by Ben Galley
‘Sit her down,’ said another Nyxite, a young girl barely out of her teens. Her hands shivered as she raised an earthenware bowl. Something sloshed within it.
‘Bring the conveyor.’
‘The what—’
Krona’s hands clamped over Nilith’s mouth, and a raised finger told her to be silent.
A withered and shaking ghost was brought forth. He looked too young to act so decrepit. A design of a circle and cross had been branded into the vapours of his cheek. With great reluctance, he placed his cold hands on Nilith’s face and held them there despite her wriggling. A ghost had never touched her before. She did not want to breathe, lest she somehow inhale him.
After the solid clink of gems landing in a pan, the water was forced into her mouth, foul and bitter. It almost drowned her but she did not dare swallow. It was a cruel torture to be so thirsty and to be doused with Nyxwater.
‘Enough!’ ordered a male voice. The water and the cold touch were removed. The ghost was barely visible now, just a blue outline being led from the platform. Nilith spluttered and spat until she had emptied her mouth.
‘What the fuck w—’
Krona bent down to her ear. ‘You citykind have grown too precious, too disgusted by a ba’at’s touch to remember what they can do, eh? What they really are. Life after death.’
Nilith had heard rumours. Wive’s cures. Like eating an apple in a storm to cure gout. Or bathing in ox-piss to take away warts. Nyxwater and a ghost’s touch. Nobody in Araxes would have ever stood for such a thing.
She placed a hand gingerly to her face to check she wasn’t somehow bound and ghostly. She wasn’t, thank the gods. All she found were the lumps of bruises and the ridges of cuts. The wounds hadn’t disappeared, but they had closed up. There was no pain, just a cold numbness.
‘It hasn’t worked.’
Krona snorted. ‘No? Just you wait. Master Greeb here will be most pleased in a day or so, won’t you?’
The man spoke in a thick desert dialect. His eyes were narrow, carrying concern. ‘I trust so, Miss Krona. I trust so.’
‘Trust away. My word’s good. And final, eh?’ She patted the pommel of her sword and the man was rapidly convinced.
Nilith was forced back to the dust, where the child ghosts stood in a small group. The woman was busy inspecting them. Nilith was pushed past them and on towards the hut, where the brazier waited with its glowing tools. The sight of them stirred fear in her. Her window of escape was a hairsbreadth, her plan still non-existent. Instinct began to kick in.
‘No! No! You can’t!’ Nilith struggled once more, but Krona held her by the neck with iron fingers and threw her to the sand before the men.
‘One more for you.’
The bald man looked up, turning between Krona and the trader Greeb. He held out a reed and a dirty piece of papyrus. ‘Your brand. Sketch it out.’
Greeb drew a cross with an eye behind it, and the brander sighed. ‘All rather elaborate. Set her down and hold her still. Chest? Back? Arm? Face?’
‘Neck.’ Greeb patted his throat. Nilith knew of an artery there, and how one small cut could bleed a man like Greeb in three minutes flat. She bared her teeth as Krona sat her on a stool and clamped one hand on her bonds. With the other, she wrenched Nilith’s head to the side, exposing the sweaty flesh of her neck.
It took all Nilith’s nerve to sit still and wait for her moment while the man chose his brands. He brought them from the fire, glowing at their tips, and scraped a shower of sparks on the sand.
The brander looked to Krona. ‘Got her? Live ones tend to squirm.’
‘Just fucking hurry up, eh?’
Nilith couldn’t have agreed more.
The man held up a rod with a glowing cross at one end, and advanced with it balanced on a finger. As soon as she felt the heat of it near her skin, Nilith seized her chance. She wrenched her hands from their bonds and seized the brand by its rod. Without pause, she pulled it towards her, aiming to ram it up into Krona’s face, just below the eye.
It met the woman’s skin with a hiss. Her scream brought the entire soulmarket to a standstill. Krona tried to lean away, but Nilith pushed and pushed, the skin sizzling and popping beneath the glowing iron. As Krona broke her hold to flail at her face, Nilith burst away and pelted towards her horse. Krona screeched like a gutted cat behind her, but it gave her no guilt to grin as she ran. A brand would be a fine addition to all the woman’s tribal smears.
