by Ben Galley
‘Ugh,’ he sighed.
Without looking, Nilith couldn’t see what the splinter was doing, if anything. Farazar watched her efforts avidly, growing more contemptuous by the moment. Anoish couldn’t have known what they were up to, but he helped nonetheless, making a great fuss over the clatter of a nearby stonemasons. A few nearby street guards looked on, unamused by the racket.
‘Easy, horse!’ cried Jobey, wrapping Anoish’s halter around his forearm to wrangle the animal.
Nilith swore as the splinter snapped and the sharp wood bit into her fingertip. ‘This is hopeless.’
Farazar snickered. ‘All that struggle. All those days and weeks spent traipsing the desert. And for what? To end up in some cage, doomed to work in some mine for eternity. I’m glad I will be there to see your face when you finally realise you’ve failed. And judging by that arm, I don’t have long to wait.’
Nilith clenched her jaw, refusing to let him goad her. Her resolve already hung by a thread. Her eyes betrayed her, however, sneaking down to the ragged end of her tunic. The faint glow shone from rips in its rain-dark fabric, like a hooded lantern. The light reached all the way up to her elbow. Nilith shivered as if a cold hand had just run across her chest. She heard a wet slither, and out of her peripheries, she saw the slatherghast licking its fangs. She gave the creature the finger.
‘And what of you, Farazar?’ she asked. ‘What will be your eternity, hmm? Working the same mine, no doubt. I fail, you fail, or have you forgotten?
‘Gah!’ Reminded that their fates were firmly entwined, the ghost lost his nerve. He tried to spit at her, still forgetful of his half-life limitations. ‘I wouldn’t even be in this cage if you had just left me in peace!’
Nilith’s outrage got the better of her. ‘There it is again! The famous Talin Renala self-obsession. You’ve never given a fuck about this city or its inhabitants, and even now, when it’s staring you right in that ugly face of yours, you’re still as blind as a newborn to it. Just look around! Look at what your negligence has given rise to. A Nyxwater shortage. Businessmen like the Consortium. Who knows how many souls they’ve dragged off like this for spurious debts? How many other such empires grow unchecked under your nose? Give that some thought for once, instead of your own vapours. This is all your fault, and when I’m out of this cage, I’ll show you what it means to have a ruler, instead of just a monarch,’ she seethed. ‘Something the Krass learnt long ago.’
Farazar’s eyes were glowing white slits. ‘Ah, yes! The grand, righteous lesson that you crossed half the Reaches to teach me. How could I possibly forget? Well, I’m still waiting, wife, and yet no revelation has come.’
Nilith smiled with no trace of humour. ‘The lesson is not over yet.’ She clenched her jaw. That threat felt emptier than she would have liked.
‘You’re pathetic, wife!’ he scoffed loudly, forgetting himself.
‘I agree,’ said Jobey’s voice, hoarse and unexpectedly close by. The chaser had slipped back to the wagon and was now standing beside the bars, thumb and finger on his chin. ‘All this whispering and bickering is quite pathetic. Husband and wife? Hmm.’ He cocked his head. ‘A surprise. I do not see the attraction between you two.’
At Nilith and Farazar’s withering expressions, Jobey tugged at his collar. ‘Not too far now, lady and shade.’
Nilith was following the chaser with her most acidic scowl when she noticed the bundle of soaking rags behind him, sitting in the gutter. It took a moment of staring to realise it was a person. It was hard to tell with all the rubbish strewn about the makeshift gutters. The shape was slumped up against the bricks of a dilapidated building, legs and arms hidden under dirty cloths. Two blackened eyes peered through a gap in the wrappings, blinking between the drips falling from the broken tiles above. They were fixed on Nilith and the ghost chained next to her with an avidity that was unusual for a beggar. Though that could have been explained by the glowing set of fangs hovering behind Nilith, grinning wide, the beggar’s eyes held intrigue, not fear or the cross-eyed gaze of a drunkard.
As Chaser Jobey retook his seat and the wagon jolted onwards, the eyes followed Nilith, sticking to her until they rounded the next corner. Nilith eyed each crooked building as though it might be their final destination. She looked back, but could no longer see the beggar.
