by Ben Galley
Dizali moved like a striking adder, snatching a vial from the nearest shelf and glaring at its label. Witchazel already knew what he would find there. Bloodglyphs. Carefully penned. Karrigan was meticulous. Every vial had been labelled and catalogued, every shelf ordered and militarised.
Witchazel pasted a hint of a smile on his face and held it there, waiting for Dizali to summon the words. He would hold his tongue, for now.
It took the Prime Lord quite a while to come to believe it. It was not just the preposterousness of it, but the secrecy that must have twisted the knife. Witchazel could see it. The plain fact that Karrigan had duped him. Eluded him. That he had even gone to the grave with his secret intact. Dizali strode back and forth, jaw bunching over and over.
‘You knew,’ Dizali spat at him.
‘Of course.’
Dizali took another moment to glare about, as if the vials themselves were laughing at him. ‘This is how he built his empire. With blood.’
Witchazel nodded, trying to keep his tongue civil. He had the feeling his life depended on it, in the current window of circumstances. ‘Not in the same way you’ve built yours, but yes.’
Rage always has to find some sort of release valve, some way or another. Thankfully, Dizali chose a small stool, propped up against a bookshelf. He seized it by the legs and swung it down like an axe to a dead stump. It splintered on the first hit and exploded on the second. Dizali kept swinging. Down and down again, until all he held was a fist of splintered wood. He whirled on Witchazel.
‘A bloodrusher, at the peak of the Empire!’ Dizali yelled, furious. ‘A leech?’
Witchazel could not help it. ‘Better than a lamprey.’
The fist started life at the side of the room and came rushing towards him. Witchazel had plenty of time to ready himself for it, but it still hurt like hell, catching his already swollen eye. Dizali hit him twice more before he was allowed to slump on the cold floor. Witchazel reeled, but he kept smiling. What was another handful of punches, after the fortnight he’d had?
His knuckles bloody, Dizali walked a circle of the room, heaving with ragged, raging breaths. It was only then that he noticed the half-moon desk at the far end of the room, set deep into another alcove, complete with a fireplace.
‘What is that?’ Dizali demanded.
‘See for yourself,’ the lawyer replied, shrugging.
Dizali did just that. Rushers in tow, he marched into the alcove. It took barely seconds for him to notice the contraption, glowing in the magick light: the great gold contraption Karrigan had spent a small fortune on. Witchazel could clearly remember frowning the day the invoice had fluttered onto his desk. How he wished he could hug the old Bulldog now. Coin well spent.
‘Bring him,’ came the order, and Witchazel was swiftly and unceremoniously brought. Dizali stood over it, arms crossed. ‘What is this?’
There it was. The question Witchazel had been waiting for. ‘Something that was built just for you.’
A few of the lordsguards began to whisper, surreptitiously shuffling backwards. Witchazel could hear the word ‘bomb’ being passed around. Dizali snapped his fingers for silence.
‘Is it a bomb?’ he asked.
‘No. Something else entirely.’
Dizali looked at it closely. It looked like one of those ornate globes found in libraries, a fiery-gold orb almost three foot in diameter, held at the heart of an ornate cage that always hovered an inch from its pitted and swirling surface. Though it did not depict the earth and her contours, but rather something else, such as the currents of the ocean perhaps, or knots and whorls of old wood, fused together at each meeting of its hemispheres. Atop its cage there was an intricate mechanism, almost funnel-like, made up of thin plates of gold stacked together.
Dizali grabbed the lawyer by the throat. ‘Spit it out, Witchazel! I have not got all day. Remember what I said about the boy!’
‘And that,’ Witchazel wheezed, ‘is the exact reason why you will regret killing Tonmerion Hark.’
Dizali released him abruptly. He turned back to the odd globe, fixing it with squinting eyes. They jumped back and forth, picking it apart and piecing it back together, as if he were building its manual in his head whilst wondering what on earth the boy had to do with it.
In a blur, his hand flew to the inside pocket of his jacket, fumbling frantically for the letter he had so resoundingly forgotten. Out into the light it came, and his eager fingers ripped it open. ‘Outside, all of you!’ he shouted, and the lordsguards scrambled out of the hall. ‘You repeat what you see here and I’ll have your heads on a pike. You too, Fever. Take your pets and leave me with the lawyer. You, rushers, you stay.’
