Orb Sceptre Throne, page 30
‘Yes.’
‘May I speak to him?’
‘I’m he – that is, he is me, myself.’
The clerk’s brows arched even higher. ‘Indeed. How … refreshingly informal of you, Councillor.’
One day I’ll get the better of one of these bureaucrats, I swear. ‘You have a message?’
‘Indeed.’ She held out a sealed scroll.
Torvald read it by the uncertain light of a torch carried by one of the Wardens. Then he read it again. When he looked up there was an expression upon his face that made the clerk eye him more closely, puzzled.
‘You are quite well, sir?’
Special emissary! Travel to Pale and environs. Report on state of affairs. Torvald restrained himself from hugging the clerk. A gift from the gods! He managed to hold his mouth tight, nodding curtly. ‘Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I will leave at once, of course. The Legate can be assured of my cooperation.’ He moved to close the door but stopped, thinking of something. ‘Ah – there wouldn’t be a travel stipend associated with this position, would there?’
Later, retracing her steps to Majesty Hill to finish her report and retire for the night, it occurred to the clerk that never before had she ever seen any councillor so happy to be sent from the city.
Barathol worked only at night. Long after sunset armoured chests arrived at the tent containing his makeshift forge set up close to where the harbour mole began. The chests contained silver to be melted down and poured into moulds. And not raw silver: finished jewellery, utensils, ornaments and coin. A great deal of silver coin. All destined for the ceramic crucible supplied to him to be heated on the forge.
Once the metal was melted he poured it into sand moulds, two at a time. Plain forms they were, shaped exactly like the iron pins used to hold stone blocks together. Except these would be of silver and thus far too soft to secure anything. And he’d told them that as well, the two who took over the process once he’d poured. Neither gave a damn what he thought. One was a tall scarred fellow with a great mane of hair and a ferocious hooked nose. The other was some sort of hunchback, or cripple, even worse-looking, all mismatched in his broken features and mangled hands. Both stank like mages to him.
They would curtly gesture him out then work some sort of sorcery over the still soft metal. Later, he would be allowed back into the tent to knock the pins from their black sand moulds and polish them up. Each time he found them inscribed in symbols and script utterly unfamiliar to him. In the morning the men would pack up the finished items and carry them off. He never saw either of them during the daytime excavations.
Shortly after the morning shift began work he would stagger home to get some sleep. Unfortunately for him this was a rather rare commodity. Scillara was disinclined to rise before noon and so he watched little Chaur until she came downstairs. Then he made lunch for them. After that she often had little chores for him; repairing this, or replacing that. Sometimes she went out, leaving him to mind Chaur for the rest of the day.
Then there was dinner to be made.
Often he did not lie down in the cot downstairs until close to dusk. Only a few hours later it would be time to rise to work the night through once again. For Barathol time began to pass in a dazed fog of utter exhaustion. Fortunately the work was not demanding. He was tempted to sleep in the tent next to the forge but was haunted by what might happen to little Chaur in his absence. Scillara was not cruel; she was simply not interested and he did not hold this against her. It seemed to him that frankly most people by temperament and character should not be thrust into the role of parents. She was simply uncharacteristic in admitting it. He was at a loss to know how to resolve the trap life had set for him. The most attractive answer was to take little Chaur and walk away. He wondered, idly, his mind barely on his work, whether Scillara would even complain.
As the days passed, and his shambling dazed existence extended into a near hallucinogenic stupor, he would take breaks from the heat of the forge to stand outside in the cool night air. Here, he was sure the lack of sleep was affecting his mind, because he was seeing things. Sometimes the night sky would be occluded by the arc of an immense dome that glowed like snow. It would be gone when next he blinked. At other times flames seemed to dance over the entire city. Once he saw the taller of the mages standing out among the salvaged stones. The man was weeping, his hands pressed to his face, his body shuddering in great heaving sobs.
Am I going mad? Perhaps we both are.
A smooth warm hand brushing his cheek brought Lim to consciousness. He smiled, remembering similar nights long ago – then his eyes snapped open.
