The Blade Itself tfl-1

by Joe Abercrombie

  “Remember, Bayaz, there are worse things than Khalul. Far worse.” His voice dropped to a whisper and Ferro strained to hear. “The Tellers of Secrets are always listening…”

  “Enough, Yulwei! It is better not even to think of it!” Ferro frowned. What was this nonsense? Tellers of Secrets? What secrets?

  “Remember what Juvens told you, Bayaz. Beware of pride. You have been using the Art. I know it. I see a shadow on you.”

  “Damn your shadows! I do what I must! Remember what Juvens told you, Yulwei. One cannot watch forever. Time is short, and I will watch no longer. I am first. It is my decision to make.”

  “Have I not always followed where you have led? Always, even when my conscience told me otherwise?”

  “And have I ever led you wrong?”

  “That remains to be seen. You are first, Bayaz, but you are not Juvens. It is my part to question, and that of Zacharus too. He will like this still less than I. Far less.”

  “It must be done.”

  “But others will pay the price, as they always have. This Northman, Ninefingers, he can speak to the spirits?”

  “Yes.” Ferro frowned. Spirits? The nine-fingered pink had scarcely looked as if he could speak to other humans.

  “And if you find the Seed,” came Yulwei’s voice from behind the door, “you mean for Ferro to carry it?”

  “She has the blood, and someone must.”

  “Be careful then, Bayaz. I know you, remember. Few better. Give me your word that you will keep her safe, even after she has served your purpose.”

  “I will guard her more closely than I would my own child.”

  “Guard her closer than you did the Maker’s child, and I will be satisfied.”

  A long silence. Ferro worked her jaw as she thought on what she had heard. Juvens, Kanedias, Zacharus—the strange names meant nothing to her. And what kind of seed could burn all creation to ashes? She wanted no part of any such thing, she was sure of that. Her place was in the south, fighting the Gurkish with weapons that she understood.

  The door opened, and the two old men stepped through. They could hardly have looked more different. One dark-skinned, tall and bony with long hair, the other white-skinned, heavy-built and bald. She looked at them suspiciously. It was the white one who spoke first.

  “Ferro, I have an offer to—”

  “I am not going with you, old pink fool.”

  The slightest shadow of annoyance flitted across the bald man’s face, but was quickly mastered. “Why? What other business have you which is so very pressing?”

  That needed no thinking about. “Vengeance.” Her favourite word.

  “Ah. I see. You hate the Gurkish?”

  “Yes.”

  “They owe you a debt, for what they have done to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “For taking your family, your people, your country?”

  “Yes.”

  “For making you a slave,” he whispered. She glowered back at him, wondering how he knew so much about her, wondering whether to go for him again. “They have robbed you, Ferro, robbed you of everything. They have stolen your life from you. If I were you… if I had suffered as you have suffered… there would not be enough blood in all the South to satisfy me. I would see every Gurkish soldier made a corpse before I was satisfied. I would see every Gurkish city burn before I was satisfied. I would see their Emperor rotting in a cage before his own palace before I was satisfied!”

  “Yes!” she hissed, a fierce smile across her face. He was talking her language now. Yulwei had never talked so—perhaps this old pink wasn’t so bad after all. “You understand! That is why I must go south!”

  “No, Ferro.” It was the bald man grinning now. “You do not realise the chance that I am offering you. The Emperor does not truly rule in Kama. Mighty though he seems, he dances to the tune of another, a hand well hidden. Khalul, they call him.”

  “The Prophet.”

  Bayaz nodded. “If you are cut, do you hate the knife, or the one who wields it? The Emperor, the Gurkish, they are but Khalul’s tools, Ferro. Emperors come and go, but the Prophet is always there, behind them. Whispering. Suggesting. Ordering. He is the one that owes you.”

  “Khalul… yes.” The Eaters had used that name. Khalul. The Prophet. The Emperor’s palace was filled with priests, everyone knew it. The palaces of the governors too. Priests, they were everywhere, swarming, like insects. In the cities, in the villages, in amongst the soldiers, always spreading their lies. Whispering. Suggesting. Ordering. Yulwei was frowning, unhappy, but Ferro knew that the old pink was right. “Yes, I see it!”

