The Blade Itself: The First Law: Book One

‘I never thought to see such a thing,’ muttered Logen.

The city was a huge white crescent, stretching all round the wide blue bay, sprawling across many bridges, tiny in the distance, and onto rocky islands in the sea. Here and there green parks stood out from the confusion of buildings, the thin grey lines of rivers and canals shone in the sun. There were walls too, studded with towers, skirting the distant edge of the city and striking boldly through the jumble of houses. Logen’s jaw hung stupidly open, his eyes darted here and there, unable to take in the whole.

‘Adua,’ murmured Bayaz. ‘The centre of the world. The poets call her the city of white towers. Beautiful, isn’t she, from a distance?’ The Magus leaned towards him. ‘Believe me, though, she stinks when you get close.’

A vast fortress rose up from within the city, its sheer white walls towering above the carpet of buildings outside, bright sunlight glinting on shining domes within. Logen had never dreamed of a man-made thing so great, so proud, so strong. One tower in particular rose high, high over all the others, a tapering cluster of smooth, dark pillars, seeming to support the very sky.

‘And Bethod means to make war on this?’ he whispered. ‘He must be mad.’

‘Perhaps. Bethod, for all his waste and pride, understands the Union.’ Bayaz nodded towards the city. ‘They are jealous of one another, all those people. It may be a union in name, but they fight each other tooth and nail. The lowly squabble over trifles. The great wage secret wars for power and wealth, and they call it government. Wars of words, and tricks, and guile, but no less bloody for that. The casualties are many.’ The Magus sighed. ‘Behind those walls they shout and argue and endlessly bite one another’s backs. Old squabbles are never settled, but thrive, and put down roots, and the roots grow deeper with the passing years. It has always been so. They are not like you, Logen. A man here can smile, and fawn, and call you friend, give you gifts with one hand and stab you with the other. You will find this a strange place.’

Logen already found it the strangest thing he had ever seen. There was no end to it. As their boat slipped into the bay the city seemed to grow more vast than ever. A forest of white buildings, speckled with dark windows, embracing them on all sides, covering the hills in roofs and towers, crowding together, wall squashed to wall, pressing up against the water on the shoreline.

Ships and boats of all designs vied with each other in the bay, sails billowing, crewmen crying out over the noise of the spray, hurrying about the decks and crawling through the rigging. Some were smaller even than their own little two-sailed boat. Some were far larger. Logen gawped, amazed, as a huge vessel ploughed through the water towards them, shining spray flying from its prow. A mountain of wood, floating by some magic in the sea. The ship passed, leaving them rocking in its wake, but there were more, many more, tethered to the countless wharves along the shore.

Logen, shielding his eyes against the bright sun with one hand, began to make out people on the sprawling docks. He began to hear them too, a faint din of voices crying and carts rattling and cargoes clattering to the ground. There were hundreds of tiny figures, swarming among the ships and buildings like black ants. ‘How many live here?’ he whispered.

‘Thousands.’ Bayaz shrugged. ‘Hundreds of thousands. People from every land within the Circle of the World. There are Northmen here, and dark-skinned Kantics from Gurkhul and beyond. People from the Old Empire, far to the west, and merchants of the Free Cities of Styria. Others too, from still further away – the Thousand Islands, distant Suljuk, and Thond, where they worship the sun. More people than can be counted – living, dying, working, breeding, climbing one upon the other. Welcome,’ and Bayaz spread his arms wide to encompass the monstrous, the beautiful, the endless city, ‘to civilisation!’

Hundreds of thousands. Logen struggled to understand it. Hundreds . . . of thousands. Could there be so many people in the world? He stared at the city, all around him, wondering, rubbing his aching eyes. What might a hundred thousand people look like?

An hour later he knew.

