Orb Sceptre Throne

‘I know.’

*

An old woman was shouting herself hoarse in the narrow crooked paths through the Maiten shanty town west of Darujhistan: ‘Pretty birdies! Pretty birdies! Look all at the pretties!’ In the twilight before dawn the garbage-sorters, beggars and labourers groaned and pressed their thread-thin blankets to their heads.

‘For the love of Burn, shut up!’ one fellow bellowed.

The women, already up preparing the meals for the day, fanned their cook-fires and watched the old woman pointing to the lightening sky as she staggered up and down the alleys. They looked at one another and shook their heads. There she went again. That crazy old woman — proving all the cliches their men kept mouthing about old women who lived in the most rundown huts at the edges of towns. Someone should let her know what an embarrassment she was.

And where did she come by all that smoke, anyway?

‘Almost now! Almost!’ the old woman shouted. Then she fell to her knees in the mud and streams of excrement and loudly retched up the contents of her stomach.

The women pursed their lips. Gods, the menfolk would never let them live this one down! Someone ought to guide her to the lake and set her on a long walk up a short pier.

Problem was — the women knew she really was a witch.

*

The fat demon, who was about the size of a medium breed of dog, sat dozing amid the tumbled broken rock of the ancient ruins. Grunting, it coughed, then choked in earnest, flailing. Clawed fingers thrust their way into his mouth, seeking, then withdrew holding a long pale fishbone.

The demon sighed its relief, adjusted its buttocks on the rocks and cast a cursory glance to the stone arch opposite. It froze.

Oh no. Nononononono. Not again!

It launched itself into the air. Its tiny wings struggled to gain purchase, failed. It bounced tumbling downhill, gained momentum, succeeded in lifting its dragging feet from the weeds and took off slowly and heavily across the city like an obscene bumblebee.

Once more it had that word for its master. That most unwelcome word.

*

She’d been irritable of late. Distracted. Short-tempered. If Rallick were the type of man to be dismissive of women he might’ve characterized her as catty. Not that he would dare intimate such a thing to Vorcan Radok, once mistress of Darujhistan’s assassins. And so it was some time before he finally worked up the determination to mention the topic of the professional killings in the Gadrobi district. He alluded to it over dinner. Her gaze in response had been withering. She sipped her wine.

‘And you think I’m responsible? Taken work on the side?’

‘I don’t know who did it,’ he responded, honestly enough.

But that had been enough to break the spell between them. She retired alone and he sat up late into the night in turn damning her as an unreasonable prickly woman and damning himself for allowing anything to come between them. When he finally lay down she was asleep — or pretending to be.

She’d been sleeping poorly lately. Tonight she tossed and turned, even murmured in a language he’d never heard before. So he was not surprised when she rose naked and padded across to the open terrace doors to stare into the blue radiance that glowed over Darujhistan. He came up behind her, set his hands on her shoulders. ‘What is it?’

‘Something …’ she breathed, head cocked as if listening to the night.

‘Should I-’ She lifted a hand for silence. He stilled, trusting her instincts.

Then, astonishingly, the skin beneath his fingers flashed almost unbearably hot. For an instant it was as if he held the spiny, gnarled back of a boar, or a bull bhederin, and Vorcan flinched backwards, brushing him aside like a child. ‘No!’ she ground out. ‘How could …’

She went to the bed, began throwing on clothes.

‘What is it?’

Dressed, she stopped before him. Something new was in her dark eyes. Something that stole his breath, for real fear swam in those deep pools. ‘Leave the estate now,’ she told him. ‘Do not return. Do not try to contact me. Go.’

‘Tell me what it is. I’ll-’

‘No! You will do nothing.’ She pressed a smooth dry palm to the side of his face. ‘Promise me, Rallick. No matter what happens, what comes, you will not act. No contracts, no … attempts.’ She rose on her toes to brush her dry hot lips to his. ‘Please,’ she whispered.

He nodded, swallowing. ‘If you insist.’

She backed away from him into the darker gloom of the bed-chamber, those dark eyes holding his. He dressed quietly while listening to the night, trying to hear what she might’ve heard. But he detected nothing — as far as he could tell it was merely an unusually still and quiet night.

Downstairs, Vorcan’s one servant, the butler-cum-castellan Studlock, who never seemed to be off duty, let him out. Rallick listened to the many locks being ratcheted back into place behind him, then set out into the night.

*

In the tallest tower of his grounds, Baruk stood looking out over the estate district of Darujhistan. For a moment he looked not upon the night-sleeping buildings as they lay now but upon another city, one of a profusion of towers much like his, all aglow with a flickering ghostly blue illumination. And amidst all the towers, rearing far more immense, a great dome encompassing Majesty Hill. Then he passed a shaking hand before his eyes and glanced aside, down to where a shivering, whimpering Chillbais crouched, terrified, but not quite so terrified as to not be chewing on a loaf of old bread.

‘Was he waiting?’ Baruk mused. ‘Waiting for Anomander to be gone?’ He drew his hand down his chin. ‘I wonder.’ He went to the door, turned as a final thought struck him. ‘You are free to go, Chillbais. Your service is done.’ He pulled the door shut behind him.

Fat loaf of bread jammed in his mouth, the demon peered about the empty room. Free? Free to go where? Free to do what? Oh dear, oh dear. Free perhaps to be enslaved by something far worse? No, no, no. Not I.

Chillbais waddled to a clothes chest, struggled up over the side to tumble in, then pulled the top closed.

*

Aman dragged Ebbin to the ruins atop Despot’s Barbican. Here, he turned to face the way they’d come, a fist tight on Ebbin’s shirt.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Ebbin asked in a plaintive whisper.

Aman slapped him. ‘Quiet. Your turn will come.’

‘He is near,’ the shade of Hinter said.

Aman tilted his crooked head in order to look skywards. ‘The moon is not right,’ he warned.

‘Soon,’ answered the shade.

Taya ran up. Her gossamer silks blew behind her like white flames. ‘He is here.’

Aman pushed Ebbin to his knees, then lowered himself on to one knee. He shook Ebbin, snarling, ‘Bow your head, slave.’

Ebbin could not have kept his head erect if he tried; something was hammering him down. Some unbearable pressure like the hand of a giant was squashing him as if he were an insect. A whimper slipped from him as he glimpsed the dirty bottom edge of a dark cloak before him.

‘Father,’ Aman murmured. ‘We remain your faithful servants.’

Ebbin whimpered, shaking. This was not for him. Such scenes were not to be witnessed by such as he. The pressure — the iron hand grinding him into the dirt — eased, and he caught his breath.

Aman straightened, yanked him up. ‘Stand now.’

He complied, but would not raise his gaze beyond the mud-spattered edge of the cloak. So, now it was his turn. A hand would clasp his arm or shoulder and the mask would be pressed to his face. He would be blind behind it, unable to breathe. He would die choking. And then … and then … what? What was