‘As you wish, my Lord,’ Fever said, quickly bowing and making a hasty retreat with the others.
With a snap the letter came free. The rushers leant forwards to offer more light. To Witchazel the Prime Lord looked pale, though it could have been the sickly glow. The paper was powder-blue, and in the light, Witchazel could see the lines of flowing script.
‘The boy is a leech …’ Dizali muttered words awkward and irksome. Two revelations in as many minutes. He must have felt sick. ‘…like his father.’
‘Like I said, you will regret killing him,’ Witchazel repeated, as nonchalantly as though he had just informed the Prime Lord he had missed a button.
‘And why is that?’ Words forced out between bared teeth.
‘Because of that.’ Witchazel nodded a head towards the globe.
Dizali did not look the least bit happy in the face of these revelations. ‘SPIT IT OUT, MAN!’
Witchazel smiled once again. He let it spill, struggling to hold back the quiver in his throat. ‘What you have there, Lord Dizali, is the finest strongbox ever made by human hands. The Orange Seed, designed and built for Lord Hark over two decades ago by Nupalese monk-smiths. It is made of gold and steel so tough that even fire can’t melt it. It has no key except one, and it’s a key you can’t hold or hang from your belt. Without it, you can always try and force it open, but doing so would destroy the contents. Which, seeing as the Orange Seed is where Karrigan chose to keep the deeds to his estate, I would not recommend.’
‘A magic box,’ Dizali growled. ‘You are telling me that Karrigan hid the deeds in a magic box?’
‘That I am.’
For a moment it looked as though a few more fists would rain down, but Dizali managed to hold himself back. He stared at the golden funnel. ‘And I assume I would be right in guessing the boy is the key. His blood.’
Witchazel sneered. ‘You would be indeed.’
The punch knocked the smile clean off him, and the lawyer sagged into a heap. But he laughed, long and heartily. ‘The Orange Seed will only open for one person. And that,’ he paused to laugh some more, a wheezing chuckle that bubbled up from deep inside, ‘is Tonmerion Harlequin Hark. You kill him, and you’ll never get your hands on the Bulldog’s empire.’ There it is. ‘I said you might regret killing him. Let’s hope it’s not too late.’ And that Gunderton has done his work.
Dizali crushed the powder-blue letter in his fist as he glowered at the Orange Seed, searching for words. Ideas. Maybe even an excuse to kill Witchazel right there and then if it presented itself. But at the end of it all, Dizali just snapped his fingers at the rusher and spoke in a low and hard voice, strained with murderous frustration. He had been foiled, good and simple. Witchazel could see it in his eyes, and the way he thumbed his goatee.
‘Get this contraption back to Clovenhall and fetch me a messenger right away. I want him to meet me at the steps of the Emerald House.’
‘Yes, Prime Lord.’
The man scurried away, leaving Dizali and Witchazel alone. ‘Maybe I should spill your blood on it, just for the hell of it.’
‘You can try.’
The Prime Lord stood over him. ‘You’ve been playing for time, but now you’re out of it. The boy will be spared for now. Your life, however, I still have to decide on. Perhaps you can hel
p yourself, Witchazel, by doing as I say from here on in, making this transition easy for all,’ Dizali spat. ‘It’s time to save yourself, if your pitiable existence is not wanting in your eyes.’
‘It’s hard to threaten a man who would die to protect a friend’s dying wish,’ Witchazel retorted, wincing at how much he now knew of that was a lie. He had glimpsed more of death’s face than he had liked, and it chilled him to the core. That old fear rose to greet him, the purest, most prehistoric fear there is: of death.
Dizali curled his lip. ‘Then you’re a fool twice over. I’ve won. I’ve always been winning. It was inevitable. You may have stalled me, but I now have the deeds, I will have the boy. You’re simply an inconvenience to me, Witchazel, one I could rub off the face of this earth at any moment.’
Witchazel shook his head. ‘You need me. I’m the executor. The Benches will never accept ownership without the deeds.’
It was Dizali’s turn to smirk. Something clever was working behind those eyes. ‘I have half the Benches in my pocket. Gold can turn many gazes, Mr Witchazel.’
