‘The ghost of a gate,’ said Bottle.
Quick Ben’s eyes glittered in the gloom. ‘An area of influence, yes, but that ghost gate, it’s wandered—it’s not even there any more, in the Wastelands, I mean.’
‘East of the Wastelands,’ said Bottle. ‘That’s where we’ll find it, and that’s where we’re going, isn’t it?’
Quick Ben nodded. ‘Better the ghost than the real thing.’
‘Familiar with the real one, are you, High Mage?’
He glanced away. ‘She’s worked that one out all on her own. Too canny, too damned unknowable.’
‘Do you think she’s in communication with her brother?’
‘I don’t dare ask,’ Quick Ben admitted. ‘She’s like Dujek that way. Some things you just don’t bring up. But, you know, that might explain a lot of things.’
‘But then ask yourself this,’ said Bottle. ‘What if she isn’t?’
The wizard was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed. ‘If not Paran, then who?’
‘Right.’
‘That’s a nasty question.’
‘I don’t spy on the Adjunct just when she has you for company, Quick Ben. Most of the time I watch her, it’s when she’s alone.’
‘That’s pathetic—’
‘Fuck the jokes, High Mage. Our Adjunct knows things. And I want to know how. I want to know if she has company none of us know a thing about. Now, if you want me to stop doing that, give me a solid reason. You say she’s got close to you. Have you returned the favour?’
‘I would, if I knew how. That otataral sword pushes me away—it’s what they’re made to do, isn’t it.’ Seeing the sceptical expression opposite him, he scowled. ‘What?’
‘It doesn’t push you as hard as you like to pretend it does. The risk is that the harder and deeper you push through the otataral, the more of yourself you potentially expose—and if she catches sight of you, she won’t just be close to knowing you, she’ll be certain.’ He jabbed a finger at Quick Ben. ‘And that is what you don’t want to happen, and it’s the real reason why you don’t dare push through. So, your only chance is me. Do I resume spying or not?’
‘Lostara’s suspicious—’
‘When the Adjunct is presumably alone.’
The High Mage hesitated, and then nodded. ‘Found anything yet?’
‘No. She’s not in the habit of thinking out loud, that much is obvious. She doesn’t pray, and I’ve yet to hear a one-sided conversation.’
‘Could you be blinded?’
‘I could, yes, but I’d sense the gaps of awareness. I think. Depending on how good the geas is.’
‘If it’s a geas directed specifically at your extra eyes?’
‘It would have to be. But you’re right, something specific, Mockra maybe, that slips into the rat’s tiny brain and paints a pretty picture of nothing happening. If that’s the case, then I don’t know how I could do anything about it, because with the local effect of the otataral, the source of that sorcery would be an appallingly high level—a damned god’s level, I mean.’
‘Or an Elder’s.’
‘These waters are too deep for a mortal like me, Quick Ben. My spying only works because it’s passive. Strictly speaking, riding a soul isn’t magic, not in the common sense.’
‘Then seek out something on the Wastelands, Bottle. See what you can see, because I can’t get close and neither, I think, can the Adjunct. Find a wolf, or a coyote—they like to hang round armies and such. Who’s out there?’
‘I’ll try. But if it’s that risky, you might lose me. I might lose me, which is even worse.’
Quick Ben smiled his little smile and reached into the heap of dolls. ‘That’s why I’ve tied this thread to this particular doll.’
Bottle hissed. ‘You miserable shit.’
‘Stop complaining. I’ll pull you back if you get into trouble. That’s a promise.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ said Bottle, rising.
The High Mage looked up in surprise. ‘What’s to think about?’
‘Quick Ben, if it’s that dangerous in the Wastelands, hasn’t it occurred to you that if I’m grabbed, you may not be the one doing the pulling on that thread? With you suddenly drooling and playing with dolls for real, the Adjunct and, more importantly, her army, are well and truly doomed.’
‘I can hold my own,’ Quick Ben growled.
‘How do you know you can? You don’t even know what’s out there. And why would I want to put myself in the middle of a tugging contest? I might well get torn to pieces.’
