Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself

Yesterday these were some of the finest rooms in the Agriont. They were reserved for the most honoured of guests, the most important of foreign dignitaries. Yesterday. A gaping hole was ripped out of one wall where the window should have been, the sky beyond blinding bright after the darkness of the stairwell. A section of the ceiling had collapsed, broken timbers and shreds of plaster hanging down into the room. The floor was strewn with chunks of stone, splinters of glass, torn fragments of coloured cloth. The antique furniture had been smashed to scattered pieces, broken edges charred and blackened as if by fire. Only one chair, half a table, and a tall ornamental jar, strangely pristine in the middle of the rubble-strewn floor, had escaped the destruction.

In the midst of this expensive wreckage stood a confused and sickly-seeming young man. He looked up as Glokta picked his way through the rubble round the doorway, tongue darting nervously over his lips, evidently on edge. Has anyone ever looked more of a fraud?

“Er, good morning?” The young man’s fingers twitched nervously at his gown, a heavy thing, stitched with arcane symbols. And doesn’t he look uncomfortable in it? If this man is a wizard’s apprentice, I am the Emperor of Gurkhul.

“I am Glokta. From his Majesty’s Inquisition. I have been sent to investigate this… unfortunate business. I was expecting someone older.”

“Oh, yes, sorry, I am Malacus Quai,” stammered the young man, “apprentice to great Bayaz, the First of the Magi, great in high art and learned in deep—” Kneel, kneel before me! I am the mighty Emperor of Gurkhul!

“Malacus…” Glokta cut him off rudely “…Quai. You are from the Old Empire?”

“Why yes,” the young man brightened slightly at that. “Do you know my—”

“No. Not at all.” The pale face sagged. “Were you here last night?”

“Er, yes, I was asleep, next door. I’m afraid I didn’t see anything though…” Glokta stared at him, intent and unblinking, trying to work him out. The apprentice coughed and looked at the floor, as if wondering what to clean up first. Can this really make the Arch Lector nervous? A miserable actor. His whole manner reeks of deception.

“Someone saw something, though?”

“Well, erm, Master Ninefingers, I suppose—”

“Ninefingers?”

“Yes, our Northern companion.” The young man brightened. “A warrior of great renown, a champion, a prince among his—”

“You, from the Old Empire. He, a Northman. What a cosmopolitan band you are.”

“Well yes, ha ha, we do, I suppose—”

“Where is Ninefingers now?”

“Still asleep I think, er, I could wake him—”

“Would you be so kind?” Glokta tapped his cane on the floor. “It was quite a climb, and I would rather not come back later.”

“No, er, of course… sorry.” He hastened over to one of the doors and Glokta turned away, pretending to examine the gaping wound in the wall while grimacing in agony and biting his lip to keep from wailing like a sick child. He seized hold of the broken stones at the edge of the hole with his free hand, squeezing them as hard as he could.

As the spasm passed he began to take more interest in the damage. Even this high up the wall was a good four feet thick, solidly built from rubble bonded with mortar, faced with cut stone blocks. It would take a rock from a truly mighty catapult to make such a breach, or a team of strong workmen going night and day for a week. A giant siege engine or a group of labourers would doubtless have attracted the attention of the guards. So how was it made? Glokta ran his hand over the cracked stones. He had once heard rumours that in the far south they made a kind of blasting powder. Could a little powder have done this?

The door opened and Glokta turned to see a big man ducking under the low lintel, buttoning his shirt with slow, heavy hands. A thoughtful kind of slowness. As if he could move quickly but doesn’t see the point. His hair was a tangled mass, his lumpy face badly scarred. The middle finger of his left hand was missing. Hence Ninefingers. How very imaginative.

“Sleeping late?”

The Northman nodded. “Your city is too hot for me—it keeps me up at night and makes me sleepy in the day.”

Glokta’s leg was throbbing, his back was groaning, his neck was stiff as a dry branch. It was all he could do to keep his agony a secret. He would have given anything to sprawl in that one undamaged chair and scream his head off. But I must stand, and trade words with these charlatans. “Could you explain to me what happened here?”

Ninefingers shrugged. “I needed to piss in the night. I saw someone in the room.” He had little trouble with the common tongue, it seemed, even if the content was hardly polite.

“Did you see who this someone was?”

“No. It was a woman, I saw that much.” He worked his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable.

“A woman, really?” This story becomes more ridiculous by the second. “Anything else? Can we narrow our search beyond half the population?”

“It was cold. Very cold.”

“Cold?” Of course, why not? On one of the hottest nights of the year.

Glokta stared into the Northman’s eyes for a long time, and he stared back. Dark, cool blue eyes, deeply set. Not the eyes of an idiot. He may look an ape, but he doesn’t talk like one. He thinks before he speaks, then says no more than he has to. This is a dangerous man.

“What is your business in the city, Master Ninefingers?”

“I came with Bayaz. If you want to know his business you can ask him. Honestly, I don’t know.”

“He pays you then?”

“No.”

“You follow him out of loyalty?”

“Not exactly.”

“But you are his servant?”

“No. Not really.” The Northman scratched slowly at his stubbly jaw. “I don’t know what I am.”

A big, ugly liar is what you are. But how to prove it? Glokta waved his cane around the shattered chamber. “How did your intruder cause so much damage?”

“Bayaz did that.”

“He did? How?”

“Art, he calls it.”

“Art?”

“Base magic is wild and dangerous,” intoned the apprentice pompously, as though he were saying something of great importance, “for it comes from the Other Side, and to touch the world below is fraught with peril. The Magus tempers magic with knowledge, and thus produces High Art, but like the smith or the—”

“The Other Side?” snapped Glokta, putting a sharp end to the young moron’s stream of drivel. “The world below? Hell, do you mean? Magic? Do you know any magic, Master Ninefingers?”

“Me?” The Northman chuckled. “No.” He thought about it for a moment and then added, almost as an afterthought, “I can speak to the spirits though.”

“The spirits, is that so?” For pity’s sake. “Perhaps they could tell us who this intruder was?”

“I’m afraid not.” Ninefingers shook his head sadly, either missing Glokta’s sarcasm or choosing to ignore it. “There are none left awake in this place. They are sleeping here. They have been for a long time.”

“Ah, of course.” Well past spirits’ bedtime. I tire of this nonsense. “You come from Bethod?”

“You could say that.” It was Glokta who was surprised. He had expected at best a sharp intake of breath, a hurried effort at concealment, not a frank admission. Ninefingers did not even blink however. “I was once his champion.”

“Champion?”

“I fought ten duels for him.”

Glokta groped for words. “Did you win?”

“I was lucky.”

“You realise, of course, that Bethod has invaded the Union?”