Mark Lawrence - The Liar's key

“I’m sure we can reach a deal.” I clutched the key tight, not intending to lose it to some thieving mechanical arachnid. As I squeezed it I saw a flash of another place, a room of many doors, just wooden ones, with Kelem standing before me, younger even than the shade we saw of him at Eridruin’s Cave. “What’s your offer?”

Kelem didn’t speak as spider legs rotated his salt-crusted skull to stare directly at me. Even while he turned to face me though I glimpsed that small square room again and heard a younger Kelem speak, “Are you a god, Loki?” His eyes on me, hard as stones.

“Wh-” I started to speak but the vision came again, cutting me off.

“Your death lies behind one of these other doors, Kelem.” It seems I’m speaking the words in that room, so many centuries ago that Kelem looks no older than Snorri.

That younger Kelem had sneered. “God of tricks they-”

“Don’t worry.” My voice, but it’s not me. “You’ll never manage to open that one.”

The vision passed and I became aware that Kelem, ancient and wizened in his throne, was addressing me.

“The Red Queen’s child?”

“Her grandson, sir. My father is cardinal-”

“Skilfar’s spawn and Alica’s, waiting on my judgment, deep in the salt earth with old Kelem. How strange the world does turn, and so swiftly. It seems only yesterday that Skilfar was young and fair, the flower of the north. And Alica Kendeth, surely she’s a child still? Must everyone grow old each time I blink?”

The spear fell from him, several spiders had been working to free it. The weapon slid to the ground.

I raised the key, cold, hard, slick, and yet somehow seeming to writhe worm-like in my grip. “Do you have an offer?” A vision of crystals growing from the rock flashed before my eyes. A mirror, white crystals, the Lady Blue fleeing, the blood of my line on her hands. It would have to be a damn good offer.

“Long before they called me door-master I was master of coin. The golden key will open almost as many doors as the black one. Hearts too.”

Those hollow eye-pits studied me a moment. “Every man has his price, boy. Yours is easy enough to guess. I’ll pay for calling you ‘boy,’ but not much. I am rich, boy, did you know that? Rich enough to make a beggar of Croesus, to make Midas’s wealth look modest. Money, boy, is the blood of empires.” Spiders raised his dry hands, tugging on tendons, manipulating bones, a silver web of them across his sunken flesh. “Money flows through these hands. Name your price.”

“I. .” Indecision paralysed me and greed took my voice. What if I asked for too little? But asking some ridiculous sum might enrage him.

“Knowing your own price is quite a thing, Jalan Kendeth. Know thyself, that’s what the philosopher said. A wisdom that has lived through the Thousand Suns. Easy to say, hard to do. Knowing your own price is most of knowing yourself, and who can expect such a thing from the young? Ten thousand in crown gold.”

“T-Ten. .” I tried to imagine it there, glittering before me, the weight of it spilling through my hands. More than I’d lost, more than was stolen from me, more than I owed. Enough to pay off the grasping hands of Umbertide, and clear my debt to Maeres Allus, with a thousand and more left over.

“Ten thousand would be an insult to a man of your breeding, Prince Jalan.” The mechanical voice dragged me from my vision. “Sixty-four thousand. Not a clipped copper more or less. We have a deal.”

Always take the money. Sixty-four thousand. A ridiculous sum, a preposterous sum. I could buy back Garyus’s ships, set myself up for a life of debauched pleasure among Vermillion’s elite, seduce the DeVeer sisters from their husbands. . I could buy Grandmother a squad of sword-sons or a warship or something equally violent to take her mind from the loss of a key she never owned. .

“The money will be waiting for you in credit at the House Gold. I will ensure all charges against you are dropped and when you’ve cleared your debts you may leave the city,” Kelem said.

“It’s not here?” That disappointed me. I wanted the mound of gold I had imagined.

“I’m not a dragon, Prince Jalan. I do not sleep upon my hoard.”

“Sixty-four thousand-in crown gold-and you undo what you’ve done to Snorri.” I hesitated then sighed. “And he gets to open death’s door before you take the key.” I glanced over at the Norseman, standing, hunched, with his hand on Hennan’s shoulder, a father’s touch. “Though I pray he finds the sense not to use it.”

“No.” Just that through the silver grille on Kelem’s withered neck, then silence.

I drew in a deep sigh and wiped the sweat from my brow. “Sixty-three thousand, fix Snorri, and he gets to open the door.” There’s an exquisite pain involved in the loss of a thousand in gold. Not one I’ll ever get used to.

“No.”

“Oh, come on.” I knuckled my brow. “You’re killing me here. Sixty-two, the cure, and the door.”

“No.”

I wondered how far I could push him. Kelem clearly feared Loki’s curse more than he feared losing sixty-four thousand in gold. But perhaps less than he feared opening the door into death.

I held up a hand and stepped to Kara’s side, leaning in close to whisper in her ear. Damn but I wanted her, even there, even then, even sweat-slick and with the suspicion in her eyes. “Kara. . how dangerous is this curse?”

She stepped back, her fingers on my chest. “Why didn’t Skilfar take the key from Snorri?”

“Um. .” I battled to remember. “The world is better shaped by freedom. Even if it means giving foolish men their head-that’s what you said?” I looked from her to Snorri. “She let him keep it because. . she’s wise. Or something.”

Kara raised her eyebrows. “Doesn’t sound very likely, does it?”

“Skilfar was scared too?”

“It’s Loki’s key. God of trickery. Nothing as straight forward as strength is going to decide its ownership. Or it would have been Thor’s key an age ago!”

“It has to be given,” Snorri said. “Olaaf Rikeson took it by strength and Loki’s curse froze his army, ten thousand strong.”

“So. . when you gave me the key back in the olive groves. .”

“I trusted a friend, yes.”

“Hell.” Snorri had placed his future in my hands. That was far more trust than I could hold on to. It was like telling a dog to guard a steak. It was stupid. “You don’t know me at all, Snorri.” Somehow, even with sixty-four thousand in crown gold glittering in my immediate future I felt low. A fever perhaps, or poisoning from the sour salts of the lower mine.

Maybe it was the way Snorri didn’t even argue his case but just stood there like the huge over-loyal idiot he was, having the gall to expect the same foolishness from me.

“Thirty-two thousand, the cure, and the idiot gets his door open.”

“No.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake! How much to open that damned door?”

“That door shouldn’t ever be opened. Even if you took no gold, only offered me the key to show you death’s door, I would hesitate. There’s a reason the ghosts of my youth are scattered across Hell. It wasn’t just chance that one stepped out to oppose you when you approached Eridruin’s door. Opening that door is dangerous. Passing through still more so.” Kelem’s jaw moved as the voice issued from his neck. In his mouth something glittered, silver across the black thing that had been his tongue.

“Why? Why would a dead thing like you care?” I didn’t even want that door open-why I was arguing rather than wondering how to carry my gold back to Red March I didn’t know.

“I’m not dead.” Kelem tilted his head. “Merely. . well preserved.”