by Ben Galley
It was enough to halt my attack just for a moment; long enough to feel icy fingers at my own throat, and feel the beat of a terrified heart in my chest. I gasped for air against the cold trying to envelop me. My vision was overlaid with blue. I saw a livid face etched into that swirling cloud of vapour.
My own.
I barely noticed when the guards ripped me from the tor. My form lit up where their copper-thread hands touched me, but I felt none of the pain. Instead, I felt the life drain from me with every yard they put between me and Busk, who was still thrashing on the floor. My arms twitched with his movements, mimicking him.
‘Get him out. Get him out!’ he yelled. I could feel his hot breath escaping my mouth.
Whatever sorcery had bound us was cut with the slam of the door. I was thrown down the stairs, landing next to two ghosts carrying a bucket of mop-water. They spilled it in their surprise, dousing my smock.
I let the guards lift and drag me back to my wardrobe. In truth, I was too stunned to do much else. I did not fight them when they shoved me into the dark and locked the door on me. I simply stood, mouth agape, eyes staring but not seeing. I was too busy wrestling my mind into something that resembled sense.
A voice called out to me. It might have been calling for some time, but this was the first of it I’d heard.
‘I said, are you okay, Caltro?’
The bloody sword.
‘What happened?’
‘I—’ I paused, realising I had no answer to give. My own conclusion still seemed too ridiculous in its impossibility, and yet…
‘Did they hurt you? Busk tried that with me once. Showed me a forge and held me in the fire—’
I had little patience for any more stories. ‘Shut up. Just shut up for one moment.’
Even then, the sword had to say his piece. ‘Well I never.’
‘Look… you.’ I realised that in all his blabbering, I’d never gleaned a name. ‘What is your name, anyway?’
‘I’ve gone by many names. The Black Death. Absia. Yer’a Ankou. Once I was called Bonespli—’
My hands waved impatiently in the dark. ‘Whatever. I’ll call you Pointy until you settle on one.’
‘Pointy…?’
‘You’re a deadbound, right? Bound into something lifeless. Inanimate.’
‘I hardly need reminding, but yes. I am a soulblade, to be precise.’
‘And in all your years, have you ever heard of a ghost, a shade, being bound into someone that’s already alive?’
‘Well, there have been animals. Horses. Hawks. Dogs. They call it strangebound, remember?’
‘Yes, I know that. Not animals. People. Living people.’
Pointy paused in thought. ‘I know a few tales.’ He sounded cautious.
‘What happened?’
‘It never worked too well. The Chamber of the Code banned the Nyxites from doing it several hundred years before I was bound, if not more. In fact, there’s an epic poem about why they—’
I gritted my teeth as hard as vapour can be gritted. ‘No! No poems. Just tell me.’
‘Well, it was something to do with religion. Something no Arctian has worried about in the years since the gods were proclaimed dead and gone. Apparently, the gods used to walk among us, inhabiting bodies, testing those they met. The Nyxites and the Chamber both thought this practice too similar. Too religious for their liking. Men trying to be gods.’
‘What happened to the people?’
‘For a shade, you really don’t know much about binding, do you?’
‘I’m still new to it.’
‘Well, a body’s only built for one soul, not two. It seems only the gods are capable of that. The tales tell of men and women driven mad. Of their bodies giving up after rotting from the inside out in a matter of days. Some ripped themselves apart with their bare hands, trying to fight with the foreign soul. Almost always, they both died. Permanently.’
I instinctively held myself, checking I was still there and not rotting. As for madness, well, I was talking to a sword. I didn’t dwell on it. ‘And what do they call that? Livebound, I guess?’
‘Haunting, Caltro. They called it a haunting.’
A haunting. I turned the strange word over and over in my mind until, like a clockwork toy, I had teased it apart and put it back together again.
Pointy was unusually silent. Perhaps he could hear the cogs of my brain clanking. When the silence had dragged out beyond all reason, he spoke, sounding almost afraid.
‘Why do you ask?’
I sighed, hardly believing it myself. Fuck. I hated it when others were right. Especially gods.
‘Because, Mr Sword – Pointy – I think I just haunted Tor Busk.’
