by Ben Galley
Nilith shook her head, but Heles pressed on.
‘I’ve walked these blood-stained streets, same as you. I’ve seen the downtrodden. The beggars. The fear in the face of every tourist caught out after sunset. The lepers slitting their wrists just for release. The Code is a poison, Nilith! A plague that eats away at vapour and blood and bone alike. I’d wager it won’t just be shades that will stand for you. Take away the Code and you give them hope. Even the smallest pinch of it, to a soul that has none, is reason to fight! You shrug off the title of Majesty, but you would make every fucker in this city feel like an emperor or empress. Just for a moment.’
Nilith had been measuring Heles’ words carefully. As much as she wanted them to crumble and show their nonsense, they were proud and gleaming words. Truthful, and reminiscent of the same speeches she had made to a burnished silver mirror not too many months ago. She thought she had conquered the desert, but its punishing grit was still lodged in her. Not under fingernails or in her hair, but in her mind. She had survived, rather than conquered, and the weakness it had taught her clung on. Hearing Heles’ words made Nilith feel as if she had been picked up and shaken out, like a sandal full of sand. It didn’t rid her of all of it, for weakness is a stubborn thing, but that burden was lighter again. Enough to nod, and slide the rags back over her freezing arm. The heat of the night had done nothing for it. She heard the whine of a breeze outside the board.
‘Just for a moment,’ she repeated.
Heles clenched her hands in the air, as if grasping for something intangible. She bared her teeth. ‘Just for a moment, and this cursed city will change. You will be far from alone.’
‘You make some fine points,’ Nilith relented. With a sigh, though not one so heavy as to drag her into the dust, she got to her feet. She stretched with a grimace and sheathed the sword again. ‘Besides, I think I have a good idea for a distraction.’ She patted her chest, where the old leather bundle of powder hung.
Heles growled affirmatively, and helped her ready Anoish and the stinking bundle. Farazar hadn’t said a word all afternoon. That could have been because of the rags they’d stuffed in his mouth, but who knew? Maybe he was contemplating his behaviour.
Laying hands to the boards, Heles and Nilith shared a look. The empress tried a smile. It was an old movement, rusty like boat-chains, but satisfying.
‘After you, Your Majesty,’ she said.
Heles cracked a smile of her own, and she looked just as foreign to it. ‘Why, thank you.’
With that, the scrutiniser ducked out beneath a board.
The tarred burlap sack came down over her head in a black blur. The butt of a dagger followed fast behind it, and with a thud, Heles went limp.
Chaser Jobey’s foul mood had not waned in days. If anything, it had only grown fouler with every step.
Inner Araxes perturbed him. He was a desert man. Sprawls-born. He was of the entrenched opinion that so many bodies so close together in one place was not good for sanity. Even though there seemed to be a troubling quiet in the city, he was itching to be on the open roads again, hunting fresh debtors.
Once this bitch and her shade are in a cage.
The shrouded slatherghast at his side was leading him in a straight line north, but on nothing more than a faint trail. They had travelled day and night, and the creature had only given him the occasional hiss to change direction a notch or two. The ghast could scent in ways hounds only dreamed of, but this was a city of shades. Any hound would be distracted in a butcher’s shop. Jobey’s arm ached savagely from keeping the creature on a short leash.
More than once, Chaser Jobey had shamefully flaunted with the idea of giving up. Of finding some unsuspecting woman and shade and passing them off as the debtors. It shocked him to be considering such ideas, after all his years of impeccable service. Not since he had been fresh to the job had similar thoughts crossed his mind. Such was the frustration this woman had caused him.
A lonely gull, still riding what was left of the day’s thermals, mewed above him. Jobey flinched, throwing up his hands. His sleeve caught against a scab on his eye and he cursed quietly to himself.
He was dabbing blood from his brow when the slatherghast opened its jaws wide, and let loose a disturbing gurgle. Its claws grasped at the chill air, pointing down a curving street that split off from theirs.
Jobey tugged the leash, all buckles and leather, but the ghast refused to budge.
‘That way?’
A hiss.
