Noting this, Scillara said, ‘Making friends in here, are you?’
The blacksmith looked somewhat shamefaced as he shrugged. ‘I had no intention of resisting the arrest, Scillara. My apprentice, alas, decided otherwise.’ Anxiety tightened his features as he asked, ‘Any news of him? Has he been captured? Is he hurt?’
Scillara shrugged. ‘We’ve not seen or heard anything like that, Barathol.’
‘I keep telling them here, he’s only a child in his head. It was my responsibility, all of it. But he went and broke some bones and noses, and they’re pretty annoyed about that.’
Blend cleared her throat. Something was going back and forth between Barathol and Scillara and it made her uneasy. ‘Barathol, we can pay the fine to the Guild, but that scrap you had, that one’s more serious.’
He nodded morosely. ‘Hard labour, yes. Six months or so.’ There was the twitch of a grin. ‘And guess who I will be working for?’
‘Who?’
‘Eldra Foundry. And in six months I’ll earn my ticket as a smith, since that’s allowed. Some kind of rehabilitation programme.’
Scillara’s throaty laugh straightened up both guards. ‘Well, that’s one way to get there, I suppose.’
He nodded. ‘I went about it all wrong, it seems.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Scillara. ‘Is the Guild happy with that? I mean, it’s sort of a way round them, isn’t it?’
‘They’ve no choice. Every Guild in the city has to comply, barring, I suppose, the Assassins’ Guild. Obviously, for most prisoners six months working in a trade might earn them an apprentice grade of some sort – but there’s no limit to how fast you can advance. Just pass the exams and that’s that.’
Scillara looked ready to burst out laughing. Even Barathol was struggling.
Blend sighed and then said, ‘I’ll go settle the fine. Consider it a loan.’
‘Much appreciated, Blend, and thank you.’
‘Remembering Kalam,’ she replied, heading out. Neither guard paid her any attention. But she was used to that.
A bhokaral answered the door. High Alchemist Baruk stared down at it for a long moment before concluding that this was nothing more than a bhokaral. Not a demon, not Soletaken. Just a bhokaral, its little wizened face scrunched up in belligerent regard, spiky ears twitching. When it made to close the postern door again Baruk stepped forward and held it open.
Sudden outrage and indignation. Hissing, spitting, making faces, the bhokaral shook a fist at Baruk and then fled down the corridor.
The High Alchemist closed the door behind him and made his way along the corridor. He could now hear other bhokarala, a cacophony of bestial voices joining in with the first one, raising an alarm that echoed through the temple. At a branching of the passageway he came upon an old Dal Honese woman tearing apart a straw broom. She glared up at Baruk and snapped something in some tribal tongue, then made squiggly gestures with the fingers of her left hand.
The High Alchemist scowled. ‘Retract that curse, witch.
Now.’
‘You’ll not be so bold when the spiders come for you.’
‘Now,’ he repeated, ‘before I lose my temper.’
‘Bah! You’re not worth the effort anyway!’ And all at once she collapsed into a heap of spiders that scurried in all directions.
Baruk blinked, and then quickly stepped back. But none of the creatures skittered his way. Moments later they had inexplicably vanished, although not a single crack or seam was visible.
‘High Alchemist.’
He looked up. ‘Ah, High Priestess. I did knock—’
‘And a bhokaral let you in, yes. They’re in the habit of doing that, having chased away most of my acolytes.’
‘I wasn’t aware bhokarala were in the habit of infestation.’
‘Yes, well. Have you come to speak to me or the chosen . . . mouthpiece of Shadowthrone?’
‘I do not believe you have been entirely usurped, High Priestess.’
‘Your generosity is noted.’
‘Why is there a witch of Ardatha in your temple?’
‘Yes, why? Come with me.’
The Magus of Shadow – gods below – was sitting on the floor in the altar chamber, sharpening knives. A dozen such weapons were scattered round him, each one of a different design. ‘. . . tonight,’ he was muttering, ‘they all die! Cut throats, cleaved hearts, pierced eyeballs, pared-back fingernails. Mayhem and slaughter. Clippings—’ and then he glanced up, started guiltily, licked his lips once and suddenly smiled. ‘Welcome, High Barukness. Isn’t it a lovely day?’
