Last Argument Of Kings: Book Three (The First Law 3)

‘Stop that!’ snapped the Colonel, whirling her around the laboratory of the Adeptus Physical, the specimens in the jars pulsing and wobbling in time to the music.

‘Partially eaten,’ grinned Kandelau, one eye enormously magnified through his eyeglass. He pointed downwards with his tongs. ‘This is a foot.’

Glokta pushed the bushes aside, one hand pressed over his face. The butchered corpse lay there, glistening red, scarcely recognisable as human. Ardee laughed and laughed at the sight of it. ‘Partially eaten!’ she tittered at him. Colonel Glokta did not find the business in any way amusing. The sound of flies was growing louder and louder, threatening to drown out the music entirely. Worse yet, it was getting terribly cold in the park.

‘Careless of me,’ said a voice from behind.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Just to leave it there. But sometimes it is better to move quickly, than to move carefully, eh, cripple?’

‘I remember this,’ murmured Glokta. It had grown colder yet, and he was shivering like a leaf. ‘I remember this!’

‘Of course,’ whispered the voice. A woman’s voice, but not Ardee. A low and hissing voice, that made his eye twitch.

‘What can I do?’ The Colonel could feel his gorge rising. The wounds in the red meat yawned. The flies were so loud he could hardly hear the reply.

‘Perhaps you should go to the University, and ask for advice.’ Icy breath brushed his neck and made his back shiver. ‘Perhaps while you are there . . . you could ask them about the Seed.’

He forced himself to be still. To breathe long and slow. He made his mind move off the pain and on to other things. Like Bayaz, and his failed quest for this Seed. After all, his Eminence is waiting, and is not known for his patience. He stretched his neck out to either side and felt the bones clicking between his twisted shoulder-blades. He pressed his tongue into his gums and shuffled away from the steps, into the cool darkness of the stacks.

They had not changed much in the past year. Or probably in a few centuries before that. The vaulted spaces smelled of fust and age, lit only by a couple of flickering, grimy lamps, sagging shelves stretching away into the shifting shadows. Time to go digging once again through the dusty refuse of history. The Adeptus Historical did not appear to have changed much either. He sat at his stained desk, poring over a mouldy-looking pile of papers in the light from a single squirming candle flame. He squinted up as Glokta hobbled closer.

‘Who’s there?’

‘Glokta.’ He peered up suspiciously towards the shadowy ceiling. ‘What happened to your crow?’

‘Dead,’ grunted the ancient librarian sadly.

‘History, you might say!’ The old man did not laugh. ‘Ah, well. It happens to us all.’ And some sooner than others. ‘I have questions for you.’

The Adeptus Historical craned forward over his desk, peering dewily up at Glokta as though he had never seen another human before. ‘I remember you.’ Miracles do happen, then? ‘You asked me about Bayaz. First apprentice of great Juvens, first letter in the alphabet of the—’

‘Yes, yes, we’ve been over this.’

The old man gave a sulky frown. ‘Did you bring that scroll back?’

‘The Maker fell burning, and so on? I’m afraid not. The Arch Lector has it.’

‘Gah. I hear far too much about that man these days. Them upstairs are always carping on him. His Eminence this, and his Eminence that. I’m sick of hearing it!’ I know very much how you feel. ‘Everyone’s in a spin, these days. A spin and a ruckus.’

‘Lots of changes upstairs. We have a new king.’

‘I know that! Guslav, is it?’

Glokta gave a long sigh as he settled himself in the chair on the other side of the desk. ‘Yes, yes, he’s the one.’ Only thirty years out of date, or so. I’m surprised he didn’t think Harod the Great was still on the throne.

‘What do you want this time?’

Oh, to fumble in the darkness for answers that are always just out of reach. ‘I want to know about the Seed.’

The lined face did not move. ‘The what?’

‘It was mentioned in your precious scroll. That thing that Bayaz and his magical friends searched for in the House of the Maker, after the death of Kanedias. After the death of Juvens.’

‘Bah!’ The Adeptus waved his hand, the saggy flesh under his wrist wobbling. ‘Secrets, power. It’s all a metaphor.’

‘Bayaz does not seem to think so.’ Glokta shuffled his chair closer, and spoke lower. Though there cannot be anyone to hear, or to care if they did. ‘I heard it was a piece of the Other Side, left over from the Old Time, when devils walked our earth. The stuff of magic, made solid.’

