And now of your nightmares. “Life takes strange turns. The circumstances are not quite what anyone would have predicted.” And so I save two lives. How much evil can that possibly outweigh? Yet it is something on the right side of the scales, at least. Every man needs something on the right side of the scales.
Her dark eyes rolled up to his. “Could you not have afforded a bigger stone?”
“Only by raiding the treasury,” he croaked. A kiss would be traditional, but under the circumstances—
She stepped towards him, lifting one arm. He lurched back, winced at a twinge in his hip. “Sorry. Somewhat… out of practice.”
“If I am to do this, I mean to do it properly.”
“To make the best of it, do you mean?”
“To make something of it, anyway.” She drew closer still. He had to force himself to stay where he was. She looked into his eyes. She reached up, slowly, and touched his cheek, and set his eyelid flickering.
Foolishness. How many women have touched me before? And yet that was another life. Another—
Her hand slid round his face, her fingertips pressing tight into his jaw. His neck clicked as she pulled him close. He felt her breath warm on his chin. Her lips brushed against his, gently, and back the other way. He heard her make a soft grunt in her throat, and it made his own breath catch. Pretence, of course. How could any woman want to touch this ruined body? Kiss this ruined face? Even I am repulsed at the thought of it. Pretence, and yet I must applaud her for the effort.
His left leg trembled and he had to cling tight to his cane. The breath hissed fast through his nose. Her face was sideways on to his, their mouths locked together, sucking wetly. The tip of her tongue licked at his empty gums. Pretence, of course, what else could it be? And yet she does it so very, very well…
The First Law
Ferro sat, and she stared at her hand. The hand that had held the Seed. It looked the same as ever, yet it felt different. Cold, still. Very cold. She had wrapped it in blankets. She had bathed it in warm water. She had held it near the fire, so near that she had burned herself.
Nothing helped.
“Ferro…” Whispered so quiet it could almost have been the wind around the window-frame.
She jerked to her feet, knife clutched in her fist. She stared into the corners of her room. All empty. She bent down to look under the bed, under the tall cupboard. She tore the hangings out of the way with her free hand. No one. She had known there would be no one.
Yet she still heard them.
A thumping at the door and she whipped round again, breath hissing through her teeth. Another dream? Another ghost? More heavy knocks.
“Come in?” she growled.
The door opened. Bayaz. He raised one eyebrow at her knife. “You are altogether too fond of blades, Ferro. You have no enemies here.”
She glared at the Magus through narrowed eyes. She was not so sure. “What happened, in the wind?”
“What happened?” Bayaz shrugged. “We won.”
“What were those shapes? Those shadows.”
“I saw nothing, aside from Mamun and his Hundred Words receiving the punishment they deserved.”
“Did you not hear voices?”
“Over the thunder of our victory? I heard nothing.”
“I did.” Ferro lowered the knife and slid it into her belt. She worked the fingers of her hand, the same, and yet changed. “I still hear them.”
“And what do they tell you, Ferro?”
“They speak of locks, and gates, and doors, and the opening of them. Always they talk of opening them. They ask about the Seed. Where is it?”
“Safe.” Bayaz gazed blankly at her. “Remember, if you truly hear the creatures of the Other Side, that they are made of lies.”
“They are not alone in that. They ask me to break the First Law. Just as you did.”
“Open to interpretation.” Bayaz had a proud twist to the corner of his mouth. As if he had achieved something wonderful. “I tempered Glustrod’s disciplines with the techniques of the Master Maker, and used the Seed as the engine for my Art. The results were…” He took a long, satisfied breath. “Well, you were there. It was, above all, a triumph of will.”
“You tampered with the seals. You put the world at risk. The Tellers of Secrets…”
“The First Law is a paradox. Whenever you change a thing you borrow from the world below, and there are always risks. If I have crossed a line it is a line of scale only. The world is safe, is it not? I make no apologies for the ambition of my vision.”
“They are burying men, and women, and children, in pits for a hundred. Just as they did in Aulcus. This sickness… it is because of what we did. Is that ambition, then? The size of the graves?”
Bayaz gave a dismissive toss of his head. “An unexpected side-effect. The price of victory, I fear, is the same now as it was in the Old Time, and always will be.” He fixed her with his eye, and there was a threat in it. A challenge. “But if I broke the First Law, what then? In what court will you have me judged? By what jury? Will you release Tolomei from the darkness to give evidence? Will you seek out Zacharus to read the charge? Will you drag Cawneil from the edge of the World to deliver the verdict? Will you bring great Juvens from the land of the dead to pronounce the sentence? I think not. I am First of the Magi. I am the last authority and I say… I am righteous.”
“You? No.”
“Yes, Ferro. Power makes all things right. That is my first law, and my last. That is the only law that I acknowledge.”
“Zacharus warned me,” she murmured, thinking of the endless plain, the wild-eyed old man with his circling birds. “He told me to run, and never stop running. I should have listened to him.”
“To that bloated bladder of self-righteousness?” Bayaz snorted. “Perhaps you should have, but that ship has sailed. You waved it away happily from the shore, and chose instead to feed your fury. Gladly you fed it. Let us not pretend that I deceived you. You knew we were to walk dark paths.”
“I did not expect…” she worked her icy fingers into a trembling fist. “This.”
“What did you expect, then? I must confess I thought you made of harder stuff. Let us leave the philosophising to those with more time and fewer scores to settle. Guilt, and regret, and righteousness? It is like talking with the great King Jezal. And who has the patience for that?” He turned towards the door. “You should stay near me. Perhaps, in time, Khalul will send other agents. Then I will have need of your talents once again.”
She snorted. “And until then? Sit here with the shadows for company?”
“Until then, smile, Ferro, if you can remember how.” Bayaz flashed his white grin at her. “You have your vengeance.”
The wind tore around her, rushed around her, full of shadows. She knelt at one end of a screaming tunnel, touching the very sky. The world was thin and brittle as a sheet of glass, ready to crack. Beyond it a bottomless void, filled with voices.
“Let us in…”
“No!” She thrashed her way free and struggled up, stood panting on the floor beside her bed, every muscle rigid. But there was no one to fight. Another dream, only.
Her own fault, for letting herself sleep.
A long strip of moonlight reached towards her across the tiles. The window at its end stood ajar, a cold night breeze washed through and chilled her sweat-beaded skin. She walked to it, frowning, pushed it shut and slid the bolt. She turned around.
A figure stood in the thick shadows beside the door. A one-armed figure, swathed in rags. The few pieces of armour still strapped to him were scuffed and gouged. His face was a dusty ruin, torn skin hanging in scraps from white bone, but even so, Ferro knew him.
Mamun.
“We meet again, devil-blood.” His dry voice rustled like old paper.
“I am dreaming,” she hissed.