by Ben Galley
‘Go away! Back to your master! Or family! Or nest, or what have you!’
No amount of shouting seemed to dissuade the beetle. When Farazar resorted to kicking sand back at it, it would retreat a little, but then come clomping back. He tried some running, using the slope to his advantage. When he finally stopped at the base of the next dune, the beetle was right there behind him, and Farazar the weaker for it.
‘Fucking insect,’ he cursed, looking to the blue above for patience. Then, with a sigh, he gave in to his idea.
Dragging the body in a wide arc around to the beetle’s rump, Farazar slung the rope of his corpse around a horn-like protrusion on the creature’s back. His clumsy fingers worked a knot that would have made a sailor weep. All the while, the beetle stayed put. Whether that was because it was dumb or well trained, Farazar didn’t know. It muttered away happily through its ugly jaws.
Farazar kept the tail of the rope in his hands, and he flicked it like a whip against the gleaming carapace. The beetle jerked forwards, much to his satisfaction. Walking on beside it, he tugged on the rope, and lo and behold, the creature followed dutifully.
He could have laughed at the joke of it all. It certainly sounded like a joke: an emperor, a corpse and a beetle walking across the Duneplains. Yet no smile curled his lips. No chuckle came from his throat. For it was he who was the joke. He was the punchline. Here he was, Emperor Farazar Talin Renala the Eighteenth, dragging his own body across a desert.
His growling filled the silence.
Chapter 15
Damned Fates
Beer is the murderer of all good intentions.
Words of the philosopher Themeth
I felt wretched. More drained than I had ever been in life. I felt hollower than any cloud of vapour should. It was small comfort that I had come to my senses, and realised the error of my self-indulgence.
Four times I had tried to vacate my spot, only to stagger so much I decided the attention wouldn’t be worth it, and went back to ‘rest’ in my hollow.
The first and second attempts were feeble efforts that took me halfway down the alley and back.
The third time, a blind old woman had come out to offer me tea, not realising I was a ghost. The tea had looked more like whale-oil to me, so I declined, and she went back to banging and crashing about her tiny hovel.
On the fifth attempt, with Pointy offering meagre encouragement, I finally made it to the street. I say encouragement. It was more mockery than anything. He still preferred to sulk, and so did I. It was all I felt good for that day.
Speaking of days, one had already passed me by. The second was gradually slipping into evening. I would soon be stuck in the night once more.
I aimed high, managing to climb a zig-zag of steps onto a flat roof so I could look above the endless warehouses. My eyes roved over the fanged horizon, full of towers large and small, curved and twisting. Some were needle sharp, pillars for the sky, others fat and bulging with questionable renovations.
I looked for one as sleek as Horix’s. It was a sight I had first fixed in my mind while traipsing home from Vex’s shopping challenge. It was like finding a needle in a pile of needles, and it must have taken me an hour to spot it. When I did, I stumbled over the rooftops like a bow-legged street urchin, aiming for the nearest washing line. After absconding with a set of trews tied with rope and a tunic I could charcoal a black feather onto, I went back to the boardwalk and set my feet to a new path. West.
‘Back to the Widow we go,’ I muttered.
‘You’ve come to your senses then, I see,’ Pointy replied some dozen busy streets later. His voice echoed around my head, even though I had no skull. I looked down at his obsidian pommel, finding his carved face a flat line of discontent. I held my hand over it, as if to hide from his disapproval, and saw my vapours swirling, as if trying to reach his grip. I quickly withdrew.
‘And you’ve found your voice at last,’ I said.
‘Your foolishness made me doubt your sanity, never mind your senses. I’ve hung from the hips of madmen before, and I refuse to do so again.’
Pointy had clearly been working on those words for some time, so I gave him his due. Grudgingly, of course. ‘I’m not mad. Just desperate. There is but a fraction of a line between them.’
‘Hmm. And what happened to your dreams of a glorious final few weeks? Of taking another body for a ride until the widow decides to melt your half-coin?’
