it was breaking her heart.
For power had no interest in integrity. Even Ezgara Diskanar, so full of promise in his early years, had come to raise a wall between himself and the empire’s citizens in the last decade of his rule. Integrity was too vulnerable to abuse by others, and Ezgara had suffered that betrayal again and again, and, perhaps most painfully of all, from his own wife, lanall, and then their son.
Too easy to dismiss the burden of such wounds, the depth of such scars.
And Rhulad, this youngest son of an Edur noble family, had been a victim of betrayal, of what must have been true friendship-with the slave, Udinaas-and in the threads of shared blood, from his very own brothers.
But each day, he overcame the torments of the night just gone. Nisall wondered, however, how much longer that could list. She alone was witness to his inner triumph, to that extraordinary war he waged with himself every morning. The Chancellor, for all his spies, knew nothing of it-she was Certain of that. And that made him dangerous in his Ignorance.
She needed to speak to Triban Gnol. She needed to Blend this bridge. But I will not be his spy.
A most narrow bridge, then, one to be trod with caution.
Rhulad stirred in the gloom.
And then he whispered, ‘I know what you want, brother…
‘So guide me… guide me with your honour…’
Ah, Trull Sengar, wherever your spirit now lurks, does it please you?.’ Does this please you, to know that your Shaming failed?
So that you have now returned.
To so haunt Rhulad.
Guide me,’ Rhulad croaked.
The sword scraped on the floor, rippling over mosaic Hones like cold laughter.
‘It Is not possible, I’m afraid.’
Bruthen Trana studied the Letherii standing before him for a long moment and said nothing.
The Chancellor’s gaze flicked away, as if distracted, and seemed moments from dismissing the Edur warrior outright; then, perhaps realizing that might be unwise, he cleared his throat and spoke in a tone of sympathy. ‘The Emperor insists on these petitions, as you are aware, and they consume his every waking moment. They are, if you forgive me, his obsession.’ His brows lifted a fraction. ‘How can a true subject question their Emperor’s love of justice? The citizens have come to adore him. They have come to see him for the honourable ruler he is in truth. That transition has taken some time, I admit, and involved immense effort on our part.’
‘I wish to speak to the Emperor,’ Bruthen said, his tone matching precisely the previous time he had spoken those words.
Triban Gnol sighed. ‘Presumably you wish to make your report regarding Invigilator Karos Invictad and hisl Patriotists in person. I assure you, I do forward said reports.’ He frowned at the Tiste Edur, then nodded and said, ‘Very well. I will convey your wishes to his highness, Bruthen Trana.’
‘If need be, place me among the petitioners.’
‘That will not be necessary.’
The Tiste Edur gazed at the Chancellor for a half-dozen heartbeats, then he turned about and left the office. In the larger room beyond waited a crowd of Letherii. A score of faces turned to regard Bruthen as he threaded his way through-faces nervous, struggling with fear-while others studied the Tiste Edur with eyes that gave away nothing:: the Chancellor’s agents, the ones who, Bruthen suspected, went out each morning to round up the day’s petitioners then coached them in what to say to their Emperor.
Ignoring the Letherii as they parted to let him pass, he made his way out into the corridor, then onward through the maze of chambers, hallways and passages that composed the palace. He saw very few other Tiste Edur, barring one of Hannan Mosag’s K’risnan, bent-backed and walking with one shoulder scraping against a wall, dark eyes flickering an acknowledgement as he limped along.
Bruthen Trana made his way into the wing of the palace closest to the river, and here the air was clammy, the corridors mostly empty. While the flooding that had occurred during the early stages of construction had been rectified, via an ingenious system of subsurface pylons, it seemed nothing could dispel the damp. Holes had been knocked in outer walls to create a flow of air, to little effect apart from filling the musty gloom with the scent of river mud and decaying plants.
Bruthen walked through one such hole, emerging out onto a mostly broken-up cobble path, with felled trees rotting amidst high grasses off to his left and the foundations of a small building to his right. Abandonment lingered in the still air like suspended pollen, and Bruthen was alone as he ascended the path’s uneven slope to arrive at the edge of a cleared area, at the other end of which rose the ancient tower of the Azath, with the lesser structures of the Jaghut to either side. In this clearing there were grave markers, set out in no discernible order. Half-buried urns, wax-sealed at the mouth, from which emerged weapons. Swords, broken spears, axes, maces-trophies of failure, a stunted forest of iron.
