The Chasing Graves Trilogy Box Set

by Ben Galley

  ‘Who is the best, then? To those in the business?’

  I wrinkled my nose through habit. ‘Maybe Evalon Everass, a Scatter wench who has a talent for pretty combination locks and never taking a job she can’t crack. Style, no substance. Also straight as an arrow. Works as a “consultant”, whatever the fuck that means.’

  ‘Quite.’ Horix puckered her wrinkled, slate-grey lips. ‘And you have never worked in Araxes before?’

  ‘Never, despite you Arctians having the most impressive locks in all the Reaches. But sadly you deal more in half-coins than silver. I only deal in the latter. Closest I’ve come is some far-flung nobles on the borders who wanted to take a shortcut in their business affairs.’ If you’re looking to bankrupt a rival, it’s far easier to empty their vaults than to outwit them in business.

  ‘Tor Busk. A Skolman. Ever worked for him? Is he a man who dallies in your line of business?’

  We were honing in on her point, I could feel it. The name rang a faint bell, but I never forgot an employer. ‘Never heard of him.’

  Horix was circling me now, frills sighing against the stone.

  ‘And you came here for an “appointment”, or so you called it?’

  ‘I was offered a job. I decided to take it.’

  ‘Was there no work for you in Krass? Picked every lock, had you?’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘Who offered you this job?’

  ‘A…’ I hadn’t prepared a lie, and it showed. I also liked to keep my employers private. ‘A serek, I imagine.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I don’t have to tell you, Widow, that most of the jobs I get offered are highly secretive. Many clients like to remain anonymous.’

  Horix tapped the tip of her nose. ‘Why don’t I believe you?’

  ‘Because you’re naturally suspicious?’

  ‘Because it strikes me as odd that a man of such a methodical profession, the so-called best in the Reaches, would take a job before knowing his customer, his requirements or his price.’

  I winced, feeling pinned. It was a subject I had hoped to avoid. In all my thirty-four years I had never been as impulsive as the day I strode out of the door, hungover as sin, bound for Araxes. I had chided myself for many hours in Temsa’s cell for it. You could call it the City of Countless Souls calling to me, if you’d like. I call it being almost penniless and still half-drunk.

  I squirmed. ‘You usually find out the details in person…’

  Horix clapped her hands, as if dusting me off. ‘If you’d like, I can reinstate Vex and you can go down to the—’

  ‘I… I was eager to leave Taymar,’ I blurted. ‘I’d disappointed some people. One person, to be exact. An earl. Unfortunately he held the ear of many influentials in the underworld. I was named. Shamed. Ruined me from Krass to Skol and everywhere in between. All because I failed to complete the job he tasked me with.’

  ‘Why?’

  Why, indeed? It was a simple question with an easy answer. I stuck by my decision, no matter how much it had cursed me.

  ‘Because it would have meant me dying. Have you ever heard of a deadlock, Mistress? No? It is a type of lock that uses the spell of binding. It takes the soul of whoever fails to crack it. Rarer than rare. So much so that the earl had not known. I am a fantastic locksmith but I am not an idiot. When I realised, the job was over. There was an argument with some of the earl’s men who had been the muscle, and that brought the house-guards down on us. In the escape, several of them were caught and hacked down. One of the men just so happened to be the earl’s son, there to make sure father’s money was being well spent. Instead, he spent thousands of silver ensuring I never worked again.’ I paused, gathering my thoughts. Usually, I never talked this much unless I had a beer in my hand.

  ‘Within a few months, soon enough I was out of funds and living in either a tavern or a hovel. I never did it for the money, just the challenge and thrill. I was down to my last coin when I found a papyrus scroll on my doorstep. All it said was that my presence was requested in the Cloudpiercer for a matter of employment. There was a black seal of roses and daggers that I was to present at the Cloudpiercer, and a name. Etane. As for how he found me or how he knew of me, I had been intending to ask that in person. In any case, his note came at the right time and in my eagerness to restore my reputation, I left without another thought. Besides, you don’t just ignore a summons from that sort of address…’ I trailed off, noticing I was reeling off excuses.

