by Ben Galley
‘And you from your burrow. You are taking a risk, skirting around the edge of the Core Districts. If a scrutiniser or a Core Guard sees you…’ He made a show of smacking his wrist. ‘Tut, tut.’
‘What brings you to the banking district?’
‘I could ask you the same. As it happens, I am busy looking for a dinner guest.’
She chuckled softly. It was a cold sound, full of the sickly pride the Cult of Sesh bred. ‘Is the empress-in-waiting so short on friends these days that you need to procure them from the streets?’
Etane snorted. ‘This one’s special.’
‘Tell me, what does one have to do to earn the princess’ invitation? What does it take to attract the eyes of her chamber-shade?’ Liria stepped sideways, chasing his wandering gaze. ‘What, do you not trust us? After all the decades we have known each other? You were a brother in our ranks for many years, Etane Talin.’
‘Don’t make me laugh. Trust – or rather the distinct lack of it – was the reason you fell out of favour with the royals in the first place. It was also the reason I left the Cult of Sesh.’
‘We prefer to be called the Church of Sesh now. Cult is far too… sinister. We have never meant any harm.’
‘Stop lighting black candles and chanting in dark cellars, and people might change their minds. “Cult” suits you.’
‘Didn’t suit you, though, did it?’
Etane looked away. ‘Like I said, lack of trust.’
‘Very well, but you know what we deal in. Information. Perhaps we could be of help.’
He caught her sidelong glance, and every bit of meaning it carried. ‘And what would you want in return?’
Liria’s eyes flared beneath her hood, as if insulted. ‘Why, nothing at all. It is a gift. Once a brother, always a brother.’
‘Fuck you, Liria. There is no “free” where religion is concerned. Tell me what you want in return.’
‘Information, should we ever need it.’
‘About what?’
‘Your empress-in-waiting.’
Etane grumbled, thinking of a red-faced, golden-eyed Sisine; the spittle flying through his vapours, the scratch of her copper nails. It was mildly tempting. ‘You can forget it. She is my master.’
‘Like you have forgotten your freedom, Brother?’ she said, nodding to her own words. ‘We can remember a time when you craved it. A time when it was within your grasp.’
The shade stuck out his chin, making her wait for some time. He remembered those times well. Lost opportunities had a way of sticking in the mind. ‘Times change.’
‘Would you not take your half-coin now, if we could offer it to you?’ Liria brought her hands from her wide sleeves and held them out, flat and empty. Etane instinctively found himself reaching out, even for nothing. Liria smirked, hiding her hands again. ‘Take our information as a gift for an old brother. No favours owed. Though if ever you grow tired of your master, we shall meet again.’
Etane’s impatience was growing, as was his unease. The Cult had a knack for manipulation. Their gifts had a tendency of turning into favours. In the end, it was the thought of an enraged Sisine that made up his mind. ‘Enough. Just tell me.’
‘You are not the only shade who turned his back on the Church of Sesh,’ she said, leaning closer.
Etane scowled. ‘You can’t be serious. That’s what you call information? I ought to—’
She stepped aside, revealing a channel in the crowds. At its end, across the other side of the plaza, he saw four figures emerge from the grinning mouth of a bank. Fenec’s Coinery.
They were impossible to miss. The shade in their midst alone drew the eye: a giant, armour-clad lump of a soul, matched only in height by the brute of a woman standing on the other side of the two men.
Danib. Bloody Danib. He hadn’t seen that shade in almost twenty years, when he too had been part of the Cult.
Liria whispered in his ear, ‘I would be watchful of that one, if I were you. He’s rather ambitious.’
As she faded into the churn of people, Etane stared at the men. One was clearly a banker, clad in dark felt and a cotton suit. The other was something else, but certainly not poor. He was wrapped in green fabric and a yellow silk sash like a lightning strike across a field. Rings glistened on his fingers. Sunlight made his leg glint with gold or copper. The channel had closed, and Etane had to hop up and down to follow them along the edge of the plaza.
