by Ben Galley
‘An’ there wash the fire, in Nebra’sh tower! And Rebene knowsh nothing,’ murmured Ghoor, slopping wine over his legs and the ghost girl. Half of it dripped through her, the rest swirled with her blue skin, turning purple.
‘Is that so?’ Temsa looked pleased. That irritated me. ‘Nothing, eh?’
Wine decorated the floor and the ghost. ‘Shcrutinishersh are cluelesh! It’s all too shushpishus!’
The tor had the gall to look sage. ‘In such dangerous times, it pays to keep your wits about you.’
Through the rainbow drapes, I saw Danib and Jexebel sneak back into the hall, keeping the iron door ajar. Their faces were avid, almost thrilled, and their nods sure. Temsa had spotted them too.
‘For instance,’ he said, ‘buying good doors and locking them tight.’
A rumble of agreement came from the drunks. I swear I heard a muffled word or two from between those great bosom.
Temsa got to his feet and tapped his way around the back of the cushion pile, refilling their wine from a crystal decanter as he went. ‘Paying good silver for good house-guards.’
‘Mmm!’ Ghoor raised his goblet for some more wine. Temsa didn’t care where he poured it, dousing the magistrate in the ruby liquid. Ghoor giggled like a child with a bug under his shirt.
‘And watching who you trust enough to invite to parties…’
Magistrate Ghoor’s eyes were firmly crossed. As I stared down at him, I wondered if there was some glimmer of realisation, somewhere deep within that addled mind.
‘Caltro…’ I heard Pointy’s murmur, deadened as though a hand were clamped around his mouth.
With a flash of golden silks, Temsa whipped the sword from his scabbard. Razor-sharp obsidian opened the pox-scarred serek’s throat, spattering Tal Berinia and Ghoor with blood. They were too drunk to make sense of it all. The magistrate was still giggling, thinking it was more wine. He even licked his fingers.
Berinia was next, her head finally escaping her shoulders. She kept her confused expression until it met the floor. I saw it all too well, seeing as I had been thrown to the stained flagstones and fallen next to it. Danib and Jexebel had cast aside their gowns and drawn their blades. They set about putting them to work. That set the screams alight.
Men in Ghoor’s livery poured into the hall, and for a moment I thought Temsa’s game was up, but then I saw how they attacked the useless house-guards, and realised their disguises. I watched with a clenched jaw as they went about earning their silver, painting over the kaleidoscopic scene with red. The guests were caught completely by surprise, drunk and defenceless. Temsa’s soldiers had no care for which activities they interrupted. I saw a couple impaled on the same spear, and a drunkard’s arm lopped off as he reached for another beer. Those who managed to scramble for the door found their way blocked by Danib and Jexebel’s axes. After I saw the second man split down the middle, I had to turn away. Licentious and depraved the party might have been, I was still human – a shade of one at least. This scene was far more disgusting than its previous iteration.
The massacre lasted for some time before its horrific music faded: screams dying one by one instead of in concert, cut short with a percussive clang or a thud. Torturous minutes I waited while Temsa looked past me, watching his orders being followed to the bloody letter. I could see the carnage reflected in his eyes, and I had to turn away from them as well. I looked instead to Ghoor and shared his horror, growing deeper the more he sobered up. And he was managing it swiftly.
When the last groan was uttered, he found his words. No slurring now. Not with a keen sword at his throat. It had already cut away a great deal of purple beard.
‘W—why?’ he stammered.
Temsa waited until Danib rejoined them and hauled the fat magistrate to his feet with one hand. The tor stared up at Ghoor, his ardour for butchery smouldering in his eyes.
‘A colleague of mine asked me that earlier, and I’ll give you the same answer. Your name was on a list; nothing more. Though with you being a man of the Chamber, after seeing the kind of company you keep, and because of your sheer apathy over your guest list, Magistrate, I could think up some more reasons for you, if you’d like?’
Ghoor’s chins wobbled like the concertinas of a smith’s bellows. ‘I… no.’
