by Ben Galley
‘Lost, half-life?’ croaked the widow.
Horix was hunched over a small writing desk, almost facing away from me. An oil lamp sat at her far elbow, burning brightly. Her attire was black and formal as usual, though this time she wore no hood. A cascade of silver hair fell in a waterfall down her chest and withered shoulders. I fancied she was a skeleton beneath all those layers of cloth and frill.
‘I appear to be, Mistress. Please, excuse me,’ I apologised, but my legs didn’t move.
‘Temsa’s stock, correct?’
The old hag had a good memory. Her cruelty couldn’t be blamed on senility. ‘Yes, Mistress.’
‘Settling in?’
I decided to play nice. ‘As much as can be expected.’
‘I see they found you a scarf. Good.’
My hand moved to my throat, and the scrap of black cotton wrapped around it. A ‘scarf’, indeed. One for a pauper, maybe. I had to keep telling myself I was in no better social standing. Maybe lower, in fact.
Play nice, the wiser part of me reminded. ‘Yes, Mistress.’
She returned her reed to its glass inkwell and wiped her hands on a black cloth. ‘And how is it, being dead? With my advanced years I grow curious, you see. I like to enquire of all my house and chamber-shades. Most have told me it’s wonderful, not worrisome. But I can see they don’t tell me everything.’ She turned, fixing me with a glare. She seemed less craggy out of shadow, almost kind, were it not for the scowl and puckered lips. ‘You seem to be one who speaks your mind. Tell me. Speak as honestly as you wish, with no reprieve.’
Explaining something to another is always harder than explaining it to yourself. You’ve all the vocabulary in the world in your head, but from your mouth it’s clumsy. That’s how I felt then, giving it voice for the first time.
‘It’s numb. Cold, both inside and out. I can’t feel much apart from the sting of copper, which I seem to have felt frequently since dying. It’s like I tread on frozen feet half the time. They’re like stumps. Holding things is hard. Infuriating. I miss sleep awfully and I’d happily take a nightmare in an instant if it meant I could dream. Oh, but what hurts the most is the irreversibility and injustice of my situation. To be nothing but a ghost. To own nothing but a scarf. To have the knowledge that I was murdered, robbed of my life and my freedom, yet know there’s hardly anything I can do to change it. To know that I am a dead slave, and will be, most probably, for all of eternity. Unless somebody helps me.’
I realised I was panting, but it was just reflex and emotion; I had no breath to be short of.
‘“Ghost”, hmm? You Krass suit your name. We call them shades here,’ said the widow with a tut. She jabbed the wood of her desk with a skeletal finger. ‘And that’s not your scarf. It is my scarf. Shades hold no property, as per the Tenets. Remember that.’
I pursed my lips so as not to curse her.
‘My physicians tell me I have many more years left in me. Many more as a free shade, if I choose to slit my wrists and become a half-life of my own accord. The thought has sickened me until now, but you raise some interesting points. I prefer the cold. As for copper, I’ve always preferred gold. The stumps, well, I imagine they’re no different from these bony callouses my physicians call feet. And of course, if I bind myself, I imagine my time as a shade will be very different from your situation.’
I preferred the word ‘plight’. I drew myself up to my full height and tucked in my stomach. Perhaps it was too soon to push her, but with Vex breathing down my neck, I didn’t know when the next opportunity would arise.
‘Widow Horix. Tal. Mistress. Whatever. There must be a rule here in the Arc, as there is in Krass, against wrongful indenturement. We follow the same Tenets you do.’
She stared at me with those flint eyes. ‘Indeed there is. Under the Code of Indenturement. Article seven if I remember rightly.’ Sharp as a dagger, she was.
‘Then I’d like to make such a case. I’d like to plead for wrongful indenturement. If I cannot have my body back then at least I can have my freedom, and justice for—’
A shout cut across my speech. ‘There you bloody are, Jerub!’
It was Vex, bustling down the corridor towards me. His vacant eyes hadn’t yet noticed the widow.
‘I’ll have you flayed for wandering. If you think I—’ He cleared his throat at the sight of her and immediately bowed. ‘Widow Horix, I beg your forgiveness. I shall remove this shade from your presence.’
