by Ben Galley
The scroll went flying at him, landing at his feet. He took a moment to flatten it out and read it.
‘No, Princess,’ said Etane. He tossed the scroll on the nearest couch, but his eyes remained firmly on the plush carpet.
‘Look at me.’
He did so begrudgingly.
‘Did you know of this?’ Sisine asked again, louder and slower. The cotton curtains billowed around her.
‘No, Princess. I did not.’ Etane’s expression was firm but blank, and she stared into his white eyes to try and see the lies hidden there. It was useless. Whether he was well-practised or innocent, he had now let her down twice.
‘How am I supposed to claim the throne if I don’t stay ahead?’
‘With difficulty, Your Magnificentness.’
‘Or not at all!’ Sisine snatched up the scroll and strangled it, crushing its spindle. She wrenched the papyrus from it and stared at it once more against the light of the window.
‘“Your locksmith is dead and in the company of Tor Boran Temsa. Faithfully, a Concerned Party. X.”’ She read it aloud. ‘The gall of it! The impudence! The deceit!’
‘If I may—’
‘You may not!’ Sisine screeched. ‘You’re the one who told Temsa about Caltro Basalt in the first place.’
Silence fell and hung between them like a bad smell. When Etane felt brave enough, he continued.
‘Temsa has been using him well. And now we know where he is. He is ours again when we want him, and we’re back to your original plan. Just in time.’
Sisine cursed him under her breath. Etane’s most infuriating quality was being right more often than not. Deny it as vociferously as she might, he had the wisdom of almost a century behind him. He had watched these games play out a hundred times before. She cursed his age, and his smart tongue, and stared out of the window at the shades and peasants trundling about like sheep. She cursed them too, the fickle creatures.
‘Fetch my carriage. Guards. Soldiers. And I want the fastest horses.’
Etane got to his feet, but hesitated. Sisine cut him off before he could say a word.
‘NOW!’
Sisine was so fixated on the outside, her nose might as well have been pushed against the glass. She watched the passage of the city with an almost childlike avidity. Her eyes darted between the awnings and avenues, hunting for signs of red robes. Between the shade riders on black horses accompanying her carriage, all she glimpsed were mud-smeared citizens. Here and there, queues of people curved around the buttresses of spires, toting empty handcarts and wagons. They stretched to the steps and doors of grand warehouses. Over the rattle of the carriage wheels, Sisine swore she heard shouting, perhaps chanting. The scenes were snatched away from her before any sense could be made of them.
Etane remained silent. He had donned his armour, a relic as old as he was: an ornate cuirass with matching pauldrons, faulds and greaves, forged in layers of black and copper plates. Decorative glyphs ran along their sharp edges, seeming to dance as his vapours escaped from the gaps in the metal. Pereceph was strapped to his shoulders. Etane sat rigid, silent as marble, swaying with the motion of the hurried journey. He looked as if he had plenty to say, but Sisine had little desire to hear the shade speak. Instead she engrossed herself in trying to catch a glimpse of the Cult. Though it would be like drawing the point of a dagger down her arm, she needed to prove her spies and suspicions true. Her day was already lying in the gutter, she might as well kick it while it was down there.
Sisine was still staring out of the window when there came startled cries from outside the carriage. She saw her shade soldiers lower their spears, but there was no danger; just a pink pelican croaking loudly to itself as it swung low over the streets, a washing line and several scarves trailing from its rubbery foot. A few Chamber proctors were chasing it, trying and failing miserably to snatch the rope.
Sisine narrowed her eyes at it.
‘We’re here,’ announced Etane as the carriage halted moments later. ‘Temsa’s new abode.’
The empress-in-waiting looked up at the sandstone spire as she emerged into the hot sun, her chainmail armour all a-glitter with polished steel and inlaid gems.
‘Magistrate Ghoor’s tower, indeed. Audacious bastard.’
‘Better than a shit-smeared tavern in Bes District, Your Splendidness.’
‘Hmph.’
Sisine waited for the soldiers and her Royal Guard to form a sharp arrowhead for wading through the streets. Already she heard the low murmur of onlookers. The golden, armoured carriage was enough to draw eyes, never mind the flash of royal colours and the steel of a hundred soldiers. The flow of the streets ground to a halt, and the gathered crowds were promptly cleared aside by General Hasheti’s mute shades. The general himself walked at the head of the arrow, ordering bystanders out of the way with his sword raised.