‘Choices, sword. I have few.’ The realisation had come to me like a headache after a night of hard drinking. As always in Araxes, it came down to who held my half-coin. ‘Running won’t solve anything. Horix may be my master, hold my coin, and be as untrustworthy as every other beating heart in this city, but she’s the closest thing I have to freedom. At least she doesn’t keep me in a cupboard or make me fight, and no matter what that old bitch has planned for me, I have my freedom in writing, hidden away in an alcove in her tower. And if not, then now I have the power to take my coin from her. I’ll take my chances.’
‘What about your would-be employer, this Etane and the empress-in-waiting?’
‘No. A dead end, pardon the pun. What is it they say? Better the daemon you know. The empress-in-waiting would destroy me when she was done with me.’
‘And what about the Cult you were so interested in?’
The thought had crossed my mind after learning they preached about the betterment of ghosts, but Araxes’ hatred against them was far too prevalent to be just a misunderstanding. I had no trust in them, either. The call of the dead gods crossed my mind again, rearing like an errant cobra as always. I stamped it out, unwilling to face the guilt of doing nothing.
‘If Horix found out I’d gone to the Cult, she’d melt my coin quicker than a goose can shit,’ I asserted. Until I had my half-coin in my hand, that was all that mattered. I could haunt the fuck out of the Cult then, if I fancied it. ‘Why are you so interested in running all of a sudden?’
Pointy sighed. ‘It came to me this morning. The seventh Tenet. Shades keep no property. The widow won’t let you have a sword.’
I growled, drawing a look from a fellow ghost in the street. ‘All you have for me are problems, sword. Besides, I’m counting on Horix to owe me a favour.’
Pointy’s voice trembled, though from what, I didn’t know. ‘Would you gamble your own soul in such a way?’
‘Yes.’ It was a half-lie. I could have argued I was doing the same thing, but I had the power of haunting, and the fact that Horix needed me. I wagered she had little use for a talking sword that would no doubt irritate her to the point of smelting within a week.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘And that’s your choice,’ I reminded him. Feeling a new kind of wretched, I added, ‘We can say you’re a gift from Busk’s household. I’d recommend maybe not talking, however.’
‘I doubt I’ll have much more to say to her than I do to you.’
I shrugged, tugging his hilt further around my backside. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Be the inanimate, unfeeling object you are. You wanted to come along, not I.’
The sword said no more, and left me to my journey.
I wound my way on a diagonal path through the central districts and into the main core of Araxes, where the daylight became scant between the long and crowded shadows of towers. I kept my eyes fixed on Horix’s spire, to the southern edge of Araxes’ centre.
My pace quickened with every flagstone I put beneath me. I watched the lights of the widow’s home twinkle as though I were a ship and she was a port. Though no storm chased me, I moved like there was, like a child running home across the steppes, with rain lashing their back. I was eager for the safety of a tower, and to hold my writ of freedom in my glowing hands.
Horix would no doubt be suspicious of my escape, and so I started to work up a story in my mind. So wrapped up in fiction was I that I failed to see there was indeed a storm on my heel: one in the form of a very large ghost clad in polished steel plate.
I could have torn my stolen clothes from my vapours. I was not three streets from the widow’s tower, and here I was, yet again the object of somebody’s greed. And twice now it had been Temsa’s.
‘I don’t believe it!’ I yelled at them, throwing my hands to the sky. ‘Is he here? Come to fetch me himself? Or has he sent you two idiots to do his dirty work for him?’
Nobody in the street paid any attention to my cries. One or two ghosts gave me glances as they quickly shimmied past. Others did their best to ignore me. I strangled the air. This fucking city!
I itched to run, looking to a side street that ran off between two blocks of whitewashed buildings. Maybe I could have haunted a passerby and melted into the crowds. I still felt drained by my last attempt, but I had to try.
But as my feet started moving, I saw him. Tor Temsa stood in my path beneath the shade of an umbrella, wearing a leopard-skin coat trimmed with feathers, smiling his gold-specked smile and wagging a cautionary finger.
What else is there to do but smile? I asked myself, and found no answer. So I smiled; at him, at Jexebel, at his big fucker of a ghost, at the whole fucking mess of a situation.