The Fallen Champions, the residents of a most prestigious cemetery. All had killed Rhulad at least once, some more than once-the greatest of these, an almost full-blood Tarthenal, had slain the Emperor seven times, and Bruthen could remember, with absolute clarity, the look of growing rage and terror in that Tarthenal’s bestial face each time his fallen opponent arose, renewed, stronger and deedlier than he had been only moments earlier.
He entered the bizarre necropolis, eyes drifting across the Various weapons, once so lovingly cared for-many of them bearing names-but now sheathed in rust. At the far end, slighty separated from all the others, stood an empty urn. Months earlier, out of curiosity, he had reached down into it, and found a silver cup. The cup that had contained the poison that killed three Letherii in the throne room-that had killed Brys Beddict.
No ashes. Even his sword had disappeared.
Bruthen Trana suspected that if this man were to return, now, he would face Rhulad again, and do what he did before. No, it was more than suspicion. A certainty.
Unseen by Rhulad, as the new Emperor lay there, cut to shreds on the floor, Bruthen had edged into the chamber to see for himself. And in that moment’s fearful glance, he had discerned the appalling precision of that butchery. Brys Beddict had been perfunctory. Like a scholar dissecting a weak argument, an effort on his part no greater than tying on his moccasins.
Would that he had seen the duel itself, that he had witnessed the artistry of this tragically slain Letheriij swordsman.
He stood, looking down at the dusty, web-covered urn.
And prayed for Brys Beddict’s return.
A pattern was taking shape, incrementally, inexorably. Yet the Errant, once known as Turudal Brizad, Consort to Queen Janall, could not discern its meaning. The sensation, of unease, of dread, was new to him. Indeed, he considered, one could not imagine a more awkward state of mind for a god, here in the heart of his realm.
Oh, he had known times of violence; he had walked the ashes of dead empires, but his own sense of destiny was even then, ever untarnished, inviolate and absolute. And to make matters worse, patterns were his personal obsession, held to with a belief in his mastery of that arcane language, a mastery beyond challenge.
Then who is it who plays with me now?
He stood in the gloom, listening to the trickle of water seeping down some unseen wall, and stared down at the Cedance, the stone tiles of the Holds, the puzzle floor that was the very foundation of his realm. The Cedance. My tiles. Mine. 1 am the Errant. This is my game.
While before him the pattern ground on, the rumbling of stones too low and deep to hear, yet their resonance grated in his bones. Disparate pieces, coming together. A function hidden, until the last moment-when all is too late, when the closure denies every path of escape.
Do you expect me to do nothing? I am not just one more of your victims. I am the Errant. By my hand, every fate is turned. All that seems random is by my design. This is an immutable truth. It has ever been. It shall ever be.
Still, the taste of fear was on his tongue, as if he’d been sucking on dirtied coins day after day, running the wealth of an empire through his mouth. But is that bitter flow inward or out?
The grinding whisper of motion, all resolution of the images carved into the tiles… lost. Not a single Hold would reveal itself.
The Cedance had been this way since the day Ezgara Diskanar died. The Errant would be a fool to disregard link’ age, but that path of reason had yet’to lead him anywhere. Perhaps it was not Ezgara’s death that mattered, but the Ceda’s. He never liked me much. And I stood and watched, as the Tiste Edur edged to one side, as he flung his spear, transfix^ ing Kuru Qan, killing the greatest Ceda since the First Empire. Mv game, I’d thought at the time. But now, I wonder…
Maybe it was Kuru Qan’s. And, somehow, it still plays out. I did not warn him of that imminent danger, did I? Before his last breath rattled, he would have comprehended that… amission.
Has this damned mortal cursed me? Me, a god!
Such a curse should be vulnerable. Not even Kuru Qan was capable of fashioning something that could not be dis-mantled by the Errant. He need only understand its structure, all that pinned it in place, the hidden spikes guiding these tiles.
What comes? The empire is reborn, reinvigorated, revealing the veracity of the ancient prophecy. All is as I foresaw.
His study of the blurred pavestones below the walkway 1 became a glare. He hissed in frustration, and watched his 1 breath plume away in the chill.
An unknown transformation, in which I see naught but the ice of my own exasperation. Thus, I see, but am blind, blind to it all.
The cold, too, was a new phenomenon. The heat of 1 power had bled away from this place. Nothing was as it should be.
Perhaps, at some point, he would have to admit defeat. And then I will have to pay a visit to a little, crabby old man. Working as a servant to a worthless fool. Humble, I will come in search of answers. I let Tehol live, didn’t I? That must count for something.
