by Ben Galley
‘With the explosion, and with Sesh crumbling to the ground, dozens of souls were caught in his path.’ Nilith showed me three more half-coins in her bloody palm, turned stained and grey. ‘I never got to speak to my daughter again,’ she said, her voice hollow. ‘I had hoped she would have understood.’
‘She will,’ I said. ‘In the afterlife.’ It was the only comfort I could give her.
Nilith wiped her bloody nose. ‘Hirana is also gone. Temsa somehow survived, like the cockroach he is. He’ll get what’s coming to him.’
‘What’s next then, besides gutting the Cult’s cathedral?’ asked the falcon. It was a heavy and cumbersome question, one I certainly had no answer for. I was still too preoccupied with merely standing up.
‘That is the great question, isn’t it, Bezel?’ she sighed. ‘Almost as great as how you did it, Caltro?’
‘Did what?’
‘How you brought us all together at the last minute. How you made a monster out of all that rage and anger and fear. How did you do it?’
I smiled, looking up at the sky once more. ‘You’re the one who told me of fate, Nilith. You should know better than I do. Dead gods’ will or luck, every one of us, villain or hero, came together here at the final hour. That was by some design, not an accident. I should know. I’ve spent my entire life working out the designs of smarter minds.’
Nilith opened her mouth to question me, but closed it as she saw a throng of soldiers making their way across the battlefield. Survivors reached out to touch their shields and cloak-hems, but they were poked aside with long poles just as firmly as the corpses underfoot. I could see two figures at the centre of their formation, and what looked like a horse. One was a woman in black cloth, hobbling. The other was a noble-looking man, swaddled in armour so fine and intricate it somehow looked fit enough attire for a ballroom. His hair was an oily stripe across his bald, tanned skull.
I recognised the woman somehow, but I didn’t know how. There was a keen, ever-roaming look in her eye that guards and people of the law tended to have. It made the thief in me wary.
‘Empress!’ called the woman, and the soldiers parted either side of us.
‘By the dead fucking gods. Heles!’ Nilith embraced the woman warmly, if stiffly, given the number of wounds and bruises both of them sported. I was not far behind them, with white lines crisscrossing my naked, glowing body.
Heles. I knew that name.
Nilith pushed past the soldiers to the horse, Anoish. The poor beast was missing one ear, was criss-crossed with lacerations, and was limping sorely, but like his mistress, there was a glint in this chestnut eyes that was long for the grave. Nilith pressed her forehead to the horse’s nose for the briefest of moments.
‘This is your doing?’ The empress was breathless, as if she abruptly recognised the armour around her. Heles didn’t reply, transfixed by the patch of vapour around Nilith’s throat and jaw.
‘Somewhat,’ replied the woman. ‘When Jobey took me instead of you, I thought I’d see if I could make you some allies.’
‘What? So who are you?’ Nilith asked of the noble. She seemed agitated, and almost crumpled to her knees when another man appeared between the soldiers, covered in silks and gold chains.
‘No!’ Nilith began to cry, but both men raised their hands.
The noble introduced himself with a stiff bow, barely more than a nod. He too was held rapt by the glowing jawbone and black flesh around Nilith’s cheek. ‘Director Raspanar, if you please. I represent the Consortium, and I might be able to offer an explanation. After Chaser Jobey brought Scrutiniser Heles to us, mistaking her for you, she informed us of your intentions to bring change to Araxes. A change that we were most interested in helping you to achieve. The Consortium voted in favour of standing by you, but as we arrived to do precisely that, we saw the massacre underway. We are businessmen, Empress, and though the cost has been great,’ Raspanar paused to look around at the wreckage of the plaza, ‘we wager the reward to be most profitable.’
Nilith had not taken her eyes off Jobey. ‘And my so-called debt?’
‘Forgotten, in exchange for your favour. As is Scrutiniser Heles’, who wagered her life against your success here today. The Consortium are not the threat you believe we are. We can be of great use to you, Empress, and it appears you need our help now more than ever. That is, if such chaos has not deterred your thirst for the throne?’