If Temsa was confused by my boldness, he didn’t show it. His guards swarmed around us until they formed a ring about their master and me. I felt Danib’s hand alight on my shoulder, his giant gauntlet warm compared to my vapour. I met his eyes, shining from the gap in his barbute helmet, as he laid claim to my sword. I heard Pointy’s disappointed hissing in the back of my head.
‘My, my. Caltro Basalt. Or Jerub, wasn’t it? It’s a pleasure to see you once more,’ said Temsa, eyeing my slashed throat.
‘And what do you want with me?’ I asked, wondering how he knew my real name. It didn’t bode well.
The stunted gargoyle of a man chuckled. ‘Why, you, of course. I’ve learned a great many things about you since I sold you at market.’ He produced a familiar piece of wax from his pocket. A black seal of daggers and desert roses. My invitation.
The puzzle pieces slid into place. ‘You came to Busk’s for me that day, didn’t you? He told you all about me.’
‘Astute, for a half-life,’ said Temsa. ‘Seeing as you’d escaped, I thought the old crone already had you back in her tower. Luckily for me, you’re apparently a dawdler, but it makes life much easier for me.’
‘I should have kept you waiting longer.’
Temsa bowed his head. ‘Patience leads to profit, or so the Chamber of Trade’s motto goes.’
I growled. ‘I’ll give that limp cock a piece of my mind if I ever see him again.’
‘Busk?’ Temsa looked around, chuckling. ‘Oh, Busk is dead, Caltro. Ani here saw to that. I wouldn’t worry yourself.’
The big woman beside me leered, and I shook my head at her.
‘No surprise there. You can go fuck yourself if you think I’m thanking you, Temsa.’
‘No thanks necessary, Caltro. You just have to come along quietly.’
Although I hated them all at that moment, I also pitied them. They didn’t know what they were bringing into their fold, what I could do with a moment alone with them. It was poor consolation, but it was the only reason I was able to smile and open my arms wide.
Temsa winked as Jexebel looped a copper-thread rope about my neck. ‘Oh, it’s Tor Temsa now. And no thanks needed, Caltro. You’ll repay me very soon.’
‘Allow me to guess: it has something to do with locks and doors.’
‘Astute indeed. This city seems to have given you an edge since last we met. Found yourself a sword too, I see.’
Pointy sighed in my head. ‘Wonderful.’
I let Danib and Jexebel push me away in the opposite direction of the widow’s tower. I longed to fly at the nearest un-coppered body and haunt my way to freedom again. I doubted I could have achieved it, though, not with copper looped around my wounded neck. And so I held myself back. Instead, I met Temsa’s curious gaze and returned his wink.
‘A lot has happened since you sold me, Temsa. A lot indeed.’
A night and a day, and I’d yet to see anything but burlap. Despite my repeated requests, curses, and eventual attempts to remove it myself, the sack encasing my head had stayed on. I was left to mutter to myself, pondering which glorious moron it was that had started the trend of leaving prisoners to stew like old legs of mutton.
When the door to my room finally swung open, hands plucked me from my chair, hustled me a short distance, and placed me down in another chair. I had no idea where. Through the sack, the only details I could discern were that this room had more light in it and thicker, cloying air. It was irritating how perceptive you became of changes to the air when you were pretty much comprised of the stuff.
The hands withdrew, and I was left to look around at the shadows and shapes between the crisscross sacking. I felt eyes upon me. Somebody sighed in my head, like wind moaning behind a thick windowpane. Pointy was here.
A fellow who finds his head wrapped in sacking must rely on methods other than facial expressions to communicate his emotions. No amount of scowling conveyed my displeasure and outrage accurately enough. I tried speaking, but the thick burlap muffled me. I had to resort to crossing and recrossing my arms, drumming my fingers, and a good deal of fist-clenching.
It was some time before my display had any effect. A familiar smoke-aged voice cut through the silence.
‘De-sack the shade, will you?’