  I looked up to find Horix was wearing a surprisingly toothy smile, albeit yellow and full of dark gaps. I was surprised her cheeks weren’t cracking. Her grey jowls suggested they hadn’t had much practice.

  ‘Did you say Etane?’ she asked.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Ha!’ The cackle reverberated about the room. ‘Etane!’

  ‘Know him, do you?’

  Horix kept her smile. ‘As you have been kind enough to answer me, I will answer you. Etane Talin is a chamber-shade. Servant and guard to the royal line of Talin Renala. That seal is an old Talin seal. He’s most likely serving the empress-in-waiting now the empress has apparently disappeared. What would Sisine be wanting with a locksmith, I wonder?’

  I left her to her thoughts, busy with mine. The empress-in-waiting wanted my services. I had expected nobility, but not royalty. I quelled my brewing frustration with the idea that the job would have most likely ended with a dagger in my back. An Arctian would rather pay with steel than silver, as the saying went, and the royals are the deadliest of them all.

  Horix clicked her fingers at me, dragging my attention back. ‘Old Etane. He died over a hundred years ago in a feud between the Talin and Renala families. Two decades ago, he fell in with a bunch of fanatics – the Cult of Sesh – along with the rest of the idiotic royal family. In Emperor Milizan’s time, you would have seen their members wandering freely about the Piercer. Red robes, always shades. They were the fashion of the day, but no more. They were proven treacherous. Milizan was murdered by his son, the emperor-in-waiting, and his empress was banished to die in the wilds of Skol. The Cult was prohibited from setting foot in the Core Districts ever again. Like the rest, Etane hung up his robe and went back to being a house-shade. Now he belongs to Sisine, it appears.’

  Her mood had shifted like a sea breeze. The widow had seemed pleased. Now she frowned deeply, though I hadn’t the foggiest idea why. I was too preoccupied with her mention of fanatics to care. The word shrieked through my head like a guard whistle. Once again, the widow had echoed the dead cat’s message.

  Over the past few days, I’d tried to stick to the notion that the encounter with Basht was merely a stress-induced hallucination. However, hallucinations don’t usually crumple to a heap and stick around to leak shit. I couldn’t explain the voice of the corpse, either. The only other explanation was that I had been bound wrong, and apparently become some lodestone for dead things with dire, cryptic warnings. Not gods. I couldn’t bring myself to even think the word. That was madness, even in this world of ghosts. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t curious to find out whether the warnings were true. To save my own skin, of course.

  When Horix was done scowling, she pointed me towards the door. ‘I find you interesting, Mr Basalt,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you. But about this Cult—’

  ‘And I see no reason why I shouldn’t keep you as my personal shade for the time being. Let’s see what other stories come to your mind, hmm? And remember what I said: you belong wholeheartedly to me. You will not breathe a word of our conversations. Otherwise…’ She let a finger dangle like a sword, its tip pointing down through the floors to a certain stone box.

  Despite my questions, I held my tongue. As I reached for the door handle, she fed me another tidbit.

  ‘Perhaps, in time, if you prove yourself, I will consider informing the Chamber of the Code of your situation.’

  I smiled, hating her as a fish hates the fisherman that catches him. That hatred comes not
just from a hook in the mouth, but the submission of all hope into the hands that threaded the hook. I was either Horix’s supper, or she would show kindness and release me. However, looking down into that old face, wrinkled and puckered like a pig’s neck, I saw very little kindness there, only plenty of sour years. It didn’t look good, but it was the only helping hand I’d so far been extended.

  ‘Thank you, Mistress.’

  ‘Good shade. Now, fetch me tea.’

  I bowed as low as I could manage, mostly to hide my irked expression, and let her shut the door on me. The guards watched as I shuffled between them, heading for the kitchens.

  ‘Still better than the fucking coffin,’ I muttered to myself when my feet met the cold stairs.

  Vex was full of angry glares and mouthed insults. He stood on the other side of the vast kitchen, arms crossed and face all ascowl at me.