‘Since that wasn’t the first thing you brought up,’ said Quick Ben, with a sly look, ‘I expect you have a few contingency plans to deal with the possibility.’
‘I said I’d think about it.’
‘Don’t wait too long deciding, Bottle.’
‘Two full crates of that smoked sausage, aye. Fist Keneb’s orders.’
‘Will do, Master Sergeant.’
‘Strap them tight, remember,’ Pores reminded the spotty-faced young man and was pleased at the eager nod. Quartermaster division always pulled in the soldiers who couldn’t fight their way out of a school playground, and they had two ways of going once they’d got settled—either puppies who jumped at the snap of an officer’s fingers or the ones who built impregnable fortresses out of regulations and then hoarded supplies somewhere inside—as if to give anything up drew blood and worse. Those ones Pores had made a career out of crushing; but at times like this, the puppies were the ones he wanted.
He cast a surreptitious glance around, but the chaos swirled unabated on all sides and no one was paying him any attention. And the puppy was happy at being collared, so when accosted he could shake his head, duck down and use the various lines Pores himself used. ‘Fist Keneb’s orders, take it up with him.’ And ‘Master Sergeant’s got recruits to outfit, fifty of ’em, and Captain Kindly said to do it quick.’ Keneb was safe enough since at the moment nobody apart from his personal adjutants could even get close to him; and as for Kindly, well, the name itself usually sucked the blood from even the heartiest faces.
It was a minor and mostly irrelevant detail that Pores had somehow lost his recruits. Snatched away from the marine squads by someone nobody knew anything about. If trouble arrived Pores could look innocent and point fingers at the squad sergeants. Never make a roadblock of yourself on trouble’s road. No, make yourself a bridge instead, with stones slick as grease.
I should compose a mid-level officer’s guide to continued health, indolence and undeserved prosperity. But then, if I did that, I’d have to be out of the battle, no longer in competition, as it were. Say, retired somewhere nice. Like a palace nobody was using. And that would be my crowning feat—requisitioning a palace.
‘Queen Frabalav’s orders, sir. If you got a problem, you can always discuss it with her one-eyed torturer.’
But for now, fine Letherii smoked sausages, three crates of excellent wine, a cask of cane syrup, all for Fist Keneb (not that he’d ever see any of that); and extra blankets, extra rations, officer boots including cavalry high-steppers, rank sigils and torcs for corporals, sergeants, and lieutenants, all for his fifty or was it sixty vanished recruits—which translated into Pores’s very own private stock for those soldiers on the march who lost things but didn’t want to be officially docked for replacements.
He’d already commandeered three wagons with decent teams, under guard at the moment by soldiers from Primly’s squad. It occurred to him he might have to draw those three squads in as partners in his black-market operation, but that shouldn’t be too hard. Envy diminished the more one shared the rewards, after all, and with something at stake those soldiers would have the proper incentive when it came to security and whatnot.
All in all, things were shaping up nicely.
‘Hey there, what’s in that box?’
‘Combs, sir—’
‘Ah, for Captain Kindly then.’
‘Aye, sir. Personal requisition—
’
‘Excellent. I’ll take those to him myself.’
‘Well, uhm—’
‘Not only is the captain my immediate superior, soldier, I also happen to be his barber.’
‘Oh, right. Here you go, sir—just a signature here—that wax bar, yes sir, that’s the one.’
Smiling, Pores drew out his reasonable counterfeit of Kindly’s own seal and pressed it firmly down on the wax bar. ‘Smart lad, keeping things proper is what makes an army work.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hedge’s pleasure at seeing that his Letherii alchemist had rounded up the new recruits as he had ordered quickly drained away when he cast a gauging eye on the forty would-be soldiers sitting not fifteen paces from the company latrine trench. When he first approached the bivouac he’d thought they were waving at him, but turned out it was just the swarming flies.
‘Bavedict!’ he called to his alchemist, ‘get ’em on their feet!’
The alchemist gathered up his long braid and with a practised twist spun it into a coil atop his head, where the grease held it fast, and then rose from the peculiar spike-stool he’d set up outside his hide tent. ‘Captain Hedge, the last mix is ready to set and the special rain-capes were delivered by my brother half a bell ago. I have what I need to do some painting.’
