by Ben Galley
‘That’s all,’ echoed Etane. Not a question.
The shade took on a ponderous look and leaned over the desk to look at the scrolls for himself. Rebene shrank back into his chair, feeling swallowed by its grand back, and tried to hide his lip-biting.
Etane hummed. ‘Overall, not very impressive.’
Rebene waved his hands at the scrolls, insulted at being brought to task by a house-shade, even if he did belong to the princess. ‘I am doing my best!’
Etane raised a doubtful eyebrow. ‘Allow me to help you. This Boran Temsa, he’s a dead lead. Your man—’
‘Woman.’
‘—Woman Heles is wrong.’
‘She’s rarely wrong. If ever.’
The shade shook his head. ‘Temsa is a distant relation of the Renala line. A far, far cousin, but is known to the Piercer nonetheless. He is a soultrader, not a stealer. Ignore him. Pour your resources into a more useful avenue, like this Astarti, or Berrix.’
‘I trust Heles—’
‘The empress-in-waiting does not, and frankly, she is displeased with your lack of progress, despite her donation of silver and shades. You’d better redouble your efforts, and catch this ambitious fucker before they pluck the courage to come for your head.’
Rebene felt cold seep into his cheeks as the colour drained from them like bathwater down a drain. ‘Her words? Or yours, shade?’
‘Hers. Verbatim.’ Etane winked then, rapped his knuckles on the desktop, and left.
The chamberlain sagged as the door slammed, wondering what witch or beldam had cursed him this day. He rested his forehead in his hands, and the sweat rolled down his wrists.
Etane strolled from the chamber and into the corridor with idle steps. He let the dry rush of air fan his blue vapours, making them curl around the seams of his suit. He wondered, had he a nose, whether it would scent musty papyrus and ink; the odour of endless towers of files and claims.
He passed one of the domed halls on his way out, and ducked to see the peaks of the scroll piles. On the floor of this strange forest, lit by disparate sun rays, scribes and proctors beavered away, their reeds never pausing as they flitted from paper tower to paper tower. It was strangely refreshing to see no glowing blue amongst their crowded number. No half-lives worked the Chamber’s halls. Only the living could be trusted to handle their matters.
Etane had reached the Chamber’s vast atrium and its black-clad, tattooed proctors when he heard an all too familiar voice.
‘Etane Talin. As I die and glow.’
He came to a stuttering halt. ‘Enlightened Sister Liria. And Sister Yaridin, too, I wager?’ He turned with a sigh, finding two shades loitering behind him. They were hooded and cloaked, and they had foregone their usual scarlet attire for a rusty brown colour.
‘How did you get in here?’ he demanded. ‘No cultist is allowed in the Core Districts.’
Liria smiled, showing no teeth. ‘It seems the Core Guards, the Chamber, and even the new soldiers of Sisine’s have no interest in us any more. Not while this murderer is afoot.’
Etane crossed his arms, avoiding the sisters’ glowing eyes. He looked to the vast queues instead, weaving around in tight geometric formations between the doorways and a seawall of ivory and marble. The desks were manned by people with sage expressions. Most of them seemed to have nothing to do but shake their heads.
How did these two circumvent the queues?
‘Who let you in?’ he asked.
‘You know better than most that we have our sympathisers,’ replied Liria.
Etane hadn’t bothered to give it thought. There was currently enough nonsense going on in Araxes to occupy his mind. ‘And what could you possibly want in the Chamber? Sneaking back into favour, are we? I should have a proctor drag you from the halls, if only to see the looks on your faces.’
‘And yet,’ Liria said in hushed tones, like scales sliding across sand, ‘you promised us loyalty, in return for our information.’
‘I did no such…’ Etane went to bite his lip. Still. After so many years. He remembered their conversation in the shadow of the banks. The deal he’d made. The deal he’d utterly forgotten about. ‘What are you doing here?’
Liria stepped around him, eyeing Etane as if she were planning how to climb him. ‘We have an appointment.’
Yaridin piped up. ‘A claim. We have not gone untouched by this chaos. Several of our free brothers have been stolen by miscreants taking advantage of the panic.’