  “Help me, and I will give you vengeance, Ferro. Real vengeance. Not one dead soldier, or ten, but thousands. Tens of thousands! Perhaps the Emperor himself, who knows?” He shrugged, and half turned away from her. “Still, I cannot force you. Go back to the Badlands, if you wish—hide, and run, and grub in the dust like a rat. If that satisfies you. If that is the full measure of your vengeance. The Eaters want you now. Khalul’s children. Without us they will have you, and sooner rather than later. Still, the choice is yours.”

  Ferro frowned. All those years in the wilderness, fighting tooth and nail, always running, had got her nothing. No vengeance worthy of the word. If it had not been for Yulwei, she would be finished now. White bones in the desert. Meat in the bellies of the Eaters. In the cage before the Emperor’s palace.

  Rotting.

  She could not say no, and she knew it, but she did not like it. This old man had known exactly what to offer her. She hated to have no choice.

  “I will think about it,” she said.

  Again, the slightest shadow of anger on the bald pink’s face, quickly covered. “Think about it then, but not for long. The Emperor’s soldiers are massing, and time is short.” He followed the others out of the room, leaving her alone with Yulwei.

  “I do not like these pinks,” she said, loud enough for the old one to hear her in the corridor, and then more softly. “Do we have to go with them?”

  “You do. I must return to the South.”

  “What?”

  “Someone must keep watch on the Gurkish.”

  “No!”

  Yulwei began to laugh. “Twice you have tried to kill me. Once you have tried to run away from me, but now that I am leaving you want me to stay? There’s no understanding you, Ferro.”

  She frowned. “This bald one says he can give me vengeance. Does he lie?”

  “No.”

  “Then I must go with him.”

  “I know. That is why I brought you here.”

  She could think of nothing to say. She looked down at the floor, but Yulwei surprised her by stepping forward suddenly. She raised her hand, to ward off a blow, but instead he put his arms round her and squeezed her tightly. A strange feeling. Being so close to someone else. Warm. Then Yulwei stepped away, one hand on her shoulder. “Walk in God’s footsteps, Ferro Maljinn.”

  “Huh. They have no God here.”

  “Say rather that they have many.”

  “Many?”

  “Had you not noticed? Here, each man worships himself.” She nodded. That seemed close to the truth. “Be careful, Ferro. And listen to Bayaz. He is the first of my order, and few indeed are wise as he.”

  “I do not trust him.”

  Yulwei leaned closer. “I did not tell you to trust him.” Then he smiled, and turned his back. She watched him walk slowly to the door, then out into the corridor. She heard his bare feet flapping away on the tiles, the bangles on his arms jingling softly.

  Leaving her alone with the luxury, and the gardens, and the pinks.

  Old Friends

  There was a thumping knock at the door, and Glokta jerked his head up, left eye suddenly twitching. Who the hell comes knocking at this hour? Frost? Severard? Or someone else? Superior Goyle, maybe, come to pay me a visit with his circus freaks? Might the Arch Lector have grown tired of his toy cripple already? One could hardly say the feast went acco
rding to plan, and his Eminence is hardly the forgiving type. Body found floating by the docks…

  The knocking came again. Loud, confident knocking. The kind that demands the door be opened, before it’s broken down. “I’m coming!” he shouted, voice cracking slightly as he prised himself out from behind his table, legs wobbly. “I’m just coming!” He snatched up his cane and limped to the front door, took a deep breath and fumbled with the latch.

  It was not Frost, or Severard. Nor was it Goyle, or one of his freakish Practicals. It was someone much more unexpected. Glokta raised an eyebrow, then leaned against the door frame. “Major West, what a surprise.”

  Sometimes, when old friends meet, things are instantly as they were all those years before. The friendship resumes, untouched, as though there had been no interruption. Sometimes, but not now. “Inquisitor Glokta,” mumbled West—hesitant, awkward, embarrassed. “I’m sorry to bother you so late.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said Glokta with icy formality.

  The Major nearly winced. “May I come in?”