Witchazel knew that was also a lie. He had to be lying. But there was one hinge in the plan of any torturer’s subject, and that was usefulness. The lawyer felt his beginning to wane, and denial always follows on the heels of desperation.
Dizali’s smile was cold and commanding. ‘Today we shall go to the Emerald House, and you will stand by my side as I paint you as a glorious survivor of foul play. And then you will sign a contract that rightfully proclaims me as the sole owner of the estate in light of the outrageous treachery of the Hark name and according to the Clean Slate Statute. You will tell the Emerald Lords and Ladies how you believe me to be of the finest character, and how the Hark estate will be safe in my hands. That it is mine in law, so long as the deeds can be presented within a month. Then you will see what you have helped me to create, Mr Witchazel. You will see what this lamprey is capable of. And just maybe, you’ll see another day.’
‘I will not.’
‘Then you will die, and the boy along with you once he’s served his purpose. In the end, it matters not. Even if the Bulldog’s estate goes to auction, I shall be there, in the wings, buying and profiting.’ Dizali said, bending down to hold Witchazel by the chin. ‘You can’t win when you’ve already lost, Witchazel, my good man. You’ll do the right thing. Save yourself and the boy. Karrigan would want that, I’m sure.’ He sneered, and pushed the lawyer away. As lordsguards began to flood the room, Dizali clapped his hands. ‘You, yes you there! Take this man to my carriage. Tell the driver to prepare the horses. We have an appointment with the Emerald Benches.’
Witchazel was dragged away by the arms. As he slid across the floor, legs trailing behind him, he could see Dizali watching him. Witchazel smiled right up to the last moment, before the rock and shadows whisked him from view.
*
There was no denying the lawyer was wrestling with himself. Dizali could see it, painted on his face as clear as daylight. Beneath the bruises he squirmed between the choices Dizali had thrown at him. It was about time something cracked.
Witchazel was trying once more to antagonise him. ‘Are you sure it’s wise presenting me to the Benches? What if I take it upon myself to reveal the truth, hmm?’ Witchazel asked, trying to look dangerous.
As if he could do any more damage. Dizali made a mental note to have somebody comb and wipe him before he was presented to the House. He looked like a skeleton in borrowed skin. The clothes, at least, had done a little for him.
‘Then the Hark boy dies, and I’ll throw you back in that cell, to wither and rot,’ Dizali gave the same answer as before, casually cold.
Witchazel fell quiet again, bereft of a witty answer or snide remark—just how the Prime Lord liked it. He turned to watch the city clatter past, full of noise and people. His people, he mused to himself. He could almost hear the cheering, feel the heat of the crowds as they pressed in to see him in their thousands. Tens of thousands.
Daydreaming was not a habit of Dizali’s. He believed in a better use of time. But now he was so close, the Emerald Benches just ten minutes of rattling and jolting away, he could allow himself a swift treat, surely. Dizali leant back and let his future spread out before him, like a cloud-shadow leaving sunshine in its wake, stretching across the Empire.
Those ten minutes rolled by quickly, as swiftly as the city changed. The buildings reached higher. Stonework became grander, more intricate. The people changed too: fewer cloth caps and more top hats and canes. No carthorses and ponies here, just gleaming stallions and polished carriages, trundling to and fro. And the Emerald House, perched on the River Thames, and dominating everything around it. A huge fortress of a building, cut from honey-coloured limestone from the northern wilds, it bristled with turrets and twisted spines. Gargoyles hung from nests in the steep-pitched iron roofs. Carvings hid in every corner, nestled in the arches and wrapped around pillars. And at its centre, the Bellspire, the mighty square tower that housed the Bell of London, affectionately referred to as Big Iron.
Dizali did not often bother to gawp at the sight of the House looming over the muddy river. A thousand times’ seeing it tends to numb the wonder. Today seemed like a day for luxuries, however, and he allowed himself to stare up at the Bellspire, craning his head to see its diamond-shaped peak.
‘Beautiful, is it not? The Emerald House? The seat of our parliament, core of the Empire.’
‘A house of thieves.’