Sisine pulled her silk veil over her head and face. She snuck glances through its shimmer. This was no poor district, but to the daughter of Emperor Farazar they were all poor compared. No silk shone so brightly as hers. No armour was as fine. No dyes matched the depths of her colours. No jewellery boasted such intricacy.
She noticed a few small children perched on shoulders to get a peek at her. Street artists madly sketched her entourage, bits of charcoal flying over their papyrus and parchment canvases. Beggars pushed through the finer crowds, hoping a mere glance of a princess would enrich their melancholic lives. Those at the edges, facing the soldier’s spears, bowed or sank to their knees.
Such was the secluded nature of the royals, and the danger of Araxes’ streets, that they were as myths come to life when they walked amongst the towers. Hers was a richness completely unattainable, mythic to most, and that made her a spectacle. Godly, even. As always, it also made her a target, hence her entire phalanx of soldiers. In the many eyes she passed over, she caught the glimpses of jealousy, that animalistic hunger, and the accompanying lick of the lips.
Sisine caught the look of a free shade, standing with his arm around a wife who was very much alive. Their eyes met briefly before she turned away, but it was enough for Sisine to recognise hatred.
‘Etane, have them raise the shields. I don’t want their filthy eyes on me,’ Sisine ordered.
The shade called to Hasheti and waved his arm. Moments later, the soldiers and guards changed position to make a barricade of shields that was two rows high and angled to hide her from even the tallest gawper, including those on beetle and horseback.
With the pounding rhythm of boots, they came to Temsa’s gates – or rather, old Ghoor’s gates. To Sisine’s surprise, they found no resistance at all. The lines of guards waiting in the walled-off courtyard did not challenge them. They merely kneeled awkwardly, as if they’d never tried it before. General Hasheti had his soldier shades march slowly, wary of an ambush.
‘Looks like he’s expecting us,’ Etane remarked in a hushed voice.
Sisine flexed her gloved fingers and raised her chin to a regal angle. ‘Good. Maybe he’s realised his shame.’
When they approached the large, half-moon doorway, clad in varnished wood and black iron, it parted with barely a whine. The two monstrous shapes of Temsa’s shade and bodyguard beckoned them inwards. Hasheti led the soldiers forwards, bunching into a column. They regained their triangle shape as they entered an expansive but austere atrium. The formation’s points rotated slowly to the jingle of mail and plate. Etane spent the wait staring at the giant armoured shade, Danib, who in turn had his white, burning eyes fixed on Etane and his mighty sword. Sisine tried to gauge the shades’ expressions. It was difficult through the narrow slits of their helms.
‘Welcome, Your Majesty!’ hollered a voice, interrupting her thoughts.
Sisine looked up to find Tor Temsa coming down the lavish, curving staircase, making a racket in the process with his cane and golden claws.
‘I imagined it might be time for a visit, now that I have new lodgings. More appropriate and less suspicious
when an empress-in-waiting feels like calling. Though, I must say, you’ve brought rather a lot of soldiers.’
‘One must, when dealing with those known for lying, cheating and murdering,’ Sisine called to him through a gap in her shield walls.
Temsa had made it to the marble floor. Now that he was close, he extended her a bow as deep as he could manage. Despite his striped silks of gold and sage, agate jewellery and abundance of rings on his fingers, he seemed more haggard than when last they had met. Powder and makeup had done nothing for him. Stress sat beneath his eyes and there were plenty of strays in his uncombed hair and sharp beard. There was a deep gash on his forehead, curved like a sickle, and his knuckles were dark with scrapes and bruises.
‘You describe me well, Your Majesty. But you seem perturbed by this,’ he replied. ‘To what do I owe this imperial pleasure?’
She shook her head. ‘Privacy, Tor. Then we will speak.’
Etane and forty soldiers peeled from the formation, leaving the rest behind in the atrium. Temsa led them up the stairs at a slow pace, but it gave Sisine time to shape her words. The carriage ride had not been enough.
