by Ben Galley
There was a music in the rattling of coins. A sweet concerto that only the rich knew how to enjoy. Temsa had seen his wealth piled up several times in his cellars, but never all together, and not spilling like a copper river of thunder into a pan. He had also never been this rich before.
Boran Temsa had been busy.
Four names had been crossed off the Cult’s list. Four minor nobles fallen to his ambition. Their withdrawals, combined with Temsa’s own personal wealth, plus a few debts he had called in, had resulted in his cellars not being used for shades, but for half-coins. It was the only currency that mattered when it came to nobility. Not silver. Not threads and silks. Not adoration, but dominion over the dead. What else was the emperor but a man of mighty wealth? He had no divinity, no prowess in battle and no sway with minds; he was simply rich. The lord of the dead.
The flow of coins continued unabated for some time. Temsa was enraptured by it. The only times he broke away were to watch the slow rise of Tor Fenec’s jaw as it set in grim realisation. It was a satisfying moment.
Temsa could not have been so bold without knowing Her Majesty the empress-in-waiting was now his benefactor. His polite note to her had contained only one word: ‘Deal.’
Temsa’s guards were of course flabbergasted. They had likely never conceived of this amount of half-coin, yet here it was, pouring like twin copper waterfalls. Even Danib and Ani looked wide-eyed, particularly the big shade. Temsa guessed he was busy imagining all the souls that corresponded to these coins. Who they were. What they were… that sort of shit. Temsa didn’t care. What mattered was that their coins were here, and they belonged to him alone.
When the flow finally dwindled and the last few coins rattled down the chutes, Temsa clapped his hands. The huge scale was so laden it had dipped into a hollow in the stone floor. His coins were a small hill perched upon it. The slopes of metal were aflame in the light of the lanterns and candles.
The tallyer, his nose now out of his notebook, began to take the measurement. He checked around the pan, walking in lunges before attending to what Temsa saw to be a fine metal needle hovering on a measure on the wall. With a curious humming, Nhun made his checks and scribbled something in his papyrus file.
‘And the Weight is?’ Tor Fenec called, hands cupped to his mouth.
Nhun approached his pedestal with great ceremony. Temsa didn’t hear the number that was whispered, nor did he see the glyphs on the parchment. Fenec simply straightened up and adjusted his silk neckerchief. His tanned face took on a rosy glow.
‘Fetch this week’s Ledger of Bindings, Sigil Fenec.’
No ‘son.’ The man was all business.
‘Yes, Tor.’
Russun hurried from the room through an adjoining door into his father’s office. He returned with a heavy scroll the size of a barrel, clasped in a trolley. Nhun helped him attach it to a bracket in the wall, and together they reeled it out across the marble floor. Temsa eyed the glyphs as it ran past him. Names, numbers, dates, all in the fine, enigmatic scribble of coincounters, sigils and tallyers.
Nhun began to roam the names, hands clasped and silent as stone. With an impatient huff, Fenec came down from his pedestal and joined him. The tor muttered something and then continued towards the wall. He had begun to wring his fingers.
When Nhun stopped to scribble on the blank edge of the ledger, Temsa didn’t know whether that was high or low. His heartbeat flickered. It was only when the tallyer rose and nodded to Fenec that he knew.
Tor Fenec’s voice was tight, his smile false. ‘You have been Weighed. You have been counted. You have been found eligible. Welcome to the nobility, Tor Temsa,’ he said.
Temsa bowed deeply. ‘Thank you, Tor Fenec. And you, Tallyer Nhun. Where do I stand?’ He strode forward to meet the man with an open hand. There was a pause before the stiff hand met his. In cheek, Temsa grasped it tightly. A little too tightly for Fenec’s liking, and he bent at the knees and gasped.
‘Tell me, where am I?’
Still in Temsa’s grip, Fenec pointed with his free hand at a spot between a Tal Jiab and a Tor Renin.
‘Twenty thousand, four hundred and ninety-six,’ Nhun informed him.
Temsa leaned closer, finding a familiar name only a dozen entries above him. ‘And where are you, sir?’
