by Ben Galley
‘I assume you’re the sort who uses coin to attract women, then. Not manners.’
I turned my eyes to the rafters and walkways above the bar, where a gang of long-legged temptresses stood, commanding the room with their powdered eyes and pointing fingers. ‘If I must.’
‘Well, good luck to you. They say the man who runs this place only employs the best, but that makes them the most expensive for four districts.’
‘Temsa.’ I spat the name into my new tankard.
A single eyebrow crept up. ‘You know him?’
‘Somewhat.’
The woman looked me up and down, and I her. She had beaklike features, and quick dark eyes. Her dark skin, though lighter than Krass colouring, belied her local heritage. Even under the hood I could tell her fiery hair was shorn. It was done smartly, not hacked at in some display of shame, like they do Saraka. Her clothes were nothing but simple robes and a purple smock. I saw the dark tendrils of tattoos curling up her neck and creeping from her cuffs. Something about their design was familiar.
She skipped stools to sit beside me. Had my mind been in another place – in other words, my own skull – I’d have thought myself fancied. Yet this woman gave off such a blithe air, I assumed she’d been at the drink a while.
She spoke first. ‘You wear the livery of Tor Busk, but you don’t drink anywhere near his tower. You seem to have some dire wound on your head that makes me wonder how you’re still standing, yet you have a fervent way about you that says you’re more alive than half the people in this room. I pride myself on reading people, and yet you, guard, are a mystery.’
A fresh tankard arrived at my elbow and I raised it to her. ‘Caltro,’ I said quietly, daring my own name. I wondered if she would use hers.
‘Heles. Dead gods be with you.’
‘And you.’
‘So what do you know about this illustrious Temsa? He runs quite the tavern,’ she said.
‘That he does, and I know a little. Not the sort of thing to be speaking out loud and to anyone, mind,’ I said, playing careful. I had no wish to go about drawing suspicion.
‘Some think he’s more soulstealer than soultrader.’
I coughed into the foam of my beer. ‘Some? I wager many.’ Already the tingle of alcohol was climbing into my borrowed brain. Strange how its potency increased with time.
‘Why would you say that?’ Heles asked me.
I wanted to yell in her face and tell her exactly what he’d done to me, but I held myself still, partly due to the body becoming slightly stiff around me. Perhaps I had worn the bastard out. ‘I would imagine he’s wronged many, building what he has. Doesn’t everybody have to step on somebody to climb the ladder of society? I hear he’s a tor now.’
‘Yes. Interesting, that. Quite recent, too, truth be told.’ Heles looked around at the inhabitants of the tavern. ‘It’s one of the reasons I’m here. Curious to see how a tavern owner and average soultrader buys tordom.’
‘At a guess, lying, thieving and unscrupulous murder of the innocent.’ I twitched as I said it, my elbow seizing up. I had forgotten the aches and pains the years marked a body with. With every blossom that came from being alive, there was a weed waiting to suck it dry. ‘But that’s just a guess.’
‘You all right?’
‘I…’ I raised my tankard and slopped some more beer into my mouth. I decided to speak my mind once the barkeep had wandered further away. I’d imagined my justice coming in the form of royal or official retribution against Temsa, but tonight I could settle for spreading tavern gossip and rumours. Petty, but I had been known for it.
‘I think he needs looking into. By that Chamber of the Code, or the emperor, or somebody.’ Failing that, a knife while he sleeps.
Heles leaned close, winking slowly. She was sauced as well, I knew it. ‘I had the exact same suspicion. A Chamber Scrutiniser… friend of mine… he was killed recently, and not too far from here.’
I became bolder with every swig, alcohol blurring my vision as well as my lies. ‘I wish I could get into this Chamber. Or knew somebody there. I need to tell people what he did to m…my friend.’
‘Is that why you’re drinking? For him? You seem pale. How’d you get that wound on your head?’
I raised a finger to probe it. The throbbing had ceased, and the blood gone sticky. The whole area felt numb. ‘You ask a lot of questions,’ I said, distracting her as I wondered at the stillness within me, and the inflexibility in my borrowed joints.
‘I, er, write about goings on. You know, keep people informed of what’s going on in this city.’
‘So you… report on things. You’re a reporter.’