Temsa clicked his fingers, and his soldiers brought forth a well-dressed man whose face was a pale shade of green. He stepped over the entrails and lost limbs, flinching every time his polished shoes came into contact. He looked the financial type. I found they looked the same all over the Reaches. It was easy to spot them, for they liked to be known for what they were, and how much power they held. No better than royals bearing their crowns. I preferred to see their suits as prisoners’ stripes; their crimes were just rewarded instead of punished.
The tor greeted him cordially, wrapping an arm around him and leading him to Ghoor. ‘Ah, Mr Fenec. My trusty sigil. Are you well? You look thin. Must be all the stress of the banking world, eh? How’s the family?’
The man possessed the voice of a timid mouse. ‘Fine.’
‘And may they continue to stay that way.’
From my spot on the marble, I could see the bile in this Fenec fellow’s gullet rise and fall. I guessed him to be another cog in Temsa’s machine.
‘B—Tor Temsa, my father grows suspicious. I…’ His voice failed him as Temsa’s grip tightened.
‘Perhaps I should have a word with your father directly. Especially after tonight. There’ll no doubt be some careful counting to do here. Inheritances, insurances and the like. Dealings with other banks. Perhaps it’s over a sigil’s head. Wouldn’t you say, Russun?’
Russun bowed his head solemnly, as if he had just physically thrown his father in front of an armoured carriage.
‘On that note: Ghoor’s papers. What will it be this time? Distant cousins? Business partners?’ Temsa stuck out a hand, and Russun sighed as he produced a scroll.
‘People are talking. I’ve had to get… inventive. It’ll pass through several vaults before yours. Harder to trace.’
‘Fine work! You do your kind proud.’
The sigil had no more words, it seemed. He nodded, turning greener by the moment. He kept his hand clamped over his mouth just long enough to pass over a reed before running to spew his guts up in a corner.
‘Let’s hope your father has a stronger stomach,’ Temsa tutted.
Ghoor stared goggle-eyed at the scroll held before him. One of his hands was released and the inked reed stuffed into it.
Temsa tapped the papyrus. ‘Sign.’
‘What is this?’ The magistrate’s pickled brain struggled to make sense of the situation. I watched him squirm in Danib’s grip.
‘Sign it, and I might just spare you.’
‘I will not sign anything!’ Ghoor remembered his status, as if that could help him with a serek and a tor lying dead next to him.
‘Danib?’
There came a loud crack and a squeal as the magistrate’s other hand was crushed in the press of the ghost’s gauntlet. Blue vapours curled from the seams of his helmet, and I imagined Danib was smiling beneath it.
Ghoor was apparently short on spine. The reed scratched across the papyrus marvellously quickly after that, albeit shakily. Temsa cracked a smile, looking between his minions.
‘Well, that was simple! A man of the Code, giving up so easily? Doesn’t that speak more about this city than my murdering does? There we are, Sigil!’
Russun came scurrying up, his chin decorated with vomit.
Temsa pressed his cane into the man’s chest. ‘Take a tally of every corpse here that banked with Fenec Coinery. I want their half-coins transferred to my vaults. Them, and any others I can claim without a ridiculous amount of suspicion; you point them out and my men’ll pile them up.’
Jexebel piped up. ‘And the rest?’
‘Bind them. Take their trinkets. Cut their tongues. Sell them cheap at market, or to the Consortium. I hear Kal Duat’s expand
ing.’
‘Tor… My father will never—’ Russun squawked.
Temsa jabbed him hard. ‘Tor Fenec won’t have a problem, I’m sure. Like you, he had the stupidity to breed.’
Russun’s green pallor faded to white as he was forcibly embarked on a gruesome tour by two black-clad thugs. Temsa winked before turning back to Ghoor.
‘Now, Magistrate. I hear your vault is hidden. Be a good boy and tell us where it is, hmm? Save us some time.’
‘No.’ Ghoor’s wide eyes scrambled over the dead, clearly trying not to count. It is in these moments that a person has to decide what’s worth dying for; what can be given up to save a skin. Ghoor proved himself a fool, thinking he had a choice. ‘No, you can’t have my coins!’
Temsa chuckled as he took a measured step backwards. ‘What do you think you just signed? They’re already mine. And see this shade? He’s the best locksmith in all the Reaches. You are of no use to me.’
‘I…’ Realisation struck the magistrate like a cheap punch. ‘The Chamber will see you dead for this! Stoned to death at the Grand Nyxwell!’