Only in battle had Logen ever been so squashed, hemmed, pressed by other people. It was like a battle, here on the docks – the cries, the anger, the crush, the fear and confusion. A battle in which no mercy was shown, and which had no end and no winners. Logen was used to the open sky, the air around him, his own company. On the road, when Bayaz and Quai had ridden close beside him, he’d felt squeezed. Now there were people on every side, pushing, jostling, shouting. Hundreds of them! Thousands! Hundreds of thousands! Could they really all be people? People like him with thoughts and moods and dreams? Faces loomed up and flashed by – surly, anxious, frowning, gone in a sickening whirl of colour. Logen swallowed, blinked. His throat was painfully dry. His head span. Surely this was hell. He knew he deserved to be here, but he didn’t remember dying.

‘Malacus!’ he hissed desperately. The apprentice looked round. ‘Stop a moment!’ Logen pulled at his collar, trying to let some air in. ‘I can’t breathe!’

Quai grinned. ‘It might just be the smell.’

It might at that. The docks smelled like hell, and no mistake. The reek of stinking fish, sickly spices, rotting fruit, fresh dung, sweating horses and mules and people, mingled and bred under the hot sun and became worse by far than any one alone.

‘Move!’ A shoulder knocked Logen roughly aside and was gone. He leaned against a grimy wall and wiped sweat from his face.

Bayaz was smiling. ‘Not like the wide and barren North, eh, Ninefingers?’

‘No.’ Logen watched the people milling past – the horses, the carts, the endless faces. A man stared suspiciously at him as he passed. A boy pointed at him and shouted something. A woman with a basket gave him a wide berth, staring fearfully up as she hurried by. Now he had a moment to think, they were all looking, and pointing, and staring, and they didn’t look happy.

Logen leaned down to Malacus. ‘I am feared and hated throughout the North. I don’t like it, but I know why.’ A sullen group of sailors stared at him with hard eyes, muttering to each other under their breath. He watched them, puzzled, until they disappeared behind a rumbling wagon. ‘Why do they hate me here?’

‘Bethod has moved quickly,’ muttered Bayaz, frowning out at the crowds. ‘His war with the Union has already begun. We will not find the North too popular in Adua, I fear.’

‘How do they know where I’m from?’

Malacus raised an eyebrow. ‘You stick out somewhat.’

Logen flinched as a pair of laughing youths flashed by him. ‘I do? Among all this?’

‘Only like a huge, scarred, dirty gatepost.’

‘Ah.’ He looked down at himself. ‘I see.’

They passed across wide paved squares, decorated with plants and statues, where brightly-painted wooden signs hung over doors – blue fish, pink pigs, purple bunches of grapes, brown loaves of bread. There were tables and chairs out in the sun where people sat and ate from flat pots, drank from green glass cups. They threaded through narrow alleys, where rickety-looking wood and plaster buildings leaned out over them, almost meeting above their heads, leaving only a thin strip of blue sky between. They wandered down wide, cobbled roads, busy with people and lined with monstrous white buildings. Logen blinked and gaped at all of it.

On no moor, however foggy, in no forest, however dense, had Logen ever felt so completely lost. He had no idea now in what direction the boat was, though they’d left it no more than half an hour ago. The sun was hidden behind the towering buildings and everything looked the same. He was terrified he’d lose track of Bayaz and Quai in the crowds, and be lost forever. He hurried after the back of the wizard’s bald head, following him into an open space. A great road, bigger than any they’d seen so far, bounded on either side by white palaces behind high walls and fences, lined with ancient trees.

The people here were different. Their clothes were bright and gaudy, cut in strange styles that served no purpose. The women hardly seemed like people at all – pale and bony, swaddled in shining fabric, flapping at themselves in the hot sun with pieces of cloth stretched over sticks.

‘Where are we?’ he shouted at Bayaz. If the wizard had answered that they were on the moon, Logen would not have been surprised.

‘This is the Middleway, one of the city’s main thoroughfares! It cuts through the very centre of the city to the Agriont!’

‘Agriont?’

