by Sam Sykes
The man shrugs his half-cloak back, and there’s a silver badge pinned to his breast. He’s a licensed thief-taker, a bounty hunter. Recovers lost property, takes sanctioned revenge for the rich. Not regular city watch, more of a bonded freelancer.
“I said, hold it there,” says the thief-taker. The fire’s getting closer—already, the upper gallery’s burning—but there isn’t a trace of concern in the man’s deep voice. “Spar, isn’t it? Idge’s boy? Who’s the girl?”
Spar responds by wrenching the door off its hinges and flinging it, eight feet of heavy oak, right at the man. The man ducks under it, steps forward and drives his staff like a spear into Spar’s leg again. This time, something cracks.
“Who sent you here, boy? Tell me, and maybe I let her live. Maybe even let you keep that leg.”
“Go to the grave.”
“You first, boy.” The thief-taker moves, almost as fast as a Tallowman, and smashes the staff into Spar’s leg for the third time. Pain runs up it like an earthquake, and Spar topples. Before he can try to heave himself back up again, the thief-taker’s on his back, and the stave comes down for a fourth blow, right on Spar’s spine, and his whole body goes numb.
He can’t move. He’s all stone. All stone. A living tomb.
He screams, because his mouth still works, shouts and begs and pleads and cries for them to save him or kill him or do anything but leave him here, locked inside the ruin of his own body. The thief-taker vanishes, and the flames get closer and—he assumes—hotter, but he can’t feel their heat. After a while, more guards arrive. They stick a rag in his mouth, carry him outside, and eight of them heave him into the back of a cart.
He lies there, breathing in the smell of ash and the stench of the slime the alchemists use to fight the fires.
All he can see is the floor of the cart, strewn with dirty straw, but he can still hear voices. Guards running to and fro, crowds jeering and hooting as the High Court of Guerdon burns. Others shouting make way, make way.
Spar finds himself drifting away into darkness.
The thief-taker’s voice again. “One got away over the rooftops. Your candles can have him.”
“The south wing’s lost. All we can do is save the east.”
“Six dead. And a Tallowman. Caught in the fires.”
Other voices, nearby. A woman, coldly furious. An older man.
“This is a blow against order. A declaration of anarchy. Of war.”
“The ruins are still too hot. We won’t know what’s been taken until—”
“A Stone Man, then.”
“What matters is what we do next, not what we can salvage.”
The cart rocks back and forth, and they lie another body down next to Spar. He can’t see her, but he hears Cari’s voice. She’s still mumbling to herself, a constant stream of words. He tries to grunt, to signal to her that she’s not alone, or that he’s still in here in this stone shell, but his jaw has locked around the gag and he can’t make a sound.
“What have we here,” says another voice. He feels pressure on his back—very, very faintly, very far away, like the pressure a mountain must feel when a sparrow alights on it—and then a pinprick of pain, right where the thief-taker struck him. Feeling blazes through nerves once more, and he welcomes the agony of his shoulders unfreezing. Alkahest, a strong dose of blessed, life-giving, stone-denying alkahest.
He will move again. He’s not all stone yet. He’s not all gone.
Spar weeps with gratitude, but he’s too tired to speak or to move. He can feel the alkahest seeping through his veins, pushing back the paralysis. For once, the Stone Man can rest and be still. Easiest, now, is to close eyes that are no longer frozen open, and be lulled into sleep by his friend’s soft babbling…
Before the city was the sea, and in the sea was He Who Begets. And the people of the plains came to the sea, and the first speakers heard the voice of He Who Begets, and told the people of the plains of His glory and taught them to worship Him. They camped by the shore, and built the first temple amid the ruins. And He Who Begets sent His sacred beasts up out of the sea to consume the dead of the plains, so that their souls might be brought down to Him and live with Him in glory below forever. The people of the plains were glad, and gave of their dead to the beasts, and the beasts swam down to Him.
The camp became a village in the ruins, and the village became the city anew, and the people of the plains became the people of the city, and their numbers increased until they could not be counted. The sacred beasts, too, grew fat, for all those who died in the city were given unto them.
Then famine came to the city, and ice choked the bay, and the harvest in the lands around wilted and turned to dust.
The people were hungry, and ate the animals in the fields.
Then they ate the animals in the streets.
Then they sinned against He Who Begets, and broke into the temple precincts, and killed the sacred beasts, and ate of their holy flesh.
The priests said to the people, how now will the souls of the dead be carried to the god in the waters, but the people replied, what are the dead to us? Unless we eat, we will be dead, too.
And they killed the priests, and ate them, too.
Still the people starved, and many of them died. The dead thronged the streets, for there were no more sacred beasts to carry them away into the deep waters of God.
The dead thronged the streets, but they were houseless and bodiless, for their remains were eaten by the few people who were left.
And the people of the city dwindled, and became the people of the tombs, and they were few in number.
Over the frozen sea came a new people, the people of the ice, and they came upon the city and said: lo, here is a great city, but it is empty. Even its temples are abandoned. We shall dwell here, and shelter from the cold, and raise up shrines to our own gods there.
The people of the ice endured where the people of the city had not, and survived the cold. Many of them died, too, and their bodies were interred in tombs, in accordance with their customs. And the people of the tombs stole those bodies, and ate of them.
And in this way, the people of the ice and the people of the tombs survived the winter.
When the ice melted, the people of the ice became the people of the city, and the people of the tombs became the ghouls. For they were also, in their new way, people of the city.
And that is how the ghouls came to Guerdon.
BY SAM SYKES
THE GRAVE OF EMPIRES
Seven Blades in Black
The Gallows Black (novella)
BRING DOWN HEAVEN
The City Stained Red
The Mortal Tally
God’s Last Breath
THE AEONS’ GATE TRILOGY
Tome of the Undergates
Black Halo
The Skybound Sea
An Affinity for Steel (omnibus edition)