‘Farazar!’ she yelled as she spied Ghouls sprinting at her.
She knew not whether he had slapped the horse or Anoish had guessed the plan, but the beast came bursting through the crowds, sending two tables and half a dozen men flying. Nilith used all her remaining strength to bound onto his back as he passed. She clung to his halter, knuckles white, legs splayed, and rotten corpse bumping her.
‘Go!’ she cried, though she needn’t have bothered; Anoish was just as keen on freedom, and was currently using his hooves and barrel-like chest to drive the quickest path for the open desert. Behind them, Farazar was dragged along like an anchor, bashing people aside and promising retribution at the top of his lungs.
Before she was whisked into the streets, Nilith spared a glance for Krona, still writhing and screaming in the sand, Ghouls hovering around her. Her hands were clamped to her face and the brand lay smoking beside her, turning the earth black. Nilith found the time and saliva to spit in her direction.
Anoish did her proud, and with the help of shock and local stupidity, they managed to break free of Abatwe’s crowds with nobody in pursuit. Nilith kept him following the rift, with his nose pointed towards the shadow in the north, where brushstrokes of clouds lingered. In the evening light they had taken on an orange tinge, like great beacons of war.
Nilith stared at them and them only, imagining the city behind them. It was the sum of all she could bear to think about. Not the pain, not the fear of Krona giving chase, not even the elation of escape. Just a simple direction.
All else could come later.
Chapter 18
Invitations
The orphanage, as I suspected, was no more than a front for a soulstealing operation for the murdering, binding and sale of child shades to Scatter Isle princes. They have a strange taste for young half-lives, and judging by the number we found alive, dead or bound, quite a thirst, too. You will be pleased to know I delivered the emperor’s justice to the ringleader on the orphanage steps. The others have been clapped in irons and await judgement at your leisure, Chamberlain.
Report from Scrutiniser Heles to Chamberlain Rebene in year 1000
Comedy had always depressed Sisine. Romance never failed to bore her. Even epics left her cold. But tragedy? Now that was a form of theatre to be respected. Tragedy was one of the world’s only constants.
Unseen drums hammered out a low thunder as the bald woman onstage reached up for an apple dangling from a silver tree. The light caught the sweat on her dark skin, betraying how much she quivered with effort. An arrow was taped to her thigh. Smears of red paint decorated her to the knee.
The Song of Saphet was one of loss, murder, betrayal and greed; a tale whose chief concept was that nobody learns from their mistakes, and here was Saphet herself, doing very well at not learning as she reached for a poisoned fruit.
A gasp spread around the amphitheatre as there came a snap of a branch. Saphet clutched the apple close to her chest, raising her eyes to the sun to stare at Oshirim. At that moment, cymbals crashed, and water rained down onto the stage. The stone bruised wherever it fell.
Saphet stretched high, defying the gods by showing them the apple. A dark smoke began to curl around the pillars of the stage. Lamps flashed as lightning struck. With a roar, she tore a bite from the apple and chewed it proudly, juice and morsels spraying with the rain.
The drums stopped dead. The stage went dark but for a narrow beam of light in which Saphet stood, holding her heart and throat. She fell like an axe-bitten tree, landing limp as a do
ll in utter execution of her art.
The applause roared as the audience got to its feet. The empress-in-waiting stood with them, clapping the back of her hands gently. There was entertainment in watching others fail, but also in the knowledge that one could simply look on from afar, untouched, and imagine oneself succeeding where the Saphets of the world failed.
Sisine smiled broadly. She was definitely no Saphet. There was a woman who was too controlled by her emotion and greed. Sisine had those in abundance, but she also had buckets of restraint. And cunning. And Etane to mop up her mistakes, if somehow she ever made one.
Speaking of the dolt, he appeared as she waved away the shades that had been wafting ostrich-feather fans to cool her. She sniffed at him. ‘There you are.’
He bowed shallowly. ‘I’ve been hard at work, Princess.’
‘You’d better have. Come.’
