‘What is?’
‘You wouldn’t get it, alas.’
‘You actually imagine yourself brighter than me?’
‘I have no idea regarding that. But, since you abjure all aspects of humour, anything I might consider and then observe with the word “funny” is obviously something you would not understand.’ Tehol then leaned slightly forward. ‘But wait, that’s just it!’
‘What nonsense are you—’
‘It’s why I am, after all, much smarter than you.’
Karos Invictad smiled. ‘Indeed. Please, do explain yourself.’
‘Why, without a sense of humour, you are blind to so much in this world. To human nature. To the absurdity of so much that we say and do. Consider this, a most poignant example: a mob approaches, seeking my head because I stole all their money, and what do you do to appease them? Why, throw them all the money you’ve stolen from them! And yet, it’s clear that you were completely unaware of just how hilarious that really is – you made your decision unmindful of what, eighty per cent of its delicious nuances. Ninety per cent! Ninety-three per cent! And a half or just shy of a half, but more than a third but less than . . . oh, somewhere close to a half, then.’
Karos Invictad waggled a finger. ‘Incorrect, I’m afraid. It is not that I was unmindful. It is that I was indifferent to such nuances, as you call them. They are, in fact, entirely meaningless.’
‘Well, you may have a point there, since you seem capable of being appreciative of your own brilliance despite your ignorance. But let’s see, perhaps I can come up with another example.’
‘You are wasting your time, Tehol Beddict. And mine.’
‘I am? It didn’t seem you were very busy. What is so occupying you, Invigilator? Apart from anarchy in the streets, economic collapse, invading armies, dead agents and burning horses, I mean.’
The answer was involuntary, as Karos Invictad’s eyes flicked down to the puzzle box. He corrected himself – but too late, for he saw a dawning realization in Tehol’s bruised face, and the man leaned yet farther forward in his chair.
‘What’s this, then? Some magic receptacle? In which will be found all the solutions to this troubled world? Must be, to so demand all of your formidable genius. Wait, is something moving in there?’
‘The puzzle is nothing,’ Karos Invictad said, waving one bejewelled hand. ‘We were speaking of your failings.’
Tehol Beddict leaned back, grimacing. ‘Oh, my failings. Was that the topic of this sizzling discourse? I’m afraid I got confused.’
‘Some puzzles have no solution,’ Karos said, and he could hear how his own voice had grown higher-pitched. He forced himself to draw a deep breath, then said in a lower tone, ‘Someone sought to confound me. Suggesting that a solution was possible. But I see now that no solution was ever possible. The fool did not play fair, and I so dislike such creatures and could I find him or her I would make an immediate arrest, and this entire building would echo with the fool’s screams and shrieks.’
Karos paused when he saw Tehol frowning at him. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. Funny, though.’
The Invigilator reached for his sceptre and lifted it from the desktop, pleased as ever with the solid weight of the symbol, how it felt in his hand.
‘Okay, not funny. Sorry I said anything. Don’t hit me with that thing again. Please. Although,’ Tehol added, ‘considering it’s the symbol of your office, hitting me with it, while somewhat heavy-handed, is nevertheless somewhat . . . funny.’
‘I am thinking of giving you over to the citizens of Letheras,’ Karos said, glancing up to gauge how the man would react to that statement. And was surprised to see the fool smiling again. ‘You think I jest?’
‘Never. Obviously.’
‘Then you would enjoy being torn apart by the mob?’
‘I doubt it. But then, I wouldn’t be, would I? Torn apart, I mean.’
‘Oh, and why not?’
‘Because, not only do I have more money than you, Invigilator, I am – unlike you – entirely indifferent regarding who ends up owning it. Hand me over, by all means, sir. And watch me buy my life.’
Karos Invictad stared at the man.
Tehol wagged a broken finger. ‘People with no sense or appreciation of humour, Invigilator, always take money too seriously. Its possession, anyway. Which is why they spend all their time stacking coins, counting this and that, gazing lovingly over their hoards and so on. They’re compensating for the abject penury everywhere else in their lives. Nice rings, by the way.’
