Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself

They edged round a narrow balcony, lit by a pale curtain of light. On one side sheer stones rose smooth, on the other they dropped away and were lost in the darkness. A black pit, full of shadows, with no far side, no top, no bottom. Despite the vastness of the space there were no echoes. No air moved. There was not the tiniest breeze. The air was stale and close as a tomb.

“There should be water down there, surely,” muttered Glokta, frowning over the rail. “There should be something, shouldn’t there?” He squinted up. “Where’s the ceiling?”

“This place stinks,” whined Luthar, one hand clasped over his nose.

Logen agreed with him, for once. It was a smell he knew well, and his lips curled back with hatred at it. “Smells like fucking Flatheads.”

“Oh yes,” said Bayaz, “the Shanka are the Maker’s work also.”

“His work?”

“Indeed. He took clay, and metal, and left-over flesh and he made them.”

Logen stared. “He made them?”

“To fight in his war. Against us. Against the Magi. Against his brother Juvens. He bred the first Shanka here and let them loose upon the world—to grow, and breed, and destroy. That was their purpose. For many years after Kanedias’ death we hunted them, but we could not catch them all. We drove them into the darkest corners of the world, and there they have grown and bred again, and now come forth to grow, and breed, and destroy, as they were always meant to do.” Logen gawped at him.

“Shanka.” Luthar chuckled and shook his head.

Flatheads were no laughing matter. Logen turned suddenly, blocking the narrow balcony with his body, looming over Luthar in the half light. “Something funny?”

“Well, I mean, everyone knows there’s no such thing.”

“I’ve fought them with my own hands,” growled Logen, “all my life. They killed my wife, my children, my friends. The North is swarming with fucking Flatheads.” He leaned down. “So don’t tell me there’s no such thing.”

Luthar had turned pale. He looked to Glokta for support, but the Inquisitor had sagged against the wall, rubbing at his leg, thin lips tight shut, hollow face beaded with sweat. “I don’t care a shit either way!” he snapped.

“There’s plenty of Shanka in the world,” hissed Logen, sticking his face right up close to Luthar’s. “Maybe one day you’ll meet some.” He turned and stalked off after Bayaz, already disappearing through an archway at the far end of the balcony. He had no wish to be left behind in this place.

Yet another hall. An enormous one, lined with a silent forest of columns on either side, peopled with a multitude of shadows. Light cut down in shafts from far above, etching strange patterns into the stone floor, shapes of light and dark, lines of black and white. Almost like writing. Is there a message here? For me? Glokta was trembling. If I looked, just for a moment longer, perhaps I could understand…

Luthar wandered past, his shadow fell across the floor, the lines were broken, the feeling was gone. Glokta shook himself. I am losing my reason in this cursed place. I must think clearly. Just the facts, Glokta, only the facts.

“Where does the light come from?” he asked.

Bayaz waved his hand. “Above.”

“There are windows?”

“Perhaps.”

Glokta’s cane tapped into the light, tapped into the dark, his left boot dragged along behind. “Is there nothing but hallway? What’s the point of it all?”

“Who can know the Maker’s mind?” intoned Bayaz pompously, “or fathom his great design?” He seemed almost to take pride in never giving straight answers.

The whole place was a colossal waste of effort as far as Glokta could see. “How many lived here?”

“Long years ago, in happier times, many hundreds. All manner of people who served Kanedias, and helped him in his works. But the Maker was ever distrustful, and jealous of his secrets. Bit by bit he turned his followers out, into the Agriont, the University. Towards the end, only three lived here. Kanedias himself, his assistant Jaremias,” Bayaz paused for a moment, “and his daughter Tolomei.”

“The Maker’s daughter?”

“What of it?” snapped the old man.

“Nothing, nothing at all.” And yet the veneer slipped then, if only for an instant. It is strange that he knows the ways of this place so well. “When did you live here?”

Bayaz frowned deep. “There is such a thing as too many questions.”

Glokta watched him walk away. Sult was wrong. The Arch Lector, fallible after all. He underestimated this Bayaz, and it cost him. Who is this bald, irritable fool, who can make a sprawling idiot of the most powerful man in the Union? Standing here, deep within the bowels of this unearthly place, the answer did not seem so strange.

The First of the Magi.

“This is it.”

“What?” asked Logen. The hallway stretched out in either direction, curving gently, disappearing into the darkness, walls of huge stone blocks, unbroken on either side.

Bayaz did not answer. He was running his hands gently over the stones, looking for something. “Yes. This is it.” Bayaz pulled the key out from his shirt. “You might want to prepare yourselves.”

“For what?”

The Magus slid the key into an unseen hole. One of the blocks that made up the walls suddenly vanished, flying up into the ceiling with a thunderous crash. Logen reeled, shaking his head. He saw Luthar bent forward, hands clamped over his ears. The whole corridor seemed to hum with crashing echoes, on and on.

“Wait,” said Bayaz, though Logen could barely hear him over the ringing in his head. “Touch nothing. Go nowhere.” He stepped through the opening, leaving the key lodged in the wall.

Logen peered after him. A glimmer of light shone down a narrow passageway, a rushing sound washed through like the trickling of a stream. Logen felt a strange curiosity picking at him. He glanced back at the other two. Perhaps Bayaz had meant only for them to stay? He ducked through the doorway.

And squinted up at a bright, round chamber. Light flooded in from high above, piercing light, almost painful to look at after the gloom of all the rest. The curving walls were perfect, clean white stone, running with trickling water, flowing down all around and collecting in a round pool below. The air was cool, damp on Logen’s skin. A narrow bridge sprang out from the passage, steps leading upwards, ending at a tall white pillar, rising from the water. Bayaz was standing there, on top of it, staring down at something.

Logen crept up behind the Magus, breathing shallow. A block of white stone stood there. Water dripped onto its smooth, hard centre from above. A regular tap, tap, tap, always in the same spot. Two things lay in the thin layer of wet. The first was a square box, simply made from dark metal, big enough to hold a man’s head, maybe. The other was altogether stranger.

A weapon perhaps, like an axe. A long shaft, made from tiny metal tubes, all twisted about each other like the stems of old vines. At one end there was a scored grip, at the other there was a flat piece of metal, pierced with small holes, a long, thin hook curving out from it. The light played over its many dark surfaces, glittering with beads of moisture. Strange, beautiful, fascinating. On the grip one letter glinted, silver in the dark metal. Logen recognised it from his sword. The mark of Kanedias. The work of the Master Maker.

“What is this?” he asked, reaching out for it.

“Don’t touch it!” screamed Bayaz, slapping Logen’s hand away. “Did I not tell you to wait?”

Logen took an uncertain step back. He had never seen the Magus look so worried, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the strange thing on the slab. “Is it a weapon?”