by Ben Galley
‘We take him,’ Temsa replied firmly. ‘I don’t trust that fucking widow. She’s a crotchety old bag, or so the tongues wag. Might decide enough is enough and cut her losses with his half-coin. Better I get as much use out of him while I can, just in case.’
Another grunt from Jexebel. She proceeded to kick a ghost with the copper toe of her boot; it sent the woman sprawling, her near-severed limbs flailing.
‘Faster, he said!’ Jexebel bellowed, before returning to Temsa’s side.
‘Keeping the sword, then?’ Jexebel asked.
‘I am. Seems a fitting blade for a tor. And besides, it’s inordinately sharp.’ Temsa looked as though he would pull it forth with a flourish, but his hand shied away from its hilt. I noticed the bandage on his thumb.
‘He tried to sharpen me. I cut the whetstone in half.’
‘Sounds like a soulblade to me.’
‘Nonsense, Ani. Old fairy tales.’
‘Grandfather had an axe like it. Soulaxe, I s’pose… Hey! You! I told you to watch the shade’s cell!’
It took me a moment to realise Jexebel was speaking to me. Her giant frame striding towards me, finger raised, was my first clue. Why in the Reaches do they have to breed them so big in the Arc? I thought.
‘I—’ My body twitched, once again trying to signal her in some way and betray me. I clenched harder. This haunting was more difficult than the last.
Jexebel brought her burst-veined nose close to mine, bending down so she could snort in my face. ‘Well?’
‘Hekal’s down there. Wanted to swap.’ Why did I choose such a Krass name?
‘Swap? And who the fuck is Hekal? Don’t remember such a man.’ She prodded me hard in the sternum and I choked on the other man’s soul.
‘Hekal, er… Half-Tongue? New man. Doesn’t like the door shift.’ I prattled off some more fiction.
‘Very nice,’ Pointy quietly congratulated me.
I saw Temsa clanking his way over, curiosity piqued, and I grappled for an excuse to escape Jexebel’s shadow. ‘I—I’m sorry, I’ll get back up there right away.’
My body convulsed again, but I turned it into a swift lunge towards the doorway. I winced my way into the corridor, expecting a rough hand to land on my shoulder at any moment. But none came, and I proceeded back the way I’d come. Jexebel’s curse of ‘Fucking amateur’ was the only thing that chased me, as well as Pointy’s voice, faint with distance.
‘I’ll wait, then, shall I?’
I exhaled only when I was alone, save for the crowded pens of ghosts. They looked on at me, confused and uncaring. They had their own deaths to deal with.
My encounter with Jexebel had been far too close for comfort, but her conversation with Temsa had been a mine of information.
Firstly, the infamous Cult were aiding Temsa. Secondly, he was going after the Chamber, the only pillar of justice I knew of in this godsforsaken city. A bold move indeed for a soulstealer, never mind that he had murdered his way to nobility. And lastly, he had a princess in his pocket.
There was only one princess – and Sisine – I knew of, and that was the empress-in-waiting. I wondered whether she knew I was here, locked in Temsa’s cellars. No doubt she still had need of me, unless she had gone to that bitch Evalon Everass instead. Even though I would have likely found a knife in my back at the end of it, the missed opportunity to work for the royal family of the Arc stung me. At least if Everass did get the job, it would remove my competition.
I heard a scuff on the stairs, and looked up to see Danib standing tall at the end of the corridor. His armour was minimal, for once. I tried to keep my eyes away from the gaping wound encircling his skull as I cleared my throat, straightened and walked towards him. I even chanced a nod as I passed. He looked at me with his glowing white eyes and scowled, as if sensing my wrongness. Perhaps I bulged to him; two souls crammed into one body. The guard wrapped around my vapours ached to scream and shout, but I bit my borrowed tongue until I could taste blood, and carried on up the stairs. Danib watched me until I disappeared from sight.
I decided I would bide my time, lull Temsa into a false sense of security while I picked locks, and pray Horix wasn’t too hasty with my half-coin before I managed to escape with the damn sword. It wasn’t the first time I had entrusted my future to my skills, and I hoped it wouldn’t be the last.