‘Fortress, palace, barracks, seat of government. A city within the city. The heart of the Union. That’s where we’re going.’

‘We are?’ A group of sour young men stared suspiciously at Logen as he passed them. ‘Will they let us in?’

‘Oh yes. But they won’t like it.’

Logen struggled on through the crowds. Everywhere the sun twinkled on the panes of glass windows, hundreds of them. Carleon had a few glass windows in the grandest buildings, at least before they’d sacked the city. Precious few afterwards, it had to be admitted. Precious little of anything. The Dogman had loved the sound the glass made as it broke. He’d prodded at the windows with a spear, a great big smile on his face, delighted by the crash and tinkle.

That had hardly been the worst of it. Bethod had given the city to his Carls for three days. That was his custom, and they loved him for it. Logen had lost his finger in the battle the day before, and they’d closed the wound with hot iron. It throbbed, and throbbed, and the pain had made him savage. As though he’d needed an excuse for violence back then. He remembered the stink of blood, and sweat, and smoke. The sounds of screaming, and crashing, and laughter.

‘Please . . .’ Logen tripped, nearly fell. There was something clinging to his leg. A woman, sitting on the ground beside a wall. Her clothes were dirty, ragged, her face was pale, pinched with hunger. She had something in her arms. A bundle of rags. A child. ‘Please . . .’ Nothing else. The people laughed and chattered and surged around them, just as if they weren’t there. ‘Please . . .’

‘I don’t have anything,’ he muttered. No more than five strides away a man in a tall hat sat at a table and chuckled with a friend as he tucked into a steaming plate of meat and vegetables. Logen blinked at the plate of food, at the starving woman.

‘Logen! Come on!’ Bayaz had taken him by the elbow and was drawing him away.

‘But shouldn’t we—’

‘Haven’t you noticed? They’re everywhere! The King needs money, so he squeezes the nobles. The nobles squeeze their tenants, the tenants squeeze the peasants. Some of them, the old, the weak, the extra sons and daughters, they get squeezed right out the bottom. Too many mouths to feed. The lucky ones make thieves or whores, the rest end up begging.’

‘But—’

‘Clear the road!’ Logen stumbled to the wall and pressed himself against it, Malacus and Bayaz beside him. The crowds parted and a long column of men tramped by, shepherded by armoured guards. Some were young, mere boys, some were very old. All were dirty and ragged, and few of them looked healthy. A couple were clearly lame, hobbling along as best they could. One near the front had only one arm. A passer-by in a fabulous crimson jacket held a square of cloth over his wrinkled nose as the beggars shuffled past.

‘What are these?’ Logen whispered to Bayaz. ‘Law-breakers?’

The Magus chuckled. ‘Soldiers.’

Logen stared at them – filthy, coughing, limping, some without boots. ‘Soldiers? These?’

‘Oh yes. They go to fight Bethod.’

Logen rubbed at his temples. ‘A clan once sent their poorest warrior, a man called Forley the Weakest, to fight me in a duel. They meant it by way of surrender. Why does this Union send their weakest?’ Logen shook his head grimly. ‘They won’t beat Bethod with such as these.’

‘They will send others.’ Bayaz pointed out another, smaller gathering. ‘Those are soldiers too.’

‘Those?’ A group of tall youths, dressed in gaudy suits of red or bright green cloth, a couple with outsize hats. They were at least wearing swords, of a kind, but they hardly looked like fighting men. Fighting women, maybe. Logen frowned, staring from one group to the other. The dirty beggars, the gaudy lads. It was hard for him to say which were the stranger.

‘What is this place?’

Bayaz was casting an eye over the robes by the wall. ‘A theatrical outfitter’s.’

‘A what?’

‘The people of this city love spectacle. Comedy, drama, theatre of all kinds. This shop provides equipment for the mounting of plays.’

‘Stories?’ Logen poked at a wooden sword. ‘Some people have too much time on their hands.’