‘Are you sure?’
The ghast strained on its leash, and that was answer enough. Jobey clicked for his horse, and the beast followed dutifully. He wished he had not abandoned his wagon, but chases through the streets of Araxes were best suited to legs, not wheels.
The creature led him on, leaving a moist trail in the dust behind it. The ripped grey cloak that Jobey had wrapped it in did little to disguise the ghast’s gruesome features, but nobody had looked closely enough to worry him. It seemed there were more interesting things afoot in the city. He suspected the smoking Cloudpiercer he had seen in the afternoon had something to do with it.
Another gasp from the ghast, and Jobey followed its intent gaze to another road, split off from the first. After a few minutes, it led to a vacant space that looked like a market of some kind. A soulmarket, if Jobey wasn’t mistaken. He recognised the loops for manacle chains and the pens for unsold shades. Uncouth, was what it was. Chilling, if he was honest. The Consortium didn’t dirty itself with the business of death and shades. It had realised a long time ago that silver, plain old silver, was better for the soul. It didn’t involve giving it up for eternal servitude, for one.
The slatherghast was growing impatient. It wriggled something awful and began to gouge furrows in the sand with its blue claws. Its tendrils poked clear of its shroud. They seemed to be pointing to a certain corner. Jobey tugged the leash hard, eliciting a choking noise from the ghast. With a growl, it relented, dribbling black spit on the stones while it waited for its master to follow its suggestion.
Jobey knew ghasts well enough to know when they had picked up the scent of their almost-kill. He narrowed his eyes, trying to blink the lamplight from them. The only light was the faint glow of stars hidden behind awnings and a day’s worth of smoke. At his feet, a faint blue stained the dust, emanating from the ghast’s jaws. Then he saw it: a thin yellow hair of light, escaping from the boards of a shuttered shop across the market.
His heart flinched. Lost hope flourished anew. A broad smile crept across his split and scabbed lips.
‘You’re mine.’
Creeping closer, keeping the ghast quiet and still as best he could, he stalked the shop. At its corner, where wooden furniture had been stacked, he heard voices. Jobey strained his ears. Two women, he guessed. His nostrils held the smell of horse and rotting body.
He caught some muffled words.
‘You’re not alone, Majesty…’ said one of the voices.
The chaser’s eyes grew wide, aching at the edges. A majesty? He thought back to the journey from the Sprawls, while the woman had taunted him from her cage. Her demeanour had been very regal, now that he considered it… No. It can’t be.
The voices continued, and he listened to broken remnants of the conversation. ‘…empress of the dead… lepers slitting wrists… Take away the Code… give them hope!’
The slatherghast whined, stealing the rest of those words away from him, but what interesting words they had been. Jobey tied the creature to a nearby column. Its work was done. The thing snapped its jaws, and he held a finger over his lips.
He heard another whisper as he moved back to the boards. ‘Just a moment…’
‘Just a moment.’
Jobey began to slide a tarred sack from his belt, and a pair of shackles he’d found for this very moment. His hands shook, though not with nervousness, but pleasure. There were always three stages to every chase: the letting loose, the catch, and the delivery. The catching stage was always
the most gratifying and now, he was about to capture an empress. An empress who owed the Consortium a debt. Oh, how the directors would be pleased.
He tucked himself against the boards, the sack poised in his hands. He listened to the sound of a horse’s hooves, and feet shuffling across flagstones. They sounded weary, and Jobey grinned in the darkness.
Voices again. Inches away. ‘After you, Your Majesty.’
A shuffle of feet. Fingernails on wood. ‘Why, thank you.’
Jobey swung the bag over the woman’s head, clutching her neck in the crook of his elbow. A knife appeared in the other, menacing the other woman who burst through the boards with a cry.
‘No!’ Nilith yelled, trying to tug the sword from her belt. Anoish whinnied, rearing up, kicking two planks far into the market. They clattered against awning poles, shattering the quiet of nightfall.
‘It is over!’ yelled the man, all dressed in black. His face was hidden in the thick darkness but his accent was clear. She spied the slatherghast tied up behind him, straining for her, not Heles. She felt the wobble in her arm as she saw its glowing jaws part.