North and east they headed, closer to the docks and the sprawl of sapphire ocean beyond. Etane didn’t recognise the man, but Liria’s words of warning lured him on. It was a better pastime than gawping up at banks for the rest of the afternoon.
For an hour he followed the group toward Bes District. He grew used to the clanking hobble of the apparent master; the man who walked slightly ahead of the others, and swaggered more than all of them combined. Etane could have closed his eyes and followed the canter of his foot and cane alone.
But he kept his eyes heavenward. There were a few spires in this district, perhaps of trade barons, but the rest of the buildings were jumbled and piled like old boxes in a storeroom, with lines of clothes strung between them. Parrots argued on the rooftops. There seemed to be more warehouses than homes here, and the streets were flooded with indentured workers rather than guards and rich folk. The living pushed their way through as if the dead were bothersome foliage.
At a junction, the four came to a halt in front of a pyramid-shaped tavern. An entrance yawned at its base. A wide strip of stone dubbed the place ‘The Rusty Slab’. Noise spilled out into the road. Guards in mismatched black armour stood about, kicking at stones.
Etane hovered on a corner, watching them climb the steps and disappear into the doorway. He kept an eye on the tavern for some time, observing the guards and counting the flow of patrons coming in and out.
Taverns were like mischief factories. The sober were fed in through the doors and with the liberal application of specialised lubricants, were ejected some time later, as pissed and rowdy as baby goats. Better yet, the products literally paid for themselves. Across the span of his century and more of death, Etane had often dreamt of another life, of one spent plying beers to the thirsty somewhere far away from the baking sun. A simpler life.
When the sun began to stretch out the shadows like a baker kneading dough, he left his corner and pointed his feet towards the Cloudpiercer. Before he made it to the next street, he made sure to grab a passing shade by the elbow. It was a woman with a bloated, poisoned face. She wriggled, but Etane held her fast. He nodded back towards the Slab.
‘Tell me, who owns that tavern there?’
The shade, now over her initial shock of being seized mid-stride, spoke her words as if she were spitting fruit seeds. ‘That place? That’s Boss Temsa’s. Boss Boran Temsa.’
‘You don’t seem to like him very much.’
‘A fuckin’ soulstealer like him? Rightly so! He’s crooked at every angle.’
‘A stealer, you say?’
‘Don’t you know? He calls himself a soultrader. Half the shades in the next four districts have been sold by him. Myself included. Now leave me be! Got chores.’
The shade shook free and hurried away.
‘Boran Temsa.’
The name found its way to Etane’s lips many times before he reached the mighty archway of the Piercer.
Chapter 14
Strays
I don’t care what was taken, Crafter Yonsson, I wish to know how it was taken. You and your brother both assured me that the vault was practically unbreakable. That it would take a thief a hundred years to crack it. Well, it took half a night, sirs. Half a night for this thief to crack your vault. He did not even damage it in the slightest. I eagerly await your reply and return of the sum I paid you. You should also be aware that Reever Bornn will be asking questions of you and your acquaintances forthwith.
Letter from Bjarl Gregorn to the Brothers Yonsson, Master Vaultsmiths of Saraka, Krass
Th
ere’s nothing quite so isolating as not being able to count the hours or feel the passage of time. I died a second death of stillness and boredom in the sarcophagus, and made my own hell out of thoughts and memories. When finally there came a muffled yell and a sonorous grate of stone, I had almost forgotten where and what I was. So wrapped up in my internal monologue was I that it took rough and painful hands to drag me back to consciousness. Like bursting from the Nyxwater, I was thrust back into the violence of the world, and it spun my head.
They dumped me on the floor. I spread my hands out across the stone, staring at the boot prints drawn in the grit and how the torchlight made them sparkle. I had almost forgotten colours beyond blue and grey.
‘How long?’ My question was a whisper.
‘Four days.’
‘Four?’ I had guessed triple that.
‘On your feet!’ Kalid bellowed in my ear.
I did so with much wobbling, and once there I decided some grovelling was in order. Grovelling can be infinitely useful if you can get over the shame of it. I’d learned that the hard way. ‘I’m terribly sorry. I’ve thoroughly learned my lesson. I’ll never step out of line again.’
