by Ben Galley
Sisine would have spat were she not being watched by the elite of Araxes. ‘Ha! Lies. The foul fanatics know more about back-stabbing than an Arctian royal. They seduced my grandfather, poisoned my family. I will not have them spoken of.’
‘You don’t need to tell me, Princess. I was there, don’t forget—’
She scoffed at him. ‘Trust me, this house never will. It’s why you still wear a gold feather and not a white.’
Etane took a moment to swallow. ‘But perhaps it means our man could have a connection with them.’
Sisine’s head snapped around. ‘With the Cult?’
‘Changes a few things in that grand plan of yours, doesn’t it?’
‘You don’t think they were behind the disappearance of our locksmith, do you?’
‘Thanks to you having the man who gave us Basalt’s name killed, and the men that told him, I’d say we’ve been pretty discreet. Though it’s likely. They have sharp ears. And I still haven’t found a trace of Basalt.’
‘Devious fiends.’ Sisine quashed her anger with a sip of frosty spirit, sweet with fruit juices. She let the sting of it linger in her mouth.
‘So?’
She tutted. ‘Invite him. I will gauge the man, see what he knows. What his intentions are.’
Etane shook his head. ‘You expect truth and allegiance from a lowlife soulstealer?’
‘You should know better than anyone, Etane, that I spent my formative years ignoring the scrolls my tutors said I should read. Instead I spent my time reading people. This man is ambitious for a reason. I will find out what that reason is. Then I will bring him under my wing and manoeuvre him in certain directions. Against the Cult, if needed. In any case, he may be able to bring about the chaos and fear I need to drag my father from his vault.’
‘And here I was thinking I did the dirty work.’
Sisine snorted. ‘Now you can do the messenger’s work. Go speak to this Boran Temsa. First thing tomorrow.’
‘Would it not be wiser to send—’
‘First thing tomorrow.’
‘Aye.’
‘In the meanwhile, I shall have another glass.’ The empty flute dangled between her finger and thumb.
‘As you wish… Princess.’
‘Were you born thick as donkey shite or did you pick it up along the way?’
‘Boss, I—’
Boran Temsa slapped the man hard across the face, making him whimper. ‘Fucking moron can’t even speak properly.’
Temsa hobbled away, wiping his hands with a silk kerchief. He stopped beneath a grate in the ceiling and stared up into the shaft of white sunlight. ‘Explain it to me again.’
There was much panting as he composed himself. ‘Boss, I’ve already told you everything.’
‘Danib.’
A mighty blue hand encircled the man’s neck, lifted him, and pinned him to the wall. His heels drummed at the stone.
‘All right!’ he wheezed.
Temsa nodded, and Danib threw him across the cellar. He came to a snivelling halt at Ani’s feet. She spat on him before kicking him away.
‘Speak, Omat.’
He drew himself up with hands splayed, as though Temsa had an arrow nocked and trained on him.
‘All right. I was in The Jackal’s Hall with Pamec and a couple of the other lads, few days ago now. We were talking about nothing. Just rumours of the Nyxwell dryin’ up and Abbas Shem’s girls, down the road. You’d just paid us, see?’ He paused to swallow. ‘I noticed this man sitting near us, smiling every time I caught his eye. Said he worked on the docks, for the soulships that take the shade armies out to the Scatter. Said more and more were going out each day. Then he told us about a legion of the emperor’s soldiers that had just returned from Harras. If they were flesh they would have been in ribbons, he said. Covered in white wounds where copper had gouged them, he said.’
Temsa waved his hand in a rotary fashion.
‘So we keep talking. He buys us drinks, asks us what we do.’ He smacked his lips. ‘I swear we never said no names, just told him how we worked as guards for an up and coming tor. That’s what we and the lads called you, Boss. No names. Said you’d just made a good takeover. Not me. Pam said it like that, so we all laughed. He did, too, and so it went. By the end of the night, he kept asking whether you had a job for ’im. Maybe as a house-guard. We thought he was joking. I hung back to give him the name of the Slab, and what to say. Then he says thanks, whispers something real smug, and walks off. I get the suspicions and grab him by the arm, and the fucker pulls a knife. I hit him, he hits me. I get out my steel and put it through his teeth. Choked him on it. I check him for stuff, as you do, and see all these smart tattoos. Then I find this scroll of notes and names. Mine was on it. Like I said, he had a ring on a chain, too, some glyph of a woman with scales and a star.’
