Midnight Tides

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He wants his sharp teeth and talons. It’s all we ever hear. Fangs and talons, fangs and talons. We’re sick of it. Where’s Selush? Why haven’t you made arrangements? You’re treating us like corpses, but even the dead have needs, you know.’

  ‘Well, no, I didn’t know that. In any case, tell Harlest that Selush is working on this, probably right now in fact. Sharp solutions are forthcoming.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh.’

  ‘Sorry. Are you in need of a refill?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Well, uh, more herbs and stuff, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t know. Am I? Do I smell or something?’

  ‘No. Only of sweet things, Shurq. I assure you.’

  ‘I am less inspired by your assurances as time goes on, Tehol Beddict.’

  ‘What a terrible thing to say! Have we stumbled yet?’

  ‘When is Gerun Eberict returning?’

  ‘Soon, it turns out. Things should get exciting then.’

  ‘I am capable of excitement regarding one thing and one thing only, and that has nothing to do with Gerun Eberict. However, I want to steal again. Anything, from whomever. Point me in a direction. Any direction.’

  ‘Well, there is of course the Tolls Repository. But that’s impregnable, obviously. Or, let’s see, the royal vaults, but again, impossible.’

  ‘The Tolls. Yes, that sounds challenging.’

  ‘You won’t succeed, Shurq. No-one ever has, and that includes Green Pig who was a sorceror nearly to rival the Ceda himself—’

  ‘I knew Green Pig. He suffered from overconfidence.’

  ‘And was torn limb from limb as a result.’

  ‘What do you want stolen from the Tolls Repository?’

  ‘Shurq—’

  ‘What?’

  Tehol glanced round. ‘All right. I want to find out which lender holds the largest royal debt. The king has been borrowing prodigiously, and not just to finance the Eternal Domicile. So, who and how much. Same for Queen Janall. And whatever she’s done in her son’s name.’

  ‘Is that all? No gold? No diamonds?’

  ‘That’s right. No gold, no diamonds, and no evidence left behind that anyone was ever in there.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘No you can’t. You’ll get caught. And dismembered.’

  ‘Oh, that will hurt.’

  ‘Maybe not, but it’ll prove inconvenient.’

  ‘I won’t get caught, Tehol Beddict. Now, what did you want from the royal vaults?’

  ‘A tally.’

  ‘You want to know the present state of the treasury.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘No you can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you’ll have been dismembered by then.’

  ‘Thus permitting me to slip into places where I otherwise wouldn’t fit.’

  ‘Shurq, they take your head off too, you know. It’s the last thing they do.’

  ‘Really? That’s barbaric’

  ‘Like I said, you would be greatly inconvenienced.’

  ‘I would at that. Well, I shall endeavour to be careful. Mind you, even a head can count.’

  ‘What would you have me do, break in and lob your head into the vaults? Tied to a rope so I can pull you out again when you’re done?’

  ‘That sounds somewhat problematic.’

  ‘It does, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Can’t you plan any better than that, Tehol Beddict? My faith in you is fast diminishing.’

  ‘Can’t be helped, I suppose. What’s this I hear about you purchasing a seagoing vessel?’

  ‘That was supposed to be a secret. Bugg said he wouldn’t tell—’

  ‘He didn’t. I have my own sources of intelligence, especially when the owner of the vessel just sold happens to be me. Indirectly, of course.’

  ‘All right. Me and Ublala and Harlest, we want to be pirates.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh, Shurq.’

  ‘Now you’re being cruel.’

  ‘Sorry. Pirates, you say. Well, all three of you are notoriously hard to drown. Might work at that.’

  ‘Your confidence and well-wishing overwhelms me.’

  ‘And when do you plan on embarking on this new venture?’

  ‘When you’re done with us, of course.’

  Tehol tugged up his trousers again. ‘Yet another edifying conversation with you, Shurq. Now, I smell something that might well be soup, and you need to go back to your crypt.’

  ‘Sometimes I really hate you.’

