Orb Sceptre Throne

‘Are you drunk and stupid?’ Yost barked.

Berdand leapt from his chair. ‘How dare you! You push your family interests here at this table then insult us?’

Jeshin raised a hand for quiet. ‘Gentlemen! Accord! Obviously we require more complete intelligence. I suggest a — well, not an envoy now, obviously, but something rather more covert. Someone to travel north and ascertain conditions first-hand and report back. I suggest …’ Jeshin eyed Councillor Yost, who shrank an involuntary step backwards under his speculative gaze, a hand going to his throat. ‘What was the name of that new upstart Nom?’

Yost’s wide frame eased in relief. ‘Ah, Tor — something or other, Legate.’

‘Yes. I designate Councillor Nom as emissary of this body to investigate conditions and developments at Pale and its environs.’ Jeshin raised the gold mask to his face and spoke from behind it. ‘He is to travel north at once.’

The assembled councillors shared barely suppressed smiles. Councillor Berdand laughed aloud, saluting Jeshin. ‘Excellent stroke, Legate.’

*

Torvald sat, head clasped between his hands, at the tiny kitchen table in the cramped main room attempting yet again to dredge up any excuse, no matter what, to rid himself of his appointment to the exalted, but unpaid, position of councillor. Tis had taken the news of its non-compensatory nature with a steely unsurprised silence that only made him feel all the more guilty — though over just what he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t done anything. None of this was his fault.

It was simply an inconvenient circumstance. That was all.

A tentative knock sounded on the door. Torvald frowned; it was late in the evening. Surely not the debt collectors already? How could word have travelled that fast? Since Tis was in her workshop in the rear he unlatched the door and opened it a crack. ‘Yes?’

It was a clerk of the Council escorted by three city Wardens. Torvald opened the door wider. ‘Yes?’

‘Is this …’ the clerk ran her disbelieving eyes over the plain front of the row-house, ‘the residence of Councillor Nom?’

‘Yes.’

‘May I speak to him?’

‘I’m he — that is, he is me, myself.’

The clerk’s brows arched even higher. ‘Indeed. How … refreshingly informal of you, Councillor.’

One day I’ll get the better of one of these bureaucrats, I swear. ‘You have a message?’

‘Indeed.’ She held out a sealed scroll.

Torvald read it by the uncertain light of a torch carried by one of the Wardens. Then he read it again. When he looked up there was an expression upon his face that made the clerk eye him more closely, puzzled.

‘You are quite well, sir?’

Special emissary! Travel to Pale and environs. Report on state of affairs. Torvald restrained himself from hugging the clerk. A gift from the gods! He managed to hold his mouth tight, nodding curtly. ‘Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I will leave at once, of course. The Legate can be assured of my cooperation.’ He moved to close the door but stopped, thinking of something. ‘Ah — there wouldn’t be a travel stipend associated with this position, would there?’

Later, retracing her steps to Majesty Hill to finish her report and retire for the night, it occurred to the clerk that never before had she ever seen any councillor so happy to be sent from the city.

Barathol worked only at night. Long after sunset armoured chests arrived at the tent which housed his makeshift forge now moved to Majesty Hill. The chests contained silver to be melted down and poured into moulds. And not raw silver: finished jewellery, utensils, ornaments and coin. A great deal of silver coin. All destined for the ceramic crucible supplied to him to be heated on the forge.

Once the metal was melted he poured it into sand moulds, two at a time. Plain forms, they were, shaped exactly like the iron pins used to hold stone blocks together. Except these would be of silver and thus far too soft to secure anything. And he’d told them that as well, the two who took over the process once he’d poured. Neither gave a damn what he thought. One was a tall scarred fellow with a great mane of hair and a ferocious hooked nose. The other was some sort of hunchback, or cripple, even worse-looking, all mismatched in his broken features and mangled hands. Both stank like mages to him.

They would curtly gesture him out then work some sort of sorcery over the still soft metal. Later, he would be allowed back into the tent to knock the pins from their black sand moulds and polish them up. Each time he found them inscribed with symbols and script utterly unfamiliar to him. In the morning the men would pack up the finished items and carry them off. He never saw either of them during the daytime excavations.

Shortly after the morning shift began work he would stagger home to get some sleep. Unfortunately for him this was a rather rare commodity. Scillara was disinclined to rise before noon and so he watched little Chaur until she came downstairs. Then he made lunch for them. After that she often had little chores for him; repairing this, or replacing that. Sometimes she went out, leaving him to mind Chaur for the rest of the day.

Then there was dinner to be made.

Often he did not lie down in the cot downstairs until close to dusk. Only a few hours later it would be time to rise to work the night through once again. For Barathol time began to pass in a dazed fog of utter exhaustion. Fortunately, the work was not demanding. He was tempted to sleep in the tent next to the forge but was haunted by what might happen to little Chaur in his absence. Scillara was not cruel; she was simply not interested and he did not hold this against her. It seemed to him that frankly most people by temperament and character should not be thrust into the role of parents. She was simply uncharacteristic in admitting it. He was at a loss to know how to resolve the trap life had set for him. The most attractive answer was to take little Chaur and walk away. He wondered, idly, his mind barely on his work, whether Scillara would even complain.

As the days passed, and his shambling dazed existence extended into a near hallucinogenic stupor, he would take breaks from the heat of the forge to stand outside in the cool night air. Here, he was sure the lack of sleep was affecting his mind, because he was seeing things. Sometimes the night sky would be occluded by the arc of an immense dome that glowed like snow. It would be gone when next he blinked. At other times flames seemed to dance over the entire city. Once he saw the taller of the mages standing out among the salvaged stones. The man was weeping, his hands pressed to his face, his body shuddering in great heaving sobs.

Am I going mad? Perhaps we both are.

A smooth warm hand brushing his cheek brought Lim to consciousness. He smiled, remembering similar nights long ago — then his eyes snapped open.

He stared at Taya crouched on his bed. ‘What in the name of Gedderone are you doing here!’

The girl’s full lips puckered into an exaggerated pout. ‘Don’t you want me, dearest Jeshin?’

‘Well, yes. But — no! You mustn’t … How did you get in here?’

She uncoiled herself from the bed, walked round it. Jeshin could not take his eyes from her. ‘Never mind that, dearest. I am here to congratulate you.’

He rose and threw on a silk dressing gown. He eyed the door to his chamber — closed. ‘Congratulate … me?’ he said as he edged towards the door. A shape emerged from the shadows next to it, a ghostly wavering figure of a man in tattered finery. The spectre raised a finger to its lips for silence.

Jeshin found that his voice had fled.

‘You’ve played your part magnificently, dearest. Even better than we could have hoped. But now …’ She sighed. Jeshin pulled his gaze from the apparition to her. She was shaking her head in mock sadness. ‘Now it is time to move on to the second act.’

Jeshin tried to shout but something had a fist at his throat. He could barely draw breath. Taya was at his side. Her soft lips brushed his cheek. ‘There is someone here I want you to meet,’ she whispered, her voice thick with passion.

Through tears he saw a new figure emerge from the gloom. A man in loose obscuring robes and on his head, bizarrely, an oval mask that shone pale in the starlight like a moon. Terror drove a knife into his heart and he would