He stared at Taya crouched on his bed. ‘What in the name of Gedderone are you doing here!’
The girl’s full lips puckered into an exaggerated pout. ‘Don’t you want me, dearest Jeshin?’
‘Well, yes. But – no! You mustn’t … how did you get in here?’
She uncoiled herself from the bed, walked round it. Jeshin could not take his eyes from her. ‘Never mind that, dearest. I am here to congratulate you.’
He rose and threw on a silk dressing gown. He eyed the door to his chamber – closed. ‘Congratulate … me?’ he said as he edged towards the door. A shape emerged from the shadows next to it, a ghostly wavering figure of a man in tattered finery. The spectre raised a finger to its lips for silence.
Jeshin found that his voice had fled.
‘You’ve played your part magnificently, dearest. Even better than we could have hoped. But now …’ She sighed. Jeshin pulled his gaze from the apparition to her. She was shaking her head in mock sadness. ‘Now it is time to move on to the second act.’
Jeshin tried to shout but something had a fist at his throat. He could barely draw breath. Taya was at his side. Her soft lips brushed his cheek. ‘There is someone here I want you to meet,’ she whispered, her voice thick with passion.
Through tears he saw a new figure emerge from the gloom. A man in loose obscuring robes and on his head, bizarrely, an oval mask that shone pale in the starlight like a moon. Terror drove a knife into his heart and he would have collapsed but for Taya supporting him by one arm.
‘You wished to be a great ruler and for Darujhistan to rise anew,’ Taya breathed in his ear. ‘Well, you shall have your wish, my dear! You shall be the most magnificent ruler Darujhistan has ever seen. And under your hand the city will be reborn. All Genabackis shall bow before it, as before.’
She grasped his hair to wrench back his head. His cheeks ran with tears. The figure raised a hand to the mask, lifted it from its head.
When he saw what was revealed beneath Jeshin managed one soul-shattering scream before the suffocating metal was pressed to his face.
Scorch and Leff paused in their card game at a table next to the rear servants’ entrance of Lim manor. Leff cocked his head. ‘Hear that? You hear something?’
Scorch took a stiff sip from a jug of cooking wine, set it down with a grimace of disgust. ‘Hunh?’
‘I said, did you hear something?’
Scorch listened fiercely, cocking his head.
Leff raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Not now! A minute ago – anything ?’
Scorch shook a negative. He set a hand on the crossbow leaning against the table. ‘Should we … you know …’
‘Should we what?’
‘I dunno. ’Vestigate?’
Leff examined his cards. Tower, magus, mercenary. It was a good hand. ‘Naw. Not right now.’ He eyed the pot. ‘Raise you ten copper crescents.’
Scorch made a face. ‘I don’t got ten crescents. You cleaned me out.’ He threw down the cards crossed his arms and eyed the great mound of copper on the table. ‘Where’s all our silver gone, anyway?’
Spindle sat cradling a tankard from the last barrel of beer in K’rul’s bar. The former Imperial historian, Duiker, sat with him. Fisher was at another table, leaning back, tuning a long-necked instrument. Blend and Picker were at the bar staring at the door as if willing customers to enter.
It seemed to him that he’d done quite enough to answer the Malazans’ request for intelligence. He’d told them all they’d discovered that night out on the Dwelling Plain. He’d even poked around where they were salvaging stone blocks out of the harbour. He saw the scholar there, the one who’d been down the well. He seemed to be working for these scary mages. And weren’t they a hair-raising lot, too. Reminded him of the old gang who used to work for the Empire. It was enough to make his shirt squirm. He wasn’t going to tempt their notice, no sir. Ma told me ’bout mages like that.
Everyone was quiet, as they had been for the last few nights. Even Fisher’s plucking was subdued. Waitin’. Waitin’ for the storm to break. The historian had been frowning at his glass of tea for some time and now he raised one cocked eye to Spindle.
‘Did you get a good look at these stones?’ he asked.