  ****

  He led her by the hand down the shallow, crumbling steps. She liked these journeys, even though the places he took her were strange and often… disturbing. This time, they descended an inverted stepped pyramid – at least that was what he called it. Four sides to the vast, funnelled pit, and at the base there was a small square of darkness.

  The air was humid enough to leave droplets on her bare arms. Far overhead, the sky was white and formless. She did not know if it was hot – memories of such sensations had begun to fade, along with so many other things.

  They reached the base of the pit and she looked up at the tall, pale figure at her side. His face was becoming more visible, less blurred. It looked handsome, but hard. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said after a moment, ‘that she’s got you by the ankles.’

  ‘We all have our burdens, Kettle.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘You have no recognition of this place?’

  ‘No. Maybe.’

  ‘Let us continue down, then.’

  Into the darkness, three rungs to a landing, then a spiral staircase of black stone.

  ‘Round and round,’ Kettle said, giggling.

  A short while later they came to the end, the stairs opening out onto a sprawling, high-ceilinged chamber. The gloom was no obstacle to Kettle, nor, she suspected, to her companion. She could see a ragged mound heaped against the far wall to their right, and made to move towards it, but his hand drew her back.

  ‘No, lass. Not there.’

  He led her instead directly ahead. Three doorways, each one elaborately arched and framed with reverse impressions of columns. Between them, the walls displayed deeply carved images.

  ‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘there is a reversal of perspective. That which is closest is carved deepest. There is significance to all this.’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘To achieve peace, destruction is delivered. To give the gift of freedom, one promises eternal imprisonment. Adjudication obviates the need for justice. This is a studied, deliberate embrace of diametric opposition. It is a belief in balance, a belief asserted with the conviction of religion. But in this case, the proof of a god’s power lies not in the cause but in the effect. Accordingly, in this world and in all others, proof is achieved by action, and therefore all action – including the act of choosing inaction – is inherently moral. No deed stands outside the moral context. At the same time, the most morally perfect act is the one taken in opposition to what has occurred before.’

  ‘What do the rooms look like through those openings?’

  ‘In this civilization,’ he continued, ‘its citizens were bound to acts of utmost savagery. Vast cities were constructed beneath the world’s surface. Each chamber, every building, assembled as the physical expression of the quality of absence. Solid rock matched by empty space. From these places, where they did not dwell, but simply gathered, they set out to achieve balance.’

  It seemed he would not lead her through any of the doorways, so she fixed her attention instead on the images. ‘There are no faces.’

  ‘The opposite of identity, yes, Kettle.’

  ‘The bodies look strange.’

  ‘Physically unique. In some ways more primitive, but as a consequence less… specialized, and so less constrained. Profoundly long-lived, more so than any other species. Very difficult to kill, and, it mus
t be said, they needed to be killed. Or so was the conclusion reached after any initial encounter with them. Most of the time. They did fashion the occasional alliance. With the Jaghut, for example. But that was yet another tactic aimed at reasserting balance, and it ultimately failed. As did this entire civilization.’

  Kettle swung round to study that distant heap of… something. ‘Those are bodies, aren’t they?’

  ‘Bones. Scraps of clothing, the harnesses they wore.’

  ‘Who killed them?’

  ‘You had to understand, Kettle. The one within you must understand. My refutation of the Forkrul Assail belief in balance is absolute. It is not that I am blind to the way in which force is ever countered, the way in which the natural world strains towards balance. But in that striving I see no proof of a god’s power; I see no guiding hand behind such forces. And, even if one such existed, I see no obvious connection with the actions of a self-chosen people for whom chaos is the only rational response to order. Chaos needs no allies, for it dwells like a poison in every one of us. The only relevant struggle for balance I acknowledge is that within ourselves. Externalizing it presumes inner perfection, that the internal struggle is over, victory achieved.’

  ‘You killed them.’