‘That’s great. This is all of them?’ he asked, nodding towards the recruits.
Bavedict’s thin lips tightened in a grimace. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘How long have they been sitting in that stench?’
‘A while. Not ready to do any thinking for themselves yet—but that’s what’s to be expected from us Letherii. Soldiers do what they’re told to do and that’s that.’
Hedge sighed.
‘There’s two acting sergeants,’ Bavedict added. ‘The ones with their backs to us.’
‘Names?’
‘Sunrise—he’s the one with the moustache. And Nose Stream.’
‘Well now,’ Hedge said, ‘who named them?’
‘Some Master Sergeant named Pores.’
‘I take it he wasn’t around when you snatched them.’
‘They’d been tied to some squads and those squads were none too pleased about it anyway. So it wasn’t hard cutting them loose.’
‘Good.’ Hedge glanced over at Bavedict’s carriage, a huge, solid-looking thing of black varnished wood and brass fittings; he then squinted at the four black horses waiting in their harnesses. ‘You was making a good living, Bavedict, leading me to wonder all over again what you’re doing here.’
‘Like I said, I got too close a look at what one of those cussers of yours can do—to a damned dragon, no less. My shop’s nothing but kindling.’ He paused and balanced himself on one foot, the other one set against the leg just below the knee. ‘But mostly professional curiosity, Captain, ever a boon and a bane both. So, you just keep telling me anything and everything you recall about the characteristics of the various Moranth alchemies, and I’ll keep inventing my own brand of munitions for your sappers.’
‘My sappers, aye. Now I better go and meet—’
‘Here come two of ’em now, Captain.’
He turned and almost stepped back. Two enormous, sweaty women had fixed small eyes on him and were closing in.
They saluted and the blonde one said, ‘Corporal Sweetlard, sir, and this is Corporal Rumjugs. We got a request, sir.’
‘Go on.’
‘We want to move from where we was put down. Too many flies, sir.’
‘An army never marches or camps alone, Corporal,’ said Hedge. ‘We got rats, we got mice, we got capemoths and crows, ravens and rhizan. And we got flies.’
‘That’s true enough, sir,’ said the black-haired one, Rumjugs, ‘but even over here there ain’t so many of ’em. Ten more paces between us and the trench there, sir, is all we’re asking.’
‘Your first lesson,’ said Hedge. ‘If the choice is between comfortable and miserable, choose comfortable—don’t wait for any damned orders neither. Distracted and irritated makes you more tired. Tired gets you killed. If it’s hot look for shade. If it’s cold bundle t’gether when not on post. If you’re in a bad spot for flies, find a better one close by and move. Now, I got a question for you two. Why are you bringing me this request and not your sergeants?’
‘They was going to,’ said Rumjugs, ‘but then me and Sweet here, we pointed out that you’re a man and we’re whores or used to be, and you was more likely to be nice to us than to them. Assuming you prefer women an’ not men.’
‘Good assumption and smart thinking. Now, go back there and get everybody on their feet and over here.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He returned their salute and watched them wheeze and waddle back to the others.
Bavedict moved up beside him. ‘Maybe there’s hope for them after all.’
‘Just needs teasing out, that’s all,’ said Hedge. ‘Now, find a wax tablet or something—I need a list of their names made up—my memory is bad these days, ever since I died and came back, in fact.’
The alchemist blinked, and then recovered. ‘Right away, Captain.’
All in all, Hedge concluded, a decent start.
Lostara slammed the knife back into its sheath, then walked to examine an array of tribal trophies lining one wall of the presence chamber. ‘Fist Keneb is not at his best,’ she said. Behind her in the centre of the room, the Adjunct said nothing. After a moment Lostara went on. ‘Grub’s disappearance hit him hard. And the thought that he might have been swallowed up by an Azath is enough to curdle anyone’s toes. It’s not helping that Fist Blistig seems to have decided he’s already good as dead.’