Mael, I know you interfered last time. With unconscionable disregard for the rules. IsAy rules. But 1 have forgiven you, and that, too, must count for something.
Humility tasted even worse than fear. He was not yet ready for that.
He would take command of the Cedance. But to usurp the pattern, he would first have to find its maker. Kuru Qan? He was unconvinced.
There are disturbances in the pantheons, new and old. Chaos, the stink of violence. Yes, this is a god’s meddling. Perhaps Mael himself is to blame-no, it feels wrong. More likely, he knows nothing, remains blissfully ignorant. Will it serve me to make him aware that something is awry?
An empire reborn. True, the Tiste Edur had their secrets, or at least they believed such truths were well hidden. They were not. An alien god had usurped them, and had made of a young Edur warrior an avatar, a champion, suitably flawed in grisly homage to the god’s own pathetic dysfunctions. Power from pain, glory from degradation, themes in apposition-an empire reborn offered the promise of vigour, of expansion and longevity, none of which was, he had to admit, truly assured. And such are promises.
The god shivered suddenly in the bitter cold air of this vast, subterranean chamber. Shivered, on this walkway above a swirling unknown.
The pattern was taking shape.
And when it did, it would be too late.
‘It’s too late.’
‘But there must be something we can do.’
‘I’m afraid not. It’s dying, Master, and unless we take advantage of its demise right now, someone else will.’
The capabara fish had used its tentacles to crawl up the canal wall, pulling itself over the edge onto the walkway, where it flattened out, strangely spreadeagled, to lie, mouth gaping, gills gasping, watching the morning get cloudy as it expired. The beast was as long as a man is tall, as fat as a mutton merchant from the Inner Isles, and, to Tehol’s astonishment, even uglier. ‘Yet my heart breaks.’
Bugg scratched his mostly hairless pate, then sighed. ‘It’s the unusually cold water,’ he said. ‘These like their mud warm.’
‘Cold water? Can’t you do something about that?’
‘Bugg’s Hydrogation.’
‘You’re branching out?’
‘No, I was just trying on the title.’
‘How do you hydrogate?’
‘1 have no idea. Well, I have, but it’s not quite a legitimate craft.’
‘Meaning it belongs in the realm of the gods.’
‘Mostly. Although,’ he said, brightening, ‘with the recent spate of flooding, and given my past experience in engineering dry foundations, I begin to see some possibilities-.’
‘Can you soak investors?’
Bugg grimaced. ‘Always seeing the destructive side, aren’t you, Master?’
‘It’s my opportunistic nature. Most people,’ he added, ‘would view that as a virtue. Now, are you truly telling me you can’t save this poor fish?’
‘Master, it’s already dead.’
‘Is it? Oh. Well, I guess we now have supper.’
‘More like fifteen suppers.’
‘In any case, I have an appointment, so I will see you and the fish at home.’
‘Why, thank you, Master.’
‘Didn’t I tell you this morning walk would prove beneficial?’
‘Not for the capabara, alas.’
‘Granted. Oh, by the way, I need you to make me a list.’
‘Of what?’
‘Ah, I will have to tell you that later. As I said, I am late for an appointment. It just occurred to me: is this fish too big for you to carry by yourself?’
‘Well,’ Bugg said, eyeing the carcass, ‘it’s small as far as capabara go-remember the one that tried to mate with a galley?’
‘The betting on that outcome overwhelmed the Drownings. I lost everything I had that day.’
‘Everything?’
‘Three copper docks, yes.’
‘What outcome did you anticipate?’
‘Why, small rowboats that could row themselves with big flippery paddles.’
‘You’re late for your appointment, Master.’
‘Wait! Don’t look! I need to do something unseemly right now.’
‘Oh, Master, really.’
Spies stood on street corners. Small squads of grey rain-caped Patriotists moved through the throngs that parted to give them wide berth as they swaggered with gloved hands resting on their belted truncheons, and on their faces the bludgeon arrogance of thugs. Tehol Beddict, wearing his] blanket like a sarong, walked with the benign grace of an ascetic from some obscure but harmless cult. Or at least he hoped so. To venture onto the streets of Letheras these days involved a certain measure of risk that had not existed in King Ezgara Diskanar’s days of pleasant neglect. While on the one hand this lent an air of intrigue and danger to every journey-including shopping for overripe root crops-t here were also the taut nerves that one could not quell, no matter how many mouldy turnips one happened to be carrying.
