Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

Longfoot stared at the anvil, nostrils flaring as his breath snorted quickly in and out. And the seriousness of the situation finally impresses itself upon him.

“Questions, then,” said Glokta. “You are familiar with the man who styles himself Bayaz, the First of the Magi?”

“Yes! Please! Yes! Until recently he was my employer.”

“Good.” Glokta shifted in his chair, trying to find a more comfortable position while bending forwards. “Very good. You accompanied him on a journey?”

“I was the guide!”

“What was your destination?”

“The Island of Shabulyan, at the edge of the World.”

Glokta let the head of the hammer click against the anvil again. “Oh come, come. The edge of the World? A fantasy, surely?”

“Truly! Truly! I have seen it! I stood upon that island with my own feet!”

“Who went with you?”

“There was… was Logen Ninefingers, from the distant North.” Ah, yes, he of the scars and the tight lips. “Ferro Maljinn, a Kantic woman.” The one that gave our friend Superior Goyle so much trouble. “Jezal dan Luthar, a… a Union officer.” A posturing dolt. “Malacus Quai, Bayaz’ apprentice.” The skinny liar with the troglodyte’s complexion. “And then Bayaz himself!”

“Six of you?”

“Only six!”

“A long and a difficult journey to undertake. What was at the edge of the World that demanded such an effort, besides water?”

Longfoot’s lip trembled. “Nothing!” Glokta frowned, and nudged at the Navigator’s big toe with the head of the hammer. “It was not there! The thing that Bayaz sought! It was not there! He said he had been tricked!”

“What was it that he thought would be there?”

“He said it was a stone!”

“A stone?”

“The woman asked him. He said it was a rock… a rock from the Other Side.” The Navigator shook his sweating head. “An unholy notion! I am glad we found no such thing. Bayaz called it the Seed!”

Glokta felt the grin melting from his face. The Seed. Is it my imagination, or has the room grown colder? “What else did he say about it?”

“Just myths and nonsense!”

“Try me.”

“Stories, about Glustrod, and ruined Aulcus, and taking forms, and stealing faces! About speaking to devils, and the summoning of them. About the Other Side.”

“What else?” Glokta dealt Longfoot’s toe a firmer tap with the hammer.

“Ah! Ah! He said the Seed was the stuff of the world below! That it was left over from before the Old Time, when demons walked the earth! He said it was a great and powerful weapon! That he meant to use it, against the Gurkish! Against the Prophet!” A weapon, from before the Old Time. The summoning of devils, the taking of forms. Kanedias seemed to frown down from the wall more grimly than ever, and Glokta flinched. He remembered his nightmare trip into the House of the Maker, the patterns of light on the floor, the shifting rings in the darkness. He remembered stepping out onto the roof, standing high above the city without climbing a single stair.

“You did not find it?” he whispered, his mouth dry.

“No! It was not there!”

“And then?”

“That was all! We came back across the mountains. We made a raft and rode the great Aos back to the sea. We took a ship from Calcis and I sit before you now!”

Glokta narrowed his eyes, studying carefully his prisoner’s face. There is more. I see it. “What are you not telling me?”

“I have told you everything! I have no talent for dissembling!” That, at least, is true. His lies are plain.

“If your contract is ended, why are you still in the city?”

“Because… because…” The Navigator’s eyes darted round the room.

“Oh, dear me, no.” The heavy hammer came down with all of Glokta’s crippled strength and crushed Longfoot’s big toe flat with a dull thud. The Navigator gaped at it, eyes bulging from his head. Ah, that beautiful, horrible moment between stubbing your toe and feeling the hurt. Here it comes. Here it comes. Here it— Longfoot let vent a great shriek, squirmed around in his chair, face contorted with agony.

“I know the feeling,” said Glokta, wincing as he wriggled his own remaining toes around in his sweaty boot. “I truly, truly do, and I sympathise. That blinding flash of pain, then up washes the sick and dizzy faintness of the shattered bone, then the slow pulsing up the leg that seems to drag the water from your eyes and make your whole body tremble.” Longfoot gasped, and whimpered, tears glistening on his cheeks. “And what comes next? Weeks of limping? Months of hobbling, crippled? And if the next blow is to on your ankle?” Glokta prodded at Longfoot’s shin with the end of the hammer. “Or square on your kneecap, what then? Will you ever walk again? I know the feelings well, believe me.” So how can I inflict them now, on someone else? He shrugged his twisted shoulders. One of life’s mysteries. “Another?” And he raised the hammer again.

“No! No! Wait!” wailed Longfoot. “The priest! God help me, a priest came to the Order! A Gurkish priest! He said that one day the First of the Magi might ask for a Navigator, and that he wished to be told of it! That he wished to be told what happened afterward! He made threats, terrible threats, we had no choice but to obey! I was waiting in the city for another Navigator, who will convey the news! Only this morning I told him everything I have told you! I was about to leave Adua, I swear!”

“What was the name of this priest?” Longfoot said nothing, his wet eyes wide, the breath hissing in his nose. Oh, why must they test me? Glokta looked down at the Navigator’s toe. It was already starting to swell and go blotchy, streaks of black blood-blisters down each side, the nail deep, brooding purple, edged with angry red. Glokta ground the end of the hammer’s handle savagely into it. “The name of the priest! His name! His name! His—”

“Aargh! Mamun! God help me! His name was Mamun!” Mamun. Yulwei spoke of him, in Dagoska. The first apprentice of the Prophet himself. Together they broke the Second Law, together they ate the flesh of men.

“Mamun. I see. Now.” Glokta craned further forward, ignoring an ugly tingling up his twisted spine. “What is Bayaz doing here?”

Longfoot gaped, a long string of drool hanging from his bottom lip. “I don’t know!”

“What does he want with us? What does he want in the Union?”

“I don’t know! I have told you everything!”

“Leaning forwards is a considerable ordeal for me. One that I begin to tire of.” Glokta frowned, and lifted the hammer, its polished head glinting.

“I just find ways from here to there! I only navigate! Please! No!” Longfoot squeezed his eyes shut, tongue wedged between his teeth. Here it comes. Here it comes. Here it comes…

Glokta tossed the hammer clattering down on the floor and leaned back, rocking his aching hips left and right to try and squeeze away the aches. “Very well,” he sighed. “I am satisfied.”

The prisoner opened first one grimacing eye, and then the other. He looked up, face full of hope. “I can go?”

Severard chuckled softly behind his mask. Even Frost made a kind of hissing sound. “Of course you can go.” Glokta smiled his empty smile. “You can go back in your bag.”

The Navigator’s face went slack with horror. “God take pity on me.”

If there is a God, he has no pity in him.

Lord Marshal Burr was in the midst of writing a letter, but he smiled up as West let the tent flap drop.

“How are you, Colonel?”