As it turned out, ‘privacy’ was almost fifty bodies crammed into a red-velvet dining hall. A huge marble table ran its length. Sisine and her large majority occupied one end of it, while at the other end sat Temsa, his looming colleagues, and a smattering of black-clad guards. Temsa didn’t seem perturbed by the fact that the emperor’s daughter had come knocking unannounced, and wore a face as threatening as a battle-line.
Sisine decided she needed answers first if she were going to corner him. It had been a day of surprises, and she was not enthused at the prospect of more.
‘Why Serek Finel?’ she snapped. She spoke openly, knowing the soldiers around her were tongueless. Hasheti had remained downstairs to watch Temsa’s black-armoured cronies lounge about the pillars.
Temsa drummed his ringed fingers on the table. ‘Finel was richer than most and far out of the core.’
‘And yet you failed, from what I’ve been told.’
‘Failed, Majesty?’ Temsa looked confused. ‘I think not.’
‘You set his zoo loose on the streets and brought the Chamber crashing in. The whole city is in uproar. The Cloud Court has refused to gather.’
Temsa thumbed his nose, looking between Danib and the woman. Something Jexebel. Jexebel simply shrugged, looking distinctly bored, while the shade only had eyes for Etane. They were still locked in a duel of stares.
‘Well?’ demanded Sisine.
With a sigh, Temsa reached for something beneath his chair.
The bloody head came to rest on the marble tabletop with a squelch. Sisine was no stranger to death – she saw it every day in Araxes, frozen in the blue wounds of the half-lives – but this made her gorge rise. Perhaps it was because the last time she had seen this head, it had been attached to a living serek, leering down at her from the galleries of the Cloud Court.
One of Finel’s eyes was missing. A ruined hole remained, showing her brain and skull. The other eye was turned to the gold-leaf ceiling. The serek’s jaw hung open in a broken smile, and judging by the carnage around his neck, it looked as though Finel’s head had been ripped off, not cut. Sisine’s eyes slipped from the grotesque sight to the huge shade covering it in shadow.
‘Serek Finel’s body is far below us, already bound. His half-coins are being transferred as we speak.’
‘And the banks don’t grow suspicious?’
Temsa nodded, looking weary. ‘My bank is no doubt getting fat and handsome off the profits from my half-coins. Even if they weren’t, I’ve given the directors enough reasons to keep their lips shut too. Another Weighing and I might just make serek.’
Sisine didn’t relish the thought of this gargoyle sat on the Cloud Court, if it ever convened again. ‘What success you have had, Tor Temsa,’ she said, catching Jexebel rolling her eyes, ‘despite only seeing to one target on my carefully constructed list. Even then, you couldn’t crack her vault, so instead you burned her tower to ashes.’
The little man stretched in his chair, entwining his fingers behind his head as if he were ready for a nap. ‘Got the job done though, right? You wanted chaos. I’ve delivered it.’
Sisine pushed her way forwards, scattering soldiers so she could spread her palms on the long table. They quickly reassembled around her, flowing like autumn leaves chasing hurried steps. She felt their cold sweep through the gaps in her chainmail.
‘Do not dare toy with me, man! You are lucky I haven’t ordered my soldiers to make you look like Serek Finel there,’ she hissed, pulling at the tension in the room like it was a bowstring. Danib stood taller. Jexebel patted her axe. Etane rested his huge sword on the edge of the table. There was silence.
‘And yet,’ Sisine continued, looking around the velvet walls, ‘you managed Ghoor easily enough.’
Again, Temsa looked confused, though this time it looked genuine. It was time to pounce. She reached inside her folds of silk and threw a scrap of papyrus at him. He watched it skitter across the tabletop and nudged it with a bloody knuckle.
‘What’s this?’
‘The secret to your recent success, it seems.’
Curiosity got the better of him and he gingerly opened the ball of papyrus. The empress-in-waiting sneered. Everybody knew the old tricks of hiding powders and poisons in messages. She was not that cheap. She liked to stare her enemies in the face. That way she could watch that delicious moment where they realised they had failed.
Temsa must have read the glyphs several times, but no inkling of failure or any similar emotion crossed his face. Only vexation. When he was done, he re-crumpled the papyrus and ground his thumb into his forehead. He remembered his wound and flinched.