‘The dead goddess of justice, Mashat.’
‘Yeah, her.’
Temsa stalked across the floor, taking his time, his steps a musical clatter of boot, cane and copper claws. Omat was quivering by the time his shadow fell over him.
‘Thank you for that tale. I just needed to hear it once more to know somebody was capable of being that stupid.’ Temsa brought his face close. Ani placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.
‘Do you know what a ring with the goddess of justice on it means?’
Omat shook his head.
‘It means you knifed a Chamber of the Code scrutiniser, you cretinous cunt!’
‘I didn’t know he had it on him!’
Temsa stamped his left leg onto the man’s sandalled foot. He screamed noiselessly, face frozen in pain. Blood pooled around his foot.
‘Have you ever seen the inside of the Chamber of the Code, Omat? I didn’t think so. There are stacks of scrolls and papyrus sheets so high they had to knock out two floors above the hall. Stacks so high that if the Chamber ever opened its doors, mountaineers would flood from across the Reaches to climb them. Complaints, claims, letters, cases, all piled up for eventual review. It takes years for them to migrate across the hall. They say people die in there when a stack collapses, which sometimes they do, only to be found days later.’ Temsa withdrew his claw. ‘And do you know the only thing that can move a case up the stacks faster than anything, Omat?’
‘No?’ said a quivering voice below him. Temsa was looking at Ani.
‘The death of one of the chamber’s own. It’s like if somebody murdered one of your lads. You’d want a piece, correct? Sharpish, right?’
‘Yes.’
Temsa raised his hands. ‘There you have it. Now, thanks to you, good old High Chamberlain Rebene might come looking for a piece of me, put me in irons and take me to the Chamber of Punishment. Right now, he doesn’t have a shred of proof, but just imagine what would happen if he found out I was blackmailing a banker’s son and sigil, hmm? Just imagine.’
‘Shit would go down, Boss,’ said Ani.
‘It would, Miss Jexebel. With great intensity.’
He strode away, leaving Omat to paw at his bloody foot and wonder whether it was the last wound he’d receive that night. Temsa had already decided for him, but he wanted to wait. A bit of grovelling never failed to brighten his day. He picked at his manicured nails.
‘Please, Boss. I didn’t know. I was tryin’ to protect you.’
‘Really? Because it looks to me like you were endangering everything I’ve worked for so far.’
Omat began to shuffle across the stone, wiping snot from his nose. ‘Please! I’ll do anything. I’ll work harder. I’ll keep my mouth shut. I’ll keep my ears sharp and my blades sharper. I promise.’
‘Ani, if you please.’
The woman took a moment to smile before grabbing Omat by the collar and throwing him against the cellar wall. A humongous axe chased him, striking him in the neck. As the echoes of the almighty clang died away, the body fell but the head stayed put atop the embedded axe blade. Omat’s eyes still whirled about their sockets, his mouth gasping li
ke a fish plucked from the water. His last moments, though drawn out, ebbed away with the blood pouring down the wall.
Ani wrenched her axe free of the sandstone and the head tumbled to join its body. She thumbed the red blade.
‘Fucking Omat. Will ’ave to sharpen that now,’ she said with a tut.
Temsa sighed as he fetched another kerchief for his foot. ‘Well, if you will choose to be dramatic, you have to suffer the consequences.’
Ani nodded sagely. ‘I suppose.’
‘Bind the body and have him sold cheap. He can still be a labourer in the southern mines. Kal Duat’ll take any—’
A shout echoed down the corridor. ‘Boss!’
‘What?’
Tooth appeared in the archway. Her heavy breathing stopped the moment she saw the body lying in two bits. ‘I can come back when you’re not buthy?’