  At first I mouthed back gibberish, making him bob his head, questioning me silently. Then I moved so that a kitchen ghost was between us, and kept doing so until he danced just to look at me. Lastly, I simply stared, long and hard, while he got angrier and angrier. Toying with others’ emotions is always good fun, especially when they can’t lash out.

  I was disturbed from my amusement by a faint tap on the arm. The kitchen boy had finished constructing the elaborate lunch, and with a timid voice he explained it to me. Thin slices of cured quail and heart of palm with sugared rose petals. Fruit and honey, with sour cumin yoghurt. Papyrus stems with vinegar and grains. Honeyed dates. Pomegranate tea. Beer, warm as the mistress liked it, with a silver straw.

  I balanced the elaborate tray across my forearms as he loaded it, plate by delicious-looking plate. I was glad I couldn’t smell the food. It would have taunted me even more.

  Before I made my way out into the dark corridors beyond the heat and hiss of the kitchens, I gave Vex one last look and a smile for good measure. If he’d had skin, it would have been flushing red. As it was, he’d taken on a purple hue.

  To the quiet rattle of silver cutlery, I padded across the stone. My eyes were fixed on the food, making sure none of the tea or beer spilled, or none of the dates rolled off their little plate. It was hard keeping the tray in the air, never mind level.

  I paused to readjust my grip and a date decided to make a bid for freedom. It wheeled to the edge of the tray, colliding with my thumb.

  With the tray safely perched on a cabinet, I had the spare fingers for the date. It was a slippery bastard, drenched in honey that my vapours could not grasp at first.

  Once I had it pinched, I held it up to the light of the nearby hallway. I remembered these from life, and how their dried skin put up a brief fight before succumbing to a bite, all juicy and sticky beneath.

  I opened my mouth and let the fruit hover above my lips. All I longed for was the feel of it. Not the taste, just the space it would fill in my useless stomach. I wanted to know the very act of eating one last time.

  The date passed right through me: slower than falling, held back by my vapours, but surely. It dropped on the floor with a tap, and I regarded it like a turd on the marble. With a humph, I set it back on the plate, dust and all, and wiped the tray with the end of my scarf.

  The part of loss that slices the deepest is that you never know which moments are the last until they’ve already been and gone. The last meal, the last kiss and such. What hurts is how it pales to the glorious finale you might have imagined.

  My last meal had been no mighty banquet; no roast pig and buttered apples, spiced carrots, or sausage stew. My last meal had been a watered-down soup with a salty fish head in it. I remember staring at it, pondering the ugliness of things forced to live below the waves.

  My last kiss had been closely followed by a slap, not a sleepless night.

  My last night’s sleep had been in a stinking hammock, not a feather bed.

  My last words had been, ‘Fuck it’, not the poignant goodbye I’d never planned.

  And my last rutting? Far too expensive and far too long ago to bear thinking about. Shame always grinds a sharper edge onto a memory.

  Widow Horix would be taking lunch in her library, it seemed. The guards admitted me after much patting and poking of my smock and tray.

  She was back in her chair, a look of impatience on her wrinkles. ‘Set it down,’ she ordered.

  I did.

  ‘Not there.’

  I moved it.

  ‘Now fetch the table. I don’t eat from my lap like a commoner.’

  The small table was brought over and placed in front of her chair.

  ‘Closer.’

  The tray came next, and after a few cursory sniffs, she tucked in.

  I had expected a pinch more refinery from a tal like Horix. The Arctians are famed for their elaborate, though extremely private, balls and dinners. Manners were like keys or silver in Araxes; they got you places. And yet here was Widow Horix, slurping down the strips of meat and pickled papyrus stems as if she hadn’t eaten in a week. Judging by the fact she was mostly comprised of wrinkle, that seemed entirely possible.

  ‘On the shelf, over on the far wall. A test for you,’ she said around a brown mouthful of smashed dates.

  I looked but couldn’t see, so I wandered closer to roam the bone shelves.

  ‘The box.’

  A small lockbox sat alone, wood engrained with silver and jade. There was a complex lock on it with three keyholes. A fine design from the last century. Scatter Isle, if I wasn’t mistaken.