Compounding matters, in this instance, was the fact that he was indeed intent on subversion. One of the first victims in this new regime had been the Rat Catchers’ Guild. Karos Invictad, the Invigilator of the Patriotists, had acted on his first day of officialdom, despatching fully a hundred agents to Scale House, the modest Guild headquarters, whereupon they effected arrests on scores of Rat Catchers, all of whom, it later turned out, were illusions-a detail unadvertised, of course, lest the dread Patriotists announce their arrival to cries of ridicule. Which would not do.
After all, tyranny has no sense of humour. Too thin-skinned, too thoroughly fuR of its own self-importance. Accordingly, it presents an almost overwhelming temptation-how can I not be excused the occasional mockery? Alas, the Patriotists lacked flexibility in such matters-the deadliest weapon against them was derisive laughter, and they knew it.
He crossed Quillas Canal at a lesser bridge, made his way into the less ostentatious north district, and eventually sauntered into a twisting, shadow-filled alley that had once been a dirt street, before the invention of four-wheeled wagons and side-by-side horse collars. Instead of the usual hovels and back doors that one might expect to find in such an alley, lining this one were shops that had not changed in any substantial way in the past seven hundred Or so years. There, first to the right, the Half-Axe Temple of Herbs, smelling like a swamp’s sinkhole, wherein one could find a prune-faced witch who lived in a mudpit, with all her precious plants crowding the banks, or growing in the insect-flecked pool itself. It was said she had been born in that slime and was only half human; and that her mother had been born there too, and her mother and so on. That such conceptions were immaculate went without saying, since Tehol could hardly imagine any reasonable or even unreasonable man taking that particular plunge.
Opposite the Half-Axe was the narrow-fronted entrance to a shop devoted to short lengths of rope and wooden poles a man and a half high. Tehol had no idea how such a specialized enterprise could survive, especially in this unravelled, truncated market, yet its door had remained open for almost six centuries, locked up each night by a short length of rope and a wooden pole.
The assortment proceeding down the alley was similar only in its peculiarity. Wooden stakes and pegs in one, sandal thongs in another-not the sandals, just the thongs. A shop selling leaky pottery-not an indication of incompetence: rather, the pots were deliberately made to leak at various, precise rates of loss; a place selling unopenable boxes, another toxic dyes. Ceramic teeth, bottles filled with the urine of pregnant women, enormous amphorae containing dead pregnant women; the excreta of obese hogs; and miniature pets-dogs, cats, birds and rodents of all sorts, each one reduced in size through generation after generation of selective breeding-Tehol had seen guard dogs standing no higher than his ankle, and while cute and appropriately yappy, he had doubts as to their efficacy, although they were probably a terror for the thumbnail-sized mice and the cats that could ride an old woman’s big toe, secured there by an ingenious loop in the sandal’s thong.
Since the outlawing of the Rat Catchers’ Guild, Adventure Alley had acquired a new function, to which Tehol now set about applying himself with the insouciance of the initiated. First, into the Half-Axe, clawing his way through the vines immediately beyond the entrance, then drawing up one step short of pitching head-first into the muddy pool.
Splashing, thick slopping sounds, then a dark-skinned wrinkled face appeared amidst the high grasses fringing the, pit. ‘It’s you,’ the witch said, grimacing then slithering out her overlong tongue to display all the leeches attached to it.
‘And it’s you,’ Tehol replied.
The red protuberance with all its friends went back inside. ‘Come in for a swim, you odious man.’
‘Come out and let your skin recover, Munuga. I happen to know you’re barely three decades old.’
‘I am a map of wisdom.’
‘As a warning against the perils of overbathing, perhaps. Where’s the fat root this time?’
‘What have you got for me first?’
‘What I always have. The only thing you ever want from me, Munuga.’
‘The only thing you’ll never give, you mean!’
Sighing, Tehol drew out from under his makeshift sarong a small vial. He held it up for her to see.
She licked her lips, which proved alarmingly complicated. ‘What kind?’’
‘Capabara roe.’
‘Rut I want yours.’
‘I don’t produce roe.’
‘You know what I mean, Tehol Beddict.’
Alas, poverty is more than skin deep. Also, I have lost all incentive to be productive, in any sense of the word. After all, what kind of a world is this that I’d even contemplate delivering a child into?’
‘Tehol Beddict, you cannot deliver a child. You’re a man. Leave the delivering to me.’
‘Tell you what, climb out of that soup, dry out and let me see what you’re supposed to look like, and who knows? Extraordinary things might happen.’