‘Dear dead gods.’ I heard Pointy speak in my head. I ignored him.
‘I suppose you could call it that,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. ‘I spread scrolls around to share important news. Like the Nyxwater shortage. Or these murders, for instance.’
‘Murders?’
‘Tors and tals disappearing. You haven’t heard? Araxes is abuzz. Six nobles gone now; vaults cleared, towers empty, everything gone. Claims have been made on their banks but nobody knows by who. Tal Kheyu-Nebra is the most recent to vanish. Her tower burned through the night. You can still see the smoke rising from Quara District.’
I blamed my lack of knowledge of current events largely on being stuck inside a wardrobe for the past few days. ‘Who’s behind it all?’
Heles tapped her beak of a nose. ‘That’s the question, ain’t it?’ She sipped from her glass. ‘I’ll find out. I always do.’
Sniffing at my beer, I savoured its nutty aroma before I polished off the second tankard. At the same time, I noticed a slight reek. I blamed the chipped and beaten bar before me. I put a hand on it, keeping it from swaying. ‘That’s all this city seems to do besides murder: talk. Talk means nothing without actions to follow it. Justice. Freedom.’
Heles cackled. ‘You sound like a shade. But you’re right. Damn fucking right.’ She sighed, drumming her fingers irritably. ‘My job means I run into certain people from time to time. Powerful people. You seem like a knowledgeable fellow. If you know anything, you should tell me. Help me find out the truth. Maybe I could help you, or your friend.’
I became aware of her eyes sliding from the bar to mine, no trace of drunken sparkle in them now. ‘Well,’ I hummed, unwilling to reveal what I was, but drunk enough to consider it. She was no member of the Chamber, just a writer. A ‘reporter’ with ‘friends.’ When have writers ever helped anybody? I would help myself instead. ‘Perhaps you should go see what’s going on at Tor Busk’s tonight. See if your so-called important friends are interested in that.’
Heles leaned closer, and seemed to catch the same whiff I had. ‘What’s going on at Tor Busk’s? Which one is he?’
I was emboldened further by my sudden urge to leave. The more I used my nose, the more suspicious I was the foul smell was me. ‘Minor lord. Bit of a prick. Poor choice in business partners. You should go look yourself, and maybe you’ll see what kind of man Temsa truly is. Perhaps it’ll give you some insight on these murders, too.’ As I took a turn to tap my bulbous Arctian nose, I heard the clearing of a throat in my head. ‘And be careful. He’s more dangerous than you know.’
Heles caught me by the wrist before I left. ‘Is that why you’re here drinking and shaking like you are? What happened to your friend? Is that where the wound came from?’
Whether she cared or simply needed information, it didn’t matter to me. I stared at the grip of her oddly strong hand on my wrist. I missed the touch of another; of skin against skin, no matter how brief or innocuous. I missed it dearly. I cast one last look up at the balconies above me, then shrugged away, abruptly angered. I was so close to being alive, and yet so far. What pained me more was that eventually, I had to go back to being dead. I had no idea how long I could keep the haunting up.
‘You ask a lot of questions,’ I slurred. ‘Go look for yourself.’
With a hand clamped to
my silk-wrapped and dented forehead, I left. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered what the blow had done to the man, and why he’d fought against me so.
‘You know what’s happened, don’t you?’ Pointy asked as I moved for the exit. His voice was clear over the hubbub of the tavern.
I caught my reflection in the finger-smudged mirror above a private booth. For a brief moment, it was a blessed thing to have a reflection again, despite it not being mine. Then I saw the grey pallor of my pilfered skin, and the dark veins of purple spreading out from under the headscarf. There was no life beneath it. I heard the cartilage click in my elbows as I reached to paw at my face.
I was riding a dead body.
‘You’ve murdered him.’
Pointy’s words clanged around my head like the dawn bell sounding execution day to a condemned man. I almost lost my grip on the haunting right there and then.
I was no murderer. Selfish, yes. A thief, yes, but to me there was a sliding scale of criminality. Murder was high up there, somewhere below soulstealers and molesters of children. Thievery – especially the skilful and masterful kind I employed – was far down the list, near those types who managed to cheat the card dens of Saraka and keep hold of their tongues.
