‘For fear that I will seek to kill them.’
‘Will you?’
‘On many levels,’ he replied, ‘there is no reason why I shouldn’t. But no, not unless they get in my way. You and I know, after all, that the true threat waits in the barrows of the Azath grounds.’
‘I don’t think the Edur will win the war,’ she said.
‘Yes, failure on their part would be ideal.’
‘So what else did you want to show me?’
A pale white hand gestured towards the valley. ‘There is something odd to all this. Do you see? Or, rather, what don’t you see?’
‘I don’t see any ghosts.’
‘Yes. The spirits are gone. The question is, where are they?’
Terrified screams echoed as Shurq Elalle walked down the wide, high-ceilinged corridor to the Master Chamber of the Tolls Repository. Guards, servants, clerks and cleaning staff had one and all succumbed to perfectly understandable panic. There was nothing worse, she reflected, than the unexpected visitations of dead relatives.
Ahead, the double doors were wide open, and the lanterns in the huge room beyond were swinging wildly to immanent gusts of spirited haste.
The thief strode into the chamber.
A squalid ghost rushed up to her, rotted face grinning wildly. ‘I touched it! My last coin! I found it in the stacks! And touched it!’
‘I am happy for you,’ Shurq said. ‘Now, where are the counters and readers?’
‘Eh?’
Shurq moved past the ghost. The chamber was seething, spirits hurrying this way and that, others hunched over tumbled scrolls, still others squirming along the shelves. Chests of coins had been knocked over, the glittering gold coins stirring about on the marble floor as gibbering wraiths pawed them.
‘I worked here!’
Shurq eyed the ghost drifting her way. ‘You did?’
‘Oh yes. They put in more shelves, and look at those lantern nooks – what idiot decided on those dust-traps? Dust is a fire hazard. Terrible fire hazard. Why, I was always telling them that. And now I could prove my point – a nudge, a simple nudge of that lantern there, yes…’
‘Come back here! Nothing burns. Understand?’
‘If you say so. Fine. I was just kidding, anyway.’
‘Have you looked at the ledgers?’
‘Yes, yes, and counted. And memorized. I was always good at memorizing; that’s why they hired me. I could count and count and never lose my place. But the dust! Those nooks! Everything might burn, burn terribly-’
‘Enough of that. We have what we need. Time for everyone to leave.’ A chorus of wavering voices answered her. ‘We don’t want to!’
‘There’ll be priests coming. Probably already on their way. And mages, eager to collect wraiths to enslave as their servants for eternity.’
‘We’re leaving!’
‘You,’ said Shurq to the ghost before her, ‘come with me. Talk. Give me details.’
‘Yes, yes. Of course.’
‘Leave that lantern alone, damn you!’
‘Sorry. Terrible fire hazard, oh, the flames there’d be. Such flames, all those inks, the colours!’
‘Everyone!’ the thief shouted. ‘We’re going now! And you, stop rolling that coin – it stays here!’
‘The Seventh Closure,’ Kuru Qan muttered as they made their way back to the palace. ‘It is all spiralling inward. Troubling, this concatenation of details. The Azath dies, a Hold of Death comes into being. A Nameless One appears and somehow possesses the corpse of a child, then fashions an alliance with a denizen of a barrow. A usurper proclaims himself emperor of the Tiste Edur, and now leads an invasion. Among his allies, a demon from the sea, one of sufficient power to destroy two of my best mages. And now, if other rumours are true, it may be the emperor is himself a man of many lives…’ Brys glanced over. ‘What rumours?’
‘Citizens witnessed his death in Trate. The Edur emperor was cut down in battle. Yet he…
‘And you believe, Ceda, that all this is somehow linked to the Seventh Closure?’
‘The rebirth of our empire. That is my fear, Champion. That we have in some fatal way misread our ancient prophecy. Perhaps the empire has already appeared.’
‘The Tiste Edur? Why would a Letherii prophecy have anything to do with them?’
Kuru Qan shook his head. ‘It is a prophecy that arose in the last days of the First Empire. Brys, there is so much we have lost. Knowledge, the world of that time. Sorcery gone awry, birthing horrific beasts, the armies of undead who delivered such slaughter among our people, then simply left. Mysterious tales of a strange realm of magic that was torn apart. Could the role of an entire people fit in any of the gaps in our knowing? Yes. And what of other people who are named, yet nothing more than the names survives – no descriptions? Barghast, Jhag, Trell. Neighbouring tribes? We’ll never know.’
They came to the gates. Sleepy guards identified them and opened the lesser postern door. The palace grounds were empty, silent. The Ceda paused and stared up at the hazy stars overhead.
Brys said nothing. He waited, standing at the old man’s side, seeing the night sky reflected in the twin lenses in front of Kuru Qan’s eyes. Wondering what the Ceda was thinking.
Tehol Beddict smiled as she threaded her way through the crowd towards him. ‘Chief Investigator Rucket, I am delighted to see you again.’
‘No you’re not,’ she replied. ‘You’re just trying to put me on the defensive.’
‘How does my delight make you defensive?’
‘Because I get suspicious, that’s why. You’re not fooling me, with those absurd trousers and that idiotic insect on your shoulder.’
Tehol looked down in surprise. ‘Ezgara! I thought I left you on the roof.’
‘You’ve named him Ezgara? He doesn’t look a thing like our king. Oh, maybe if our king had two heads, then I might see the resemblance, but as it stands, that’s a stupid name.’
‘The three of us are deeply offended, as is my bodyguard here and, one must assume, his two brothers wherever they are. Thus, the six of us. Deeply offended.’
‘Where is Bugg?’
‘Somewhere in that crowd behind you, I suppose.’
‘Well, no. They’re all looking.’
‘Oh, he was there a moment ago.’
‘But he isn’t any longer, and the people are clamouring.’
‘No they aren’t, Rucket. They’re milling.’
‘Now you’re challenging my assessment. Concluding, no doubt, that contrariness is sexually attractive. Maybe for some women it is, the kind you prefer, I’d wager. But I take exception to your taking exception to everything I say.’
‘Now who’s being contrary?’
She scowled. ‘I was intending to invite you to a late night bite. There is a courtyard restaurant not far from here-’
‘The Trampled Peacock.’
‘Why, yes. I am dismayed that you are familiar with it. Suggesting to me, for obvious reasons, that clandestine trysts are common with you, further suggesting a certain cheapness and slatternly behaviour on your part. I don’t know why I am surprised that you’re so loose, actually. I should have expected it. Accordingly, I want nothing to do with you.’
‘I’ve never been there.’
‘You haven’t? Then how do you know of it?’