Fenec pointed back down the scroll. ‘There.’
‘How many is that?
The tor held to silence for too long, and Nhun filled it. ‘Nineteen thousand and four.’
This time, Temsa didn’t hide his wolfish smile. ‘I see. Well, I bid you a good day, Director Fenec. My thanks once more for accommodating and protecting my fortune in such prestigious vaults as yours. I assume they are as safe as they are exclusive?’
‘Safer than any other bank in Araxes. We have six vaults, each within the other. No other greater vault in the Reaches besides the emperor’s Sanctuary,’ Fenec asserted.
‘Very good,’ replied Temsa. Finally, he released the man and swept towards the doors. His barrow-men and guards gathered around him, reverently touching his shoulders or arms as he passed. Temsa let them, shamelessly basking in the celebration. The costume seemed to be fitting rather too well. Then again, as he took a last look at the glittering mound that was his fortune, he felt deserving of his tordom. He had earned it with blood, sweat, and tears. Not his own, mind, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t fucking enjoy it.
‘Guess all you need now is a tower,’ Ani muttered by his side.
Temsa grinned at her. ‘You know what, m’dear? That’s not a bad idea at all. Let’s see what Tal Kheyu-Nebra can offer us tonight, shall we? See how Sisine’s suggestions compare to the Cult’s. Perhaps the tal will be so generous as to lend me her home until such time as I can find a better one. I’m finding the Slab rather cramped these days.’
Ani took a long time to answer. Temsa wondered if she hadn’t heard him. ‘Like I said, you’re taking an awful lot of steps awfully quickly, and it worries me.’
Temsa put some extra effort into his next step, making his foot spark on the marble. The clang echoed through the hall, making the coincounters jump.
‘I don’t pay you to worry, Ani. That’s my job. You just stick to what you’re good at. Like removing people’s heads.’
Chapter 4
Old Gods & New Tricks
It is said that no gate can stand in the way of Plenops the Breaker. Some say he had an axe with the sharpest blade in the Round Land, that cut through the very fibres of being. Others say he had a war cry that could shake apart hinges and locks. But all those who were there, who stood beside him upon the Plains of Choke, we knew better. A hundred souls he’d bound within him, and mastered them all. Only in battle would he loose them, and rip the doors asunder in a shape that was not his own, nor human.
Opening lines of the epic ‘Bells of Solitude”, by the playwright Frandi
The problem with a talking sword is getting it to shut up. Dead gods know you can’t throttle it.
Our mutual incarceration seemed to have opened some sort of verbal floodgate. For two days the thing had chatted incessantly, telling me his life story and more besides. The issue was that the sword’s life spanned about three hundred years, not counting the time before he was deadbound, and he seemed determined to fill me in on every second he’d endured.
By the second day, my head had become permanently affixed to the wardrobe door in a half-sleep of boredom as the blade prattled on about Sir This and General That, or the Battle of Fuck-Knows-Where. I cared little for others’ histories unless they could help me crack open a door or claim something shiny and expensive. And yet, despite my polite coughs or interjections, the sword’s conversation always circled back to a story.
And bloody poetry. If I thought I despised poetry before, the sword proved me wrong with every half-rhymed, galumphing stanza that he used like punctuation.
‘And then I was passed down to his son, Viceroy Reena, who had about as much need for me as a rich man needs a
penny. Three years, I dawdled in my case, only to be occasionally gawped at by visitors to his estate. And what a grand estate—’
I thumped my head against the wood in a moment of utter boredom, and the sword fell quiet for a pause.
‘Mr Basalt?’
‘Mhm.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Perfectly fine.’
‘Good. Now, where was I…? Ah yes, Reena.’
My forehead met the door again.
I was almost glad when Busk’s men came for me, their boots clomping loudly on the plush carpet. The sword fell silent immediately. Through the crack in the door, I watched them line up in front of the wardrobe, clubs in hand.
Busk entered the room, head high and hands clasped in a gesture of eagerness. He was wearing a blue velvet coat adorned with gold chains. He waved a hand at my wooden prison, and I was hauled into the lamplight.