‘What is it?’
‘There’th a thade here to thee you.’
Temsa shot a look at Danib. ‘What shade? In red robes?’
‘No. He’th got a gold feather, though. Lookth important for a thade. Well drethed.’
‘And what does he want?’
Tooth wiggled a finger in her ear. ‘I don’t know. I jutht came to find you thtraight away.’
Temsa bit his lip, trying to bleed out some patience. ‘I see. And why you, dare I ask?’
‘Everyone elthe looked buthy.’
‘Right. Lead the way,’ he said, giving in. ‘Danib. Follow.’
With the big shade in tow, Temsa wound his way through his honeycomb cellars and up to his office. Morning light spilled through the shutters and drapes, casting spears of smoky air.
Temsa dragged out his chair with a squeak and automatically reached for his pipe. ‘Have him fetched.’
Danib poked his scarred head into the stairwell and slapped the blade of a hatchet against the wall three times. Tooth got the message and soon enough, Temsa heard feet on stairs.
Tooth came in first, followed by a smart-looking shade. Temsa wasn’t sure if he’d seen the like before. The suit was ill-fitted, but of fine cloth. The gold feather on his breast glinted with metal; no cheap dyed thread there. There was a poise to the shade that betrayed some breeding, some noble blood that had once run through his body. Had he not had the mark of being bound, Temsa would have thought him a free shade. Maybe a tor.
He was currently staring at Danib. The big shade was staring right back, almost as if they recognised each other. Temsa broke the silence.
‘To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’
‘Master Temsa, my name is Etane Talin. I represent a very important figure in the city who is keen to meet you, to discuss common interests.’ The accent was Arctian, but clipped, almost royal. So was his last name: Talin. One half of the current ruling Talin Renala family. Etane sounded rather familiar too, but he couldn’t think why. Temsa was immediately intrigued, but he kept it from his face.
‘Are they keen on beer?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Your employer. Do they like taverns?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Smoking pipes?’
‘No.’
‘The bartering of souls for profitable gain?’
‘She has an extensive retinue, if that is what you mean.’
‘A she, is it? What I mean is, it doesn’t sound like we’ve got any common interests at all. So the question is, why would I be interested in meeting with her?’
This Etane was a confident bastard. ‘Common goals, then. And if that doesn’t interest you, then how about mutual gain?’
Temsa held a taper to a lamp to light his pipe. He let smoke billow before he answered.
‘Now that I like. And just who is this mistress of yours? This “very important figure”?’
The shade raised his chin. ‘I trust you can keep this invitation confidential. To our two parties alone.’ He looked at Danib for some reason. The big shade didn’t even blink.
‘Of course.’
‘Her radiant Highness Sisine Talin Renala the Thirty-Seventh.’
Inwardly, Temsa felt a rare stirring in his stomach. Some might have called it surprise, joy even. Outwardly, it looked as though he hadn’t heard. ‘What a mouthful.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Quite the mouthful! And a handful too, no doubt. I hear she’s taking charge, now that the empress has disappeared and the emperor still refuses to come out of his shiny closet.’
‘You put too much stock in street rumours, sir. The empress has not disappeared, she is attending to business in her homeland.’
Temsa grinned, tapping the pipe-stem on his teeth. ‘Of course she has. Knowing you royals, she’s likely already dead and bound.’
‘Will you accept the invitation or not?’
‘I will. You have me curious, and it’s not every day a man of my years and my position gets invited to the Cloudpiercer to see an empress-in-waiting, now, is it? Will the emperor be joining us?’
‘I’m afraid the emperor will remain in his Sanctuary.’
Temsa nodded. ‘Wise man. If I owned two million shades, I’d be a hermit too.’
Etane bowed sharply and headed for the stairwell. ‘Oh, and if you could ensure you are dressed appropriately for royal company, that would be most appreciated. Perhaps a smarter suit.’
With a scowl, Temsa dragged out his leg and let it thump on the desk. ‘That good enough for royal company?’