Scowling, she held out an object. ‘Here’s your fat root. Give me that vial, then go away.’
‘ 1 so look forward to next time-’
‘Tehol Beddict, do you know what fat root is used for?’
Her eyes had sharpened with suspicion, and Tehol realized that, were she indeed to dry out, she might be rather handsome after all, in a vaguely amphibian way. ‘No, why?’
‘Are you required to partake of it in some bizarre fashion?’
He shook his head.
‘Are you certain? No unusual tea smelling yellow?’
‘Smelling yellow? What does that mean?’
‘If you smelled it, you’d know. Clearly, you haven’t. Good. Get out, I’m puckering.’
A hasty departure, then, from the Half-Axe. Onward, to the entrance to Grool’s Immeasurable Pots. Presumably, that description was intended to emphasize unmatched quality or something similar, since the pots themselves were sold as clocks, and for alchemical experiments and the like, and such functions were dependent on accurate rates of flow.
He stepped inside the cramped, damp shop.
‘You’re always frowning when you come in here, Tehol Beddict.’
‘Good morning, Laudable Grool.’
‘The grey one, yes, that one there.’
‘A fine-looking pot-’
‘It’s a beaker, not a pot.’
‘Of course.’
‘Usual price.’
‘Why do you always hide behind all those pots, Laudable Grool? All I ever see of you is your hands.’
‘My hands are the only important part of me.’
‘All right.’ Tehol drew out a recently removed dorsal fin. ‘A succession of spines, these ones from a capabara. Gradating diameters-’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Well, you can see it-they get smaller as they go back.’
‘Yes, but how precise?’
‘That’s for you to decide. You demand objects with which to make holes. Here you have… what… twelve. How can you not be pleased by that?’
‘Who said I wasn’t pleased? Put them on the counter, Take the beaker. And get that damned fat root out of here.’
From there it was across to the small animals shop and Beastmonger Shill, an oversized woman endlessly bustling up and down the rows of tiny stacked cages, on her flattened heels a piping, scurrying swarm of little creatures. She squealed her usual delight at the gifts of beaker and fat root, the latter of which, it turned out, was most commonly used by malicious wives to effect the shrinkage of their husbands’ testicles; whilst Shill had, with some delicate modifications, applied the root’s diminutive properties to her broods, feeding the yellow-smelling tea out in precise Increments using the holed beaker.
The meeting soured when Tehol slapped at a mosquito on his neck, only to be informed he had just killed a pygmy blood-sucking bat. His reply that the distinction was lost on him was not well received. But Shill opened the trapdoor on the floor at the back of the shop nevertheless, and Tehol descended the twenty-six narrow, steep stone steps to the crooked corridor-twenty-one paces long-that led to the ancient, empty beehive tomb, the walls of which had Been dismantled in three places to fashion rough doorways into snaking, low-cellinged tunnels, two of which ended in fatal traps. The third passageway eventually opened out int a long chamber occupied by a dozen or so dishevelled refugees, most of whom seemed to be asleep.
Fortunately, Chief Investigator Rucket was not among the somnolent. Her brows rose when she saw him, her admirable face filling with an expression of unfeigned relief as she gestured him to her table. The surface was covered in parchment sheets depicting various floor plans and structural diagrams.
‘Sir, Tehol Beddict! Here, some wine! Drink. By the Brrant, a new face! You have no idea how sick I am of my Interminable companions in this hovel.’
‘Clearly,’ he replied, sitting, ‘you need to get out more.’
‘Alas, most of my investigations these days are archival in nature.’
‘Ah, the Grand Mystery you’ve uncovered. Any closer to a solution?’
‘Grand Mystery? More like Damned Mystery, and no, I remain baffled, even as my map grows with every day that passes. But let’s not talk any more about that. My agents report that the cracks in the foundation are inexorably spreading-well done, Tehol. I always figured you were smarter than you looked.’
‘Why thank you, Rucket. Have you got those lacquered tiles I asked for?’
‘Onyx finished the last one this morning. Sixteen in all, correct?’
‘Perfect. Bevelled edges?’
‘Of course. All of your instructions were adhered to with diligence.’
‘Great. Now, about that inexorable spreading-’
‘You wish us to retire to my private room?’
‘Uh, not now, Rucket. I need some coin. An infusion to bolster a capital investment.’
‘How much?’
‘Fifty thousand.’
‘Will we ever see a return?’
‘No, you’ll lose it all.’