I wrestled my thoughts back to the point.
It was an accident. A plain and simple accident. I had not known the soldier would headbutt his own club, nor that I had been walking around the city in his dying body. Accidents were not the same as murder. Murders were for the jilted lovers, the jealous, the insane, and the plain, downright murderous. Not thieves like me.
‘Shut up,’ I told the sword as I manhandled my limbs into action. I refused to let them seize up. I made for the door that had brought me into this sordid place. Before I ducked under the archway, I saw a gigantic armoured shade standing with his arms crossed against the edge of the sweeping bar. He had eyes only for me, and a furrow of the forehead that made me wonder if he’d heard my warning to Heles. Mercifully, he stayed still, and I was free to stumble to the streets in peace, looking like any other sozzled tavern-goer peaking too early.
My lifeless body and the two beers had almost sunk me. One was making it difficult to move, the other to think. All I had was the conundrum of how a soul could get drunk, and the grim determination to shut one eye at a time and keep moving for some of the larger towers toward Araxes’ core. Annoyingly, night hid their edges, showing only their lamps, which meant I had a hard time distinguishing which building was which. I stumbled for the highest concentration of lights, hoping for the best chance of Horix’s tower.
Pointy kept silent. Perhaps he disapproved of me so much he had nothing to offer besides insults and admonishment. It occurred to me then that it might have been his jealousy of my ability to mimic life again; to quaff beer and occupy a barstool, to feel the wind on my cheek and the touch of a hand on my arm. Before I could dwell any more on it, I bit my tongue as I stumbled down a thoroughfare, and damn near bit the thing off.
I thought about finding an alleyway and gambling a night waiting for the sun to come up while my body rotted away. Then again, all I needed to do was make it to Horix’s tower. I could have ditched the body and travelled as a shade, but I couldn’t bring myself to give it up.
‘Or do I?’ The thought was so revolutionary it raced from my mind to my lips before I could stop it.
‘What?’ asked the soulblade.
‘What if I run?’
‘Where?’
‘Home. Away from here.’
‘In a dead body?’
I spilled my ideas as I wobbled from flagstone to flagstone. My tone was not too far from the realm of panic. ‘I’ll find a new body. A live one this time. Horix won’t touch my half-coin as long as she thinks I’m in Araxes. I have a few weeks maybe. That’s enough to enjoy myself. Maybe hit one last grand mark. I could show you Krass and my home in Taymar, see if I can get you some enjoyment too. Perhaps I’ll find you a tasty little deadbound dagger or dish to talk to.’
‘Can you actually hear yourself with those dead ears, Caltro?’ Pointy was less agreeable to the idea than my addled mind had expected him to be.
‘Fuck you.’
‘No, fuck you! You’ve gone mad with this ability. Do what you planned. Trust the widow. Do whatever she requires of you, and you’ll get your half-coin.’
I pointed myself to where the moon shone through the chasms between the warehouses, showing me ripples of black waves far beyond. My legs shuffled towards them.
‘Fuck the widow! Why should I squander this gift?’
Gift. The thought of the gods and the Cult hadn’t crossed my mind until then, but it did now, crashing in like a corpse through a window.
I was running out of excuses for ignoring the dead gods. They had given me a gift, just as they’d said. There was also a Cult, just like Basht warned me. All that remained was apparently saving the known world, and at that moment, I wanted nothing to do with it. I felt like a greedy child, cupping the largest slice of cake in my hands and refusing to share.
Pointy was not giving up yet. I wondered if the gods had sent him to me, to act as my surrogate conscience. ‘This is squandering the gift! Don’t you see? What happened to freedom and justice?’
I grabbed my fiery beard and pulled it hard, feeling outmatched by responsibility. The right thing can be an evil thing when it doesn’t align with what you want. I scrabbled for something I could justify myself with, searching for a reason good enough to erode the sword’s annoyingly accurate argument. ‘This looks like freedom to me.’
‘You’re a self-indulgent coward, Caltro!’