The old man wheezed with papery laughter, displaying a rotten cavern of a mouth with fewer teeth even than Glokta’s own. ‘I did not take you for a superstitious man, Superior.’ Nor was I one, when I last came here with questions. Before my visit to the House of the Maker, before my meeting with Yulwei, before I saw Shickel smile while they burned her. What happy times they were, before I had heard of Bayaz, when things still made sense. The Adeptus wiped his runny eyes with his palsied mockery of a hand. ‘Where did you hear that?’

Oh, from a Navigator with his foot on an anvil. ‘Never you mind from where.’

‘Well, you know more about it than me. I read once that rocks sometimes fall out of the sky. Some say they are fragments of the stars. Some say they are splinters, flung out from the chaos of hell. Dangerous to touch. Terribly cold.’

Cold? Glokta could almost feel that icy breath upon his neck, and he wriggled his shoulders at it, forcing himself not to glance behind him. ‘Tell me about hell.’ Though I think I already know more than most on the subject.

‘Eh?’

‘Hell, old man. The Other Side.’

‘They say it is where magic comes from, if you believe in such things.’

‘I have learned to keep an open mind on the subject.’

‘An open mind is like to an open wound, apt to—’

‘So I have heard, but we are speaking of hell.’

The librarian licked at his sagging lips. ‘Legend has it that there was a time when our world and the world below were one, and devils roamed the earth. Great Euz cast them out, and spoke the First Law – forbidding all to touch the Other Side, or to speak to devils, or to tamper with the gates between.’

‘The First Law, eh?’

‘His son Glustrod, hungry for power, ignored his father’s warnings, and he sought out secrets, and summoned devils, and sent them against his enemies. It is said his folly led to the destruction of Aulcus and the fall of the Old Empire, and that when he destroyed himself, he left the gates ajar . . . but I am not the expert on all that.’

‘Who is?’

The old man grimaced. ‘There were books here. Very old. Beautiful books, from the time of the Master Maker. Books on the subject of the Other Side. The divide between. The gates and the locks. Books on the subject of the Tellers of Secrets, and of their summoning and sending. A load of invention if you ask me. Myth and fantasy.’

There were books?’

‘They have been missing from my shelves for some years now.’

‘Missing? Where are they?’

The old man frowned. ‘Strange, that you of all people should ask that—’

‘Enough!’ Glokta turned as quickly as he could to look behind him. Silber, the University Administrator, stood at the foot of the steps, with a look of the strangest horror and surprise on his rigid face. Quite as if he had seen a ghost. Or even a demon. ‘That will be quite enough, Superior! We thank you for your visit.’

‘Enough?’ Glokta gave a frown of his own. ‘His Eminence will not be—’

‘I know what his Eminence will or will not be . . .’ An unpleasantly familiar voice. Superior Goyle worked his way slowly down the steps. He strolled around Silber, across the shadowy floor between the shelves. ‘And I say enough. We most heartily thank you for your visit.’ He leaned forwards, eyes popping furiously from his head. ‘Make it your last!’

There had been some startling changes in the dining hall since Glokta went downstairs. The evening had grown dark outside the dirty windows, the candles had been lit in their tarnished sconces. And, of course, there is the matter of two dozen widely assorted Practicals of the Inquisition.

Two narrow-eyed natives of Suljuk sat staring at Glokta over their masks, as like as if they had been twins, their black boots up on the ancient dining table, four curved swords lying sheathed on the wood before them. Three dark-skinned men stood near one dark window, heads shaved, each with an axe at his belt and a shield on his back. A great tall Practical loomed up by the fireplace, long and thin as a birch tree with blond hair hanging over his masked face. Beside was a short one, almost dwarfish, his belt bristling with knives.

Glokta recognised the huge Northman called the Stone-Splitter from his previous visit to the University. But it looks as if he has been attempting to split stones with his face since we last met, and with great persistence. His cheeks were uneven, his brows were wonky, the bridge of his nose pointed sharply to the left. His ruin of a face was almost as disturbing as the enormous mallet he had clenched in his massive fists. But not quite.

So it went on, as strange and worrying a collection of murderers as could ever have been collected together in one place, and all heavily armed. And it seems that Superior Goyle has restocked his freak show. In the midst of them, and seeming quite at home, stood Practical Vitari, pointing this way and that, giving orders. You would never have thought she was the mothering type, seeing her now, but I suppose we all have our hidden talents.

Glokta threw his right arm up in the air. ‘Who are we killing?’

All eyes turned towards him. Vitari stalked over, a frown across the freckled bridge of her nose. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘I could ask you the same question.’

‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll ask no questions at all.’

Glokta leered his empty smile at her. ‘If I knew what was good for me I’d never have lost my teeth, and questions are all I have left. What’s in this old pile of dust that’s of interest to you?’

‘That’s none of my business, and even less of yours. If you’re looking for traitors, maybe you should look in your own house first, eh?’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

Vitari leaned close to him and whispered through her mask. ‘You saved my life, so let me return the favour. Get away from here. Get away, and keep away.’

‘Gah!’ He felt his cane snatched away and he lurched sideways, clutching at the air. Something crunched into his face and filled his head with blinding pain. The next moment the floor thumped him in the back and drove his wind out in a long sigh. He blinked and slobbered, mouth salty with blood, the dark room swaying madly around him. Oh dear, oh dear. A fist in the face, unless I am much mistaken. It never loses its impact.

A hand grabbed the collar of his coat and dragged him up, the cloth cutting into his throat and making him squawk like a strangled chicken. Another had him by the belt and he was hauled bodily along, his knees and the toes of his boots scraping limp over the boards. He struggled weakly on a reflex, but only managed to send a stab of pain through his own back.

The bathroom door cracked against his head and banged open on the wall, he was dragged powerless across the darkened room towards the bath, still full of dirty water from that morning. ‘Wait!’ he croaked as he was wrestled over the edge. ‘Who are—blurghhhh!’

The cold water closed around his head, the bubbles rushed around his face. He was held there, struggling, eyes bulging open with shock and panic, until it seemed his lungs would burst. Then he was yanked up by the hair, water pouring from his face and splattering into the bath. A simple technique, but undeniably effective. I am greatly discomfited. He took in a gasping breath. ‘What do you—blarghhh!’

Back into the darkness, such air as he had managed to drag in gurgling out into the dirty water. But whoever it is let me breathe. I am not being murdered. I am being softened up. Softened up for questions. I would laugh at the irony . . . were there any breath . . . left in my body . . . He shoved at the bath and thrashed at the water. His legs kicked pointlessly, but the hand on the back of his neck was made of steel. His stomach clenched and his ribs heaved, desperate to drag in air. Do not breathe . . . do not breathe . . . do not breathe! He was just sucking in a great lungful of dirty water as he was snatched up from the bath and flung onto the boards, coughing, gasping, vomiting all at once.

‘You are Glokta?’ A woman’s voice, short and hard, with a rough Kantic accent.

She squatted down in front of him, balanced on the balls of her feet, her wrists resting on her knees, her long brown hands hanging limp. She wore a man’s shirt, loose around her scrawny shoulders, wet sleeves rolled up around her bony wrists. Her black hair was hacked off short and stuck from her head in greasy clumps. She had a thin, pale scar down her hard face, a scowl on her thin lips, but it was her eyes that were most off-putting, gleaming yellow in the half light from the corridor. Small wonder that Severard was reluctant to follow her. I should have listened to him.

‘You are Glokta?’

There was no point denying it. He wiped the bitter drool from his chin with a shaking hand. ‘I am Glokta.’

‘Why are you watching me?’

He pushed himself painfully up to sitting. ‘What makes you think I will have anything to say to—’

Her fist struck him on the point of his chin and snapped his head back, tore a gasp out of him. His jaws banged together and one tooth punched a hole in the bottom of his tongue. He sagged back against the wall, the dark room lurching, his eyes filling up with tears. When things came back into focus she was staring at him, yellow eyes narrowed. ‘I will keep hitting you until you give me answers, or you die.’

‘My thanks.’

‘Thanks?’

‘I think you might have loosened my neck up just a fraction.’ Glokta smiled, showing her his few bloody teeth. ‘For two years I was a captive of the Gurkish. Two years in the darkness of the Emperor’s prisons. Two years of cutting, and chiselling, and burning. Do you think the thought of a slap or two scares me?’ He chuckled bloody laughter in her face. ‘It hurts more when I piss! Do you think I’m scared to die?’ He grimaced at the stabbing through his spine as he leaned towards her. ‘Every morning . . . that I wake up alive . . . is a disappointment! If you want answers you’ll have to give me answers. Like for like.’

She stared at him for a long moment, not blinking. ‘You were a prisoner of the Gurkish?’

Glokta swept a hand over his twisted body. ‘They gave me all this.’

‘Huh. We have both lost something to the Gurkish, then.’ She slid down onto crossed legs. ‘Questions. Like for like. But if you try to lie to me—’

‘Questions, then. I would be failing in my duties as a host if I did not allow you to go first.’