Etane cackled. ‘What a shame. I’m surprised the Cult isn’t taking matters into its own hands.’
‘Church,’ Yaridin corrected him. ‘And we bow to the authority of the Code as deeply as we do to Sesh. These are new times, Etane. Unlike you, we move with them.’
‘Do you, now?’
Liria spoke up again. ‘That gold feather never suited you, brother.’
‘Freedom would.’ Yaridin raised a blue eyebrow.
Etane lifted his chin. ‘At the cost of wearing your crimson robes? Tried that. I am loyal, but not to you. Just you try and change it.’ He patted the hilt of his broadsword. ‘Freedom? Pah. I don’t see you trying to prise my half-coin from the royal vaults.’
Liria wagged a finger. ‘Hmm. Alas, our business awaits. As I’m sure Sisine awaits you.’
Yaridin chipped in again. ‘All these murders must be keeping her busy. We bid you a good day.’
They swept away from him, heading for the warren of corridors that led off from the atrium. Etane watched them until they were swallowed by the masonry and crowds. It was at times like this he wished he had spittle to decorate the ground with.
Striding out into a morning choked with the haze of a passing sandstorm, Etane walked west, towards the dark shadow of the Cloudpiercer. He could see its shining pinnacle above the murk, where yellow and orange bled into clear blue. He found himself rolling his eyes at it.
He took the next turn and approached a tar-black, iron-plated carriage waiting in the road. Two concentric circles of armoured men stood around it, spears tucked into the cobbles and bristling outwards like a sea urchin.
Etane gestured for them to move, and a narrow corridor parted, leading him to the carriage’s door. He opened it a fraction, enough to see Sisine’s face wreathed in a golden veil. Her eyes were narrowed and questioning.
‘Our good chamberlain suspects Temsa, but I made sure he won’t pursue him. Some slick scrutiniser sniffed him out. Rebene will steer clear and focus on some other miscreant instead.’
‘Good.’
‘I know you gave Temsa a slack leash besides those you named, but six tors, nine tals, a serek, a magistrate, and a dozen nobles? The man’s rabid. What are we—’
Sisine cut him off. ‘Is there anything else?’
Etane looked back to the bastion walls of the Chamber of the Code, rising high above the surrounding buildings, as though they had fallen prostrate before it. He thought of two crimson-cloaked shades worming their way through it.
‘No. Nothing. Apart from the fact that Rebene looks fit to pop. I hope putting all this pressure on him doesn’t come back to bite you – or the dog you’ve let loose on this city.’
Sisine scowled. ‘I’ll replace them both once I’m sat on that throne.’
‘Of course you will, Your Regalness.’ Etane barely managed to hide his impatience. Had he a brain, he swore it would have ached from all her insidious scheming. ‘Of course you will.’
He pulled the door wider to climb up, but she thrust out a foot bound in silver laces, blocking him.
‘Feel free to walk home,’ she said.
Etane forced a smile as he pushed the door shut. He heard the thump of her fist against the wood, and the carriage moved off slowly with the soldiers jogging alongside it, armour clanking long after they’d faded from sight.
‘Feel free,’ he whispered, with a curl of his lip.
Spending a hundred years indentured did not curb the yearning for freedom. It stoked it like the sun of the desert s
toked the Duneplains, day after day, until life itself bent before the heat.
Rebene had just about finished sweating when there came another knock at his door.
‘What is it now?’ he yelled, his voice hoarse from all the terse chiding of himself, the city, and all things royal.
The scribe poked her head around the door again.
‘Your next appointment.’
‘Why don’t I ever get to review these appointments?’
The scribe pushed the door open, revealing two skinny brush-strokes of rusty brown.
The chamberlain sat straighter in his chair. He scowled deeply. ‘What are they doing here?’
‘Enlightened Sisters Liria and Yaridin—’
‘I know who they are! I asked what they are doing here, in the Core! Fetch me the proctors!’
‘It will only take a moment, Chamberlain Rebene,’ interjected Liria, her voice floating effortlessly across the expanse of marble.
The scribe looked to the visitors, then to her employer, and shrugged. With a whimper, she retreated behind the door as the chamberlain roared after her.