Sisine beckoned to the shades gathered at the edges of her balcony, and they rushed forward to lift her velvet couch into the air. Etane trailing behind, she led him to the hall where drinking and wandering from table to table being adored and flattered were the post-theatre entertainment. Araxes bred such sycophants, but it did wonders for the ego.
Theatregoers, tors, tals, sereks and celebrities: they all crowded her litter before they’d taken three steps. Her Royal Guard kept them at a safe distance as she smiled down at them all. Sisine did not move from her couch, for she was above them, literally and socially, and she liked it kept that way. It took the presence of the emperor or empress to bend her knee, and both were absent.
‘My Empress-in-Waiting!’ cried a voice. A man she half-recognised struggled through the crowd to match her litter’s pace. It looked as if he were drowning in a river of rainbow silks and gold hats, crying out whenever he came up for breath. He had the dark swirls of official tattoos on his neck and hands, and wore formal black silks.
Her guards fended him off, but he held up two hands, and clasped them. ‘Please! A word with you if I may, Highness! I am from the Chamber of the Code. High Chamberlain Rebene!’
Sisine looked around, noting the sereks in the crowd, watching on. The mention of the Chamber had pricked their ears.
‘Guards, allow him to pass.’
The man squeezed through the polished barrier of plate and mail and took a moment to adjust his dark clothes before approaching to bow. Sisine waved her hand, making her many bracelets chime. ‘Your need for disturbing me?’
He came closer, making the guards twitch, and lowered his voice to a confiding whisper. ‘Highness, is there somewhere we might speak?’
‘Of which matter?’
He bowed again. ‘The emperor’s decrees, Highness.’
‘This way.’ Sisine pointed past the trays of slender glasses of beer and wine to a secluded section, raised above the floor and ringed by more Royal Guards. Her carriers gently deposited her litter beside a golden table. Etane stood close whilst the man took a plush seat at her side. He seemed unused to a perch so soft and yielding. He had trouble remaining upright.
‘Speak, sir.’
‘Your Highness. I am here on account of your, or rather your house-shade’s, recent message to look into this spate of soulstealing.’
‘If I remember correctly, my command was to do a better job of upholding the Code and the Tenets in this city, and to protect the tors, tals and sereks who employ you. But you may proceed.’
The man removed his square hat and laid it on his lap. His tattooed hands had a flutter to them. Perhaps it was the warm night, but sweat crept in beads from his receding fringe of tar-black hair. A topaz hoop dangled from his left ear. ‘Well, Highness, I am afraid we are unable to do what you command without more funds.’
Sisine had practised her mother’s look of displeasure for many hours. Head back, eyes to the point of the nose, purse the lips. ‘Is that so?’
‘I wish it were not, Highness, but you know how inundated the Chamber is. With a hundred districts north, south, east and west, our proctors and scrutinisers are thinly spread. Most are in the Core Districts working alongside the Core Guard, but even with their help our coffers are constantly drained, month after month. As for recruitment… It is easier to cheat, steal and murder in Araxes than it is to live a lawful life and work for the emperor or the Code. We cannot fight such a mindset without more funds to spend on bodies and equipment.’
The empress-in-waiting balanced her slender chin on a clenched fist. ‘You’re telling me there is a direct connection between the level of crime and the amount of silver spent fighting it?’ she asked in a dry tone.
The sarcasm slipped past Rebene like a raindrop off a duck’s wing. ‘Precisely, Highness. I’ve come humbly to ask you for your, or rather your father’s, assistance.’
‘Nothing can be done in the meantime?’
‘I have my best scrutinisers hunting down leads on these disappearances, and listening for any sudden acquisitions, but we have found close to nothing. If somebody knows something, then they refuse to talk out of fear. It’s a dangerous job, asking questions. One of my scrutinisers, a man named Damses, was found dead only yesterday, his notebook taken, a knife through his face. Pardon my brazenness, Highness.’
‘It’s quite all right.’ Sisine held up a hand for a moment of thought. She could feel the eyes of the sereks on her again, peeking over the edges of their grand shelf. They huddled in their conspiratorial little packs, eager to know what business was being done and how much was being chipped from their promises. Like wild jackals. Boon’s advice echoed in her mind, and begrudgingly she took it, careful not to disappoint them.