Karos forced himself to remain calm in the face of such overt insults. ‘I said I was thinking of handing you over. Alas, you have just given me reason not to. So, you assure your own Drowning come the morrow. Satisfied?’
‘Well, if my satisfaction is essential, then might I suggest—’
‘Enough, Tehol Beddict. You no longer interest me.’
‘Good, can I go now?’
‘Yes.’ Karos rose, tapping the sceptre onto one shoulder. ‘And I, alas, must needs escort you.’
‘Good help is hard to keep alive these days.’
‘Stand up, Tehol Beddict.’
The man had some difficulty following that instruction, but the Invigilator waited, having learned to be patient with such things.
As soon as Tehol fully straightened, however, a look of astonishment lit his features. ‘Why, it’s a two-headed insect! Going round and round!’
‘To the door now,’ Karos said.
‘What’s the challenge?’
‘It is pointless—’
‘Oh now, really, Invigilator. You claim to be smarter than me, and I’m about to die – I like puzzles. I design them, in fact.
Very difficult puzzles.’
‘You are lying. I know all the designers and you do not number among them.’
‘Well, all right. I designed just one.’
‘Too bad, then, you will be unable to offer it to me, for my momentary pleasure, since you are now returning to your cell.’
‘That’s all right,’ Tehol replied. ‘It was more of a joke than a puzzle, anyway.’
Karos Invictad grimaced, then waved Tehol towards the door with the sceptre.
As he slowly shuffled over, Tehol said, ‘I figured out the challenge, anyway. It’s to make the bug stop going round and round.’
The Invigilator blocked him with the sceptre. ‘I told you, there is no solution.’
‘I think there is. I think I know it, in fact. Tell you what, sir. I solve that puzzle there on your desk and you postpone my Drowning. Say, by forty years or so.’
‘Agreed. Because you cannot.’ He watched Tehol Beddict walk like an old man over to the desk. Then lean over. ‘You cannot touch the insect!’
‘Of course,’ Tehol replied. And leaned yet farther over, lowering his face towards the box.
Karos Invictad hurried forward to stand beside him. ‘Do not touch!’
‘I won’t.’
‘The tiles can be rearranged, but I assure you—’
‘No need to rearrange the tiles.’
Karos Invictad found his heart pounding hard in his chest. ‘You are wasting more of my time.’
‘No, I’m putting an end to your wasting your time, sir.’ He paused, cocked his head. ‘Probably a mistake. Oh well.’
And lowered his face down directly over the box, then gusted a sharp breath against one of the tiles. Momentarily clouding it. And the insect, with one of its heads facing that suddenly opaque, suddenly non-reflective surface, simply stopped. Reached up a leg and scratched its abdomen. As the mist cleared on the tile, it scratched once more, then resumed its circling.
Tehol straightened. ‘I’m free! Free!’
Karos Invictad could not speak for ten, fifteen heartbeats. His chest was suddenly tight, sweat beading on his skin, then he said in a rasp, ‘Don’t be a fool.’
‘You lied? Oh, I can’t believe how you lied to me! Well then, piss on you and your pissy stupid p
uzzle, too!’
The Invigilator’s sceptre swept in an arc, intersecting with that box on the desk, shattering it, sending its wreckage flying across the room. The insect struck a wall and stayed there, then it began climbing towards the ceiling.
‘Run! ‘ whispered Tehol Beddict. ‘Run! ‘
The sceptre swung next into Tehol’s chest, snapping ribs.
‘Pull the chain tighter on my ankles,’ Janath said. ‘Force my legs wider.’
‘You enjoy being helpless, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Yes!’
Smiling, Tanal Yathvanar knelt at the side of the bed.
The chain beneath ran through holes in the bed frame at each corner. Pins held the lengths in place. To tighten the ones snaring her ankles all he needed to do was pull a pin on each side at the foot of the bed, drawing the chain down as far as he could, and, as he listened to her moans, replace the pins.
Then he rose and sat down on the edge of the bed. Stared down at her. Naked, most of the bruises fading since he no longer liked hurting her. A beautiful body indeed, getting thinner which he preferred in his women. He reached out, then drew his hand away again. He didn’t like any touching until he was ready. She moaned a second time, arching her back.