Spindle nodded, frowning thoughtfully. ‘Pretty good. They got masons cleaning them. Chisellin’ off growths and barnacles and such, then polishing them. The stone’s white beneath. Like purest marble.’ He paused, his brows crimping. ‘But not like any marble I ever seen. Not hard white like solid. Kinda clear, smoky almost …’
Everyone flinched at a discordant jangle from the instrument in Fisher’s hands. All eyes turned to the bard, who was watching Spindle, his brows raised. ‘Smoky?’ he repeated. ‘As in see-through, or translucent?’
Spindle nodded eagerly. ‘Yeah. That’s it. Like you said, see-through. ’
From the bar Picker’s voice sounded, low and warning. ‘What is it, bard?’
Fisher lowered his gaze to the instrument and strummed a few idle bars. ‘Has anyone noticed how among all the towers and buildings and temples here in the city, none uses white stone?’
‘I’m not a damned architect,’ Picker grumbled.
Spindle had noticed, but he’d put it down to some sort of local shortage. ‘Well, those’re building stones awright. And they’re digging a trench there too, come to think of it. A foundation.’
Fisher shrugged, returned to his tuning. ‘It’s a local superstition. White stone’s considered bad luck here – even a symbol of death. It’s only used in sepulchres or mausoleums … And then there are the old songs too …’
The bard’s voice trailed away and no one spoke for a time. Finally Blend ground out from where she leaned against the bar, chin in hands. ‘What songs?’
Fisher shrugged as if uninterested. ‘Oh, just local folk tales, really. Rhymes and sayings.’
Blend shifted to return her attention to the door again. Picker, arms crossed, hands tucked up under her armpits, nodded to herself for a time. Spindle took a small sip from his tankard. He watched her over its rim. ‘Like?’ she finally asked, almost resentfully.
‘Well, there’s one titled … “The Throne of White Stone”.’
‘Wonderful,’ Picker snorted.
‘Not our fight,’ Blend muttered, facing the door and hunching her shoulders higher.
‘It exists only in fragments,’ Fisher continued, apparently unaware of their reactions, or unconcerned. ‘It’s very old. Thought to date back to the Daru migrations into the region. It tells of tormented spirits imprisoned in an underworld of white stone ruled by demons and guarded by …’ The bard’s voice trailed away.
‘All right!’ Picker snapped. ‘We get the picture.’
‘Not our fight,’ Blend repeated, her jaws set and eyes fixed on the door.
Neither saw Fisher’s expression turn to one almost of alarm as he sat upright. Spindle noticed the man’s change in mood but didn’t know what to make of it. Duiker’s gaze, however, steady upon the man, narrowed suspiciously.
Much later that night only Fisher and the old Imperial historian remained within the bar’s common room. Fisher, it seemed to Duiker, appeared to be waiting for him to retire for the night. He finished his cold tea and turned a speculative eye on the tall bard, who had appeared preoccupied all evening. Perhaps even worried.
‘I’ve not heard that lay,’ he said.
‘It’s not local,’ Fisher said, his gaze on his hands. ‘It’s a travellers’ tale, told of a distant land.’
‘A land distant from where?’
Fisher offered a wry smile. ‘A land rather distant from here.’
‘And who is it that guards those tormented souls?’
The bard took a troubled breath, glanced down once more. ‘A prison of white stone guarded by … faceless warriors.’ He stood, brushed his trousers. ‘I’m … going for a walk.’
Duiker watched the man go. The lock of the door fell into place behind him. He returned his attention to the empty teacup, its leaves drying on the bottom. He swirled the dregs, studying them. There are patterns here. The trick is in being able to identify them.
Faceless warriors …
Fisher had prepared himself but he could not quell his start when the masked figure of Thurule opened the door to Lady Envy’s manor. ‘I wish to see the Lady,’ he said. ‘I take it she is up.’
Silent, of course, Thurule motioned him in.
Fisher knew he hadn’t given the fellow much thought before, other than that he was Seguleh, and a rarity. Now, however, with fresh suspicions gnawing at his mind, he could not help but distance himself slightly from the man as walked along. Though he knew that even a Seguleh would find in him a far from easy challenge. The manor house was dark, and, it must be said, still almost entirely unfurnished. Thurule guided him to the rear terrace where Fisher glimpsed Envy standing at a short brick wall overlooking the unkempt grounds, peering up into the night sky. She was shimmering bright in some sort of glowing sheer pale-green dress.