There was a more immediate issue that lay before me: I had no idea what a live body would do once I hauled myself from it. Half of me thought the guard would be a raving lunatic by the time I exited him. The other half imagined him running off, yelling to Temsa of what I had done. Even though there was only a slim chance the soulstealer would believe him and think him sane, it wasn’t worth the risk.
As a locksmith, I was useful enough. As a pet circus ghost, I was worth untold amounts.
I put my hands to my head and scratched at my dirty scalp, racking my brains. I swore they were mushier than when I had been alive. The guard’s less than adequate mind was no help, too wrapped up in trying to cast me out. He was managing it, slowly but surely. I felt myself squeezed, pushed up against his skin. Time was short.
I found the stairwell up, and heard the roar of the tavern again. An idea mercifully struck. Sane. I needed the opposite. I need insane.
Fighting to move my legs, as if the guard had read my thoughts, I jogged up the stairs and hovered at the heavy curtain separating me from the busy tavern hall. I looked out over the greasy dockworkers swilling their thick beer; the painted entertainers dressed in ostrich feathers and not much else; the scrapings of the dusty streets wetting their whistles; and the guards staring sleepy-eyed out over the writhing masses. A dirge was being howled from one corner.
I set my fingers to my leather jerkin and yanked at the toggles. My hands fought back, wrenching away, and it took some wrestling to shrug the garment off. Next came the shirt, and with more fighting, his trews. I left him his boots, primarily because I couldn’t be bothered with the laces, but his loincloth I ripped away and tossed down the stairs.
Pausing, I stared down somewhat wistfully at the parts my ghostly self now lacked, but then a grin appeared. Mischief always won over the morose.
Thinking of feathers and a painted body, I tore myself from the man’s flesh, falling from his naked back. The sensation dizzied me, but I remembered to kick out with all I had. My foot caught him square in the back and sent him sprawling into the crowd before his eyes could stop spinning.
The last I saw of him, before I tumbled down the stairwell, was him naked and spread-eagled across a table, drenched in beer, arms flailing like an upturned tortoise, yelling something about a ghost under his skin.
The laughter followed me down the stairs, and I landed in a heap with a smile. Uncurling myself, I scuttled back to my cell, hauling the door shut with a bang. The bolt I could do nothing about, but lies I could. With any luck, the guard would be out on his backside within the hour. Alive, at least, and that was what counted.
I was no murderer.
Dust. It was a pandemic in the cavern beneath the widow’s tower. Like a greedy mould, no surface had escaped its attention. On some of the higher rafters it gathered like carpet. Pale piles of it sat in banks by the walkways and ramps. The finer particles refused to sink, hanging in the stuffy air like a stubborn smog. The lanterns caught the motes in their light and painted them yellow.
The shades were caked in it. It clung to their naked frames or robes like a false skin; like the fashions of free shades of old, caking themselves in powder to appear alive. It had never worked then, and it didn’t work now. The workers just looked paler and more ghoulish.
Widow Horix stared at the beams crisscrossing the walls, keeping the dirt and rock at bay. She sought patience – calm, perhaps – in between the seams and iron spikes. Her eyes betrayed her, slipping instead to the mound of earth that had swallowed a portion of what her shades had built for her. Her great creation listed to one side under its weight. In the hazy gloom of the cavern, figure
s could be spied, glowing a faint blue as they hurried to clear the cave-in.
‘That one,’ she said, pointing to one of the kneeling half-lives before her.
The shade winced before the copper whip had even touched him. He cried out, eyes flashing white as the whip lanced across his shoulders.
‘And that one.’
Another pointing finger creeping from her sleeve. Another snap of sinew and copper twine. Another screech.
Kalid kept his whip at the ready, but Horix held her tongue. She paced along their line, skirts swishing angrily as she watched them cower. Five of the sad bastards, and one or more of them were responsible for this delay. They were lucky their mistake had only set them back a few days, and not caused worse damage.
If she hadn’t already sealed her tower so tightly, Horix would have assumed foul play, a spy of Temsa’s in her midst. As it was, she had only mere stupidity to deal with.
‘I’ll ask again. Who didn’t ask for the wall to be shored up?’
Silence, save for snivelling and the scratching of blue fingers in the dark dirt. Horix took up her crook-like walking cane and prodded each of them in the foreheads. ‘Who?’