  “Of course.” Glokta shut the front door behind him, then limped after West into his dining room. The Major squeezed himself into one of the chairs and Glokta took another. They sat there facing each other for a moment, without speaking. What the hell does he want, at this hour or any other? Glokta scrutinised his old friend’s face in the glow from the fire and the one, flickering candle. Now that he could see him more clearly, he realised West had changed. He looks old. His hair was thinning at the temples, going grey round his ears. His face was pale, pinched, slightly hollow. He looks worried. Ground down. Close to the edge. West looked round at the mean room, the mean fire, the mean furniture, cautiously up at Glokta, then quickly down at the floor. Nervous, as if he had something picking at his mind. He looks ill at ease. As well he might.

  He did not seem ready to break the silence, so Glokta did it for him. “So, how long has it been, eh? Apart from that night in town, and we can hardly count that, can we?”

  The memory of that unfortunate meeting hung between them for a moment like a fart, then West cleared his throat. “Nine years.”

  “Nine years. Imagine that. Since we stood on the ridge, old friends together, looking down towards the river. Down towards the bridge and all those Gurkish on the other side. Seems a lifetime ago, doesn’t it? Nine years. I can remember you pleading with me not to go down there, but I was having none of it. What a fool I was, eh? Thought I was our only hope. Thought I was invincible.”

  “You saved us all that day, saved the whole army.”

  “Did I? How wonderful. I daresay if I’d died on that bridge there’d be statues of me all over the place. Shame I didn’t, really. Shame for everyone.”

  West winced and shifted in his chair, looking ever more uncomfortable. “I looked for you, afterwards…” he mumbled.

  You looked for me? How hugely fucking noble. What a true friend. Precious little good it did me, dragged off in agony with my leg hacked to mincemeat. And that was just the beginning. “You did not come to discuss old times, West.”

  “No… no, I didn’t. I came about my sister.”

  Glokta paused. He had certainly not expected that answer. “Ardee?”

  “Ardee, yes. I’m leaving for Angland soon and… I was hoping that, perhaps, you could keep an eye on her for me, while I’m away.” West’s eyes flickered up nervously. “You always had a way with women… Sand.” Glokta grimaced at the sound of his first name. No one called him that anymore. No one besides my mother. “You always knew just what to say. Do you remember those three sisters? What were their names? You had them all eating out of your hand.” West smiled, but Glokta couldn’t.

  He remembered, but the memories were weak now, colourless, faded. The memories of another man. A dead man. My life began in Gurkhul, in the Emperor’s prisons. The memories since then are much more real. Stretched out in bed like a corpse after I came back, in the darkness, waiting for friends who never came. He looked at West, and he knew that his glance was terribly cold. Do you think to win me with your honest face and your talk of old times? Like a long-lost dog, at last come faithfully home? I know better. You stink, West. You smell like betrayal. That memory at least is mine.

  Glokta leaned back slowly in his chair. “Sand dan Glokta,” he murmured, as though recalling a name he once knew. “Whatever became of him, eh, West? You know, that friend of yours, that dashing young man, handsome, proud, fearless? Magic touch with the women? Loved and respected by all, destined for great things? Wherever did he go?”

  West looked back, puzzled and unsure of himself, and said nothing.

  Glokta lurched towards him, hands spread out on the table, lips curling back to show his ruined mouth. “Dead! He died on the bridge! And what remains? A fucking ruin with his name! A limping, skulking shadow! A crippled ghost, clinging to life the way the smell of piss clings to a beggar. He has no friends, this loathsome fucking remnant, and he wants none! Get you gone, West! Go back to Varuz, and to Luthar, and the rest of those empty bastards! There’s no one here you know!” Glokta’s lips trembled and spat with revulsion. He wasn’t sure who disgusted him more—West, or himself.

  The Major blinked, his jaw muscles working silently. He got shakily to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said, over his shoulder.

  “Tell me!” shouted Glokta, bringing him up short of the door. “The rest of them, they stuck to me so long as I was useful, so long as I was going up. I always knew it. I wasn’t so very surprised they wanted nothing to do with me when I came back. But you, West, I always thought you were a better friend than that, a better man. I always thought that you at least—you alone—would come to visit me.” He shrugged. “I suppose I was wrong.” Glokta turned away, frowning towards the fire, waiting for the sound of the front door closing.