‘Bored with your simple-minded friends already?’ she said without even turning round.
He noted that she held a drink in one hand, elbow on her hip.
Fisher took a steadying breath. ‘You know what is coming …’ he began, and then a new thought struck him. ‘You’ve known all along … that’s why you’re here.’
She flashed a satisfied smile over her shoulder. ‘A proper court at last. It’s been ages. I’ll finally be able to get a decent wardrobe.’
The callousness, the monumental self-interest, struck him dumb. He realized there was nothing he could possibly say to change her mind. He spoke his anger instead. ‘It does not matter to you then that untold thousands must be ground into the dirt so that you can wear fashionable dresses and attend your damned balls?’
She slowly turned. The smile was still there, but it was as brittle as crystal. An emerald fire simmered in her eyes. ‘Really, Fisher, such hypocrisy. If you cared so much why are you not beating your chest already? There are poor in the city now. There will always be those who rule and those who are ruled.’ She gave the faintest shrug of her bare, shapely shoulders. ‘And come now, be honest. If you could choose, which would you really prefer?’
What he saw saddened him. He’d seen how Anomander’s death had touched her, yet he knew now it registered only because it was personal. Sympathy for any other’s loss or suffering was beyond her. He should have said nothing then, simply left. But his own anger was up – or was it bitterness and disappointment? ‘I would choose rulership that generated wealth rather than that of a parasite sucking blood and contributing nothing. Rather like a leech.’
The thrown glass struck him on the side of his face, shattering. ‘Said the bard – who contributes nothing save hot air! Thurule!’ she called. ‘See this man out. And never admit him again.’
Fisher touched his face where warmth ran down to his neck. His fingers came away wet with blood. Then Thurule was there, silent, one arm indicating the way out. He bowed his exit to Lady Envy though her back was turned.
There is nothing for me here anyway.
CHAPTER IX
For ages the citizens of Darujhistan were amazed by the riches dug from the tunnels and vaults beneath the region known as the Dwelling Plain. Yet while sitting in a tavern this visitor did overhear one fellow opining the following: ‘Is it not so that better these ancients had been men and women of worth than to possess things of worth?’
Silken Glance, traveller, of One Eye Cat
A KICK TO HER FOOT WOKE KISKA AND SHE BLINKED UP TO SEE
Leoman kneeling next to her. He motioned her to follow. ‘They’re on the move.’
He led her up the slope of one of the dunes of black sand. Together they lay down just short of the crest and peered over. The troop of misfits and malformed survivors of the Vitr were shuffling off round a headland of jagged tumbled stone. Back the way she and Leoman had come.
Kiska pushed herself away from the crest. ‘We missed him?’
‘Perhaps he crossed back when we were in the cave,’ Leoman suggested, thoughtfully brushing at his moustache.
The sight irked Kiska and she climbed to her feet, taking care to remain crouched. ‘Let’s circle round inland.’ She jogged off without waiting to see whether he followed or not.
Soon the faint metallic jingle of armour and the chains of morningstars sounded just to her rear and she knew he’d caught up. Please Oponn and the Enchantress – let this be it! This is no place for me … or even Leoman. This is a land for gods and Ascendants, not plain old mortals such as us. Let us please complete our mission and meekly slink away!
Keeping to the highlands and cliff-tops, they shadowed the file of waddling creatures as they made their slow awkward way along the shore. Against the sky she could just make out the mountain-tall shadowy figure of Maker as he continued his unending labour. Some, she knew, would consider his task a divine curse. For her own part she had yet to decide. After all, he was holding back the Vitr – wasn’t he?
Below, the creatures had gathered on a stretch of shallow beach where a broad strand ran out to the glimmering sea of light – what on any body of water would be called a tidal flat. And she wondered, could this ocean of seething energy even be said to have a tide? She’d seen no sign of any.