  ‘You see it?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Can you open it?’

  I blew a long sigh. ‘That is a rim lock with rotating cylinders, and those are a triple-tumbler bolt system with sticking pins. This box is resistant to bumping, shimming, and from the look of the wood, bypassing. Yes, of course I can open it.’ I patted my empty smock. ‘But I don’t have my tools. A good locksmith still needs his tools.’

  She slurped at her thick beer through her straw. It chimed against her teeth. ‘Then you fail the test.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘I don’t believe you to be a locksmith of any worth, or even a locksmith at all.’

  That set my jaw. I’d always been partial to a challenge, especially if it was to prove my worth. That was part of what had dragged me to Araxes. Some wise old barmaid had once told me it was something to do with my childhood, but beer she’d poured me had removed most of the detail from that night.

  I cast around, looking for slim and slender things. The library was short on curios besides scrolls and candles, and I hardly thought the widow would be happy with me breaking things. In the end I turned to her tray, and swiped several pieces of slender cutlery. She continued to chew, her eyes following me back to the box.

  The knife was thin enough, but the fork’s tines were too closely spaced. Over the course of minutes, I managed to bend two until they snapped. Then I found a long pin in an old tapestry hanging in a niche and angled it into a curve. Horix watched me throughout.

  With a grumble, I held the makeshift tools in finger and thumb and bent to stare into the lock. I swore my senses had diminished since dying. Which was to be expected, I supposed. It wasn’t just touch or smell; closer objects were more blurred to me, sound seemed more muffled, and echoes died on the first bounce.

  So it was that it took me some time to grasp the improvised tools correctly, and to hear the clicks of the pins as I gradually took their innocence, one at a time. Twice I had to start again, knocking the whole lock out of alignment. I bumbled like a freshpick, and even though I doubted Horix knew a scrap about lockpicking, she almost certainly heard my muffled cursing.

  With a sharp turn of the fork tines, the first lock finally gave up. The second was trickier, and I had to bend the pin into several shapes before I heard the grate of the cylinders lining up. Another twist, and it too fell before me. The third lock took under a minute to prime the lock, and with the knife blade, I turned it open with a satisfying click. That is the sweetest sound to a
man in my trade; sweeter than the cry of a firstborn child. I hadn’t heard it since the ship.

  But the box was empty, and it made the thief in me feel just as hollow. It was like being punched in the groin straight after a romp beneath the sheets.

  I found something smug in the widow’s smile when I turned to face her. She had finished with her food, and now sat with steepled fingers. Her leavings could have fed a beggar for a week.

  I slammed the lid of the box. ‘There. Told you.’

  ‘It took you some time.’

  ‘Test me on something bigger, if you like. You’ll soon see.’ Tasting my old life had me thirsting for more. I wondered what use Horix had for a locksmith besides the usual Arctian ambition, and whether it had anything to do with her cellars.

  ‘Perhaps I shall, but not today. We have talked enough and I have grown bored of you. Clean up these scraps, then clean my rooms. You’d best be as good with a polishing cloth as you are with fork tines and pins, Mr Basalt.’

  ‘Yes, Mistress,’ I said with another low bow. I could play the chamber-shade while she tested me. That, in a small way, was progress.

  The widow departed into an adjoining room with a snigger. ‘You Krass always look like you’re trying to sniff your backsides when you bow.’

  Chapter 17

  Lot In Life

  Another bloody layer to the Cloudpiercer, says the emperor. Just clicks his fingers like that, and off we go. He thinks that an endless dead workforce means you can build endlessly, but he don’t know the work it means for us that still breathe and beat. Senseless royal twats.

  From the diary of Master Ophet, Grand Builder to Emperor Theph during 552-569

  Nilith was afire.

  She thanked the dead gods her face was covered. Her wounds would have been seared by the sun’s rays and baking sand. Instead, a cloth covered her as if she were a corpse. It had been damp in the morning, but now it was dry as papyrus.

  The day was hot but dark for her. Even movement and sound caused her to flinch. She winced behind her wrappings at every shout. Whenever footfalls came near, she had to wrestle her heart back down her throat.