‘I want to see my diary, woman!’
Silence answered. Rebene yelled once more.
‘Proctors! Scrutinisers!’
He did not try again. With a weary sigh and a pinch of his brows, he gestured for the shades to approach. They did so without a sound, gliding to the edge of his desk.
Rebene jabbed a finger at both of them. ‘You have moments before I have the proctors turf you out! Emperor Farazar’s orders still discourage your being here. Or twenty streets from here!’
The two sisters spoke in turn.
‘We come here with benevolent intentions.’
‘No meddling to be done.’
‘What has passed is the past.’
‘We wish no ill will on the city, Emperor Farazar, his family, or this Chamber.’
‘Or you, Chamberlain.’
‘Unlike some.’
‘Stop!’ Rebene yelped, holding up his palms. ‘Speak plain, Sisters. I haven’t the patience for riddles today.’
Yaridin put her hands on his desk. Rebene saw the polished wood fog at the touch of her cold skin. ‘You have a tumour in this city. A soulstealer bolder than any other you’ve ever seen. A murderer of wealthy tors, tals, sereks, and… magistrates.’
‘Slaughtering them in their own towers and bringing panic to the streets. We have heard the rumours and the worried whispers,’ added Liria. ‘The city treads on glass shards.’
‘Do you think I don’t know this? Have you come here to torture me?’
‘We want to help,’ Liria said.
Rebene thumbed his nose. ‘Why? Why would you want to help?
‘Our Church—’ Liria paused to let the chamberlain snort. ‘Our Church is committed to helping restore Araxes to its former glory. To its namesake. It is why we have recently opened our doors to the living as well as the dead. In doing so, crime could be washed from our streets.’
‘Instead of our streets being washed with blood.’
Rebene raised his hands to his vaulted ceiling. Part of him wished it would come crashing down, and end this troublesome day. First Ghoor’s murder, then the prick Etane, now these melancholy outcasts.
‘Wouldn’t that be wonderful. A pretty dream for any city! Tell me your great secret, then. What is this magical solution that’s escaped chamberlains and scrutinisers for thirty generations? And mark my words, if it involves the throne in any way, I’ll have your ghostly arses tossed to the flagstones!’
Yaridin smiled. ‘Allow us to assist you in guarding the streets.’
‘We have many shades who’ve earned their freedom from the Chamber of Military Might.’
‘They already help keep some of the Outsprawl districts safe.’
That was news to the chamberlain. Uncomfortable news. ‘Ridiculous…’ he croaked. ‘The emperor would never stand for it.’
Liria shook her head. ‘We have no intention of interfering.’
‘We will follow your every order.’
‘Our resources will be at your – and the emperor’s – disposal.’
Rebene held up his hands for quiet. His temples throbbed with the beginnings of a headache. ‘I…’ He looked at the scrolls still spread across his desk, their inked names dark against the white papyrus. Plain to see. He saw Yaridin’s eyes follow his, and read them.
‘We are aware of several of these men and women. Berrix. Astarti. Farassi,’ she said. ‘We have watched them for some time.’
Rebene’s hand paused in mid-air, undecided between snatching the scrolls back to his side of the desk, or dashing them to the floor. ‘Why? What business is it of yours?’
‘We have always dealt in information.’
‘For the city’s welfare, Chamberlain.’
‘The city’s welfare,’ Rebene echoed, and yet, shamefully, he could not think of anyone’s but his own.
Yaridin leaned closer. ‘It is a shame what happened to Ghoor. But in a way, perhaps his murder can provide opportunities for more than just his murderer.’
‘The seed of change.’
The chamberlain pressed his fingers to his aching forehead, thinking, balancing, trying to trace the threads of consequence as he had done as a young scrutiniser. He stayed like that for some time until the silence became heavy and uncomfortable. Until the cold of the sisters spread across his desk.
When Rebene looked up, his mouth was a thin line. ‘How many shades can you offer?’
The sisters smiled.
An hour had passed since the departure of the so-called Enlightened Sisters, and Rebene had yet to push himself up from his desk.