‘Tehol, you certainly do take vengeance a long way,] What is the benefit to us, then?’
‘Why, none other than the return to pre-eminence of the Rat Catchers’ Guild.’
Her rather dreamy eyes widened. ‘The end of the Patriotists? Fifty thousand? Will seventy-five be better? A hundred?’
‘No, fifty is what I need.’
‘I do not anticipate any objections from my fellow Guild Masters.’
‘Wonderful.’ He slapped his hands together, then rose.
She frowned up at him. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Why, to your private room, of course.’
‘Oh, how nice.’
His gaze narrowed on her. ‘Aren’t you joining me, Rucket?’
‘What would be the point? The name “fat root” is a. woman’s joke, you know.’
‘I haven’t drunk any yellow-smelling tea!’
‘In the future, I advise you to use gloves.’
‘Where’s your room, Rucket?’
One brow lifted. ‘Got something to prove?’
‘No, I just need to check on… things.’
‘What’s the point?’ she asked again. ‘Now that your imagination is awake, you’ll convince yourself you’ve got smaller, Tehol Beddict. Human nature. Worse that you happen to be a man, too.’ She rose. ‘I, however, can be objective, albeit devastatingly so, on occasion. So, do you dare my scrutiny?’
He scowled. ‘Fine, let’s go. Next time, however, let us dispense entirely with the invitation to your room, all right?’
‘Misery lies in the details, Tehol Beddict. As we’re about to discover.’
Venitt Sathad unrolled the parchment and anchored its corners with flatstones. ‘As you can see, Master, there are six separate buildings to the holdings.’ He began pointing to the illustrations of each. ‘Stables and livery. Icehouse. I ‘rystore, with cellar. Servants’ quarters. And, of course, the inn proper-’
‘What of that square building there?’ Rautos Hivanar asked.
Venitt frowned. ‘As I understand it, the interior is Virtually filled with an iconic object of some sort. The building predates the inn itself. Attempts to dislodge it failed. Now, what space remains is used for sundry storage.’
Rautos Hivanar leaned back in his chair. ‘How solvent is this acquisition?’
‘No more nor less than any other hostel, Master. It may be worth discussing investment on restoration with the other shareholders, including Karos Invictad.’
‘Hmm, I will consider that.’ He rose. ‘In the meantime, assemble the new artifacts on the cleaning table on the terrace.’
‘At once, Master.’
Fourteen leagues west of the Draconean Isles, doldrums had settled on this stretch of ocean, levelling the seas to a glassy, greasy patina beneath humid, motionless air. Through the eyeglass, the lone ship, black hull low in the water, looked lifeless. The mainmast was splintered, all rigging swept away. Someone had worked up a foresail, but the storm-rigged canvas hung limp. The steering oar was tied in place. No movement anywhere to be seen.
Skorgen Kaban, known as the Pretty, slowly lowered the eyeglass, yet continued squinting with his one good eye at the distant ship. He reached up to scratch one of the air holes-all that remained of what had once been a large, hawkish nose-then winced as a nail dug into sensitive scar tissue. The itch was non-existent, but the gaping nostrils had a tendency to weep, and the feigned scratch served to warn him of tell-tale wetness. This was one of his many gestures he probably imagined were subtle.
Alas, his captain was too sharp for that. She drew away her sidelong study of Skorgen, then glanced back at her waiting crew. A miserable but cocky bunch. Doldrums weighed everyone down, understandably, but the hold of the raider was packed with loot, and this run of the Errant’ luck seemed without end.
Now that they’d found another victim.
Skorgen drew in a whistling breath, then said, ‘It’s Edur all right. My guess is, a stray that got tossed around a bit in that storm we spied out west yesterday. Chances are, the crew’s either sick or dead, or they abandoned ship in one of their Knarri lifeboats. If they did that, they’ll have taker the good stuff with them. If not,’ he grinned across at her, revealing blackened teeth, ‘then we can finish what the sttorm started.’
‘At the very least,’ the captain said, ‘we’ll take a look.’ She sniffed. ‘At least maybe something will come of getting blown into the flats. Have ‘em send out the sweeps, Skorgen, but keep that lookout’s head spinning in every direction;’
Skorgen looked across at her. ‘You think there might be more of ‘em out here?’
She made a face. ‘How many ships did the Emperor send out?’
His good eye widened, then he studied the lone derelict once more through the eyeglass. ‘You think it’s one of those? Errant’s butt hole, Captain, if you’re right…’
‘You have your orders, and it seems I must remind you yet againn, First Mate. No profanity on my ship.’