  ‘These ones here, yes. As for the rest, no. I was too late arriving and my freedom too brief for that. In any case, but a few enclaves were left by that time. My draconic kin took care of that task, since no other entity possessed the necessary power. As I said, they were damned hard to kill.’

  Kettle shrugged, and she heard him sigh.

  ‘There are places, lass, where Forkrul Assail remain. Imprisoned for the most part, but ever restless. Even more disturbing, in many of those places they are worshipped by misguided mortals.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘You have no idea, Kettle, of the extremity the Azath tower found itself in. To have chosen a soul such as yours… it was like reaching into the heart of the enemy camp. I wonder if, in its last moments, it knew regret. Misgivings. Mother knows, I do.’

  ‘What is this soul you are talking about?’

  ‘Perhaps it sought to use the soul’s power without fully awakening it. We will never know. But you are loose upon the world now. Shaped to fight as a soldier in the war against chaos. Can that fundamental conflict within you be reconciled? Your soul, lass? It is Forkrul Assail.’

  ‘So you have brought me home?’

  His hand betrayed his sudden flinch. ‘You were also a mortal human child, once. And there is a mystery in that. Who birthed you? Who took away your life, and why? Was all this in preparation for your corpse to house the Assail soul? If that is the case, then the Azath tower was either deceived by someone capable of communicating with it, or it had in truth nothing at all to do with the creation of you as you now are. But that makes no sense – why would the Azath lie to me?’

  ‘It said you were dangerous.’

  He was silent for some time. Then, ‘Ah, you are to kill me once I have vanquished the other entombed creatures.’

  ‘The tower is dead,” Kettle said. ‘I don’t have to do anything it told me. Do I?’ She looked up and found him studying her.

  ‘What path will you choose, child?’

  She smiled. ‘Your path. Unless you’re bad. I’ll be very angry if you’re bad.’

  ‘I am pleased, Kettle. Best that you stay close to me, assuming we succeed in what we must do.’

  ‘I understand. You may have to destroy me.’

  ‘Yes. If I can.’

  She gestured with her free hand at the heap of bones. ‘I don’t think you’ll have much trouble.’

  ‘Let us hope it doesn’t come to that. Let us hope the soul within you does not entirely awaken.’

  ‘It won’t. That’s why none of this matters.’

  ‘What makes you so certain, Kettle?’

  ‘The tower told me.’

  ‘It did? What did it say to you? Try to recall its exact words.’

  ‘It never spoke with words. It just showed me things. My body, all wrapped up. People were crying. But I could see through the gauze. I’d woken up. I was seeing everything with two sets of eyes. It was very strange. One set behind the wrappings, the other standing nearby.’

  ‘What else did Azath show you?’

  ‘Those eyes from the outside. There were five others. We were just standing in the street, watching the family carrying the body. My body. Six of us. We’d walked a long way, because of the dreams. We’d been in the city for weeks, waiting for the Azath to choose someone. But I wasn’t the same as the five others, though we were here for the same reason, and we’d travelled together. They were Nerek witches, and they’d prepared me. The me on the outside, not the me all wrapped up.’

  ‘The you on the outside, Kettle, were you a child?’

  ‘Oh no. I was tall. Not as tall as you. And I had to wear my hood up, so no-one could see how different I was. I’d come from very far away. I’d walked, when I was young, hot sands – the sands that covered the First Empire. Whatever that is.’

  ‘What did the Nerek witches call you? Had you a name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A title?’

  She shrugged. ‘I’d forgotten all this. They called me the Nameless One. Is this important?’

  ‘I think it is, Kettle. Although I am not sure in what way. Much of this realm remains unknown to me. It was very young when I was imprisoned. You are certain this “Nameless One” was an actual title? Not just something the Nerek used because they didn’t know your true name?’

  ‘It was a title. They said I’d been prepared from birth. That I was a true child of Eres. And that I was the answer to the Seventh Closure, because I had the blood of kin. “The blood of kin.” What did they mean by that?’