‘High Alchemist Baruk, Magus. And no, it is not a lovely day. What are you doing?’
His eyes darted. ‘Doing? Nothing, can’t you see that?’ He paused. ‘Can’t he smell them? Close, oh so close! It’s going to be a mess and whose fault will that be? A real mess – nothing to do with Iskaral Pust, though! I am perfect.’ He attempted an expression of innocence. ‘I am perfect . . . ly – perfectly – fine.’
Baruk could not help himself, turning to Sordiko Qualm. ‘What was Shadowthrone thinking?’
The question clearly depressed her. ‘I admit to a crisis of faith, High Alchemist.’
Iskaral Pust leapt to his feet. ‘Then you must pray, my love. To me, since Shadowthrone sees through my eyes, hears through my ears, smells through my nose.’ He crossed his eyes and added in a different tone, ‘Farts through my bung-hole, too, but that would be too offensive to mention.’ He struggled to correct his gaze and smiled again. ‘Sordiko, my sweetness, there are very special, very secret prayers. And, er, rituals. See me after this man has left, there’s no time to waste!’ Bhokarala were creeping into the chamber. A score of them, moving with pointless stealth, all converging on Iskaral Pust – who seemed entirely unaware of them as he winked at Sordiko Qualm.
‘High Priestess,’ said Baruk, ‘you have my sympathy.’
‘I have news from Shadowthrone,’ Iskaral Pust said. ‘This is why I have summoned you, Baruchemist.’
‘You did not summon me.’
‘I didn’t? But I must have. At least, I was supposed to.’ He tilted his head. ‘He’s another idiot, nothing but idiots on all sides. There’s just me and Sordiko darling, against the world. Well, we shall triumph!’
‘Shadowthrone?’ Baruk prompted.
‘What? Who? Oh, him.’
‘Through your mouth.’
‘Brilliance shall pass, yes yes. Let me think, let me think. What was that message again? I forget. Wait! Wait, hold on. It was . . . what was it? Set a watch on the Urs Gate. That’s it, yes. Urs Gate. Or was it Foss Gate? Raven Gate? Worry Gate? Cutter Gate? Two-Ox?’
‘Yes,’ said Baruk, ‘that’s all of them.’
‘Urs, yes, it must have been. Urs.’
Sordiko Qualm looked ready to weep.
Baruk rubbed at his eyes, and then nodded. ‘Very well. I shall take my leave then.’ He bowed to the High Priestess.
The bhokarala rushed in. Each stole a knife and then, with shrieks, they raced away clutching their prizes.
Iskaral Pust stared agape, and then pulled at the two snarls of hair above his ears. ‘Evil!’ he screamed. ‘They knew! They knew all my plans! How? How?’
‘Now, what shall I do with you?’
Chaur watched her with doleful eyes. He had been crying again, his eyes puffy, two runnels of snot streaking down to his reddened, chapped lips.
‘We must assume,’ Spite continued, ‘that Barathol is unavoidably indisposed – of course, at the moment all we can do is assume, since in truth we have no idea what’s happened to him. One thing is obvious, and that is that he cannot come here. If he could he would have, right? Come to collect you, Chaur.’
He was moments from bawling again. The simple mention of Barathol threatened to set him off.
Spite tapped her full lips with one long, perfectly manicured finger. ‘Unfortunately, I will need to leave here soon. Can I trust you to stay here, Chaur? Can I?’
He nodded.
‘Are you sure?’
He nodded again, and then wiped his nose, rather messily.
She frowned. ‘Dear me, you’re a sight. Do you realize it is nothing more than certain pathways in your brain that are in disarray? A practitioner of High Denul could work wonders for you, Chaur. It’s a thought, isn’t it? Oh, I know, you don’t have “thoughts” as such. You have . . . impulses, and confusion, and these two make up the man known as Chaur. And, barring times such as this one, you are mostly happy, and perhaps that is not something to be fiddled with. The gods know, happiness is a precious and rare commodity, and indeed it seems that the more intelligent and perceptive the individual, the less happy they generally are. The cost of seeing things as they are, I expect.