‘Apologies, Captain.’
He hurried off, began relaying orders to the waiting crew.
Doldrums made for a quiet lot, a kind of superstitious furtiveness gripping the sailors, as if any sound reaching too far might crack the mirror of the sea.
She listened as the twenty-four sweeps slid out, blades setting in the water. A moment later came the muted call-out of the cox, and the Undying Gratitude groaned as’ it lurched forward. Clouds of sleeper flies rose around the ship as the nearby sea’s pellucid surface was disturbed. The damned things had a tendency to seek out dark cover once driven to flight. Sailors coughed and spat-all very well for them, the captain observed, as a whining cloud spun round her head and countless insects crawled up her nose, into her ears, and across her eyes. Sun and sea were bad enough, combining to assail her dignity and whatever varnity a woman who was dead could muster, but for Shurq Blalle, these flies made for profoundly acute misery.
Pirate, divine undead, strumpet of insatiability, witch of the deep waters-the times had been good ever since she first sailed out of the Letheras harbour, down the long, broad river to the western seas. Lean and sleek, that first galley had been her passage to fame, and Shurq still regretted its fiery loss to that Mare escort in Laughter’s End. But she was well pleased with the Undying Gratitude. Slightly too big for her crew, granted, but with their return to Letheras that problem could be solved easily enough. Her greatest sense of loss was with the departure of the Crimson Guard. Iron Bars had made it plain from the very start that they were working for passage. Even so, they’d been formidable additions on that wild crossing of the ocean, keeping the blood wake wide and unbroken as one merchant trader after another was taken, stripped of all valuables, then, more often than not, sent down into the dark. It hadn’t been just their swords, deadly as those were, but the magery of Corlos-a magery far more refined, far more clever, than anything Shurq had witnessed before.
Such details opened her eyes, her mind as well. The world out there was huge. And in many fundamental ways the empire of Lether, child of the First Empire, had been left in a kind of backwater, in its thinking, in its ways of working. A humbling revelation indeed.
The leavetaking with Iron Bars and his squad had not been quite as emotional or heartfelt for Shurq Elalle as it had probably seemed to everyone else, for the truth was, she had been growing ever more uneasy in their company. Iron Bars was not one to find subordination palatable for very long-oh, no doubt it was different when it came to his fellow Avowed among the Crimson Guard, or to their legendary commander, Prince K’azz. But she was not an Avowed, nor even one of that company’s soldiers. So long as their goals ran in parallel, things were fine enough, and Shurq had made certain to never deviate, so as to avoid any confrontation.
They had deposited the mercenaries on a stony beach of the eastern shore of a land called Jacuruku, the sky squalling with sleeting rain. The landing had not been without witnesses, alas, and the last she’d seen of Iron Bars and his soldiers, they were turning inland to face a dozen massively armoured figures descending the broken slope, great-helmed with visors lowered. Brutal-looking biinch, and Shurq hoped all that belligerence was mostly for show. The grey sheets of rain had soon obscured all details from the strand as they pulled away on the oars back to the Gratitude.
Skorgen had sworn he’d caught the sound of blades clashing-a faint echo-with his one good ear, but Shurq herself had heard nothing.
In any case, they’d scurried from those waters, as pirates were wont to do when there was the risk of organized resistance lurking nearby, and Shurq consoled her agitated conscience by reminding herself that Iron Bars had spoken of Jacuruku with some familiarity-at least in so far as knowing its name. And as for Corlos’s wide-eyed prayers to i lew dozen divinities, well, he was prone to melodrama. A dozen knights wouldn’t have been enough to halt Iron Bars and his Crimson Guard, determined as they were to do whatever it was they had to do, which, in this instance, was cross Jacuruku from one coast to the other, then find them-selves another ship.
A huge world indeed.
The sweeps lifted clear of the water and were quietly shipped as the Undying Gratitude sidled up alongside the Edur wreck. Shurq Elalle moved to the rail and studied the visible deck of the Blackwood ship.
‘Riding low,’ Skorgen muttered.
No bodies amidst the clutter. But there was clutter. ‘No orderly evacuation,’ Shurq Elalle said, as grappling hooks sailed out, the tines biting as the lines were drawn taut. ‘Six with us, weapons out,’ she commanded, unsheathing her own rapier, then stepping up onto the rail.
She leapt across, landed lightly on the mid deck two strides from the splintered stump of the mainmast.