The burlap was lifted from my head, and I blinked in the hazy shafts of light penetrating the shutters. Sitting behind an expansive desk, wreathed in wobbly halos of smoke, was Temsa. He was dressed in emerald silks from head to toe. His fingers were so encrusted with rings he could have been wearing gold and gem gauntlets. At my side stood the ubiquitous Jexebel. I noticed the blue glow about my feet and felt the cold of the monstrous shade behind me. No others stood in the dingy office. If I strained my ears, I could catch the clink of bottles and tankards below us. We were in Temsa’s tavern.
‘Been too busy to tend to your guests, have you? I’ve been waiting some time,’ I muttered. All the smart words and insults I’d rehearsed in the privacy of countless nights faded now that I sat in front of him.
‘I have, in fact. My third Weighing, if you must know. Tor Busk had many a half-coin stashed away, and our years of business dealings mean that in his death, he owes everything to me,’ the man gloated.
‘Convenient, that.’
Jexebel whacked me around the back of the head with the copper haft of her axe.
‘Now, now.’ Temsa held up his hands. One held a smouldering pipe. ‘As Caltro said, he is our guest, not our prisoner.’
I nodded to the discarded sack. ‘I think we disagree on the definition of “prisoner,” Temsa.’
He cut straight to the point. ‘I’ve met many like you in my time, Caltro Basalt. You think a smart mouth is a shield, and you hide behind it. The problem with men – half-lives – like you is that you don’t know when to stop hiding. Take a peek, Caltro. Put down the shield. You might find you can profit if only you play along for a change.’
‘Profit? According to the Tenets, a bound ghost can’t earn any profit.’
‘What are rules, if not just words scratched on papyrus by those seeking to feel better about themselves?’
Lately, I’d had enough of windbags spewing reasons and stories to justify their evils. I crossed my arms once more and waited patiently for the point.
‘I imagine you want your freedom, hm?’ Temsa asked.
‘How ever did you guess? I must be the only ghost in the city who wants such a thing.’ He stared at me with the eyes of a dead toad. My anger began to rise. ‘I want back the life that you stole from me!’
Temsa juggled his hands like the pans of a scale, as nonchalant as if he were testing the ripeness of fruit at a bazaar. ‘Some things that are taken can’t be returned. Short of forcing the sun to move backwards, freedom sounds a bit more achievable, doesn’t it? I hear indenturement is tough. Especially under an old prune like Widow Horix, or Busk.’
‘Tough is one way to describe it.’
Temsa rubbed his goatee, playing the magnanimous noble. ‘Well, Caltro, I can provide you such freedom.’
‘No, you can’t. You don’t have my half-coin.’
Temsa winked. ‘But I shall. And soon.’
For a short man, the fetid twat had set his sights high. I couldn’t decide whether that worried or impressed me. I watched him reach for a pipe and light it with a taper. ‘You’d take on the widow, just for the half-coin of a humble locksmith?’
The seal I’d found on my doorstep all those months ago slid across the desk towards me. ‘You’re too modest, Caltro. Your reputation crosses seas, man! You and I both know you were summoned by the empress-in-waiting herself. Such a man must be a worthy locksmith indeed. Busk hadn’t a clue, and yet he saw fit to tussle with the widow for you. She hasn’t broken your coin yet, so she must see some worth in you. Besides, I have been busy, Caltro. As of this morning Weighing, I am a tor of some substantial wealth. An equal rival to Horix, perhaps. You haven’t been the only one working hard.’ He paused, and I could see his words brought him satisfaction. He entwined his ring-covered fingers to hide his grin. ‘But in all honesty, I would be knocking on her door even if you had never set foot in Araxes. That old bitch and her tower full of half-coins have been in my thoughts for weeks now.’
I waited for him to go on, wondering why I felt a measure of anger at his plans to murder the widow. Allegiance had always been a stranger to me, and yet here I was, extending a hand towards it.
‘I see you’ve learned the value of silence since you were last in the Slab. You shouted from the cells for days, if I remember rightly. I see now you’re a plain man, so I’ll speak plainly. You open what I tell you to open, do a good job, and when I take Horix, you shall have your half-coin and your freedom. After that, you may choose to work with me as a free shade. Earn some profit, perhaps. Turn this trip into something other than a complete loss.’