‘Then, of course, there is my sister. My smiling murderess sibling. My vicious, ice-cold, treacherous kin. She happens to be almost as intelligent as me, and yet she is immune to unhappiness. A quality, I suspect, of her particular insanity.
‘Anyway, Chaur, you will need to remain here, staying out of sight. For I must pay my sister a visit. For a word or two. Soon, yes?’
He nodded.
‘Now, let’s get you cleaned up. I wouldn’t want to upset Barathol and neither would you, I’m sure.’
Now, Chaur was good at understanding people most of the time. He was good at nodding, too. But on occasion understanding and nodding did not quite match. This was such a time.
But more of that later.
The carter failed to complete his breakfast, as it did not take long for someone to take note of the wrapped corpse, and then to bring word in to Meese that some fool had left a body in the bed of the cart outside the inn – hardly the kind of positive advertisement any inn might welcome, even the Phoenix. Swearing, Meese went out to see for herself, and something about those boots looked familiar. With a suddenly cold heart, she pulled the canvas back from Murillio’s face.
Things happened quickly then: wretched comprehension, word’s swift rush, and finally, the dusty, lifeless place in the soul that was grief. Abject sense of uselessness, the pummelling assault that is shock. The carter was cornered by Irilta and, seeing the strait he’d found himself in, the old man was quick to tell everyone all he knew.
The short, round man at the back of the room rose then with a sober expression and quietly took charge. He told Irilta and Meese to carry the body to a spare room upstairs, which they did with heartrending tenderness. Word was sent out to Coll. As for the others, well, everyone returned to the Phoenix Inn eventually, and so the ordeal of relaying the bad news would not end soon, and each time the emotions would well up once more. The living felt this new burden and they could see that the next few days would be without pleasure, without ease, and already everyone felt exhausted, and not even Kruppe was immune.
A dear friend is dead, and there is nothing just in death. When the moment arrives, it is always too soon. The curse of incompletion, the loss that can never be filled. Before too long, rising like jagged rocks from the flood, there was anger.
The carter was made to explain again about the visit to a mining camp, the duel over some boy, and the victor’s instructions that the body be returned to the Phoenix Inn. That was all he knew, he swore it, and for the moment none but Kruppe – wise Kruppe, clever Kruppe – comprehended who that boy must have been.
Must he now visit a certain duelling school? Possibly.
The ordeal of the burden, the dread weight of terrible news – the witnessing of another crushed spirit, oh, this was a fell day indeed. A most sad, fell day.
And on this night, widows will weep, and so shall we.
Two men are converging on the Phoenix Inn. Which one arrives first changes everything. If the redressing of balance truly existed beyond nature – in the realm of humanity, that is – then Rallick Nom would have been the first to hear of his friend’s death; and he would have set out, hard-eyed, to take upon himself a new burden, for although vengeance salved certain spiritual needs, cold murder delivered terrible damage to the soul. Of course, he had done this once before, in the name of another friend, and so in his mind he felt he could be no more lost than he already was.
Alas, that particular flavour of redress was not to be.
Troubled by a host of thoughts, Cutter approached the entrance to the Phoenix Inn. He noted an old carter leading an ox away, but had no reason to give it any further consideration. As soon as he walked inside, he sensed that something was wrong. Irilta was behind the bar with a bottle in her hand – not, he saw, to pour drinks for customers, but to lift it to her mouth, tilt it back and take punishing mouthfuls. Her eyes were red, startling in a pallid face.
Few people were speaking, and those who were did so in muted tones.
Meese was nowhere to be seen, but Cutter noticed Kruppe, sitting at his table with his back to the room – something he had never before seen him do. A dusty bottle of expensive wine was before him, four goblets set out. Kruppe was slowly filling the one opposite the chair on his right.
His unease deepening, Cutter walked over. He pulled out that chair and sat down.
There was no sign of Kruppe’s usual affability in his visage. Grave, colourless, bleak. In his eyes, raw anguish. ‘Drink, my young friend,’ he said.
Cutter saw that the remaining two goblets were empty. He reached out. ‘This is the expensive stuff, isn’t it? What’s happened, Kruppe?’
‘Honourable Murillio is dead.’
