Orb Sceptre Throne

by Ian Cameron Esslemont

  Of all the men and women she’d seen in the Phoenix Inn it had always appeared to Jess that Rallick was the one who could close any debt. But this was a damnably huge one.

  *

  Rallick pushed open the ornamental wrought-iron gate that allowed entrance to the grounds of the alchemist Baruk’s modest estate. He walked the curving flagged path past subdued plantings of flowering shrubs. A small fountain tinkled spray from the mouth of an amphora held at a boy’s stone shoulder. Leaves cluttered the surface of the pond, as did something else: a piece of litter, or wind-tossed garbage. Rallick’s long face drew down, accentuating the deep lines framing his mouth.

  Baruk’s grounds were always immaculate.

  He pulled on a pair of leather gloves and extracted the litter from the sodden leaves. A card. A card from an expensive custom-made Dragons Deck. Soaked now, and flame-scorched. Turning it over, he grunted. A card of rulership: Crown. He dropped it back into the glimmering water.

  The front door was unlocked. He lifted the latch and pushed it open. Inside lay destruction. Shards of ceramic urns and expensive glassware littered the carpet of the entranceway. Paintings had been thrown down; furniture overturned.

  Rallick crouched to his haunches just outside the threshold. He drew pieces of wood and metal from his pockets and waist until he’d assembled a medium-sized crossbow, its metal parts blued. The sort of weapon that would immediately have you arrested should anyone catch sight of it.

  He loaded it, then cocked it by slipping a foot into its stirrup and straightening. Then he crossed his arms, cradling the weapon across his chest. He called out, ‘Roald? Hello? Anyone?’

  No answer. He heard the wind brushing through nearby boughs; a carriage made its noisy metal-tyred way down one of the alleys bordering the estate. In the light of the sun he studied the weave of the carpet lining the entranceway.

  Smooth well-worn slippers. The foot narrow, gracile. Yet the impression very heavy. Female. Slim but hefty? Entering then leaving. Trod over some shards as she left. Agent of the vandalism? No other recent traffic … except … the ghostliest of hints. A brushing across the rich weft as of broad, splayed moccasined feet slipping side to side, never lifting, entering and exiting also. And before the woman arrived, as her tracks obscure these others. An interesting puzzle.

  He rose, edged inwards. Over the years he’d done occasional work for Baruk; non-assassination jobs, gathering intelligence, trailing people, collecting rare objects, and such like. As had Kruppe, Murillio, and sometimes Coll. Indeed, it was this very work that had thrown the lot of them together. Four as unlikely associates as one might imagine. In any case, he knew enough to be very wary of crossing this particular threshold.

  But others had entered already, to no ill effects he could discern. He peered into the nearest room opening off the foyer. Some sort of waiting room. Complete carnage and wanton devastation. Everything broken, thrown to the floor. Vandalism. Plain juvenile vindictiveness.

  He moved on. Up the narrow tower stairs he found chambers similarly ruined. So far he couldn’t tell if the intruder had come deliberately searching for something and was venting her frustration upon failing to discover it, or whether such destruction, or insult, had been the prime purpose of the visitation from the start.

  He glanced into what appeared to have been some sort of workroom. Delicate glass fragments of globes covered the bare stone floor, as did the tattered remains of torn books and scrolls. Workbenches had been swept clear of their clutter, which now lay in tangled heaps on the floor.

  His foot crushed a glass shard and a chest flew open across the room. Rallick’s crossbow snapped out, seeming to point of its own accord, only to fall again – a squat toad-like familiar, or demon, was peeping out, its amber eyes huge with fear. ‘Gone!’ it croaked. ‘Out! Oh my!’

  Rallick frowned, his mouth drawing down even further. ‘Who? Who’s out?’

  ‘Hinter gone! Out. Oh my!’

  Hinter? As in the old ghost story Hinter of Hinter’s Tower?

  ‘Where’s Baruk?’

  ‘Gone! Oh my!’

  ‘And the place ransacked,’ Rallick muttered, more to himself.

  ‘Not all,’ and the demon’s clawed hand flew to cover its mouth.

  With a jerk of the crossbow, Rallick motioned the creature from the chest.