I knew that already. ‘And why shouldn’t I be? I’m fucking dead, aren’t I? I’ve been passed about like a piece of furniture. I’ve been kidnapped, beaten, forced to do things against my will, and had to haunt a man to escape this madness! I think I’m justified in wanting a less turbulent existence, even if it’s for a moment! Why can’t I enjoy this brief respite from the curse of indenturement, hmm? Don’t I deserve that? Wouldn’t you, if you found yourself in my position?’
Pointy had only muttered curses for me. For a weapon, he didn’t put up much of a fight. I kept on towards the docks, hugging walls and chain-wrapped cargo when silhouettes or shades came ambling past. It must have been a kinder night than when I arrived, or a kinder part of the waterfront, if there was such a thing in Araxes. Perhaps it was the higher number of guards standing in warehouse and mansion doorways. Recognising a kindred, although sodden, soul, they pushed me away whenever I stumbled near. No fists or kicks for me.
For what I guessed to be an hour, I trod a path that gradually slipped from flagstone to dust to wooden decking. I soon saw the glitter of water through the gaps, black as oil, marred only by the wavering streak of moonlight.
By now my joints wanted to lock in place whenever I gave them a moment. If I paused too long, my grip on them would falter as they clicked and groaned. What a sight I must have made to any onlookers; I would have turned around to look if there wasn’t a chance my neck would stick that way. All I wanted was a ship, and as my vision sloshed about, I saw one, dallying at the end of a long and empty jetty.
Sssclomp. Sssclomp. My boots dragged along the worn and sea-bleached wood. Despite my skin being dead already, I felt as if I was dying all over again. At least this time I got a better ending. No soulstealer standing over me with a wolf’s grin and a wicked knife with my blood on it.
My eyes had started to mist over, and in the dark it made a blur of the ship’s backside. Two lamps watched me like eyes. Some runes were stretched between them across a white-painted board.
Faraganthar. I mouthed the name automatically. A Krass name, though I could have been wrong; there seemed to be some distance still between us. It was why finding the edge of the jetty at my toes confused me deeply. I stared down at the churned stretch of monochrome water between the departing ship and me, and cursed my misted eyes and shambling feet. I reached for it with a crippled a
rm, fingers bent in odd directions. Cranking my head right, then left, I saw a stretch of empty jetties and wharfs. No ship for me.
I hung my head. As the body pitched forwards, I stayed standing on the deck. My blue vapours peeled from his crooked back, and I felt the skin and bone rippling over me as I exited. Despite an overwhelming numbness settling upon me, I made sure to seize the sword as Foor fell, and save Pointy from the depths. I heard the exhale of gratitude in my head as I held him firm.
The smell of rot and sewage had gone. The sound of the heavy splash was muffled. The irksome tang of beer was nonexistent, and although I was naked, my limbs were numb but not cold in the sea breeze. I was colder than they. My mists swirled about me, and I put a glowing hand to my neck to feel the barely tangible edges of a gaping throat.
‘Dead again,’ I said.
‘Oi!’ came a holler from along the dock. ‘Is that a body?’
Without the muddied head, I was immediately sharper. I quickly began to retrace my steps along the jetty. I was sure scores of bodies found their way into the Troublesome Sea every night, and yet this hero seemed particularly offended. I remembered I was a shade once more, and realised that might have irked him. Maybe he was some vulturous opportunist, and wanted the body for himself.
He was faster than me, and we met at the root of the jetty. He shimmied about, kicking up dust as he eyed the sword in my hand. It turned out it was the latter option: the man dashed past me and hurtled down the jetty for the body. I caught the promise of, ‘See you shortly!’ as he ran. Perhaps he believed I had tossed my own body into the sea in an attempt not to be bound. Perhaps he wagered I’d rise from whatever Nyxwell he managed to drag the body to. I imagined he would get quite the surprise when an angry Foor breached the black waters like an enraged porpoise.
I drifted into the nearest and smallest alleyway, daubing its stonework blue with my glow. At its dead end, past several doors and suspicious shutters, there was barely any space for a living person to stand, never mind lie down. For a ghost, it was perfect. I tucked myself into the alcove and tried to dim my light as much as possible by tensing myself. The sword I tucked behind me. He and I had no words left to trade that night. The morning would bring more, no doubt, and hopefully some clarity to pierce my apparent madness. I shut out all the shame and guilt and anger, and closed my eyes.