A pact. He had made a pact with the Cult of fucking Sesh. And with zero input from Emperor Farazar or the empress-in-waiting. Not even a magistrate had been consulted. The words had left his mouth like vomit after one beer too many. It was a good deal, by all accounts, seeing as it cost Araxes nothing yet bought thousands of shades. Information, too. And yet it hadn’t stopped the silence damning him for the past hour.
Shaky and slick with sweat, Rebene finally managed to reach his feet. The knocking on the door sent him straight back down again.
‘WHAT?!’ he shrieked. ‘I said no more!’
The door burst open, letting loose a stormy-faced Scrutiniser Heles into the room. There was lightning in her eyes and a glower on her face. If it were possible, even the tattoos swirling over her neck and through her shorn hair looked darker. Behind her, the scribe hopped from one foot to the other, utterly useless.
Rebene pressed himself into his chair, already hiding behind a hand.
‘Chamberlain Rebene!’ Heles barked, banging her palms on his desk. She poked at the gathered scrolls. ‘Why haven’t I heard anything about my report?’
At her cheek, he almost summoned the energy to give her the dressing-down of her career. Almost. Instead, he adopted a withering tone. ‘And what report is that, Scrutiniser Heles?’
‘The one on Boran Temsa. Tor Boran Temsa, if I can stomach to say it. I need men to move on him, and quickly too. You know better than anyone that I wasn’t Ghoor’s biggest fan, but he was one of our own. I believe Temsa’s the one behind it. Perhaps in league with old Tal Horix, too.’
Rebene spent an awkward moment brushing the creases out of his robe. He felt pinched, like the arms of his chair were the jaws of a vice – the Cult and the Crown – and now Heles was slowly winding them inwards.
‘No,’ he whispered.
Heles’ eyes became saucers. ‘What do you m—’
‘I said no, Heles!’ he yelled. ‘Temsa is not the man. You’re wrong. Look elsewhere.’
The scrutiniser took her time measuring her words. Rebene stewed in the meantime, trying not to bend under her avid, damning stare.
‘Twelve years,’ she said. ‘Twelve years, and when have you known me to be wrong?’
‘Once or twi—’
‘When?’
‘Fine. Neve
r. But there’s a first time for everything.’ Rebene started to gather the scrolls together. ‘I’m sorry, Scrutiniser Heles, but that’s an order.’
Heles leaned so far over the desk Rebene felt the heat of her breath. It was no more pleasant than the cold waft of the sisters.
‘Autonomy. You promised me, Chamberlain. Now is the wrong time to try and fuck me.’
Rebene stood. ‘Times are changing, Scrutiniser. It’s time you changed with them, as I intend to.’
Heles laughed then, and he had never heard a more mirthless laugh. It was the harsh and sudden crack of a whip, and he flinched.
‘Fine,’ she seethed. ‘Look elsewhere, eh? So I shall.’
With an animalistic snarl, Heles swept from the desk and barrelled towards the door. The handle popped clear as she slammed it behind her, most likely locking Rebene in his office.
With a groan, he sank back into his chair, fingers reaching up into his hair, grabbing a handful, and pulling until he roared.
Chapter 21
Spooks & Zealots
A thousand years is time enough for fables to evolve, and unsurprisingly, most Arctian fables involve ghosts. There are tales told in the desert quarries of phantoms of the dunes; great ghostly dunewyrms and giant antelope. Tales of ghosts changing shape into wolves or bat-like creatures, or screeching so loudly they can shatter glass. There are even stories of ghosts reaching through walls – or worse, reaching into a living body. Though the Tenets are absolute, there must be fear deep down in the populace over the fact the dead walk among them. It cannot help but bleed into their mythos.
From ‘Shadows around the campfire’, a historical study on folklore by Jim Jimin
In my armpit of a cell, I felt like some ape confined in a zoo for paying customers to gawp and laugh at. Except my visitors weren’t laughing, and I had no shit to hurl at them.
Curse my vaporous body.
Four visits I’d had that day. One from Temsa, checking his prize was still where his people told him it was. Two from Danib, flat-faced and dull as ever. And one again from another ghost, who was promptly told to scarper to the sound of a crashing tray.