Chapter 5
Murder Most Lucrative
Vaults and doors became big business in the centuries after binding was discovered. As trust eroded and each noble became more insular, they trusted to vaultsmiths and doorsmiths to keep them and their half-coins safe. Guards and mercenaries also became highly lucrative positions, with many Skol, Krass and Scatterfolk sellswords flooding into Araxes, ready to protect the highest bidder.
From ‘The City of Countless Souls – A Keen-Eyed Guide’
The sandstorm conquered the Outsprawls within hours, swallowing the shacks and piled buildings with its ochre jaws.
As its hunger stretched towards the city heights, the sun slunk into the sea, leaving Araxes to fend for itself in the half-light.
The mighty towers became channels for the wind, squeezing more ferocity from the storm. Shutters rattled against the howl and roar of biting sand. The streets were emptied save for shades forced on late errands by callous masters, or unfortunates with no towers to hide in, no doors to bolt behind them. Abandoned carts and stalls tumbled down the streets, adding deep booms to the merciless rush of air.
Against the cold ocean gusts, the storm reared higher, claiming the staggering heights of the tallest towers. Even the pinnacle of the Cloudpiercer was devoured. In their upper reaches, yellow lightning forked and crackled through the clouds.
In the orange darkness of the streets of Quara District, a lone figure struggled towards a tower built like a stretched-out conch shell. The figure staggered left, right, paused to fight the wind, and battled on. Hands outstretched, it found a wall and paced with its palms until an archway was found.
The courtyard beyond was a gyre of sand, obscuring all but the lights of two hooded lamps guarding a door. A fist reached out to strike the iron panels. The wind drove the shape from the doorstep twice, but each time it fought back to hammer on the pitted metal.
‘Please!’ A female voice, muffled by cloth and storm-roar. ‘Help!’
Iron rasped and a hatch opened. A shaft of lamplight speared the roil. A man’s face appeared behind the grille, immediately recoiling with a mouthful of sand. After the coughing had abated, a harsh voice called, ‘What?!’
The woman pressed her cheeks to the grille. ‘Shelter, please!’
‘Go away, beggar!’
‘I am no beggar!’
She pulled aside her cloth mask, showing lips and eyes painted with crushed purple quartz. ‘I’m Tal Patra’s daughter! Give me sanctuary! Noble to noble!’
The hatch closed with a snap. Her fists drummed on the iron in angry desperation.
‘Sanctuary! My father will owe a debt to you!’
A heavy clanking rose over the din as cogs turned inside the door. At its centre, a strip of light ignited, blinding against the darkness.
Hooded, masked figures appeared and beckoned to her. ‘Enter, Taless Patra!’
The woman held the doorstep, unmoving, cloak crackling around her in the flurries.
All formalities eroded. ‘Quickly, woman! In!’
The smaller of the two figures braved the rush and came to guide her by the hand. ‘What are you waiting f—urch!’
The dagger withdrew from the man’s throat, drawing an arc of dark blood in its wake. The man clapped a hand to the wo
und, confusion carved into his face. He dropped to one knee in front of the woman, blinking at the shadows as he gargled and drowned from within.
From the inside of the tower, it might have looked like an impromptu romantic moment had it not been for the blood spurting rhythmically with his failing heartbeat.
‘Shit!’ yelled the other guard, pressing hands to the great doors.
A dull boom echoed as a fist wrapped in steel met the iron. The guard fell to his arse and skidded across the marble. A hulking figure followed the woman into the lamplight, one clad in steel plates and wearing a spiked helmet. Blue light glowed through the seams of the armour, fading to green where the sand rushed in. A huge spear was balanced in the shade’s hand, and with a single thrust it pierced the guard’s stomach and burst from his back. He toppled with a scream, taking the weapon with him.
In poured more shapes, sweeping past the woman standing on the doorstep. They were a wall of black leather and chainmail, bristling with sharp things.
‘Very well done, m’dear!’ called a voice between the repetitive clang of metal. White sparks scattered as a figure emerged from the haze. Lamplight played on copper talons.
Boran Temsa withdrew his mask and laid a congratulatory hand on the woman’s shoulder, a serving girl borrowed from his tavern. She was tall and he had to reach. ‘Very well done indeed, Balia. I knew you had more talents than merely squeezing silver out of drunkards.’