Kalid pushed me under an archway and up a flight of stone steps. ‘You’re damn right you won’t, half-life. But you’re not done yet. Vex has asked for you be put outside.’
‘Outside?’
‘Like a stray dog. Fitting, seeing as you have a habit of wandering where you’re not wanted.’
I had no words. I was merely glad to be free of that abominable stone prison. I stayed silent as they stripped me of my smock and scarf.
Outside was as scorching and bright as the sarcophagus had been cold and dark. The sun was at its zenith, beating down on the city with casual ruthlessness. I looked up at the sheer walls of the tower and followed them to the crystal blue skies, cloudless as ever.
My brief moment of appreciation was shattered by a heavy rope being slung about my neck like a python, and two big hands forcing me down next to a stake driven into the cracked earth.
‘Stay, dog,’ said Kalid. He allowed himself a chuckle before he left me alone.
I looked around the long, flat garden, if a walled-off patch of scorched dirt and a few furrows of waxy-leafed plants can be called a garden. The shade of the palms didn’t reach me; at least not yet. I’d have to wait for sunset for that. A few ghosts in grey smocks and hats tended the vegetation. Aside from sideways looks, they paid me no heed.
It was strange: I felt the heat, but not as a temperature; I still felt deathly cold as always. Instead of burning me, the sunlight made me feel thinner, as if I were evaporating. It wasn’t painful, but it was deeply unsettling.
‘Still better than the fucking coffin. Still better than the fucking coffin.’ I repeated that to myself like a mantra. If the other ghosts heard me, they stuck to their pruning. I was jealous of their hats, wide-brimmed and flat like plates, and I hated them for working under dappled palm-shade while I boiled like a puddle in the desert. Though I knew I was made of nothing but soul, and only misty in form not substance, I swore my throat felt parched. I longed for a sip of water.
I couldn’t decide which was worse: having no sense of time at all, or being able to watch the minutes limping by, marked only by the creeping of the sun. Treacle replaced the sand of the hourglass. At least now, back in the bright shining world, free at last, I felt the spell of the sarcophagus fading. With the fog in my mind clearing, my thoughts turned to the excavation beneath the widow’s tower, and the picks and shovels I’d seen piled there.
“Suspicious” didn’t even begin to do the grimy scene justice. A tal had no business digging clandestine holes under her mansion.
Over the course of an hour, I boiled it down to two guesses: Horix had either struck gold, or she was tunnelling somewhere. I thought of the city layout, trying to apply my bearings to her underground workings, but it was pointless. The subterranean stairs had twisted too many times. In any case, I knew the bitch was up to something shady.
I knew then that I had lied to Colonel Kalid. I had little, if any, intention of staying in my damnable alcove. I pulled at my stake again and wasted time by thinking up foul names for the sun.
It was early afternoon when the cat came snaking through the garden, black as night, yellow eyes searching. Some of the ghosts tried to shoo it away, but all they got for their troubles was vicious hissing. I had often believed there was language in a cat’s mewing and yowling. I wondered what curses it spewed now. Cats are spiteful creatures; I had no doubt they would make milk curdle if they could speak Common.
A dog. Now there was an animal that could be relied on. A hound knows the value of a human besides opening doors and providing mice. I’d had a dog for a time. I hadn’t wanted him, but life sometimes chooses a path for you, despite your best efforts. His name had been Troge. “Faithful” in Krass tongue. I should have called him Brute, since the puppy who had crawled his way to my doorstep with two broken legs had turned into a hound of fearsome size and muscle. Mountain mutts are like couches with hairy legs. In the end, he caught the spittle-rage and I’d had to have him speared. It was one of those memories that never failed to cut me, no matter how many years I spent trying to blunt it.
The black cat wound its way towards me, eyes fixed on mine. I stared it down. It looked mangy, with one tooth poking above its gum and a scant number of crooked whiskers. It walked towards me with disjointed steps. I waved my hands at it, but the creature came to a stop just out of arm’s reach and set its arse to the sand, becoming a little tower of black fur.