Temsa sighed, looking to Jexebel. ‘Useless threats always come once all hope is lost, don’t you find, m’dear?’
Pointy was a black and copper blur. The cut was so fine that everyone present shared a look, wondering where the blood was. It chose that moment to flow down his neck and chest, pouring as if from nowhere.
‘I hate my new life,’ Pointy sighed.
Unnervingly, Ghoor chose to stare at me while he choked his last, as if holding me personally responsible for robbing him. I couldn’t meet those bulging red eyes, and found escape in Temsa’s. Ignoring my gaze, the tor reached into Ghoor’s bloody collar and plucked forth a key on a chain. He threw it at me.
‘Get to work!’ he roared.
Jexebel pushed me, following her boss out of the blood-slick hall and high into the upper levels. Temsa’s soldiers swarmed about us, pouring down corridors at every level, hammering walls and tearing apart cupboards. They seemed far too used to this sort of work. I heard the clash of more fighting far below. There were still house-guards to be dealt with.
Temsa guessed as I would have, and found the vault in the magistrate’s bedchambers. Some noble folk couldn’t help but keep their fortunes close by. It was why many of them never dallied with banks; they couldn’t believe they were rich unless they could see and touch their wealth. I once burgled a house where the vault was under the bed, so the man could sleep on his spoils.
Once again, the men went to work. Velvet curtains were dragged aside. The fake wall was wrenched away. In a short space of time, the gleam of gold and steel lit the room.
Temsa whispered encouragement in my ear. ‘Your turn, Caltro. Don’t fuck it up.’
I was shoved forwards, despite the fact I was already rubbing my hands together. A small pouch landed next to me with a clink, and I knew it contained my tools. I clutched them to my side as I measured up my challenge.
The vault was pretty, for a monster. Its face was a rectangle of polished metal, chiselled with all sorts of Arctian history in which I had no interest. A squat door sat in its middle between two thick golden columns. An array of locking mechanisms protruded from it: overlapping plates hiding the clockwork guts of the door. They were fashioned after the heavens, shaped like stars or moons, studded with amethysts, carnelian, and ivory.
‘Hello, dear,’ I whispered to the vault, my gaze roaming over its jewellery.
Temsa rammed his cane into the marble. ‘Well? What are you waiting for?’
‘I’m thinking,’ I snapped.
‘Having second thoughts, are y—’
‘This vault was built by Fenris and Daughters. Poured stone door, with steel outer layer and gold fascia. Two-key sequential mechanism, backed up by a combination lock, no doubt with false gates on the discs. Welded strike plates, drilling guards, and sealed hinges. Tough, but far from impossible. Ghoor should have spent less on his Maxir door and more on his vaults.’
My smirk was not shy. Temsa just folded his arms.
I raised the bloody key to the ceiling. The metal frosted at my touch. ‘We’re missing a key, but fortunately for you, Tor, Fenris and his daughters make some of the noisiest vault mechanisms known to locksmiths. Lot of slop in those locks.’
Stepping over the marble, I bent my ear to the gold near the first keyhole, inserted Ghoor’s key, and listened as I turned it, once, twice, thrice. The cogs beneath the metal plates sang to me like a choir. I left it unlocked and moved to the next, tucking two picks into the guarded keyhole. It had been some time since I held my tools, and my fingers were number than usual. I blamed the hauntings, and yet the steel between my blue fingers felt more solid than anything I had known so far as a ghost. Setting my jaw, I began.
To me, it was a battle. My wits against machine and ingenuity, my tools my weapons. To everybody else, it was a ghost muttering away in front of a pretty door.
Temsa soon got bored of my tiny movements and gurning face of concentration, and left me alone with Jexebel. He and Danib wandered off, eager to explore the magistrate’s tower. That was fine by me. I was busy duelling with the door.
Left one. Right three. Up and across. Left seven.
There came a click as the tumblers fell and stuck. I chuckled to myself. ‘Sorry. Not tonight.’
‘Tell me you aren’t talkin’ to the fuckin’ door,’ Jexebel challenged me.
In my concentration I had forgotten she was there, lurking behind me, axe resting on her shoulder. I shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘Fuckin’ fool.’