‘Many more, Boss Temsa. Tor Temsa.’ Balia performed a curtsey, and let him shepherd her inside by taking his elbow.
The wall of leather and armour parted, showing them a wide atrium of red-veined marble. Sand was already spreading over it like yellow mould. Alabaster figures stared down from alcoves, their pale faces frozen in severe disapproval of the new arrivals. Taut bands of crimson silk separated them, reaching from floor to domed ceiling. Painted hieroglyphs adorned the smooth plaster, telling stories Temsa didn’t care to know.
‘How fancy,’ he mused, craning his stiff neck.
A blue glow bathed him and somebody grunted at his shoulder. Danib had recovered his spear from the corpse by the door. Blood dripped from its point and pattered on the floor. The doorman’s scream had alerted the household; the echoes of rushing boots could be heard descending the stairs in the rooms above. Danib cast his master a sidelong glance.
Temsa waved his hand as if shooing a sandfly. ‘Of course you may, old friend. Go ahead. We’re not here to admire the drapes, now, are we?’
The shade tramped over the marble, steel clanking. Temsa’s men spread out behind him, masks torn aside to reveal eager grins. It seemed they enjoyed this almost as much as Temsa did. Almost.
Temsa stayed put, arms resting on his cane as he idly watched his men go to work against the house-guards streaming down the stairs. Balia’s grip on his arm tightened with every clang of steel and dying cry.
There was a downside to trained men. Once a man is taught to cut and slash in certain ways, his actions are confined to those rules. He is caged by rote and technique. Fighting, to that manner of man, is a formal dance one might find in noble halls.
It was why Temsa preferred his throat-cutters raw. They didn’t cling doggedly to form. They didn’t posture. Their dance was far from noble, more like the cavorting of desert tribes or island savages. A trained man was no match for such barbarity.
Leaping, bounding, playing dirty tricks with their steel, Temsa’s men cut the guards to ribbons. Even when their opponents were lying trembling on the floor, they hacked until limbs were hewn free, armour and all. The pieces spilled down the stairs in a slippery river of blood and shit.
With Ani and Balia by his side, Temsa picked his way over the detritus and corpses. If any of them still moved, they met his golden talons. When their shades arose naturally in several days’ time, he would send them south to the desert mines, where nobody would hear this story.
Up they wound, conquering the tower level by level, house-guard by house-guard. Balia soon lost her stomach and had to return to the atrium. Her retching echoed up the stairwell.
Shades prostrated themselves on the carpets and in their alcoves, not wishing to die again. Temsa left them be. Stock was not to be damaged.
They found her in the highest reaches of the tower, where the conch shell thinned into a coiled spire. Tal Kheyu-Nebra was a wizened and crooked woman at the best of times. Here, at her worst, she looked like a leprous beggar: hands clasped and waving above her head, legs folded beneath her, back as curved as a bucket-handle. Had she not been wrapped in silk sheets, Temsa might have flicked her a gem for charity. He wondered what she had done to irritate the empress-in-waiting enough to be on her list.
‘Tal! How kind of you to accommodate us at this late hour.’
Kheyu was not begging, as it seemed, but praying. Her muttering was no answer, but a stream of platitudes for the old gods.
‘Stuck in the ancient ways, I see. Didn’t anybody tell you the gods are dead?’
With a sigh, Kheyu straightened to look up at the men spread about her bedchamber. ‘Audacity is the hobby of fools, sir.’
Temsa rubbed his beard. ‘Or the pleasure of the daring. In any case, I am here, and we have business to conduct.’
Kheyu snorted. ‘Business? You mean murder.’
‘You know as well as I do that the royals and nobles blurred that line centuries ago. They are one and the same in this city. I simply follow your lead.’
The old tal shuffled from her bed. Temsa reached for her cane, leaning nearby, and handed it to her. Kheyu fixed him with a rheumy stare, a calm look of damnation in those glassy eyes. There was no fear.
‘Get it over with, if you must,’ she said. ‘I will not beg a criminal.’
