by Ben Galley
She whispered gently in her ear. ‘Though it will not be you.’
The rag clamped over Sisine’s mouth. Feeble hands clawed at her, dragging back her hood. Liria pressed harder, pinching the nose. One eye fixed her with a fierce, wide stare throughout the struggle. At last, when that struggle finally waned, all the air had gone from her; the eye rolled up into her skull, and Liria let the body fall limp to the sheets.
‘How bold of you, Enlightened Sisters,’ croaked a voice, small and muffled. Liria and Yaridin stood tall, staring down at the falcon. With a series of cracking noises, his head turned back to its normal angle. ‘How bold indeed.’
The Enlightened Sisters shared a look.
Chapter 21
The Grand Nyxwell
What a sight the Grand Nyxwell is, Melia! Oh, how it gleams! Oh, how its river runs fast and strong, like no other fountain of Nyxwater in the Reaches. It bleeds magnificence, exudes power, and not to mention royalty! You can almost feel the souls of every emperor and empress that has passed through here. Oh, if only the queues weren’t so detestable.
From a letter found on a dead tourist
The bright day passed us by as though somebody had spun the sun’s wheel far too vigorously at dawn. Dare to yawn, or drift into a daydream, and an hour would shoot by. The streets had found their pace again, and it was a brisk one. Everybody hurried, keen to make up for lost days of cowering. Where uneasy silence had reigned for far too long, the citizens seemed to be making an effort to balance it out. My ears shook with the noise of heavy carriages, hooves, crowing merchants, and all sorts of curses and threats one used when negotiating the busiest of streets. Even parrots squawked raucously from the edges of awnings and pennant poles.
The roiling crowds were a hiding place of sorts. Our rags blended effortlessly with the kaleidoscope of fabrics and colours that filled the thoroughfares. Having a horse gave us some right of way without drawing too much attention. Anoish was not alone in the press of bodies and ghosts. Carriage-teams rattled down the centre of the streets. Stick-legged insects tapped their way ponderously through the crowds.
Before dawn had even risen, Araxes’ furnaces had flared like Scatter Isle volcanoes. Smoke belched into the sky from the High and Low Docks, filling the air with a film of filth. I half-heartedly rubbed my thumb across the sky, like trying to smear soot from a window. Nothing changed.
Armour and blades were everywhere we looked. Whether they were guards of rich folk, street-guards, or Cult and royal soldiers, we did our best to avoid them. Sticking to the thickest threads of crowd. Pulling rags over faces. Even haggling with a few merchants whenever gazers became too curious. These were our tactics.
The hunt was clearly not over. I knew edginess when I saw it. In the guards I could practically feel it washing over my vapours. Their eyes moved too quickly. They spoke behind their hands. Every now and again a shriek would come as women or shades were plucked from the crowds and shaken down. We bowed our heads, and took different streets.
The miles fell away beneath our feet agonisingly slowly. While the sun raced overhead, it took us half an afternoon to cross two districts. Here and there I saw places I had already run past in my spiralling, nonsensical fleeing from the Cloudpiercer. Re-treading old ground is not comforting. I find it’s usually because you’ve forgotten or regret something. Or previously failed. I didn’t bother to decide which I was.
In our efforts to evade the hungry eyes, we found new places, too. Nilith was preoccupied with staying upright, but I spent the walk gazing up at the city. High-roads stretched between spires, sometimes at violent angles. Some were so old they were beginning to bow. I heard laughter, and on a corner saw two tiny ghosts frolicking behind a pen of dour-faced guards. I caught glimpses of them between spear-shafts and chainmail. They wore frocks of yellow, throwing about a beetle made of fur and stuffing. Older shades stood behind them, deep in conversation. Important and hushed conversation, that was for sure. What made me sick were the white lines in the ghost girls’ forearms, where they had been bled before they’d seen their tenth birthday. Nilith was right: the Code was a poison.
I had to admire this determination of hers. The ghast’s bite was beginning to rob her sleep. A handful of hours, maybe more, she had tossed and turned on the cot while Pointy and I traded stories of what had happened since his impromptu exit from the Vengeance. He hadn’t shared in my elation at Hirana’s death, even calling it murder. He hadn’t judged, but he had grown silent since.