  The demon led him down the narrow circular staircase, which continued on past ground level, passing floor after floor of quarters, storerooms, and workrooms. Rallick had had no idea the place was so extensive. It seemed so small from the outside. The creature stopped at what appeared to be the lowest floor. Rallick lit a wall-mounted lantern and raised it to peer around. The room was bare, almost completely empty. Nothing to vandalize here. Old inscriptions covered the floor in ever-narrowing circles. Old metal-working tools lined the walls: tongs, hammers, a small portable forge, twinned anvils. The demon waddled to a heavy metal chest against one wall, only to recoil as if struck.

  ‘Oh no!’ it gibbered. ‘Out! Out!’ It slapped its bald head with its tiny undersized clawed hands and hopped from foot to foot.

  ‘What’s out?’

  ‘Scary big man squash us with hammer for this! Oh no!’

  Hammer?

  Rallick crossed to the chest. It was constructed of thick metal plates. A lock at its front hung open. He pulled on the lid, failed to budge it. He set down the crossbow, clasped a hand at either side of the lid and lifted. It grated, edging upwards. He strained, gasping, managed to lever it up to clang back against the stone wall. It was a full hand’s thickness of dull metal.

  ‘A lot of lead,’ he muttered.

  ‘Not lead!’ the creature answered. ‘Magic-killing metal!’

  Rallick flinched from the chest. Otataral! An entire box of the metal? Beru fend! Why, an ounce of this would bring a man a fortune!

  Within, a length of white silk lined the bottom, empty.

  The demon was blubbering, hands at its head. ‘Scary big man mustn’t know! He will flatten us all!’

  Something lay scattered on the dusty stones of the floor next to the chest. Rallick bent to study the mess. Crumbs? And next to that, a ring-stain – as of a wine glass? He pressed a finger to the crumbs, touched it to his tongue. Pastry crumbs?

  He straightened, asked almost absently, ‘What was in the chest?’

  The demon’s hands were now squeezing its own neck. ‘The master’s most awful terrible possessions of all!’ it choked, throttling itself. ‘Flakes. Slivers. Little scary slivers.’

  ‘Slivers of what?’

  The creature’s already red face now glowed bright carmine. Its amber eyes bulged. ‘Slivers of death!’ it gurgled in a seeming last gasp, and fell, fat stomach heaving.

  Rallick regarded the empty otataral chest. Slivers of death?

  Went, Filless and Scarlon, the three cadre mages assigned to Ambassador Aragan’s contingent of the Fifth, were busy in the embassy cellar sorting through files for destruction. None noticed the presence of the slim young girl until she cleared her throat. Then all three looked up from the folders and string-bound sheaves of orders and logistical summaries to stare, dumbfounded, at what appeared to be a dancing girl in loose white robes with silver bracelets rattling on her wrists.

  ‘Are you lost, child?’ Filless demanded, first to recover her wits.

  ‘You three do constitute the last full Imperial mage cadre in this theatre, do you not?’ the girl enquired, and she smiled, demurely.

  The three exchanged wondering glances. ‘You are a guest of the ambassador …?’ Scarlon offered, tentatively.

  The pale girl drew up her long mane of black hair, knotted it through itself. ‘No. I am the last thing you will ever see.’

  All three dived for cover, summoning their Warrens; none lived long enough to channel them. Filless died last, and hardest, as she was not only a mage of Denul but the last Claw of the contingent as well.

  It was half a day before the mess was discovered.

  Am
bassador Aragan kicked through the wreckage of singed papers, destroyed tables, blood and gore-smeared folders cluttering the cellar. His aide, Dreshen, stood at a distance, as did the hastily assembled bodyguard of marines.

  The ambassador was in a filthy mood.

  ‘No one heard a thing? Not a damned thing?’ he demanded, turning on them.

  ‘No, sir,’ Dreshen answered, wincing.

  ‘Someone enters the estate, happens to find all three of our cadre mages together in the same room, and kills them all without so much as a peep?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And of course the only ones who could be counted on to sense anything happen to be the very three lying here!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Dreshen swallowed to settle his stomach as the ambassador squatted on his haunches next to the ravaged body of Filless: the woman’s face had been torn as if by jagged blades and her midriff had been slashed open, her looped entrails spilt out over her lap. Aragan stared down moodily at the corpse, drew a hand across the woman’s staring eyes to shut them. Dreshen felt his knees going weak at the sight of all the ropy blue and pink viscera.