Temsa wagged a finger. ‘Not so fast, my dear Tal. There are questions, signatures needed. Do not take me for some dockside soulstealer. That is far behind me now. As I said, this is business. Now, I have it on good authority that you have a vault. I imagine one who clings to the old ways would reject our city’s fine banks, am I right?’
For the first time, Kheyu’s confidence crumbled. Temsa saw it in the wobble of her lips: her faith in justice was wavering. She lifted her chin, defiant. Perhaps she believed in ma’at as well as the dead gods. The halfwit.
‘Do your worst.’
Temsa came so close their noses almost touched. ‘Madam, I plan to.’
With a snap of his fingers, his men carried Kheyu from her chambers, Danib loomed once more, spear still dripping with ruby gore.
‘She’ll be tough, that one,’ Temsa mused. ‘The sun tans these old bats harder than leather.’
Silence from the shade’s mouth. A world of meaning in his cobalt eyes.
‘Good practice indeed, my old friend. Horix will have her turn soon enough. Come, let’s begin.’
Outside the quivering windows, the sandstorm roared on, unabated and uncaring.
Chapter 6
Murder Most Foul
Farazar married as a prince before he killed his father. His princess? Nilith Rikehar, Lady of Saraka, second daughter of the Krass king Konin. It was a promise as well as a marriage; old Emperor Milizan’s way of letting Konin keep his lands and the peace between them. His son Farazar has held that promise since, waging wars in the Scatter Isles instead.
From ‘A Reach History’ by Gaervin Jubb
‘I always thought an emperor would be prettier-looking. You look better on your silver coins.’
‘Fuck you, bird.’
Farazar swept back to the bulwark, a word Ghyrab had taught them. Nilith stifled a chuckle. Bezel’s foul mouth – or beak – was a welcome addition to her tired and grumble-sore ears. Though they hadn’t spoken much, and his loyalty still hung in question, she was undoubtedly warming to him.
The falcon preened in thought. ‘It’s true, though. And you married that face, Empress. I can see why you killed him.’
River water filled the pause. Nilith had grown used to the river as the days dragged b
y, her fear of it slipping away with the scenery. Nevertheless, she had made camp in the centre of the barge. The furthest place away from the water on a square boat was always the centre. It was simple geometry.
The canyon walls reared above them, taller now the Ashti had thinned, ember red and worn smooth from centuries of eager river water. The overhanging ledge that had given them cover had all but diminished. Already, half the barge baked in the hot sunlight that poured down into the gully.
Ghyrab had not moved from the tiller. Night and day he had stood, mahogany eyes affixed to his waters, keeping the rock close by. Every so often, his gaze scanned the lip of the cliff above, watching for black figures and black horses. Few words had escaped his mouth, and he had taken no interest in his passengers, even though one of them was the dead and unclaimed body of the Arctian emperor. Trusting people was a dangerous pastime in the Arc, but Nilith took a chance with the bargeman.
Her luck had held so far. There had been no glimpse of Krona or her Ghouls. Just a faint echo of hoofbeats the night before. The full moon had brought Nilith and Ghyrab into the light, jaws set and wary, wincing at the notion of arrows. Safety was a strong word, but the barge was as close as she’d come since the desert tavern.
Since bursting into their lives, Bezel had been largely absent. He stuck to the sky, keeping them abreast of their progress between circling the barge for hours on end, putting his dagger-sharp eyes to work. According to the bird, the Duneplains were as blank as papyrus. Salt flats for miles. When asked of the city, he had merely shrugged his wings and said, ‘You’re getting there.’
Nilith had met a strangebound only once before. A duke in her father’s retinue had brought a wolfhound to court when she was nine. It was a bitter, sarcastic thing, spending its short moments in the longhall complaining about the smell of barbarians before the duke had been asked to leave. She never saw the hound or its owner again.
Bitterness seemed to be a trait of the falcon, too. Perhaps it was the nature of a human soul trapped in a lesser body. Despite her jealousy of his ability to fly – deep-set in every being since the first eyes had glimpsed the first birds – Nilith could understand his frustration. No fingers, toes, lips, or arms. His voice and thoughts were all of him that remained. The lack of himself had clearly bred resentment in his feathery breast. She hardly blamed him. No doubt her daughter’s treatment of him hadn’t helped. She decided to take his short rest as a chance to get some answers.