‘You let her go right now!’ Nilith ordered.
Chaser Jobey wrestled Heles for a moment before he answered. He hadn’t hit her hard enough, and she was already coming to. The knife was pressed against her face. ‘Keep still!’ he warned her. ‘And not likely, madam! Keep the horse and shade. This woman’s debt to the Consortium will be paid by her own titles!’
‘You fucking—’ Nilith stopped herself, thrown by the reply. Her tired mind caught up. He thinks Heles is me.
There came a resounding click of irons around wrists. ‘It is none of your business! Refrain from interfering, and you may keep your life!’ Jobey was reaching for the leash now, fiddling with it while he balanced the knife with two fingers. Nilith made to chase him, but the blade came back to Heles’ throat quickly enough.
‘Stay back, I say! This woman is the Consortium’s property now!’ he warned. Anoish was whinnying something awful. The horse was still trying to kick his way out of the shop. Over his noise, Nilith swore she heard the clank of armour somewhere nearby. She began to sweat.
‘Go!’ yelled Heles, muffled through the sack.
‘Listen to your empress, madam!’
Nilith bit her lip. She heard scattered voices now, raised in urgency. ‘I won’t!’ she hissed.
The scrutiniser was insistent. ‘Do it!’
It was at that moment the slatherghast turned on its own leash, savaging it with dead fangs until the leather fell to blackened ash. Bursting from the column, it slithered straight for Nilith, leaving Jobey panicking.
‘Not that one!’ he cried.
Mouth gaping in horror, Nilith watched the monster come at her; glistening talons reaching, jaws glowing and wide. She would have frozen had a voice not yelled at her, so deep in her mind it echoed like a landslide.
‘MOVE!’
Nilith sidestepped as the ghast leapt for her. Vaporous claws snagged the cloth of her chest as the monster sailed past. Had it eyes, she no doubt would have seen a surprised look in them. It snarled as it hit the ground. Nilith was already standing over it, sword raised and ready.
‘Oh, shit!’ cried a woman’s voice.
All too late did Nilith hear the slap of bare feet on sand, and see the dark shape barrelling from behind the corner of the shop. A woman slammed into Nilith’s side, knocking the empress straight to the ground. Her assailant cartwheeled into a heap, but not before seeing the slatherghast writhing to right itself.
‘Thefuckisthat!’ cried the woman. Her voice cracked, going deeper momentarily.
Nilith was on her feet in a blink, sword point facing the ghast and the pommel pressed against her ribs. With a roar rising through bared teeth, she charged it. The ghast squealed as it rose up to meet her with disturbing delight. Its claws swung at her, but not before she had driven the blade into its throat. The blue jaws flashed white as they gnashed down on the sword’s metal. Something in the blade stung it, fighting back, and the ghast writhed in anguish. It was all Nilith could do to duck the thrashing claws.
Nilith felt hands around her ribs, dragging her backwards and driving her to the ground again. The sword came with her, stubbornly sticking to her palms. The slatherghast continued to writhe, snapping its jaws between retches of black blood. Its tendrils were rigid with pain. Nilith rolled away as it gnashed at her boots. The woman next to her yelped, and dragged her feet clear.
The sword found the slatherghast again, though this time its neck. The blade sheared completely through its pallid flesh and gelatine bones, and the ghast sagged to the floor in two pieces, twitching sporadically.
At a strangled cry of anger from behind her, Nilith whirled around to find Jobey disappearing behind a wooden stage. Heles was still in his grasp, struggling just enough to keep him occupied. Nilith made to start after them, but she wrestled herself back.
The woman spoke up, making her flinch. She was still in the dust, feet tucked into her chest. She was pointing at the carcass, which was leaking obsidian blood and yellow bile. ‘Seriously, what the fuck was that?’ she asked, breathless.
For the first time in the poor light, Nilith recognised the leathers of a cheap street-guard, and the shorn dark hair of an Arctian. She held the sword to the woman’s throat before she could rise.