Moments later Skorgen joined her, arriving with a grunt then a curse as he jarred his bad leg.
‘This was a scrap,’ he said, looking about. He limped back to the rail and tugged loose a splintered arrow shaft, then scowled as he studied it. ‘Damned short and stubby-look at that head, that could punch through a bronze-sheeted shield. And this fletching-it’s leather, like fins.’
So where were the bodies? Frowning, Shurq Elalle made her way to the cabin’s hatchway. She paused at the hold, seeing that the hatch had been staved in. Nudging it aside with her boot, she crouched and looked down into the gloom of the hold.
The glimmer of water, and things floating. ‘Skorgen, there’s booty here. Come over and reach down for one of those amphorae.’
The second mate, Misery, called over from their ship, ‘Captain! That hulk’s lower in the water than it was when we arrived.’
She could now hear the soft groans of the hull.
Skorgen used his good arm to reach down and hook his hand through an ear of the amphora. Hissing with the weight, he lifted the hip-high object into view, rolling it onto the deck between himself and the captain.
The amphora itself was a gorgeous piece of work, Shurq observed. Foreign, the glaze cream in colour down to the inverted beehive base, where the coils were delineated in black geometric patterns on gleaming white. But it was the image painted on the shoulder and belly that captured her interest. Down low on one side there was a figure, nailed to an X-shaped cross. Whirling out from the figure’s upturned head, there were crows. Hundreds, each one profoundly intricate, every detail etched-crows, flooding outward-or perhaps inward-to mass on the amphora’s broad shoulders, encircling the entire object. Converging to feed on the hapless man? Fleeing him like his last, dying thoughts?
Skorgen had drawn a knife and was cutting away at the seal, stripping away the thick wax binding the stopper.
After a moment he succeeded in working it loose. He tugged the stopper free, then leapt back as thick blood poured forth, spreading on the deck.
It looked fresh, and from it rose a scent of flowers, pungent and oversweet.
‘Kagenza pollen,’ Skorgen said. ‘Keeps blood from thickening-the Edur use it when they paint temples in the forest-you know, on trees. The blood sanctifies. It’s not a real temple, of course. No walls, or ceiling, just a grove-’
‘I don’t like first mates who babble,’ Shurq Elalle said, straightening once more. ‘Get the others out. The vessels alone will make us rich for a month or two.’ She resumed her walk to the cabin.
The corridor was empty, the cabin door broken open and hanging from one leather hinge. As she made her way towards it, she glanced into the side alcoves and saw the layered bunks of the crew-but all were unoccupied, although dishevelled as if subject to searching.
In the cabin itself, more signs of looting, while on the lloor was spreadeagled an Edur corpse. Hands and feet had been spiked into the floorboards, and someone had used a knife on him, methodically. The room stank of spilled wastes, and the expression frozen on the face was a twisted, a^’ony-racked mask, the eyes staring out as if witness to a shattered faith, a terrible revelation at the moment of death.
She heard Skorgen come up behind her, heard his low curse upon seeing the body. ‘Tortured ‘im,’ he said. ‘ Tortured the captain. This one was Merude, damn near an Elder. Errant save us, Captain, we’re gonna get blamed if anyone else comes on this afore it all sinks. Torture. I don’t get that-’
It’s simple,’ she said. ‘They wanted information.’
‘About what?’
Shurq Elalle looked round. ‘They took the log, the charts. Now, maybe pirates might do that, if they were strangers to Lether, but then they’d have no need to torture this poor bastard. Besides, they’d have taken the loot. No, whoever did this wanted more information-not what you could get from charts. And they didn’t give a damn about booty.’
‘Nasty bastards, whoever they were.’
She thought back to that amphora and its grisly contents. Then turned away. ‘Maybe they had a good reason. Hole the hull, Skorgen. We’ll wait around, though. Blackwood doesn’t like sinking. We may have to fire it.’
‘A pyre to bring ‘em all in, Captain.’
‘I am aware of the risks. Get on with it.’
Back on the deck, Shurq Elalle made her way to the forecastle, where she stood scanning the horizon while Skorgen and the crew began their demolition.
Strangers on the sea.
Who are no friends of the Tiste Edur. Even so, I think I’d rather not meet them. She turned to face the mid deck. ‘Skorgen! When we’re done here, we take to the sweeps. Back to the coast.’
His scarred brows rose. ‘Letheras?’
‘Why not? We can sell off and load up on crew.’
The battered man grinned.
Back to Letheras, aye. And fast.