The Blade Itself

first great swing, smiled as he dodged the third, but by the fifth his smile was long gone. And it doesn’t look like coming back.

It wasn’t pretty at all. But the power is undeniable. Kurster ducked desperately under another great arcing cut. That one was hard enough to take his head off, blunted steels or no.

The crowd’s favourite did his best to seize the initiative, jabbing away for all he was worth, but Gorst was more than equal to it. He grunted as he turned the jabs efficiently away with his short steel, then growled again as he brought his long whistling around and over. Glokta winced as it smashed into Kurster’s sword with a resounding crash, snapping the man’s wrist back and nearly tearing the steel from his fingers. He stumbled back from the force of it, grimacing with pain and shock.

Now I realise why Gorst’s steels seem so worn. Kurster dodged around the circle, trying to escape the onslaught, but the big man was too quick. Far too quick. Gorst had the measure of him now, anticipating every movement, harrying his opponent with relentless blows. There was no escape.

Two heavy thrusts drove the hapless officer back towards the edge of the circle, then a scything cut ripped his long steel from his hand and embedded it, wobbling wildly back and forth, in the turf. He staggered for a moment, eyes wide, his empty hand trembling, then Gorst was on him, letting go a roar and ramming full-tilt into his defenceless ribs with a heavy shoulder.

Glokta spluttered with laughter. I never saw a swordsman fly before. Kurster actually turned half a somersault, shrieking like a girl as he tumbled through the air, crashing to the ground with his limbs flopping and sliding away on his face. He finally came to rest in the sand outside the circle, a good three strides from where Gorst had hit him, groaning weakly.

The crowd was in shock, so quiet that Glokta’s cackling had to be audible on the back row. Kurster’s trainer rushed from his enclosure and gently turned his stricken student over. The young man kicked weakly, whimpered and clutched at his ribs. Gorst watched for a moment, emotionless, then shrugged and strolled back to his mark.

Kurster’s trainer turned to the referee. “I am sorry,” he said, “but my pupil cannot continue.”

Glokta could not help himself. He had to clamp his mouth shut with his hands. His whole body was shaking with laughter. Each gurgle caused a painful spasm in his neck, but he didn’t care. It seemed the majority of the crowd had not found the spectacle quite so amusing. Angry mutterings sprang up all around him. The grumbling turned to boos as Kurster was helped from the circle, draped between his trainer and his second, then the boos to a chorus of angry shouts.

Gorst swept the audience with his lazy, half-open eyes, then shrugged again and trudged slowly back to his enclosure. Glokta was still sniggering as he limped from the arena, his purse a good deal heavier than when he arrived. He hadn’t had that much fun in years.

The University stood in a neglected corner of the Agriont, directly in the shadow of the House of the Maker, where even the birds seemed old and tired. A huge, ramshackle building, coated in half-dead ivy, its design plainly from an earlier age. It was said to be one of the oldest buildings in the city. And it looks it.

The roofs were sagging in the middle, a couple of them close to outright collapse. The delicate spires were crumbling, threatening to topple off into the unkempt gardens below. The render on the walls was tired and grimy, and in places whole sections had fallen away to reveal the bare stones and crumbling mortar beneath. In one spot a great brown stain flared out down the wall from a section of broken guttering. There had been a time when the study of sciences had attracted some of the foremost men in the Union, when this building had been among the grandest in the city. And Sult thinks the Inquisition is out of fashion.

Two statues flanked the crumbling gate. Two old men, one with a lamp, one pointing at something in a book. Wisdom and progress or some such rubbish. The one with the book had lost his nose some time during the past century, the other was leaning at an angle, his lamp stuck out despairingly as though clutching for support.

Glokta raised his fist and hammered on the ancient doors. They rattled, moved noticeably, as if they might at any moment drop from their hinges. Glokta waited. Waited some time.

There was a sudden clatter of bolts being drawn back, and one half of the door wobbled open a few inches. An ancient face wedged itself into the gap and squinted out at him, lit underneath by a meagre taper clutched in a withered hand. Dewy old eyes peered up and down. “Yes?”

“Inquisitor Glokta.”

“Ah, from the Arch Lector?”

Glokta frowned, surprised. “Yes, that’s right.” They cannot be half so cut off from the world as they appear. He seems to know who I am.

It was perilously dark within. Two enormous brass candelabras stood on either side of the door, but they were stripped of candles and had long gone unpolished, shining dully in the weak light from the porter’s little taper. “This way, sir,” wheezed the old man, shambling off, bent nearly double. Even Glokta had little trouble keeping up with him as he crept away through the gloom.

They shuffled together down a shadowy hallway. The windows on one side were ancient, made with tiny panes of glass so dirty that they would have let in little enough light on the sunniest of days. They let in none whatever as the sullen evening came on. The flickering candleflame danced over dusty paintings on the opposite wall, pale old men in dark gowns of black and grey, gazing wild-eyed from their flaking frames, flasks and cog- wheels and pairs of compasses clutched in their aged hands.

“Where are we going?” asked Glokta, after they had shambled through the murk for several minutes.

“The Adepti are at dinner,” wheezed the porter, glancing up at him with eyes infinitely tired.

The University’s dining hall was an echoing cavern of a room, lifted one degree above total darkness by a few guttering candles. A small fire flickered in an enormous fireplace, casting dancing shadows among the rafters. A long table stretched the length of the floor, polished by long years of use, flanked by rickety chairs. It could easily have accommodated eighty but there were only five there, crowded up at one end, huddled in around the fireplace. They looked over as the taps of Glokta’s cane echoed through the hall, pausing in their meals and peering over with great interest. The man at the head of the table got to his feet and hurried over, holding the hem of his long black gown up with one hand.

“A visitor,” wheezed the porter, waving his candle in Glokta’s direction.

“Ah, from the Arch Lector! I am Silber, the University Administrator!” And he shook Glokta’s hand. His companions had meanwhile lurched and tottered to their feet as though the guest of honour had just arrived.

“Inquisitor Glokta.” He stared round at the eager old men. A good deal more deference than I was expecting, I must say. But then, the Arch Lector’s name opens all kinds of doors.

“Glokta, Glokta,” mumbled one of the old men, “seems that I remember a Glokta from somewhere.”

“You remember everything from somewhere, but you never remember where,” quipped the administrator, to half-hearted laughter. “Please let me make the introductions.”

He went round the four black-gowned scientists, one by one. “Saurizin, our Adeptus Chemical.” A beefy, unkempt old fellow with burns and stains down the front of his robe and more than one bit of food in his beard. “Denka, the Adeptus Metallic.” The youngest of the four by a considerable margin, though by no means a young man, had an arrogant twist to his mouth. “Chayle, our Adeptus Mechanical.” Glokta had never seen a man with so big a head but so small a face. His ears, in particular, were immense, and sprouting grey hairs. “And Kandelau, the Adeptus Physical.” A scrawny old bird with a long neck and spectacles perched on his curving beak of a nose. “Please join us, Inquisitor,” and the administrator indicated an empty chair, wedged in between two of the Adepti.

“A glass of wine then?” wheedled Chayle, a prim smile on his tiny mouth, already leaning forward with a decanter and sloshing some into a glass.

“Very well.”

“We were just discussing the relative merits of our various fields of study,” murmured Kandelau, peering at Glokta through his flashing spectacles.

“As always,” lamented the Administrator.