  Aragan used some of the scattered papers to wipe the blood from his hands. He stood, and started to pace again. ‘An act of war, Captain. An Osserc-damned act of war.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘In the Academy this is what you’d call a “pre-emptive strike”.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘We’re effectively cut off now, aren’t we, Captain?’

  ‘Ah. Yes, sir.’

  ‘Communications neatly severed. No cadre mages to contact Unta. No access to the Imperial Warren.’ Aragan turned. ‘There must be some talents among the rankers, surely?’

  ‘Minor only, sir. None trained in cadre protocols.’

  The ambassador stood still, apparently thinking. He had that wide-legged stance of big men, when in fact most of his size was a broad circle around his middle. He pulled on his lower lip, his mouth drawn down in a moue of angry disgust. ‘An act of war …’ he mused. ‘Someone’s made their opening moves against us and we don’t even know who we’re facing yet! We are too far behind.’ He pointed to Dreshen. ‘What about Fist K’ess? He must have cadre.’

  Dreshen nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes … but none to spare, I’m sure. There’s still fighting in the north.’

  Aragan grunted, accepting this. ‘And Fist Steppen?’

  His aide cocked his head. ‘I don’t believe there are any active cadre in the south.’

  Aragan looked to the low ceiling. Ye gods! That the Empire of Nightchill, Tattersail and Tayschrenn should be reduced to this! It would be laughable if it weren’t so damned tragic! Very well. If it’s to be war … then war it shall be.

  He crossed to the stairs. His bodyguard parted to make way for him. He stopped before his aide. ‘Get the box, Captain.’

  Dreshen frowned, uncertain. ‘The box, sir?’

  ‘Yes. The box.’

  Dreshen’s pale thin brows rose. ‘Ah! The box. Yes, sir. Here?’

  The ambassador peered about the cellar, shook his head. ‘No. Upstairs.’

  Aragan waited in his office, hands clasped behind his back. Eventually Captain Dreshen entered, followed by two marines carrying a small battered travel trunk which they thumped down heavily on a table. Aragan motioned the marines out. He reached for the buckles securing the leather straps around the iron box but hesitated at the last moment and looked to Dreshen. ‘Well, let’s just hope I’m allowed to open this.’

  The captain offered a strained smile. ‘Of course, sir.’

  Aragan undid the buckles, opened the latches, and swung up the lid. Within lay a long thin object wrapped in oiled leathers. Captain Dreshen studied the item, mystified. The truth was, he had no idea what was in the box – other than that the cadre mages all considered it the most important artefact the Fifth Army possessed.

  Aragan pulled off the oiled wrap and Dreshen caught his breath, stepping back. Burn, Oponn and Fanderay protect him. No. It couldn’t be …

  His mouth drawn wide in satisfaction, Aragan hefted the thing in one hand. It was about the length of a long-knife. One end was a blade, the other sculpted into a three-toed bird’s foot grasping a frosted orb of glass or crystal.

  An Imperial Sceptre.

  Aragan slammed the artefact blade-first into the table. The gleaming point bit deep into the wood and the sceptre stood upright, at a slight angle. Aragan set his fists to the table on either side, studied the orb. Despite his awe, Dreshen edged forward as well.

  Aragan cleared his throat. ‘This is Ambassador Aragan in Darujhistan. I do not know whether anyone is listening, or if this message will reach anyone, but I must report that all the remaining mage cadre of the Fifth have been murdered. Assassinated. Cadre Filless may have also reported that our allies, the Moranth, have fled the city – terrified, as far as I can see. Something is stirring here in the city and it has moved against us. This is our only remaining communication channel to command. If Unta values Darujhistan then some sort of help must be sent. That is all.’

  The ambassador pushed himself from the table, stood with arms crossed regarding the sceptre. Dreshen watched as well, though for what he had no idea.