‘Need something else opened, do we, Busk?’
A club caught me across the jaw, and somebody reminded me of his station.
‘Tor Busk,’ I muttered through the pain.
‘Yes, in fact, Caltro. A fresh haul of Scatter Isle pieces. There’s a lockbox I think you’ll be interested in.’
Interested was a strong word, but if it got me a moment of peace and passed the time, I was game. I had faith in the widow’s need of me, and with every hour that trudged by, the more I expected to hear the clash of guards in the hall below and her crackly voice demanding me back. Might as well get some practice in while I’m here.
‘Show me the box, then.’
‘Good half-life.’
Up and out I was dragged, and this time taken up the stairs rather than down. I had the chance to survey Busk’s home. This was no grand spire like Horix’s, but more of a glorified mansion. Turrets and rooms had expanded like warty growths on the original structure. The darker nature of the old stone betrayed the extensions.
The gaudy decor followed us all the way to a stubby tower near the roof, as did the stares of the house-ghosts we passed. It seemed Busk was not in the habit of clothing his shades. They threw me and my dusty smock sad glances as they cleaned and polished, completely naked.
The doors Busk attacked with a hoop of keys were of stout construction, thick mahogany banded with steel. Four locks clicked in sequence and the guards saw to opening them. Inside the room, shelves lined the walls and a cornucopia of objects lined them. Each had a small papyrus tag on a string. Numbers had been scratched onto them.
‘Here we are,’ announced Busk.
A cube of grey metal perched on a pedestal, about a handspan thick in each direction. Between the glyph designs, one solitary keyhole stared at me like an eye.
‘This is it?’ I asked.
‘Don’t let its simplicity fool you, Caltro. I expect more from an expert such as yourself.’ Busk turned to one of the nearest guards, taking his club from him. ‘Leave us!’
I watched the guards file out. None of them looked particularly happy leaving their tor with a stolen shade, but they followed his orders all the same. I suspected it was due to him being their employer, not any kind of fervent loyalty.
‘The box, Caltro.’
I grumbled something profane as he handed me my tools. I tried my best not to snatch them.
The box was simple, just as I’d suspected. It took me mere moments to test its tumblers, find its notches, and start picking. Within a few minutes, the lid popped open with a hiss of stale air.
‘Told you,’ I sighed as I stepped back. Busk stood still, ignoring his prize and staring only at me. I got the sense there was an ulterior motive to this situation. ‘What is it?’
‘Why are you so important to Horix? Does she know?’
Playing dumb was an art. The trick to it was a mixture of well-timed shrugs, half-lies, and a straight face. I shrugged.
‘Surely she does,’ said Busk. She holds your half-coin and yet she hasn’t punished you yet for leaving her home. I was expecting her to, hence I had you open my most prized possession first. Yet here we are, days later and not a twitch.’
‘Maybe she hasn’t noticed I’m gone.’ That was ridiculous. The old bat had me on a leash so short a living thing would have choked.
‘The thought crossed my mind also, and I believed the same, until this came to my door.’ Busk produced a small scroll from his velvet pocket. I could tell by its wrinkles it had been unrolled, rerolled, crumpled in anger at one point, then flattened out again. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is from your previous mistress. Offering to sell you.’
‘I see.’ It was all I gave him. In truth, I was confused as to how Horix intended to sell a ghost she didn’t have and for some reason needed.
‘She had it delivered by the colonel of her guard, no less. Straight into my hands.’
‘I’m as clueless as you are.’
Busk scowled. ‘I am not clueless, shade. In fact, I am very clueful.’ He circled me and the pedestal. ‘She was unwilling to part with you when I first broached the subject. And now that I have you, she immediately wants to sell you. It is a ploy. A test.’
I saw the widow’s game now: a change of Busk’s mind would look suspicious, but agreeing to a sale would mean following the path Horix was laying for him.
‘One does not play such games in this city unless it is for something important. Tors and tals do not dally with trivialities. Shades get stolen all the time, constantly shifting from house to house. A hundred here, another hundred there. What does one shade matter to a noble with thousands under her control?’