A small, plump man emerged from a door at the back of the shop, looking Bayaz, Malacus and Logen over suspiciously. ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’

‘Of course.’ Bayaz stepped forward, switching effortlessly to the common tongue. ‘We are mounting a production, and require some costumes. We understand you are the foremost theatrical outfitter’s in all of Adua.’

The shopkeeper smiled nervously, taking in their grimy faces and travel stained clothes. ‘True, true, but . . . er . . . quality is expensive, gentlemen.’

‘Money is no object.’ Bayaz took out a bulging purse and tossed it absently on the counter. It sagged open, heavy golden coins scattering across the wood.

The shopkeeper’s eyes lit with an inner fire. ‘Of course! What precisely did you have in mind?’

‘I need a magnificent robe, suitable for a Magus, or a great sorcerer, or some such. Something of the arcane about it, certainly. Then we’ll have something similar, if less impressive, for an apprentice. Finally we need something for a mighty warrior, a prince of the distant North. Something with fur, I imagine.’

‘Those should be straightforward. I will see what we have.’ The shopkeeper disappeared through the door behind the counter.

‘What is all this shit?’ asked Logen.

The wizard grinned. ‘People are born to their station here. They have commoners, to fight, and farm the land, and do the work. They have gentry, to trade, and build and do the thinking. They have nobility, to own the land and push the others around. They have royalty . . .’ Bayaz glanced at the tin crown ‘. . . I forget exactly why. In the North you can rise as high as your merits will take you. Only look at our mutual friend, Bethod. Not so here. A man is born in his place and is expected to stay there. We must seem to be from a high place indeed, if we are to be taken seriously. Dressed as we are we wouldn’t get past the gates of the Agriont.’

The shopkeeper interrupted him by reappearing through the door, his arms heaped with bright cloth. ‘One mystical robe, suitable for the most powerful of wizards! Used last year for a Juvens in a production of The End of the Empire, during the spring festival. It is, if I may say so, some of my best work.’ Bayaz held the shimmering swathe of crimson cloth up to the faint light, gazing at it admiringly. Arcane diagrams, mystical lettering, and symbols of sun, moon and stars, glittered in silver thread.

Malacus ran a hand over the shining cloth of his own absurd garment. ‘I don’t think you’d have laughed me off so quickly, eh, Logen, if I’d arrived at your campfire dressed in this?’

Logen winced. ‘I reckon I might’ve.’

‘And here we have a splendid piece of barbarian garb.’ The shopkeeper hefted a black leather tunic onto the counter, set with swirls of shiny brass, trimmed with pointless tissues of delicate chain-mail. He pointed at the matching fur cloak. ‘This is real sable!’ It was a ludicrous piece of clothing, equally useless for warmth or protection.

Logen folded his arms across his old coat. ‘You think I’m going to wear that?’

The shopkeeper swallowed nervously. ‘You must forgive my friend,’ said Bayaz. ‘He is an actor after the new fashion. He believes in losing himself entirely in his role.’

‘Is that so?’ squeaked the man, looking Logen up and down. ‘Northmen are . . . I suppose . . . topical.’

‘Absolutely. I do declare, Master Ninefingers is the very best at what he does.’ The old wizard nudged Logen in the ribs. ‘The very best. I have seen it.’

‘If you say so.’ The shopkeeper looked far from convinced. ‘Might I enquire what you will be staging?’

‘Oh, it’s a new piece.’ Bayaz tapped the side of his bald head with a finger. ‘I am still working on the details.’

‘Really?’

‘Indeed. More a scene than an entire play.’ He glanced back at the robe, admiring the way the light glittered on the arcane symbols. ‘A scene in which Bayaz, the First of the Magi, finally takes up his seat on the Closed Council.’

‘Ah,’ the shopkeeper nodded knowingly. ‘A political piece. A biting satire, perhaps? Will it be comic, or dramatic in tone?’

Bayaz glanced sidelong at Logen. ‘That remains to be seen.’