Tanal Yathvanar undressed. Then he crawled up onto the bed, loomed over her with his knees between her legs, his hands pressing down on the mattress to either side of her chest.
He saw how the manacles had torn at her wrists. He would need to treat that – those wounds were looking much worse.
Slowly, Tanal settled onto her body, felt her shiver beneath him as he slid smoothly inside. So easy, so welcoming. She groaned, and, studying her face, he said, ‘Do you want me to kiss you now?’
‘Yes! ‘
And he brought his head down as he made his first deep thrust.
Janath, once eminent scholar, had found in herself a beast, prodded awake as if from a slumber of centuries, perhaps millennia. A beast that understood captivity, that understood that, sometimes, what needed doing entailed excruciating pain.
Beneath the manacles on her wrists, mostly hidden by scabs, blood and torn shreds of skin, the very bones had been worn down, chipped, cracked. By constant, savage tugging. Animal rhythm, blind to all else, deaf to every scream of her nerves. Tugging, and tugging.
Until the pins beneath the frame began to bend. Ever so slowly, bending, the wood holes chewed into, the pins bending, gouging through the holes.
And now, with the extra length of chain that came when Tanal Yathvanar had reset the pins at the foot of the bed frame, she had enough slack.
To reach with her left hand and grasp a clutch of his hair. To push his head to the right, where she had, in a clattering blur, brought most of the length of the chain through the hole, enough to wrap round his neck and then twist her hand down under and then over; and in sudden, excruciating determination, she pulled her left arm up, higher and higher with that arm – the manacle and her right wrist pinned to the frame, tugged down as far as it could go.
He thrashed, sought to dig his fingers under the chain, and she reached ever harder, her face brushing his own, her eyes seeing the sudden blue hue of his skin, his bulging eyes and jutting tongue.
He could have beaten against her. He could have driven his thumbs into her eyes. He could probably have killed her in time to survive all of this. But she had waited for his breath to release, which ever came at the moment he pushed in his first thrust. That breath, that she had heard a hundred times now, close to her ear, as he made use of her body, that breath is what killed him.
He needed air. He had none. Nothing else mattered. He tore at his own throat to get his fingers under the chain. She pushed her left arm straight, elbow locking, and loosed her own scream as the manacle round her right wrist shifted as a bolt slipped down into the hole.
That blue, bulging face, that flooding burst from his penis, followed by the hot gush of urine.
Staring eyes, veins blossoming red, then purple until the whites were completely filled.
She looked right into them. Looked into, seeking his soul, seeking to lock her gaze with that pathetic, vile, dying soul.
I kill you. I kill you. I kill you!
The beast’s silent words.
The beast’s gleeful, savage assertion. Her eyes shouted it at him, shouted it into his soul.
Tanal Yathvanar. I kill you!
Taralack Veed spat into his hands, rubbed them together to spread out the phlegm, then raised them and swept his hair back. ‘I smell more smoke,’ he said.
Senior Assessor, who sat opposite him at the small table, raised his thin brows. ‘It surprises me that you can smell anything, Taralack Veed.’
‘I have lived in the wild, Cabalhii. I can follow an antelope’s spore that’s a day old. This city is crumbling. The Tiste Edur have left. And suddenly the Emperor changes his mind and slaughters all the challengers until but two remain. And does anyone even care?’ He rose suddenly and walked to the bed, on which he had laid out his weapons. He unsheathed his scimitar and peered down at the edge once again.
‘You could trim your eyelashes with that sword by now.’
‘Why would I do that?’ Taralack asked distractedly.
‘Just a suggestion, Gral.’
‘I was a servant of the Nameless Ones.’
‘I know,’ Senior Assessor replied.
Taralack turned, studied with narrowed eyes the soft little man with his painted face. ‘You do?’
‘The Nameless Ones are known in my homeland. Do you know why they are called that? I will tell you as I see that you do not. The Initiated must surrender their names, in the belief that to know oneself by one’s own name is to give it too much power. The name becomes the identity, becomes the face, becomes the self. Remove the name and power returns.’