‘How much, Chamberlain Rebene? How much do you need?’
The reply was a whisper. ‘One hundred thousand.’
‘One hundred thousand silver?’
‘A month, Highness. Naturally.’
‘Naturally.’ That was more than most chambers of Araxes required in half a year, even the Chamber of Trade. And they were at least kind enough to generate their own revenue for the royal coffers. She took a moment to process the number. The Talin Renala family was extraordinarily wealthy, but in shades rather than silver. Sisine was second only to the emperor in wealth. She had her own hordes of half-coins, businesses, a range of investments some wizened old shades managed, and even a share of the royal army. Could she spend for the emperor as well as speak for him? She didn’t hesitate.
Sisine waved for Etane to escort the man out. ‘As these are my father’s commands, I am sure he has budgeted for their carrying out.’ She caught sight of a bobbing, glowing head in the crowd, and an idea formed. Sisine rose. The night’s performance was not over. Rebene was now a prop to her.
‘Too long have the Chamber of the Code’s pleas gone unheard, and all the while you fight on the frontlines of law and order. Our great empire is built upon the Code. Surely we cannot ignore those responsible for upholding it. Defending it! I will see you get extra funds, Chamberlain. In fact, I will lend several hundred shades to your cause. A dozen phalanxes from the royal army. My own soldiers, in fact.’
She said it loud enough to garner an impressed murmur from the surrounding crowd. A hush fell in their corner of the hall.
High Chamberlain Rebene came to a stuttering halt. ‘Your Highness, it is strictly against the Code for the Chamber to employ half-lives. In all good conscience I—’
‘And it is against my code, Chamberlain, to leave my people starved of sleep, fearing for their lives every time the sun sets.’ Here she was, like Saphet upon the stage. ‘I hear rumours that times are changing in this proud city. I, through the might of my father, will make sure they change for the better. Take my assistance.’
Amidst the applause and gentle cheering from the audience, Rebene shuffled backwards, eyes glued to the floor and full of sweat. ‘I will discuss your kind offer with my magistrates,’ he said.
‘You do that.’ Sisine waved her hands and a serving shade appeared with a drink. She took the flute of crystal back to her seat and b
eckoned Etane to join her. Not to sit, but to stand near her. Near enough to be heard, at least. From there she could watch the milling of the theatre-goers, and listen to the rustling of their voices and jangling of heavy jewellery.
‘Soldiers on the streets? Those shades are numb in the brain. Skittish. War does that to a soul, whether it’s wrapped in flesh or not,’ whispered Etane.
‘Half the Core Guard are veterans from the wars in the Scatter, dead and alive, and you don’t see them going on murderous rampages. Besides, they are for show. What better to convince the populace of an emergency than soldiers on the streets, indeed? Better still, it will keep the Cloud Court quiet for a time.’ She shook her head. ‘Though I don’t know why I should be explaining myself to you. Stop questioning me and tell me what you have found out.’
‘I’ve found our man.’
‘Who?’
‘Boss Boran Temsa. Tavern owner. Soultrader, possible stealer.’
‘I told you to keep looking. I still refuse to believe a lowlife, minor soulstealer is behind the disappearance of these nobles. The audacity of such a thing—’
‘He’s not as minor as you would think. People say Temsa owns Bes District and has dealings with the next four districts over, that he’s shrewd and connected. I followed him most of yesterday. He has wagons coming in and out the arse-end of his tavern, day and night. It’s likely he has both the resources and the mettle, Your Magnificenceness.’
‘I still gave you a command.’
Etane sighed. ‘It would have been a waste of time, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘You mind your tongue, half-life,’ she hissed.
‘Temsa also has a shade in his employ. A man I used to know named Danib. A shade far older than me. Died back in the year five hundred and something down in Belish, waging a one-man war against the local populace. Used to call him Ironjaw back then.’
‘Sounds like a barbarian.’
‘He was, at least before he met the Cult. They freed him for a time, until a few decades ago he sold his coin back into indenturement to work for the likes of Temsa. Almost unheard of, but I guess there’s not much killing to be done in the Cult. He’s been wetting his sword ever since.’
