“Ha!” Cosca seized Glokta by the shoulder. “What did I tell you? Have you ever seen a knife thrown better?”
Blood ran down the side of Silber’s face in a red trickle. His eyes rolled upwards, flickered, then he sagged sideways, dragging over his lectern, and crashed to the floor. His book tumbled down on top of him, aged pages flapping, the lamp spilled over and sprayed streaks of burning oil across the floor.
“No!” shrieked Sult.
Chayle gasped, his mouth falling open. Kandelau threw his candle aside and sank grovelling to the floor. Denka gave a terrified squeak, one hand over his face, staring out pop-eyed from between his fingers. There was a long pause while everyone except Cosca stared, horrified, towards the corpse of the Adeptus Demonic. Glokta waited, his few teeth bared, his eyes almost squeezed shut. Like that horrible, beautiful moment between stubbing your toe and feeling the hurt. Here it comes. Here it comes.
Here comes the pain…
But nothing came. No demonic laughter echoed through the chamber. The floor did not fall in to expose a gate to hell. The shimmering faded, the room began to grow warmer. Glokta raised his brows, almost disappointed. “It would seem the diabolical arts are decidedly overrated.”
“No!” snarled Sult again.
“I am afraid so, your Eminence. And to think I used to respect you.” Glokta grinned at the Adeptus Chemical, still clinging weakly to his empty flatbow. He waved a hand at Goyle’s body. “A good shot. I congratulate you. One less mess for me to tidy up.” He waved a finger at the crowd of mercenaries behind him. “Now seize that man.”
“No!” bellowed Saurizin, throwing his flatbow to the floor. “None of it was my idea! I had no choice! It was him!” He stabbed a thick finger at Silber’s lifeless body. “And… and him!” He pointed to Sult with a trembling arm.
“You’ve got the right idea, but it can wait for the interrogation. Would you be kind enough to take his Eminence into custody?”
“Happily.” Cosca strolled across the floor of the wide room, his boots sending up puffs of white powder, leaving a trail of ruination through the intricate patterns.
“Glokta, you blundering idiot!” shrieked Sult. “You have no idea of the danger Bayaz poses! This First of the Magi and his bastard king! Glokta! You have no right! Gah!” He yelped as Cosca dragged his arms behind his back and forced him to his knees, his white hair in disarray. “You have no idea—”
“If the Gurkish don’t kill the lot of us, you’ll get ample time to explain it to me. Of that I assure you.” Glokta leered his toothless smile as Cosca drew the rope tight around Sult’s wrists. If you only knew how long I have dreamed of saying these words. “Arch Lector Sult. I arrest you for high treason against his Majesty the King.”
Jezal could only stand and stare. One of the twins, the one spattered in blood, lifted her long arms slowly over her head and gave a long, satisfied stretch. The other raised an eyebrow.
“How would you like to die?” she asked.
“Your Majesty, get behind me.” Gorst hefted his long steel in his one good hand.
“No. Not this time.” Jezal pulled the crown from his head, the crown that Bayaz had been so particular in designing, and tossed it clattering away. He was done with being a king. If he was to die, he would die a man, like any other. He had been given so many advantages, he realised now. Far more than most men could ever dream of. So many chances to do good, and he had done nothing besides whine and think of himself. Now it was too late. “I’ve lived my life leaning on others. Hiding behind them. Climbing on their shoulders. Not this time.”
One of the twins raised her hands and started slowly to clap, the regular tap, tap, echoing from the mirrors. The other giggled. Gorst raised his sword. Jezal did the same, one last act of pointless defiance.
Then High Justice Marovia flashed between them. The old man moved with impossible speed, his dark robe snapping around him. He had something in his hand. A long rod of dark metal with a hook on the end.
“What—” muttered Jezal.
The hook blazed suddenly, searingly white, bright as the sun on a summer’s day. A hundred hooks burned like stars, reflected back from the mirrors round the walls, and back, and back, into the far distance. Jezal gasped, squeezed his eyes shut, holding one hand over his face, the long trail left by that brilliant point burned fizzing into his vision.
He blinked, gaped, lowered his arm. The twins stood, the High Justice beside them, just where they had before, still as statues. Tendrils of white steam hissed up from vents in the end of the strange weapon and curled around Marovia’s arm. For a moment, nothing moved.
Then a dozen of the great mirrors at the far end of the hall fell in half across the middle, as though they were sheets of paper slashed suddenly by the world’s sharpest knife. A couple of the bottom halves and one of the top toppled slowly forwards into the room and shattered, scattering bright fragments of glass across the tiled floor.
“Urgggh,” breathed the twin on the left. Jezal realised that blood was spurting out from under her armour. She lifted one hand towards him and it dropped off the end of her arm and thudded to the tiles, blood squirting from the smoothly severed stump. She toppled to the left. Or her body did, at least. Her legs fell the other way. The bigger part of her crashed to the ground, and her head came off and rolled across the tiles in a widening pool. Her hair, trimmed off cleanly at the neck, fluttered down into the bloody mess in a golden cloud.
Armour, flesh, bone, all divided into neat sections as perfectly as cheese by a cheese wire. The twin on the right frowned, took a wobbling step towards Marovia. Her knees gave out and she fell in half at the waist. The legs slumped down and lay still, dust sliding out in a brown heap. The top half dragged itself forward by the nails, lifted its head, hissing.
The air around the High Justice shimmered and the Eater’s severed body burst into flames. It thrashed, for a while, making a long squealing sound. Then it was still, a mass of smoking black ash.
Marovia lifted up the strange weapon, whistling softly as he smiled at the hook on the end, a last few traces of vapour still drifting from it. “Kanedias. He certainly knew how to make a weapon. The Master Maker indeed, eh, your Majesty?”
“What?” muttered Jezal, utterly dumbfounded.
Marovia’s face melted slowly away as he crossed the floor towards them. Another began to show itself beneath. Only his eyes remained the same. Different-coloured eyes, happy lines around the corners, grinning at Jezal like an old friend.
Yoru Sulfur bowed. “Never any peace, eh, your Majesty? Never the slightest peace.”
There was a crash as one of the doors burst open. Jezal raised his sword, heart in his mouth. Sulfur whipped round, the Maker’s weapon held down by his side. A man stumbled into the room. A big man, his grimacing face covered in scars, his chest heaving, a heavy sword hanging from one hand, the other clutched to his ribs.
Jezal blinked, hardly able to believe it. “Logen Ninefingers. How the hell did you get here?”
The Northman stared for a moment. Then he leaned back against a mirror by the door, let his sword drop to the tiles. He slid down, slowly, until he hit the floor, and sat there with his head leaning back against the glass. “Long story,” he said.
“Listen to us…”
The wind was full of shapes, now. Hundreds of them. They crowded in around the outermost circle, the bright iron turned misty, gleaming with cold wet.
“…we have things to tell you, Ferro…”
“Secrets…”
“What can we give you?”
“We know… everything.”
“You need only let us in…”
So many voices. She heard Aruf among them, her old teacher. She heard Susman the slaver. She heard her mother and her father. She heard Yulwei, and Prince Uthman. A hundred voices. A thousand. Voices she knew and had forgotten. Voices of the dead and of the living. Shouts, mutters, screams. Whispers, in her ear. Closer still. Closer than her own thoughts.