In fact, barely a word had been shared all day. Such was the pressure of traversing the busy streets and staying inconspicuous. Nilith no doubt had her pains and worries to attend to, as I had my own. The sensation of my coin around my neck had been a brief one, but I already missed it. It was as if I had left a part of me in the Piercer. I sensed its faint pull, as subtle as a hair out of place, and longed for it.
As for what the sisters planned to do with it, I still had no clue. I was still whole… well, for the most part. I decided that if they truly wanted justice and freedom for all shades, they would show their faces when the empress dumped her husband in the Nyxwell, and they would be smiling. Perhaps they were just keeping my coin safe for me. It felt like a child’s reasoning, but it was the only one I found comforting. I’d had more than my fill of betrayal.
When the afternoon slid from early to late, and then later still, we reached the bright splash of colour that was the Royal Markets. The bustle here was fierce; a deafening battleground of barging and hollering. The days of hiding meant spoiled wares. Spoil meant sales. Sales meant madness. It was simple economics.
Gangs of ghosts and people besieged the stalls. In one poor fruit stall’s case, they overran it completely. I saw the crowd erupt into a thrashing mass of limbs and flying oranges. Nobody else seemed remotely bothered by the kerfuffle, and they continued braying like branded donkeys.
I found distraction in the sights and sounds: slabs of pink meat and ugly sea creatures in tanks; arrays of fruits that would make rainbows hang their heads; cloths and silks from every corner of the Reaches; jewellery that glittered as if it was still molten; armour and blades for all nefarious deeds; household contraptions, full of spring and clockwork; extravagant furniture, the kind that Busk would have snapped up; perfumes, spices and powders piled in earthenware bowls; dyed cats and dogs and birds slumped in palm-wood cages; and, of course, shades in shackles and queues. All of them could be found under the vast, sail-like awnings of the Royal Markets. I looked up, fancying the red-tiled rooftops to be the bulwarks of a mighty ship. If I half-closed my eyes, I could imagine a sway in the earth beneath me.
‘Caltro.’ Nilith’s voice was croaky from lack of use.
She nudged me, digging a dent in my rags. I followed the direction of her pointing finger, and saw one of the reasons the markets were so densely crowded: they were a partly captive audience.
Where a street led out of the bustle, a string of royal soldiers were spread across the road. Black-clad scrutinisers moved between them, halting anyone carting more than a satchel. Quite a queue had built up. I looked left, to another street, and found it similarly blocked.
‘Roadblocks.’
‘And we’re still half a dozen miles away.’ Nilith grunted. ‘This way.’
She led the horse and me to the eastern side of the markets, where a wider road connected with the Avenue of Oshirim. A wall of guards occupied it. The crowds were too thick here to halt all of them, but the soldiers and scrutinisers were doing a good job of trying.
‘Talk,’ I said as we walked. Stopping now would have been suspicious. We continued on at a tentative pace. A soldier standing in a doorway was already watching us. I hoped he was just admiring the horse.
‘What?’
‘Guilty people prefer silence. They’re concentrating too hard. Act like it’s beneath you.’
Nilith pulled her rags back, showing me a sweaty face covered in stray hair. She had darkened her skin with soot that morning, but it wa
s starting to wipe clean. ‘Talk about what?’
‘Anything. Just talk normally,’ I hissed. ‘Remind me: when did you leave Krass?’
‘Erm.’ She hesitated as a scrutiniser appeared in our path, two dozen feet away ‘Well,’ she sighed. ‘It must have been twenty years ago now.’
‘Did you come by ship?’
‘Of course…?’
I kept talking, acting interested. ‘What was its name?’
‘One of my father’s ships. The… The…’ Nilith snapped her fingers. ‘The Bromar.’
I chuckled loudly. ‘I remember that story.’
‘The Hero of Holdergrist? I had a nurse that would tell it to me almost every night. Of course, I asked for it. I always wanted to be Bromar, and face the Winds of Treachery to climb to the dragon’s nest.’
‘I always likened myself more to Bromar’s brother.’
Nilith looked genuinely confused. ‘Kennig? That coward?’