  ‘When I am finally free,’ he said in a voice revealing strain, ‘I will be able to physically touch you, Kettle. My fingers upon your brow. And then I will have your answer.’

  ‘I guess this Eres was my real mother.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And soon you will know who my father is.’

  ‘I will know his blood, yes. At the very least.’

  ‘I wonder if he’s still alive.’

  ‘Knowing how Eres plays the game, lass, he might not even be your father yet. She wanders time, Kettle, in a manner no-one else can even understand, much less emulate. And this is very much her world. She is the fire that never dies.’ He paused, then said, ‘She will choose – or has chosen – with great deliberation. Your father was, is, or will be someone of great importance.’

  ‘So how many souls are in me?’

  ‘Two, sharing the flesh and bone of a child corpse. Lass, we shall have to find a way to get you out of that body, eventually.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you deserve something better.’

  ‘I want to go back. Will you take me back now?’

  ****

  ‘I’ve given up on the eel itself,’ Bugg said, ladling out the soup. ‘It’s still too tough.’

  ‘None the less, my dear manservant, it smells wonderful.’

  ‘That would be the wine. Courtesy of Chief Investigator Rucket, whose request for a meeting with you was for purposes not entirely professional.’

  ‘And how did you fare on my behalf?’

  ‘I ensured that her interest in you only deepened, master.’

  ‘By way of contrast?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Well, is that a good thing? I mean, she’s rather frightening.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it. Even so, she is exceptionally clever.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t like that at all, Bugg. You know, I am tasting something fishy. A hint, anyway. Just how dried up was this eel you found?’

  The manservant probed with his ladle and lifted the mentioned object into view. Black, wrinkled and not nearly as limp as it should have been.

  Tehol leaned closer and studied it for a moment. ‘Bugg…’

  ‘Yes, master?’

&
nbsp; ‘That’s the sole of a sandal.’

  ‘It is? Oh. I was wondering why it was flatter at one end than the other.’

  Tehol settled back and took another sip. ‘Still fishy, though. One might assume the wearer, being in the fish market, stepped on an eel, before the loss of his or her sole.’

  ‘I am mildly disturbed by the thought of what else he or she might have stepped in.’

  ‘There are indeed complexities on the palate, suggesting a varied and lengthy history. Now, how was your day and the subsequent evening?’

  ‘Uneventful. Rucket informs me that Gerun Eberict has killed about three thousand citizens this year.’

  ‘Three thousand? That seems somewhat excessive.’

  ‘I thought so, too, master. More soup?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. So, what is his problem, do you think?’

  ‘Gerun’s? A taste for blood, I’d wager.’

  ‘As simple as that? How egregious. We’ll have to do something about it, I think.’

  ‘And how was your day and evening, master?’

  ‘Busy. Exhausting, even.’

  ‘You were on the roof?’

  ‘Yes, mostly. Although, as I recall, I came down here once. Can’t remember why. Or, rather, I couldn’t at the time, so I went back up.’

  Bugg tilted his head. ‘Someone’s approaching our door.’ The sound of boots in the alley, the faint whisper of armour. ‘My brother, I’d hazard,’ Tehol said, then, turning to face the curtained doorway, he raised his voice. ‘Brys, do come in.’

  The hanging was pulled aside and Brys entered. ‘Well, that is an interesting smell,’ he said.

  ‘Sole soup,’ Tehol said. ‘Would you like some?’

  ‘No, thank you. I have already eaten, it being well after the second bell. I trust you have heard the rumours.’

  ‘The war?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve heard hardly a thing,’ Tehol said.

  Brys hesitated, glancing at Bugg, then he sighed. ‘A new emperor has emerged to lead the Tiste Edur. Tehol, Hull has sworn his allegiance to him.’

  ‘Now, that is indeed unfortunate.’

  ‘Accordingly, you are at risk.’

  ‘Arrest?’

  ‘No, more likely assassination. All in the name of patriotism.’

  Tehol set his bowl down. ‘It occurs to me, Brys, that you are more at risk than I am.’