‘Calm yourself, Vex. He has been rather entertaining. Until now. You may see him out.’
‘Entertaining?’ I asked, as Vex pushed me to the hallway. I got nothing but another stony look from Horix as she picked up her reed again.
Once out of sight, Vex clapped me around the head with his copper switch. I yelped.
‘To the rubbish heap with that bag of cloths, and then to the guards’ quarters. There’s a mountain of laundry with your name all over it.’
I was poked and prodded down every step. Vex even followed me all the way to the quarters to ensure I didn’t wander off. He spent a whole hour watching me work, like a hungry owl poised over a rat’s burrow. He tutted at every flaw in my methods, sighing every time I dropped so much as a thread. In the end, I made a game out of his noises, seeing which kind won by the time he escorted me back to the alcoves. It turned out to be a low grunt of disapproval, similar to that of a pig finding its trough unexpectedly empty.
‘I have more work for you, first thing in the morning,’ he hissed in my ear. He felt colder than I did.
‘I look forward to it.’
There he left me, amongst a forest of disapproving faces and dry stares.
I turned my back on them, getting into the new leaning position I had adopted the last three nights. It faced me away from the dimwits and gave me a perfect view of the central stairwell. There I could sit and stew over the day, and try to reconcile the fresh disappointments until I could watch the ghosts traipsing up and down the stairs.
Over the past few nights, they had trickled down a few hours after midnight and trickled back an hour before dawn. Roughly two-score, and growing in number, if my eyes and brain weren’t deceiving me.
There was plenty of stewing to be done that night, and before I knew it, I saw the waver of blue lights. Three-score ghosts came past that night, this time with two extra guards who looked pale and tired in the glow.
Choosing to stay put was easy. I had a feeling the nearby ghosts had gotten to the point where they would report anything to Vex just to keep me out of their group. They spent their days telling me what happened to recalcitrant indentured. It turned out they were beaten, for a start, then kept in a cellar or something called a sarcophagus. If they didn’t mend their ways, they were sold at low prices and bought for manual labour in places such as building yards or distant quarries in the desert, like someplace they called Kal Duat, or the White Hell. I had been told that if I thought this housework was tough, I should wait until I was working under a sun so hot it could make even the dead sweat.
I did not fancy that one bit.
Patience, I told myself, as some distant bell struck five times. It would soon be time to see what Vex had planned for me.
As it turned out, Vex wanted me to do his shopping.
That was the summary of my ‘punishment’: a simple fetch and carry for the larders and the widow’s whims. I couldn’t understand it. Vex had made it sound like a terrible assignment. The ghosts in my alcoves had snorted and chuckled amongst themselves. Even when I lined up grinning with three indentured I hadn’t seen before, I found them with sullen shoulders and bowed heads. If I hadn’t known better, I would have assumed we were about to be whipped with copper lashes.
Vex swaggered up and down the marble before us. His hollow eyes were dark in the shade of the atrium. ‘Listen up, smart arses. Get what’s on your list and be back here sharpish. I expect you in the courtyard by noon. Noon, I say! And don’t forget that we hold your coins. You impudent bastards
can forget any ideas of making a run for it. Just see how far you get before snap!’ He clicked his ghostly fingers, though no sound came forth. ‘We break your half-coin. And therefore you. Off to the void for you. Understand?’
I understood perfectly. Vex was right: I had contemplated running for the nearest boat maybe a dozen times already. I supposed every ghost did when let loose for the first time. But I knew what a half-coin meant to a soul. It was its anchor, and when damaged, so was the ghost. If destroyed, so was the soul, despatched to nothingness. In Krass, they heat a half-coin in a pan, almost to the point of melting. It brings the ghost running, screaming bloody murder. No doubt the cruel Arctians had methods more devious and infinitely more painful.
A woven palm frond basket was thrown at my feet. It had a scrap of papyrus appended to its handle. A list, in Arctian glyphs and sloppy Common, along with a bundle of silver coins. My list was mostly fruits and vegetables, along with some wool, and a few strange objects Vex refused to clarify. They would be a challenge, he told me, but I welcomed a challenge if it meant a taste of freedom. However brief.