‘Not everyone who runs is a coward. Sometimes it takes a clever man to know when it’s time to tuck tail. Kennig knew the dragon would be trouble and had enough sense to stay in the inn. Bromar went up the Dolkfang, and ended up dying alongside his prey.’
‘A heroic ending.’
‘I prefer a comfortable living—’
‘Halt!’
A scrutiniser’s gloved hand blocked our way. I saw Nilith’s lips tighten as she turned.
The man was a short, rat-like fellow, wrapped up in black leather and a mask of silver mail. This rogue had carved the shape of bones into his. I knew his type immediately: the sort that lacked weight in the body department, so they sought other types of authority instead. It always seemed to be the short, balding ones.
The man’s eyes roved over our moth-bitten rags and dusty horse. ‘State your business, in the name of the emperor and the Code.’
‘Cloth merchants from the Sprawls,’ I said, and he seemed surprised to hear me talk. ‘Been a terrible day for trade.’
‘Which district you from?’
‘Far District,’ Nilith added.
The scrutiniser stepped close to me, looking at my neck, visible over my makeshift smock, and the cut of my face. He held up a silver coin to me, matching my face with the one etched in its metal. He grunted. ‘You don’t look like a Sprawler.’
‘I’m not. I’m from Krass.’
The man turned on Nilith with a scowl. ‘You let your shade speak freely?’
I could see the empress trying to stay cordial. ‘Why not? He’s free.’
The scrutiniser spat. ‘Then you need to put a white feather on him, or else he might get snapped up. People are desperate at the moment.’ He moved closer to the horse, sniffed and then seemed to gag. ‘Go on. Away with you. I can see why you haven’t sold anything. Bloody reeks!’
The soldiers at his back seemed to agree, and they cleared a path for us to move on. We did so, not quickly, but certainly not dawdling.
‘And here I was thinking the smell wasn’t that bad,’ whispered Nilith, sniffing deeply.
‘It’s the ghost part of you, I’m afraid. Enjoy the spices and perfumes while you can.’ Nilith nodded, and I quickly added, ‘But it comes in handy. Rotting bodies, for instance. No more gutter-stink.’
The empress gave one more sniff, close to the horses, and came away with her eyes rolling. ‘True,’ she said. ‘Do you miss Krass? Saraka, was it?’
‘Taymar, and every day,’ I said. ‘But mostly because I wish I’d never left its shores.’
‘Why did you take the job?’
I had asked myself the same question on many a dark night, and it was a deceptively simple one, which made it all the more infuriating. ‘Your ghost Etane wrote a letter to me. It made no mention of the Sanctuary, just an offer from the Cloudpiercer. What locksmith wouldn’t jump at the chance? Even with all I knew about Araxes, I was sure a royal writ would see me right. But my captain had made a deal with Temsa, and his men were waiting for us after sunset.’
Nilith hummed. ‘Sisine would have killed you in any case, once she was done with you. She has little stomach for ghosts.’
‘I had thought of that. It’s why I wish I’d never set foot on the Arc in the first place.’
‘You’d trade what you have now – even your haunting – for life?’
The hope in her eyes was plain. The answer would be hers, as well as mine. Soon she and I would be the same. Experience is always sought after by the unknowing. Fear lessened by knowledge.
I thought hard. I did wish for life, but only because I felt I had been robbed of it. Had I been offered a choice on that dark night, a choice between haunting and death or to get back on the ship, I don’t know what I would have chosen.
‘If I had my freedom as well as my gifts, then I might not. In truth, it makes lockpicking a lot more interesting. That, and I did fall from the top of the Cloudpiercer without a scratch. That’s somewhat… useful?’
Nilith stuck out her chin. I didn’t know whether I had lessened or confirmed her fears. ‘Farazar has complained the entire way. Then again, he complained for most of his life, too. It is the unknown that puts the fear in death. How much will it hurt? What is it like? You would think a city full of ghosts would assuage some of that terror of the afterlife, but it doesn’t.’
‘At least you get a dignified slide into it, Empress,’ I whispered. ‘No knives or grinning soulstealers or dingy binding halls for you.’
‘Small consolation, but it helps.’
‘Better than being a deadbound sword,’ a voice reminded us both, muttering from Nilith’s belt.