Farazar gripped the bars, letting his vapours turn white where they touched the metal. ‘You’re a liar,’ he hissed at her. ‘I know this whole quest of yours has just been to claim my half-coins and the throne. I will hear you say it before they put you out of your misery.’
Nilith held her tongue while another torturous hour passed, with every street holding the possibility of a destination. The rain fell heavier in all its pounding glory. Jobey hoisted a small umbrella and sat as stoic as a statue to pass the miles. Nilith raised her face to the sky and drank from the clouds. The chaser hadn’t seen fit to give her any water that day, but now he had no choice. Rainclouds only came a few times a year to Araxes, and when it did, it rained ardently. Rain dripped from the bars in torrents. It gathered in the bottom of the cage in a thick puddle. Nilith felt the carriage skew as the streets completed their transition to mud. It slowed their going, and for that, she was grateful.
It didn’t last long. As they turned into a narrow street, another man on a wagon passed them by, going in the opposite direction. He had a muscular bull pulling his load: an empty cage very much like the one Nilith currently had her face pressed against. She eyed the man’s necklaces of gold and his sodden silks. Jobey angled his umbrella to the man and they nodded curtly to each other. No words passed between them, but Nilith knew.
‘We’re close,’ Nilith breathed. ‘Last chance, husband.’
Farazar just grunted, still brooding, though she saw the trepidation in his glowing face.
‘I hope they make it slow and painful for you,’ Farazar replied, his tone cold even for a ghost.
Nilith began to shake. She was tired. Oh, so incredibly tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of walking. Tired of this tumultuous existence she had built for herself. Nilith felt the words gather in her mouth, all spite and venom. Instead, she let them die on her tongue, and grabbed the bars with both hands, blue and tanned, letting the pain and cold run through her. She found a smile curling her lips. ‘I should really thank you, Farazar.’
‘What?’
‘I should thank you,’ Nilith said. ‘I was on the cusp of giving up. Of forgetting why I first set out from Araxes all those weeks ago. But you, husband, have kindly reminded me what I’ve been fighting for.’ A laugh broke from her, causing Chaser Jobey to look over his shoulder.
‘Quiet down back there!’ called the chaser.
‘I’ve been fighting for this,’ Nilith said loudly, waving her hand across the city before them, wrapped in rain and cloud.
‘I said QUIET!’
‘For anything but this! AAGH!’ Nilith drove her shoulder against her bars with a yell akin to a war-cry. Once, twice, three times, she threw herself, before the chaser came striding through the mud, umbrella in one hand and switch in his other.
‘You could not wait just a few more moments, could you?’ he snapped, clearly devoid of patience with his prisoners.
Despite the growing pain in her shoulder, Nilith pushed again. This time she was rewarded with a scrape of iron against wood. Not a lock, or a hinge, but the cage itself.
‘Stop it!’ Jobey lashed at her with the switch, but it glanced off her skull and the bars. Instead, he began to whip Farazar, who yelped like a donkey.
‘Hit her, not me!’ he roared.
Another scrape, and Farazar was nudged from the edge of the wagon, momentarily occupying Jobey as he strived to catch his flailing legs. Mud sprayed in all directions.
The slatherghast sensed its prey making an exit and began to throw itself at its own bars, hungry for Nilith. The stupid creature actually helped, and before Nilith knew it, the cage was teetering over the side of the wagon.
Jobe
y threw himself against it, but the slatherghast was too frenzied. Nilith pressed herself to the bars, willing all her weight into the mud. Amid the clanging of iron and the snapping of jaws, she heard Jobey start to whistle, blowing at a golden shape on one of his necklaces. The noise was piercing, and it momentarily halted the slatherghast and the flailing Farazar.
In the pause, filled by the rattle of rain, Nilith heard something whistle in reply. It was half lost behind the downpour, but she knew it wasn’t a good sign.
With a roar, she hurled herself at the bars one last time. With her hair trailing in the slatherghast’s grip, she met the iron, and her world began to tip. A heartbeat passed, and then a crunch came as the cage met the sodden ground. Mud and sand flew into her face, half-choking her. She pressed herself to it as she saw the blue jaws gnashing through a crack in the bars.
There came a screech, and something tore through the rain. At first Nilith thought it was an arrow, and cursed every god she could think of for her poor fortune. But she heard Jobey’s cry over her fierce muttering, and knuckled the mud from her eyes. She couldn’t help but shudder at the freezing cold and emptiness of her left hand.