‘Move and die,’ Nilith muttered. ‘You almost got me killed. Who are you?’
The guard shifted away, despite her warning. She looked itchy to run.
‘Stop moving!’ Nilith cried.
Before she could whack the woman with the flat of the blade, Nilith’s eyes appeared to deceive her. Blue vapour pulled from the guard’s body, as if her soul was fleeing too fast and forgetting her body. The ghost of a man with a cut throat appeared behind her, face scrunched up with effort, his mists still trailing behind him. With a grunt and a snap of white light, he tumbled from her form and scrambled in the sand. The guard flopped over, completely overcome by the experience.
Nilith didn’t blame her. She was still trying to keep her eyes in her sockets while the ghost found his feet and started to run. She had just gathered the wherewithal to shout when somebody beat her to it. It was a man’s voice, bodiless, and it was coming from her hip.
‘Caltro!’ he cried.
The ghost stumbled, head craned over his shoulder.
In her shock, Nilith scrambled to be rid of the sword, throwing it to the ground.
‘Caltro Basalt!’ the sword called again.
Dead weight was a difficult thing to cart even a few paces, never mind four streets.
Chaser Jobey threw Heles onto the bed of a wagon with a curse in a tongue she’d never heard. The smell of the tarred burlap wrapping her face was offensive, but she endured for Nilith. It would buy her some time before Jobey realised he was a fucking fool.
Heles had caught him chuntering over the loss of that foul creature she’d heard gnashing and wailing. Dying, if her ears hadn’t deceived her, and for the merrier. But there had been another voice in the commotion, too, unknown. Man or woman, or both, she hadn’t been able to tell. Wrestling that worry into trust had been difficult, but Heles relied on the fact the empress could handle herself.
‘You thought you could outrun me, and yet here we are once again. I told you, in all my years I’ve never missed my mark,’ the chaser was bragging. Heles heard the clinking of bridles and reins. ‘And what an interesting turn of events. I must say, Your Majesty, you are going to make me very popular indeed.’
Heles chuckled in her sack, making Jobey pause.
‘You go right ahead, Chaser Jobey. Drag me back to your Consortium. I’d like to have a look at you all before I dispense my justice.’
She hoped that had sounded haughty enough. Krass enough. The empress’s accent was a strange mix of empire and foreign, but the burlap muffled Heles enough to maintain the ruse. She might have been playing a part, but justice was precisely what she wanted for these pe
ople.
‘Your royal blood means nothing now. Not now it’s been poisoned by my ghast.’ That last word was tight. ‘I wonder how long until it claims you.’
Heles was jolted about as he climbed aboard. Hands pawed at her neck, and she shrugged them away, thankful she still wore yards of cloth. He snorted. ‘I shall just have to be swift then, shan’t I?’
With a snicker, Jobey wrapped a rough bag of sackcloth about her head, tied her hands with twine, and pushed her flat on the wagon. Heles too hoped the journey would be a short one; she didn’t fancy baking in the morning sun.
Chapter 20
Threads
They say the Krass are a noble race. I don’t see it. Their cities do not stretch for the skies as ours do. Seasons and snow mean their roads and streets are full of muck, as well as horse and goat shit. They do not even embrace binding as we do. In weeks, our armies could crush them. Why is this marriage even necessary? Must I entertain such a peasant of a wife?
From a letter written by Emperor-in-Waiting Farazar to Emperor Milizan in 982
We darted through the night until the sun came up. Like rabbits running from a fox, we scampered here and there, dodging every glance of light or echoing voice. North was our average direction, back the way I had run. Patrols came and went, but we – this woman, her corpse-laden horse, her bundled ghost, my sword and I – shunned them, taking canyon-like alleys between the growing press of buildings. Though I swore they hunted me, she moved like she was the prey. All I cared about were answers. Every attempt to get them had been met with a curt hiss. Words had been few between us. Conversation nil. She had told me to run, and I had run.
Her rags had fallen away in her fight. The heat of running had made her discard more. On the edges of lantern and torchlight, or when we crouched beside her horse, I studied her face.