She did not smile. But then she does not seem the joking type. ‘Why are you watching me?’

I could lie, but for what? I might as well die telling the truth. ‘I am watching Bayaz. The two of you seem friendly, and Bayaz is hard to watch these days. So I am watching you.’

She scowled. ‘He is no friend of mine. He promised me vengeance, that is all. He has yet to deliver.’

‘Life is full of disappointments.’

‘Life is made of disappointments. Ask your question, cripple.’

Once she has her answers, will it be bath-time again, and this time my last? Her flat yellow eyes gave nothing away. Empty, like the eyes of an animal. But what are my choices? He licked the blood from his lips, and leaned back against the wall. I might as well die a little wiser. ‘What is the Seed?’

Her frown deepened by the smallest fraction. ‘Bayaz said it is a weapon. A weapon of very great power. Great enough to turn Shaffa to dust. He thought it was hidden, at the edge of the World, but he was wrong. He was not happy to be wrong.’ She frowned at him for a silent moment. ‘Why are you watching Bayaz?’

‘Because he stole the crown and put it on a spineless worm.’

She snorted. ‘There at least we can agree.’

‘There are those in my government who worry about the direction in which he might take us. Who worry profoundly.’ Glokta licked at one bloody tooth. ‘Where is he taking us?’

‘He tells me nothing. I do not trust him, and he does not trust me.’

‘There too we can agree.’

‘He planned to use the Seed as a weapon. He did not find it, so he must find other weapons. My guess is he is taking you to war. A war against Khalul, and his Eaters.’

Glokta felt a flurry of twitches run up the side of his face and set his eyelid fluttering. Damn treacherous jelly! Her head jerked to the side. ‘You know of them?’

‘A passing acquaintance.’ Well, where’s the harm? ‘I caught one, in Dagoska. I asked it questions.’

‘What did it tell you?’

‘It talked of righteousness and justice.’ Two things that I have never seen. ‘It talked of war and sacrifice.’ Two things that I have seen too much of. ‘It said that your friend Bayaz killed his own master.’ The woman did not move so much as an eyelash. ‘It said that its father, the Prophet Khalul, still seeks vengeance.’

‘Vengeance,’ she hissed, her hands bunching into fists. ‘I will show them vengeance!’

‘What did they do to you?’

‘They killed my people.’ She uncrossed her legs. ‘They made me a slave.’ She rose smoothly to her feet, looming over him. ‘They stole my life from me.’

Glokta felt the corner of his mouth twitch up. ‘One more thing we have in common.’ And I sense my borrowed time is up.

She reached down and grabbed two fistfuls of his wet coat. She dragged him from the floor with fearsome strength, his back sliding up the wall. Body found floating in the bath . . . ? He felt his nostrils opening wide, the air hissing fast in his bloody nose, his heart thumping in anticipation. No doubt my ruined body will struggle, as best it can. An irresistible reaction to the lack of air. The unconquerable instinct to breathe. No doubt I will thrash and wriggle, just as Tulkis, the Gurkish ambassador, thrashed and wriggled when they hanged him, and dragged his guts out for nothing.

He did his twisted best to stay up under his own power, to stand as close to straight as he could manage. After all, I was a proud man once, even if that is all far behind me. Hardly the end that Colonel Glokta would have hoped for. Drowned in the bath by a woman in a dirty shirt. Will they find me slumped over the rim, my arse in the air? But what does it matter? It is not how you die, but how you lived, that counts.

She let go of his coat, flattened the front with a slap of her hand. And what has my life been, these past years? What do I have that I might truly miss? Stairs? Soup? Pain? Lying in the darkness with the memories of the things I have done digging at me? Waking in the morning to the stink of my own shit? Will I miss tea with Ardee West? A little perhaps. But will I miss tea with the Arch Lector? It almost makes you wonder why I didn’t do it myself, years ago. He stared into his killer’s eyes, as hard and bright as yellow glass, and he smiled. A smile of the purest relief. ‘I am ready.’

‘For what?’ She pressed something into his limp hand. The handle of his cane. ‘If you have more business with Bayaz, leave me out of it. I will not be so gentle next time.’ She backed slowly towards the doorway, a bright rectangle against the shadowy wall. She turned, and the sound of her boots receded down the corridor. Aside from the soft tip-tap of water dripping from his wet coat, all fell silent.

And so, it seems, I survive. Again. Glokta raised his eyebrows. Perhaps the trick is not wanting to.