Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Vitari leaned close to him and whispered through her mask. “You saved my life, so let me return the favour. Get away from here. Get away, and keep away.”

Glokta shuffled down the passageway and up to his heavy door. As far as Bayaz goes, we are no further on. Nothing that will bring a rare smile to the face of his Eminence. Summonings and sendings. Gods and devils. Always more questions. He turned his key impatiently in the lock, desperate to sit down and take the weight from his trembling leg. What was Goyle doing at the university? Goyle, and Vitari, and two dozen Practicals, all armed as if they were going to war? He took a wincing step over the threshold. There must be some—

“Gah!” He felt his cane snatched away and he lurched sideways, clutching at the air. Something crunched into his face and filled his head with blinding pain. The next moment the floor thumped him in the back and drove his wind out in a long sigh. He blinked and slobbered, mouth salty with blood, the dark room swaying madly around him. Oh dear, oh dear. A fist in the face, unless I am much mistaken. It never loses its impact.

A hand grabbed the collar of his coat and dragged him up, the cloth cutting into his throat and making him squawk like a strangled chicken.

Another had him by the belt and he was hauled bodily along, his knees and the toes of his boots scraping limp over the boards. He struggled weakly on a reflex, but only managed to send a stab of pain through his own back.

The bathroom door cracked against his head and banged open on the wall, he was dragged powerless across the darkened room towards the bath, still full of dirty water from that morning. “Wait!” he croaked as he was wrestled over the edge. “Who are—blurghhhh!”

The cold water closed around his head, the bubbles rushed around his face. He was held there, struggling, eyes bulging open with shock and panic, until it seemed his lungs would burst. Then he was yanked up by the hair, water pouring from his face and splattering into the bath. A simple technique, but undeniably effective. I am greatly discomfited. He took in a gasping breath. “What do you—blarghhh!”

Back into the darkness, such air as he had managed to drag in gurgling out into the dirty water. But whoever it is let me breathe. I am not being murdered. I am being softened up. Softened up for questions. I would laugh at the irony… were there any breath… left in my body… He shoved at the bath and thrashed at the water. His legs kicked pointlessly, but the hand on the back of his neck was made of steel. His stomach clenched and his ribs heaved, desperate to drag in air. Do not breathe… do not breathe… do not breathe! He was just sucking in a great lungful of dirty water as he was snatched up from the bath and flung onto the boards, coughing, gasping, vomiting all at once.

“You are Glokta?” A woman’s voice, short and hard, with a rough Kantic accent.

She squatted down in front of him, balanced on the balls of her feet, her wrists resting on her knees, her long brown hands hanging limp. She wore a man’s shirt, loose around her scrawny shoulders, wet sleeves rolled up around her bony wrists. Her black hair was hacked off short and stuck from her head in greasy clumps. She had a thin, pale scar down her hard face, a scowl on her thin lips, but it was her eyes that were most off-putting, gleaming yellow in the half light from the corridor. Small wonder that Severard was reluctant to follow her. I should have listened to him.

“You are Glokta?”

There was no point denying it. He wiped the bitter drool from his chin with a shaking hand. “I am Glokta.”

“Why are you watching me?”

He pushed himself painfully up to sitting. “What makes you think I will have anything to say to—”

Her fist struck him on the point of his chin and snapped his head back, tore a gasp out of him. His jaws banged together and one tooth punched a hole in the bottom of his tongue. He sagged back against the wall, the dark room lurching, his eyes filling up with tears. When things came back into focus she was staring at him, yellow eyes narrowed. “I will keep hitting you until you give me answers, or you die.”

“My thanks.”

“Thanks?”

“I think you might have loosened my neck up just a fraction.” Glokta smiled, showing her his few bloody teeth. “For two years I was a captive of the Gurkish. Two years in the darkness of the Emperor’s prisons. Two years of cutting, and chiselling, and burning. Do you think the thought of a slap or two scares me?” He chuckled bloody laughter in her face. “It hurts more when I piss! Do you think I’m scared to die?” He grimaced at the stabbing through his spine as he leaned towards her. “Every morning… that I wake up alive… is a disappointment! If you want answers you’ll have to give me answers. Like for like.”

She stared at him for a long moment, not blinking. “You were a prisoner of the Gurkish?”

Glokta swept a hand over his twisted body. “They gave me all this.”

“Huh. We have both lost something to the Gurkish, then.” She slid down onto crossed legs. “Questions. Like for like. But if you try to lie to me—”

“Questions, then. I would be failing in my duties as a host if I did not allow you to go first.”

She did not smile. But then she does not seem the joking type. “Why are you watching me?”

I could lie, but for what? I might as well die telling the truth. “I am watching Bayaz. The two of you seem friendly, and Bayaz is hard to watch these days. So I am watching you.”

She scowled. “He is no friend of mine. He promised me vengeance, that is all. He has yet to deliver.”

“Life is full of disappointments.”

“Life is made of disappointments. Ask your question, cripple.”

Once she has her answers, will it be bath-time again, and this time my last? Her flat yellow eyes gave nothing away. Empty, like the eyes of an animal. But what are my choices? He licked the blood from his lips, and leaned back against the wall. I might as well die a little wiser. “What is the Seed?”

Her frown deepened by the smallest fraction. “Bayaz said it is a weapon. A weapon of very great power. Great enough to turn Shaffa to dust. He thought it was hidden, at the edge of the World, but he was wrong. He was not happy to be wrong.” She frowned at him for a silent moment. “Why are you watching Bayaz?”

“Because he stole the crown and put it on a spineless worm.”

She snorted. “There at least we can agree.”

“There are those in my government who worry about the direction in which he might take us. Who worry profoundly.” Glokta licked at one bloody tooth. “Where is he taking us?”

“He tells me nothing. I do not trust him, and he does not trust me.”

“There too we can agree.”

“He planned to use the Seed as a weapon. He did not find it, so he must find other weapons. My guess is he is taking you to war. A war against Khalul, and his Eaters.”

Glokta felt a flurry of twitches run up the side of his face and set his eyelid fluttering. Damn treacherous jelly! Her head jerked to the side. “You know of them?”

“A passing acquaintance.” Well, where’s the harm? “I caught one, in Dagoska. I asked it questions.”

“What did it tell you?”

“It talked of righteousness and justice.” Two things that I have never seen. “It talked of war and sacrifice.” Two things that I have seen too much of. “It said that your friend Bayaz killed his own master.” The woman did not move so much as an eyelash. “It said that its father, the Prophet Khalul, still seeks vengeance.”