At last, a shaking hand arose from the group. It belonged to the Skol woman.
‘Your name?’
‘Bela, Madam.’
‘You were the one responsible for this delay?’
‘No, Madam. He was.’ A glowing finger shot out. The shades in the line each ducked to avoid its damning direction, until one alone was left upright: the crippled shade, bent almost double. He had been cheap, Horix remembered that about him. He blinked owlishly at her.
‘You! Your name?’
‘Kon, Madam. Son of Karabi.’
‘Did you cause this damage, Kon, son of Karabi?’
He took his time to think, then snapped his fingers. ‘All I did was mention that I once was an acolyte for the Chamber of the Grand Builder.’
‘And were you?’
‘I was. I told Bela that, and she put me in charge.’
‘What did you do for the Grand Builder?’
‘I carried scrolls and fetched tea.’ The half-life almost looked proud.
‘I see,’ said Horix, nodding. She folded her arms behind her back as she paced once more. ‘Her, Kalid. The accuser. She hid behind the stupidity of others when she clearly knew better.’
The colonel wrapped the whip around Bela’s neck, forcing her face into the dirt. ‘Shall we put her in the sarcophagus, Mistress?’
Horix watched the shade struggle and claw furrows in the dark earth. ‘Let’s go for something simpler, shall we? One of these new Outsprawler punishments I’ve heard so much about.’
Bela began to gasp. Her vapours undulated through an entire spectrum of blues as the copper collar continued to burn her.
‘Water or fire. Or both. You choose, Colonel.’
‘Aye.’ Kalid said nothing more as he dragged the shade off on her leash, as a noble might walk one of their fancy miniature beetles.
Horix whirled on the line of shades. ‘Do any of you have knowledge of building, digging, or the like?’ she hissed. Kon flinched away.
She turned her face up to the rafters of the cavern, up to the hundreds of shades that scampered up ladders, down ropes, and dangled from buckets. Glowing ants, swarming over her vision, her creation. Horix took a moment to admire its growing angles before a shriek tore from her lungs. Its hoarse echoes died along with their frantic digging. They stared down at her, eyes wide and fearful, like chickens hearing the boots of the farmer.
It had been a week since Yamak had promised her it would be finished. It was in no such state, and now this cave-in had no doubt cost another week. Yet another setback, when the sand in the hourglass was running thin.
Horix let her voice bounce around the darkness. ‘Don’t any of you useless creatures know how to fucking build anything?’
There was a rustle of whispering from a wooden gantry overhead. A shade was pushed forwards and a head popped into view. He was a young man with an axe-head for a face, with Skol cheeks and tiny eyes. He looked fearful enough to be truthful, at least. The kiss of a whip was always good for breeding loyalty.
‘I… er…’ His voice was tremulous. ‘I also worked for the Chamber of the Grand Builder, Mistress,’ he said.
‘And did you also carry scrolls and fetch tea, half-life?’
‘No. I… I drew the scrolls, Mistress. Cranes, docks, high-roads. I drew them all.’
‘Your name?’
‘Poldrew.’
Horix gestured to the great lump of wood and canvas sat between her and a roof that was lost in the dusty haze. ‘Can this be finished in a week’s time, Poldrew?’
She saw the twitch in his cheek.
‘No,’ he said.
‘No? How long, then?’
‘I never built anything like… like this.’ His eyes wandered off for a moment, seeking courage. ‘I wouldn’t want to lie, Tal, but maybe two weeks would be more accurate.’
Horix levelled a grey bone of a finger at him. ‘It had better be,’ she warned, hearing the heavy stomp of Colonel Kalid returning. ‘Because you’re in charge now, understand? Two weeks. Not a day more!’
Poldrew’s nodding was so vigorous he almost shook himself from the gantry.
‘I thought Yamak was in charge of building,’ Kalid grunted.
‘That man is a shade driver, not a builder. Whereas this man…’ She let the colonel follow her pointing finger. ‘This man is a builder, and he has given me his word he can finish within two weeks. You will watch him like a hawk.’
‘Are you sure, Mistress?’
‘I never gamble when the stakes are so high, Colonel. I thought you were a man who liked his card-dens.’