Four hours. I had four hours free in the city with nobody breathing a chill down my neck. I couldn’t wait to stride out of the tower’s armoured door. Vex had the guards crank the locks open, and a band of sunlight split the atrium in two. As the other ghosts moved forwards, Vex held me back. He pressed his palms together.
‘Please, please make my week and try to run, Jerub. I’ll make it swift, I promise.’
I stared into his sightless eye sockets, hoping he could see my sneer. I pushed away, basket swinging at my side as I stepped into the roasting sun.
The others split up a stone’s throw from the widow’s tower, leaving me at a crossroads that resembled a spider’s web. I tried to remember the cart ride in and decided to head north-east for the Troublesome Sea, where the cold breeze was blowing from.
Four hours seemed a long time in a city, even to a stranger. But Araxes was a thousand years old, with every century building heedlessly on the last. If the city was a living, throbbing creature, it would have died long ago of vascular issues. Every road I took was clogged with people and carts and beasts. Goats, camels, horses, donkeys, and great armoured beetles on ropes; they all barred my path. Nobody made room for a shade. I was jostled and shoved aside, practically ignored by the living and the dead alike. I longed to take the steps to the high-roads standing tall on their sandstone stilts. Some journeyed alongside the main roads, only the height of a tall roof but high enough to be clear of the stinking press of the common people. Others stretched between spires, or crisscrossed over the buildings, using their square roofs for support. As always, the needs of the rich resulted in the poor being trampled in some way.
On the nearest high-road, I saw a clump of nobles on fine riding spiders, peering down over the stone blocks from their jet-black mounts. The arachnids’ carapaces shone alongside golden reins and bejewelled saddles. I couldn’t hear the nobles’ tittering conversation, but I could see the contempt in their smiles. I pressed on.
After the dull monochrome of the widow’s tower, my senses were assailed by the city. The morning sun beat down in angular patterns between the buildings. Every time I was forced from the shade I felt my vapours prickle. The streets were a riot of colours, from awnings, clothing lines, pennants, curtains and clothes, to the blue forms dotting the crowds. Silk-clad Arctians were second in number to the dead, but they were not alone. Between them I spied the redder skins and white cotton of Belish, and the paleness of Skolmen. Even the fur trappings and glass jewellery of my own countryfolk, all the way from the scorched east.
Araxes was a vast empire, built with war and trade, and to survive it had absorbed all it claimed into its own. The City of Countless Souls was a boiling stew of culture, a hodgepodge and yet unique at the same time. Ingredients from across the Far Reaches had been thrown together with Arctian grandeur stirred into something new. I saw the evidence all around me.
Hounds, hogs and miniature centipedes strutted by their owners’ sides. Multicoloured cats lazed on traders’ wares. Daggers, light mail armoured clothes littered one table. On the next, children waited to have palm frond dolls daubed with paints and glitter and animal faces. Carved skulls on strings and silver chains were sold as trinkets by beggars. The drone of hammers came and went as I passed shirtless men and ghosts chiselling at stone tablets. Beside them, tattooists prodded away at skin with sticks tipped with whale-bone splinters, inking angular patterns and glyphs into backs and arms. Here and there, steam and charcoal smoke arose from open-walled eateries, where meats sizzled and bread charred in stripes. The hungry and the hungover queued into the street to get a taste. I heard their arguments with the cart drivers over the horde of other voices, all with something to say. It was a din of half sentences and foreign tongues; of rattling jewellery and the clip-clop of feet. I battled on through the choked warren, one ear covered and a hand up to shield my eyes, basket bouncing against my ribs.
Every time I saw a guard, I thought about approaching, but their uniforms and armour had no continuity. They too were a spectrum of colour and style. From fur and leather scale to mail and steel plate. Some had seals, some had glyphs or symbols. None bore any insignia that looked like it belonged to the Arctian monarchy or the Code. Sellswords and hire-bodies. That’s all they were. They wouldn’t have given a fart for my plight, and so I wandered on.