The statement felt like a body blow, punching the breath from Cutter’s chest. He could not move. Pain surged up through the numbness, sank down again only to return once more. Over and over again.
‘A duel,’ said Kruppe. ‘He went to retrieve a lost child. The Eldra Mines west of the city.’
Something jerked inside Cutter, but he could make no sense of it. A recognition? Of what? ‘I thought – I thought he’d given all that up.’
‘Given what up, my friend? The desire to do right?’
Cutter shook his head. ‘Duelling. I meant . . . duelling.’
‘To effect the release of young Harllo. The mine’s owner was there, or one of them at least. History comes round, as it is known to do.’ Kruppe sighed. ‘He was too old for such things.’
And now came the question, and it was asked in a dull tone, a voice emptied of everything. ‘Who killed him, Kruppe?’
And the round man flinched, and hesitated.
‘Kruppe.’
‘This will not do—’
‘Kruppe!’
‘Ah, can such forces be resisted? Gorlas Vidikas.’
And that was that. He’d known, yes, Cutter had known.
The mine . . . Eldra . . . the history. He knows about me. He wanted to punish me. He killed Murillio to hurt me. He killed a fine . . . a fine and noble man. This – this must stop.
‘Sit down, Cutter.’
I mean to stop this. Now. It’s what she wants, anyway.
‘Coll is coming,’ Kruppe said. ‘And Rallick Nom – Crokus, leave this to Rallick—’
But he was already moving, eyes on the door. Irilta stood watching and something in her face caught his attention. There was dark hunger in her eyes – as if she knew where he was going, as if she knew – ‘Cutter,’ she said in a rasp, ‘get the bastard. Get him.’
And then he was outside. The day’s brilliance was like a slap, rocking his head. He gasped, but breathing still wasn’t easy. Pressures assailed him, and rage rose in his mind, a nightmare leviathan with gaping mouth, and its howl filled his skull.
Deafening Cutter to the world.
The day is stripped down, time itself torn away, the present expanding, swallowing everything in sight. It is an instant and that instant feels eternal.
Recall this day’s beginning. A single breath, drawn in with love—
Bellam Nom took a length of braided hide, made loops at both ends. He crouched down in front of Mew. ‘See this loop, Mew? Take it in your hands – I’m going to hold on to the other e
nd, all right? We’re going out. You just keep hold of the rope, all right?’
Round-eyed Mew nodded.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Bellam, ‘I’ll walk slowly.’ He then went to Hinty and picked the girl up, taking her weight in the crook of his left arm. Her thin arms wrapped about his neck and her wet nose brushed his cheek. Bellam smiled down at Mew. ‘Ready?’
Another nod.
They set out.
Snell was still with the old bodymonger, and Bellam had no interest in retrieving him just yet. He had no idea what had happened to Myrla and Bedek, but he left a message scrawled out with charcoal on the surface of the lone table, telling them where he’d taken Mew and Hinty.
Murillio should have been back by now. Bellam was getting worried. He couldn’t wait around any longer.
They walked slowly through the crowds. Twice Mew was inadvertently tugged loose from the rope, but both times Bellam was able to retrieve her. They left the unofficial neighbourhood slum known as the Trench and after some time they arrived at the duelling school.
Bellam set Hinty down in the warm-up area, instructed Mew to remain with her little sister, then set out to find Stonny Menackis.
She was sitting on a stone bench in the shade-swallowed colonnade running along the back end of the practice yard, her long legs stretched out, her eyes on nothing. When she heard him approach she glanced up. ‘Classes cancelled. Go away.’
‘I’m not here for any lessons,’ Bellam said, surprised at the harsh judgement in his own voice.
‘Get out,’ she said, ‘before I beat you senseless.’
‘Too many people, Stonny, are stepping in for you, doing what you’re supposed to be doing. It’s not fair.’
She scowled. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Murillio hasn’t come back?’
‘Everybody leaves.’
‘He found Harllo.’
‘What?’
He saw interest flaring to life in her dark eyes. ‘He found him, Stonny. Working in a mining camp. He went to get him back. But he hasn’t returned. Something’s happened, something bad – I can feel it.’
She stood. ‘Where is this camp? How did he end up there?’
‘Snell.’
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