Nilith raised her chin. ‘I have every intention of ruling, Director. I’ve fought for this city thus far. I refuse to abandon it now. Even if there is little of it left to rule,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid you’re not speaking to the ruler of this empire.’
Raspanar looked immediately flustered. ‘What?’
‘This here is the Emperor,’ Nilith sighed, pointing a shaky hand at me, still taking a knee in the dirt. ‘After all, it’s he who holds Farazar’s half-coin. He’s the one that saved Araxes. Hell, maybe even the Reaches. I was the one who trusted the Cult.’
‘We all trusted them,’ I ground out the words. ‘That’s what they do. They use trust as a weapon, preying on desperation and desire until they’re right behind you with a knife.’
I felt all eyes turn on me, even those of the stoic Consortium soldiers. All I did was cradle the emperor’s coin in my hand, letting it burn against my vapours and send white sparks shooting across my fingers. With much effort, I stood upon my weak legs.
How the fuck did I get here? I asked myself, but found no answer in my head. The silence pained me. I wished for Pointy’s voice. My surrogate conscience.
From thief to emperor. My parents, dead gods rest them, might have been proud of me, even if this was the most sordid, sprawling empire on earth. And now a broken-hearted one, its soul poisoned. Once more, my gaze wandered over the plaza, lit with a copper hue by the sun slipping between the western buildings. Above us, amidst the last wisps of smoke and ash in the east, powder-blue sky clung on to the last moments of daylight. Brushstrokes of high cloud turned to fire, like funeral pyres for the dying sun. The countless spires and towers were visible now. I had almost forgotten how many poked at the sky, and how far they stretched into the burning horizon. It would be a feat to count them, never mind rule them. Even the notion of such responsibility began to crush me with the weight of the Cloudpiercer.
In the short time we had stood there, the injured and the lost had already begun to gather about us. Their hollow eyes looked for a saviour. Or answers. Even somebody to blame.
I was a son of the Krass steppes, a healer’s son. I was a thief, a locksmith, probably the finest in the known world. I had survived death, played the game of Araxes and won, been begged by the god of gods, and of late, even become a hero to some. And yet, I could be no emperor. My fight had not been for the throne, but for justice and freedom, and I had those.
‘Trust me,’ I said, holding the half-coin up to the sunlight to stare at it, wondering, just like everybody present, how exactly it had ended up in my hands. I sighed. ‘I’d do a horrible job. Instead of a city of ghosts and murderers, you’d likely have a city of drunkards and thieves.’
Nilith cracked a half-dead smile. ‘You can always count on a Krassman to tell you exactly what he’s thinking. Your sharp tongue has brought your this far, Caltro Basalt. May it keep you safe a little longer.’
With that, I handed Nilith her coin, and washed my glowing hands of it. I looked around at the battered Heles, the squinting, suspicious Raspanar, and the soldiers flanking us.
‘Speaking of drunkards,’ I asked, ‘is it me, or does anybody else fancy a cold beer?’
Two days had passed since the Battle of Araxes. Though the city survived, it had been wounded, almost mortally so. It had curled in upon itself like a dying hound. The streets remained empty but for Consortium soldiers, workers, and corpse piles. Towers stayed sealed. Doors remained firmly locked and barred. Trade ships lingered in the bay of the Troublesome Sea, unwilling to dock amidst such rumours of madness. Even the parrots a
nd rooks and pigeons seemed subdued. They must have felt it, too, the same as every soul left in the city: the scent of death still hung heavy in the air. No matter how fast the workers tried to clear the bodies away and surrender them to the shattered Grand Nyxwell, with every passing day the sun beat down it grew fouler, and fouler.
Fifty thousand so far. Still climbing, they said. And still no ghosts arose from the dead.