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  Glokta looked back. “Who?”

  “Your mother.”

  He snorted. “My mother? Tell me what?”

  “I did come. Twice. As soon as I learned that you were back, I came. Your mother turned me away at the gates of your estate. She said that you were too ill to take visitors, and that in any case you wanted nothing more to do with the army, and nothing more to do with me in particular. I came back again, a few months later. I thought I owed you that much. That time a servant came to see me off. Later I heard that you had joined the Inquisition, and left for Angland. I put you out of my mind… until we met… that night in the city…” West trailed off.

  It took a while for his words to sink in, and by the time they had, Glokta realised that his mouth was hanging open. So simple. No conspiracy. No web of betrayal. He almost wanted to laugh at the stupidity of it. My mother turned him away at the gate, and I never thought to doubt that no one came. She always hated West. A most unsuitable friend, far beneath her precious son. No doubt she blamed him for what happened to me. I should have guessed, but I was too busy wallowing in pain and bitterness. Too busy being tragic. He swallowed. “You came?”

  West shrugged. “For what it’s worth.”

  Well. What can we do, except try to do better? Glokta blinked, and took a deep breath. “I’m, er… I’m sorry. Forget what I said, if you can. Please. Sit down. You were saying something about your sister.”

  “Yes. Yes. My sister.” West fumbled his way back to his seat, looking down at the floor, his face taking on that worried, guilty look again. “We’re leaving for Angland soon, and I don’t know when I’ll be back… or if, I suppose… she’ll be without any friends in the city and, well… I think you met her once, when you came to our house.”

  “Of course, and a good deal more recently than that, in fact.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. With our mutual friend, Captain Luthar.”

  West turned even paler. There is something more to this than he is telling me. But Glokta did not feel like putting his club foot through his one friendship quite yet, not so soon after it had been reborn. He stayed
quiet, and after a moment the Major went on.

  “Life has been… difficult for her. I could have done something. I should have done something.” He stared miserably down at the table and an ugly spasm ran across his face. I know that one. One of my own favourites. Self-loathing. “But I chose to let other things get in the way, and I did my best to forget all about it, and I pretended that everything was fine. She has suffered and I am to blame.” He coughed, then swallowed awkwardly. His lip began to tremble and he covered his face with his hands. “My fault… if something were to happen to her…” His shoulders shook silently, and Glokta raised his eyebrows. He was used to men crying in his presence of course. But I usually have at least to show them the instruments first.

  “Come on, Collem, this isn’t like you.” He reached slowly across the table, half pulled his hand back, and then patted his sobbing friend awkwardly on the shoulder. “You’ve made some mistakes, but haven’t we all? They’re in the past, and can’t be changed. There’s nothing to be done now except to do better, eh?” What? Can it really be me talking? Inquisitor Glokta, comforter of the needy? But West seemed reassured. He lifted his head, wiped his runny nose, stared up hopefully at Glokta with wet eyes.

  “You’re right, you’re right, of course. I have to make amends. Have to! Will you help me, Sand? Will you look after her, while I’m gone?”

  “I’ll do whatever I can for her, Collem, you can depend on me. I was once proud to call you my friend and… I would be again.” Strange, but Glokta could almost feel a tear in his own eye. Me? Can it be? Inquisitor Glokta, trustworthy friend? Inquisitor Glokta, protector of vulnerable young women? He almost laughed out loud at the idea, and yet here he was. He never would have thought that he needed one, but it felt good to have a friend again.

  “Hollit,” said Glokta.

  “What?”

  “Those three sisters, their name was Hollit.” He chuckled to himself, the memory filtering through a little clearer than before. “They had a thing about fencing. Loved it. Something about the sweat, maybe.”

  “I think that was when I decided to take it up.” West laughed, then screwed up his face as if he was trying to remember something. “What was our quartermaster’s name? He had a thing for the youngest one, was out of his mind with jealousy. What the hell was that man’s name? Fat man.”