Another blur came out of the rain, and she saw blood flow from a cut above Jobey’s eye. He began to thrash about with his switch, desperately trying to reach his triggerbow on the seat.
Birds.
Nilith realised it as the third shape appeared, wings flared and claws raking the chaser’s back. The crow flapped into the rain, vanishing before Jobey’s switch could catch it. She heard the keening wail of a falcon somewhere in the rainstorm and smiled.
Nilith began to kick at the buckled bars, hoping one would crack for her too. Farazar was busy yanking at his ropes. She watched him with one eye, praying he didn’t get loose before she did.
Thunk!
The explosion of the triggerbow interrupted her, and a gull landed in the muck near the wagon. A bolt had run it through.
Another cry pierced the scene, and a roar rose up to compete with the noise of rain. Wings flapped, beaks chattered, and crying and mewing filled the air. Forgetting to reload, Jobey sprinted to the cage, keys jangling in his free hand.
‘I’ve never lost a repayment, and I shan’t today!’ he yelled in Nilith’s face.
Jobey yanked the buckled door open and hauled Nilith free by the legs. Mud filled her mouth. She felt grit under her eyelids. She began to kick for all her worth, catching Jobey in the knee, twisting it sideways. He stumbled clear of her, just as a dozen finches descended on him. They swarmed his face like bees, chirruping as they pecked holes in his hands.
The chaser’s whistle was clamped in his mouth now, blowing with every shriek of pain. Crows, pigeons, parrots, even a falcon or two – they swooped down to harry the man. Blood and feathers began to join the rain in the churned puddles.
Nilith sprang up, pulling at Farazar’s bindings. The fucker had the gall to aim a punch at her, a vicious splinter clasped between his blue knuckles. She let it pierce her shoulder before she batted his arm away with her ghostly hand and threw him against the wagon’s wheel.
‘No! Not ever again. You are mine until the end of this!’ Nilith growled fiercely in his cold ear. She set her hands to the complicated knots binding him, ripping more than untying. While she tackled them, she heard more whistles coming to greet them. Maybe running boots, if her numb ears weren’t lying to her.
Jobey had produced a knife, and was busy cutting birds from the air between frantic yells. One grazed his skull with its claws before barrelling into the mud beside Nilith’s hands. Blood flowed from its breast. It was the falcon.
Bezel looked up at her, showing pain in his eyes. ‘Now you owe me even more, Your Majesty.’ He pointed a bloodied wing to the swarming birds. ‘See? Don’t fuck with birds.’
‘I’ll remember that!’
Wrenching the rope free, Nilith wrapped one end around Farazar’s neck and the other around his body. She draped both around Anoish’s neck before seeing to his tether. Bezel flapped awkwardly behind her, watching the chaos. Jobey had realised their escape and was desperately trying to run after them. Birds flapping around his head like some bizarre crown, he scrambled through the mud, knife waving.
‘Men coming!’
Nilith saw them: long-robed men in green and silver armour, plumes on their ridged helmets, holding longswords out in front of them. They had a distinctly unfriendly look. Something about the lavishness of their armour screamed Consortium.
‘Stay where you are!’ yelled Jobey, barely a spear-thrust away from seizing them.
At that moment, a figure draped in soaking rags burst from the rain and cannoned into the chaser. Jobey was thrown against his cage, where the slatherghast still writhed in a hungry panic. Its claws sank into the man’s shoulder, and he howled with pain.
‘Move! Now!’ hissed the bundle of muddy rags. A woman. She jabbed a hand towards the mouth of an alleyway.
‘Not without these!’ Nilith asserted, trying and failing to tackle the second knot with only one hand. The woman produced a broken shard of glass and slashed the tether with a snap. Anoish reared up, hooves beating the air. Nilith grabbed the rope and hauled him with her, racing after the bundle of rags.
‘Just who the fuck in the Reaches are you?’ Nilith spat, bringing the horse and its macabre cargo to a halt. The ghost of Farazar picked himself up, his rags and vapours smeared in reddish brown mud. He muttered something foul to himself.
The bundle of rags shook her head, indicating the Cloudpiercer.