The shade twisted his lips. ‘Maybe a polish wouldn’t go amiss. That should clean the blood off.’
‘Danib, get him out of here.’
But Etane was already gone. He had been royally trained; he knew when it was time to exit somebody’s presence.
Temsa chuckled to himself, bringing his foot back down with a metallic thud. ‘A princess, indeed. Well, as shittily as this day began, it’s certainly taken on a brighter shine.’
Danib was staring at the doorway.
‘You know him, don’t you, brother?’
Danib nodded.
‘Let me guess. You shared some years in the Cult together?’
Another nod.
‘Then you’re going to write down everything you know about Etane, and Sisine Talin Renala the Hundred and Forty-Ninth, or whatever, and then you’re going to have the shades pick out the finest suit they can find. Perhaps something from Tor Merlec’s collection. Or we shall see what Tor Kanus has to offer when we visit him tonight.’
Danib growled like a bear catching the scent of blood.
Chapter 19
Jealousy
If you want to eat, then you’d better slit a throat.
Old Arctian saying
The sunlight poured through the skylights like an old bully, waving through a cottage window to taunt and remind me of a past beating. It made my vapours prickle.
I withdrew the lockbox out of the rays and breathed a sigh of relief in the shadows. I glared at the empty sockets of the gold skull emblazoned on the box’s top. Whatever grand name and seal had once decorated its forehead had been filed away. It was a tough little thing with a dozen different tumblers to pick, rotating on rings within the cylinder. Something from Belish, where they use tiny children’s fingers for fashioning such locks.
It was the tenth challenge Horix had set me that week, each one trickier than the last. I was growing bored of her tests. All that work and I still had no idea what I was being tested for. If I’d still had skin, my thumbs would be worn and blistered by my makeshift tools. At my request, the knife had been filed and my tines replaced with a thin hook; metal from the hinge of another box I’d broken, literally speaking.
‘Concentrate, Cal,’ I told myself, something to interrupt the constant clicking. My mood was fouling my hands. ‘Fuck!’ The tumblers sprang back into place. I’d slipped and touched the spring instead. Novice error.
I repositioned myself over the box, faced the lock to the ceiling, and tried again.
Knife in, turn left three notches. Press
. Click. Forwards. Right halfway. Find it. Click. Third tumbler. And so on, until the last two. These were deep in the lock and therefore unpractised. I used my knees to steady my arms as I slid the knife further in. I found the penultimate tumbler’s notch easily. Click. The last had no ring; it was just a delicate matter of finding the right tumbler. There seemed to be a range. Decoys.
I racked my brains, imagining where all the other tumblers lay, and how they moved should the key turn. I mentally clambered over cogs and wheels; measuring and testing, drawing rough blueprints as I manoeuvred them around to examine every angle. It was a knack I’d learned largely through boredom. A young child with two vacant parents, no friends and a hundred miles of steppe to himself tends to live more in his imagination than in real life. It had given me a fiercely visual mind, and that was my strength. The key to lockpicking, pun intentional, is one part engineering, one part skill, and two parts imagination. At its heart, it’s a duel of wits between the locksmith and the ingenuity of the fucker that dreamt up the design in the first place.
Only when I was certain did I turn the cylinder, using the flat of the knife as a key. There came a satisfying round of clicks as each of the three bolts fell open.
I’d gotten used to finding the boxes empty and fruitless, with no prize for me besides the satisfaction of breaking the lock. To me that was only half a prize. This box, however, held a small scrap of papyrus, flour-yellow against the pink velvet interior. A glyph had been painted upon it in red ink.
‘Room?’ My Arctian was no good, but it was improving with the time spent in Horix’s tower. It was a tough language. First you had to crack the glyphs – all forty-three of them – and then the actual language itself. The glyphs were odd squiggles, descended from the hieratic language the Arc used to use thousands of years ago, when a Long Winter had apparently covered the land in ice. Personally, I couldn’t imagine such a thing.
This was a tower of rooms. I wondered which one the leathery old bat was referring to. I decided it would be her room. It was a simple place to start.