The bazaars in the next district seemed to be all carpets and leathers, but no yarn, so I continued on until I caught a glimpse of flowers between the mighty buildings. Flowers and fruit often went together, I wagered, and in that instance I was right.
Past the strange and unfamiliar desert flowers, I found the fruit stalls. The merchants all babbled in Arctian until I showed them my list, and then they began to shout numbers at me in the Commontongue. They never once met my gaze. It was as if they bartered between themselves. I took the lowest price they reached and let a grizzled man fill up a cloth bag with fruits. I handed him one of the silver pieces Vex had gifted us and got nothing back. He avoided my eyes and shouted out for a new customer.
I took my basket, concentrating hard to keep it hooked on my shoulder, and found vegetables on the next row of stalls. There I received the same treatment, if not worse. Only two of the merchants bartered over me, and the loser cursed in Arctian as he handed over the bag and my finger grazed his own.
‘Problem?’ I asked.
‘Touched me!’ He spat at me, missing my bare foot by an inch. ‘Fade away, half-life,’ he said, in thick Common. To make his point, he twiddled a copper knife between finger and thumb.
I moved away, not wishing to feel another blade in me. I withdrew to a quiet corner, out of the flow of people and ghosts, and reviewed my list. I had wool, something called a ki’thara, two things I couldn’t pronounce, and a weight of clay still to get. An hour must have already passed. I sighed, realising why the other ghosts hadn’t jumped with glee at this job.
Weighed down by my basket, the going was slow but scenic. I wandered towards the lofty core of the city, hoping to find more textile and craft merchants among the taller towers. Secretly, my eyes were peeled for some great courthouse or other building of justice. I had seen a Chamber of Military Might between two spires, and so it was logical there would be a Chamber of the Code.
The buildings grew around me. The high-roads inched further from the streets. Compacted dust and sand turned to cobble. In the shadows of the spires, I found grand buildings with painted fronts. Guardsmen in full battle armour stood in the more opulent doorways, ones belonging to towers that soared high into the bright blue. Needle-pointed or ridged with crenellations, some looked as if they could have snagged clouds.
The busyness of the streets faded slightly, and I soon found my ghostly companions outnumbering the living. The flesh and bone that did walk the lowly flagstones travelled within circles of wary personal guards, while the rest clattered by in carriages plated with steel and ridged bl
ack leather.
I took a wide avenue south, where palms rose up and over the sand-washed streets. Jewellers and smiths worked the streets, wares glittering for all to see. Men and women stood silently between the tables. Some bulged with muscle beneath their chainmail, others were quick-eyed and lithe, but both kinds waited for somebody to be foolish. I didn’t blame their employers for hiring guards. With murder so rife in this city, what was a little shoplifting?
I toured the shining tables, looking for a potter or something similar. I had to walk almost a mile to find one, and by then I had reached an immense opening between the crush of city buildings.
Thanking the man for the clay, and ignoring the meagre grunt I got in return, I turned to admire the vast greystone plaza. Spread around its edges, six knights carved from sandy marble bent a knee and bowed their heads. The statues would have stood twelve feet high if not kneeling, and though formidable, the spiralling plates of their Arctian armour were chipped and weathered. I imagined a battle-weary, glazed look behind their crownlike helms. One knight was receiving some much-needed attention. A scaffolding of palm wood had been built around him. Ghosts were spread across its levels, making a din with chisels and hammers.
The rest of the plaza was flat and featureless but for its very centre, which was hollowed out in steps like one of the Scatter Isles’ amphitheatres. At its bottom, some forty feet below the street, was a short channel running north to south and occupied by a charcoal river. Spiked walls ran alongside its waters. Dark-feathered birds, maybe crows, balanced atop them and croaked out mocking songs. At the channel’s centre was a raised dais crowded with soldiers and figures in grey robes. Above it, three enormous tusks of black stone soared high into the air. Each of them was etched with skeletal figures and glyphs taller than a man.
I knew this scene well. Almost every city and major town in the Reaches had one like it, though few could boast something as grand and formidable as this. It was a Nyxwell, a spring of the river Nyx. Or as we Krass called it, the world-river. The Arctians would call it the lifeblood of the entire soultrade.