‘No,’ Nilith said, glancing over her shoulder to see if she could afford such stubbornness. Rain, only rain, and stark, square buildings lay behind her. Light from their windows cast golden pools for the rain to play in. A few ghosts made their way back and forth across the quiet street, their smocks sodden and dragging in the muck. ‘We go no further until I know who you are. I’ve learnt the downfalls of trust.’
The woman stopped, shoulders rising and falling with a sigh. She turned, slowly, dragging down the strips around her face with a crooked finger. Nilith saw the green and purple rings around her eyes and the bend in her nose, still sporting deep cuts thick with scab. Nilith had seen her own face just as beaten not so long ago.
‘Chamber Scrutiniser Heles, madam. I suppose it would be a pleasure under any other circumstances.’
The woman certainly didn’t look like any scrutiniser Nilith had ever seen, though she could spy the curves of black tattoos creeping onto her neck and cheek. ‘I had no idea scrutinisers were dispatched this far out in the Sprawls.’
‘We aren’t.’
‘Where’s your uniform?’
Heles didn’t answer. Nilith watched her, noting how the woman’s eyes were looking past her cheek. At Farazar. Nilith stepped in her line of sight, wishing she had a weapon. A cold, heavy weight clutched her heart. Another vermin, come to stand in her way.
Heles pushed back more of her rags, letting the steam rise from her forehead and shaved, bruised scalp. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?’ she asked, letting the question hang in the sodden air.
‘Sula,’ Nilith said, plucking her mother’s name from some recess of her mind. She could see more of the woman’s tattooed spirals now. By the looks of their complexity, Heles had earned a high rank in the Chamber, and if these were real, this Heles was a seasoned professional. Nilith wondered whose bad side she had wandered onto.
Heles chuckled, managing to do it without a trace of mirth. ‘I see. And your shade?’
‘None of your business,’ Nilith snapped. Behind her, Anoish whinnied, as bored with interlopers as Nilith was. Bezel lay on the horse’s back, and clacked his beak fiercely.
The so-called scrutiniser held her bandaged hands and took a moment to lean up against a sandstone column, carved in the shape of a desert cat. ‘I’ve spent the last few days working my way through these gods damned Sprawls. Soulstealers, pickpockets, madmen. And these businessmen you pissed off. If one doesn’t ca
tch you, the others will. I thought it was bad in the city, but—’
‘Is there a point to this? I haven’t the luxury of time and chatter,’ Nilith grumbled.
Heles sucked her swollen lip noisily. ‘Few people know the meaning of kindness out here, fewer than in the city. Imagine my surprise when a man dropped a silver at my feet earlier today, while I was catching sleep. He was drunk, by the look of him, but even then, he could have fallen upon me with fists instead of charity.’
Heles pulled a silver coin from the folds of her mucky rags and held it up, showing the skyline of Araxes stamped into the metal. ‘Imagine how much greater my surprise was when, just a few hours later, I looked up from that coin, and found the same face bumbling past on the side of a wagon. Arguing with his wife, no less,’ she said, turning to Farazar. ‘A face that’s supposed to be at the top of the Cloudpiercer in his armoured sanctuary at this very moment. How is that possible, I wonder?’
Heles turned the coin, showing the other side: a regal profile of Nilith’s loathsome husband. She had always detested how young he insisted they make him look, and she detested it all the more now.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Your Majesties,’ Heles said, calm as sunrise. ‘I see this is where you’ve been, my Empress Nilith. Not “Sula”. Not in the east like they said.’
Nilith took a step backwards, longing for a weapon. She would pounce on the horse and run this woman down. She said nothing, simply sharing a stare with her. Heles did not show any reverence, but there was no glint of greed or murder in those bloodshot eyes.
Farazar had been listening in, and had loosened his noose enough to talk. ‘Scrutiniser! Arrest this woman! She has murdered your emperor!’
Nilith slapped him hard, though her lack of copper meant her hand merely fondled his cheek. ‘You stay back, Scrutiniser. This is none of your business.’
Heles stepped forwards. ‘You’re both wrong, I’m afraid. As a servant of the Code, it’s my responsibility to see to the interests of the ruler and family. As you’ve been slain, Emperor Farazar – and I don’t want to know how – I must defer to the living empress.’