‘They made no such demands of me.’
‘Because you are little more than a tool, no different from that sword in your hands. Needless to say, the Nameless Ones do not give names to their tools. And in a very short time you will have outlived your usefulness—’
‘And I will be free once more. To return home.’
‘Home,’ mused Senior Assessor. ‘Your tribe, there to right all your wrongs, to mend all the wounds you delivered in your zealous youth. You will come to them with wizened eyes, with slowed heart and a gentling hand. And one night, as you lie sleeping in your furs in the hut where you were born, someone will slip in and slide a blade across your throat. Because the world within your mind is not the world beyond. You are named Taralack Veed and they have taken of its power. From the name, the face. From the name, the self, and with it all the history, and so by your own power – so freely given away long, long ago – you are slain.’
Taralack Veed stared, the scimitar trembling in his hands. ‘And this, then, is why you are known only as Senior Assessor.’
The Cabalhii shrugged. ‘The Nameless Ones are fools for the most part. Said proof to be found in your presence here, with your Jhag companion. Even so, we share certain understandings, which is not too surprising, since we both came from the same civilization. From the First Empire of Dessimbelackis.’
‘It was a common joke in Seven Cities,’ the Gral said, sneering. ‘One day the sun will die and one day there will be no civil war in the Cabal Isles.’
‘Peace has at long last been won,’ Senior Assessor replied, folding his hands together on his lap.
‘Then why does every conversation I have with you of late make me want to throttle you?’
The Cabalhii sighed. ‘Perhaps I have been away from home too long.’
Grimacing, Taralack Veed slammed the scimitar back in its scabbard.
From the corridor beyond a door thumped open and the two men in the room stiffened, their gazes meeting.
Soft footsteps, passing the door.
With a curse Taralack began strapping on his weapons. Senior Assessor rose, adjusting his robe before heading to the door and opening it just enough
to peer outside. Then he ducked back in. ‘He is on his way,’ he said in a whisper.
Nodding, Taralack joined the monk who opened the door a second time. They went out into the corridor, even as they heard the sound of a momentary scuffle, then a grunt, after which something crunched on the stone floor.
Taralack Veed in the lead, they padded quickly down the corridor.
At the threshold of the practice yard’s door was a crumpled heap – the guard. From the compound beyond there was a startled shout, a scuffle, then the sound of the outer gate opening.
Taralack Veed hurried out into the darkness. His mouth was dry. His heart pounded heavy in his chest. Senior Assessor had said that Icarium would not wait. That Icarium was a god and no-one could hold back a god, when it had set out to do what it would do. They will find him gone. Will they search the city? No, they do not even dare unbar the palace gate.
Icarium? Lifestealer, what do you seek?
Will you return to stand before the Emperor and his cursed sword?
The monk had told Taralack to be ready, to not sleep this night. And this is why.
They reached the gate, stepped over the bodies of two guards, then edged outside.
And saw him, standing motionless forty paces down the street, in its very centre. A group of four figures, wielding clubs, were converging on him. At ten paces away they halted, then began backing away. Then they whirled about and ran, one of the clubs clattering on the cobbles.
Icarium stared up at the night sky.
Somewhere to the north, three buildings were burning, reflecting lurid crimson on the bellies of the clouds of smoke seething overhead. Distant screams lifted into the air. Taralack Veed, his breath coming in gasps, drew out his sword. Thugs and murderers might run from Icarium, but that was no assurance that they would do the same for himself and the monk.
Icarium lowered his gaze, then looked about, as if only now discovering where he was. Another moment’s pause, then he set out.
Silent, the Gral and the Cabalhii followed.
Samar Dev licked dry lips. He was lying on his bed, apparently asleep. And come the dawn, he would take his flint sword, strap on his armour, and walk in the midst of Letherii soldiers to the Imperial Arena. And he would walk, alone, out onto the sand, the few hundred onlookers on the marble benches raising desultory hooting and catcalls. There would be no bet-takers, no frenzied shouting of odds. Because this game always ended the same. And now, did anyone even care?