I moved on to the combination lock, analysing a series of wheels protruding from a plate carved in the shape of a fiery sun. Number glyphs ran along their edges, and a column of disc-like cogs sat beneath them, trapped behind gold filigree.
‘Who’s the bigger fool? The fool, or the fool who follows him?’ I asked her. It was some old Krass proverb that had lodged in my head since childhood. My wisdom was rewarded with a whack, and I bared my teeth at the taste of Jexebel’s copper-edged gauntlets.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she hissed.
‘You follow Temsa, right?’
The hand rose for another strike. ‘Calling me a fool?’
‘No,’ I said, meeting those dark brown eyes of hers. ‘I’m saying don’t be led by one. Makes you a fool too.’
She struck me anyway. Once I’d peeled myself off the floor, I went back to the vault, keeping one eye closed as pain swam through me. I put my hands to the filigree. My glowing vapours trailed over the golden threads. ‘This will take some time.’
‘We have all night.’
I was already too engrossed to answer. Flicking any wheel set the discs in motion, winding down to some clanking resolution before they snapped back into place. I pored over every clank and twang, listening to the heartbeat of the vault.
‘Why do you work for him, anyway?’ I asked, once I’d found the first number. Its disc spun once with a clockwork ticking, coming to rest pointing east, if it were a broken compass.
Jexebel ignored me for some time, as if my words had fallen on deaf ears, until finally: ‘Pay’s good. Killing’s good.’
‘But why him? Why not some other tor or tal? One without all the…’ I wiggled my fingers. ‘Hassle.’
‘I like hassle.’ Jexebel spat for punctuation. ‘He’s smarter than most. Got more balls than any. Look how far he’s come. A bloody tor now. And the more he claims, the bigger my share.’
I flashed her a sidelong look. ‘Taken to tordom quite easily, hasn’t he?’
The furrow in her brow was gone in an instant, but I caught it. And pressed it. ‘He looks very different from the man who lectured me on death my first day as a ghost. And he wants his own tower now, I see?’
The muscular lump of a woman pretended not to hear me.
‘He’s got protection, I’d wager. Someone high up.’ The empress-in-waiting and the Cult. And I highly doubted either knew a
bout the other. Temsa must have been wedged between them.
Jexebel merely grunted.
I paused as I found the next combination, snapping my picks together into a slim file to persuade a disc into skipping a tooth. ‘Promises seem to be slippery things in this city. Doesn’t pay to put your trust in the wrong people.’
Jexebel gave me a dangerous look. I had plucked a nerve, but seeing her gauntlets clench for another blow, I lacked the balls to go further. I’d sparked the tinder. Now to let it smoulder.
Clank. The disc fell into line, and half of the golden plates spread across the face of the door rotated. I had shaken the heavens.
The last disc was a little bastard, tucked away behind the door’s surface so that I could barely see it. I used my file to break apart some of the weaker filigree so I could follow the clockwork back to the number wheels. It took me almost an hour to figure its combinations, and it left me with one solution. I wasn’t usually one for brute force, especially with so much work poured into making a vault so alluring. But I was also a thief, and severely lacking in morals. If I needed to play dirty to win a duel, I’d be knee-deep in mud before you could blink.
‘I could use your axe, Miss Jexebel,’ I said.
‘You can fuck right off—’
‘You can swing it, just right here. How accurate are you with that thing?’
‘I can cut the nose from your face with it.’
‘Perfect. Then cut the nose from the face of this plate, if you please.’
She took one swing for practice, and another for the damage. There was a whoosh and a clank as the axe-head took the corner off the ornate plate in a shower of sparks. In the gap Jexebel had made, I could see the last pieces of the puzzle. I set about rearranging the wheels with my picks, and seeing as I was poised for the killing blow, I celebrated by goading Jexebel some more.
‘See? Temsa might have the balls, but he’s got no brawn. Imagine having both. That would make a person a great tor. Or a great tal…’
I managed to duck the first fist, but the second caught me in the midriff and flattened me against the door. Had I flesh, the stars and moons would have been cutting neat patterns in my ribcage. As Jexebel loomed over me, debating another strike, I raised a finger and placed it on the nearest metal wheel.