With Sesh destroyed, Araxes had no argument over Nilith’s banishment of the Code. The Nyx had begun to flow once more, but to everybody’s abject surprise, in the opposite direction. It remained the river of the afterlife, it seemed, but without the power of binding. Not a soulmarket had opened its doors since the battle, and not a soul had been bound. The Nyxites had disbanded seemingly overnight once they realised the hold of copper over a corpse had crumbled. Word had it thousands of ghosts were gathering at Nyxwells across the city to drown their coins and claim the afterlife. As despicable as it sounded, the Cult’s flood of chaos had helped turn Araxes against the Nyx. Even Farazar, offered banishment or the afterlife by Nilith, had chosen the new afterlife. The promise of duat that had been missing for a thousand years. Only Boran Temsa was not given such a choice. Nilith had decided the Cloudpiercer dungeons were the best place for him; a private cell where he could spend the years in darkened silence, lacking sleep, sensation and forever cold, just like all the ghosts he’d bound and traded over the years. He had been far from happy with that sentence. I’d taken some pleasure in watching his rage melt to horror as Nilith had swung the cell door shut. It was a fitting end for the scourge of Araxes.
It appeared the Cult’s flood had spread further across the city than just the Grand Nyxwell. I was told the Chamber had been practically destroyed. Half the Nyxite warehouses, too. Even a dozen banks of Oshirim District. Soulstealer gangs in the Outsprawls had been crushed. Even the Consortium had been attacked, on some level. But no more. The surviving cultists had been chased as far as the Duneplains. The Katra Rassan had been broken open and filled with boiling oil and rubble by a vengeful army of citizens. A torrent of red clothes had filled the skies and gutters on the first day, as every scrap of the despicable colour had been ousted by noble and urchin alike. The pyres of charred cloth still smoked here and there amongst the streets. I had watched it all from the balconies and broken windows of the Cloudpiercer.
Two days had passed, and still I had not left the tower, ruined and strewn with corpses as it was. Instead, I had roamed its endless floors and its many vacant rooms. I played thief for myself, for the first time since arriving in Araxes, plucking at abandoned lockboxes and drawers in my boredom and uselessness. This new future of the Arctian Empire had no use for me, despite how many times Nilith tried to tell me otherwise.
Two days, and the new Empress Nilith had not yet slept. Perhaps it was the slatherghast’s poison finally claiming her, or perhaps this was what a dutiful ruler looked like, and it was so unusual as to be foreign to me. In either case, plans, scrolls, maps and books had been ferried back and forth from the empress’ rooms. Survivors of this Chamber and that came running. Even scrutinisers and proctors that had survived the Cult’s knives came to join the new empress’ cause. Within a day, Nilith had built herself a new court and galvanised it into turning the city around. I would have been impressed if it hadn’t exhausted me just watching it from doorways.
Rumours of our feats had spread through the survivors, district by district. Talk of Nilith, at least. The city was afire with tales of the warrior empress. The dead queen. The Code-breaker. The saviour of Araxes. I was glad. Immensely so. I could have felt spurned and demanded my glory, but I now knew my worth. I didn’t need hushed whispers and low bows, and gladly left that to Nilith and Heles. Even the looks I received from some of the survivors, those who had seen me on the battlefield, were too much for a thief like me. I have always belonged in the shadows, wearing a hood rather than a medal.
So it was that I had taken to hiding in the Cloud Court, away from gossip of ghosts breaking through stone knights, and the man who had finally killed Danib Ironjaw.
I stared at the turquoise throne with my head cocked, eyeing how it changed colour depending where the sun fell. I was surprised it had survived the crash of the Vengeance, still lying in pieces up against the walls of the court.
I reached out a finger and ran it across the glassy stone, feeling nothing and making no sound. The dust spiralled behind my touch, wafting in the soft breezes coming through the broken ceiling.
It took me another hour to lift a foot onto its pedestal and climb its short steps. It was firm, but numb to my vapours. I rested my backside against its cold surface and sat back with my arms stretched, looking out over the broken marble and shattered columns.
‘Terrible view,’ I said aloud. ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’
Two days, and I had yet to place Pointy down, never mind let go of him. Hope still clung on within me. I lifted up the tortured blade as I spoke, staring into its warped metal and longing for an answer. None came, and once again the angst welled up inside me, with no way of getting it out besides roaring at the skies. I had tried that. It wasn’t effective.
I shuffled around, trying to find a good position, but it was useless.
‘Good luck, Nilith. Your arse is going to need it,’ I sighed. I pushed myself up, catching the stone with the broken sword as I left the throne. Even as a shard, the blade still managed to score a scratch in the turquoise. I half-turned to leave promptly, but caught myself as I saw the glyphs of names sprawling along stone. An idea blossomed.