The empress was silent for a time as we avoided the Avenue and took a side-road north, and then: ‘Tell me of Krass. Tell me what I’ve missed spending my time in this sand-clogged, festering arsehole of a country.’
I had to smile. Nobody swears like a Krassman, except for a Krasswoman.
We talked to make the flagstones pass quicker. We talked to keep up our ruse under the soldiers’ eyes. We talked of home and the Arc and all the miles in between. We talked of the deserts, and all the trials Nilith had been through with a woman named Krona. We talked of my tribulations; of Busk and Widow Horix, and of Temsa’s mad rise to power. Mostly, I believe we talked because we sensed it could be our last chance for something as simple as conversation.
‘…when I began to occupy myself with the scrolls of the Arctian dead gods, I saw they were hardly different from Odun, and our Krass pantheon. Maybe they are cousins of our gods. Brothers or sisters, even, but they were real. Or are, if your stories are to be believed. They believed in balance above all else.’
I remembered that word. ‘Ma’at.’
‘You listen well.’
‘I’ve locksmith’s ears.’
‘I saw the difference in what the Arc had been and what it had become. Call it Sesh or the idiocy of man, the world has changed for the worse since their absence. Look at Krass, how it doesn’t meddle with murder or slavery as the Arctians do. That’s why I’ve kept going. Why I’m here now, and although my daughter knows I’m coming and the Cult stand with her, what else can I do now but keep walking?’ Nilith asked with a shaky breath. She showed me a copper coin on a thong about her neck, hanging next to a pouch of leather. ‘That’s why I’ve carried this the entire way. Just for Farazar. Tell me, why do you keep going?’
I shrugged. ‘At first I wanted justice, plain and simple. I wanted somebody to pay for my murder. I turned to the wrong people to give me that, and after bad choices and lucky escapes, I realised it was down to me and me alone to get my freedom. And I did, for a short time. Now I have to get it back, so I’ll start all over again. Fortunately, I also have a locksmith’s patience. As for why I didn’t just throw my coin in the Nyx… I don’t want to go back to that cold, screaming place beneath the earth where the souls wait.’
Nilith shuddered. ‘I have dreamed of such a place, the last few nights. When I can sleep, that is.’
‘Oblivion would be no better. I’m not d
one with my half-life yet. It’s either carry on or shove a copper blade in my eye and let them win. Call it stubbornness. Pettiness. I call it my right to freedom. If that lies in the same direction as your batshit plan, then fine.’ Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is what the gods wanted from me: to run into you.’
‘Who knows what the dead gods want. It matters not. You want your freedom.’ Nilith put another hand on me and smiled. It was a tired, limp thing, but a smile nonetheless. It did a good job of hiding the doubt behind her eyes. ‘And freedom, Caltro Basalt, is what you shall have.’
Our paces measured out the silence as we negotiated a throng of traders clamouring in front of a warehouse. They looked agitated by something. Empty barrels lay on their sides about the group. Grey-robed Nyxites waved their hands at the doorway, shaking their heads.
‘What’s going on here?’ I asked quietly.
‘The Nyx,’ Nilith replied. ‘I’ve seen dry wells all over the south. Mobs outside warehouses like this one. There’s a shortage.’
We traded looks, knowing what that meant for the emperor’s body.
‘A question,’ I said. ‘Would you count yourself a murderer?’
Nilith cleared her throat, evidently challenged. ‘We all take action in search of what we think is greater. The question is whether those actions outweigh that greatness. I’ve taken lives on this journey, or caused others to lose theirs.’ She took a moment, recalling faces and names. ‘Many lives… but will it be worth their sacrifice? I think so. All I can do is believe that. Was Temsa murdered? Or was he killed for something better? Would you kill a child if it meant the end of death? Think on that, Caltro.’
‘Your daughter stands in your way. Your child. Would you kill her to save the Reaches?’
‘I…’ Nilith flapped her mouth, wordless. It took her several paces to whisper, ‘If I had to. If I must.’
My reply was interrupted by a fight breaking out between two of the crowd. Punches began to swing, and with them came street-guards. Red-robed cultists appeared from within, holding short spears and with mail on their breasts. I narrowed my gaze as they broke up the fight, standing respectfully by while a scrutiniser came to berate the pair.