I sensed a rhetorical question and kept my trap shut.
‘Do you know what we nobles do when a shade is taken from us illegally? We melt your half-coin. Send you to the void. You, however, are whole and sound. That tells me you are important to her in some way, and I wish to know why.’
I shrugged.
Busk raised the club menacingly.
‘Perhaps for the same reason you were keen to steal me,’ I offered, not too eager to get another hit. My jaw was still throbbing. White spots lingered in my vision.
‘My thoughts exactly!’ Busk exclaimed. ‘The question is why, Caltro? Tal Horix might be an enigma, a hermit, and an old bag with no manners, but those few who have dealt with her respect her. Fear her, even. Yet she is never seen at balls or the theatre. Horix rarely leaves her tower except for the soulmarket. She has not Weighed in a year. What I do know is that she is no fence. No soulstealer. Why, then, would she have need of you?’
Another shrug, and this time the club did strike home, right across my shoulders. I pitched onto the pedestal, my head striking the box will a dull whump.
‘Let’s try again. Why does she need a locksmith like you?’
‘I cook a fucking good rabbit stew. Maybe that’s why.’
The club came at me again, mercilessly so. Busk beat me like a dusty carpet until I was on my knees. Pain shot through my body with every hit, contorting me. When Busk tired, breathing hard, he stepped back to rearrange his coat and comb his thinning hair back into place.
‘I cannot abide shades who forget their place in the world. I find that reminding them with a club works wonders.’
‘Mmmf,’ I mumbled, fighting pain.
‘What does she want you for?’
‘I don’t know!’ The club cracked against my skull. My face met the floor. ‘I’m telling the truth!’
Busk yelled in my ear. ‘Tell me everything! Does she want you for a heist?’
‘No!’ A strange allegiance kept me from spilling what little truth I knew. Perhaps it was the future she had offered me; the promise of freedom that Busk could never make.
‘All right! All right.’ I held up my hands, cowering more than I would have liked. Pain is a wonderful test of the calibre of a man’s soul. Mine had always leaned towards the cowardly side of the spectrum. Flight over fight, I say. It was a trait that might have hurt the pride of another man, but it had kept me alive more times than I could count. I knew the worth of
cowardice. And lies.
‘She had me open boxes, just like you. Heirlooms, nothing more.’
Busk looked unconvinced. ‘Heirlooms.’
‘Jewelled boxes and the like. Old things from her collection.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I don’t care what you fucking believe.’ I glared. ‘Horix will come for me. Not because I am important, but because I am hers. She will not abide your thievery.’
Busk’s narrow face grew as wide as I’d ever seen it. His grin beamed, unnaturally white. ‘She is an old hermit, rusty and stubborn. She wants to play games? Fine! I will entertain her. And all the while I will have you here, opening everything that crosses my path with a lock on it, doing my bidding. Understand, Caltro?’
I lunged for him. I don’t quite know what I expected to achieve, but before I knew it I was reaching towards him with hands like pincers, searching for his throat. It was an act of anger and frustration, and in that moment I understood what a crime of passion meant. It seemed that even without my mortal form, the animal in me lived on as I did. The savagery of our distant ancestors survives just beneath the surface of our civility, and I had remembered mine.
Busk fended me off with the club, too shocked to call for his guards. I felt the copper smack against my wrists but the pain was forgotten in my drive to strangle the bastard. I made little sound, no threat but the straining growl of rage.
He found his voice. ‘Back! Back, I say!’
I kept at him, reaching and reaching.
‘Guards!’
Busk stumbled over his own feet and his fancy shoes, falling onto his arse with his club outstretched. With the back of my fist, I batted the weapon aside and sent it skittering across the marble. Pain lanced up my arm. Busk’s flailing legs tangled my own and I landed atop him, fighting to encircle his throat.
I was so fixated on seizing the white flesh between his velvet collar, I didn’t even notice my hands piercing his skin. No, not piercing. Entering. My glowing fingers reached deep into his throat, so far I could feel the rubbery ridges of his windpipe, feel the blood inside his veins pulsing over my vapour.