She turned to see the Adjunct slowly drawing off her gauntlets. Tavore’s face was pale, a taut web of lines trapping her eyes. She’d lost weight, further reducing the few feminine traits she possessed. Beyond grief waited emptiness, a place where loneliness haunted in mocking company, and memories were entombed in cold stone. The woman that was the Adjunct had decided that no one would ever take T’amber’s place. Tavore’s last tie to the gentler gifts of humanity had been severed. Now there was nothing left. Nothing but her army, which looked ready to unravel all on its own—and even to this she seemed indifferent.
‘It’s not like the King to keep us waiting,’ Lostara muttered, reaching to unsheathe her knife.
‘Leave it,’ the Adjunct snapped.
‘Of course. My apologies, Adjunct.’ She dropped her hand and resumed her uninterested examination of the artifacts. ‘These Letherii devoured a lot of tribes.’
‘Empires will, Lieutenant.’
‘I imagine this Kolanse did the same. It is an empire, is it not?’
‘I do not know,’ the Adjunct replied, then added, ‘it does not matter.’
‘It doesn’t?’
But with her next words it was clear that the Adjunct was not interested in elaborating. ‘My predecessor, a woman named Lorn, was murdered in a street in Darujhistan. She had, by that point, completed her tasks, insofar as anyone can tell. Her death seemed to be little more than ill luck, a mugging or something similar. Her corpse was deposited in a pauper’s pit.’
‘Forgive me, Adjunct, but what is this story in aid of?’
‘Legacies are never what one would hope for, are they, Captain? In the end, it does not matter what was achieved. Fate holds no tally of past triumphs, courageous deeds, or moments of profound integrity.’
‘I suppose not, Adjunct.’
‘Conversely, there is no grim list of failures, moments of cowardice or dishonour. The wax is smooth, the past melted away—if it ever existed at all.’ Those snared eyes fixed briefly on Lostara before sliding away once more. ‘She died on a street, just one more victim of mischance. A death devoid of magic.’
Lostara’s attention dropped down to the sword strapped at Tavore’s hip. ‘Most deaths are, Adjunct.’
Tavore nodded. ‘The wax melts. There is, I think, some comfort to be found in that. A small measure of .
. . release.’
Is that the best you can hope for, Tavore? Gods below. ‘Lorn was not there to gauge the worth of her legacy, if that is what you mean, Adjunct. Which was probably a mercy.’
‘I sometimes think that fate and mercy are often one and the same.’
The notion chilled Lostara.
‘The army,’ continued the Adjunct, ‘will sort itself out once on the march. I give them this touch of chaos, of near anarchy. As I do for Fists Keneb and Blistig. I have my reasons.’
‘Yes, Adjunct.’
‘In the King’s presence, Captain, I expect you to refrain from any undue attention to the knife at your side.’
‘As you command, Adjunct.’
Moments later an inner door swung open and King Tehol strode in, trailed by the Chancellor. ‘My sincerest apologies, Adjunct. It’s all my Ceda’s fault, not that you need to know that, but then’—and he smiled as he sat down on the raised chair—‘now you do, and I don’t mind telling what a relief that is.’
‘You summoned us, Majesty,’ said Adjunct.
‘Did I? Oh yes, so I did. Relax, there’s no crisis—well, none that concerns you directly. Well, not in Letheras, anyway. Not at the moment, I mean. Ceda, step forward there now! Adjunct Tavore, we have a gift for you. In expression of our deepest gratitude.’
Queen Janath had arrived as well, moving up to stand to one side of her husband, one hand resting on the chair’s high back.
Bugg was holding a small hand-polished wooden case, which he now set into the Adjunct’s hands.
The chamber was silent as Tavore unlatched the lid and tilted it back to reveal a water-etched dagger. The grip and pommel were both plain, functional, and as far as Lostara could see, the blade itself, barring the etched swirls, was unspectacular. After a moment’s examination, the Adjunct shut the lid and looked up at the King. ‘Thank you, sire. I shall treasure this—’
‘Hold on,’ said Tehol, rising and walking over. ‘Let’s see that thing—’ and he lifted the lid once more, and then faced Bugg. ‘Couldn’t you have selected something prettier than that, Ceda? Why, I imagine the Chancellor is mortified now that he’s seen it!’
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