I reached out with the blade again, and made another cut, and another, etching simple runes into the stone. Krass by name, crass by nature, perhaps, but how often do you get to carve your name into a throne? Especially one as glorious and spectacularly uncomfortable as this one.
The door thudded as it opened, spilling sunlight through the shadows, and I saw Heles framed in its arch. She had my phantom dog by her side, rescued from the Cathedral On Its Head before it was destroyed. I stood up, brushing down my smock of grey and gold.
‘Empress wants to see you. It’s time to decide what to do with the ghosts.’ Heles looked suspicious as I approached, eying the blade in my hand. ‘What have you been doing?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ I said, running my vapours over the phantom’s blue ears.
‘Regretting your decision already, Caltro?’
‘Like I said. It’s not my throne, Chamberlain.’
‘Correct. It’s not.’
I pushed past her, moving to the grand windows that had been barred and barricaded against errant flying machines.
Little had changed since I last looked. Even from high up in the Cloudpiercer, I could feel the city longing to relax. To let go. As do I.
‘Tell her I’ll be right along, Heles.’
‘As you wish, Majesty.’
Heles stalked off, the sharp folds of her Chamber uniform snapping as she walked. I narrowed my eyes, and clutched my half-coin around my neck.
Death was a deplorable sensation. No heart beat within her chest. No breath, wheezing in and out. No heat on her skin from the sunlight that bathed her. No skin to speak of at all.
The slatherghast’s poison had finally claimed her.
The wind toyed with her vapours as Nilith stared out over Araxes, her vision blurring at the edges. The city’s noises were few and dull. Just the occasional call of a rook or the racing flutter of a flock of doves. Nilith had never heard Araxes so quiet, even at night. She shivered in the cold. Always cold. Part of her longed for the baking heat of the Duneplains on her back one last time.
The falcon by her side cleared his throat. ‘They’re here.’
Nilith bowed her head, pressing it to the cold stone.
‘I suppose I can’t put it off any longer, can I?’
‘I don’t think you can,’ Bezel replied. ‘And to be honest, I wish you wouldn’t. I’m not the only ghost awaiting your judgement.’
Nilith straightened, looking out over the city’s spires. ‘You killed my daughter, Bezel. By all rights I should have you kept in a box for another hundred years as punishment.’
‘You aren’t the type of—’
‘Aren’t I?’ Nilith felt her glowing eyes flash bright as she stared down at the falcon. A fierce moment passed between them. ‘However, she said, voice sharp but level. ‘We are here now, and whatever steps were taken to get here were taken exactly as they should have been. I would not change the past to look over a different future now. As much as the mother in me screams to throttle you, I will give you your freedom as I promised, Bezel. Your death. If you still want it?’
From under her turquoise robes, she produced the slender silver bell. Its etched feathers caught the afternoon sun. The falcon fluttered his wings. He lowered his head to the stone and closed his eyes.
‘I will never forget your kindness.’
Nilith rested a hand on his feathers. ‘Nor I yours, Bezel.’
The falcon shrugged his bony shoulders and clacked his beak. ‘Who knows? Why be so fucking hasty? The afterlife isn’t going anywhere, thanks to you. Maybe I’ll give those dead gods a chance to stock up on wine and whores before I arrive.’
Nilith grinned.
‘Empress,’ said a voice. Heles stood behind them.
‘No rest for the dead,’ Nilith whispered before sweeping from the balcony and into the shadow of her chambers. Bezel followed, swooping down from the railing onto a nearby set of antelope horns.
‘Chamberlain. Have the banks surrendered their half-coins yet?’ Nilith enquired.
‘Most. Not all. I have scrutinisers seeing to the rest of them. Flimzi seems to think the battle didn’t happen.’
‘Fool. Explain it to him again, would you?’ Nilith moved about the copse of tables she’d spread her maps over. She was momentarily mesmerised by the scrawls of ink.
‘Everything all right, Nilith?’ asked Heles.
The empress took some time to nod. ‘There is so much to do…’ she muttered.