Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

The Adeptus Historical craned forward over his desk, peering dewily up at Glokta as though he had never seen another human before. “I remember you.” Miracles do happen, then? “You asked me about Bayaz. First apprentice of great Juvens, first letter in the alphabet of the—”

“Yes, yes, we’ve been over this.”

The old man gave a sulky frown. “Did you bring that scroll back?”

“The Maker fell burning, and so on? I’m afraid not. The Arch Lector has it.”

“Gah. I hear far too much about that man these days. Them upstairs are always carping on him. His Eminence this, and his Eminence that. I’m sick of hearing it!” I know very much how you feel. “Everyone’s in a spin, these days. A spin and a ruckus.”

“Lots of changes upstairs. We have a new king.”

“I know that! Guslav, is it?”

Glokta gave a long sigh as he settled himself in the chair on the other side of the desk. “Yes, yes, he’s the one.” Only thirty years out of date, or so. I’m surprised he didn’t think Harod the Great was still on the throne.

“What do you want this time?”

Oh, to fumble in the darkness for answers that are always just out of reach. “I want to know about the Seed.”

The lined face did not move. “The what?”

“It was mentioned in your precious scroll. That thing that Bayaz and his magical friends searched for in the House of the Maker, after the death of Kanedias. After the death of Juvens.”

“Bah!” The Adeptus waved his hand, the saggy flesh under his wrist wobbling. “Secrets, power. It’s all a metaphor.”

“Bayaz does not seem to think so.” Glokta shuffled his chair closer, and spoke lower. Though there cannot be anyone to hear, or to care if they did. “I heard it was a piece of the Other Side, left over from the Old Time, when devils walked our earth. The stuff of magic, made solid.”

The old man wheezed with papery laughter, displaying a rotten cavern of a mouth with fewer teeth even than Glokta’s own. “I did not take you for a superstitious man, Superior.” Nor was I one, when I last came here with questions. Before my visit to the House of the Maker, before my meeting with Yulwei, before I saw Shickel smile while they burned her. What happy times they were, before I had heard of Bayaz, when things still made sense. The Adeptus wiped his runny eyes with his palsied mockery of a hand. “Where did you hear that?”

Oh, from a Navigator with his foot on an anvil. “Never you mind from where.”

“Well, you know more about it than me. I read once that rocks sometimes fall out of the sky. Some say they are fragments of the stars. Some say they are splinters, flung out from the chaos of hell. Dangerous to touch. Terribly cold.”

Cold? Glokta could almost feel that icy breath upon his neck, and he wriggled his shoulders at it, forcing himself not to glance behind him. “Tell me about hell.” Though I think I already know more than most on the subject.

“Eh?”

“Hell, old man. The Other Side.”

“They say it is where magic comes from, if you believe in such things.”

“I have learned to keep an open mind on the subject.”

“An open mind is like to an open wound, apt to—”

“So I have heard, but we are speaking of hell.”

The librarian licked at his sagging lips. “Legend has it that there was a time when our world and the world below were one, and devils roamed the earth. Great Euz cast them out, and spoke the First Law—forbidding all to touch the Other Side, or to speak to devils, or to tamper with the gates between.”

“The First Law, eh?”

“His son Glustrod, hungry for power, ignored his father’s warnings, and he sought out secrets, and summoned devils, and sent them against his enemies. It is said his folly led to the destruction of Aulcus and the fall of the Old Empire, and that when he destroyed himself, he left the gates ajar… but I am not the expert on all that.”

“Who is?”

The old man grimaced. “There were books here. Very old. Beautiful books, from the time of the Master Maker. Books on the subject of the Other Side. The divide between. The gates and the locks. Books on the subject of the Tellers of Secrets, and of their summoning and sending. A load of invention if you ask me. Myth and fantasy.”

“There were books?”

“They have been missing from my shelves for some years now.”

“Missing? Where are they?”

The old man frowned. “Strange, that you of all people should ask that—”

“Enough!” Glokta turned as quickly as he could to look behind him. Silber, the University Administrator, stood at the foot of the steps, with a look of the strangest horror and surprise on his rigid face. Quite as if he had seen a ghost. Or even a demon. “That will be quite enough, Superior! We thank you for your visit.”

“Enough?” Glokta gave a frown of his own. “His Eminence will not be—”

“I know what his Eminence will or will not be…” An unpleasantly familiar voice. Superior Goyle worked his way slowly down the steps. He strolled around Silber, across the shadowy floor between the shelves. “And I say enough. We most heartily thank you for your visit.” He leaned forwards, eyes popping furiously from his head. “Make it your last!”

There had been some startling changes in the dining hall since Glokta went downstairs. The evening had grown dark outside the dirty windows, the candles had been lit in their tarnished sconces. And, of course, there is the matter of two dozen widely assorted Practical of the Inquisition.

Two narrow-eyed natives of Suljuk sat staring at Glokta over their masks, as like as if they had been twins, their black boots up on the ancient dining table, four curved swords lying sheathed on the wood before them. Three dark-skinned men stood near one dark window, heads shaved, each with an axe at his belt and a shield on his back. A great tall Practical loomed up by the fireplace, long and thin as a birch tree with blond hair hanging over his masked face. Beside was a short one, almost dwarfish, his belt bristling with knives.

Glokta recognised the huge Northman called the Stone-Splitter from his previous visit to the University. But it looks as if he has been attempting to split stones with his face since we last met, and with great persistence. His cheeks were uneven, his brows were wonky, the bridge of his nose pointed sharply to the left. His ruin of a face was almost as disturbing as the enormous mallet he had clenched in his massive fists. But not quite.

So it went on, as strange and worrying a collection of murderers as could ever have been collected together in one place, and all heavily armed. And it seems that Superior Goyle has restocked his freak show. In the midst of them, and seeming quite at home, stood Practical Vitari, pointing this way and that, giving orders. You would never have thought she was the mothering type, seeing her now, but I suppose we all have our hidden talents.

Glokta threw his right arm up in the air. “Who are we killing?”

All eyes turned towards him. Vitari stalked over, a frown across the freckled bridge of her nose. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll ask no questions at all.”

Glokta leered his empty smile at her. “If I knew what was good for me I’d never have lost my teeth, and questions are all I have left. What’s in this old pile of dust that’s of interest to you?”

“That’s none of my business, and even less of yours. If you’re looking for traitors, maybe you should look in your own house first, eh?”