  After a protracted silence during which nothing apparently changed in the state of the sceptre, Dreshen coughed into a fist. ‘How long,’ he began, ‘until …’

  ‘Until we know? Until they answer – or if anyone’s going to answer at all?’ Aragan shrugged his round shoulders. ‘Who knows.’ He peered round the room. ‘Until then I want this room sealed and guarded. Yes, Captain?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  They shut and sealed all the doors, locking the last one behind them. While Aragan waited Captain Dreshen went to find two marines to post on the door.

  Behind, in the gloom of the office, the only light was the glow through the slats of the folding terrace doors, now barred from within. And it may have been a trick of that uncertain light, but deep within the depths of the orb, a glimmering awakened and the clouds, like a storm of snow, began to churn.

  When Spindle finally started awake, fully clothed on his cot, he lay back and held his head, groaning. No more Barghast mead. Never again. Even warm, as he’d had it with Duiker. Though come to think of it, the historian had drunk little more than one tumbler from the jug.

  Holding his head very still for fear that it might fall off, he carefully edged his way down the stairs to the common room. By the light streaming in through the temple-bar’s few windows he saw that it was late afternoon. Damned well slept most of the day – a bad sign. Discipline’s goin’ by the wayside.

  Now that the bar was wet once more a few of the regulars had returned to sit by themselves among the tables and booths. Irredeemable souses all, they spent the day expertly maintaining a steady state of numbness bordering on unconsciousness. Watching them, Spindle sometimes worried that that was where he was headed. Somehow, though, the abstract dread was not enough to stop him from getting hammered whenever possible.

  He was surprised to see some tall well-dressed fellow sitting with the historian, and slowly eased himself down into a chair at the table. The two older men shared a knowing, amused glance.

  ‘Care for another to chase that one away?’ Duiker asked.

  Spindle showed his teeth. ‘Evil bastard.’

  The historian – a dour grim man at the best of times – offered a death’s-head grin. He motioned to his companion, ‘Fisher, Spindle.’

  The bard nodded his greeting, his face held tight – Spindle recognized this as the politest possible reaction he could get to his hair shirt, which he never washed. He was surprised that this was the fellow Picker and Blend had spoken of: he had thought he’d be more imposing, more … mysterious. And they said he didn’t come round much any more. Taken up with a witch, or some such thing. He turned to the historian. ‘Remind me to never buy mead again.’

  ‘I’ve heard that before,’ Duiker answered.
>
  Spindle blew out a breath, rubbed his face. ‘Damned strange night last night.’ He tried to get the attention of Picker behind the bar.

  ‘They have been strange, lately,’ Fisher affirmed, his gaze distant.

  ‘Last night?’ Duiker asked, a grey brow arching. ‘You mean two nights ago, don’t you?’

  Spindle stared, amazed. Damn, but time flies when you finally have coin in your pocket!

  ‘Spindle, why don’t you tell Fisher here what you thought you saw two nights ago.’

  Spindle waved to Picker, who looked right through him. ‘Does a man have to get his own tea and a bite around here?’ he murmured absently. Then he stiffened and half started up from the table, only to groan and sink back down again, holding his head. ‘Beru take it!’

  The historian lost his amused half-smile and studied him, uncertain. ‘What is it?’

  Ye gods! Two days and I haven’t reported in! What was that woman’s name? Fells? Fillish? Damn! The saboteur’s bloodshot eyes darted right and left and his face took on a pale greenish hue. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Think I’ll get me some soup.’ He nodded a curt goodbye and ran.

  After Spindle had darted out of the bar Duiker said to Fisher, ‘There goes one of the last remaining Bridgeburner cadre mages. Or rather, a mage who thinks he’s a saboteur.’

  Fisher touched a long thin finger to his nose and nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, there was a certain air about him.’

  The papers in Humble Measure’s hands did not so much as quiver when the double doors to his office were kicked open and his secretary was pushed in before an armed and armoured knot of the city watch. His brows, however, did climb his pale forehead as he peered up from the accounts. ‘And to what do I owe this interruption?’ he asked from across the darkened room.

  ‘They wouldn’t—’ the secretary began only to be hushed by a wave from a man accompanying the guards. This fellow wore plain, rather cheap dark woollen robes.