Dizali tutted mockingly. ‘That’s the sort of attitude that will get people killed, Mr Witchazel. I’d bide my tongue if I were you.’ He wondered how many more times he would have to drill it into that lawyer’s thick skull. He had won. Unfairly perhaps, but resoundingly squarely.
There was a whinny as the carriage was brought to a halt, deep inside the courtyards of the Emerald House. Dizali waited for Witchazel to be bodily removed before stepping out. With orders to have him scrubbed and prepared for his grand public appearance ringing in their ears, the servants led the lawyer away to the baths. Witchazel just stared back at Dizali, a permanent, though rather hollow scowl affixed to his face. Dizali snorted, adjusted his hat and suit, and strode forward, his heels tapping the flagstones with an arrogant air.
The uproar could be heard from the other end of the House. The Benches were rife with clamour. Dizali was barely late, and already there was a verbal war raging. The Prime Lord rubbed his hands.
Several of his cabinet were hovering by the upper door, gazing down into the maelstrom below. Dizali tipped his hat to them as he sought a place by the doorway. ‘Gentlemen, Lady.’
His lords and lady nodded, knowing smiles sneaking onto their faces. ‘Today is the day, a new dawn for the Empire, and for us,’ Dizali intoned, a smile of his own breaking out. He peeked down into the hall and took its measure, his eyes darting back and forth. ‘We have a full house.’
‘And an angry one,’ Longweather whispered. Even some of the Absent Lords have come crawling back.’
‘By air and by ocean, every one of them eager to see where his or her place is at the new table.’ Lady Knutshire piped up.
‘On the floor, begging for scraps, no doubt,’ said another, Lord Snike.
‘All in good time,’ Dizali wagged a finger. ‘All in good time.’ He took another peek. ‘How many?’
‘Enough,’ Longweather grinned. ‘It’s cost the Cobalts a pretty penny, but we have enough.’
‘And the others?’ Knutshire again, always with the questions. She would be the first to be tamed, in his new world.
‘Will offer no argument, if they know what’s best for them,’ Dizali muttered. ‘Which reminds me, who have you chosen?
‘Lord Umbright,’
‘A good choice.’
Snike sniggered. ‘We thought you would approve.’
‘And has the Presence arrived?’
There was a moment of whispering. ‘I’m told he has just entered the House,’ said Longweather. The Second Lord look
ed tired, but ready.
‘Good. I want him to hear every single word. Fetch Witchazel and have him ready. It is time,’ he said, before striding into the light. As he whipped off his hat and marched down the steps to the front bench, the Voice announced him over the uproar as best he could.
‘The Honourable Prime Lord Dizali enters!’
His presence alone commanded the lull in shouting, not the Voice’s deafened words. As the arguing came to a gradual halt, Dizali removed his coat, placed his hat on the bench, and raised his hands. ‘Continue, my Lords and Ladies. Do not let me stop you in your bickering.’
Amidst a few roars of laughter, the shouting began afresh, and Dizali let himself sink into the gale of raised voices, letting their arguments and opinions wash over him. He heard every word, watched every flapping, rose-cheeked face. His quick mind trimmed the fat from their bellowings, cutting through to their core. Everybody wants something. Half the trick of gaining followers is to give them what they want. The other half is convincing them they wanted what you’re giving. In ten minutes, he had those that had yet to support him laid out like a battle-plan.
‘The Presence of Her Majesty, Queen Victorious enters!’ wailed the Voice, ringing his bell as loudly as possible.
It was customary for silence to fall for the Presence. The clue was in the name. The man that emerged onto the stone balcony at the far end of the hall was the ears and the mouth of the queen herself. As such, he was to be given the same respect.
But the Benches were not so immediately respectful. Silence fell uneasily, like snow in a breeze. Even when all backsides had found their seats, a low muttering remained.
‘Her Gloriousness, the Queen Victorious bids you welcome,’ the Presence hailed them in a high tone. The man was far too skinny for his humongous robe, trimmed in the purple and black of ancient royalty. By tradition, he was blind, his misty eyes hid behind a thin strap of black silk. He held no cane and had no servants. Just the queen for company, lodged somewhere in his head. By memory or magick, nobody knew. All they knew was that he was the queen’s voice, and that such a thing was not welcome in the Benches. Not any more, not with Dizali sowing the seeds of discontent.