His next word was a snarl. ‘Horix.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘The bitch who sent this message. Widow Horix.’
‘I do not give a golden fuck who sent it, Temsa. I want to know if it is true! Do you have Caltro Basalt in your possession?’
‘No!’ he snapped. ‘Though it was true. That Krass bastard escaped me during the raid on Serek Finel.’
Sisine threw her hands to the ceiling. ‘What a disappointment you are turning out to be, Boran Temsa! I should have you stoned and pulled apart by horses for your insolence and betrayal—’
The putrid little man burst from his chair and slammed his palms on the table. ‘I know where he is!’
Sisine listened to the creaking of gauntlets gripping spear-shafts around her. Etane’s sword grated against the marble, like a fiddler preparing his strings.
Temsa continued, calmer now. His hands left streaks of sweat on the marble as they withdrew. ‘In fact, Empress-in-Waiting, I was just planning how to reclaim him before you arrived so unexpectedly.’
‘Were you indeed? And at which point were going to tell me, your empress-in-waiting, about any of this? My shade explicitly ordered you to keep me informed!’
Temsa flashed her a glance under heavy brows, childlike, as if he had just been told off for guzzling too many sweets. ‘When I had him back, obviously,’ he growled. ‘Caltro Basalt’s half-coin belongs to a tal by the name of Widow Horix. She’s an old crone that appears at the soulmarkets occasionally. I sold her Caltro not knowing who or what he was, and after Tor Busk stole him from her, I happened across the shade in the streets. Naturally I put him to good use, for our mutual benefit. But Horix is a meddling bitch, and she sent a spook by the name of Crale to come oust him. That failed, thanks to Danib, but Caltro got big ideas and slipped away during the attack on Finel, sneaking back to his mistress Horix, I’d wager. Before his escape, my intentions were to reclaim his coin. For you, Majesty, of course. I ask you, what use was it delivering you a shade that wasn’t mine to give? A half-life that could be snuffed at any moment by a widow’s whim? Now, I am a position to both claim Caltro’s coin and stop Horix from interfering. I intend to do so promptly. Tomorrow night, in fact.’ Temsa for
ced a polite smile. ‘With your permission, of course, Majesty.’
‘I see,’ Sisine replied. It was an irritatingly sound argument, even if it did sound like Temsa had just yanked it out of his arsehole. The man had lied to her once already. That was not to be forgotten, nor forgiven. She stared deep into his bloodshot eyes, searching them for sign of deeper lies. ‘What else are you keeping from me, I wonder? Is there anything beyond your own carelessness that may affect our arrangement?’
Temsa answered quickly and firmly. ‘No, Empress-in-Waiting. There is not.’
‘Then consider our business concluded, for now. You may deal with this Widow Horix, but I wish to be there.’ With some satisfaction, Sisine watched Temsa’s jaw clench. ‘To add some royal supervision and ensure you don’t fail me again. And after I have Caltro’s coin, you will remove another serek from his tower.’
‘Who might that be?’
‘Serek Boon. I want him turned to smoke. And soon.’
Temsa nodded sagely. ‘Right you are, Majesty. He’ll be taken care of sure enough, after Horix.’
‘Until tomorrow.’
Silks flailing, mail ringing, Sisine withdrew, though her eyes stuck fast to Temsa’s even as her soldiers swarmed about her. It was only when the door slammed that the stare was broken.
Before the echoes had died, and before she was treading the stairs, Sisine had already made up her mind. She decided to tell Etane. Decisions grow flesh when spoken aloud.
‘That man’s time in this city is growing rather short.’
Temsa pushed himself back from the table, eyeing Finel’s matted and bloodied hair. He distracted himself with ripping chunks of calloused skin from his fingertips.
As he pondered, Ani began to walk away, muttering to herself. Confused, a few guards trailed in her wake.
‘And where do you think you are going, m’dear?’ Temsa called after her.
She didn’t bother to turn around. ‘To see to the spoils. The binders have been grumbling about running out of Nyxwater.’
Temsa was on his feet in an instant, nails scraping at the marble. ‘You face me when you speak to me, Ani!’