Closer up, I could practically see the fleas frolicking through its dusty coat of wiry, midnight-coloured hairs. Part of its left ear was missing, and there was a child’s sketch of scars across its muzzle. Though its eyes were piercing and bright, the rest of it seemed half dead, broken in some way.
It yowled at me, low and sorrowful. Then it retched, head down and bony shoulders arched. Bones crunched. I recoiled, thinking it diseased.
‘Go away!’ I flapped my arms. The other ghosts were looking at me.
Another yowl, guttural this time. It retched again, and again, until it was gagging with deep throbs. There was a splat as a ball of hair and blood met the ground. The cat shivered, its entire body blurring for a moment, and then it sat again.
‘That’s better,’ it said, purring.
Sand scattered in clouds as I scrabbled away, testing the length of my leash. It was miserly, to say the least. My legs flew from under me and my tongue stuck out as the copper fibres strangled me.
The cat spoke again. ‘Horush said you would be skittish.’ Its voice was hoarse, like papyrus being torn. To confuse me further, it sounded female.
It was official. Either the sarcophagus had addled my brain, or the desert sun had cooked me to madness.
‘Have they taken your voice, Caltro?’
My mouth flapped at the use of my name. ‘I…’
The cat came closer, winding about the stake like a needle through wool. ‘You’re not mad, you know. At least not completely. Everybody needs a dash of madness.’
‘I—’
‘It’s normal to be afraid, too. Human.’
The cat’s skin and fur seemed too baggy, too lacking in lustre for my liking. I swear I could hear gristle clicking with every sinuous movement.
‘I’m not afraid. It’s not every day a cat decides to speak to me, is all,’ I lied.
She locked eyes with me again. ‘Then perhaps this is not every day.’
‘Are you trapped in that body?’ I knew of strangebinding: the old fashion of ensnaring human souls in other forms, like owls or dogs or horses. Pets, instead of slaves. The Reaches had outlawed the practice several centuries ago, and yet I heard some lived on throughout the world.
‘No. I can come and go as I please.’
‘Then what are you? No more riddles.’
‘I am older than the desert. I walked the earth before the moon was built of dus
t and shatter. Before the seas learned to roar.’
‘I said no more riddles!’
‘We are the old gods, Caltro. I am who you called Basht.’
I scoffed. ‘The gods are dead. Even if they weren’t, you are not one of my gods. How do you know my name, beast? What witchcraft is this?’
‘You call us dead. We are more… silenced. We still watch on. We know all that live and die.’ The cat looked up at the empty sky, as if the answer lay somewhere in its sapphire wash. I followed her gaze, clueless.
‘Enough! Enough of this cryptic shite. Speak plainly, or don’t speak at all. What are you truly?’
The cat lowered her head. ‘Making sense is difficult. We speak an older tongue than you. Over great distances. Horush said you were confused. Though he used… different words. “Useless” was one.’
I wanted to strangle the answers out of the creature. ‘Who the bloody fuck is Horush?’ My volume brought a few more stares from the gardeners, but all they saw was a ghost and a cat.
‘He came to you some days ago, in your measuring. Through the eyes of a dead man. It is the only way he could speak to you across the… how do you say it? The divide.’
‘Speak to me? Confuse me, more like. Just like you, another figment of my imagination come to taunt me. Stress. That’s what you are. A manifestation of all the shit stepping off that ship has brought me. Nothing more. Leave me the fuck alone.’
Basht growled at me, impossibly deep for a creature of her size. She stretched out, tail high. In the angle of the sun, I saw her shadow spread, and in that moment I saw no silhouette of a cat, but of a lion, bristling with fur. The look in those yellow eyes was a killer’s gaze.
I tugged at my leash again.
The cat’s face was starting to sag, and yet she still managed to raise a lip and show a rotten tooth. ‘Do not test me, boy. We come at far too great a risk and effort to waste time. I am calmer than my brother. That is why I have been sent. Horush had too much… emotion.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘Your help, Caltro Basalt. Salvation. You are our spear in this fight. Our shield against the coming flood.’