Kalid cleared his throat. ‘I used to be. There’s a sickness hidden in cards, and I found it. But if I could interrupt, you have a visitor.’
Horix’s eyes flashed angrily. ‘I said no visitors.’
‘Apart from this one, Widow.’
‘Ah, good.’ Horix adjusted her skirts before giving Poldrew one last look. ‘It’s on you, shade. Get this done, otherwise Kalid here will have another soul to play with.’
The widow and the colonel left, disappearing into the poorly-lit haze, leaving Poldrew to stare out into the darkness and meet the countless blue eyes staring back at him. His gulp echoed through the dusty silence.
Horix was wandering her sparse garden when Kalid brought her the spook. The cold of the cellars had put a shiver in her old bones, and she wanted to feel the sweltering day on her face. Good for the wrinkles, she’d heard, not that she gave a damn. Age was how wisdom was measured, not in looks.
Meleber Crale strode confidently towards her as if his performance so far had been naught but exemplary. Horix put a sour curve on her lips and stared him down into a shuffle. By the time he reached her, his hands were stuffed into the pockets of his robe, and his eyes had fallen to the sand.
‘I don’t see why you appear so happy with yourself, spook. You have not delivered what I asked for.’
‘No, Tal Horix, I have not. But I have located your locksmith.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In the cellars beneath Tor Boran Temsa’s tavern,’ Crale said proudly.
‘Are you sure?’
‘As sure as I stand here.’
Stalking along the beds of plants, the widow regarded the waxy green stems waving at her. She traced her hand across a few before snapping one’s neck. She held its bulbous head up to the shade and crushed it, letting its black seeds trickle through her fingers. ‘And why have you wasted time coming to tell me?’
‘Temsa’s a wily man, Tal Horix. He employs no shades outside the confines of his bar, or his warehouses, or factories. The only shades beneath the Rusty Slab are behind bars, ready for market.’
‘And yet you managed to find Caltro?’
‘I saw him in his own cell, and it almost ruined me trying to get that far. Breaking
him out will be infinitely more difficult.’
Horix clicked her tongue sharply. It seemed this was a day of disappointments. ‘I am a frugal woman, spook. I sow my silver only where I know it will grow and blossom. Currently, I don’t see anything sprouting from our arrangement but let-down and delay.’ She strolled a circuit around the shade, staring at the flecks of dust on his cream robes. ‘His own cell, you say?’
Crale gave her an avid nod.
‘Temsa knows Caltro’s worth and history,’ mused Horix. ‘And I’d wager that if the tor is the one behind these murders, then he’s not done yet. That means he’ll keep him safe. If we push him, Temsa may decide to destroy Caltro just to spite me, and at any time that pleases him.’
‘If the locksmith’s worth what you think, and Temsa’s that greedy, I doubt that.’
‘Leave the doubting to me, Master Crale, and busy yourself with doing your job.’ Horix stared at the black seeds clinging to her craggy palm. ‘Get me Caltro back by any means necessary. I don’t care what it takes. Fail me, and you’ll think death is a summer breeze compared to what I will do to you.’
Crale looked as if he were going to say something, which, judging by the worried curl to his mouth, was most likely an alteration to his price. His finger hovered in mid-air and his mouth hung agape, but Horix’s glare kept him speechless. All he did was nod, and let Kalid show him the way out.
When the colonel returned, Horix was busy staring into the sky, at the spike of the Cloudpiercer, just visible between two towers. A pair of thin spectacles, stained a dark grey, balanced on her nose so the sunlight wouldn’t offend her.
‘Is he gone?’ she croaked.
‘Yes, Widow.’
‘Temsa is far more ambitious than I thought.’
‘If you’ll pardon my boldness, Mistress, I don’t know why you won’t let me take ten-score of my best men and go knock on Temsa’s door.’
‘The same reason he hasn’t come to claim Caltro’s half-coin in the same way, Kalid. A battle in the streets is worth nobody’s time and everybody’s attention. And with these recent deaths, the Chamber of the Code is currently out for blood. Never mind the Cloud Court and the emperor.’ She scuffed at the cracked earth and sand at her feet, feeling the ridges of stout wood beneath. ‘It would jeopardise our plan.’